Vote for Oscar, Or This Could Happen to You

John McCain's campaign staff was up in arms about this unwarranted, unprovoked, and irresponsible attack on the candidate's ankles by a row of jars of Mott's brand applesauce. Imagine how pissed they'd be if they discovered that this attack was politically motivated, though.

That's right, folks, the Oscar campaign funds are finally going to use!

Sadly, the applesauce barrage is about as high profile as we can afford. In fact, after the $8 bribe we paid the ham-fisted stock clerk to stack the jars just so, the Oscar '08 campaign war chest is now down to a quarter, two nickels, and a parking token from the West Windsor Parking Authority intended for use at the Princeton Junction train station.

We would obviously have vastly preferred for McCain to be buried underneath an avalanche of Oscar Meyer hot dogs, bologna, and other packaged cold cuts (available in your grocer's refrigerator section - ask for them by name!), but that would have cost an extra dollar, and we just didn't have it.

So you probably won't be seeing any national ad buys (or any regional or local ad buys, for that matter), unless those stingy rat jerks at the Children's Television Workshop come through with the donation I have been begging and pleading for, but obviously in a very dignified way.

As for Obama, he's been a little bit harder to get to, what with all the muscular, athletic, rippling-muscled Secret Service men he surrounds himself with. I wonder why he likes to be around so many chiseled guys? And also, why did he need to go to a gym full of similarly mouth-watering dudes on his overseas trip, instead of going to visit our hot and sexy American soldiers?

Audible gasp! Could Obama be teh gay?

Dear Obama,

Ha ha ha ha ha, I just convinced America that you are teh gay. Now you will never win the president because everyone will be scared that you are going to sodomize their children and make them marry other children in the same sex as they are.

I am laughing all the way to the bank, in the sense that the bank is politics and the money inside the bank is Oscar the Grouch winning the president and you not winning the president.

You are not winning the president though. No-bama.

Go check out some more guys!

Love,
Smokey D. Robinson
Chairman
Campaign to Get Oscar the Grouch Elected President, or at Least to Make The Other Candidates Look Stupid and/or Gay

How far has your once-vaunted reputation sunk when the New York Times decides to run a picture of you shaking a crying baby? I remember back in the day when President Bush was merely a cute, cuddly, monkey-faced liar and terror-monger. But this... I mean, sure he defrauded millions of people out of jobs, money, their sense of security, their national pride and reputation, and the sanctity of the English language, but this makes him look like a monster.

Therefore, behold the new Oscar '08 campaign poster:

Note the clever, surgically precise removal of George Bush's disguise. Now you can see him brandish his bloody fangs while his angry eyes glow red, just the way Zod in heaven intended.

Monsters in the White House. Power to the people in trash cans. Let's make this happen, people. Let's dare to act on my dreams.

Almost as good as John McCain's balls...

Need I say anything at all?

You can also read the definitive story of the controversy surrounding John McCain's balls here. I love you, Gawker.

True story:

NEW YORK - Rapper 50 Cent has sued Taco Bell, claiming the fast-food restaurant chain is using his name without permission in advertising that asks him to call himself 99 Cent.

The rapper says in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that the Mexican-themed chain features him in an ad asking him to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent. His real name is Curtis Jackson.

The rapper's court papers say the ad is part of Taco Bell's "Why Pay More?" campaign, which promotes items for under a dollar, including Cinnamon Twists for 79 cents, Crunchy Tacos for 89 cents and Bean Burritos for 99 cents. The papers say the Irvine, Calif.-based company sent a bogus letter requesting the name change to the news media but not to the rapper.

The rapper's lawyer, Peter D. Raymond, said his client didn't learn about the letter or that he was featured in the ad campaign until he saw a news report about it. Raymond said his client is seeking $4 million in damages.

from amNewYork

I get that he's upset about Taco Bell using his name. I'd be pissed off too. I just hope this lawsuit lands on the to-do list of some judge with a sense of humor, and he/she awards damages totaling 49 cents, or arranged to have the settlement paid entirely in Chalupas or something. Because if either of those highly likely outcomes were to occur, then real news would finally have a chance to out-Onion the Onion, and out-The-Daily-Show-with-Jon-Stewart The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I think it's high time their tyrannical rule over the world of news parody came to an abrupt and ignominious conclusion.

