in re:

tv attempts to prove me wrong. proves me unpredictably, unequivocally right.

the entertainment media idustry is turning out to be the new carl's jr. if they make it any easier for me to rip into them on a regular basis, i'll have to start appreciating them, not for the good times they gave me, but for the good times i had at their expense. fucking with the entertainment industry is like slow-pitch softball; it doesn't get much easier than this, unless you add beer.

so what have they done now?

well, you all know by now about fat bachelor, aka more to love. FOX's new show about "real" people finding "love", that i posted about in fat bachelor revolutionizes tv... (6-21-09). i wasn't so sure this was an honest move toward more realistic tv, being as how the man in charge of fat bachelor's "reality" was also in charge of such shows as are you hot:the search for america's sexiest people, a show in which lorenzo lamas highlighted gorgeous, scantily clad women with a laser pointer and, in front of a large crowd, pontificated in some length, all the ways in which he found her unattractive (i'd like to do this to lamas, just so he knows how it feels, but geez, he's only got the one flaw, and rest assured, it doesn't rhyme with "pony tail"). in case you, like me, were thinking this was merely a fad that panders to the plus sized crowd, the Oxygen Network has an answer for you...

yes. yes it is.

what? you were expecting a different answer?

yes, from the network that brings you such "reality" as bad girls' club, in which a group of porn star caliber women with psychological disorders (not a joke) are forced to live in a house together, where they inevitably engage in activity like spitting on each other, and punching one another in the face, comes the latest in "fat people have disposable income, too" programming, dance your ass off, which i will be calling, you're so fat, you can dance. you're so fat is a show targeting the plus-size population, that involves dancing, over-enthusiastic judges, beautiful dancers, badly covered pop songs, weight loss, elimination style competition, communal-house style reality tv, and tv's favorite new commodity: fat people. but, unlike shows like biggest loser and celebrity fit club, the point of this show isn't particularly to take a group of people who want to lose weight, and educate and train them toward the reward of a new lease on life. no no, this show is all about giving us a chance to watch plus-sizers as they, "shake and rattle their rolls", as Oxygen puts it.

just give me a sec, here...

just masturbating to the projected ratings returns... Oh! Oxygen.

the beauty of this show... for me anyway... is that either it completely bombs, thus renewing a little bit of my faith in the general populace, and taking a step toward rejecting the target commodification of yet another group of hapless viewers, and i get to enjoy knowing that something as stupid as Oxygen has taken a hit to the body (i know, i know, it'll never fall), or it becomes a success, renewing my lack of hope for the general populace, and becoming one more stepping stone on the journey toward our culture eating itself in an orgy of uncultured, ignorant, orgasmic, consumer hedonism.

now, i'm neither fat, nor a star, but if the latter outcome occurs, you know, i think i could dance...

ohmyGOD! france built an air powered car! ohmyGOD! it only costs $4,000! ohmyGOD! it looks like a rocket powered lima bean! ohmyGOD!ohmyGODohmyGOD!

my parents tell me that when i was a baby, i couldn't wait to crawl, and once i figured that out, all i wanted to do was escape from things and go exploring. at the tender age of two, i apparently decided that i knew how to rock climb, and tested that theory out on the hallway cabinets. apparently, i did know how to climb. what i didn't know was how to tie myself into a harness, safely belay said harness, or rappel down a sheer face. it was at this point i exercised my only option, and jumped from the top of the cabinets, busting open my head on a broken door handle on the way down.

the lesson here is, at first, exploring new things may seem like an amazing, unparalleled adventure to some, while to others, it may seem like a painful step backward, often to the hospital for stitches.

now, maybe it's the multiple head injuries i've sustained, but i'm the type of guy who loves a good trip to the hospital, if it means i'm having an adventure (and what trip to the emergency room isn't an adventure?). i think it's because of just that. going to the hospital is an adventure, and adventure, no matter how painful it may be, and how bad failure can hurt, means that there is progress being made, new frontiers explored, i am living long and prospering, and all that... that said, i'd like to talk to you about our reluctance as a species to embrace new things, simply because they might require that we, momentarily, step back from the degree of luxury, or awesomeness that we have already become accustomed. and i'd like to start with another bit of nostalgia from my youth...

you know, i have this old air compressor in my garage. it's been down there since my grandpa bought it, like 75 years ago. it's never really needed any kind of tune up, or repair, though it has been in use consistently since it was purchased, and it's performance has never waned, or faded.

so, as you might imagine, when i heard that france has created a car that runs on compressed air, my reaction was something like this:

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? YOU CAN MAKE A CAR THAT RUNS ON COMPRESSED FUCKING AIR?!!! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT WE COULD HAVE BEEN BEING DRIVING AROUND IN AIR POWERED CARS SINCE THE BEGINNING?! WE COULD HAVE BEEN BEING DOING THIS SINCE THE INVENTION OF MECHANICALLY COMPRESSED GAS?!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW AWESOME AIR CARS WOULD BE BY NOW?!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TROUBLE THIS WOULD HAVE SAVED THE WORLD?????!!!! GET THE FUCK RIGHT THE FUCK OUT OF FUCKING TOWN!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK WERE WE THINKING?!!! MY GOD, MAN!!!!!! AIR POWERED GODDAMNED CARS!!!!!

yeah, if i recall correctly, it went sumthin' like that. hard to say exactly, since i blacked out at one point, and woke up in my garage attempting to strangle my air compressor, and cursing the french for myriad reasons.

now, before we all go nuts here, allow me to point out the downfalls of the new technology, the ways in which we would need to step back a bit in order to embrace this thing. firstly, oil, hydrogen, biodiesel, hybrid, water and all that other cool stuff that we can run cars on, and some big company gets to charge you for, go belly up (not really a downfall, unless you have a big stake in the auto sector of those industries, and don't think you can get a job somewhere else in the industry). secondly, the company, MDI, can only promise (for the first model in production) just under 10hp, for a top speed of 50mph. third, it has a range of about 90 miles per fill up. fourth, and finally, the car is godawful hideous. it looks like a wad of flubber with big adorable kitten eyes.

now the upside: it's a freakin' car that runs on freakin' air for 4 freakin' grand!!!!

that aside. it can also be "refueled" in a matter of a couple of minutes, for the cost of 1 cent per mile. it's also a freakin' car that runs on freakin' air! i think we really do need to step back a second here, and make sure that we encourage the support and development of this new technology. i don't care how fast it goes, or how far it goes, or how ugly it is. we need to keep in mind that this is a prototype, of a first model. the fact that this exists at all is flubbergasting (get it? because it looks like flubber. i crack myself up). if we allow some time, this technology will push forward, no doubt at an amazing rate. i have no doubt that, given the right amount of enthusiasm for this project, our grandchildren would never have to have personal experience with what a really dumb idea the petroleum powered internal combustion engine was. but we need to give this thing time, and effort.

let's face it, we didn't start making internal combustion engines that went 150mph for 350 miles per tank right away. it took time. it took work. and if you are one of those stitches are a bad thing, the glass is half empty, don't fuck with my energy futures stock portfolio, the devil you know... type of people, all i ask is that you not stand in the way of the people who are willing to make a go at this. i also ask that you have a little patience...

remember, you have to learn to crawl... before you can rock climb with no spotter, crash pad, helmet, or safety harness.

in re:

hollywood doesn't care what i think. goes back to trailer, does blow with naked boys until the hurting stops

i'll start by saying, the revelations to come are mostly old news. however, they are not yet in the can (as in hollywood speak for "finished and ready for release". i'm sure, shortly after, they will be in the trash can) so really, while this is an in re: post, it deals with things that occurred before my related post, but will not affect the related post until the future, so i am reacting to them preemptively in retrospect. get it? if you do, i've got a job for you, it involves explaining episodes of SVU to people who can't see time in a nonlinear fashion, therefore allowing them to break down the space time continuum and understand everything in the universe, like dr manhattan (that show is so fucking convoluted, that only an atomic superhuman über-genius could follow it, is what i'm saying).

so let me start by saying to michael bay (long time reader, don'tcha know?), hey little buddy, remember how last night i said some things about how you're a no talent, lowest common denominator hack, and corporate whore for money, whose latest attempt at a "movie" made me wish a sudden and painful death on everyone in hollywood? you know, maybe i was too harsh. i feel like we should... hold on... just perusing the news... interesting, there's something about you in here: michael bay set to produce new ouija board(tm) based movie for hasboro? going for a pirates of the caribbean style romp?

WHORE! YOU'RE A DIRTY, FILTHY, HOLLYWOOD WHORE FOR MONEY! YOU'RE A WORTHLESS WHORE WHO LIKES IT ROUGH... sorry, i went into autopilot there, for a second. i don't actually know that michael bay likes it rough (yes, i do. see title of post...).

but my feelings for michael bay are laid out in full in last night's post, so let's talk about pirates of the caribbean style romps, shall we?

