Documentary?

The Apocalypse. Armageddon. The end of the world. Many people seem to believe that there will be indicators to signal that the end is nigh, particularly some Christians who dwell on the wackiest of Biblical scriptures, the Book of Revelations. Shepard Smith of FOX News thinks a certain food item is a sign of the Apocalypse.

But food never scared me (unless it was low-fat or — God forbid — vegan *shudders*). No, I feel a true indicator of the endtimes will be much more wide-spread and devastating than doughnut burgers made by trailer-trash hicks in Massachusetts. A real sign of the coming Apocalypse has to reach the entire world’s population, and it has to seem so awful that it can’t be real. It must be terrible enough that when you hear its mere mention, you’ll feel revulsion like you’ve never felt before.

I speak, of course, about the recent announcement that production has started on the sequel to Showgirls. Yes, THAT Showgirls. And in case you are in doubt of its validity, there’s a slickly-made website for it, complete with broken English (and nudity)!

My wanting is now!

Why, that introductory video was bloated, trashy and awful enough to almost seem like the real deal!
Honestly though, the director/writer must live inside his own ass to be that pompous over a fucking sequel to fucking Showgirls. Do me a favor and say it out loud, right now: Showgirls 2. Don’t you feel sick just saying it? Showgirls 2. *shudders again*

Question: Why? Who would want this? Haven’t we suffered enough? Do the filmmakers think they can actually improve the world by making this film? Everybody who has actually seen Showgirls felt like dying afterwards, so I’m sure the sequel will drive rational people to homicide. Or murder suicide.

Jonestown Massacre or premiere of 'Showgirls 2'? You decide.

The end is nigh — repent now. I, not being a religious man, will take up a new hobby: getting drunk.

All right. I might lose friends over this, but it has to be done for posterity sake — news and pop culture is fickle and forgetful. If you’re easily offended, skip this post.

That said, let’s get it over with…

Today marks the first day that Michael Jackson has been stiff without a five year-old boy nearby.

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There will be a post-mortem today to determine what is to blame for Michael Jackson’s death:
A) Sunshine
B) Moonlight
C) Good Times
D) Boogie
[Click here if you don't get it.]

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Turns out it was food poisoning that killed Michael Jackson. He ate an 8 year-old wiener.

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When Farrah Fawcett died, God granted her one wish: that all the world’s children will be safe. So then God immediately killed Michael Jackson.

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Walmart has decided to introduce a new sale for this summer to honor Michael Jackson: All boys pants half off.

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When Michael Jackson was first rushed to the hospital, it wasn’t because of a heart attack. He went to the pediatric ward for a stroke.

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Q: Why wasn’t Michael Jackson saved in time?
A: There were only two of Charlie’s Angels available.

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Michael Jackson’s ashes will be spread in a sandbox so that after his death, he’ll end up in little boys’ shorts.

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Michael Jackson went to his plastic surgeon and said, “Doctor, I was hoping you could make my skin whiter.” “Whiter?” said the doctor. “The only way you could get whiter is if you became a ghost.”  So then Michael went home and died.

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Q: What’s Hell to Michael Jackson?
A: Being surrounded by people that can grow pubic hair.

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Part of Michael Jackson’s contract with Pepsi stipulated that — because he was 99% plastic anyway — when he died, he would be melted down into Pepsi bottles. That way he could end up in childrens’ mouths.

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Okay. That’s it. I’m spent. Now I have to pack my bags and prepare for going to Hell. “SHAM ON!“

I met Terry Jones of Monty Python fame this weekend.

I sold him a new car. He was very grateful for the good deal I was able to get him.

But seriously, this past Mother’s Day (Hi, Mom!) I went to a comedy writing seminar/interview session with Terry Jones, one of the writers and performers for Monty Python and director of all of their movies. He talked about his theories on writing comedy and the audience got to ask him questions. Of course I partook in the action….

ME: “First of all, I just want to say that besides Carol Cleveland, you were the best woman on Monty Python.”
TERRY: [closes his eyes, bows his head and crosses his legs] “Why, thank you.”
[audience laughs]
ME: “Given the ‘questionable’ content of some of Monty Python’s material, especially Life of Brian and Meaning of Life, did you or the group in general have an internal barometer — or at least discussions while writing — to question whether what you were writing was funny or just profane for the sake of being shocking?”

