BEAT THIS HEADLINE:

"NPR Exec Caught On Tape Calling Tea Partiers 'Racist'"

I got one:

"Fish-Lizards Caught On Shore Like A Billion Years Ago Calling Sky 'Blue'"

You Guys Read the Internet?

Me too! I even have a blog: [URL NOT FOUND]

You follow professional sports? Me too! I happen to have a preference for Boston-based teams, including (but not limited to) the football squad that recently got their (gorgeous) teeth kicked in by one from New Jersey! (No, not that one--the one with the head coach who mistakenly thinks that he can bury his self-loathing under a pile of fried foods, narcissism and sexual perversion.)

According to the internet, the New [LOCATION PERSISTENTLY UNDEFINED] Jets are the best foot-based sports team ever now and they will never, ever, lose again.

For real! It's on the internet!

"Ex-Massage Therapist's Rampage" Is Now a Phrase on the Books

Thanks, MSNBC, for making that happen.

And thank you more, ex-massage therapist who went on a gun rampage at a school board meeting in Panama City, FL, for failing to hit anyone you shot at--which otherwise would have made the phrase "ex-massage therapist's rampage" not so funny.

Thank you less for eventually taking your own life--which is never funny.

Nice save, "Today Show"! You felt the need to point out that the graffiti that the ex-massage therapist spray-painted on the wall before going on his unsuccessful gun rampage maybe referenced a Natalie Portman movie that nobody saw, thereby pulling an ultimately sad act closer back towards the realm of stupid.

(As for the lady who weakly hit the guy with her purse somewhere in the middle...God bless Florida and to all a Merry Christmas.)

Celebrated Sports Person Does Thing; Mortals Angry, Happy, Sad

LeBron James used an hour of television on Thursday night to announce to the world what everybody already knew: that he is leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and signing with the Miami Heat.

Sorry, Cleveland fans. Bully for you, Miami fans (and watch out for that drug dealer!--ah, too late).

Everybody else? Shame on us a little bit for paying as much attention as we did to this vacuous charade.

Stay Classy, San Diego Clippers*

*Which they will, despite not having existed for the last twenty-six years...at least in contrast to their current city's big sister team, if Los Angeles Times sportswriter Ted Green is any indication of the Lakers' level of class.

Wrote Green of the Celtics' Paul Pierce (who miraculously survived a violent attack on his life in 2000): "Pierce's idea of a fun night is going clubbing and getting stabbed. Good times!"

HAHAHAHAHA--yeah, good times. Almost as good of a time as Paul Pierce is going to have watching Banner #18 be hung in the rafters of TD Garden, you sub-literate dicktard.

Tabloid Culture Sneaks In a Late-Year Victory

Regarding Brittany Murphy's death on Sunday, Courtney Hazlett of MSNBC.com's "The Scoop" made sure to mention that "there are speculative rumors of the usual Hollywood chemical abuse beginning to circulate".

Go get 'em, Courtney! You know all about these "Hollywood" people off of whose lives (and deaths) you make your living by blindly judging. They're the ones keeping you from your true calling of...

What, exactly? The Traveling Ass-Clown Circus? I'm not sure that's a real thing.

'Pessimism vs. Optimism': A Play in One Act

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

METROVILLE, a smart guy.
MRS. METROVILLE, his wife.
MALE FRIEND, Female Friend's fiancé.
FEMALE FRIEND, vice versa.
THE CAT, Metroville's strikingly handsome cat.


SCENE 1

A patio area at a (vaguely douchetastic) sports bar in Los Angeles. Amongst the CROWD are METROVILLE, MRS. METROVILLE, MALE FRIEND and FEMALE FRIEND. On television is NBC's broadcast of a USC-Notre Dame football game at halftime: "Saturday Night Live's" SETH MYERS is performing a live mini-version of 'Weekend Update'.

METROVILLE: Wow...NBC really has nothing. Is it possible for a major broadcast network to fold entirely?

MRS. METROVILLE: Why are you so cynical?

