This Stoned Kid and I Are Done Professionally

Can Someone Seriously Explain This To Me?

For real. I don't get it. What the hell IS this? Is this supposed to be for children? Is it meant to be funny? Is this ironic? Why is this happening?



I mean, okay...Steve Martin's not actually funny any more. Fine. Fair enough. It happens. But that doesn't begin to explain this video.

Discuss.

Stalling Out

In honor of today, my 30th birthday, the media has give me the gift of Lois Feldman and Ross Walsh.

On November 22, 2008, Lois Feldman, a wife and mother of three, was caught having sex with Ross M. Walsh at the Metrodome in Minneapolis during a Minnesota vs. Iowa college football game. Feldman claimed she was so drunk on wine that she doesn't even remember the incident.

Oh, it gets better. Feldman and Walsh had never met one another before the game. And they were each there with other people...He with his girlfriend and she with her husband. Sweet.

Feldman said she’d never met Walsh.

“I don’t know who this man is,” she told the Register. “I just found out his name in the paper.”

I'm sorry, but...that's a whole lot of wine. I have maybe been drunk enough in my life to have sex with a stranger in a crowded stadium bathroom. (And I do mean maybe, because that's pretty drunk. I'd probably pass out before I could make that whole situation come to pass.) But from just wine? How much wine could this woman have had during this football game? Who is she, Friar Tuck? (And who drinks wine at a college football game anyway?) And while her husband is waiting for her back in their seats?

Finally, I'd point out that, as far as I know, the official definition of a "cougar" is a woman over 40. But Feldman is 38 and Walsh only 26...and I'd have to think something like this would qualify. Or we have to make an exception or something. If Lois Feldman isn't a cougar, the word has lost all meaning.

In Which I Return from the Wilderness

Hey there, Lon-atics...Sorry for the unannounced sabbatical. I'm sure all 8 of you regular readers have been obsessively hitting refresh every three minutes for, like, weeks now. Not much that could be done, I'm afraid - it has been a fairly ludicrous August here at CBI Central. Some of it was spent balled up in the corner in the fetal position...other parts, not as much. I'm sure, in six months, there'll be a good blog post in there somewhere.

But for now, let's just cover a few things about which I didn't get a chance to opine:

(1) Joe Biden has silly hair and a history of being kind of an asshat, but old people like him

Near as I can tell, what happened was, Obama noticed that a lot of old people, even Democrats, don't really want to vote for him. Now, I'm not going to go ahead and say that this is just because he's a black guy and a lot of old people are racists...I'm sure there are plenty of other possibilities. His repeated calls to criminalize pre-5 pm dinner times, for example. Or his constant efforts to get "NCIS" canceled.

Anyway, here's this guy who has run for president a bunch of times, so if there were anything REALLY BAD about him we'd know it already. And this guy's been around forever, so all the old people recognize him and forget that he's not some avuncular celebrity from a bygone era, such as George Peppard...Then, feeling comfortable again, they agree to vote for the black guy. At least, that was probably the what the Obama camp was thinking.

I personally think it's an adequate but uninspired choice, which is a shame, because a lot of Obama's other choices have been inspired. I would have preferred a few of the suggested VP's, but then again, I'd have really hated to pull a lever or punch a hole or whatever the fuck California's going to have us do for a Sam Nunn or an Evan Bayh, people who stand for 94% of what I loathe about America. (Beating McCain's tight 97%!)

(2) If you've ever expressed any solidarity with liberalism, progressivism or the Democratic Party, you're not allowed to not vote for Obama because you dislike one relatively unimportant thing about him

For real. I don't care what that one thing is. Don't like Joe Biden? Not good enough. Pissed off about his betrayal on the FISA issue? Too bad. Angry that he's backed by a certain industry or lobbying group? They all are. Upset that he once said something not-very-nice about illegal file-traders? No one cares.

This election is really important. Like, seriously really intensely important. Here are some things that matter that will be at least partially decided by the outcome of the vote this November:

- Multiple horrifyingly violent conflicts around the world
- The future direction of the US economy
- More than one Supreme Court Justice, who will make major decisions on a whole host of crucial issues relating to daily life in America

If you look at those considerations but then say, "Yeah, but his former pastor once said that God should do bad stuff to America! And he doesn't like to wear pieces of flair with the American flag on them!," this means you are stupid. Hey, I'm just trying to help you out. Maybe you didn't know you were stupid. Now you do! Congrats, buddy!

