It's Not Easy Being Green

Hey, everybuzzy. Hi. How are you doing. I hope you're okay.

Sigh.

So Oscar the Grouch isn't really speaking to me. We have two weeks left in the campaign, and it turns out that thanks to the work of ACORN, there are more people registered to vote under the name "Oscar the Grouch" than there are who plan to actually vote for him. All that red state-blue state-green state mumbo jumbo that we were hoping for has turned out to be nothing but a bunch of red state-blue state-green state mumbo jumbo that we were hoping for.

It's time to face the facts: this election is pretty much done for the Grouch-Piggy ticket. Maybe it was over before it started, like one of the aborted fetuses that Barack Obama loves so damn much and probably eats for breakfast before he prays to Mecca and calls up Bill Ayers and Osama bin Laden on the phone to talk about which buildings he's planning on blowing up first after he gets inaugurated.

In the end, we never had any hope of competing with Obama's far superior marketing machine. I mean, when you've got advertising like this:

and this:


What hope is there for anyone else? How can you look at these things and NOT want to vote for Barack Obama? I want some Obama Bucks! I want more abortions and same sex marriages! Sign me the hell up!

But the Oscar campaign was beset by further struggles too. Remember back when Hillary Rodman Clinton dropped out of the race, when the candidate field had been whittled all the way down to two with just a few months left before the election? This Race to the White House™ started with eighteen people and got all the way down to TWO! How much longer could it possibly be before the pool narrowed even further, to just ONE, and then ZERO! That was the centerpiece of my electoral strategy, if you recall.

There were a few problems I didn't foresee. First of all, these McCain and Obama chaps turned out to be much more persistent about becoming president than I thought. I just assumed that since every other Democrat and Republican changed their minds and decided not to run, so would John McCain and Barack Obama. I assumed wrong.

Worse than that, it seems I wasn't the only person who backed a surprise candidate with the hope of gaining some late momentum. Check out some of the competition:


Seriously, how the fuck is Oscar supposed to compete with Caligula? Talk about executive experience - dude was in charge of the Roman Empire! I'm sure in comparison, people are gonna be real impressed by a raggedy puppet in a fucking garbage can, right?

And the Nurglon thing? Folksy, family values - that's what the American electorate responds to! Plus, I have no idea how, but they lined up a major party affiliation! All I can say is wow. Good luck to you, being. I hear judge rimjob the blah* is even considering endorsing them, and who can blame him?

Worse than all that, it turns out the John McCain is actually a much bigger grouch than Oscar could ever hope to be.

Which brings us back to why Oscar isn't speaking to me. See, I was a little bit pissed off at him for not even acknowledging the lovely chopsticks set I got him for National Grouch Day last week, and so I may have accidentally referred to Oscar as "would not even be in the same grouch league as John McCain if there were an official league of grouches" on a conference call with members of the press and virtually all of our high-level donors.

Oops.

Anyway.

Two weeks left before the election, and I think it's time to call it on the Oscar '08 campaign. Time of death: still in the womb.

Oh, and to all those of you who will say they saw this coming, please feel free to fuck yourself with something large, metallic, furry, and partially green. Like, say, a garbage can with a Muppet sticking out of one end. Fuck yourself with that.

Have a Lousy Grouch Day!

You know what to-day is? It's official Grouch Day. I hope your grouch day is filled with trash and anger. Now get out of my garbage can!

Calling it off?

I had one last ace I was waiting to play. I didn't have it all together just yet, though. The God endorsement. Nothing trumps Jesus coming out for the Republicans except the God endorsement. Carries a lot of weight with the aerial hunting crowd and the "we get our news from 'The Daily Show'" crowd.

Oscar's people (meaning me) have been on the horn to God every day for the past six months. You know, praying. The way people telephone their deity when they need absolution for not remembering to DVR the season premiere of "The Office."

I guess someone else was praying a little harder though.

You, O God, have raised up Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin for such a time as this. . . Help them, O God, to strengthen our economy, to keep our taxes and spending low . . . and grant them the privilege of being elected the next president and vice president."

From the Washington Post, somewhere in the middle of the article

SMOKEY: (shaking head, looking downward toward the sidewalk) Republicans. (looking upward, shaking fist at the sky) Republicans!

Oscar's plans to beat Kenny Crandell are rapidly eroding.

