The Retirement of Amanda Bynes: Day 2

It's still hard to believe it's over, that she's gone and she won't ever come back. I really thought I had enough to deal with this week, what with the BP Oil Spill hitting the two-month mark and the death of sausage legend Jimmy Dean. But no more Bynes?

In the immortal words of the intranetz, "fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu." And also, "lolcats."

This is what you're missing, world.

It's what we're all missing.

Dear Jesus,

Don't do this, man. Give us back our Amanda Bynes. Give us that Bynes!

Love and pickles,

Smokey.

Tuff Times for Us All

Hi, everybuzzy. Please forgive the unpleasant greeting, but I'm so mad I could eat Pop Rocks and not share them. Jesus isn't returning my emails these days.

And I think I know exactly who is to blame for that.

No, not Barack Obama. For once, this appears to have nothing to do with Him.

But it DOES have something to do with one of Barack Obama's brothers, and I mean that in the sense of how black people call other black people their brothers, because they were all born in the same village in Kenya and have forged Hawaiian birth certificates just so they can be president, because as we all know, being president is such a low-stress gig and so easy to get that what African citizen WOULDN'T want a job like that?

Anywhoop, the great "Jesus's Email Silence of 2009" is the fault of another Obama: Eldrick "Tiger Woods" Obama.

I understand that Tiger's "transgressions" are morally reprehensible to the upright and unimpeachable paparazzi stalkers and tabloid journalists who can't stop covering this story, and that no one else in the country has ever cheated on someone they were married to or tried to flee a golf-club-wielding former bikini model while they were hopped up on painkillers at 2:30 in the morning. But does it really mean that every professional golfer and/or Son of Man has to suddenly and without warning abruptly cease communication with his or His mistress(es)?

How is that remotely fair?

It feels a lot like when you're speeding down your local parkway and you happen upon some miscreant in a '98 Nissan who just got pulled over by a quota-hunting state trooper, and then all of a sudden traffic slows down for about a quarter mile. But the officer has virtually every single one of his faculties occupied by the scalawag in the Sentra! That is the quarter mile in which to live it up!

Speed all you want! Drive drunk! Suspend habeas corpus! Start an illegal war! Wiretap your fellow Americans! Ban stem cell research! THE COP IS BUSY! GO NUTS!

All the gossip sites have all their microscopes and telescopes and garbage picking operations and forensic fabrication artists squarely pointed at Tiger Woods Obama right now, which means there simply isn't the time or manpower for them to cover another celebrity scandal or a budding romance between, say, a random Messiah and an aged Motown star masquerading as a bloggerizer/Fruit Plant employee. It's simple mathemagicians!

And here's some more good advice, courtesy of Accenture:

Ha ha ha, you know what ELSE isn't always paved? The patch of the Nevada desert where I'm going to take Jesus and bury His (Sweet) Ass if he doesn't start answering my Himdamned emails. I don't expect Him to stay buried for more than three days (he has a pretty well-documented pattern), but I still have to try to get through to that Bastard somehow. I WILL NOT BE JILTED BY JESUS*!

Translation: quit being such a Youdamned Goody-Goody, Jesus. The "morality cops" are looking the other way.

More importantly, this motel room is expensive, this negligee is itchy, and this champagne isn't going to drink itself.

Answer my emails. And don't go pretending You didn't get them either - I know that Youdamned iPhone of Yours is on all the time.

*Actually, that statement might be factually inaccurate. It seems quite likely that I, like all the Jews in Christendom will, in fact, be jilted by Jesus.

Another Deflated Gasbag

So Lou Dobbs quit, eh? Or did he really get pushed out so they could outsource his job to an illegal immigrant who will work for a much lower wage and no healthcare?

Ha ha ha, I totally have Dobbs's number.

I was originally inclined to buy the man a cupcake as my way of saying thank you for shutting the fuck up. But then I found something even more speshul.

