What's Sense Got to Do With It?

The mayor of St. Louis has decided not to honor a request to make September 2nd Ike Turner Day in the city.

Ok, so far, so good. It's good not to give a day to a guy who has a history of smacking women around. But then the mayor really fucked up. According to the Associated Press:
"The mayor suggested, through a spokesman, that Ike Turner could visit a St. Louis center that provides services to domestic violence victims to call attention to the issue."

Holy push down a flight of stairs, that is a BAD idea. Can you imagine being an abused woman, frightened, alone; you think you've found your safe haven when suddenly IKE TURNER BURSTS THROUGH THE DOOR!! You'd shit your institutional gown.

Hey, mayor of St. Louis, why don't you invite Mike Tyson to visit a Rape Crisis Center? Ask David Duke to tour the local NAACP headquarters. Too bad Michael Vick isn't allowed to travel; I'm sure the St. Louis Humane Society would love some autographs and game jerseys.

And as far as the domestic violence center goes, why stop with Ike Turner? Aren't OJ Simpson and Robert Blake more obvious choices? Sure, Ike smacked the stage wigs off of Tina Turner back in the day, but she's still alive. Wouldn't a remorseless killer bring much more "atttention" to the issue of domestic abuse? Dammit, Mr. Mayor, why not go all out?

Action Photo

The other day my friend Dean took this picture of me outside of a Kwik-E-Mart in Louisville. The photo isn't centered well, but Dean's not Ansel Adams or anything, so give him a fucking break. Those of you who live in Louisville will recognize this Kwik-E-Mart as the one a few blocks away from the old Sears building.

I was heading inside to pick up a pomegranate Squishee and a twelve pack of Duff Select for later.

Oh, and I saw the Simpsons movie this weekend.

Barry, Aaron and the Babe

These pictures of Barry Bonds before and after his stunning transformation from skinny young man to steroids-ingesting big headed freak paint quite the picture. Barry is getting ready to break the all-time Home Run record currently held by Hank Aaron, a man who not only never cheated, but never acted like a petulant asshole.

Cheating fuckhead Bonds aside, I'm glad Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record and held it for over three decades. By all accounts he's a good man. But I have to give Babe Ruth some props. He hit 714 home runs while being fat and drunk. Last Saturday I was fat and drunk and could barely walk up a flight of stairs. While Barry Bonds has used steroids, a performance enhancing drug, Babe Ruth consumed beer, a performance inhibiting drug. Believe me, until "pissing a lot" becomes a sport, beer will always be performance inhibiting.

The Babe would drink beer and eat up to a dozen hot dogs DURING the game. Then he'd go out and fuck hookers three at a time. He once played an entire season while suffering from syphilis. He had the fucking syph and he manned up and played anyway. That's why he was such a lousy manager:

Player: "I can't play today, coach. I'm sick."

Babe Ruth: "Well, if it ain't worse than syphilis, get your narrow ass on that field. But get me a beer first, pussy."

Even in death, Babe Ruth was powerful. Ask the Boston Red Sox. The Babe put a curse on them and they didn't win shit from 1918 until 2004. I'm convinced the only reason they ever won was because the ghost of a hot female Red Sox fan, who perhaps died young while trying to say "Chowder", agreed to give Mr. Ruth an afterlife's worth of blowjobs if he lifted the curse.

Babe Ruth: "Ok, hummers for all eternity if I lift the curse. It's done."

Hot Young Dead Red Sox Fan: "I'll throw in anal if you let them come back from a three games to none deficit against the Yankees in the Championship Series."

So despite Barry Bonds and his churlish behavior and willingness to take drugs that killed Seattle Slew, the legends of the men directly behind him in the record books will not be diminished.

Hank Aaron will always be remembered as a class act on and off the field.

And Babe Ruth will always be remembered as an overweight drunken whoremonger who right now is getting his cock sucked by an angel wearing a Curt Schilling jersey.

