Happy birthday, dear blog

The blog is one year old today, so I thought I'd recap the events of the last year, in case you missed it:

1. Tried to exercise everyday, but the siren song of the sofa was too great to resist. (August)

2. Attempted to quit smoking and failed miserably. (August)

3. Worked a shitload of overtime, drank a lot of alcohol and played the hell out of the Gamecube. (Continuous)

4. Broke up with my live-in girlfriend, continued to live together and wound up in People Magazine as a result. (October through May)

5. Compared myself to a mass murderer. (August)

6. Three Weddings. (Two in October, one in November, one in April)

7. Got hooked on Myspace (November to present)

8. Ran sound and a slideshow for a play.

9. Wrecked one and a half laptops...the second one still works, but has to be hooked up to a monitor. (September and January, respectively)

10. Tried and failed miserably at three potential relationships. I'm now taking some time off until I get my shit together. (December through May)

11. Received a loan from the First National Bank of Stepdad to cover my credit card debts. I'll be done paying them off by this time next year. (March)

12. Moved into my own place. (June)

13. Made it through twelve months of varying degrees of depression and confusion, and I feel that the blog is the reason I'm here today instead of being described by a neighbor as being a quiet man who didn't seem like a serial killer until that standoff with the cops.

My rewind button seems to be stuck

Friday night at the theater, I made a joke (actually, I paraphrased a joke from a comedian I heard years ago) about how Jaws played backwards becomes a movie about a shark that keeps throwing up people until they re-open the beach. I got to thinking about that today and took a good look at my DVD collection and wondered about what they'd be like in reverse.

Here are some of my favorites:

American Beauty: After a quick recovery from a gunshot wound to the head, Kevin Spacey dresses a teenage girl, smokes a lot of pot, lets his body go out of shape and eventually settles into a mundane existance where his wife calls the shots. All the while, his daughter hates him.

Batman Begins: Batman realizes that fighting crime is futile and gives up, saving his parents in the process.

A Beautiful Mind: A genius goes from crazy to just sorta creepy.

The Day the Earth Stood Still: An alien life form sent to earth to save us realizes that we're doomed and leaves us alone to detroy ourselves.

Star Wars: A kid in a space ship conjures up a giant moon-like space craft out of thin air in order to rebuild a planet, and in return, he's sent back to the farm.

Ocean's Eleven: Eleven guys cover their tracks after sneaking a bunch of money into another guy's vault, and George Clooney endsup back in jail as a result.

Sleepy Hollow: In an ironic twist, a headless guy proves to be quite good at re-attaching other people's heads.

Fight Club: Brad Pitt and Edward Norton get sick of beating the crap out of one another and drift apart soon afterwards.


The thing I found weird was that a lot of these movies are basically the same backwards:

Back to the Future: Marty still gets stuck in 1955 and has to get back to 1985, only this time he gets back by driving in reverse out of a barn.

Contact: Aliens still may or may not exist, and it still ends with a chick talking to her father.

Before Sunrise: They're still strangers, they still talk a lot, and they still go their separate ways.

Garden State: Zach Braff still doen't really know what's going on around him.

Memento: 'Nuff Said.

Sharks, nudity and public urination

About a couple weeks ago, when I heard that Jaws was this month's midnight movie at the Circle Cinema, I was toying with the idea that I would have my friends over to my place, have dinner and hang out before heading over to the theater. Those plans changed about five minutes before I was gonna send out the email to my friends, when I got an email from my friend Kim inviting everyone over to her house for her annual backyard jam.

One a year, usually in the spring, Kim has everyone over to her house once she gets her pool ready. We all cook out, swim and since almost all of her friends are musicians, they all jam untill the wee hours of the morning.

I showed up without a swimsuit, but that didn't stop my friend Libby (different Libby, for those of you who've been reading a while) from insisting that I just strip naked and jump in. I opted to just run back to my place to grab my swim trunks. I grabbed an extra pair in case any of the other guys wanted to borrow them.