He went on to say that they (himself especially) never analyzed what they were doing; they basically just wrote to be funny. (“You don’t know if a joke is funny or not until you put it out there.”) They gave their individual ideas to the group and if the jokes weren’t working, they scrapped them. He then said that they never found anything that they didn’t think they could make funny.

Overall, a pretty good weekend and decently informative. I leave you with his advice on how to break into the writing industry….

“Be luckier.”

For those not in the know, YouTube has had a bit of trouble recently with various record labels and movie distribution studios. The suits in charge of these multi-national media conglomerates want complete control of their creative property [ed. note: That they themselves didn't actually create]. As such, they really get their panties in a twist when they see people upload videos that contain their copyrighted material to the largest video sharing site on the internet.

YouTube has tried to fan the flames and strike deals with these media companies, as the people that own most of the accounts on their site are just regular Joes, like you or me. Since we can’t defend ourselves from these big companies should we accidentally (or not) encroach on their property, YouTube has accepted the role of moderator.

In a metaphorical way, YouTube is like the parent who is met with an, “I hate you,” by the child they had to scold. YouTube willingly accepts the blame when people yell at them for taking down their video because it used a clip from a TV show or a snippet from a song owned by these companies. But like a scolded child, our lashing out against YouTube is just a knee-jerk reaction that we don’t really mean. The real enemy isn’t YouTube — they’re just saving their asses from getting sued. The enemies are the litigious companies that threaten YouTube. (And the media companies would call us the enemy.)

One deal that YouTube has come up with is to have advertisements for the movie/song in question embedded as pop-up ads in the video itself. The page which hosts the video will also have banner ads on it, displaying information that’s (sometimes) relative to the video’s content. Not a bad deal, right?
Well, several companies didn’t take kindly to that — they wanted COMPLETE CONTROL of their assets, and so they pulled out. Now YouTube has been forced to institute a zero-tolerance policy with ANY video that has anything to do with NBC/Universal, UMG, Viacom and (since December) Warner Music Group. I want you to understand that when I say zero-tolerance, I mean ZERO-tolerance.
Yes, even if you’re in the band, your record label won’t let you upload your own music videos to YouTube.

I told you all of that so that I could tell you this: I recently had a dust up with YouTube.
With my Inappropriate Soundtracks (refer to the sidebar for a link to my YouTube page), I mix and mash up music with film to make a pop culture casserole made of crap. As you can imagine, given the current climate over at YouTube, I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with copyright infringement. I’d argue that it’s parody/satire and since I’m not making money off of them, it could be considered fair use, but it doesn’t matter. (Zero-tolerance, remember?) I’ve had about 8 videos total get taken down at YouTube due to copyright infringement, but the video I uploaded this morning was special.

They allowed the video to stay, but they removed the audio because I used a song owned by the Warner Music Group in it. I was left in a weird situation; my videos NEED the music to be funny, but I didn’t feel like taking down the video after all the work I put into it and after several people had already seen it. What was I to do?

Well, I took a stand and turned the video into a platform in which to present the copyright issue as satire. I added (childish) annotations to the video making fun of WMG and how companies view us Joe YouTubes. Click the link below to see the fruits of my labor. I hope you get a chuckle.

[My mute, yet annotated, Wizard of Oz Inappropriate Soundtrack video]

A recent traffic light camera at an intersection in my neighborhood has been taken down. You know those cameras that are installed at traffic lights to catch people running red lights…? Yeah, well, this particular intersection is near the largest mall in the state and one of the largest malls in the country; Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. People were getting ticketed by these traffic cameras and the city of Schaumburg was getting threats from consumers saying they would stop going to the mall because of it. The city eventually caved under pressure and took down the camera, and order was restored to the world.

Sounds like a story of whiny people simply getting pissed over getting caught breaking the law, right? I mean, the city has our best interests at heart — they said these lights were installed in order to reduce accidents, after all. Do you want us to get in wrecks and make the streets unsafe? Why are you complaining? You broke the law — deal with it.