Dear Lou Dobbs,

America is a better country with you not on television. On behalf of a grateful nation, please accept this can of Manhattan style fish assholes.

Love and kisses,
Smokey Robinson and the Funky Bunch

Thanks for pooping in my ice cream AGAIN, internets

Here. This is from the internets. Please has some.

According to the New York Observer, Dustin Diamond's deal to write a tell-all memoir for Gotham Books fell through a few months back. According to a source, Gotham Books dropped the project after they deemed the ghostwritten manuscript to be unpublishable, largely because "it contained many assertions about cast members from Saved by the Bell that Gotham felt were unverifiable."

-New York Magazine

This is heartbreaking news. Screech's tale deserves to be told, not airbrushed out of the cover of Peep-hole Magazine and also at the same time retroactively airbrushed out of the official cast photo from 1989 like he was some fourth-rate child actor on a third-rate TV show whose career never amounted to anything.

SCREECH'S TALE OF WOE AND HOT, BUT STILL HEARTBREAKING "SAVED BY THE BELL" INCEST DESERVES TO BE TOLD, GODDAMMIT! YOU HAVE PISSED ME OFF AGAIN, INTERNETS!

And to those of you who would say, "um, dude, chill, it's just Screech," I have this to say to you, right up in your face, or "grill" as they say in the parlance of our times:

Wait a tick. JUST Screech? Was the blonde sister from "Family Ties" JUST the blonde sister from Family Ties"? Was Jonathan Bauer (the weirdo freaky gay little brother from "Who's the Boss?") JUST Jonathan Bauer (the weirdo freaky gay little brother from "Who's the Boss?")? Was Buddy from "Charles in Charge" JUST Buddy from "Charles in Charge?" Was Vinnie from "Doogie Howser, MD" JUST Vinnie from "Doogie Howser, MD?"

Okay, okay, Buddy did go on to become a fundamentalist Christian and make movies with Kirk Cameron or something, I think, and the freaky gay kid from "Who's the Boss?" went on to become an even freakier and gayer adult. And Vinnie might be a bad example too, since he actually had some success after changing his name to Jude Law and impregnating a bunch of women. But how many of them landed another TV series? These losers weren't even compelling enough to get an E! True Hollywood Story, right? I mean, come on! Even the Coreys got a freaking E! True Hollywood Story.

Jennifer Keaton, I'm pretty sure, is dead*. Rest in peace, Tina Yothers.

I'd like to read what Styles from the Teen Wolf movies has to say about the behind-the-scenes on those joints. Where's that book at? Oh, is it being SILENCED by the internets too? These "actors" are "people" too, and THEIR HEARTBREAKING TALES OF INCEST AND LOVE AND HEARTBREAKING INCEST DESERVE TO BE TOLD! Just like those little dudes who played the mismatched twins on "The Hogan Family." That's the juicy tell-all America is clamoring for!

You went too far this time, internets, if that IS your real name. In the words of Jack Nicholson, you have fucked with the wrong marine. Not me, of course. I'm not marine material, what with the pacifism and the poor eyesight and the tracheotomy and all. But Dustin Diamond - he is the wrong marine, and you have fucked with him, internets. Nice work.

*our fact-checking department assures me this is false.

Really, amazon.com? If that IS your real name?

So the fucking "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" dog dies, and all amazon.com can think about is buying a billion dollars worth of shoes? That's sick, amazon.com. Sick.

I wish it was the 1990s again. Nothing bad ever happened then, and everyone had morals. Like Newt Gangrich, whoever he was. Also, there was Pearl Jam. I mean, when they were good.

Accio the '90s!

Dude, the Day After Easter is Painful Enough As It Is

I don't know about anybuzzy else, but the day after Easter is not a happy day for me AT ALL. First of all, there's the realization that good ol' Jesus C. (Friend of the blog) has gone back to His spaceship with Elvis Presley and the Tooth Fairy until His birthday party in December, or at least until one of those fake "Christmas in July" promotions where retail stores give huge discounts on vacuum cleaners and Michael Bolton CDs (Jesus's two favorite gifts!).

