This Whole Tim Hardaway Thing is Totally Gay

And this is why Isaiah Washington is being put through the ringer.

Tim Hardaway, long time NBA All-star, told the world yesterday that he “hates gay people.” He went on to say that he didn’t want a gay guy on his team, and if he did have one on there, he’d distance himself from that person.

This is all fallout from a former NBA player announcing he was gay a week or two prior. Hardaway was asked how he would deal with a gay teammate.

I guess honesty is good, but in Hardaway’s case, the completely ignorant and predictable way he expressed his honesty, doesn’t make his case. This is a news flash to all of the people who are like Tim Hardaway: You don’t have to like homosexuality. If the thought of two dudes humping turns your stomach, I wouldn’t dream of trying to change your mind. But to say you hate gay people (and not the sex act that makes you ill), is just so absurd it could be one of those hilarious comedies starring Martin Lawrence….which really aren’t funny at all.

I think Isaiah Washington is getting hung out to dry, but now you see why. There is a growing perception that African American culture is the least tolerant of homosexuality. More so than white Christians? I’m afraid so. And when you’re beating white Christians at bigotry, you really should evaluate some things.

If you took Tim Hardaway’s comments and put “black” in where he said “gay,” you’d be magically transported back to the 50’s and 60’s when sports were dominated by white people. Black people were not allowed and when they finally were, they were met with severe racism, from their teammates and fans alike. Most people will scoff at this and claim race and sexual orientation are two very different things. Sure. But when we’re talking about being set apart and vilified because of something you are, isn’t it the same thing. I’m sure Jackie Robinson had teammates who “distanced themselves” from him when he started playing. Is Hardaway too stupid or too filled with hatred to see how ironic this is?

So one bad thing begets another. If you thought the way Isaiah Washington was treated was racism like I did, now you see why those people put the screws to him. It’s just one more thing in a chain of events that won’t stop until someone grows the fuck up and gets over it. But that probably won’t happen based on what some of the callers were saying on sports talk radio; most were agreeing with Hardaway and supporting him. That’s fine if you agree with him, but don’t get behind someone spouting dangerous bullshit. Again: if you don’t like hot man love, no problem. But giving a thumbs up to a bigot is dangerous and will never ever lead to anything good.

Tim Hardaway, who hasn’t played in years, lives in a world where saying stuff like this doesn’t hurt him. Sure, the NBA immediately dropped him from having anything to do with their organization, but he’s already paid. Isaiah Washington works in a world where saying that type of thing will hurt him. I pity the next black actor, or someone in a similar profession who says something dumb about his/her gay contemporaries, because now, A.T. (After Tim), that person is going to pay dearly.

We’re just starting to see this heat up and it’s going to be one salvo after another.

I’m with the gays on this one. What Hardaway said wasn’t “keepin’ it real” it was ignorant and hateful. And while his hypocrisy is monumental on this, I guess he doesn’t owe anyone the courtesy of remembering how American blacks have been treated in this country. A racist can come out and say he hates black people, but no one in their right mind will come forward and say that person’s statement should be applauded. Hardaway has shown that he is a bigot, and instead of being commended for his “bold” statement, he should pitied and hope that he and people like him, will quietly go away.

JR

This whole Isaiah Washington thing is totally gay

If you have just returned from some place that doesn’t have the internet or don’t give two fucks about celebrity bullshit, you have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s good. You are a good person. I envy you. I envy you because I read all those ridiculous celebrity blogs written by annoying Queens who make a living ripping on some dumb actresses’ bad choice in eye glitter.

I read them because they’re a good quick read, they’re funny and it gives me something to talk about when with other people who read this crap. I’ve always believed that if you have something in common with everyone, you can get along with anyone. Or something like that. That’s how I’m justifying it anyway.

Anyway, if you’ve just returned from Iraq where you were hunting for the real culprits of 911, you wouldn’t know anything about the Isaiah Washington fiasco that is currently gripping America. Here’s what went down:

Washington, who stars on Grey’s Anatomy, called one of the other actors a “faggot” during an on-set argument. That subsequently forced the actor out of the closet and made Washington look like a grade ‘A’ asshole. He then couldn’t keep his mouth shut, denied he said it and then farted out a bunch of bullshit that made him look even worse.

I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, or Grey’s Sexcademy, as I like to call it. It’s a sucky show about humping doctors that brain dead morons watch to get a tingle in their nether regions. I’m all for humping (that’s what it will say on my tombstone), but this show is just lame. If you like it, good for you, but pornos have better plots and acting I’m sure.

Washington sounds like a dickhead. From all accounts, he’s a hot head and anyone who would react this way has got some issues. Especially since he works in Hollywood where an actor being gay is probably as common as wearing socks. If you work in movies or TV, pissing off the gays is like going to a NASCAR race in a turban, handing out anti-American literature. It won’t end in a good way.

So all the celebrity bloggers, who just happen to be fat, homely Queens, are all over this guy’s ass; calling for him to be fired and ripping him all kinds of new assholes. Oddly enough, no one is saying they will stop watching the show. I think that would really do some damage, but I guess they need their bad TV just like the rest of us. But they want blood and are doing everything in their power to get it.

But then I started thinking about it: people are really freaking out about this and for why? Is this really about someone calling another person a “faggot” or does it go deeper than that? I would agree that calling someone a faggot in this case is bad. The guy’s sexual preference shouldn’t be a factor here. If there’s an issue at the work place, where someone puts their pecker should never be a concern. So why are the gays so pissed off about Isaiah Washington?

Race baby. Race.

This is all about race. The Isaiah Washington fiasco has reached shrill, shrieking proportions simply because he’s black.

I will be the first one to call bullshit on someone playing the race card so you know I’m not a weak-willed, white guilt liberal looking to spread the good word by enabling some trumped up racist claim. The funny thing is, no one has brought this up in this case. They’ve let Washington twist in the wind and I’m frankly surprised.

I guess what he did was pretty bad. “Outing” the guy was kind of uncool. I would think if you were gay, you would like to pick the time and place of your coming out. Having some jerk yelling it across a soundstage for the celebrity obsessed world to hear is probably not his cup of tea. That was uncool. But after that, the actor went on Ellen’s show and she told him “how brave he was.” What? Really? Brave huh? I’m not really seeing how this guy is so brave for going through this. He gets paid a lot of money to act in a world that, behind the scenes, is very supportive of his orientation. There are far more people that have endured far worse punishment, physical and emotional, for their sexuality than this guy. Did it scare him because a big scary black guy said it to him?

I think that’s where this stems from. Black people have the “N” word. The “N” word is nigger in case you didn’t know. I personally don’t say the “N” word because I do find it offensive. I know black people (and most white people) find it offensive so I don’t use it. But a lot of black people do use it and I think the majority of the gay community, who have been maligned through hip hop and various aspects of black culture, feel like this is a way of striking back. Listen to any hip hop album and homos are constantly derided and “faggot” is used as a way to put people down. My guess is that Isaiah Washington opened his mouth and our gay brethren saw fit to cram decades of resentment down his throat.

The racial aspect of this is disturbing because it ceases to be about calling someone a nasty name based on who they are. It suddenly becomes a political issue where people are not considering that one asshole ran his mouth, but indicting a whole group of people simply because they’ve got momentum and want to intimidate anyone from saying something like it again. That’s fine, but shouldn’t you want people to stop saying it because they have learned that it’s wrong? Or is the out come that they’ll get fired enough? While one is harder to achieve, the other creates resentment and lasting bad vibes.

The only reason Mel Gibson wasn’t run out of Hollywood is that he makes tons of money. I’m sure there’s a Jewish guy or four that have a hand in helping Mel’s movies to the big screen. He said all the right things, but really if he didn’t make money, no one would have dealt with him ever again. Isaiah Washington doesn’t have the luxury of being Mel Gibson. He’s just a no name actor that no one ever heard of until this incident. Maybe this is good for him in the long run. Currently he went to “rehab” for his problem and will return to his hit show loving the gay life I’m sure.

Washington deserves most of the shit he’s getting but overall it just stinks of a racially motivated occasion for some payback. I for one think that’s a cycle you will never be able to pull out of.

So I’ll still read the bitchy celebrity blogs, but now I see them in a different light. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they all love that fucking lame hack Madonna, now they gotta play the Gay card against the Race card. And that’s a card game I never want to see.

JR

50 Most Loathsome People

Simply awesome. I think I referenced this list last year and it's even better this year.

Have at it:

The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2006

JB: Doing it to Death

Did I mention how much I love James Brown? When the GFOS passed around Xmas time, I was going to write something up but didn’t (obviously) because 1) I’m kinda lazy and 2) I wasn’t sure I could due justice to how bad motherfucking ass this guy was. I’m a huge fan and yet I didn’t know how to talk about him.

Well, he’s still not buried and there’s all kinds of turmoil over his estate; his creepy wife is crying to Larry King about being locked out of the house and Al Sharpton seems to have his hands deep into the Hardest Working Man in Show Business’ business.

I’m not one to think that someone can’t “rest” until their body is in the ground, so it doesn’t matter to me if he’s buried or not. I think they should keep him above ground like Lenin and maybe I can go to wherever he is and pay my respects ten years from now.

At any rate, JB was just super bad. As you’ve probably read by now, there wouldn’t be hip-hop as we know it without JB. His style, his delivery and in particular, his music, contributed more to modern music than anyone in past 100 years. He’s that fucking cool.

Prince is a poor man’s James Brown. All his moves, his crazy wardrobe and the bulk of his shtick are cribbed right from JB’s playbook.

Justin Timberlake wishes he could take a couple of hairs off of JB’s corpse because there is more funk in the man’s follicles than in Timberlake’s whole body.