I left after a couple hours to catch the movie. I had never seen Jaws on a big screen before, or with an audience for that matter. I see the movie much differently now having seen it in a room full of strangers (save for my friends Tony and Jenny). I found myself laughing at parts I never really saw as jokes, jumping at parts I never really saw as all that scary, and I never really noticed how much of the girl skinny-dipping at the beginning's body was actually shown...I blame the transfer quaility on my DVD. After the movie, Tony and Jenny decided not to return to the party with me. By the time I got back, the party had thinned out quite a bit.

There's a trend I've noticed with my friends. Whenever there's a party, and a pool or a hot tub is involved, there's always a chance that the words "Oh my God, you're nude." will be spoken, and odds are I'll be the one saying it. I'm gonna be hazy with the details from here on out. Anyway, only one person was in the pool, naked as a jaybird. As soon as I showed back up, it was demanded that I strip down and get in. Being the pushover I am, and given that it was really dark enough out for any and all self-conscienceness-inducing parts of my body to be obscured, I complied. My first time skinny dipping since college. Once I got in, others followed suit.

Only four little things about this event, and the rest will fall under the "What happens in the pool, stays in the pool category": A) I now know that I've taken the protective qualities of swim trunks for granted. Not that the water was cold, but while jumping in feet first is a wise way to avoid a potential head injury, it doesn't bode well for unprotected testicles. B) Likewise, I never really noticed how powerful pool jets really are, and that was a bit of a shock. C) Between my dating history, a couple of my artsy photographer friends and that pool, my list of female friends that I haven't seen naked has now been narrowed a bit more. And D) I'm blind as a bat without my glasses.

I made it home after four and slept in until noon. The Mythbusters marathon on the Discovery channel ensured that my ass didn't leave the couch until it was time to go work the door at Arnie's.

It was looking to be a fairly uneventful night at Arnie's. I was expecting a packed house, but for some reason it wasn't all that busy. Everything was rather routine for at least half the night...Taking money, checking IDs, telling the panhandlers to get lost...but around midnight a group of four (two guys, two girls) left the bar. I hadn't noticed it at first, but one of the girls had smuggled out a beer. I walked after them to tell them to get back in the bar with it right away, only to catch out of the corner of my eye her boyfriend taking a leak, not next to, but ON my car! Needless to say, I was less concerned about the chick with the beer.

I yelled at the guy, telling him that it was MY car he was pissing on. Now, any person of reasonable sobriety would have ceased and desisted at the words "HEY, STOP PISSING ON MY CAR", however this guy continued as he looked back at me and apologized, never mind the fact that there was a WALL on the other side of him! So, I screamed at him, saying that unless he's pissing Armor-All, that he should turn forty-five degrees to the right and piss on the wall instead. At this point, the girl with the beer knew that I meant business and poured her beer into the bushes, and her boyfriend turned to the wall just in time for the shake-off. Then, in a mind-boggling move, the dude gave me another apology and offered to shake my hand!

Anyway, I told those guys to get lost, which they did, sort of. The started across the street and walked right in front of a car driving down the street. The driver stopped in plenty of time to avoid hitting them, but got out of his car to yell at them anyway. A couple of shoves took place, but the two girls broke it up before it got too heated. I just sttod on the sidewalk with my cell in my hand dialing 9-1 and hovering a finger over 1 the moment that the first punch would be thrown. No such luck. The driver got back in his car and took off, and my hopes to not only see that one guy in handcuffs for assault, public intox, public urination and a complaint for giving my Ford Focus an unwanted "rinse" were dashed.

Kinda makes me wish I had taken better advantage of my bar tab and had a couple more beers, instead of drinking mostly Cokes all night. I'm sitting now at my computer waiting for the Sominex and melatonin to counteract the caffeine and sugar coursing through my veins. Tomorrow, I gotta go into the office for a bit and yank wires out of the room we're getting ready to renovate, go see some of my friends, and wash my car...thoroughly.

Political cures that may be worse than the disease Vol.1: Gay Marriage

The two catchphrases I keep hearing in regards to gay marriage, or more to the point AGAINST gay marriage are "traditional marriage" and "sanctity of marriage".

