Tripping

This is my last post for a few days as I get ready to head back to where it all began (well, the same state, anyway).  Just a brief flyby to hang out with a side of my family I haven't had the chance to get to know to this point.   I'm very much looking forward to it,  though I'm not the most social of people.  It's not that I'm anti-social; it's more that I'm developmentally disabled in that area of life.  I'm socially "slow", virtually clueless when it comes to small talk.


Still, it'll be good to touch base and compare notes on our common bond: dear ol' Dad.

Prior to winging my way to the great Northwest,  I just had to comment briefly on a strange chat William Shatner had back in August with Rush Limbaugh, to air on the biography channel this Saturday.  Shatner, I'm sure you all know, is a master thespian, free love musician and acclaimed beat poet.  But you might not be aware that he also hosts his own talk show on basic cable.  It's called "Raw Nerve" and often lives up to that title (though perhaps "Weird Non-Sequitur" would be more apt).  If you can't wait until Saturday, I've included it below.

As I've recounted in these pages, Shatner recently interpreted Sarah Palin's Twitter Tweets, enhancing her words with a crazy beatnik beat.  He also gave equal treatment to Levi Johnson's twitter verbage.  Yah, daddy-o.  It was, like, way out.  Much like his music.  But taking on the Rush is something else again, sort of My Dinner with Andre with a healthy side of psilocybin mushrooms.  Rush all strung out on Oxy-fueled Ego and Shatner all strung out on - well, Shatner. (I trip just watching him so I can only imagine what it's like being him, his heart pumping lysergic acid through his bloodstream 24/7.) 

The actual content of the Shatner/Limbaugh summit is almost beside the point.  It's the idea of these two yakking - the concept of it all - that's most interesting.

Anyway, children, put on Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow - or Shatner's own Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - dim the lights, plug in the lava lamps and groove ...

The Philanthropic Philanderer and other Random Nonsense

I'm taken aback by the public's surprise over the recent Tiger Woods revelations. It doesn't turn my head, even if all the allegations are true. The guy's a super type-A personality (type AAA?) and I've known enough of them that I'm wise to their tendencies. Like the others I'd fit into this category, Woods has never come off as a "good guy" to me; in fact, I always thought he at least occasionally shops at the Jerk Store and might well be a regular customer. Personally, I'll take John Daly any day - he at least keeps his skeletons out on parade for all to see (even takes them on tour). John doesn't lock them up in a closet - they can develop a particularly concentrated rare trapped in there, as Tiger is discovering now.

On top of - and I'm sure enhancing - the driving type-A+ dickdom, Woods is one of the most famous and praised people on the planet, always the center of attention where ever he goes. Mix those ingredients all together in a (fish) bowl and bake it in the oven of the 24/7 media circus for a dozen or so years, you shouldn't be surprised if you don't end up with at least a couple of cookies on the tray fucking around on their partners. Sure, he gives back some healthy coin to charitable causes and donates time in that regard every now and then. That's just good business. The business of nurturing the Tiger Brand. And he'd been pretty savvy at that or so it seemed.

If some of the more outlandish behavior does turn out to be true (and we may never know), I am a bit surprised that he went about it so seemingly carelessly. Especially given all he has to lose. You may have noticed that he doesn't like to lose. It just seems very out-of-character for a guy who takes calculation and strategy to a level very few people reach. But it's not all that uncommon for those who are grappling in the depths of addiction to forgo the disciplines that come second nature in all other aspects of their lives, especially when they are in the midst of feeding their compulsion. Believe me, I know from where I speak. I'm not suggesting that's what's at work here with Tiger, but it's possible.

Okay, that's about three paragraphs more than I promised myself I'd devote to this particular fallen idol. After all, it's not the typical hard news I like to cover on these pages. You know me - always and only important topics like ...

• Paris Hilton Tweets. Maybe I've got the vowels wrong there.
• Dead Jacko. Is he still entombed? Or did they pull him out of the mausoleum for the holidays? As a sort of Christmas Tree replacement.
  
• The War in Afghanietnam. Apocalypse Now II - Colonel Kurtz Jr. Conquers Tora Bora. "I love the smell of Heroin Poppies in the morning." I'm sure our Prez Barack O'Johnson .. er, I mean Obama wouldn't miss the premiere of this one. Just kidding, Mr. Prez. I hope. What's that I hear? "One two three, what are we fighting for? I don't know, I don't give a damn, next stop's Afghanistan ..." Country Joe, time for a second act?
  