It isn't even funny anymore

Yep, Lindsay Lohan was arrested again Tuesday morning, for drunken driving and cocaine possession. Less than two weeks removed from another failed stint in rehab, she's in big trouble.

In the past I've had a lot of fun at Lohan's expense. I coined the term stumblecunt to describe her inability to walk a straight line. I wondered aloud why she was allowed to get publicity intoxicated in posh clubs at the age of nineteen. I noted her physical transformation from Mean Girls hottie to walking skeleton. Well, the jokes stop here. This chick is seriously fucked up.

Someone, anyone, needs to stop treating this girl like a movie star and start treating her like an average twenty-one-year-old addict. If not, she'll be dead within the year. The people who allegedly love her need to stop using her as a meal ticket or they'll be picking out her fucking casket. She needs MANDATORY rehab, in a tough place filled with non-celebrity addicts. I hope there's a judge in Los Angeles who isn't a starfucker and will sentence her accordingly.

I wish the best for Lindsay Lohan. I hope she kicks her addictions so I can go back to making fun of her appalling lack of talent.

Look, they're trying to polish a turd

The people who ruin communities decided to open an "upscale" Wal-Mart in the eastern suburbs of Louisville. It was such a big deal they forced members of the Eastern High School marching band to briefly abandon their summer vacations and fail to feign enthusiasm. By the way, yesterday morning it was already in the mid eighties with SUFFOCATING humidity, so the girl in the gray hoodie is obviously a reptile.

What makes this place "upscale"? Well, it's located miles away from any poor people, and there's a fountain near the entrance. That's it. Inside there are still bins full of $5 DVDs and clothes made by children who are burned by cigarettes if they miss a stitch.

Come on, it's Wal-Mart. Any upscale touches are bound to be ham-fistedly ersatz. With that in mind, I have some suggestions on how to further "class up" this latest Wal-Mart:

-Have the greeter address everyone in a phony British accent. Nothing says "We're half-heartedly trying to be highfalutin" than a British accent with a slight Southern drawl.

-Osso Buco on a stick sold in the concession area.

-Free admission to an art museum for every $100 spent on NASCAR merchandise (For balance).

-Free birth control for all single women under twenty years of age who already have two or more children. Why? Because nothing says "downscale" more than a gaggle of dirty little bastards.

I won't be giving any more suggestions until I receive my first consultant's check.

I'll Answer Questions. I'll Ask Questions

Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If you don't have a valid email address on your blog, please provide one.
You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I've been interviewed by my friend Erin.


1. Choose or Die: lose your hearing or lose your sight? Explain your choice.

Well, they would both suck; but I would choose to lose my hearing. With sight, I could still drive and ogle the pretty girls.

2. Which do you consider the greater moral transgression: stealing cable or taking more than 3 pennies from the "take a penny, leave a penny" tray?

I consider cable theft a basic right of all Americans. I especially hate Insight Cable and their attempts to portray themselves as a local mom-and-pop company. This isn't a choice of buying fresh baked goods from a local artisan or purchasing once-frozen cakes from a grocery chain. Insight is as much of a money-grubbing monopoly as Time-Warner Cable, only with technology that will always be a few years behind. Truly the worst of both worlds. Steal away, Louisville!

3. You wake up in the morning and discover you've been turned into a Scottish Hairy Cow. ( http://www.pbase.com/image/942030.jpg ) What do you do first?

I pretty much look like that now, so it would be business as usual, baby.

4. What's your dream profession? Are you working towards it or is it just a fantasy?

My dream profession would be successful novelist. Fiction, of course, because research is for suckers. Of course, I'm doing absolutely nothing to make this a reality.

5. If you were going to be on This American Life, what would be the theme of the show?

Sadly, I'm afraid the theme would people "Folks Who Have Wasted Their Lives But Really Aren't So Bad Once You've Gotten to Know Them". Or maybe "Dorky White Guys Who Are Still Perplexed by the Band Belly's Lack of Commercial Success". Either way, I predict low ratings.

There you have it.

"She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit."