The problem I have with the term "traditional marriage" is that it is completely meaningless. To me, in order for something to become traditional, it has to have occurred the exact same way many times over. Show me any two marriages that are exactly alike. Sure, they may have several things in common between them, but there's always something that one married person will say to another married person about their respective unions that will sound completely alien to the other. The only real tradition that exists in all marriages is the signing of a wedding license. Up until the 1950's that same term was used to try and dissuade people from marrying outside their race, so how is that supposed to be an argument against gay marriage today?

Okay, on to the second catchphrase: "sanctity of marriage". I find it tronic that many of the pundits and politicians that use that phrase are on their second or third spouse, sometimes beyond that. They claim that if gays and lesbians were allowed to wed, that somehow it would be a threat to straight marriages. They say the divorce rate would rise, that it would be traumatic to any children that came about, etc. As if straight couples, just by virtue of being married, are immune from ever breaking up or screwing up their kids.

So, in the interest of some resolution to this debate, may I suggest the following compromise. Let gays and lesbians get married, but in the interest of "traditional marriage" and the "sanctity of marriage", outlaw divorce.

And to up the ante, and in an attempt to put these political talking heads' money where their mouths are, make the new divorce law retroactive. Any person who has been married more than once are automatically married to their earliest still-living spouse, as if the subsequent marriages never took place. The only way out would be death or annullment, which in keeping with the sprit of the "sanctity of marriage" now will cost one million dollars for each year since the beginning of the marriage.

Let's look at the pros and cons of this plan:

Pro: Half the lawyers in this country will be out of work.

Con: Murder rates would skyrocket.

Pro: Many of those murders would abusive husbands whose wives have long since wised up and are NOT gonna take their shit anymore.

Con: Many of those murders would be the abused wives.

Pro: The murdering husbands would go to jail, where thanks to their muscle-bound, maladjusted cellmate, they would be intruduced to the newly-revised concept of being a prison bride.

Con: The courts would be flooded with child custody hearings from all of the marriages that have been judged null and void.

Pro: The revenue generated from the new anullment costs would take care of the national budget deficit within a year. Trust me, people would FIND the money for the anullment if the marriage was bad enough.

Con: Ironically enough, once the deficit is taken care of, any money that comes in would go to fund whatever war we get involved in next.

Pro: If we play our cards right, that extra cash might go towards education.

Con: Life insurance rates would go through the roof.

Pro: Couples might think a little more clearly about getting married in the first place.

Con: Cheaters would no longer learn their lesson by losing half their stuff in a divorce.

Pro: On the other hand, cheaters would be bound by law to have their lives made a living hell by their angry spouse.

Con: Given the number of divorces we've had in the past few decades, many people affected by the law would usher in a new era of bitterness and cynicism and make the sancity of marriage seem more like a curse.

Gee, wouldn't be a whole hell of a lot easier to just let gays and lesbians get married?

Yes, we elected this guy...sorry about that.

In Saturday's Tulsa World, our senator (lack of capitalization intentional) James Inhofe had this to say about recent reports on global warming:

“It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie.”

He also restated (that means he's said this many times before) that the threat of global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”. Wanna know the most mind-boggling part of this? This man is the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee! He's in charge of determining congressional policy in regards to our environment! Sweet zombie Jesus, I know we don't have any mountains around here, but that doesn't mean the world is flat.

Comparing scientists, and their pesky facts, to Nazis?!? I'm getting so sick of politicians comparing people with opposing viewpoints to the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Now, if every scientist on the planet was calling for everyone who owns a Hummer be put in the gas chamber, they might have a point...but they're not! And to have a senator from a state that has experienced its highest temperatures in decades, whose tornado seasons and droughts have gotten worse with each passing year to say that every reputable scientist in the world is completely full of shit?!? Just thinking about it is is making my right eye twitch uncontrollably.

Sorry to break this to you, Jimmy, but global warming is very real. Glaciers around the world are diminishing, so much so that Greenland is starting to actually live up to its name, so much so that it is believed that Antarctica will be able to sustain plant growth in the next twenty years. Temperatures have risen worldwide so much so that resort hotels built right next to the Dead Sea fifty years ago no longer have a naked eye view of the water today, so much so that DENVER reached triple-digit temperatures last week. You can bury your head in the sand if you want to, but those of us that accept the facts are still gonna remind you that the sand was fertile soil up until a few years ago.

