Things Fall Apart: Rob Ford's Continuing Crack-Up

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Lance Armstrong's Moment of Self-Realization

Mercilessly stolen from Antiquiet

Jay Leno and NBC: Twenty Years of Duplicity and Incompetence

Television executives are human garbage. The only people worse than them are music executives, with violent pedophiles actually being slightly better than both. They are merciless guardians of the bottom line and not only is loyalty a foreign concept to them, they see it as a sign of weakness. They can and will destroy both you and everything you love the second your value to them diminishes even slightly.

That's what makes NBC's relationship with Jay Leno so perplexing. It's almost as if they go out into the wilderness together once a year, spit on their hands and grunt that they don't know how to quit one another as they unleash their conflicted sexual identities on another and Anne Hathaway grows ever more confused.

Leno has now twice almost single-handedly brought down the NBC brand, yet the brass there keeps running back to him. Few people in the history of television have displayed such mechanical skill in manipulating soulless monsters like he has.

If you haven't read Bill Carter's books The Late Shift and The War For Late Night you really should. Few other tomes are as insightful into the depravity and incompetence that infests the human condition. You can easily apply the lessons of those books into any industry or social interaction that you find yourself life. All you really need to know is that the vast majority of the population is stupid, cowardly, or all three. Few writers have laid that out as clearly as Carter.

Some background is necessary before I touch on recent developments.

First, Johnny Carson didn't leave the Tonight Show of his own accord. Jay Leno (more exactly, his late manager, Helen Kushnick) pushed him out. Carson was handily winning his time slot, just as he had for almost thirty years. The problem was the demographics. Carson was having his ass handed to him by Arsenio Hall (remember him?) with men aged 18-54, which happens to be the only demo advertisers care about.

Leno, Carson's permanent guest host, started quietly talking to other networks (primarily ABC) about starting his own show at 11:30. The brass at NBC, not wanting to see both Arsenio and Leno competing with Carson for a demographic he was already losing, panicked. Over the next 20 years NBC would be panicking regularly, which is why they're hardly a network anymore.

The network then told Carson that he could leave on his own terms, but there was to be no mistake about his leaving. To be fair, Johnny Carson was a world-class prick his entire life, especially with NBC. He got away with that as long as he dominated the demo. Once Arsenio came along, that leverage ended, and the network was stuck with a aging, domineering host who was down to only working three days a week.

They promised Leno the Tonight Show, which is where things got interesting.

Carson had explicitly promised David Letterman the Tonight Show, and NBC had promised it to him implicitly. Letterman's contract was ending just as Leno's maneuvering had become known and Dave, himself not an easy guy to get along with, properly went insane.

Contrary to all available evidence, NBC thought Letterman would stay at Late Night while Leno took over the Tonight Show and everybody would be happy. The network had either forgotten or never cared that, without Letterman, nobody would have ever heard of Leno. Someone with as little self-esteem as Dave would never tolerate such an affront to his pride.

After months of pointless and circular negotiations, the worst case scenario happened: Letterman signed with CBS for a 12:30 show, which despite losing in the overall ratings, regularly beats Leno with men aged 18-54.

I will give NBC credit for one thing in this mess. The signed and stood by Conan O'Brien as Letterman's replacement. O'Brien was the brilliant head writer for the Simpsons and Saturday Night Live, but he had exactly no performing experience. As he himself will readily admit, O'Brien's first six months as the host of Late Night were physically painful to watch, but the network stood by their guy until he got his footing. It would be the last time NBC showed any courage whatsoever.

Fast forward about 12 years.

Conan started worrying about beginning and ending his career at 12:30. Like everybody else in comedy at the time, he dreamt of hosting the Tonight Show. If Leno was going to try to beat Carson's reign, O'Brien would start putting out feelers elsewhere and he started talking seriously to Fox, which would have been a perfect fit for Conan's style.

Once again, NBC panicked. They concocted a deal where Leno would relinquish the Tonight Show to Conan in five years and everybody would live happily ever after.

Or not. Toward the end of his contract, Leno started talking to ABC (which was apparently willing to throw the much funnier Kimmy Kimmel and Nightline - which beats all of the comedy shows in the ratings - over the side.)

NBC panicked yet again. Just as was true in 1992-'93, they didn't want their two late night hosts on competing networks when they could keep them both. They came up with an idea the looked great on paper, but proved to be a disaster in practice: They signed Leno to do a show at 10 pm.

Prime time dramas cost about a million dollars an episode to make, whereas talk shows barely cost a tenth of that. Even if Leno caused a dip in prime time ratings, the network would still make more money with him there.

NBC couldn't stop congratulating themselves for their own brilliance, at least until the ratings came in. What they hadn't counted on was that absolutely no one was interested in watching Jay Leno at 10. If another network started broadcasting kiddie porn, it would have beaten the Jay Leno Show. NBC affiliates were dropping Leno at an alarming rate, and there was almost nothing the network could do about it.

At the same time, Conan was finding his feet in an earlier time slot and the Tonight Show's ratings had dipped. Unsurprisingly, NBC panicked.

This was complicated by the contract they gave Leno for the prime time show. They stupidly gave him a "play or pay" deal. They committed to air the show for two years. If for whatever reason the show was cancelled before that, the network had to pay Leno $50 million and let him immediately go to another network.

Faced with that, NBC chose to fuck with Conan. They wanted to move Leno to 11:35 for a half hour, and move the Tonight Show to 12:05. O'Brien rightly refused and tense negotiations about ending his contract ensued. In the end, Conan walked away with about $37 million and was only kept of the air for a few months before going to cable.

You would think that NBC would have had its fill of late night drama by now, right?

Guess again.

There’s word that NBC brass are ruminating over Jay Leno’s future — which would involve finally giving their current late-late guy comic, Jimmy Fallon, the coveted job as the host of "The Tonight Show."

The latest rumblings about Leno come from various talent agents who admit they have quietly been contacted by NBC officials hoping to find a new late-late host who will eventually take over Fallon’s 12:35 a.m. time slot.

Leno’s current $15 million a year deal expires in 2014, and came about after he “volunteered” to take a 50% pay cut earlier this year, a move that helped NBC slash "The Tonight Show’s" $100 million budget by about 20%.

