Tough Luck Charlie

Aging Manson 'Family' members long for freedom

Umm...sorry guys, but that's what you get for savagely murdering 7 people.
I guess they missed the fine print in the social contract where it says that you're right screwed if you murder a bunch of people because some nut who even Dennis Wilson thought was crazy told you to.


As far as I'm concerned, the Manson Family can enjoy being model prisoners in prison. You can't ask life for a mulligan. There are no do-overs. They made their bed and they should sleep in it.

Bad Religion

I’ve been wondering how a raven is like a writing desk for almost two decades, even since seeing the Disney adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, but all that happens when I dedicate any time to this riddle is that I think of how one thing is like another. Like religions. Not to take the piss out of the Church of England or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but I see one striking similarity between the two. Joseph Smith and King Henry the Eighth helped establish two very helpful and good organizations, but under some more careful inspection, doesn’t it seem that the two organizations were founded by sex-crazed sociopaths? Less so with Joseph Smith, but it seems as though they both made a few timely manipulations of the zeitgeist so that they could justify banging as many chicks as they wanted.

Not to take away anything from the good things that the English and Mormon Churches do for society, but it’s interesting that part of the reason each was established was so that it’s leader could practice adultery without any sort of social or legislative castigation.

Especially with the LDS, it's captivating that such a chaste people could believe so steadfastly in a church that is so deep-rooted in such a harmful practice. Granted, polygamy was forbidden over one-hundred years ago, but never have I see a flock so faithful to such an undeserving shepherd.


To be fair, the same could be said about all religions and maybe the key is to do what the prophets and leaders and prelates say, not as they do.

America's Team...

...is the Baltimore Orioles.


What other baseball club has been in crisis for the last decade?
What other baseball club has a rich history of dominance that was squashed by incompetent leadership and bone-headed, if well-intentioned, moves?
What baseball club is so close to reaffirming that historic dominance with their bright future?
What baseball club recognizes that, even though there is a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel, they need to work harder than ever before?



The Baltimore Orioles are not a team of downtrodden wannabes. They represent a new hope: in the Charm City, in the American League East...hell, in America.

Even a guy named Buster thinks they're going to return to the glory days.



They're the Baltimore Orioles and yes...they can.

pt 2

The shadow man stood above me and asked:

Is love ever truth?

I reached for my glasses, sighed and asked him what he was talking about.

Is love truth?

I told him to let me think on it.
I got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom.
#1.

I looked at the shadow man and said...

I woke up this morning.
It looked like a shadow was standing over me without my glasses.
I don't sleep with my glasses because they'll be crushed.
If someone watched me while I was sleeping they'd see what a horror show my life has become.

Literally.

I snore like a chainsaw. A well-oiled, deep-pitched chainsaw. Sailors are at once drawn to it and also repelled. I think.
I scarcely stay still for more than an hour while sleeping. I twist, bounce and roll like some ethereal entity was trying to stand atop a log in a lake.

I think.

I couldn't tell you for sure because nobody has slept with me. Nobody has been able to. Who could?

I don't take offense, though: it is what it is.

Uncontrollable as a feral cat.

And it doesn't account for the shadowy figure I saw this morning standing, looming over me.

Random Thoughts:

1. Sometimes I wish someone at the hospital had made an error in writing my name on my birth certificate. I love my name, but if the nurse who was filling it out had dyslexia or was afflicted with a severe, intermittent palsy and added an extra –es at the end of my name, I would be Jameses Andrew Eustice. I could be Jameses the Great, like some transplanted Egyptian pharaoh of old. Wouldn’t that make my life exponentially more interesting?

2. Novelty products like the pet rock or astronaut ice cream appear from some distant Elysium, where the mothers of invention give birth to innovations not fertilized by necessity, but by pure decadence. Nobody needs a Snuggy or a vegetable peeler that peels on a down-stroke and an up-stroke. So, let me be the first to invent one of the novelty items. Dehydrated water! Isn’t this a fantastic idea? I’d be the first to literally sell nothing for money. How many idiots do you think will buy this stuff? I can’t believe I was the first person to th-…hold on, I have a phone call..

Hey Reg, what’s up? I’m in the middle of writing a post.
(pause)
Uh-huh. Yeah, I’m okay, but what was so urgent?
(pause)
Yeah, dehydrated water! How great is that?
(pause)
What do you mean?
(pause)
No…that’s not right. Impossible.
(pause)
Shit! Well, thanks for letting me know. I need to get back to the post. Talk to you later, Reg.
(pause)
(sigh) I love you, too, Reg.

Sorry about that. My good friend Reginald C. Hopscotch tells me that I’m not the first one to blaze the dehydrated water trail. Well done, www.buydehydratedwater.com, well done. You’ve won this round.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Last night I had the pleasure of watching a modern cinematic classic called Beverly Hills Chihuahua with my friend Reginald C. Hopscotch, his girlfriend Lily Tillamook and her friend Isabella Plunk.

The Plot: Jamie Lee Curtis has a Chihuahua and spoils it with diamonds and designer dog couture. Curtis goes on a whirlwind press junket, presumably to dispel widespread rumor that she is, in fact, a hermaphrodite, and leaves Chloe with Piper Perabo, Curtis’ feckless niece. On a whim, Perabo takes the dog down to Mexico with her gurls, presumably to bed some sleazy OC lacrosse player…or maybe just to see a donkey show. We never really find out why the human characters do anything. They just go. I digress. Naturally, with Piper out dancing with her entourage of aimless gits, Chloe (who, by the way, is voiced with Drew Barrymore’s dizzying dopey shrill) is dog-napped by a dog fighting ring. She barely escapes with the scent-impaired, former police Alsatian and the cliche and cliche and cliche and cliche until the end where they are reunited with Perabo and more cliches occur.

The Good: There is a scene, toward the end, when Chloe learns to bark (“finds her voice”). There’s just nothing quite as adorable as a Chihuahua barking.

The Bad: There’s nothing about this movie that is good. The filmmakers throw in adult humor like the references to much more adult movies like Apocalypse Now and Scarface, as if we will knowingly snicker and think “Hey, this stuff isn’t so bad.” But it is bad because it’s not impossible to make a film that appeals on the same level to both adults and kids. Take Finding Nemo as a prime example of something that is conceptually entertaining to adults and kids. BHC eschews this in favor of idiotic in-jokes and a dumbed-down, hackneyed plot. This is not its greatest sin, though. In the middle of it, I asked myself whether the filmmakers are making fun of the spoiled Hollywood elite or fawning dog owners or Mexicans and I realized who the unwitting butt of the joke was: me. The filmmakers aren’t just making fun of my intelligence by making such inane rubbish; they’re insulting kids, too. Kids are much too smart to fall for talking animals. Yeah, I should think it’s stupid because I don’t fit the targeted demographic, but at what point do we start taking children a little more seriously? I think we take for granted how vivid and impressive a child’s imagination is when we continually allow movies like this to be made. And the onus is on us to make it stop because we are the one’s who pay for the tickets. The fewer tickets something like this sells, the fewer movies of its ilk will be made.


I know the future isn't dependent on the nature or quality of children's cinema, but maybe we'll live in a better future if we stop pandering to adults and patronizing kids. Just a thought.

Tonight: Watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua.


Tomorrow: Post.