And second of all, I'm always a little bit sluggish the day after Easter because of the massive amount of labor involved in obtaining my favorite Easter delicacy, chocolate-covered rabbits (not pictured). Because as any connosieur of chocolate-covered rabbits knows, it is really hard to catch a rabbit. And it is even harder to convince the rabbit to sit still while you dip it in a pot of molten chocolate. There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but that's cats, and that's skinning, and we're talking catching rabbits and dipping them in molten chocolate, which is quite the holiday undertaking, let me tell you.

I remember the days when Cadbury Creme Eggs used to be enough for me. But then I discovered that not only are they not real eggs, they're not laid by a real bunny either. Fakers! And I am all about the authenticity, folks, as you probably already know from a cursory critical examination of the lyrics to my hit song, "Tears of a Clown."

Anyway.

I always try and make a few extra chocolate-covered rabbits, sometimes to give out as gifts, and sometimes just for me. But these are lean times. The Great Repression is in full effect. So this year, I not only had to compete with the speed and caginess of my leporine prey, but also with the dozens of hungry Wall Street bankers who prowl the streets of New York nowadays in search of pigeons, rodents, and small game animals for sustenance. I'm not a competitive person by nature. I just want to collect my coneys and be left in peace, not harrassed and held at Blackberry-point by some down-and-out Lehman Brothers layoff-ee who rifles through my pockets and then laughs at me for carrying around Goonies trading cards. They're just there to give me luck with the hunting, you jerk.

God damn, was that woman mean.

And of course, that's all not to mention the disappointment that comes when you bite into the head of a chocolate-covered bunny and discover that the rabbit you worked so hard to catch and dip has somehow managed to disappear from its chocolate tomb, leaving you with nothing but a hollow, hare-shaped piece of chocolate. I know it's very thematic and Easter-appropriate and all, and I strongly suspect that Jesus somehow magicks them out of there as a prank on me (very funny, Jesus), but honest to Christ: if I wanted hollow chocolate, I'd buy it from a fucking store.

My point is that the post-Easter Monday is already fraught with enough exhaustion and heartache. So the last thing I needed to see when I looked at my Internet first thing this morning was this:


The Peekaru? Seriously? W.T. Fuck, America? Who's responsible for this? I want names. When Jesus comes back next year*, I'm totally ratting you guys out.

*That's assuming Barack Obama doesn't blow up the world before then, which is a pretty generous assumption considering how he's doing so far.

Obama Sucks Inaugural Balls

I woke up this morning with a smile on my face and a clear breath of air in my lungs, because I knew that I had gone to sleep last night with President Barack Obama protecting me. Of course, Mister Prez (or The Old Shoe Magnet, as I like to call him) was probably heading to his fifth or sixth party when I went to sleep, but that's beside the point. Things were just better this morning. Even the green crusty thing in the corner of my eye was somehow less crusty and a more pleasing shade of green. Also, it was singing show tunes.

But then I went outside, and discovered that change hadn't come to the streets of New York City, at least not in the literal sense that there would be actual change littering the streets of New York City. Then again, we do have a pretty dedicated and conscientious sanitation department, so I guess it's possible that change came to the streets of New York City last night, and our modest municipal services workers already got it cleaned up, leaving no evidence of the change we were told would come to the streets of New York City, which is basically the same thing as if change did not come to the streets of New York City.

Pardon me, The Old Shoe Magnet. Sorry to interrupt your dance party, but I believe we were promised change?

I feel justified in my blooming rage. A lot of people don't feel justified in their blooming rage, but I am not one of those people. Maybe I was one of those people yesterday, but I've changed since then, and my rage is in bloom, and I feel justified in that. Because as far as I can tell, the only thing that came to the streets of New York City since yesterday was plenty of dog shit. Other than that, and the singing green crusty thing in my eye, and my feeling of justification in my blooming rage, and the air smelling sweeter, nothing has changed at all since Obama became The Old Shoe Magnet.

