Spotlight on my junk mail

From: Houlihan's [Houlihans@houlihans.fishbowl.com]
To: Smokey R [clowntears@piealamodeproductions.com]
Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 12:40 PM
Subject: We Messed Up


***

From: Smokey R [clowntears@piealamodeproductions.com]
To: Houlihan's [Houlihans@houlihans.fishbowl.com]
cc: Jesus Christ [superstar@whatwouldido.org]
Date: Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: We (Meaning YOU) Messed Up

Dear The E-mail Goofs at Houlihan's,

Yes, you certainly did "messed up" all right.

I can't even begin to tell you how insulted I am by the baseless and fraudulent misrepresentation you have perpetrated on me and the entire Houlihan's-cuisine-buying population - at least, those of us who live outside of the handful of teacher's pet regional markets where your new seasonal menu concept is being tested. This is a violation of trust, and to ask young men and women, to ask old men and women, to ask African-Americans, Native Americans; to ask Americans to simply dismiss it and continue to patronize your establishments would be a humiliation of the highest magnitude.

I received this email on January 23rd of this year. So great was my distress, however, that I have been unable to form a cogent response until now, more than a month later. For a while, I held out hope that this was yet another chestnut from the vast reliquary of practical jokes in the Houlihan's Headquarters of E-Mail Goofdom in Athens, Georgia. But, as I have discovered in each of my numerous subsequent trips to your local franchises, this was not a joke at all.

You have sinned against your customers, and against the American public. Indeed, you have sinned against your very God. You have, perhaps irreparably, besmirched the esteemed name of The E-mail Goofs at Houlihan's. And your shoddy attempt herewith to cover that besmirchment with a simple apology is, well, shoddy.

To be blunt, The E-mail Goofs at Houlihan's, I hate you.

I am not an unforgiving person, The E-mail Goofs at Houlihan's, as members of the Republican party, or any of my numerous ex-girlfriends (except Mary, that bitch) will tell you. Nonetheless, I find myself unusually hard-pressed to get past this. It seems to point to something larger and more sinister. There are ominous underpinnings here, perhaps foreshadowing something altogether more evil than merely a breach of consumer trust. I'm not sure yet if I know what I'm saying, but I'd lay all the money in my pockets against all the money in yours that YOU DO know what I'm saying, if you know what I'm saying.

In light of that, I feel that I have a responsibility to bring your transgression to the attention of the public by writing this letter to you, and by publishing it on my blog. I bet you didn't even know I had a blog, did you, The E-mail Goofs at Houlihan's? That's what you get for failing to properly research and understand your demographic - that and an unquenchable controversy over mis-sent email about a seasonal menu. Rest assured that once news of this hits the internets, and once word of this letter is popularized by a viral YouTube campaign starring an animatronic horse, a talking fish, and Nalts, no one will ever go to Houlihan's again ever. I wish I felt some remorse about that, but I think we both know that you brought this on yourselves.

Best of luck in your future endeavors, except for the ones relating to restaurants - particularly those with experimental seasonal menus that are only being tested in hand-picked special markets. Good day.

Cordially,
Smokey

P.S. I was totally kidding about the best of luck thing. I hope you get struck by lightning.

It's almost hard to believe this is the same woman who ran the country for eight years

“Can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time?” Mrs. Clinton said, to a mix of boos and applause. “I do find it curious, and if anybody saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.” -Hillary Clinton, 2/26/08

I don't understand you, Hillary Clinton. First, you cry in New Hampshire, leading me to believe you'd like to be treated like a lady. But then, the moderators of the 20 Democratic debates are kind enough to adopt a "ladies first" policy with their questioning, and you get mad about that too. How, I ask, are we ever supposed to satisfy you? And don't say "by voting for me," because that's just not going to happen unless you magically grow a penis.

Also, quit whining. You sound like a woman.

Clinton Supporter Stabs Obama Supporter Because Of Drugs!

