By now everyone's heard of "Weinergate" the New York US Representative Anthony Weiner's elicit picture of his dong he tweeted to numerous (or at least one) of his followers. This opened up a flood gate of other women coming forward to claim that Rep. Weiner had "inappropriate" online relationships with them as well, all to the merriment of cable news anchors everywhere.
So, as all this "news" unraveled throughout the week, it brought to mind this question: What woman wants to see a dude's dick?
I mean, beyond I guess, curiosity? Like, do women LIKE to see dude's dicks? Is it like for men, when we want to see boobs? I'll go out on a limb and say "no, chicks do not like to see penises."
Dicks are gross... they're not designed to be fawned over or marveled at. They do not represent anything beautiful about the body because they're designed along a utilitarian purpose: to work and work well.
Sure, dicks come in all shapes and sizes and there's probably some sort of level of fascination amongst women as to what someone's dick MIGHT look like, but I don't think many women get "turned on" by the sight of a cock. I bet it's quite the opposite; women are likely turned OFF by a giant, throbbing tube of meat.
The penis can be intimidating, fearsome even. I think maybe some women have a healthy fear of the dick or maybe, secretly hate it.
So this begs to mind, why would a man send a woman a picture of his wangus? What would possess a clear-thinking gentleman to reach down the front of his trousers, pull out his semi-engorged member with one hand, and try to frame an artistic picture with his cell phone in the other? Why?
Do men think women like to see a wrinkly, lint-strewn meat dagger with a few sparse hairs clinging around it's base? Maybe men get off on this sort of behavior? Apparently Anthony Weiner does.
And I'm not judging... whatever man, do you. But seriously, no one wants to see your dick. No one wants to see anyone's dick, period.
So fellas, guys: please, keep your penises in your pants.... unless it's for comedic purposes, ala Jason Segel in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" which was hilarious. Or the old "oh, I got gum on my new jeans" and you turn around and you're pulling your sac through your zipper hole and make everyone look at your tired-looking, stretched out balls. That's always a good time.
And on the subject of balls, no one's balls are even remotely attractive. Phrase I will NEVER overhear in a queue at Starbucks: "Oh, and Mary, his balls.... my god, his balls, were just... PERFECT."
No, balls are .... anything but perfect, ladies and gentlemen and we all know it. Those guys need to just stay right where they are, mooshed up against someone's (preferably their owner's) thigh, in a dense fog of sweat and ass fumes.
You'd have to be living under a rock, or some rural part of Arkansas, not to have caught the media maelstrom this past week concerning a certain former-governor / Budweiser model / current-Fox News Network puppet touring the country in a giant bus, stopping in each town only long enough to make a spectacle of herself and family.
Sarah Palin, media cocktease that she is, won't tell anyone (at least anyone outside of her snow mobile circle) one way or another if she's going to make a run at the presidency in 2012... she just keeps teasing it out as if it were her hair, and we're all downstairs in her living room waiting to take her out for pizza and roller skating on a Friday night in 1984.
In essence, with her [something-something historically blasphemous-and-incorrect and un-ironically-themed] "tour" she's spending gobs of cash (tour bus tour across the continental US, in the summertime, with gas prices at $4/gal) to see if it's worth her spending gobs of cash to run for president.
Sounds like perfect economic judgement to me, let's just hand her the nation's checkbook right now and save ourselves the wait for the inevitable breadlines....
I don't mean to jump on a hater's bandwagon, and I'm sure the majority of people who read this blog are fairly left leaning, so I'm preaching to the choir, but if you have any doubt in your mind, let me reaffirm it:
Sarah Palin is a terrible person politician.
You know the story of Alice in Wonderland, right? Remember the Queen of Hearts, the central antagonist? If elected to the presidency, that's the sort of world we would be living in with Palin in the White House: a world of confusion, anarchy and tea parties.
