Send your love electronically HERE We will read it. Platonically.
The Public Blogging of Pomosexuality, Homotextuality, Homophobiaphilia, and Drear Theory (aka Career Theory) [aka Gay4Pay]. We also read the Corner and OpJournal so the right buttock will be punished as well.
All comments subject to publication. Or dismissal. Or Both.
I have a passion for it that has earned me ridicule, teasing and taunts. I felt pride when I heard that it was now on the frontlines of our national defense. I despise the fashion of calling it duck tape. I find silver tape only slightly less offensive. Gaffer tape is acceptable. Duct tape is the OED standard.
5:07 PM
A Treehouse Sleepover
VH1 is running an evil and funny commercial for its rebroadcast of last week's Michael Jackson special. They use a few of the goofiest moments from the show, natch, but they cut them perfectly and add a weird filter overlay, some sort of horizontal line degraded signal simulation, to great effect. They pretty much push the pedal through the metal. (Which inadvertently points out how square and witless the Bashir documentary really was.) And they end hilariously with a shot up to Michael in his daydream tree, at his pancake makeup creepiest, inviting us to, "Come on!". As if to say come on up in the tree and watch the show with me, I'll cure your cancer in the bargain.
7:10 AM
Hit The Showers
This is so great. It's #1 on blogdex, but in case you haven't visited, go get your mind blown. It took me 20 minutes to figure out. 15 minutes of playing with it, transfixed and amazed, and 5 minutes in the shower away from its spell, until my mind cleared enough to get the gimmick. Play it and if you don't unravel the mystery: first--take a shower, and second--if that doesn't work, come back here for the clues. REMEMBER, the crystal ball is ALWAYS right. If it's wrong the mistake is in your math not in the magic!
(NOTE TO ALL SMARTYPANTS: If you have all math anomalies at your fingertips, if you boot up with them in your flesh BIOS, if you are, in other words, a total number magic nerd, don't write and tell me what an idiot I am. I've got your number and you don't want to know what symbol it matches.)
The Clues:
1. the symbols shift with each play--there's a reason for this, static symbols would reveal the secret more readily.
2. If you move through the numbers systematically, the fog will lift.
3. Still not there? Be sure to write down your results and look for the pattern.
4. Totally stumped. Do a screen save of the window before you play, after you play look back over the saved window and look for the pattern in the numbers that match your symbol. Repeat as necessary. Consult your paperwork above. Take another shower.
6:17 AM
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Bumperstickerize These!
Buffeted by a dreamstorm, I washed up on the shores of inspiration. Will our reps in Marin, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, The Upper West Side and all other sacred sites please have these phrases printed up on hats, t-shirts, baby clothes, buttons and bumperstickers. Send in all profits with your monthly franchise fees.
Militarize Peace!
Weaponize Love!
Agenda Bender: thinking inside the blogx for almost seven months.
I don't think even Miramax believes Gangs of New York will get a sustained bounce from it's Oscar 'nations. I heard a radio ad for the flick that focuses on its MPAA rating as the most sellable thing about the movie. The ad's tagline is "this movie is rated R for intense strong violence, sexuality, nudity and language" (an exact quote). I've heard ads do this before but that's the longest string of winking nods to the a movies sexdrenched bloodymindedness that I can recall. The bonus modifiers stink of desperation--and solecism
I can't say if it's accurate though. All I've heard of the film is its violence, didn't know it was crammed with mean muddy streets sexuality and conscription riot nudity too. Those 5 Points micks must have been some sexyassed half-naked motherfuckers, those plug uglies must have had some simmering sexuality issues--it's what made 'em so angry I reckon.
I wouldn't see the movie on a dare. But that's true of almost every movie. It's how I keep my critical objectivity.
Skimming through online coverage to find mentions of sex in GoNY, I discovered one review that appears to be longer than the movie itself but which did include this funny bit:
“Gangs of New York” is the kind of movie where you can’t walk into a brothel without being surrounded by an orgy, you can’t walk into a bar without seeing a fight, and you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone dance a jig.
This very brief bio of the guy who inspired his cartoonist dad to creat Dennis the Menace is better than the various urban legends about the fates of kid stars from old sitcoms. Dennis might have been a menace but that pipe smoking dad now seems scarier to me. I think daddie was the baddie. Alcoholic mom was DOA from an "accidental drug overdose" at the age of 41, btw. (Via Jesse Walker at Hit and Run.)