That's not change we can believe in.

I just assumed the dogs would start crapping Skittles or fruit salad or something. (Maybe cole slaw?) I mean, aren't things supposed to be better now? Wasn't yesterday supposedly the beginning of a whole new era? Blah blah blah watershed moment blah blah impossible sixty years ago blah blah blah free pizza for everyone?

What happened to all that?

I'm sick of this President Obama dude already. It's like 10:07 in the morning now, and he's basically done nothing at all since he got sworn in. Where's my health care, dammit? Where's my dog that shits Skittles? Where's my 3 AM phone call, which I probably would have gotten if Hillary Clinton were The Old Shoe Magnet.

This is the worst day. You said you would be different, Obama but you're just like every other President because the dogs still poop dog poop and the pizza place isn't even open yet, much less giving out free pizza. So all I'm saying, as we get ready to watch your approval ratings drop to the mid-20s by later today, is watch out for flying shoes, you big jerk.

You Made Me Do This, Moviegoing Public

On my way to work this morning, I saw a woman in a battery-operated wheelchair walking a dog, and I felt compelled to laugh. I immediately regretted the compulsion, but I think it's important for me to get all defensive right now and note that what I was reacting to was not the wheelchair or the dog, but rather the comedic possibilities if she were to walk (or roll) into a bar.

If this kind of lowbrow humor offends you, you have nobody to blame but yourself. I was all prepared to make a more sophisticated joke, but I am as sensitive to my cultural surroundings as a flower is to being shat upon. Because while the nitrogen in said shit may be nourishing, on the whole, it fucking stinks.

So if you want a return to finer things, to campaign updates from Oscar '08, to tales of the Dole Fruit Plant and the Canning Ops division, to letters to Jesus, and to spotlights on my junk mail, you have a responsibility not to let fucking Beverley Hills Chihuahua finish anywhere near the top of the box office standings ever ever again.

Otherwise, my next post will start something like, "so this gay Jewish crippled woman taking her dog for a walk from her wheelchair walks into a bar," and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself for that either.

Seriously. Which of you fuckbags saw that movie this weekend? Raise your hand. Good. Now chop off your hand, pick it up, and pound yourself in the head with it as hard as you can until you pass out from the combination of concussive blows, shame, and blood loss. Then get some kind of unconventional object to replace your hand, like a desk lamp or a maraca or a rubber chicken or something, and write your story into a hilarious movie called Johnny Desk Lamp Hand and make a million dollars. It won't buy you a new hand, but at least you'll have a million dollars. You're welcome.

Blind Bowler Throws a 300 Game! Also, Walking Bananas Take Over Suburban Houston!

Question: where would you take a blind bowler to celebrate the fact that he just bowled a perfect 300 game? Why, you'd take him out to dinner to celebrate, of course! To a very nice Belgian restaurant downtown, if you can swing it! Because, after all, this is a bowler we're talking about! This is an entire group of people who are weaned from the teats of their mothers with foie gras and caviar. These are people whose occasional forays into the bowling alley menu for chicken fingers and bottles of MGD can be as easily overlooked as equally occasional forays into ultra-fashionable bowling shoes.

But I'm getting away from my point, which is about the blind bowler who bowled a 300.


That's right, this guy, Dale Davis (if that IS your real name...) who can only barely make out the dots on the floor, bowled a 300. I think that calls for a pretty decent celebratory meal, don't you.

On to the Belgian place, then!

Your table is right this way, sir.

Pretty swank, no? And check out the view from said swank table...


Like it matters.

Let's face it, folks, this is a bullshit story if ever there was. A blind bowler bowls a 300 game? Why not just tell him he bowled a 301, just to catapult the achievement that much further into the stratosphere of impossibility? They claim he has friends with him who inform him, after a throw, which pins are still standing because he can't see them himself. Boy, those friends must have been awfully quiet this time around, eh? Maybe it's because they were STANDING AT THE END OF THE LANE KICKING THE PINS OVER!

