Televishit

No Instanet at home means I can't fall asleep listening to prank phone calls, studying the Encyclopedia Dramatica, or constantly refreshing Michelle Branch's website in hopes that she announces more tour dates. That, plus the unfortunate combination of being illiterate and having acute Netflix constipation, I am now forced to pass out while shitty television "entertains" me.

Luckily, I've been completely exhausted lately, so it doesn't take much to knock me out. I have managed to catch some awesome episodes of SVU and CI, but USA and their Law and Order loving ilk have been feeding me too many repeats. I have to say though, the combination of Law and Order repeats and caffeine-free Coca-Cola is conducive to my creative process. I seem to be able to write a lot of music whenever Goren's professionalism is under suspicion by his friends and foes.

I can only handle so many Law and Orders in a row though, so eventually, I have to flip away and see what the rest of the television world has to offer. It ain't pretty, though.

FrankTV - The Frank Caliendo show. Basically just a bunch of impersonations, which is half of everything I already hate about Saturday Night Live (the other half is the musical "comedy"). Do I need to see another parody of Inside the Actors' Studio? Do I need to hear more Bill Clinton womanizing jokes? Who gives a shit? He doesn't even really look like he's having fun.

Baywatch - Some weird new channel called ION started airing this after The Drew Carey Show occasionally, but I can't seem to get a grasp of its official airtime. Along with a billion other Erfflings, I used to watch Baywatch on syndication in the early 90's. It was instant camp (and it usually aired after WWF). Back then I knew it was so bad that it was good, and it's even worse/better now. The music montages average at a whopping 4 per episode! And the outro is usually a Hasselhoff tune, such as "Current of Love":

Like a ship that's tossed out
On the ocean
We get caught up swimmin'
In the motion
Hearts were sailing, love was on
The right track
Got out so far that
We can't get back
But darlin we can't
Let our hopes go down
It's tough to find out were
There's solid ground

You've gotta reach out
Take hold of my hand
You've gotta reach out
Till you're safe on dry land
You've gotta hold on
Baby never give up
You've gotta reach out
When you're caught in the current of love

I would continue to sing Baywatch's praises right now, but BLOGGER IS BEING A CUNT AND I CAN'T ESCAPE ITALICS. I swear, Blogging should be the simplest fucking thing in the world. But here I am, typing in a white box that can only handle 14 lines because it's a sixth of the size of my fucking screen, I can't post giant pictures, and I can't unitalicize my god damn text. Simple text and simple images... and it's gotta be mutilated. I have to go and copy something from before when it worked, paste it below, and then go from there. Eighteen motherhumping steps to do one douchebag thing.

AND IT'S NOT WORKING. I WOULD KICK SOMETHING, BUT I'M NOT WEARING MY STEEL-TOED BOOTS TODAY BECAUSE I DECIDED THAT I'M GOING TO WEAR SNEAKERS TO WORK ON FRIDAYS BECAUSE WE USED TO HAVE "DRESS DOWN FRIDAYS" WHERE EVERYONE WAS ALLOWED TO WEAR JEANS BUT I DIDN'T PARTICIPATE BECAUSE I DON'T WEAR JEANS, AND NOW THEY'VE INSTITUTED "BUSINESS CASUAL" ATTIRE FOR EVERY DAY (NOT JUST FRIDAYS) AND I STILL REFUSE TO WEAR JEANS, SO WEARING MY SNEAKERS WITH THE DEMONS ON THEM IS MY WAY OF STICKING IT TO THE MAN, EVEN THOUGH THE MAN IS WEARING JEANS AND IS ACTUALLY LESS UPTIGHT THAN I AM.

FUCK YOU BLOGGER. (WHY DO I FEEL LIKE THAT'S THEIR RESPONSE TOO?)

Why I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton.

Time for a barely political (and potentially unintelligible) rant.

I spotted this "news item" earlier this week:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Call her a Honky Tonk Woman: Hillary Rodham Clinton is a big fan of the Rolling Stones.

Speaking to reporters aboard her campaign plane Sunday morning, the Democratic presidential contender said she was eager to see "Shine a Light," the new documentary about the legendary rock band that was directed by Martin Scorsese and opens Friday.

Clinton said she attended her first Stones show as a high school senior in 1965, and has been a few times since. She praised Mick Jagger, the band's 64-year-old lead singer, and said she admired his work ethic.

"If you go to a Stones concert today and I have been, it's just amazing," Clinton said. "He has this incredible presence. He is very disciplined, he works out, and he's incredibly devoted to what he does."

I will tell you everything that pisses me off about this article in chronological order.