Sarah Palin is a brand; a sensationalistic attention-whore who is all packaging and zero substance. She's the McDonald's across the plaza from the Whole Foods, the $4 cereal with the cartoon character on the front of the box next to the same goddamn cereal in the plain box going for half the price. I'm sure she would look great giving State of the Union addresses in a tight t shirt and spandex yoga pants while doing calf raises with her back to everyone, but that's it. That's all she is: push-up bras, make-up and cue cards, nothing else.
She's essentially a living, breathing Facebook page.
Sarah Palin is a house built of playing cards... she looks pretty and might impress a few people who don't know any better, but she will crumble at the slightest provocation - need I find the clip of Katie Couric asking her such hardball questions like "what newspapers do you like to read?"?
Tiny Fey's send-up of Palin on SNL is a far better choice to elect as president than the real Sarah Palin.
So, when the day inevitably comes and it's a surprise to absolutely no one that she decides to run for president in 2012, please just keep some of what I'm saying in mind:
We had eight years of ineptitude in the White House, do you want, for a second, to go back to that?
Do you want your father tuning in to the nightly news only to store up his mental "spank bank" for later?
Do you want to elect someone to the Office of the President of the United States who has no real grasp or concept of both US History OR NY-style pizza?
If you've answered "no" to any of these questions, then please, for the love of god, stop paying Sarah "Look at Me, America!" Palin any attention.
My deep, deep hatred for FOX Sportscaster Joe Buck is like an abyss in my soul. It's just this bottomless, cold pit. Ever since I became exposed to his lackluster, often incorrect play-by-play analysis in the early 2000's my sense of hatred for the man has been in lockstep with his growing career.
Here now, are some reasons why I hate him.
1. He's the poster boy for nepotism: Joe Buck's dad, Jack Buck, was/is(?) a sportscaster for the St. Louis Cardinals since the 1960s. In 1991, son Joe started doing minor league play-by-play, which I guess, is fine. But in just four short years, the younger Buck was thrust on to the national stage, becoming ESPN's and probably the world's youngest sportscaster to call a nationally televised, pro-sport game. There are guys with twice the experience, and twice the talent who've been fighting in the network trenches for YEARS who would slit their father's throats for a chance to call a nationally televised game, and Joe Buck just calls it in.
2. I'm convinced Joe Buck is an alien or a robot: For being someone who's been in the "biz" for the last twenty years, Joe Buck is woefully ignorant of some pretty basic sports facts. To me, Buck seems like the type of guy who, while everyone else was playing touch football after school, was busy hanging out with girls. And not in the cool way, like "I'll show you mine, you show me yours," but in the "let's sit around and gossip like chicks do." Fact: During this year's Superbowl, at the half, he said something along the lines of "and now the players will return to their dressing rooms...." Really? Dressing rooms? Dude, my dad HATES team sports and knows players go to "locker rooms." How long have you been doing this job?
His voice sounds like an idle copy machine; this endless buzzing drone of electronics. Yes, good call FOX, pair him with a semi-comatose Troy Aikman and let's all watch America reach for either the mute button on their remotes, their iPods, of a bottle of mash liquor.
3. Joe Buck looks funny: He has big teeth, a huge forehead and wisps of thin blond hair that make him look like the end result of a used car salesman mating with a pencil. He literally looks like an eraser, or the product of generations of inbreeding, which, given his father did play-by-play for the Cardinals, doesn't surprise anyone.
4. He's not a good journalist: Granted, he does play-by-play which doesn't really constitute as "journalism" in the common sense, but since he's doing a national telecast of pro sports, it's important to remember one of the cardinal rules of journalism, objectivity, which is hilarious when you find out he actually graduated from a Journalism School (Univ. of Indiana-Bloomington, School of Journalism). Joe Buck is hardly an objective sportscaster. He's extremely pro-NY-anything, Yankees, Giants, Jets.... you name it, if he's calling a NY game, he basically slobbers all over A-Rod's knob anytime he's shown on screen. What makes matters worse, aside from being ultra-pro-NY, he's pretty much anti-everyone else. Whoever a NY team will be playing, he'll find ways to tear down the opposing team in a thinly-veiled fashion.