The first time I ever saw James Brown was on TV and it showed one of his early performances where he does the thing where he pretends to be overcome with how hard he’s performing and has to be helped off. A guy comes out and puts a cape on him and helps him off, but right before he leaves the stage he regains his strength and tears back into it. I was just blow away by this. I didn’t understand it, but I loved it.

Listen to any of his music where he’s calling out to the band members and telling them what to do; it’s a testament to the incredible musicians he had working for him as much as it is a showcase for his total mastery of the music. It’s been parodied for a long time, but JB could wave his hand and the band would stop on a dime. Wave it another way and the horns would hit him however he wanted it. He was like a diabolical sorcerer conjuring a wicked brew that you couldn’t wait to suck down.

Put on “Greedy Man” with its relentless funk or the slow, sticky jam that is “The Payback” and try and tell me this man wasn’t some sort of musical god on earth. He was.
Listen to his songs and just try to identify all the samples that were later used in countless rap songs. It’s just too bad he didn’t get paid for it when he was getting the shit sampled out his songs…where were Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson then?

Regardless of my paltry words of praise, there literally won’t ever be anyone as great as he was ever again. We’re left with his legacy though, through his music and all the people who copied him, wanted to be like him or just plain were affected by him.

God speed JB. Give up, turn it loose.

JR

Travel Journal 2000: Barcelona

Here's more from my travel journal. This is re-printed exactly how I typed it way back when. I had run off to Europe in early 2000 and hung out in Paris, Barcelona and then Dublin. I was posting this to the Hooligan website at the time, and while some of it is kind of embarrassing, it’s still pretty funny. Enjoy.

Travel Journal February 2000

The coffee in Barcelona is how that woman from Good Times likes her men: Hot, black and strong! The coffee’s good and that’s not all. Barcelona reminds of how Cuba must be. Spanish speaking people with palm trees lining the streets, and buildings you think of when someone mentions Earnest Hemingway.

But Madrid is where Hemingway used to hang so Barcelona, or BCN for our purposes, has its own vibe entirely. But I could bore you with how beautiful I think Spain is. If you’ve ever been there, or even thought about going, you already know this. No, my travel journal will center not on the actual travelling, but the pitfalls and embarrassment that seems to come with it.

My first night in BCN I hooked up with an old friend by the name of Steve P. Steve has lived in BCN for the better part of 10 or 12 years so he was the main man to have show me around. We were going to warm up around 9:30 at a bar where you can pick up and play any guitar on the wall. I’m a master guitar player (ha) so I thought this sounded very cool. The place was closed because the people were on vacation. Vacation? “No one goes on vacation in February!” I exclaimed. I was on vacation dammit, and they needed to be open! Not really. Regardless we moved on. We went back to Steve’s place to have some beers before “really” going out.

People in Spain don’t eat until 10 p.m. and don’t really start partying until midnight. My second night in BCN, we stayed out till 6 a.m. (another story entirely). We went to Steve’s to have some beers.

Steve’s place is small. There’s enough room for a bed, a couch, a kitchen and a small bano (that’s bathroom in Espanol). But as he told me, the real reason he lived there wasn’t for the apartment, but for what was beyond the door in the kitchen. As we walked outside, I was treated to the most marvelous view in the whole motherfucking city of BCN.

A ‘panty dropper’ is something like the view from a house or apartment that will facilitate the dropping of women’s panties once you get them up there. Steve’s view could drop more panties then Leo Dicaprio, Brad Pitt and Ricky Martin combined. This was one spectacular fucking view, man. I took it all in, drank some beer and enjoyed Steve’s hospitality from his killer vantage point.

After some time, we moved down the street to a bar Steve frequented. The place featured rock and roll memorabilia on the walls and rock and roll tunes pumping out the stereo. The place was great and would be somewhere I’d hang out if it was in the states.

It was around midnight at this point and Steve said, “like clockwork, this bar will fill up at one.” Bing. One o’clock hit and, like he said, the place filled up before I even knew it. It was packed and hopping. We had carved out a corner earlier so we stood there drinking beer and having a wonderful time. This, believe it or not, is where our story begins.

It was at this point I was introduced to one of the local BCN beers. Voll Damm was its name and I will never, for the rest of my life, forget it. Voll Damm is a fairly hearty brew which tasted like a heavier Michelob than anything else. When in Rome. It tasted good so I drank it. Or I should say I drank an enormous amount of it. I was drinking Voll Damm like it wasn’t just going out of style, but like I had a fire to put out somewhere deep within my body. Bud lite it wasn’t, but I was sure drinking it like it was.

Steve had a friend named Steve who was there with a nice French girl (yeah, I know!). We all talked, rocked out to classic rock and proceeded to get fucking locked. On the train to BCN from Paris I started coming down with a cold. I was getting sick one way or the other so I just said fuck it. I’ve drank my way through colds before. I’m an old pro right? I partied on like a champ (or chump depending on how you look at it). I had two Heinekens before I even met up with Steve and about five cans of San Miguel at his place. I then inhaled about five bottles of Voll Damm at the bar. Drunk right? Wrong. Really, really drunk. What Steve declined to tell me was that each bottle of Voll Damm is around 8% alcohol. I got slaughtered like a pig at Easter.

Steve and Steve saw me chugging Voll Damm like Coors lite and told me the next day they were going to say something, but….. I would’ve done the same in their place so I can’t be too mad. Regardless, the Voll Damm binge combined with the first nasty days of a cold, made for one of the worst and most punishing hangovers of my entire life.

I drink. And despite how tanked I was, I handled it like a true warrior. I’ve been drunker than this, but the hangover made me want to go home to momma. Leaving the hotel, I almost threw up in the hallway. There was a strange, feces like smell in the stairwell. Imagine that? It was gross, so every time I left or came back to the place I’d run up the stairs holding my breath. Now, it almost killed me. I think I was a pale green, but I was afraid to look in the mirror for fear of scaring the vomit out of me.

By the time I found the Picasso museum, I was the walking fucking dead. I was the guy in the “Thriller” video whose arm just kind of falls off. Usually I feel like the dead guy who starts doing the Robot at the end. When I got to the part of the Picasso Museum where a lot of his pen drawings are featured, I almost puked in front of a bunch of Italian tourists. I could’ve slept right there. I almost puked, but years and years of dealing with hangovers has conditioned me to not puke in a public place no matter how bad it wants to come out.

One time I went to a Sorority function when I was in college. You travel somewhere on a bus and you get really drunk and laid if you can still see straight. The thing about Sorority functions is you can go balls out, but you just can’t puke in the bus on the way back. The girl who took you to the thing will get fined and in a heap of trouble if you do. The time I went to this Sorority function, I got really, really drunk on Greyhounds (vodka and grapefruit juice). My date was unconscious and I, in a semi-conscious state, willed myself not to puke for a 40 minute bus ride back down twisty mountain roads. If you’ve ever had a ‘few too many’ a ‘few too many times’ you know exactly what I’m talking about. My brother once puked in his mouth and then swallowed it because someone was giving him a ride home and he didn’t want to puke in their car. Now that’s one tough mother!

Anyway, puking in front of Italian tourists and the magnificent works of Picasso was not in the cards for me. I got back to my room and slept it off. I was absolutely polluted. This hangover would have killed a lesser man I’m convinced. That night though, I went out til 6 in the morning. I was drinking beer. Not Voll Damm mind you, but I still got back on that horse and rode. I was sick as a motherfucker, but hey, I was in Barcelona. No time for a hangover (even as gargantuan as this one) when you’re in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. BCN is fantastic. The Gaudi architecture will blow you away. We could see the Sagrada Familia from Steve’s panty dropper. Sagrada Familia is a church that Gaudi designed in the late 19th Century and is still being built today. It’s fucking amazing though and you can go up in the towers. The rest of the city is stunning as well. The whole place has a great vibe. And while I’d suggest to definitely go and see Barcelona, please keep your Voll Damm intake to just a few.

The Best Rented Movies of 2006

If you’ve ever taken the time to listen to me in the past, you will know that I don’t go to the movies. The talking, the candy wrapper crinkling, the noxious breathing of the horrible masses…I’d rather stay at home and watch a movie with only my own noxious gases stinking up the place.

So here are some (rented) films that I enjoyed in the past year:

Waiting

What looked like cheap laughs served up in a taco shell of typical crap, was actually a funny and fairly accurate portrayal of what it’s like to work in a restaurant. Some of it was a bit fantastical (like if you have the time to play as many ball tricks as they did, your restaurant would close due to lack of business), but otherwise nailed life off of the floor.

Walk the Line

Loves me some Johnny Cash so I liked this docudrama of his life. Joaquin Phoenix was fine as Cash and Reese Witherspoon was even better as June, but at points it just seems like a made for TV movie. I don’t think it was so much the fault of the filmmakers as the subject matter isn’t dramatic enough to justify making a full blown movie. If you like Cash, well you’ve probably already seen it.

Broken Flowers

Jim Jarmusch gets Bill Murray to do a full length and with awesome results. The only bad thing I can say about this is Murray retraces his steps as the glum older man he did so well in Lost in Translation, but I think overall, this is a better film. Why Murray didn’t win a best actor award for Rushmore, let alone Lost in Translation the crime of the century. We’ve seen this before from Murray but really the story and the people in this make it such a good movie. One of Jarmusch’s best in awhile.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Greed and arrogance and the business world equivalent to the Bush administration. If only those fuckers would be found out and Dick Cheney drops dead before he goes to jail. If you don’t know this full story and want to get pissed off, watch this. Then find the nearest Halliburton office and wipe shit on their front door. Halliburton doesn’t have anything to do with this movie, but since Enron isn’t around anymore, why the fuck not?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I read the books well after I had seen the movies and while the books are of course better, this movie does a good job with the material. I liked that they didn’t dumb down the death and darker parts because they are important to the rest of the series. Overall, they’ve done a fine job bringing these to the big screen.

Match Point

Starts slow but finishes up nicely. Maybe the best part of this is the fact that Woody Allen isn’t in it, but I loved the way he pretty much points you to an inevitable conclusion and then yanks it back at the last second. If you haven’t seen it yet, forget what I just said. Scarlett Johansson plays a whiny turd and it suits her. I think she’s very overrated as an actress but she redeems herself in this one. Great viewing and very recommended.

Brokeback Mountain

I watched it and didn’t get a boner unlike some people I know (Phil L). It’s actually very good and the cinematography is incredible. The scenery is stunning and really the film should have won best picture when put up against absolute blood farts like Crash. I think the gay folk were pushing so hard for it and got a wee bit cocky about winning that the academy decided to teach them a lesson by awarding one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen (Crash) best picture. It’s too bad because despite all the hype and the jokes, Brokeback wasn’t too bad.

Good Night, and Good Luck

A good historical lesson on how all major media talking heads are complete assholes who could easily be interchanged with someone from Entertainment Tonight. Quiet and subtle and black and white.

Grandma's Boy

Kind of funny Adam Sandler type comedy (I think he produced it) with some fairly funny moments. The video game designer wunderkind who acts like a robot is pretty fucking funny. Get stoned and you’ll love it.

Akeelah and the Bee

Pleasant and uplifting. The little girl in this is great and while fairly obvious to see where it’s heading, I didn’t mind getting there.

Thank You for Smoking

Well done, witty and smart. The best part is seeing Katie Holmes…I mean Kate Cruise get her tube packed like a casing at Hillshire Farms. You’ll never see it again so watch it a couple of times.

Entourage Season 2

Kind of cartoonish but very fun look at a hot young actor’s life and his hangers on who live it with him. Really, if you’re dude who’s well past the age of this ever happening to, it’s fun to watch and dream. I would even be Johnny Drama at this point.

Big Love Season 1

Very cool and well done show about a polygamist family living in the mainstream in Utah. It’s great, makes Mormons angry and there’s tons and I mean TONS of humping. I mean, the guy has three wives so you know he’s getting it on all the damn time. Good acting and endearing characters, plus, did I mention all the humping?

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore is pretty cool. If everyone could have seen how smart and somewhat humorous he is before the 2000 election, I don’t think we would have had to put up with that destructive retard who’s in office now. Even if you don’t buy into the global warming thing, this alone is an interesting look at Al Gore himself.

The Da Vinci Code

I’m putting this in here because it wasn’t as bad as I thought it could have been. Pretty sappy, and kind of a dumbed down version of a popular theory on Jesus. I really didn’t like the whole “let’s get chased and have to escape out of an impossible situation so the plot can inexplicably move forward” thing they did like eight times throughout the movie. And why the fuck did the English grail expert have to double cross them? There was no reason for it. He wanted the truth to be exposed, so why screw them over when they were going to help him? That drove me fucking nuts….you know what? On second thought fuck this movie.

And that leads me to some of the worst shit that tainted my DVD player in the past year:

Nacho Libre

Should have called it Nacho Fastidioso which means NACHO BORING.

The Da Vinci Code

See above.

Friends with Money

Pretty much everything Jennifer Aniston is in pretty much sucks.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand

They took a movie franchise that put out two fairly good movies about some of the most interesting comic book characters to come to the big screen and completely chopped its balls off. This was so bland and awful it was like they took a plot from a Sci-Fi Channel crap-u-drama and crammed Wolverine into it. Shameful and poopy smelling.

Night Watch

Everyone raved about this science fiction/art house movie but what you need to know is that it’s Russian and seems like a pimply faced film student was given some money and he whacked off onto a movie screen. I think it’s about vampires but really I was so distracted by the ridiculous “arty” shots that it didn’t matter. Watch this only if you want a headache and want to be in a bad mood for the next week.

King Kong

This should have been called Rey Fastidioso which means KING BORING. I only bring up the Spanish name again because Jack Black was in yet another stinker. This movie is so goddamned long and boring I couldn’t believe it. And don’t forget that WE ALREADY KNOW HOW IT ENDS. At least in the 70’s version the sent F-16s after Kong and he climbed the World Trade Center. My god, you really have to be full of yourself and full of shit to make this movie.

Transporter 2

Well, Transporter 1 wasn’t very good so how could this be any better? Why did I even watch this? A monkey with half its brain missing could have written a better script than this. This is my rule for 2007: if the first movie didn’t boggle my scrotum, then I will not rent the second one no matter how much ass, car chases and gun shots are in it. It’s just not worth it.

JR

Some good tunes of 2006

Everybody’s got a list. And so do I.

These are some of the better albums that came out in the past year. These are in no particular order because, like all of you, I love them all.

Liars – Drum’s Not Dead

Crazy and creepy. Don’t know if it’s so much a concept album as it is just a stone cold freak out. Deep and disturbing and a pretty far departure from their earlier stuff.

Band of Horses – Everything All The Time

Mellow and beautiful. Fans of Sunny Day Real Estate will dig this. There are moments on this record that these guys hit that will knock your socks off.

Belle And Sebastian – The Life Pursuit

Funky and groovy. Who knew B + S could lay down such jams? There are some outright ass shakers on here (which is kind of strange for this band) and some of the usual nice ballads they are known for. The liner notes featuring the hot Scottish girls is worth it alone.

Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming

Should I keep going with two word descriptions? Probably and not. The bulk of this is pretty good, but the song “Stadiums and Shrines II” is one of the best songs released this past year.

Decemberists – The Crane Wife

I haven’t even heard this yet because the assholes who are in front of me on the library waiting list won’t hurry up and return it. I’m sure it’s good because their last one was great.

Cat Power – The Greatest

Not her “greatest” but it was still a good record. Some nice Memphis horns give her sound a little less serious vibe. But I guess I like the dour stuff, so maybe that’s why this didn’t blow my ass out. She’s still got my vote though.

Mastodon – Blood Mountain

Again, not as good as their last record, but some pretty sweet metal nonetheless. With all these indie rock wankers ‘returning to cookie mountain,’ I think I’d like to return to ‘Blood Mountain’ and battle the Cysquatch or whatever the hell it is.

Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of This Country

One more time: not as good as their last record, but I am sucker for soft voiced Scottish girls singing about their problems. And any band that tells Lloyd Cole that they’re ready to be heartbroken will have my ear any day.

The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America

Where the Killers completely failed in channeling their inner Bruce Springsteen, The Hold Steady captured Bruce in a bottle without even trying. This album is all about Kerouac, getting high and chicks. I can’t think of any better way to spend a Thursday night. Goddamn do the Killers fucking suck!

Wolf Mother – Wolf Mother

I just about wore this album out. Sleazy rock and roll with a hint of 70’s metal and absolutely no hint of irony. These guys are the real deal and when they sing about the “white unicorn” they are dead fucking serious. Put on “the Joker and the Thief” and try and tell me it wouldn’t rock Lincoln’s face off Mount Rushmore.

Slayer – Christ Illusion

Reviewing Slayer is like reviewing the Grand Canyon. You know it rules, so why bother trying to tell anyone? But if I was forced to say something, I’d tell you that Slayer’s original drummer is back on this and he’s phenomenal. I’d also tell you that these guys just keep kicking more and more ass.

The Streets – The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living

A theme: Not as good as his last album, but it’s got some good stuff on it. Skinner might need to get away from the narrative album next time. He’s too good to force the issue in keeping the story going. But what the fuck do I know? I know his last album was nearly a masterpiece.

Beck – The Information

Did Guero come out this past year too? Because if it did, Beck would have two great albums out in one year’s time. The Information is solid throughout and makes me think that Beck is some kind of a genius. Think of all those other acts that got huge during the thrilling alternative rock sweepstakes being held by major labels in the early/mid 90’s…can you name one that has been as prolific and consistently good as Beck? To the person who just had Liz Phair pop into their head: I will slap you.

Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

This took awhile to grow on me. The music that is, not their name. Their band name is one of the worst in music history. Right up there with Carrissa’s Weird (now the aforementioned Band of Horses) and Bare Naked Ladies (now dead I hope). But take the bad name away and all the hype they received and you’ve got a pretty wicked, supercharged power pop record. Give it a spin and let it grow on you like it did for me. The album, not the crappy name…did I explain that right?

Hatebreed – Supremacy

As I am a sucker for Scottish girls, I’m also a sucker for ass kicking metal/hardcore with an underlying positive message hiding under layers of aggressive doomsday crunch. This band sounds like they could have been a straight edge group at one point, but sold their souls for rock and roll while still telling the kids to never give up.

Neil Young – Living With War

Despite this record’s obvious anti-Bush message, it’s still one of the better Neil Young records to come out in awhile. Try not to sing along to “Let’s Impeach the President” and try not to smear feces on the door handle of the next SUV you see with a Bush bumper sticker. Yes, that was me.

Primal Scream – Riot City Blues

I didn’t expect anything from this. I got it from the library and wasn’t even going to load it on my ipod, but I played it in the car and was pleasantly surprised. This is a return to the bluesy, Stonesy groove the Scream seemed to abandon for their techno funk/punk of the last couple albums. Don’t get me wrong, I love Xtrmntr…or Violator or whatever it was called (“Kill All Hippies” is a classic from that record), but this made me think these guys haven’t actually died from drug overdoses like they should have.