Most arguments I've heard from people like Inhofe who dispute science's prognosis of the environment claim that the biggest threats to our atmosphere are volcanoes and cattle flatus. (Bet you never thought you'd read those two things in the same sentence, huh?) While I can't say there's anything we can do about volcanoes, you know, other than NOT to build houses on them and later wonder why there's magma in the den, I will say this about cows: Who is responsible for there being so many damned cows on the planet? Who has completely bred out any and all of the cow's original evolutionary instincts they need to live on it's own in the wild? Who has clear cut millions of acres of natural forests to make room for grazing land? Who fills them full of corn, oats and hay, giving them the fuel needed to produce the most toxic farts this side of the kraut tent at Oktoberfest? It's MAN, you moron!

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of ozone alert day around a volcano. I've never seen a government issued smog warning over a cattle farm. No, those kinds of things only happen in heavily-populated industrial areas...like most places in America...including Oklahoma, Mr. Inhofe. When I was a little kid, I remember being told that asthma was something you're born with, now it's something an otherwise healthy person can develop when the air around them is polluted. Twenty-two years ago, I remember it snowing during spring break, now you get away with wearing shorts at Thanksgiving. When I was twelve, it would take about an hour for my pasty white skin to crack and peel, now I can get the same effect in half the time.

You know what, go ahead and say what you want about the enviromental movement, senator. Go ahead and believe what you want to believe about global warming. but before you go out and preach against science, realize that you're up against some pretty heavy FACTS here, and in order to convince the people of your convenient truth, the burden of proof lies on you. First, please consider the following:

If a person stays in their closed garage with their car running, it'll kill them. Now, think of all the running cars on the planet, and remember that our atmosphere is, technically, an enclosed space.

If you believe that industry doesn't affect the environment, try living downstream from a chemical factory.

If you don't believe recycling can make a difference, then we'll start tossing our empties on YOUR front yard instead.

How about that, senator, do we have a deal? With great power (even if it's cronyistically appointed power) comes great responsibility. You're responsible for making policies that might actually keep us alive long enough to re-elect your sorry ass. Start acting like it.

One delightful, albeit twisted piece of mind-fuck

A Scanner Darkly...I've seen it, and oh man, where to begin...

Every review I've seen of the film compares it to director Richard Linlater's previous animated film Waking life. However, that's where the similaritie end. Waking Life was animated to simulate a dream world, while A Scanner Darkly is more of a drug state. In both cases, it's very effective. I'm very thankful they didn't advertise this move as "from the director of School of Rock and Bad News Bears", because that would only cause a lot of people to leave the theater severely pissed.

Leaving the theater this afternoon, it took me a few minutes to re-adjust to reality...honestly, this is the first film to give me vertigo afterwards. Seeing it on DVD won't be the same as seeing in the big screen. To simulate the experience, try looking at yourself in the mirror after staring at magic eye puzzles for three straight hours. You'll see some spooky shit you know you're not supposed to be seeing.

Also, the performances of Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane serve as the best anti-drug message ever in the history of film. These guys are tweaking their asses off the whole time they're on the screen. In a smart move, they never show any of the "benefits" of the drugs they're taking, only how the drugs have taken their toll on their minds and bodies. Wanting to do drugs after this movie, providing you didn't take some beforehand, is like taking a smoke break during The Insider, or going out for a drink after Leaving Las Vegas, or trying to be a dick after watching Passion of the Christ. It can be done, but it'll be a bittersweet experience.

A lot of reviewers criticize Keanu Reeves' performance in this film, but I felt he did a good job. I mean, it's Keanu Reeves, for Christ's sake. You can't expect oscar-caliber from this guy, but in this case, he plays to his strengths. Nobody gives blank stares to a world he doesn't understand like Keanu Reeves. At least he never said "Whoa!"