Things to Look For At the Vice Presidential Debate

This isn't actually so much of a post about things to look for as it is about things to NOT look for, because the people who run the debates are fascist jerks and I hate them. So instead of seeing the rambling old codger with the hearing aid and the pit bull with lipstick and the pig, um, also with lipstick, all America gets is the codger and the pit bull, because the Committee Who Selfishly Runs The Vice Presidential Debates (their official name) doesn't want the voters to have to make any actual choices. Thank Zod the CWSRTVPD doesn't also run a restaurant, or else every meal at their restaurant would probably be a choice between a hamburger and a chicken sandwich, both served with a heaping helping of their special "Who gives a crap, we want Miss Piggy in the debate too!" sauce.

Fucking politics sucks. Muppet Show film festival at my place tonight. BYO episodes of the Muppet Show.

Bad Joke Alert, Awesome Marketing IDEA

Matt's Debate Summary: Blah blah blah Obama, blah blah blah McCain, 90 minutes, and not one "yo mama" joke. Like, "yo mama's so poor, she would qualify for a tax cut under both of our tax policies," or "yo mama's so fat that all of our impressive strides in airport security are probably an added difficulty for her," or "yo mama's so old, she was there for McCain's first debate, which was scheduled to pit him against a velociraptor, but McCain successfully managed to avoid that debate by postponing it until after the dinosaurs went extinct a mere 5,000 years ago."

Not one.

Just a lot of mumbo jumbo about policies and other countries and how K-Mart commercials, the belwether of the advertising industry, have really sucked since Rosie O'Donnell and Penny Marshall stopped doing product endorsement.

The whole hour and a half, do you know what I was thinking? Three things:

A. I hope Jesus is watching this*

B. What the fuck am I supposed to do with the 250 "O vs. O" banners I had printed after Jim Lehrer told me that they were going to let Oscar the Grouch stand in for John McCain? And why is that the third time this week I got seduced and lied to by a PBS show anchor? God!

C. What if I made a calendar with pictures of nuns stripping and called it, "Getting Out of the Habit?"

That last idea has promise.

*Of course Jesus is watching this. Jesus watches everything we do and takes notes on who's' naughty and who's nice, just like the government, and Santa Claus.

News from the Campaign Front

I'll be honest, the atmosphere around the Oscar the Grouch '08 campaign offices has been pretty grim lately. We fumbled what looked like sure endorsements from jerk rimjob the blah (aka judge reinhold, whose name is still unworthy of capitalization), and from Ron Paul - although we were able to claim at least a minor victory in getting him to endorse third party candidates in general. The category definitely includes us, so in the most technical of senses, we actually did get Ron Paul's endorsement. Then again, technically, so did the freaking Communists.

We're also making zero headway with the Children's Television Workshop and noted chef Jim Henson. CTW is still pretending not to read this blog, and Jim Henson, it turns out, is dead. (Spoiler alert.) Bobby Flay was willing to come on board to help us out, but the grilled Gonzo he auditioned with was fucking terrible. What a hack.

Also, we have no money. The only greenbacks in the entire campaign office are the green backs of Oscar's puppeteer-controlled hands, which he keeps slapping me with every time I deliver him another piece of bad news. And bad news hasn't exactly been in short supply lately. So we got domestic abuse going for us too. But please don't tell Oscar I told you, or I don't even know what he'll do - probably send me to Bobby Flay's house to be made into inedible smoked Smokey.

I am pleased, however, to announce two pieces of good news today, the proverbial silver linings on the cloud that is otherwise raining bird shit and dog shit and the pain of being slapped by a Muppet all over me.

Firstly, we have dumped Pervez Musharraf from the ticket. Oscar's new vice president will be pause none other than drum roll sound effect Miss Piggy exclamation point.

Something seems wrong with that last sentence. But NOTHING seems wrong with our new VP choice, a pig that you can truly put lipstick on, although you will get viciously karate chopped if you try. True, Miss Piggy may not have a retarded baby, but she does have some pretty weird-looking children on account of being married to a puppet frog.

As expected, the Mrs. Miss Piggy the Frog selection has considerably shored up our support among the Muppet American community, where we currently hold a 65-30 lead over Barack Obama, who has been widely mistaken for a Muppet because of his massive ears. Other than that, putting Piggy on the ticket has done jack squat. For me personally, it means having to deal with the two most high maintenance puppets this side of Statler and Waldorf, both of whom have endorsed John McCain, by the way.

