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As news has reared its ugly head recently, putinesque, one begins to realize we are living in interesting times. I’ve noticed that magazines and newspapers can’t keep up with the pace.  It’s one flaming brown sack of shit left on our stoop after another. Reading this week’s New Yorker is almost comical, insofar as they’re three sacks of shit behind in their reportage, and fading fast. The newspaper isn’t doing much better. Hell, the net can barely keep up; what chances do papers and magazines have?

And so, my friends, I’ve been searching desperately for calmer waters, where I can spend a little time in respite from the turmoil and strife of daily life; somewhere that I can recharge in order to face the next hour or half hour of gigantic, scary change. And I’ve found it. I’ve found it in Fred Thompson’s forehead.

Here is the picture that led me to peace:

Fred Thompson

Not very impressive, you say? Just some Republican/movie star hack who rose beyond his level of incompetence? Well, you’d be right, but you’re not looking at the big picture. Or rather, you’re not looking at a small part of the big picture that you should be looking at, viz:

Fred's head

The magnificence should be coming into view, but let me direct your attention closer:

Like ripples on a still, deep pond

And even closer:

Fred's rippling forehead

And now, a quick pull back, like that one tulip film that pulls back to show shocking thousands of tulips, to blow your mind and calm your fears:

Fredlines, peace be upon you and yours

When all seems hopeless, and misery and fear lurk in every shadow, Fredlines will be here for you. Good night.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve gone from someone who treated boxers as alien ‘fogey-wear’ to someone who wore them when all his briefs were in the washer to someone who will ransack his dresser drawers to find a pair to avoid having to wear something else.

I’m a boxers guy now. There! I said it! It’s good to finally come out of the closet.

panel 1: Man at desk, poring over book with a look of grim determination. Other books are stacked and scattered on the desktop.

panel 2: With air of finality, man slams book shut with both hands. Relief and hard-won wisdom are etched on his face. He says “There! It’s done!”

panel 3: Man leans back in seat, talking over his shoulder to another student at another desk who glances up briefly from his own studies to hear ”I can now say ‘go fuck yourself’ in six different languages.”

We’ve had a subscription to The New Yorker for about four months now. I guess I got tired of having to wait until I had to use the facilities in other people’s houses to read it. I mainly got tired of spending a suspicious amount of time in other people’s bathrooms, time that other people might imagine is being put to other uses. You know how people who aren’t me are! And it turns out that the magazines are incredibly cheap if you get the mailman to bring them to you.

But there’s one other thing I’ve noticed about The New Yorker: it just keeps coming. Every other day, it seems, there’s a new one squatting in my mailbox with the flyers and the bills. Did I have time to read the last one? I did not. Am I falling farther behind? I am. It’s gotten so bad that I haven’t even managed to look at the comics for the last two issues. That, ladies and gentlemen, is bad. And I see it only getting worse, unless I remember to bring an issue or five with me on plane trips in order to catch up.

Life was easier when The New Yorker happened only in other people’s bathrooms.

Earliest American Scat Found

The earliest-known fossilized feces was found recently in Oregon, placing humans on the American continents 1000 years earlier than previously believed. What do you think?

Sarah Fripp,
Systems Analyst
“I like to think that in thousands of years somebody is going to be looking at my poop.”

Sarah, we’d all like to think that. Or maybe just me.

“Drinkability,” as a rating of a beer, has to be among the most egregious bullshit terms ever devised by man. Drinkability. Drinkability. In a peer-reviewed paper (a peer-reviewed paper), drinkability is defined as “A beer that … invites the drinker to another glass.” Stop. Right. There. STOP. Stop, stop, stop. Right. There.

Drinkability is the category a brewer uses to hype his brew when every other category one can use has failed him:

“The customers think our beer tastes like gravel. They say it tastes like watered-down gravel.”

“That’s one of the categories?”

“No, that’s just the write-in votes.”

“Have you asked about wetness? Or fizziness? Or foofarallitude? How does our beer do on foofarallitude?”

“It’s not looking good, sir.”

“Hmm. Have you asked them about its drinkability?”

“Not yet. What’s that?”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what it is, just ask them about it. They’re going to get tired sooner or later.”

“Okay. How do you want me to spell that?”

I hate people.

I’m hanging out in this apartment in Miami again, whiling away the time sitting in a chair on the balcony gazing down 15 floors to the beach and street below. Cars going by, boats in the water. Then I see a wheeze of geezers across the way, next to a tennis court, playing some game on a long rectangular strip of astroturf, dressed in sweat pants and parkas. It must be down to 68 degrees outside. They take turns rolling balls down the rectangle. It’s an almost motionless game which I’m going to call “lawn bowling” even if it’s not. Ball rolls, six geezers watch it roll to a stop, different ball rolls, six geezers watch it roll to a stop. I watch it for a few minutes, idly absorbing possible rules of play.

