Happy New Year

It is just hours away from 2010 and I want to wave goodbye to the 00's. 

My wife and kids are good and my job is going well.  My checkbook is less than stellar and my trek to the great reward is one year shorter.

I guess that makes the year a wash.  The Zen part of my soul is telling me that is is exactly the way it is supposed to be, the Ying and the Yang are in balance and I should just be.

So, I guess for the rest of 2009, I will listen and wallow in my inner peace.  But starting at 12:01am, I'm gonna be pissed again.  I'm going to rant again.  I'm going to call'em like I see'em.  I hope you'll pop by now and then, otherwise I'm nothing more than a cyber version of the guy sitting on the sewer grate outside the White House with a sign in his hand and voices in his head. 

So from the voices in my head and the family in my home I wish each of you a wonderful new year.  To quote Col. Potter:

"Let's hope it's a damn sight better than the last one."

Peanuts Characters - The Later Years (Part II)

I've gotten some nice feedback on part one of this little adventure. Perhaps the most vocal so far has been my wife who said that there is no way Pig Pen grew up to be Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs. Pig Pen isn’t good looking enough she says. Instead, she thinks Pig Pen would have been removed from his home by Child Protective Services. Yeah...maybe. But I stand by my ending. If there is a happy ending for Pig Pen, it’s turning getting dirty into a high paying profession.

While I certainly tried to make this humorous, as my assistant and others at work could attest, I have agonized over each of these as well. I want these endings to be more than plausible, I want them to be logical, likely even. And while you may feel the way my wife does, I hope you’ll agree that this could very well be the way these characters ended up after the end of Peanuts.

So, without further ado, here is Part II of Peanuts Characters: The Later Years.

Snoopy

Snoopy was perhaps the most successful of all the Peanuts gang. He parlayed all the early attention into a long running gig as the spokesdog for Met Life insurance. But, like most things, it didn't last forever. He and his pal Woodstock were shooting a commercial with the Met Life blimp when Woodstock accidentally got sucked into one of the blimp's props. It was a tragedy from which Snoopy never fully recovered. Between the bad press, questions about Woodstock’s pharmaceutical intake, and Snoopy’s heartfelt remorse about the passing of his dear friend, the gig with Met Life was soured beyond repair and so he ended his relationship with the company.

When he left Met Life, he returned home to his doghouse. Snoopy was at heart a simple hound with few needs. He wanted regular meals, his root beer, and the opportunity to write. So after leaving Met Life, he wrote his memoirs and they were an instant success. Titled It was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy's book spent 15 weeks on the New York Times best seller list selling hundreds of thousands of copies in the U.S. alone.

With the success of the book and the money he made pitching insurance, Snoopy never had to work again. He gave heavily to charity, specifically PETA, ASPCA and Amnesty International.

Snoopy died quietly one night at the age of 16. He was found curled up in Charlie Brown’s old striped shirt; in front of the movie My Dog Skip on his big screen plasma with a half finished letter to fan that included an autographed photo of him with Woodstock, his oldest dearest friend.

Linus Van Pelt

Linus suffered for years after the run of Peanuts ended. He had a deep seeded love for Sally Brown that she obviously did not share. In an effort to get on with his life, he tried every kind of self-help group he could find. EST, scream therapy, alcoholics anonymous, if there were steps to be taken, he took them in an effort to get past his pain. But nothing seemed to help. So he decided to find his own path and developed his own self-help concept: “Embrace Your Inner Blanket”.

While he never made it as big as the ShamWow guy, Linus was mildly successful on the Holiday Inn circuit pitching mental and emotional wellness. Eventually, at the Comfort Suites in Enis Oklahoma, he met a nice, ill-adjusted, more than slightly over-weight, curly blond haired woman who grew to love him. She married him and they had a son, Linus Jr.. They had a good, happy marriage. He didn’t mind that she never lost those extra 50 or 60 pounds and she didn’t say anything when he occasionally shouted “Oh Sally!” when they had sex.

Oh, and he never did lose the blanket. He had pieces of it sewn into the lining of all his suits so that he never felt alone.

Charlie Brown

Early in life, Charlie Brown never succeeded at anything. His baseball team never won a game, he got nothing but rocks in his Trick-or-Treat bag, and he fell for the same pull the football away gag over and over again. But in the end, Charlie Brown had the last laugh.

During high school, Charlie Brown had the good fortune to sit next to a bright young man in computer class. This guy was a real whiz. But he really struggled in the rest of his subjects. He didn’t get English, History to him was whatever was on TV the week before, and gym class was just a form of medieval torture. But Charlie took pity on this kid. He helped him with his English papers, explained History to him and always picked him for his teams in gym class, even though the kid stunk on ice when it came to sports.

Just before graduation, the kid asked Charlie if he could borrow a hundred bucks. Charlie, not knowing how to say “no” gave the kid five twenties the next day. After graduation, the kid just seemed to disappear. Charlie Brown didn’t think twice about him. He had figured the hundred bucks was a goner anyway and he just hoped that the kid was doing okay.

Charlie went off to Junior College to study architectural drafting and try and convince girls to sleep with him. He was better at the first than the second, but neither endeavor was a total failure. In fact, he hooked up on a regular basis with Frieda from the old neighborhood. She wasn’t very interesting in bed, but she was willing and that was good enough for Charlie.

Two years later, just as he was about to graduate, he got a letter in mail from the kid he’d lent the hundred bucks. In the letter he found out that the kid had gone on to start his own computer company that he called Microsoft. With the letter were a one hundred dollar bill and a check for five million dollars. As the letter explained, Charlie’s one hundred bucks was the first investment in what had become the greatest software company in the world. The five million dollars was the dividend from that investment.

Charlie immediately packed up his stuff and moved to Napa Valley where he bought a small vineyard and hired a hot girl to hold a football on demand so that he can kick field goals on his private football field whenever he feels like it.

Peanuts Characters: The Later Years (Part 1)

Every year, the Great Pumpkin fails to come, Charlie Brown’s tree turns into a Rockefeller Center tree look-a-like, and the Easter beagle makes an appearance. But what has always struck me is that these kids never grow up. They had too, right? They couldn't just stay kids forever, so what happened when they grew up? Here is where I think they are today.

Lucy van Pelt

After high school, Lucy went off to college and tried to study psychiatry. She soon flunked out and after a year travelling Europe in an effort to “find herself”; she returned to the U.S. and got a job as a talk radio host in Yakima Washington. Her mixture of psycho-babble, anti-authority politics and women’s empowerment rhetoric soon made her a favorite of lesbians and libertarians alike and she is currently nationally syndicated under the radio name of Dr. Lucy Feltpetter.

Peppermint Patty

After an endless string of D- grades in high school, Patty dropped out in her junior-year and took off for California searching for her place in the world. Her love of sports landed her a wide variety of gigs, everything from a corner cut man for local boxers to the equipment manager for the Triple A Sacramento River Cats. Later she found minor fame and fortune as the "Red Bomber" on the Roller Derby circuit but had her career cut short by an ugly folding chair incident. She is currently the owner of a number of small businesses in the San Fernando Valley including three convenience stores, a roller rink, and a strip club featuring topless dancing and deep fried peppermint patties.

Sally Brown

Sally went to the University of Wisconsin where she majored in Communications, beer bongs and frat boys, often combining all three in one night stands that started with multiple beer bongs and ended with long vocalized rationalizations as to why getting drunk and screwing random frat boys didn’t really make her a slut. Her senior year she volunteered for the Clinton for President Campaign and parlayed her work there into a job with a Washington DC lobbying/public relations firm where her drinking and frat boy enticement skills are quickly getting her a reputation as one of DC’s up and coming Congressional lobbyists. She has been engaged to a congressional staffer for nearly two years, but secretly thinks getting married will hurt her career so she keeps refusing to set a date.

Marcie

Marcie moved away just before high school because her homophobic parents were worried she was in love with Peppermint Patty. That wasn’t true, of course, because Marcie really had a crush on Charlie Brown. But away she went and after a few years of private tutors and excellent schools, Marcie went to MIT. There she excelled in chemistry, specifically, lubricants, polymers and plastics research. She was a lead member of the team that developed the heat shield for the space shuttle. She recently married a bioengineer she met on Match.com and they are expecting their first child Mensa member in June.

Schroeder

Schroeder tried as hard as he could to make it as a concert pianist, but never made the big time, having to settle for jobs like “featured soloist for the Des Moines Metropolitan Orchestra.” In order to make ends meet, he played keyboards for a local Jazz quintet and tuned pianos. After several flings with bored housewives whose pianos he “tuned” -- sometimes weekly -- he met a jazz singer who introduced him kinky sex and heroin. Eventually, Schroeder got sober and  landed a regular gig playing in the piano bar on a Caribbean cruise liner filled to the Leto deck with out of tune women.

Pig Pen

He changed his name to Mike Rowe and has a successful television program on the Discovery Channel called Dirty Jobs.

So, that's part one.  Part two will be coming soon and we'll answer the questions America has always had about some of our favorite cartoon characters, questions like: Did Linus ever lose the blanket?  Did Charlie Brown ever get to kick the football or was his life really just a bag of rocks?

Till then my friends, I'll see ya in the funny papers.

Quick Hits: Now with Porn Stars

Grab a Tiger by his Tail

Should have seen this one coming...ewww, sorry about that.  Once one infidelity comes to light, it's just a matter of time before you get more. 

Now it seems Tiger's been sticking the ol' fairway wood in more than one chick's club house.  Depending on which sleazy publication you read, the number of supposed mistresses is as high as 9.  The most salacious of which is a "porn star"  Holly Sampson who allegedly played a few extra-marital holes with the world's best golfer.  According to Internet Movie Database the 36-year-old has appeared in 11 videos this year alone, including such titles as My First Sex Teacher, Suck it Dry 6 and MILF Bone 4.

(According to the New Yorker Magazine's movie critic, Suck it Dry 6 lacked some of the depth of the first five in the series but MILF Bone 4 shows how a film series can just get better with a little maturity.)

By the way, how does one gain the title porn "star"? I mean really, what's the difference between a porn star and someone who just screws on camera a lot?  Better body?  Better delivery of lines?

Cum Karaoke With Me 6?

According to this L.A. Times article, the place for adult film pros to network is this place in Burbank called Sardo's Grill & Lounge on Porn Star Karaoke Night.

I don't know about you, but when I think about a porn star having a hidden talent, I'm not thinking singing.  Of course, maybe that's why they call them hidden talents. 

Does this mean that the next big thing in porn is going to be the musical?  Just think of the great titles: Annie Grab my Gun, A Lad In, Bye Bye Boobies, All That Jizz, the possiblilities are endless. 

Although, I'm thinking films like that would probably do better in the gay male market. If Ms. Sampson's titles from the blurb above are any indication, the straight male market wants their porn titles to be pretty...well...straight forward.

Teeing Up Tiger's Balls

If there is one lesson this Tiger Woods business should teach us, it is that if you are a mega-star with millions of dollars riding on your public image, you are much better off not being married.  That's right, if you are a rising superstar who has the urge to diddle a wide variety of trim, then you shouldn't marry.  You shouldn't even marry a smoking hot, norse-goddess of a model.

But if you choose to marry said model, then you have to eat at home.  That's right, it doesn't matter how rich you are, banging cocktail waitresses and party planners instead of your wife isn't ever going to end well.

Now, if you're not married, you can pretty much sleep with anyone you want.  Just ask George Clooney.  He was sleeping with a waitress for months and all anyone ever thought was "Ohhhh, how Pretty Woman....How Cinderella!  Isn't that nice, George isn't stuck up."

(Important note - This also was translated by the fucked up subconscious of millions of women that George Clooney might actually be willing to sleep with them.  It probably just added ten years to his career.)

But who cares!  You're Tiger F-ing Woods, you can do whatever you fucking want, right?  Wrong.  You put a ring on her finger and had kids and parlayed that into a part of the wholesome image you sold to corporate America to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.  That was a big mistake if what you really wanted to do was use your celebrity as pussy bait.  Seriously, once you say "I do", the rules change.  And what would be no big deal to a single super celeb suddenly gets you on the cover of the National Enquirer and a four iron upside your head.

For example:

When you are a single superstar, you really don't care that the first thing she does once you've pulled up your drawers and hit the road is call all her friends and boast about who she just slept with.  (She probably left out the part where you called her the wrong name.) 

But for the married you, this is the exact opposite action you are looking for.  The problem is this: the whole "This is just between us..." speech you gave her on the way out the door sounded to her like an adult from the Peanuts Christmas special.  Besides, she wasn't listening anyway; she was deciding which reality show would give her the best chance at a real career in show biz.

Honestly, I don't care who Tiger or anyone else is fucking.  Hell, if Tiger wants to oil up a hairy Taiwanese transsexual and practice putting his balls from the rough, I could care less.  But once you get married, you've made a commitment that a lot of people, including your wife, take very seriously.  And that commitment includes not putting your corporate employers in a tough spot by breaking your vows with a some waitress serving up high balls and low morals.

