Eye Candy: Channing Tatum

The apocalypse strikes tomorrow.  Eye candy, baby, before the fall...

Garfield Minus Garfield

Why is it, dear readers, that the comic strip 'Garfield' elicits such passionate homage in some of its readers?  Those horrific stuffed cats that hung in car windows, suspended by suction cups?  And who could possibly forget this?  I certainly can't.  It still haunts me.  What other daily comic has demanded such bizarre tribute?

 Now, we have been gifted what is almost a companion piece to the series above.  Something altogether different, and yet unquestionably the same.  Something dark and sad, and uncomfortably hilarious.  From the website: 

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Behold!

Do you want more, you sick, sad freak?  Do you want to wallow in more misery and mental incapacitation?  Well, you can here!

Happy Birthday, Richie

Thirsty...Tuesday?  Mandatory bar time to celebrate the boss-man's birthday.  Dino's, bitches!  What do you know about that?

 

Boue, Abigail and Ricardo 

Rae Lynn Melancholy, Conchetta, and David

Essence of Autin

We're all very busy...

Eye Candy: Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Why?  To set a precedent in retaliation against shitty Mondays...

Snow in Chicago

I boarded a plane in New Orleans, and the thermometer was holding steady at 80 degrees. I rode the plane through sunny skies and landed in Chicago, where it was holding steady at 30 with more than six inches of snow on everything. It was, by far, the most snow I've ever seen.

Behold! The Snow Queen.

Before long, the novelty of all this nonsense wore away. Snow is cold, and unpleasant, and it wets your feet more or less constantly. I do not like snow.

Go Away, Salma Hayek.

Why is it that every time I have tried to go somewhere in the last few days, Salma Hayek has been there to get in my way?  I think that, at best, you are a mediocre actress, Ms. Hayek.  I must insist that you stop inconveniencing me.

All I want to do is walk from point A to point B with a minimum of hassle.  But no!  I have to walk all the way around through points C, D, E, and F because streets are blocked because "Oh my God!  Salma Hayek is shooting a movie!"  

Well,  thank you for aiding the flailing New Orleans economy, but goddamn!  Enough is enough.  You cannot have all the streets of the city for your film.  You cannot!  It is illogical.  This is not a film set, it is a business center.  We have business to attend to!

And, Ms. Hayek-- what movie are you shooting?  Oh, you're filming on 'Cirque du Freak', an epic  fantasy trilogy from director Chris Weitz.  That sounds promising.

Is this the same Chris Weitz who so poorly mangled 'The Golden Compass' that the combined might of Nicole Kidman and Sam Elliot could not save it?  I still sit in awe at New Line's decision to allow him to make a project that cost so very much and was so very important to the studio's future.  The man made his mark by directing 'American Pie' and 'About a Boy'... what in those films made you think he could handle an epic fantasy trilogy?  

Well, he failed.  'The Golden Compass' was awful, it tanked at the box office, and New Line Cinema went bankrupt. And now, some other studio has handed him another fantasy trilogy.  That's like letting Hitler babysit Jewish youths in 1954.

Anyway, my days are inconvenienced by all this nonsense, and I grow weary of this conflict.  Take your wires and your cranes and your cameras and go somewhere else.  Give me back Natchez Street immediately.  I demand it.

Death of a Dream

It was like making the long trek to Mecca only to find yourself at Sea World.  It was like taking the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building and looking out over Fort Worth.  It was awful-- an explosion of despair and pain.  The end of an era.  The death of a dream.

I walked again tonight, as I often do, to the most beautiful house in New Orleans.  I shall not go again.  It has been tainted.  Ruined.  Those people who live there, those awful, awful souls have turned their beautiful, majestic delight into a canvas of blasphemy and blackness.  I hate them deeply and with yearning.

Shall I begin by saying that they do not own a cat?  The way the curtains were pushed back ever so slightly so suggested that a feline presence slid in between the fabric and the glass and stared unimpressed upon the world while he licked his paws clean.  This is not the case.  They do own a pet, but it is not a cat.  It is a big, grotesque English Bulldog, fat and stupid.  The size of a pot-bellied pig it lumbers about, all brown and white and ridiculous.  It is so fat it doesn't walk, it waddles.  It is a disgusting beast.  That is lives in such a beautiful house makes me yearn to pull out my BB gun and fire a pellet into it's immensity.  It's so hideous my heart breaks because of it's existence.