Flaming Lips – At War With The Mystics

Not as good as their last record? Yeah, why not. One more time.

JR

Kid Rock...I hate to break this to you but....

Something had been bothering me lately.

You know how Kid Rock is getting divorced from Pam Anderson after they just got married recently? Well, I guess after he saw her bit in the Borat movie, he got all pissed off and was like "you're a whore!" She didn't like that I guess and decided to get divorced after three weeks of marriage.

What I'm wondering is, after he starting calling her a whore and the divorce papers arrived, did someone take him aside and say, "dude, I hate to break this to you, but EVERYONE has seen your wife naked. EVERYONE."

In fact, that same person might finish what he was saying by going, "in fact, EVERYONE has seen your wife boning greasy Tommy Lee. EVERYONE."

Is this like marrying Carmelo Anthony and screaming "BASKET BALL PLAYER!" Or banging Nicole Ritchie for a week and one day wake up yelling "ADOLESCENT GIRL SKELETON!"

Seems a bit obvious, but then again I don't roll with midgets.

JR

the Zune Sucks Cock Thru a Hole in the Wall

Much like when I heard about OJ Simpson's plan to release a book on how he actually would have committed the famous double murder he's accused of, I felt the same way when I read about microsoft's Zune.

And just like OJ, I said to myself about Zune: Really? Are they kidding here? Or is this what they actually have cooked up?

OJ's premise was "IF I did it, here's how I did it." Which at first I thought meant, "I didn't do it because if I was going to kill two people, I would have done it differently." But then I realized he was just telling people how he killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman without actually admitting he did it...it's a little confusing I know, but so is the Zune.

Zune is microsoft's version of the Ipod and by all accounts, it might as well be a busted up Walkman with an AM radio in it. And just like OJ, it's a bloody mess.

It looks good, has a bigger screen than the Ipod, but in trying to out do the Ipod, it falls short like a drunk fat guy trying to long jump.

Here's a great article/review on why it sucks so bad.

Basically, Zune is in league with Satan (i.e. the recording industry) because they've paid the kickbacks those vultures were demanding because Mp3 players "just have to have a lot of illegal music on them." Oh yeah? Prove it dildos. Just saying it doesn't make it true. And while I'm sure there could be a song or two acquired "illegally" (whatever the fuck that is nowadays), the RIAA should keep their laws off my Ipod.

RIAA out of my digital uterus!!! Click here for a good anti-RIAA site.

So microsoft is down with these scumbags and make you pay for it when you buy Zune or music for Zune. But that's not all!

One of the main selling points of Zune is the wireless transfer function that allows you to send songs to another user. Sounds good right? Well yeah if it worked like it should. But as we all know, the record companies don't want you sharing music. That's what they've gone on and on about for years; suing little girls and single mothers.

If you transfer a song to another person's Zune, it deletes itself after 3 plays. Great for the record companies, bad for you. This is not a good selling point. It's like getting a locked version of a computer program; you can only do so much with it.

If I want to share a song with someone, I'll just burn them a disc and they can do what they want with it. When someone gives me music, I listen, and if I like, I put it in my Ipod. Sure after sampling it three times on my Zune I could then go and ask them to burn me a copy, but that's just more hoops than I want to jump through.

I know they HAVE to do this to stay on the good side of these record company bastards, but they're using it as a great selling point when most people don't give a shit and will get around it anyway.

A buddy of mine works for microsoft and he was pretty diplomatic about it. He felt like it could be really good down the line, but then again, he was really playing up this sharing feature that doesn't mean shit to me. It's cool, but the potential of it has had its balls lopped off like a cow at the Rocky Mountain Oyster festival. Fried and delicious.

I despise the fact that this product (one that had the only shot to take a piece of Ipod's pie) is so wrapped up with the file sharing political bullshit, that it completely nullifies anything cool about it. I know they have to suck this corporate cock through a hole in the wall, but by doing that, they've guaranteed it won't be a success.

People know Ipod. They know it works. More computer savvy people know better than to deal with this and not so savvy computer people won't know how to set it up. Why buy something that doesn't work well, is confusing and gimmicky when there's already a product that works, is easy to use and does everything advertised?

It's like someone said, "hey I've got this paper that you use to wipe feces from your butthole, but instead of just using it like toilet paper, you have to run it through a special machine that activates its special feces removing properties. Then you gotta wait 10 minutes before you actually wipe your ass." Would you buy this? Not if you had to take a shit real bad.

I guess if that's all microsoft can offer, I'll stick to the Ipod. And I'll wipe my ass with a Zune. Oh and OJ can burn in hell. If someone shot him in the stomach and left him to die on the sidewalk with rats eating his eyes, it would still be too good for him. Now that would be something FOX should show on their crappy network.

JR

Winners don't do drugs, they eat them

I stumbled across this old story and figured it would be a good read. This is re-printed exactly how I typed it way back when. I had run off to Europe in early 2000 and hung out in Paris, Barcelona and then Dublin. I was posting this to the Hooligan website at the time, and while some of it is kind of embarrassing, it’s still pretty funny. Enjoy.

Travel Journal January/February 2000

This is my travel journal. Everything in here is true. Some of it is very embarrassing. This one is all about how much of a dumbass I am. Enjoy.


It’s very important to talk about my run-ins with French authorities before I leave and isn’t as fresh in my mind.

For someone who has minimal contact with law enforcement of any country, being nailed twice in the span of a week and a half was enough to last me a lifetime.

First of all, I’ll admit it right away: I’m an idiot. And when you ask, “what we’re you thinking?” I can truthfully say, “ I don’t know.”

The morning I left Amsterdam, I headed over to the net café/bar where I had been emailing, drinking beer and smoking joints for the last three days. It was located just off the Red Light District on a little tiny street which name escapes me at this moment. This place was great though. It was Fl 2.50 for 20 minutes on the ol’ intranet. That’s about 1 dollar and 25 cents to you and me. There was a smallish yet stylish bar and two pool tables in the front. It was more of a locals hangout which I always prefer. I could sip a lovely Heineken or some good coffee while toking on a fat one, chatting with my amigos half a world away. The night before, someone emailed me and asked, “what are you doing?” I replied, “why, I’m emailing, drinking a beer and smoking a joint. What are you doing?” This was great because I knew my friend was at work.

The thing was, I rolled the rest of my pot into one huge joint the night before. I figured if I wasn’t taking any back with me, I might as well smoke it all in one big shebang. The problem was, after dicking around Amsterdam for awhile, I was running a tad late to get to my train. Like and idiot, I got a really early return ticket back to Paris. After checking my email, I dashed back across the city to check out of my shithole hotel and get my 10 guilder (five bucks) deposit back for my key. It was at this point I remembered the huge joint in my pocket.

It’s key that I tell you I remembered the joint because it was all part of the plan to forget it. You see, I decided to take that pinky sized doobie back to Paris with me. Yes, this is where you ask, “what were you thinking?”

I know, I know. Don’t bring any drugs back. It’s like camping. Only leave footprints and shit like that. But I was swept up in this kind of mania that told me, “yes, you can do this!” I’ve always been such a square, I never take any chances like this. But this was a new me, and something took over that just said, “fuck your future, bring that reefer back to Paris!” At any rate, I did it. I got on the train, the joint was in my inside pocket of my jacket and away I went to France. Goodbye Amsterdam, you’re a lot of fun. I’ll see you again someday. No problem right?

Fast forward to the train station in Paris. Gare du Nord is a huge, cold train station. It’s like a big warehouse with people and trains and pigeons. It’s just like what you’d expect from a train station in the movies. And especially from one in Paris: dirty, dusty and cold as shit. As the train pulled in to a stop, I started to go through what I’d say if someone stopped me. “Oh, I forgot it was in there!” Blah, blah, blah. I really wasn’t sweating it which is unusual. Normally in the states I’d start shaking with a joint in my pocket when I saw a cop car three blocks away. But hey, this was Europe. They don’t give a fuck. But as I grabbed my coat, I smelled it: Marijuana. Strong and obvious. I’ve you’ve ever walked into a room where someone is growing pot, this is what my jacket smelled like.

Then I went into a different mode. I wasn’t scared because I think I was too dumb to be scared. My only thought was, “if I see a dog, I’m gonna ditch this joint.” The walk from the train to the station was pretty long, so I scouted ahead to see if there were any federales or checkpoints. It looked clear so I confidently made my way toward the station. Not hurried, but definitely not slowly. Like from some prison escape movie, I could practically see the escalator that would take me down to the metro. That’s when I saw the dog. It was about halfway up the walkway and my heart jumped just a bit. It was a black labrador and it looked like it was just running around the platform. And since drug dogs are always German Shepherds and things like that, I didn’t really think anything of it. The dog disappeared behind me and to the left. A quick sigh of relief came over me and I kept on walking to my freedom. But that relief came and went really fucking quickly.

The French customs guy nailed me so fast after the dog passed, I didn’t even have a chance to be relieved. To be fair, I should say the dog is the one who actually nailed me. The customs guy rattled off something in French and I switched to dumb American mode partially out of instinct, but mostly because I got caught flat-footed. You could have driven a train through my gaping mouth.

I said, “what?” And he repeated, with his badge out, “French Customs. Do you have anything to declare?” For a split second I thought it would be hilarious to answer, “just that I’m fabulous!” But then I remembered the joint. Mind you, this was happening so quickly I really didn’t even have time to shit my pants. I would’ve been handcuffed and in the back of a squad car before I could’ve squeezed out a pebble of shit or said anything so funny. Instead, I looked at the French Customs officer with the most confused looked and said, “no…?”

