Jumping the Shark with Clint Eastwood

At what point did Republicans officially jump the shark? The question is hard to answer, because jumping the shark – a “Happy Days” reference, I believe, involving the Fonz, his motorcycle, and a shark tank – no longer seems like an apt metaphor. If you jump the shark, you’ve lost the plot and need to be redirected. Inherent in this is an attachment to reality, or at least the potential for a re-attachment. Republicans are past this. They’re jumping the Loch Ness Monster on a unicorn.

The thing that continues to astound me is that people are still listening, still taking seriously the insanity Republicans vomit day after day. There’s a new frontrunner for the presidential nomination every 6 hours, and each and every one of them is explicitly promising to turn our presently dysfunctional society into a veritable dystopia. They scoff at the idea that we should create jobs through investment in the nation’s infrastructure, an infrastructure so astoundingly awful that it has received a D grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers; simply put, they say, we don’t have that kind of money, so our roads, bridges, public transportation, and all the rest will just have to crumble. What we DO have money for is the construction of a massive wall along the US-Mexican border, patrolled 24 hours a day by minimum-wage private contractors with assault rifles. Lovely.

While I am opposed on principle to dividing countries by a wall – Do we fear an invasion by the Visigoths? What is wrong with us? – I wouldn’t be quite so scathing if Republicans had a plan in place to finance such a project. They don’t, of course, because the right wing is waging war on revenue. Not corporate revenue, which should of course should be maximized. Greed is good. No, the real problem is government revenue, because that has to come from taxes, which are evil. How Republicans are convincing people of this, I couldn’t say. It seems like such a no-brainer. People who are much, much richer than you should pay a little bit more so that you, working class retiree, can afford your Lipitor. The old folks who make up the Republican base are either suicidally gullible or just plain suicidal. Or genuinely fearful of the Visigoths.

Lest you label me a partisan, I submit that the Democrats are not much better. Both parties seem to have missed the memo on how trickle-down economics doesn’t work; both parties are dragging their feet on campaign finance reform, because both parties are accepting wildly generous donations from Wall Street baddies; neither party has demanded a single-payer healthcare option; neither party has made real headway on environmental issues. Basically, the political system as a whole is rocketing away from reason, but the Democrats seem at least vaguely aware of this fact. This makes them the good guys, kind of like Clint Eastwood is the titular Good in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” He’s a murdering, money-hungry sociopath, but next to the wicked deeds and visages of the Bad and the Ugly, he’s Gandhi.

I guess that’s what it all boils down to: American politics is a spaghetti western, and should be treated accordingly. Let’s stop waiting on a hero and just appoint Clint Eastwood Supreme Dear Leader of the Universe. Stupider things have happened.

The Great (Wo)Man Theory

Three 20th century figures still ruining our lives today:

Ronald Reagan
Holy mother of god, if one more person says “Well he may not have been perfect, but he did win the Cold War,” I’m going to shit myself. Presiding over the end of a war is different than winning it. Soviet-style communism had had one foot in the grave since 1917. Political systems in which extravagantly-mustachioed despots are able to intentionally and unnecessarily starve millions of their own citizens don’t last forever. When Ukrainians started eating each other, that was the beginning of the end. Perestroika was more about bread than missiles.

So if we cross off “Won the Cold War” from our list of pros, what are we left with? I’m having trouble coming up with one. On the con side, I have “Once said that ‘Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,’ thereby bequeathing upon the American people a pernicious legacy of small-government fundamentalism that continues to destroy us from the inside out.”

Margaret Thatcher
The UK’s answer to Ronald Reagan. We can thank her for lots of the austerity bullshit currently preventing Europe from appropriately handling its sovereign debt crisis.

Ayn Rand
L. Ron Hubbard wrote (science) fiction that transmogrified into holy scripture. While I think we can all agree that Scientologists are crazy, their influence is mercifully limited to bad actors.

Ayn Rand on the other hand wrote fiction that transmogrified into holy scripture, and that holy scripture influenced people like Alan Greenspan. From what I’ve been able to piece together, Ayn Rand’s argument was that poor people should be left to die because they’re not as good as rich people. This argument gels nicely with libertarianism – perhaps the most puerile political theory to ever receive serious mainstream consideration – and now forms the basis of the modern Republican Party. The fact that they’ve latched on to social Darwinism while rejecting real Darwinism tells you pretty much all you need to know about the GOP’s intellectual rigor.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

During the first Great Depression – it’s total bullshit to call what we’re in the now the Great Recession; it’s been too lengthy and too crippling to be lumped in with previous recessions, which were mostly brief and non-devastating affairs – the shantytowns that sprung up around the country were referred to as “Hoovervilles.” The reference, of course, was to President Herbert Hoover, perceived architect of the Great Depression. There’s a certain zing to that name. Hooverville. What should we call the neo-Hoovervilles that are fast becoming a familiar site in populous areas?

Well, at the moment we’re calling them Occupy ________. Occupy Pittsburgh, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Detroit, etc, but Occupy ________ just isn’t catchy enough. Here’s what I propose: Boehnervilles. Good, right? I was thinking Reaganville would be more accurate, but why hearken back to ancient history, i.e. the 80’s? Norquistville doesn’t really roll off the tongue, although again it has the virtue of accuracy. Ditto Gingrichville. I chose Boehnerville mostly because Boehner looks like it should be pronounced “boner,” which makes it funny. Plus, he’s an orange dick. I’m open to other ideas if anyone wants to share…

Enough lucre to make Midas blush

There’s a website out there that you MUST visit immediately: Actually, you’re the 47%.

Allow me to provide a bit of context. Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement have been garnering attention of late by claiming that the bottom 99% of Americans are being financially raped by the top 1%, which is a pretty accurate depiction of the state of our union. So some partisan hack whose name I can’t remember and isn’t worth mentioning anyway, decided that the 21st century incarnation of Nixon’s silent majority needed its own catchy number slogan. He latched onto the number 53, which apparently represents the percentage of Americans who pay income tax, and created a website in celebration of these Fine Americans.

The 53 percenters’ website consists of photographs of said Fine Americans holding copies their own personal, one-page autobiographies/manifestoes, all of which end with the sentence, “I am the 53%.” In terms of tone, the written works run the gamut from “poor me” to “woe is me.” You know, I used to have to walk to school uphill both ways, barefoot in blizzards without a coat, returning home to a dinner of pond water and dog food. That kind of shit. But the moral of the story is that despite it all, nay BECAUSE of it all, I’ve survived and perhaps even prospered. I don’t blame Wall Street or rich people for my problems, and neither should you because this is America goddammit, and we’re the greatest country on earth. If you’re thinking that this isn’t the logical conclusion to draw from a back story that includes dog food dinners, you’re right. It’s safe to say that they’re shooting from the gut, not the brain.

Now, I genuinely am one of the 53% of Americans who pays income tax, by virtue of being childless and earning somewhat more than the average Wal-Mart employee, which I guess makes me a Fine American. The same could not be said of a sizable portion of the posters on the 53 percenters’ website, which includes entries from full-time students, housewives, the unemployed, and a bizarrely high percentage of current and former pizza-delivery people who may or may not be affiliated with Herman Cain. These people, I think it’s safe to say, do not pay income tax as a great many of them have no income. I’m not blaming them for that, but this is the raison d’être of the “Actually, you’re the 47%” website. If you’re driving a car with 265,000 miles on it to deliver pizzas to frat boys, don’t brag about how virtuous you are for paying income tax, because the fact is you don’t.

That doesn’t mean that my status as an income tax payer makes me virtuous, because that would be silly. I was born lucky. At the same time, eating dog food doesn’t make you virtuous. If you had a shitty life, I feel for you, and if you clawed your way out of poverty, I admire you, but that doesn’t automatically make you wise. Being a 53 percenter, however, does automatically make you an idiot. You’re on your high horse, bragging about how you don’t blame anyone else for your problems, but that’s a pretty stupid position to take if your misfortune is in fact someone’s fault. Do you know why black people blame white people for slavery? Because it was white peoples’ fault. Well, you and I are in financial slavery. We’re owned by the mega-rich, and we didn’t get a say in the matter; our elected “representatives” have also been bought. Our circumstances are wholly dependent on the whims of a few men with enough lucre to make Midas blush. On your behalf, I blame Wall Street.

So here’s to the 47% and the 99% and all the OWS folks. Those protestors may smell funny and get in my way each evening when I’m walking from the office to the train, but I still love ‘em, and I don’t care if the message is muddy. It doesn’t matter, because only eggheads worry about shit like that. Finally income inequality and capitalism and unemployment and underemployment are at the forefront of public discourse, which I didn’t even think was possible. This is attention-seeking populism at its finest. Please don’t go home, except maybe for a quick shower.

Which would you rather do, sleep or live?

At the moment, I’m reading “Life” by Keith Richards, and it’s kind of making me want to write my own memoir. Keith mentions that for many years, he slept only twice a week – presumably due to the gross over-consumption of certain illegal substances – and has therefore lived more life than the rest of us; hence, his memoir is quite extensive. Being 40 years Keith’s junior and a daily sleeper, my memoir is decidedly brief. Here are some highlights…

I am born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the only child of an age-inappropriate, quasi-interfaith marriage; my father is Catholic, my mother Jewish. Thankfully neither believes in god so faith is moot, which leaves me free me to drop out of Hebrew school aged 4. Also, Easter is all chocolate, no bloodied Jesus. Some of my very first words are “Bryan Adams.”