Plus, it's based on a Phillip K. Dick novel, and in my opinion, films based on his works are always as good as the source material. Blade Runner and Minority Report were excellent because the novels were great as well. Paycheck and Imposter sucked because the books sucked. A Scanner Darkly was written when Phillip K. Dick was deep into his drug addictions, and it shows in the story. The confusion and paranoia is palpable, and the new-world-order/conspiracy sublots of the story make it all justifiable.

A Scanner Darkly is not for everyone. The animation style is far from mainstream Disney fare, the dialogue screams indie film, and the situations will turn off 90% of viewers not familiar with the filmmakers' earlier works. Case in point: there were ten people in the theater with me when the movie started, and six when it ended. Not bad for one of Linklater's "arty" flicks playing in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

All in all, I loved it. If it had been done in live action, and with a bigger budget, it would have sucked. The twist ending was pulled off with great care; not letting you in on too much foreshadowing like M. Night Shyamalan has crammed in our heads time and time again. That is to say, there's a reason that lesson number one in film school is to cater to the dumbest person in the audience and spell everything out beforehand.

The animation gave the film a hand-made craftsmanship that a lot of reviewers failed to see as anything other than a gimmick. This is ultimately a story about drug addiction and it's effect on your mind and how you see the world. Recovering addicts never see the world as they saw it before they started. There's always residual effects, and this movie recognizes that. Having the last part of the movie switch to live action would have ruined the whole experience, and that's EXACTLY what would've happened if Hollywood had gotten hold of it.

I do offer this word of caution: Don't turn your brain off if you choose to see this film. If you give the film your undivided attention, you won't be disappointed. Keeping an open mind will reward you. However, it's not one of those indie films that's too smart for it's own good and it doesn't talk down to you if you don't fully get it. If you want mindless fun, Fast and the Furious is right across the hall.

I AM supposed to be here today.

This afternoon, I caught a matinee of Clerks II. I've been looking forward to this flick for a while, and I've had high hopes and great fears in how it would turn out. All I can say is: Bravo, Kevin Smith.

I was worried how it would change my view of the first film, but Clerks II manages to carry it's own weight. Sure, it's the same characters, but in the timeline, it's ten years later, and the characters have managed to grow a bit (even thought their situations haven't) in that time. At the core, they're the same as we remember them, but where the first one had them facing a bleak and uncertain future, this time around they're facing the possibility that any bright future has long since past, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

In the first one, Dante was unwilling to make changes for himself. This time, he's willing to take the first thing that comes along. In this case, it's his domineering fiancee Emma. Their taking off for Florida in the morning, her parents are gonna give them a house, and let Dante run one of their car washes down there.

Randal, on the other hand, has gone from the smartass everyone wants to be to the bitter asshole no one wants to admit being friends with. This feels very natural for his character. He used to come off as simply protective of his best friend Dante and overly sure of himself, but now with Dante leaving, he doesn't know how to handle his feelings of loss, and wonders what he'll do from here on.

Jay & Silent Bob are back, and trust me, even if the rest of the film sucked, their scenes would be more than worth the price of admission.

The new characters fit really well. Emma is the kind of person you know is all wrong for Dante, but you kinda understand why Dante is willing to go along with her. Elias, the super-nerdy jesus freak is a great character for Randal to play off of, and it helps Randal face the reality of Dante's departure when he realizes that this kids may be Dante's heir apparent. Becky, the manager of the restaurant, holds her own against Randal's constant antagonism and proves as the positive force Dante's been needing in his life. You can't help but fall in love with her.

When I first heard that the Quick Stop and RST video was not gonna be the setting for the sequel, I was more than a bit concerned. I thought it was a bad idea to just take these two characters and just put them in a fast-food restaurant. It seemed cheesy and contrived, but as it turns out, it works out perfectly. The convenience store plays into a great plot device that left me feeling really good when the credits rolled at the end.

Clerks II is a much more polished film than the first one, in style AND in story. The first one gave many varied paths to the same lesson in the end. This time, the moral of the story changes from one minute to the next and depending on your point of view. To me, it sums up like this: Sometimes, the hand that you hold is the hand that holds you down...Sometimes, the hand that holds you down is the hand that keeps you from falling any further...and sometimes it's the hand that pulls you back on your feet.