After the 14th or 15th ball rolls down the rectangle, I find myself inexplicably saying “nice shot.”

I was watching an episode of “Guess Who Married Your Mother?” or “I Married Your Mother?” or “Guess I Totally Bagged Your Mother!” a few minutes ago in the kitchen of this place in Miami I hang out in. The show was doing what all these shows do from time to time, which is to trot out an ex-star and have the “real people” played by the regular actors moon over him like he was the second coming of Christ Almighty. Or her, waltzing in as Mary. But in this case it was Patrick Swayze, so the Christ metaphor is probably the one to go with. Anyhow, it was one of those “Don’t look now, but PATRICK SWAYZE is sitting at the table right behind you.” “PATRICK SWAYZE? RIGHT BEHIND ME? [looks, swoons]“

The regular actors on this show play people who I assume are in their mid to late twenties. I play a person who is in his mid forties; I barely remember who Patrick Swayze is. I’m not sure I could pick him out of a police lineup unless he actually was the shit who knocked me down and took my wallet half an hour beforehand. The man flash-danced twenty years ago. Or danced dirtily, whatever. Since then he’s been in a string of piddly-ass movies. Or has had piddly-ass parts in slightly more than piddly-ass movies. The point is that the generation blankers on this show can’t POSSIBLY really know who he is, let alone adore him enough to suck his cock. But there they go.

Remember when Carroll O’Connor sucked Sammy Davis, Jr’s cock on “All in the Family?” Or when Gary Coleman sucked Nancy Reagan’s cock on “Diff’rent Strokes?” Sure you do. Is this a contractual thing? Or is it just somebody on the show asking for a favor, or (more likely) doing a favor for one of their old heroes who’s fallen on hard times? It’s probably that. That’s what it probably is.

I don’t mind favors being done for friends. Of course that’s a good thing. But when they’re not my friends, when it happens so publicly, when the favor involves me in the transaction somehow, then I start minding it. There should be a warning scroll during the show, to allow me time to change channels before I’m compelled to see things untoward: “Patrick Swayze’s cock sucked in the following episode, viewer discretion advised.” That sort of thing.

panel 1: man and dog outside, man bending over to pet dog.

panel 2: man and dog standing there looking at each other.

panel 3: same as panel 2, but man says: “That being said, go shit in someone else’s yard.”

I’d never seen the show until it was on the inflight screens on a New Orleans-Miami leg last night. I happened to have some earbuds with me, so I tapped into the sound. Abomination! An all-around abomination! The acting, the directing, the writing–especially the writing–all designed to infuse me with hatred for those associated with this show. And by extension, all mankind.

The show is filled with so many cliches; so many cliches. The wise father who can be an idiot about the small things but knows the big picture; the wiser wife; friends and family, all wise in their own ways; the wise dog; and the single unwise, un-self aware antagonist lurching through the show that the others all will make wise in time.

From what depths of cynicism did this thing come? Because the writers, the producers, everyone, all had to be deeply cynical to allow this thing to waft over the airways. “Let’s make a Christian show,” they said. “Let’s make a Christian show that the people who write in complaining about real shows will watch.” So they called in their hacks and desperate has-beens and this thing, this rough beast, slouched toward Hollywood to be born.

The child actors! Make them sound like miniature adults, with miniature complex relationships with their miniature pals! And let there be huge, awkward spaces of silence when characters read the spines of books or gaze off into the middle distance as other characters leave and enter scenes! And let the bridges between awkward gaps be filled with soft little lighthearted jokes about milk! Yes, let that happen! And give some real people some lines, too, so that the painfully embarrassing shortcomings of the show can be refocused on them. And make them retarded! Christians love that!

I have this colossal hatred for 7th Heaven.

There’s a sign at around mile marker 1 or 2 going West on I-10 in Mississippi just prior to Louisiana that says “Welcome Center Closed for Reconstruction.”

I mean, shit! That’s over 140 years! I wonder what the hold-up is!

(Unfortunately it doesn’t say that it’s a Mississippi welcome center, else it would make a great picture. It still makes me laugh when I pass it, though.)

My letter-writing campaign to the various cartooning syndicates and independents urging more cartoons about visits to breweries has started to pay off:

This is one of my favorite memes to come along in a long time. It’s getting kind of long in the tooth as memes go, but I like it anyway. One can tell a meme is a good one when one can use it for one’s own nefarious ends.

“Now with 30% more fail!”

Nobody in the United States is untouchable by the law. Everyone has done something that could have resulted in fines or imprisonment. Everyone. It almost goes without saying, except that I had to say it in order for the next paragraph to make the right kind of sense.

The inculcation of patriotism into every one of us at a young age is identical in form to the inculcation of a sense of religion into church-goers. People have used processes of religion such as this one to set up this thing that behaves like a god: it demands reverence; it demands tithing. It has the power to make your existence miserable, should you incur its wrath.