1. I read this in USA Today. This news is not news. This is kindling.

2. I will not call Hilary a "Honky Tonk Woman." The title of the song has absolutely no relevance to the rest of the article, Hilary Clinton's campaign, or Hilary Clinton's life, unless she's planning to soon be a "divorcee in New York City" looking to blow a rock star.

3. I still don't know how to spell Hilary's name. It's two L's. Why can't I remember that? Bill. Hillary. Bill. Hillary. Ok done.

4. Hillary is a big fan of the Rolling Stones? Is this an Onion article? A million other knuckleheads are Rolling Stones fans too. Fuck them all. I'm not voting for any Rolling Stones fans.

5. Did reporters bring up the Rolling Stones with Hillary, or was it the other way around? Were they just hangin' around smokin' butts, rappin' about their Top Fives? Or was this 100% calculated? I'm guessing the latter. Which reporter said "Oh shit, Hillary's saying something that unhip people may consider 'hip!' Let me get my steno pad and my astronaut pen out and write this down!!! The only thing that could make this article better is more exclamation points!!!! PULITZER!!!!!!!!!"? How do you sleep at night? You are literally a fucking tool. And I literally mean that literally, hole of the ass.

6. Campaign plane. Urbane birdbrain.

7. What was I doing two Sundays ago? Hmm.... Oh, I woke up early and made Belgian Waffles. Film at 11.

8. Ah. Now we've come to the beef and tomatoes. This brief is a commercial. Actually, two expensive commercials in one sentence. Vote for Hillary, go see the Stones documentary. One of these FKRs (BTW, those are WallyChung.Com's Big Buck Hunter high-score initials) paid the other one a lot of money for this BS. Or maybe this was a big AP-Hillary-Jagger threeway. Another boomer fantasy that we all get stuck trying to clean up. Or just blogging about. Oh, generation gap.

9. So Hillary has seen the Rolling Stones a few times in 40+ years. I suppose that makes her a big fan. I wonder how many of those times she's actually paid for face value tickets. Those greedy bozos charge hundreds of dollars for their fake electronic light show, then double the price every year. And then people like Hillary Clinton think they're getting they're getting street cred and an experience of a lifetime just by showing up with their ticket stub. Here's an impression of me: "Oh you went to a Stones show recently? Sucker." PEOPLE, STOP FEEDING THE STONES. They are not Rock 'n' Roll--they are a business model. They are neon nostalgia. Hillary admires Mick Jagger because he has the amazing ability to sell what was cool years ago to a new audience every 4 years they go on tour. Sound familiar, politician?

10. I won't lie though, I am impressed that she saw them in '65. Sort of. Here's another impression of me "Oh, you went to a Stones show in '65? I hope I get Social Security someday." Rolling Stones are so safe though. I mean, I feel like they made fun of George Bush on one of their last unmemorable albums, but big fucking deal. The Stones are innocuous. Nobody cares if you went to a show that marihuana cigarettes may have been at anymore. You weren't being edgy. Maybe if she saw Marilyn Manson or Rage Against the Machine I'd pepper up without even firing off a blog about her being a fake goth or a frat boy.

In summary, I hate politicians, reporters, and rockstars. If Obama starts talking about Kanye West next week, I'm voting Republican.

Here's a news article I'd like to see:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Call her a "Local" Girl: Hillary Rodham Clinton is a big fan of Local H's "California Songs."

Drunkenly ranting to gawking hipsters last "Thirsty" Thursday, the Democratic presidential contender said she was eager to go home and track down a bittorrent of "California Songs" by Local H, a 2-piece band from Chicago that predates The White Stripes.

Clinton said she loved "Bound for the Floor" the first million times it was on the radio in 1996, and assumed they broke up after that album. She credited Wikipedia for having a well-maintained article on the band that helped her explore their continued discography.

"I read the lyrics to 'California Songs', and they're just amazing," Clinton said. "He makes fun of California the whole time. And then he says 'Fuck New York too.' I don't care if they still kinda sound like Nirvana.. they fucking rule, man!"

KARMIC CRIME SPREE RAMPANT

I do a lot of nice things for a lot of people. It's part of my job. I'm supposed to be pro-actively helpful, consistently selfless, and most importantly, as Patrick Swayze taught me in Road House, I need to be nice:

All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice. If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal. - Dalton

And even though I'm getting paid to be helpful, I still venture outside of my scope of expertise to be of assistance to colleagues and vistors. This extends outside of work too, because it's hard to turn off my problem-solving switch. At Shop Rite yesterday, I committed not one, but two random acts of kindness. I saved an unattended SVU from getting smashed by a runaway BJ's cart blown by a windy act of god. (For anyone keeping score, I just said "BJ" and "blown" in the same sentence and neither referred to a sex act. See, I can be mature sometimes.) And while inside, a very short older woman asked me to fetch her a box of cavatelli from the top shelf. Despite being a troll-sized pasta-hungry ro-beast myself, I complied graciously.