• The Endless Healthcare Roundabout. It appears our intrepid lawmakers are determined to debate the already-compromised-beyond-use legislation into literal nothingness - in fact, approaching anti-matter - perhaps agreeing simply to mail two aspirin out to every citizen and be done with it. I only wish Mr. Smith goes to Washington was real. And by that, I mean the remake envisioned by Homer Simpson and realized by Mel Gibson, Lethal Weapon-style:
  

Or something to that effect. Perhaps Maureen put it best here so I'll leave her with the last word on the Tiger and his Tail, at least from my corner of the world. Unless Woods goes bonkers and decides the best way to redeem his public image is an appearance on Dancing with the Stars with his new dance partner, Boy George. Should that happen I'm sure I'll have something to say, if only "I told you so." Because I did. Here.

It's the first real day of my vacation this week and I've thus far resisted logging into work email. I can tell my inbox is filling to burst, though. I can feel it. Cries from the great unwashed. Well, they'll just have to learn to clean themselves or stay dirty until Monday 'cause I've got more important things to do. Hawaii Five-0 is on, after all. The best ham and cheese to ever grace the small screen. Jack "The" Lord doesn't just chew the scenery, he lays out the silverware, slaps on the ketchup and wolfs it down with gusto. A great one today. Some disgraced ex-cop McGarrett had thrown off the force way back when for rampant corruption is now exacting his revenge, tormenting Steve-O, leaving anonymous threats and crazy non-clues and ultimately pinning a death sentence on the Governor (the Gov's assassination would ruin McGarrett's career apparently "because I'm responsible for his safety").

Five-0 commercials find me alternating between the beginnings of the pages of Third and Indiana and the rest of the HBO Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert resting out on my DVR. Springsteen and Rage against the Machine's Tom Morello doing Ghost of Tom Joad is incendiary (apologies to William Miller).

And the beat goes on ...

Channel Surfing with Dr G and Mary Louise

How come Dr. G doesn't have a Christmas Special?

Our intrepid forensics pathologist could be decked out in candy stripped scrubs, perhaps a dead-but-decorated tree in the corner of the morgue (one of last year's models).  And holiday-themed corpses rolling in on twinkling-lighted gurneys, all set for their holly jolly standard Y incision.

A little eggnog with your Yuletide autopsies?  Why thank you!

And who're we wheeling under the mistletoe for the good doctor?  Perhaps a department store Santa who drops dead of a heart attack right in the middle of some little tyke sitting on his lap rattling off his Christmas wish list?  Or a guy who electrocutes himself while attempting to string up his outdoor Xmas Lights?  A man impaled when one of his roof-top reindeer decorations comes crashing down onto him, antlers first?  For the kids, how about a baby mauled to death by a barnyard goat during the manager scene of a church Christmas pageant?  Ho-ho-ho!  I think if anyone could make this work, our Dr. G could.  Medical Examiners celebrate the holidays too, I'm sure.  In their own special way.

Switching from Dr. G ...

I ended up watching a great Mary Louise Parker flick from 1994, Naked In New York.  I'm always thrilled when I stumble across a Mary Louise movie I haven't yet seen.  It's the next best thing to being there, as an AT&T commercial once explained.  Eric Stoltz and the Karate Kid are also featured in this b-movie and they're both likable enough.  Eric's been in some great movies over the years (Mask, The Waterdance, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pulp Fiction, Hi-Life), and of course Ralph Macchio had his one-two punch of Outsider Johnny and Karate Kid that cemented his place in the pantheon of 80's schlock greatness. (By the way, you can neatly tie together Ralph's work through references made by Matt Dillon characters.  As Dallas Winston in the Outsiders: "Let's do it for Johnny, Man!" - through to his role as Pat Healy in Something About Mary: "You know the classics - like Harold and Maude and the Karate Kid?".  But I digress.  And my Member's Only Jacket is clearly showing.)


These clowns are merely fodder, though; props to give my gal something to do, someone to interact with.  But Mary Louise ... man.  She continues to slay me.  I would kill for her.  Christ ... I sound like John Hinkley. (Jodie Foster?  Really, John?  Maybe 1990 Silence of the Lambs edition but certainly not the 1976 Taxi Driver model.  And as it turned out, you didn't stand a chance, even if she had been into insane loner killers.  She'd probably pass you by for Aileen Woornos.)  

Of course, my devotion is just good old fashioned healthy lust.  And I wouldn't literally kill for her.  After all, I don't own a gun and don't much care for knives.  So I speak of course only metaphorically.  But I would totally give somebody a real piece of my mind for her.  A real tongue lashing.  For sure.

Proactive Procrastination

Ahh, December.  The month of lists - the best and worst of the year ending and predictions for the year to begin.  It's also the month where many of us begin to take stock of personal accomplishments (or lack thereof) and to devise goals for the new year.  And of course many come in the form of the dreaded New Year's Resolutions.  As for me, there are definitely some things I need to get straight in my mind and then translate to action come 2010.

For instance ...

