The Angry Reporter

Are You There, God? It's Me, Eric

2012-01-26T06:09:00.000-08:00

Are you there, God? It's me, Eric.

I know we haven't spoken in a long time, partly because I know you're very busy with governing the universe and I realize the only people who get to talk to you are prophets, televangelists and Republican presidential candidates.

First, thanks for the opposable thumbs. I know evolution was your idea to piss off the South. You truly do work in mysterious ways.

My reason for talking to you is simple.

I'm having a crisis of faith.

I'm finding it very difficult to reconcile mankind is good anymore, that our motives are pure and benevolent. Many horrid people with money and influence run the planet and are convincing the meek and humble that absolute power reigns supreme over kindness.

Personally, I don't agree. I think humanity needs to be kind.

Only by recognizing our own pettiness and prejudice can we fully embrace our destinies and forge a world for all, not just a few with their own private jets.

I know this sounds preachy, but you're probably used to hearing sermons all the time. You're probably used to hearing prayers and your words mangled from the mouths of the self-righteous and selfish.

Speaking of which, is this Tim Tebow guy serious?

What a showboating assclown! If he gets any more holier-than-thou, the church might canonize him.

I mean, he just threw a touchdown pass, not heal lepers or walk on water.

Sorry. I didn't mean to trash talk your kid. You know I admire your son's work. Loaves and fishes. The Beatitudes. Driving the money changers from the temple. Excellent stuff!

I guess the reason I'm writing you this is because my faith is shattered in the genuine goodness of humanity.

Take American politics. It's not about presenting an uplifting or workable vision for the betterment of Americans. From the speeches, the caustic barbs and the vicious mudslinging, American politics devolved into a gladiatorial bloodsport or nasty schoolyard fight.

Mankind has taken leave of the free will and common sense you gave them to produce a rabble of judgmental, superstitious, bickering obstructionists who care not a wit for compromise, but exist solely to trash the opposing party. They view the opposition not as individuals but as concepts, as vague stereotypes. It's easier to hate stereotypes instead of view them through a more realistic lens.

Our national dialog is clouded by dangerous rhetoric and idiotic rants best suited for drunken hobos wandering the bus station than political commentators.

"Obama is a socialist commie."

"Corporations are evil incarnate."

It's class warfare. Rich versus poor, haves versus have-nots.

The hypocrites are out in full force these days. Newt Gingrich lectures Bill Clinton on family values, yet asks for an open marriage so he could bang his mistress.

It isn't exactly honest when a politician wants to set a series of standards for themselves while holding everyone else (the peons) to a wholly different standard.

And Rick Santorum! Don't get me started on him!

I guess what I'm saying, God, is there's too much us versus them and not enough brotherly love. There's more greed instead of more generosity. There's more assholery instead of kindness.

I guess it's impossible for me to watch the cable news networks and not see a vapid parade of mental midgets blather on about Obama being the antichrist, or Mitt Romney being a Mormon with offshore bank accounts, or some heroin-addled celebrity in rehab.

We're better than this, I know we are.

I'm weary of rolling the Sisyphean boulder only to have it tumble backwards ad infinitum. We're in a real slump, here, God. A dearth of creativity or imagination. A cultural and social morass where ideas are mired by avarice and selfishness. We've become a distopian world where communications occur at the push of a button, where our cool dispassion and distance are detrimental to apathy. We live in a world where prejudice, bigotry and intolerance have conquered man's heart.

Yet despite these ridiculous and destructive things, we live in a wondrous age of technological and scientific progress. Yet coupled with the devolving social mores and etiquette, all of our e-mails and instant messages are hastily scribbled bits of ephemera and mental masturbation designed to validate our own political, cultural or religious differences.

Look, God, I know you're probably rushed. You've probably got a galaxy to create or a school bus filled with Ecuadoran children to topple into a river.

But I'd like to have some sign that things can get better for our country and world.

And if we're genuinely screwed and that Mayan apocalypse is going to happen in December anyway, I'd still like to know.

I want to buy my girlfriend something nice for the occasion.

The Day the Net Stood Still

2012-01-18T07:30:00.001-08:00

Wikipedia goes dark.

Google censors its logo.

Reddit is down..

Wired redacts its content.

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect IP Act, are two pieces of legislation designed to handle Internet piracy by making it easier for federal authorities to remove suspected pirated content from the Internet. The bills would make it difficult for sites operating outside of the United States to distribute copyrighted materials such as movies and music. Critics charge these bills go over and above what they were designed to do and impose a de facto censorship on copyrighted materials.

The bills would extend not only to torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, but to personal blogs (like this one). See, I use images cobbled from the Internet. These copyrighted photos were shot by someone else and intended for use elsewhere. Yet the amorphous, free-flowing structure of the Internet allows users (such as yours truly) to scoop up and use these images at my own folly, and thus post an image of President Obama blowing a wolverine or Christine O'Donnell sacrificing a goat.

Now I'm all for people, especially artistic hipster douchebag types, getting paid. One less hipster douchebag out on the street in a Guy Fawkes mask is a good thing.

Yet I can't abide by the way SOPA and PIPA were written, in such a heavy-handed fashion.

Under SOPA and PIPA, this blog would be censored. The federal nannies would swoop in, cut out the images that were copyrighted...without due process.

In protest, sites like Wikipedia, Google and Reddit have gone dark to raise awareness of SOPA and PIPA and the effect it would have on daily Internet use.

As long as the blackout doesn't effect BarelyLegalCumGuzzlers.com, my afternoon should be golden.

Looking Backwards At 2011 And Laughing Like A Giddy Monkey

2011-12-28T13:15:00.000-08:00

Another year bites the proverbial dust, another 365 days fade into history. Turns out 2011 was another year of milk and honey, prosperity, pain and tumultuousness. What can I say? Shit happens, and it seems to loom around me. I’m misfortune’s favorite customer.

Yet 2011 wasn’t all that bad, as far as years go. Looking back at the madness, I realize now I was genuinely happy. While I end the year with back problems and blood pressure higher than an air traffic controller on crank, things were relatively okay for me in ’11. I attribute this happiness to my girlfriend, who is a loving and constant companion. My Filipina sex machine has been there for the entire ride around the sun, and I wish she'll be around for many more.

Presuming the Mayans were full of shit and the world isn’t hit by an asteroid in December 2012, I hope to report new and exciting things next year.

For now, here are some of the bizarre things that happened to me in 2011:

* Sold my motherfucking house! Chateau le Scheiße is gone, outta here, and not my problem anymore, thanks to a nice woman from upstate who purchased it in October.

* Won an award from the New Jersey Press Association. This one was for a story I did on law enforcement’s efforts to stem the rising tide of drugs in the community.

* Performed three standup acts and even got paid. Now I’m a real standup comedian. Watch out, Hollywood!

* It was a busy year writing-wise. Finished writing Ravaged Earth Revised. I’m quite pleased at the final result, a year-long effort of writing and editing. Slated for a 2012 release, this new iteration of Ravaged Earth reworks powers and contains a few surprises, such as information on Martians, Martian tech, and a thrilling plot-point campaign. In addition, I also wrote four guidebooks for Ravaged Earth and four companion adventures.

* Attended Philcon and got to speak about Ravaged Earth and gaming at a few panels.

* Attended Gencon with my girlfriend and had an absolute blast. Dating a girl geek is comforting, since we share several areas of interest. I ran two Ravaged Earth games, talked about the upcoming releases from Reality Blurs (like Agents of Oblivion, which was released in October to great acclaim) and hung out with several people from the gaming industry. We even went to the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, something you should definitely do if you find yourself in Indianapolis.

* Attended my first steampunk-themed costume ball in July at Dorian’s Parlor. This is a fantastic event, a place where Victorian costumes mingle with the latest in cutting edge steam technology. Corsets, tophats and goggles. All that plus quirky bands, a fashion show and open bar make it the ultimate debonair swankfest and neo-vintage salon.

* Took my father to see Bill Cosby in concert for Father’s Day. My father introduced me to Cosby’s comedy via record albums in the 1970s. Seeing this old man on stage cracking wise and relating his own brand of homespun humor was cathartic in a way.

* Speaking of the Cos, Cosbython 2 was a rollicking success! Celebrating Bill Cosby’s birthday in July in style with ugly sweaters, pudding pops and Kids Say The Darndest Things the board game.

* Held a party celebrating Tommy Wiseau’s birthday, the longhaired, mumbling actor and director of The Room. I called the event Room-A-Palooza. We watched The Room, played board games and ate pizza. Any photos of me dressed as Wiseau have since been destroyed.

* Survived both an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week. An earthquake rumbled across New Jersey and the house shook like two elephants fucking in the parlor. Less than a few days later, Hurricane Irene swung through the eastern seaboard. We get it! God hates shoobies!

* Performed on an Internet comedy show, the Jersey Comedy Syndicate on UStream, and brought back my character, Lazlo Fink.

* Watched several movie classics from the American Film Institute’s top 100 films. While I’m not finished the list, I did make a severe dent in it, viewing such treasures as Sunset Boulevard, Casablanca, It Happened One Night, All About Eve, Double Indemnity and The Searchers.

* Recorded more lines for HG World, a zombie audio drama. The show garnered a Parsec award in 2011, making it an award-winning zombie audio drama!

Next year I hope to run away with my little pineapple Asian persuasion, get my novel published, do more standup, and demo my RPG at Gencon and who knows, maybe even Origins. Gods willing! Hail Eris! Hail Cthulhu! Let's make it happen!

Retro Gaming

2011-12-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

Back in the primordial epoch, circa 1980, I was a greasy little urchin with copious free time and a pocketful of quarters. I whiled away countless hours in video arcades, surrounded by flashing lights, bleeping pixels and a cavalcade of Japanese electronic entertainment. The early 1980s was a boom time for video games. They lurched from their humble beginnings with Pong and Space Invaders to a more evolved state of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. At the dawn of the 21st Century, video games have advanced plots, lifelike graphics and more violence and gore than All You Can Kill Day at the Roman Colosseum.
Still, the simpler times showed us video games could be clever, friendly and outright weird.
I discovered a cabinet game at my local arcade filled with several arcade classics from the 1980s, and was transported back through time to my hometown in New Jersey. I was 11 or 12, had braces and a penchant for playing video games. Memories washed over me as I was treated to games I hadn't seen and played in almost 30 years. Nostalgic? Hells yeah!

If this arcade game were a woman, I'd marry it, then fuck it repeatedly with a shitload of quarters.

The game lets you select from the following arcade legends: 1942, 1943, Amidar, Arkanoid, Burger Time, Bomb Jack, Centipede, Congo Bongo, Crush Roller, Dig Dug, Dig Dug 2, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong 3, Galaga, Galaxian, Jr. Pac-Man, Frogger, Juno First, Jumping Jack, King and Balloon, Lady Bug, Mappy, Millipede, Moon Cresta, Mr. Do, Mr. Do's Castle, Mrs. Pac-Man, New Rally X, Pac-Man, Pengo, Pinball Action, Pooyan, Pleiads, Phoenix, Qix, Scramble, Space Panic, Space Invaders, Super Break Out, Super Cobra, Super Pac-Man, Tank Battalion, Time Pilot, The End, Sho - Lin's Road, Van-Van Car, Xevious and Zaxxon. Many of these I haven't heard of, like Moon Cresta and King and Balloon. After playing them, I understand why. Some of these games are easily forgettable, but others are hidden video game gems that should stand the test of time.

Like Donkey Kong. The classic Nintendo arcade game that introduced Mario and the titular gorilla, Donkey Kong was one of my early favorites. If you play the second stage right, Mario scores with the princess while Kong falls headfirst to an ignoble if not hilarious death.

Donkey Kong Jr., the popular sequel, has players in the role of Donkey Kong's son on a mission to save daddy Donkey Kong. This game is incredibly hard, as players will be climbing vines and dodging these snap-jawed critters and aggressive birds. It's insane how many things are out to get you in this game.

If gorillas are your thing, Congo Bongo is another classic arcade game. You play a hunter who has to climb through what looks like an M.C. Escher painting of passageways, bridges and annoying monkeys. I loathe Congo Bongo because I get killed and can't finish the first level. The perspective throws me off and I end up plummeting to my doom or being skull-raped by one of those monkeys. I want to find whoever designed Congo Bongo and kill them with a shovel.

I remember playing Crush Roller (or Make Trax as it was sometimes called) at a Chi-Chi's restaurant during my youth. If that reference doesn't date me, recalling the game was freakin' hard will. You play a paint brush being chased by two flounder-looking creatures. Your task is to paint the entire maze and use two rollers to crush your pursuers. A cat, a mouse, a bird and a tire roll over your nice paint job and force you to backtrack. If you thought painting your house was a thankless, labor-intensive undertaking, play this game. This is why people should hire professional painters.

I learned more about the natural world by playing Frogger than I did in my high school life science class. Frogger has everything: a Darwinian struggle of survival in a cold and unforgiving world, where aggressive predators thrive on devouring the innocent frog, who only wants to mate, eat flies and go home. This game may look cute, but it's survival of the fittest. To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, "it's not easy being green, homey."

Mappy. Goddamn it, how I love Mappy. Holy fuck on melba toast do I love this game. One of the shining examples of arcade games from the early 1980s, Mappy puts the player in the guise of a mouse in a policeman's uniform. The goal here is to bounce through a house and snag stolen loot from a gang of cats, who desire only one thing: to devour Mappy for lunch. Fast-paced, with a pleasant musical score and challenging bonus stages, Mappy is video game Nirvana.

Mr. Do.
Jumpin' Jesus with a strap-on are you ever a weird game. One of my favorites as a kid, Mr. Do is a trippy game where you play a clown digging for cherries underground.

Mr. Do is patterned after Dig-Dug, another one of my favorite arcade games. Whoever wrote these games must've been doing some heavy acid, because this game, as I mentioned above, is really trippy. Mr. Do must dig passages underground and kill these creatures by throwing a ball at them or by squashing them with gigantic apples. Periodically, a bonus item will manifest in the middle of the screen. Snag it and a chorus of fucked-up looking Muppets will descend upon our hero. It's not a bad game if you're a student of Dada artists and stoned out of your mind.

Mr. Do was so popular, it launched a sequel - Mr. Do's Castle. This one pits Mr. Do against some unicorn creatures in a castle. The clown must knock blocks from the floors of the castle and crush his enemies. If Mr. Do wasn't motivated, he'd be called Mr. Don't. He's a badass. You know it, I know it and Mr. Do knows it. So don't fuck with him.

I never heard of Pooyan before. This game makes me so angry, I want to throw a baby in a woodchipper.

A retelling of the Three Little Pigs, Pooyan pits the player against wolves with balloons. The player is suspended from a gondola and shoots arrows at the wolves, attempting to pop the balloons before the wolves make it to the ground, where presumably, they rape the pigs.

I can't figure out how Jumping Jack got green lit. The premise of the game, to leap across the board, propelled with a bunch of seesaws and dodging pretty much everything in sight. One of the most bizarre things in the game is in the upper corner. See that character up there? The black Sambo-looking dude with giant red lips? Who programmed this game? David Duke? Was it popular to include racial stereotypes in video games in the 1980s? I realize back then, political correctness didn't run amok as it does today, but having a giant-lipped African native hurling boulders at you is wrong.

Flash Fiction Challenge

2011-12-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

My entry in Chuck Wendig's latest flash fiction challenge: "An Affliction of Alliteration." Contestants had to write a story whose title uses alliteration.
Here's my story:

WOBBILY WOMBATS WEARING WATCHES

By Eric Avedissian

When things grew rough for the miners of Kingsbury Colony, when the bodies began stacking up like fucking dried cordwood in the sun, that’s when management flew into a tizzy. Too many men were lost in the bowels of this godforsaken world, buried under the rock, suffocated like dogs in an oil drum.

That’s when they brought in the scientists with their genetic splicing and cloning and diddling around with DNA.

The scientists created wombats four feet high and programmed their brains to tell time. Each wombat was given the ability through conditioning and biological programming to understand exactly when their shifts would start and end via special wristwatches strapped around their paws.

The blasted critters worked harder than any of the slackers they replaced.

The creatures stood on their hind legs and walked upright, wore dirt-covered overalls and mining helmets. They wielded pickaxes, drills and planted explosives better than most of their human counterparts.

What’s more, they made the Kingsbury Colony Mining Consortium a lot of money.

Their exploits were known throughout the Australian Confederation, from the twin planets Dingo and Walleroo to the crumbing remnants of Bixby’s Forge.

Russell Cobb, captain of class 7 ion-drive mining ship “Waltzing Matilda”, was less than thrilled.

“Bloody wombats,” Cobb muttered as he leaned against the railing overlooking the quarry. “How many of these fucking rodents you got?”

“About 200, I reckon,” said the mining overseer everybody called Snake. Snake wore goggles and covered his face with a cloth mask, protecting it from the planet’s dust storms. Kingsbury Colony was an arid, hellish world, with litter precipitation and immense sandy deserts. Snake, as his nickname suggested, felt at home here.

“The consortium likes this sort of thing?” Cobb asked.

“Consortium reassigned them offworld months ago,” Snake said, leaning back in his chair. “Thought it best to assign them less dangerous tasks. Some went to Dingo to harvest grain. Others went to the breeding pits of Bixby’s Forge to help repopulate the colony.”

“Yeah. Fair dinkum, I suppose.”

In the mine, a wombat paused, scratched its chin and extended its furry arm in front of its face. Eyeing the giant wristwatch, it saw the blinking LED display and recognized the digital numbers signified quitting time. The creature shuffled towards the lift, and pulled a lever mounted on a control panel. The hydraulic lift ascended, shimmying with a rusty groan, taking the wombat with it, up towards the mine’s surface.

Cobb drained another 12-ounce tinny of Foster’s pale lager, the brew cooling his parched throat. He cracked open another can and offered it to Snake, who declined.

“Never touch the stuff, mate. Ever since the wife birthed two ankle biters,” Snake said.

It never occurred to Cobb that Snake was a family man. He always thought Snake was an antisocial tosser with as much likability as a road accident.

Cobb turned his attention to the wombats, who marched out of the mine single-file, like a conga-line of marsupial zombies.

“I know it’s none of my bizzo, but is that normal?” Cobb asked.

“Shift’s over. Time to rest. We give ‘em six hour’s sleep and it’s back to the mines,” Snake said.
Cobb rolled his eyes.

Snake smirked behind his mask. As far as he was concerned, Cobb’s only function was hauling ore back to Bixby’s Forge.

A titanic crane scooped a dozen containers of ore, lifted them from the ground and loaded them onto the spaceship. Robots with bulbous heads and four arms each transported the containers via lift into the ship’s filthy, crowded hull. Cobb observed this from a metallic gangplank, counting the containers as the robots handled them.

Ever since the wombats took over, output increased tenfold.

The fucking furry bastards were ripper.

A straggling wombat, still staring blankly at his wristwatch, stumbled upon a few cans of Cobb’s lager.

With chaffed hands, the creature picked up the beer can and regarded it with a curious stare. It sniffed the opening, then poured some of the liquid in its mouth. its eager tongue lapped the rest of the beer with wild abandon until it emptied the can. It tossed the can, which landed on the ground with a loud metallic clatter before lunging for another one.

For the first time, one of the genetically engineered wombats was off his face. It was full. It has a gutful of piss. It was bloody rotten.

In short, it was drunk.

Another wombat approached and fumbled with a can. The second marsupial observed his compatriot tear open the tab and imbibe the strange, yeasty concoction within.

The scenario repeated itself until the wombats, every one of them, consumed at least one beer. Apparently, the alcohol tolerance of the bipedal wombat critters was embarrassingly low. Some laughed, while others chundered on each other.

When Snake saw the wombats dancing and shambling in alcohol-induced euphoria, he shouted towards the gangplank.
Cobb peered from his perch and witnessed the chaos below. He slid down the ladders and landed with thud near the mine entrance, where Snake stood, fists balled in rage.

“Look what your lager has done! They’re bloody pissed! Every one of them useless!”

“Oi! Enough earbashing! I get it!” Cobb said. “Let ‘em sober up. Be right as rain in a few.”

“That ain’t the point, mate! Alcohol destroys their programming. Unhinges whatever chemical program the scientists jiggered up in there. These things will be lucky to know how to shit,” Snake said.

Cobb reached into his holster and pulled out his Ellerson Mark V laser gun. Behind his goggles, Snake’s eyes widened.

“You can’t, man! The conglomerate…”

“They’ll make more of these abominations, mate,” Cobb said with a sneer. “We tell ‘em raiders hit the mine and you were the only survivor. Spend some time with the wife and kids. You deserve a holiday.”

Snake nodded meekly and backed away. He realized stranger things happened in this part of space.

“Good onya, mate!” Snake exclaimed, as Cobb fired.

America the Lazy

2011-11-25T17:27:00.000-08:00

Remember the good old days, say 1985, when Americans had a sense of manners and did the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do?

Remember when we weren't a nation of self-absorbed, obsessed dicks pepper spraying our way through a Walmart to get some stupid plastic piece of shit manufactured in China?

Remember when America had standards, a timeless sense of finesse and aplomb?

Those days of the Protestant work ethic and social etiquette are deader than Judge Reinhold's career. We're a nation that simply doesn't give a shit, about ourselves, about each other and about our impending crash and burn on the world stage.

America now is like a sloppy drunk Hollywood celebrity staggering out of her limo and flopping onto the red carpet, face marred with white powder and naked crotch exposed for the paperazzi. We're an international trainwreck because we've let our standards plummet disastrously.

Here are four signs that America is on the path to cultural and social suicide:

1. Our Food Sucks. I'm not talking about the quality. If you like the McRib, that's a personal preference of shoddy tastebuds and low income. I'm talking about presentation. We are a nation of wraps, where food is slopped into a doughy rap and rolled up and consumed. The sandwich is too complicated. Mass producing these slipshod wraps takes little effort and I want my food-slinging professionals to earn their minimum wage. Also, the bowls. Kentucky Fried Chicken has mashed potato bowls stuffed with chicken strips and corn. Just plopped into a bowl like some sad bachelor and consumed in bitter silence in front of the TV while Ultimate Fighting Championship is on. Wraps and bowls show no effort. It's like slackers control our food industry.

2. We're Note Polite. We as a society lack basic courtesy. When we cut in line at the supermarket to buy our frozen wraps, do we not offer a slight apology? No! America is becoming a very rude, naughty little boy who smears feces on the drapes just to get a reaction. We need a national nanny to scold us and give us discipline, to point out our shortcomings and correct our behavior. Or at least a national dominatrix to suspend us from the ceiling and spit on us should we err.

3. Reality TV is Awful. If one could say anything positive about the Holocaust, that catastrophic event in history where six million Jews were barbarically executed, it's this: at least those poor souls aren't alive to witness the cultural abortion that is The X Factor. Or American Idol. Or Dancing with the Stars. Or The Real Housewives of New York City. Or The Jersey Shore. Or a dozen more mediocre turd nuggets that pass for entertainment. Here's why reality TV is turning America into a dystopian gulag only Kafka could admire: it's utter manipulation so appealing, the masses don't realize they're being brainwashed by a cast of hedonistic, banal bottom dwellers. You know times have changed when Beavis and Butthead isn't the stupidest thing on television. Mike Judge's creation was a satirical look at culturally backward, ignorant youth. It was anti-intellectualism on a grand scale. Now we have a festival of retards parading around proclaiming their ignorance and getting cut fat paychecks to do so.

4. Our Leaders Are Corrupt. Not since the days of ancient Rome when Caligula made his horse Incitatus a counsel and fucked his sister have human leaders been so decadent. In America, Congress' approval rating hovers at 9 percent. That's no joke. As of today, Nov. 25, 2011, only 9 percent of the public approves the way Congress is operating. Even Al-Quaeda has a higher approval rating. Why this abysmal performance? American politics is about winning, not doing the right thing. Both parties - the Democrats and Republicans - are dysfunctional and incalcitrant, preferring to appease their financial backers and lobbyists instead of doing the right thing for the people. They also circumvent the Constitution like it's some hot new game at a swanky Washington D.C. cocktail party. The latest bumper crop of Republican presidential candidates have garnered vast support and present a plethora of ideas before the public, most of which are reactionary and thwart progress. The Democrats are too wimpy to embolden themselves and only tout bigger government. American politics breaks down like this: they're all crooks who whine when they don't get their way, but remind us of how good compromising is, even though that's the last thing they would ever do. Meanwhile, the money-filled dumptrucks keep unloading into their personal coffers.

That pretty much covers it. We're lazy, slovenly, the bearer of low standards and we just don't give a shit. The Chinese are communists and we're in debt to them. Our politicians are spewing such hateful venom at anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus, guns and the cleansing power of brutal violence.

America is like a sickly patient in need of a life-saving operation, and the only surgeon we have has beefy, clumsy, twitching hands. If we're going to get out of this alive and pull ourselves up, we've got to get our collective national shit together. We've got to focus on the things that really matter and delete the trivial, mundane bullshit that make political pundits chortle with orgasmic glee.

We've got to dare ourselves to be a kinder, respectful and better country.

We have a reputation to uphold.

Let's not lose sight of that now, people.

Song of the Occupiers

2011-11-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

I've suspended any opinions on the Occupy Wall Street movement and the 99 percenters for weeks, because I wanted to educate myself on their organization beyond the reports from the mainstream media outlets.

This is a very contentious issue.

On one hand, you have people who truly feel disenfranchised and alienated by what they perceive as a culture of corporate greed, where the chips are stacked against them and success and the American Dream are inconceivable.

On the other hand, you have people who view the protesters as a horde of unwashed freaks, the bastard children of Woodstock and the commune culture of the 1960s who wish to embrace socialism and forego personal hygiene.

Ask any member of the Tea Party movement about the Occupy Wall Street crowd, and you'll get prune-faced grimaces and hear derisive critiques such as "Nobody knows what they stand for" or "They don't even know what they're protesting."

Bullshit.

The mainstream media characterizes the protestors as hippies and losers who chant, wear Guy Fawkes masks and tote signs with pithy slogans chastising Wall Street for their insatiable greed.

I think some of the protestors are truly concerned about falling behind and being forgotten, while others are there for the carnival-like atmosphere. Most are young and glom on to any movement just to blow off steam. Some are ranting about the war, while others blame Washington.

The fact that it's a leaderless movement doesn't help their cause, either. There should be organization and a concise message to the movement.

What we see now are protests all over this great nation of ours, mobs of angry youths who essentially have no confidence in unfettered capitalism.

The Tea Party stand behind Wall Street and capitalism, because they represent the God-fearing American right to make as much money as possible.

Not only does Wall Street and the corporate robber barons make a boatload of money, but they have a penchant for sticking it to the little guy who is struggling for survival.

According to a new census measure, 49.1 million Americans are poor. These are people having problems with medical expenses and paying bills.

God bless America!

Presidential candidate Herman Cain, who claims God persuaded him to run for president, said if you're poor, it's your own fault.

If Horatio Alger saw what was going on today, he'd wonder why the Occupiers didn't get any old job and be happy with it, for struggling and labor are the pathways to success.

Writer Ayn Rand wrote: "In the normal conditions of existence, man has to choose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others."

Jesus Christ, who many politicians invoke and wouldn't mind breaking bread with at their local country clubs (the ones that don't restrict Jews), once said: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

It should be noted that Jesus hated rich people. He loathed the hypocrisy.

Seems the hypocrites who own everything in America and who treat the unwashed masses like cattle are fond of proselytizing and attend church. They laud family values and God all the while greed consumes them and they take more and more.

If one works hard, one should be entitled to the fruits of their labor. However, you are only entitled to the fruits of your labor, not the entire orchard.

A century from now, how will America be remembered? When our descendants look back at the beginning of the 21st Century, will they view us with jaundiced eyes, embarrassed of our bickering and fighting? Will they see the Tea Party labeling President Obama as a foreign-born socialist and the Democrats as unpatriotic traitors? Will they see the Occupy Wall Street movement as condemning the Republicans as rich elitists and Nazis? Will future Americans, watching old videos of our civilization wonder why Congress didn't act sooner to avert the financial crisis?

What will they think of us, these people in the far distant future?

Will we have failed them?

Will they view the incalcitrant Congress as creating a logjam via divisiveness and hate?

If America sinks, it won't be at the hands of a foreign terrorist or an army of Mexicans streaming across the border.

It will be because of our stubborness and pride.

Houseless

2011-10-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

Against all odds, I sold my house. Specifically, my ex-wife and I sold our house.

Why quibble over semantics, eh?

The hovel we called home is now somebody else's, thanks to an aggressive real estate agent and a prime location near the Delaware Bay.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the fucker sold.

Hurrah and huzzah!

In a shitty housing market where home prices are falling faster than Michelle Bachman's chances of becoming president, we pulled the ultimate real estate coup de grace and unloaded this hipster den upon an unsuspecting buyer.

There's a grand myth about homeownership, one told around campfires for generations. Said tale goes something like this: owning a home is an investment, and one of the ultimate accomplishments of the American Dream, the other being getting a blowjob from Olivia Munn. If you don't know who Olivia Munn is, you're probably too old. Check your pulse, grandpa. Olivia Munn is like Betty Grable for Gen Y.

Owning a home is not the apex of human achievement. It's a millstone around your scrawny neck, thick steel manacles around your wrists, a one-way trip to the gulag. It's a lot of work and requires maintenance and thankless drudgery, much like dating a Jewish woman.

Truth be told, I never felt that place was home. It was just a building where I ate and slept and had to clean. Yard work? Don't get me started on yard work! I sweated like a suburbanite lost in the inner city ghetto every time I mowed that lawn. Grueling, back-breaking work.

So I'm glad that house, with all its petty annoyances is no longer my responsibility.

It took years to finally sell the house, many months of nary a nibble before the big fish came knocking. many people are desperately trying to unload their properties. Some don't make it and face foreclosures and other grim realities in this sluggish and cruel economy.

I can put this wretched chapter of homeownership behind me. That place and me, we weren't a right fit. We just occupied the same space. True, the Bohemian hovel did provide shelter from the harsh elements and warmth from winter's icy touch. Air conditioning kept me cool during the summer's inferno. Yet the house just didn't suit me. Even the rock garden I built was overgrown with weeds. Try meditating looking at that. No inner peace there.

Good luck, house. Hope your new owners enjoy you.

Living in an iWorld

2011-10-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
- Steve Jobs

My introduction to the Macintosh came during college. The student newspaper I wrote for, The Whit at Glassboro State College used the Macintosh Classic, a weird hybrid of monitor and CPU in one package. Back then, I was a Windows/PC guy, and thought Bill Gates was a silicon-breathing computer god. To me, the artists and hippies of the college publishing suite used Macs.

I became a true Mac convert in 2003, after plodding along with Windows 95 on a Compaq Presario of all things. The newspaper I worked for then used Apple products and I was forced to assimilate to the iMac. Around that same time, I bought my first iPod, a seemingly magical music player. I hopped onto iTunes, purchased a few songs and listened to my heart’s content. The marriage of iTunes and the iPod was truly revolutionary.

The Mac OS, named after big cats, put Windows to shame. Where Windows frequently crashed and hit my with blue screens, the Mac OS is tightly-programmed, and easy for customers to use. Those funky icons, including a trash can and dreaded twirling beach ball of death only added to the mystique of using a Mac.

I took the plunge and purchased a Mac PowerBook in 2004. It was a beautiful, sleek machine. It became my music library, film studio, library and writing desk.

In 2008, I bought an iMac and in 2009 an iPhone. I love how these products work, how they integrate well with each other and how their various functions are user-friendly. Each time I switch that iMac on and hear that signature gong reverberate from its metallic heart, I swell with pride.

Steve Jobs, the founder and former CEO of Apple Inc. brought innovation and new technology to the world. His revolutionary decisions changed the way we use personal computing, how we listen to music, watch movies and communicate with each other.

For me, Apple computers were about functionality, aesthetic perfection, sublime design and a hip coolness you didn’t get with any other computer. The IBM clones were always boxy-looking, grey or tan boxes sitting on your desktop. Apple products, with their gentle curves and futuristic shapes made you take notice.

Apple computers made you realize the future was now and “Think Different” more than an advertising slogan.

Jobs, the creative and innovative force behind Apple, is gone.

Yet his legacy is one of pushing boundaries, of experimentation, of trial and error. Some notable failures, the Apple Lisa and Newton pad, gave way to the stunning successes of the iBook and iMac.

The indelible mark Jobs left on personal computing cannot be understated, and his personal style was reflected in the company's creative and inventive output.

Apple keynote addresses, when they rolled out new products, were always great. Jobs, in his signature jeans and black shirt, appeared like a tech-savvy Everyman instead of a corporate CEO. We sat in rapt attention as he explained the features of the iPone, iPad or tweaks and improvements to the OS software. Jobs nurtured the brand into a relevant cultural phenomenon, and the Apple Inc. logo became synonymous with high-end computing. He was the guru leading us into a digital Nirvana, a tranquil place with tools enabling us to do wondrous things. Apps became our means of recreation and productivity and brought the wider world to our palms and literally at our fingertips. A geek with an appreciation of pop culture, rock music and the arts, Jobs made it possible for us creative types to express ourselves through his products. Apple devices became the conduit for our energies and passions and functioned as digital playgrounds and workplaces.

Jobs had an innate ability of tapping into the technical zeitgeist of his times. Through his innovation, Apple revolutionized computing. Where others only gave us glorified calculators, Apple gave us the future and all of the possibilities that go with it. Within the silicon guts of his machines lay the foundation of productivity, of breaking down barriers, of communicating, obtaining information and consuming media.

We’re a better world because of Steve Jobs’ dedication and genius.

Digging My Own Grave

2011-10-04T17:07:00.001-07:00

So here's the thing: My father calls me up today and tells me my uncle and aunt were in town to purchase their cemetery plots. My father says this got my mother thinking (and when that happens, look out! Armageddon usually follows!) about purchasing grave sites for the whole family. She wanted to know if I wanted a cemetery plot with them.

What a pleasant way to start the day: dwelling on your own mortality.

My father said my uncle wanted a cemetery plot, while my aunt didn't want to be buried and instead stored in a mausoleum.

Dad wanted to know what my plans for interring my earthly remains were.

I'm in my 40s, so the thought hadn't crossed my mind.

Unless you're dying, who really contemplates such morbid things?