I have a rough time at school because everyone thinks I am weird. Being a member of the local silent film society doesn’t win me any popularity contests, although I am finally elected to student council in fifth grade after the implementation of some complex rules which effectively disqualified everyone else. The only other person on the ballot is my best friend, Alanna, who never did forgive me for her defeat. We go our separate ways soon after, but I later hear a rumor that she performed oral sex on her whole high school football team. Alanna, if by chance you’re reading this, please confirm or deny.

I’ve blocked out my 11th and 12th years. They were not happy. I eventually transfer to a ritzy prep school after some public school hooligans bestow upon me the nickname “Bush Lady.” I think it had something to do with pubic hair. Anyway, I stopped letting them copy my math homework after that. Once I turned out to be a bust, they conned some Asian kid named David into being the new me. The summer before transferring schools, I manage to break my neck. Due to the sweltering heat, I emit buckets of sweat into my neckbrace, which in turn begins to smell like a dead raccoon.

Despite my charming aroma of decomposition, I find private school to be intermittently bearable. I become friends with Katie – who did not go on to perform any sex acts on entire sports teams – and together we have our first Keith Richards-esque experience: On a school trip to Washington DC, we drink vast quantities of Jolt Cola – tween crack – and sleep very little. Katie and I see the Stones a few times during high school, thinking Keith might keel over at any moment. Thus far, he has not.

I spend one terrifically unhappy and expensive summer in Europe before starting college.

I think that’ll do for now. If you enjoyed this, you can stay tuned for future installments in which I discover that the carbonation in beer makes it come back up, and that feuds between francophone and germanophone Swiss kept Switzerland out of the European Union. In other words, college.

No funny title for this one.

We Americans are barbarians, merciless rogues of the worst variety. Yesterday, the state of Georgia murdered a man named Troy Davis. They would claim that he was executed because he shot and killed an off-duty police officer one night in 1989, yet there was no confession and no physical evidence. The case hinged on the testimony of nine eyewitnesses, seven of whom have since recanted. Even if the vast majority of witnesses had NOT recanted, it would hardly matter. We’re increasingly aware that the eyewitness testimony of strangers is so unreliable as to be virtually useless. The fact that this crime occurred at night – when it’s hard to see – and involved a gun – which tends to distract witnesses – only made matters worse. Additionally, at least one person submitted a signed affidavit after the trial claiming that another man has since confessed to having been the shooter.

Essentially, the police bungled this case. They and the prosecutors set their sights on Troy Davis, and molded the evidence to fit their vision. The point here isn’t that Davis was unequivocally innocent; he and a number of other people were absolutely present when the crime occurred. The issue is doubt. While not a supporter of capital punishment, I don’t lose sleep over the execution of people who are most assuredly guilty, but in the presence of uncertainty, execution becomes murder.

Of course, guilt isn’t even the only mitigating factor. All available evidence suggests that race plays a major and inappropriate role in determining who is sentenced to life and who is sentenced to death. Indeed just last week, the Supreme Court rightly halted the execution of a black man named Duane Buck whose race had been given as a compelling reason why he should be put to death; a psychologist testified at his trial that, as a black man, he was likely to re-offend and would therefore pose a permanent threat to society. In short, a white man in his shoes would have been jailed for life. Buck was to be killed for being black.

There are also criminals whose mental capacity is a concern. During the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton, as Governor of Arkansas, oversaw the execution of a man named Ricky Ray Rector. While Rector was unquestionably guilty, a botched suicide attempt just prior to his capture left him effectively lobotomized. He had no understanding of the court proceedings, nor of his sentence; he is said to have left to the side a piece of pecan pie from his final meal, telling the prison officials leading him to the death chamber that he was saving it for later.

That an innocent man may have been killed last night is unconscionable. The time has come to reign in our baser instincts, and join the civilized world.

I'm looking for someplace comfy to plant my ass!

Now that mega-rich dickholes – and their dimwitted proxies in the Republican Party – are shouting “class warfare,” it’s time to dust off the guillotines.

A little background: Despite having a household income more than 1.5 times the national median (!), my partner and I relax on $50 chairs in an apartment lit with $10 Christmas tree lights. That’s apparently what passes for a comfortable, middle-class existence these days. Now I assure you I’m not complaining. We have a place to live, a place to sit, and (eco-friendly) lights to guide our way. In short, we’re so fortunate it makes me blush. But consider the fact that NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, resents the notion that he should pay more taxes, yet owns a million dollar couch. Makes you kind of sick, right?

I mean, really, give it a moment’s thought. A MILLION dollars! That’s completely fucking insane. You can get a really terrific couch for $1,000, a well-built, comfortable sofa that will last for years and look great in your home. It might even massage you or pull out into a bed. I can’t imagine Michael Bloomberg’s couch is 1000 times better – does it offer happy endings? – but it’s 1000 times more precious. In what universe is that kind of expense justifiable? For that kind of money he could send a half dozen poor kids to Harvard; he could pay for an uninsured cancer patient’s medical treatments; he could buy some bungalows for a few families facing foreclosure. Or he could acquire something to put his ass on. Disgusting.

This is just further evidence of what all right-thinking people already know, namely that the rich are out of control and no longer in touch with reality. Sadly, they seem adept at portraying themselves as victims and lots of people seem to buy it. I’m not talking about people whose net worth is a million dollars, although they too could stand to pony up a little more. I’m talking about people who own a single item – with the possible exception of a house – for which they paid a million dollars. There’s just no good reason for anyone to be that rich, especially when there are working people out there who can’t afford a pot to piss in. Why defend these people from the tyranny of taxes? The government taking some of their money to fund programs that ensure old people and babies don’t starve is not class warfare. Buying a million dollar couch is.

Which brings me back to my original point. They deserve to see real class warfare through the lens of a guillotine. Who’s with me?

Making Larry the Cable Guy look good

I have a theory that the History Channel’s programming decisions are made by barnyard animals. There’s really no other way to explain the travesty that is “Ancient Aliens.” “How bad could this show possibly be?” you ask. Well, it’s so bad that it makes another History Channel show, “Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy,” look positively trenchant. Larry the Cable Guy, in case you were wondering, is apparently some sort of redneck comedian who manages to make poop jokes – POOP JOKES – unfunny. You probably didn’t think such a thing was possible. It is.

Anyway, “Ancient Aliens” is so incomprehensibly stupid, so completely fucking insane, that it’s hard to look away. “Ancient Aliens” is in fact about ancient aliens. Not their civilizations – although that would be another wildly speculative show the History Channel could add to its roster – but their (alleged) interactions with ancient earthlings. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that historians and archaeologists are not sure how ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, and this may be true. Such an undertaking would have required incredibly complex engineering that, according to our present understanding of their level of advancement, might have been beyond the ancients’ capabilities.

Of course the rational explanation is that we don’t know that much about the ancient world, because it was a very long time ago indeed. They may well have had knowledge and skills we tend to attribute only to much more recent civilizations. The Romans had plumbing for Christ’s sake. They even brought it to the Britons, who forgot all about it after Rome fell, and didn’t rediscover it until 1976. Shit happens. Gaps in knowledge exist. Our best recourse is to keep on investigating, accepting that there are some things we may never know.

This view is not shared by the talking heads on “Ancient Aliens.” These maniacs, who prefer to be called ancient astronaut theorists, think the answers lie in outer space; take a gap in our knowledge of the ancient world, and insert extra-terrestrials. We don’t know how the Egyptians built the pyramids, so aliens must have done it. Their motivation? Well some ancient astronaut theorists speculate that the aliens needed gold for their spaceships, and came to earth to mine it. Some further speculate that humans were in fact created through a series of genetic experiments performed by these greedy spacemen on existing terrestrial species, with the intent of producing a race of workers who would do the mining for them. I speculate that ancient astronaut theorists are psychopaths.

Said psychopaths are also charmingly clueless when it comes to mythology. You see, a myth is by definition untrue; were it based on fact, it would not be a myth. This is of little concern to ancient astronaut theorists, who are not members of the reality-based community. They’re laboring under the misapprehension that ancient myths are historical fact, and therefore require explanation. If the ancient peoples of Peru believed that the sun god descended from the heavens, straddling a dragon with something shiny in his hand, this is evidence that Peruvians from olden times were visited by an alien – misidentified as the sun god by the credulous ancients – riding a spacecraft – misidentified as a dragon – holding a technological device of some sort – unidentifiable not only to the backward Peruvians thousands of years ago, but evidently to modern ancient astronaut theorists as well.

One particular ancient astronaut theorist on “Ancient Aliens” has really captured my heart, a gentleman by the name of Giorgio Tsoukalos. He generally sports a velvet smoking jacket and defiantly wears his hair in a style that brings to mind Ace Ventura. According to wikipedia his credentials consist of an undergraduate degree from Ithaca College – smugly known as “IK” among students at neighboring Cornell University – in the field of Sports Information Communications. Mr. Tsoukalos is precisely the breed of lunatic you’d expect to be dreaming up conspiracy theories in his garage, and to know that he really is doing just that is almost comforting. It means that all is right with the world. Anyway, he’s a real gem, and worth the price of admission (or cable).

When it comes right down to it, I really can’t recommend this program enough. If you like to scream obscenities at your TV, “Ancient Aliens” is most definitely the show for you.

Romney in 2012

Come the 2012 election, I would advise you all to vote Republican. Hear me out.

It’s increasingly clear that in the eyes of Republicans, whatever Obama does – and I mean WHATEVER – is wrong. Ipso facto, dead fucking wrong. Perhaps a fair-hued Democrat would face less scrutiny, but I suspect not. I’m inclined to believe Republicans when they claim they’re not racist, which is to say I’m inclined to believe they’re completely insane and amoral and willing to oppose any and all policies supported by Democrats, irrespective of skin color. Ergo, a Democrat in the White House can accomplish nothing.