This is like that lousy skee-ball player cheater at the local Chuck E. Cheese who climbs up the ramp and slam dunks all the balls into the 50-points hole, sending a stream of ill-gotten paper tickets spilling out of the machine onto the floor until Chuck E. Cheese security has to come take him away and send him home so he never gets his reward dinner for finishing second in the 4th-grade spelling bee. Or something like that.

I'm just saying, this alleged 300 game has all the veracity of a scheme cooked up by Eric Cartman. And believe me when I say that that blind asshole bowler and his friends are going to get caught. If not here, then on the golf course next week when he shoots consecutive holes-in-one. And then we'll see who gets to go to Chuck E. Cheese.

Here today, gone to Maui.

It's 78 degrees in Honolulu right now, according to the forecast on Knickers the iPhone. There's no point to my mentioning that, just the observation that it is seventy-fucking-eight fucking de-fucking-grees in fucking Hono-fucking-lu-fuck-lu right fucking now.

New York, meanwhile, is clocking in at a balmy 18 degrees with the wind chill. Jealous, Hawaii?

I'm beginning to wonder why I keep the forecast for Honolulu programmed into my phone. I used to think it was a goal. But right this minute, it feels a lot more like pointless masochism, as opposed to the more poignant masochism of suffering through a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Seriously, that guy should change his name to Clint "Piece of Shit"wood, to more accurately reflect the content of his "artistic vision." Mystic River made me want to shoot someone's brains out on the banks of the Charles River. We should bury that movie. We should bury it deep.

Word. Out.

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.

This is why you should eat oranges.

All right, this is total bullcrap. Why is Goofus catching heat for taking the last apple while Gallant gets rewarded for sharing his orange? Do we have conclusive evidence that the orange wasn't the last orange? Maybe it was the next-to-last piece of fruit in the bowl. Maybe that diabolical fucker Gallant just took the orange so he could set Goofus up by leaving only the one apple. Maybe Goofus was heading to the kitchen for a knife so he could cut his apple up and give segments to other people, unlike Gallant, who took the pre-sectioned fruit just to make himself look like a goddamn hero! And then maybe Goofus got caught with the knife and someone thought the wrong thing, and he ended up in Guantanamo as an enemy combatant while Gallant cheated his way into the White House and authorized Goofus's captors to waterboard him. I hate President Gallant, that orange-sharing piece of shit.

And by the way, what the hell is so wrong with taking the last piece of fruit anyway? Should Goofus just leave it in the bowl so it can rot, just so no one will think he's rude? What about the starving children in Afghanistan and Iraq who have no fruit in the first place because of the shambles made of their economic infrastructure through years of outside intervention? Maybe Goofus was thinking of those poor, starving Iraqi orphans and being conscientious enough not to waste food, while Gallant was sending in the Army to bomb those orphans' parents!

Yeah, I said "orphans' parents." What?

I'd be willing to bet that sneaky little prick Gallant wants something in exchange for that fruit too. You think people just walk around handing out fruit, expecting nothing in return? Oh no, they don't. Goofus is scrambling to get his daily recommended allowance of fruits and vegetables in a household where quite obviously his parents don't provide him the nutrition he needs, while Gallant is busy trading orange wedges for sexual favors and political clout. I mean, just look at that sense of entitlement in Gallant's eyes, as if just having a piece of fruit is any sort of basis for establishing authority in a supposedly free society! I don't care if his father gave him that orange after he lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton! That orange was paid for with United States tax dollars! It belongs to the people, asshole!

I'm more concerned about poor Goofus anyway, who obviously doesn't have extra fruit lying around with which to bribe the neighborhood girls so they'll pay attention to him. Goofus will probably grow up thinking the wrong things about women and believing he has to pay for sex. And then one day in 2008, after Goofus gets elected governor of New York, he'll be implicated in a busted prostitution ring, while that scumbag prickwad Gallant and his myopic economic and foreign policies drive the price of gas and food through the roof in America.

