Thursday, February 19, 2009

Hold me close, young Tony Danza

So here it is, mid-February already. The days are starting to lengthen, the groundhogs are in the midst of shutting the fuck up for another year, and I find myself fighting a rising tide of disappointment in Tony Danza.

It's not because of "Who's the Boss?" - at least, not entirely because of that - and it's not because of his ill-fated daytime talk show. It's because I walked by the display window of a Barnes and Noble this morning on my way to the Fruit Plant, and I did not see a Republican-themed cookbook called Grill, Baby, Grill, written by Tony Danza, with an introduction by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

WT Fuck, Danza? WT Fuck?

I honestly don't know what I have to do to make this happen. I've tried everything there is. For the past six months, I have wished on every star I've seen. I have said prayers to Jesus and the Easter Bunny and All Their Buddies. I have farted "The Star-Spangled Banner." I have used radiation to amplify my brainwaves to that Tony Danza could receive the suggestion telepathically.

So far, I have nothing to show for all of that. Actually, I do have quite a large tumor just above my neck, but... oh, no, wait, that's just my head. So we're back to nothing. Six months of wishing and hoping and planning and praying down the drain.

I guess Dusty Springfield was right after all.

Now it's 2009, mid-February, all that other stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph. And there is still no Tony Danza Republican cookbook on the market. Meanwhile, the resonance of "drill, baby, drill" is disintegrating faster than the Democrats' ability to stay on message. Stupid Democrats. Stupid Republicans. Stupid Tony Danza. Stupid me. Stupid everybody.

But mostly, Stupid Jesus. If you go back far enough, this is clearly His fault. Jesus is the alpha and the omega of blame. So to those red-state consumers who are flush with spare cash for politically-themed cookbooks written by C-List celebrities who are not as telepathic as they're supposed to be, you know Whose fault this really is.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

A Sandwich Board of the Times

An old, grizzled man with a sour look wanders up to the counter of a pawn shop, lustily tugging at something in his coat pocket, and nursing a mouth dryer than a British sitcom. The man is desperate for liquor. He's desperate for food too, but a man's gotta have priorities, and that bottle of Old Granddad next door isn't likely to drink itself, because even a bottle of Old Granddad finds Old Granddad disgusting.

The man's clothes are a vision of decrepitude and dereliction, the uniform of a veteran of the war for survival on the cruel streets. It's a war that no one is winning, since the sides and the battle lines haven't ever been made clear. Nor, for that matter, have the opposing forces who are supposed to be squaring off. Is anyone fighting against survival on the cruel streets? Because if so, I'd like to meet them. Please contact the blog.

For now, though, let's get back to the story of the old man with the sour look and the as-yet-unrevealed object in his pocket, which I will tell you right now is a Blackberry.

The cashier raises an eyebrow at the approaching "customer." He looks bored and unimpressed. Between the sob stories and the outright frauds, this man has had more of his time wasted than all of the time wasted on the internet by all of Generation X put together. He barely looks up from his e-paper, although this is in part because the opacity setting on the e-paper is low enough that he can see through it, since the pawn shop is roughly as likely to look after itself as the Old Granddad is to drink itself. If these analogies and metaphors aren't clear enough for you, please contact the blog.

"Yeah?" says the nonplussed cashier.

"I wanna sell this," says the old sourpuss. And he whips out a Blackberry Curve, which once retailed for the unthinkable sum of $349.99 without a contract from AT&T Wireless.

Sorry, that sentence was wrong. It should say, "And he whips out a FUCKING Blackberry Curve, which once retailed for the unthinkable sum of $349.99 without a contract from AT&T Wireless." I changed it at the last second because I was worried that people might freak out about the profanity if I didn't mention it first and give them a chance to look away. Spoiler alert.

Anyway.

The cashier says, "fuck off," and then adds something in Spanish to the effect that he wishes he had a boot long enough to kick that gavron in the mantequillas while the old man hustles to grab his prize and shuffles backward to the door, the look on his face grown even sourer. This is the fourth FUCKING pawn shop that turned him down! (Spoiler alert: more swearing.)