This goes quadruple for you Twitter people reading this post. I'm really tired of hearing "I can't vote for Obama...he wants to raise taxes on exceptionally rich guys!" I forgot that you hate health care, reproductive rights and wars that end eventually.

(3) Tropic Thunder was much more funny than Pineapple Express

Both movies had parts that made me laugh. But I was very underwhelmed by Pineapple Express, considering the collaborators. Like every Judd Apatow movie, it was way too long, but I was just generally disappointed by the action. The whole final 30 minutes felt pointless. The action itself isn't particularly compelling or intense, so it just feels obligatory, unsuccessfully tacked on to the end of what is otherwise an amiable-enough stoner comedy. James Franco, however, does a really nice job, and I thought Craig Robinson, Danny McBride and Ed Begley Jr. were effective.

Tropic Thunder is actually pretty poorly assembled. It's really chaotic and frenzied, and I think that, had director Ben Stiller slowed down and let some of the situations/characters develop more, the whole enterprise would have worked much better. But even in its current form, Tropic Thunder is really funny and worth seeing. Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise are, of course, the standouts, but the whole cast works together really well, and it's just so far out there, willing to do absolutely anything to get a laugh, that I just kind of gave myself over to the spirit of the enterprise and enjoyed the hell out of it. Not sure if it would hold up on repeat viewings...but who cares? It worked well once, and that was enough.

(4) I really like the new Walkmen album

You & Me is a stupid title for an album (much in the same way that She & Him is a stupid name for a musical duo), but it sounds like kind of a return to form for me. (I didn't like A Hundred Miles Off or that Nilsson tribute nearly as much as Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone.) These guys are just interesting to listen to in a way most bands are not. Wish I could be more specific than that, but long-time readers will recall I suck at describing what I like about songs. Just a weird blind spot for me.

(5) I got into a car accident

It was really stupid and all my fault. One of things that happen and it just ruins your whole week, cause you keep playing your momentary stupidity over and over in your mind, and it's too late to do anything about it.

Right after I hit the back of this lady's car, I pulled over, as did she, and I walked up to her car to make sure everyone was okay. She said, really mean, "What were you thinking?"

I get why she'd be upset. But, I mean, obviously I was thinking something totally unrelated to crashing my car into someone. If I were thinking about crashing my car, that would mean I had foreseen the accident, which would probably cause me to hit the brakes before colliding with anything. Unless I run into other people's cars intentionally, like I'm in a Cronenberg movie. But if I'm the kind of dude who's ramming into other people's cars in the hopes of having eventually having sex, Spader-style, with the ensuing stump, I'm not necessarily going to admit that when questioned.

What I'm saying is, basically, I hit her car for absolutely no good reason...but she asked me a stupid question. So, in a very real sense, we're now even.

(6) Flight attendants will soon have the World's Most Embarrassing Job

According to Fox News, a reliable source for information and perspectives about world news if ever there was one, flight attendants will be expected to monitor customer use of the in-flight wireless Internet service. And you know what that means:

If the person sitting next to you or your child is viewing explicit porn and you're not happy about it, feel free to direct your complaint to the flight attendant.

"Um, yes, pardon me Mr., um, Thompson...I hate to disturb you. Some of the other customers have complained about your loud and repetitive viewing of what appears, from this distance, to be a video entitled 'Cake Farts.' If you wouldn't mind safely stowing your laptop and genitals in their proper, upright position, we won't have to go and get the Taser. Can I get you some tomato juice, perhaps? Or a second complimentary vacuum-sealed packet containing 2.7 peanuts?"

[NOTE: I'm not linking to Cake Farts, you sick bastard. Look it up yourself.]

Tonight Was Fun!

Just returned from the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget. Solid times were had by all. Here's some photographic evidence:





I also met Jeff Garlin, but that photo's just a Polaroid, and not immediately uploadable. Anyway, it was fun. Look for the episode to air some time soon.

The REAL Love Guru

Dmitri, you are my hero. Most of us would not dream of calling an attractive woman who had just given us her number and telling her to look up the meaning of the term "passive aggressive." But that's because we're not the Mack of the Century.

[Link via D'Emilio]

I Said What What in the Mutt?