Bob Odenkirk explained, "Charity is when you do something for people while other people are watching," but I'm not telling you about my goodidity because I want a pat on the back. I'm just building you up for the abrupt change in tone that's about to occur before this sentence ends YOU UNAPPRECIATIVE MANIPULATIVE MOTHERFUCKING ERFFLINGS.

Ahem, more celebrity quotes to support my argument... Swayze further clarifies his stance: "I want you to be nice... until it's time to not be nice." I had to heed this caveat in the 4th act of my grocery shopping tragedy last night. I had just gotten in line for the express line (FYI - I only buy what I can carry in a basket) and was counting my items to make sure I was safe for the 10 items or less lane (I was at 10 exactly), when an old lady crosses in front of me and says "excuse me." I think nothing of it, as Shop Rite is horribly organized. The express lanes are usually pretty busy at that time of day and shoppers that have just entered the store often need to cross the lines to get to the pile of baskets that the slacker employees have no plans to replenish at the actual entrance. So I excused her. But she didn't pass through. She just totally cut in front of me.

And this was the second time in two weeks that I got cut by a fucking slag using the same exact technique. I was at Academy Records & CD's for checking out the used bins. After opting not to buy the first two seasons of Penn and Teller's Bullshit on DVD, I moved over to the tall rack over by the entrance and starting Kellering* the spines up and down. People are coming in and out the door there so I am frequently being interrupted. Whatever, that comes with the turf. I return to humping the racks. A middle-aged woman comes over and says "excuse me," and naturally I back up so she can head out the door. Wrong. She just wanted to get in front of me and look at the CD's before I did. I didn't speak up and give her a piece of my mind because she smelled like schizophrenia and I didn't want to cause a disturbance with the force in such a tiny place. I put down my Sunny Day Real Estate CD and just got the fuck out of there instead, vowing to never return on a Sunday.

This old broad yesterday didn't seem mentally ill in any way, just oldie-farty. Confronting a senior citizen is not the easiest thing to do, so again, I remained tight lipped, but I determined that now was the time to not be nice. She plopped her three items on the conveyor belt and grabbed a tabloid to read while waiting. I cramped her items' personal space with my lasagna ingredients, and didn't use a separator. Gasp! The line quickly moved and of course she decided not to buy the tabloid, but because I was up her ass, she couldn't reach the spot where she swiped it from in the first place. She had to put it down on the belt and the clerk started to swipe it. The woman then said she didn't want it. The clerk (now slacking in my favor) said "Well, you have to put it back. I don't know where it's supposed to go." What ever will she do? Don't look at me, cutter, cutter, peanut butter. I'm not helping you out now. Normally, I do not have this cold of a heart, but I have to draw my passive-aggressive line in the sand somewhere, don't I? Finally, the diplomatic chick behind me grabbed it and put it away for her. Sure, I look like the uncaring asshole, but I'm satisfied with my track record of charity. I'm sorry, but this is my new zero tolerance policy when it comes to line cutting infractions. You are lower than an A-Hole and worse than a B-hole. You are an F-minus-Hole and you will no longer get any forgiveness from this bleeding heart.

Unless you let me fuck you up a wall after my shift at the Double Douche.



Have a Bad Good Friday.

Oh, speaking of going to hell...

Keller - verb. To peruse items using
your finger as a placeholder.

PS - This will be Urban Dictionary's last chance with my words. My previous submission "Ndredth Degree" was cancelled in the editor selection process which coincidentally pissed me off to Ndredth Degree. If I don't see Kellering in the UD lexicon within a week, I'm going to burn down their fucking offices. Unnumnnummummm! and/or BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

My hatred of pants knows no bounds.

I have been broody and depressive for days. Finally, fucking finally, this enervating phase is passing. Luckily for both you and I, there is always a silver lining in every hideously mutated cloud who's anus is bleeding. I have re-discovered yet another box of comic books from my youth in NM, and since all I've been doing is lying in bed with the heater on reading comic books...well let's just say, that I've stumbled back across some real "treasures" here. I admit that a pre-teen's taste is questionable hence the secret shame of owning every Power Pack ever or being the owner of the complete Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld series plus knowing her connection to Mordru. If you are not a comic book nerd, then I have just typed a bunch of words that mean nothing to you, and if you are a comic book nerd, you are laughing at me. Because that shit is AWFUL and pretty fucking girly to boot but 'twatever' on you; I am a girl and a princess.