What's going to happen next year is perhaps the easiest prediction to make in human history. Not only Jay Leno seem to have no life outside of television, he has the survival instincts of a fucking cockroach. More importantly, we have two decades of experience demonstrating just how nutless NBC is when it comes to Leno.

Not only will he not go quietly, he won't go anywhere at all. My guess is that by spring we'll start hearing about Leno talking to Fox (since ABC seems committed to Jimmy Kimmel, that avenue is closed off.) Astronomical numbers will be bandied about, and word will go out about Fox strong-arming affiliates in giving a potential Jay Leno show 100% network clearance (meaning that individual stations have to carry it, much like NBC does with the Tonight Show.)

And, as they did in 1992 and 2009, NBC will panic. And this time, it'll be Jimmy Fallon would gets it, sans lube. Don't worry about him, though. If there's one person that Fox probably wants more than Leno, it's Fallon.

But NBC will have screwed three of its 12:35 hosts - Letterman, O'Brien and Fallon - in favor of Leno in a row. Who would be crazy and desperate enough to take over Late Night under those circumstances? No one with any career prospects or human dignity would subject themselves to that, and any one that would is almost guaranteed to be a loser in the ratings.

There's gotta be a point where Jay Leno and NBC know how to quit either other or there won't be an NBC at all.


I couldn't address this topic without sharing this, the most brilliant takedown of Jay Leno ever. Better still, it was done to Leno's face.

And here's Letterman venting some hate.



And Howard Stern ...



I'd love to share some moments from Conan's last week or so at the Tonight Show but the cowards at NBC appear to have stripped them all from YouTube, the bastards.

Anne Hathaway and the Greatest Premiere of All

Before I saw a bootlegged copy of The Dark Knight Rises this summer, I had never seen an Anne Hathaway film. And in all honesty, seeing her in a tight leather body suit was one of the few things about that goddamn stupid Batman movie that didn't annoy the shit out of me. If I was armed and had to wait hours for a midnight screening of that dreck, I'd have probably started blasting at stuff twenty minutes in, too. There may not be much I admire about James Holmes, but I'm not going to quibble with his film criticism.

Just because I've never financially supported her career shouldn't be taken to mean that I don't dig Hathaway in a big, bad way. Because I do. There's just something about her that make my powerful loins boil, churn and yearn to be free.

She has a banging little body that she isn't shy about showing off and a really cute face. Some folks might think it's a flaw, but I love the fact that she has a huge mouth and applies lipstick in a way that makes me think of the Joker. That's not kinky, is it?

There's this porn star named Stoya who looks a lot like Anne (second link NSFW,) but she was thoroughly ruined by Marylin Manson, which disturbs me endlessly. So when I find myself celebrating her cinematic oeuvre with only one hand free, I like to pretend that it's Ms. Hathaway taking comically large men in her dumper. If you ever wondered how versatile a gentleman I am, wonder no more!

I'm rambling again, aren't I? Sadly, that happens sometimes.

Not only have I not read Les Miserables or seen the musical, I don't even know what it's about. I'm told it's about something French, but I'm of the unshakable opinion that everything I need to know about France is in Last Tango in Paris.

That being the case, I made the conscious decision to ignore everything about Les Miserables until the film died and went straight to hell. When Hugh Jackman was on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, I fell asleep in protest. Sure, there have been more demonstrative protests throughout history, but mine was just as effective, in it's own way.

Well, ignoring the dopey francophile spectacle may have been unwise on my part. Thankfully, the Goddamned Liberal Media was there to pick up what I missed.

Actress Anne Hathaway gave fans and photographers an eyeful on Monday after accidentally flashing her genitals as she arrived at the New York premiere of Les Miserables.

The newlywed was climbing out of her chauffeured car outside Manhattan's Ziegfeld Theatre when the slit in her gothic black dress revealed she had chosen to attend the screening without underwear.

As you know, I'm not a religious man. But there are things that are drilled into you as a child that you just can't shake, which is why even atheists scream "Oh God" when we're fucking. Anyhow, since before I could even walk, my parents wouldn't stop warning me that panties were a tool of Satan, and that no woman that wore them was a woman I should be with.

And you know what? They weren't wrong! In the research that I've compiled since the first grade, I've definitively concluded that the best women all go commando. That's just the natural order of things, and may the circle of life be unbroken.

Of course, Anne suggests that she's mortified by this, but not really.

Actress Anne Hathaway was "devastated" when she suffered a wardrobe malfunction and accidentally exposed her genitals at the New York premiere of her latest movie Les Miserables on Monday.

That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. But I'm internationally famous for being a "glass half-full" guy. So I just look at it as her having two premieres for the price of one. One for her movie and one for her cute little cooter! More people should look on the bright side of life, like I do.

Anne Hathaway, in doing just that, along with quite properly eschewing unmentionables, proves that she's the perfect woman!

She told Sischy, "I was getting out of the car and my dress was so tight that I didn't realize it until I saw all the photographers' flashes. It was devastating. They saw everything. I might as well have lifted up my skirt for them."

Despite her upset, editors at New York Post gossip column Page Six report that Hathaway later laughed off the incident after discovering the explicit photos had gone viral on the Internet, adding, "And I just thought, 'OK, where's the comedy?' It has hit. It has landed. A bomb has gone off. I think what I am going to do is whatever my next appearance is... I'm going to step out of the car in a blanket. You've got to laugh at it."

That's the spirit! And don't worry, Anne. You can always lift your skirt for the paparazzo at the opening of your next movie that I probably won't see!

Actually, that brings up a serious concern. The nature of show business is such that you always have top your last performance. And I'm not such a miserable bastard that I'd refuse aid to a damsel in obvious distress. As a Caring Person, I'm all about helping!

That's why I'm suggesting that Anne Hathaway arrive at her next premiere completely naked on a pogo stick.

Now that the idea's out there in the ether, I just hope that Lindsay Lohan doesn't steal it.