He emerges onto the cruel streets and with his arms outstretched, casts a hideous curse at the heavens above. Just a few short years ago, the Blackberry was a status symbol, a veritable declaration that the person carrying it was too much of a self-important asshole to leave his email behind for like an hour and a half while we grab dinner with his friends. It used to be like, diamond shoes? Check. Pockets stuffed with $50 and $60 bills? Check. Blackberry Curve? Check. But now, this bedraggled, poopyheaded old man can't even scrape together enough cash from the resale value to buy a bottle of cheap, disgusting booze.

"Why?" the old man yells, anguished, at the God who has forsaken him every bit as much as He forsook Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord and Savior, that day on the Cross a couple thousand years or so ago. The old man's inadvertent sobs divide his subsequent bellowing calls into syllables: "Why-hy-hy-hy? Wah-hah-hah-hah-ha-ha-haaaaaaaeeeeee?" And as he rears back and hurls the worthless hunk of really sophisticated electronic equipment downward at the oddly anachronistic cobblestones of the road, the old man gets struck by lightning and dies, because I couldn't think of a reasonable way to end this paragraph without killing him.

People, the story you've just read is true. Except that it hasn't happened yet. But it will. Oh yes, it will. These economic crisis times are worse than I ever conceived, even in the wild safari that is my imagination. Because while it's true that homeless men aren't actually selling Blackberries for crack or alcohol or ice skating money (yet), you can tell we're headed in that direction. I discovered the proof from a sandwich board I saw outside of Whole Foods earlier this evening.

Take a look, world:

That's right. BLACKBERRIES ARE 2 FOR $4 AT WHOLE FOODS. I double-checked with three store clerks, a manager, eighteen other customers, the cops who dragged me out of the store, and the old homeless man with the sour face who was lying on the sidewalk about four feet from where this picture was taken.

You can't see him because I had to stand astride him in order to get a good angle on the sign. But his face was really sour, let me tell you. I wish I had a Blackberry to donate to him, but I don't really carry loose change in my pocket anymore, because I'm a grown-up now.

Oh, and FYI: this picture was taken by my pal Knickers, who is a FUCKING iPhone.

[SPOILER ALERT: There is plentiful swearing contained in this post.]

Monday, February 09, 2009

Decepticons!

When the timer on my microwave runs out, my microwave does more than just beep. Just beeping would be enough. Frankly, it's sometimes too much. But the beep I will take for granted. Beeping is what microwaves do, after all, and to ask them not to do it would be like asking a plate of lasagna to not be delicious, which would be ridiculous.

I'm not asking my microwave not to beep, I'm saying it's cool about the beep, and can we please move on? Because there are other things to talk about in regards to this microwave, whom I occasionally refer to as MicroDave the microwave. As in, 'sup, MicroDave the microwave? Y U beepin at me? That is how I talk to my MicroDave. And he beeps back at me. That is what is up.

But that is not what is all.

My microwave then - then, as in after the beeping - displays the following words, in the monochromatic digital alarm clock font that would obviously be monotone and masculine if it had a voice:

YOUR FOOD IS DONE

Pardon me, MicroDave, but all you know is that the timer is done. You don't know jack shit about whether my jack cheese is melted, and half the time, you're fuckin' wrong, okay? Okay, MicroDave? (the microwave?) Don't presume to tell me my food is done when for all you know, I've finally snapped and stuck a handful of metal canisters full of pressurized cleaning agents inside you and decided to end it all. You are a deceiver, MicroDave. You are a liar! You are a machine who spreads deception and we all know that deception is just one letter away from Decepticon, which is another sort of deceitful machine altogether, but you're probably cousins.

It's times like this when I long for the old days, when the machines didn't talk back so damn much. I miss those old days. I feel nostalgia.

Thank Zod I'm not a vampire, or I would probably be able to achingly remember all the way back to when we didn't even have the word "microwave." And also, thank Zod I'm not a vampire because my nephew would be scared of me. I know I'm about to risk losing a sizeable contingent of my audience by saying this, but I am totally and one hundred percent anti-vampire.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Gay Men and Puppets Are Here to Save You

I have the lyrics from "Away in a Manger" stuck in my head this Sunday late morning, just sitting there in my brain like yesterday's oatmeal, which is sitting in the GladWare container out of which I didn't finish eating it, getting crustier by the second. Somehow, the metaphor seems to have drawn me away from my point, though, which is about the lyrics from "Away in a Manger."