After being introduced to Barry Bonds, and Bonds not being terribly impressed with Buck (saying "So?" when told that Buck does the play-by-play), Buck, like the prima donna he is, stated that he would go out of his way to slight Bonds when he made his first plate appearance in that game.
Back in the mid-2000s, while calling a Green Bay-Minnesota game, he called Randy Moss "disgusting" for simulating mooning the home team Wisconsin crowd. Buck failed to mention that often times, the Green Bay fans will moon the visiting team on their way to the locker rooms. The owner of the Vikings was right to ask FOX to suspend Buck for his blatant prejudice.
5. Joe Buck thinks he's better than everyone else, just ask him: In an interview he gave back in 2008, Joe Buck likened himself to other play-by-play greats, including Howard Cosell. When the reporter asked him, why then was his schedule cut down from the year before, Buck responded with: "I'm deathly afraid to be away from my family" or some other non-sense. More likely, he was cut down, because FOX has a hard time selling advertising space during it's games, if viewers are blowing their brains out before the half.
By far, the best thing to ever happen to Joe Buck was getting his own HBO late-night style tv show called "Joe Buck Live!" which was mercifully killed two episodes in.
But it survived just long enough to prove how out of touch Buck is with the rest of America, when he had Artie Lange as his first guest. Lange spent the eight or so minutes of his slot simply eviscerating Buck in what I can only imagine was a vodka-scented breath-mist.
Here on Cape Cod, my radio listening options are fairly limited. We have about four or five stations that come in, and since anything you want to do on this hook-shaped island is a minimum ten minute drive in any direction, listening to the radio has become sort of a necessity.
We have a pop/Top 40 station that plays all the "hits" from like, 2002 (ie, that one P!nk song about coming out, nothing current), a classic rock station that's pretty much like any other classic rock station you would find anywhere else in America, NPR, and two alternative rock stations, one out of Boston and the other out of Providence.
So listening to these stations, I tend to hear the same five or so acts at least once a day. This has prompted me to write this article on why these bands should be taken off the air - just for a little while at least.
1. Sublime: Back in the mid-1990s "What I Got" was a summertime-sensation. Every where you went, you could instantly set a friendly, outdoorsy BBQ vibe. But this was 15 years ago, and still, every day, this song gets radio airplay. Shit, the fucking lead singer? He's been fucking DEAD since 1996! The band hasn't released any new material since (the two surviving members have gone on to start some ska-reggae band-thing) and continues to coast off of their self-titled third album. Radio, please let Mr. Bradley Nowell rest in peace, because if I hear the opening cords to "Wrong Way" one more time, I'm going to bite someone in the face.
2. Nirvana: Another tragic ending to what could have been one of the greatest rock bands of all times, but again, the motherfucker died like 20 years ago! And honestly? Now that I think of it? Their songs were mediocre at best when you could understand what Kurt Cobain was saying! You know why Kurt killed himself? He was afraid of becoming this corporate entity by "selling out" and becoming a millionaire from his art. So... thanks for keeping the dead man's fear alive, radio. I mean, really, is it necessary to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" every day at 12:03, at the start of the "classic alternative lunch hour?" No, it's not. How about playing more of that other successful Nirvana spin-off, the Foo Fighters?
3. Alice in Chains: Every song AIC has ever done is either about heroin or heroin addiction. Every one of their songs remind me of how bitter and disgusting Seattle is, how morose the 90's were, and how much I hate seeing plaid shirts on skinny twerps. The only people who listen to Alice in Chains are dudes in their 40s who work at dying, locally owned record stores. And aren't nearly all the members of AIC dead anyway? ...From heroin overdoses? Or was that only some of them?