UPDATED: So Anne was apparently on the Today show this morning to briefly discuss our entirely reasonable preoccupation with her crotch. Unfortunately, all we learned is that Matt Lauer is a remarkably shitty journalist.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How could Lauer let her get away with nonsense like this?

“It was obviously an unfortunate incident. I think — it kind of made me sad on two accounts. One, I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it and do the decent thing, sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants. Which brings us back to Les Mis because that is what my character is. She is someone forced to sell sex… So, yeah, let’s get back to Les Mis.”

Obviously, I should have conducted the interview because there's no way that I'd let a moronic statement like stand without a follow-up. I would start with this;

Me as Matt Lauer: Yeah, the commodification of sexuality is pretty sad. Hey, haven't you been in something like 15 movies and broken your funbags out in something like 12 of them?

Anne:  That's ... that's different. That's art and this is little more than my personal exploitation for a voyeuristic culture, and ..."

Me as Matt Lauer: Of course. Art! How could I forget?

Lemme get this straight, Sugar Tits, you went commando in high-cut dress knowing that you'd be getting out of an SUV in front of hundreds of photographers. Didn't you sunconsciously know that no one wants to see a flick about a singing French whore unless they got to check out the .. merchandise first?

Anne: I don't think that's appropriate. The audience understands the art!

Me as Matt Lauer: Of course they do. That's why Michael Bay is rich. Did your mother drink when she was pregnant?

Anne Hathaway pussy pic loving stolen from What Would Tyler Durden Do

"They Tried to Make Me Go to Rehab ..."

Folks like to think that they understand tragedy, but they really don't. Sure, they know it when they see it, but sometimes the greatest tragedies of our time slip right past us.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is as good an example as any. Sure, we knew it was happening. We just didn't care until Don Cheadle made us cry several years after it was all over. Of course, that's not to say that I supported a military intervention. I can't tell a Hutu from a Tutsi, and neither can you. That being the case, expecting a 22-year-old from Nebraska to is only likely to get him dead and further complicate foreign policy more than it already was.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Randy Travis' decision to quit drinking is as bad as the slaughter in Rwanda. I'm suggesting that it's even worse. There was absolutely nothing funny about Rwanda, but Randy's adventures over the last twelve months are among the very greatest things I've ever seen.

The "Look Heart, No Hands" singer was arrested Feb. 6 for public intoxication while sitting in his car at a Baptist church in Sanger, Texas. Travis paid a fine and was put on probation for 90 days.

Five months later, the musician was arrested for driving while intoxicated. When cops arrived on the scene, he was completely nude, with his Pontiac Trans Am crashed into several barricades off the side of the road. TMZ reported that threatened to "shoot and kill the Troopers working the case."

The early August arrest was utter nonsense, especially the "threats to shoot and kill the troopers working the case " part. I don't know how worldly you are, but those kind of threats from a naked drunk are the least serious in all of Christendom. After all, where would he hide a gun?

Seventeen days later, on Aug. 24, Travis was cited for simple assault after getting into an argument with another man outside a church in Plano, Texas. The "Diggin' Up Bones" was said to be "extremely intoxicated" when he arrived at the local hospital.

You know, it's just like the Goddamn Liberal Media to only tell half the story about the August 24 altercation. Randy says that he stepped in to protect a woman that he saw fighting with her estranged husband. Was he supposed to just ignore the situation, simply because he was falling-down drunk? According to the cops, he was.

I guess gallantry really is dead.

Most of you come here because I know how life really works. And I'm here to tell you that if you've never been found drunk and naked in the middle of the road and subsequently charged with threatening law enforcement, not only have you not had a good time, you probably don't know what a good time is!

I spent much of this summer on Twitter saying that not only is Randy Travis a hero, he might be the greatest hero of our time. He's certainly more than willing to tell the friggin' government what time it is, which I think should make him the frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. I like Rand Paul just fine, but I like Randy Travis a whole lot better.

But the unholy power of the state has been employed to break Travis' spirit, and it looks like it succeeded.

That's all well and good, if you're some kind of asshole. But rehab certainly doesn't look like everything it's cracked up to be. How do I know that? Glad you asked!

The convertible hit Phillip Moreno so hard that it knocked him out of his shoes and lodged him in the windshield.

As he lay dying on the hood, police said, Sherri Lynn Wilkins kept going another two miles until other motorists swarmed her car at a traffic light and grabbed her keys.

Wilkins, who was charged Tuesday with murder and driving drunk, told police she struck the man after leaving work and panicked. Police said her blood alcohol level was more than double the legal limit.

Her arrest on a street corner between home and her job as a drug and alcohol counselor seemed to be a return to a dark past that Wilkins once celebrated leaving behind. The convict and recovering addict had recently gone back to school, gotten a job and was reuniting with her family, including a new grandchild. (emphasis added)

That's all you really need to know. Drinking is fun and leads to all kinds of magical - and not infrequently, naked - harmless adventures. Sure, it annoys The Man, but it's just good, clean Texas fun!

On the other hand, if you give up the sauce, and especially if you get all evangelical and annoying about it, there's a really good chance that you'll knock a dude out his shoes and lodge him in your windshield while you keep going. That's just common sense, people.

I get that telling people the dangers of sobriety is an unpopular mission, but if I don't do it, who will? You? No, you don't have the balls! It's pretty much just me and Lindsay Lohan (and sometimes Amanda Bynes) on the frontlines of the battle between good and evil.

There are days when it seems that I'm the only one out there for people like Randy Travis. It's lonely, but it couldn't be more worthwhile.

Ben Affleck Was Hated, Feels Much Better Now

I saw Argo a few weeks ago, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I usually go to historical flicks because I like being angry. Christ, you should've heard me holler like a maniac at the inaccuracies in Olver Stone's Nixon when I saw that in a crowded theatre.

But Argo was not just pretty awesome, it was more of less true to the history. Sure, a bunch of Canadians got pissy about how the movie underplayed the contribution of our ambassador, but Canadians don't have much of an idea about Hollywood works, which is weird when you consider how Canadians actually dominate Hollywood. The fact is that there isn't going to be a long line of investors saying "You only want $30 million to make a movie about a Canadian diplomat? But we wanted to give you $60 million!"