The Smoking Gun is running a story about a Clinton supporter who stabbed an Obama supporter as the completely predictable endgame to a heated political discussion. I assume the Clinton being supported is Hillary, and I think we all know why things turned out the way they did for the poor, bloodied Obamaniac: it's because of drugs.

More conventional thinkers and observers might chalk it up to a family dispute since the stabber was the stabbee's brother-in-law. But it wasn't that. It wasn't merely a political disagreement either, I don't care what the storybooks say. It is a well known fact that all Clinton supporters are alcoholics and cocaine addicts, and that Obamanizers use only marijuana and occasional mild sedatives. Of course, the ones I'm really afraid of are the people who support Darth Nader. Because anyone who thinks his candidacy is worthwhile must be on several varieties of hardcore mind-altering substances simultaneously. Like percocet, peyote, and peach pie. Or LSD and strawberry-rhubarb pie. DO NOT MIX THOSE. TRUST ME.

Just to be safe, to my brother-in-law, Dave: if you come near me with a knife and start talking politics, I will promise to vote for whoever you tell me to until you go away.

The Oscar Party

So I recently wrote culinary genius Jim Henson a letter asking him for a little more public support of my Oscar '08 campaign - not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because if I'm going to get anywhere, I'm going to need to start racking up the celebrity endorsements. Who better, I thought, than a man whose entire career was devoted to exploring the intricacies of Muppet cuisine, and also, breasts?

Henson had been suspiciously tight-lipped in the media about Oscar's fledgling candidacy which, frankly, struck me as a little bit rude. Like, hello, Jim Henson?! I was decent enough to make a candidate out of your meal ticket; the least you could do is acknowledge me! That was basically the gist of what I wrote to him (not pictured). And I fully expected him to come seek me out at my Detroit residence, hat in his hand, and beg my forgiveness, or at least to offer me his fantastic recipe for sauteed Fozzy Bear with shallots and garlic.

Turns out, he's dead.

Now I'll never know the secret to how he made his Kermit the Frog au poivre so moist. So I've got THAT going for me.

Then I saw a headline somewhere that Vanity Fair had canceled their Oscar party, scheduled for this past weekend. Okay, I admit, I wasn't invited in the first place - which is a little bit strange, if you think about it. Only, please don't think about it. Think about fruit, like I do, all day long, five days a week, 365 weeks a year.

The point is that even without me there, I am sort of in love with the fact that Vanity Fair was having an Oscar party to begin with. Although, you kind of have to ask yourself why they wouldn't invite me as a courtesy, if nothing else, since the whole Oscar thing was, after all, MY IDEA.

Sadly, the first I heard of the Vanity Fair party was the cancellation. So my invitation is kind of a moot point. And now, Vanity Fair won't return my calls or emails asking for their guest list either.

Jerks.

Then yesterday morning, I heard that former Green Party candidate Ralph Nader announced his bid for the presidency on Meet the Press. Not that I would watch such a dorky show to begin with, since I have a life and my Sunday mornings are usually spent snorting blow off some hooker's ass in the back bathroom of some trendy Manhattan club. This weekend, I happened to take a break from partying my brains out so I could assemble some Ikea furniture on my living room floor - the Expedit bookcase in black-brown, and the Norden gate leg table (both of which are quite lovely, and very well assembled). But even so, I didn't turn on Meet the Press, because unlike me, that show is dorky. I believe I already used the word dorky to describe Meet the Press earlier in this paragraph, so it must be true.

The salient point, of course, is that, with Nader in the race, Oscar might lose the green vote. And Oscar '08 is really nothing without the green vote. Without the green vote, Oscar the Grouch is just a guy in a trash can, which, I can only imagine would make his electability go down faster than a White House intern ten years ago. (Zing!)

Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I got all hopped up on all the green talk this year and just went a little overboard picking a candidate who was, quite literally, green. Maybe Fred Thompson's bid made me think a grouch could work as President. Though, come to think of it, if a grouch can't even finish higher than fourth in a Republican primary, what chance does he have in the general election? (Zing again!) America might be clamoring for change, but maybe they're just not ready for Oscar the Grouch yet. Lord knows there were enough Oscar headlines in the news this morning to make a person think otherwise, but maybe... just maybe... I was... wrong.

No, that's not it. This is all Judge Reinhold's fault.

Dear Judge Reinhold,

Shame on you, sir, for not standing up and immediately endorsing another candidate after Bill Richardson backed out of the presidential race. You have left me, and hundredths of thousands of impressionable voters like me high and dry. We don't know what to do, and we are looking to you, Judge Reinhold, because Jesus is voting Republican (again).

If I ever see your silly face in a movie again, which is doubtful (another zing!), I will refuse to laugh at your zany antics or the madcap high jinks you land yourself in due to some colossal and only remotely plausible misunderstanding of your circumstances.

How could you leave your public guessing like this? How could you, Here Come Da Judge Reinhold? Nay, nay, I won't even call you that anymore. You are no longer deserving of your nickname, which was a token of esteem and respect in a time and place where esteem and respect, like clean underwear, are in short supply. You aren't even worth of the capital letters put on all proper nouns and names. From now on, you are simply to be known as judge reinhold the blah, which will occasionally be spelled wrong, just to emphasize my point.

F*** you, judge rinegold the blah. And no, the asterisks do not stand for L-I-P, or O-I-L, or even I-R-E. They stand for something much, much worse. But I'm not going to tell you what it is, which is just like YOU NOT TELLING ME WHO TO VOTE FOR!

Yours in song,
Smokey R.

I leave you alone for FIVE MEASLY DAYS, and THIS is what happens?

What the hell, Popular Culture Scene? What gives? I take ONE little super-extended weekend so I can move all my belongings to New York City, and the world goes topsy-turvy on me!! Castro resigns! Lindsay Lohan nude in New York Magazine! A black man running for President of the United States of America!

The new apartment is lovely, by the way, thank you for NOT ASKING!

What am I supposed to think about this? How will I be comfortable using any of my myriad remaining vacation days if this is the sort of happenstance I have to look forward to? How can I sleep at night knowing that titillating news stories could, like a bad attack of "the vapors", be breaking behind my back if I don't remain vigilant all the livelong day? How many times do I have to tell you to pick up your things, young man? Who framed Roger Rabbit?

I honestly don't even know what to say except... THANK YOU! Pretty soon, we'll all be able to sit back and smoke Cohibas with naked Lindsay Lohan while President Obama does something stereotypically black and sitcom-y at a state dinner. It'll be just like the 1986 comedy Soul Man (starring C. Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong), except that, you know, it won't suck. And also, James Earl Jones's part will be significantly smaller.

(Oops, I just said James Earl Jones's part would be smaller. Tee hee!)

Oh, and a quick note for Mister Senator Barack Hussein Obama: don't worry if the whole American presidency thing doesn't work out for you. Looks like Cuba is going to have an opening pretty soon...

(Oops, I just said Cuba would have an opening! Tee hee again!)

Feast your eyes on this week's newsmakers...

My Reaction to the Northern Illinois Shooti-... Moo!

I was going to blog my outrage about the shooting at Northern Illinois University, but then I saw this:


which totally turned my outrage into a tiny little balled up wad of chocolate-covered marshmallow. Seriously, who could be outraged about rampant gun violence when there are real problems in the world... problems like INVISIBLE COWS!??!?!!?!!?

Mystery guest: Knock, knock.
Person: Who's there?
Mystery guest: INVISIBLE interrupting cow.
Person: Invisible interrupting cow wh-
Mystery guest (cow): Moooooo!
Person: Wait, who said that? I totally don't see any co-
Cow: It's because I'm invisible! And I interrupt!
Person: Oh, you do, do y-
Cow: Yes, I do!
Person: [shoots cow with legally obtained firearm]
Bloggerizers everywhere: We are outraged! This was a terrible joke!