And, again, everyone has given it cause. There is no one who obeys all the laws or scrupulously calculates his taxes. He does not drive 35 in a 35 mile-per-hour zone, nor does he come to a complete stop. The person who does that would be a saint: The Saint of Traffic By-laws. What kind of crappy saint is that? It’s the crappy saint of a crappy god.

Government and the government are constructs of human imagination and need. They are an attempt to make a real, live, actual god. A drunken, lurching, real, live, actual god, but a real one nonetheless.

Government is not now omnipresent or omnipotent, but we’re trying to improve this god by allowing it to learn how to keep better track of where everybody is, for example, by satellite tracking of our stuff. And if you know where our stuff is, you know where we are. That’s key for a god; You have to know where Your people are. And people are fine with that because they don’t really know what kind of power they’re giving this drunken thing. People aren’t ready (yet) to put computer chips in their bodies, so the chips are going into the cellphones for now.

We can almost pay 10 dollars online to find out where any person is within an error of fifty feet. And I see a day when we can almost pay 5 dollars.

Did the founding fathers know what they were doing? That they were replacing one god by another? I think so; I think the founding fathers knew that they were setting up a substitute god when they separated church from state. That’s practically a smoking gun. And I think they thought of it in just that way: that it was time to change gods. And they knew their new, stupid god would never work if the older gods were allowed to bind to it; without that separation the substitute god would never have taken hold.

And the fathers had reason to do what they did. The old gods hadn’t ever seemed to work out. Why not create a new one? Things couldn’t get much worse.

In reality, things got much better. For a long time. Because the substitute god was consciously made to be crappy, and was meant to stay that way. But now, because engineers–the priests of the crappy god–are able to build things with the potential to allow the government to know where we all are all the time, the god is becoming less stupid. It’s getting smarter, taking on more of the qualities of gods. This is not a good thing. This is not what the founding fathers wanted.

I’m not ready to watch the crappy god evolve and grow; to become less crappy. The reason this god is tolerable to me at all is precisely because it is so stupid. I’m not ready for the government to know where I am all the time. So the more ways I can keep actively bothering the record-keeping function of the government while keeping a low enough profile that I still adhere to the American Compact, the longer I can keep the lurching god off balance and dumb.

That’s the curmudgeon’s goal, even if he doesn’t know it.

The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World | Cracked.com

#5. Casu Marzu

From: Sardinia, Italy.

What the hell is it?
This, dear reader, is a medium-sized lump of Sweet Fucking Christ.

There are whole nations made up of the weird Anderson kid down the street who’ll put any damn thing in his mouth.

Popular Mechanics: 25 Skills Every Man Should Know

1. Patch a radiator hose
2. Protect your computer
3. Rescue a boater who as capsized
4. Frame a wall
5. Retouch digital photos
6. Back up a trailer
7. Build a campfire
8. Fix a dead outlet
9. Navigate with a map and compass
10. Use a torque wrench
11. Sharpen a knife
12. Perform CPR
13. Fillet a fish
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
15. Get a car unstuck
16. Back up data
17. Paint a room
18. Mix concrete
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle
20. Change oil and filter
21. Hook up an HDTV
22. Bleed brakes
23. Paddle a canoe
24. Fix a bike flat
25. Extend your wireless network

I’m probably better off waiting for Scientific American or Pez Weekly to come out with their lists before I get all down on myself about this (“12. Fix a candy jam”). As it is, I know I can do most of these.

There are problematic entries, though. For instance, “21. Hook up an HDTV”–I’ve never had an HDTV, so I don’t know if I can hook it up, but how hard can it be? Probably not hard; maybe I should count that one. As far as “19. Clean a bolt-action rifle” is concerned… why, every man should know how to do that! That goes without even listing! I hate it when my bolt-action rifles get all dirty. Varmints and curs go un-shot when that happens.

I haven’t “13. Fillet a fish” ‘d since my days as a cub scout, but I’m sure I could worry some calories out of a fish carcass if I were called upon to do so now. But “4. Frame a wall”? I don’t even know what that means. It’s never appeared on my to-do list. “8:30: stack a block. 10:15: frame a wall.”

I’m pretty sure I’ll muddle through my life somehow without ever having framed a wall.

Chinese ‘trucking’ live rats to southern restaurants – CNN.com

Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported 2 billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.

I recall something happening in Australia like this a few years back.

Rat vendors had been doing a roaring trade thanks to strong supply over the last two weeks, the China News Service quoted vendors as saying.

This is my favorite part:

“Recently there have been a lot of rats… Guangzhou people are rich and like to eat exotic things, so business is very good,” it quoted a vendor as saying, referring to the capital of Guangdong province, where people are reputed to eat anything that moves.

I’m not sure I’d like a reputation for eating anything that moves.

Museums broken treasure not just any old shit | | Guardian Unlimited Arts

Is it wrong to be jealous of another man’s turd? Related to this post.