Still, it qualifies as good news, because Oscar and Miss Piggy told me so, and because they're the ones with their fingers on the buttons that, when pressed, administer high-level electrical shocks to the battery clamps on my singed nipples. Please, if you're reading this, send help. These fuckers are vicious!

I'm kidding! I love being tortured by icons of children's television! Where was I? It's so tough to concentrate past the blinding pain...

Oh, right - the second bit of good news. Which is this: no matter what else happens, Jesus is still my friend.

And he'll zap you any way he can. Word. Who needs to win an election when you have friends like this?

An Oscar Campaign Promise™!

If Oscar is elected president, he promises to take pretzels off the enemy combatant list, where they have been ever since January 14, 2002, when a brave pretzel (coincidentally named Dennis Kucinich) tried to, um, "serve articles of impeachment" on the President, as an actor said to a bishop.

You have to be very careful with your wording when mentioning what Dennis Kucinich, the Pretzel was really trying to do.

Note to the government: these are all jokes. I just wanted to spell that out, because I know how easy it would be to, um, "be misread and sent to Guantanamo," as an actor said to a bishop.

Anyway, that's an Oscar Promise™!

And because this isn't getting nearly enough media coverage, here's Oscar's campaign poster again:

The Oscar '08 Endgame

Heaveno, people. Oscar '08 update comin' atcha.

It's crunch time at the Oscar '08 campaign headquarters, and you know what that means. It's time to name our vice president, and map out our final strategy for defeating both Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Oops, I mean John W. McBush.

First off, a little managing expectations.

Yes, I believe that Oscar is a better candidate than either of these men, if for no other reason than he's a Jim Henson puppet, so people already know whose hand is up his ass. But Oscar has a significant electoral problem that neither Obama nor McBain has, and that problem is this: no one reads this fucking blog. How in the hell I managed to scare up 3,152 votes for Kenny Crandle in 2004 remains a mystery. If Oscar manages to get TWO votes, I would consider that a victory. And if he manages to actually carry a state, then I will buy everyone in that state pizza. (I'm talking to you, Texas and California!)

Now, on to the main events.

1. Oscar's vice presidential pick.

Seems like a lot of the emphasis with the VP picks centers on experience - specifically, foreign policy experience. One little crisis with the Russians in Georgia, and there's, like, a stampede of contenders to get to the nearest airport: Joe Lieberman, Lindsay Graham (who is a dude, by the way, despite the name), Joe Biden, Cindy McCain, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Sherman Helmsley, each one jockeying to prove that he is the man who can pull the world back from the brink of collapse.

But Georgia is a lot like the actress who played Kimmy Gibler on Full House, in that they are both overrun by undersized Slavic men with poor personal hygiene. Also, because no one in America really has any idea where they are. (Republican VP hopeful Tim Pawlenty would have been on his way to Georgia too, but having been educated in the American public school system, he bought a plane ticket to Atlanta. Zing.) And while it's easy to crack jokes about how dumb Americans are and how remote and useless and stinky Georgia is, the point is that there are other countries in the world with more John-Stamos-esque global statures, where a candidate for Vice President could reasonably hope to glean some meaningful foreign policy experience. Countries like Pakistan, for example.

Therefore, it is with great pride that we announce that Oscar the Grouch's running mate for Vice President of the United States shall be...

Pervez Musharraf.

Think about it. You can't beat him for foreign policy experience. He's been the president of an entirely separate country for most of this millennium! And his credentials keep looking stronger and stronger since the government of Pakistan took about four days to collapse after he left office - a fact which also provides a fantastic contrast with George W. Bush, whose government collapse occurred not only while he was on the job, but also because he was on the job.

I know that given my longstanding friendship with Pervez, not to mention our mutual affection for all things Ben and/or Jerry, people will scream patronage. Also, they will scream for ice cream. And you know what, those people will be right. They'll be absolutely right.

2. How to beat Obama.

This one is simple. So simple that it's a wonder the Republican party hasn't figured it out already. Then again, the Republican party is pretty dumb. I mean, we're talking about an "organization" (I use the term loosely) of "people" (I use the term even more loosely) that has actually fielded Dan Quayle and George W. Bush - two men whose combined IQ would be easily outdistanced by a mentally retarded stick of chewing gum - as candidates for high public office. Translation: Republicans are very dumb.