Update: It's a momentary obsession. Here's a good overview of Hank Ketcham's career. Some highlights:
It was undoubtedly the rhyming name that cracked the legendary industry resistance to panels about little kids. Ketcham had earlier experimented with a kid comic strip dubbed Little Joe; it hadn’t sold. But "Dennis the menace" sang like a national anthem
...Ketcham has steadfastly avoided the topical realism of contemporary life, the morality of which he finds "dreadful." In his cartoons he controls the world, and he creates people he enjoys. "If they aren’t what I like," he said once, "I erase them. The newspaper headlines can be murderous and bloody, but in my world, the birds are singing."
...In the late 1960s, Ketcham made an exception to his never-never-land rule. "Determined to join the parade led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.," he said, he introduced a black playmate for Dennis.
"I named him Jackson and designed him in the tradition of Little Black Sambo with huge lips, big white eyes, and just a suggestion of an Afro hairstyle," Ketcham wrote. "He was cute as a button, and in addition to being a marvelous graphic, he would reflect the refreshing, naive honesty of preschool children as yet unexposed to prejudice and rancor. It was a splendid opportunity to inject some humor into the extremely tense political climate. I urged my writers to give this priority and rolled up my sleeves with enthusiastic anticipation."
In the introductory cartoon, Dennis introduces Jackson to his mother, saying, "I’ve got a race problem with Jackson. He can run faster than me."
"A harmless little play on words," Ketcham thought. And so it was. But the uproar Jackson caused was not harmless. In St. Louis, rocks and bottles were thrown through the windows at the Post-Dispatch building. Delivery boys were assaulted in Little Rock. Newspaper editors in Miami were threatened.
But it wasn’t the joke. It was the picture. Ketcham had doubtless chosen the hoary visual cliche for his depiction of Jackson solely for its graphic potential: he saw the design possibilities in that stereotypical blackface image. But his readers weren’t designers. And the venerable racial caricature was, by the late 1960s, despised by minority groups and shunned by most other Americans whose sensibilities were not determined by bigotry. Ketcham’s readers saw a cruel stereotypical image instead of a cute design that would enhance the cartoonist’s drawings with attractive solid blacks.
"Any regular Dennis-watcher would surely know that I am never vindictive or show any intent to malign or denigrate," Ketcham wrote later in his autobiography. "It seems that Sammy Davis, Jr., was the only one who could safely poke fun at minorities. To this day, Jackson remains in the ink bottle. A pity."
If anything, the experience confirmed Ketcham’s resolve to stay away from real life.
...And what of the original Dennis, the actual son of the cartoonist? For many years, Ketcham and his son have been estranged. The cartoonist is acutely aware of how much he invaded his young offspring’s privacy by making his name a household word. "He was brought in unwillingly and unknowingly," Ketcham told Weinraub, "and it confused him."
...Ketcham’s autobiography, The Merchant of Dennis the Menace, is no longer in print
Highlights of the NYT's article about the Suffolk County grand jury report on the Church sex scandals there:
...Since 1990, the diocese has maintained a special "uninsured perils fund" to cover sexual abuse claims, asbestos exposure and trampoline accidents, the grand jury found. It said the fund, raised from parish collections, had paid $1.7 million in claims — none for asbestos exposure or trampoline accidents — but still had $11 million in its account last October
...A survey by The New York Times last month found that the crisis had spread to nearly every American diocese and had involved more than 1,200 priests and more than 4,200 victims in the last six decades. Those accused represent less than 2 percent of the priests in America, but research suggests that the extent of the problem remains hidden because many cases have gone unreported.
...But the report — in what has become a familiar litany — presented evidence, often in graphic terms, of assaults by priests from the late 1970's: the rape and sodomy of altar boys, cheerleaders and others who were given alcohol, shown pornographic materials and seduced in rectories, churches or their own homes, or were taken to motels, peep shows or sex clubs or on camping trips and other outings.
Identifying the priests only by letters of the alphabet — A through W — the report detailed abuse that often continued for years. While many cases were brought to the attention of diocesan officials, it said, only one priest was unfrocked — for having an affair with an adult woman.
...Moreover, to carry out what the panel called its cover-up policy, the diocese in the mid-1980's set up what it called the Office of Legal Affairs, known unofficially as the "intervention team." It was, in fact, two high-ranking priests who were also lawyers.