BOOM! BANGCLANK! UNDULATINGTEENAGEFLESH! BANGBOOM! SEGUE! (that was so mr bay understands what is happening now)

catching up with pirates director, gore verbinski should help us get up to speed with hollywood's new style of prostitution (not quite the kind exhibited in steven soderbergh's new handy-cam [apparently] non-sequel of his own sex, lies, and videotape in which a porn star plays a prostitute, who dates a manwhore who plays a manwhore). no, no. hollywood has wrangled toy and board game conglomerate, hasbro, a deal for not just another transformers (#3, which promises to be a bigger #2 than #2), but also a GI Joe movie (which seems like it makes sense, since it, too, was a cartoon. but that cartoon, just like transformers, was based on selling a line of toys, not the other way around) but also movies based on its board game franchises, namely ouija (which is already a key player in many, many scary movies to date, including 2 called ouija board, 1 called the ouija board, 3 called ouija, one called ouija bored, a ouija did it!, a tell us, ouija, an a litle ouija work, and my favorite, ouija sexorcism. bone! these are all in addition to the upcoming bay project), candyland directed by kevin lima of enchanted fame (way to step outside your box, lima), monopoly by ridley scott who says he would like to give it a futuristic blade runner feel (makes sense), and, probably not finally, but finally for now, mr caribbean himself, gore verbinski's remake of clue.

upon news of this last one, you may be thinking, "sweet!" the original clue was a cult classic (though a boxoffice toilet clogger), and gore verbinski did pirates, and he has experience with board game movies. he did do the film adaptation of mouse trap, called mouse hunt even though it totally bombed and actually kind of sucked... what's that? that wasn't an adaptation of mouse trap? oh. well let's see, then. what else has verbinksi done? let's see, here. he did the weatherman with nick... moving on. what else? he did the ring, the american remake of the solid japanese cult classic ringu. of course he did sort of crap it up. ring is just the polished turd that verbinski pooped out after hollywood digested the original material. but at least it seems hollywood trusts him with preexisting, beloved material. afterall, they did give him all three pirates (theme park ride), the ring (preexisting japanese movie), and coming up: bioshock (video game), the host (preexisting korean bad fuckin' ass as hell monster movie. don't waste your time with this verbinski hack shit. just netflix the original, which is only a couple years old, don't worry), a segment in heavy metal (preexisting american movie. cosmo kramer, has verbinski made a single good movie that wasn't preexisting material?), and of course clue, which comes so close to my original benchmark for hollywood finally eating itself, it's scary.

my original sign that hollywood whorism has finally eaten itself (out?) was for someone to make a film adaptation of shrek! the musical, which is, of course an adaptation of a conglomeration of the shrek! movie franchise, which is, in itself, an adaptation (with liberties) of shrek! the children's book.

the diabolical beauty of my benchmark is that most big budget/big name movies are accompanied by the release of a "movie book". you know the kind. those books that turn the movie into a short written story, often using material not included in the movie, and broken up by 10 pages of glossy screen shots halfway through. at which point, hollywood would have actually made a book loosely based on a movie loosely based on a live theatrical production loosely based on a movie trilogy loosely based on a book.

however, verbinski's harbinger of hollywood finally eating itself is more whorish, if less circular, and perhaps more diabolical in its potential, in that it is a film remake of a film based on a board game which is based on a board game (brittish, cluedo) which has already been made into both books, video games, and a tv game show. this leaves only one step to the complete self-consumption of hollywood. that step is for someone to make a trilogy out of the new clue based on a combination of the hasbro spinoff board game alfred hitchcock edition clue and disney's clue-twilight zone:tower of terror. at this point it would be a remake non-disney trilogy reimagining based on a disney theme park ride based on an amazing non-disney tv show based on a special edition (based on complete lack of respect for one of hollywood's masters of suspense) of a board game based on a board game. BONE!

and if you understood that, i've got another job for you... i think you're just the person to direct this movie.

the circus pirates the new transformers. my punishment? watching the new transformers.

first may i say, i have some good friends in the hollywood area, and i don't wish them any harm, nor do i want them to lose their jobs. that said...

the steaming pile of atomic baboon shit michael bay just crapped all over my eyes makes me wish maniacal alien robots would fall from space and destroy hollywood and everyone in it.

sure, i saw the version with the russian subtitles, and i watched it on my laptop, but magnum P I, it was like watching a paris hilton sex tape under a working garbage truck while michael bay blasts the new linkin park (soon to be called the michael bay house band) cd and masturbates to his own demo reel.

one reviewer put it quite aptly, "you don't watch this movie, it attacks you...a new level of sensory self-flagellation".

indeed.

right out of the gate, i hope from the very bowels of hell to the rafters of heaven that bay is at least having sex with megan fox, because if he isn't there is no conceivable reason to keep putting her in his movies (hey, robert rodriguez, i don't care that you are fucking her, stop putting rose mcGowan in things, unless those things have stainless steel blades and three speeds). and if he is having sex with her, i hope, for his sake, that her acting is a little bit better between the sheets, then it is in front of the camera. look, i get it. megan fox is hot, but lots of women are hot, and some of them can deliver a line, i'd imagine. i would describe the use of fox in anything i have to look at, the same way adam corolla described the XFL, "it's like scrambled porn. sure, it's porn, but there's gotta be something else on tv".

paying hollywood wages for tv pretty, untalented women to look good in wet clothes, lick their lips, and try real hard to pretend to know how to read, makes about as much sense as hiring a stripper to come to your house and prune your hedges. yeah, she looks good doing it, but the rhododendrons look like shit.

i guess what i'm saying is, if megan fox isn't a prostitute, then what exactly is michael bay paying her to do? and if she is a prostitute, then why isn't she naked in this film?

meanwhile, back at dreamworks...

transformers: inflation of the ego producer, steven spielberg, seems unfazed by the fact that bay's leading lady/whore for money plays a character with the same name (and same fucked up spelling of said name) as his daughter. what is bay trying to say about little mikaela spielberg that apparently steven agrees with? perhaps a more important question, what kind of dream is stevie working on? does he want to visualize his daughter greased up, in torn denim booty shorts, straddling a motorcycle? and if not, shouldn't he have addressed this issue in a development meeting?

but his daughter's ass is not the only place steven is seeing dollar signs. shia labeouf has become steven spielberg's new wonderboy, which is great for labeouf's career, but terrible for his dignity. a good question here is, what happened to the all mighty mr spielberg? unfortunately, the answer is: who gives a shit?

moving on.

well...maybe not yet. look, steve-o, lets face it, you were handed some amazing movies on a silver platter, and you did great things with them (and we're all real impressed that you barely got accepted to a state school, and then dropped out...but hey, who hasn't done that? am i right people? i'll be expecting my oscars shortly, hollywood.). hey man, growing up, i thought you were a god. you made some of my favorites, and i was always eager to see what you'd do next. so who could blame shia labeouf for hitching his career to your star? he's only 4 years my junior. he grew up with the same classics that i did. but he also got into show biz at a tender young age, and hollywood is a strange sheltered microcosm. no one in hollywood would ever speak ill of its favored sons and daughters. so maybe shia doesn't care that spielberg's spark is fizzling, or maybe it's that he just doesn't know because no one would ever admit that spielberg has, himself, become a whore for money. but that's the hollywood machine, if you don't need attention, it's best to not be a part of it, and eventually, in any successful career, money and attention get all muddled up until there's no clear line between the two, nor one between dignity and praise (thank you hollywood for ang lee's 2 hour deodorant commercial that was hulk, and jean jeunet's alien: resurrection to name just two notable prostitution's of talent).

but what can i expect any more? hollywood keeps churning out wretched, recycled, hackneyed, multimillion dollar tripe, and people keep paying to eat it.

but you know, maybe amid the sets lined with old michael bay movie posters, and an unusual amount of mountain dew vending machines, maybe somewhere amongst the IV league whorehouse trance parties and creepy emotional robots with unnecessarily malleable lips, there's a greater meaning to this movie. perhaps when michael bay forces us to look between megan fox's legs (well, maybe forces is too strong a word), he is really telling us to read between the lines.

maybe the transformers are a metaphor for the magic of the hollywood process...

he's not saying, look it's a hummer... BANGBANGCLANKCLANGBANG TITS BANG TITS CLANKCLANGBANG CONFUSINGSHINYTHINGS BANGBANG SWEATYCROTCHSHOT BANGBOOM EXPLOSION SLOWMOTIONBOUNCINGNIPPLESHOT BANG!!!!!!

...now it's a robot, completely unrecognizable from its original form.

he's saying, look, it's a creative thought... BANGBANGCLANKCLANGBANG TITS BANG TITS CLANKCLANGBANG CONFUSINGSHINYTHINGS BANGBANG SWEATYCROTCHSHOT BANGBOOM EXPLOSION SLOWMOTIONBOUNCINGNIPPLESHOT BANG!!!!!!