Just then, my friend the black lab came over to me, jumped up, and tapped his paws on my stomach. Busted. He trotted away to nail some other pot smoker. This pot smoker was screwed royally. Thinking back on it, the whole ordeal only took about 15 seconds, and come to think of it, it passed like 15 seconds too. It was a very quick, very real nightmare. Once the dog pegged me, I started to think about how fucked I was. But I also remembered how much my coat stunk of sweet, sticky reefer.

After the dog went away, I looked up at the customs guy and said, in my most convincing voice, “I’ve just come from Amsterdam. I’ve got smells on me.” Swear to fucking God I said this. I prepared for the worst, but instead of getting the worst (handcuffed and taken to of all places, a French jail), I got the best. The customs officer just waived me past and I didn’t hesitate to take him up on his offer. I was, like they say, outta there like swimwear.

I didn’t run, I took my time. And I even paused at the end of the platform to pretend like I was looking at train times to not make myself look suspicious. A guilty person would just run as fast as possible and get on a metro. Getting on the metro, I was constantly looking around to see if the cops were on my tail. Maybe they thought I could lead them to the big score. But no, I was just a stupid, asshole American and they were glad to be rid of my dumb ass. I didn’t feel safe until I was safely inside my friend’s flat. But I still felt like I was being followed. So I did the natural thing and smoked some of the weed I smuggled and tried to put it far behind me.

That was until a week later when I got pulled over for smoking a joint in a car with three people I didn’t know.

I had gone to a skate park with three guys I had just met. One was a friend of a friend and the other two I didn’t know. Actually to be fair, I wasn’t smoking the joint. It was weed with tobacco in it. And as I’ve already stated, I don’t do the tobacco thing. On the way out, they rolled one and I tried it, but couldn’t hang with the tobacco. These guys however toked up with glee.

It was on the way back from the skate park that French police pulled us over. This was somewhat outside Paris and I guess they saw the driver, a French guy named Vincent, smoking this spliff. I had the shits really bad and I thought, “great, I have to take a shit and these cops are going to hold us up.” But then they started pulling us out of the car and my annoyance quickly turned to a bit of worry. I didn’t have my passport on me and I was with three people I didn’t know very well.

One was a Greek kid named Carlos. He was friends with my friend and I had met him the week before. The other two were French and had met them about an hour and a half before. I figured they’d help me out since they knew that “Je ne parlez pa Francais.” That’s “I don’t know any fucking French” in American. But I started to sweat it a bit. Memories of my Gare du Nord run-in with the law started flooding back. But really I felt like I was in high school again. Driving around with your buddies smoking herb and having a cop pull you over. There was nothing worse than that. This was worse however, because I was in France, and didn’t speak French. I half expected the cops to recognize me from the train station and say, “Ah-ha!”

The cops started searching everyone and I began to get really paranoid. “Do I have any shit on me?” of course I didn’t, but you know how you get when this kind of thing happens. Being a paranoid delusional, I started to freak.

“Je ne parlez pa messieur,” I said as the copper pulled me out of the Citroen Festiva. He nodded to me as if to say, “yeah, yeah, you dumbfuck American.” As the cops searched me and I emptied the contents of my pockets on the hood of the squad car, I started to wonder, “where in the fuck did the joint and the weed get off to?” It wasn’t mine so I figured these veteran French pot smokers knew what they were doing. I know what I’d do, but that’s in a different country. In America they can’t just search your car like they were doing here in France. Or can they? I don’t really know anymore.

After searching the car and everyone who was in the car, and finding nothing, I knew we were in the clear. Vincent the French guy who was driving and smoking the joint at the time expressed through his body language and how he was talking to the police that everything was cool. He was French, but definitely of a Middle Eastern or North African decent. He was very cool and even though we really couldn’t communicate to eachother, he put me at ease. I even kissed a little ass and told the French cops they were much nicer than American police. Actually they are.

We got back in the car and after much spirited talking in French, Carlos, the Greek kid told me what happened. The cops saw Vincent smoking something so they pulled us over. He told them it was a cigarette but they still wanted to have a look. Before he pulled the car over though, Vincent ate the tobacco filled joint and the rest of his stash. It wasn’t much, but enough to fuck him up a bit. He took a hit for the cause I guess and I salute him for it. As for the rest of it, I’m done with France. No one speaks English and the police are too nice. Two near busts on an otherwise clean record was too much for me. Kids, winners don’t use drugs, THEY EAT THEM!

CSI Miami - Endless Caruso One Liners

CSI Miami is one of the worst shows on tv. If you've never seen it, watch this video and see how David Caruso chews up the scenery like a fat kid on a ginger bread house. Oh and the sunglasses....if a real person did this people would avoid him like herpes. It would be funny if it wasn't so fucking lame.

Always crashing in the same car

I might be stating the obvious here, but those Volkswagen commercials suck. You know the ones: people are driving along in their Volks, happily talking away to their friends, only to be blindsided by some a-hole who either pulled out in front of them or just barreled on into them like they had no brakes and were blindfolded.

They even have a commercial where two women are discussing the commercial. One says, “I think they went too far,” right before they too get hammered by an oncoming truck. They’re ok of course.

The commercials are supposed to show how accidents happen when you least suspect them and that by driving a VW, you stand a pretty good chance of surviving. That’s all in good but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that these ads will negatively effect sales of VW.

Yes, they are shocking when you see it for the first time and yes, you do remember them. That’s all a company could ask for when someone comes up with a commercial for them I guess. But in this case, I think they’ve backfired.

They didn’t “go too far” as the one woman suggests in the ad. Going too far would have been to show the driver of the other car (an American made crap-mobile) being carried off all bloody with an EMT furiously pummeling his chest. THAT would have been “too far.” I will give the creators of this ad credit though; making a reference to your own ad in another ad is pretty smart. You know somebody just had this conversation with their spouse or friend the other day and when those dullards saw the ad they felt an immediate bond with VW and probably went out and bought one.

“I was just talking to Sally about those commercials and a guy almost hit me pulling out of his parking spot at King Soopers!”



As I said, I do believe the ads get your attention, but I think in a negative way. Every time I see one of these commercials I’m constantly reminded of getting into a car accident. I’ve been in a couple gnarly car wrecks and I don’t ever, ever, ever, ever want to be reminded of those experiences.

In kind of the same way you get so stressed out in stop and go traffic, these ads don’t do what they set out to do. In stop and go traffic you’re constantly hitting your brakes and seeing red lights flash in front of you. You are in effect, narrowly avoiding dozens of mini accidents during your commute. This doesn’t give you a feeling of safety to know you avoided an accident; it really just makes you more on edge. The ad doesn’t instill a feeling of safety, it just tells you that you could be next.

The VW people want you to think you’ll be safe in an accident while driving their car. That might even be an accurate assessment, but who wants to even think about it? I know car accidents happen and sometimes they are completely unavoidable, but if I spent my life thinking about getting involved in one, I’d go nuts. I think it’s very unwise for a car company to show their vehicles involved in accidents…even if the occupants come out unscathed because deep down, the horrible sensation of being in a wreck is far stronger than consumer’s need to buy a car that’s safe. This ad works against them because while selling a safe car they still plant the seed in the driver’s head that he/she will ultimately end up in an accident….and it might not come out as nicely as it does in the ad.

I’m sure this works the opposite on some people. Some jerk sees this and thinks “I’m invincible if I drive that thing.” I mean, the commercial even kind of supports this. The crashes they get in are far more violent and jolting then the subsequent damage and condition of the people would tell you. Somebody’s going to buy one of these, get out on the road, talk on the phone, not signal, run red lights and….oh, I guess they do that anyway.

VW has made a commercial that people will talk about, but I don’t believe it will sell any cars for them. It would be like an Army recruiting commercial showing you dead soldiers because that too is a reality of serving your country. We all know that’s a possibility and they’d be nuts to use that as an advertising tool. I think the commercials that show cars narrowly avoiding an accident are far more effective because it gives the driver hope that they can avoid it while knowing that if they do happen to get in an accident, the odds are in their favor.

If you’re lucky, you’ll never get in a car accident. But it happens and hopefully you can walk away from it without any major injuries. In the meantime, I don’t want to be reminded of something as unpleasant as a car wreck. The way people drive, I get enough of that on the road every day. More hip tunes VW, and less twisted metal bum trips.

JR

You know Rush Limbaugh is a U2 fan

The best thing about the Republicans getting readily thumped in this past election wasn’t the fact that they had to admit they lost voter confidence. Sure it was great that they finally had to look in the mirror and own up to the fact that they suck and have led the country down a dead end street. That’s awesome, but it wasn’t the best thing.

And sure, getting the Democrats back in power was cool, but they’ll just fuck it up as usual. Hopefully we’ll get a few good years of economic growth out of them before they do something spinelessly typical.

No, the coolest thing about this past election was watching the rats flee the sinking ship.

Rush Limpbowel, after years of staunchly standing by his right wing assholes no matter what, finally showed some cracks in his usually rock hard, fat ass when he said, “ I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried.”

Now, of course he went on to say that conservatism was the only way and liberalism is evil, but he was essentially saying that some of these Republicans didn’t deserve his support and he was thus withdrawing it from them. His focus of this was about Immigration Reform and raising the minimum wage and how they had been let down by Republicans concerning this; because as we all know, Mexicans sneaking into this country to work are far more dangerous than CEO’s who sneak our jobs off to China. I guess once all of our jobs are in China there won’t be any work for illegal workers right? Cool.

Regardless of Rush’s drug addled ramblings, he showed me something special: Republicans and right wingers are willing to sell each other out when hard times come. I didn’t think it was possible. Literally for the last 14 years (since Clinton took office) the right wing has held a unified front. They haven’t wavered one bit in all this time. Clinton could have come up for a cure for cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s and they would have found some way to denounce him. Everything has been the fault of liberals and they’ve been pretty fucking good about convincing people of that.