I'd recommend it heartily to you, in large part because I wasn't really aware that Ben Affleck could actually do something before. That, in and of itself, was pretty compelling. Sure, I'd seen him in a bunch of Kevin Smith vehicles, but I thought that I only like him because I dig Smith so much.

Turns out that I was wrong. He can act and direct and all kinds of neat shit. And now Young Ben has returned to being the Toast of Tinseltown! Lookie, he's even one of GQ's Men of the Year!

This is ideal for Mr. Affleck, in so far as it allows him to publicly ruminate about the years - and, as I remember it, there were a lot of them - when shitting on Ben Affleck was the national past time. I think it may have been bigger than baseball, but there could have been a baseball strike during that era. Not being gay, I don't follow baseball.

I remember the years that everyone hated Ben Affleck as something of a personal Golden Age. If, I reckoned, you can't look down upon someone who's handsome, rich and successful - being paid beyond the limits of human imagination for projects that go right in the toilet - exactly who are you supposed to look down on? That's an especially important question when, like me, you've generally failed at life and look forward only to the auto-erotic asphyxiation mishap that finally puts you out of your endless misery.

What happens when looking down on Ben Affleck is all you've got?

Well, for one thing, it brings you the closest thing to joy that you're likely ever going to find. So that's something.

But F.Scott Fitzgerald proved what a drunkard and an all around fool he was when he said that "There are no second acts in American lives." Richard Nixon died a respected statesman and Affleck just made a movie that could very well win an Oscar. America is all about second acts and always has been, which leads me to believe that Fitzgerald was a pickled foreigner, likely smuggled in directly from Ireland and never given the opportunity to sober the fuck up.

Verily, this is the Age of Affleck. And Affleck wants to use his time to bitch about my Golden Age, when everybody properly hated him.

I read two particularly blunt examples out loud to Affleck. One is: At the risk of generalizing, there may not be a person on the planet who is more socially acceptable to hate. The other: It is fashionable at the moment to loathe Ben Affleck. To be honest, the guy makes it easy.
 

"It's as mean-spirited a thing as it is kind of permissible to say in an editorial capacity," Affleck says in response to the second. That one comes from The Boston Globe. "My hometown paper."

Looking back, whatever Affleck's real or perceived shortcomings, the viciousness of what was said about him now looks like a kind of collective lunacy. "At the time, I knew on some level, 'This is insane,' " he says. No one on the planet was more socially acceptable to hate? Really? "What was that guy's name who killed his wife and dumped her off the side of a boat?" He supplies the answer himself. "Peterson. I remember thinking he actually gets slightly better treatment than I do in the press. At least they had to say 'alleged killer.' Unfortunately there's an aspect of that that's like one of those fights you see on YouTube where one of them falls down and then a bunch of people who were standing around come over and kick the person. They don't know them, they have no involvement in the fight, but they recognize a moment that they can get a free shot in, and for some people it's just too much to resist. And that was definitely me at that point. I was the guy. I was the designated person to loathe."

I don't want to piss on guy's perfectly well-deserved parade - and Argo really is a fantastic movie - but there are a few things I'd like to point out regarding Affleck's comparison of himself to Scott Peterson.

1. The Constitution demanded that Scott Perterson be given the presumption of innocence for his crimes. That's not true of whether Ben Affleck made nearly a dozen shitty movies in a row.
2. Peterson's crimes and subsequent trial didn't waste as much time, money and public attention as Affleck's career did at that point.
3. Peterson's murder of his wife and unborn child were horrific, but still sexier than Gigli.
4. Everybody knew Peterson did it, but even that was more suspenseful than Daredevil.
5. Peterson's TV trial was a single static shot, yet still provided more compelling visuals that Pearl Harbor.
6. If nothing else, Scott Peterson is still paying for his crimes.

In Further Praise of Rihanna

I had an interesting argument with a friend of mine of Facebook the other day. I've known this woman for nearly thirty years and I've learned a lot from her.

During the 1988 presidential campaign, Michael Dukakis was some 17 points ahead of Vice President Bush. Then, as now, Bush was personal hero of mine and I was growing worried. My friend consoled me with what remains the most prescient political analysis I've ever heard.

"Don't worry," she said. "Bush will win."

I was more than a little mystified by this. No one had come back from a 17-point deficit in my lifetime at that point. I wanted her to be right. Shit, I needed her to be right. But I needed to know why she thought  the way she did.

"Really, " asked I. "Why do think so? I mean, the polls are bad ..."

"Don't worry," she interrupted. "Dukakis is married to a Jew. And her name is Kitty."

Uh oh, I thought. We're going down a road that can get ugly quick. Thankfully, my friend is Jewish and these were her thoughts, not mine. The last thing I needed in high school was being branded an anti-Semite. I was having a hard enough time getting laid back then.

I decided to let her finish.

"Kitty is a terrible name for a Jew," she continued. "The American people will never put a Jew named Kitty in the White House."

And you know what? She was right! At least I thought she was until Joe Lieberman ran for president. Say what you will about the man's politics and policies, but Hadassah Lieberman is maybe the most amazingly Jewish name imaginable. Just try to top that, I dare you!

Needless to say, I've put a lot of stock in her opinions ever since. She sees the blind spots that people like me all too often miss.

Anyhow, she (and no, I'm not going to use her name because she isn't a blogger and likely doesn't want to be associated with psychotic drivel like this) opined on Rihanna this past Sunday. I'm guessing because she was on Saturday Night Live the night before.

The conversation went as follows;

Am I the only one that doesn't see the appeal of Rhianna?

As you might imagine, there was no way I could let that stand. I'm not just a heterosexual male, I'm a champion of my gender and orientation. Maybe, at the risk of sounding immodest, the greatest champion of all. After all, I have a blog.

And there is literally no end to Rihanna's appeal. She's physically perfect in ways that only people who believe in childish notions, like the existence of a loving god, can truly understand. I don't believe in god, and certainly not a loving one, but I can't escape the cold reality that Rihanna was put here by a Higher Power to torture me through my awesome loins. I also feel the same way about Kerry Washington and Rosario Dawson.

