Sarah in the Sky with Rougeness

Our lady of the midnight spotlight on Russia has already finished her memoirs!  Four hundred pages written faster than she can read.  Going Rogue: An American Life (actual title!) will be on the book shelves in mid-November and I'll be among the first in line to snatch up a copy.

Perhaps she should have coordinated the release with one by Richard "Rogue Warrier" Marcinko for some good old fashion synergy (he didn't know when to quit, she didn't know when not to; they have so much in common besides being all rogue).  I smell the 2012 Republican dream ticket cooking here (I'll leave it to The Architect to work out the details; however, Karl, credit where credit's due, eh?).

If her tweets are any indication of the content - perhaps they *are* the content - this book'll be a page-turner unlike anything since William Burroughs was perfecting the art of the "cut-up" style in the early 1960s.  Perhaps she can convince Shatner to do the reading for the audio book (he's already adept at the interpretation of her work, after all).

Shatner Recites Palin Farewell Speech:


Shatner Recites Palin Tweets:

It was perhaps poetic that the real life inspiration for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds died today.  A sign to our Star Spangled Lady of the Great White Northern Hope to look to Shatner as Her One True Voice. Her Metatron, the wings to lift her linguistic flights of scribbled down maverickosity (maverickness? gooseness? icemanesque?) so all can behold.

After all, Shatner's reading of Lucy stands as the definitive version of the song, far surpassing the pedestrian effort Lennon and the boys put forward on Sgt. Pepper.  And I really mean this.  With Lennon and the mop tops, you felt they were always at least half kidding with the psychedelic window dressing. Shatner was stone serious, though; his rendition dug down into your spine.  You felt as though you had been dosed with three sheets of the best blotter acid just listening to the guy.

"Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's Gooooooonnnnneeeeeee!!!!"

Food for thought, Sista Sarah ...

Diamonds in the Dogshit

Before I get to work (my procrastination instincts are acting up), I thought in honor of my 96th post (er, make that 97) I'd dig through this steaming pile of shit and see if I could find at least a couple of earlier posts I thought were perhaps mildly amusing. It's all subjective of course. What isn't subjective is the fact that most of this blog is crap and some of the better bits get lost in the morass. So, in keeping with my odd milestone numbering choices, my personal top 7 in terms of self-amusement (and in no particular order):

• Rod Blagojevich Depends Diapers for the working professional
• Musing on Manson, Dr. G and the Washington Huskies
  
• Healthcare Satire
• Sarah In the Sky with Diamonds, our Queen of the Yukon meets TJ Kirk
  
• Michael Jackson as the New Timothy Leary
• Infomercial Gang on a Coke Bing
• Fear and Loathing on the Autopsy Table

'No future for you' - J. Lydon, 1977

Mad Men marathon! Ah, but it's just the 3rd season stuff.  Dr. G marathon! It's Sunday - what's new?  I'm torn between watching these and the Eagles game (the latter only in anticipation of someone taking a cheap shot at Michael Vick and rooting on Kansas City - thus far it's not working in my favor).  
The thought of these choices is depressing on a level I didn't think possible.

Miserable rain, a goddamn cold - I already had the flu over the summer for crying out loud - and here comes another fucking Charles Schwab commercial to further rattle my brain. Why didn't 'Chuck' go under with the financial industry collapse? A clear sign there is no God; if there is, he's surely a sadist. 

I think it's time to get it over with: pass me the Plum Smart flavored Activia, cover me with a Snuggie and hand me the number of a good nursing home (time to check myself in).  That or hit me upside the head with a wet sock full of dogshit. Whichever is easier.  Is there some irony in the fact that I have the TV sound off and the Sex Pistols on the stereo?  Probably not irony, just a bit of pathetic sadness. Meanwhile, somewhere in the world, John Lydon's prostate is acting up and the self proclaimed anti-christ is cleaning his dentures in a glass while watching a Madlock marathon.  Or maybe he's enjoying Dr. G like me.