So here's some help. This is the new slogan of the campaign to elect John McCain:

John McCain already got beaten by a bunch of Asians. Let's not let him get beaten by a black guy too.

It's that simple. No one will vote for teh Obama now.

3. How to beat John McCain.

I really don't know how to beat John McCain. Maybe we can ask his Viet Cong captors for some tips. Zing.

No, seriously, let's ask them. My bet is that they're working at Guantanamo right now - as janitors, though, because their torture résumés aren't nearly extreme enough to qualify them as interrogators. It's true! And it's also today's fun fact for the day: the "torture" practiced by John McCain's captors in Vietnam is actually significantly less severe than the "interrogation techniques" sanctioned by the Bush Administration for use in prisoner questioning in Guantanamo!

Nothing but the best for our enemy combatants!

But unfortunately, this still doesn't answer the question of how to win against John McCain. Maybe it's like that old riddle about the minister, the rabbi, and John McCain being on an airplane together, and the airplane starts to crash, but with only two parachutes available, and bearing in mind that this is after John McCain was tortured but before he met Cindy, the minister says he has a wife who loves him and he just wants to see her again, and the rabbi says he has a wife who loves him and he just wants to see her again, and John McCain says, "I'm married to a former model who's now five-foot-four and big as a house; you guys take the parachutes." Maybe that's how you beat John McCain. I'm not sure.

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.

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.

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.

You're gonna get yours too, reruns of Who's the Boss?

There are three things about me that everyone who knows me already knows: 1) like everyone else, I breathe air and drink water; 2) unlike everyone else, I do not put my pants on one leg at a time; and 3) I have a deep mistrust of American daytime television programming, especially, but not exclusively, public television.

Seriously, take one look at Mr. Rogers sexy hair stylings and tell me the man didn't have some kind of freakish agenda. He wanted your children*! He would stop at nothing to get them*! All his songs and puppets and sweaters were part of an elaborate plan to reprogram them*!

*(to be better people when they grow up)

Network daytime programming is no better. Live with Regis and Kathie Lee/Kelly is obviously a not-so-subtle play on the term "Life with Regis and Kathie Lee/Kelly," as in "life sentence," as in being forced to watch these people drone on endlessly, day after day, about fruit and manicures and diarrhea or whatever it is they talk about. (I've never actually seen more than six minutes of an episode.)

So I was gratified to find out that Michelle Obama repaid some of the horror inflicted on the American public by daytime television, by going on The View yesterday and holding those five women - and a guest or two - hostage. Just look at her terrorizing those "women" with her frightening fists of feminine fury:


Bully for you, Michelle. No one likes you anyway, so why not just terrorist fist jab them into submission? Bravo.

You're next, Big Bird, you pretentious fuck.

Note: the foregoing commentary on daytime television is presented without inclusion of Oscar the Grouch, who may be the lone trustworthy voice gracing the American airwaves during regular business hours. Also, Big Bird, please bear in mind that threats made against presidential candidates are investigated by the Secret Service pending felony charges. Stick that in your big, yellow beak and light yourself on fire.

Sixteen down, only two to go!

True, the Oscar the Grouch for President '08 campaign can't claim a single state primary victory. Nor can it claim a political affiliation with, or an endorsement from any major or minor party. True, the Oscar '08 campaign has underperformed even the most modest financial expectations, managing to fund raise a paltry $0.0004 to date (3/4 through our website, www.ilovecheese.com!). True too that the Oscar '08 campaign strategy is essentially relying on this blog, which you are the only person not reading, to spread the word.

Sounds pretty bleak, no? But the Oscar campaign can still claim this:

It's still going.

Now that Hillary Clinton has suspended her campaign, allowing for Barack Obama to knuckle-tap and shoulder-brush his way to Denver (that's where the Democratic National Convention will be held, also where I ate at a Sonic restaurant for the first time), the total pool of candidates is down to 2, not counting Ralph Nader, Ron Paul (now available in libertarian flavor!), the late Sonny Bony, Carrot Top, and John Kerry '04.

But is the media talking about any of them? No, sir, the media is not talking about them. Instead, sir, the Jew- and Gay-run media only has the names of TWO presidential candidates on its coverage agenda these days, and boy, sir, is Jim Henson (a white, deceased, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or WDASP) pissed off.