Finally, since I'm a man, I have to point out just a couple of things.  First, we don't know what Elin did or didn't do. We have no idea what has been going on in their house.  I know one thing for sure, we don't know the whole story and speculation isn't really fair to Tiger or his family.

Secondly, if this affair is true, why would a mega millionaire superstar actually trade DOWN.  Have you seen the pictures of this chick?  Here -- a little comparison of Tiger's wife and the woman claiming to have had the affair with Tiger.

Tiger's Wife Elin Nordegren:

Tiger's (Alleged) Tart Jaimee Grubbs:

If you're going to cheat on that, at least make it with someone in the same league.  This chick might as well have a "Gold Digger" tramp stamp.  But what the hell would I know.  Maybe he has a thing for reality show tarts.  Maybe she has some sort of mad skills that make her a Siren to guys like Tiger.  But to me, this looks like the Cubs trading future Hall of Famer Lou Brock for future nothing Ernie Broglio. 

I just hope, for Tiger's sake, that his fans have a shorter memory than Cubs fans.

Censorship Sucks

Those of you who know me know that I come from a family of librarians. My grandmother was one and so was my father. One of the things that they faced throughout their careers was the call for censorship. It comes with the job I guess. If you are the person giving people access to information, someone is going to get pissed about the information you are providing. This particularly true when it comes to sex.

I remember as a kid, a very public fight between my father and some local bible thumpers over sex education books being made available at the library. My Dad believed that young adults should have access to the ins and outs (sorry about that) of sex. That was what a library is for, to look up stuff you want to know, and frankly, young adults want to know the truth about sex. They NEED to know the truth. Just ask Bristol Palin.

The worst part was, that as soon as the book banners started squawking, the loonies came out of the woodwork. It was a living example of the slippery slope. As soon as the story ran in the paper, little old ladies with bung holes tighter than the buns on their heads started showing up at the front desk with stacks of books they thought were obscene and in need of being pulled. The funny part was, most of the books involved lesbians. What do little old ladies in Iowa have against lesbians I wonder? And how did they know those books contained stories about lesbians? Doth thou protest too much?

Any way, Mr. Art Weeks, the library director in Ames, Iowa stood up to the purveyors of sexual ignorance and won a battle to keep a magazine called Sex, Etc. available to teens. The magazine is written by and for teens under the oversight of Answer, a national sexuality organization at Rutgers University. It addresses teen sexuality issues, substance abuse and eating disorders.

I mention all of this merely on the chance that Mr. Weeks will Google himself one of these days and come across this post where I call him a hero, a champion of enlightenment and a defender of the marketplace of ideas.

From those of us who understand the importance of access to information, from those of us who believe that sex education is the key to sound decision-making, from those of us who have seen the slippery slope first hand, I just want to say:

Well done Mr. Weeks, well done.

Teen Sex Magazine to Stay on Shelves at Iowa Library

Racist Pig Swim Pool - Part Three

I just can't let this story go...remember the swim club that sold access to the pool to a day camp only to rescind the sale when they discovered that the kids weren't white?  Well, they are trying to declare bankruptcy.

But before we all start thinking, "Good! You racist pigs." I think there is something fishy going on in their cement pond. According to the article they have liabilities of $100,000 to $500,000 and assets of anywhere from 1 to ten million dollars.
For the sake of argument, let's take the middle of both ranges.  That would mean debt of $300,000 and assets of 5 million dollars.

I don't know about you, but I'll take that balance sheet any day.

I think these bastards are trying to make themselves judgment proof.  They are in the mother of all legal stalls while trying to protect their assets so when they lose they have to pay little or nothing for telling the kids of color that they weren't good enough to swim in their pool. 

Personally, I hope the government and the justice system see right through this and dry hump these guys for every dime they can. 

Honkies Only Pool Declares Bankruptcy

Oh...and that bit at the end of the story is bullshit. Not enough life guards? When they first got caught, the club president said the reason they kicked the kids to the curb was because:
"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion .....and the atmosphere of the club."

They are liars and they deserve the long arm of the law doing a very complete, very aggressive proctology exam for which they should be billed top dollar.

Republican Funded Abortions (and a bit about Levi Johnston's man bits)

No More D and Cs for the RNC

For the last 18 years, the young women who worked for the Republican National Committee (RNC) had some very comprehensive health insurance. It even covered abortions.