On TV, Seth Myers partakes in a gag referencing the "balloon boy" story.

MALE FRIEND: Did you see that kid puke on two different TV shows? What was up with that?

METROVILLE: What's up with that is that the kid's dad is a psycho attention-addict and the whole thing was staged. Kid's got crazy-parent vertigo and probably some sternum bruising.

MALE FRIEND: Heard that.

FEMALE FRIEND (to Male Friend): Why are you saying that now? Is that your new thing?

MRS. METROVILLE (to Metroville): No, you were asleep while the whole "balloon boy" thing was happening, so you don't know. We were glued to the TV at work, freaking out. When the balloon landed and he turned out not to be in it...god, I could cry right now just thinking about it...it was unbelievable.

METROVILLE: No shit it was unbelievable--whole thing was horse poop from jump street.

FEMALE FRIEND: I don't know. The dad seemed pretty genuine in that first press conference.

METROVILLE: This is a dude who was on "Wife Swap" twice.

MALE FRIEND: He was on "Wipeout"?

METROVILLE: No... What?

MRS. METROVILLE: I also heard "Wipeout".

FEMALE FRIEND (to Metroville): I think you're thinking of "SuperNanny".

METROVILLE: I'm thinking of "Wife Swap", 'cause that's what I said.

MRS. METROVILLE: You mumble.

METROVILLE: You know what kind of people choose to appear on reality shows? Psycho scumbags. And the fact that this dude--the "balloon boy" dad--forced his family to participate in that garbage on two separate occasions renders it mathematically near-impossible that he'd find himself in the national spotlight--by accident--a third time. Dude set the whole thing up, I guarantee it.

MRS. METROVILLE: You're wrong.

METROVILLE: I'm right. Bet me.

MRS. METROVILLE: I'm not going to bet you. I feel bad for you that you walk around with this dark view of the world.

FEMALE FRIEND: You guys are cute.

MALE FRIEND: Kid puked twice just on the "Today Show"... Fuckin' nuts.


SCENE 2

METROVILLE is in his office at home, browsing on his computer. He comes across an article (on MSNBC.com)...and gets very excited.

He rises from his chair and skips jauntily from his office, to the living room, and finally to the bedroom...where MRS. METROVILLE is struggling to reclaim possession of a sweater from THE CAT.

MRS. METROVILLE: I hate this fucking cat.

METROVILLE: But he's so handsome.

MRS. METROVILLE: Still hate him.

METROVILLE: I love it when you talk negative.

MRS. METROVILLE: I never talk negative. I just want my goddamn sweater.

METROVILLE: Embrace it, baby: When all cards are on the table, pessimism--

Mrs. Metroville wins the fight, freeing her sweater from the cat.

METROVILLE: ...pulls us through.

MRS. METROVILLE: Save it. I beat your douchebag cat with positive thinking.

METROVILLE: Good intentions triumph over evil, love conquers all...that kind of thing?

MRS. METROVILLE: Exactly.

METROVILLE: Remember that "balloon boy" thing we were arguing about earlier today?

MRS. METROVILLE: Yeah...

METROVILLE: Guess what?

MRS. METROVILLE: What.

METROVILLE: "Charges to be filed."

MRS. METROVILLE: You're kidding!

METROVILLE: I am not! How you like that?!

MRS. METROVILLE: I don't like it at all. I think it's super-fucking sad. Guy's got a wife and three kids... This could tear the whole family apart.

METROVILLE: Yeah, okay, but... How about a high-five for me being right?

MRS. METROVILLE: No, thank you. I'm taking a bath.

Mrs. Metroville passes by Metroville (without high-fiving him) and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Metroville looks at the cat.

METROVILLE: You got me, though, right?

Metroville picks up the cat and sort of makes it high-five him, getting scratched in the process.

METROVILLE: Ah, what the hell.


EPILOGUE

Later that night, METROVILLE is heading from the kitchen to his office. THE CAT approaches, rubbing against his legs.

METROVILLE: No dice, chief. We're still fighting.