Cherry Coke Zero is not water, despite containing it.  It is not nearly as good for me, especially when consumed by the gallon on a daily basis.  Though probably much better than gin or beer or rat poison, certainly at the volume we're talking about here.  So I'm getting closer but have some work to do still.

Watching A&E's Sell This House does not constitute actually going about selling my house.

Vitamins provide no nutritional value unless I actually ingest them (glancing at the bottle sitting on the windowsill of the bathroom each morning doesn't qualify).  Vitamins are generally overrated but given my piss poor diet, they certainly can't hurt.

Though technically "exercise", traversing the "treacherous" staircase connecting the first and second floors of my house is not exactly scaling Everest.  Though to be fair, I have no Sherpa to guide me and generally make the journey without aid of supplemental oxygen (thus far).  Still, I need to develop and stick to a regular - and more importantly, real - exercise regiment.

Really I'm just being proactive in devising my list of New Year's resolutions I plan on subsequently ignoring, rather than waiting until the last minute to do so, as is my normal M.O.

Anyway, I usually throw up my Chinese New Year dodge when January 1st arrives, giving myself another several weeks of guilt-free procrastination.  Sort of like the groundhog seeing his shadow - it means ~six more weeks of last year.  Then the dragons dance down Arch Street in Chinatown here in Philly, the firecrackers explode, The Year of the Something turns the page to The Year of the Something Else and the guilt kicks in full stride: the gym not joined, the junk food not trimmed down, the house not repaired/cleaned/sold (or repaired and cleaned so that it might be sold).

But I will get a haircut today.  So there's that.  And I did go for a run yesterday (well, more a trot).  Baby steps.

And the upcoming year will be different!  After all, Chinese New Year 2010 is the Year of the Tiger and so was 1962, the year I was born.  That surely means something (it only happens every 12 years, according to the last menu I read).  Plus it falls on Valentines Day and that's gotta be some sort of sign too (besides the introduction of the Vermont Teddy Dragon - or Teddy Tiger - to complement their Teddy Bear).

The end of this god awful "00s" decade means it's time to start fresh.
Who knows?  I might just go crazy and get a hair cut and go for a run every month next year.

Sunday's Best ... (Okay - Sunday's Dreck)

The first snowfall of the year here in Philly - really, more a sleet/snow mix. It was quite lovely to look at and thoroughly miserable to be out in. So I did more of the former and avoided the latter (easy to do when you're stuck working all day, as I was Saturday in an effort to prepare for the upcoming week off). But work is now done and I can turn my attention to more pressing matters. Whatever they might be. I'm sure I have some. Maybe not.

The hard physics problem I was grappling with yesterday while trying to juggle work and a football game? How to reach into the television with my jumper cables and attach them to the testes of the nitwits calling the SEC title game.

I was in an especially dark mood but I think with these clowns even Rachael Ray would be screaming "god damn babbling, yammering morons with special needs turrets - shut the fuck up or drop dead!" Or something to that effect. Then again, maybe that's her modus operandi whenever she's planted in front of the tube.  Folks with sunshine beams flying out of their asses 'round the clock are always suspect in my book.

But I'm meandering off track, as I'm wont to do.  Perhaps in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that I got nothing "on track".  I'm exhausted from the madness of the week's corporate chaos - mentally drained and in no shape to wax poetic on life's amusing follies.

Now it's Sunday and I'm listening to more brain-dead motor mouths calling the pro games.  Cables clamped on car battery, other end clamped to your testes, then I climb behind the wheel and rev the engine.  Call that play, dickhead. Verbal diarrhea in need of binding.  Eat some cheese, shitheads.

Clicking around the dial I see on Pay Per View "Jerry Springer/Big-Breasted".  Hmm.  Springer *and* breasts?  Intriguing. Tell me more.  Well, for just 9.99, you can see Jerry "shine the spotlight on the most-magnificent mammaries ever to grace his studio in this titillating collection of clips."  Clearly for the most discriminating tastes only.  Personally, I think that selecting "buy" for this fine selection should trigger an alarm in the local firehouse, followed shortly thereafter by the arrival of a fire-engine full of bruisers  at your doorstep, there to kick the living shit out of you (they'll first allow you to pull your pants back up, if you're lucky).

Boy, I'm really filled with vitriol this weekend.  That's not such a bad thing.  Vitriol - it does a body good.  Maybe it's all the coffee I've been slugging down.  Too much caffeine with me leads to bad skin and a pissy mood.   I should probably go for a run or something.  Get my frustrations out.  Fucking Michael Vick scores a touchdown in Atlanta.  And the crowd is filled with people cheering him.  A plague on all their houses.  I'm definitely going for a run.

Okay, this post is way too long for such drivel.  Perhaps I'll be inspired later.  A run with Dylan on the iPod might do it.  No, I need more anger.  Black Flag, perhaps.  Rage Against the Machine, maybe.