That's right kids, if a RNC campaign muffin found herself with a bun in the oven unexpectedly (Remember, they only teach abstinence, not sex-ed,  at the Nancy Reagan Preparatory School and Country Club!) all she had to do was head down to the local abortionist and be done with it.  And these abortions were made possible by Republican donors of America.

Sweet huh?  Those same people who have spouted hateful things about the reproductive rights of women in order to get fat cat Republicans to whip out their wallets and write even fatter checks have been spending some of those dollars they raised to ensure that their female employees can get abortions on demand.

Oh...and the best part?  The only reason that they quit is because they got caught.  They are trying to use the abortion issue as a way to trip up health care reform and some snoopy reporter types found out that the RNC insurance plan was providing the actual services that the Republican's were trying to strip out of the public option insurance being proposed on the hill.

You know...that part of the health care reform bill intended to cover those who are currently falling through the cracks. People like the poor, the un- or underemployed, the under-educated,  -- in other words -- the kinds of people who are the least likely to ever work at the RNC.

Well, they may have been trying to strip it out, but the main purpose of the whole thing was to use the abortion issue as they have been for years and years, to drive a wedge between conservative Democrats and liberal ones.

I think some on the Religious Right actually care about abortion.

(I also think they are self-righteous hypocrites who think they've been saved by Jesus but miss the point completely when it comes to tolerance and forgiveness.  But that is for another day.)

But deep in the dark bowels of the RNC, where the Republican political hacks cultivate their strategies based not on belief or credo, but on an unfailing desire to gain and maintain power, the abortion issue is just an old, favorite tool.  It is a tool they use whenever they need to divide the voters or the Congress, to distract them from the true goal of the Republican efforts, to keep the rich rich and the poor poor and the government out of the way of those with the most money and power.

This isn't about abortion.  This is about the insurance companies getting what they want: little or no public option and a mandate that everyone buy insurance.  If they can get that without too many more government regulations -- like you have to cover anyone, regardless of their pre-existing conditions -- then the Republican hacks have done their job.

The abortion issue is just their way of distracting the voters from their true goal, to protect those insurance companies that have given billions of dollars over the years to Congressmen and Senators for the sole purpose of ensuring that those elected officials protect the insurance industry's corporate interests ahead of ours, the voters.

We Democrats have to learn to quit jumping at the abortion bone whenever the Republican dark wizards wave it under our noses.  Passing this health reform is too important for us to be distracted by this same, tired old tactic.  Give up the abortion funding and concentrate on the overall game, getting meaningful health care reform that includes a robust public option.

That is a fight we must fight. That is a fight we can win.  Give me the side of the public over the side of corporate greed any day. That is a story I can sell. We can't allow them to frame the debate with a distraction!  The choice here isn't about "choice" or "right to life"; it's between the wealthy insurance companies who have been fucking the consumer for profit for much too long and the voters who deserve access to quality health care.

Republican Abortion Coverage

He's Been to Bristol

At just about the same time as Sarah Palin's book is coming out, her daughter's baby daddy is getting ready to show the world his man junk in Playgirl magazine.

First, I didn't know Playgirl still existed, who knew?  Gay men I guess.

Second, if the future of the Republican Party is going to be filled with Milfy moron ex-governors and the nude models that impregnate their daughters, I think the Dems will be just fine thank you.

Can't you just see all those country club ladies standing around at a fund raiser thinking to themselves, "Yeah, that Sarah Palin, she represents everything we believe in. You know, babies out of wedlock, male soft core porn, hunting...it's like she's one of us!"

Or not...

(You notice how I completely avoided all the hockey stick jokes? It was very difficult, believe me.)
Playgirl Photo Shoot "Fantastic" Involves Hockey Stick

I'll f@%# you up!

I am no fan of Arnold.  Only a few of his movies were any good (Predator, the first Terminator), but you have to love a Governor who sends an F-bomb back in the veto notes he attaches to bills he won't sign.

Too much fun.

Hidden F-bomb from Arnold

Sweet Revenge

As a father, I can so totally relate to this.

A father's daughter is killed in an attempted rape.  The killer is tried and found guilty in absentia.  Twenty-seven years later, the man (a doctor) found guilty is found on the steps of the courthouse bound, gagged and beaten. 

It may have taken a long time, but in my world, justice never ages.

Father Kidnaps