4. Dave Mathews Band: I dare someone to point out a more overrated act in music today. I hear fucking "What Would You Say" at least once a day, on any given radio station (even the classic rock one) but it feels like nine times a day. And you know what's even worse than DMB? Their rabid fans who will argue to the death about how awesome this band is. DMB is exactly what the Grateful Dead were: terrible, but fans will only recognize this once they come off their salvia or lose their juggling sticks on the roof. DMB fans: grow up a little, wash your faces, and buy a neck tie. Woodstock is over.
5. The Fray: Admittedly, their cover of Kanye West's "Heartless" was good enough to wind up in my iTunes, but the rest of this band's mumbling catalog should be shelved in the bottom of the Fukishima reactor and buried under 50 tons of concrete. I only hear this band's one song (the name I can't remember) every time I key over to the Top 40 station, but it's always playing. That one song where you wish the dude singing would just speak up and use his big boy voice for five minutes? That song. How can anyone think an act is talented if they can't fucking HEAR what's being sung in the song? How did you get a contract, sir? Who did you convince to sign over millions of dollars in royalties to your warbling, Shy Ronnie voice? Please, point him out so I can take out his knees with a cricket bat.
Any acts I missed? Please let me know in the comments below.
Most of you have now seen, or at least heard about, how Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino bombed the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump harder the Muammar Qaddafi has been bombing his own people. What my job today is to take up an indefensible position and defend Mr. Sorrentino's performance.
I won't sit here and tell you the performance was "good." It wasn't. It was fucking god-awful. If you haven't seen the clip it's cringe worthy in only in a way that can take us back to that time when Michael Jackson's crazy ass dangled his genetically farmed offspring over that balcony.
But here's what everyone's forgetting: Mr. Sorrentino is not a comedian. He is not an actor. He's essentially nothing. He's famous for doing his laundry, tanning, going to the gym, and for a mediocre-at-best set of abdominal muscles he calls "The Situation."
He's not a bad guy, but no where near a good one, either. In the spectrum of Total Assholes of the 21st Century, he's closer to your creepy unmarried uncle than George W. Bush.
His five minutes of roasting Donald Trump is hard to watch, yes, but if Mr. Sorrentino is guilty of anything, it's for his arrogance. I suspect that Mr. Sorrentino wrote his own jokes, which bucked the trend where non-comedians usually have jokes written for them by some Comedy Central writers, and are simply told what time to show up and read from the teleprompter. This is evident in any other Comedy Central Roast that's ever been televised.
But Mr. Sorrentino obviously sees himself as a trend-setter, if not a trend-bucker. High on his own inflated sense of self-worth, and likely enough steroids to kill a Bull Mastiff, he likely arrived to the Roast with a few crumpled and sweaty pieces of computer printer paper, with a series of jokes he'd written on Microsoft Word a few days before. This is how the conversation between him and a Comedy Central producer likely went during the rehearsal, a mere few hours before the taping:
Comedy Central Producer: Ok, Mr. Sorrentino, I-
Mr. Sorrentino: Hey, just call me "The Situation," or ... "Situation..." or.... "Sitch..."
CCP: Uh, ok, Mister... uh, Situation, um, here are the jokes we have for you to read, they'll be up on the teleprompter when you get to the podium, so -
Mr. Sorrentino: Nah, I wrote my own jokes... (and he stuffs the paper into the CCP's hands)
CCP: ...Your ... own jokes....
So, really, if anyone's at fault here, it's Comedy Central, or at least one of it's producers, for not having the balls to put their foot down, and tell the overly entitled and demanding Reality TV star that, no, you can't do your own material. It's terrible. Just stick to the script.
But that never happened. No, Mr. Sorrentino got up to the podium and unleashed such an ungodly, unentertaining, bowel movement of only what some could consider a handicapped attempt at playfully insulting other members of the dais and the guest of honor, that it became genuinely insulting to anyone within earshot of his microphone.