The moral of this story? Highlights for Children is completely morally backward. Stay away from it. Do not be taken in by the lies and deception. And also, if you have a choice between fucking a hooker and losing your job, or fucking the entire Middle East along with the economy and the security of your own country and not getting impeached, TAKE THE ORANGE.

Spotlight on my junk mail

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


***

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

Dear The E-mail Goofs at Houlihan's,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cordially,
Smokey

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

O, Sweet Lord, Grant Me In Thy Infinite Mercy a New Pair of Kicks

Dear Jesus, et al.,

Unlike most people, I don't buy my shoes to provide comfort and shelter to my feet (or my "hands of the south", as I sometimes call them), I buy my shoes for the express purpose of jamming up the butt of my many, many, many subordinates in order to get them to work harder. In other words, I need to stay fashionable, which is why I always shell out top dollar during Macy's sales to make sure I have the finest patent leather pumps that money can buy.

And then comes the love affair. Every new pair of shoes inspires me to want to buy shoe trees and an ecologically responsible shoe polishing kit, because it's gonna be different this time, I swear. I know I can change. Please, give me another chance!

Only I can't change. I can get as far as using a shoe horn to horn my "hands of the south" into my "mittens of the south." For a little while. Then, inevitably, expeditiousness takes over, and I start stepping on my own heels to release myself from the leathery confines of the mouths and tongues that have swallowed my feets, boa constrictor fashion.

Here's the kicker. (Get it? Because this is a post about shoes? Kicker? It's a pun!) Stepping on the back of my shoes has the tendency to put a great strain on the relationship between the shoe itself and the massive rubber sole from which I derive an additional six or seven inches of height, when combined with my unusually tall hair.

(Okay, can I just take a minute to apologize for that last parenthetical aside? The one about the kicker? I just reread it and thought it sounded a little bit snippy and condescending. That was not what I meant at all. And while I could have just deleted it, I really thought it would do better to let You, Jesus Christ, and you, my dear readers, see what a humble and self-effacing person I can be, and also how modest I am. I'm reasonably sure I'm the most modest person in the tri-state area. You can even pick any three states! On with the show...)

The point is that, even though I didn't mean to, I caused the breakup of the individual components of my shoe. I am now wearing what have been loving Lee described as "flappy wappy pancake shoes," which I object to because these shoes are actually constructed of 98 percent leather and 2 percent breakfast sausage. There isn't a trace of pancake to be found. Whatever. I need new shews. And some whiskey.

I want you all to know that I blame the writers' strike for this, also known by its other name, the Broadway stagehands strike. And also all the tourists in New York City who are constantly commuting to their jobs right in my way when I'm trying to commute to my job. No, wait, they're not called tourists. I meant gays. I blame the gays.

Settle the strike already, will you? I can't afford to keep buying new shoes without the residuals from the DVD sales of this blog.

Love and kisses,
Matt

P.S. Hey, Jesus, tell Your Dad hi from me. And ask Him where the $36 is that He owes me, that Dead Beat.

Help Marisa VanHorn!

When Marisa VanHorn took a job as an administrative assistant at a wealthy and prestigious private equity investment firm in New York in 2001, she entertained lofty visions of a mid-five-figure salary, health benefits, and nights at home watching TV with her husband. Then came a pregnancy, followed by a second, and later, a third. And now, like a bad bottle of tequila mixed with a generous supply of Liquid Plumr, the worm has turned.

All countries and all civilizations have their social ills, of course. Horrific stories circle the globe of the living conditions of all manner of men, women, and children. But in the high-stakes world of private equity investment, the stories whispered in back-and-forth emails among administrative assistants are of a more serious form of social ill, an apparent dearth of time, and energy, but a surplus of children.