...now it's a movie, completely unrecognizable from its original form. automatons, roll out!!

oh, who am i kidding? there was no original thought put into this, or most other big bang hollywood movies. transformers is a movie based on a toy franchise for pete rose. BANGBOOM TITS! buy our stuff! VROOMVROOM NUBILEBUTTCHEEKS BANGZOOM! do the dew!

but you know, they say the test of a good movie is how the movie, and the larger cultural context in which it is made, speak to each other. so, putting aside the overt disrespect to the obama administration, and the overall tone of, "let's go shoot some bad guys and other shit that lives in the arab desert", maybe bay is saying that, in a world gone mad, it seems we've given all the power to General Motors, and a handful of empty headed women whose vaginas look good covered in axle grease. you know it makes sense...

fat bachelor revolutionizes reality tv by putting insecure overweight people in front of the camera for a change

a professor once told me, "you only read a good book once. after that, it reads you."

later, i was asked to give a statement as a character witness, when that professor was accused of making offensive remarks in front of his class.

such was the education of dave...

but keeping that statement in mind, fox president of alternative programing, mike darnell, seems concerned that there is no good tv on these days (no! you think?), and he wants us to know he's on our side. darnell, who created fox's new reality show, more to love, which i will insensitively be referring to as the fat bachelor because, well, because that's exactly what it is, had this to say about his new project:

“Why don’t real women -- the women who watch these shows, for the most part -- have a chance to find love, too?”

you hear that, fat white women? don't go moping around the house all alone, stuffing bon bons down your face, wearing a hole in the ass of your muumuu, and yelling, "go girl!" at the screen during the suze orman show. mike darnell says, you too can pretend to find love in order to pursue cash prizes.

why did i specify fat white women, when darnell specifically said, "real women"? because the preview for this show offers a look at the dais of contestants, and they are all fat white women.

so, really what mike darnell wants you to know is, if you've been watching reality tv, he thinks you are a fat, blubbering (no pun intended), white person, who is unsuccessful at love, and could use some fast cash. your chance has arrived!

here comes fat bachelor, a show that sells itself as following, "a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart as he romances several confident and secure plus-size women" in one breath, and a chance for, "real women...to find love" in the next.

i'm lost. is this a show for "real people", or just cashing in on america's expanding waist line, by pandering to fat people? don't feel like i hate "plus-sized" people, people. i just want to know, isn't there a difference between being "real" and being fat? i suspect there is, and i suspect fox knows this. i suspect this because they are also lying about the women being "confident and secure". in the preview for fat bachelor, many of the female contestants are crying and whining about how they just wish they felt beautiful, or how they wish they could find a man who would see past their body and love them for who they are. these are not the ravings of a confident and secure woman.

hey, listen, i wish they felt beautiful, too. everyone deserves that feeling, and some of them probably are beautiful. i particularly find things like charity, confidence, and happiness to be extremely attractive characteristics in a woman, and while you can see those things in a person's physicality, you can't determine them from their measurements. i also wish they could find a man who loved them for who they are, but, among other things wrong with this scene, confident people don't end up on reality tv shows, reducing themselves to door prizes for some game show contestant, nor does reimbursing people for "falling in love" breed genuine love.

what's more, i think middle america deserves some honesty. look, everyone between the coastal states, we out here on the ocean sides throw around an attitude that most people from your neighborhood are fat, fried twinkie eatin', state fairin', nascarin', bible thumpin', casserolin', american flag print hammer pantsin', hillbillies. i'm sorry you had to find out this way. we don't mean any harm by it, and we don't really believe it. it's just kind of a funny thought. you know. like every one from california is a pot smoking hippie, or everyone from boston pronounces their vowels like they are getting a purple nurple. but here's the thing, tv programing is mostly produced to pander to everyone between california and new york, or at least to the stereotype of what that population is like.

did you know that when looking for news casters and voice talent, most networks and local stations look for people who sound like they are from "nowhere"? what's strange about this is that sounding like you are from "nowhere" means that you speak "general american", which, itself, means that your accent is a broad conglomeration of midwest accents, more desirably, nebraska, iowa, and illinois (not including the distinctive chicaaago accent).

what's more, tv is never created for the people it depicts. a show like sex and the city, for example, is not targeting the 40-50 something sex crazed cougar demographic, it's targeting the unmarried 20-30 something audience. why? because people don't watch tv because it's just like their lives, they watch it because they want to know what their lives should be like. tv doesn't respect you as a person, it respects you as either a commodity or a consumer (your consumerism is their commodity). they just want to sell you an image.

take king of queens. for a long time, and i'm sure, for years to come, the "sexy girl meets goofy schlub" formula has been key to sitcom tv. they did it in the honeymooners, and they still do it today. king of queens, however is a perfect example of my point, because fox has described the bachelor from fat bachelor, as being "a kevin james type, an average guy, large, but lovable". i find that to be an askew comparison to the fat bachelor, since kevin james' real wife, steffiana de la cruz, and his fake wife, carrie heffernan (leah remini), are both thin, confidant, "tv pretty" women. and in real life, kevin james is rolling in cash and fame, and on tv he can be married to jenna jameson, cinderella, or hilary clinton, for all he is concerned. he produces and writes the show, he can be married to all three if he likes.