Metroville's mobile phone buzzes in his pocket. He produces the phone, reading a text message...and frowns.

METROVILLE (calling OFF STAGE to Mrs. Metroville): Yankees won in the thirteenth! You gotta be fucking kidding me. I'm certainly not sad that the Angels lost, but the fuckin' Yankees? Major playoff in my favorite sport...

MRS. METROVILLE (from OFF STAGE): What about the National League?

METROVILLE: I'm talking about real baseball, not the pseudo-Canadian version with a guaranteed failed bunt in every lineup.

MRS. METROVILLE (from OFF STAGE): You're funny.

METROVILLE: I appreciate that but please do not distract me from my rant. Major playoff in my favorite sport and I want both teams to lose and neither to win. How am I supposed to enjoy that?

MRS. METROVILLE (from OFF STAGE): Maybe pessimism doesn't always pull us through, smart guy.

METROVILLE: Heard that.

Metroville goes back to work.

(THE END)

Metroville's Super-Secret Plot to Make All Poor White Americans Angry via Rich White Americans on Their Televisions Ruined

Could August 6th, 2009, have been a worse day for me? To prove so would be difficult, given three of my favorite things:

- iconic filmmaker John Hughes
- the Boston Red Sox
- my lifelong plan to snake my way into the American presidency only to reveal myself as a black person and do all kinds of scary black stuff to you fool-ass crackers.

What happened on August 6th, 2009?

(1) John Hughes up and flipping died
(2) the Red Sox got absolutely murdered by the Yankees (as a result of the "senior citizen starting pitcher" gag presumably set into motion by Ashton Kutcher)
(3) I, while searching for a long-buried personal document, stumbled upon a copy of my birth certificate (which I had retrieved many years ago in order to apply for a passport and then filed away)...only to discover that it is not a birth certificate--but rather, a "certificate of live birth".

Point '3', Exhibit 'A' (as in, "Ah hate dem white folk!"):


In light of the recent razor-sharp detective work of patriots such as Lou Dobbs, Bizarro Arianna Huffington and the on-air Muppets of Fox News in their holy quest to unmask America's current president as the partially black person that he truly is, you can bet my secret warehouse full of fried chicken and watermelons that there ain't no way, no how I'm ever again going to try to pass myself off as an American citizen.

In fact...it'd probably be best for me to leave the United States altogether and start my life anew in some exotic foreign location. Hawaii, maybe.

Sports Writer Unaware of Sports Fans

I need to get off the internet.

I can't, of course, because doing so might force me to directly interact with other human beings. But if I could, I might have a better chance at avoiding articles like the most recent one from "NBC sports.com contributor" Tony DeMarco wherein the author critically wounds the Boston Red Sox's chances of winning the World Series this year by brazenly asserting that the Boston Red Sox will win the World Series this year.

Way to know your readers, DeJinxo. Sports fans are by nature superstitious; Red Sox fans are by nurture quite unhealthily superstitious; ergo, you are a big jerk with a stupid mustache.

Unless, of course, your prediction turns out to be accurate (knock on wood)...in which case you will be a great guy with a stupid mustache.

Glenn Beck Fatally Confuses Two Prepositions

When Stephen Colbert and the rest of the cognizant world mock Fox News' lunatic-of-the-moment Glenn Beck, most everyone understands that they are laughing at Beck, not with him. Most everyone but Glenn Beck, that is, for he has announced a comedy tour.

That's right, "comedy". As in, a deliberate attempt to be funny, live, in front of people. America has called Beck hysterically insane, and all he heard was "hysterical".

Unless you think that genuine mental illness is funny, I recommend staying the hell out of Denver, Phoenix, San Diego, Kansas City, Houston and Richmond, Virgina during the first week of June.

Washington Post Lets the Suck Out

The Washington Post scooped the world on the more-desperately-than-is-appropriate awaited news that the Obamas have at last picked out a freaking dog...and how did they open their story? With five shameful words:

"Who let the dog out?"