Seriously? Is there anyone out there that would pay money for a collectible Mutt Williams figure? Unlike some other people I know, I wouldn't say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Interdimensional Blanchett Eaters was a bad movie, necessarily. But it's hardly the sort of thing I can see inspiring the level of enthusiasm necessary to invest in a statue, particularly the Shia LaBeouf character.

I know Mutt uses a sword in the movie, but he just looks extremely dippy holding it here. Like a rejected "Street Fighter" character, or a schizophrenic guy's Halloween costume.

So how much would you pay for this handsome LeBeouf semi-likeness, handcrafted from the finest Vietnamese sweat/plastics. $500,000? $28 billion? Can you believe Sideshow Collectibles will actually give you this thing for the low low price of $150? Get on it now, people. They're only making as many of these as nerds will buy! After that, they're gone forever.

Also, you've got to love their little blurb:

These outstanding 1:6 scale figures are of the highest quality and detail, ready to take life on your shelf in any dynamic pose that you desire. Medicom Toy's RAH body is one of the most articulated 12-inch figure bodies available, capable of nearly any pose that the human body can achieve.

"Any dynamic pose you desire"? "Any pose that the human body can achieve"? What the hell are people doing with these things? Before, I just thought it was hilarious and silly. Now I'm genuinely disturbed. If 12'' Mutt is anatomically collect (in perfect 1:6 scale!), I'm fully prepared to write my Congressman about this.

Harrison Ford's Hilarious Insanity

I know celebrities feel empty inside and want to use their pointless and excessive notoriety to some positive end...but can they all just shut up about the goddamn stupid environment already? It's fucked, we're all gonna burn up and die, I get it. We all know it. I'm not denying the veracity of the claims.

[Just a side-note to Climate Change deniers here...You've picked probably the least sexy or dangerous form of "Denial."]

But we can't do anything about it because switching to fluorescent lights won't clean up that Texas-size clump of plastic in the middle of the ocean or force the Chinese to stop driving the cars they were only able to afford for the first time three months ago, and our government's owned by a bunch of corporate criminals who patently refuse to do anything about it. Pretty much regardless who wins in November. So just leave us alone and let us enjoy our last few decades in peace, alright? Go make an action movie and get out of my face.

Okay, so that's pretty much how I feel any more about celebrities and their precious little "let's all go green for just a day!" stuff. But Harrison Ford's patently ludicrous attempt to "raise awareness" or whatever is just too precious to ignore. I mean, seriously, H.F., how much pot would you say you're smoking...per day?

Harrison invited Access Hollywood along as he embarked on a personal project to promote going green. And just how did Harrison, who is the vice chair of the global environment group Conservation International, want to get his message across?

By waxing his chest, of course. In an effort to showcase the pain involved in deforestation, Harrison willingly subject himself to the painful process of stripping his chest of all its follicles.

Huh? Harrison seems to have missed the best thing about hurting plants...they don't feel shit! What does waxing his chest have to do with cutting down trees again? Is this just an excuse to get him to take his shirt off on camera? And to what end? The guy looks fucking ancient these days. I mean, hey, folks, I love Han Solo as much as the rest of you. He acts like he doesn't care, but he actually does. But I can think of no good reason for him to take his shirt off on camera. That's just some of my patented Straight Talk, folks, get used to it.



Yikes. It looks like a melting wax sculpture of Harrison Ford that someone's desperately trying to suture and mend.

I mean, if Harrison's deeply concerned with deforestation and wants to work tirelessly on behalf of tree frogs or cures for various diseases that never seem to pan out or delicious new varieties of Starbucks or whatever the hell they have where deforestation is a problem, that's totally his choice and I wish him all the best. If it keeps my pasty white ass alive for a few extra days, I'll be really thankful.

But, do me a favor, let's go ahead and remain fully clothed, Sport.

HiPiHi新闻联播2期横空出"事"

It strikes me that the following may seem culturally insensitive. I'm not trying to say Chinese people or things are inherently alien or weird or exotic or anything. I'm a huge fan of the Chinese people. Their movies are awesome, they are pioneers in the arena of bootlegging cool shit so I can get it for free, their lead-filled toys have never injured me, personally. Best of all, they keep their delicious Americanized restaurants open on Christmas Eve, so I can hook up some spicy Cheng-Pi Beef even though the rest of the world has come to a dead stop, eagerly awaiting the arrival of an obese, gift-bearing hermit.

So, having made that possibly-more-offensive pre-apology, allow me to say this...The following commercial for the Chinese version of "Second Life" is the most insane, creepiest thing I have ever seen. I wonder...would an American commercial for our version of "Second Life" look this weird to a Chinese person?



It probably helps that I don't understand what anyone is saying, but still...this would be weird even if it were coherent.

After some opening titles featuring a globe with non-Earth-like continents, we cut to the inside of some kind of temple, where a man with a bear claw for an arm and a firecracker strapped to his back speaks with what I can only guess is a rabbit. Oh, and the rabbit has a plunger floating just above its head. And they might be hosting some kind of show, rather than speaking to one another. I can't tell.

The weirdest part about this sequence is that the dialogue sounds like it is extremely mundane. Like they're discussing Grain Futures or something. This is supposed to sell me on whatever the hell this thing is called? So far, it looks like a crack baby's nightmare.

Then we cut to virtual news footage from what looks like an event of some sort, though I can't imagine what it would be and there aren't any people around. There's a lot of weird close-ups of crowns. Is it a beauty pageant? Could anything sound more inane than an avatar beauty pageant? I'm thinking it's probably inversely proportional anyway - the uglier you are in real life, the hotter your alternate self. You meet the Second Life Evangeline Lilly, that's probably a 400-pound guy permanently melded to his computer chair.

Then, the news show's "host" stands in front of a freaky black room containing what looks like a large perfume bottle and...I don't know...some kind of sparkly white thing. Perhaps a portal between our world and this Realm of Mystery and Polygons.

Anyway, you get the idea. Second China is frightening. It's like if someone made an Inland Empire tie-in game or something. No thanks...

Beghe Ideas (Don't Get Any)

Wow, Scientology makes you freaking insane...



This guy's not even a Scientologist any more, and he's still not making any goddamn sense at all.

The last thing he says during this 2 minute-or-so, largely nonsensical anti-Scientology rant really struck me. He says that he has a unique perspective - he was in Scientology and now he's out. But isn't this true of most people? I'd have to guess that the majority of Scientologists were not raised Scientologists, but came to the "faith" later in life. All of these people have the experience of not being a Scientologist and then becoming one.

What the "ruggedly handsome" Jason Beghe says indicates that Scientologists essentially forget what their lives were like before joining the church. Brainwashing...it's fantastic...

The other part that's just...kind of incredible to me...is the thing about migraines. He was genuinely surprised to meet an "OT VIII" who had a migraine. It just hits home with me sometimes. People really believe this shit. They think that reading a lot of bullshit and giving the Church of Scientology money will give them Cosmic Anti-Migraine Powers. I mean...wow...

I will say this...I hope to begin working the phrase "where's the fucking clear?" into daily conversation.

Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!

This David Levy book just sounds wrong, wrong, wrong, 1,000 times wrong:

In this wide-ranging examination of the emotional and physical relations between humans and the inanimate objects of their desire, AI guru Levy (Robots Unlimited) first addresses the question of love with robots, and moves on to consider the mechanics of actually having sex with them. In order to put the reader at ease with the possibility of human-robot love, Levy compares the phenomenon to the ways in which humans fall in love with each other, their pets, and even their motorcycles. From there, Levy argues, it is a short emotional step to the affection people can be expected to display towards robots.

ABORT! ABORT!

Some readers may be turned off by Levy's fairly graphic descriptions of the mechanics of having sex with robots, and may wonder why Levy chose not to include recent research on the human genome that could one day lead to replacing human "parts," potentially making us more robot-like ourselves.

Honestly? Sex with robots? Does that sound attractive/non-creepy to anyone? If not, let's take a look at a review from the Washington Post.

"Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans," Levy writes...

Sure it will be! Except for the whole "you're having sex with a machine" thing.

..."while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach us more than is in all of the world's published sex manuals combined."

This horny nerd still realizes that humans will only be able to contort in so many ways, right? It's no good having an ultra-bendy porn robot if most humans can't do a Downward Facing Dog. (Also, Levy's something of an optimist if he thinks the future will be all about super-genius AI robots taking the time to consider sexual positions. Shouldn't we get them to work on all those existential threats to our existence coming down the road in the next few centuries before we get them going on Kama Sutra 2.0?)