Have a great Presidents' Day, everyone. And in the words of Jane Fonda on the Today show, see you next Tuesday!

A Valentine's Day Memory

The wine was a 1997 Beaujolais with a husky flavor that caught me by surprise. I didn't expect the deep, buttery spiciness of it. Isn't that just like a French wine, I thought, to come creeping up on you and smack you upside the head, then start making out with your date right in front of your woozy eyes.

No, no, I reminded myself, that's a French MAN.

Not that any Frenchman - or woman - could have come between me and Liesl. I was her mildly concussed, but nonetheless heroic knight in shining, coconut-crusted armor, and she, she was my maiden fair, my slavish lover with an appetite for the unconventional in the boudoir and for the even more unconventional in the dining room. The menu, apart from the Beaujolais: kale steamed with pepper and bat guano, and some noxious sort of slippery, fleeting, eel-like thing that kept trying to get away from me, in a coriander sauce. There were some Thai accents too, but this was 1999, before everyone and their kid sister was eating Thai food in trendy New York dojos four nights a week. Also, dinner smelled as if her poodle had urinated over all of it.

"Do you like it?" Liesl asked, her voice as buttery and husky as the Beaujolais.

"No," I replied. "Not at all."

"Well you have to eat it anyway," she laughed coyly, "or else there's no dessert."

I had had some trouble before determining when Liesl was being literal and when she was making a sexual double-entendre. There was an incident in Central Park a handful of years ago involving a hot dog, three packets of mustard, and a flowing, flower-patterned, ankle-length skirt that she still had hanging under plastic in the hall closet as a warning to me of the dangers of my own stupidity. The point is, I didn't know what she meant by dessert. But it was Valentine's Day, and I decided to play along.

"Mmm," I said, "I can't wait." Inside, I thought, please Zod above, do not let this dessert involve seaweed.

Liesl had achieved a cult following of sorts for her ability to inject seaweed into the most mundane of activities. That was, in a roundabout way, how we met. In a former life, as they say, I was a marine biologist, and Liesl was a pink-mohawked protester with a painful East German accent. One ill-chosen remark about the Nazis later, and she was at the vanguard of herds of people blocking my parking spot, hanging signs outside my office, and taunting the dolphins at the aquarium with what she called "Gestapo fish," a vile concoction of seaweed, chum, and possibly some of what we were eating for dinner tonight. Things got ugly at the aquarium one morning, there was a coma (mine), and when I woke up, she told me we had fallen "een luff."

I remember chuckling at her, which hurt me considerably. This woman is precious, I thought. Her brand of self-deception certainly didn't come around every day. But more than that, she had handcuffed me to the bed and threatened to start fracturing my phalanges one at a time until I capitulated about the "een luff" thing - a trick which I thankfully later developed quite a taste for. Her cooking, on the other hand, I didn't find quite as palatable.

"This is disgusting, Liesl," I said, spitting out kale and coriander.

Liesl's face darkened. "Eat," she said.

I clung to my glass of wine and drank it like a starving man drinks food. "No way," I said. "This is worse than the time you made me eat brain!"

"Eat," she said again, more menacingly this time.

"Uh uh."

"Now."

There was always a point in the yin-yang, give-and-take, pork-and-beans, Amos-and-Andy, Mutt-and-Jeff, back-and forth of our relationship when I wondered how much I was reacting from my own deeply held opinions, and how much I was reacting simply to resist her momentum. In eight years, I had virtually lost the ability to distinguish between the two. Sometimes, you're just drinking a glass of Beaujolais because you want to, and sometimes you're doing it because it's the only thing on the table you can possibly put in your mouth without gagging. And then there are times when you drink your Beaujolais just because you can see it's pissing off the woman you love, which means the chains and nipple clamps are going to be making a sudden and violent appearance.

This was a little of all of them.

