Guilty Pleasures

We all have them. They are the things that we are not proud of but love anyway. Maybe it’s a bad song or movie or strange food, but we’ve all got ‘em. So, instead of being a jerk and tagging fellow bloggers with some crappy questionnaire, I’m just going to fess up and encourage others to do the same. In no particular order of shame are some of my guilty pleasures.

Benchwarmers

This might be one of the dumbest movies ever produced, but it has two things that make it a movie I just keep throwing back in the DVD player. First, baseball. My wife and I have probably seen 98 percent of the baseball movies ever made. Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, For the Love of the Game, Bad News Bears, A League of Their Own, Sandlot and oh so many more. If there is baseball as a central theme, we’re going to see it.

It also has a good cast. David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Rob Schnieder, that Napolean Dynamite guy and others. It is filled with fart jokes, piss jokes, midget gags, slap stick pro ath-a-lete (movie reference!) cameos, and is quite frankly a movie you can’t believe you’re not only watching, but laughing at. (In a place where they end their sentences in prepositions.) What other movie has Reggie Jackson riding around in the back of a pick-up truck bashing mail boxes with a baseball bat. It is nerds vs. jocks and I smile just thinking about it.

Celebrity Skin – Hole
Vapid pop-rock by an okay band with a train wreck of a lead singer is the only way I can think to describe this album. It has Courtney Love for God sake. She can barely sing. The only reason she ever got famous was by fucking Kurt Cobain! And yet, I listen to this album pretty regularly. I love the lead track, I think Awful is a good tune and all in all, it makes my toes tap and the miles go by when I’m in the car.

Spongebob Squarepants

If you haven’t watched Spongebob on Nickelodeon, go now. It is flush with both subtle and obvious humor. And if you haven’t seen the Spongebob Movie, rent it now. Yes, it is childish, but it is also smart. When Spongebob and Patrick are passed out at the ice cream parlor in a childish representation of an all night drunk, it is special. This isn’t the usual Nick crap. It uses parody and satire well above the level of most kids. But at the same time my kids love it! Watch Spongebob, I dare you not to get hooked.

Celebrity Poker Showdown

I miss this show. I used to sit up at night watching it on Bravo after my wife and kids went to bed. It was nothing more than celebrities playing Texas Hold-em for charity but Dave Foley as the drunken host, Robert (Shuffle up and deal) Thompson as the tournament director and all those silly celebs drinking and playing cards were a riot. It was particularly good when you had a tiny waif like Mena Suvari taking on an ex-football player like The Bus Bettis for the tournament title. That’s the kind of reality TV I like. No voting to get kicked off the island, no eating raw African sea slugs, just a bunch of second tier celebrities doing something they don’t normally do for the entertainment of people like me so that orphan kids or neutered cats can get a few extra bucks.

Pizza Puffs

Total crap food. They are more chemical than food stuff but I love them. They are spicy, cheesy and wonderful. I’ve been known to make an entire box and munch them in front of a sporting event or movie that my wife doesn’t feel the need to watch. When you bite down and the sauce dribbles down your chin, just grab a beer and a napkin and thank your maker that you live in a country where such bliss is possible. No wonder I’m getting fat. I must have more sex because it is the only thing that’s really better.

The Superficial

TheSuperficial.com is a snarky, profane celebrity gossip Web site. In the end, I honestly don’t give a shit what is going on in the lives of most “celebs.” But the pithy, brutal writing combined with the irreverent, crass tone makes it a must read. The Intertubes answer to the grocery store checkout line, the Superficial has something that the National Enquirer will never have, a rapier wit with little or no care about political correctness. And yet, it has a subtle intelligence that would be lost on most of the curlers and soap opera crowd. And occasionally, you get to see Britney Spears' cooter…not that we all haven’t seen it already.

Well, that’s round one. I am both ashamed and relieved to have shared this. I no longer have to secretly scan the TV Guide to see if Bravo is showing the great Jennifer Tilly episode of Celebrity Poker Showdown. I can walk through the checkout with my head held high as I buy four boxes of Pizza Puffs. Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.

I encourage all of you. Open your souls and admit your guilty pleasures. I promise you’ll be a better person for it. Besides, my shame needs company. If you’ll write a post admitting your guilty pleasures, I’ll link back. I promise.