Levy goes on to imagine a world of robot prostitutes, or "sexbots," which would offer people a chance to practice their technique before entering a human relationship. "With a robot prostitute," he writes, "the control of disease is implicit -- simply remove the active parts and put them in the disinfecting machine."

Perhaps Buffalo Bill wasn't really a serial killer at all? He was just a Man of the Future, ahead of his time in his desire to remove a lady's "active parts" after use. (Also, the notion that guys are visiting prostitutes to "practice their technique"? Hi-larious. As if most dudes even care if their technique is any good!)

Seriously, this Levy character comes off as a perverted clown here, but you've got to give him some respect for actually having the stones to write a book about how he wants to fuck robots. Most guys, they'd just keep this fantasy to themselves, maybe clear out the lint trap on their dryer and give it a try one wild night when the wife's visiting her sister in Poughkeepsie. But Levy's like, "Fuck that, I'm turning this sick, ludicrous fetish into a best-seller! Suck it!"

[Hat tip to Sadly, No!, which observes that Glenn Reynolds can't wait to get a copy of Levy's tome in the mail. I am incredibly surprised that this conservative schmendrick has a weird erotic obsession with robots!]

Artie Lange Retires To Spend More Time With His Cupcakes, Heroin

Poor Baby Gorilla...After getting into a heated argument with his long-time assistant, the oddly-named "Teddy Microphone," it seems Artie Lange has quit his post at the Howard Stern Show. Too bad. I think he added a lot to the mix, actually, and am very sorry to see him go.

Here's how Mahalo described the incident, which I wasn't listening to because I lamely require at least 3-4 hours of sleep per night:

"While off the air Lange was having an argument with his assistant, "Teddy Microphone," regarding a financial disagreement. When Howard Stern asked that Teddy discuss the matter on the air, the argument escalated...The situation became physical, and the two had to be restrained. After Stern scolded Lange, he offered his resignation."



Apparently, he threatened Teddy's life at one point, and then told Stern "I'm not a good person ... I gotta leave ... I love you." At this point, Artie must just be immune to interventions, as I'm sure people have tried to help him before. But the whole thing seems like a cry for help. (Not to mention that tragic appearance on Donnie Deutsch a few weeks back that I blogged about here).

Some people are just too far gone, I guess...still, it's a shame. He's a really funny, likable guy.

Preggers

This "Man Getting Pregnant" story has some serious legs. We've been covering Thomas Beatie closely on Mahalo for at least a week now.

Here's the thing...I think a lot of well-meaning people who aren't typically intolerant of or freaked-out-by the trans-gendered don't really know how to process that story. You want to be open-minded, but I think we all have our limits. For many, the notion of a person that appears to be male, and has taken hormones to make himself appear so, getting pregnant just crosses some invisible "playing God" line. Ladies get preggers. Men don't. That's the way it works.

I'm really not having this problem, but then again, I'm pretty much always going to be on the side of more liberty and less restriction. If a guy can somehow manage to get himself pregnant, and isn't doing anything to put the baby's life in jeopardy by doing so...go for it. Doesn't affect me.

I think the interesting question is, what if you are one of those people who finds this inappropriate? Does that make you a bad person? Intolerant? Bigoted? I'm not sure...It strikes me as a reasonable-enough reaction to these videos:



yet it's pretty much always wrong, to my mind, to judge other people's choices if they don't significantly impact you. Really fascinating case...

Actual Legitimately Dirty F-ing Hippies

I tend to sympathize with the hippie. Though I am not actually in the thrall of this sub-culture, I'm with hippies on the majority of socio-political issues, and their music kicks serious ass. However, reading this article about "dumpster diving," which we should all really think about doing because it's good for the environment, has seriously filled me with disgust and loathing. Who the hell would do something like this?

I've heard about dumpster diving, and read about dumpster diving, but in conversations and articles that seemed to identify it as the pursuit of anarchists and gutter punks --nothing that served as a guide for upwardly mobile middle-class squares. A few weeks ago, though, some hippie Dan went to high school with mentioned she was going to Trader Joe's to score for free the very same foodstuffs we paid good money for. It was just as good, just as edible and sanitarily packaged, and it didn't cost $100 a week if it just came out of the trash, she said. We felt like suckers.

Just to reiterate, they felt like suckers...for paying for food...merely because it didn't come out of a dumpster.