Seriously, a $4 million lawsuit over a crack about his name? How does this jackass have any street cred at all? Isn't he supposed to like, decapitate the Chihuahua who used to say "yo quiero Taco Bell" in the moving picture advertisements on my television, and then impale its adorable, smart-alecky little head on the gatepost of some snooty Taco Bell executive's mansion?

Do Taco Bell executives even have mansions?

This is SO not how Tupac would have settled the score. [INSERT JOKE ABOUT TUPAC'S HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL POSTHUMOUS RECORDING CAREER HERE, MAKING SURE TO INCLUDE A HILARIOUS SEGUE FROM ONE RAPPER TO THE OTHER ONE, BUT BEING CAREFUL TO AVOID INSINUATING THAT THEY'RE HARD TO TELL APART, BECAUSE THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE RACIST.]

You kind of have to know my sister for this to be funny, and even then, it's not THAT funny

My sister thinks I'm Batman. In part, this is because we were at Great Adventure in 2001, and I spent the better part of an afternoon insisting, in fact exulting, in the fact that I was, in fact, Batman. Quite an afternoon, let me tell you. I believe I also managed to report that "my shoes hurt," and spill a creamsicle-flavored ice cream cone.

In case you're curious, I was being myself that day. I really am retarded, I'm just playing smart/normal most of the time.

Spoiler alert, by the way: this post contains the word "retarded," used in a personally derogatory fashion. An example of such retardation is putting a spoiler alert in the paragraph after the spoiler, and then finding it hilarious that you did that.

Anyway, this is my text message conversation my sister, doing my best to recreate the aesthetic of the iPhone (Knickers) on which it took place:

Bro

BATMAN!

I'm Robin

WHAT's uP?
-batman.

Nothing. You? - Robin

Oh, you know. Fightin crime.
Saving Gotham The yoozh.

Me too. Wanna join forces?

Join forces? Pul-lease!
I'm batman, for crying out
loud. I don't join forces,
you ask to be my ward!

BATMAN!?!? More like
butt man

Robin, like bobbin' for
Batman's butt!

This reminds me of my funny joke idea about a Jewish guy whose last name is Batman - not a combination of "bat" and "man," but in the sense like Goldman or Silverman or Pearlman have the "-man" appended to them, even though it could just as easily be "-stein."

Spoiler alert: this post contains some language about Judaism that could be misconstrued as derogatory, although you would have to be retarded not to get it.

Anyway, this guy keeps getting all these urgent phone calls in the middle of the night, "Batman, help, my cat is up a tree," and "Riddle me this, is your refrigerator running?" (to which he obviously responded, "that is NOT A RIDDLE!"), and "hey Batman, do you know where I can score some crack?" and "is this really Batman? Because I thought of calling 9-1-1, but you always seem to have better luck with traffic, and I'm bleeding pretty severely."

Finally, he decides he has to pack up and move out of Gotham. And he ends up living in a town where his next door neighbor is ironically named Hitler, who's actually a sweet, old hippie dude like Jerry Garcia. And they do this charitable boxing match, billed as "Batman vs. Hitler (For Real!)" that tanks when Hitler wins one night.

Much like the above text message conversation, it didn't have a perfect ending. I apologize for the both of them.

Clusterflock.com? More like Cluster-steal ideas from other blogs just because noboody reads them so it's easy to get away with.com

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The Yankees' Battle Plan For the Second Half of the Season

High up in a tower in the Bronx, on a video link with the team's executive offices in Tampa, the top brass of the New York Yankees sat down early this week to map out their strategy for climbing back into the American League East race against the rival Boston Red Sox and the upstart Tampa Bay Rays (look, Mom, no Devil anymore!).

Step 1 in the strategy: let Boston Red Sox outfielder and perennial late-season disappointment J.D. Drew win the MVP award at this year's All-Star Game, which conveniently enough, was being held in Yankee Stadium. Mission accomplished as of Wednesday morning, 2:00 AM.