Anyone who's seen her naked (link NSFW) knows that. That's just good science, people! Look at her, with the nipple rings and the total absence of public hair! And looka that ass! (also NSFW)

I had to disabuse my friend of this nonsense once and for all. As you might expect, I wasted no time in doing so. I'm not the greatest champion of heterosexual men for nothing, you know!

You're wrong. She's the hottest thing on earth and an outstanding excuse for ridding the world of Chris Brown!

There's probably no higher calling for mankind than ending the physical existence of Chris Brown. Moreover, it's an achievable mission in way that, say, ending the Iranian nuclear program isn't. While we'll likely be forced to live with atomic mullahs (which, by the way, is going to be my next band's name,) Brown can be dispatched to the hereafter with very little effort. One drone attack should do it.

Look, I'm not going to say that Rihanna was right to get all pissy about Chris' booty calls. That's just contrary to way nature works. Until we get beyond our childish and wrong polygamy laws, there are always going to be things that a man simply has to do, and nine out of every ten of those things are going to be strange pussy. We're biologically programmed that way, and the only way to stop us to ensure that we're always exhausted!

Having said that, there is no justification to beating the crap out of a girl who looks like that. I'm amazed that the judge in People v. Brown could look at Rihanna on the witness stand, then look at the police photos of what was done to her and still sentence him to community service. At a bare minimum, crucifixion should've been on the table. Were I on the bench, he would've been eaten alive by fucking lions.


My friend of several decades still persisted in continuing the argument, even though aesthetics, common sense, justice and science itself were working against her.

Yes she's pretty. Yes, she's kind of sexy (in a no boobs kind of way). But her music SUCKS.

Once again, I couldn't leave the topic alone. I'm not considered the Clarence Darrow of poontang for nothing. And for the sake of my argument, we'll forget that Darrow actually lost the Scopes Monkey Trial.

She sings? All I know is that I'd give anything to hold her like a bowling ball. And, although smallish, her knockers are beautifully shaped and will age extraordinarily. I'm a long-view breed of cat, I guess.

I was maybe too crude by half in presenting my case. I can only say that it was fairly early on a Sunday when this ugliness was brought to my door.

Of course no woman should be compared to a bowling ball. Only the worst losers (and probably serial killers) bowl. I should've said that I would do anything to be the Edgar Bergen to Rihanna's Charlie McCarthy, which implies something of a partnership. But, as my spiritual mentor, the great Dr. Reverend keeps asking, what would I make her say?

That my friends, is for me to know and you to find out, ideally from the purchase of the sex tape!

I should also point out that I was being a cutie-pie when I said that I didn't know Rihanna sings. Of course I do. As a matter of fact, I try to get every woman who meets my acquaintance to not just listen to "S&M" but to live its message. You probably haven't lived until you do.



I've written about this before, but that song is truly prophetic and has an important message for women of all ages that shouldn't be ignored!

"Being submissive in the bedroom is really fun," she says. "You get to be a little lady, to have somebody be macho and in charge of your shit. That's fun to me...I like to be spanked. Being tied up is fun. I like to keep it spontaneous. Sometimes whips and chains can be overly planned – you gotta stop, get the whip from the drawer downstairs. I'd rather have him use his hands."

Don't just take it from me, ladies. Rihanna has sold 85 million records; more than R.E.M, Van Helen, The Doors, Beyonce and Nirvana. So what she says has to be important, especially when what she's saying is that you need to be tied down and taken, ideally anally. That's just the numbers talking, but I'm not so arrogant as to disagree. Capitalism is never wrong, folks. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that.

If I were the only one who felt this way about Rihanna, I'd keep my mouth shut. But I'm not. Even homosexualist instructional manuals like GQ and Esquire have been forced to admit this cosmic truth, naming her the Greatest Woman of Our Time! Given their druthers, they'd probably name the Green Lantern guy that, but the Truth was just too strong.

Rihanna isn't just an important woman, she might be the most important woman of our time!

...When Hulkamania Runs Wild on Your Wife

Look, it seems perfectly natural to me that when you're in a bad mood, your friend's wife or girlfriend should carnally gratify you. This is especially true when you have a penis "the size of a thermos you'd find in a child's lunchbox." Don't ask me how I know that, just know that I do.

I figured that this was just one of the things that friends do for one another and that it happened every day. That's, as Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight told us, what friends are for.

Apparently, I lead an ... unusual life, because that doesn't happen every day. At all. At least not if the furor surrounding the Hulk Hogan sex tape is to be believed.

I'm sure that you can all imagine my shock at this turn of events. After all, I'm internationally famous as a "glass-half-full" breed of cat and could hardly have expected everyone to be so uncivilized.

The Hulkster has had a hard time of it this past decade. He was married to a shrew, his son is a monster and I'm pretty sure that his daughter is a man. Worse, all of it was documented on reality TV until the family dissolved in a tawdry mess of acrimony, divorce, stupidity, prison and Brooke's recording career.

If, after all of that, the Artist Formerly Known as Terry Gene Bollea doesn't deserve to knock a piece off of his best friend's bangin' lil' wife, then none of us do. And some of us very much do deserve that, such as myself and Mel Gibson (and always before the jacuzzi, never after!) Christ, I'm constantly amazed that so many people don't appreciate the way the way the world really works.

I'm not going to lie to you good people, though. There were parts of the tape that confused me deeply. Such as Hogan's best friend being Bubba the Love Sponge, who is little more than an unfunny Howard Stern impersonator with an impressive talent for getting fired. I was also mystified as to how someone like that could marry a hot piece of ass like Heather, the Hulkster's paramour in the tape.

I was nothing less than shocked that a low quality black and white camera was employed to record the festivities. These are wealthy people and the video wasn't shot in 1986. Just how low-rent can you get? I always thought that white trash should be kept away from technology and now I know it.

And condoms? What the fuck is that supposed to be about? I thought these people were all friends!

If you're anything like myself and Hulk, there is literally no end to the issues that you have with prophylactic intercourse. First, they actually do cut down the sensation. Second, they're too small. I could start a completely separate blog devoted to nothing but stories about rubbers snapping in half as they try to envelop my mighty, mighty wang. Because I'm all about the scientific method, I'd like to recommend an experiment to you. Get a thermos from a child's lunchbox. Then try rolling a condom over it. Try not to do this in a schoolyard. It almost never ends well.