Before I knew it, I was clamped firmly between Liesl's meaty upper arm and her ribs. I clawed and bit at her, vainly fighting to escape - but not truly fighting that hard. I tripped her and we both fell headfirst into the wall. She yelped as her free forearm caught the doorknob on the linen closet. I knew I was in trouble then. She dragged me to the bedroom and swept my legs out from under me with a deft kick. Then she rolled me sharply in the direction of the bed, and the next thing I knew, I was bound to the headboard with thick, fuchsia-colored, decorative rope. I heard her swearing in East German as she left the room, leaving me struggling furiously against my bonds.

As she applied the saltwater solution to my abdomen, now ripped bare of its formerly confining t-shirt, I thought about how lucky I was to have someone like Liesl on Valentine's Day. I bit down on the rubber bung in my mouth just in time, before the first jolt of electricity ripped through my happily overwrought nervous system and made my body go rigid. Then I thought, wait a second, how can someone swear in East German? Don't they just speak regular German there? Another jolt hit me, and I felt so loved, so warm, and so grateful to have this blessed, torturous woman in my life, and also, I was grateful not to be eating her dog-piss food anymore. I really did like the Beaujolais, though.

Then came the diarrhea.

Wishes Can Come True

I held my breath as I stepped off the train last night into the thickly falling snow, and gradually let my brain awaken to the potential consequences of slipping on my way home from the Ho-Ho-Kus train station and sliding headlong down the hill into a parked car or a curb camouflaged by the snow. I should mention that I have very good balance. Also, that I was wearing sneakers with decent traction. Both of these facts concerned me greatly.

Am I a (devastatingly charming) fatalist? Maybe so, but good shoes and superhuman balance are the sort of things that promote overconfidence. Also, and this part was crucial to my worry, it was Tuesday. And not Super Tuesday either, just regular old vanilla-flavored Tuesday.

I suppose it might have dawned on me that it was also the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, emancipator extraordinaire and author of the epic book, Who Freed The Slaves? (I did, I did!): the Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln (Smokey Robinson Press, 1864, $19.95 US/$24.95 CANADA, also available in eBook format from amazon.com). It's just that it was snowing, and I wasn't in a very Abraham Lincoln-ey mood, if you know what I mean. I know it was only two days before Valentine's Day, and I should have been fully in the spirit of the holiday by then, but I just couldn't get it going. I don't know what was wrong with me.

I think I'm going to have to blame Jesus for this one.

Dear Jesus,

Thanks for making it snow two days before Valentine's Day, Jerk. And don't go blaming the Easter Bunny like You did last year. You should awaken to the potential consequences of slipping on my way home from the Ho-Ho-Kus train station and blah blah blah whatever puke.

I hope You get struck by lightning.

Kiss my shiny, caramel-colored butt,
Smokey Robinson



Above: Jesus Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro gets struck by lightning. Not pictured: the butt-kissing.

Invest in Mach III and Foamy!!

If the rumors leaking out of Michael Eisner's arugula and poached pear with candied walnuts-filled mouth are to be believed, the writer's strike will soon be over. And you know what that means, people. It means that the strike beards are coming off. Seriously, if I had any money (which I don't, because I blew it all on an iPhone and iPhone-related accessories), I would buy stock in the following companies:

1. Procter and Gamble: P&G owns Gillette, a company that artfully combines plastic and metal to make the razors which will be used to neaten up the faces of the writers before they trudge back into the shackles at the bases of their drafting tables on Monday morning.

2. ExxonMobil: In part, I'd invest in ExxonMobil because they have managed to thrive in these grim economic times by continuing to jack up the prices and posting record profits while the rest of the economy undergoes George Costanza-like shrinkage (my kind of business model!). Mostly, though, it's because they make the gasoline that will power the writers' jalopies back onto the congested LA freeway system.

3. Apple Computer: Even though they don't make their computers out of apples, as the name suggests, they still have really cool commercials, which appeal to hip, young, iPhone-toting investors like me. Unfortunately, I spend so many hours a day being hip and fucking around with my iPhone that I don't have any time left over to focus on investing all that money I don't have.