Hearken unto me my subjects, because I seem to have found something worse than even my previous terrible pre-teen fantasy lusting --posters of the Lost Boys, INXS, and Sebastian Bach on my wall back then--, a story that, possibly, could be DC's worst mini-series ever: Conqueror of the Barren Earth. I think I had purposely blocked out this whole storyline; I found it that disturbing as a young girl. It all starts off so promisingly as one of those back-of-the-book mini-stories in Warlord, and then gets its own mini-series and descends directly to what is perhaps my personal 4th ring of HELL, the misogynistic ring of scifi/fantasy doom. The realm of Slavegirls of Gor and wenches and women being treated like chattel, and that *always* ALWAYS gets my goat. I liked Red Sonja, and Conan's chick, Belit, the Pirate Queen because they were bad-asses. They were not the norm in their societies; they were strong women who kicked ass and fought with swords. You had to beat Red Sonja in fair combat before her goddess would let her have any kind of sexytime hanky panky, and NO ONE could beat Red Sonja in fair combat, not those vampires, the plant dude, or even Conan managed it. True, Sonja did wear a chain-mail bikini, but she could drink any man under the table, manhandled the occasional wench a bit, and admitted her armor chafed. My kind of woman. I'm not wild about her genesis story being a casualty of war/gang bang victim's revenge tale, but she is both a survivor and a warrior. I guess it could be worse. Red Sonja has a mad on for the world, and it's understandable. This is old skool Red Sonja, and possibly the best Red Sonja cover ever combining unicorns, demons, insects, dragons, wizardry, swords, and BOOBS in one giant sucker punch of fantasy.


This is Red Sonja: She-Devil With a Sword not the new namby-pamby porn face of doom Red Sonja. Check out the boots here; for some reason I have always loved her odd leather garter/boot ventilated footwear system and am always on the lookout for a pair. Unfortunately, I have come here not to praise Sonja, but to bash Jinal Ne' Comarr (tho' I LOVE superfluous apostrophe's in names) would-be Conqueror of the Barren Earth.

The Barren Earth is our planet Earth, just the used-up, dried-up version of the future. It's a dessicated world that's a cross between Dune and Tattooine, complete with lizard people, mutants, floating cities, spore people who worship mushrooms aka the Mulge and barbaric humans in cloaks and headbands (natch). Sweet. Our heroine, a middle-management translator type from the civilized human-conquered universe that long ago fled the 'ole homeworld hellhole, has come to Earth in a spaceship looking for an ancient army or weapon or some bullshit to fight the alien Qlov who are attempting to wipe out humanity. PS. She also has a sun-sword ala Thundarr the Barbarian. Everyone else on her ship either dies when the ship crashed or gets summarily eaten or murdered in the first few pages. All but Jinal Ne' Comarr a woman who needs no pants in space, or any pants ever for that matter. Go cloaks! Fuck pants. No seriously, fuck you and your pants.




Jinal is also a chronic mouthbreather which does her no favors with me. Apparently, this mission she went on (to the Barren Earth) was pretty much immediately recognized as a bad idea; this red-haired senator lady up above us is basically organizing a rescue mission like 2 days after they left or something which begs the question of why go at all then in the first place? WHY? Who cares? It's all about survival on the Barren Earth and the freedom to go without pants. See what I mean about the mouthbreathing? She always looks like she's ready to suck a dick and luckily she seems to always be knee level. Ugh.

I'd show you some more artwork and lead you through the story, but seriously the art is all terrible and visually boring and the storyline is pretty standard. Girl is trapped in a post-apocalyptic dystopia; she is searching for a weapon and a way home. She must survive and roam the deserts and tame the BARREN EARTH. There's lots of battles with guns and swords, and everyone is riding around on giant lizards trying to fight the Mulge (fungus people), the Harahashan (lizard people), and Zhengla, the jaundiced and vaguely Asian barbarian war king.
Of course Jinal ends up at his feet with her damn mouth open. Of course. Woman, do not give him ideas! He has mushrooms growing out of his head. I shudder to think of what horror lies behind the smelly crotch fur. Smell the glove Jinal. Smell the fucking glove! As you can imagine, this bodes ill for our intrepid heroine.


Luckily for Jinal, Zhengla has always wanted a golden-haired warrior Queen to ride at his side. He likes that she's feisty and knows martial arts and never wears pants. They wrestle a bit.