Picking up that first handful of free groceries is a bit like Christmas, exciting, enchanting. I hadn't known what I was going to get, so I hold the goods out in front of me for inspection. And here it is, my favorite kind of present: something I want and can actually use. I feel satisfied and, absurdly, a little proud.

I mean...she's picking through refuse for bags of banana chips, and then feeling a sense of entirely unearned self-satisfaction. Anyone could go score free banana chips in the garbage bags behind Trader Joes, lady. We don't cause we have a little thing I like to call dignity.

It wasn't an especially big throw-away day at the store, but I stand shin-deep amid the waste with a snake light wrapped around my neck, tearing open huge clear plastic garbage bags and examining their contents for salvageable eats. A sweet pepper, a dented tub of chocolate chip cookies, yes. A package of precooked sausages leaking juice out of a hole in the package, no. Half-pound hunks of somewhat moldy Monterey Jack cheese, sure.

At this point, I started to think...it's April 1, this is satire. AlterNet's not really suggesting we all start eating moldy cheese out of supermarket dumpsters. If this is incredibly self-aware, cutting satire, AlterNet, I salute you...but I fear it is not, and that this is serious. Because it gets even worse.

(Also, a sweet pepper? A single sweet pepper? I hope that was in a bag...)

When Dan says, "Watch out for rats," I yell at him for freaking me out, but I am most certainly immersed in the habitat of disease-prone rodents. When I do jump out, it's right onto the ground, right onto my ass when my feet slide out from under me because the pavement is covered in ice. Like last time, we can't find a parking space in our complex when we get back to our apartment because we live in a busy downtown district and it's club-going time on a Friday night. We run the garbage groceries, which for some reason are coated in the smell of trash this time, a block to our building and then up four flights of fire escape to our door. My fingers are that obnoxious biting pain that just precedes numbness, since I buried them in several unidentified stinky wet stuffs, and the wind is cutting across them now as they grip the plastic bags. Everything needs to be washed -- the cellophane on the cheese, the box of waffles -- to get the reek off, and we crack open a box of baking soda and put it in the back of the fridge, hoping it'll help restore appetizingness to our food.

Please be satire, please be satire, please be satire...

Dungeon Master

This 100% factual article is amazing. It's like a Pasolini film come to life.

Max Mosley, one of the most powerful men in world sport, was under pressure to resign as boss of Formula One’s governing body last night after he was exposed enjoying a Nazi-style orgy with five prostitutes.

What constitutes a Nazi-style orgy, you may ask (if you haven't seen The Damned)?

Speaking in German and brandishing a leather whip, he beat the women after allowing himself to be subjected to a humiliating inspection for lice and an interrogation in chains.

How amazing is it that he actually spoke in German during the sex? I mean, that's fucking dedication to authenticity. Spielberg has made major Hollywood movies about the Holocaust where the actors are all speaking English.

Jewish groups condemned the behaviour of Mosley, 67, whose father, Sir Oswald, was the leader of the British Union of Fascists and a friend of Adolf Hitler.

His Dad was friends with Hitler? The head of Formula One Racing's father was a fascist and a friend of Adolf Hitler? Really? I mean, I guess that's okay...I'm just surprised I'd never heard about it before.

Also, why do Jewish groups care if he gets off on death camp sex? I mean, more than anyone else. (I'm not saying it's okay to beat prostitutes or anything). Do Jews have some sort of exclusive right to death camp-related sex play? I mean, yeah, it's sick, but it's not particularly offensive to Jews. Getting off by thinking about Dachau is just depraved; ethnicity doesn't enter into it. It's simply not a sexy place.

His antics stunned Jewish leaders and motorsport insiders. “This is sick and depraved,” Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said. “For anyone to be in such a position of influence and power beggars belief. I am absolutely appalled.”

How hilarious is the use of the word "antics" here? That's just awesomely inappropriate. The Tasmanian Devil engages in "antics." Elaborate Holocaust role play involving a quintet of prostitutes? I'm not sure that qualifies. "Shenanigans," perhaps. "Tomfoolery," sure. "Skullduggery," even. But not "antics."

This next reaction strikes me as spot-on:

Sir Stirling Moss, the former world champion racing driver whose father was Jewish, said: “I don’t see how he can continue. I hope he can, frankly, because I think he’s very good at what he does. I suppose what goes on behind closed doors is his business but when a thing comes out like this . . . it’s an absolute shocker.”