This last weekend I saw folk-punk (or insert your own favorite descriptive musical sub-genre here) veterans Violent Femmes at the downtown Louisville entertainment complex Fourth Street LIVE! Really, I have to write it like that - Fourth Street LIVE! - or the local Chamber of Commerce will kidnap me, erase my memory, and make me live in a godforsaken Kentucky town that doesn't allow alcohol sales.

I had seen Violent Femmes several times in the late 80s/early 90s, but the concert was free, the weather was tolerable, and the Happy Hour drinks were cheap.

After seeing the opening act, I made a career decision. I'm going to form a band that only opens for hugely popular groups, and call my band Get the Fuck Off the Stage. That way, as we perform our unknown songs it'll seem like the audience is chanting our name.

Drunk audience member: "GET THE FUCK OFF THE STAGE!"

Me: "Thank you. We'll be in Cleveland Thursday, opening for U2."

I'm also going to start spinning records under the name DJ Play Something We Can Dance To.

I can happily report that the Violent Femmes played with as much passion as they did fifteen years ago. The sound system was pretty weak from the upper level of Fourth Street LIVE!, but at least I was surrounded by drunken idiots.

Being a head taller than everyone in a crowd is good for seeing over people who aren't really interested in the music, but it also encourages said people to engage me in inanities.

For example, an attractive drunk girl mumbled at me for a few seconds and then stumbled off. This brief exchange set in motion what I've dubbed "The Douchebag Chronicles". Two guys standing next to me, about my age but MORE SO, if you know what I mean, witnessed my two second conversation with the hotness and decided to chime in.

douchebag 1: "Guy, you dropped the ball. If she asks a question, you answer with a question of your own. Then she has to talk to you."

douchebag 2: "You need to work on your game."

Keep in mind these guys are disarmingly good natured, but getting social advice from men who tuck in their t-shirts is just more than I can take. Their witless banter may work on cocktail servers angling for a nice tip, and the girls from the escort service undoubtedly laugh at their golfing jokes, but I don't think the real world is as kind to them.

The guy who did the most talking, the alpha douche if you will, was balding, so I said to my friend "I guess he would have put baby oil on his head and rubbed it all over her body." The guy didn't hear me, or pick up on the fact that I was mocking his used-car-salesman-cadence, and that's just as well. Eventually a shiny object diverted their attention and they walked away.

Oh, but the moronathon was just getting started, folks. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see a young guy with a Fidel Castro beard.

"You're really tall," he said in a tone that suggested he was amazed at the originality of his statement.

I muttered "Yeah, I am. Good call."

Here is a man whose prison is his own stupidity and he's never eligible for parole. I should have told him his face looked like a cunt with teeth, but I just let it go. I did say a silent prayer asking God to infest his beard with deer ticks, but I kept my mouth shut.

The indignities I suffer for the sake of rock and roll....

REDEMPTION?

I was watching Return of the Jedi on HBO the other day, and besides reminding me that I really hate Ewoks, it got me thinking about redemption. My conclusion: I have a problem with redemption, it seems.

I'm not really a Star Wars fanatic, in the sense that the other day marked only the third time I've seen Return of the Jedi since its original 1983 release. Seeing it again, through the eyes of a jaded, cynical old man, pissed me off a bit.

For those of you unaware, in the end Darth Vader rejects the Dark Side of the force by killing the Emperor and saving his son, Luke Skywalker. Vader is mortally wounded in the process, but for this final deed is allowed to live forever as a Jedi ghost or whatever the fuck they call it. In other words, he gets to hang with Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi for all eternity.

I CALL BULLSHIT! What about the twenty-odd years of atrocities committed by Darth Vader? He killed all of the children in the Jedi temple, he used The Force to strangle anyone who looked at him funny, and he presided over a galactic reign of terror! And he gets to pal around with the ghostly visage of Yoda? If Luke had been anyone but his son, Vader would have let the emperor kill him and that would have been it. He hardly deserves Force Trinity status with Yoda and Obi Wan.