Until she is his by right of conquest (his words not mine). Ick, your mushroom horns are freaking me out. Just wait 'til we find out how he got those fucking nightmare things. It is, a wrongness all the way around. I promise you.

There is a money shot in every comic book, a splash page that is really supposed to wow you. Here comes the money shot:


Yeah. Whee. Big lizard in my backyard. Panties totally dry. Plus, the cliche of axe-throwing betrayal under the cover of a fight, but (of course) he turns and grabs the axe out of the air and throws it back killing Jinal's mount. Of course, he does. Those magic mushroom horns give him magic(k) powers and + 25 reflexes. Now she has to walk (the horrors), and where once she was a Queen...now she is a slave.


Being a slave involves lots of interesting career choices: walking, sitting at knee level, pouring things, wearing stupid outfits, getting smacked around, and being traded to mulge people for horrible sexual favors involving spores (my mind's eye it is evil). The possibilities are endless! It's like Jinal's been training for this her whole life.

Oh Jinal, you too can be USED. Seriously, this shit is ripped straight from a Harlequin Romance, and it makes me rage-y. Jinal, sweetie, you have a napkin on your head and a great many superfluous belts attached to your bikini top and your billowy crotch protector (still NOT pants as far as I am concerned). He has to sleep sometime doesn't he? Stick a hatpin in his ear and be done with it. You are the worst warrior woman ever. NEVER SUBMIT. Death is preferable to his horrible mushroom-y caress. I can just imagine his breath too, never mind his ball funk. Oy. fucking. vey.


Finally, she is given a gun and the opportunity to kill Zhengla. He deserves to die for putting her in that outfit alone. What does our girl do? She mouth-breathes for awhile giving her tiny brain ample time to process the request.

Then, she fucking falls in love. BARF. I was 12 when I first read this comic book, and I was ENRAGED then. Such total and utter bullshit, let's fall in love with the man who enslaved me and beat me and wanted to pimp me out to the Mulge. He doesn't even call her by her name! He refers to her as "golden-hair". At least learn your slaves' names! Worst. employer. ever. I make this picture palatable by imagining his mushroom horns launching off his head like little rockets. And what's up with the golden aura? Is that the sheen of their love, or the funk of his sex pheromones igniting? HATE. HATE. HATE.

Speaking of mushroom horns, once Jinal embraces Zhengla's destiny or whatever the kids are calling it these days. She gets the horrible and disturbing story of how he received both his destiny and his fungus horns. Brace yourselves. The artwork and inking are so bad that it's kind of hard visually to see what's going on which is kind of a blessing. Once you wrap your brain around this story though...ugh.

Let me boil it down for you. Zhengla went into a door in a giant mushroom and found these Mulge assholes doing something rapey...sigh....to this woman tied to a slab of rock....oh yeah...and she's been crucified by mushrooms nailing her to said slab. AND, she has mushrooms growing out of her eyes? I told you it was a fate worse than death to sleep with the fungus men. Rightly so, she begs him to kill her, and then she will give him the greatest gift of all, a dream.

BUT...to get that dream? Zhengla has to kill the chick and rip her eyes out. Blargh! Then, he has to kill a giant lizard, dip the mushroom EYES in lizard BLOOD, and EAT them. Double FUCKIN' BLARGH! What does he get for all that effort? THIS.

My eyes they bleed. I have had better hallucinations from cough syrup. If that caliber of crappy vision is all it takes to ignite my DESTINY, then welcome to my personal Qwisatz Haderach Jihad. I'll be your messiah; expect the death and destruction to be starting any day now. You may want to stock up on asbestos underwear too, as I'm fond of fire. NO, don't. Asbestos causes cancer.

I stopped reading this terrible series at this point and never went further. Done. ENOUGH with your pants-less shenanigans. However, I did learn the ending during my research on this bullshit. Jinal hangs with Zhengla 'til he conquers the Barren Earth. Then, she kills him, eats the mushrooms growing out of his head, and learns in a psychedelic vision that she is really the messiah who is destined to unite the Barren Earth with the Qlov, the Mulge, the Harahashan (lizard/human hybrids), and the regular humans who eschew pants. Except for then, her friends in their spaceship show up, and Jinal is all Audi 5. Gotta jet and get a cherry lime and cruise the Galactic Sonic for cute boys. You can take your messiah-hood and shove it; I'm tired of hanging out in this dump; and I need a mani and a pedi, stat.

THE END.

Dear Gary Cohn and Ron Randall, on behalf of little girls everywhere, let me say I hate you for birthing this shite into the world.