In the past 6 years the right wing has done whatever they wanted. They’ve run the country into the ground, sent close to 3,000 U.S. troops and countless Iraqis to their deaths and never once did any of them break ranks. It was really impressive…in a deliciously evil kind of way.

Every day I was amazed at the arrogance and sheer brilliance of what they were doing. Here was an administration, headed by a buffoon, that was clearly doing the wrong thing by invading Iraq, yet they had such blind support from its party members and its voters that they could do no wrong.

If I had to draw an analogy, I’d compare the Republicans of the last 6 years to the career of U2:

1) Undying and somewhat justifiable unwavering support through its early incarnation: Boy, October, War, Unforgettable Fire = Bush reclaiming America for the righteous, combined with the very convenient 9/11 attacks.

2) Flashes of brilliance muddled by creeping realization that they’re losing it: Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby = Starting the war in Iraq, declaring “Mission Accomplished” as the quagmire gets murkier and deeper.

3) Then embarrassing misfire after misfire which seem cartoonish in its absurdity: Zooropa, Pop and big sunglasses = Shitty economy, ongoing Iraq war, no Bin Laden, astronomical gas prices, dumbfuck president, Christians running amok.

And during all of this, U2, just like the Bush administration, has maintained a massive fan base who would never question their motives or artistic integrity. It’s utterly amazing really. It either shows that fans of U2 and conservatism are either a) incredibly sentimental and loyal, b) are truly convinced what either are doing are brilliant despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary or c) are incredible assholes who would worship Bin Laden himself as long he converted to Christianity and spoke out against gay marriage. I think it may be a combo of all three.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like U2, but I can’t stomach the later stuff. Earlier this year I picked up “Under A Blood Red Sky” on CD (which parts of were recorded at Red Rocks, including the famous video for “Sunday Bloody Sunday”….[I was there! That’s me in the front row!...that’s what everyone used to say anyway]) and it made me rediscover why I like U2 in the first place. It still doesn’t erase the later crap they put out, but it made me despise them less.

U2’s fan base will probably never abandon them, but the Republican fan base did. Maybe it was only to send a message, but that message was so well received that a few peculiar things started to happen.

One was the Limpbowel thing. That gas bag has been such an apologist for the right wing that I didn’t believe anything could get him to say something like that. Sure, he still ripped liberals and the usual crap still dribbled out his drug addict mouth, but the mere fact that he broke rank even slightly is telling.

When gubernatorial hopeful Bob “Both Ways Bob” Beauprez lost his bid for Governor, he sounded remorseful and apologetic for how the Republicans have run the country. He of course said their way was the best, but felt they needed to try harder. It’s shocking when the arrogant and defiant are reduced to groveling and half apologizing…it’s like watching a bully beg for mercy; you’re almost too amazed to deliver the final blow.

Bush canned Rumsfeld the next fucking day! Talk about bowing to pressure. Nearly everyone in the military wanted Rumsfeld out but Bush backed him the whole way, even saying prior to the election that Rumsfeld was going to stay as long as he did. Well, he didn’t.

Firing Rumsfeld really told us two things: either he did such a shitty job with Iraq that now Bush couldn’t protect him anymore or he did such a shitty job with Iraq that Bush finally had to distance himself from him before it was too late. Regardless, Bush’s conciliatory attitude is a sign that things may be worse off than we realize.

For these arrogant pricks to act this way makes me think things are so far down the shitter that they had to immediately start making concessions because their bumbling adversaries just cut their balls off and took their parking spaces. There’s no other way to explain it. The second I heard the acts of contrition were going down I thought, “whoa, how far up the ass are we screwed?” If you’ve ever seen one of those horrible anal videos where an improbably sized penis is being crammed up some chick’s ass, you get a good idea.

It would be totally hilarious if it wasn’t so damn sad and a signal that we’re pretty fucked. By no means should the Democrats pull the plug on Iraq. Once everyone gave Bush carte blanche to do what he wanted with that middle-eastern shit hole, it was a done deal. There’s no end in sight, so make plans for your children to do a stint somewhere over there in the not too distant future.

But didn’t we all know this is how it would turn out? Bush would get what he wanted for the bulk of his term, only to have it turn out to be the nightmare that everyone knew it would? If you didn’t see it coming, you were probably distracted by a “Unite We Stand” bumper sticker, a Jesus fish, and a shameless tear jerking reminder about September 11th. But then again, those were the swing voters who ushered Bush into office in the first place and ultimately realized their mistake and voted out his cronies. That’s America for you folks, indecisive assholes who will back a winner until the wheels come off and then pretend like it never happened.

If Rush Limpbowel can pretend he’s credible and a paragon of logical thinking, I’m gonna pretend Zooropa never happened, U2 fans aren’t horribly out of touch and Bono’s just a shy kid from Dublin.

JR

Gas, Grass or Ass: I love election time

I just passed a gas station on Colorado Blvd. here in Denver and regular unleaded was a mere $2.07 a gallon. That's the lowest it has been in so long, I can't even remember the last time I saw it that cheap.

The gas station that I filled up at earlier today (at $2.13 a gallon) is now $2.11 a gallon. Literally four hours later and the same station dropped its price by two cents.

Not boggling your scrotum? Well, if not you probably don't drive because two cents, combined with the close to 70 cent drop in gas prices in the last two months should give everyone who drives cause for celebration.

It actually caused me physical and mental pain to fill up my car over the summer. Partly because it was so fucking expensive and mainly because I knew the ridiculously exorbitant (extortive?) prices were going right into the pocket of all of Bush's buddies. Arabs and fat white dudes alike, all Bush allies, were reveling in the outrageous gas prices we all paid with a whimper. There's no denying it: Bush and crew took us to the cleaners and we took it with an uneasy smile.

So what do I really wish for? I wish every day could be a time when Republicans are facing reelection where voters are pissed. That's the only reason gas prices have dropped like they have. They've gouged just about all they could out of us and now faced with getting their asses thrown out of office, someone flipped the switch to bring prices down.

I'm imagining a Price Is Right kind of game in the Oval Office where a little card board cut out a Saudi scales a glittery oil derrick signifying rising gas prices set to humorous carnival music. Once he got so high he almost fell off the top, "W" pushed a big red button and the little guy went back down the derrick; Cheney, Rumpsfeld and Bush all looked at each other lovingly and agreed, "it was fun while it lasted."

If only every day was election time.

JR

The Killers: Sam’s Town: a casino I would never go to: an album I’m glad I didn’t buy

I was just going to simply write a review of The Killers new album Sam’s Town but I was so moved by its mediocrity and the constant stream of bullshit coming out of the front man’s mouth that I had to go the extra mile. And you should know by now, that extra mile is long and hard like Madonna’s penis.

I absolutely loved The Killers debut Hot Fuss. It’s a modern day pop classic. And despite the fact the The O.C./MTV set got their nasty little fingers all over it, it stands up as a fantastic record. So I was thrilled when I had word that the band was working hard on their second album.

But then tidbits of info came dribbling in that had me concerned. First, Bono was giving The Killers advice and then singer Waylon Flowers started to open his big ugly mouth. Flowers was quoted as saying that the album they were working on (which would become Sam’s Town) was “one the best albums of the past 20 years.” When I read that, I just about shit my pants. You never say something like that and even if you truly believe it, you wait until a few more people agree with you before claiming it and looking like the fucking ego maniac you are.

Flowers couldn’t stop there. He publicly feuded with bands that were far beneath his. He made grand claims about how The Killers were better than Fall Out Boy and some other shit eaters like The Bravery. Seriously, do you have to open your mouth and claim you’re better than Fall Out Boy? That’s like stopping your car and getting out at an intersection to yell at a homeless guy about how you’ve got a job and you washed your ass today. It’s pointless. The Killers MADE one of the best records to come in the last 10 years in Hot Fuss, so why be concerned with bands (Fall Out Boy and The Bravery) that no one will remember in another 10? It all just reeks of insecurity and a fading belief that Flowers himself has talent.

Or maybe he knew Sam’s Town was going to be the stinker that it is?

He made up with Fall Out Boy rapidly before the album came out. Maybe he needed to circle his wagons to maintain maximum support for this dubious release. He kept his mouth shut…until after it was released.

The album itself isn’t a complete waste. It’s not the career killer that other heavily hyped freshman has crapped out in their sophomore effort. But it is disappointing. I again was tipped off that something wasn’t right when I heard the first single “When You Were Young.” It’s not bad but as far as the first single from the “best album in 20 years” goes, it really falters.

I didn’t pay for this album as I mentioned in the title of the post because my friend Eric (who gave me a copy of the first album) had downloaded it when it came out. He gave me a copy and I proceeded to play it non stop. After two listens, I wondered if Eric had downloaded it correctly. The song order seems horribly out of whack and I went back and checked what the correct order was online and found out that Eric had done it right. Listening to Sam’s Town, it sounds like whoever chose the track listing was either incredibly high or incredibly high on himself: looking at you Waylon Flowers.

(Note: I know his name is Brandon Flowers but I prefer to call him the gay ventriloquist whose puppet was that creepy old lady named Madame….come to think of it, I think this douche should go solo, buy the puppet from the Waylon Flowers estate and call himself Brandon Flowers and Madame. Couldn’t hurt at this point.)

Since Flowers is a Mormon, something he lets everyone within earshot know, I don’t think he was high; so I have to think he’s incredibly high on himself. If he was the one who put these tracks together, he deserves all the shit. The way this album plays is like a mixed tape put together by a deaf crack whore. It simply does not work.