It's not a subconsciously guilty response to having skipped church this morning. I have skipped church for more consecutive weeks than Tiger Woods has been number one at golf, and for more consecutive weeks than Barack Obama (who is the Tiger Woods of black US presidents) has been number one at being awesome. At least, I don't think it's a subconsciously guilty response to skipping church. But that's the thing with subconsciousness, isn't it. You can never be sure.

Except for this time. I am sure this time. I am sure it's not my subconscious because I know what this "Away in a Manger" business is about. That was the song that first made me fall in love with baby Jesus. And it's hard to think that after all those years of being at least as devoted to him as most of the nuns I'm friends with, I would give it all up for a flash-in-the-pan circus man named Paul Anderson, just because Paul Anderson can walk on stilts.

Then again, Paul Anderson looks like this:

So we really can't blame me, can we?

In the words of the Tiger Woods of black US presidents, Yes We Can.

People are always talking about sin. Studies show that apart from talking about childhood obesity and chewing gum, talking about sin is the most popular use of the human mouth that there is. Catholic priests use their mouths to talk about sin ALL THE TIME, which is ironic because they probably also use those same mouths to fellate their altar boys, because all Catholic priests are child molesters, again, according to studies.

Speaking of which, I once had a molestation-minded Catholic priest chase me around a church once. He caught me by the organ.

You can't really consider Jesus my boyfriend, but I think the point that my subconscious, and my conscious, and Barack Obama are trying to make is that by falling so hard for Paul Anderson, I have sinned against the Lord Jesus, or J-Lord Perry, as I sometimes call him. After all, Jesus was a carpenter, and Paul Anderson is a circus performer, and the only place a circus performer should come before a carpenter is in the bizarro Yellow Pages, where things are in backwards alphabetical order, and where forsaking Jesus for Paul Anderson is not a sin.

But this is not the bizarro world. It's the world where Barack Obama is president, Tiger Woods is number one at golf (even though he hasn't played since June), and religious comeuppance comes not only from subconscious lyrical reminders of Jesus, but also from moralistic musical sermons by men on YouTube who are obviously gay:




I have always taken pretty much a "meet it head-on" approach to dealing with sin. Obviously, that was wrong. I don't know why this didn't occur to me before. I guess because I am not Tiger Woods, or Barack Obama, or Jesus. I am but a poor servant of the higher mastery that is the Dole Fruit Company, a practicing existentialist, and a sucker for a dude who can make his own stilts.

Here's a little more temptation to look away from:


How to Saw Wood To Build Circus Stilts -- powered by ExpertVillage.com


Where are your puppets and homos to save you now, bitches?

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Look out, Jesus.

All right, check this dude out:



And tell me that hair doesn't make your chest go all thumpy-thumpy like in the cartoons.

Blam. You have been hypnotized.

This is Paul Anderson, and he is like Jesus on stilts. Which makes him better than Jesus, because Jesus didn't walk on stilts. That takes talent, the kind of talent you would definitely read about in the Bible, which covered every single detail of Jesus's life in the kind of detail that only Michael Phelps and Barack Obama can appreciate.

In fact, there should be a Bible of stilt-walking, and it should star Paul Anderson. (INTERNET: THIS IDEA CAN BE YOURS, FREE OF CHARGE. YOU'RE WELCOME.)

Instead, there's this.


How to Add Multiple Levels to Your Stilts -- powered by ExpertVillage.com


I kind of wish I could go back in time and vote No on Proposition 8 in California so that I could gay marry this man's hair and stilts and his cool, cool glasses too. The rest of him I could kind of take or leave, especially after 22 episodes that all start with that "...and here we are!" line.

Look, Paul Anderson: just because you're in the circus doesn't mean you have to talk like you're in the circus, you know what I mean? You're better than Jesus, dammit. Start acting like it.

Dear Jesus,

Move over, Son of Man. There's a new heartthrob in town. Barack Obama has brought the change we need, and his name is Paul Anderson.

You are officially Yesterday's News, Jesus. You are the Pull-My-Finger of Messiahs.

Peace, love, and Freedom toast,
Smokey.