Of course, you can't trust everything an Eisner tells you. Take for instance, Dan Eisner, a guy I knew in college who claimed (at the height of the internet boom, no less) that he would be happy to support himself - and his family - on $15,000 a year, provided that he was doing what he loved.

All right, maybe he was telling the truth and maybe he wasn't. Come to think of it, I can't come up with a single specific instance of Dan Eisner actually lying to me - certainly not anything that would warrant my calling him out in this here nationally syndicated blog here. But he did have an inordinate amount of back hair, and some very strange toes. And as my mother always said, "you can't trust a guy with an inordinate amount of back hair and very strange toes. If he only had one or the other, then maybe. Maybe. But never both. Now eat your Malt-O-Meal and go help your father haul the Hyundai-sized raspberries to the market."

Oh, mom. Such a card.

The point is, don't trust Eisners. But seriously, do call your broker and buy Procter and Gamble stock. This strike is bound to end sometime. And when it does, the waves of the Pacific Ocean will run black with the trimmed facial hair clippings of the suffering scribes who have refused to tell us what's going to happen with Jim and Pam.

Please, for the love of Zod, do NOT TELL TIGER WOODS ABOUT THIS!

Could this be photographic evidence of the world's smallest turtle, an omen of destruction so terrifying and certain that all the small-turtle-as-omen stories were edited out of the Book of Revelation just so that mankind wouldn't completely lose hope (and not because their content was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of Assyria, as has been rumored for centuries)?

Or is it merely a picture of a raspberry roughly the size of a Hyundai, in which case, someone should eat that raspberry before it contributes unwittingly to a solution to global hunger, which would be outlawed in the US for being anticompetitive to farmers? All the farmers I know don't take kindly to being bullied by fruit. I know a thing or two about fruit, believe me (nullus).

Come to think of it, someone should eat that turtle too, before some professional athlete comes along and nabs it for his clandestine miniature turtle-fighting ring. Or at least, give the turtle a head start and let him escape on foot.

Those of you who are up on your New Testament might also remember this frightening little passage, which somehow managed to slip past the editor's chisel (the joke there being that the Bible writers were so primitive that they had to use stone tools to engrave it on stones, get it?):

Revelation 14:1-4

1And I looked, and, lo, a miniature Turtle stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

2And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of Hyundai-sized raspberries harping with their harps:

3And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four Alpacas, and the pruned hedges: and no raspberry could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

4These are they which were not defiled with grapes; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the miniature Turtle whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among raspberries, being the firstfruits offered unto God and to the miniature Turtle, to make sacrifice of themselves by prizefighting within the Holy Fruitfighting Ring of Calvary.

The Silver Lining on the Ash Wednesday Cloud

I'll never understand how Ash Wednesday manages to creep up on an unsuspecting me every year, even in the years when I mention it in blog pieces that I write the day before. But here it is again, the magical day when priests and ministers take a much needed rest from molesting their altar boys to spread the burnt remains of last year's Palm Sunday palms on the foreheads of their parishioners so that Catholics and Presbyterians and Christians of every stripe can be singled out for persecution a la the Jews.

Seriously, if you were Jewish, wouldn't you be lifting up your yarmulke to scratch your head right now about the wisdom of a religious group wearing around a mark that clearly delineates them - VOLUNTARILY? Because I would, if I were Jewish. But I'm not Jewish. I just happen to have the curly hair is all - inherited, oddly enough, from my Mexican ancestry. I'm not gay either. I just happen to love musical theater is all - also inherited, oddly enough, from my Mexican ancestry. Don't ask me how. It has something to do with genetics is all, and I'm no geneticist. I am but a mere processing clerk for a worldwide fruit conglomerate with a head full of nearly black ringlets, a heart full of "What's New, Buenos Aires?" from Evita, and Alex Rodriguez's phone number and email address in my Plaxo contacts list.