But this wasn't supposed to be about me, was it?

The bastards at Gawker only put up a heavily edited version of Hulkamania running wild all over Heather Clem, but they have a wildly entertaining description of the encounter.

It opens with Hulk Hogan performing oral sex on the woman as she lays on the bed. Then another man's voice can be heard from inside the room off-camera and both Hulk and the naked woman engage in idle chit-chat with the mystery man. Because the woman closely resembles Mrs. Clem, some have suggested that the voice of the mystery man is, in fact, Bubba the Love Sponge. If this is true, Bubba has no problem sharing his wife with his best friend.

"You guys do your thing," this man says. "I'll be in the office if you need me."

See, everybody's friends! And if friendship isn't about eating out your friend's wife until he decides to go to his office, I just don't know what is.

Hulk strips down. His tan line is exposed and his hairline is vulnerable and silly without the do-rag, but there is sex to be had regardless. Hulk must get hard, though, and the woman is eager to make that happen. Her fellatio is successful and Hulkamania is about to run wild on her but then his cell phone rings. He checks it because he thinks it might be his son, Nick. The ringtone on Hulk Hogan's phone is a song by his daughter, Brooke Hogan, called "About Us" featuring Paul Wall. He is a proud father.

There's so much wrong with that paragraph that I'm not even sure where to begin. So I won't.

He stands on the side of the bed and the woman scoots up from the pillows and resumes giving the former WWE heavyweight champion of the universe a blowjob. It is a slow, dutiful blowjob and Hulk is thrusting himself into her mouth to speed up the process. This goes on for a few minutes and at one point Hulk examines the canopy bed curtains in a way that suggests he'd like to purchase this particular style for his own canopy bed some day. She takes a break. She spits loudly. She resumes for a few seconds, but it appears the spit has worked because Hulk mutters something in a growly sex voice. The woman removes him from her mouth and spins around on the bed like an excited puppy. She stands. They grope each other and stare at each other. "What did you say?" she asks, laughing and tying up her hair in a pony tail. Then they both laugh because there was a miscommunication during the sex act and they don't want to feel awkward.

"You got a rubber? I want you to climb on top of me," Hulk repeats, but not as sexy as it was the first time, which she didn't hear. Yes, she does have a rubber. Then we watch Hulk stand up and clumsily attempt to roll a condom on to his erect penis which, even if it has been ravaged by steroids and middle-age, still appears to be the size of a thermos you'd find in a child's lunchbox. Hulk hurls his massive body on to the canopy bed and the woman climbs on top, finally, and they begin. There is lots of squealing and moaning from her and she says stuff like, "I want to make you cum" and, "Your dick feels so good inside me"—that sort of thing. There is light spanking from Hulk done to show he supports her efforts and is close to orgasming.

Then, Hulk grunts. Hulk grunts more. Then Hulk grunts like he's doing an impression of old Hulk Hogan grunting right before he's about to cum/come. Climax happens for both participants and they seem pleased with the results. The woman provides two tender kisses on Hulk's upper chest. Hulk says, "Mmmk," because he's a little bemused by the situation he finds himself in on this day as we'll soon find out. Here's how Hulk explains his reaction to the woman he just had sex with:

"The rubber almost came off," he says.

She's not concerned. "It did what it was supposed to."

Hulk thought that was funny and makes her repeat it.

Needless to say, what rubbers are "supposed to do" is evil and direct violation of God's Law. Jizz is an expression of love and, as such, is meant to fly freely, thickly coating everyone and everything within a three-mile radius, especially the much-admired canopy bed curtains.

If you're a worldly man and you want to buy pretty bedding without looking like a homosexualist, you batter and spoil it with your goo and offer to buy replacements. Then your sneakily buy a set for yourself. Not only do you get your gay accouterments, you appear gallant in the process! Jesus, am I the World's Last Ladies Man?

But this isn't supposed to be about me, is it?

She does so and then peels off the rubber from his penis and carries it away. She holds the condom full of Hulk jiz like it's a random dirty sock she found in the dryer. Hulk is still coming down from his orgasm and is making quick, loud Tony Soprano wheezes.

"Oh my god," he exhales. "Can't believe I have to drive back home. Fuuuuck."

The woman giggles, climbs back into bed with him and reminds Hulk that this is why he should move to this neighborhood. They engage in some cuddling for a couple minutes but Hulk does have to go because he has to go meet his son Nick who was presumably no longer in prison during the time this was filmed. Playful banter resumes amidst the afterglow. Hulk gets up naked and accepts the invitation from the woman to take a shower. But then he tells the woman that he's shocked that the fucking took place at all because he'd just eaten ten minutes before he got there and "felt like a pig." He had sashimi. He smacks his large stomach and makes his way to the shower.

Hulk begins to put on his clothes. "Bubba's shirt," he says when he puts on his shirt. He's pulling on his jeans one giant leg at a time, still mumbling. The woman is naked in bed and not at all concerned by his early exit. She does suggest that he go talk to the mystery man in the office before he leaves. But Hulk has to go meet his son Nick at midnight. Then Hulk tells a story about how Nick's new girlfriend has a twin sister who called Hulk on the phone. Hulk reveals that the young woman inquired about his divorce and, if that's true, she would like to be the first to go out with him.

Hulk sits on the bed and puts on his socks. "You're a hot commodity," the woman says to Hulk. "Yeah, right. Huh," Hulk says.

Even Hulk Hogan needs to be told he's handsome sometimes.

Everybody needs to feel pretty. God knows I do.

It also strikes me as appropriate that the Hulkster wore Bubba's shirt after fucking Bubba's wife. After all, friendship runs both ways, doesn't it? On the other hand, wearing a Bubba the Love Sponge t-shirt probably isn'r the best way to fuck girls the same age as your own children. But I don't think that overpriced Ed Hardy horseshit is the way to go either, and the assholes who wear that seem to get laid all the time, so what the fuck do I know?