But, oh, worse horrors did I find upon my final journey to the once-magical place.  Do you remember, from examining the photos of the house, the flag-holder that hung empty on the front of the house?  It is empty no longer.  The house's lovely visage has been tainted by an American flag.  And, no, not a tasteful, subtle decently-sized American flag-- a huge, tacky unbearable flag just whipping in the breeze.  The kind of flag that murdered John Lennon.  The kind of flag that rapes children and steps on the heads of kittens.  It made me want to vomit.

So stricken with sadness I wandered away with a heavy heart and sobbed into the dark, melancholy New Orleans night.  The world shan't ever be the same.  A little piece of my heart has been rent forth and scattered across the ground like the ashes from an alter to God.  There is no more magic in the world.  It had been replaced with poison and bile.

Don't believe anything--There's bias in everything--Language is our most powerful weapon

Alright.  First, watch this video.

Now, if you've finished choking on the irony of seeing Bill O'Reilly refer to anything as 'offensive', read these paragraphs from an article by Steve Holland for Reuters:

...John McCain said on Friday he fears that al Qaeda or another extremist group might attempt spectacular attacks in Iraq to try to tilt the U.S. election against him.

McCain, at a town hall meeting...was asked if he had concerns that anti-American militants in Iraq might ratchet up their activities in Iraq to try to increase casualties in September or October and tip the November election against him.

"Yes, I worry about it," McCain said. "And I know they pay attention because of the intercepts we have of their communications ... The hardest thing in warfare is to counter someone or a group of individuals who are willing to take their own lives in order to take others."

While this is not a post about content, but instead about presentation, I would like to offer a few thoughts before getting to my point:

A.) I can't believe the sad blind trust it must take to discount the majority of the things Rev. Wright said...

B.) If I could find a pastor like that, I would be in church every Sunday.

C.) I change my mind.  I wouldn't want to have a beer with John McCain after all.  He would be an insufferable drunk.

Anyway, not content but presentation.

The pastor story was broken by Fox News, the most unabashedly right-wing media outlet popular in America today.  They ran the story almost nonstop for two days, almost always with a big picture of Obama's head plastered in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, along with captions like 'Obama's Campaign Over?'.  For two days that ran.  Meanwhile, other news outlets reported the story and let it go.  Fox drug out analysts to discuss the video, all the while having the video that so offended their "America! Fuck Yeah!" sensibilities in a nonstop loop.

Bias in video construction is easily spotted.

But look at the John McCain article, pulled directly from the liberal, brainwashing media.  "...might attempt spectacular attacks."  First off, there is no reason a professional news article need include a four-syllable adjective that is not part of a direct quote, and most-certainly not one as over-wrought and dramatic as 'spectacular'.

And notice how the first two paragraphs end with the election both tilted and tipped "against him."  Not "towards the Democrats."  In fact, the Democrats aren't even mentioned.  This is an entire article built to poke fun at John McCain's extraordinary ego (he is, after all, the most egotistical major politician since, well, G.W. Bush), and we're clued in by the flowery, unnecessary language in the first sentence.  

Now whether al Qaeda wants John McCain to lose the election or the American media want Barack Obama to win is neither here nor there.  

I imagine as liberal Americans, the media would prefer Obama, but things aren't going to get easier for al Qaeda in either scenario.  Palestine is not going to get the disputed lands it claims it deserves regardless of which political party takes office, and that's what all this nonsense is about anyway.  And al Qaeda knows that.  But CNN apparently doesn't

In conclusion: 

 John McCain makes Paris Hilton look humble, al Qaeda is smarter than the American media, and Barack Obama's pastor believes in karma.

or

War is peace--Freedom is Slavery--Ignorance is Strength

You decide.

Trapped in a Porcelain Prison

There are no words to describe the horrific fascination this story holds for me...

This is the trailer where the events occurred

Excerpts from the Associated Press 

With added emphasis on phrases that interest me.

Please consider them carefully.

Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years -- so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the man finally called police.

It appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat, said Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple. The woman initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.  "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

Police declined to release the couple's names, but the boyfriend, Kory McFarren, agreed to be interviewed Wednesday by The Associated Press. He identified his girlfriend as Pam Babcock.