Watch the members of the dais; other comedians and actors. They're faces betray every emotion from complete and utter shock (Whitney Cummings) mild amusement at Mr. Sorrentino's expense (Seth MacFarlane, Lisa Lampinelli) to shear embarrassment (Ice-T, Cocco) to boredom (Snoop Dog). The crowd even begins to turn on Mr. Sorrentino about three and a half minutes into his set, bringing Jeffery Ross to try to aid the ... Situation.
Ross plaintively urges the crowd to "let the kid finish" which should have been enough of a hint to Mr. Sorrentino to get the fuck off the stage. Instead, he decides to let loose a few painfully uninspired jokes at Mr. Trump.
But like I said, what exactly were you expecting, America?
Mike Sorrentino is a product of what YOU wanted. Between seasons of Mtv glorifying teen pregnancy we get "Jersey Shore," a version of the network's long standing reality series "The Real World" literally on steroids.
I've admittedly watched two episodes of the first season, and all of the second season, because it was on Netflix's "Instant Queue" and my wife and I felt like destroying some brain cells and couldn't reach our usually trusty meth dealer. And even then, the second season, which took place in Miami, (as so the producers of the show could cash in on the surge of popularity of the show and it's cast without pesky mother nature getting involved) was hard to watch. Everything from domestic violence to straight misogyny was ready at our Cheeto-stained finger tips.
What else you have to consider in Mr. Sorrentino's defense is that he's currently being dragged out to sea by the undercurrent of the anti-Jersey Shore tide that's come in recent months. Snooki's appearance on the cover of a recent Rolling Stone was met with considerable backlash from the last bastions of people who actually read Rolling Stone for it's journalistic integrity.
You created this monster, America. You. So, when you want to decry Mr. Sorrentino's lack of comedic guile, or attack the fact that he's a muscle-brained ignoramus that had no business telling jokes before a live and televised audience, remember this:
Mr. Sorrentino, to a young woman he had brought home, upon learning she doesn't "smoosh" on the first date:
"That's ok, you can just blow me."
I rest my case.
Post Script 3/19: I've been informed by a number of people that Sitch actually had jokes written for him by Comedy Central staff, but was allowed to "put his own spin" on those jokes. Well, ok then.
I take this class at school in US Govt. It's not that I don't know anything about how our government operates, quite on the contrary. But because I prefer not to stress myself out during my second college experience, I load my schedule with classes that are essentially no brainers. I pretty much show up, do the reading, take the tests, write the papers and pass with high marks.
So I'm sitting in this class yesterday and the discussion of political apathy comes up. The scourge of American Politics in the 20th century was the simple fact that the American people became disillusioned with the political machine. After the Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations thru the late 1960s and into the 80s, Americans collectively could not give two shits about what happened in the Beltway.
And can you blame them? No longer could they trust what was supposed to be the most trusted position in the country. They were being lied to about a war no one wanted anything to do with, being lied about where their money was going, being lied to who was really in charge of the country.
So people just ... unplugged from the machine.
The 80s and the "New America" or "America's Re-Awakening" with Ronald Regan changed all that, along with Clinton, the Second Bush, and the current Obama administration, and suddenly people were becoming politically aware again. So aware, that anyone sitting in my government class will not hesitate to tell you their misinformed and utterly ridiculous personal opinion on America, politics and the president.
The class is comprised of a wide slice of Americana; there's old ladies and Eastern European immigrants, and white guys and black girls... it's a fucking United Colors of Benetton ad or a carefully chosen focus group, minus the one-way mirror in the back of the room. So everyone has an opinion, a fear, a need to be heard.
And don't get it mistaken, politics is a nasty river to navigate; there's a lot of emotionally charged topics that lead people to become indignant in defense of their personal beliefs. This, obviously, leads to spirited debates, which will always put a smile on my face. As long as people CARE ENOUGH to debate a topic, there's hope for America.
But when we got on to the topic of why people are still somewhat apathetic towards the American political system, I was stunned at what I heard. The following are some notes I took while other classmates were talking:
Politics are boring. They should make it more like "American Idol."
Valid point, as Americans are more likely to vote and vote often for a candidate seeking the title of "America's Idol" than the President of the United States, and I'm even taking Chicago 1960 into account as well. Why are people more attached to some 20-something with a guitar and a dream than a 40 year old who holds the codes to launch a full-on nuclear holocaust?
It's all about packaging.
"American Idol" is glitzy and the thing to talk about the next morning around the water cooler because people can understand it with little effort. They see a performance and they can tell immediately if it was good or bad, or in the very least repeat some analysis they heard from a radio dj on their way into work that morning. With politics, you have to know what you're talking about, and pay attention. It's also real-fucking-life you're talking about, not some meaningless talent show where the winner will be a big "who?" in a matter of months following his success.
With politics, you have to take a stance with something, or at least you're expected to. With "American Idol" your stance can be as base as "I like her hair" or "they sang 'good'" there's little to no accountability for your beliefs.
I wish I knew more about the political system, like, if there was a show I could watch...
This comment stunned me. Dude, do you not have cable? I mean, we don't have cable but, I know there's like, a million Cable News Networks, including CNN, which is literally the Cable News Network which do nothing but pump popular opinions into people's sensory. Like, dude, sit down for half an hour and absorb.
But I liken cable news to fast food; it's fast food for your brain. While fast food for your stomach will do it's job; take away your hunger, sustain you for the time being, taste kinda good, too much of it will rot your insides. The same can be said for cable news, especially in a political manner.
I make it a point not to pay much attention to what politics cable news happen to be waving on any given day, but I will turn half a deaf ear towards it, just because it's there, similar to how if you ordered a burger and fries, I might snatch a fry or two, because that's my duty as an American given the situation. But sadly, like the fast food epidemic in this country, the majority of people are gorging themselves on fast, non-nourishing, baseless, biased politic punditry every night for dinner, and coming into work the next day brain sick, regurgitating what they heard from Glenn Beck or Keith Olberman as fact.
People, please, there are better alternatives to feed your political appetite. You simply have to go out, work a little bit, just like a wholesome meal. In the end, you'll be fuller, more appreciative, and less likely to puke up rhetoric the next morning.
I wish politicians would just say what they mean....
Ah, yes, the bane of politics around the world. Hunny, a politician will NEVER say what he means, because he's a salesman at heart. Here, he's trying to sell you him or herself or an idea or someone else's idea. It's all about packaging.
If you went to go buy an expensive home appliance and the salesman told you plainly that the machine would only work for you for 190 days a year, or you had to be a white male to really reap the full benefits of the machine, would you buy it (not withstanding, you're a white male)? Of course you wouldn't. If a politician told you the same thing, would you vote for him or her? My guess is probably not.
With politics as a whole, the reward comes from paying attention, learning to read between the lines (I mis-typed "lines" and typed "lies" instead, I think I should've kept it) and developing a commercial grade Bullshit Detector. If you simply only hear what's being said on the surface, you're not getting the full idea of the political system. This takes time and patience and you can't just expect to jump into the middle of things and understand what's going on right off the bat. It's complex and all the double-speak only makes it more so.
Take your favorite drama, be it "The Sopranos" or any other soap opera. Let's say you've been hearing all this wonderful stuff about it, and you decide you want to tune in one night. You watch an episode and you're like "I have no idea what's going on here, this is stupid..." and you turn it off. The reward here comes from doing your research and finding out who the characters and players are, what their back stories are, and how they're all related to each other. You know you would readily do this for some trashy tv show, so why not politics? Just because Tony's not having Mitch McDonald whacked down by the piers, doesn't make it less interesting.
There were more things said in that class, which caused my heart to literally break, including someone calling Jimi Hendrick's rendition of "The National Anthem" at Woodstock "disrespectful." On that, we live in a country where freedom of expression reigns over all.
Also, he didn't mess up the words. (Warning, prepare for a giant, Red White and Blue Boner ahead):