There are some good tracks on here, and The Killers have come up with moments where they seem to be getting it in gear, but it’s done in by the unfortunate track sequencing and some bland songwriting…more on the shoulders of Flowers.

So the album comes out and Flowers starts to open his mouth again. He’s complaining about Green Day and their American Idiot DVD that was filmed in Britain. I think any artist that goes to another country to sell their anti-Bush sentiment is pretty cowardly. The Dixie Chicks knew they couldn’t go on stage in Texas and call Bush out, so they went to England and dissed him. Yeah, pretty radical ladies. The bulk of Europe hates Bush so you figured you had a receptive audience. That wouldn’t play here and if you did do that in America, you could have kissed your careers goodbye. The only thing that has kept them around is that they said it in another country. To me it’s completely cowardly. I love what they said, but saying it in England is like taunting someone when you’ve got three people keeping you separated. It’s just wussy.

So Green Day filmed their American Idiot DVD in England, and Flowers got all upset because he believed it was un-American because the reaction of the audience to the lyrics. First of all, I don’t need Waylon Flowers talking to me about patriotism. He should get back in the studio and make up for “the best album of the past 20 years” instead of lecturing me about being an American. Second, I would reckon that Green Day would get that reaction from their audience no matter where they played. This isn’t the Dixie Chicks who completely sold out their fan base by what they said. No, Green Day’s fans, no matter where they live, are probably down with a little anti-Bush sentiment. The fact still remains that The Killers front man is commenting on this and someone is writing it down. I’m reading it and wondering how I could be better spending my time.

It really goes without saying that this mother fucker should keep his goddamn mouth shut. I think you earn the right to talk shit and this guy has not earned anything with the release of Sam’s Town. It seems that he kept his mouth moving before it was released, then shut up for awhile as it was being released. He realized he put out a sub par second album and then decided to cover this fact up by flapping his lips again. I pay (or not I guess) to hear what this fuck head has to say on his album, not while he’s contemplating the obvious about how much Panic at the Disco sucks. If he spent half the energy he used to blow farts out of his mouth and put that into making Sam’s Town, his ridiculous grand standing might not even be an issue. When people talk shit in our society AND they deliver, we never say a word against them. It’s when they puff themselves up and deliver like a drunken 50 year old without his Viagra that we publicly flay them and refuse to buy anything they’re selling.

I think a lot people probably bought Sam’s Town thinking it was going to deliver but slowly realized (as they scanned the receipt seeing if they could return it) that it’s a lot of hot air propped up by hype and one man’s delusion that it’s the “best of the past 20 years” (I love typing that).

History should prove that Sam’s Town didn’t deliver the promise of the band’s front man. And that front man may end up being about as hollow as the puppet he will eventually call his partner when he inevitably goes solo. Thanks for fucking us in the ass and taking our money (or not).

JR

Republicans: Self-Loathing Sword Swallowers? Or Hypocritical Homosexuals?

You know, for a group of people who try so hard to ban gay marriage and obliterate any last remnant of fabulousness in our gay friends, the Republicans sure do have a lot of homos in their ranks.

It’s been said that a true marker of denial of oneself is the person who is so opposed to something it borders on the obsessive. Republicans are obsessed with the gay folk, yet they do everything in their power to stomp them out like a cigarette in Boulder (in Denver???).

But are they really as opposed to gayness as they appear to be? Something tells me that right wing closet is full and I ain’t talking about being packed with nice clothes and kickbacks.

Take House Representative Mark Foley for example. Here’s a guy who pushes the Republican agenda every day. Stands firm when gay marriage is called an abomination to God by his fellow right wingers, and casually votes for legislation that denies people their human rights because some religiously mentally ill asshole can’t fathom why two dudes would want to touch each other down there and then go buy new drapes.

The problem here is simple: Mark Foley is gay himself. He’s the jerk off that got busted for soliciting sex from teen male pages in Washington. He was caught red handed sending suggestive (as in ‘I want to pork you soon’) IM’s to one of the teens and now the Republicans are scrambling because once again, it shows us just what cocksuckers (not the good kind) they are.

Once this all came out, Foley suddenly had an alcohol problem and was being treated for that and mental illness. Now normally I’d be outraged at the mental illness claim because saying someone who is gay has a mental illness is just bullshit. But Foley was co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus and that to me just stinks of not only evil, but crazy as well. If anyone would know something about how to exploit a child, it would be this creep. Maybe he is crazy. This would be like finding out that John Mark Karr was the janitor over at the local KinderKare. Regardless, they had to make it look like this guy had a problem. It’s the alcoholism that I don’t buy.

I think Republican leaders like Dennis Hastert needed something else to blame other than Foley’s unholy thirst for boy butt. So he chose alcohol. If this guy was doing this stone cold sober, who in their right mind would have any mercy on these jerks when the elections roll around next month? Certainly the bible beaters who routinely vote these assholes in would need to think that alcohol (along with Satan) was what made this guy do these things and not that he was just a sick fuck like all the rest of his cronies. Maybe they would need alcohol themselves just to get to the voting booth. Maybe they need some alcohol to cope with all the young men they’ve sent to their deaths in the asshole of the world too.

One funny thing about this is Foley has been replaced on the ballot in Florida (Amazing! He’s from Florida!) by another Republican candidate, but Foley’s name will stay on the ballot. So to vote for the new guy, you have to vote for the gay child molester. Good luck.

So of course the Republicans have circled the wagons. Hastert (who looks like a big, fat child molester himself) has said that Foley’s actions were “vile” and that he “deceived” his colleagues. Sure. Like you didn’t know this guy was gay. I’m sure all of the gay Republicans are on file somewhere and their microchip sends a signal if they walk into one of several DC gay bars. This just reeks of a way to assure their voting base that they don’t put up with these faggoty-antics. But they do put up with these faggoty-antics, because in the real world there are gay people. To the people who vote for them however, they don’t exist, so people like Hastert have to make good so he can keep his job.

So this begs the question: Are the Republicans total and complete fucking hypocrites for allowing a gay person in their ranks when they’ve promised their base they will do everything in their power to snuff them out? Or are they being dishonest to the people who voted them in by letting gay Republicans go hog wild like Mario Cantone backstage at and especially oily performance of “Thunda From Down Unda?”

The Republican party did make a lot of promises regarding the gayer sex. They promised to ban gay marriage because, well, some 2,000 year old book may or may not have said anything about it. They subsequently won’t listen to anything regarding gay adoption because, well, there just aren’t any unwanted kids anymore. I proposed a compromise to Republicans a couple of years ago, but they didn’t bite. It went like this: I’ll let you ban abortions if you let gay couples adopt. That way all of these unwanted babies who will eventually turn into society’s problem will have a loving home to go to that will be tastefully decorated. I’m kidding really. I would never grant them that wish and I think most gay guys would be happy not to adopt if that was the alternative.

You can see the problem the right wing is faced with here. They made a lot of crazy promises about the gays, but it seems that their party is absolutely rife with them. You’d think they’d have a little more style but they don’t. I’m sure they tell their Republican Gays to “tone the gay down by 100% when you’re not trolling for teenage boy on the internet.” The president can’t understand it; why harass young boys when there are so many women to assault?

The Democrats are complete pud-pullers. You’ll never hear me argue that they are better than the fuckwad Republicans. But at least they pretend to like the gays and let them roam free through the halls in Washington. It’s ironic that the Dems are painted as allowing “deviant lifestyles” when really they just let their gay folk be themselves. It’s the Republicans who are fostering the “deviant lifestyles” because let’s face it, I don’t care who you are or what sexual orientation you happen to be, trolling for teenagers is just plain wrong.

There are countless people out there who will let you stick any number of things up whatever orifice you choose and they just happen to be adults. If you gotta go for the teenagers and the kids, you got a serious fucking problem; one of which may or may not be alcohol.

The Republicans sell you “anti-gay” but let gay guys do whatever they want to their interns. What else have they sold us they are not following through with? If you believe that “No Child Left Behind” means that Mark Foley is going to watch out for the kids, I’ve got some real estate in Fallujah I’d like to sell you.

JR

I don't want anything to do with bringing SEXYBACK

Why in the world does anyone give two shits about Justin Timberlake? Have we as a nation forgotten that this is the same whiny asshole from N’Stync? Have we forgotten that this guy just flat out sucks? Well let me refresh your memory.

Justin Timberlake is the classic, “I’m a lame-ass but for some reason everyone has forgotten that bit of information” guy. He’s the dude who slipped in to the hot Hollywood party when he wasn’t invited to. He’s the guy who got free tickets to the football game on the 50, but doesn’t really like football. He’s the person, as hard working Americans, we are supposed to loathe. The only difference between him and Kevin Federline is that Timberlake actually gets up there and earns his money. But he earns it because dumb fucks all across this great country are throwing it at him.

I don’t listen to a lot of pop radio, but typically, if there’s a song that’s hot, you will hear it eventually. Those kinds of songs, even if they suck, will somehow make it to your earhole, even while you’re avoiding it like a Robin Williams movie.

I never heard any of the so-called “hits” off of Timberlake’s first solo album (solo from N’Stync remember) Justified. Not once did I even get one note of “Cry Me A River” or whatever clownish dance pop he cooked up with the help of very capable studio gurus. And what that says to me is that it wasn’t very good. Sure it might have sold a lot of records, but for the simple fact that I never heard a note makes me think it couldn’t have been as good as everyone said it was. And just so we’re clear, I’m stoked that I didn’t hear any of it. I’m as stoked as an anti-abortion activist, tightly binding his balls with an extension cord while watching violent porn. That stoked.