Forget everything that your parents told and what you read on coffee mugs. Apparently all is not well that ends well. As it happens, Hogan is suing everybody in sight over the release of his fuck tape for $100 million, including Bubba, Heather and Gawker. He broke out his formal black t-shirt and bandanna for the occasion, just so you know he's as serious as cancer.

And that might be the silliest little lawsuit of ever. Firstly, do you think that either Bubba or Clem has a $100 million? I don't. And since Hulk loosely fits the definition of a "celebrity," there's no way that he wins against Gawker. He. his thermos-sized cock and their shenanigans are loosely defined as "newsworthy" and therefore covered under the First Amendment. If you don't believe me, ask Tommy Lee.

And for $100 million, he should've at least gotten her ass. If the Hulkster has any cause for complaint here, it's that. Oh, and that he only lasted for less than half an hour. What the fuck is that about? Why else would you say your prayers and take your vitamins unless you were going to fuck for at least three hours? Seems like a waste of my time to me.

But this wasn't supposed to be about me, was it?

In the end, I just want to know when a little wife-swapping became such a big fucking deal. Jesus, it's as if some people lived right through the 1970s and didn't learn a goddamn thing.

Workin' on a Dream: On Celebrity Endorsements and the Idiots Who Give a Shit About Them

You know what? I was actually thrilled when Republicans took the position that celebrities should, in the words of idiot talk-show host Laura Ingrham, "Shut Up and Sing." As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have had too much of a problem with Republicans trying to commercially stomp to death people like Bill Maher and the goddamned Dixie Chicks if I didn't instinctively feel that they were insanely, cuntishly hypocritical.

All too often, the very same people who wanted the Dixie Chicks tried for treason just because they made an entirely reasonable remark on stage in London turned out to be the same shitheads who rushed to the defence of a has-been like Ted Nugent when he suggested that guns be put in the mouths of Democratic presidential candidate. It's also hard to forget that Andrew Breitbart became a celebrity for the sole purpose of telling other celebrities to shut the fuck up, while painting himself as "free speech warrior."

That hypocrisy was put in stark relief when Republican bloggers and Fox News shitheads were actually assaulting one another over who would give Clint Eastwood the sloppiest blowjob following his delusional incantation at this summer's Republican Convention.

Then there's the strange and sad case of Stacey Dash. In all honesty, I didn't even know what her name was until week when she endorsed Mitt Romney for president. I always just thought of her as "that super-fucking hot Black chick from Clueless." And I've never seen Clueless.

Now I know her name, but think of her as the super-fucking hot Black chick that was in Clueless and endorsed Mitt Romney. Oh, and I know that she's the new GOP blogger super-hero of the moment.

Do her political views make me want to see her movies any more or less? No, but only because I don't think I've seen a movie that she's been in in the first fucking place. As a matter of fact, I might want to eat her ass more than I used to because I at least know what her name is now, and I've usually (but not always) found that a helpful seductive tool. And, she has a magnificent ass, especially for a 45-year-old woman. That fucking thing is gorgeous!

Do I think that she deserved the supposed racial animus (and I say "supposed" because I can't be bothered looking it up, just like every other blogger that has written about it) that she received from liberals as a consequence of her blog endorsement? Obviously, I don't. If anything, cries of "racism!" are something that I see as cheap stunts from both sides of the spectrum  because they have little else to say. Moreover, they minimize the impact of the real racism that still exists. It's called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Look it up.

As I've said repeatedly, Republicans didn't discover racism until they invented Michael Steele and sexism only occurred to them when Sarah Palin fell into their throbbing little laps, as evidenced by all of the Hillary Clinton jokes that circulated for sixteen years, a number of which were actually funny. All things being equal, I'm amazed that they haven't turned a black female Mormon like Mia Love into a secular saint already, although I fully expect them to. And that would be even funnier because a statistical majority of Republicans don't recognise Mormons as Christian. At least not until they win an election.

Having said that, I think that Republicans are showing both their hypocrisy and their desperation when they go out of their way to fit Ms. Dash for a friggin' cape. They so want some taste of glimmer that they'll embrace a woman that may as well as have been in the Witness Protection Program for the last 18 years to get it. If you think that Republicans haven't gotten into the "identity politics" game, you're kidding yourselves.

Everything you need to know about celebrities is that they aren't all that different from race horses. They get famous because they work on one facet of their lives to the exclusion of everything else. They might very well win the Kentucky Derby, but they're just as likely to kick your balls off when they aren't running to the finish line.Just look to Lindsay Lohan as one example.

Anyone who expects celebrities to talk about anything other than what they do for a living without drooling on themselves might as well be drooling themselves, too.

Mediate's Andrew Kirell falls into this trap with his "Open Letter to Bruce Springsteen."

Dear Mr. Springsteen:

You disappoint me.

This is not some right-wing rant against “Hollyweird” liberals and their penchant for supporting President Obama and the Democratic Party. Your recent re-endorsement of President Barack Obama doesn’t offend me on its own — everyone saw it coming. But what offends me is what you are abandoning by diving headfirst into the endorsement game.

Let me explain:

Do you remember the speech you gave on nearly all 100 tour dates of the 2008 Magic tour? Lord knows I remember it, having seen you three times that year. Before each performance of “Livin’ in the Future,” you gave a little political rant. It went something like this:

“Over the past six years we have, unfortunately, had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, rolling back of civil liberties, no habeas corpus if you’d like to defend yourself against charges brought against you. These are things that not only attack our Constitution but attack who we are and our very selves.”

Remember that? The song itself, you explained, was about sleeping through all those awful Bush-era changes: “We’re livin’ in the future and none of this has happened yet,” said the catchy chorus.
Except now we are livin’ in the future… and all of this is happening still.

By and large, President Obama has continued the George W. Bush-era policies of rendition (see here), illegal wiretapping (see, um… the PATRIOT Act renewal?), rolling back of civil liberties (NDAA, executive overreach, etc.), and other unsavory things like, you know, drone strikes that evaporate innocent civilians via remote control.

Bush was awful. I was with you on that one. Even though I am turned off when my favorite musicians use their concerts as a gigantic soapbox, I appreciated that you were at least ranting on behalf of civil libertarian values.