A Republican in the White House, on the other hand, can take care of business. He can raise the debt ceiling and taxes, and regulate industry without anyone blinking an eye; indeed, if history is anything to go by, Republicans in the White House aren’t shy about betraying their small government ideals when it becomes expedient to do so. Sure, with a Republican president, we’ll have to hear all that talk about overturning Roe v. Wade and defending the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act, but given the state of the global economy, I’d happily give up my right to have an abortion or marry a ladyfriend in order to prevent the Great Depression Part Deux. Anyway, it’s unlikely that Republicans would actually make any real headway on social issues; those ancient relics in nursing homes – the ones who are dying or becoming too infirm or senile to vote – are the people most distressed by social progress, so it stands to reason that with the march of time, America will become more liberal.

We will not, however, become savvier on the economics front. It ain’t called the dismal science for nothing. People get bored stupid when you talk money. They don’t understand it, they don’t want to understand it, and they never will understand it. Want proof? Republicans are busily and successfully convincing voters that the US credit rating was downgraded because of Obama’s profligate spending, despite the fact that Standard & Poor’s took the unusual step of publicly blaming the downgrade on House Republicans’ refusal to increase government revenue. I mean, any buffoon with even a cursory understanding of investment can work out that a noisy, extended debate on the possibility of defaulting on our financial obligations didn’t exactly inspire confidence in potential lenders. That, apparently, is too much thought for most people, who would rather just believe whatever words come out of Michelle Bachmann’s mouth.

So let’s get a Republican into the White House. Not a Teabagger – I fear they might earnestly believe all the bullshit they spew – but an opportunistic conservative, someone who’s a Republican for mostly pragmatic reasons. Perhaps Mitt Romney. He’s bland enough to make a decent ringer. So, there you have it. My advice: vote Mitt Romney 2012.

The only thing worse than a Democrat.....

I am now officially old. Twenty-nine. I turned 29 on July 31, 2011. That’s old. Not back-pain, dentures, and porridge old, but old enough to feel like something should have happened by now.

I understand, on an intellectual level, that it’s not reasonable to expect to have achieved or earned or even been given a whole fuck of a lot before the age of 30. We do, after all, live in an age of lowered expectations, eliminated expectations for the unlucky. This latter group of unfortunate souls – everyone who’s more than 5 years younger than I am – is completely fucked. My generation is at a low cruising altitude with little hope of advancement; they’re trapped in a pond at the end of the runway. Those poor kids.

Lots of those poor kids have never voted. They’ll head out to the polls in 2012, much like I did in 2000, as voting virgins. Maybe they’ll be excited, but if they’re sensible they won’t be. After all, who are they going to vote for? The first vote I cast was for Al Gore in an election that wound up being decided by the US Supreme Court. That was enough to put me off of the electoral process, but it’s nothing compared to what kids are now confronting. Their generation is disposable, because their generation is poor; they don’t have money now, and they won’t have money in the future, because no one’s hiring them. Those crappy, entry-level, no-status jobs are going to people my age, people with more experience and more education. I’d feel guilty, but to survive in the American economy, you have to look out for number 1. If you don’t have money, you don’t have a voice. Democracy, it turns out, is not really compatible with capitalism. Neither is peace. Neither is prosperity.

People my age will return to the polls as voting veterans. Most of us will probably go Democrat, for the sole reason that they seem fractionally less bent on destroying the universe. Not much, but a little. We’ll vote for them because they’re less assiduous in their distaste for same-sex marriage, because they oppose some of the right’s more manifestly psychotic positions. Not, you’ll note, because we think they’ll really do a whole lot to make our lives better; we’re at that stage where our votes are cast with the simple hope of maybe getting by. That’s it. I expect that the sun will have set on the US empire before I hit 30. I expect to live hand-to-mouth until I drop dead. I expect I won’t ever retire. I expect that one day my medical bills will become overwhelming. I expect not to starve, but who can say? Expectations suitably lowered. Happy birthday to me.

It's just a matter of time.....

It seems that Amy Winehouse managed to make herself dead over the weekend in a turn of events that was admittedly sad, but also eminently predictable. Doctors seldom prescribe a diet of whiskey and heroin – although senior citizen, Keith Richards, seems to be doing OK on this regimen – so it’s not as though her death came as a surprise to anyone. If you’d never heard of her before this weekend, her death didn’t register. If you had heard of her, you’d already seen the pictures of her wandering around London, barefoot and bloody with gobs of snot-moistened white powder dangling from her nose. This is why, in the wake of her death, reporters and journalists and celebrities (George Michael is apparently very broken up) have leapt at the chance to say, write, or tweet that, “It was just a matter of time.”

That sentence is actually what I want to discuss. Of course it’s sad when young, talented people die, but Amy Winehouse wasn’t my close personal friend; I’m not choking back tears or having an unusual amount of trouble focusing at work. What’s gnawing at me is mankind’s blatant propensity to spew out meaningless drivel that we erroneously think makes us sound thoughtful, caring, wise, considerate, profound, or some combination thereof. Obviously it was “just a matter of time” before Amy Winehouse died. It’s also just a matter of time before I die; before you die; before everyone you know dies. Yes, the woman who chugs a bottle of vodka before embarking on yet another stint in rehab is probably closer to death than me or you or anyone you know, but if you want to be all fatalistic about it, each and every one of us is a ticking time bomb.

So let’s not make “drugs and alcohol are bad” the moral of the story. We adults know a poor life choice when we see one. Smoking crack is a poor life choice. Putting a shot of vodka in your morning coffee is a poor life choice. Let’s take a different lesson from this tragedy, and solemnly swear to consider the words we intend to speak before letting loose. Is what you’re about to say worth saying? Does it have any meaning whatsoever? Is it just fucking stupid? If, after careful deliberation, the answers are no, no, and yes, don’t pollute the world with your inanity. Appoint Mark Twain your life coach, and abide by his sagest pronouncement: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

Here we go again.....

There is something innately American about shoving your head up your ass, and charging in the wrong direction. We don’t excel at a lot of things anymore, but in this capacity we rule.

This obviously isn’t a new phenomenon, nor is it exclusively American; humans have been making terrible decisions for at least as long as we’ve been bipedal. It’s just that this whole recession has really highlighted Americans’ lovely propensity to leap headfirst into a shark tank simply because some huckster told us it would be OK. Also our propensity to, having just barely made it out alive, leap right back in because the same huckster has somehow convinced us that the best cure for a shark attack is another shark attack.

I am speaking, as you may or may not have gathered, about financial regulation. Our economy disintegrates because Wall Street is like a less-prudent Las Vegas, and our response is to reimburse the criminals – sorry, “bankers” – who presided over the catastrophe a few hundred billion dollars, no strings attached. Huh? In the spirit of things, I’ve dreamed up a few “solutions” to some of this country’s non-financial problems…

Prison Overcrowding
Rather than locking up serial killers, let’s just fill their basements with children and expectant mothers and kittens, and see what happens. There’s no way this laissez-faire approach could backfire.

Drunk Driving
Drunk drivers should not only retain their licenses – and not be fined for their transgressions, since everyone already knows that governmental adoption of austerity measures obviates the need for revenue of any kind – but should also have their backseats filled with cases of their drink of choice.

The War on Drugs
The drug war should certainly not be declared a failure at this juncture. Instead, we should continue to spend unthinkably large sums of money on futile attempts to eradicate narcotics through means that have been proven ineffective in every respect over the last half century. We should also lengthen drug offenders’ prison sentences since there’s extra room now that the serial killers are loose.

Education
We should clearly retain our focus on standardized testing in schools, because that’s a solid idea. We should clearly not elevate the status of the teaching profession – and its pay – to a point where intelligent, competent, patient individuals are more motivated to enter the field. If we hone the tests and get them juuuuuuust right, it won’t matter that lots of teachers are narcissistic halfwits. *Disclaimer* I’m not suggesting that all teachers are dumb and self-important, just that we presently don’t demand that they not be.

Racism
We have a black president, ergo racism is dead. Affirmative action, institutionalized racism, blah, blah, blah. These debates are mere relics of a bygone age.

I guess the moral of the story is, if at first you don’t succeed, keep trying the same thing over and over. It’s bound to work someday, and if it doesn’t, vociferous denial is a punchy plan B. You’re welcome.

Where is my protractor when I need it?

Thought #1
Bananas are the most stress-inducing of all the fruits – green when you put them in your shopping cart, a lemon-lime hue once you hit the register, and perfectly ripe when you arrive home. From this moment, you have approximately 4 hours to ingest the whole bunch before they rot. Too much pressure.

Thought #2
Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner should pitch a Wayne’s World-style show to VH1, a light-hearted discussion of politics and ladies. Schwing.

Thought #2A
Eliot Spitzer should parlay his (theoretical) VH1 fame into a run for president, since he seems not to lend credence to the notion of bipartisanship. I don’t care if he fills the Cabinet with hookers as long as he forces rich fucks to pay taxes.

Though #2B
Anthony Weiner should parlay his (theoretical) VH1 fame into a career in porn. My only qualm is that the movie title “Weinergate” is probably already taken.

Thought #3
There’s not a person on earth who enjoys spending 40 hours every week sitting in an office. That’s a fact. Instead of continuing to torture each other and ourselves, we should take a page out of the South American drug cartels’ book, and collude. With a little teamwork, I’m sure we can work out a superior arrangement.