As a matter of fact, if I were Jewish, I'd probably be pretty pissed off that another group was trying to horn in on the persecution racket, an industry that has traditionally been monopolized by the Chosen People. Then I'd probably spend my Ash Wednesday making snarky remarks to all the Christians I saw about how it should be called Ass Wednesday because those dark stains didn't really look like ASH stains, if you catch my drift. (My drift, by the way, is an implication of poop on your face. Tee hee!) And then every Friday during Lent, I would eat a great big bacon double cheeseburger from Burger King while all the Catholics were busy eating fish. And I'd be like, "mmm, this bacon dub chee from BK is soooo gooooood," and I'd be all wiping barbecue sauce off my chin while little Johnny O'Catholic was fighting not to barf out his host-wafer-crusted Orange Roughy and then skipping dessert because he gave it up for Lent, just like Jesus intended.

Anyway, that's not really what's buggin' me about Ash Wednesday this year. What's really buggin' me is that apparently none of the major party candidates saw their shadows last night, so there will be at least SIX MORE WEEKS of campaigning before we even have NOMINEES. Seriously, how can they call it Super Tuesday when nothing super happened at all? Even the Giants victory parade had a note of anticipatory melancholy underneath it, as it slowly dawned on the drunk New York crowd just how many column inches of political reporting they had been spared thanks to Eli Manning and his fancy feet. And while Manning and the Giants provided further proof that, just as Sassy said to Chance in the movie Homeward Bound, "cats rule and dogs drool," it obviously wasn't enough to buttress the spirits of the dejected Giants fans as they emptied out of Manhattan last night and went back to their homes in Staten Island and New Jersey.

Just look at all this sadness and dejection:


But there is some good news. The Oscar the Grouch '08 campaign appears to be gaining steam!

If you look at the polling numbers and vote percentages from the states that held primary elections yesterday, you can see very easily that great swaths of voters are still unaccounted for. Take, for example, Colorado where, with 99% of Democratic and 95 % of Republican precincts reporting, the vote percentage breakdown is as follows, with poorly conceived Flinstones-style name puns included:

Republicans:
Mitt "Rocks" Romney - 59%
John "Older than the Hills" McCain - 19%
Mike "Doesn't Believe in Evolution Because He Has a Stone Brain" Huckabee - 13%
Ron "Pebbles" Paul - 8%
Rudy "Rocky Road" Giuliani - 0%

Democrats:
"Brokebarack Mountain" Obama - 67%
"Hill"ary Clinton - 32 %
John "Boulder Face" Edwards - 0%

You can do the math yourself if you like, but I'll tell you right now that those both add up to 99%. So even assuming those percentages hold, that still leaves 1 percent of Democrats and 1 percent of Republicans unaccounted for. And given the persuasiveness and eloquence of my campaign to write-in Oscar, I think we know where those votes probably went.

You can thank me for the good news later, America, after you wipe that stain off your face.

Check out my Voter Number!! Tee Hee!!

Yeeeeah, I was voter number SIXTY-NINE!!! Which is funny because it's a relatively well known sexual innuendo that most people learn in Middle School!!!! Which is coincidental because the place where I voted was a mere two blocks away from the middle school cafeteria where Kevin Snyder explained to me what 69 was when I was in 6th grade!!!! How do you like me now, New Jersey Democratic Party?

Your pal,
Voter #69

Next time you bend over to kiss your kneecaps, you know who to thank for them

What sucks about the Giants winning the Super Bowl this year is that no one has stopped to consider the bookies. New England was a 12-point favorite going into the game. That is some serious overdoggage, mis amigos. And the Giants won anyway, proving that oddsmakers, much like political pollsters, are about as useful as the Stocks application on the iPhone. Seriously, does ANYONE who owns an iPhone use that? Do iPhone owners even own stock? I thought the iPhone was the hallmark of just the sort of irresponsible consumer spending and thoughtlessness with money that has driven America to the brink of recession! Who the hell needs the "Stocks" application?!?! It's like the Eli Manning - but the Eli Manning of the midseason who was more likely to trip over his own shoelaces than complete a pass, not the Eli Manning who somehow managed to crap all over the first perfect NFL season in 35 years - of iPhone applications.