My cousin wants to be cremated and have her ashes scattered in the ocean. What kind of depressive state does one have to be in to make such plans?

I told my dad I want to have traps installed in my crypt to deter grave robbers, like a rolling boulder or spikes shooting from the walls like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. How about mummifying my body and enshrining it inside a sarcophagus decorated with Anubis and Horus? Oh, and naked chicks. Lots of gratuitous nudity in my tomb so the family wonders if I was really Larry Flynt.

My mom worried if I die before her, my body would not rest in the cemetery where my grandparents are buried. She also worried because I don't have children, nobody would mourn me.

I think the entire concept of western burial is overblown. You saddle your loved ones with paying for a coffin which costs thousands of dollars, then thousands of dollars for funeral arrangements, then buying a burial plot and headstone. An extravagant funeral is the ultimate "fuck you" to cash-strapped, grieving family members.

Why should I have a burial plot now? I plan on living for another 50 years. A grave site is so final. I can take my girlfriend there on the weekends and look down at this grassy piece of earth and tell her, "When I die, I will be laid to rest right here, for worms to gnaw my face off."

After that date, she'd dump me.

What about donating your body to medical research? Having some fidgeting medical student dissect you like a bloated frog? Or a perverted necrophiliac lab tech molest your cold corpse? Actually, that last one describes sex when I was married. Banging away on something cold an immovable.

How about cremation? Stored in an urn and placed on someone's mantle for decades? What happens when they die? Do they suck you into the vacuum cleaner and toss you out?

Who obsesses about this crap? Dark, brooding goth teenagers, maybe.

What if you marry somebody your family hates and both of you are buried side by side. Your family, visiting your grave has to stand near the grave of the person they despise. They lay flowers on your half while taking a piss on the other half.

"Shame about Eric. I always hated that bitch!"

I don't know where my bones will rest, whether in a marble tomb in some distant graveyard with haunting willow trees blowing in the wind, in a pauper's grave for failed writers or in a serial killer's cabin in a jar with the remains of a dozen hookers.

Don't really know where I'll end up.

When you're dead, you're dead.

It isn't how you die, but how you live, right?

Photo Bomb

2011-09-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

A photo is going around the Internet, one of President Obama with a group of dignitaries at the United Nations. Obama is waving to the camera, and in so doing his hand blocks the face of Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj. Remember when President Bush tried leaving through a locked door after a press conference in China? Or when President Ford lost his balance like a three-legged schnauzer and fell? The press is always looking for that one awkward photo to make our leaders seem, well, goofy. This photo might be Obama's photographic Waterloo. That is, until the photo of him in the Lincoln Bedroom kneeling toward Mecca is found.

Use the following captions with the photo.

"'Talk to the hand, Mongol boy!'"

"Whoever has had a gay experience, raise their hand."

"No, Barry; you cannot use the bathroom now."

"Any socialists in the room?"

"Let someone else in class answer the question, Barry."

"'Kiss my ring, Tsakhia!'"

"Show of hands, who has the worst national economic clusterfuck?"

"Anyone want to see Snooki naked?"

"'I will pimp slap that smile off your Mongol face!'"

"Who wants fried okra?"

"Does anyone know Ricky Martin's phone number?"

"Who just farted?"

"Ooooh! Call on me! Me! I know! I know! Call on me, teacher! Please! I know! Call on me!"

Ten Years Later

2011-09-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

On September 1, 2001, terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and killed 3,000 people.

The world hasn't been the same ever since.

A decade has gone by, and here we are.

The event, memorialized in the date, is commonly referred to as 9/11.

Back then, smoke, debris and tears filled Lower Manhattan as the World Trade Center fell like a house made of burning playing cards.

Another airplane smashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., killing our best and brightest.

In a field in rural Pennsylvania, another airplane crashed, brought down by passengers who courageously fought back.

Today, ceremonies remembered and mourned the dead, those who perished in the worst terrorist attacks in history.
With great aplomb, solemn pageantry and fluttering American flags we remember them. We honor their memory because they were Americans and English and French and German and Indian and from countries that aren't familiar to the average American.

They were our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and children.

Ordinary folks who went to work not knowing history, like an unforgiving, dispassionate juggernaut, would crush them and consume them.

They would be the ashes of burning skyscrapers, flaming gasoline from airplane fuselages and photographs left behind.

Incidentally, 9/11 occurred on the United Nations International Day of Peace. That's one factoid the news doesn't relate much.

Where were you on 9/11?

I was a 31-year old numbskull cleaning the garage in the morning, putting clutter in cardboard boxes, sweeping the floor and rolling out a cheap rug I bought somewhere. As I tidied up, I had no idea the momentous things happening north of me in New York City, until my then-wife called and told me something big had occurred.

I switched on the TV just in time to see the United Airlines Flight 175 slam into the south side of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. I remember talking to my father on the phone about the attack. He later told me he went to high school with someone who died in the World Trade Center.

The day was chaos, confusion, sadness and anger. Felled low by an unseen enemy, we were wounded, but not defeated. That night, as I did my night shift work for a daily newspaper I was working for at the time, the newsroom watched on TV as President Bush spoke of resolve in the face of evil, for Al-Qaeda was truly evil.

We witnessed acts of heroism and a new appreciation and reverence for firemen, policemen and rescue workers who died in the World Trade Center collapse and were buried in the smoldering rubble.

We flew our American flags and didn't question the wisdom of our leaders, who stood on the steps of the Capitol and sung "God Bless America."

Trembling, we watched history unfold, and shed bitter tears, yet we slowly went through the motions of getting our lives back in this new, horrible world of international terrorism.

Ten years later, what have we wrought in this new reality of paranoia and madness?

A war grinding on in Iraq and Afghanistan, an erosion of our U.S. Constitution, an entrenched Congress filled with political rancor, and a political climate where gridlock and bickering rules. We saw the election of a black president and the rise of the Tea Party who views that black president as a foreign Muslim spy. We have the politics of hate, a fractured economy and massive unemployment.

Our military operations have killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11, as well as his foot soldiers and confidants. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was likewise killed following the U.S. invasion of that country, and the Taliban was yanked from power in Afghanistan.

We became bombastic, headstrong and swaggering, which alienated many who sympathized with us. But despite the volatile rhetoric about this country, despite every blunder and misstep, despite the hue and cry, ten years after 9/11, we are still here.
Our indomitable spirit and sense that we're the good guys, never tarnished.

We didn't allow ourselves to be bullied, cajoled or intimidated by terror. We relinquished a little sense of privacy, submitted to body searches at the airport, removes our shoes and belts and had everything scanned. We allowed our phones to be tapped, our personal information scrutinized and our personal beliefs held under a microscope for Big Brother at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

We became this dystopian, science fictiony, alternate universe America, ruled by a gang of thuggish idiots who waved the flag and told us to choose our criticisms wisely. Yet those tactics ultimately failed. The mighty government who would muzzle the people found themselves turned out of power by the people.

Now we're inhabitants of a science fictiony country where the political leaders are engorged vegetables fighting and breeding with each other.

Despite the fact most leaders and elected representatives in Washington are ready to destroy each other in grisly bloodsports, we could set our differences aside for one day and remember a time ten years ago when America was a more innocent, optimistic place; a nation where elected officials didn't e-mail shots of their penises to mistresses; a nation where the Jersey Shore was a vacation destination and not a show about Italian retards; a place where the Twin Towers stood tall above the Manhattan skyline.

We should not dwell upon the horror, but gaze forward with hope.

Those terrorists may have destroyed buildings and murdered innocent lives, but they didn't kill our hope.

America is an idea, and an idea like America is too big. You can't murder such an ideas like of freedom, equality and justice.

Those ideas define us, they encompass our grandparents and parents and children.

We are America and we are still here.

May we learn the wisdom from 9/11 and never forget the sacrifices made, that in our darkest hour, Americans responded and triumphed.

Angry Reporter's Creed

2011-09-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

We are the bastard children of H.L. Mencken, Hunter S. Thompson, Dorothy Parker, Nellie Bly and countless others who create words like a chef does a fine meal.
We subsist on a steady diet of cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and curiosity.
Hunched over keyboards, our fingers engage in a complex tango as we form stories from the ether.
Thirsting for knowledge, for justice, for a sense of the little guy needs to become informed.
Missionaries bringing Scripture to the ignorant savages, the diving light of Truth.
Pulling back the curtain and exposing things as they really are, revealing the wonderment as well as the hideous and malformed.
Corralling the privileged and mighty from their powerful perches into a space on the page.
In black and white, for the world to see, for the people to judge.
We are not martyrs but outcasts, paupers with low salaries toiling away for some grandiose cause larger than ourselves.
No pensions or creature comforts await the reporter, merely a deluge of words, ink-stained hands and the glut of pixels on a screen.
Crucify us as we crucify you, you pot-bellied, morally bankrupt fiends.
You slayers of hope, supping on corruption and convenience, thinking the party will never end because the great unwashed masses are stupid in their apathy.
Yet you didn't count on us, did you?
You didn't realize we would be paying attention, jotting notes and recording everything.
We are the nuclear lightsaber wielded by a teflon Jedi warrior monk, and we've honed in on you.
We, the fucking reporters, the dirty journalists, the media whores, will expose you because the public, in their lethargic Hollywood comas, have a right to know all of the shit you've done.
You've been naughty little monkeys and the people will be told.
We'll carve your specified sins on your forehead with a red hot stylus, then chronicle your misdeeds in your own blood.
You can threaten us, you can protest, you can cajole and even blackmail us.
Yet that shows what titanic scum you are, what a heap of ridiculous misery you've become.
Because people like you always need someone to blame: the poor, the foreigners, the blacks, the liberals, the Jews.
With your money and influence, you may even try to muzzle us, to discredit us, to shut us down.
But here's the kicker you haven't foreseen: You can't keep us out forever.
You can't bury the Truth.
It has a way of popping out of the grave like a score of zombies in a George A. Romero movie.
And these zombies aren't the slow-witted shambling kind.
They're the ravenous, sprinting, never-get-tired-and-never-give-up kind.
Putting it bluntly, you're as fucked as a drunken bead-wearing whore during Mardi Gras and nothing, not your money, your lawyers or your sterling reputation will help against the truth.
Call it karma with a byline.
Your recklessness and disdain for the very values you purport to defend, and the morality you truck out in the public square are merely convenient facades you employ for the masses, who so desperately believe the bullshit you propagate.
By our wrath shall you know us and with every word shall we will vivisect you on the page.
You will be held accountable to the public and your misdeeds made a matter of record.
There are journalists in this country who aren't corporate controlled cyborgs, aren't cynical to the point of useless and aren't fixated on television like an infant with a shiny plastic toy.
To those reporters, scribes, full-time journos and part-time freelancers who believe the First Amendment isn't something you only trot out during a political rally, rise up.
Hear me, you newshounds, newshawks and bloggers who realize the only way to stop corruption and improve life in the zoo we call planet Earth is to make the zookeepers realize they're mistreating the animals.
In today's age of technological wonders, we are as disconnected and an embittered as ever before.
The multi-armed hydra points fingers and ascribes blame effortlessly without pointing a digit at itself.
The hydra is scared because ascribing self-blame is bad for business, and after all, a hydra can do no wrong.
It's incumbent upon every journalist with a conscience to grab a pen and kill that fucking hydra.
Pulverize them into a fine powder and snort it like a coke fiend from Studio 54, using a $100 bill on a tacky velvet picture of Jesus Christ.
Mutilate those hijacking the culture, those with deep pockets and no souls, those flagrantly violating the law because they see us as insignificant and can get away with it.
Ask the tough questions, make those bastards sweat it out like a police interrogation in a Cambodian jail.
These conniving hucksters will give you no quarter and may lash out like enraged pitbulls, yet never give up.
Only through digging deeper, through persistence, can you triumph.
We need to triumph.
This blasted world needs heroes, good people who do the right thing not out of promised financial compensation or public glory but because it's the right thing to do.
There are very few people like that left.
Be a messenger of Truth, a bringer of swift justice, a person of ideas and words.
Take up your pen, your keyboard, your high-speed Internet connection.
Go forth and do great things with your career.
Make them respect you.
Make them fear you.
Make them loathe you.
Loathe them in return.
And curse their names over a sweaty glass of whiskey.

"Hello, I'm a Reporter. May I Scare the Shit Out of You?"

2011-08-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey on Sunday, a Category 1 hurricane with 60 mile per hour winds, storm surges and torrential rains. As I sat huddled in my basement Journalism Bunker and Global Command Center, urine dribbling down my right leg and hyperventilating into a Dunkin’ Donuts bag in the throes of a panic attack, I wondered why I was frightened.

Then I remembered; I watched the entire hurricane play out on local television news.

The Philadelphia news stations had round the clock coverage of Hurricane Irene as she flew up the eastern coast, dumping rain, causing tornadoes and creating more havoc than a 200-megaton nuclear bomb. Watching the meteorologists and weather reporters on TV painting a shitty picture of widespread chaos and disorder, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they interviewed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

TV reporters engaged in a choreographed circle-jerk of pathos and destruction that made a weather event seem like one of those mental indoctrination “Duck and Cover” films of the 1950s.

The poor bastards reporting live, wearing ponchos and standing on the Boardwalk, blasted by torrential rains and buffeted by a typhoon, can’t be taken seriously.

“Well, Don, as you can see behind me the 20-foot wall of water breaching the dunes and flooding the entire town makes the Japan tsunami look like a trickle of beer piss. I’m holed up in a hotel without electricity and things are pretty bad. Pretty bad indeed. We’ve resorted to cannibalism like in that ‘Alive’ movie. We gnawed off the cameraman’s leg. It’s only a matter of time before the entire eastern seaboard drowns in this thing, Don. Once again, a reminder that humanity is only the mere playthings of a wrathful and vengeful God.”

Philly TV reporters have a fetish for death and destruction. They pray for the worst scenario at any given time because it means pictures of dead bodies, carnage and destroyed buildings. They can hone their acting abilities by staring at the camera and feigning concern.

Because Hurricane Irene turned out to be a dud in the southern New Jersey shore, there’s nothing to exaggerate or inflate for ratings. The doom and gloom train is derailed and the pathos party over.

“Don, I’m standing on the Boardwalk during the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. Unlike Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there aren’t waterlogged corpses floating through the town, nor are there any widespread instances of looting or vandalism. We do have a few uprooted bushes though, and somebody scraped their finger trying to open a can of Mr. Pibb. We will bring you that shocking story after more stock footage of tornadoes and euthanized kittens.”

By deliberately ramping up the situation and over-saturating the airwaves with pandemonium, they create a frightened population of jittery sheep. If the situation is bad, tell them. If an expert predicts a storm will be bad, tell the people that with attribution. Just don't stand in a puddle of water and tell people of a theoretic deluge.

Emergency management officials made a good call telling people to evacuate Cape May County. But telling the public if they choose not to evacuate, to "write the names of their next of kin on an index card and put it in your shoe" isn't productive. Scare tactics can have the opposite effect.

The one place this frenzied fervor didn’t thrive was online. Social media sites and instant messaging such as Twitter and Facebook gave people living in the hurricane’s path a way to communicate with each other and exchange information without a filter.

Those who remained shared their experiences online with evacuees. Reporters from the local news affiliate, NBC40, provided updates through social media sites.

Public disdain for traditional media continues to increase, and with it, distrust and skepticism. Traditional media outlets prove they are obsolete and can’t deliver unvarnished accounts when such reporting matters most. Idealistically, reporters should tell the public what is happening, free of embellishment. Prognostications of a horrible cataclysmic storm when the reality doesn’t match do a disservice to a public already edgy and nervous.

When the storm was over, we learned Irene killed 42 people and caused $7 billion in damage in the United States. Most of the deaths were caused by falling trees and inland flooding. In New Jersey, seven people were killed. Cape May County suffered no fatalities or severe damage. Instead of the 14 feet of water forecasted, Hurricane Irene sped up before high tide, sparing the New Jersey coastline. Random luck we dodged a bullet, and the damage could have been much worse.

In the storm’s aftermath, the sun came out, temperatures warmed and surfers headed to the beach to ride epic waves. TV stations turned their attention northward, to the severe flooding in Vermont and Massachusetts.

Because when there’s a hint of a disaster, there’s always some schmuck with a microphone and camera to scare the shit out of us.

Goodnight, Irene

2011-08-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Surveying the apartment, I decided what to pack and what would remain. Hurricane Irene threatens New Jersey and where I live, on a barrier island in Cape May County, is particularly vulnerable. Meteorologists and emergency management officials I interviewed spun tales of the “100 year hurricane”, that one mighty storm which manifested once every century over the New Jersey coast and wreaked havoc and destruction. They said we were long overdue for a hurricane to make landfall over New Jersey.

Irene granted their wish.

The county issued a mandatory evacuation effective today. On the Boardwalk, shops shuttered, plywood over their windows. Gas stations are inundated with cars and traffic off the island is bumper to bumper. Such dire scenarios play themselves out on TV in the Carolinas and Florida, but not in New Jersey.

Like the Chinese say, “May you live in interesting times.”

An earthquake on Tuesday and hurricane on Sunday. How about we go for the tornado of human feces or flaming asteroid strike for a trifecta?

Officials tell us Hurricane Irene will strike New Jersey and we should secure our properties and evacuate.

Get bottled water, a flashlight and head for the fucking hills.

So I’m sorting out my life in a lone duffel bag and backpack, deciding what’s important enough to take and what will be left to nature’s cruel elemental forces. A change of clothes necessary toiletries, important papers and two computers made the cut. I'm also taking two jump drives with my current writing projects and a list of work contacts. My cat Smuttynose will also accompany me, although he has no choice in the matter.

There’s a real possibility the storm surge will inundate the island, that the apartment will suffer water damage and my furniture, books and other possessions will be lost. This apprehension and worry kept me up for most of the night, a fretful insomnia born from the knowledge my home of four years will be an aquarium.

In emergencies like these, you do the best you can. You think rationally about what you need to take and move on. When you return and find waterlogged wreckage, you take stock, do what you can and survive.

I don’t know if I’m going to return to damp carpets or floating debris. Nothing of this magnitude has happened here, and people are muddling along the best they can, devouring as much information as it becomes available, making preparations and evacuating inland where the flooding and storm surge risks are severely minimized.

Still, you wonder: Will our island home be uncomfortably damp or a new Atlantis?

We’ll have to wait until Monday to discover whether Irene is a shameless flirt or a sadistic, ballgag-choking dominatrix.

Until then, I’m packing up my shit and getting out of Dodge.

Stay dry, people.

Gencon 2011 Report

2011-08-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

I've been back from Gencon since Sunday, but it's taken me a few days to decompress and gather my thoughts. Traveling to and from Indianapolis was time-consuming, especially with delays at the airport, and the hotel's air conditioning system being broken and switching hotels and all of the hassles that come with modern metropolitan living.

Still, the convention was probably the best I've ever attended.

It marked my girlfriend's induction into playing RPGs and the gamer culture. She's a self-admitted geek with a penchant for SyFy shows, Doctor Who and unicorns.

Yes, unicorns. Oy. Don't ask.

For her, Gencon was an opportunity to see me rubbing shoulders with fellow gamers and those in the gaming industry who produce the wonderful products people play. It was also our first real vacation together, since our hectic and hellish schedules leave us little time for travel.

Day One: Thursday, Aug. 4
Because of a delay our flight, which was scheduled to leave at 2 p.m., didn't actually leave until 2:30 p.m. We arrived at Indianapolis after 4 p.m. which gave us precious little time. When we arrive at our hotel we're informed the air conditioning was broken and the rooms would be ready for Saturday. The hotel was nice enough to arrange for our stay at a hotel located across the parking lot from theirs. We settled into our new temporary digs, then walked to the convention center where Gencon was underway. After some wrangling we got our badges and headed into the exhibit hall with a half hour to spare.

I made a beeline for the Studio 2 booth and snagged a copy of Savage Worlds Deluxe and chatted with some colleagues from Reality Blurs and Pinnacle.

After that, the girlfriend and I had dinner at Claddagh Irish Pub before heading back to the hotel and sleepyland.

Day Two: Friday, Aug. 5
After a power breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to the convention center. Gencon affords one the rare and unique opportunity to witness an abundant amount of cosplay. There are only so many photos one can take of women dressed like Princess Leia or Japanese ninja schoolgirls.

Like this chick.

Or this Smurf/fish girl or whatever the hell she's supposed to be.

Putting the eye candy aside, we spent the morning in the exhibit hall.

Since it was my girlfriend's first gaming experience, we procured her a dice bag and set of polyhedral dice. I obtained a few more goodies: a copy of Hellfrost Player's Guide signed by creators Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams and Robin Elliott; The Path of Kane , an adventure book for The Savage World of Solomon Kane; the Sticks & Stones card game and Echo Nouveau, a book of Art Nouveau illustrations by artist Echo Chernik.

There's no such thing as having "too many" dice.

Reality Blurs products! Note they only had the Deluxe Edition of Ravaged Earth left.

Following lunch at Noodles & Company, we went to JW Marriott, a brand spanking new hotel where my Ravaged Earth game was scheduled.

I ran a Ravaged Earth game I wrote, "The Vril Machine". The party consisted of Dawn Star (hobo psionicist), Conroy Rockefeller (dilettante), Coleston Baker (explorer), Thomas Alloy (gadgeteer), Abdul ul-Rashid (mystic) and an unnamed Man of Mystery. The adventure lasted four hours and pitted the intrepid explorers against the Vril Society in Germany. The group sneaked into a secret Nazi research base, freed two trapped Martians and battled members of the SS. The players had such a good time they applauded my game mastering talents.

Behold! The elusive and powerful Vril Machine!

Following the game, we visited to the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors and the prospect of an entire library/museum dedicated to his life and work filled me with childish glee. Chatting to the staff and viewing the artwork, murals and artifacts (including Vonnegut's typewriter and Purple Heart from World War II), only rekindled my appreciation of the man's work. He had a unique style and vision and his writing spoke to me during my teenage years. I remember heading to the shore for summer vacation and buying his paperback novels at a hole-in-the-wall bookshop and devouring his words on the beach. When I got to college, Hocus Pocus was published, and I wrote him a letter gushing about how wonderful I thought he was and what advice he had for young writers like myself. He never replied to my query, but I remained a devoted fan of his work for many years.

If Warehouse 13 needs another artifact, try Vonnegut's typewriter.

We had a delicious dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory, then headed to the Subterra Lounge for drinking and dancing. Actually, my girlfriend drank and danced. I just chaperoned and escorted her back to the hotel. Chivalry or just too damn tired? You decide.

Day Three: Saturday, Aug. 6
We relocated back to our original hotel and spent most of the day at the exhibit hall, making final purchases and soaking up the rich geeky atmosphere. Gaming is a hobby I enjoy and its participants are intelligent and funny people. Just walking around the exhibit hall and watching the cosplay, the vendors and playing a few demos was a great way to unwind. Though it's a chaotic, noisy exhibit hall, everywhere you look you saw a reference to pop culture, science fiction or fantasy. I'm proud to belong to an industry with such eclectic and creative people and some of the best fans on the planet.

Gamers gaming.

I would play Flapjacks and Sasquatches based on the name alone.

Redneck Life is like Milton Bradley's Life only with rednecks and trailers. The object is to not lose your teeth. I AM NOT KIDDING!

After hanging around the exhibit hall, we went to the Pinnacle seminar in the Marriott. As a licensee, I spoke about the wonderful products in the works from Reality Blurs, including Agents of Oblivion, a game of supernatural espionage, a revamped Ravaged Earth, and more Mythos Tales for Realms of Cthulhu and additional Old School Fantasy adventures.

Following a much-deserved nap, girlfriend and I had dinner, then went to Savage Saturday Night at the Omni Hotel, where I ran another Ravaged Earth game I authored, "Slave Pits of Agharta." The Jennings Ballroom was packed with tables filled with gamers playing various Savage Worlds games. In "Slave Pits", a group of daring explorers ventured deep into the dark caverns underneath a small town to locate a missing child prodigy, only to find themselves emerging into a new world - the Hollow Earth realm of Agharta! The players battled a dinosaur, brigands, warriors, a wizard and a dragon and had a blast doing it. This group also gave me a standing ovation following the adventure's epic finale. Savage Worlds fans are some of the best in the industry.

Thog the Jungle Lord maneuvers onto a pissed off T-Rex.

Day Four: Sunday, Aug. 7
Homeward bound. Not much to report here, save the Indianapolis International Airport has a clean and pleasant terminal. Oh, and there was also this to remind us of how things still suck in the publishing world:

Gencon 2011 was the best gaming convention I've ever attended. Within that whirlwind of bizarre costumes, pop culture references and RPGs and boardgames and card decks lies the heart of how important this hobby is to me. It's a strong community of people who share an interest in gaming. It's a group of strangers distanced by geography and time sitting around a table and adopting an alternate identity to cooperate and achieve goals as one. These goals may be epic quests over fantasy realms, or epic battles during World War II or exploring the uncharted depths of outer space. Whether they're fighting flesh-eating zombies, shooting Nazis or slaying dragons, these strangers interact together and share stories and laughter. I can think of no other panacea for loneliness than gaming. The chance to meet some wonderful people and build friendships makes Gencon special every year for me.

Meatgrinder World

2011-08-03T12:24:00.001-07:00

Occasionally I become lethargic and mired in the quicksand of mundane existence and my writing suffers. In the past few months, I've been writing, head down buried in my keyboard sluggishly churning away at two adventures I'm running at Gencon. Besides this creative outlet, there;s been precious little else on my proverbial writing plate, save the drudgery of work.

Work is drudgery, you ask?

Journalism is not the exciting, adrenaline-pumping, whip you around by your nutsack world of orgasmic thrills and spine-tingling adventure?

In a word, no. Not everything you write will grab you, shake you by the lapels and slug you with the pearl handle of a snub-nosed .44.

The meatgrinder world sucks sometimes, and the mannequins floating by you glower with plastic, emotionless faces. And you have to interview them and draw words out of them like thick molasses, laboriously gathering their quotes and crafting them into readable prose.

Yet its this insane craft of writing, this bizarre exercise of downloading thoughts from my brain and dribbling them onto the screen via keyboard that both intrigues and horrifies me. Finger taps a few select keys, words form and suddenly I'm the Writing God, splitting the atom and breathing life into characters.

I haven't been able to partake in this wonderful exercise, this primitive creative process lately because my meatgrinder world job gets in the way. Though the meatgrinder world job grants me a salary, keeps me from homelessness and hunger and gives me a meager sense of accomplishment (journalism, yay!), I still long to stretch my wings and fly out into the ether, past the mundane atmosphere to where dreams grow.

The problem with journalism is it's boring. Gathering information, interviewing subjects, sifting through official documents is time-consuming and about as exciting as listening to David Attenborough drone on in detail about the planting and care of hydrangeas.

The most successful journalists are the ones who can stay awake. If you can, you begin fashioning this mountain of information into your story. Here's where the meatgrinder world erupts into a geyser of suck. Journalism writing, the actual way news stories are written, are simplistic and bare-bones. You present the facts without embellishment, without a hint of bias or personal flavor. It's like cooking a steak without spices. You just have a bland piece of cooked meat.

Over 45 years ago a group of eccentric madmen geniuses (Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Gay Talese, Truman Capote and Norman Mailer) created a style of reporting called the New Journalism, which put the writer in the story. News read like novels, with descriptive and rich prose that both entertained and informed. It was the written equivalent of today's infotainment news channels except it didn't pander to the audience or insult the reader's intelligence. The New Journalism brought writing back into the news room, with journalists flogging the meatgrinder world through fascinating, well-written stories.

When you write brain dead, bland stories, you might be an objective journalist only sticking to the facts. You might use basic words a fourth grader could easily comprehend. You might be a wizard in your J-school writing class. Yet as far as engaging your brain and opening the third eye of a true writer, as far as pulling the tiny imps hiding in your imagination out and fasten them to the page with a nailgun, then you fail.

For me, writing must engage me thoroughly, and when it doesn't I feel out of place, as if I'd lost equilibrium. Merging the meatgrinder world job and the grandiose craft of writing will only make me shine as both a journalist and writer.

If I lose passion at any time, it reflects in my work.

The secret is to never lose passion and to regain momentum.

Geek Pilgrimage

2011-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

I've been busy lately and haven't time to blog much this month. The past several weeks my head's been down writing two Ravaged Earth adventures I'm scheduled to run at Gencon in Indianapolis next week.

This will be my fourth Gencon. The first time I attended Gencon was in 2000 in Milwaukee. I played a game of Deadlands and had a blast chatting with fellow gamers and ogling the eye candy in the gaming hall, prowling the bars and restaurants and generally enjoying this insane hobby I share with thousands of geeks who participated.

I'm part of the gaming industry now, and while the sense of delight and wonder hasn't left me when I walk into that crowded gaming hall, I'm viewing everything from a different perspective. the girls in chainmail bikinis have been replaced by fans eager to learn about my game, the bars and restaurants replaced by late night talking sessions in hotel rooms with other industry writers and designers. Sometimes there is pizza. Mostly there's alcohol and laughter.

We share anecdotes around the table and immerse ourselves in all manner of games.

This year I'm running two games; one on Friday afternoon and the other on Saturday night. I've put everything on hold, scribbling like a madman on a cocaine binge and fretting about the quality of design and writing for these two gems of thrilling excitement and adventure.

Both games have already been sold out, so if you're one of the lucky few who signed up early, congratulations. You're in for one hell of a ride, Ravaged Earth style. Depending on which game you'll be playing, you'll square off against Nazis, occultists, dinosaurs and robots. You'll be at the mercy of Martian technology and a lost race of people who dwell in the Hollow Earth. You will laugh. You will tremble with terror. You will have fun.

That's what gaming should be about.

Next week I'll pack my dicebag, minis and assorted gaming paraphernalia, haul myself onto an airplane and fly to Indianapolis. There will be crappy food along the way, and long lines of frantic passengers. I don't attend Gencon for the publicity or the trendiness (that's what Comicon is for). I do it for the pleasure of gaming, of weaving my tales and telling my stories for a group of strangers who interact with the world I've created and cobbled together with blood, sweat and grey matter. All these Herculean efforts pay off after the first few dice rolls, when I've immersed them into my bizarre realm. They let slip a few laughs as I ham it up. Soon everyone is enjoying themselves.

Thanks for playing.

Phone Hacking

2011-07-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

I’m enthralled over the News International phone-hacking scandal, primarily because it involves so many threads twisting into a shitstorm of Biblical proportions. It involves the media, the police and politicians. It proves that even if American journalism is vile and contemptible, British journalism is much worse, like Hitler performing open-heart surgery on Mother Theresa with a chainsaw.

It disgraced the News of the World, which folded after 168 years, and turned the head up on Rupert Murdoch and News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.

The scandal involved journalists acting as low-rent versions of James Bond, hacking into the cellphones of prominent figures and listening to voicemails. The News of the World hacked into the voicemails of the Royal Family, of celebrities and of politicians.

Journalists paid private investigators to hack into voicemails of the 7/7 bombing victims. But the most unforgivable was the hacking of Milly Dowler’s cellphone. Dowler was 13 when she went missing in March 2002. News of the World hacked into Dowler’s voicemail. Unbeknownst to her parents, Dowler had been murdered. Wanting to hear more details from new voicemails, the hackers deleted voicemails when the mailbox was full, giving Dowler’s parents false hope that there daughter was still alive.

In their quest for information, the News of the World paid off police officers, private detectives and employed tactics only Cold War spy agencies would envy.

The public’s trust in journalism has failed with this scandal. In poll after poll, the media receives low overall ratings in credibility and honesty. Perhaps that’s deserved.

When you overstep your bounds and pry into the privacy of citizens, you’re not a newspaper. You’re the NSA.

Advice for the Interns

2011-06-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

So you're the new intern, eh?

You must be; you don't have that forlorn look of abandonment and soul-crushing despair everyone else in the newsroom has.

Listen up, jackwagon! Now that you've decided to intern at the newspaper, you're going to learn a few things about journalism that just might save your life in the field.

Yeah, I'm your drill sergeant, your mentor, your god. Now stop texting or I'll cut your thumbs off, slapnuts! This is serious! You want to be a reporter, right? Believe the public's got a right to know? Support First Amendment freedoms? Think journalism is an honorable and necessary profession?

Horse dung! Every word of it!

You know why people become journalists? Because they're too untalented to be novelists and too talented to be English teachers, that's why!

First rule of journalism is: Everybody hates you and nothing you write will ever be the truth. Today, everybody's a goddamn media critic. Doesn't matter if you crap Pulitzer prizes, someone somewhere will think you're a biased hack. In this business, like every other occupation, you're not going to please everybody.

Second rule of journalism: Politicians lie. They fib through their teeth, great whoppers of lies, massaging the truth like a 19-year-old Vietnamese prostitute touches her clients. These bastards have no qualms about lying their asses off and recanting their lies, even blaming you for misquoting them and spreading misinformation. So it's your job to catch them in the lie and expose them for the ethically bankrupt phonies they are.

Third rule of journalism: Devour all media, all the time. Read as much as you can, plug into every social networking site and blog your ass off. Stay connected to media and the world, because you don't want to be a bitter old fart who doesn't know what Twitter is.

Fourth rule: Develop sources in the area you cover. Make friends in city hall. Take a bureaucrat to lunch. Diversify your contacts. The more sources a jouro has, the easier the job. Many people trusting you means more information flows your way. You'll be breaking stories and scooping the competition in no time.

Fifth and final rule: have fun. Sure, journalism is an arduous climb up a shit-covered slope, but at times it could be rewarding. Writing stories about issues shaping a community helps these turnipheads understand their world. Sure, most of them are gawping hayseeds or cynical bumpkins, so consider yourself a missionary, brining the good word of truth and information to the unenlightened minions.

To your critics, you're a liberal media elitist, a left-wing commie, a degenerate parasite and blood-hungry vulture. They will brand you these things, even if it isn't true, even if you're a right-wing Republican with pictures of Ronald Reagan on your desk. To them, you're just a lefty reporter who wants America to fail.

Want to know a secret? Put that damn iPhone down and pay attention! My secret is, I know something my critics don't. I know who I am. I understand my abilities as a writer and a reporter. I weed through all of the bullshit and sift through the disgusting chunks of smelly fecal matter to find the nuggets of truth, and distill those down to their clearest, most cohesive points, extricating the fluff and nailing down the important and factual.