Ostensibly they recommended treatments for abusive priests — recommendations that were filed away and forgotten, the grand jury said — and met with victims and their families, supposedly to discuss possible avenues of action.
...One confidential, self-congratulatory memo written by a team member was quoted in the report as saying: "We have suffered no major loss or scandal due to allegations of sexual misconduct by religious personnel. Since I have been involved in this work, the Diocese of Rockville Centre has paid out a total of $4,000 because of claims of sexual misconduct."
The Virgin Mary fencepost has been vandalized. Destroyed as a matter of fact. But it has been rebuilt. Personally, I hope she comes back bigger, whiter and, let's just say, more distinct than ever. I'm all for a little fun with the faithful but the fence hackers are pricks. Should have just started a band called the Virgin Mary Fencepost and been done with it.
Slide show of the phenomenon, the destruction and the rebirth here. 2:34 AM
Appeal for Help
Agenda Bender monitors certain key Yahoo porn groups as a sort of scientific side-line. It's a life long cross-cultural, longitudinal study of the sociology of erotic subcultures. So anyway, I got this email from Hot_Thugs2 today:
This could be just an URBAN RUMOR: BUT...
"What is the 5th DIGIT of Your Social
Security Number, is it ODD or Even and
are you BLACK (Non-White) or WHITE... No
Identity... Just a Poll...."
o EVEN
o ODD
o I'M BLACK (NON-WHITE)
o I'M WHITE
o I'M ILLEGAL...
I'd heard of this a while ago but I forgot what the legend was. A quick search found that the rumor is blacks get even fifth digits and whites get odd. Not sure what illegals get, maybe irrational numbers. Good explanation of it all here.
I would like to get a gay/straight/illegal version of this rumor going. Please help.
The Dell Dude guy gets busted for pot and everyone has fun playing with his catch-phrase but no one gets it right:
Dude! You're Under Arrest!
Dude...You're Busted!
NYC cops tell Dell Dude: You're getting arrested!
OK, this one comes very close:
Dude, Yer' Gettin A Cell! Dell Dude Arrested
The problem is that meaning of cell is swamped by cell in it's new bling bling meaning. And why Yer'? It's so distracting it sinks the whole thing. The correct dumbass headline play on this should have been:
Dude, You're Going To Jail!
And the better joke is the guy down the cellblock who yells to the Dell guy's new jailhouse bunkmate:
Dude, You're getting the Dell Dude!!!!
Free the Dell 2.4 Gig!: Our Cause and Our Rallying Cry.
Update: The Prime Minister of Canda writes: The best line I've read so far: "Isn't pot a Gateway drug?"
Men, double your contractions and duration with European Formula! (Doctor recommended)
So do they replace the vernacular with the jargon to beat the spam filters or is the copy written by actual clueless Europeans? It's their formula afterall. Contractions, huh? Makes us all contractors. Self-abusers = independent contractors. The IRS will be upset. Gives new meaning to the dotted line too.
The most nutritious substance known to man increases ejaculatory contractions and ejaculate volume associated with orgasms.
Another dotted line reference no doubt.
Oh, and let me introduce you to the doctor behind the doctor recommended boast, Doctor A. Lechter. Which I take to be short for Dr. Annabelle Lechter.
Seemed funny that they call this product Ropex. Rope doesn't necessarily convey to me exactly the image of rigid expectation that I would think they'd want to summon up. But then they explain the reference:
Ejaculate volume increase creating "the ropes” effect known to the French as "les lianes"...ROPEX is considered to be the most effective natural complex available for the promotion of "the ropes" which is characterized as powerful streaming ejaculate.
So there you have it. The dirty Euros are trying to colonize our lingo and lingams with their own kinky preferences.
Give a man enough Ropex and he'll hang himself, I always say. They don't call us Yanks for nothing.
4:31 PM
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Ray of Laugh
Drudge reports that Madonna is going all unilateral on GWB's ass:
Editing is in progress on a musical video concept which insiders say may be the most shocking anti-war, anti-Bush statement yet to come from the showbusiness industry.
I thought this was the most shocking anti-bush statement yet to come from the showbusiness industry.
"AMERICAN LIFE is about freedom of speech," claims an insider. "It examines not only war, greed and ego, but it's self-reflective also. Madonna rejects her 'Material Girl' image once and for all, and warns of life in a material world."