But getting back to the bookies (and you should ALWAYS get back to your bookies, peeps), did anyone stop to consider how depressing yesterday must have been for them? All their clients probably made long bets on the Giants (with the 12 points, obviously), knowing that if they were risking a more vicious smackdown than the Giants defense laid on Tom Brady's immaculately groomed ass if they were wrong. But, of course, they WEREN'T wrong. It was the oddsmakers who were wrong, just like the pollsters in Iowa and New Hampshire, and just like that bell-toting wacko with the sandwich board who accosted me on 7th Avenue in 1995 with the news that the end of the world was nigh. Which just goes to show you, the experts in this country are always fucking wrong. And so are the pollsters. And so are the bookies.

Seriously, how depressing must it have been to be a bookie yesterday? No kneecaps to break, no football for like six months, the Lost season premiere already four days in the rearview mirror, and still an entire day until Super Fat Tuesday. And TWO whole days before Ash Wednesday! AND, it was a Monday!


I feel bad for Monday this week. As if it wasn't bad enough that everyone hates Mondays to begin with. Please, if anyone has the email address for Monday, February 4th, 2008, please let me know, I'd like to send the following email:

Dear Monday, February 4th, 2008,

I just wanted to tell you how completely sorry I am about the shit job they did scheduling you this year. If I were you, I'd probably think about killing myself, except that it totally isn't your fault since the calendar is an entirely man-made contrivance. So I'd probably think about killing a few men then, just to make my point. But please don't actually do that, or else they'll haul me in for questioning, because my blog is very famous and well-read, and I am an incredibly influential person. (I correspond regularly with both Jesus AND Santa Claus!)

Anyway, I know you had a pretty rough life, being sandwiched between Mardi Super Tuesday Gras and Super Sunday - to say nothing of the hangover from Groundhog Day - and I just wanted to say that, to quote Chaka Khan's 1984 chart sensation, "I feel for you. I think I love you. Chaka Khan let me rock you, let me rock you, Chaka Khan. Let me rock you, that's all I wanna do."

I bet you probably thought it was cool, getting to be a day of the week and all, and then they pulled your lottery number and you were probably like "Monday?" with that look on your face like you just smelled a fart, but you still probably didn't see how it was all going to play out until about mid-January when all the Groundhog Day displays went up in the department stores and everyone in New York and New England wore competing shades of red-white-and-blue to represent their fairweather admiration of their favorite NFL teams. I for one would have called in sick if I were you, except that obviously, that's not really an option. So, I guess, oh well.

Anywhoop, if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask. Except, please don't ask me to put in a good word with Jesus. Me and J-Dog aren't on that level anymore ever since I used Parkour as evidence to prove that His Dad existed.

Lates,
Smokey R.

Where I come from...

Where I come from, we have a saying. Actually, we have a lot of sayings.

Arlen Specter, J-E-T-S fan?

Proving once again that our erstwhile Congresspeople have their eye on the ball, so to speak:

From the New York Times
Read the whole article here.

Arlen Specter's daily agenda
February 1, 2009

9:30am - 10:00am
conference call regarding lost footage of Patriots spying on the Jets

10:00am - 10:30am
fellate Mike Mukasey, make plans to waterboard the kids for Presidents' Day

10:30am - 12:00pm
morning nap

12:00pm - 1:30pm
lunch

1:30pm - 2:00pm
hearty chuckling over telephone company immunity

2:00pm - 3:30pm
afternoon nap

3:30pm - 4:30pm
start seriously investigating what happened to that Patriots footage, really demand answers

4:30pm
sneak out early to fellate John Roberts before the weekend