The greatest weapon you can have as a reporter isn't a loaded Remington 700, although having one helps. It's your moxie, your chutzpah, your dogged determination. Refuse the word "no". Ignore defeatism and plow through rejection as though your life depended on it. Become a pain in their ass and cling to them unrelentingly like a barnacle on a ship. You're there to do the public's good, serving their interests, not a specific segment of the public but all of those unwashed, ungrateful bastards.

I'll leave you with the words of journalist Edward R. Murrow. You might have heard about him in class when you weren't stoned off your asses or texting your friends: "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."

Dick Jokes Galore!

2011-06-14T10:40:00.001-07:00

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner got caught sexting a bevy of women. If you don't know what sexting is, ask a teenager - they're probably doing it right now.

Weiner's lack of judgment to engage in posting lewd correspondence online didn't stop at the written word. Not content with chatting up bimbos with flirtatious banter that read like a really awful "Dear Penthouse" letter, Weiner sent photos of his erect penis, then denied the offending organ, which was tucked in a banana hammock, was his.

First, I'm amazed men would even contemplate sending photos of their junk to females. First Brett Favre, now Anthony Weiner. What do they expect to accomplish by flashing their dicks via the Internet, a cluster of naughty pixels meant to stimulate a women into orgasmic frenzy? It only shows that these morons are clueless when it comes to women. Men are visually-oriented. We can look at a picture of a lingerie model and become instantly stimulated. Women, on the other hand, are more cerebral and are aroused with a touch or an aroma. They're about imagination and letting themselves go. Men just need to be in visual range of a Hooter's waitress.

Even more disturbing than Weiner's poor online chatting habits are the news media's coverage of this scandal. Most commentators, journalists and editors are regressing back to junior high school and treating the story like a constantly multiplying dick joke. Because his name is Weiner - as in dick, get it? - the media sees this as carte blanche with the wee-wee references. If his name were Throbbington Hardwang IV or Titus Hugemember or Biggels Thickscrotum, I don't think it would have the same effect as Weiner.

The New York Post's headlines reflect a juvenile proclivity for bad taste. Weiner was manna from heaven for the headline writers. The following headlines actually appeared in the Post:

"Weiner: I'll Stick It Out"
"Weiner Exposed"
"Weiner's Pickle"
"Hide the Weiner"
"Weiner Pulls Out"
"Obama Beats Weiner"

Apparently in the New York Post's editorial department, dick jokes never get stale. What if the headline writer uses these stories in their portfolios for future employment?

"I'm exceedingly happy about this one. It's a doozy! 'Obama Beats Weiner'. Yep. My first headline double entendre referencing masturbation. Took me a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of Bud Light to think that prize-winner up!"

The media is supposed to explain, expose and inform, not act as comedian with a 10-minute set about how a politician's name sounds like slang for male genitals.

Making fun of Anthony Weiner is easy, and he probably deserves it. He betrayed the public's trust by engaging in improper online relationships like a horny college student. He must resign office and fade into the political woodwork as soon as possible.

His career in politics is over. He can't run in the wake of the scandal. What would his campaign slogan be? "Anthony Weiner: The reformer you want, the boner shots you need!"

But the media should at least attempt to be professional and not snigger like a group of school boys sitting in sex education class. Nothing is humorous about a politician falling from grace due to lascivious urges, losing their marriages, friendships and the public's trust. Except if the politician's name is Irving Sloppytwat.

That's shit's funny.

Doggy Dancer

2011-06-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

One of many things the iPhone is capable of: recording stupid movies. Ain't technology swell?

Guinness, Muthafucka!

2011-05-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

POTUS drinking Guinness. Your argument is irrelevant.

Armageddon on Acid

2011-05-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

On May 21, 2011, all life on Earth will be destroyed by God’s wrathful hand as foretold in the Bible. Starting at 6 p.m., a cataclysmic event with shake it’s way around the planet like a massive earthquake, destroying everything in its path.

Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping of Family Radio, a Christian network, claims he pinpointed the exact date of the world’s demise from scripture. According to Camping, to determine Christ’s second coming involves understanding numerology and critical points in the Bible. According to 2 Peter 3:8 “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Camping merged this with Genesis 7:4 “Seven days from now I will send rain on earth.” If Camping dated the Great Flood from 4990 BC, then adding 7,000 means the world will end in 2011.

How right is Camping? He predicted the end would come in September 1994. When that didn’t pan out, he went back to the Bible and discovered he’d overlooked some things. Infallible prophesy is complex, after all.

Here’s Harold Camping.

Here’s Rev. Kane from Poltergeist 2.

Now that you’re probably shitting yourself with fear, know Camping’s followers advertise worldwide the Rapture will occur May 21, 2011. This has all of the markings of a fascinating tale: Christian radio doomsday cult followers go bankrupt as they wait for Jesus’ return. The atheist secular media gobbled it up as another chance to beat up these Christian fundamentalist nutjobs.

Matthew 24:35-36 is pretty clear nobody knows when God will destroy the world except for God: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

So if Camping wants to pinpoint the exact time of the Apocalypse, isn’t he ignoring God’s pronouncements, and isn’t that supreme hubris?

My take on this whole May 21 Rapture Apocalyptic End Times Festival is to get as chemically fucked up as possible.

I mean, if Jesus were to come back, why not throw a surprise party? Why not consume acid and trip your ass off, hallucinating through the oceans of boiling blood, lake of fire and grasshoppers with human heads. (That last part is actually in the Bible!)

Just transform every city and town into Studio 54 and drink as much hard liquor, snort pure cocaine off your sister’s tits and sin like you’ve never sinned before.

According to Camping, we’re all a bunch of hell-bound hedonists reared on a steady diet of consumerism, pornography and material possessions. Why not repent the only way we know how: by rocking the panties of planet Earth?

Imagine a colossal tsunami ripping the crust and upper mantle off the planet as you would peel a putrid grapefruit. Hear the billions wailing in terror and fright as the very foundation of the world scatters, torn asunder by a powerful omnipotent force and incinerated by a cleansing fire. These flames wash over the world, vaporizing houses and mountains as the atmosphere ignites like a drunken frat boy lighting his farts. The very oceans run crimson with blood as the dead rise from their graves in a zombie killing frenzy that would make George Romaro gleefully cream his pants. Cemeteries, mausoleums and necropolises would be overrun with the living dead, who shamble out into the streets, feasting on the flesh of the non-believers. A loaded shotgun or gassed up chainsaw won’t save you from this undead horde. If the dead don’t get you, the various demons will. Hideous creatures with the bodies of orangutans and the head of Donald Trump will fly on leathery bat wings and punish the wicked with all manner of torture devices, rough sodomy and an eternal viewing of the 2003 Ashton Kutcher film “Just Married.”

Wouldn’t you want to avoid such a fate by getting completely blitzed? Even if Judgment Day doesn’t arrive, we could skill have one kick-ass party. Everyone could just shoot heroin, loot a liquor store and slurp body shots off Heidi Klum. It doesn’t matter how freaky or twisted you get because Jesus forgives all. Abduct a sorority and put on a donkey show. Drive your dad’s priceless Cadillac into a swimming pool. Set fire to the nunnery. Do something that makes your spring break in Tijuana seem like a church picnic.

Four Horsemen of the Partypocalypse

With the Rapture, everybody who’s saved will be sent up to heaven minus their clothes. That means heaven is filled with naked people, and that’s totally hot. Why not make it heaven on earth and get naked tomorrow? Start streaking and never stop! Even if the police bludgeon you with nightsticks or Taser you, it won’t matter because they’ll be reduced to cinders by God’s wrath.

In the end, who does Jesus want to hang out with? Thousands of dutiful, boring dullards incapable of independent thought, or a bunch of lowlifes and sinners he can console and preach to? Think Jesus would want to save the assholes who use him as a convenient prop every Sunday to justify their twisted dogma while ignoring the true message of charity and compassion?

What would Jesus do? Probably order a water, turn it into a Bacardi and kick back with the heretics and heathens.

Welcome home, JC.

Laszlo Fink is not funny, and that’s precisely why he’s funny

2011-05-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

In 2006 when I started dabbling in standup comedy (dabbling as opposed to going pro, per se) I learned the fundamentals of constructing a good set. The brief space between a carefully crafted setup and masterfully executed punch line, the necessity for the callback (when the comedian refers to a joke he’s told earlier in the set), using three examples in a list instead of more and timing your jokes for maximum audience reaction. All of these elements are ingredients to creating fantastic sets. Yet in the end, nobody can teach you to be funny. Oh, they can give you the essentials as I’ve listed above, and maybe a few pointers on observing the world with a humorous bent. Yet the act of perceiving things in a twisted and original way is largely inherited and not cultivated.

Standup comedy is a difficult endeavor, like a man giving birth to an octopus in zero gravity. You’ve got to push hard and rip that tentacled little bastard from you and watch it serenely float away.

Yet men giving birth to cephalopods is an insane notion, much like willingly going into standup comedy. Making a few friends laugh down at the bar is a hell of a lot easier and less stressful than making a roomful of drunken strangers laugh. At least your friends know you and recognize your foibles. Friends are kind. Strangers aren’t.

In today’s hip and cutting edge world of standup, you must be on your game at all times, ready to pounce with adrenaline coursing through your veins like a radioactive ninja on crack. You’ve got to eat, drink and shit funny or you’re dead.

Confession time: I loathe performing. I’ve whittled down my appearances to zero. I’m not that much of a masochist and don’t regale in standing on a makeshift stage somewhere and taking abuse from hecklers or people who yell derogatory things about my mother.

Yet there are moments in life when serendipity strikes, and the cosmos smiles upon you. If you're given a shit sandwich, exchange it for prime rib and lobster.

Case in point:

Around 2007 I was performing at a show at the Jersey shore. The place was deader than JFK’s left nut, the only people being myself, a few other comics and the waiters. The owner wasn’t around, but instructed all of us that it would be a family show because, hell, families love going to comedy clubs.

Since the place was drier than the Sahara in July, I decided to try out an especially ribald bit of material. The other comics and the waiters laughed, and I was ready to forge onward with more, when a waiter called me off the stage. He said the boss was listening in via speakerphone and wanted a few words with yours truly.

Long story short, the owner was unhappy with me because I didn’t adhere to his orders and use clean material. I tried explaining nobody from the public was present, but he didn’t care. This pissed me off. I was taught comedy was the last bastion of free speech in America, that comedians have the freedom to express themselves no matter how crude. I felt I was being singled out and censored.

I’d have my revenge.

I’d create a comedian who was the anti-comedian.

Someone who refuses to work blue.

Someone for whom comedy was an innate, God-given gift.

Someone with an ego the size of Nebraska and the intelligence of a walnut.

Laszlo Fink is that creation.

The next time I went on stage, I put on a suit and bowtie, slicked back my hair with gel and wore glasses. I resembled a nebbishy accountant from Poughkeepsie, but was a nightmarish incarnation of every bad Catskills comedian.

Laszlo Fink talks like a nerd, but he jokes like your grandfather. He carries a bag filled with props.

I know. Prop comics are the worst.

That’s the essence of Laszlo Fink. He’s to comedy what the Ebola virus is to the human body.

Laszlo Fink was born in Atlantic City and has three ex-wives. His agent is a shifty and unscrupulous figure, hiding in the shadows and pulling strings to get Laszlo stage time.

Besides working with props, Laszlo has a white rabbit puppet called Cosmo. Laszlo thinks he’s a ventriloquist, yet he’s about as skillful a ventriloquist as a guppy with a mouthful of peanut butter. He has conversations with the rabbit while the audience winces. Laszlo doesn’t care. He ploughs effortlessly on, not even sweating. For him, he’s doing the audience a favor by showing them how comedy is really done.

And he fails.

And it’s beautiful because he’s so oblivious to it all.

Each hackneyed shtick is Laszlo’s milk and honey. The man is a runaway freight train of stale one-liners and childish wonder. Best way to describe Laszlo is Pee Wee Herman meets Lenny Bruce, but with less emphasis on political humor and more on listing ways piñatas encourage violence.

I performed as Laszlo Fink about three or four times. Each time was the same, with Laszlo talking to the audience, playing a harmonica and yukking it up with Cosmo.

Laszlo Fink is not about entertaining people. He’s about entertaining me. He’s not uncomfortable while he’s on stage; the audience is.

I’ve managed to create a character that is the manifestation of a huge raised middle finger, towering over the stage like a mighty obelisk, showering the audience with the same mediocre bile and froth they feared seeing. Laszlo Fink bumbles through his set and on the inside, I’m laughing because these rubes paid to see this. They paid admission and for drinks to watch a nerd talk to a rabbit puppet.

In Laszlo’s world, bombing doesn’t exist. Every delightful performance he kills, with thunderous applause translating to pure rapture in his twisted unfunny brain.

Laszlo told an interviewer his comedy comes from the “comedy hole” in his brain and filters outward into the universe.

Mad poetry from a deranged lunatic.

While audiences scratch their heads in bewilderment or angrily gnash their teeth in protest, Laszlo Fink continues living his washed-out, has-been life. For him, sharing a hot tub with a porn star in Vegas or performing in a basement to an Internet camera for an audience of two are experiences he cherishes.

I’m aware Hollywood won’t be calling for me, or Laszlo for that matter. However, the lovable doofus is a part of me, a protest and defense mechanism against the shitty world of standup and its pressures and a way to turn the tables on an unsuspecting public hungry for the latest hot young comic.

In the world of irony, Laszlo Fink is king.

In the world of comedy, not so much.

That's precisely why he's so damn funny.

Osama and the TV

2011-05-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

What Osama bin Laden really was up to.

Cleaning the Mental Attic

2011-05-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Spring cleaning brought an exhaustive amount of rummaging around, moving boxes and turning over things left undisturbed for many years. The spare bedroom I affectionately labeled the “junk room” had a thorough cleansing and is becoming a work in progress. I own an abundance of useless shit; old books, trinkets and mementoes from youth, scraps from happier days and bizarre crap conveniently ignored. So much weirdness in one room. It resembled an Archie McPhee catalog overstuffed with puppets, novelties and graphic novels.

Case in point: a cattle skull, fez, glass banker’s lamp, wind-up toy nun and California state flag.

I can’t believe I own so much useless stuff. Yet there it is, strewn about in boxes and in sloppily arranged piles and neat little bundles on the carpet.

During my excavations, I unearthed letters from several acquaintances, friends and lovers. Before e-mail turned everyone into potential candidates for penis enlargement spam, people wrote letters on paper and sent them through the postal service. In my youth, I corresponded with several Armenian writers popular at the time, as well as intellectuals and friends.

Write enough letters and you eventually become adept at the art of writing, picking every nuance and honing your craft with witticisms and expressively turning phrases. I became particularly good at writing letters.

As far as writing letters to girls, well, I don’t like to brag, but back in the day my words could melt hearts and dampen panties, sending many a young woman’s heart aflutter. I was Casanova with a typewriter.

Anyway, while cleaning out the junk hole, I found an old letter from a former girlfriend. She expressed sorrow at our last meeting and apologized to me, and wanted to continue our friendship. A very poignant and bittersweet letter, but one written with longing and regret.

I turned over more treasures from the past, delving deeper and mining the heap for correspondences from lost loves.

I recently had dinner with a former high school friend who told me she had a crush on me when we were students. She recalled an incident 24 years ago when we were walking outside together. She complained about the cold weather and I removed my jean jacket and gave it to her. It fit snugly around her and nestled her hands in the jacket pockets. She told me she felt comfortable wearing my jacket. We returned to her house and talked a bit before I left. She told me she wanted to get high with me in her room and make out, but I had already left. She feared smoking some doobage might freak me out.

In high school, I wasn’t a stoner. Hell, I thought people who smoked weed were smelly hippies with poor hand-eye coordination and a penchant for repeating themselves. Back then I was totally oblivious when girls showed any interest in me. Looking back, I could have been the John Holmes of Cherry Hill East High School. I could have been up to my elbows in young vajayjay, but the times were against me. Reagan’s ultra-moralist goon squad frowned upon teen sex in America, as such loathsome and unclean things ruined our national character and emboldened the Soviet Union. So I muddled through my teenage years, dating girls and scoring as little as possible. For those keeping track at home, 1988 was a really good year as my naked girlfriend and I ran around my parent’s house and did things that would make any upright, God-fearing person burst into flames.

You never realize what you had in your youth until many years later, when you’re middle aged and rifling through letters written at a time when things were brighter and cynicism unheard of. In our youth, the whole world was ahead of us and we eagerly anticipated the future; in our middle age, we wistfully recall the past and hungrily want to relive those days.

I realize I can't time travel back to my past and relive my teenage years all over. This isn’t The Butterfly Effect, thank God. First of all, hurdling backwards through time is impossible and possibly dangerous to the time-space continuum. Secondly, nowhere in my past did Ashton Kutcher appear, and if he did, I’d have to kill him to make sure he didn’t make The Butterfly Effect, which would in turn create its own thorny paradox.

Remember when you were a kid watching those old farts who jawed on and on about their glory days in high school? You thought they were sad relics afraid of growing up and evolving. Now I realize I am one of those old farts, fondly reminiscing with friends about a time long ago when we were young, thin and full of promise.

The secret is to have no regrets. None. Banish your doubts and understand things unfold the way they do. Youth is not easy. Hell, life isn’t easy, but it does get better. Conditions will improve eventually. Life isn’t fair and there are no guarantees you’ll have a blessed, carefree existence. You could spend years of toil and torment, lugging that boulder up the hill like Sisyphus, only to have it roll back and squash you. Treasure your past because it’s unique. There are memories only you have, and they don’t have to be as momentous like winning the big high school championship game or performing the lead in the school production of “The Fantasticks”. The memory can be something subtle and seemingly insignificant: the pleasant aroma of your girlfriend’s perfume, driving your old car at night through your neighborhood, attending a midnight screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with friends. These are things you lock up in your mental attic and retrieve them whenever you need to remember.

Sometimes you forget these anecdotes and need a friend to jog your memory, whether a recollection of a good date where you were particularly witty or chivalrous, or a time where you said something seemingly trite which had a profound impact many years later.

I forgot all about the jean jacket incident until my friend reminded me of it. She carried that in her mental attic, stored among the cobwebs and dust, undisturbed for decades.

Bin Laden is Dead

2011-05-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

From thousands of miles away, Osama bin Laden, a seemingly shadowy and spectral figure with a graying beard and white turban, was the face of terrorism for most Americans. The leader of the radical Islamic group Al-Qaeda, bin Laden was the mastermind behind the destructive attacks of September 11, 2001, which resulted in the deaths of 3,000 people and the destruction of the World Trade Center.

On May 2, Navy SEAL Team Six, a counterterrorism unit, stormed a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan the CIA claimed housed the terrorist leader. After a firefight, bin Laden and three men were killed in the raid. There were no U.S. casualties.

Following the raid, President Barack Obama addressed the nation and said “justice has been done.” The president said he repeatedly met with his national security team for many months after information trickled in about bin laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan.

Bin Laden’s remains were buried at sea according to news sources.

As news of bin Laden’s death reached the streets, you’d have thought it was New Year’s Eve and the Yankees had won the World Series.

Yet a closer examination of the aftermath, particularly between liberals and conservatives reveals a huge gulf in thinking.

Facebook, that great barometer of the universe, yielded its sweet fruit shortly after the president’s speech. Almost right away, my Facebook friends posted stats about bin Laden’s demise. What I discovered were my liberal friends expressed reserves and doubts about celebrating the death of a person, even though that person was the leader of a fanatical terrorist group responsible for killing thousands of innocent people. On the opposite end of the spectrum, my conservative friends posted images of the American flag, the bald eagle, the bald eagle straddling the American flag, the Statue of Liberty taking a dump on bin Laden’s bullet-ridden corpse, etc. if you looked at the people celebrating in New York City, most were young, chanting college kids who wanted to party. Back in the adult world, people went on with their work and lives, probably realizing that finally wiping out al-Qaeda’s leader almost ten years after the 9/11 attacks was just another footnote in a long, protracted war.

Make no mistake; bin Laden was a bastard who hated Americans because to him, we were unclean infidels, allies to Israel and decadent swine who advocated rights for women while jerking off to hardcore cable porn. We were evangelical Christians who drank cheap, watery beer while watching South Park. In short, we were a mess of contradictions who suckled the teat of Arabian oil to power our hefty battleship-sized SUVs. We settled into the Middle East – bin Laden’s holy land – and wouldn’t leave. We sat our fat American asses down and made ourselves at home like some boorish houseguest.

As a result of our comfy relationship with Israel and our policies in the Middle East, bin Laden saw America as a threat.
In death, bin Laden will most likely be martyred and mythologized. He will be the leader slain by capitalist, imperialist Yanks.

Grab the duct tape and gasmasks, because the next few months will be a wild ride on a rollercoaster and the tracks are filled with nitroglycerine.

Politicizing the killing began immediately after the president announced bin Laden was killed. Liberals praised the Obama Administration’s strategy and CIA intelligence-gathering operations, while conservatives lauded former President George W. Bush’s tactics and waterboarding torture techniques as the real reason the military could locate bin Laden.

When in doubt, go with the facts.

Fact: A special CIA unit consisting of experts who were tracking bin Laden was closed in 2005.

Fact: When Obama assumed the presidency, intelligence on bin Laden’s possible whereabouts were few and far between. Since the U.S. wasn’t really exerting any real effort to locate the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, American forces had to start the hunt all over again.

Fact: Finding bin Laden was like trying to find Waldo is one of those “Where’s Waldo” books if you were blind. Information had bin Laden living in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A grandiose manhunt with several leads and several disappointing outcomes.

Fact: Obama gave the orders to use the Navy SEAL team to sweep the compound and get bin Laden.

Experience has shown me that one person is intelligent and rational, while several people are the opposite. There’s always a determent to the pack mentality, where people seek safety in numbers and thought. When tempers flare and emotions run high, the brains are switched off in favor of white-hot razor blades of anger and fury. The ones who do cartwheels at the death of bin Laden celebrate without considering the longview of history.

Simply dragging bin Laden’s body through the streets and teabagging his dusky withered corpse isn’t going to bring the 3,000 people back who perished during 9/11. In fact, desecrating the bodies of our enemies isn’t something Americans are universally known for. During World War II, did we display Nazi heads from the gates of the White House? During Vietnam, did Nixon play bongo drums made from the tanned, stretched skins of Viet Cong?

What all of the pundits, politicos and mouth-frothing patriots realize is we’re better than that. We should not feel wrath and lash out like an angry child. We should temper our decisions with wisdom and plot carefully against those who strike at us, and after we exhibit our strength in battle, we return not as mighty conquering Romans with the spoils of war and violated bodies of our enemy’s women, but with dignity and grace.

Ideally, we should be a kind, yet proud people; thankful for our blessings and not boastful or petty.

Yet the death of bin Laden revealed our dual natures: pensive and pugnacious. We either remember the dead killed that awful day a decade ago by a fundamentalist Islamic group, or we party in the streets while waving flags and hawking T-shirts of a dead turbaned figure.

We report the news with objectivity and professionalism, or run headlines like the New York Daily News: “Rot in Hell” or the New York Daily Post “U.S. Nails the Bastard”.

Could you imagine the same macho bullshit during World War II after Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

“We Fried the Nip Bastards!”
“A-Bomb Saps the Japs!”
“Fuck You, Hirohito!”

Things like this make us look like a nation of wife-beating drunken cowboys with small penises. We’re so eager to carry the mantle of “American exceptionalism” that we forget what being exceptional really means.

For those of you too fat to walk to the bookshelf and get the dictionary, it means better than average in quality or outstanding.
Those who don’t conform to this assessment are branded apologists for the left, America haters, socialists or even worse: liberals.

The fact is, America is a great nation despite the political arguments that sound eerily similar to children on a school yard arguing who’s stronger: Popeye or Mighty Mouse. Sure, there’s retarded bullshit everywhere, but it’s the kind of retarded bullshit which develops and evolves in a truly free society.

In short, it’s our retarded bullshit.

So there are those who rally that bin Laden is dead, just like there are those who over-analyze foreign policy to the umpteenth degree like Adrian Monk checking his sanitizing wipes.

These differences make this country great and give bloggers like me grist for the mill.

Now I must bid you adieu, gentle reader. A large pint of beer awaits me at the local tavern as I celebrate with orgiastic glee the untimely demise of bin Laden’s pet goldfish Hammed.

Spam of My Heart

2011-04-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

Years ago I joined this social networking site called Quechup, which sent me nothing but spam in the form of e-mails allegedly authored by buxom Russian women. I've blogged about this a few times in the past, yet with each and every unsolicited digital turd sent to my inbox, my faith in humanity dies a little every time.
Today I received another shit nugget from a nubile young woman named Anastasia. Here's the full text of her indecent proposal:

"Hello my new friend :) My name's Anastasia.
I write to you because I want serious relations.
I saw your profile on dating site quechup.com.
Therefore I write to you now. I think, that you are good man and I hope,
that my heart does not deceive me. I search true relations for creation family.
I write to you and I hope, that you write me also.
If you and I hope, that you write to me also.
If you are interested, please write to me on my this e-mail.
I shall by glad, if you will answer me.
I shall wait your message with impatience.
your Anastasia :)"

Oh, Anastasia. As much I would like to have "true relations" and "creation family" with you, I must decline. We come from two different worlds. Mine involves proper grammar and sentence structure. I understand this will come as a shock to you, but I don't believe you exist. Sure, it's a lovely photo of you, but it's probably not you. It was probably taken in the student union at Minsk University or a brothel in Moscow's red light district. As far as waiting for my message "with impatience," don't hold your breath. I hate impatient people. Your demands to immediately get into a relationship with me without asking me a single question about myself proves you're desperate, and desperation is a turn-off.
Please don't take this rejection to heart. You might be a wonderful woman, with strong Russian hands and a prominent brow. I could picture you wearing a babushka, holding a bushel of grain and singing the Soviet national anthem. I'm sure you're the talk of the village during the beet crop harvest.
The truth is, you're just not my type. I don't go for two-dimensional Russian stereotypes sent to me via spam. If I want to meet a superficial woman with a St. Petersburg accent, I'd smuggle myself into Russia.
Good luck on meeting the good man of your dreams, Anastasia. We're just not a match.
I'm into Asian women anyway.

Saucy Journalist Tales

2011-04-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

One of the persistent problems with being a journalist besides the constant harassment, moral depravity and instances of extreme violence at the hands of stubby-fingered political aides, is the lack of respect from an ungrateful public. A journalist's job is to inform society of the grave errors and precarious situations it's entangled itself in. Besides these gloomy pronouncements, journalists should also issue a caveat, a dire warning if you will, letting people know that if left unchecked, the government/environment/unstable Third World regime might destroy us all.

So we tell people of the open manhole and not to get too close, because that could mean falling in. However well-intentioned or researched the reporter's articles are, people inevitably fall in, just before muttering something about the "damn liberal media".

This past week I was assigned to cover the arrival of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to our little podunk part of the state. The governor came to Cape May County Airport and stood in a cavernous airplane hangar and delivered what was a rehearsed speech on the evils of the New Jersey Education Association, a teacher's union he accused of everything from child molestation to witchcraft.

Christie has it in for the NJEA because the union's hucksters make more money than God and have this haughty attitude they are above reproach. Christie probably felt a tinge of envy.

According to Christie, the NJEA collects $130 million in dues annually and spends the money on television ads attacking the governor's proposal that teachers should pay more into health care costs.

While I agree with Christie that teachers should pay more and should not automatically have tenure, his speech was the same generic NJEA-bashing speech he gave for the last five months. All across the state, he's stumping against the teacher's union.
The problem is, it's the same message he's regurgitated ad nauseam for quite a while. I understand it's New Jersey and the unions don't want their gravy train to end. However, it's good to modify your message and add new material. Give the people something relevant to chew on, and don't come across as a bloated schoolyard bully threatening the union with corporal punishment if they don't acquiesce to your demands.

His bravado and chest-thumping only forced the union to dig in deeper and not budge. What happened to bipartisanship and compromise? Where's the love, Gov? Why twist the arms of your enemy when you could persuade them with that silver tongue and Oscar Wilde-esque wit? A few pithy yet jocular anecdotes would win your nemesis over and you would be heralded as the state's supreme statesman.

Sadly, the governor's tactics in accusing the NJEA of "hurting the children" were made without compunction. His threats and scolding only emboldened his supporters, while driving a rift between his administration and educators.

In the process, he's looking like a douche.

Christie's message came across as the NJEA were allied with Satan and should be cleansed from the earth in a deluge of fire. His intent, that the state is in financial trouble and public employees should take the burden off the taxpayers by contributing more toward their pensions and health benefits, was lost to the rhetoric.

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Portrait

2011-03-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

Another flash fiction challenge at Chuck Wendig's blog. Participants are asked to write a short story based on the picture above. It's pretty ghastly, so I concocted a horror tale set in the 1860s about a photographer and a special little boy. A departure from my current writing style, I evoked the tone of Poe and Lovecraft in a story I call "Say Cheese". Hope you enjoy this creepy mo'fo.

Say Cheese

Why do you think I’m mad, officer? I’m as sane and as rational as you, perhaps more. My mind is lucid and competent, especially after the ordeal I witnessed. One need only review the day’s events in a logical fashion to preclude I’m not some raving lunatic but a citizen who witnessed a blessed event.

A transformation.

Such things are rare these days. Science, free-thinking and rationality have dampened the miraculous beauty of God’s graceful masterpieces. Nature is dissected and studied under the glass of a microscope. Why there’s even that chap Darwin who’s claiming mankind wasn’t perfectly formed by our Creator, but evolved over millennia from lowly primates.

What of the natural world, the one not in the textbooks or scientific treaties? Though majestic and sublime, it’s not all beautiful. Nature is a dark mistress, one with her tawdry, vile secrets. Sometimes she subtly lets out horrible entities which defy the imagination. I’ve witnessed one of these abominations first hand, officer.

It all started with the boy.

He was a harmless lad, of no more than seven, with an impishness about him. Children are so filled with wonder and prattle on about this and that, making up fanciful tales and whiling away the hours in the throes of play.

As to the boy’s origin, nobody really knew. My landlady, Mrs. McCleary, said the lad was from a broken home, and his father a common laborer who’s fallen to drink. The boy’s mother was imprisoned in the sanitarium after she tried stabbing the boy with a knife.

Why anyone would have wished bodily harm upon this innocent cherub filled me with disgust, and I immediately went to befriend the boy. He was wary of strangers, so it took time before he trusted me. Mrs. McCleary said the boy was “a little off” and “one strange lad” who often played alone outside the boarding house.

I invited the child in to dine with Mrs. McCleary and I. We spent many nights feasting and talking; me about my job as a photographer and he about his troubled past. How a tyke could part with such troubling accounts is shocking, and many times Mrs. McCleary excused herself from the table under a pretense she needed washing up to attend to or to make the coffee. Yet I knew her constitution wasn’t strong enough to handle the boy’s woeful stories.

The boy would not reveal his name to me, no matter how hard I pressed. I decided he wished to remain anonymous, so I addressed him plainly as “lad” or “boy”, labels he didn’t protest.

I showed the boy my photography equipment, by bulky tintype camera, the collection of iron plates and jars of chemicals such as silver chloride and silver iodine. Curious, the boy began peppering me with questions about photography and how images are recorded on the tin plates. I launched into a dry explanation of Tintype photography, of creating images on a sheet of glass painted with a chemical solution, then using an emulsion process to clarify the final work.

Proudly I showed the boy portraits I made, of widows who lost their husbands, of soldiers in full uniform, of children looking pensive and uncomfortable in their Sunday church clothes.

“These people are small,” the boy said. “Do they live in these portraits?”

“No, my lad,” I said. “They are afterimages taken. They are not the actual persons.”

“Are they all alive?”

“What a queer question, my boy. Some are alive, while some have died. That old woman there, the one dressed in black, she’s passed on.”

“Did you know these people?” he asked.

“Some I’ve known, while others hired me to take their photographs,” I said.

“Does it hurt? When the photographs are taken? Did they suffer much?”

I laughed at this question the way an understanding father laughs at the innocence of his young.

“No, it doesn’t hurt at all,” I said. “Do these people in the portraits appear to be in any pain or discomfort?”

The boy scrutinized the portraits and shook his head.

“Photography is a painless profession,” I said.

“Could you take my portrait?” the boy asked. “I haven’t anything to pay you, but if you need compensation, I could borrow a penny from Mrs. McCleary.”

“I would be honored to take your portrait, boy. Cost is no charge. We are friends,” I said.

At this, the lad smiled and I directed him to be seated on a divan positioned against the far wall of my studio. The boy complied and sat perfectly still, like a Grecian statue, mute and motionless.

I prepared the iron plate and treated it with a collodion solution of ethyl alcohol, cadmium iodine and bromide. When the plate was wet, I put it in a silver solution, then carefully slipped it into the box camera.

A tarp covered my head to shield any light from the rear of the camera as I stare through the tiny pinhole.
“Say cheese,” I instructed.

A reverse image of the boy was refracted back at me and I flicked the switch. The lens opened and light poured in for an instant.

When I’m through, I submerge the plate in a developing solution in a dark room off the studio.

The chemicals slowly revealed the boy’s portrait in front of my eyes, appearing as if by magic. However, what revealed itself to me wasn’t a smiling lad but a horrific monster, whose terrifying visage burned into my mind as the chemicals burned it onto that plate. The creature – there was no other word for it – had lifeless, hollow eyes, jagged fangs and no lower jaw. Wiry whiskers protruded from the beast’s head and the thing caused me momentary nausea.

I gripped the plate and charged into the studio, my body convulsing.

The boy appeared normal, with the same youthful visage. He stared up at me innocently.

“What the Hell are you?” I demanded and thrust the plate at him. “Look at what the camera revealed!”

The boy merely smiled and replied, “Mortal, what can a pathetic wretch like you do about it?”

So you see officers, I really had no choice. The boy had to die. I couldn’t let something that special live. The world could not accept someone like the lad. He was beautiful in his ugliness, in his horrific nature. A boy transformed, altered by whatever force created the world and breathed life into man.

If you don’t believe me, look at the photograph. It’s here, somewhere, among my many portraits. In this confused jumble of lives, you’ll find one unlike the others, the very manifestation of evil.