Until then, I apologize for any of you who've made it this far.  They're not all this bad.  Not all of them.  

I've started five books in the past month and have no desire to finish any of them.  I need to get my hooks into something really interesting as my A.D.D grows more severe with age.  Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem is the one next on my list.  Perhaps that will do the trick.  Meanwhile, after the run, I think I'll re-read Ginsberg's Howl, just for the fuck of it (it's one of my coffee table books that isn't about coffee tables).  That will also help dissipate some righteous indignation percolating through my psyche.  Just trying to find the release valves where ever they might be before it all erupts (usually on undeserving innocent bystanders for all the wrong reasons).

And so I'm off into the chilly late Autumn afternoon to slap shoe to pavement and drag my frustration along for the ride (hopefully, I can give it the slip in the bargain).

Sometimes kicking off the holiday season is a real Hasselhoff

The Hasselhoff clan enjoyed a fine start to the holiday season this weekend, David being rushed to the hospital for what most folks assume is another case of alcohol poisoning and his ex-wife arrested for a DUI.

Ahh, the sights and sounds of that most magical time of the year - it really takes me back to those days of yore growing up. What says Christmas more than the holiday colors of the ambulance and police siren lights in your driveway? Perhaps only the evergreen shade of Dad's vomit splattered on the yule log and his snow white stubble grown over the course of a five day bender.  Eggnog, anyone?

Ho-ho-ho!

That's as good a pratfall into this holiday season as any - thanks, David.  Perhaps someone ought to pick him up a casket on walmart.com for Christmas - might be a timely gift.  Whatever Santa brings you, I'm sure it'll be appropriate.

Seems even the perfect Tiger Woods was having a bit of a rocky domestic go of things this weekend as Black Friday bleeds into Cyber Monday.

Speaking of Cyber Monday, I've got a week of mad craziness at work before I take a break for a few days, and I'm expecting the asylum to be especially loony on a number of levels.   So I'm hanging up my blogging shoes for the next five days unless something truly significant compels me to post (even then, I may hold off until Friday).

So I'll finish off the evening in typically schizophrenic fashion, clicking incessantly between Frost/Nixon (the parallels between Hasselhoff and Nixon are eerie), Gladiator, Apocalypse Now, HBO's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert and Animal House. Mostly the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show.  Lou Reed and Metallica doing Sweet Jane!  That made my weekend.  And U2, Springsteen and Patti Smith doing Because the Night (Patti's version)!  Made my weekend twice.  Patti and Lou.  Is anything more New York?

Catch you on the other side.

Secretary Lapre?

My mentor Don Lapre once said "Small ads equal big profits."

Actually, that was pretty much the only thing he said, but he managed to do it in many and varied ways, always with an enthusiasm normally only seen from coke fiends on a four day jag.

This guru clearly provides sage advice in any era but it's especially profound given today's economic climate.

I see you cringing.  "Steve!",  you exclaim.  "Don Lapre is a has-been and when he did have a TV presence on those 3am Making Money infomercials in the 90's, he was a transparently cartoonish huckster.  His utterances were pure nonsense."

My reply is simple: That's the point.  That's his genius.  

And don't forget his good works in the 21st century: "Greatest Vitamin in the World!"  They were some pretty good vitamins, I hear (better even than Flintstone Chewables or - dare I say - Lucy's Vitameatavegamin).

Mr. Lapre is a man whose time has finally come.  Two dimensional (really, closer to 1 1/2 dimensions) and so cartoonish he makes Roger Rabbit seem like Edward R. Murrow.  A guy whose catchphrases - indeed, almost everything he has said or written, including the contents of his Making Money package  - are filled with more mumbo jumbo than Alice through the Looking Glass.

And I know: I bought Making Money back in 1998.  I did it not so I could make money for myself - it was clear it wouldn't be much help there - but to help Don make money.  It was the Pet Rock of Get Rich Quick schemes, minus the rock.  It was magnificence unbounded - truly a sight to behold.  Mainly, I did it out of curiosity and I was most definitely not disappointed.

This is precisely why Don's more essential than ever.  We live in a world where the goings on of our nation's financial industry resemble nothing so much as a Road Runner re-run strained through the worst sort of acid trip and topped with unbridled brilliance in the art of idiocy.

Folks are calling for Tim Geithner's head.  He's a sharp numbers guy, but he's pretty light on charisma, on camera presence, on pitching lumps of shit and making the world see diamonds.   That's Don's sweet spot.  We need to sell small ads to countries with deep pockets and gullibility to spare (not an all that uncommon combination).   Like Don did, we'll start out from "our tiny one-bedroom apartment" at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Ship those All American Making Money packages at 50 mil a pop of pure profit.  If anyone can sell it, our boy can.

I say let's welcome Treasury Secretary Don Lapre to the cabinet.