So I get back to the question at hand: why is Justin Timberlake not only popular, but relevant as well? For one, he’s white. And in this day and age of the hip hop star, record companies, media outlets and white people with money who are tired of the “thug” image, want a fresh faced white guy to succeed. Sure, Justin just rips off black music to achieve his aim, but he’s white nonetheless.

I’ll concede that he’s talented; he can sing and apparently he can dance up a storm, but he’s being propped up for the simple fact that people in the music business feel the need for a “great white hope,” which is a racist tag anyway.

All of the other white guys involved with popular music are not playing R+B based tunes. They are your Fall Out Boys and Panic at the Discos that, wholeheartedly suck, but won’t get near the kind of record sales that ol’ Justin will do. The aforementioned bands, spend way more on hair cuts and hair product than what it takes to make their actual music, so the profits are slim at best. Timberlake has curly hair so that could be how he’s managed to stay afloat in this mostly African-American pop music scene.

Timberdick bridges the gap between pop and R+B and he doesn’t look like he’ll steal your car while doing it. Parents eat this up and this directly affects how many more records he will sell.

If the music he makes didn’t fully suck dead hobo ass, I’d give him his due. But from what I’ve seen, if the music was any good, combined with how popular he appears to be, it would be playing out of every speaker for miles around. They would install speakers in every dead soldier’s coffin coming back from Iraq and blast his music because it’s just that damn good. But alas, I will probably never hear it. That in of itself is a good thing, but I can’t help but think the American public has, yet again, been duped into liking something that couldn’t stand up on its own without the aid of a good looking white kid who can dance well enough that you forget how shitty the music is.

I don’t know where SEXY went in the first place, but is JT really bringing SEXYBACK if no one actually hears it? I think Mr. Timberlake had better keep cashing every check thrown his way because it can’t go on like this forever. But then again, Guns N Roses has been promising Chinese Democracy since the late 70’s and no one has pulled the plug on that ridiculous freak show. Come to think of it, Axl Rose has those bad corn rows, so maybe there is a correlation to white guys with their shitty faux black guy hair and longevity in the music business. Something to ponder. Somewhere JC Chasez is quietly contemplating having a plastic surgeon make him look like Flavor Flav.

Here’s some actual good music I’ve been listening to:

Been listening to some pretty good tunes lately. But before I get to that I want to remind everyone that I usually get my stuff from the library these days, so calling the music “new” isn’t very accurate. I’m sure for some of you some of this is old news, so let’s just dispense with posts regarding how out of touch I am. I know how out of touch I am.

The first thing that blew my ass away is the Wolfmother album. Man that record rules. It’s like a 70’s rock masterpiece that could take a turn into the ridiculous ala the Darkness, but never does because the jams are just that sweet. I would imagine this would be the album Sabbath would make today if they were young and full of cocaine.

And while I’m in the metal mood, the new Slayer is also worth your time. Christ Illusion rejoins Slayer with its original drummer and the results are fantastic. I really enjoyed the last Slayer album, and this is about as good, but the drumming stands out immediately. I don’t know if it’s a more “organic” sound, but that mother fucker hits the skins like no other. On one track (Catatonic), it sounds like he’s forging a plus 5 Broad sword from a furnace in Mordor. There are a couple of misfires, but for the most part, Christ Illusion rips.

The DJ Spooky/Trojan Records collection is very good as well. It’s two discs of reggae, ska and such, selected by DJ Spooky and it’s a pretty good throughout. Most times, collections like this don’t do it for me because I might have a lot of the stuff on here, but a good portion of this was stuff I don’t own so it was nice to have it in one place.

And speaking of reggae, awhile back I got the Max Romeo: Open the Iron Gate 1973-1977 album which is just phenomenal. Romeo’s got a great voice and the reggae is simple and stoney. A couple of songs have “versions” tacked on to the ends of the regular track, which is cool. I played this thing to death a couple weeks ago.

One record I cannot understand why is so popular is the Gnarls Barkley bullshit the media beat us over the head with for the last couple of months. Oh it was popular in England, but that doesn’t mean shit. The British, although purveyors of very fine music, can also get behind a turd if someone told them it smelled good enough. They like some shit over there (just like us I guess) and Gnarls Barkley is some bona fide shit. I got this from the library, put it on my ipod and started to mow the lawn while listening to the first couple of tracks. I was bored silly by the first song so I fast forwarded to the big hit “Crazy.” Well call me crazy, but “Crazy” sucks. It’s kind of catchy but overall just a bland pop song that I can imagine might be alright if you’re hanging out by the pool, but did it really deserve the hype that it got? No. Once I got to the cover of the Violent Femmes song “Gone Daddy Gone,” I turned it off. Absolute crap….but that’s the English way!

Been listening to the latest Neil Young album, Living With War. I’m a pretty big Neil fan so I’m pretty open to everything he does. Living With War is pretty good even if you leave out the anti-war/Bush message that pervades it. But I’m really glad he made this record because no one else did. Some of the songs delve into the goofy because he’s trying to get a point across by mentioning certain things Bush has done. For instance, in “Let’s Impeach the President,” which is kind of a fall anthem for me, Neil starts talking about Bush cracking down on steroids, “after he sold his own baseball team.” As a lyric, it doesn’t really work, but as anti-Bush tidbit, it’s great. The album has an anti-war, anti-Bush bent throughout but it works well as a Neil Young album and it’s been playing in my head for the last couple of weeks.

That’s about it for now, feel free to let me know about any music you might think I’d like. No Sufjan Stevens please.

JR

Daniel Snyder: The Stink of Failure

If you don’t know who Daniel Snyder is, good for you. He’s a repellant, rich asshole who owns the Washington Redskins. As if the name of the team wasn’t racist and divisive enough, Snyder makes them ten times worse simply by who he is.

Snyder is the fat rich kid who everyone used to tease; the geekiest of the geeks even got to make themselves feel better by tormenting this sad sack of shit. But he’s rich and it’s the only reason anyone takes him seriously. There was a fat rich kid who used to hang around the skate shop I worked at in high school. He was just a dorky kid who everyone hated but his family owned a restaurant and the prospect of free food always kept me from letting some of the kid his age from beating him senseless. This kid was annoying and a social retard and I’m sure he’s 10 times more wealthy than I am right now, making people’s lives hell just because he can.

Well, that fat bastard is all growed up now and his name is Daniel Snyder. I don’t know where Snyder made his money, but he’s got a shit load of it. He bought the Redskins in 1999 because you know, like a spoiled little asshole, he had to have a football team. I have to come clean and say I hate the Redskins. I think their name is ugly and racist, it’s an east coast team of which its fans are arrogant and delusional and if you believe ESPN, everyone loves them. Well, not me.

My hatred for the Redskins grew when Snyder took the team over. His bloated face and open wallet just screamed “I want to buy myself a Super Bowl!” But it never happened. Not yet anyway, and thank god. Snyder has thrown more money at this losing team and has gotten nothing in return but quick playoff exits and better yet, no playoffs at all. The best thing I can say about the team is that the Broncos have shipped their malcontents to them and have received quality players in return. If you had to play for that dick, wouldn’t you be happier somewhere else? Anyone who can make Broncos owner Pat Bowlen look like Andy Griffith has got to be a serious dickhead.

Snyder’s blank checks are now the notorious stuff of legends in the NFL. He’s spent more and got less than pretty much every team in the league. And that suits me fine.

Now, here’s why you may have heard of Daniel Snyder: he’s the guy who snapped up Tom Cruise’s contract once Paramount dumped him like Flavor Flav dumps fat chicks. Once Cruise became available, Snyder jumped at the chance to have him on his roster…not the Redskins roster…they don’t have room for a 5’6” ego maniac who can’t play football…that role is already being played by Snyder.

Cruise signed a two year development deal with Snyder’s brilliantly named “First and Goal” company that will provide financing for future Cruise films. Cruise’s films haven’t been taking it in like they used to and Paramount, faced with dwindling tickets sales and the high cost of paying Tom, decided to pull the plug. The fact that the actor went on a career killing publicity rampage last year probably factored in as well.

So in comes D Snyder (no, not DEE Snyder, but I wish!) to save the day. And just like his football team, he over pays for an underperforming superstar because, a) he can and b) he’s an utter douchebag who really doesn’t understand sports, movies and apparently business in general. Like I said before, I’m not sure how or where he made his money before becoming owner of the Redskins, but it’s a fucking miracle he actually did based on what he’s done over the last 7 years.

And that’s why Tom should be worried. If Daniel Snyder has come calling it means two things, 1) you will get paid like a motherfucker and 2) you can forget about winning anything ever again. In Tom Cruise’s world this isn’t a good thing because he already has tons of money, yet craves the critical acclaim that has eluded him thus far. Academy Award Tom? Not a chance with Dan Snyder propping you up.

His movies will continue to make less and less because the bloom is now off his Xenuian Rose. Partly because of his off screen antics, but mainly because people now see him as that pretty face who can’t really act but is thrust upon us in large, extravagant films that couldn’t be bad if they spent all this money right? Right.

He’s the rich man’s Ben Affleck and now the movie going public is sick of him. Enter stage left Dan Snyder to run up and hit him in the face with a fist full of cash hoping some of it will stick and not wash down the drain just like his Redskins payroll for nearly the last decade.

Cruise and his baby’s momma Kate Cruise (some of you may remember her as the actress Katie Holmes) made an appearance at the latest wonderful Redskins defeat in Washington last week. There was Cruise, his fake smile looking more and more painful as he forced his lips into that trademark phony grin. His career is now over. It’s official and you can smell it. The Stink of Dan Snyder, the Stink of Failure is now the one thing Cruise’s Scientology won’t be able to “clear” away.

JR