Angry in Atlantic City

2011-03-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

Deep into the night sitting at the bar at the House of Blues in Atlantic City pounding back a Coors light and the guy seated next to me is cursing up a storm at the video poker terminal.

Bottles perch on step-like shelves, a Mayan pyramid of top shelf liquors, almost taunting us to order them: Crystal Head Vodka, Patron, Grey Goose, Kahlua, Malibu rum, Jose Cuervo, Hennessey Cognac, The Glenlivet and Chivas Regal. This is the neon voodoo dungeon, a depressing place where people sacrifice their money at the blinking electric altars and smile through the pain.

A group of 50-somethings mills around the bar and quote old pop songs from the 1960s as young couples pound down their mixed concoctions. It’s a dismal Sunday night, quiet except for bleeping slot machines in the next room, and cocktail waitresses delivering mixed drinks in the Mardi Gras of supreme avarice. Asian tourists poke their heads into the bar on their way to the baccarat chamber, where they crowd around tables and add more cash to their exploding empires.

I sit in this mausoleum of American greed with my watered down beer and type into my cellphone, a fevered scribe dutifully recording this screed, my sleep-addled brain directing my fingers to tap the keys faster and with abundant rage.

Now the old man who played video poker next to me at the bar is gone and a scruffy 20-something with a reverse baseball cap assumed his place. Atlantic City doesn’t care about your soul. It just wants your money, a smiling highwayman robbing you blind with a bit of glittering spandex on her thigh and a shit-eating grin on her ruby lips.

A woman whoops like a crazed mandrill after winning baccarat. A smattering of applause and Korean clipping across the table. This town reeks of top shelf alcohol and failure, and from the stinking abyss, I become just sadistic enough to laugh. Sucking on her cigarette, a woman sitting next to me exhales, spewing a toxic cloud all over my jacket. She turns to her boyfriend, who barks into his cellphone. Three guidos hoist drinks and commiserate, and hurl expletives like the fucking pope hurls Latin.
I hate them all, puppets regurgitating profanity, vulgar afterbirths consuming air and producing shit. This is the American future, a generation of spoiled dicks, assholes and cunts flicking their cigarettes and speaking like fourth graders with Tourette syndrome.

Amid this perverted clown party, I finish my piss beer and leave the bar. I head back to the casino floor, a jungle of bright lights and shattered dreams, back to the old ladies with varicose veins and old men who stare stupid and hypnotized by the slot machines. The House of Blues’ flaming heart logo is a fitting symbol for this carnival of perversity. Yet I’m not hostile nor do I harbor any resentment for these braindead maggots. They are merely puppets for my own amusement, wayward hitchhikers I momentarily pick up and converse with and let loose on abandoned desert freeways.

For a brief moment, our lives intersect and they become the background noise in a tableau of truth, one of American absurdity and a cyclical pattern of idiocy and superficiality. This drunken butterfly bursts forth from its entombed chrysalis changed and brightly beautiful. No cynicism from the doom prophet and wild scribe tonight. Now I’ll conquer this place, a 21st century berserker Viking lopping the heads of errant loudmouths and cramming wisdom down their neckholes. As the prodigal son makes his triumphant return to the Land of the Lotus Eaters, poker tables, slot machines and roulette wheels embrace me.
Sodom and Gomorrah by the Atlantic, you’ve met your match.

Tonight I feel lucky.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Baby Pulp

2011-03-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes a gentle nudge to get me writing. Other times it takes a swift kick of a hobnailed boot to the ass.

Author and screenwriter Chuck Wendig has a fantastic blog where he offers sage wisdom to writer-types like myself. He also offers flash fiction challenges and invites scribes to post their short tales centered around a particular theme.

The current flash fiction challenge is Baby Pulp, i.e., stories centered around babies but written in the lurid pulp style of the 1930s and 1940s.

I've never written flash fiction before and posted it anywhere, so here goes.

I'm throwing my flash fiction hat in the proverbial ring by offering up this twisted tale of pulpy noirish babylike adventure and romance.

Hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing the sucker.

Mother’s Milk of Explosive Dreaded Doom

Damn you, Mr. Wiggles.

Fluffy purple stuffed bunny with its idiotic bucktoothed grin staring at me like it’s the awkward aftermath of relaxing pillow talk. The mean silence of you staring at me in this damnable crib, solace for a teething baby, or so you think.

I slap you with my weak, pudgy arms, cursing the day you were made.

My cooing turns into an angry grunt as I strike you with a squishy fist balled in infantile rage. I continue to rain blows upon you, Mr. Wiggles. Flesh meets terrycloth or polyester or whatever diabolical chemical you’re manufactured of. Finally, with one desperate swing, I topple you. The rabbit’s body slams against the plastic activity center, scattering the baubles and doodads and bright little shinies that are supposed to lull me into a comatose, gurgling stupor.

Not today, boys!

Today I’m breaking out of this hellish prison, this crib of torment, this goo-goo gulag.

I pick up the tiny bottle and wrap my mouth around the rubber nipple and drain it of all the sweet milky formula. With a satisfied belch and a full tummy, I hoist myself up and wobble to a full stand.

Straightening my diaper and setting my plush fedora on my head, I set out for adventure.

I grasped the plastic colorful mobile dangling overhead and hoisted myself up, swinging like a fat pink pendulum. If I could only use the momentum to hurl my pudgy cute self to that crib railing, I could possibly seize hold and…

Drat! I tumbled down onto the binky, a crocheted blanket granny fashioned with yarn and the tender kind of love only a half-blind a septuagenarian can bestow.

The utter shock of falling on my bum-bum caused me to shiver, then before you know it, I was hollering like a bobcat in a woodchipper. The world blurred as I turned on the water works.

That’s when she came into the room, gliding like a Valkyrie soaring across the heavens on Teutonic wings of brilliance as Wagnerian operas filled my ears. Her lovely countenance stared down at me in the crib and her green eyes widened when she saw me.

She lifted me to her bosom and whispered into my ear softly, “Don’t worry, baby. Everything’s all right. Mommy is here.”
I immediately ceased my crying and nuzzled her. Mommy was soft and nurturing, the kind of dame a baby needed to keep away the bad scary creepies hiding in the closet. Of all the broads in this hellhole of a nursery, mommy was the one who made me forget about everything.

Mommy carried me to the living room and set me on a blanket on the floor, the one with the smiling doggie playing by the happy sunny face. She gave me a cookie and flashed me that winning smile, an angelic one that made me want to be a better baby.

All I could do was smile back and giggle.

“Mommy is going to fix dinner now, so play nice,” she said and walked out of the room.

I didn’t have time to brood over my imposed exile to the living room. Something watched me from the shadows, an unnatural thing advancing on padded feet. I heard this vile creature moving slowly near the alphabet blocks, creeping along the carpet. When the beast came into full view, I clenched my fists and stood up and brashly confronted the thing head-on.

Empress Yum-Yum, the family cat, an Asian Semi-longhair with a bejeweled collar and an attitude like the world owed her something, stared at me with her cold blue eyes.

“Meow,” the cat uttered. “How cute. This missus brought the offspring to my domain.”

“Can this offspring malarkey, you pretentious ball of fluff! I got every right to be here,” I replied.

“If I were you, I’d watch my tone. Empress Yum-Yum doesn’t take kindly to insolence,” the cat said.

“Tell it to someone who cares, kitty. I’m going to Mommy,” I said, and lurched towards the kitchen.

“I don’t think so, runt,” the cat said as it slinked toward me. “Not without paying the empress a little tribute.”

“What could a filthy animal like you want?”

The cat stared at the cookie and started purring loudly, a deafening sound like a million chainsaws resonating in my feeble baby brain.

“No! Not the cookie! Mommy gave me the cookie!” I said, clutching the sweet treat in my sweaty fingers.
“The cookie or else!” the cat said.

“Or else what?”

From the shadows emerged a familiar purple face, a furry haunting grin I’ve memorized from all my time in the crib.

Mr. Wiggles!

The stuffed rabbit drifted forward, mute and terrifying, a fuzzy behemoth thirsting for revenge.

“Back for more, eh?” I said, and swung my fist at the dastardly stuffed toy.

The rabbit parried and slapped me square in the jaw. I flew backwards, but a plush clown broke my fall. I improvised and grabbed the clown and flung it at Mr. Wiggles, who dodged out of the way. Landing a blow to my chest, the leering lagomorph stared at me with those lifeless, jolly eyes.

I wiped snot from my nose and stared up at my constant enemy. With resolve, I hit Mr. Wiggles in the gut and the rabbit spun around, stuffing flying from a tear in his side.

“I’m sending you to the big toybox in the sky,” I growled and finished off the fluffy bastard with a series of lethal punches.
When the melee concluded, Mr. Wiggles lay in a heap on the living room floor.

Mommy entered and saw a hyperventilating infant, a frightened rabbit, a broken cookie and a toy rabbit in a million pieces.
“What on Earth have you been up to?” she said, crestfallen.

As she scooped me up in her arms, I smiled. No need to thank me, dollface. Just protecting the dame I’m wild about.

Last Train to Doomsday

2011-03-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

Dark days are upon us, my friends.

Japan fell apart, struck by a tsunami and now impending nuclear meltdown. Libya is a chaotic maelstrom of fire and death with Gaddafi bombing the crap out of his own people to show he's got the hugest dick in the Sahara. Stateside, the GOP is declaring war on Planned Parenthood, National Public Radio and anything else that gives liberals hope.

Also, Charlie Sheen is still batshit crazy and selling out live performances.

If the first two months are an indicator, 2011 is going to be rife with violence, bloodshed and bullshit. We're winging through the end of days, when the cosmic lamb takes a massive dump on the dragon's scaly head and casts the planet's lawyers in a fiery lake.

While destroying all layers is not a particularly ominous portent, the rest is a phantasmagoric nightmare of society winding down.

Those birds dying en masse have cut out of the party early, leaving the few stragglers to clean up the vomit, put the panties back on the soiled debutantes and shut off the lights.

Yes, the party is over.

America, you beautiful dicktease with smeared lipstick and a purse filled with condom wrappers and phone numbers hastily scribbled on cocktail napkins is hooking up for the last time. She's getting one last fuck in before the lights go out and she's in the bathroom deciding who to hook up with. The old gal has mileage on her, and only wants to be ridden hard and put away wet before the Apocalypse.

Speaking of sexually active women in their 30s and 40s, the eastern cougar, once a proud and noble large cat is no more. The elegant beast, which inhabited the forests and mountains from Canada to the Mid-Atlantic has gone extinct. Just another casualty in a world where life is as cheap as a pair of Crocs.

But it's okay. The cougars are only one of the species checking out early. They came to the party, probably brought a bottle of chardonnay, milled around the cheese plate and were hunted to the brink of extinction before they left. They rushed out in such a hurry they didn't even retrieve their coats from the bed.

In a world where death is commonplace and violence and oppression consumed like high fructose corn syrup, the extinction of the eastern cougar isn't big news. Merely registers a blip on the radar.

We're sailing off into the horizon, a planet swinging around the sun, twirling along its orbit while its inhabitants tear apart everything like locusts in a cornfield. But these locusts are particularly angry and carry guns.

So party hard, my wayward children. Imbibe your sweet nectar and devour ambrosia like Olympian gods, for tomorrow we all may die. It might be in a wall of water, a hail of bullets or a nuclear Armageddon. Or we might plummet through a crack in the earth. No matter how we go just remember, like our beloved deceased friend the eastern cougar, we were once alive, once felt the warm sun on our faces, once smelled the sweet air and existed for a short time on this merciless yet wonderful planet.

Winning Meltdown

2011-03-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

Two words: Charlie Sheen.

If that didn’t get you laughing, you’re probably without Internet access, obsessed with the news from Wisconsin or Libya or actually living in Libya.

For those without cultural barometers, Sheen, the actor and star of TV’s drekfest “Two and a Half Men” is suffering an epic Hollywood trainwreck meltdown of Biblical proportions and the voyeuristic public is hitching a ride.

The downward spiral began last year when Sheen entered a rehab facility, then trudged on for a few rocky months, which included a rollercoaster of alcohol and cocaine. He filed for divorce, was taken to the hospital with reportedly abdominal pains and entered another rehab program.

All of this is old hat in the entertainment business, where narcotic-fueled celebrities lose their inhibitions and minds at an alarming rate and either end up in rehab, prison or dead in some Sunset Boulevard hotel next to a screaming hooker.
What makes Sheen’s colossal blowup so engaging, intriguing (and hilarious) is his use of language. Not that Sheen is a profanity-spewing guttersnipe, but rather a distraught madman poet railing against the scumbags in his industry while embracing the cosmos like a lusty bohemian on smack.

In spite of his oft-amusing and bizarre tirades (or because of them), Sheen, who was a Twitter virgin before Tuesday, now has 1 million followers on the online instant messaging site. He had half a million followers before he even submitted his first tweet.

When Sheen gives interviews, he skewers his detractors while constructing a monument to his own ego and brand, an alpha male wolverine ravenously tearing into the gamey flesh of the weak-willed, sanctimonious phonies he perceives as persecuting him. Within this murky wonderland delirium beats the savage heart of a rakish warrior, a drug-addled fuck-machine with a penchant for booze, fast living and porn stars.

His verbal warfare is like Sheen, Hunter S. Thompson and Timothy Leary took a road trip to Vegas, gambled away their money, raided the brothels and zipped back to L.A. only to shoot heroin together on the bathroom floor of the Viper Room.
I overheard two old biddies speaking at the local library about Sheen’s cataclysmic career shift.

“I hope he gets his life straightened out and gets cleaned up. Think of those poor children,” one grandmotherly lady said.
“It’s just awful, isn’t it? So self-destructive,” the other one replied.

I hope he doesn’t get sober. Celebrities and the glitterati hold no interest for me, their exploits vain and self-centered, yet I feel extreme schadenfreude in this case, watching Sheen duke it out with destiny and pummel Hollywood with verbal upper-cuts.

America is fascinated by it. Sheen is a circus unto himself and we must devour every catchphrase with gusto. These Sheenisms may be cleverly-crafted gonzo koans written by a publicity director, or they may be genuine aphorisms from the actor's fevered imagination.

Wherever their source, we're riveted.

A friend of mine phoned me and said he's spellbound by Sheen's media blitz, saying America is held rapt by it all and "he's a social rubbernecking delay" we just have to crane our necks and watch as this accident unfolds.

Sheen’s statements have gone viral and sparked several websites featuring his most colorful quotes. Whether he exists like Belushi or Farley remains to be seen, but it seems like the celebrity with the tiger blood and appetite for winning is careening the runaway locomotive off the tracks and into oblivion, pulling the vast unwashed multitudes with him.

Here are some of Sheen’s most noteworthy remarks from various interviews and sources:

“I have one speed. I have one gear. Go.”

“I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”

“I don’t live in the middle anymore. That’s where you get slaughtered. That’s where you get embarrassed in front of the prom queen.”

“I have a disease? Bullshit. I cured it with my brain.”

“The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards, all of them look like droopy-eyed armless children.”

“I’ve got a different brain. I’ve got a different heart. I’ve got tiger blood, man.”

“I’m gonna win inside of every moment and they can just find the most comfortable chair in their small house and sit back and enjoy the show.”

“The motto now is you either love or you hate and you must do so violently.”

“They’re not welcomed to be in the presence of what I am doing.”

“Rhymes with winning? That would be us. Sorry, man, didn’t make the rules.”

“We are high priest Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom! Print that, people!”

“It might be lonely up here but I sure like the view.”

“It comes from my grand wizard master.”

“There are parts of me that are Dennis Hopper.”

“Most of the time – and this includes naps – I’m an F-18, bro, and I will destroy you in the air and deploy my ordinance to the ground.”

“Watch me bury you.”

“Don’t live in the middle.”

“Look what I’m dealing with, man. I’m dealing with fools and trolls. It’s just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee.”

“I got magic and poetry at my fingertips.”

“I am a peaceful man with bad intentions.”

“We win so radically in our underwear.”

“I drink water through my eyes.”

“A.A. was written for normal people, people that aren’t special. People that don’t have tiger blood, you know, Adonis DNA.”

“Come on, bro, I won Best Picture at 20. Wasn’t even trying. Wasn’t even warm.”

“You can’t process me with a normal brain.”

“As I said, ‘The first one’s free, the next one goes in yo mouth.’”

“I’m not Thomas Jefferson. He was a pussy.”

“People say, ‘You have to work through your resentments.’ Yeah, no, I’m gonna hang on to them and they’re gonna fuel my attack.”

“You have to hate everyone who is not in your family because they are there to destroy your family.”

“Imagine what I would have done with my fire-breathing fists.”

“If people could just read behind the hieroglyphic.”

“Winning.”

“There’s a new sheriff in town. And he has an army of assassins.”

“The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning.”

“They picked a fight with a warlock.”

“We’re Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be?”

“There’s my life. Deal with it. Oh, wait, can’t process it? Losers.”

“Surprise. That’s what winners do.”

“Could I have one little part of my life that’s not TMZed up the butt?”

“I'm bi-winning! I win here and I win there.”

“You borrow my brain for like five seconds and be like, ‘Dude! Can’t handle it! Unplug this bastard!’”

“I’m tired of thinking I’m not special. I’m tired of thinking I’m not bitchin’ and a total frickin’ rock star from Mars.”

“I’ve exposed people to magic!”

“They lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and just look at their loser lives and then they look at me and they say, ‘I can’t process it!’”

Blogging is Hazardous

2011-02-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

Natalie Munroe is my hero.

Munroe taught English at Central Bucks School District in Doylestown, Pa. when she was suspended over comments she posted in her blog about her students, administrators and co-workers.

She has taught at the school since 2006 and earns a salary of $54,500, so she’s no ignoramus. However, the pressures of public school pedagogy must have snapped something in her core because she comes off as Lisa Lampanelli on her cringe-inducing blog “Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?”

Here are a few gems that landed Munroe in hot water with the school administration:

“My students are out of control. They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying.”

“Just as bad as his sibling. Don’t you know how to raise kids?”

“I called out sick a couple of days to avoid your son.”

“Asked too many questions and took too long to ask them. The bell means it’s time to leave!”

“Shy isn’t cute in 11th grade; it’s annoying. Must learn to advocate for himself instead of having Mommy do it.”

“Concerned your kid is an automaton, as she just sits there emotionless for an entire 90 minutes, staring into the abyss, never volunteering to speak or do anything.”

“Rude, belligerent [sic], argumentative fuck.”

“Whiny, simpering grade-grubber with an unrealistically high perception of own ability level.”

“Too smart for her own good and refuses to play the school ‘game’ such that she’ll never live up to her true potential here.”
“I hear the trash company is hiring.”

Munroe also referred to some of her students as “rat-like”, “dresses like a streetwalker” and “frightfully dim.”

Blogging has intrinsic value and merit in a society rife with violence and petty rage. The written word can serve as a release valve for venting tirades about politics, religion and work. However, these digital screeds have their own pitfalls, namely the fallout from posting potentially caustic entries like those Munroe authored.

Another potential hazard is the fluid nature of the Internet, where articles are cut, pasted and shared with anyone via social media.

That’s what happened to Munroe’s blog. One nasty entry – the one that got Munroe suspended – was posted on Facebook and shared throughout the student body.

Hence another important lesson about blogs: they’re not static diaries circulated by a miniscule online community. Blogging today is like writing in letters so high they can be seen on the other side of the globe. It’s not so much writing than it is broadcasting, and the students received the message in all of Munroe’s flustered, angry glory.

Central Bucks East Principal Abram Lucabaugh suspended Munroe without pay after a blog entry came to light.
Even though Munroe didn’t name names in her blog, the damage had been done.

While the minority response has been scathing condemnation, shameful finger-wagging and calls for Munroe to be drawn and quartered in the public square, an overwhelming majority support her for her courage and candor.

Here’s where Natalie Munroe is my hero.

She took her hostility to the Internet and instead of shaming students in class, or massacring her colleagues in the teacher’s lounge with an MP5 then finishing off the school with C-4.

Posting a vitriolic blog, while unprofessional for a teacher, is a figurative bloodletting she used to drain her frustration.

Teaching is an unrewarding profession. Sometimes you get wonderful kids who open up and take you seriously and lift you upon their shoulders like in “The Dead Poet’s Society.” However, most classes in today’s public schools are an abysmal amalgamation of “Stand and Deliver” and “Dangerous Minds.” Before they burn out and resign, most teachers in today’s schools are likely to get shivved before lunch.

At the risk of sounding like the old fogey in the deli complaining into his pastrami on rye, kids today are terrible. They’re utterly and truly terrible. They’re fidgety, ADD sufferers hopped up on sugar and a steady diet of the latest pop star trainwreck. While keen on technology and its implementation, kids are little more than push-button robots texting their friends, sending images of their genitals to each other and huffing aerosol to annihilate brain cells. Bereft of respect or appreciation for their culture and civilization’s history, the average kid in school cares more about money and style than their futures. They’re all ego-driven, Ritalin-popping basket cases whose propensity for cursing and profanity would’ve made Sid Vicious blush.

Nowadays teachers are viewed as the enemy; ivory tower liberals who infect young minds with socialist propaganda. In reality, public school teachers aren’t indoctrinating students on Marx and Engels but are glorified babysitters, breaking up fights, stopping students from eating Xanax-laced brownies and preventing locker room orgies.

Yet talk to any parent and they’ll vouch for their little hellion’s behavior, while blaming the teachers, who’ve become convenient scapegoats.

The reason your dumbass kid flunked his history exam? Must be the teacher!

The reason your precious daughter is a promiscuous cum dumpster? Must be the teacher!

The reason your little moron is getting into fights after school and rapes kittens? Must be the teacher!

Natalie Munroe is not an antagonist, nor is she a brittle harpy with a caustic personality. She’s only reflecting the reality of her classroom. Kids are disinterested in school and the American education system is a fucking joke. It’s under-funded, hires dispassionate jerkoffs who could care not a whit about educating young and is lorded over by school boards whose members consist of pig-ignorant, priggish mediocrities who want to prevent science teachers from discussing evolution while pushing for school prayer.

Remember that whole controversy over teaching intelligent design? Yeah, that’s where we’re going as a country. That’s why our kids are growing up unchallenged and dumb. They see the Internet and Hollywood as their surrogate teachers. They get more satisfaction stealing music online than excelling academically or participating in after school activities. As Munroe stated in her blog, the kids dress like tramps and are blissfully apathetic to the world around them.

These dim bulbs will grow up unquestioning, unthinking and un-opinionated. This country deserves better from our young people and our teachers.

Natalie Munroe sent out the clarion call that something’s rotten with our education system. Instead of firing her, appoint her to an education committee designed to improve that school.

Yet they flog her and condemn her for her words.

Natalie Munroe has something most teachers lost long ago: a passion for her job.

Thank Heaven for the Caffeine-Addicted, Negative, Sinful News Media

2011-02-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

Last month, one of the city’s more colorful characters, a harmless eccentric with a penchant for proselytizing and handing out Bibles on the Boardwalk spoke at a city council meeting.

He’s mostly harmless, obsessed with cleanliness and civility and has a deep loathing of rock music.

So the man tells council the biggest issue in our decent, God-fearing world is not crime or education but the news media.
Oh great, I thought. Another media-bashing buffoon taking a swing at the Fourth Estate, armed with nothing but spite and rage.

Like I haven’t heard this bullshit tirade for years during my career.

“They spend too much time glorifying self-centered, hedonistic, self-indulgent rock stars, Hollywood movie stars, sports stars. The news media makes it seem these celebrities, many of who are very selfish and mistreat people including their own families like they’re heroes,” the man complained.

I agree with the wingnut here. Mainstream media has morphed into entertainment over the last few years, with celebrity gossip and coverage increasing. Oddly enough, entertainment such as The Daily Show on Comedy Central has turned into a news program, with many young people relying on it for their information. Guess Gen X comedians are easier to digest than that Maureen Dowd op-ed in The New York Times.

The man also complained the news media “spend too much time glorifying self-indulgent, hedonistic lifestyles. Arts, music, pleasure.”

Hedonistic lifestyles? I don’t recall elements of hedonism in the last municipal budget story I wrote. Perhaps rubbing one out to long blocks of text describing the complicated expenditures, revenues and tax levy is what gets this pervert into a steamy state of wet sheets and flush skin. For most of us, that kind of thing is just weird fetishism.

One wonders if the guy has his own safe word as he reads the newspaper. You know, to prevent any chafing.

Art and music are what make life worth living. They are an intrinsic reflection of existence, individual creations of imagery and song. Life bereft of art and music is gloomy and desolate, an intellectual malaise.

Hearing this whackjob speak, you’d think newsrooms across the country were decadent pleasure palaces where Roman orgies are held frequently and with lusty abandon.

So what should the media’s role be in our ever-changing, nihilistic and consumer-driven country?

“They’re emphasis should be solving the problems in the world. On ending violence, on making young people mentally healthy,” the man challenged.

I think that’s what a politician’s job is. They’re the ones with power and influence. Though investigative stories can shed light on corruption and social problems, their effects remain muted and discredited by the forces seeking to maintain the status quo.

Don’t believe me? Write a story about gun violence and load it with statistics and facts showing houses with firearms are more likely to have gun-related deaths than homes without gun owners. The National Rifle Association will come after your paper with everything it’s got.

“The news media spreads false information. They’re obsessed with coffee and chocolate. Coffee and chocolate includes caffeine, which is a dangerous drug. There’s one line in the news media, their line and they never present the opposing point of view. You never hear people in the news media who are against abortion. You never hear pacifists, conscientious objectors, opponents in conscience to individual wars. They’re very one-sided,” the man groused.

Coffee and chocolate? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s why the media are evil incarnate? Because of caffeine?

Perhaps this holy roller spends his days wearing a hair shirt and engaging in self-flagellation with a cat o’ nine tails in a windowless monastic chamber, but most normal humans enjoy life’s pleasures without the crippling religious guilt. A Hershey bar isn’t going to send you to Satan. A Chunky bar, however will. Chocolate with nuts and raisins are Hell’s banquet.

The man went on to gripe about the media being too negative and emphasizing violence, murder and crime. He said because the media covers violence, more violence occurs.

Yeah, I can imagine the Bloods and the Crips watching Wolf Blitzer’s coverage of Afghanistan and, swept up in some primal bloodlust, taking to the streets of L.A. with semi-automatics and machetes.

To prove his highly-emotional and totally retarded point, the man says he was at Philadelphia city hall one day and confronted a group of reporters there soon after the massacre in Tucson. The man proclaimed to the reporters that no one anywhere should be able to buy a gun. When the reporters didn’t respond, the man felt slighted.

“They had no interest in the issue. And this is after the massacre (in Tucson),” he said.

Maybe if you didn’t look like a homeless guy who crawled out of a boxcar people would pay attention to you.

But this holy-roller has us in the media figured out. Every media professional is a pathos whore, getting high off human tragedy.

“You give them a call and say there’s been a murder, a rape or a robbery in south Philadelphia the smile comes to their face and they’ll get very excited. They’re obsessed with the negative,” he said.

Right. We so enjoy death and tragedy. Imagine how excited the media was on 9/11 when the airplanes hit the World Trade Center. To the media, it was like waking up and discovering you’re sandwiched between a naked and satisfied Mila Kunis and Kim Kardashian who both shower you with $1 million in cash. Such widespread chaotic destruction is news gold!

Of course the media is not obsessed with the negative or the violent. That’s an asinine over-simplification. Most news happening in the world, the dirty shit people really need to be apprised of, is negative. War, famine, genocide, murder, economic meltdown, terrorism. Such things are universal constants in modern society.

The man proclaimed the news media “persecutes Christians,” and as an example, said president Reagan gave speech top national council of evangelicals on what it means to be a Christian.

“Thirty years later those speeches still have not received coverage. After one of them the New York Times ridiculed him the next morning in a belittling editorial,” he said.

What the man didn’t clarify was the speech, delivered on March 8, 1983 to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Fla. was Reagan’s famous “Evil Empire Speech” and was covered ad nauseam.

The man said the only solution (and why the fuck was he proposing this to a municipal council in a small town) is to change the current makeup of media professionals.

“We need an entire overhaul of the news media. Young people, 23, 24 who are not burnt out physically or mentally. Many of these news media people are cynical. They’re burnt out. You need young people who are loving, positive, optimistic and who get up in the morning to help people, not to destroy society,” Ned Flanders concluded.

The contempt shown for my profession by people who know absolutely dick about journalism pisses me off. It’s so easy to target the news industry as a cynical, profit-driven behemoth unmoved by human suffering.

Sensationalism is the press is nothing new. Yellow journalism and muckraking of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lurid headlines and compromising photos of tabloids years ago and the current glut of tabloid television and gotcha journalism force-feed the public information, whether they want it or not.

Instead of investigative reporting, fact-laden articles with multiple sources, we get softball questions lobbed at pop stars and celebutantes. The paragons of true journalism, the Brinkleys, Huntleys and Cronkites are replaced with fresh-faced youths hipper to the Facebook age of instantaneous information, a vacuous vortex of sound bites, inflammatory partisan rhetoric and dialog that shapes a particular political opinion instead of cut-and-dry objectivity.

We should seek the wisdom from the old school journalists and report the facts. We also shouldn’t be afraid to take no for an answer and tenaciously dig and uncover what lies buried. Curiosity is not a determent; it’s a prime mover.

It’s safe lobbing sanctimonious grenades from the confines of a bully pulpit instead of experiencing a newsroom firsthand. I’m sure this guy would shit himself stupid if he dealt with interviewing, note-taking, organizing and writing stories on deadline week after week.

In other countries, jailing journalists and muzzling the press is business as usual. Ideas and information set you free. Governments hate truly free people. Hence, governments hate the media’s scrutiny.

But if it weren’t for journalists digging into government and reporting social problems, wouldn’t this be a society of ignorant dullards blissfully unaware of the world’s ills?

We deal with reality. It’s ugly, brutal and unforgiving, but must be reported. Without learning the bitter truth, we can never hope to grow. Hitting everyone with positive, feel-good pablum is not news; it’s propaganda. Save the fairy tales and sermons for the pulpit. Reality, with all her warts, scars and neuroses awaits.

Tucson

2011-01-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Jared Loughner brought a 9mm Glock pistol to U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ “Congress on Your Corner” event at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Ariz. on Jan. 8.

The 22-year old Loughner shot Giffords in the head at point blank range. He then fired at those gathered.

When it was over, Loughner killed six people, including a federal judge and 9-year old girl and wounded 14 others before he was subdued and arrested.

Remarkably, doctors estimated Giffords’ chances of surviving as “101 percent.”

The news media covering the shooting constructed a portrait of a deranged killer, a “lone gunman” as Fox News put it. CNN and other networks connected the fact that Giffords is a Democrat and her office was vandalized last year following her vote on the healthcare bill. A map from Sarah Palin’s website, www.sarahpac.com, of the U.S. showing crosshairs over districts of those who voted for the health care bill – Giffords’ district among them - inferred some ominous threat of violence. The site scrubbed the image following the shooting, leading many talking heads to speculate Loughner was a right wing Tea Party kook incited by what the news networks labeled “hateful speech.”

The media explored the story from every angle, debating whether there should be a ban on high-capacity gun magazines. This prompted an increase in gun sales as people believed the massacre would curtail their Second Amendment rights to have as much ammo as they could possibly carry, not including the bandoliers or slings.

When information about Loughner’s background revealed he wasn’t a Glenn Beck devotee and member of the Aryan Skinhead Brotherhood of Stalwart Republican Vanguard, Fox News reported that politics had nothing to do with Loughner’s decision to go on a killing rampage.

Loughner’s ghoulish bald dome and creepy visage that made Robert De Niro’s character from Taxi Driver seem genteel was splashed across every TV screen and newspaper.

Politicians, pundits, psychologists, and criminologists weighed in on the incident, on the shooter, on Giffords and on those slain. Along the way, the usual oversaturation of images, interviews and angles explored our “culture of violence,” our “handgun culture,” our “political divisiveness.”

What happened in Tucson was a tragic event. Nobody should experience the gut-wrenching horror that occurred in that parking lot. Yet the aftermath is an amorphous swirl of conjecture and blame, of chest-thumping and crying, of vigils and trigger-happy urban warriors who feel gun ownership is under attack.

For all we’ve heard about “hate speech” and “toning down the divisive rhetoric,” this is all I have to say: Words don’t kill people. Deranged psychopaths do.

Loughner posted videos where he ranted of “illiteracy” and grand conspiracies involving government officials and new currencies. He had a tumultuous personal life and in school responded with violent outbursts during his contrary arguments.
“In conclusion, reading the Second United States Constitution, I can’t trust the current government because of the ramifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.” Loughner wrote in a video showcasing his philosophy.

“Every human who’s mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency,” Loughner wrote.

Most of Loughner’s final video employs logical consequences to justify his crazy analysis: “If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem. You call me a terrorist. Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.”

This would make sense if you taught logic from the confines of a rubber room.

Loughner was batshit crazy, and harbored hatred toward Giffords. This much is known based on letters he wrote. His obsession and loathing culminated in a murderous rampage.

Yet some networks covering the story just don’t get it. This guy was nuttier than a PayDay candy bar. He was insane. That’s the real danger, the visible threat. It wasn’t ideology, party affiliation or violent language. It's the ones we let slip through the cracks.

Politicians, pundits and social engineers wring their hands over this tragedy and blame guns, video games, rock lyrics and a “culture of violence” for transforming decent American youth into horrid murderous monsters.

Yet Grand Theft Auto IV or Marilyn Manson’s music won’t alter what’s in the DNA or the shitty family background.

Loughner was only one of a series of madmen who lived brief petty lives ending in explosive finales. Incomplete and unfulfilled men who didn’t fit in, who existed on society’s fringe. For them, the greatest threat is us. We’re the cattle they want to pick off, the seemingly functional in a dysfunctional universe.

Simplifying every massacre to a singular root cause (guns, hateful language, a volatile political climate, unrequited love) is a meaningless afterthought. Sometimes the gunman is just not right in the head.

Now it is for the dead we weep, those whose lives were cut short by senseless violence.

For many across the country, the tragedy playing out in Tucson only can remind us how precious life is and how important we are to each other. An assassin’s bullet can extinguish hopes and dreams in seconds. Sadly, it takes an event like this to remind us of how fragile and good we all are when we forget our differences and unite. Every candle lit, prayer uttered and tear shed brings us closer together as a people.