McFarren, 36, told investigators he took Babcock food and water and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, 'Maybe tomorrow,"' Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

McFarren told the AP that he wasn't to blame, and that it was solely Babcock's choice to remain in the bathroom.

"She is an adult; she made her own decision. It was my fault I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it," McFarren said.

Although authorities said they think Babcock was in the bathroom for two years, McFarren said he wasn't certain how long she stayed there. He said she had a phobia about leaving the room because of childhood beatings.

"It just kind of happened one day. She went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer. Then she got it in her head she was going to stay -- like it was a safe place for her," McFarren said.

But McFarren said Babcock moved around in the bathroom during that time, bathed and changed into the clothes he brought her. He said they conversed and had an otherwise normal relationship -- except that it all happened in the bathroom.

McFarren called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said.

Police found Babcock clothed and sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked as if they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.

Authorities said they did not know whether she was mentally or physically disabled.

The case has been the buzz of Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.  "I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.  Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

I think the author of this article deserves a Pulitzer for his astounding use of subtlety and restraint.

Current Obsession: The Most Beautiful House in New Orleans

There it is... the most beautiful house in all of New Orleans.  It lies delightful on the corner of  Barracks and Chartres, lush and in ruins.  Like something from a dream, it rises triumphantly from the barren, well-kept surroundings of the French Quarter.  It is a fantasy.  Perfection.

It cannot be approached from the Canal Street side.  From that direction, the wonder is lost.  You must circle around and approach it from the Esplanade side.  That is the way to truly experience the house.  On overcast days and sunny afternoons, late nights and early mornings I can often be found sitting on a post across the street, staring into it's unending glory, memorizing every break and flaw, each molding and subtle shade.  I long to see the lucky beast who owns such an enviable piece of property.  I speculate they have a cat.

There was a time when I thought the house was simply myth.  I stumbled blindly onto it one day and fell to my knees, struck by sublimity.  I noted to myself the corner it was located on so I could visit it again.  But later, when I returned, it wasn't there.  I searched and searched for the house, yet couldn't find it anywhere.  Is it magic?  Does the house only appear to those who need it?  Does it travel about, move, lurk throughout the neighborhood?  No, I was simply lost.  But the house is magic nonetheless.

Thin Lines

Content Warning:  The following post has explicit sexual overtones and hard drug use.  Read only after consulting and adjusting your own moral compass to decide if this is really the post for you.  

God, I wanted him.  A little piece of perfection at the end of the bar.  Handsome.  Rugged.  Straight.  Drunk.  He had left and come back, shot down by the girl he had spent so much time and money on; now moaning pathetically about the sorry state of his life. He hadn't had sex since July 4th-- that seemed appropriate.  He was in the military, back from Iraq and shortly headed to Darfur.  

But there's a thin, thin line between making an advance and taking an advantage. 

I was behind the bar, working at the Ohm Lounge-- not so much to make money but to occupy myself while I did mounds and mounds of blow.  Two hours earlier I was the king of the world, the paragon of self-confidence.

But there's a thin, thin line between invincibility and instability.

And I had done it.  I was past casual party and into an indulgent binge.  Shaky, stuttery, uncomfortable-- I needed to go for a long run alone.  Alone being the key word: people are strange but I was stranger, woefully out of whack.  Still, there was a knee jerk reaction in my loins when he asked the bartender if she knew any gay guys.  He was desperate, he said.  He went to a gay bar once in San Diego and felt "respected."  He wanted to feel that way again.

But there's a thin, thin line between bad karma and genuine misdeeds. 

Scenario A has us leaving the bar, walking the two blocks to my hotel and indulging in coke-fueled pornographic fantasy, the kind you see in Treasure Island videos.

But there's a thin, thin line between performance and pathetic.

And I had done it.  Scenario B has us leaving the bar, walking the two blocks to my hotel and suffering through about 30 minutes of awkward, useless fondling before he came and went, after which I jerked off, irritable and limp to a Treasure Island video. 

I walked the two blocks to my hotel alone, did more coke, and took a long shower.

"You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime..."

But desire has taken on new dimensions, with consequences cocaine can cause seem irrelevant.  Two hours earlier I wouldn't have gone home alone.

There's a thin, thin line between feeling okay and falling apart.

There's a thin, thin line between good ideas and bad.

There's a thin, thin line between desire and death.

I haven't done it yet.

No plagiarism here!  Post contains an excerpt from a song from 'Avenue Q'.