Right?

Well, the real story is in the details. See, cities make SERIOUS fucking bank on these things. In fact, at this particular intersection, the city received $1 million through camera-issued tickets in the span of three months. One million dollars. In three months… at a SINGLE FUCKING INTERSECTION. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not.
Again, to the uninformed, this just sounds like a lot of people getting caught committing a crime and they’re just getting pissed over it. Bully for the city for cracking down on such rampant crime! Huzzah!

But think about this: How is it possible, in the span of 3 months, that 10,000 people can run a red light at an intersection and yet only 7 total accidents occur? For the mathematicians out there, that’s over 111 occurrences of people running a red light at this one intersection in a single day. If you extrapolate it, in less than 2 years, every man, woman and child in Schaumburg would have gotten a ticket for running a red light at this lone intersection. Statistically, none of this seems possible…. Something’s up.

Traffic light cameras are programmed to take a photo and issue a ticket every time a car crosses the white line while the light is red, including instances of people going right on a red light, with no exceptions. Now think about your driving history and how these cameras would adversely affect your life:
Every time you inched your car over the line to see past the SUV next you… that’s a ticket. Every time you slammed your breaks and your bumper accidentally crossed the line… that’s a ticket. Every time there was a blizzard and you couldn’t see the line and accidentally crossed it… that’s a ticket.

That 111 moving violations a day begins to make sense now, doesn’t it? Crime seems rampant when there’s zero tolerance.

Even though the city said these cameras were to make these streets safer by lowering traffic accidents, they still took the camera down. But if the cameras actually lowered accident rates, why take it down? Why fold so easily? Is it because… THEY DON’T WORK? The city even admitted the cameras don’t work in reducing accidents, and even if they did, how could you conclusively prove it without getting into a “coincidence vs. direct correlation” argument?

Like electronic voting machines, we’re instituting flawed technology that only creates a nigh-incontestable situation that ultimately harms us. Sure, you can appeal the ticket, but they might not listen to you. And that’s $100 a pop down the tubes over virtually nothing. Imagine how awful it would be to drive around if they install these cameras at every intersection. One snowy day could fill your mailbox with traffic tickets, and believe me when I say I personally know people who got a bogus camera ticket at this exact intersection.

In Illinois, the government will look for any goddamn excuse to squeeze as many dollars out of us as possible. Road tolls, city stickers, and the highest sales taxes in the entire country. Money is the bottom line to them, which is why the city folded so quickly when people complained that they would stop shopping at Woodfield because of the traffic cameras. It’s not about making streets safer — it never was — it’s about money.

Big Brother is watching you, and he has dollar signs in his eyes.

I know you’re reading that headline and if you’re from Montana, you may not like me right now. Well, I’m speaking today as a Montanan… well, a former Montanan. I moved to Illinois a few years ago after spending over half of my life in The Big Sky state, and I look back every once in a while in fondness. Today, however, I look back in disgust. Right when I think that state starts to become progressive, the legislature goes and pulls the most backwards, awful, malicious and downright evil thing I have ever seen in politics.

Republican Senator Dan McGee of Laurel, MT recently introduced Senate Bill 46, an amendment to the Right to Privacy article in the state’s Constitution. Given the recent track record of the government’s respect for “right to privacy,” everyone should have cause for alarm. For this case, it’s well justified.

The original Constitution article reads:

The amendment Mr. Magoo, I mean, McGee wants to add to that is:

The meaning behind this is both clear, and not at all. McGag, I mean, McGee is trying to circumvent the laws concerning that one little court ruling from many years ago by changing the state’s Constitution itself to basically say that Montana doesn’t view abortions as legal. (Why play fair when you can change the rules, eh?) Speaking as an unrepentant asshole, it’s almost admirable to see how hard he is spitting in the face of the Supreme Court, excluding the fact that he’s using such diabolical and careless means to reach his goal. See, given the loose words that he is using to make his Machiavellian dream a reality, he’s essentially… well, Allyson Hagen says it best.