Exactly. It's not like this has anything to do with how well the guy does his job. But it's just so extreme. I thought albino porn was out there but...genocide porn. Wow.

I mean, in America, a politician has regular old sex one night with a single prostitute, and it becomes a national obsession for weeks. To make the papers across the pond, you literally have to hire out an entire brothel and a touring theater company, plus you have to arrange for a set and equipment. They're 20 years ahead of us. Embarrassing, really.

Too Amazing To Be Real

Anyone need a movie?

The Reason The Phrase WTF Was Invented

This is the reason Twitter exists, right here. So people can let their friends know about "Why Must I Cry":



Thanks to Sean P. for using Twitter the way it was meant to be used.

Fetch Me My Fainting Couch!

This Washington Post editorial, nominally about swooning female Obama fans, has more lame gender stereotypes than I would have thought possible to cram into a single Op-Ed piece.

It's called "We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get." As it's written by Charlotte Allen, the we means women in general. Well, I suppose women who like Obama, as opposed to all the other women who aren't really women, I suppose, who prefer McCain or Hillary or Alan Keyes. (Okay, I'm kidding...no one likes Alan Keyes.)

Allen opens by noting a recent trend among female Obama fans: fainting at one of the man's rallies. She then cites one woman yelling out "I love you" at another campaign event. From this, she draws a simple conclusion: Bitches ain't shit.

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

Yeah, you thought right. But just because someone has still fainted without wearing a corset, it doesn't disprove the truth about Victorian women fainting because they were clamping shards of whalebone around their midsection to appear unnaturally hourglass-shaped. I mean, being fatigued and overheated in a large crowd at a big, exciting public event has been known to cause a few people to pass out as well.

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

The most ludicrous thing about this article is how Allen pretends that these thoughts were inspired by women fainting at Obama rallies, as opposed to the other way around. What? A women fainted at a political event? I guess the Earl of Chesterfield, whose ludicrously misogynist and not particularly memorable quote I've long had memorized for no reason, was right all along!

I mean, clearly this is just a woman who loathes her own sex, for whatever reason (maybe she's religious!), and looks for any opportunity to "lash out" at her gender. This "some women are excited about Barack Obama" thing is a pretty poor excuse, though. I mean, women are actively engaged in politics and this is somehow a bad thing? I'd far prefer that the ladies be energized about Obama's campaign than any of the other pop culture ephemera that tends to occupy Americans of both sexes.

I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations; even some feminists can't believe that there's this thing called "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or that Celine Dion actually sells CDs. A female friend of mine plans to write a horror novel titled "Office of Women," in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox.

Seriously, now, this is just stupid. Plenty of men buy Celine Dion CD's and guys don't necessarily get all that much done while working than women do. Guess who invented Minesweeper? A man! I mean, how desperate do you have to be to make this case in the Washington Post? "Ugh, chicks are so lame. I mean, who watches 'Oprah', am I right? Up high!"

We exaggerate, of course. And obviously men do dumb things, too, although my husband has perfectly good explanations for why he eats standing up at the stove (when I'm not around) or pulls down all the blinds so the house looks like a cave (also when I'm not around): It has to do with the aggressive male nature and an instinctive fear of danger from other aggressive men. When men do dumb things, though, they tend to be catastrophically dumb, such as blowing the paycheck on booze or much, much worse (think "postal"). Women's foolishness is usually harmless. But it can be so . . . embarrassing.

What...the...fuck...He eats over the stove because he fears other aggressive men? Maybe he's just lazy. That's why I do it. I mean, she's just rambling now. What's the point of this digression? This column so far has said:

(1) Women pass out/yell silly stuff at Barack Obama rallies

(2) Women are pathetic

(3) Men are kind of pathetic too, but it's a rugged, more attractive kind of pathetic

Also, the notion that only a man would blow a paycheck on booze is just weird. Aren't there plenty of female alcoholics? I'm pretty sure I've met at least a few.

Let's continue:

Take Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. By all measures, she has run one of the worst -- and, yes, stupidest -- presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex.

Allen comes dangerously close here to admitting the truth, that she viewed Hillary's campaign almost entirely through gender stereotypes. Somehow, though, just like it's the fault of women that they have been pegged "the weaker sex," it's the fault of Hillary Clinton that everyone insist she stand in for all women and behave in a way that makes everyone maximally comfortable.

I mean, how did Hillary typify "every stereotypical flaw of the female sex"? How could anyone? Some of those stereotypes are contradictory!

Allen continues by saying Hillary's too dependent on her husband (whatever that means) and by calling her former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, a "Latina queena." Seriously...is Charlotte Allen a nom de plume of Rush Limbaugh or what?

What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental?

You don't. That's all in your head. I can honestly say that neither Barbara Bush or Margaret Thatcher fall for the gooily sentimental.

Take a look at the New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the paperback nonfiction chart and pitched to an exclusively female readership is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." Here's the book's autobiographical plot: Gilbert gets bored with her perfectly okay husband, so she has an affair behind his back. Then, when that doesn't pan out, she goes to Italy and gains 23 pounds forking pasta so she has to buy a whole new wardrobe, goes to India to meditate (that's the snooze part), and finally, at an Indonesian beach, finds fulfillment by -- get this -- picking up a Latin lover!

It's a tough job, psychoanalyzing an entire gender based on the most popular book on the paperback nonfiction chart. Hey, what's the #1 hardcover nonfiction bestseller this week? Why, it's Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism!" From this, I will conclude that the average American IQ hovers between 56 and 60 and that public outrage will cause the entire Whole Foods franchise to be legally outlawed by the end of the next week.

Then there's the chick doctor television show "Grey's Anatomy" (reportedly one of Hillary Clinton's favorites). Want to be a surgeon? Here's what your life will be like at the hospital, according to "Grey's": sex in the linen-supply room, catfights with your sister in front of the patients, sex in the on-call room, a "prom" in the recovery room so you can wear your strapless evening gown to work, and sex with the married attending physician in an office. Oh, and some surgery. When was the last time you were in a hospital and spotted two doctors going at it in an empty bed?

Lots and lots of guys watch "Grey's Anatomy." Several of its writers, directors and members of the shows creative team are men. How is its stupidity (and I'm not arguing with Char here) the fault of women again?

It just goes on and on like this. Allen identifies something she doesn't like and then says women are responsible for it because they are so stupid. Except her. She's one of the cool ones.

Women have lamer mental conditions than men. Women are worse drivers. She even says this! "The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence." Is this kind of thing really still acceptable in mainstream discourse?

That paragraph, by the way, continues by presenting neurological evidence that comes nowhere near to proving that women are dumber than men. She closes with: "While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid." But that's not what she said! She said Women are the dumber sex!"

I honestly can't believe the Washington Post would print something so insipid. Presenting this as a worthwhile perspective on contemporary feminism is like asking Andrew Dice Clay to do the keynote at the 2008 National NOW Conference.

Merde de Batte Aliénée

Is Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard a wacko conspiracy theorist? It kind of sounds like it if this Daily Mail article is to be believed.

The big "bombshell," I suppose, is that about a year ago, Cotillard gave an interview in which she expressed skepticism about the official account of 9/11 and suggested the government was behind it. I mean, I don't believe that, but many do...what makes it really funny is the motive she suggests might have been behind it:

"It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."

Wow...That's weapons-grade stupid. We may have to upgrade the blog here to Defcon 3 in a moment...

It was cheaper to murder thousands of Americans and concoct a massive, intricately-plotted, international conspiracy than to bring the World Trade Center up to code? What le fuck?

Believe it or not, it gets better:

"Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."

Why is it so hard for people to believe that a man walked on the moon? I mean, is it really so amazing? It's just a rock in space. If you believe that humans can send shit into space (and satellite TV makes this kind of difficult not to believe), why is it so difficult to take the extra leap that we could blast some poor suckers a bit further out to this one really big rock?

But bear in mind, she does believe the United States government could pull off 9/11 and keep it secret. Or maybe all of this makes more sense in French.

[Found via Dlisted]

If This Is Your First Night at Fight Club, You Have to...DANCE!

Worst idea for anything ever?

David Fincher had a little chat with MTV where he mentioned doing a Fight Club musical. It doesn't look like he was joking. He wants to debut it on Broadway in 2009. That's the 10th Anniversary of the movie. Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, is reportedly on board. Trent Reznor is considering writing the music.

Oh, come on! Honestly...this is just ridiculous. I can't even make fun of this. The very idea of the Fight Club musical makes fun of itself. How depressing...