So what though, because my point is about electoral math. Not the kind where people are winning states and counting delegate votes though, just math relating to electorations, or elections, as the kids say these days. (Hey, by the way, are you enjoying all these parenthetical asides? I'll bet you're not!) And going by the math, we have experienced a steady attrition in the number of candidates for President during the last 18 months. At one point, there were as many as EIGHTEEN! Now, we're down to TWO!

Think about it: where once we had EIGHTEEN candidates, we now have TWO. If the pattern holds (and they wouldn't call it a pattern if it didn't), we're likely to be down to ZERO candidates long before Barack Obama gets a chance to test out his dance moves on stage in Denver.

This is great news for Oscar the Grouch. (I know, I know, another parenthetical. They're annoying, right? Not surving any purpose?) With zero other candidates, all Oscar has to do is keep his name in the running.

American voters are like robots (Clinton supporters in particular), so they most likely won't know what to do if they see a ballot with no names on it in the major party slots. They will probably step out of the voting booth without voting for anyone. Which means that if Oscar can get anywhere near 50% of the Kenny Crandall write-in vote, he might win a plurality, and be swept into office. (Probably not though. Oh, god, another parenthetical aside!)

I know, it's a long shot. (Who do I think I am, Stephen Colbert?)

I'm just saying, that at least we have a plan, which is more than you can say for all those primary dropouts like Bill Richardson whom I miss terribly. (It's almost it's own little conversation, completely separate from the heavy politix talk going on OUTSIDE the parentheses. Which is so stupid, I could, like, gag, right?)

Honestly, this all still goes back to juggs rimshot the blah (previously known as "Judge Reinhold." see also, Benedict Reinhold) and his failure to re-endorse after Bill Richardson dropped out in February. My mind is like a rudderless ship, and I, a mere robot standing on the deck of that ship, awaiting my voting instructions from my evil Sesame Street overlord. All hail the Oscar! All vote for the Oscar!

(So, it's been a little hectic at the Fruit Plant lately. Company volleyball is in full swing, and since they decided to hold our last game at 5:15PM on a Tuesday - in California - we basically had no shot of making it there on time, even with the time difference AND the express Holiday Inn shuttle to and from the airport. Anyway, sorry about not blogging.)

So I think it's worth suggesting to Barack Obama and John McCain that they follow the lead of their former rivals and quietly drop out of the race for president too. Write them letters and tell them so. Send them emails. Stalk the candidates personally, if you must. Just get them to quit. It's the perfect plan.

(Oh, hey! Remember when I mentioned eating at Sonic in Denver?


Technically, it's a short distance outside of Denver, but still within the greater Denver metropolitan area.


Okay, the guy in this photo is not me. It's my friend Drew who recently got married, who was also at Sonic, and who is wearing a Rutgers shirt to prove that he's from faaaaaar away. Also, the girl in the picture is not me either. She's a Sonic employee, which can be hard to tell. Even harder is why Drew isn't being more chivalrous and taking the tray for her.)

The Oscar '08 Keys to Victory: Being Green and Not Elite

The Oscar '08 campaign effort has been lying low lately, just waiting for fatal mistakes by the front runners in the Clinton campaign and the Obama campaign and the McCain campaign and the Nader campaign and the Gravel campaign and the John Kerry '04 campaign and the Hamburger Penis campaign and the Mickey Mouse campaign so that Oscar can sweep in and take full advantage.

As we say over at Oscar '08 headquarters, the name of the game is patience. All we need is just a little patience. I've been walking the streets at night, just trying to get it right. It's hard to see with so many around. You know I don't like being stuck in the crowd. We say that ALL THE TIME. Sometimes we whistle along too.

Oscar himself has been, well, grouchy, to be frank. It seems like being in last place really doesn't agree with him. Although, on April Fool's Day, we tried to lift his spirits by commissioning fake polls that showed him with 45 percent of the popular vote, and a commanding plurality over Obama, McCain, Clinton, Hamburger Penis, and all the others. But even before we told him it was a joke, Oscar was STILL GROUCHY.

He's kind of a jerk, if you must know. We're doing our level best to keep that from the media, but this guy, I swear, wakes up on the wrong side of the trash can EVERY SINGLE DAY. Please, immediately forget that I said that. Because this week has been great for Oscar '08.

All this "elite" and "elitism" talk plays right into our hands. Delta's Business Elite frequent flyer program notwithstanding, apparently people don't like "elite." So I ask you this, American public: what could be less elite than a candidate who lives in a [expletive deleted] trash can?