Step 2 is a little more complicated. It involves jumping out of the gate and winning at least 11 out of their next 12 games, including consecutive 3-game sweeps against Boston (in Fenway Park) and Baltimore (in Yankee Stadium).

After that is a 12-game stretch against teams from the American League West division, out of which they are conservatively planning to get 8 wins.

Once all that's done, they can start looking toward the returns of outfielders Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon, and promising young pitcher Phil Hughes, whose 0-4 record and 9.00 ERA put quite a strain on the term "promising."

Not that that will matter once the Yankee bats start getting hot, which is slated to happen starting in mid-August. After that they can reasonably expect to win 2 out of every 3 games the rest of the way, which should be enough to put them 6-8 games ahead of Boston for the AL East crown, and give them home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and the World Series.

Now, after forming such an ambitious plan, some of the clearer-thinking executives probably looked up and down the current lineup and gulped in sudden terror, or quaked with total pants-shitting fear. As of last Sunday's 4-1 loss in Toronto, the Yankees' lineup featured four players hitting below .250 for the season, and a fifth player (Jason Giambi) hitting just a shade above (.253)*. Of the 12 batters currently on the Yankees 25-man roster, a whopping SEVEN are currently hitting under .250, with an eighth (Giambi) hitting just a shade above (still .253, duh). And being the fantastically talented and intelligent executives that they are (this is the New York Yankees after all), they probably sat down for a serious discussion about offense as soon as they got their pants cleaned from the fear shit.

And lo and behold, a mere two days after the All-Star game, a paltry 36 hours after J.D. Drew accepted his award and then was interviewed by Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Jeanne Zelasko, the Yankee execs solved the problem, and delivered unto their championship-starved fans the final piece in the 2008 Yankee puzzle...

Mr. Richie Sexson.

Bring on championship #27, guys.

I'm going to go stake out my spot in the Canyon of Heroes tomorrow, just as soon as the Fruit Plant closes its doors for the day. I know the ticker-tape parade isn't until late October, but come on. They signed Richie Sexson! World Series victory is as sure a thing as death, or taxes, or Walter Mondale winning the '84 presidential election.

Yankee fans, looks like it's time to get to work on those craft projects and home repairs you've been putting off. Fix that gutter! Build that model Corvette! Become a colorful fashion critic and start your own blog!

You're welcome for the suggestions.

*For those of you who are not fans of baseball, hitting below .250 is considered "not good," because half the job of a professional baseball player is to get hits, and a sub-.250 average means they're not even managing to do that job 25% of the time. Think about how long you would keep your job if you only managed to succeed at it 25% of the time. Then think about the fact that if you manage to succeed 30% of the time for your entire career, you will go to the Hall of Fame. Makes you want to shoot yourself, doesn't it?

Some smooth Jesus love

Dear Jesus,

Two hearts, two of a kind
Love at first sight, why do they say love is blind
Slow down, We don't have to move fast
‘Cause the love that is real is made to last

Take it one heartbeat at a time
Close Your eyes and let Your Holy Spirit unwind
Sooner or later it'll all fall in line
If We take it one heartbeat at a time
One heartbeat

Ooh...

We paint a picture walkin' down the street
Leaves are fallin', Baby Jesus, so are We
Hand in hand, that's the way it should be
How could somethin' so easy make me feel so complete

Take it one heartbeat at a time
Close Your eyes and let Your Holy Spirit unwind
Sooner or later it'll all fall in line
If We take it one heartbeat at a time
One heartbeat

Take it easy, ooh
I want o feel Your every emotion
Shh...don't talk
And We'll be makin' love in slow motion
Ooh...slow motion, J.C.
Ooh...slow motion, Baby

Take it one heartbeat at a time
Close Your eyes and let Your Holy Spirit unwind
Sooner or later it'll all fall in line
If We take it one heartbeat at a time
One heartbeat

One heartbeat at a time (slow motion, Baby)
One heartbeat (oh, slow motion, J.C.)
Sooner or later it'll all fall in line
If We take it one heartbeat

One heartbeat (yeah)
One heartbeat (ooh, Baby)
Sooner or later it'll all fall in line
If We take it one heartbeat...

Whaddya say, Jesus? Wanna take it one heartbeat at a time with me?

Anxiously,
Smokey.