meanwhile, that one fat woman who was on tv that one time, rosanne bar, was depicted as being married to john freakin' goodman, yet another fragile, simple minded, working class schlub.

so fat bachelor offers plus sized lonely women a chance to "love" a fat lonely man (men don't get the luxury of the term plus-sized. not my decision), and that's what's real, now? what's the lesson here? because the actual bachelor depicts desirable men as being beach muscled, fake tanned, economically successful, fratty, broesque douchbags. so obviously men are getting mixed messages about what our lives are supposed to be like. women on the other hand, are getting equally mixed messages, in that they have been told forever that they have to fit that air headed dependent supermodel mold, yet still be confidant, witty, and independent if they want prince charming to ride in on his white horse, and now they are being told that overweight, and desperate for love (men and women) is real?

let's break it down: unmarried men, playing the field: must be tv pretty, cookie cutter, prince charmings, education/intelligence optional. unmarried women: must be female equivalent of same. married men: out of shape, dimwitted, lazy, working class, scheming shmoes (i guess we get to let ourselves go once we've tied ourselves to that hot chick). married women: physically identical to unmarried women, only must be able to be main breadwinner, and exude confidence of intelligent, independent woman (despite the fact that you must be a helpless, ditzy, damsel in distress to land that prince in the first place. keep in mind he will turn into a toad, says tv, when you give him that "i do" kiss). which explains why marriage seems to be such a big deal to most of america. women can finally turn their brains back on, and men can turn their dignity off. everybody wins!

right?

so fat bachelor seeks to bring hope to all those people who can't seem to maintain that single person, tv pretty body. but does that mean that these contestants are real? reality doesn't rise and set on images you see on glowing boxes. the reality of a person comes from their heart and soul, their mind, their experience, and their ambitions.

so this time, your homework definitely doesn't involve watching any tv or movies, and it doesn't involve reading books, even though the point of this post is that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

your homework (this includes fat readers, skinny readers, readers that climb on rocks... even readers with chicken pox) is to find out who the real you is. go stand in front of a mirror (i'm not going to ask you to do it naked. this isn't fried green tomatoes. besides, the point of this exercise is to prove that you aren't your body. so go naked if that's your thing, but don't feel obligated) and don't look at your body, or your face, or any of those nagging little imperfections that only you know about. look yourself right in the eyes, and read yourself.

i bet you fall in love all over again.

and that's real.

in re:

magic bullet express not just the name of bristol palin's upcoming abstinence education tour bus...

though it wasn't really the subject of my mr t made me a vegetarian... (06-06-09) post, there is news on the magic bullet front. the one time only child, countertop mini blender/juicer/whole meal in liquid form ambassador, the magic bullet, has a morbidly obese younger brother, the magic bullet express.

the magic bullet express boasts an array of culinary skills. this magic bullet doesn't stop at putting a bun in your oven in 15 minutes or less. the express claims it can have you stuffing pizza down your pie hole in 90 seconds or less. 90 seconds? i don't think i want a pizza that goes from ingredients to digestion in 90 seconds. as brian regan says, "i don't need to be wakin', eatin' and haulin' that fast. if you need to microwave a pop tart, it might be time to loosen up your schedule. maybe pick up a couple montana brochures."

but the results appear edible. dare i say, delicious? it does, after all, make post-op lobotomy patients climax in their pants. or so one would assume from the look on the models' faces as they taste test the delicious morsels that come rocketing out of the bullet express' food cannon. one can only hope that those morsels don't rocket out of their esacpe hatches with quite so much urgency.

although the express does have a food cannon attachment, it is, confusingly enough, much larger, slower, and more cumbersome than the original bullet. perhaps they should have named it the magic missile. then again, that name might be a little too violent and phallic. they're already walking a pretty thin line with magic bullet, a name that arouses images of presidential assassinations, werewolves, and accidental pregnancies (and not just in people missing their frontal lobe while sampling 60 second new york cheese cake).

levi johnson knows what i'm talkin' about... he got a one way ticket the hell out of wasilla, on the magic bullet express (it's like the polar express, only less scary tom hanks, and more scary john mccain).

meanwhile, if your daughter is dating a guy named levi johnson, there are just some things you have to see coming (apparently bristol just had to see it coming...). the only way i could see that pregnancy being more ironic yet easy to predict is if his name was actually trouser snake.

next time on in re:

sarah palin calls the circus' comments "perverted" and "offensive". the circus responds, "really? more perverted and offensive than 5 hardcore gangbang scenes, and zero condoms in who's nailin' paylin??"