Thought #4
The most useful class I ever took was a typing clinic in the 7th grade. How is it that typing is not a mandatory aspect of a child’s education, but trigonometry is? Here’s how I know this is ass-backwards: I’ve never had occasion to use trigonometry outside of school, but I did just have occasion to type it.

Thought #5
I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but there’s something about certain pieces of tacky art that is indubitably Christian. You might be looking at nothing more than a painting – or a “commemorative plate” – depicting an eagle flying over a mountain, but it just smacks of Jesus. Kind of insidious, really, considering that art of this ilk could wind up adorning the homes of non-believers, simply because they have terrible taste.

Baseless and Mean-Spirited

As you may know, a bill proposing the legalization of same-sex marriage is currently making the rounds in Albany. As you may also know, television ads produced by special interest groups are retarded. So this morning when I saw a commercial paid for by some collection of New Yorkers who oppose gay marriage – New Yorkers United to Protect Children from Butt Sex, or something – I wasn’t surprised that it was terrible. I was, however, surprised by the blatant weakness of their argument. Here are a few factoids from the commercial, designed to make me say no to same-sex marriage:

1. Kids in California (or Massachusetts, or somewhere else queer) are taught that boys can marry other boys.

2. A class in California was taken to a same-sex marriage ceremony, with the school describing the field trip as a “teachable moment.”

3. Two dudes getting married infringes upon my rights as a heterosexual.

OK, on point one, if two (or more) consenting adults believe their relationship is valid, it’s valid. To claim that you’re somehow better-equipped to gauge the legitimacy of strangers’ love lives than they are equipped to gauge the legitimacy of their own, is to display a set of monstrous, unsightly balls. Whether or not you agree with what they’re doing is irrelevant. A modern society allows its adults to choose their own romantic partners. It’s as simple as that.

As to point two, I agree that a gay wedding is an odd choice for field trip, and perhaps not as enriching for children’s minds as, say, a museum. That being said, in a litigious society such as our own, teachers and administrators are not in the business of whisking kids off school grounds without their parents’ full support. The attendees’ parents were informed of what the trip entailed, and signed off on it. Fear not. Your kid won’t be going to any gay weddings without your knowledge and approval.

Argument number three really isn’t even an argument at all. Which rights, exactly, am I losing? Marriage isn’t a scarce commodity. There’s no upper limit on the number of marriages that can occur within a given time frame, so it’s not as though two affianced dudes could be stealing a marriage that was rightfully yours. Perhaps conservatives and Christians are laboring under the belief that the legalization of same-sex marriage is synonymous with the criminalization of opposite-sex marriage. It’s not. Oh, and if marriage is so fucking sacred, don’t protest in Albany. Protest in front of a drive-thru chapel in Vegas.

This commercial was so disturbing in part because I’m desperate – DESPERATE – to hear an argument against gay marriage that doesn’t ultimately boil down to, “Guys fucking guys is icky.” This issue seems so cut-and-dry that it makes me nervous, like I must be missing something. Other groups I disagree with have viewpoints I can vaguely understand. I think abortion should be legal, but I understand why people oppose it. It’s hard to pinpoint when a group of cells become a fetus, and it’s perhaps even harder to determine what rights to grant to those cells or that fetus. Similarly, I don’t support the death penalty, but I understand the instinct to rid the country of its most dangerous criminals.

The instinct to stop gays from marrying, on the other hand, is not understandable. It’s baseless and mean-spirited, and until someone is able to present a reasonable argument – something to do with our safety or our money or our quality of life – I’ll never think otherwise.

Whip it out, boys!!

Photographs of disembodied dicks are not sexy. In fact, if sexy had an opposite, it would be a random erection straining a pair of boxer briefs. I’m confident that every woman on earth is with me on this one, which leads me to wonder one thing: why do men persist in sharing such pictures with the opposite sex? After all, I don’t think women, as a whole, are sending mixed messages. There may be a few stray weirdos out there, but in the wake of Weinergate, the general female consensus has been something along the lines of, “Gross,” or, “What a gross pervert,” or, “Gross.”

I can only conclude that women are not really the intended audience for crotch shots. Just as women dress for other women – men would mostly prefer women to not dress at all – men whip out their dicks for other men. You know, to show them who’s boss. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at the infamous pictures for any significant length of time, but I gleaned from “The Colbert Report,” that Weiner is packing, and if you’re packing, why not share it with the world?

Intriguingly, if my theory is correct, this whole business has played out perfectly. Had the girl in Seattle been the only recipient of those photos, his penis would have elicited nothing more than a stray comment, probably including the word, “gross.” She would have immediately deleted the picture, written off the Congressman as a sexual deviant, and gone on with her life. But now every American has seen Anthony Weiner’s weiner (I didn’t want to play on his name, but my inner child is a 14-year old boy) and on some level he couldn’t be happier. Any reasonable person would react to 300 million people seeing his or her genitals by moving to Peru or committing suicide; Weiner’s not going anywhere.

Which is not to say that I think he should resign; he’s a politician, so it goes without saying that he’s unreasonable. Anyway, sending pictures of your dick to other adults is inconsiderate and unsavory, but it’s not really criminal, nor is it necessarily indicative of a lack of professional judgment. That creepy bastard, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, had little choice but to resign, not because he’s a predatory asshole, but because he can’t head the IMF – or France – from prison; sexually assaulting women makes him a bad person, not a bad economist. Similarly, Anthony Weiner is manifestly a shitty husband and a slimy Facebook friend, which isn’t the same as being a bad legislator. So I say let his constituents determine his fate. If they want him to stick around, and at least for the moment they seem to, don’t rush to oust him and his penis.

A final thought: If I were registered to vote in the state of New York, I would be among Weiner’s constituents, most of whom are elderly Jews. Is my neighbors’ willingness to forgive and forget evidence that they too are fans of sexting? Super gross...

So, what are you going to do about it?

The America of our collective imagination is dead. That upwardly-mobile, egalitarian paradise where all you needed was a dollar and a dream no longer exists; these days it takes more than that to worm your way into a homeless shelter. Show me 1 working class kid who graduates from Harvard Medical School, and I’ll show you 100 high school dropouts; show me 1 middle class kid doing better than his parents, and I’ll show you 100 who are un- or underemployed. We have to do better. My generation deserves the shit we were made to believe we were entitled to – a living wage, a house, a car, a family, a decent education, healthcare, etc. – and there are two things standing in our way: old fucks’ greed and their constitutional inability to admit they’re wrong.

Let’s start by discussing the greed. Although to the broke masses it may appear otherwise, there’s still plenty of money in the United States. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the money is all in the grubby hands of a few greedy, reprehensible, middle-aged white dudes, and Oprah. This, according to fiscal conservatives, is the system our Founding Fathers – and maybe even Jesus Christ himself – handed down to us. Bullshit. This country was founded on a wave of Enlightenment republicanism, and “republicanism” with a lower-case r is more about preventing tyranny by the rich than tyranny by the queers.

And tyranny by the rich is, by the way, eminently preventable. We tend to erroneously view the economy as some sort of mythical beast beyond our control. We forget that we ARE the economy. We made it, we sustain it, and when it plummets, it’s because we let it. It’s not difficult to unearth the reasons we find ourselves where we are today. Take our ill-advised, quasi-religious reverence for free-trade. The outsourcing of labor to overseas sweatshops where foreign workers are paid pennies on the dollar is why America no longer produces anything tangible; since the manufacturing sector was a major employer up until the 1980’s, its dissolution has had a pretty devastating economic impact.

Of course, the government could regulate this kind of thing; they certainly used to back in the age of American prosperity. They simply choose not to because they exist in a climate of covetousness and cronyism and secrecy. As long as robber-barons have the legal right to donate money to elected officials – bribe them, to use the vernacular – corporations will have the legal right to maximize profits by any means necessary, profits which they need not share with rank-and-file employees. Greed is socially corrosive, and not the natural order of things. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Now on to my second point: it’s time for fiscal conservatives and proponents of laissez-faire economics to admit defeat. Obviously the privileged few players in this game who are winning won’t give up their money bags without a fight, and why should they? The system worked for them. For those of you who are losing, it’s time to reexamine your political positions. It’s time to realize that you’ll never be in the top 1%, that you’re closer to a bum on the street than a millionaire. Most of all, it’s time to be held accountable. You’re responsible for the fact that the country’s deficit is skyrocketing while corporations and rich people remain criminally under-taxed; for the existence of the Rust Belt; for the 85% of recent college graduates who have to move back in with their parents after failing to find adequate employment; for the under-funded public schools that fail children so badly that fewer than 50% of them read at grade level. Your votes brought us here, and you were wrong. It’s as simple as that.

Does anyone remember Kirk Cameron?

“Kirk Cameron criticizes Stephen Hawking for saying ‘there is no heaven.’” This is apparently news to the Washington Post, which is why no one reads newspapers anymore. I mean, honestly, do we really care what some 80’s sitcom star-turned-evangelist thinks about science? Some people probably do, but they should be put down.

That being said, the article is mercifully short, and bursting with amazing Kirk quotes. Try this one on for size: “Professor Hawking is heralded as ‘the genius of Britain,’ yet he believes in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything and that life sprang from non-life.” This from a guy who, at his peak, shared screen time with a character named “Boner.” Forgive me for doubting his scientific bona fides.

Having roundly trounced Stephen Hawking in a battle of wits, Cameron goes on to claim that, “to say anything negative about Stephen Hawking is like bullying a blind man. He has an unfair disadvantage, and that gives him a free pass on some of his absurd ideas.” Harsh, Kirk. I don’t know if Jesus would outsmart a cripple and then kick him when he’s down.