Another high water mark for American diplomacy

Word on the street is that Mr. President W. Bush ended a meeting at the G8 Summit in Japan with the following farewell:

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

In terms of proud moments for America in Japan, I think this ranks just below President Bush I upchucking on the Prime Minister's lap in 1992, and just above Jerry Lewis's performance in the movie The Geisha Boy. (Sorry for that one, Tall Redhead. I had to.)

But there are two reasons I'm offended by this.

Reason 1: Do you have any idea how hard we've been playing the World's Biggest Polluter angle for the Oscar '08 campaign? I have gone to extraordinary lengths in the past several months to personally solidify America's standing as the preeminent contributor to global warming and environmental damage, just to make people feel more at home with a President who lives in a trash can. In April, I instituted a three-point plan to increase the size of my carbon footprint:

Smokey's Three-Point Plan to Increase My Carbon Footprint:

1. Buy a 1970s VW Bus and leave it idling all day, every day.
2. Print out all emails I receive, read them once, then burn them.
3. Wear really large shoes made out of carbon.

See? A three-point plan! My plan has points! Those points are threefold! And now this monkey-faced yokel is taking all the goddamn credit!

Reason 2: According to its charter, the stated purpose of the G-8 is "a renewed commitment to investment in the development of fruit and vegetable canning technology," so what the hell is President Goofus doing talking about pollution? Is he trying to score points with the Chinese by gently deflecting the fact that they have overtaken our polluting hegemony? Or is this part of some larger plan to keep the Candidate in the Trash Can down?

I see right through you, George W. Bush. You are as transparent as a window with no glass, or a doorway with no door, or a great big empty patch of unpolluted air above a country other than the U.S. or China. Also, much like my idling VW Bus, you stink.

Dear Jesus,

Please smite George W. Bush.

Thank You in advance for Your assistance with this matter.

Very truly yours,
Smokey Robinson.

Send in the Browns

Actual news today (for once), along with a legitimate reason to dish out congratulations to my good friend and former roommate, Pete, also known as Squawking VFR. Apparently, he and Mrs. VFR are going to be visited by the stork* at some point a handful of months in the future. Congratulations, kudos, and mazel tov to the both of them, as well as to the Browns-fan-to-be (not pictured, but also pictured).


I received verbal confirmation of the blesséd news yesterday afternoon while the VFRs were approximately 40 miles west of Cleveland. Prior to that conversation, I had suspected that the t-shirt pictured above was part of a hoax. I could see these two pulling a stunt like that.

Some advice for the unborn VFR: this would have been a good time for you to orient yourself with respect to the geography of northern Ohio, where you are certain to spend more than a handful of Sundays long before you reach Selective Service eligibility. Your father, who once decorated half of my college dorm room in the stunningly attractive color scheme of Cleveland's departed and returned football team, can attest to the importance of being acquainted with the Forest City.

Yes, by the way, Cleveland's nickname is "The Forest City." This despite having repeatedly lit the Cuyahoga River on fire.

Is it at all inauspicious that the news of the Future VFR should come so closely on the heels of the death of Jesse Helms? AND Bozo the Clown? Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. No. First of all, unlike homosexuality, racism isn't something that can be taught - you're either born with it or you're not. So Baby VFR won't suffer from the lack of a Jesse Helms in the world to steer him/her toward a life of happy, gun-toting broad-mindedness.

But I will say this tired, predictable thing about the death of Bozo the Clown: he certainly leaves some big shoes to fill. Something to shoot for, Mr. or Ms. Future Browns Fan.

There is a character in my eventually forthcoming novel who shares a last name with the VFR family, and whose first name comes directly from a conversation Pete and I once had about what we would name our sons if we ever had sons to name. That name, Nick, has since been almost violently objected to by Mrs. VFR, so Nick lives on only in the fiction I have been weaving for years.

Not that it would necessarily have been relevant in this case anyway, since my prediction is that the Soon-To-Be VFR is a girl.

*Please note that the stork in question is not the same as The Stork®, the beloved comic book character popularly known as the "Scourge of the South" for the terror he wreaks on infants and expectant mothers, and as the nemesis of Lollipop the Bear, AND who is a registered trademark of DC Comics and Hasbro, Inc. Just to emphasize again, this is not that "the stork."