I love Kevin Smith's films. It's not just the dialogue, not just the humor...it's the timing. The simple truth is that his films always come out at the perfect time in my life.

I saw Clerks and Mallrats on video, and I saw both of them on the same night. This was when I was about 21, when I was first on my own, and I was feeling a little doubtful about my current station in my life. Both films had an underlying message that if anything was to change in my life, that I needed to take the initiative myself instead of cursing the universe for dealing me a shitty hand.

Chasing Amy was the first of his flicks I saw in a theater, and it was at a time that I was in a relationship that I knew was more or less doomed to fail...one of the big issues was that I was young and inexperienced and this girl was not really ready for anything serious after her divorce. Chasing Amy helped put several things in perspective and allowed me the courage to confront the problems I was facing.

Dogma helped me in a time when my faith was being tested. I felt like I had no drive, and that every thing I did was out of habit rather than any real motovation in my life. I felt like I wasn't a very good person at that time, and while I didn't come away with any real answers, I did leave the theater with a deeper sense of purpose. Like the film said, it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just as long as you have faith.

I saw Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back the day I broke up with my fiancee. I decided to go out for a while after our initial argument that got rather intense. It was a perfect distraction (as part of a double feature with American Pie 2) from the to-be-continued that waited for me back home. Not that the film had any real message that I could apply to my situation, but it was a great excuse to turn my brain off for a couple hours.

Jersey Girl came out at another time in my life where I was questioning my station in life, in addition to coming to terms with recently uncovered truths about my father and his indescretions. The themes of having your life turned upside down, not realizing how you're blessed and fatherhood had me weeping like a little girl with a skinned knee and shit (to paraphrase Jay).

Clerks II touched upon some of the same doubts I face now as I reach the thirty-year mark. I left the theater feeling a lot better than when I came in. Are my best days behind me? No, it's never too late to change. Do those bad times I had in the past mean I've wasted my life? Hell no, they've made me the person I am today. Do I know what the hell I'm doing? No, but it's all a leap of faith. Now all I need are more dick jokes.

Flash forward, flash back.

It's a strange thing about last night's post. Today on my way home, I was behind a pickup truck with bumper stickers of the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan...and one that read "I brake for anything BUT a liberal". Are these people severely conflicted or just totally clueless?

The boss has been on vacation this week, which means it's been quiet. Any work that's come across my desk has gotten done in record time because it's been so easy to work without a foot up my ass. Aside for a couple choppy moments, it's been smooth sailing. However, this afternoon I went into hyper cover my own ass mode; making sure everything was in it's place for when the big man comes back and freaks right out...not because anything's wrong, just because he's been out of the loop for a week.

Tonight, I'm laying low. I'm gonna clean up the apartment, catch up on my DVR, and re-watch Clerks before I see the sequel tomorrow.

Last night, it dawned on me that Monday was my Dad's birthday. He would have been 54 years old this year. Trying to fall asleep last night I got to thinking about the impact he made on my life. It's been almost eighteen years since he passed, and it's been everything I found out about him after he died that's made a bigger impact than the 12 years I had with him before then.

I'm turning thirty in just a few weeks, and I'm still learning for these lessons my father left behind. His infidelity to my mother shaped my attitude towards relationships. In that case, I vowed never to give into temptation when I'm involved with someone, which has been a tight rope because in hindsight many the relationships I've been faithful to were never strong or "real" enough to warrant that policy. I finished college, something he never did, and in a field that he would've loved to be a part of. And as hard as I am on myself most of the time, I take pride in the fact that my Dad would be proud of me if he was here today.

This September, on the anniversary of his death, I'm gonna take a little road trip and visit his grave and the place he crashed his hang glider, causing his death. The ramp he launched from that day is now overgrown with trees, all the souvenir shops (not because of the hang gliding ramp, mind you) around it have long since closed, and Mt. Gaylor is now a ghost town. The fences they put up to keep people off the launch ramp have been beat down and if memory serves, is littered with discarded beer cans, no doubt from teenagers. Not many people pass by there nowadays, and none of them know the story of what happened there 18 years ago.