I also don’t know if Jesus would imply that a cripple’s unfair disadvantage is in reality his greatest – and most unfair – advantage. Personally, I would probably murder puppies to avoid winding up in poor old Stephen’s shoes, but I guess it’s all in how you frame it. And, hey, apparently if you’re gimpy, Cambridge University will fast-track your tenure, so it’s not all bad.

Grandma and Grandpa, maybe you shouldn't have wasted your money!

Good reasons not to go to college…

1. You’re probably dumb.

2. Since the evaporation of viable blue-collar careers, college graduates have flooded the labor market. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of economics knows that if you flood the market with a commodity, the commodity loses value, which is exactly what has happened to the undergraduate degree. The BA is the new high school diploma, the minimum level of educational attainment for jobs that didn’t require a 4-year degree as recently as a decade ago. These days, secretaries, data-entry clerks, and bank tellers are college graduates. It’s not as though these jobs realistically need to be filled by people who have a solid understanding of modern English poetry, but in any given year there are enough young adults moving from academia into the working world that companies can afford to have discriminating tastes.

3. It’s crazy expensive, and you can’t afford it. Almost no one can, hence student loans, which are a massive source of debt. When I say massive, I mean massive. The amount of debt incurred by students attempting to cover their school fees is over $800 billion. And what was a major contributing factor to the complete collapse of the US economy? Well, debt, of course. All those graduates now working as unpaid interns and part-time administrative assistants will spend the rest of their lives paying off vast student loans, with interest. That’s a serious problem.

4. Yes, these days it’s essentially impossible to cultivate a lucrative career without an undergraduate degree, but it’s also become essentially impossible to cultivate a lucrative career with one, so fuck it. Try your hand at organic farming or go to New Zealand to shear sheep or something. Learn the art of cheese-making. Live simply, and save yourself the time and debt.

5. As if the sheer number of college graduates hadn’t already destroyed the value of a college education, now we have to contend with for-profit universities doling out degrees willy-nilly. The fact that you can earn an economics degree at the University of Phoenix makes my economics degree from an actual university less attractive to potential employers, who’ve encountered plenty of functionally illiterate econ grads. I say down with the for-profits. Their tuitions are high, their accreditations questionable, and their educations shitty. If your degree is from a school that allows you to earn your GED while accumulating college credits, it shouldn’t count.

6. Even the educations offered by elite schools have gone downhill, which I suspect has a lot to do with the low-quality of the average high school education; getting all A’s at a public school is no great achievement these days. That coupled with the fact that the SAT is becoming less and less important in the determinations of university admissions officers leads me to wonder just how exactly schools are vetting prospective students these days. My suspicion is that there’s a lot of emphasis unduly placed on extracurricular activities, and other pretty useless bullshit, which is why your average college freshman is all energy and enthusiasm signifying nothing. For my American readers that was a witty allusion to Shakespeare, best known on these shores for his CliffsNotes.

I love the smell of bus exhaust in the morning!

Top ten reasons why New York is the worst place in America:

1. The whole city smells like piss.

2. In the rest of the country, when fully ambulatory people notice they’re in your way, they generally step aside without hesitation – this is the norm. Your average New Yorker, on the other hand, will stand in the middle of a grocery store aisle, watch as you approach him, and refuse to budge until you come to a complete halt and say, “Excuse me.” I think that transplants from other parts of the country should take their shopping carts and start mowing down the natives, but I’ve yet to convince anyone else to sign on.

3. The New York Dialect is Stupid Part I: New Yorkers can’t ask questions properly. Instead of saying, “She wondered when he would change his shit-stained underwear,” like everyone else in the Anglophone world, New Yorkers say, “She wondered when would he change his shit-stained underwear.” Unacceptable.

4. New Yorkers Relish Confrontation Part I: Someone holds open the door for you as you’re walking out of Starbucks, and you give a nod of appreciation before walking away. What you, the outsider, fail to understand is that to the New Yorker, holding the door for a stranger is a selfless act of kindness on par with donating a kidney. Therefore don’t be surprised if, as you’re walking away, the irate door-holder screams after you, “YOU’RE WELCOME.” Just consider yourself lucky that he didn’t chase you down for a face-to-face. Roughly 1 in 50 will.

5. New Yorkers get most of their information about life between the coasts from the movie, “Deliverance.”

6. New Yorkers Relish Confrontation Part II: You encounter a person you know vaguely by sight, but not by name. Since you really have no idea who this fucker is, you think that if you’re unfortunate enough to make eye contact with him, a little smile will suffice. Not so. New York etiquette dictates that you must greet with great volume and enthusiasm people whose names you not only don’t know, but will never know. Deviate from this etiquette, and this virtual stranger won’t hesitate to give you a good dressing-down. Apparently New Yorkers fail to recognize the irony in combating (perceived) rudeness with rudeness.

7. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Sucks Part I: A few weeks ago, I was sitting on a crowded subway train, idling in a station. So there we all were, waiting and waiting and waiting, not with patience per se, but without too much howling and weeping. Finally, a voice came over the PA informing us that our train had in fact been out of service for the past half hour, and would be going nowhere, a fact the MTA hadn’t seen fit to share at any point during the first 30 minutes of our adventure. One disgruntled passenger vowed to punch an MTA employee in the face. I hope he stuck to his word.

8. New Yorkers earnestly believe that visitors and transplants find the city exciting, which is retarded considering they also believe we wouldn’t bat an eye if forced to squeal like a pig while getting anally raped by an inbred psychopath (see # 5). You can’t have it both ways, dickholes.

9. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Sucks Part II: I pay $104 a month for the privilege of riding trains and buses in New York City. As recently as 2008 I was paying only $76 a month, but the MTA, strapped for cash as per usual, ups the fares roughly every three days. So given these inflated fares, where is their money going? Obviously not on new trains, or on maintenance, or on cleaning, or on automating announcements, or on setting up stations as wireless hubs; that much is clear. The money goes to salaries, big, fat, bloated salaries. It’s not unusual for rank-and-file MTA employees to be compensated to the tune of $100,000 a year. In this dismal economy, I’m surprised more of them aren’t murdered.

10. The New York Dialect is Stupid Part II: How do you say the word, “radiator?” Well, if you’re one of the 300 million Americans not from New York, the first syllable is pronounced, “ray,” as in “a ray of sunshine.” If you’re one of the 8 million people from New York, the first syllable is pronounced, “rad,” as in “when you were hanging ten out there, it was totally rad.” Whenever a New Yorker says radiator, a little part of me dies.

Teach your children well.....

The 80’s was a great time to be alive. Teenage girls thought Boy George was sexy. Charlie Sheen was intermittently coherent. Our President was an actor who had once shared top-billing with a monkey. The UK, meanwhile, was governed by a lady robot. There must have been other world leaders, too, and I’m sure they were equally improbable.

Of course having been born in 1982, I couldn’t tell my Ronald Reagan from my Ronald McDonald, which isn’t to say that my generation missed out on all this lunacy. We most certainly didn’t. From Super Mario Brothers we learned that mushrooms make you big and turtles make you small; Fraggle Rock introduced us to paganism and trash heaps; some of us even had dolls that could crap into a diaper.

As weird as all that was, I submit that the picturebooks of the period were the ultimate embodiment of 80’s insanity. Deviousness, gluttony, misery, pent-up rage, and unwarranted aggression were no longer off limits, and the purveyors of kid-lit went nuts, churning out creepy book after creepy book. So my question is, was that a bad thing? My mind was undoubtedly warped, but was it perhaps warped for the better? What follows is something of a guide to a selection of picturebooks plucked from my personal collection. As an adult – which I sort of am – can I determine which books are good for kids and which are bad? Join me now for a trip down memory lane…

“Begin at the Beginning” by Amy Schwartz
The heroine of this book, Sara, is a second grader who’s chosen to paint for a school art show a subject that would tax the genius of DaVinci. Eventually, Sara’s mother manages to teach her daughter the difference between healthy ambition and unrealistic ambition; aim for the stars, but know your limits.

Verdict: Bad. The general message is positive, but that’s not the whole story. On every other page Sara’s shoveling more junk into her greedy little mouth: butter and jelly sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, pretzels, chocolate cake. The snacks are described in loving detail, the illustrations are of fat characters, and the effect is altogether jarring. “Begin at the Beginning” is less about learning to achieve, and more about Sara’s burgeoning eating disorder.

“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Judi and Ron Barret
While we’re on the subject of eating disorders, let’s explore this gem. The story centers around a town called Chewandswallow, a typical town but for its weather (and its name). Three times a day, the sky opens up and pours onto the town’s citizens a bounty of food – it rains soup, snows ice cream, hails pizza, etc. Everyone seems pretty pleased with this arrangement until the weather shifts. The food itself gets bigger, and begins to fall more or less constantly; the supply far outstrips the demand. After some poor saps are chased down the street by a pack of giant donuts, the townspeople take action. They fashion rafts out of massive peanut butter sandwiches, and sail away, never to see Chewandswallow again.

Verdict: Good. Yes it’s all about food, but the overriding message is that gluttony isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; as glorious as it sounds, you wouldn’t actually want to be buried in delicious food morning, noon, and night. Well, that’s the theory anyway…

“Love Helps You Grow” by Hedvig Johnson
This choice item from the “Rose-Petal Place” series opens with some dreadful poetry about the new day dawning, so you can tell right off the bat that no effort was spared. Sunny Sunflower and Orchid visit their pal, Rose-Petal. Sunny asks Rose-Petal if she likes her new dress, and as it turns out, Rose-Petal’s fondness for the dress borders on the unseemly. She and Sunny become so immersed in their mutual love-fest that they don't notice Orchid skulking away, sad and alone.