Arrest THIS Development, You Buzzards!

"FAMILY LOVE SMOKEY," said the banner in the corner of the room. But how could they write such deceitful things on banners, I wondered, as they stood over my inert form and continued to jab at me with long Nerf indoor basketballs and sticks capped with oversized marshmallows. Some people are so contradictory.

Thank Zod in heaven I'm not one of them.

Spotlight on My Junk Mail (Also, Spotlight on My Male Junk)

Every once in a while, I get a piece of unsolicited mail that is so demographically attuned to me, I feel as if the sender has reached a finger up through the urethra of my erectile dysfunction-laden boy parts and touched my very soul. Today happens to be one of those days. Check this out:

From: Tomming Tarns [tomtar4mn@gmail.com]
To: oxbill@sarlin.net, Smokey R [clowntears@piealamodeproductions.com]
Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 11:17 AM
Subject: You've got new message! chore pierce.

Enjoy yourself! Make everything in bed with your woman.
Get full info

Never in my life have I felt so completely understood and safe. Just the mere fact that they "know all problem in [my] sexual life" is an immeasurable comfort in these dire economic times.

It sort of also highlights just how far out-of-touch Jesus and I have fallen. I mean, I still go to Him for advice, but it's as if The Guy constantly falls back on 2,000-year-old parables and quotes and miscellaneous bullshit, rather than put in the effort to come up with anything newer.

Earth to J.C.: it's the 21st century! It's not like there's an 11th commandment that says, "Thou shalt not expect topical wisdom from Me or the Members of My Family," right? Get with it, Dude. I have been crying out for a way to make everything in bed with my woman, and where the hell has the Great Jesus Christ been?

"My child, keep your father's commandment, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes." (Proverbs, 6:20-25)

Some fucking help You are, Jesus, if that IS your real name. We are so over, unless I really need You to help out the Dole Fruit volleyball team with our deep setting again.

Seriously, "capture you with her eyelashes?" W.T.Fuck? With confusing messages like that, it's no wonder Christians are so confused. This is half the reason why priests are constantly messing around with the erectile dysfunction-laden boy parts of their altar boy staff.

Ew, altar boy staff. Nasty.

See what I mean? The teachings of Jesus & Co. are a breeding ground for homo-SIN-uality and pedophilia. It's over between us, Son of Man. And to think, I once saved half a cucumber because I thought I saw your face in it. If I could go back now, I would totally eat that cucumber.

God, even that sounds gross.

Saves me please, Tomming Tarns! You and your lolcats-level understanding of English is my only hopes.

Updates

Sorry I've been gone a while. I know how excruciating life can be without something new on this blog to read, so here are some updates for you on the various stories this website has covered since the most recent Ice Age:

Oscar '08

The same Texas vendor who got in trouble for selling racist buttons at the state GOP is back at it again, this time with an offering targeted squarely at my main Muppet, Oscar.


Personally, I don't really care about the dig at Oscar's accommodations. But I'm deeply offended at the choice of color. Why the WHITE can? Why is the Texas state GOP always fighting so hard to keep purple and fuchsia and lavender out of the mix? What's wrong with ocher, or burnt sienna? How about a nice, soothing taupe? I love taupe!

Speaking of which, for all you enterprising young enterprisers out there, ilovetaupe.com is currently available as a domain name...

The campaign, incidentally, is not going well. Recent polling indicates that McCain and Obama are way, way ahead in every major poll of both likely and unlikely voters. We're out of money, the staff hasn't been fed in a month, and my fundraising letters to the Children's Television Workshop have all gone unanswered. Also, Maria from Sesame Street is totally stonewalling me, that frigid bitch. And here I was, set to suggest her as VP. Your loss, Maria. I hope that job in public television doesn't disappear when ObaMcCain cuts all your funding. Jerk.

A-Rod, Pervez Musharraf, and Britney Spears's Vagina

Not much doing here. After a short stint on the disabled list (which is kind of a slap in the face of people with actual disabilities), A-Rod returned to the Yankees lineup with a vengeance, hitting .740 with 52 home runs and 131 RBI in his last 20 games. It is no coincidence that the smell of Gouda cheese has completely disappeared from Grand Central Station and its surrounds.