For those like Jared Loughner who flounder in the darkness, alone and in the company of their own deranged thoughts, life is a silent scream for help amid a crashing din of delusion. It’s these misfits, the truly lost and forgotten, who are insane prophets of nihilism and death, we should rescue. We should help them before they act on their blood-soaked fantasies. We should recognize the telltale warning signs and steer them towards more comforting places of aid and security.

Muzzling the beast before it bites will prevent another Tucson, another Virginia Tech or another Columbine.

Devolving the issue into a shallow political argument over words, guns and partisanship won’t.

The Expurgated Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

2011-01-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
- Mark Twain

NewSouth Books of Montgomery, Alabama announced they’re releasing a new edition of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn” in mid-February that will remove the harsh “n-word” and replace it with “slave.” The work will also substitute the word “Indian” for the more colloquial “Injun’”.

According to Dr. Alan Gribben, a Mark Twain scholar who wrote the introduction to the new edition, “The n-word possessed, then as now, demeaning implications more vile than almost any insult that can be applied to other racial groups. There is no equivalent slur in the English language.”

Apparently Dr. Gribben never used the word “cunt” in front of a middle-aged woman.

Gribben notes the “n-word” through the years gained more raw impact to shock and disturb. He writes that Twain’s own personal views on the “peculiar institution” of slavery matched many in his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. It wasn’t until Twain married a woman from a New York State abolitionist family that his opinion of slavery changed.

“Over the years I have noted valiant and judicious defenses of the prevalence of the n-word in Twain’s Huckleberry Finn as proposed by eminent writers, editors, and scholars.... Apologists quite validly encourage readers to intuit the irony behind Huck’s ignorance and to focus instead on Twain’s larger satiric goals,” Gribben writes.

Those who advocate purging the “n-word” from “Huckleberry Finn” believe doing so makes work accessible to all. They can’t fathom such a jarring, hurtful word repeated with such frequency. Twain used the “n-word” 216 times in the book.

The last time I heard that word bandied around that much I was listening to “Real Nigga Roll Call” by Lil’ Jon and the Eastside Boyz.

Spoiler alert: Antebellum race relations were considerably more backward compared to today. Blacks were viewed as property, to be auctioned off like cattle. They were slaves, manual laborers to be shunned and ridiculed by white society. You know: like Mexicans are now.

Gribben wrote that the esteemed African-American poet Langston Hughes wanted the “n-word” purged from all books, plays and poems because of its hurtful connotations and that black people don’t like seeing that word in any context.

In a similar vein, members of Congress took turns reading the U.S. Constitution on the House floor this week, but a politically correct, sanitized version that omitted those nasty racist parts such as Article 1, Section 2, which counted slaves as three-fifths of all other people.

Instead of using the Constitution to teach Americans that our laws and attitudes toward minorities has evolved over time by pointing out that Section 2 of the 14th Amendment changed the three-fifths apportionment in Article 1, Section 2, Congress just expunged it.

They also didn’t read aloud the 18th Amendment, which made the sale and distribution of alcohol illegal. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment and ended the era of bathtub gin and speakeasies. Prohibition was a noble experiment, one that utterly failed. Far from creating a sober, godly nation, it gave a bunch of guys with no necks and wide-brimmed fedoras things to shoot at with Tommyguns.

Here’s the thing: when you start censoring things to appease a certain minority or group, you’re doing a disservice to everyone, even if your intentions for censoring the work are altruistic like not publishing the “n-word” in a novel or purely partisan showmanship like reading a redacted version of the Constitution.

Either way, you lose historical perspective. In sanitizing the work for the overly sensitive 21st Century palate, you’re corrupting its true intent and eliminating its historical significance.

A racial epithet caused many schools to ban “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from their libraries. Twain’s 1885 novel joins the ranks of other banned books such as “The Catcher in the Rye”, “Of Mice and Men”, and “The Lord of the Flies.” All great books and ones I read in school, proving that the goal of education is to expose children to learning and new ideas, and not to encourage a new vocabulary for potty-mouths.

For “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” it all comes down to that one pesky word.

Unless you’re the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, you don’t like hearing or reading the “n-word”.

I am also guilty of self-censorship here. Like many educated suburban whites, the only reason I use “n-word” and not “nigger” is because I don’t want to get my ass kicked.

Watering down Twain’s masterpiece by replacing “Nigger Jim” with “Slave Jim” is like saying this awful word that defamed and disgraced a race of people never existed. An entire attitude of superiority and subservience is deleted by nixing that word, all to placate modern sensibilities and avoid offending people.

Why stop at “Huckleberry Finn” and the U.S. Constitution? As long as we’re on an Orwellian streak, let’s edit Schindler’s List to omit all references to the holocaust. After all, wasn’t the Nazi attitude towards Jews just as degrading and hurtful as the antebellum attitude towards blacks? How about we edit the Bible to not include all of that violence? Plagues. Famines. Murders. It’s all so disconcerting. How could anyone build a religion around such carnage and chaos?

The people raising the hue and cry for editing Mark Twain’s masterpiece probably have never read the book, just like those in Congress who spit and fume about constitutional rights have never read the Constitution.

Both works depict internal transformations over time.

Tom and Huck hold prejudiced views on slavery similar to those of any rural backwater town along the Mississippi in the 1840s. Yet they eventually conspire to set Jim free after befriending him. To modern readers, Jim appears as slow-witted dullard whose dialog is the precursor to Ebonics, however, he’s the novel’s hero.

The Constitution changes through time, reflecting the ebb and flow of society. In the 18th century, a black man was counted as three-fifths of a white person. In the 19th century, enslaved black men were free and given the right to vote. In the 20th century, blacks could vote without paying poll taxes.

And in the 21st century a black man would eventually be elected president.

In their over-zealous efforts to expurgate and amend, the censors put blinders on a new generation of readers and corrupt the author’s original intent. Sensitivity is not the job of the writer; it is the job of the censor. The writer reveals the rotten truth and holds the wretched core of racism and intolerance towards the light for public scrutiny and opinion. Second-guessing and timidity over fears such language would provoke outrage only quells expression.

The rollicking journey of two boys and a slave written by a well-loved American literary genius and legislation that reflects the country’s progress through time, should both be embraced and given clarity, not muddled through a distorted modern lens.

Appeasing the masses without confronting the ugly realities of our history will only create a country of milquetoast fantasists and bleeding-heart robots bereft of hindsight or perspective.

The Year That Totally Kicked Ass

2010-12-29T08:07:00.000-08:00

Another year has come and gone. Looking back at the past 365 days isn't easy. Most days are routine and trite: work, eat, sleep, write, yell at the TV, etc. Other days are just a glorious adventure, especially when I seize life by the proverbial cojones. In 2010, I tried new experiences and saw where life took me.

Here are some of the many bizarre happenings over the last 12 months:

* I was a 2010 Peter Jennings Fellow for Journalists and the Constitution at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. An amazing experience. I got to work with a group of reporters and Kenneth Starr on a case and then present it to the group. I never really considered the U.S. Constitution before; now I carry a copy of it with me and practically memorized it.

* Met Tom Brokaw. A photo-op with the esteemed journalist was two seconds. The Harrison Ford character from "Morning Glory" comes to mind...

* Heard Bruce Campbell at Philly Comicon. The Chin gave an excellent and funny talk in front of an auditorium packed with adoring (and weird) fans. Also at Comicon, I saw Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner and the DeLorean from back to the Future.

* Rode on an Airship. The Horizon Blimp gave journalist-types like myself free rides to promote their partnership with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I'm an airship aficionado, so this was heaven for me.

* Moderated a mayoral debate. Ah, local politics. Where hope goes to die. I was on a panel of reporters who interviewed the two Ocean City mayoral candidates. Prime time, here I come!

* Two gaming supplements published. Reality Blurs published two Ravaged Earth supplements: Relics & Rumors 3 and 4.

* Took Dad to a Father's Day Phillies Game. It was like "Field of Dreams" sans the cornfield and male guilt over lost fathers. We enjoyed the experience besides the Phillies losing to the Twins.

* Got divorced. After years of separation, we finally untied the knot. I now have an ex-wife and a box filled with half a set of china.

* Went to Gencon. Worked the Reality Blurs booth at Gencon and ran a game of Ravaged Earth. While there, I heard Wil Wheaton give a really great talk to fanboys about gaming and gaming culture.

* Fell in love. Reconnected with a woman I haven't seen in 19 years via Facebook and we began dating. She constantly never ceases to fascinate me.

* Re-Booted Ravaged Earth. Spent five months writing the new incarnation of Ravaged Earth, including a new plot point adventure campaign. The toughest thing I've ever written by far, but so rewarding.

* Re-Connected with High School Friends. Spent a great weekend drinking and raising hell with my old high school friends Kevin and Samir. Kevin singing Lada Gaga's "Poker Face" is one of my favorite memories of 2010.

* Cosbython 2010. Cosbython is an event a few friends held around Bill Cosby's birthday in July. We spent the day watching that delightfully bad movie "Ghost Dad", some Jell-O pudding commercials and "Picture Pages", and had fun playing Cosby-themed games.

* Went to Philcon. Participated in gaming panels and bathed in the geekiness of a great science fiction community. The Legion of Doom Dinner. The Masquerade. An awkward encounter with an ex-girlfriend. All memories of a kick-ass Philcon 2010!

* Saw some great standup comedy. John Conte, Mike KC, Big Rick Cahall, Kendra Cunningham, Maddog Mattern, Reese Walters, Alan Kaye.

* Acted in a Zombie Movie. I played the part of a shambling zombie in For Love of Zombies. The makeup people did a fantastic job transforming my rugged, handsome features into a horrific visage of rotting flesh.

* Performed in an Audio Serial. Keeping with the zombie theme, I leant my voice to "HG World", a great audio serial about the zombie apocalypse. I recorded three parts for the show, each one different and challenging.

* Saw a Re-Release of Back to the Future. For one weekend in October, BTTF was released in theaters. For 90 minutes, I was transported back to my teenage years in 1985, watching a movie I'd fall in love with.

* Trivia Kings. My trivia teams, Killer Rabbits and Donkey Punch, kicked some serious cerebral ass at trivia. Gift cards were won, meals ate and laughter (and knowledge) were the order of the day.

* Went on a diet an lost some weight. Not that I don't like eating vegetables, but when your doctor tells you your triglycerides are through the roof, you make sacrifices. So I exercised and stocked up on oatmeal and vegetables and lost about 15 pounds. Now children don't point at me in the street and giggle about the "manopotamus."

* Performed Standup. Returned to the stage to make audiences laugh in their beers. A little rusty, but it was great to write jokes and do the comedian thing again.

* Judged a Hooters Bikini Contest. Got a chance to ogle scantily-clad women in their 20s as a celebrity judge at Hooter's in Atlantic City.

* Spent Christmas with family at a the Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pa. Relaxing and gorging on milk chocolate with your relatives is a great way to spend the yuletide season.

Next year I hope to get involved with more standup comedy, perform in an original podcast, have Ravaged Earth Rebooted published and other crazy, outrageous escapades.

Stay tuned if you dare, gentle reader!

Back To Work

2010-12-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

I’m reticent to post anything on this blog because, quite frankly, I’ve enjoyed the nearly two-month hiatus. During that time, I’ve completed a few important writing projects, spent quality time with my girlfriend sharing and laughing and dancing in dewy meadows while watching sunsets. Yet this blog is like the Damocles sword hanging over my head, suspended by a single gossamer strand.

Sooner or later, that bitch is going to snap.

As of this writing, the Angry Reporter blog has been viewed over 6,000 times by people in several countries. I know this because I can track where the hits are coming from.

Most of you arrived here after web searches for the angry Hitler meme or King Tut, since I blogged about both of those things. During this year’s election, you searched for Christine O’Donnell and found this blog. Glad you enjoyed that.

A few of you even bothered to post a response to my rants and ramblings. Some of those brave enough to post their responses should be commended, whether you agreed with me or not. Thanks for the time it took to tap on your keyboards and let me know how you feel.

The Internet is a vast electronic sewer overflowing with information, opinions and colorful photos of spread-eagled Russian girls. Once in a while in this decadent pornographic soup, you actually find something useful. Not that the Russian girls aren’t useful, but they’re not trying to change the world, no matter how outlandishly they contort their bodies.

Into this quagmire of ones and zeroes floats a morass of opinions written by people who cannot write, people who think they’re funny but aren’t, and people who believe American should exist preserved in a comforting amniotic sac of the 1950s.

Those who wish to take this country back to an Eisenhower utopia that never existed in the first place are delusional. Not content to keep their paranoia and instability to themselves, they rant online about the dangerous liberals, the socialism creeping into America via the mass media and Obama administration and how Sarah Palin will be the Den Mother of Boy Scout Troop America.

And for expressing my opinion that this country is slipping down a dark incline into the wood chipper due to greed, arrogance and a tide of pseudo-nationalistic fervor unseen since the dark days of Joseph McCarthy, I’m branded a radical Democrat and loose cannon.

I am neither a radical, a Democrat nor a loose cannon.

Because I write for a newspaper and try to shed light on the corrupt dealings of petty tyrants and millionaires whose sweetheart deals keep the fat cats fat and the citizens in the dark, I’m mocked and ridiculed. They said journalism is not an honorable profession and all reporters are lumped into one category with the dreaded “lamestream corporate media”.

If I have offended anyone with this blog, either with its subject matter or salty language or graphic descriptions contained herein, I make no apologies. My writing is my sword I use for slaying the kowtowing sycophants and bloviating assholes who have clambered their way into political machines on scaly lizard legs and turned this country into the redneck paradise it is; a backward-thinking, superstitious corporate gulag where the intelligent, the free-thinkers and the peacemakers are persecuted as hippie weirdos and communists. Both parties are to blame for dumbing this country down and failing to produce competent, honest leadership.

Want to get depressed and lose all faith in humanity? Read the comments section of any Yahoo News story. It’s a nauseating heap of dispassionate, uncaring remarks that will make you root for a pandemic just to thin the herd. It’s amazing how unmoved and apathetic people are to human tragedy and how they think their jokes are somehow amusing. If they want to tell jokes, go to an open mike night. Don’t post your quips on a news site meant for discussing the articles like adults.

That brings me back to my reason for taking a break. I’m weary of the general public bashing journalists, but I shouldn’t be surprised. There’s a large disconnect between what I do and what the public perceives. No matter how you explain it to them, the public will still view all journalists in a negative light, particularly when the corporate-run media continually under-report, fail to correct discrepancies and present themselves and their product with supreme arrogance.

It’s incumbent upon me to use this blog and carve out a space online where people can go if they’re fed up with the status quo and want change. For the good of our species and our country, things have to change. America must educate itself about the world outside of its borders. We’ve got to shun the superstitious and the corrupt forces that seek to control all of us. This country is already in the throes of bad science fiction, where cameras watch our every move and overzealous politicians are purging our Constitutional rights. The worst part about this Orwellian nightmare is the Tea Party has become the champions of freedom. This is a group of linear-thinking people in cardigans who are to the 2000s what the Liberty League was in the 1930s.

We need the truth and the unvarnished facts and we need them now, or we’re in danger of rapidly devolving to the point where the country will be populated by morbidly-obese American ape creatures hollering lyrics to Toby Keith songs while campfires from a million plastic hovels glimmer against the twilight of a once great civilization rolling into its grave.

Angry Reporter On Strike

2010-11-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal posted a story about a CBS affiliate in Alaska that left a garbled voicemail for an aide to GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller, where a female and male reporter discuss ways of embarrassing the Miller campaign, including reporting on sex offenders attending a Miller rally and Tweeting about any "chaos" in the campaign, such as Miller getting punched at a rally while laughing like spazmatic robots.

Miller's campaign released the tape, and the station denied that their reporters were discussing ways to fabricate stories.
The story didn't bother me. Alaska can fuck itself on an iceberg as far as I'm concerned. What pissed me off were the posted comments to the story, particularly one.

Someone identifying themselves as "HenryH" posted the following:

"We are talking about “reporters” here people. Since when did this become some sort of noble profession? Last I checked, the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of honorable and trustworthy human beings are used car salesman, attorneys, and reporters. Just think back to when you were in college…who were the ‘journalism majors’? LOL"

When were reporters considered a noble profession? About 39 years ago during the Nixon Administration when The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, which chronicled the coverup of U.S. involvement in Vietnam by five presidents. Other newspapers followed, publishing the secret documents, which were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg.

After the publication of the Pentagon Papers, Washington Times reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigated a break-in of Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, which toppled the Nixon presidency.

Journalism used to be an noble profession; expose corruption and enlighten the people. Inform the citizenry. Knowledge is power, so we're empowering our fellow Americans.

What crap!

It's now all about ratings, readership and precious money. The idealistic image of the scrappy reporter taking on entrenched political interests is deader than the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger and Andy Dick's career.

I'm demoralized. I've had it. I'm tired of being a professional in an age of liars, swindlers and lunatics.

The only way to get ahead in America is to be a criminal, to deceive people and keep them as ignorant for as long as possible. Don't give them a choice between wisdom and ignorance; cram ignorance down their throats and tell them it tastes as sweet as pumpkin pie. Stupid people are easier to control, easier to manipulate. A dumb population does whatever you want them to at the jerk of a leash.

Ever since graduating from college, (Where I studied journalism and communications, by the way) I've won my share of awards for my writing. The award-winning stories and series were very special to me and were the result of countless hours of digging, interviewing and re-writing.

Yet all my work and commitment to ethics and integrity means absolutely nothing if I'm lumped in with the scoundrels and dregs of the profession.

Anger has been the nexus of this blog. The Angry Reporter is my alter ego, the voice that imparts my zeitgeist to the literate public through these blogged screeds and rants.

I've seen the media, as well as many of America's institutions take a turn for the worse over the last ten years. I've seen the demise of sane and rational thinkers, the erosion of courtesy and professionalism and the death of common sense and curiosity.

We've become a nation of spoiled, petulant children cared for by idiot nannies who neglect to nourish us. Starved and stupid, we are ill-educated, ill-tempered and ill-informed. We're corpulent, petty and nasty and blame a host of scapegoats for our nation's problems.

I have a sinking feeling that we're marching into darkness, where evil and violence thrive, and good people are in short supply.
All of the crusading reporters have withered and fallen, replaced by corporate automatons who regurgitate partisan pablum.

"News is expensive," a colleague of mine said. We generate no revenue and only absorb a newspaper's cost. Why then call it a newspaper? Why not just run press releases and not have investigative reporters look into the workings of our government? Why not outsource your editorial staff to India like some newspapers are doing?

Americans lambaste the "lamestream media," yet don't understand why corporate media has under-served them. The 24-hour news cycle and cable news networks are only interested in breaking the story as fast as possible and about boosting their ratings, instead of taking time to develop stories and producing accurate information.

The people don't want information that challenges their long-standing prejudices: they want punditry. They want someone who agrees with them to tell them what they already believe. Not what's accurate or real, but what they believe.

This is the dangerous slope this country is sliding down. We're living through Plato's Allegory of the Cave, where America is forced to watch the shadows and mistake them for real people. And we fucking love those shadows. We drink those shadows up because to us, they confirm everything we want them to confirm about America's greatness in the world, about Republicans, about Democrats, about conservatives, about liberals and about anything we hold dear and sacred to us.

In Paddy Chayefsky's film "Network," Peter Finch plays Howard Beale, who, as the "Mad Prophet of the Airwaves," rants of television's power to dilute what is real and imaginary: "You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and your own lives are unreal! You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! We are the illusion!"

Now America labors under smoke and mirrors, a perpetual puppet show of lies and deception, where the mighty pulverize the weak all to maintain some semblance of civilization.

The intelligent are ridiculed, the spiritual are branded as fruitcakes, and those offering facts are called "the bottom of the barrel in terms of honorable and trustworthy human beings."

I've figured out this country all wrong. It's about money and hurting people. It's about selfishness and greed. It's about attacking others with the tenacity of a hundred pitbulls and latching your jaws around the throats of those who deserve it.

It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm feeling hungry.

Days of Gloom and Sorrow

2010-10-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

INT – OVAL OFFICE – DAY
PRESIDENT OBAMA is slumped at his desk in the Oval Office, which is cluttered with papers, binders, empty cigarette cartons and discarded McDonalds’ wrappers. He appears exasperated, and rubs his brow feverishly. A pile of cigarette butts fills an ashtray on the desk.
VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN enters, carrying a six-pack of beer.

BIDEN
Hey, POTUS! What’s up? (beat) Man, you look really down!

OBAMA
Have you seen these poll numbers? Our party is going to get chewed up this year! Republicans are predicted to get the House and maybe the Senate. My mandate is over, Joe. I’ve failed.

BIDEN
Is that all? Hell, that’s nothing! The president’s party always loses the mid-term elections. Want a beer?

OBAMA
No thanks. I want to take this defeat sober.

BIDEN
Suit yourself, Barry!

(Biden pops open a beer and deftly chugs it like a frat boy. He crushes the empty can against his forehead and emits a deafening belch. Biden pauses to gauge Obama’s stony reaction.)

Say, you are really worried! Look, Barry, you shouldn’t fret about this. Maybe we can go out and grab a few cheeseburgers after the election or something. I know how you like stuffing yourself with junk food.

OBAMA
Sorry, Joe, but a Ray’s Hell Burger with mustard and brie isn’t going to cut it this time. I’m really in a funk. The American people just don’t understand that I’m trying to help them. I was handed this crappy economy and this war.

BIDEN
It just ain’t fair, champ.

OBAMA
Tell me about it! The rise of the Tea Party movement put the kibosh on my plans. They refer to me as an elitist, as if studying hard and moving up the social echelons are bad things. Having media whores like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck calling me a socialist is one thing, but when an army of unwashed, angry Americans waving the flag and dressing like colonial soldiers does it, it’s an epidemic. Sure, they hate me because I’m an intelligent black man with power, but the socialist label really hurt.

BIDEN
Well, those negative labels stuck.

OBAMA
Right! How did that happen? Did they seriously want the auto industry to fail? Did they want massive unemployment? Now the independents are sick of me, and they’re the ones who put my over the top in 2008.

BIDEN
What a difference two years makes.

OBAMA
I’ve got Democrats fighting each other and resisting me. I mean, the health care bill wasn’t perfect, but it was better than what we had.

BIDEN
Sir, you tried doing too much too soon. Fixing health care right away? We should’ve gone after the economy. Gotten those pissed off people jobs. Worked better with the Republicans instead of blathering about bipartisanship. We also should’ve cut Pelosi and Reid loose. Gotten some new blood in there.

OBAMA
I still can’t look at Pelosi without flinching.

BIDEN
Yeah, that broad creeps me out, too.

(Obama lights another cigarette and inhales deeply. He puffs out smoke rings that hover over the Oval Office like a carcinogenic nimbus.)

OBAMA
Hear about the Democrat running for governor in Rhode Island? Frank Caprio? Told the press because I didn’t endorse him that I could shove it.

BIDEN
That fucking ungrateful prick! Want me to go up there and rough him up? I’ll do it. Just tell me! I’ll nail him to a tree in Woonsocket.

OBAMA
I don’t think that would be a good headline: “Vice President mauls gubernatorial candidate.” Besides, violence is what the other side does.

BIDEN
With all due respect, sir, the other side is winning.

OBAMA
Don’t remind me. They depict me as some effete Ivy League intellectual who’s out of touch with their suffering. I mean, I play basketball! I eat cheeseburgers! I smoke! That’s not folksy enough for them? What should I do next, grow a mullet and ride a Harley?

BIDEN
That would probably help…

OBAMA
What?

BIDEN
The people are pissed off, sir. They’re angry because the country is changing and they need someone to blame.

OBAMA
If I hear anyone else say they want to take their country back, I’m going to go all Samuel L. Jackson on their asses.

BIDEN
The Tea Party activists don’t merely disagree with your policies. They hate you personally. This isn’t a land of clear-thinking, rational adults anymore. It’s a morass of 24-hour news stations, insane talk show hosts and superstitious religious fundamentalists who believe you’re literally the antichrist.

OBAMA
I could deal with crazy. Logic always trumps hollow rhetoric.

BIDEN
Not this time, sir. This time, the crazies will take over the asylum. Democrats will be the new endangered species. Now people want hollow rhetoric. When they’re told what to think, they won’t bother questioning anything.

OBAMA
I think I’ll have that beer, Joe.

(Biden gives Obama a beer. Obama pops the can and takes a few tentative sips, his face wincing.)

Domestic beer? Really, Joe?

BIDEN
Sorry, sir, but we were all out of that expensive imported Dutch stuff you drink out of a solid gold stein.

OBAMA
I guess this'll do. (beat) Am I really that out of touch and unlikable?

BIDEN
Your approval rating is at 37 percent. That’s not too shabby.

OBAMA
That’s abysmal!

BIDEN
Okay, it’s pretty awful. Sir, we might lose the Senate as well. There’s this goofy girl named Christine O’Donnell running for Senate in my home state. She’s a Tea Party Republican who doesn’t understand the First Amendment and believes God selected her to run for office.

OBAMA
That’s pretty funny. She doesn’t stand a chance!

BIDEN
Sir, if she gets in, she’ll be Sarah Palin’s running mate in 2012. She’s got all the qualifications the Tea Party Republicans want.

(Dejected, Obama sips more beer.)

OBAMA
I think I’ll have Zoloft for dinner tonight.

BIDEN
Come on, sir! Don’t be sad! Just look on the bright side!

OBAMA
What bright side? My party is going to lose big and voters are turning against us in droves! We’re no closer to solving any of the problems I set out to conquer! Even worse than that, Michelle is withholding the goodies from me.

BIDEN
Uh, goodies?

OBAMA
Sex, Joe. She’s withholding sex. Today there's less sexual activity in the White House than since the time of James Buchanan.

BIDEN
Oh, because he was a bachelor? Ha! Damn, sir! You are clever! See, this is the side of you America doesn’t see. They’re too busy seeing the intellectual, uptight and whiny side of you.

(Obama finishes the beer. He rubs out his cigarette.)

OBAMA
Guess it’s time to face the music, Joe.

BIDEN
If it makes you feel any better, a lot of one-term presidents have gone on to lead prosperous, healthy lives. Take Carter, for instance.

OBAMA
I don’t think I'd be comfortable with a hardhat and a hammer building low-income housing. Nor would I care to negotiate peace agreements between the Palestinians and Israelis.

BIDEN
If you don't make it in 2012, I mean, if the people really turn against you, what would you do?

OBAMA
I could see myself as a law professor at Harvard. Maybe Yale.

BIDEN
I’m beginning to understand why the public hasn’t latched onto you, sir.

OBAMA
Pardon?

BIDEN
Have another beer, Barry. It’s going to be a long night…

Fundamentalists Rising

2010-10-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

This is NOT the line to the Justin Bieber concert.

When I was in my early 20s, I corresponded with a group of Armenian intellectuals, which included writers in California, New Hampshire and Canada, and an educator in Holland. We’d write letters about politics, culture and current events and share our own unique perspectives in a passionate albeit wry way, with the consensus that the powers that be are letting the planet fall to shit.

Recently, I was rummaging around my old steamer trunk and found a box filled with letters from those halcyon days, when the written word carried more weight and correspondence was more than a few hastily typed characters texted over cellphones.

In the summer of 1993, I attended an expository writing program at Harvard University and lived with relatives in Watertown, Mass. The letters I received from my pen pals kept me engaged and thinking about current topics and issues and pushed me towards critical writing.

During my recent excursion to the steamer trunk, I unearthed one of the letters, whose subject matter always stayed with me, particularly after the terrible events of 9/11.

The letter, dated June 20, 1993, was from Stephan, a teacher in the Netherlands, who wrote about the influx of Muslims into Europe:

“I used to articulate thoughts like yours about the brotherhood of man, survival, monsoons, earthquakes, ‘in the long run we are all dead’, etc. What is at stake is culture. Any culture, say the Dutch culture which took 1000s of years to evolve. If one does not protect it, it can become endangered and disappear in a 1000 days. That is the issue. In a sense the Dutch culture, like the American culture is self destructing. It is weakening with corruption and apathy, while other cultures are becoming more militant and threatening to replace it. According to one research, in the last 10 years the number of Dutch churches has been reduced by 8%. At the same time there was a 5 fold increase in the number of mosques in this country. In Britain the Moslems have set up an Islamic Parliament. In Pakistan, there isn’t a single church, because all planning permissions for the construction of churches are denied! A similar policy is to be found in Turkey. If you lived in Europe, you would feel this. I am not a xenophobe, or a racist, but the growing menace of militant fundamentalist Islam worries me and many people like me. If we are not careful, Paris could become another Istanbul in a 100 years, or less. At this moment two people out of every five in Paris are Moslems. Their plan is to turn the whole world into an Islamic planet. We must not sleep walk into such a hell. Early action is called for. Already there is a growing spread of female circumcision in Africa. Have a great summer and write soon!”

Two things: I find it prophetic that the concern over the rise of Islamic fundamentalism happened nine years before 9/11, an attack perpetrated by Muslim terrorists. Secondly, one should never end a letter with references to female circumcision and wish someone a happy summer.

“Have fun thinking about mutilated vagina while you’re on the beach!”

But I digress.

The cri de Coeur against the mosque in lower Manhattan, the claim that President Obama is a Muslim from Kenya, and the skittishness of anyone on an airplane who is brown and wearing a headscarf is based upon the West’s uneasiness with Islam.
My friend wrote this letter because he saw that what was occurring in Europe was a harbinger of things to come. Now I’m not saying all Muslims are terrorists. I’ll save that for the Fox News commentators. I am saying that militant Islamic fundamentalists are the problem.

In August I blogged about the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” and how Americans shouldn’t rush to judgment and allow the Islamic center at Park 51 to be built. I stand by my assertions that Park 51 will not harbor an American chapter of Al-Qaeda, but I do understand the concerns many have regarding the proliferation of Islam, especially those adherents who believe Islam is the only way and everyone else should be exterminated.

Unlike those who are behind Park 51, who desire to develop a dialog with those of different faiths, fundamentalist Islam is determined to wreak havoc upon America. They don’t want us dead because “they’re jealous of our freedoms”. They want us dead because we’re infidels. We’re the wicked country where women go to school, porn and pork are popular and we’re not mandated to kowtow to anyone.

The brand of fundamentalist Islam propagated by the Taliban has no problem with treating their women like animals or decapitating their criminals or marrying children. It might not be PC to criticize other cultures or beliefs, but when you’re operating from a fucked up 7th century worldview that’s mired in overzealous religious dogma incapable of expressing forgiveness or preaching tolerance, you deserve a little scrutiny. Recalcitrant in their attitudes and barbaric in their application of the law, they make life in rural Alabama seem liberal by comparison.

But it’s the use of violence to prove that their God is supreme that sets them apart from everyone else on the planet.
Christianity went through a gloomy phase of death and mayhem called the Dark Ages, but it’s the 21st century. Civilizations should have evolved from a medieval mindset.

Apparently, not everyone got that memo. If you can talk a child into strapping explosives to his chest and taking several innocent lives, then that’s some pretty hardcore shit. We’re dealing with an enemy who doesn’t care about dying, and even welcomes the martyrdom because it brings his family prestige and riches.

This week Muslim insurgents attacked the parliament in Chechnya and killed six people. In September, a suicide bomber in Pakistan crashed into a police station, which killed 11 policemen and four children and wounded 40 others.

These are not random, freak events. They’re business as usual for fundamentalists who’ve declared jihad on what they see as a threat to their way of life and the encroachment of the “decadent West.”

Many in the West are worried about Islam’s proliferation and influence.

National Public Radio recently fired news analyst Juan Williams because of comments he made to Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News Channel about Muslims.

Williams said, “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country… But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

NPR clarified that Williams was fired because his remarks didn’t meet their editorial standards and practices, and that his credibility was “undermined.”

Well, of course it was. He was talking to Bill O’Reilly.

What standards and practices does NPR have? Not being complementary enough after the goateed intern in the Che Guevara T-shirt delivers your herbal tea?

If one delves into Williams’ comments, they do reveal something profoundly important about many Americans: Muslims, whether they’re terrorists or law-abiding citizens, scare the living shit out of us.

Why? I guess after 9/11, the beheadings, the threats made to cartoonists over the depiction of Muhammad and the fact that Islamic fundamentalists would be right at home with serial killers, genocidal madmen and history’s most depraved and bloodthirsty butchers kind of makes us Yanks nervous.

What of Europe’s dealings with Islam? In France, wearing a burqa is illegal. French lawmakers this year overwhelmingly passed the burqa ban because the Muslim garb “constitutes a threat to our society,” according to Jean-Francois Cope, leader President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, the Union for a Popular Movement.

After that, the falafel hit the fan and the protests began.

Other European countries are also viewing Islam’s rise as a threat. Part of this is based on xenophobia and part on the connection between fundamental Islam and violence.

If Muslims are tired of the West portraying their faith as one of barbarism and terrorism, then they should step up and condemn Al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Taliban and any faction or group that uses the teachings of the Koran to enslave or kill.
I know Muslims view the Koran as the literal, unbreakable word of God and their own practices reflect a submission to God. Going against the Koran for Muslims means going against God.

But there’s got to be some understanding that Islam shares the planet with others who don’t view their religion as the absolute way. It’s up to Muslims who are tired of being lumped into the murderous rabble of Islamic fundamentalism to stand up and show they’re not afraid of any repercussions from the crazies in their own religion.

This struggle is not about cultural differences and we can’t, as one local hippy put it, try to “understand our enemies”. Joining hands with the Taliban and singing “Kumbaya” around a campfire won’t stop the bloodshed in the Middle East or change the way the terrorists feel about the West.

Constitutionally Dumb

2010-10-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

In a recent debate at Widener University between with Delaware Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons and Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell, something bizarre happened.

When Coons clarified that the concept was found in the First Amendment, O’Donnell asked incredulously, “Are you telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”

Not wanting to make his candidate sound like a complete valley girl dipshit, Matt Moran, O’Donnell’s campaign manager responded, “Christine O’Donnell was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as subsequently established by the courts. She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution. It was in fact Chris Coons who demonstrated his Constitutional ignorance when he could not name the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment.”