you're gonna have to learn to pick your battles, if you want the most powerful job in the world, lady.

guantanamo prisoner torture outsourced to palau. pork legislation has nowhere to hide, now that we can hunt it in national parks. wait...what?

hey, look, i like obama as much as the next liberal progressive democrat, but i think it's time to face up to one big fact: he ain't as great as we think he is.

bottom line is, politicians are politicians, and now that campaign cycles begin the day after the most recent election (the only competition longer than the NBA playoffs. at this rate the 2010 season will start sometime in 2016), buckle up and prepare for a whole lot of idling in the garage until the US breaks down into independent, poverty stricken, war-torn stans, republics, and soviets, like the USSR. what? them again? no. us, this time.

and now that iraq has more money in the bank than we do, get ready for a 40 year run of aziz bond movies, in which an international militant of mystery repeatedly saves the world from total destruction at the hands of over-the-top american stereotype villains with cool scars over their eyes, all the while having tawdry affairs with conveniently named women like "skimpi burkha"; wooing them with lines like "let's liberate you from those wet clothes and rebuild you with a democratically elected interim shirley temple (no drinking there, and all)", "i've got an IED in my pants and i want you to drive your hummer over it", and "let's go back to my place, so you can occupy my former arab dick-tatorship".

"it's a good day to die, vice general greenspan, and it looks like it's time for you to cash out." oh my god, somebody make this movie!

wait...where was i?

oh yeah. less progress, more of the same. a good slogan for miller genuine draft, perhaps, but we're trying to run a country, here. so, what's new? or should i say, what's old? aside from the fact that this financial bailout is all happening with the same players and the same playbook as the bush administration's financial fumbleruski (again with the russians?), which is how we got in this mess in the first place (well, in the first place, we deregulated the banks, well before w got his grubby mitts on the country).

what's old is that obama, while making some strong and progressive moves, is no golden god, and it shows. don't get me wrong. i love the guy, partly because elmo would seem like a great president compared to w, and partly because he is making some strong moves toward a better US (that is just the opinion of this liberal progressive, however). but like i said, politicians are politicians, and at the end of the day, mr o is a politician.

let's discuss guantanamo bay, shall we? ok, so it's going to be closed. hip hip hurray! so what does that change? not a damn thing. all those prisoners are going to be sent to other prisons. look, the important thing about guantanamo is that we stop using it to hold prisoners without fair trial, and stop using it as a dungeon for sick and perverse modes of "information extraction". the prison itself isn't the problem. it's not like it's built on an old cuban revolutionary burial ground, and the ghosts of che's army are returning from the dead to torture people and refuse them due process. the important thing is not the empty gesture of closing the prison. the important thing is that we prove that we've learned our lessons. so we've stopped torturing (so i hear) and we are going to start putting these people through the court circuit (one would hope), so why do we need to start this argument about where to keep them, and whether or not regular, stateside maximum security prisons will be able to hold these super powered evil geniuses? just leave guantanamo open and stop treating it like thunderdome.

let's discuss progressive legislation. i don't know where everyone got the idea that, if elected, obama would legalize pot, and gay marriage, but apparently those ideas got out there in the ether, somehow. neither of those things is going to happen. look, obama said he wants equal rights for the lgbt community. but never did he say that, without following it with that fine print item: i believe marriage is only between a man and a woman. he may have said that he would be willing to open a discussion with the pro-pot folk, about the state of marijuana policy, but he never said he was even going to try to legalize it. in political speak, "open a discussion" could very well mean he invites them to stop by his office so he can tell them to fuck off, in person. but it's so deliciously vague, that it's pretty much assumed by the rubes that it means the flood gates are open and everything's coming up milhouse. we need to understand that there are going to be a lot of things that we thought obama was going to do, but unless he said it specifically (and in many cases, not even then) we're living in a fool's paradise (perhaps my 420 savvy readers are more comfortable with the term "pipe dream"? then again, maybe some of my lgbt readers are more comfortable with that phrase, too...).

let's talk fixing the mess we're in. i pointed out the non-progress of the financial bailout already, as well as the guantanamo affair. but what about the other turds w left on the white house lawn? we've renamed the mission in iraq, but the "exit strategy" is nothing of the sort, and in fact, aside from the name change, it's essentially the same plan w had laid out by the end of his term. so let's chalk that one up to another empty gesture. about GM... you know what? we've been over and over this. my problems with the GM plan were discussed explicitly in who needs capitalism... (06-01-09). about healthcare. somehow the terms universal, and socialized keep getting copy pasted to the front of his healthcare plan. this idea has a snowball's chance in hell of coming to fruition. which brings me to my next point.