Enter the obligatory villain, an opportunistic spider named Nastina. Upon learning of the rift between Orchid and her friends, Nastina spies her chance to take down those twee flowers. She convinces Orchid to drink an evil potion, assemble her flower brethren, and complain to them about the grave injustices she’s suffered. Unfortunately for Orchid, it soon becomes apparent that the more she whines, the more she shrinks; desperate, an eensy-weensy Orchid turns to Rose-Petal for help. "Push jealousy away," Rose-Petal advises. And push Orchid does, until she’s returned to her original size. Our heroes triumph and our villain is foiled, at least until the series’ next installment, “Lily Fair Learns a Lesson.”

Verdict: Bad, mostly because it’s a treacly turd, but also because it champions repression. Show me a kid who represses his feelings, and I’ll show you a kid whose future involves a clock-tower and a gun.

“Frog and Toad” by Arnold Lobel
The Frog and Toad series is one of the most terrifying entries into the pantheon of kid-lit. These books center around two friends named Frog and Toad, who conveniently happen to be a frog and a toad. Frog is tall and green and trim; Toad is short and brown and squat. Frog is a leader; Toad is a follower. Frog is something of a renaissance man; Toad is neurotic and clinically depressed. So far, Frog sounds like a pretty affable guy, but this illusion is quashed after just a few pages of one of these stories, when it becomes apparent that Frog is in fact a twisted sadist, and Toad his preferred victim. These amphibians’ relationship is straight out of “Blue Velvet.”

Essentially, each story shows Toad miserably sleeping away his life, while Frog dreams up passive-aggressive schemes that, once carried out, play Toad for the fool without casting Frog in an overtly negative light. Just for shits and giggles Frog might give Toad a too-big hat and suggest that the warty, little nitwit think big thoughts to make his head grow. Or he might, noticing that Toad is for all intents and purposes suicidal, write a cheerful note to his friend, only to entrust its delivery to a snail. As every pretty girl needs her ugly friend, every Frog needs his Toad. So, are these stories unhealthy for a child’s mind?

Verdict: Could go either way. It really all depends on the lessons you hope to impart. If you want to show your kids what horrors await if they don’t stand up to bullies, these books could be just the ticket. If, however, you want your kids to believe that the meek shall inherit the earth, these are not the books for you. Meek little Toad is not the lovable underdog who ultimately gets the girl. He’s the tragic figure who gets the girl, then finds out Frog’s fucking her behind his back.

The Sound of Music

These are a few of my favorite things…

State Motto: “Live Free or Die” – New Hampshire
Most states went with platitudes about God, equality, and righteousness; New Hampshire opted for a full-on threat, which is pretty badass. The silver medal has to go to Maryland for the supremely retarded, “Manly deeds, womanly words.”

Police Procedural: “Law & Order U.K.”
Everything’s better with accents.

Bizarre Japanese Invention: Smoker’s Mask
Are you a smoker? Are you also busy? Ever wish there were some way to indulge your habit without sacrificing productivity? Well now you can with the smoker’s mask, a plastic apparatus you affix to your face as a doctor might affix a surgical mask to his. Just strap it on, fill each of the mask’s 20 holes with a cigarette, fire ‘em up, and smoke a whole pack in one shot. If you don’t die, the rest of the day is all yours.

Idiomatic Expression: “A stitch in time saves nine.”
There are ways in which I’m a bumbling fool, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t grasp the meaning behind this expression until a few months ago. Before that, I thought of it as kind of sci-fi, something to do with the nature and potential non-linearity of time. I’m disappointed that its true meaning is so prosaic, but for me it will always be very “Back to the Future.”

Holiday: Halloween
Turkey or candy? Candy. Presents or candy? Candy. Fireworks or candy? Candy. The only downside of my preferred holiday is the age restriction. Where do the arbiters of Halloween get off telling me I’m too old to collect candy from strangers? If I’m enthused and encostumed (a word which doesn’t exist, but should), cut me a break.

Convicted Criminal: Armin Meiwes
This guy – German, unsurprisingly, and someone I’ve discussed on this blog before – trolled the internet in search of a human who would consent to being eaten. Astonishingly he found someone, and Mr. Meiwes enjoyed this man’s flesh for nearly a year. He’s my favorite criminal because, despite being convicted of murder, Mr. Meiwes at no point violated the will of another, making him the cuddliest cannibal in the western world.

Religion: Mormonism
I want to know about the underpants.

The post-apocalyptic hellscape that is elementary school

There are some people in this world – actually a lot of people, but I’m going to start off on a charitable note – who are dumb. Really, really, appallingly dumb. This can neither be helped nor escaped. No state, country, or continent in the world is safe from the slow-witted, with the possible exception of Antarctica, whose only residents are scientists. Unfortunately, in exchange for being surrounded by exclusively intelligent people, said residents are forced to live in the post-apocalyptic hellscape that is Antarctica. Go figure.

For a variety of reasons mostly related to Americans’ dogged insistence that just about anyone could grow up to be the President of the United States, calling people dumb violates this country’s unspoken social code: we’re all equal except for I make 30 times as much as you and oppose income redistribution. The assumption underlying this code is that we’re all born with equal potential, so if you don’t succeed it’s on you, And because Americans are not only dumb but willfully ignorant, we blindly accept this assumption as fact. That’s a shame since the assumption is manifestly untrue. We’re born into different circumstances, both genetic and environmental, that affect our ability to succeed. That a biracial man from Kansas was elected President is not proof that you too could get there one day. He’s smarter, luckier, more charming, and better-looking than you. That’s not fair, but it is true.

This assumption, which, I would like to re-emphasize, goes mostly unquestioned, really fosters our idiocy; through our refusal to acknowledge differing levels and forms of intelligence within our population, everyone is losing. Just ask a smart kid in a public elementary school classroom how he feels about school. Odds are he’ll deploy the adjective, “boring,” at least once in his answer. This isn’t, I posit, an indication that the kid isn’t interested in learning. Most smart people enjoy learning since they tend to be good at it. It’s in fact an indication that the kid simply isn’t learning, which leads me to wonder why and how this could be. How is it possible to spend hours upon hours every day “learning” and to still learn nothing? Because of the dumb kids.

Now I’m not blaming the dumb kids. They can’t help it, and they’re obviously entitled to an education just like everyone else; the more Americans who are literate, both linguistically and mathematically, the better off we all are. But I can’t dream up a reasonable rebuttal to the argument that lumping kids of all abilities into a single classroom forces the teacher to teach to the lowest common denominator. I personally reacted to this by being the kid who always volunteered to read aloud or solve a math problem on the blackboard, not because I especially wanted to, but because I knew I’d do it quickly and correctly; a dumb kid bungling things would invariably cut into recess time, so when you think about it I was really quite the elementary school hero. Whether or not this self-assignation is valid, the scenario perfectly illustrates the problem: the dumb kids struggle and need a lot of assistance, which annoys the smart kids, who are already disgruntled at the inanity of the lessons, and the smart kids’ annoyance undermines the self-esteem of the dumb kids who are just smart enough to pick up on it. No one wins.

The crux of my argument is that the time has come to return to the antiquated practice of tracking students: the smart kids in one class, the dumb kids in another, and the special ed kids will just sit and color. I firmly believe that all children would benefit from this set-up, and that the greatest benefits would be reaped by the kids on the lower end of the scale. For the first time in their lives, the dumb kids would have a shot at some modicum of scholastic success, the chance to not be overshadowed by Asian kids with pocket protectors whose parents don’t take “B+” for an answer. If an academically-challenged rascal didn’t understand something, he wouldn’t be so embarrassed to seek assistance. He might even volunteer to read aloud or do the odd math problem in front of the class since little assholes like me wouldn’t be there, straining to beat him to the punch. All in all, he’ll turn out a fuck of a lot smarter with tracking than without.

I realize that this little screed is dripping with arrogance and elitism, and, yes I’m laboring under the assumption that I would have been in the smart class had such a thing existed during my childhood. Let’s not fret over my superciliousness, and just assume for the sake of argument that I’m not delusional about my own intellectual capacity. How would my life have been different in a tracked elementary school? Well, learning probably would have been more interesting, or at least less tedious. I might have been spared some of the mockery I endured for being such a weird little creature. Mostly, I would have been less bored and annoyed. It’s not as though in the absence of the class dregs, I would have studied quantum mechanics or something; all little kids have certain limitations, so neither class’ curriculum would have strayed too far from that which was actually in place in 1992. The smart class would have just read tougher books and done a little more with fractions.

Before I wrap things up, it would behoove me to acknowledge the most obvious, but also the most valid, opposing argument, which has nothing to do with the children’s self-esteem; I think I’ve argued pretty persuasively that everyone’s self-esteem would in fact increase under a tracking system. The argument I consider reasonable states that it’s important for kids to be exposed to a wide array of people, and such exposure would be greatly lessened if children were tracked. This is absolutely true, but I’m not a tracking fundamentalist – I see no problem with having all the classes come together for art, music, and gym. I might even throw in social studies and science, neither of which presents as conceptually difficult in elementary school. I also don’t know that mere exposure to people who are different allows a person to become more accepting and generous and open-minded and well-rounded. Kids self-segregate no matter what. Smart kids eat their peanut butter sandwiches in the presence of other smart kids, while dumb kids enjoy their peanut butter sandwiches with their own friends, a band of rapscallions who are probably not about to set the world on fire.