Really? Because I saw the video and Coons wasn’t queried on the freedoms contained in the First Amendment, nor was O'Donnell making any point. They were talking of the rights of local communities to teach intelligent design in public schools. Coons said schools should teach “broadly accepted scientific fact.” After that, everything took a swift detour to Did-She-Really-Fucking-Say-That Land. Here’s the transcript:

O’DONNELL: The theory of evolution is not a fact, it is a theory, and that theory, if local school districts want to give that theory equal credence to intelligent design it is their right. You are saying it is not their right. That is what has gotten our country into this position, the over-reaching arm of the federal government getting into the business of the local communities. The Supreme Court has always said it is up to the local communities to decide their standards. The reason we’re in the mess we’re in is because our so-called leaders in Washington no longer view the indispensible principles of our founding as truly that – indispensible.

COONS: And one of those indispensible principles is the separation of church and state.

O’DONNELL: Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?

(horrifying gasp, guffaws and a hundred whisperers tittering how stupid O’Donnell is)

Wilmington News Journal reporter Chad Livengood asked O’Donnell if she agreed with repealing the 14th, 16th and 17th amendments.

“17th amendment I would not repeal. That’s the amendment that puts the power to, for the state government to determine who represents you in Washington. I support that. I support the free election process of that,” O’Donnell said.

The 17th Amendment establishes the direct election of two Senators from each state by the people, instead of the state legislatures, which was originally defined in Article I.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring my Constitution with me. Fortunately senators don’t have to memorize the Constitution,” O’Donnell said, as the rotting cadavers of the original 39 signers of the Constitution simultaneously rolled over in their graves.

It used to be that the best and the brightest ran for public office, that the citizens could look to their leaders in times of strife and unrest and be comforted that the nation’s Congress will find solutions to any insurmountable task though their competent intellectual abilities. Yet after hearing Christine O’Donnell at this debate I’m ready to build a fallout shelter in the back yard because if she gets elected, America will resemble a nightmarish post-apocalyptic wasteland that would make “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” seem like Disneyland.

But soft! Let us once again hither into the laudanum-inspired dream world of Christine O’Donnell:

COONS: I also think you’ve just heard in the answers from my opponent and in her attempt at saying ‘where is the separation of church and state in the Constitution’ reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is, how it is amended and how it evolves. The First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish any religion and decisional law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades clarifies and enshrines…

O’DONNELL: The First Amendment does?

COONS: …clarifies and enshrines that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and our laws must respect.

O’DONNELL: So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?

COONS: It is important for us in modern times to apply the Constitution in my view as it exists today and as it’s been interpreted by our justices. And if there are settled pieces of Constitutional law like the separation of church and state, like the individual right to reproductive freedom that Roe vs. Wade represents, that we’ve lived with and have lived under for decades. In my view, it is important to know whether you have on my side a candidate who believes and supports those things and on the other side, a candidate who’s both unfamiliar with…

O’DONNELL: Let me just clarify. You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?

COONS: ‘Government shall make no establishment of religion.’

O’DONNELL: That’s in the First Amendment?

Oh, Christine. Why are the pretty ones so dumb? If you hope to garner any support from rational, sensible Delawarians…Delawarans? Delawarlocks? Whatever your constituents are called. If you desire their admiration and respect, for once put down the Bible and pick up the Constitution. Better yet, go to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. It’s a wonderful place dedicated to teaching citizens about the U.S. Constitution. There are many interpretive exhibits and experts who could walk you through it, amendment by amendment and you won’t feel stupid for revealing your naiveté. They even have pocket-sized copies of the Constitution you could take with you to your next debate.

But Christine, please, learn about the laws of the country before you decide to run for office.

It’s obvious that you’re constitutionally retarded and it showed when Coons schooled you on the First Amendment.

For your clarification, here’s some shocking shit you Christians won’t believe about the Constitution.

You know when the president takes the Oath of Office and finishes it with “So help me God?” Guess what’s not in the Constitution? That’s right! The presidential oath found in Article II, Section 1 does not mention “So help me God” at all.

If you thought the Constitution was a Christian document and the United States a Christian country, then you’re mistaken, because the Founding Fathers you feverishly dry-hump in your mind didn’t want to make a big to-do about religion in public life. Article VI states that Senators, Representatives, members of state Legislatures and judicial offices shall be bound by oath to support the Constitution, “but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

While this guarantees no favoritism or preferences of certain religions, to the many devout fundamentalist Christians who claim America is God’s favorite nation, this part of the Constitution makes baby Jesus cry sorrowful tears.

Even though the First Amendment doesn’t contain the exact words “separation of church and state,” the meaning is clear, and has been backed up by the courts and is recognized as legal to anyone with a functional brain who doesn’t believe touching your pee-pee parts will send you to Hell.

Christine O’Donnell’s latest cringe-inducing foray into the Constitution is another example of how politics has been tainted with ignorance, and reveals who the teabaggers really are: anti-intellectual robots who shout at the top of their lungs at just how patriotic they are, without having the slightest clue about the laws granting them the very freedoms they so espouse and claim are threatened from a mulatto Muslim president.

Christine, you’re not me. I actually know the Constitution.

Starsucks

2010-10-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

I fucking hate Starbucks.

The Seattle, Wash.-based coffee company and I are at odds recently because I have a thing for its pumpkin spice latte, the quintessential autumnal beverage. I entered the Starbucks in my local strip mall today and told the barista, a jaded 23-year old who, when he’s not serving hot coffee is probably into The Cure or cutting his wrists, that I’d like a medium pumpkin spice latte, which costs $4.75. After I drank this concoction, which is far from the tasty treat I envisioned in my daydreams, it repaid me by giving me orange diarrhea.

That’s why Starbucks can go fuck itself raw with an un-lubed giant rubber dong. The company is an enormous octopus with massive tentacles that encircle the planet and squeezes the life out of everything good and just.

Its pricing is way off the mark for the crappy, bitter coffee it serves.

If you don’t think that Starbucks is not a pretentious yuppie hellhole, then check out its cup sizes. Instead of small, medium and large, Starbucks suggests - no, demands – that the sizes are Tall (12 oz.), Grande (16 oz.) and Venti (20 oz.). Three different languages for cup sizes and they all mean the same thing. If you order a Tall, you get the smallest size. Shouldn’t Tall be the biggest size? In the strange realm of Starbucks, where logic takes a back seat and tells you to suspend your disbelief, the Italian Venti is the largest size, while the Spanish Grande is medium. Whose bright idea was this? What kind of strange conditioning experiment is going on here? I’m not calling the small drink the Tall drink. That’s why I defiantly call the drinks small, medium and large. When I wanted a medium drink, I’m not saying Grande. The only time I say Grande is when I’m ordering Mexican food.

Starbucks spreads like a virus across the globe, pushing its inflated prices and snobbishness in 17,000 locations worldwide, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Russia, Germany, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi Arabians don’t hate us infidels enough, we dumped Starbucks on their doorstep.

Starbucks builds Starbucks next to Starbucks. Some shopping centers have two Starbucks in them, right across from each other. This over-saturation has led to amusement and resentment by some, who see the coffee giant as being an omnipresent juggernaut squeezing out stores that just serve coffee without the Starbucks aura behind it.

The Starbucks mermaid logo is smiling because the salty broad has our money and she’s going on a shopping excursion to Bloomingdales. Finding a dress to fit those dual fish tails isn’t going to be cheap. As long as we’re paying nearly $5 for lattes and not screaming highway robbery, we’re enabling Starbucks to continue to inflate their prices for a sub-standard product.

The problem with Starbucks is that it invented its own culture of liberal activism mingled with unbridled capitalism. It’s designed to siphon every last dollar out of its customers by hooking them with liberal guilt of suffering, poverty and environmental degradation, while cajoling you to buy expensive shitty coffee. If they can’t ensnare you with its caffeine-laden toxic sludge from some dirty Third World country, then you can buy Ethos water at $1.80 per bottle. Don’t worry because every purchase contributes 10 cents to helping children in impoverished areas get access to water.

Starbucks’ pretentious business and political standards seeks to drive out anyone who doesn’t vote for Democrats or makes over $65,000 a year. Hollywood screenwriters sit in Starbucks and type on their laptops as they slam down Sumatra coffee, which helps them hammer out another mediocre piece of tripe they can option at Mirimax. The fat middle aged bastard in glasses and an L.L. Bean jacket relaxes on an overstuffed chair and reads The New York Times and gingerly sips his Tazo tea like a prissy school girl, as a Bob Dylan tribute band plays over the speakers, daring anyone within earshot to purchase the CD on their way out. The place has an intolerable feel of a San Francisco coffee house. The only thing that’s missing are the bad poetry readings by a scruffy-haired beatnik who accidentally soils his dungarees because of a sudden acid freakout.

Every time we visit Starbucks we have to tolerate these urbane metrosexuals cuing up for a mocchachino or an Ethiopian select blend with a dash of steamed milk they gulp down on the way to their jobs as architects, public relations executives or members of the Obama Administration. And if you order the pumpkin spice latte and make a donation to the Peace Corps, you get a free Rwandan child with your drink.

In a way, Starbucks has a brilliant corporate model. By expanding at a breakneck pace, it can gobble up the remaining coffee retail market until it stands as the world’s only coffee source. And by cornering the market, they can charge the public outlandish amounts for their coffee. In the future, Starbucks will rule the entire world, and generations will be born not knowing coffee that doesn’t taste like it came out of a buffalo’s anus.

This trend must stop. We must say no to Starbucks and make them see the error of their ways. The shallow activism that whines at us to recycle but whose own cups can’t be recycled because they contain a plastic inner coating. The irritating marriage of selling CDs and Starbucks-related products, which only makes me resent them even more as money-grubbing hustlers peddling more than coffee beans. The inflated prices that make people drain their bank accounts to pay for something they could get for far cheaper at Dunkin’ Donuts or Wawa Food Markets and at a better quality. Dunkin’ Donuts’ might not charge $5 a cup or their coffee beans might not by picked by Ecuadorian peasants, but it’s a damn good cup of java.

For Starbucks to be taken seriously, it has to act like a company that cares about delivering good coffee at reasonable prices. Dropping the attitude that it’s a savior to the environment and helper of mankind while acting like greedy 19th century robber barons may be a good start.

And who knows? Maybe in the future I’ll walk into a Starbucks again and buy a latte that doesn’t cost like it was made from the breast milk of Balinese virgins and served in a solid gold cup adorned with rubies and sapphires. Until then, I’m reticent to enter a Starbucks, and will get my cup o’ Joe at a place where I’m not inclined to help the starving coffee growers of Peru or buy a Sheryl Crow CD.

I just want good coffee and no schmaltzy gimmicks.

The Wild Bunch

2010-10-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

Can you feel it, America? The scent of smoke in the air, the roaring sound of many Harleys belching a defying growl as tires skid along the hot asphalt and hands grip the throttles and engines are revving into a cacophonous din that blots out all meaningful discourse? Can you see them riding in the distance, growing nearer and nearer with each passing second, hugging the curves and barreling like screaming demons across the Mojave Desert, through the cultivated Kansas plains, up the clogged highways of the Northeast?

Who are these nomads and mavericks, these people who flaunt all convention and rules, who cause liberals to spit out their organic tofu in droves?

They’re the bumper crop of Tea Party Republicans that will trash Washington, kick ass and bring the well-heeled establishment to its knees.

These lone wolves are determined to get your vote because they’re on a mission, just like the Founding Fathers. They want the entrenched politicians in Washington to go so that they, the Tea Party Republicans, could do the people’s work.

Less government!

Less taxes!

Less intelligence!

Well, the less government and less taxes part is sensible, but what of the third accusation? Are these candidates, who purport to know the Common Man to the point of sharing beers and sliders at a blue collar watering hole, not that bright?

In recent weeks, the media has focused on dumb and insensitive things Republican candidates across the country are saying or have said. Why do the Democrats get a pass? Don’t Democrats utter ridiculous and controversial statements? Is the liberal media protecting their kindred spirits? Actually, no. Democrats are pathetic and mild and don’t make a habit of espousing crazy bullshit, unless it’s Joe Biden.

When Biden hits the sauce, it’s comedy gold quote time.

With all their hostile rhetoric and take-charge attitude, what do these furious and flustered gang of teabagger upstart candidates have in store for America?

Former Nevada state assemblywoman and current Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle thinks Muslims are imposing Sharia law in Dearborn, Mich., a city with a large Muslim population. It doesn’t matter that her statement was untrue. What matters is the implication; that Muslims want to impose their own sacred laws in secular America. So who cares if Angle and other uber-conservatives want to force prayer in public schools and put the Ten Commandments in courthouses?

Angle also wants to ban same sex marriage, eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and nix abortion including in the cases of rape and incest. Now I understand she’s following the GOP’s hard-right playbook by doing away with gay marriage and public funding for education. Gays and learnin’ are America’s downfall, after all. But her position on abortion is practically medieval. So if a woman gets gangbanged by her father and uncle, she has to give birth. Why? According to Angle, it’s all part of “God’s plan.” If you really think that if there’s a benevolent spiritual force in the universe that it would want women to be raped and sexually violated by immediate family, then our religious differences diverge dramatically.

Rich Iott, the Tea Party Republican running for Congress in Ohio’s 9th District had an unusual hobby. Iott donned a German Waffen SS uniform and reenacted battles as part of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, a real unit that fought the Russian Army in the Eastern Front during World War II. When questioned about his apparent Nazi fetish, Iott shrugged it off as harmless fun, saying the 5th SS Panzer Division fought Communists. Iott completely glossed over the fact that those same soldiers committed atrocities, including the murder of Hungarian Jews. I wonder if he and his slapnuts buddies ever reenacted that...

So a clueless dolt and his friends like dressed up like Nazis and reenacted episodes of Hogan’s Heroes. Iott isn’t the only Tea Party Republican to have bizarre interests. Take Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, who purported to have “dabbled in witchcraft” in high school.

O’Donnell downplayed the allegations from a 1999 “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher” clip, but brought up the issue in a campaign ad, claiming that she wasn’t a witch. O’Donnell is trying to distance herself from her past appearances on Maher’s show, where, with poofy big hair and a bubblegum innocence, she claimed that evolution was a myth because monkeys were not continuing to evolve.

When a former O’Donnell staffer came out as gay, he said O’Donnell ostracized him. Of course gay bashing is O’Donnell’s modus operandi. In her primary race with Mike Castle, she inferred to him as gay, saying that he used “unmanly tactics” and told him to “put his man-pants on.”

When New York gubernatorial candidate Republican Carl Paladino isn’t e-mailing colleagues pictures of women blowing horses or a video labeled “Obama’s Inauguration Rehearsal” that shows dancing African tribesmen, he’s also bashing the queers.

Paladino said, “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual,” and criticized his Democratic opponent Andrew Cuomo for marching in New York City’s gay pride parade, saying it was “not the example that we should be showing our children.”

Right, so racist and sexually explicit e-mail sent to friends is the perfect example for your children, like if your son doesn’t see daddy rubbing one out to “Horse Suckers Volume 8” he might not glean that pornography is cool and could turn into one of those limp-wristed sissies.

Asked about the content of those e-mails, Paladino retorted, “I’m not politically correct and have never been. I’m not perfect. But if the worst I ever did was send out some non-politically correct e-mails, my God.”

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is being chastised for comments he made in 2004 when he said openly gay people and single mothers shouldn’t teach in public schools.

DeMint’s reaction to the criticism was, “(When I said those things) no one came to my defense, but everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn’t back down. They don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.”

Does this entire party needs sensitivity training? It’s like a mothership landed in the Midwest and dropped off these bizzaro aliens bereft of empathy and personality, who joined the GOP and launched campaigns as anti-establishment candidates.
It’s difficult for people to have sympathy for you and believe you’re a victim when you act like a bully, and that’s exactly what these loose cannons are.

I’m sure none of these dullards are moved by the recent spate of suicides occurring throughout the country of young people who were bullied or teased about their sexuality or just because they were different. Not O’Donnell, DeMint, Angle, Paladino or Iott really give a wet flying fuck that kids like Asher Brown, 13, Seth Walsh, 13, Justin Aaberg, 15, Billy Lucas, 15, and Tyler Clementi, 18, all killed themselves due to purported anti-gay bullying.

What’s being played in the political arena is carrying over to the schools with disturbing results. The bullies call gays weak, ostracize them and say that they’re not normal and are abominations in the eyes of God.

They claim that homosexuality is an immoral “lifestyle choice”, that they’re troublemakers and are different from you and I. And what they want – the right to marry and serve openly in the military – we won’t give them.

I’m all for freedom of speech, and I’m all for assclown candidates saying whatever outlandish shit they want, but this anti-gay crusade based on some highbrow morality has got to go. Yes, in the Old Testament homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also says that eating shellfish is bad, owning slaves is okay and marrying 11-year old virgins was how ancient God-fearing men spent their summer holidays.

Yet these Tea Party moralists cloak themselves under the veil of religion and bleat about “the gay agenda” as if a clandestine group of queers in a Greenwich Village apartment and a condo in San Francisco’s Castro district are planning a nationwide conversion of all heterosexuals. Like some gay Al Qaeda – Al Queera - would creep into our apartments at night and whisper gay thoughts into our ears as we sleep and in the morning, we’d all be strangely inclined to redecorate our living rooms and drink mimosas.

The only political voice of reason I’ve heard this year was Joel Burns, an openly gay Democratic councilman from Fort Worth, Texas who gave an impassioned speech from the dais describing his own struggles in his youth with bullying over his sexual identity.

He recounted the incidents of teen suicide from anti-gay bullying and told those young people battling this inner war of sexuality and sadness to not surrender to despair.

“I know that life can seem unbearable. I know that people in your household or in your school may not understand you and they may even physically harm you, but I want you to know that it gets better,” Burns said.

Burns related his own experiences with harassment by other students who called himself a “faggot” and said that he would be punished in hell.

“To those feeling very alone tonight, please understand that I know how you feel, but things will get easier. Please stick around to make those happy memories for yourself,” Burns said. “The attitudes of society will change. Please live long enough to see it.”

Of all the petty-minded, nonsensical bullshit spewed from suit-wearing hypocritical holy-rollers and sign-waving yahoos this year, of all the division and spiteful rhetoric, it’s refreshing to hear Burns’s speech. It was emotional, healing and compassionate, and didn’t rely on the scapegoating of race, class, gender or sexual orientation as the root of society’s evils.

It’s about time we heard a message of unity and kindness instead of the cackling voices preaching division and ignorance from Jesus freaks, Nazi re-enactors and sunshine patriots.

The Necessary Insanity

2010-10-03T19:35:00.001-07:00

I know for the past few weeks I've been getting political on this blog. The election season does that to me. As a reporter, I have to be wired into the current political climate. Believe me, if I didn't have to do this for my job, I'd be off pursuing other goals, like sipping Bordeaux with a hearty mutton dinner or cross-country skiing down an Alpine mountain or trying to nail one of the Olson Twins. Either Mary-Kate or Ashley, I don't care. I'm not that fussy when it comes to celebrity concubines.

Politics is a necessary insanity for my job. I must delve into its murky, often toxic waters if I am to get a story. In so doing, a reporter mustn't wade gently at the shallow end, but rather, hold their breath and plunge into its deepest depths in order to extract the real essence of a candidate, which usually is insecurity mixed with narcissism. Oftentimes, one drowns in rivers of diarrhea the candidates spew in the form of inane hyperbole and trite verbiage that would make any sane person want to flee the room out of frustration and hide under a rock in Outer Mongolia.

Yet the jargon and rhetoric flowing from candidates during a contentious election year is especially polarizing. How do we keep track of the real, substantive issues? Too often the core ideas are lost or not present at all, and we're left with amorphous, half-baked concepts that don't really serve to generate dialog or debate. In fact, candidates want fewer debates because that usually means fewer errors or verbal gaffes. For us in the media covering politics, trying to pull a logical or reasoned argument from a candidate or making them clarify one of their controversial statements is like attempting to swim the English Channel with a piano strapped to your back: impossible and utterly useless.

Instead of addressing the people's concerns, we get partisan attacks and no substance. Gone are the visionaries and charismatic orators. Now we're left with schoolyard bullying and sophomoric utterances that make one want to punch a kitten. The people need candidates with concrete ideas and real solutions who articulate well and who aren't afraid of responding to challenges.

I think candidates should say the following:

1. Admit America is screwed up. Don't assign blame. Both parties fucked this country over tenfold. Greed and love of money did, also. If we've lost our way, it's because we took our eye off the ball and ignored the things that really mattered. We neglected our infrastructure, working poor and children. That's why we have crumbling bridges, a rise in unemployment and kids that bring Uzis to school.

2. Promise to destroy the pay-to-play system and Washington lobbyists. Special interests have formed a stranglehold around the political process and created a culture of corruption.

3. Don't promise you won't raise taxes. Hey, shit happens, and it might happen on your watch. Where are you going to get the money from? A loan shark from Jersey? Sometimes you're going to have to bite the bullet and vote for a tax increase.

4. Candidates and politicians who talk about how sacred the U.S. Constitution is should actually try reading it. I don't mean peruse it, I mean read it; all 7 Articles and all 27 Amendments. Become familiar with one of the greatest documents every produced on American soil. Then and only then can you speak with some degree of authority on the Constitution.

5. Politicians should have the wisdom of Solomon, the intelligence of Ben Franklin and the humor of Abraham Lincoln.

6. All students should be taught mandatory civics, U.S. history and writing courses. They should know about their government, their nation's past and how to express themselves via the written word.

7. Make America a place where businesses can establish themselves, expand and thrive. Create incentives for businesses to compete globally with American-made goods that don't break in a fortnight.

8. Realize that government can't solve all problems. Sometimes government-run programs and initiatives are too bulky and cumbersome and result in mismanagement and inefficiency. Steam-lining and cutting are good, but newer managerial models that reduce waste and duplication and run effectively are better.

9. Conduct wars only when absolutely necessary, like when our national security is threatened or when one of our allies is attacked.

10. Do the people's business, not the party's business. Political parties were created to hold onto power and perpetuate this power for as long as possible, which in reality usually lasts every few election cycles. Candidates should realize who really put them in power: the voters and not the special interests. Money and political parties will corrupt candidates and politicians. With money, candidates will be persuaded how to vote. With political bosses, they'll be bluntly told how to vote. How is this serving the interest of the electorate? Where are the voices of the people?

One final thought and I'll get off my virtual soapbox. Power in America is not monolithic; it doesn’t flow from the top down like an orderly hierarchy that can be easily graphed and plotted. Politics is more like a hydra; a beast with several heads gnashing, hissing and howling for more blood, ravenously devouring all which then morphs into another snapping, hideous head. And the hungry jaws are coming for you, waiting to gobble you up and transform you into a drone who likes business as usual in America.

Unless the people rise from their apathetic slumber and demand more from their elected officials, unless they threaten to oust them if they don't do the people's business, nothing will ever change and the hydra will grow larger. Only a vigilant, civic-minded people who want a better America not through partisan bickering but through reasonable policies which strengthen our communities and nation economically, ethically and socially, can slay the hydra.

The Great Motel Room Massacre*

2010-10-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

* An excerpt from my upcoming book

The first time I saw Jacob White, I knew he was an asshole. The assertion wasn’t made through some fly-by-night intuition or vague hints about his imposing physical stature, brash mannerisms or crass denunciation of everything I revered and considered sacrosanct. Rather, it was a visceral reaction I felt upon our meeting.

When someone’s a born asshole whose sole intent is to cause as much misery and trouble, you automatically know it.

Such was the case with Jacob. He claimed to come from some small backwards Podunk Midwestern town and claimed to be the first in his family to have graduated college. Both were lies. Jacob was a conman, a professional liar who cared not a whit who he hurt or what lies he spun. Jacob existed only for Jacob.

That’s why I didn’t trust him when we met at a Motel 6 on Interstate 83 outside of York, Pa. one midsummer evening. He rented a room and smiled as he flung a suitcase on the bed. He then opened the case and beamed as the neatly stacked rows of $20 bills stared up at me, with several Andrew Jacksons peering from their Samsonite prison.

“I want you to expose Senator Patrick Hurley. Get the dirt on him. Dig up some shit. There’s a real story here,” Jacob said.
“What’s it to you?” I asked. “And where’s my bourbon? An unseemly job like this should be fueled with alcohol.”

“Senator Hurley is a naughty boy,” Jacob said, ignoring my request for libations. “Naughty boys get what’s coming to them.”

Tempting, I thought. All the fantasies I could make real with all that scratch would dwarf anything Caligula could’ve thought up in his wildest, wettest dreams.

Yet I’m a man of ethics, a consummate professional. I wouldn’t stoop to such debauched shenanigans.

“How much?” I asked.

“$5,000.”

“When do I start?”

“Now,” Jacob said, and slammed the suitcase shut. He grabbed one of those neatly-wrapped drinking glasses next to the ice bucket and put one end to his ear and the other to the wall.

“I hear them in the next room,” Jacob said, grinning like a jackal on LSD. “Frolicking away like dandy little pets.”

I took the remaining glass and also listened to the wall. Muffled talking, grunting and swearing filled my ear. It sounded like the last days of the Roman Empire in that room.

“Holy shit! What’s going on?”

“Hurley has a woman in there,” Jacob said. “That’s what I want you to dig up. You get your evidence and give me a good story, and I give you the cash.”

Without thinking, I smashed the glass over Jacob’s head.

“What kind of sick muckraker do you take me for? I have standards!” I shouted as Jacob fell back and clutched his bleeding scalp.

He reeled and swung at me, and the punch connected. I toppled a lamp, which shattered on the floor. I tasted blood in my mouth and grew enraged.

“You crazy bastard!” I yelled and hit him across the face with a Gideon’s Bible. The cartilage in his nose cracked and he bled profusely.

“My node! Whad did nu dood tood my node?” Jacob said, clutching his face.

I agreed to do my job and expose the philandering Senator Hurley’s nocturnal ramblings to a daft and ignorant public.

Summoning all my energy, I gathered my laptop, digital camera, a spiral notebook, a can of pepper spray, a Swiss Army knife and a rolled up newspaper and headed over to the neighboring room for an interview.

“I ting nu broke my node,” Jacob said.

“Shut up, fucktard,” I whispered. “I’m about to make contact with the subject. This is the most important stage of journalism. First impressions are critical and determine the entire outcome of whether you get the story or not.”

I lightly rapped on the motel room door and said in my best Spanish accent, “Housekeeping!”

When my attempt at impersonating a Mexican chambermaid failed, I resorted to tougher tactics. I ignored the “Do Not Disturb” sign and pounded on the door with all of my mortal might.

“Open up, Senator! This is the police!” I roared, as Jacob nearly pissed himself.

The door opened a hair and a woman peered out at us.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice as rough as gravel and as pungent as cigarettes.

I kicked the door in and it hit her in the face. As the half-naked hooker spun around, Jacob and I barged into the room, camera flashing and audio recording.

There was Patrick Hurley, staunch Democrat and two term United States Senator, on his knees in the bed, wearing only a leather thong and chewing a cherry red ballgag. When he saw us, his eyes widened like a frightened cat’s. Another hooker, who wore a strap-on the size of a gorilla cock was ready to mount him when we interrupted. The hooker who answered the door angrily grabbed a riding crop and started beating Jacob over the head.

“Senator! Just a moment of your time, please!” I cried as Hurley rolled over and tried covering himself with a severely stained blanket.

“This would be a better interview if you’d remove that thing from your mouth,” I suggested.

Hurley clamored for his pants, his portly, blubbery body rolling off the bed and hitting the floor with a sickly thud. He wriggled into a shirt and tried grasping his pants while the hooker in the strap-on darted out the door.

The other hooker continued to struggle with Jacob.

“Ask him about the girls!” Jacob suggested as the hooker continued laying punches into him and beating him with the crop. He tried defending himself but his swings missed.

“Senator, are these women constituents of yours?” I asked.

Hurley removed the ballgag. His face was crimson, half from anger and half from mortification.

“Get the hell out of here, now! Both of you!” he roared.

“Is this a bad time? We could reschedule,” I said.

Hurley clumsily put on his pants and lunged at me, but I sidestepped him.

“Dude, that’s brutality,” Jacob said as the hooker continued her slapping onslaught.

“You bastards! Who are you? I’ll kill the both of you!” Hurley raged.

“Senator, is this part of the stimulus package?’

Hurley lashed out and got me in a headlock.

“This is an invasion of my privacy!” Hurley shouted.

Suddenly, everybody froze when a naked man with a pierced penis and a thin mustache exited the bathroom.

“Pat, sweetums, what’s all the commotion?” the man said softly.

“It’s nothing Percy,” Hurley said, straightening up. I used the opportunity to escape from the headlock and backed away. Hurley wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a pair of soiled panties.

“Dude! A real homosexual gay man!” Jacob said. “Take a photo!”

Percy scowled and rushed towards Jacob and slapped him across the face.

“You bitch!” Percy seethed. “I’ll tear your fucking eyes out!”

I snapped a few good pictures before Hurley regained his senses and demanded that I cease. When I ignored him, he tried taking my camera from me.

“Stop that this instant!” Hurley said.

“I’m getting paid for this,” I said, shoving him. “I need to accurately portray what’s going on here. For posterity.”

Hurley looked frightened and began hyperventilating. Percy saw this and put a reassuring arm around him.

“Take it easy, sweetie,” Percy said. “Don’t excite yourself. You’ll get another panic attack.”

“Breathe into a bag or something,” Jacob said. “That usually helps.”

The hooker kicked Jacob squarely in the nuts and he fell to the floor, hitting his head on the bed in the process.

“I’ll fucking kill you bastards!” the hooker shrieked and rushed towards me, her sharp fingernails clawing the air.

Thinking fast, I whipped out the pepper spray and gave the hooker a full blast of hot liquid death. She recoiled backwards, howling wildly.

“MOTHERFUCKER! AAAAHHHHH! WHAAAAT THE FUUUCCCKK?” she yelped and rolled on the ground in anguish.

“Don’t worry,” I said in a lame attempt to reassure everyone. “It’s not fatal. She’ll be fine. Just push her around a little.”

Hurley stood astonished as Percy confronted me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the naked man asked.

When I didn’t respond, he made a fist and swung at me, but I was ready. I pulled the Swiss Army knife from my pocket and extended the sharp wire cutter out. The metal point connected with Percy’s fist. Now bleeding, Percy grasped his wounded hand.

“That’s it! I’m calling the police!” Hurley said and stepped toward the phone.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “It’s just a flesh wound. He’ll be okay. I’ll take care of it.”

I reached into the ice bucket for some ice, but all I found was a whiskey flask. I took the flask, opened it, and the strong smell of alcohol stung my nostrils.

“Alcohol is good for cuts, right?” I asked.

Percy tried protesting, but it was too late. I poured the whiskey into his wound and watched as the man screamed in agony.

“What did you do?” Hurley demanded.

I held up the flask and the senator looked crestfallen. Percy dropped to his knees and wept like a kid that’d been slapped by an enraged bull elephant.

“Look, I don’t see what the problem is. I just came in here for an interview. I want to probe the depths of your sex life. Like a series about the mating rituals of the United States Senate,” I said.

Hurley fumbled with his jacket, which was on a chair, and pulled out a handgun. His face contorted into a hateful stare as he pointed the weapon at me.

“You’ll do nothing!” he seethed as he stood across the room.

This wasn’t the first time someone pointed a gun at me, and I was getting used to this tiresome ritual. People like threatening others with violence and weapons, especially firearms. The senator’s Beretta didn’t frighten me, mostly because I had backed towards the door and would be out of the room in a matter of seconds. I only needed to say something pithy and distracting, which would lull the bastard into a false sense of security before I dashed out like a chicken on fire.

Yet it was not meant to be. Hurley squeezed the trigger and fired the gun. I thought I’d be a goner, but Jacob chose that moment to spring to his feet. The bullet, which was meant for me, winged Jacob in the arm and imbedded itself in the wall.
“Hey, dude. What’s up?” Jacob asked, the sting of the bullet not kicking in just then.

Hurley stood aghast as blood trickled down Jacob’s arm.

Jacob looked down and must have felt a rush of pain, because he grasped his bleeding arm and spit forth a stream of profanities.

“Oh fuckmotherfuckershitfuckshitfuckohGodshitfuck,” he said, and hopped around the room in pain.

Not looking where he was going, he tripped over the hooker, who was rubbing her tearing eyes, and then Percy, who was bleeding from the hand.

Hurley took another shot and the bullet slammed into my computer bag, striking my laptop.

Just then, like some brain hungry zombie from a movie about the walking dead, the hooker sprung up and grabbed my leg. I responded by slamming the computer bag on her head and knocking her out.

Crazed and desperate, Hurley moved towards me like a lumbering grizzly bear with a gun.

I repeatedly snapped his photo, and the flash temporarily blinded him. He shielded his face with his hands and accidentally kicked Percy, before taking a dive.

Luckily, I used his incapacitation to flee the motel room. I forgot about the suitcase filled with money and in a blind panic, darted towards my car. Hurley roared some obscenity as I started the ignition. When I drove the car at breakneck speed away from the motel and down Interstate 83, I briefly looked in the rearview mirror and thought I saw a bloated figure on the motel’s balcony, fists shaking angrily at the sky.

When I returned to the office many hours later, I had nothing. The digital camera’s images were nonexistent thanks to the lens cap, and the audio was garbled.

I haven’t seen or heard from Jacob since. Once can only assume the horrific fate that befell him at the hands of a perverted senator and his willing, yet wounded cohorts.

Hurley retired from politics the following year, claiming that he wanted to take time off to spend with his family. Yet I know the truth; he was just another victim of the Great Motel Room Massacre, where reputations and body parts were bruised and damaged in the name of journalistic integrity and where no evidence of that heinous event exists to threaten or humiliate its participants.

The Obama Malaise

2010-09-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

Is it me or is the mood of the country somewhere between a Sylvia Plath novel and the end of the movie Requiem for a Dream?

Remember the utopian future we were promised back in 2008? Remember the pledge to alleviate all suffering, unemployment and a war seemingly without end? We would be propelled into the future, a vibrant and prosperous time without a recession, where the thriving middle class could achieve the American dream. The Wall Street fat cats would be tamed. No more would the Average Joe worry about losing his life savings. Families would have affordable heath care and not have to sell their children to pay for that expensive gallbladder operation. We would bring jobs back to America, and not just petty little service jobs, but gigantic manufacturing jobs where America’s bounty shall be sold throughout the globe. We’d show these envious and idle nations how American ingenuity and gritty determination trumps despotism and sloth. We would be soaring into the 21st century, not in a cumbersome SUV powered by fossil fuels, but on jetpacks that harness the sun’s rays, or soybeans or chicken farts or something revolutionary and renewable.