But now, after spending six years being the most outspoken musical advocate against Bush-era civil liberties encroachments, you openly endorse a man who has willingly continued these exact “un-American” policies?

Either you are a political fraud or just blinded by the light of partisanship.
Both possibilities are truly disappointing.

Look, I get it. By no means am I saying you should have endorsed Mitt Romney. For all we know, he would be even worse than Obama on these issues — especially given that his foreign policy advisement team is made up of Bush’s favorite circle of neocons. Yikes
.
Maybe you truly hesitated before making this official endorsement. Maybe you deliberated for hours and weighed the options: “Should I fully endorse the man who has, thus far, governed the exact opposite of my professed values? Or do I give a tepid endorsement that reflects my hesitance here?

Or do I endorse a third party? Or maybe I stay out of this race entirely?”

But I doubt it.

Again, I understand that no one can realistically expect you to show up to these Iowa and Ohio rallies and say something like: “Yeah! Woo! After much hesitation and doubt, I’ve made the tough decision to — despite a multitude of disappointments — endorse this president for re-election because he is the lesser of two evils in my mind! Woo! Yeah! Four more years!”

I guess I just naively expect that someone who used their multi-million-dollar stage as a soapbox to rail against such governmental abuses would feel enough conviction about those issues to remain consistent and principled.

Perhaps you could have endorsed someone like Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or even Green Party candidate Jill Stein — both of whom espouse the exact views you spent years touting on tour. Or maybe you could have abstained altogether in order to send a powerful message.
Instead you’re just another cheerleader for those in power… when the power is in the hands of your preferred political party.

I hope you reconsider.

Sincerely,

Andrew Kirell
PS – All will be forgiven if you would just release the “Electric Nebraska” tapes.

There are any number of reasons that this letter is complete nonsense.

First, Bruce Springsteen is a partisan Democrat. He always has been and there's no reason to believe that he'll change his affiliation this late in life. Like almost every partisan voter out there, Springsteen is not unlike a trained dog. He barks, heels and rolls over just like he was trained to. And if you're reading partisan political blogs all day, you shouldn't feel all that superior to The Boss.

Second, Springsteen - like most celebrities - has very little to do with his own life. The reason that Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" was such a big hit was because it reflects the way those people actually live. They "have accountants to pay for it all." Stars structure their lives in such a way that they don't have to do anything other perpetuate what made them famous in the first fucking place. That's why they're always so shocked when they go broke. and that's why the rest of us laugh our asses off when they do.

If you really expect these people to be serious political philosophers, then you're even dumber than they are. If nothing else, they have very valid reasons for being wholly ignorant. All they have to do is write songs, play guitar, pretend to be someone else for a few months a year, or have a bangin' ass on them. You're at least supposed to be living in the real world.

If you relate to people like Bruce Springsteen or Stacey Dash in any way, you should probably be committed. And sterilized. It isn't their job to be "consistent and principled."

Third, rendition began under Clinton, not Bush. Christ, Mr. Bill was actually proud of this. Anyone that doesn't get that probably shouldn't be advising anyone how to vote.

Fourth, Nebraska is pretty much perfect the way it is. Releasing the electric demos would suck and ruin a great album. Who in the fuck would want Bruce to do such a thing and still consider himself sane? And anyone who would suggest such a thing is less worthy of being listened to on matters political than even Springsteen himself.

The worst part is that I actually agree with Mr. Kirell. If you want to affect real change, liberals should vote for the Greens and anyone who believes in anything other than a Big Jesus Government should vote for the Libertarians. The Democrats aren't liberal in any substantive way and anyone who thinks that the Republicans are the party of small government just hasn't been paying attention.

In the end, I think we should all come together in admiration of just how nice Stacey Dash's naked nipple looks and stop giving a shit about what she thinks. I\m more than a little disappointed that she isn't completely shaved, like all the best women are.

Why People Frighten Me, Volume 9,736

Please note that my offer of marriage earlier this morning does not extend to this broad. Just thought I'd clear that up.



Video ruthlessly stolen from The Superficial. 

Lindsay Lohan and perspective

You may have noticed that I haven't written much since the May 2 federal election here in Canada. I meant to. Really, I did. I was having more fun with the blog (and getting more hits) than I had in a long time during the campaign.

Of course, I'm a celebrated student of the Deeply Strange and the 41st Canadian federal election was Deeply Strange in ways that we'll tell our grandkids about someday. I actually wrote a few pieces about the campaign that I'm proud of, and that almost never happens. I figured that I'd come off the election with a continuing burst of wonderfulness that would carry me through at least a few months.

Instead? Meh. I find myself overwhelmed with ennui, the striking inability to give a shit about anything. I've looked at my writing, such as it is, with a total sense of apathy. Don't get me wrong, there's no shortage of interesting topics out there. Ordinarily, I long for news cycles like those we've enjoyed over the last three weeks. I just can'r bring myself to write about any of it in an entertaining or interesting way. Everything I've put up has been forced and it shows.

But the Dawn might be breaking through the Dark Night of My Soul. The sun is, as I should have suspected it would be, Lindsay Lohan. I'm pretty sure that girl is a Saint, or at least should be. Even her continuing trials before the demented, vile and repulsive California justice system are unequal to her ability to bring a little extra bounce, both to my step and in my pants. I just don't know where I, and my writing, would be without her.

Case in point: she was doing a photo shoot in Miami this weekend and, free at last from the corrupt clutches of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, she opened her robe to reveal her majestic mammaries, almost as if to let them luxuriate in the sweet, sweet air of Freedom. I Imagine the salty sea air caressed, soothed and liberated her tiny pink nipples just as those tiny pink nipples did my Inner Child.

Every child feels safest when sucking on a magnificent teat, knowing that's where the Milk of Life flows from and that doesn't change in adulthood. The Inner Child must be sustained, and Lindsay's unbelievable udders sustain mine.

Life and Freedom, my friends. Those are the things that matter. And sometimes Lindsay Lohan is the only person who can remind me of that.


Picture ruthlessly ripped off from What Would Tyler Durden Do