Too bad we liberals want to ban those long-range sniper rifles

I have found it. The most useless, most confusing and confounding bit of information EVER. In an attempt to try and find out more about Ann Coulter WITHOUT having to actually read her bile. I guess it was one of those "know thy enemy" situations. I was hoping to dig up something from her past, that would give me some sort of psychological clue into why she's such a horrible person, and I found one tidbit that threw me for a loop.

Well, according to her Wikipedia article, she's a big fan of the Grateful Dead.

Jerry Bear must be doing backflips in his grave. I mean, this is Ann Coulter we're talking about here. The woman who once said to a disabled Vietnam vet, "No wonder you guys lost." The same person who believes that the U.S. would be better off if women weren't allowed to vote...Who once called for the poisoning of a Supreme Court Justice and the bombing of the New York Times...Who once referred to the Democratic National Convention as the "Spawn of Satan Convention", and some of the women in attendance as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons."

Can you just picture her twirling in a hemp sundress, flowers in her hair, singing along to Uncle John's Band? To me, that image is about as reasonable as Hitler in the front row of a Paul Simon concert.

She believes that the Bible is the driving force for her to expose the "lies" and "deceit" of the political left. I'm thinking she never got past the Old Testament. I understand that free speech goes both ways. People have the right to say whatever they want, whether it is something that you whole-heartedly agree with, or if it's something that makes your blood curdle. But seriously, why is it that people like this get so much airtime?

There are two reasons why Coultergeist (to borrow a phrase from Keith Olberman) is so pro-gun. First of all, she needs it to repeatedly shoot herself in the foot. The second reason is for protection, because anyone with half a brain will want to kill her if they had to speak to her for more than three minutes, that is if she'll let them get a word in edgewise.

I don't know...maybe she wouldn't be so bad if she had a mute button, a few more complex carbohydrates, a few years dealing personally with the poor and disenfranchised and stopped taking make-up advice from Skeletor.

Absolutely lost

I know I said back in March for people NOT to read Urban Tulsa Weekly, but seeing as this week was the results of their annual Absolute Best of Tulsa reader poll, I had to indulge. Here's how screwed up the people of Tulsa are...or at least the people with time enough to submit entries:

Absolute Best Radio Personalities: Phil & Brent on KMOD. I guess every city has to have at least one wacky morning radio show, but for crying out loud, this shit has to stop. It still amazes me how many people still fall for the Roy D. Mercer bullshit. I guess they're singling out people who don't buy their comedy CDs at dirty truck stops.

Absolute Best Gadgets and Gizmos Store: Radio Shack. Did customer satisfaction or quality of product ever factor into this decision? Besides, there should be a rule about chain stores in this poll.

Absolute Best Smoke Shop: Oz. How about a rule that in order to be considered a smoke shop, you shouldn't be able to buy black lights and dildos there as well?

Absolute Best Place to Buy Beer: QuikTrip?!? Does anybody in this fucking town even know what real beer tastes like?

Absolute Best Beer: Bud Light...okay, my last question has an answer...the answer is HELL NO!

Absolute Best Festival: Mayfest. Did the ballots only go out to Motel 6 decorators? Mayfest is to fine art as Paris Hilton is to the feminist movement. Second Place was Oktoberfest, which, due to my German heritage, makes me kinda proud...however 99% of the beers they serve there are from Budweiser. To quote Monty Python, American beer is like making love in a canoe. It's fucking close to water.

It warms my heart to know as many people as I do that wish to try and enlighten as many people as they can. Judging from this list, we've got our work cut out for us. I'm gonna suggest some new categories for next year. I mean, seriously, they have a category for best bathrooms! (winner: QuickTrip)

Absolute Best place to take your kids where they might learn something other than how to kill video game zombies.
Absolute Best place to meet someone without a retraining order against them.
Absolute Best restaurant without a glaring health code violation.
Absolute Best place to have an intelligent conversation with a total stranger.
Absolute Best festival where you can spend the day without having to wait in line behind an entire family of mouth-breathing NASCAR fans that doesn't bathe.
Absolute Best place to order a cup of coffee in less than six syllables
Absolute Best place that doesn't need a shit rag like Urban Tulsa to validate their existence.