Back in the real world, apparently our long national nightmare may finally be over as I see the crafty Swiss have snared international super villain Roman Polanski in a 'career retrospective film festival' sting.  He fell for that old chestnut?  I recall it failing miserably when the CIA tried it with Bin Laden a couple years back:
"The Tora Bora Terrorism Follies featuring the works of Osama and the Not-Ready-for-72-Virgins Players" was quite an embarrassment to the boys in Langley when only Momar, Oliver Stone and then-Senator Obama bothered to show up, though Bin Laden did send Glenn Beck to accept the lifetime achievement award on his behalf. (Who would have thunk that last one? I would have.)

BTW, the CIA really shouldn't have advertised a 'Saturday mini-retrospective on Kenyan Terrorist Romantic Comedies' for this 'festival' if they wanted to keep the audience clear of American officials for a clean bust (they had to have known of Barack's Muslim Socialist Fascist Kenyan inclinations).  However, that Obama not only attended but kept breaking out into Arsenio Hall "Woof Woof" gestures during the Kenyan flicks should have at least raised a red flag with regard to the nefarious intentions of our future dear leader. That'll teach the CIA: now they have to translate the daily presidential briefings into Swahili and soon all agents not otherwise in the field will have to attend the four week government-grade medical school and do double duty as federal healthcare physicians.

Tonight is a busy evening for tube watching, what with 60 Minutes, Dexter and Californication kicking off new seasons + Curb and Mad Men.  Thank god for DVRs.

Now I need to stop typing garbage into this infernal blog and start studying (the alarm went off a month or so ago on what seems to be a recurring every-two-years new job itch and I'm in serious talks with a couple doctors who can treat this outbreak for me but only if I prepare).

[Postscript: The Sex Pistols gave way to Groovelily on the stereo and Dr. G/Mad Men/Football gave way to the Wizard of Oz (all the other shows will just have to cool their heels in my DVR until I finish this journey down the yellow brick road).  I haven't taken this trip for a long, long time.  It was my very favorite movie as a young boy and perhaps the most anticipated television day of the year for me when they replayed it annually on ... well, whichever one of the three networks that had the rights - I could google it if I wasn't so lazy.  Oz was, to me as a kid, a world apart from the shitty one I was living in.  

Little did I know Judy Garland's life was hell and she had already long since undertaken a daily regiment of booze, pills and tobacco that would have put Janis Joplin and Billy Holiday to shame by the time she filmed Oz at age 17.  Still, that knowledge doesn't hurt the movie one lick; in fact, it adds some poignancy to the mix.]

Momar, Mackenzie and those !#*@! Charles Schwab Ads

I had several folks asking me for further comment on Momar's adventures in New York this week but I'm not sure there's more to say. Gadflydafi's actions speak for themselves, whether he's pitching his usual traveling tent at Trump's place in West Chester or giving a reading of Allen Ginsberg's Howl at the UN Wednesday (at least that's what I think he was doing; there's some question as to the fidelity of his interpretation).


The "king of kings", as he was referred to by one of his lackeys yesterday in introducing him to the assembly, was acting predictably loony but not so much that there's any comic value in mocking him further (he does that just fine on his own).

He was accompanied as per usual by his all-female 'Robert Palmer/addicted-to-love' style female bodyguards, but that isn't news.

'Nough said.

There are more important things going on in the world.

For instance, Julie Cooper's alter-ego Mackenzie Phillips was apparently screwing her father, or so she says in her just-published tell-all (and, naturally, on Oprah). Also, he introduced her to shooting coke and presumably other such typical father-daughter rites of passage. Papa John, it seems, wasn't the most adept at working the syringe for Mac, missing the vein and numbing her whole arm. I could see Mike Brady attempting to 'fix' Marsha in this manner. Hilarity ensues. Meanwhile, nobody was gettin' fat 'cept Mama Cass (coke does that to ya).

Speaking of dope, what sort of Cristal and Eight Ball bender resulted in the conception and approval of that obnoxious yuppie whiner Charles Schwab ad campaign? Shooting live action celebrities and then animating them in grotesque and unnatural ways ('rotoscope") makes each one all the more jarringly pompous.

It's like someone raking their fingernails down the chalkboard of my psyche whenever one of these abortions flash onto the TV screen, causing a Pavlovian reflex to kick into to the nerves in my right thumb, compelling it to press down hard on the channel changer of the remote. I'd just as soon use my money for toilet paper than give it to the Schwab shit-for-brains. I wouldn't want my cash associating with theirs.

At least some folks have the good sense to bust on this cheapjack shit.

Charles Schwab Rotoscope commercial Parody

The Kids are Alright

What sort of Gestapo-backed company puts out a product like this?  If you've gotten to the point where you have to go to the local CVS pharmacy to pick up a home-school drug test kit for little Johnny, I think your kid might be in need of some professional help (whether he has 'dirty' piss or not - in fact, probably more so if it turns out to be clean).

Next thing you know, they'll be marketing 'Parent's Eyes' School Backpack with Embedded Micro Webcam bouncing spy signals off the satellite from Davey's after-school activities to Dad's iPhone and Little Suzie Home Sexual Activity Detection Power you can sprinkle in her morning Cheerios. ("The morning-after virtual chastity belt! If she breaks out in pink boils, she's surely been soiled!")


I understand people are concerned about their kids, but it's a slippery slope.

All the yipyaps bitching about the looming Marxist Takeover of our Country don't see that it's this kind of seemingly piddly shit and not the creation a non-profit agency to provide supplementary healthcare (or outlawing the stockpiling of assault weapons for "home security") that erodes our liberties.

But this sort of "patriotic American" doesn't really care about the withering away of constitutional rights, much as they might seem to given their incessant torch burning and town hall hollering.  If they were so concerned, they'd have been up in arms over the Patriot Act and wouldn't consider the ACLU to be in league with Satan. Watch Seven Days in May.  Or Dr. Stranglove for that matter.  It's this dark side of the security-vs-freedom debate that trickles down from the military industrial complex into the fabric of our personal lives in varied and subtle ways.  At its most foundational, it's a mindset and attitude.

Anyway, I didn't mean to rant and rave - this was meant to be a humorous observation based on a radio commercial for First Check Home Drug Test I heard on the drive into work.  I promised to cut down on my posts and will now go dark until the end of the week (unless something else gilds my lily enough in the meantime).

Momar and Mahmoud rock Manhattan - A Blitzkrieg Bop through the Big Apple, featuring Hasselhoff and Winehouse

My eyes rested on two items today that Google News decided to categorize together for me.

One was David Hasselhoff's continuing struggle with the bottle. David claims this latest ride to the emergency room for alcohol poisoning was an 'ear infection' affecting his equilibrium. Sure, 'Michael' - tell it to K.I.T.T. It was his fifth such trip (emphasis on the fifth).

The other item was Mahmoud ImADickYaHeard's reaffirmation of (and pride in) his frequent remarks labeling the Holocaust a fabrication concocted by the Jews to steal his land. Well, not exactly - to steal the land of his friends. Er, not quite. (After all, I don't see him offering to drive the Palestinian people to the airport or help to paint their spare bedroom over the weekend.) Alright, to steal the land of people he despises a little less than the Jews. Or maybe just another grab at the spotlight and to look righteous and defiant (scoring points with the hardliners).

These are two ginormous goof balls whose ridiculous antics affect the world in different ways, to be sure. 'Mitch Buchannon' is mainly screwing up his immediate family and perhaps 'fans' who should know better. Maybe producers who should know better. ImADickYaHeard, on the other hand, is attempting to play on the pain and suffering of the disenfranchised, perpetrating a meta-lie (lying about people lying). Now to be clear, I'm no Israel apologist - they don't have a monopoly on right (or wrong). Ultimately, for any sort of real solution, the Israelis and Palestinians will both need to compromise. Sadly, that day may never come and it's dicks like ImADickYaHeard that'll help ensure it won't.

What do drunkard and dickweed have in common (besides being jack asses of greater or lesser magnitude)? Seemingly not much (though I hear through the grapevine that ImADickYaHeard is a closet Baywatch fan).

They do have a vaguely German connection in that Hasselhoff's 'music' is inexplicably popular in that country and ImADickYaHeard's worldview would have been favorably viewed by that country's leaders back in the 30s (though his race would most certainly not have been). But that's an unfair (and nonsensical) comparison based on a stereotype of the kind Iran's head bonehead would no doubt approve.

So it goes back to them both being goof balls. Fodder for the rest of us to have a bit of fun.

For instance, perhaps The Knight Rider could team up with Amy Winehouse, record a duet album of boozy classics (Tiny Bubbles, Tubthumping, One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, Too Drunk To Fuck, Gin and Juice). Maybe go on tour? I think the New York Booze Cruise people are calling!

Speaking of duets, I think ImADickYaHeard should team up with Momar "Crazy Legs" GitOffMe. Mahmoud and Momar are both in New York toward the end of this week to catch some of the fall runway shows (and perhaps swing by the UN, if there's time). Two wild and (literally) crazy guys. Momar could give the hirsuted one some fashion tips ahead of their arrival.

Swinging batshit loony dictators out and about, doing the town! (Whatcha mean CBGB closed down!?! Momar, you promised! The Ramones! Blitzkrieg Bop! Johnny and Joey are dead? Next thing you'll tell me the Dictators have broken up! Well, there's always Scores!)

Or - and I'm just trying to tie this post up here somehow - we could book them on the Hasselhoff/Winehouse New York Booze Cruise.

We're talking wine(house and the liquid variety), women (Momar's Famed Female Body Guards) and song (David and Amy live!).

And after all the fun and games, we'll arrange for a nice long rest for them off the side of the boat into the East River (you too, Hasselhoff - let's see Mr. Baywatch swim with an anchor locked tight around your leg).

Sleep tight, boys.

'Sunday's best, Sunday's finest. When your money's in the minus.' - Declan MacManus, 1979

I must admit I'm pretty pumped for the new Curb Your Enthusiasm kicking off tonight. Sunday evening is most definitely the cable "must see TV" night (has been for a while now for a lot of folks).

My past love affairs with the Sopranos and Six Feet Under cemented the night for me personally. Add in the Simpsons (at least through the 90s), Family Guy today, and Sixty Minutes since time began. That all makes for a tough act to follow.

For others, it's also the night of True Blood and Entourage. I didn't get into either show, though I admire both. For Blood, maybe it's a genre thing. Other than Lost Boys, I've never been much into vampire lore, though it's obviously in vogue what with the HBO show and the Twilight flick. For Entourage, I like the cast and the premise, but just couldn't get up for it. Dunno why.

For me now, Curb and Mad Men represent two of my top four currently running TV series (30 Rock and Weeds round out this holy quartet). I also dig Dexter, another Sunday night staple, and am looking forward to new stuff there coming soon.  As an aside, I'm going to give the new Bored to Death a spin. It's on HBO right after Curb and I'm lazy - also it looks like it might be pretty funny.

But Larry David, with his Seinfeld "reunion" the central conceit looming in the season ahead, and the continuing trials and tribulations of the gang at Sterling Cooper, as they flaunt their dashing brand of sixties cool, will keep my Sunday evenings percolating for the next little while for sure.

I only wish I could say as much for the remainder of the week.  Speaking of which, I'll likely be slowing down my production of swill here as I take a plunge back into the deep end of the asylum swimming pool at work tomorrow. It's usually mad this time of year for our kind  (retail-centric e-commerce providers).  Lots of features to get ready in time for the holiday season ahead. 

I'd been mostly wading in the kiddie pool this summer, deliberately trying to keep to the shallows and careful to take my Clozapine. Well, that time has past, school's back in session and my pills have been flushed down the drain. In other words, hand me a snorkel and flippers and make way for a big fuckin' splash into the deep, dark world of corporate IT insanity!

Seriously, I still plan to put the brakes on any blatantly excessive workaholic behavior, but some things are easier said than done.