As for Pervez, he and I haven't seen each other since the State Department effectively made him persona non grata on this side of the world. We were slated to meet up in Beijing this summer at the Olympics, but we're having one tiny hangup, which is that it is fucking expensive to go to China! I could start my own colony on Mars for cheaper than the airfare alone, and that's not even including the cost of lodging, meals, cheap fireworks, and a trimmed-down budget for hookers and opium. The moral of the story is that it might be a while before Pervez and I are eating ice cream and guffawing over one of A-Rod's jokes again.

Britney Spears and her vagina remain at-large. Gross.

Lollipop the Bear

Despite his lucrative job as a delivery guy for a Korean restaurant on 32nd Street, Lollipop the Bear has been largely invisible of late. I keep searching all the Vespa Scooters in New York, but I haven't seen the elusive skull-and-crossbones decal or the side-mounted holster for his AK-47 in a long, long time. I kind of miss him, actually. New York isn't the same place without him and his unique brand of terrifying adorableness.

Lollipop the Bear would actually be a fantastic choice for VP on the Oscar ticket, in my humble estimation. Riding the recent surge of gun-wagging in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, Lollipop seems singularly positioned to haul in major votes from the gun-and-bullet crowd. Also, despite the machine gun, Lollipop is cute and cuddly, which balances well with Oscar's gruff, raggedy, firearm-free exterior.

But Lollipop does have pretty severe anger issues, stemming from the dismemberment of his father, Sunshine, by a three-year-old having a temper tantrum, and the rise of Build-A-Bear Workshops all over this great land of ours. Oscar and Lollipop would no doubt make a pretty serious play for the rage vote, but that's probably only good for about 10 or 12 percent of the American electorate - not enough to win the election. And since only 3-5 people read this blog (on a good day), it's going to be a little bit challenging to get the word out to Rage-Americans.

If you, or someone you know, is a Rage-American, tell that person about the proposed Oscar-Lollipop ticket. And if you survive their resulting outburst, hop back on here and tell me their reaction in the comments. After you're done, contact a physician, or visit a local emergency room to treat your wounds.

Dole Fruit Company Volleyball Team

We just broke through for a 2-games-to-1 victory over the women's team from Marshall University, and the women's team from Marshall University is no joke. Rex "The Supervisor" Hymen was an absolute monster.

Our secret weapon, though, was a dissertation on Kierkegaard written by none other than Ronny Balboa (yes, that's his real name). Using a perfect professorial intonation, Ronny read excepts of the dissertation during the match while we were serving. The ladies of the Thundering Herd, apparently not used to the soporific effects of listening to a philosophy lecture, were lulled to sleep. Literally.

Maybe they should go to class once in a while. In the meantime, they most certainly got taken to school. (Zing!)

Unfortunately, the blue-clad warriors from the Cannery are dead last in Group 19 of New York Metro League Volleyball, and Group 19 of New York Metro League Volleyball is a total joke. Most of our games are more about pints than points, and there's usually so much lager flowing by the end of a match that we're lucky if we can blow the breathalyzer locks to get into our cars when it's all over.

Alcoholism, of course, is one of the major Achilles' heals of Dole's canning division. About 12 years ago, someone in HR (probably a drunk him- or herself) instituted a campaign to specifically hire and retain admitted alcoholics. Holiday parties got a lot more spirited, let me tell you. And let me also tell you how hard it is to fire someone once they make it past the 90-day probationary period: it's really, really, very hard to do it. I don't even recommend trying, unless you like failing at things.

Anyway, it's fairly evident that our volleyball adversaries in Group 19 of NYMLV are aware of some of our... tendencies, if you will. The constant invitations to drink from their pregame keg, which they are always conveniently not using right then, are just a tiny bit suspicious. And so we end up falling all over ourselves and losing, then getting monstrously depressed and even more monstrously drunk before waking up midmorning on front lawns all over the tri-state area.

Needless to say, this is not quite what I had in mind when I joined the team. I mean, blue uniforms? Seriously?

Bananas

are still delicious, and available in the produce section of your local grocery store.