Also, let's not forget how green he is. Apart from Kermit the Frog, whom Oscar already beat in the 1996 Senate race in Oklahoma, there is no greener candidate out there. Even Al "Look at me, I'm an environmentalist now" Gore is more red than he is green, that stupid communist.

I mean, that stupid ELITE communist! Now, nobody will vote for him!

Oscar is so green, he refers to the Jolly Green Giant as the Jolly Same Color as Me Giant. Oscar is so green that his middle name could totally be "Envy", if it weren't already "The." Oscar is so green that he shits emeralds! (Please don't tell anyone about the emerald shit, though, because it might be a serious medical condition - we're not sure yet, and we can't get his grouchy ass to a doctor). This is how green Oscar is:

This image used without permission. Sorry, whoever owns this image!

And this is how NOT ELITE he is:

This image also used without permission. But what could be less elite than posing for a picture with the superimposed head of Britney Spears, which probably still carries a pretty hefty risk of exposure to herpes? Quick, check out that filthy tuxedo before the cease and desist letter gets here!

Patience pays dividends, people. [Insert additional Guns 'N' Roses lyrics here.] America, once again, YOU ARE WELCOME.

A gift idea for Paul Begala

Paul Begala's birthday isn't until May 12th, so there are plenty of shopping days between now and then to find a more ideal gift for him than Anti-Monkey-Butt Powder, which he is going to need once Hillary Clinton finally bows out of the Democratic presidential race.

I'm hoping that happens right around May 12th, so I can leap in with a perfectly timed six-pack of Anti-Monkey-Butt Powder, thereby luring him to the Oscar the Grouch '08 cause.



My political savvy knows almost no bounds. How do you like me now, Barack Obama? That's what you get for hitting on my girlfriend, mister. I could totally have used the Anti-Monkey-Butt Powder to score the endorsement for you, but you blew it, dude. You totally blew it. Just like those ugly chicks did to our blind governor.

My 100th Post. Yay.

Blogger claims this is my 100th post since I started using blogspot last year. I have to say, I was initially duped into thinking that blogspot was some sort of clothes-washing/dry cleaning service, something I desperately needed at the time. It's hard to believe that in a mere 380 days, I have nearly learned how to read and write - a skill that Charlotte, the famous and eponymous spider of Charlotte's Web fame and eponymy, had already mastered fully by the middle of her lone year on planet earth.

My therapist always tells me that I won't do my self-esteem any favors by comparing myself to other people, so I don't. But that quack has never said jack squat about comparing myself to a spider, so I do. And every time, I end up losing, and my self-esteem spirals into a miasma out from which all the Snickers and all the Twix and all the golfers crotch hooks in the world cannot lift me.

Zod knows, I have killed plenty of spiders in my time. You would think that, after all that carnage, I would have cultivated a sense of superiority over the entire order Araneae. But consider the legacy of Charlotte A. Cavatica, who could rightly be regarded as the mother of bloggerism itself. Think about it: thoroughly unimportant and insignificant daily editorials in her web that changed the mind of the country bumpkins in charge of awarding blue ribbons at the county fair? That's exactly how people use the WORLD WIDE WEB today, OBVIOUSLY!! Well, that and for making lolcats.

So no, I don't feel superior. You were wrong for would-thinking that. I feel like a jerk, and so should you. Because while Charlotte was out there weaving words into her webs so that she could get "some pig" elected president, you and I were getting jerked around in grade school classrooms and not being taught the alphabet or how to weave webs or ANYTHING. And now, I can't even get a single celebrity endorsement for my Oscar the Grouch '08 campaign, all because I was not born a spider.

The practical upshot of my persistent illiteracy is twofold. First of all, I was not invited to partake in the making of this fine, quality video:

I mean, there's no denying what these women are saying. It truthfully is raining McCain. Hallelujah. Hosanna in excelsis.

Second of all, my write-in campaign for Oscar the Grouch lacks the muscle of this campaign, targeted at getting John McClane, hero of the Die Hard franchise of movies, elected president.

As none of you may recall, four years ago, I tried like hell, and at tremendous personal expense, to get Kenny Crandall from the movie Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead elected to the nation's highest office. And despite fielding a candidate that many considered more viable, and less intellectually dormant, than either John Kerry or George W. Bush, K. Crandall barely managed to muster 3,000 votes from among the entire American electorate.