And wouldn't hanging with Obi Wan provide an eternity's worth of awkward moments?

Kenobi: "Hey, Anakin, is that the same light saber you used to slaughter those small children in the Jedi temple; the very ones who trusted you and looked to you for spiritual guidance?"

Vader: "Yes. Yes it is. Hey, is that the light saber you used to cut off both my legs and an arm when you left me to be horribly burned all over what was left of my body?"

Kenobi: "The one and same. Boy, did I catch a lot of shit when you killed those kids. Everyone was all 'Hey, great Jedi master, your star pupil killed my nephew. Nice teaching there, Anne Sullivan.' I mean, it was non stop."

Vader: "Yeah, my bad."

And I noticed in the latest version of Return of the Jedi that George Lucas has digitally added the image of young actor Hayden Christiansen as a representation of Vader's ghost, while Obi Wan's ghost is still represented by the geriatric thespian Sir Alec Guinness.

Wait a cotton-cuntin' moment here! Vader, who betrayed everyone he knew and all he once stood for, who killed more people than Hitler, gets to prance around the afterlife as a handsome young man? At the same time, Obi Wan, who NEVER ONCE wavered in his faith, who spent twenty god damn years in exile on a miserable sand planet, has to be a frail senior citizen until the end of days? Oh, that's fair.

I know this is just a movie, but it represents something I have a problem with in real life: The last minute, or "deathbed" conversion. People like the idea that they can be miserable pricks all their lives and suddenly "see the light" right before they kick the bucket. It's a little too convenient if you ask me. True redemption should be a long, tedious road fraught with self-doubt and personal sacrifice.

Or you could just give me a large sum of money, and all is forgiven.

This weekend was a real shit sandwich. I had two delicious pieces of hearth-baked artisan bread, but in the middle was a giant turd. Allow me to explain.

Friday night I had a delicious Mexican dinner with friends, then we went to see my best friend's band, Boomorangutan, play a show at Louisville's premier rock showcase and sleazy meat market, the Phoenix Hill Tavern. A good time was had by all.

If we had stayed longer we could have gone downstairs to the main bar and watched a shitty cover band desecrate songs I didn't like in the first place, but we made an early midnightish exit. Sure, there would have been sketchy chicks with circa 1987 Jersey mall hair, but sleep beckoned.

Saturday night was my weekend's steaming pile of dung. It was inventory night at work, which meant I was counting things from 11pm til 6am. That, my friends, is hell on earth. There's a reason insomniacs count to try to fall asleep.

(Also, note to self: NEVER eat White Castles when sober. Even if you're hungry, and there's nothing else open, if there isn't alcohol to counteract the notorious belly bombers just go to bed hungry. It's not like you'll starve to death, fat boy.)

On Sunday it was back to the good stuff. I had a beer lunch at Cumberland Brews, then went to see Louisville's own Derby City Roller Girls take on the Burning River Rollergirls, who are from Cleveland, bless their hearts.

The match took place at the dilapidated Treo Roller Rink. Don't let the annoying, amateurish website fool you: The place is a piece of crap. I used to go to skating parties there when I was in Middle School, and not only has their been no remodel of the place since then, I seriously doubt the bathrooms have been cleaned.

But I had a GREAT TIME. There are roller derby leagues in most big and medium sized cities. I urge everyone to find the closest one and enjoy some crazy fucking action. These ladies were knocking each other around. It was a cat fight on wheels!

There was a fistfight that was one more punch away from escalating into a soccer riot, scantily clad belly dancers for halftime entertainment, and stale nachos sold by surly teenage concession workers. What more could you ask for?

Well, working air conditioning would have been a nice bonus. One of the girls had a heat stroke, so I'm sure that issue will be addressed.

The customer is always an asshole

Holy fist fuck, have we had a run of assholeish customers at work lately. I think it's the humidity that's doing it. Swamp-ass just makes folks cranky. A few examples:

-People just don't get the "No ID, No Booze" concept. "Damn, I'm twenty-six," this moron said the other day when asked for his driver's license.

Oh, twenty-six? Sorry for the inconvenience, old timer. Don't break a hip taking that wallet out of your back pocket, gramps. JUST SHOW YOUR FUCKING IDENTIFICATION AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

-Our company has a strict policy: Everyone in your party must be over twenty-one with a valid ID. If four out of five have ID, sorry....NO SALE. God we get a lot of shit over this one. I actually told one guy last week "It's a company policy. Do people show up at your job and yell at you for doing what your bosses tell you to do?" That didn't stop him from bitching, but it needed to be said.

-If you're too drunk to walk or talk like a non-palsyed member of polite society, we can't sell to you. One vodka-sotted redneck had his purchase denied because he was slurring his words like Keith Richards on horse tranquilizers, so he announced on the way out "FUCK THIS STORE AND EVERYONE IN IT!" That's some diva-like behavior coming from a guy wearing a fishing hat and a ketchup-stained t-shirt that advertises smokeless tobacco. Then Mr. Badass knocked one of our shopping carts over as he stumbled through the parking lot. We should have called the police. The Hurstbourne Acres police have been good to our store, and they have a lot of time on their hands. I'm sure they'd love nothing more than to drag a toasted scofflaw around by his nutsack until he confessed to the Jonbenet Ramsey murder.

-Speaking of ID, I'd like to ban for life anyone who shows identification that doesn't have a date of birth on it. Sorry, but an Official Titty Inspector card purchased at Spencer Gifts isn't going to get it done, Chachi. The other day a guy gave me a card written in a language only three people on earth actually read. I kept looking for numbers; even Roman numerals, anything. Yeah, I thought it was weird his last name was E%ZZBN@!*Q, but all I needed was a DOB, baby. As he walked away liquorless, we all discovered he can pronounce the word "Shit" quite fluently.

-The customer who most deserved a 1.75 Litre bottle of Grey Goose shoved sideways up his pooper was this rich guy who argued over twenty cents. I'll spare you the details, but he was not only arguing over four-fifths of two bits, he was doing so from a position of complete ignorance.

And arrogance. He was such a smug, self-important little man. Most indignant customers ask for the number of our corporate office. This douche thought he was the Pope of Liquor Town. He handed his business card to our store manager and demanded to receive a call from the owner. Yeah, that'll happen.

I'm sure this guy is a really big deal in his own corner of the world, but to me he's just another alcoholic buying liquor in the middle of the day. I hope his liver falls out the next time he takes a shit.

Dumb Conversations I've Had, Part 2

This time I'm going way back to my college days. Keep in mind this young lady was very intelligent, or so I thought.

young lady: "I'd like to live to be 100, if only to have Willard Scott show my picture on The Today Show."

me: "So Willard Scott's never going to die, huh? The one person granted immortality, and it's a wacky weatherman."

young lady: "What are you talking about?"

me: "When you're 100 Willard Scott will be about 140."

young lady: "Well, his successor then. Jeez..."

Stalking? I don't get it.

Is this the guy from the indie record store who talked you into that Death Cab for Cutie CD you've only listened to once? No, it's Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington.

A twenty-eight-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to stalking Chester. The enterprising nutcase used government computers to monitor the singer's emails and went so far as to call his wife, a former Playboy model, and threaten her.

Now if she wanted to call his wife and shout "YOU CAN DO BETTER!" I could understand that. But stalking someone? Way to go, Robert John Bardo with tits.

Was he singing only to you, crazy lady? Does his pedestrian music somehow speak to your lonely condition? Did you think his response would be "You hacked into my email account and told my wife you'd use her skull as a candy dish? Let's fuck!"

I knew two female co-workers who were stalked when I briefly worked at a Pier One in Las Vegas. I guess they had it coming, since they were friendly to delusional losers.

In short, if you ever have the urge to stalk someone, famous or not, please join the Taliban and spend your remaining years in a cave. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Trivia note: This is the first time someone named Chester has been stalked.