mr pork slayer, mr lobby buster, mr transparent, himself. b to the o. transparent, maybe. he certainly seemed to be on tv a lot during the first months of his term, apologizing for things, taking the blame for things, swallowing his pride. so maybe he is transparent. but that's actually a call that history will have to make. as for mr lobby buster, i thought he had his justice league of filibuster proof superfriends to push all this shit through. what happened? every time obama talks about his new healthcare plan, he walks right up to the edge, then takes two steps back. i can just barely make out the health insurance lobbyists hiding behind the door, clearing their throats a little too loud, right before he disclaims the ways in which his new plan won't be universal healthcare, or socialized medicine. and what about mr pork slayer? i think this topic needs to be dealt with via a very sharp left turn, much like mr o did. when it was time to reform the credit industry, mr o sure showed those greedy fat cats and wall street slicksters who's boss. he passed a credit reform and regulation bill that allowed visitors to carry concealed weapons in national parks. shocked and a little thrown off? i was, too. so there goes mr pork slayer, right?

but with those filibuster proof superfriends behind him, at least most of the pork (after this gun thing) will be in the best interest of the progressives out there, right? i can't believe i am about to agree with (gulp) joe scarborough. too many people representing either party is a not a good thing. like bill burr says, humans are not meant to live alone, because when you live alone there's nobody to walk in and catch you doing stupid things, and tell you to put your pants back on and put the scissors away...after you've cleaned them. in a system with occasionally questionable checks and balances, the best way to make sure we don't run right off the edge of the left or the right, is to allow an open forum comprised of a good sampling of all those being represented (remember how we need to add a hispanic woman to the supreme court?). i'm about to agree with scarborough again here (super gulp). the problem is not that there are too many republicans in the government, peeing in the soup. the problem is that there are too many idiots in the government farting on the omelet bar. it just so happens that, at the moment, the republicans are in the majority when it comes to idiot production (i am still in agreement with scarborough at this point...where is this bizzaro joe hiding? you ask. certainly not on morning joe. you have to get waaaaaay deep, to find this joborough. you have to get tavis smiley deep. don't worry, the circus is here to do that for you). the term republican has grown to be synonymous with brain dead ass hat, but in reality, republican doesn't have to be a four letter word. in fact, republican is just that: a word. republicans can be whomever they wish to be, and they don't all have to act the same (dems can do this too). its perfectly ok for a person, regardless of their political affiliation, to use their own brain, instead of borrowing the collective brain that most people plug into when they choose sides. in fact, conservative doesn't, by definition, mean bigoted, whitebread, mississippi mudflappin', truck driving, gun nut (sweet virgin jesus mother mary theresa, joborough, why aren't you this intelligent and introspective on starbucks presents: moaning joe?). this is where me and scarborough go our separate ways, however. joe believes that republican stands for the obtuse idea of conservatism (this i agree with), and that conservatism is a good thing (not always).

i think that it is important to try to keep the intent of the founding fathers in mind (keep in mind, the founding fathers also had a serious discussion over the idea that the constitution they were writing should be rewritten every 19 years, even if it's rewritten word for word, to be a more contemporary, and appropriate document, imagine what an amazing country we would live in...). so if that is conservative, than i am conservative on that point. but as for clinging to their expressed written ideas? i think that we need to keep in mind that the world is a place that is itself progressive (as some of the founding fathers obviously knew), in that it is always changing, with or without us.

to look back at a document written during a time of revolution, building, and rebuilding of a small rogue state, a document that states, "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" and only see the part that says "the right to keep and bear arms" is ignorant. the world has progressed past that place. even if you wanted to look at that amendment literally, it does not give the right to keep and bear arms to random people who like to go out back and shoot stuff. it provides the right of people to keep and bear arms for the purpose of maintaining a well regulated militia. we've got one of those. it's called the US military, and those people have every right to keep and bear arms. if you're not part of the maintenance of our well regulated militia, then you have no right, or reason, to bear arms. if you plan on starting your own militia to overthrow the government, don't expect to be sanctioned or sponsored by the government you plan on overthrowing. rather, expect to receive sanctions (it's different) and subpoenas from that government. if you're planning on building a people's militia to overthrow the government, and you think you will have the legal support of that government, i don't predict your revolution will go well for you.

nevertheless, mr pork slayer, mr lobby buster, mr liberal progressive, the great and powerful mr o, has deemed it necessary toward wrangling the immoral practices of the credit industry, to allow the expressed legal consent of carrying concealed weapons in state parks. why? in case we come across a creditor while we're hiking Half Dome, and want to shoot them in the face?