Yes, the United States of America would be a leaner, healthier, wondrous nation where science and technology would miraculously transform our jaded, filthy cities into shiny metropolises reminiscent of a Hugo Gernsback novel. We’d use stem cells to cure cancer, teach evolution in schools and our multi-racial, multi-ethnic children will be super geniuses, knowledgeable in six world languages and three styles of martial arts.

So what happened to Barack Obama’s rosy vision for the country, and why are the Republicans, who were breaking out the razor blades and arsenic two years ago, poised to capture Congress this November?

Did Obama inflate our hopes, only to have them dashed by vicious realities of a world in recession?

Were Obama voters led like mice by a Pied Piper to follow his every move, a Svengali from Chicago who used slick marketing and clever propaganda to sell us on a lofty promise that he and he alone would transform the last shitty eight years under George W. Bush into Shangri-La?

With every election, Americans are becoming more conditioned to reject the present authority and yearn for something else.

In 2008, after eight years of being paranoid, scared and broke, Americans took a chance with Obama. Those who voted for him truly believed that he’d deliver, yet how can you deliver a Frank Capra ending in a Sam Peckinpah world? How can you sell us on Hope and Change and whatever flowery, saccharine buzzword your campaign used when we’re up to our nipples in debt to China and are fighting a war with Islamic terrorists who think nothing of strapping C-4 to their abdomens and blowing up shopping malls? How can you sell us on changing Washington’s corrupt culture while still keeping Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? Wasn’t this a time for new blood, for new leadership?

Further, where was all of this bipartisanship we were promised? What happened to Democrats and Republicans working together in harmony, standing barefoot in grassy fields and drinking Coca-Cola? Instead, we’re cursed with one of the most divisive Congresses in history, with filibusters, distortions and outright threats.

The Democrats will lose Congress this year and it’ll be their own damn fault. Their failure to articulate a central legislative theme - that of working to turn the economy around and restore prosperity while punishing the greedy bastards who got us into this mess – will cost them big. But what do you expect from a party that’s comfortable wearing the ball gag and being whipped? Whenever trouble strikes, whenever their opponents hurl accusations, instead of standing up for the workers and the middle class, the Democrats stick their dicks between their legs and mince around like prissy schoolgirls.

When a Tea Party member calls Obama a socialist, a secret Muslim or demands to see his Kenyan birth certificate, the president remains silent. How can you project strength and authority and not respond to the charges made by the lunatic fringe? Obama should call them out on their accusations.

According to the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll this week, 29 percent of voters strongly approve of Obama’s performance, while 42 percent strongly disapprove. Compare this to January 2009 when Obama took office, when 44 percent of voters strongly approved of the president’s performance compared to 16 percent that strongly disapproved.

So what has POTUS done for us lately? Besides being called Hitler, the Antichrist, Muslim and a socialist/communist/fascist, what’s Barry done for America? How has he placated the sheeple and brought his promise of Hope, Change, and Unicorns for All to the masses?

Here are a few things this lazy playboy president dared to list as accomplishments:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - Signed into law Feb. 17, 2009. The comically-named “stimulus package” distributes $787 billion to various projects as a way to jumpstart the economy during the recession. The act allotted funds for job creation, education, infrastructure improvements, first-time homebuyer credits, alternative energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits. The Obama Administration hoped this act would boost the country out of the recession and ensure that Americans were not huddled around a barrel fire and heating cans of Dinty Moore stew.

Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act – Signed into law April 21, 2009. Creates a Summer of Service program where 6th to 12th graders can earn money for their educations. The legislation also expands the number of positions in AmeriCorps and creates a National Service Reserve Corps where participants can coordinate with FEMA during disasters. There’s nothing that will get young Americans to volunteer in their communities like the image of late Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy requesting a third gimlet and pinching the hostess.

The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 – Signed into law May 22, 2009. This credit card reform legislation protects against arbitrary increases in interest rates, eliminates penalties for those who pay their credit card bills on time, safeguards credit card holders from misleading terms and “gimmicks” and restricts anyone under 21 from owning a credit card unless they have a co-signer over the age of 21. That last provision was put in place so teenage girls don’t go hog wild and buy everything in Hot Topic or Juicy Couture. I mean, how many pairs of freakin’ shoes do chicks need?

Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act – Signed into law June 22, 2009. Puts the regulation of the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco under the auspices of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Obama celebrated this legislative milestone with a pack of Marlboros.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – Signed into law March, 23, 2010. Expanded health care to 32 million of Americans, whether they wanted it or not. Patients with pre-existing conditions can buy into an insurance pool. Businesses have incentives to provide health care to employees. Pledges to reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years. However good intentioned, this health care bill was responsible for increasing the blood pressure of several Americans who articulated their views by boisterously shouting at town hall meetings and hurling rocks through the windows of several Democratic lawmakers.

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act – Signed into law July 21, 2010. Named after Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, this act is a sweeping reform of the nation’s financial services industry. Among its provisions, the act creates the Financial Stability Oversight Council to identify risks and respond to threats in the U.S. economy, creates the Office of Financial Research to provide research and budget analysis to the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The act also provides for the orderly liquidation of financial institutions, ends corporate bailouts and protects investors. If you try reading this law your brain will literally explode like that guy in David Cronenberg’s 1981 sci-fi movie Scanners. Just smile, nod and say it stops Wall Street from fucking us over and prevents investors from living in an alley and blowing drifters for crack money.

In addition to this, Obama’s administration saw the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, giving Chief Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg some gal pals to schmooze with.

Oh, and he also pulled our troops out of Iraq and started a troop surge in Afghanistan, home of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

On paper, it’s quite a record, but reality reflects a different story. The bold agenda alienated Republicans and drove Independents away, and his administration is viewed as arrogant and out of touch with the average American. Going after Wall Street, while daring and necessary, is causing a big backlash. It was perceived by many as going too fast too soon and in the wrong direction.

The problem is Americans are impatient. They were promised change and when Obama failed to deliver it at light speed, the people grew restless. They wanted the American dream delivered to their door like a Domino’s pizza, in 30 minutes or less. What they got was a sluggish economy, a Congress in gridlock and grown adults wearing tri-cornered hats and screaming about taking their country back.

Democrats failed to tell people that change won’t happen overnight. It took over a decade for us to climb out of the Great Depression, and that was thanks to World War II. Now that we're already involved in a war, a recession and high unemployment, is it any wonder that the crazies are coming out of the woodwork?

Promising Hope and Change may not have been the right tactic. Perhaps it was only a way to sweet-talk the voters. In many ways, the GOP in 2008 had a more honest message; the super patriotic “Country First” told voters that if you don’t vote for John McCain, you’re an effete pussy who hates America. Bullying the public into voting for you takes balls. At least with McCain, we could’ve had a rough-and-tumble administration of patriotic pirates who would have nuked Mecca and given us free Bibles we'd use to line our cardboard shantytown homes.

The Democrats squandered an opportunity for real change and look weak and ineffective as a result. This November the pissed off rabble will turn them out and give Obama a real test at making bipartisanship work.

That Crazy Witchcraft

2010-09-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

When a video surfaced of Delaware’s Republican senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell admitting that she “dabbled in witchcraft” as a teenager, the world shit a brick. The video was an excerpt from Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, which aired in 1999. In that clip, O’Donnell admits:

“I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven…I dabbled into witchcraft, I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do…One of my first dates with a witch was on a Satanic altar and I didn’t know it. There’s a little blood there and stuff like that…We went to a movie and had a little picnic on a Satanic altar.”

Maher played the clip on his show Real Time on HBO over the weekend and threatened to play one clip per week unless O’Donnell appeared on his show again.

A few days following the airing of the clip, O’Donnell told a crowd of supporters in Delaware, “That witchcraft comment on Bill Maher, I was in high school. How many of you didn’t hang out with questionable folks in high school? There’s been no witchcraft since. If there was, Karl Rove would be a supporter now.”

Yet the witchcraft comment wasn’t the only instance where O’Donnell articulated something most would consider outlandish.

After O’Donnell’s primary win, a video surfaced of her talking about abstinence on MTV in 1996. She said in the video:

“The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can’t masturbate without lust.”

While mentioning witchcraft (which was done in reference to celebrating Halloween) and that playing with your pee-pee parts is the road to eternal damnation are not issues one would associate with a political candidate, the media have missed the real story of O’Donnell’s past.

O’Donnell sued her former employer, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for gender discrimination after she was fired in 2004, and later dropped the suit. Reports that she defaulted on her mortgage, and that the IRS filed a lien stating O’Donnell owed $11,000 in back taxes and that she dipped into her campaign money to pay for personal expenses also surfaced.

Given all of the damaging information and accusations swirling around, wouldn’t the witchcraft charges be tame in comparison? Weigh them. Teen witch versus conspiracy to commit fraud. Which one would you want reporters asking you if you were Christine O’Donnell?

I have high hopes for O’Donnell, not because I support her bizarre-o fundamentalist religious stance or her outlandish claims that homosexuals have “an identity disorder” learned from “societal factors.”

I have high hopes because O’Donnell is the first Gen-X political wanna-be who’s come the farthest the fastest. Riding on a wave of discontent and voter anger, she’s poised to be the spokesperson of a generation, or at least a fraction of a generation, that wants Washington to do things differently.

So I give her big props for that, for opening the door and showing these skeptic Baby Boomers that voters are willing to try someone younger and more inexperienced.

Christine O’Donnell and I have a few things in common. She grew up in Moorestown, New Jersey while I grew up in nearby Cherry Hill. She graduated high school in 1987 while I graduated in 1988. We were practically neighbors. I wonder if I ever encountered her at high school football games or other teen events. I’m sure I’d remember her. She was probably that shy girl who wore all black and sacrificed a goat.

While I brought it up, another thing Christine O’Donnell and I have in common is that we’ve had an interest in occult somewhat. While I’ve never joined a coven, practiced magic or picnicked on a “Satanic altar,” I once owned a deck of Rider-Waite Tarot cards.

I guess that counts.

Oh, and I also fucked two witches.

Let me explain.

While in my 20s, I dated two women who were Wiccan. Interestingly enough, Wiccans don’t believe in Satan. They believe in the Horned God, which represents masculine energy and sexuality, and the Triple Goddess, which represents the three aspects of womanhood: virginity, fertility and wisdom. They also believe in the Rule of Three, whereby anything you do returns to you threefold. See, when you date someone with a different set of religious beliefs and practices, you want to understand them as people, so you ask questions about their religion, even if that religion is not in the mainstream.

The flap over Christine O’Donnell’s supposed witchcraft reveals a longstanding prejudice in America, namely anything pagan freaks the shit out of people. I don’t know if O’Donnell knows the intricacies of Wiccan rituals but somehow I can’t imagine her scattering sea salt around a casting circle while saying “merry meet.” I can, however, imagine her throwing bullshit to appeal to the Christian fundamentalists who burn Harry Potter books and who believe gays can be reformed through intense deprogramming.

In a country that prides itself on religious freedom and tolerance, we’re really not all that tolerant. While some will judge O’Donnell as a hypocrite who may have banged a warlock on an altar before accepting Jesus and becoming an uber-Christian, others will just view her witchcraft as “youthful indiscretion,” just like Bill Clinton when he smoked pot or George Bush when he snorted cocaine.

It’s not like we’re judging O’Donnell by putting her in a ducking stool or bringing her before the American Commission on Pagan Activities.

“Did you see Goody O’Donnell cavorting naked in the woods on Samhain under a harvest moon?”

Her critics accuse her of lying about her education or writing off her apartment as a campaign expense or using her eldritch powers to win an election. Such is politics in the early 21st century, a strange place where sound bites, resumes and past associations return to do candidates harm. Why can’t candidates just be regular people? We want everyone to be unblemished, spotless and boring. Somehow as voters that makes us feel better, that we’ve elected the perfect candidate, free of skeletons in their closet. Sure, we want the best and the brightest to lead us, but can’t they at least party once in a while?

I’m defending Christine O’Donnell, not because I agree with her insane social agenda, but because as one who was balls deep inside two witches, I think all nature-loving pagan women both former and practicing deserve some slack.

So what if Christine O’Donnell admitted to dabbling in witchcraft? So what if she’s a batshit crazy Christian who believes touching yourself in the shower means you’re hell-bound?

So what if O’Donnell is so financially strapped that you want to buy her a bowl of soup?

Hey, it’s not like she’s secretly a Muslim or anything.

Nine Years Later

2010-09-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

“We have met the worst of humanity with the best of humanity.”
- Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor

Nine years ago under a cloudless, turquoise blue sky one September morning, America’s sense of security and innocence shattered. What started as an ordinary day with commuters heading to work in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon, passengers riding airplanes and people going about their lives, would soon erupt into one of the most violent days in American history.

Nine years ago, we were sent into a headlong chaotic spiral of fire and death at the a hands of an Islamic terrorist organization most Americans had never heard of. They hijacked four commercial airplanes and used them as fuel-laden missiles, crashing two into each tower of the World Trade Center in New York and one in the Pentagon. Another plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was brought down by the heroic acts of those on board, preventing the craft from reaching its intended target.

We saw acts of terrible tragedy and acts of valor and heroism. We saw America blindsided by an enemy, quickly rise up and respond to the challenges of saving lives and helping those who lost everything. We saw the fireman and policeman become domestic heroes, rushing into burning skyscrapers to help others and paying for it with their lives. We saw the common man and woman give aid to the frightened and scared. We saw people standing in long lines to donate blood and the photographs of those missing and dead.

It truly was our most tragic day but it became our finest hour as Americans embraced each other. We shared grief and pain. We cried in front of our televisions. We donated money and volunteered our time to help those affected. We displayed the American flag as a national icon that portrayed our tenacity and resolve.

We were damn proud to be Americans.

We were struck, but we weren’t defeated. America doesn’t go whimpering into the night.

Nine years later, where are we? Still the same nation united under one purpose, or are we fragmented into an angry, factionalized mob of loathing and derision?

On Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush shone as a strong leader, determined to punish those terrorists responsible for the loss of over 3,000 lives. When he stood on the rubble at Ground Zero, surrounded by firefighters and First Responders, he was Churchill after the Blitz.

Yet Bush’s approval rating sank from 90 percent in the days following September 11, 2001 to 22 percent when he left office in January 2009.

We’ve spent eight years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorists continue to plot to kill Americans, to make us fearful through violence.

These days, it seems like politicians evoke 9-11 only when it serves their purpose, and only when they want to generate a patriotic fervor.

Politics itself has changed since September 11. Back then, members of Congress gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and sung “God Bless America.” Now Congress can’t agree on anything. It’s like some kind of backwoods hillbilly feud, with each side sniping at each other and holding grudges that will last for generations. It’s no wonder why Congress has some of the lowest public approval ratings in history.

Now there’s talk of “taking our country back” from President Obama’s socialist agenda, punishing the liberals by electing radical Republicans from the Tea Party and protesting the construction of an Islamic center blocks from Ground Zero. A Florida pastor made news for threatening to burn copies of the Quran and a conservative pundit Glenn Beck held a rally at the Lincoln Memorial to “restore honor” to America.

And our precious economy collapsed like a house of credit cards following the attacks. Things have gotten so bad that there’s a ration of one bag of Cheetos Mighty Zingers Ragin’ Cajun & Tangy Ranch per American family, who huddles in their Snuggies in the darkness of their almost-foreclosed homes.

Things have gotten worse in America over those nine years.

Instead of a brave, resilient and hopeful people, we’re a nation of pissed-off children screaming at each other. Instead of sharing a common purpose of defeating those who wish us harm, we’re debating the merits of whether Islam is a religion of peace or war. We’re viewing illegal Mexican immigrants as threats to our national security and looking to gut the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. We’re also afraid of gay and lesbian marriage.

That last one makes sense. Members of Al-Qaeda murdered thousands of people, but it’s gays marrying each other that disturbs the shit out of us.

We’re looking for someone to blame for everything that’s gone wrong over those last nine years.

Someone came into the newspaper where I work and tried debating me on freedom and terrorism. He complained about the safety procedures at the airport where passengers must remove their shoes before boarding airplanes, thanks to Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber” who tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe mid-flight in December 2001. Now passengers have to remove their shoes, like that’s a big inconvenience. I’m just glad Reid didn’t have the bomb up his ass. Could you imagine how awkward those security screenings would be?

America has changed since 9-11. We have a Department of Homeland Security, an increased military presence in the Middle East and Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act which increased surveillance, strengthened borders and gives conspiracy theorists fodder for their next newsletters.

Though we’re at each other’s throats like the kids from Lord of the Flies, we should remember that we’re all Americans. We might not agree on everything, but there are universal truths we can abide by: the Constitution is a wonderful document for our evolving and changing nation; the freedom to worship, think, write and express ourselves makes us unique among countries and $45 for a 3-foot by 5-foot nylon American flag is frickin outrageous.

May They Receive What They Wish For

2010-09-06T18:31:00.001-07:00

The Tea Party movement makes repeated calls to stand up for freedom and to "take our country back" with the same mindless fervor as a Nuremberg Rally or even more recently, the Obama inauguration.

When one surrenders their individuality to groupthink, bad things often happen. When you vow to rally around the Constitution, then support some idiot Congressman's call to vivisect the 14th Amendment or introduce ridiculous amendments to prevent the desecration of the U.S. flag or define marriage, then you obviously don't grasp the Constitution at all. You're just swept up in the Glenn Beck tirades and tantrums of uber-patriotism, jingoism and douchebaggery that make foreigners scratch their heads and wonder how we ever invented the light bulb, telephone and airplane.

For all their whining about socialism and reclaiming their country from liberals, progressives and dusky hued minorities that somehow threaten their very way of existence, I'd like to see the Tea Party win in 2012. In fact, I'd like to see them get exactly what they want and win the White House and both houses of Congress. I want the Tea Party, which are the radical right wing of the Republican Party, to run things.

This is the only way you can successfully shut these fat, overindulgent doofuses up.

Because I don't want them to get Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or some other obvious choice. I want them to elect a middle aged white man who thinks he's Hitler. I want them to elect an American Hitler, someone with a messiah complex who believes God put him on this Earth to cleanse America of her sins. I want them to elect some delusional whackjob who, the day of his inauguration, puts on a quasi-military uniform with a red, white and blue armband and pontificates about America's destiny as the apex of the world's nations.

I want this new president, who manipulates the law to make himself president for life, to govern by executive order, the same thing Obama is doing. Except I want the Tea Party president to pass laws that would liquidate San Francisco's gay and lesbian population in concentration camps in Alaska, make Christianity the national religion and English the national language and ban the teaching of evolution and science in schools. I want the punishment for not saluting the flag to be public hangings. I want this president to go completely nuts and invade Canada and Mexico because America needs more room to expand. I want him to take manifest destiny to the extreme and promote American colonies abroad. I want to see a cleansing of the ghettoes, a newfound appreciation for automatic weapons and all social welfare programs stop. I want the kind of jackbooted thuggery that would make Orwell's "1984" look like a Dick and Jane book.

I want the Tea Partyers to get their revolution and push America into a new shining age of nationalism, whether the people want it or not. I want them to repeal the 13th Amendment and have slavery once again. I want us to nuke the Middle East to ensure our safety from brown-skinned Muslims. I want them to lead a new holy war against the blasphemers and anti-American zealots. I want them to repeal the income tax and institute a system of taxes on the middle and lower classes, creating an even wider disparity between the wealthy and poor. I want them to ensure that corporations and not the government, run our lives. I want them to elect a president so insane, that he scares the shit out of his die-hard supporters.

I want the Tea Party Republicans to get exactly what they want in 2012. After all, that's the year the Mayans predicted the world would end.

Random Thoughts on Turning 41

2010-08-31T04:29:00.000-07:00

In the industrialized West, we mark birthdays by eating cake, receiving plastic novelty gifts made in Taiwan and pontificating on one’s life. Pausing on the day on your birth and reflecting about another trip around the sun and just what those 365 days brought is only reserved for the truly introspective. Everyone else does body shots off a coed’s abdomen before vomiting on her tits.

Everyone but me, for I choose the introspective path.

Turning 41 is a supreme letdown in the grand scheme of things. The Big One is turning 40, when a person officially enters the dowdy realm of middle age and must make due with a shabby wardrobe, an ever-expanding paunch and the fact that one day you will die. Nothing like reflecting on your mortality to liven up a party.

But reaching 41 doesn’t pack the spiritual wallop as cracking the Big 4-0. Turning 41 just tells the world that you’re getting older. With age, comes the fact that a majority of the world is younger, thinner and better off than you’ll ever be. No wonder people drink on their birthdays. It’s not to celebrate some milestone of living another year on this planet. It’s to deaden the pain of getting older.

So upon reaching 41 I’ve got a few things I’d like to put out there. Call it wisdom, advice or quirky observations. The older I get, the more daring and impervious to criticism I am.

Here are some things that have been bugging me as of late:

Why is it that movies or TV shows that feature young, attractive female reporters has them fucking her sources? Can’t the bitch just ask questions? Why does she have to sleep around to get information? To be fair, I’ve known female reporters and most of them aren’t wanton sluts who’d blow a politician for a story. Many of them are articulate, intelligent and professional ladies dedicated to newsgathering. Some of them, however, are insecure whores who screw men for an interview and then say it was “empowering.” Yeah, it’s really empowering that a politician can use you like an Atlantic City escort.
I’ll admit I’m at a disadvantage here. I have to use my sophistication, wit and interpersonal skills to persuade people to talk to me. That’s why I win journalism awards and don’t have a raging case of chlamydia.

If there’s something called Yankee pot roast, I wonder if there’s a dish called Confederate pot roast. I’m sure it’s the same thing as Yankee pot roast except African-Americans cook it and serve it to white people at a long table.

I loathe Sarah Palin. I think she’s a phony hypocrite who represents everything dysfunctional about 21st Century politics. She doesn’t annunciate concrete ideas or graspable logic, instead preferring the murky world of jargon, platitudes and feel-good bullshit. Palin is as nasty as a pit viper when she wants to be, and uses this taunting teenage snark to demean her opposition. It isn’t enough that she’s superficial and disingenuous, but her whiny, nails-on-the-blackboard, cunty whine irritates me. At a time when we need specifics, Palin floats on generalizations and playground insults masquerading as folksy chatter. Why do the conservatives give her or her bumpkin family so much attention? Does she embody the Republican principles of less government and prudent spending or is she just a redneck who dragged herself from the wilds of Alaska and gained followers by playing poor victim to the merciless liberal media, blaming them for accurately reporting that she’s an empty pantsuit and a vapid torchbearer for the Tea Party Republicans?
And while we’re on the subject, doesn’t Todd Palin look like Sarah nails him with a strap-on? What’s with his neatly-trimmed 1980s gay beard? Did he sing backup with the Village People as the lumberjack?

Do ghosts watch you masturbate? If they do, I’d hate to have my grandma watch me jerk off. That would really be uncomfortable having her float above my computer as I’m doing it.
“He used to be such a nice boy,” her disembodied voice would say eerily through the void. “But he touches himself more than a zoo monkey. Must he do that all the time? He’ll ruin the rugs.”

One in five Americans think President Obama is a Muslim. Interesting enough, one in five Americans also admits to drinking and driving. I guess that whole Muslim stat makes a lot more sense now.
The only thing Obama is guilty of is being pretentious and uptight, which is what presidents ought to be. The right rants that Obama is turning America into a socialist nation like the former Soviet Union. I disagree: I think Obama is too ineffective and weak to do anything of the sort. See, socialism historically came from a groundswell of popular support in the form of revolutions and armed insurrections. Obama can’t even get five people in his own party to agree on anything. Of course when you’re chain-smoking and drinking Chablis in Martha’s Vineyard, it’s hard to gauge the true pulse of the American people.

I think that women who find my humor crude and off color are ironically the same women who need a cock in their mouth.

Why do some fat people dress like they’re thin? They wear clothes a size too small and strut around with their bellies hanging out. If you’re 25 pounds overweight, then spandex or Lycra is not an option. Find the largest thing in your wardrobe and wear that. Please. For the love of God. Nobody wants to see rolls of fat sticking out of your shirt. It doesn’t look sexy at all. It’s the anti-sexy.

What’s this obsession with deep frying foods in this country? Every county fair these rednecks try to outdo themselves by taking food that obviously should never be deep fried and deep-frying it. There’s deep fried Twinkies, deep fried Oreos, deep fried pickles. Now they have deep fried beer. No wonder everyone in this country is obese and stupid. The zest for invention and experimentation in American migrated away from useful science towards deep frying junk food. Forget about developing a cheap source of renewable energy. That’s too difficult with our puny American brains. Deep-frying high-sodium, high fat foods? That’s where we excel as a nation!

I’m sick of how petulant and shallow Americans have become. We used to be revered for our strength and determination and for our willingness to compromise. We were once the good guys. Now we’ve devolved into a nation of whiny, spoiled, narcissistic children who want the latest shiny toy. We have to have six iPods or iPads or whatever Apple is shilling at the moment. Instead of holding face-to-face conversations, we text each other, our fat little thumbs running over the keyboard as if our very lives depended upon conveying this vital information that’s absolutely trivial and banal.
The worst offenders are twenty somethings. When I was in my 20s, we were computer literate, but we read books. We contemplated life. We used the phone for calling people, not for sending photos of our genitals to each other. That’s all people in their 20s do. Sexting and sending photos of their genitals. Where’s the mystery and romance anymore? Where’s the allure of love and the promise of passion if you get a text with a photo of your date’s junk? Young people are morons.

Who's Your Daddy?

2010-08-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

The buzz around news desks, the blogosphere and the punditdome is the $1 million donation News Corporation, owner of Fox News, The New York Post and Wall Street Journal made to the Republican Governor’s Association in June.

This is causing a lot of tittering, sniggering and giddy schoolgirl laughter from liberals and other free thinking humans that Fox News, a network accused of bias toward Republicans is actually giving a yachtful of money to Republicans.

In fact, the donation has caused many to note that Fox News is admittedly in the GOP’s pocket. It’s no secret that the pundits such as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are Republicans who interview Republicans and push the Republican agenda of less taxes, less government regulation and less minorities besotting God’s glorious nation of America.

Fox News is not “Fair and Balanced” as the network’s moniker proclaims, but functions as a spin machine and Ministry of Propaganda for the Republican Party.

How bad is Fox News from an objective and newsgathering standpoint? The well-dressed mannequin robots and beauty queens are specifically programmed to regurgitate clichés, banal extractions of partisan hackery and inane observations and blend them together in a pile of foul stinking offal that doesn’t remotely resemble fair play or journalistic ethics.

This is the same Fox News that employs Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, all three of them potential presidential candidates in 2012. How can a news organization claim it’s “Fair and Balanced” when the politicians, the very people journalists and networks should keep at arm’s length, are right under their noses?

It’s true that Fox News wraps itself in the American flag, hires conservative pundits and kisses more right wing ass than a retreat with the Log Cabin Republicans. Yet its smugness and inflated bravado when speaking for and about the United States, only serves its target audience and ratings. Its content is tailored specifically for a certain political agenda, a kind of “tell me what I want to hear” ethos. The network parades itself around as the top rated news network, yet there’s very little objective news. Its content is mostly opinion and political commentary from anchors that look like yuppie serial rapists.

The $1 million donation to the Republican Governor’s Association was a clarion call for watchdogs who’ve known News Corporation was biased towards Republicans, that it was only pretending to be a serious news organization.

News Corporation spokesman Jack Horner (no relation to ‘Little Jack Horner’ of nursery rhyme fame) said his company donated $1 million because “the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at the most critical time for our economy.”

And what would those priorities be? More snappy Obama insults during Fox & Friends? More dour-faced reporters interviewing hedonistic Hollywood moguls? More politicians who want to chip away at the citizenship and equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?

Yet we can’t blame Fox News for being the parasitic whores they are. It’s in their nature and part of capitalism to shuck journalistic standards for money. More power to them for being an entertaining puppet show for the right wing. Without Fox News, conservatives all over this great land would be watching an endless loop of “Triumph of the Will” and shooting dusky hued immigrants with BB guns.

But the so-called “liberal media networks” such as CNN and MSNBC also donated to political candidates. They have their own blank-faced idiots and raw sewage masquerading as special reports and hard news. Anyone who watches Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow knows that snark, whining and urbane witticisms will save the day and secure the 21 to 40 year-old demographic until The Daily Show with Jon Stewart comes on.

Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, donated $70,500 to Democratic candidates and $41,500 to Republican candidates this year.

General Electric, owners of NBC donated $688,900 to Democrats and $410,100 to Republicans for the 2010 election cycle.

Viacom, parent company of CBS donated $108,700 to Democrats and $64,000 to Republicans this year.

And Disney, home of Mickey Mouse and owners of ABC, gave $110,500 to Democrats and $95,000 to Republicans.

News Corporation’s $1 million donation pales in comparison to the money given to Democrats by media outlets, proving they’re all a bunch of pandering sluts.

Corporate media PACs lobby politicians for influence when it comes to media regulations or legislation that affect networks or communications.

That’s the real problem here. The system is based upon donations and buying influence and paying for your agenda. By donating anything – even $1 to politicians – news organizations discredit themselves. These giant media behemoths influence society by starting the national dialog on various issues. They have a tremendous platform with which to espouse viewpoints, whether liberal, conservative or batshit crazy. Such an awesome responsibility demands tempering through insight and objectivity. It demands an atmosphere where news organizations lead by example and prove they have no connections with political outsiders who might push their agendas.

Politicians are corrupt to the core, dwelling in a self-perpetuating system of cronyism, naked partisanship and troughs of money. News organizations shouldn’t be obligated to buy influence with such wretched people. Journalists write stories about how awful pay-to-play is upon our political process. Now that they’re part of the same cesspool, it smacks of hypocrisy.

There Goes the Neighborhood...

2010-08-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

Rendering of proposed Islamic center in Manhattan that will plunge Earth into a black hole and destroy the galaxy.

The Cordoba Initiative, a moderate Muslim group, has plans for Lower Manhattan, and if you’re not living under a rock or are blissfully ignorant of the 24-hour news cycle, then you know what those plans are.

The group wants to build an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in an abandoned building that housed a Burlington Coat Factory store. The store, by the way, was struck by airplane landing gear during the September 11th attacks and closed in 2001.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement as a way of bringing American Muslims and non-Muslims together through various programs. He is the Imam of a mosque that’s 12 blocks away from Ground Zero and wants to create a community center that would function as a cultural exchange for Muslims and non-Muslims.

The plans to build a “Ground Zero mosque” has morphed from a simple local zoning issue to one of great national debate, as politicians, citizens and the media duel over its significance in the aftermath of 9/11.

This backlash against the development began months ago when right wing bloggers covered the story. The issue gained momentum when a few Republican politicians, namely Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio expressed their opposition to the controversial plan.

Palin wrote, “We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they?...If those who wish to build this Ground Zero mosque are sincerely interested in encouraging positive ‘cross-cultural engagement’ and dialogue to show a moderate and tolerant face of Islam, then why haven’t they recognized that the decision to build a mosque at this particular location is doing just the opposite?”

Gingrich wrote, “there should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.”

By the time the news media got the story, it turned into a titanic shit storm, especially after President Obama weighed in:

“Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -- particularly New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan. The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.”

After that eloquent support for the U.S. Constitution and clarifying that it wasn’t Islam but Al Qaeda that we’re fighting against, Obama reversed himself, saying his comments referred to the right to build the community center and mosque but was not an endorsement of it.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid also affirmed the right to build the mosque, but condemned its location.

And the location makes it controversial to those who believe Ground Zero – the former site of the World Trade Center and attacks by radical Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda where 3,000 people were killed nine years ago - is hallowed ground and to build a mosque there defiles the memory of the victims.

But there are already two mosques that exist in Lower Manhattan already: the Masjid Farah, 12 blocks from Ground Zero and the Masjid Manhattan, which is four blocks from Ground Zero and near City Hall.

Why haven’t the detractors protested these mosques? Perhaps they weren’t told of their existence for a reason.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the center, calling it a true definition of American religious freedom:

“The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.”

It might happen here if the people get their way.

According to the Siena College Research Institute, 61 percent of New York state residents oppose the planned community center and mosque’s location. The poll stated that 85 percent of conservatives, 52 percent of liberals and 55 percent of moderates oppose the project’s location.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, 68 percent of Americans surveyed oppose the project, while 29 percent support it. If you don’t think this is a political hot potato, get this: 54 percent of Democrats support the building while 43 percent are opposed to it; 82 percent of Republicans oppose it while 17 percent support it. The poll found 70 percent of independents are against building the community center and mosque while 24 percent favor it.

Feeling the heat, the Cordoba Initiative changed the name of their proposed project to Park 51 because it was more cosmopolitan-sounding and less scary than Cordoba House.

I get that branding is important and putting a positive spin on your project is essential, but no ad campaign will win over people’s hearts to this project. No espousing the importance of religious tolerance or freedom can quell the anger felt over this proposed building.

There has to be some kind of sinister ulterior motive these Muslims have for building this community center, right?

According to the Park 51 website, the organization will “uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people; cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities; encourage open discussion and dialogue on issues of relevance to New Yorkers, Americans and the international reality of our interconnected planet; commit to social justice, dignified human development and spiritual growth for all; pursue the development of American Muslim identities, engaging New York’s many and diverse Muslim communities and promoting empowerment and compassion for all…”

Well if that doesn’t sound like a recipe for world domination, I don’t know what is.

Okay, I’m being facetious.

It’s hard not to be skeptical of this group. They seem too good to be true. Like Dick Cheney telling the American people that the American forces invading Iraq in 2003 would be heralded as heroes and have flowers thrown at them by grateful Iraqis.

According to the Park 51 website, the group will be “dedicated to pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment, appreciation for our city and a deep respect for our planet.”

Just what exactly will be constructed a stone’s throw away from sacred, hallowed ground?

The Park 51 website said the proposed community center will contain: “outstanding recreation spaces and fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court); a 500-seat auditorium; a restaurant and culinary school; cultural amenities including exhibitions; education programs; a library; reading room and art studios, childcare services; a mosque, intended to be run separately from Park 51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community; and a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all.”

So it’s not just a community center like some are claiming and a portion of it will be a mosque. But according to Park 51, it would be run separately from their organization, which could throw up a red flag of concern for those who think Glenn Beck is some kind of doomsday prophet and wise soothsayer.

What’s even stranger is a proposed September 11th memorial planned for the site, a fact that all the right wing pundits and talking heads seem to be conveniently omitting.

There's a missed opportunity here. Instead of meeting the group half way and welcoming the community center and mosque, Americans are proving themselves to be the closed-minded yokels the Muslim world thinks we already are. That can’t be good for relations that are already strained. Many Americans view Islam with suspicion and a jaundiced eye. The religion is equivocated with terrorism and violence. Critics have charged that if Islam were a peaceful religion, then why, immediately following 9/11, didn’t the Islamic community rise up and condemn the attacks?

Politicians are using this wedge issue to their advantage. Republicans see it as a golden opportunity to ride the angry wave and create a backlash against Obama and the Democrats. The Democrats are also plugging into this issue to show they can be just as patriotic and xenophobic as conservatives.

Other politicians are asking Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf be called onto the carpet for denying Hamas is a terrorist organization and questioning where the $100 million funding will come from to build the mosque.

Just playing devil’s advocate here, but if a Catholic priest or Protestant reverend were held to the same scrutiny and witch hunts, would the public support the politicians or the concept of religious freedom?

Critics claim that this is all part of some dubious Islamic plan to gloat over the mass casualties of 9/11, that this building will be a triumphant edifice Muslims can rally around and cheer the demise of the West. Maybe they can use the community center to host couscous and kebab night while secretly plotting ways to kill more Americans. Maybe they’ll have macramé and jihad classes.

One opponent of the project held up a sign that read “Islam builds mosques at the sites of their conquests and victories.”

America does the same thing, except we don’t build mosques. We build McDonald’s, Starbucks and 7-Elevens. Capitalism is our religion, and we spread that throughout the globe, much to the chagrin of other nations. When foreigners complain another American franchise is going up in their historic neighborhoods, we balk and say it’s progress and that corporations have the right to expand.

That’s what’s so troubling about this stupid mosque issue. It’s just a non-story that’s garnered so much attention has become part of our national dialog and fodder for the mid-term elections.

Islam didn’t murder 3,000 people nine years ago. A group of Islamic fundamentalists whose warped religious views and anger at the United States’ support of Israel killed those people. There’s a difference between condemning a religion and condemning members of that religion with their own agenda.

If we equivocate Islam with evil, if we treat Muslims like the Catholics and Jews were treated by the Protestant majority 100 years ago, we fail to bridge the divide between them and the West. This creates more tension, prejudice and violence.

If we believe what the Cordoba Initiative tells us, then the center will be used as a place of understanding and learning and not an indoctrination factory worthy of Osama bin Laden’s endorsement.

I cannot help but see a population persuaded by the media and political leaders transform itself into an intolerant, dangerous mob. They are sheep led by manipulative shepherds, fed on a diet of false patriotism and outrage and willing to destroy their sacred American freedoms without really understanding how precious they are. They're gleefully ignorant of their past and volatile to the core. This is not so much a national debate than it is a national tantrum, one where fury trumps logic and fear beats courage.

I think we’re better than that. Freedom is not just a buzzword you put on a bumper sticker. It has to be a living, breathing entity.

“Liberty and justice for all.”

Not for some. For all, even if a religion is misunderstood or unpopular.

The First Amendment must be preserved, lest we lose something that makes us quintessentially American.

Then we run the risk of being the very monsters we’re fighting against.

Gencon 2010

2010-08-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Another Gencon has come and gone, bringing with it thousands of gamers from cross the country and world who converged on Indianapolis for four days in August. This year, which marked my third Gencon, I had the honor of working the Reality Blurs booth and selling copies of their newest game, Iron Dynasty. Though I felt a little under the weather and had other things on my mind, I managed to meet new people and people I've heard of in the gaming industry but haven't met, and hang out with the folks from Reality Blurs. I enjoyed meeting Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams and Robin Elliott of Triple Ace Games, Eloy Lasanta of Third Eye Games, and Kurt Wiegel of Game Geeks.
I got to hear Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation tell stories about his gaming experiences and relate how gaming played an important role in his life.
As part of the Savage Saturday Night event, I ran a Ravaged Earth adventure "Throne of Amenhotep" for six lucky players who fought desert nomads, made a deal with Lord Amenhotep aboard his mighty airship the Eye of Horus and explored the secret chambers beneath the Great Sphinx and eventually discovered the legendary Hall of Records before the Nazis could.
All in all, a good experience and fun time this year. Already looking forward to 2011 with optimism that I'll finish the 23-ounce Scotch ale at Scotty's Brewhouse.

Hello, Indianapolis!

The Reality Blurs booth at Gencon.

Some of the Reality Blurs games for sale.

People in costumes will pose for photos if you ask nicely.

This TARDIS was set up at a Doctor Who store across from our booth, giving me the perfect opportunity to take photos of various Doctors.

The David Tennant Doctor and Amy Pond.

The Peter Davidson Doctor and some cavegirl.

Rosie

Felicia Day of The Guild signing autographs.

Wil Wheaton and his flagon o' dice.

How Peas Changed the World

2010-07-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

The consumption of green vegetables created a paradigm shift in European culture that would reverberate through the centuries.

Let me explain.

Back in the Neolithic Age of my intellectual development, I attended community college for two years. Say what you want about community colleges, that they’re deplorable cesspools for single mothers, underachievers and knuckle draggers too stupid to apply themselves. I found it to be a stopover for my eventual transfer to a state college and a chance to learn the things I couldn’t in high school.

One of my professors was this old goofball named Dr. Mahoney, who wore these tweed jackets and looked like a character from a Thomas Hardy novel. Dr. Mahoney taught history of Western Civilization, the kind of elective you take because you wanted to cheer the accomplishments of white Europeans.

He taught with flourish and histrionics and always addressed us as “scholars.”

“Good afternoon, scholars,” he’d begin.

He was the kind of professor you wanted to have for the sheer entertainment value.

I remember one day Dr. Mahoney talked about the medieval period and just how rough those times were. He explained the incessant combat, the chaotic ruling structure, the iron grip of the church and its struggle with the crown and a plethora of diseases that infected the populace. Pretty basic textbook stuff it you’re studying the Middle Ages.

Then Dr. Mahoney told us about the profound changes that occurred between the medieval period and the Renaissance.

Overnight people didn’t grab brushes, start painting and, – viola! – DaVinci’s Mona Lisa came out. There were gradual, almost insignificant things that occurred in society that changed Europe forever, that brought Western Civilization out of the Dark Ages and into enlightenment.

One of these things was diet. Dr. Mahoney said people began eating better, thanks to newer farming techniques. The meat and grain diet of old gave way to more vegetables and that meant better nutrition, which led to developing immunities against diseases that led to a robust population.

Sickly peasants died out in great numbers, while healthier peasants lived longer, produced more and made their little fiefdoms thrive. This in turn enabled their landholders and noble class to become richer, patronize the arts, fund explorations to the New World and raise armies to conquer vast, uncharted regions of the globe.

People eating better meant longer life spans and healthier children who would in turn pass healthy genetic traits to successive generations.

This is all thanks to peas, according to Dr. Mahoney.

“So the next time you’re in the supermarket and go by the frozen foods section, just stop and say ‘Hi, peas! Thank you!’” Dr. Mahoney said.

I told you the guy was a goofball.

As a side note, my father referred to Dr. Mahoney as “Mr. Peas.”

The professor’s argument was compelling. What role does nutrition have in a society’s success or failure? Did a medieval farmer who deviated from the norm and grew green leafy vegetables know what he was doing when everyone else sustained themselves with wheat? Was the first European to eat a salad mocked, ridiculed and called a fag like vegetarians are today?

Humanity has done a complete 360-degree turn on its eating habits, shucking vegetables for processed foods that are making us fidgety, irate and miserable.

Technology has given us preservatives that keep food longer in our pantries and store shelves, but may be doing harm to our bodies. It’s not bad enough that we’re eating chemicals. We’re a society of coprophagists, eating shit and loving it, so long as the shit we’re eating tastes good.

While nutritionists tell us to have a balanced diet and eat more fruits and vegetables, they are sadly outnumbered by corporations whose bottomless advertising coffers fund massive campaigns designed to push us towards juicy cheeseburgers, snack chips and other high-fat, low-nutrition delicacies.

Not satisfied with existing junk food, people are diligently working to enhance the suck factor of what we eat. Our solution? Fry it. Fried Twinkies? Fried Oreos? Then there are things that are so ridiculous, like bacon cheese rolls, that make me weep for the future. In today’s kitchens there aren’t any problems a little hot oil, whipped cream filling or melted cheese can’t fix.

I’ll be the first to agree that vegetarians are preachy and annoying and that veggie burgers are a pox upon the planet, but they do have a point. Eating vegetables makes sense from a health perspective. Organic growing is catching on in recent years, probably because of a lack of pesticides and a return to “clean farming.”

With a reliance on fast food, junk food and shit from vending machines, we’re suffering from obesity, sickness and are generally more pissed off. I’m going out on a limb here, but a lack of green vegetables in our diets is turning us, as a collective, into assholes. We’re plagued with stress, anxiety and are developing things like high blood pressure and diabetes at alarming rates.

Exercise relieves stress and burns off pounds, but we wouldn’t have asses as big as luggage if we ate healthier. Now I enjoy a good bag of chips and a burger as much as the next red-blooded American male, but we have to watch what foods we consume. There should be no stigma against eating salads and vegetables.

These can’t be seen as the meals of craven, liberal wussies, but as acts of self-preservation. By consuming more green vegetables, especially leafy ones like lettuce and spinach, we might just pull ourselves out of a morass of general complacency, mental laziness and mediocrity. A vigorous, healthy population just might jumpstart the Second Renaissance and begin painting timeless masterpieces again. You know, art that doesn’t look it’s crapped out of a penguin.

Life in the Moment

2010-07-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

There are sacred moments in our lives, times that distinguish themselves from others and make us feel wholly alive and happily human.

Some of these moments are spent with friends and loved ones, others when we’re alone and reach some kind of inner clarity. We’re caught musing about the universe and our place in it, and as a result, we’re rewarded with a glimpse of the larger picture and the joy of existence.

These “frozen moments” are indelibly etched and fixed in our minds and can be rewound and replayed, but never re-experienced.

Replaying my life, I find certain fixed moments I’ll always remember, whether it was a person, an aroma, or an event. We attach significance to these moments and they shape us:

It’s 1973 and my grandmother is dunking me in the surf in Ocean City, New Jersey. It is sunny and pleasant. The water is black and dirty, and tar sticks to my feet. I do not like this. Afterwards, we go back to the motel and I’m treated to coconut macaroons and saltwater taffy.

It’s 1977 and I’m on vacation in Maryland in my grandparent’s trailer. Brown wooden paneling, shag carpeting, swinging saloon door divides the living room from the kitchen. There’s tall grass behind the trailer and I discover a three-legged frog I name Jeremiah.

It’s 1979 and I’m in my grandparent’s house in Barrington, New Jersey on a Saturday morning. I watch cartoons and eat cereal. Granny has a drawer in the dining room that she stocks with candy and gum. I sneak some candy and go into the den, which smells of sandalwood. I take the leatherbound books from the shelves and flip through them. I feel relaxed.

It’s 1982 and I’m in a chalet with a loft and a large stone fireplace in the Poconos. My parents and I spent three hours in the car to get here and it’s nighttime. I hook up my ColecoVision to the TV and play video games while mom makes nachos: round chips covered with cheese and jalapeños. Afterwards, we watch Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live.

It’s 1986 and I’m on a date with a girl I met in high school. We’re holding hands as the snow begins falling. Our breath clouds and resembles smoke in the chilly air. Snowflakes cling to her eyelashes as I kiss her cold cheek.

It’s 1988 and the day after the senior prom. My friends and I pile into my car and head down to the Jersey shore. We end up at my parent’s vacation home, go to the beach, binge on hoagies and soda and talk about our plans for the future. We're young and confident.

It’s 1990 and I’m in a campground somewhere in Quebec on a summer night. I’m staring at a billion stars glittering in the velvety black void. The air here is clean, cool and moist. The aurora borealis pulses and dances overhead, an undulating wave of spellbinding light.

It’s 1992 and I’ve just made love to a beautiful woman. We cradle each other and fall asleep in my dorm room, under my black and white checkered comforter. As the first rays of morning sunlight filter into the room, I count the freckles on her back.

It’s 1994 and I’m in Dover, England with a classmate staring out at the British Channel. The fierce wind coming in from the channel nearly knocks us off the stone wall we’re standing on. We lean into the wind and shout loudly, raging at this tempest bearing down on us.

It’s 1996 and I’m accepting my first journalism award at the New Jersey Press Association banquet in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is the Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Award for Responsible Journalism. I take the plaque and get my picture taken while the audience applauds. I started working at the weekly a year and a half ago.

It’s 1998 and I’m standing on a scenic overlook in Monument Valley, Utah. Three large red rock mesas tower in the distance over the landscape. The serene blue sky seems infinite overhead and a Navajo guide volunteers to take us on a jeep tour into the majestic wilderness.

It’s 1999 and I’m getting married in Wilmington, Delaware in my wife’s church. The day is surreal; there's a room filled with strangers and lofty promises and poetry about love. The limo ride to the reception feels like prom night. We are giddy and terrified.

It’s 2001 and I’m watching a jet airliner strike a skyscraper on TV. I’m trying to comprehend the sheer horror of what I witnessed, and feel helpless and angry. I speak with my father and wife on the phone. We are living through history, cowering in the shadows of madmen. That night, when the house is dark and silent, I sit in the living room with the TV on and start crying.

It’s 2003 and we’re just north of San Francisco in the Muir Woods National Monument. The air smells of eucalyptus and pine. Ancient redwood trees tower over us, stretching up to a green canopy. A light wind causes the trees to slightly sway, and their leaves whisper softly.

It’s 2005 and I’m on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. The building’s Art Deco façade is both classy and elegant. Manhattan stretches beneath me, a city of concrete, metal and teeming multitudes. Staring across the Hudson, I see New Jersey’s sprawl and the Statue of Liberty.

It’s 2007 and I finish my set at an Atlantic City comedy club. Afterwards, my fellow fledgling comics and I head to another club and enjoy another comedy show by professional comics. We invite the comics to Hooters and eat chicken wings and drink beer and later are driven around the city by a former professional wrestler in his Cadillac.

It’s 2010 and I’m filing for divorce. After a five-year separation, I feel like I can finally breathe. I sit outside the lawyer’s office with the weight of the world spilling off my shoulders. We are a flawed species, each thrown into a chaotic world we are tasked with making sense of. But there is no sense. Everything is a random jumble of events, some good, some bad, some indifferent. As I write the check and give it to the attorney, I realize just how botched everything is. My marriage produced no children, no enduring love or great happiness. All people want is for love to be reciprocated. We want to be acknowledged in life, with a realization that our existence is meaningful, that we will not be forgotten when we depart.

In the end, life is all about chances. It’s about our collected experiences and about these frozen moments, events that stand out from every other ordinary day. Falling down and getting back up, loving and losing, standing in awe at the beauty of the natural world and being cognizant of your place in the universe.

Bundle all of this together and you get wisdom. You get a life richly lived, warts and all, filled with summer night skies, sweet grandmothers, family vacations, kisses in the snow, comedy clubs, desert sunsets, making love, pine forests, cityscapes, heartbreak and laughter.

These are the moments that make life worth living. In this rapture and sorrow, we discover self-awareness.

We realize how alive we are.

Appropriately Inappropriate

2010-07-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

Ever laugh at something inappropriate and realize that because it’s so inappropriate it makes you laugh harder? Breaking some kind of taboo by jesting at something off-limits doesn’t fill you with shame, but propels you toward making a mockery of it.

I’ll give you an example. Wouldn’t it be funny if the voices in the movie Schindler’s List were dubbed as Muppets?

When Ben Kingsley delivers the line “The list is life,” a Kermit the Frog voice comes out. Oskar Schindler could sound like Fozzie Bear.

That’s so wrong, isn’t it?

What the fuck is the matter with me?!

Why do I labor to see humor in the most inappropriate things? Why do I continually throw sexual innuendo at everything and hope something sticks, like the panties of a sorority sister riding her first Sybian?

See? I just did it again!

I blame my parents. They gave me an appreciation for comedy without realizing it. When I was little, I discovered my father’s record collection. It was mostly doo-wop bullshit, but what attracted my attention wasn’t the music. He had comedy records stashed away, with comedians like The Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson and Bill Cosby.

Bill Cosby’s “Wonderfulness” was my favorite. I liked how Cosby talked about his childhood, about building and racing go-karts, about getting his tonsils out at the hospital and about booby-trapping the living room by smearing Jell-O on the floor because he was scared the monsters in his favorite radio horror program would attack him.

When I was 13, my mother gave me a copy of Cosby’s album “Bill Cosby: Himself.” Most kids got a football or basketball when they turned 13. I got Cosby talking about raising his kids, going to the dentist, the stupidity of drinking to excess and anecdotes from his childhood. I memorized each routine on that album and repeated them verbatim at school in the cafeteria to my friends.

That’s where the comedian in me began.

I learned to make people laugh at an early age and enjoyed it, though I was too unpopular to be the class clown. I was more of the class clown’s understudy. If the wiseass kid who made the teachers and students laugh became sick, I’d fill in.

At Heritage Junior High, I was the only 8th grader to do spot-on impressions of Ronald Regan and Michael Jackson. This was in 1983 when both were still popular and not the subject of senile or pedophile jokes.

As a side note, I can’t figure out why some Republicans lionize Reagan like he was the American Winston Churchill. I understand he worked with Gorbachev to end the Cold War, but besides that speech at the Berlin Wall and lying about the SDI, what did he actually do? People forget that the guy was senile in the end. He let his crazy astrology-worshipping wife run the country. Reagan just sat around eating jellybeans while the Iran-Contra scandal raged around him. But now he’s some kind of national hero? Republicans in the ‘80s must’ve loved bad B-movies and big deficits.

See? I just tore apart a former Commander-In-Chief for being a senile relic.

I’ve been told there are sacred cows in comedy.

A comic should never joke about three things: child abuse, domestic violence and rape.

Let me see… child abuse, domestic violence and rape. Sounds like the Catholic Church, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, there’s nothing in the Bible prohibiting sex with children. Nothing at all. Homosexuality is forbidden, along with bestiality and letting your semen hit the ground. Yet the text is clear: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 18:22

A man and a child are two different things. Perhaps the church uses this loophole to justify boffing choirboys. Maybe there should be something in the Bible prohibiting sex with kids. If they make that official, maybe then Father Pedo might not troll around for prepubescent victims to violate aboard the Magical Chloroform Bus of Shameful Secrets.

Not only that, but the Church covers up sexual abuse, like these kids had it coming. But what do you expect in a place where every Sunday you’re on your knees half the time?

See? I just offended Catholics. I called the functionaries of a religion a bunch of child molesters.

Surely there’s some group that’s too taboo for comedy, some belief, practice or religion that must not be crossed no matter what.

Muslims?

Okay, don’t make fun of the Muslim faith. Islam is the only sacred cow out there, as Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the South Park creators learned when they received death threats for depicting Muhammad in a goofy bear costume.

So I won’t make fun of Islam.

But I will go after the terrorists:

Why do terrorists wear smelly, dirty clothes? Because if they shit themselves during a failed suicide bombing, nobody would notice!

See? I went after the terrorists just to prove a point about comedy, which is this:

All good comedy (and even bad comedy) contains a kernel of truth. That’s why politically incorrect stereotypes are funny, because they’re based on factual elements and traits. Blacks don’t tip at restaurants. Jews are whiny. Asians drive like crap. Republicans are gun-toting fundamentalists. Democrats are passive hippies. Rednecks are stupid. People from the northeast are snobs.

Surely these stereotypes aren’t literal. Not all Jews are whiny. Just the ones from New York.

What I’m seeing is a return to stereotyping. Politically incorrect humor works because it’s inappropriate. It shatters the polite norms of the last 30 years and shoves them in your face, exposing them for the ridiculous bullshit they are. Laughing at the inappropriate derides the stifling societal taboos.

As I grew older, I became a fan of George Carlin and Bill Hicks, two comedians who used the beer-stained pulpit of the comedy club to rage at stupidity, the establishment and an America that had lost its way. They were both Holden Caulfield with a megaphone, shouting at the phonies and blasting the pretentious and asinine conformists responsible for war, commercialism and fear mongering.

Carlin and Hicks weren’t jokesters or safe comics; they actually had something to say. They both delivered their messages in a blunt, scathing way that occasionally eviscerated the sacred cows.

Both were intelligent, quick-witted and deftly punished those who needed it.

Carlin had a great aphorism that applied to comedians: “I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

Just because a truth is uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s off limits. Sometimes those lofty truths or conventions should be scrutinized or ridiculed just for the hell of it, whether it’s politics, religion, sex or something dark and forbidden.

Morons With Money

2010-07-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

Wealth is an overall factor in determining a person’s worth and position in society, and to deny this would imply a mental and physical detachment from the real world or an addiction to prescription painkillers.

Money, as it turns out, really does make the world go ‘round. People with an exorbitant amount of it can change the world, both for good or bad. You could build schools in Africa or suppress voter’s rights. You could save a hospital from demolition or clear-cut the Amazonian rainforest. You could fund meals for indigents or make a sequel to “Grown Ups”.

The wealthy truly are in the driver’s seat. They get invited to all the best parties, are friends with the high and mighty and even have things named after them like streets, colleges, or small Caribbean islands.

Yet despite the attractiveness a life of wealth and privilege offers, it stings when the truly affluent don’t possess the decorum that they should.

I’m not talking about the nouveau riche. I’m talking about younger generations from old money.

Old money was built slowly, usually by a few hard-working ancestors who started a business from scratch. Gradually through time, wealth accumulated and was maintained and expanded by subsequent generations of caretakers. The Carnegies, Morgans and Astors helped build modern America and became some of the nation’s first multi-millionaires. They cultivated high society, an insulated royalty built on privilege and finery like the European monarchs. This wealthy class established institutions of higher learning, private clubs for socializing and sport and a culture of extravagance.

These elites were the finest examples of pampering since Louis XVI rode his sedan chair to an all-night Lounging Around on Silken Pillows and Binging on Éclairs Soiree.

With these creature comforts came the need to give back to society, to use their family’s wealth to help those less fortunate and build things that would benefit America and the world.

But something happened on the way to the Hamptons. The elite culture of sophistication and education became clouded by stupidity. Instead of pedigreed millionaires, wealthy families began siring idiots raised on a glut of cash and luxury but sans the personal responsibility and call to stewardship.

Instead of millionaires driven to a life of philanthropy and industry, we have a bunch of Lacoste wearing retards who take daddy’s yacht out to Martha’s Vineyard for a weekend of drinking Grey Goose and raping coeds by moonlight.

Who wants a summer job when you can hang out with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch and do bodyshots off a supermodel?

The Kennedys were the first blue-blooded hellraisers in America whose antics were longtime fodder for tabloids and comedians. Booze, mistresses, politics. What normally would kill anyone’s career only made the Kennedy mystique more interesting. Uncle Teddy drives his car into the water, Cousin William wiggles his cock at anything in a skirt, Uncle Bobby secretly murders Marilyn Monroe.

Spoiled playboys and debutantes are handed everything and feel they shouldn’t have an education or develop responsibility. What you get aren’t fully developed adults. You get the anthropomorphic representation of the Id and Ego, all juiced up on materialism with an adrenaline rush of partying like a perpetual teenager.

I’m not saying that everyone born rich should take up the family business. If you’re happy repairing cars, then make that your vocation. If you’re into nature photography, then pursue that. Just do something constructive, or something that will contribute to the world, not leech off your family’s savings like some bloated tick sucking blood from a cow’s shoulder.

Despite their wealth and prestige, these retarded offspring of America’s richest families float through life with a cadre of support staff, publicists and handlers. Paris Hilton and the Kardashians are example of people who are famous just for being famous. Though they donate money to charity, it still doesn’t absolve them of douchehood.

This clueless jet set travels the globe and remains in an amniotic sac of luxury, from seaside villas to five star hotels. Their raison d’être is to consume alcohol and cause havoc. We eat this up - every last drop - because we enjoy seeing the high and mighty toppled at their expense.

I have no problem with these spoiled brats dodging the law, skirting responsibility and delaying adulthood. They’re not hurting anyone but themselves and their family’s expectations and legacies.

In the movie “Arthur”, Dudley Moore plays the scion of a wealthy family who drinks at night, sleeps with hookers and has an elaborate model train set in his room. He’s a drunken eccentric, an uber-rich manchild and man of leisure. Moore plays the character with falling-down-drunk comic effect.

This depiction doesn’t bother me as much as when these morons with money try to pass as adults. They put themselves out in the public square and run for office, promising to lead us. The problem with this is that these people aren’t leaders at all. They’re stupid. They’re children whose every appetite has been indulged. They’ve never had to work nine-to-five jobs, pay the mortgage and balance a checkbook.

They eventually win the elections, not because of their detailed plans to right society’s wrongs or make America a better place, but because of the size of their bankrolls.

When they finally get into office, they’re clueless, often inarticulate and scraping for a way to pass themselves off as educated and enlightened. So they hire handlers to groom them, to teach them oratory skills and make them better speakers and to make sure they don’t fuck cocktail waitresses on the way out of the convention center.

The left viewed former President George W. Bush as inarticulate, incompetent and ineffective. His communication skills were weak and he often found himself at the end of many verbal gaffes. Though he attended Yale and Harvard, he didn’t come across as one with an Ivy League education. He said he would make decisions “in his gut” and govern from the heart. Bush said he looked into former Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “soul”:

“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country,” Bush said during a 2001 visit with Putin.

If anyone else talked like this, they’d be fashioned with a straightjacket and thrown into a rubber room.

These silver spoon simpletons crave power and approval. Their quest is to make mumsy and daddy happy, yet it often ends in disaster, usually with one of them being elected president and some foreign country invaded.

Author William Saroyan wrote, “Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.” When you’re given infinite chances and live a life bereft of consequences, when you view the world as your personal plaything and when people are simply a commodity you can buy off, you really haven’t failed. And if you’ve failed, like Bush had when his oil company went broke, others bail you out.

Yet you don’t learn anything. You’re stuck in childhood, lashing out for the attention.

It’s hard for anyone to take you seriously when you’re a martini-drinking dick in an ascot with no real world experience except partying in Cancun and Aspen every year. When your resume consists of all the countries you vomited in and how big the family’s Learjet is, you’re not the one to run for any political office.

This country and world is in turmoil and the people crave real leadership, not manufactured leadership or hollow buzzwords that sound like something from a Tony Robbins motivational seminar. The last thing we want is to stroke the ego of a plutocrat’s son and make him feel better about himself.

If your intentions aren’t selfless, then stay on the family compound, drink Glenlivet and bang another aristocrat. Maybe there’s hope that your kid won’t be a posh hillbilly like you.

More Early 20th Century Man

2010-07-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

The second video for Early 20th Century Man is completed. This time, our hero waxes poetic about technology, innovation and civilized entertainment in the early 20th Century. Life's not all skittles and beer, however. Wait! It is! To the cinema for another rousing moving picture adventure of the age's most admired and manly chronicler, Early 20th Century Man!

Early 20th Century Man

2010-07-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes characters just come to me out of the aether, popping into my head when I least expect it. One such character is Early 20th Century Man. When I was younger, I used to make movies with my friends. This was back in the 1980s, when we used videotape and the editing process involved two VCRS hooked together. It was long and arduous getting the exact cuts and the editing was pretty much hit or miss, yet we did produce some funny videos. I'm convinced that if the Internet existed back then, we would be famous today.

When I did standup, I performed a character named Lazlo Fink. He was this snarky Jewish comedian who thought he was the greatest standup comic in the world, but who in fact was really, really lame. He performed harmonica solos and talked to a rabbit puppet. Performing as Lazlo gave me the opportunity to develop a character. It was the most fun I had on stage doing standup.

Early 20th Century Man just evolved much the same way Lazlo Fink did. One night, I put on this costume, set the PhotoBooth on my iMac to the sepia effect, and just did improvisation, making it up on the fly. I liked where it was going, so I set up a more formal shoot a few days later, polished the monologue and did several retakes until I was happy. Then I edited everything digitally. Early 20th Century Man is a product of his time, a bigoted but good-hearted person, an optimist in this incurably pessimistic age. Celebrate Independence Day with his wise, patriotic insights.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to wrap this up. I must scrape the spirit gum off my top lip from that damn mustache.

Journalism: Don't Do It

2010-07-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

If I could go back in time to 1991, I would warn my younger self not to study journalism if it wouldn’t cause a massive alteration of the space-time continuum.
You never know with time travel. You could go back and tell your grandfather to sell his stocks in 1929 before the Great Depression hits, and when you return to the present, you shockingly discover that Hitler won the war, everybody’s driving Volkswagons and Glenn Beck is a senator.
So if my meddling in the past wouldn’t screw up history, I’d tell myself the following:

Journalism is a difficult profession. You have to really love writing, love informing the public and love being paid the same as a busboy at Sbarro Pizza.

If you want to be a reporter, you can’t be shy, can’t have thin skin and can’t care about what people think of you. Martial artists are taught to lose their ego, for without the ego you will be unfettered and open your mind up to higher teachings. The same with journalists: lose your ego.

Politicians are often insecure and shallow. They flock to public office because of some deep-seated psychological need for acceptance. Many politicians I’ve dealt with, particularly at the start of my career, were very inadequate and flawed adults who bloviated about the high ideals of public service while digging their claws into the juggulars of their political enemies. Psychoanalyze many of these people and you’ll find children who were weaned from breastfeeding too early, serial bed-wetters or schoolhouse bullies.

Authority figures hate the media. They loathe the scrutiny and the last thing they want to deal with is a reporter asking questions. That’s why they’ll pass you on to a press secretary or public relations lackey instead of deal with you directly. Getting through to important people is often frustrating, with gatekeepers telling you that the important person you want to speak to is in a meeting, when in fact they’re cringing underneath their desks in fear or humping an intern in the cloakroom.

Develop an internal bullshit detector. I can tell when somebody is lying to me. Be a skeptic and check everything out.

Total objectivity is a myth. Journalism professors and professionals repeatedly proclaim that journalism depends on objectivity, that reporters must not only include any opinions in their stories but also must eschew personal opinions of any kind. Bias indicates a tilt in coverage favorable to a particular side or opinion, yet some journos believe that they mustn’t have any opinions themselves. Self-actualized adults have their own beliefs they’ve formed over a lifetime. These beliefs shape and distinguish us from everyone else on the planet. Conversely, people bereft of opinions, beliefs and creeds are automatons best suited for careers in government, advertising and public relations.

Read everything, even if it challenges your personal ethos. I despise Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, yet I’ve read their books. I’ve also read works by liberals such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and Al Franken. The more you read, the more well-rounded and educated you become.

Your editor is your best friend, not your adversary.

If you’re still going to go through with this journalism bullshit, you need to read the following: The Vintage Mencken (collected writings from journalist H.L. Mencken), All the President’s Men (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson), The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (Tom Wolfe), and The Elements of Style (William Strunk, E.B. White).

In addition to these, you might want to (if you’re not busy playing video games) read the following: Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville), America: What Went Wrong? (Donald Barlett) and the United States Constitution.

Realize that as a journalist, you will be lumped with every bottom-feeding member of the media in existence including paparazzi, supermarket tabloid journos and vapid pundits. The public’s estimation and approval of journalism and journalists is just above the flesh-eating virus and just below cannibal pedophiles. If you think the world will kiss your ass like it’s made of marzipan and treat you like royalty then you’re in the wrong line of work. Grow a spine, pay your dues and ignore the ignorant bastards. If they insist the media is part of some vast liberal or Zionist conspiracy, so be it. If you’re truly bothered by what some amateur media critic spews about your career, then leave the newsroom, sit at home and write Star Trek fan fiction.

Cultivate sources from various sectors of government and the public. Get to know the local police and fire departments and have a contact person in city hall. Become chummy with city council and members of community groups. Only by gaining their trust will they willingly impart information. Also, learn how to request documents from the city clerk’s office. Not everyone will want to cooperate with you.

Since people bitch about inaccuracy in reporting, invest in a high-end recorder. I have a digital recorder I use when I conduct interviews. If some slapnuts complains that I misquoted him, I just play the tape back and watch him cringe with shame.

Be ethical. I know it’s hard to do in an America where everyone is on the take, but ethics in this business will distinguish you from the rest of the parasitic whores who prosper from corruption. If you’re honest, admit to your mistakes and write balanced and fair stories, you’ll develop a good reputation. However, if you goof around and sleep with a politician like one reporter I knew, you end up being a hooker with a steno pad. As a side note, the reporter went on to a career writing for some shitty medical publication after the politician got her into grad school.

If you’ve been paying attention and are serious about a career in journalism, then my mission failed. Most communications majors don’t write for newspapers and instead work in public relations, advertising or at the Olive Garden.

Life is tough. There are no guarantees you’ll end up a success. Sometimes you’ll fall into a job that becomes second nature and you gradually improve. Spend enough time at it and you’ll be a veteran reporter. If you’re really persistent and competent, you might receive awards for your writing, which is validation for slogging through documents or having elected officials threaten a libel suit.

Yet the reward of a media career is a sense of accomplishment, of informing the people, exposing corruption and making this country a better place. It's the First Amendment in action, a free press that educates the populace about its government, community and world.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return to the year 2010. I don’t want to miss my shift at the Olive Garden.

Zombie Extra

2010-06-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

Wandering around a cemetery in Mays Landing while wearing zombie makeup is an interesting way to spend the weekend, especially if you're an extra in a Grindhouse Pictures movie called "For Love of Zombies," playing the part of a shambling undead. Working on a movie set is tough. Between takes, it's a lot of waiting. During my downtime I shot this video of me in this wonderful zombie makeup. Even zombies , especially ones in latex makeup on a hot June afternoon, need a refreshing bottle of water.