Ultimately, my strongest defense against this argument is that some degree of separation during our formative years would ultimately bring us together. If I’m right – and I clearly believe I am – that less intelligent children would benefit more from this system than their more intelligent counterparts, tracking could prove to be a great equalizer, lessening the gap between smart and stupid. Maybe by the time my hypothetical lower-tracked kids graduate from high school they will have learned to read and write. Maybe some of them will even go on to college (more about that in an upcoming post). If you like my plan, know that I’m available for school board meetings and other functions. As some piece of inspirational “art” in some small-town mall probably once said, “Together, we can make a difference.”

In George We Trust

George Carlin once said, “I don’t have pet peeves — I have major psychotic fucking hatreds.” Me too…

1. Phone calls. It’s the 21st century, so you can stop calling me. The good lord gave us email and text messages so that we might communicate without listening to each other’s stupid little voices. Take advantage.

2. “Between he and I.” When it comes to grammar, don’t err on the side of fancy.

3. New York City. When I first moved out here, the residents always asked if I thought it was “exciting.” No – I’ve been to Detroit. Now THAT’S an exciting city. New York’s skyscrapers are adorable and all, but my sympathetic nervous system won’t be ignited by anything less than a dozen dead hookers in a vacant lot.

4. Anything vanilla-scented. Next time, choose a more grown-up scent, like cigarettes or mothballs.

5. The majorly duck-footed. My stance on the matter is that they’re indefensible. I just can’t stand the sight of them.

6. Forgetfulness. I suspect it’s selective more often than not, which means a lot of these assholes are choosing not to process information they don’t find interesting. I’m not interested in anything you say either, but I still listen.

7. Pedestrians shocked by the presence of cars in the street. The street is where cars live, yet a discomfortingly high percentage of people wander off the sidewalk without looking, only to be stunned by the sight of cars barreling toward them. If a driver can prove in a court of law that just prior to impact the pedestrian he hit was surprised, the driver should walk.

8. Canadians. People in Arizona and California hate Mexicans, but in the upper-Midwest it’s the goddamn Canadians, infecting us with their goofy accents and preposterous-looking currency – if there’s a duck on it, it’s not money.

9. People talking in public restrooms. You may not be attempting to construct an elaborate illusion of privacy, but I am. Shut the fuck up.

10. Daylight Saving Time. It’s great to leave the office in daylight, but getting up this morning was profoundly traumatic.

There's a reason I call these things rants......

Over the past few days, I’ve been pondering the likelihood that the population of New York City boasts more than its fair share of club-footed individuals. If it doesn’t, then I must somehow be disproportionately likely to find myself walking behind one of them, because I would estimate that about 10% of the people who descend the subway steps in front of me are dragging a faulty leg behind them; if my train is waiting in the station, its doors about to close, it’s 50%. Can’t we find better treatments for this condition? I know it sounds drastic, but perhaps if the afflicted foot were amputated and replaced with an ergonomic prosthetic, we’d all be happier. Just exploring options…

The clubfooted, I understand, have no choice in the matter, and so in my more charitable moments I accept them for who they are. The morbidly obese, however, are another story. I have some serious, serious issues with food and an abysmally slow metabolism to boot, and I still manage to avoid venturing into that 250 – 500 lb range. If I can do it, so can you. It could be as simple as not requesting extra cheese on the large pepperoni pizza you indulge in on a daily basis; or ridding yourself of the stash of Little Debbie snack cakes hidden in your sock drawer; or replacing one of your four scoops of sour cream mashed potatoes with a vegetable, say broccoli or carrots. I’m not asking you to look good in a bikini, just to take up a little less space.

Of course you’re well within your rights to maintain your sleek 328 lb frame, but in the interest of common decency, please refrain from plunging your jumbo ass onto the subway seat next to mine. It’s not wide enough for your ample frame, so you’re going to spill onto my seat, and given that my own ass is somewhere between substantial and vast, that’s space I can’t afford to lose. This morning no fewer than three morbidly obese women wound up sitting on my lap, one of whom made the experience even more pleasant by emitting an assortment of barnyard noises. Have you no shame?

Now if you thought my solution to the clubfoot problem was ingenious, keep your socks on: if a single seat on the train can’t contain you, you pay double fare. Pretty great idea, right? After all, this kind of disincentive worked with smoking. Now that smokers are shunned and ostracized and forced to take their habit outside, inclement weather be damned, it’s just not worth it anymore. It’s an expensive hassle that marks you as one of THOSE people in the eyes of the non-smoking majority. Maybe double fare on the train will spur you into action, or maybe an artificial increase in the price of fast food would do the trick.

Whatever happens, I’m not going to sit back and take it anymore. When I spy someone waddling toward me on the subway, I will invoke the principle of manifest destiny, and annex all surrounding seats. The pressure from your weight, the heat from your body, and the pig snorts from your nose give me that right. If I’m in a generous mood, you may sit next to me at the very reasonable price of $1.25, half the cost of my seat; if it’s been a rough day, you’re shit out of luck.

How I ended up the person I am today

For an American, I take an unhealthy interest in class. This, like so much else in my life, I blame on my mother. Rules were never much of an issue in our house, but behaviors that deviated from the upper-middle-class paradigm were verboten. What follows are some thoughts on the subject of social class, handed down in my family from generation to generation:

Household Furnishings & Decoration
• The well-bred own no more than one television, which should be tiny and hidden in a far-flung corner of the house. Extra points if you don’t have cable or color TV.

• Books should be well-worn and scattered liberally throughout the home. Extra points for James Joyce and foreign-language books.

• Objects you won’t find in an upper-middle-class house: fake fruit, plastic slipcovers, oak-veneered home entertainment centers, bed skirts, John Grisham novels, framed photographs of Ronald Reagan.

Personal Appearance
• It’s vulgar to be too well put together. Fake nails, fussy hairstyles, and designer clothes are the domain of parvenus. An element of shabbiness in personal appearance denotes refinement.

• Upper-middle-class men don’t wear jewelry. Upper-middle-class women wear only small, understated jewelry; a 5-karat diamond is terribly nouveau.

Child Rearing
• Manners are of little value to upper-middle-class parents, whose focus is on cultivating their children’s self-expression – out-and-out rudeness isn’t tolerated, but eating spaghetti with one’s fingers is.

• Corporal punishment is for the poor. Middle-class parents generally discipline through the cunning use of time-outs, and the rich don’t discipline at all. They’re far too busy and important.

Comestibles
• Foods you won’t find in an upper-middle-class kitchen: chicken nuggets, canned vegetables, pasteurized cheese product, tater tots, grape jelly, white zinfandel, bologna, infant formula.

• Foods you will absolutely find in an upper-middle-class kitchen: organic broccoli, free range Cornish game hens, aged balsamic vinegar, fair trade coffee. Also some assortment of dairy/gluten/egg/meat/soy/peanut-free products – food sensitivities are big right now.

• The upper-middle-diet is, above all else, inconvenient. I went with veganism, but fruitarianism, raw foodism, the cave man diet, and macrobiotics are even better.

Linguistics
• The New Yorker who says “idear” obviously comes from a blue collar background, as does the Michigander who says “melk.” If you’re upper-middle-class and under the age of 40, your speech isn’t so provincial as to betray your place of birth.

• To use the word “see” when you really mean “give” is lower-middle-class at best. For example, if at dinner you ask to “see” the peas, you’re most likely dining in a trailer.

The pleasures of butt sniffing.....

If you want me to watch a television show – and you do, since I’m what’s known in marketing circles as a “tastemaker” – you need to do two things and two things only. First, assemble a British cast; everything’s better with accents. Second, throw in some puppies; everything’s better with puppies.

Much as I love it, I recognize that British television programming is not smarter than its American counterpart. This is simply a myth, readily understood as such by anyone who’s ever watched Dr. Who, a show about a 900 year old humanoid alien who travels through space and time in a phone booth, presciently anticipating Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. For the most part, science fiction is colossally nonsensical, the sort of thing only idiots and autistics could genuinely appreciate, but Dr. Who, ostensibly as moronic as Star Trek and its ilk, is an exception. What separates it from its brainless brethren is its charm, which I attribute wholly to the accents.

Britons sound so smart that any Dr. Who devotee has little choice but to view it not as the retarded catastrophe it would be were it American, but rather as a camp extravaganza. Being British, I suspect the show’s masterminds appreciate that more inane aspects of Dr. Who are really, truly worthy of ridicule: bad graphics, cheesy dialogue, no acknowledgement of the more philosophically complex issues related to time travel. The awareness I ascribe to them, rightly or wrongly, turns what could be an arduous viewing experience into a rollicking good time, which is why I’m all about tuning into BBC America and suspending my disbelief.

As for puppies, they’re just so adorable I’ll watch them do anything, including play football. Animal Planet’s answer to the Super Bowl, Puppy Bowl VII, aired this past Sunday, and I’m not ashamed to admit I watched. Puppies obviously don’t take direction well, nor are they possessed of the competitive spirit so prevalent among human athletes, so canine football differs somewhat from the American variety. That being said, I’m way too stupid to understand football, so watching puppies sniff each others’ butts is far more rewarding.

On a related note, puppies are a great addition not only to television programming, but to commercials as well. In fact, I’m biased toward any advertisement featuring a baby animal, irrespective of species, particularly if he’s asleep; if on top of it all he’s wearing pajamas, I’m buying whatever you’re selling.