I urge anyone without the stomach for tales of human suffering to please stop reading now.

Far be it for the titans of private equity investment to step in and intercede on Marisa's behalf, though. Their ruthlessly demanding schedules scarcely permit them the time even to fill out thank-you cards or get hand cancellations on their own wedding invitations to satisfy their bitchy, hyperdemanding fianceezillas. These are the responsibilities that devolve onto their administrative assistants - administrative assistants like Marisa VanHorn.

Now, Marisa VanHorn needs you to take her children.

Marisa VanHorn doesn't have the time or energy to focus on her television watching that she should. And so, seizing on an idea co-opted from a fellow administrative assistant trying to help her boyfriend unload a cat, Marisa VanHorn sent out an email. "My husband and I have three beautiful kids but can no longer keep them due to financial hardship," wrote the bedraggled Marisa VanHorn.

"All three come as a set," she continued. "No separations. No substitutions. All sales final. They're available for immediate delivery to your door. Each kid comes with his/her own bedroom furniture, sports equipment, and a college savings fund which most likely will be depleted before then due to the amount of food they consume."

She also lists the salient details about each of her children, Michael, Matt, and Mikayla:

Names: Michael, Matt, Mikayla
Birthdays: August, June, December
Sun Sign: Leo, Gemini, Fruitcake (what can I say, she likes to eat)
Moon Sign: Year of the Ox (cause Michael's strong as one), Year of the Lamb (cause Matt's gentle as one), Year of the Pig (cause Mikayla is one)

Yes, Mikayla is her daughter's real name, and yes, it really is spelled that way - evidence suggesting the deteriorating mental state of Marisa VanHorn by the time pregnancy number three rolled around. And yes, Marisa VanHorn is that kind of person, who names her kids alliteratively to match her own. One can only imagine that her husband's name is Mitch or Mark, or perhaps Mr. Magoo.

We obscure our own humanity, and the humanity of victims like Marisa VanHorn, when we turn away from causes like this. Won't you please do something to help? You too can make a difference, after all. And Marisa VanHorn needs you to, so she can stop wasting her company's valuable time criticizing other people for wasting her company's valuable time, and also so she can get back to all that television watching on her corpulent, bitchy ass.

Out of my g-ddamned way!

There are three kinds of people I hate dealing with on New York-New Jersey mass transit:

1. People with open, festering sores and lesions,

2. People who take the whole situation personally, and

3. The gays.

I happened to run into a lady this evening just outside the C train at 34th Street who was cursing and making faces at the crowd like they just ran off with her puppy. I normally try to stay well clear of situations that might bring me in contact with such people. But when she ended up behind me, and I heard her cursing me as if I were lightly sautéing said puppy in extra virgin olive oil with capers and some pressed garlic, that's when I had to take exception.

So I deliberately started walking slowly and kind of side-to-side, because if there's one thing I like doing, it's goading angry, elderly women into fights with me. Suddenly, she's all, "oh now look at this Jew with his six feet of hair, goddamn little bastard. Hurry the hell up, Jew, this isn't the line for the camps!"

(Side note: I'm not Jewish. I just have dark, curly hair is all, which makes misidentifying me an easy mistake in New York where everyone is a total racist. Or maybe it's that I'm circumcised.)

Anyway, I wheeled around on this broad like my feet were on wheels, and I said, "how friggin' rude can you get, lady? You think I'm getting in your way on purpose?"

"Baaaaah," she said angrily, "I think everyone is getting in my way on purpose! All the time!"

"That's a total wad of baby crap," I said. "You're just paranoid is all."

"Baaaaaaaaah, that's what you all think!"

I had had enough by then. "Look, lady," I said, "no one is doing this to you personally, okay? They're doing it to me personally." Which, by the way, is so true.

She left with a chorus of epithets and sheep noises trailing behind her like toilet paper stuck to a person's heel, and I watched, revolted, as she headed for the stairs toward Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, the lesbian bitch. I really hate those gays.