I never had the coverage that they give to a John McClane candidacy, and it most certainly isn't raining Oscar the Grouch the way it's raining McCain. Obviously, in the face of this news, the Oscar '08 campaign is a totally lost cause. Because nothing beats John McClane. Just ask Hans Gruber. Or that scary fucker Karl that McClane hung from a bunch of conveniently placed chains after beating the crap out of him. Or any of the other German terrorists that held the Nakatomi Plaza hostage that Christmas Eve 20 years ago. Or the planeload of escaping weirdo military psychos who got blown up over Dulles airport after McClane lit their fuel trail on fire. I don't think even Kenny Crandall himself could overcome that.

But I will persevere nonetheless, and my perseverance will know no bounds. Because if there's one thing I know how to do, it's to persevere in the face of not-worth-persevering-against odds. Which is exactly how I've managed to continue writing this ridiculous blog which you are the only person not reading. But screw this learning to read business - that is just NEVER going to happen. What am I, a spider or something?

Charlotte A. Cavatica
Wherever Dead Spiders Go
Hell, Michigan 48169

Dear Charlotte,

If John McCain gets elected, you have no one but yourself to blame. You are ruining America. Fuck you, you dead fucking spider.

Love and kisses and slow, painful death to all your spider children,
Smokey Robinson

P.S. Do you know a good clothes-washing/dry cleaning service in New York City? Thanks loads.

"What happened today," whatever that's supposed to mean...

Well, Hillary Clinton won in Texas and Ohio, proving once again that anyone with a vagina whose name isn't John Kerry can win in Texas and Ohio. And, just like before, the eyes of hopeful women and African-descended Americans will be turned toward the Democratic party to see which minority will be overlooked, become disillusioned, and vote for Ralph Nader, paving the way for the upstart Oscar the Grouch '08 campaign to sweep the first Muppet President into the White House in January. Talk about your neglected minorities.

Still, it's not the fractious primary season that has me all bugaboo today, nor is it the results from Texas and Ohio themselves. What's eating at me is an email that was sent to Sarah early this morning by none other than Barack Obama himself. That's right, Barack Obama is emailing MY GIRLFRIEND.

At 4:00 in the morning!

From the campaign trail!!

And get this: they're apparently on a first-name basis too.

From: Barack Obama [messiah@barackobama.com]
To: Sarah [ilovesmokey@piealamodeproductions.com]
Date: Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 4:24 AM
Subject: What happened today

Sarah --

We may not know the final outcome of today's voting until morning, but the results so far make one thing clear.

When the dust settles from today's contests, we will maintain our substantial lead in delegates. And thanks to millions of people standing for change, we will keep adding delegates and capture the Democratic nomination.

We knew from the day we began this journey that the road would be long. And we knew what we were up against.

We knew that the closer we got to the change we seek, the more we'd see of the politics we're trying to end -- the attacks and distortions that try to distract us from the issues that matter to people's lives, the stunts and the tactics that ask us to fear instead of hope.

But this time -- this year -- it will not work. The challenges are too great. The stakes are too high.

Americans need real change.

In the coming weeks, we will begin a great debate about the future of this country with a man who has served it bravely and loves it dearly. And we will offer two very different visions of the America we see in the twenty-first century.

John McCain has already dismissed our call for change as eloquent but empty.

But he should know that it's a call that did not begin with my words. It's the resounding call from every corner of this country, from first-time voters and lifelong cynics, from Democrats and Republicans alike.

And together you and I are going to grow this movement to deliver that change in November.

Thank you,

Barack

Nice veiled innuendo with that subject line, B.O. "What happened today," huh? What the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway? Is that shorthand for something I'm NOT SUPPOSED TO FIND OUT ABOUT?

W.T. Fuck?

I don't even know what to say about this. You scrimp and you save, and then you take all your hard-earned money and, instead of buying a Hyundai-sized raspberry or a raspberry-sized Hyundai, you spend it on a security deposit and a broker's fee so that you can live with a woman who turns out to be on a FIRST-NAME EMAIL BASIS WITH BARACK OBAMA AT 4:24 IN THE MORNING!

Not cool.

Then again, here I am practically running Oscar the Grouch's campaign all by myself, to the obvious neglect of my significant other. You know how I spent this past weekend? Trying to line up Vice Presidential candidates for the Grouch '08 ticket, that's how. I don't even remember what Sarah was doing the entire time. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I remember Sarah asking me to lift the other end of something heavy while I was on the phone at one point. I wonder what happened with that...