Snorting lines off courtesans’ asses and other pursuits of the British aristocracy

I think we can all agree that I’m on track to write my generation’s “Citizen Kane.” It’s really only a matter of time. Here are my thoughts so far…

Setting: The rambling country estate of Lord Buckinghamptonshirceister, circa 1873.

Cast: Sir Derek Jacobi as Lord Buckinghamptonshirceister and Dame Maggie Smith as Lady Buckinghamptonshirceister, a “no-sex-please-we’re-British”-style couple. Once the script solidifies, Helena Bonham Carter might be thrown into the mix.

Director: Lord Richard Attenborough

Plot: After being diagnosed with some fanciful 19th century illness – I’m thinking consumption – Lady Buckinghamptonshirceister decides that the time has come for her to really live. She and her husband embark on a journey to discover the true meaning of life, and the all-consuming importance of love.

Tone: NC-17. Dame Maggie Smith snorts lines off courtesans’ asses, while Sir Derek Jacobi rediscovers his youthful passion for “le vice anglais.” Helena Bonham Carter will swan around in the nude, as per usual.

Now that the movie’s all sorted out, who should I thank in my Oscar acceptance speech?

The Third Deadly Sin

I cannot deny that I resent my more successful peers. Maybe I’m petty, maybe I’m lacking in self-confidence, and maybe I’m just mean. Whatever the case may be, I was apoplectic all weekend.

Allow me to set the scene. It’s a Friday night, and despite my agoraphobic tendencies I find myself at a Japanese restaurant on the Upper West Side. With me are two friends from high school and one of their boyfriends, who is fortunate enough to not be an alumnus of the same shithole of a learning institution as the rest of us. We’ve just finished eating – against my better judgment, I ordered something called “Vegetarian Sushi Platter,” which turned out to comprise mostly unidentifiable vegetables in charming shades of grey – and are trying to agree on what to do with the remainder of our evening. Someone suggests a movie, specifically the spectacularly unappealing “No Strings Attached.”

I couldn’t ridicule this proposition fast enough; although singularly untalented at the art of money management, I know better than to hand over my hard-earned cash for the privilege of gazing upon that queer douchebag, Ashton Kutcher. I elucidated my stance on the matter for the benefit of my companions, who explained that, although they felt similarly, there were extenuating circumstances: this piece of shit movie’s screenplay was written by a former high school classmate, Liz Meriwether. Yes, I’m fearlessly naming names.

I may be rushing to judgment here since I didn’t actually see the movie; the four of us opted for a game of Trivial Pursuit instead. I am, however, pretty confident that this film is irredeemably bad given that it’s a romantic comedy. As Hollywood’s most cynical genre, these movies aren’t worth the celluloid they’re printed on. Romantic comedies are churned out because they’re cheap to make and sure to attract low-IQ women and the men who want to fuck them – as long as these films continue to line the pockets of Hollywood players, the joke’s on us.
If you value comedy, you weren’t eagerly anticipating the release of “When Harry Re-met Sally Again: Part 6.” The tagline for “No Strings Attached” is “Can sex friends be best friends?” If they could, there wouldn’t be a movie. Here’s a recap: two people who are distractingly attractive have awkward sex, enjoy it, keep it up, much hilarity ensues, they wind up together, the end. Hang on to your $13.00 and your dignity; you might need them someday.

How much of my rage has to do with the fact that I myself have done nothing with my life? Probably the vast majority. Liz was far more popular than I was in high school, but although we were never friends, she always struck me as a decent enough person. She certainly never tormented or humiliated me, which counts for something. It’s just that I really got through high school only by believing that in the real world I would find greater success and be the recipient of more accolades than my well-liked classmates. Instead, I’m a directionless wage-slave in a no-status job without hope of advancement. I’m lucky to have this much given the state of the economy, but it’s depressing to see that the girls who in high school had boyfriends and went to parties and weren’t considered heinously ugly have continued to outshine me.

I’ve therefore decided to write a screenplay. Any suggestions would be welcome…

Suspicion of Creepiness

Although I’m presently working on a more in-depth blog about overrated musicians, I did want to take a moment to say that I honestly think it’s possible to gauge a person’s sanity based only on appearance. A mustache, for example, is a clear indication of some sort of mental disturbance. Many have remarked that an oddly high number of history’s most evil men have sported mustaches, and I personally believe mustaches are disproportionately prevalent among perverts, although I don’t have any evidentiary support for my conviction.

I started thinking about this because that dipshit who went and shot a bunch of people in Arizona bears a striking resemblance to Uncle Fester. STRIKING. UNCANNY. I don’t know if it’s possible for a real person to have an identical twin who is a fake person, but based on Jared Lee Loughner’s mug shot this prospect merits scientific investigation. If we have members of the extended Addams family running around causing all kinds of mayhem, we need know about it so it can be properly addressed.

It’s not just the aforementioned spree killer, whom I renamed Uncle Lester about 5 minutes ago. The list goes on and on. Timothy McVeigh? Clearly the kind of guy who might be brewing up a batch of nitroglycerin in his trailer. The Unabomber? No one in history has looked so manifestly nuts. John Wayne Gacy? Not only was he fat, greasy, and mustachioed, his predilection for clown makeup was practically a confession in and of itself; if his neighbors saw him all gussied up and didn’t know he had a few dozen boys buried under his porch, they were clearly retarded.
There are exceptions to the rule, Ted Bundy being perhaps the most famous. Charming law students only infrequently rape and murder huge numbers of women, so his victims really can’t be blamed for failing to see it coming. The other anomaly who comes to mind is Jeffrey Dahmer. No one ever mentions this, but before prison, where he porked up and was given a pair of pedophile eyeglasses, he looked like a 1950’s matinee idol. Tab Hunter or something. His overwhelming strangeness in manner and affect possibly hinted at the heads he had stuffed in his refrigerator, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from appearance alone. It’s obviously not possible to pre-empt the misbehavior of these folks, so we can only hope we don’t encounter them.

Now I know you’re all wondering of what practical use these profound insights might be. The answer is creepy profiling. If you have facial hair, a trench coat, or you happen to resemble, say, Herman Munster, the police should stop you periodically, just to make sure you’re not on your way to flash school kids or shoot arrows at hikers or whatever other unsavory activities weirdos get up to. If you’re able to prove that you simply have terrible taste and unfortunate genes, you’re free to go. If not, you’ll be detained on suspicion of creepiness.

Let's Show Tom Jones a Little Respect!!!

I don’t write a lot about music, mostly because my preferences tend toward the obscure, and not in a hip way. I’m not interested in anything experimental or underground or important or whatever else people with good taste get off on. The musical genres I enjoy – northern soul, yé-yé, 60’s baroque pop, Hi-NRG – just happen to be favored by essentially no one in 21st century America, so I generally avoid discussing, and as a corollary writing, about music.

There are, however, select areas in which I feel compelled to contribute to the discourse, as I consider myself something of a connoisseur of lightweight pop music. From the Archies to Debbie Gibson, fans and critics invariably shit all over great pop songs, and it’s absolutely infuriating. What follows is a list of artists, most of them well-known, who are vastly underappreciated. With hindsight working in their favor, some have earned a degree of respect since their salad days of fame, but they deserve so much more.

Duran Duran
My mother once told me that I was pretty, but not as pretty as Simon LeBon. She may or may not have been kidding, but either way it’s probably true; I suspect that if it weren’t, Duran Duran would have been taken seriously. After all, they’ve successfully written and performed dance songs (“Planet Earth), pop songs (“Rio”), and ballads (“Ordinary World”). In an astonishing twist they actually managed to branch into FUNK (“Notorious”) without coming off as ridiculous. All that, and they looked good doing it.

Johnnie Ray
My father is shitting himself wondering if I’m talking about THE Johnnie Ray. Weepy, effeminate, long-dead Johnnie Ray. The answer is yes, I’m talking about THE Johnnie Ray. A semi-closeted alcoholic, his tortured soul somehow failed to permeate the public’s consciousness, perhaps because his performances seemed a tad overwrought. Cast instead as every pre-pubescent girl’s dream, he was really a great proto-soul singer. Unlike, say, Perry Como, Ray belted it out and made you feel it, so let’s show the guy a little posthumous respect.

Donovan
I will concede that Donovan has written some of the stupidest lyrics in the history of popular music; the spoken intro to “Atlantis” is positively cringe-inducing. That being said, “Jersey Thursday,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” and “Season of the Witch” are simultaneously catchy and outré, just like 60’s classics should be. That smug bitch, Bob Dylan, may have regarded Donovan as a colossal joke, but at least Donovan’s never gone on TV to endorse bras.

Tom Jones
The guy clearly has a sense of humor, as evidenced by his decision to join the William Shatner school of ironic self-deprecation, a good move for anyone who finds himself adorned with granny panties during concerts. But let’s not forget that with the possible exception of Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones is the best voice ever to come out of Wales. Actually, maybe the only voice…

The Monkees
Despite their made-for-TV status, these days the Monkees are considered a bona fide band, but are still not thought of as being on par with most of their peers. This is just retarded. They worked with some great songwriters – Neil Diamond and Carole King probably being the most famous – and actually wrote some decent songs themselves; in addition to composing “Mary, Mary” and several other Monkees singles, guitarist Mike Nesmith also penned Linda Ronstadt’s first hit, “Different Drum.” Anyway, I would way rather listen to the Monkees than the Beatles.

Speaking of the Beatles, stay tuned for my next blog, the subject of which will be overrated artists. *Spoiler Alert* John, Paul, George, and Ringo come in at number 1.