“This amendment would authorize governmental intrusion into every pregnancy and undermine private medical decisions made between a woman and her doctor. We should be very careful when considering amending this vital protection against intrusive and unwarranted government intervention in our state constitution.”

That’s right, folks. Should this bill pass, essentially every pregnant woman in Montana would be under scrutiny of the ever-expanding Big Brother. Nothing will stop the government from planting a flag in your uterus. Montana now has emotional (apparently) and financial interest in your unborn baby. That baby’s not yours so much as it’s Montana’s now. In essence, your little shrimp-like fetus essentially becomes the state’s chattel property. Now, there’s a word for that and I’m trying to remember what that is…. It’s on the tip of my tongue…. Oh yeah, that’s it….

SLAVERY.

No need to mince words here. Once a human becomes property, that person is slavery — plain and simple. Pregnant women are being turned into a commodity, or at the very least, bargaining chips.
At what fucking point did everyone lose their goddamn minds? This is the twenty-first century United States, not Sudan in the 1400s. We’re talking about people, here. Human fucking beings. Is this what the Republican party has reduced themselves to in order to reach their goal — promoting slavery? You already look racist, Republican party. You might want to back the fuck off of pushing this bill for fear of looking not just sexist as well, but retarded and devoid of guidance.

Regardless, this bill is such a flagrant slap in the face of civil rights that there’s no way it’ll pass. Any senator with half a brain would vote against it.

‘Unborn life’ bill passes in Senate

No way. No fucking way. Jesus Christ, it fucking passed!? IT PASSED THE SENATE!? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?! HAS THE WORLD GONE INSANE!? AAARRGGH! AAAAHHH!

*end transmission*

Here is my annual Anti-Valentine’s Day e-card for this year. Feel free to send it to loved ones. Or hated ones. Whoever you feel is deserving of a reminder that despite the feel-good pap that the capitalist market shoves down our throats on some arbitrary day, the world is actually a dark and horrible place full of awful people ruining the lives of others.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

Moral absolutism is the belief that wrong is wrong and right is right, and never the two shall meet. The context of a crime is moot; it’s clear cut, black and white and without shades of gray. To a moral absolutist, the actions of a woman who steals food in order to feed her starving family are not justified — she broke the law, period.
Sometimes it’s hard to deny that someone committed a crime, especially when they admit to doing it, but what happens when the punishment doesn’t fit the crime? At what point do you surrender common sense for the sake of convicting a criminal? What is justice when you can’t justify punishing the guilty?

"Where am I supposed to look again...?"

Meet Loren Swift. Mr. Swift was arrested in Illinois for marijuana possession with intent for distribution. Police found 25 lbs. of pot in his house and 50 lbs. worth of marijuana plants, which is quite a formidable stash by anyone’s standards. He had a miniature greenhouse for his horticultural pursuits and a room specifically designed for drying the buds for smoking. Police found several pieces of paraphernalia used for storing and smoking pot, along with a scale for measuring. Mr. Swift also confessed to police that he smoked pot and at no point did he ever try to deny it.

A jury of his peers recently found him innocent of his crimes.

Despite how insane that ruling seems on the surface, in actuality, the details paint a different picture. Mr. Swift is a 59 year-old Vietnam War veteran who needs a cane just to move around. At one point, they contemplated postponing his trial because doctors said that one of his feet would probably need to be amputated before his sentence would be passed. Swift claimed he smoked the pot to help alleviate the pain in his legs/ankles and to help with his post-traumatic stress disorder (he was a Vietnam veteran after all). He claimed that he never sold drugs to anyone, which the police admitted to having no physical evidence of in the first place, which is funny because that’s the main reason why he was on trial. Sure, his pot stash was ridiculous enough to assume he was going to sell it, but he could have been keeping it all to himself.
Regardless of its purpose, he smoked and possessed — I believe the technical term for it is “a shit-ton” — of pot. Medical marijuana is not legal in the state of Illinois, so his little “I need it for the pain” shtick won’t stick. He broke the law, period.

However, according to our current drug laws, if Mr. Swift was found guilty of this crime, the minimum punishment would have been serving six years in prison. Let me repeat that: If the jury found this 59 year-old, crippled Vietnam veteran guilty of possessing and smoking pot, he would have had to serve a MINIMUM sentence of six years in prison.