I guess I have no one to blame but myself. Sarah has gone Barack, and she may never go back. And it's all my fault.

Maybe I can make it up to her by voting for Hillary Clinton. She's a girl too, I hear! I bet Sarah would really appreciate that.

As for Barack Obama, I have some change for you if you're interested. It's 28 cents, left over from buying a bagel and an herbal tea this morning. I was going to give it to a homeless person later, but it sounds as if you and your supporters could really use it.

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.

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.

Reese Witherspoon's Sensible Stand, or How Fred Thompson Could Have Rocketed to the Presidency

Three stories about Hollywood Actors from yesterday's news:

Story 1:

Hollywood Actor #1 withdrew from the race for President yesterday after failing to win - or finish higher than fourth - in a single Republican primary. No word yet on whether or not he will return to his role on NBC's Law & Order.

Story 2:

Hollywood Actor #2 was found dead in his apartment at 421 Broome Street in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon. He was reported to be naked and surrounded by pills.

Story 3:

Hollywood Actor #3 won't pose for sexy photo shoots to promote her films.

"If [actresses] take their clothes off, they objectify themselves," she tells the UK edition of Glamour. "I am flabbergasted by how many legitimate actresses do it."

Hollywood Actor #3, 31 – who shares custody of Ava, 8, and Deacon, 4, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe – adds that she tries to avoid the pitfalls of a Hollywood lifestyle. "I am a role model for my children," she says.

"Hollywood is one of those endless competitions," she says. "It's a race towards nothing. I just want to be the best version of myself that I can be."

Hollywood Actor #3 credits her 2005 Best Actress Oscar win for Walk the Line with opening up a range of film roles. "I would never have been offered these kind of roles," she says. "There was also a lot of pressure after [winning an Oscar]. People wanted me to do a really big movie and I just wanted to do something more sort of personal and real."

Yesterday, Hollywood Actor #3 denied being engaged to boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal.

Hollywood Actor #1 is Fred Thompson, whose not-so-surprising move to bow out of the Republican race is only helping to pave the way for my Oscar the Grouch '08 campaign. With Thompson out of the race, Oscar can capitalize on the crotchety old man demographic, which he sorely, sorely needs if he's going to stand any sort of chance at all.

Hollywood Actor #2 is, or rather was, Heath Ledger, who got famous after he made out with Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie Brokeback Mountain, and who died yesterday in New York, naked and (I'm guessing) unashamed of it.

Almost swept away by that story was the principled stand of Hollywood Actor #3, Reese Witherspoon who, oddly enough, got famous before she made out with Jake Gyllenhaal, disproving the graduate thesis I wrote at the London School of Economics two years ago. Perhaps, and I'm going out on a limb here, Ms. Witherspoon's march against the forces that would disrobe all of Hollywood would have been better served if, instead of being interviewed for a piece in Us Weekly, she had died a suspicious and untimely death in a Manhattan apartment, clothed only in the nudity that she is apparently too shy to expose.

Of course, she's right, you know. Appearing nude or scantily clad would undermine the integrity of her body of film, which includes such inestimable bastions of taste and decorum as Twilight (where she appeared nude in a sex scene, but in a totally dignified and businesslike way), Cruel Intentions (where she showed up in a bathing suit, but totally didn't mean for that to be sexy), and the incomparable Legally Blonde, in which her character, a ditzy blonde (duh?), buys her way into Harvard Law School so she can chase after a man, and then wins the big case because of her knowledge of the Prada shoe catalog and the fashion senses of the gays. Nudity would TOTALLY have degraded all of those movies - except Twilight, because she already was nude in that one.

Is there a certain irony to the fact that Ms. Witherspoon's not-at-all-trite-or-meaningless crusade got upstaged by Heath Ledger, who died in the nude? Not at all! But there are the makings of a joke lesson in this for Fred Thompson, who probably thought he was SO SMART for picking an almost incomprehensibly slow Tuesday in the middle of January when no albums were coming out, and no special edition DVDs were being released, and only a handful of Major League Baseball players were being subpoenaed by Congress, to compete with his announcement. And the lesson is this: {Insert corny joke making references to being young, nude, and/or dead in order to get headlines here.} You're welcome, Fred Thompson. Better luck four years from now when you'll probably be dead and naked yourself.

Oscar '08 For The Win!