Get it? That's kind of the name of a terrible song that was inexplicably popular for some time several years ago; it features the word "dog", which is the thing that the Obamas got and what the story is about! Hahahahaha!

This whole thing makes me make a frowny face--not just because of the patheticalness inherent to the newspaper of America's capital essentially sabotaging an exclusive by making the most obvious reference imaginable and thus driving additional nails into the coffin of print journalism, but also because I had hoped that the Obamas would have seen this coming and taken action to avoid it.

You deliberated your dog selection for over three months, Obamas; it must have occurred to at least one of you (likely one of the parents) that the first story about your selection--and perhaps many more thereafter--would make a cheap and lazy reference to the Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out" that would be detrimental to journalism. No, you could not have avoided the fact that the animal would be a dog, but--with a little creative thinking--you could have thrown the media a curveball and chosen a name other than "Bo". A name such as:

"Electric Slide"...

"Da' Butt"...

"Tubthumping"...

"Macarena"...

"Buffalo Stance"...

And many others.

You could have named the goddamn dog "Rollin' With Kid 'N Play", for chrissake: to have applied the title of any terrible song that was once inexplicably popular other than "Who Let the Dogs Out" as your dog's name would have handcuffed the members of the national media into possibly thinking for themselves...and if enough them had done so, perhaps America would have had a chance to pull itself out of the toilet.

But they didn't, so it won't--not anytime soon, at least.

In any case, though: cute puppy (not pictured).

Funny Canadian Thing about Billy Bob Thornton (Canadian) Thing

When footage of the Needlessly Offended Billy Bob Thornton vs. Confused but Polite Canadian Radio DJ Interview Dust-Up hit the interwebs on Wednesday, I didn't post anything about it because I didn't have an angle. I still don't, but here's the Q TV weirdness--



--which I'm posting now to provide context for this:



In related news, Billy Bob's band has canceled their Canadian tour. Wonder what that's about.

[YouTube]

Diversion's Antichrist Seeks Commission in Human Tragedy

Although the act amounts to precious little within the scope of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others' deaths in an auto accident early Thursday morning, I cannot resist expressing my irritation at the fact that Adenhart's agent Scott Boras--widely regarded as an amoral cutthroat whose duplicitous tactics are a cancer on the game of baseball--took the opportunity to put on a tearful show for the cameras at the team's press conference regarding the news.

I'm not saying that Boras isn't sad that Adenhart died--the kid was 22 years old and had his whole future senselessly erased, for chrissake; one would have to literally be inhuman to find that as anything but heartbreaking. I'm not even entirely unconvinced of Boras' assertion that Adenhart's family had asked him to speak on their behalf. But even though Boras is no doubt emotionally affected by the loss--and even if Adenhart's family was not opposed to Boras' appearance at the press conference--who the fuck cares what a young athlete's agent has to say in the immediate aftermath of his unexpected death?

Second to those of his family, the reactions of Adenhart's friends and teammates--those who were with him every day, bonded in a shared purpose and camaraderie--deserve to be made public, if so intended. There is meaningful insight to be gleaned from those who knew Adenhart and had nothing to gain or lose from their relationship that the man himself--at the very most--didn't stand to gain or lose reciprocally.

But his agent? His fucking agent? The guy who, at the end of the day, was professionally obligated to view Adenhart as nothing more than a paycheck--a "great kid" that he would have dropped like a bad habit the second that his market value fell below a predetermined profit margin? Not appropriate. Had Boras been magnanimous enough to realize as much, he would have respectfully declined the Adenharts' alleged request of him to speak at the press conference.

Instead, he chose to take the stage alongside Angels manager Mike Scioscia, general manager Tony Reagins and others, and attempt--by all appearances--to "out-sad" the lot of them.

Bearing in mind Scott Boras' proven track record as a publicity-hungry self-promoter (how many other agents does the casual sports fan know by name?), his public tears over Nick Adenheart take on a distinct resemblance to those of a crocodile--or, perhaps more fittingly, a snake.

How to Succeed in the News Business Without Not Driving Into a Police Horse

Full disclosure: I actually don't know how one would do that.

You know who else doesn't? Fox WNYW reporter (and former police officer) Mike Sheehan.

If Two Jokes Fall on a Utah Rec Center, Do They Make Us Laugh?

The middling hook of Newsweek's article on the recent, one-night-only Vanilla Ice/MC Hammer concert in Utah is the author's framing of obvious questions--why would MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice put on a show together? why in Utah? why would anyone pay to see it?--as philosophical mind-benders. This approach was destined to be briefly amusing yet entirely forgettable, much like the subject matter...were it not for the staggering irony (one lost on reporter Joshua Alston and his employer) that the article's mere existence creates a host of quandaries so layered as to confuse even Confucius:

If you've been lame for nearly two decades before Newsweek gets around to calling you lame, does that not make your lameness lame and therefore yourself less lame?

Does Joshua Alston truly believe that a second-grader playing a stalk of broccoli is a useful parallel in understanding Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer's behaviors, or was his misstep born of a deep resentment about a vividly specific incident from his childhood? (Or does he just really like broccoli?)

How could not one of the concertgoers documented have made it clear that he or she was enjoying the event ironically? Did Alston deliberately ignore those people (perhaps due to his broccoli-based hangup), or do they not exist? And if they do not exist...do I not exist?

Please Hammer don't hurt my brain anymore. I need it to hold my hair, which I like to feel the breeze in while driving around in my Mustang convertible.

Dial-A-Buse

No one could have imagined that a media outlet as classy and respectable as "Extra" would ever be responsible for a thoughtless error, especially not in regards to such a delicate story as that of Chris Brown beating up Rihanna.

And yet...there they went, publishing the personal phone numbers of those involved.

Take that, reading and thinking and stupid whatever stuff! Celebrity things HOORAY!

(Brangelina!)

[Gawker]

Mumbles McSquirmy Wants to Babysit Your Nightmares

The name of Michael Jackson's upcoming tour is "This Is It".

It damn well better be.

Harry Connick Jr. and Renee Zellweger Enjoyed Working with One Another on the Set of 'New in Town'

You know how I know that? Says it right there in the CNN caption of the above file photo.

What's crazy is that, in New in Town, Harry Connick Jr. and Renee Zellweger play two people who don't actually like each other, at first.

That's movie magic for you! As well as, apparently, journalism!

All Hail President Memorex

Tenet 'A', derived from the Constitution of the United States of America, holds that Barack Obama became the U.S. President at twelve o'clock eastern standard time on January 20th, 2009, even though he hadn't been sworn in yet.

Tenet 'B', derived from racist crazy people, holds that Barack Obama was never the U.S. President on January 20th, 2009 because he didn't give a clean reading of the oath of office until the following day.

Given that Tenet 'B' represents a lingering devotion to a former president who willfully ignored his country's Constitution throughout two full terms in office and that Tenet 'A' represents said document, the two tenets cancel each other out. Thus emerges Tenet 'C', derived from Stephen Colbert.

Tenet 'C' holds that whatever person (or thing) appeared on camera as part of the live television broadcast of the presidential inauguration ceremony at noon EST on January 20th, 2009 automatically became the President of the United States; ergo, famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma was the leader of the free world from Tuesday to Wednesday (before Obama retook his presidential oath).

However...it turns out that even that airtight logic is only half true, at best.

At noon EST on the aforementioned date, when the world was seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform John Williams' "Air and Simple Gifts" as part of a quartet, they weren't actually hearing it; rather, they were hearing a pre-recorded version of the song.

This nationally-televised deception begs the question: Who the hell was president between January 20th and January 21st?

The only conclusion is that there were two co-presidents during that time--a Chinese artist born in France and a stereo system assembled in the United States.

(Boy, did we Americans miss a window to get away with some major felonies.)

Hardcore Hope

Way to employ self-awareness in your choice of words, Detroit local news "Love Doctor".