Given the circumstances, the jury exercised one of their not-very-well-known rights; the right of jury nullification. When a person is sentenced to a crime, it’s not only the convicted person on trial, but the law as well. If a jury finds a law unjust, they have the right to “nullify” it by acquitting someone, even when there’s insurmountable evidence to the contrary.

Did Swift commit a crime? From the law’s perspective, undoubtedly. Is the punishment worth a minimum of 6 years in a penitentiary? I would say hell no, especially when compared to other crimes of a more severe magnitude. Then again, our drug laws are broken as hell and beyond extreme in punishment. The only thing more messed up than this nation’s drug policy is the health care system… which is kind of ironic.

To read about the story, click [here].

Oh, and Happy Groundhog’s Day.

Before I get into this blog entry, I have to give credit where credit is due; a friend of mine (Thanks, Emily!) pointed me to a completely absurd commercial that I just had to talk about.
It’s insane and goofy, yet filled with mixed messages. And people in food costumes.

I’m of course talking about the new commercial for Discovery Health’s National Body Challenge 2009.
Haven’t seen it? You’re not alone. But hey, thanks to YouTube, you’re going to get an education!

Ooooookaaay…? Odd.
For the sake of this post, let’s ignore the weird quasi-fetish on display here (what would you call that, anyway — dressing in a food costume and porking…. A Foody, perhaps?) and focus on the message.

Based on the commercial, it’s implied that the fast foods are the ones who are caring, long-lasting lovers who crave attention and that vegetables are the attractive new flings. Shouldn’t that be flipped around? I mean, I eat burgers and pizza because, even though I know they’re bad for me, they’re exciting and tasty. Does anyone outside of a PeTA rally really see healthy vegetables as the exciting alternative to hamburgers and fries?

Here’s a more honest (debatable) and funnier (because I wrote it) approach to the concept of that commercial….

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It’s completely dark. Obscured by shadows, a woman in a celery costume flips on a light to reveal herself and her surroundings. She’s inside a house, specifically a bedroom, and she drops the suitcase she had been carrying. She enthusiastically says, “I’m home, honey! Did you miss me?”
As she speaks, she looks up and sees a man in bed with a woman dressed in a hamburger outfit. The man, completely startled, whimpers out a pathetic, “Hi…. I… didn’t expect you home so–-”
In complete shock, celery-woman runs out of the room and puts a hand to her mouth to try to hold back from openly sobbing.
The man, dressed in a wife-beater and boxer shorts, desperately follows her outside while calling out to her. “Honey? Honey, come back!”

Outside, celery-woman is crying, her face buried in her hands as she’s leaning against the side of the house. The man comes out of the front door and runs to her. “It’s not what it looks like. She was–-”
Celery-woman socks the man in the eye.
“How could you!?” she says through gritted teeth. “How could you do this to me? Don’t you care about me at all? After all I’ve done, I…. I feel like an idiot.” She turns away from him in disgust.
There’s an awkward pause.

“How many times?” she asks.
“Oh, Sheila, that’s–-”
“Just answer me — how many times, and don’t lie to me! How many times did you go behind my back to be with her, or others like — oh God, are there others!? Oh no! No, don’t say anything! I don’t even want to know! I feel sick just thinking about it.”
“Look, I–-” The man tries to put his arms around her, but she slaps his hands away.
“No!” she yells at him. “Don’t you even touch me!”

The two stare at each other in an uncomfortable silence. The man sees pain in her eyes — pain he caused her. She breathes in deeply, holds her chin up and approaches him.
“You’re sick, Jerry,” she says with a matter-of-fact tone. “You’re a pig. And I hope you can live with yourself and what you’ve done.”

Celery-woman walks to her car and drives away. The man collapses to his knees and starts sobbing. The screen fades to black, and white letters appear on the screen: “Vegetables deserve to be treated better. Start eating right today.”

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I think I need to stop writing about relationships and couples fighting. People might begin to suspect things aren’t on the up-and-up with me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS!