Top 5 Most Annoying Things

Posted on by JP Shaver

Top 5 Things That Annoy Me

Of course there are things that irritate me more those that appear on this list like war, poverty, the threat of a nuclear war and those fish in the Amazon that are attracted by uric acid and worm their way up inside your pee hole but everybody else hates that stuff too. No, this list has to be specific to my contorted and maladjusted mind and free of things obviously annoying.

This was literally the fastest list I ever put together and it has not changed since I first penned it about ten years ago. With that, welcome to my instability….

Chewing sounds –

Nothing and I mean nothing sends me into a blinding rage like listening to somebody chew. I don’t know why. It’s stupid and I admit that but if you plop down next to me with a bag of chips and start munching on them, the entire time I will literally be fighting the urge to put my fist through the wall.

I was told that this is an actual “disorder” called Misophonia. I looked it up, Wikipedia says:

Misophonia, literally “hatred of sound”, is a rarely diagnosed neuropsychiatric disorder in which negative emotions (anger, flight, hatred, and disgust) are triggered by specific sounds. The sounds can be loud or soft.

Seriously? Does everything have to be a disease anymore? It goes on to say:

People who have Misophonia are most commonly angered by specific sounds, such as slurping, throat-clearing, nail-clipping, chewing, drinking, tooth-brushing, breathing, sniffing, talking, sneezing, yawning, walking, gum-chewing or popping, laughing, snoring, typing, coughing, humming, whistling, singing, certain consonants, or repetitive sounds.

Not gonna lie, just from reading the list, I need to meditate. My buddy’s jaw clicks every time he chews and it drives me fucking insane. I cannot enjoy a meal with him because all I want to do is reach over the table and punch him in the face which leads me to Wikipedia’s next entry:

Sufferers experience fight/flight symptoms such as sweating, muscle tension, and quickened heartbeat. Some even feel unwanted sexual arousal, caused by the over-activation of hormonal circuits.

I will admit that when I do have an outburst which would go down something like this, “How many chips are left in the fucking bag!!!” I am always left rather embarrassed but if I don’t say something I feel like I’m going to explode. I will say, though, while it may be true for some people, I have never experienced any occurrences of sexual arousal because of some rude lout chomping on a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos and that may be the only thing keeping me from seeking medication for this affliction. The day I get a hard-on from Misophonia is the day I check myself into the psych ward.

Movie silence –

I think this affliction is tied back to the chewing sounds thing but it rates honorable mention because of just how irrationally enraged it makes me.

Picture yourself in a movie theater. The previews have just ended and the movie is just about to start but first we have to see all of the companies involved in the production of the film. Most of these little snippets from companies like Amblin Entertainment, don’t have any sound and I am left with complete movie silence resulting in me being isolated in a room full of strangers digging into cellophane candy bags and munching on stale popcorn. I feel trapped, angry and panicked. Like if I was an animal in a snare, I would, at this point, chew my foot off just to escape this place running (although now limping on my stump) and screaming into the parking lot. It’s like I’m in a room where one –hundred people just sidled up to the trough to be slopped like a hog.

Pouring sounds on the radio –

Misophonia, misophonia, misophonia. I am starting to realize that I have a problem. Pouring sounds make me want to rip the radio right out of the dashboard and chuck it out onto the road.

People who try too hard to be liked –

Let me decide for myself if I want to be your friend rather than you cramming yourself up my butthole.

                New guy I meet at a party – “so, uh, hey Jon, so, uh, what are you into?”

Me – “I’m a fanatic for ancient Sumerian history and how it relates to other cultures and prophecy.”

New guy – “What? Really? Me too. Maybe we could get together sometime and talk.”

Me – “No.”

So am I to really believe that this idiot is into Sumerian history as it relates to ancient cultures or is he just trying to get into my proverbial pants?

Insurance commercials –

How much money exactly could I save on my auto insurance if these people just cut back a bit on the commercials? I want to stab Flo from Progressive in the eye with a fork. That fucking lizard? He makes me want to hate an entire nation of Australians.

Speaking of Australians, what’s with the continued use of the “shrimp on the barbie” bullshit from Outback Steakhouse? That was popular, and wrongly so, in the 80’s, like over 30 years ago! I don’t even think that Crocodile Dundee guy is even alive anymore so can we please stop?

I used to like the acting of that guy from the Allstate commercials and the guy shilling for Farmer’s is like an Oscar winning actor and now I can’t stand the site of either of them.

I will gladly change insurance providers to the first company who steps up and promises to stop punishing me with insipid marketing.

Sharing –

Since I used three of my Top 5 on sounds that drive me insane, I felt like I could and should break my cardinal rule and make this a Top 6 list.

So I humbly submit my supplemental sixth entry, I hate to share. I don’t mind helping out people who are genuinely down on their luck. I donate clothes, money, food, all that crap, to help give someone a leg up on getting out of poverty but I draw the line at sharing with somebody who just happens to like what I have, wants a piece of it and has the means to go get it themselves.

So I had the foresight to stop and score myself a four pack of Mallo Cups and because you didn’t, you think I should give you some? I think not. I put in the thought here. I put in the effort as well. You want some Mallo Cups, there’s a gas station down the street, go get yourself some.

What are those cardboard coupons in Mallo Cup packs anyway? They’re called something like Mallo Money. Does anybody even know what I’m talking about? I may be the only person who loves Mallo Cups. Seriously, the best chocolate candy ever made but that’s for another list.

My mother used to tell me that I was stingy even as a child. She always thought it was some kind of character flaw but I see it as having an inborn, innate sense of justice. Even a toddler could tell that you have no stake in my Mallo Cup claim.

I have a penchant for Munchos. I could eat them three meals a day. Yes, I realize they are reconstituted potato flakes but they are delicious. Nobody ever has anything good to say about Munchos until I have a bag. I cannot imagine the suffering I would endure having to share my Munchos, listening to them chomping down on them like a cow chewing its cud while watching an insurance commercial. I may need to be hospitalized at that point.

Annoying Things

Chewing sounds

Movie silence

Pouring sounds on the radio

People who try too hard to be liked

Insurance commercials

Sharing (honorable mention)

Random Thoughts on Moles

Posted on by JP Shaver

Random Thoughts – Moles

While driving my youngest back to college we encounter a lot of what would be labeled as Rural America. My first choice would be to hit the accelerator and motor thru these “out yonder” places as quickly as possible, I’ve seen Deliverance and have lived in fear ever since of being made to squeal like a pig followed by a good molesting by a Mountain Cracker. It is usually my preference to avoid hillbilly anal rape but when you have to stop, you have to stop. Recently we broke for lunch at a place called The Farmstead which seemed apropos as the entire out of doors reeked of cow shit and rotting hay and by the time we’d walked from the car to The Farmstead I had inhaled a lethal portion of bovine remains and had thus virtually lost my appetite.

Doesn’t it always seem that a lot of these countrified restaurants have names like The Hillside Country Kitchen or Ma’s Dinner Bucket? The food is generally good if you’re looking for some “greezy” down home cooking but the local clientele can cast an eerie haze.

First though, before we can get a table, of course, we have to amble thru The Farmstead Country Gift Shoppe. Why do these hole in the wall places have to spell the word shop with an “e?” Shoppe? This isn’t merry old England it’s a podunk gift shop! Stop trying to fancy the place up with inappropriate spellings! It sucks in here and adding an “e” isn’t going to help.

This “vacuum of good taste” is loaded with candles of every flavor and paintings of churches with lights actually imbedded into the art itself. I thought to myself that I’d rather have a smear of vomit on my wall rather than this electric starving artist rendering. They also had a collection of wall hangings painted on recycled barn wood with colloquial sayings. One in particular caught my attention. It said, “My friends always come in my back door.” A nice sentiment, I suppose, if taken at innocent face value but to me, with my corrupted mind, I wondered exactly what kinds of friends one has out in the boonies and what they expect to be doing to you and your “backdoor.”

Anyway, I noticed amongst our fellow diners, a “farmer type” having dinner with his wife. She seemed obsequious in the kind of way that a misogynist Fox News viewer, which this guy clearly was, would expect his wife to behave, head down and quiet. Donning his suspenders, dirty boots and the obligatory John Deere hat with an American flag embroidered on it, I surmised that this is their big night out on the “town.” “Whoopee! I’ve been waiting for this pattie melt all week Zeb.”

Near the middle of the room, there’s a family of five that have thrown on the feedbag and I hear them referencing one of their table mates as “Taterhead.” For all I know, Taterhead is a common nickname in these here parts but what was rather distressing was that this Taterhead fella was in a motorized wheelchair. It made me wonder, did they call him Taterhead before he was immobilized or is that moniker based on what happened to him in the accident?  Taterhead, as a nickname, seems easier to get comfortable with if it came before the crippling.

I amble up to settle my bill, I swear this is about moles, and notice that the Taterhead family is ahead of me in line. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they call this poor crippled soul Taterhead, he is now paying the bill for the entire mob of bucolic mongoloids to chants of “Taterhead, Taterhead.” “Look at Taterhead paying a bill for once.” “Taterhead finally got his check. Look at Taterhead, the big spender.” I was aghast.

So, let me get this straight, this guy, Taterhead, is buying your dinner, albeit dinner at The Farmstead, and you’re now ripping him for his generosity? Surely Taterhead was afraid that his family would be “coming in his back door” and wisely ponied up before it all went down. I wanted to say, mother f-er, pay for your own food!

Who I perceived to be Taterhead’s mom was also in on the proceedings, which leads me to my mole theme. She was dressed to the nines, all in purple. This is a big night on the town for goodness sake! It was the kind of outfit that you see packaged in the cellophane bag at your local discount store, complete with matching jewelry. She was a rustic goddess, no question. By that, I mean, she was gross. Overweight, short and her shoes didn’t fit to my satisfaction and she had a mole the size of a child’s head right in the middle of her face. I swear to God I saw it lustfully wink at me at one point. How do you not get this monstrosity cut off?!?! I don’t know if insurance pays for that sort of cosmetic surgery but, fuck, tie some dental floss around it and choke it off.

I had a mole on my shoulder that was grossing me and everyone else out and I went straight to where everyone should go for medical advice, the internet.

Writers note:

                Yeah, don’t go to the internet for medical advice.

I read that if I soak a Band-Aid in cider vinegar and tape it down over the mole that it would go away in a couple of days. Seemed like solid advice and it was free of co-pay, which is always appealing to me so I ran with it. Wouldn’t you know, three days later, having stopped the procedure because I was told that I stunk like rotting pickles, I was examining said mole and with a little prodding, it exploded all over the bathroom mirror. Viola!! Mole gone. Smelled pretty bad though.

Anyway, what I’m saying is, my mole was on my shoulder and I felt self-conscious enough to get rid of it yet some people, like Taterhead’s mom, have them plastered firmly in the middle of their face and see no reason to take extreme measures like taking the cider vinegar challenge.

In the old movies you see women who actually had mole dots painted on their faces as if that made them more attractive somehow. Madonna used to sport that look back in the 80’s. What kind of thinking was that? How about I sketch some eczema blemishes on my arm or maybe I could use my wife’s mascara and draw a pot belly and an infantile penis on myself. How hot would that be?

Goober says “hey” Andy.

Hey to Goober…

Top 5 Worst Movies Ever

Posted on by JP Shaver

Top 5 Worst Movies of All-Time

So how does one define the worst of anything exactly? And in the case of movies, where there are literally thousands upon thousands of options, is it even fair to narrow the list to a simple five? There are so many variables that can make you hate a movie that don’t even have anything to do with the movie in the first place. Did the popcorn suck? Did you sit in gum? Did the theater smell like vomit? This kind of thing can ruin the entire experience and sour even a blockbuster.

Like this time we went to see District 9, it was a patently horrible piece of cinematic garbage but what really soured me on it was the argument I got into with this asshat sitting in front of us who didn’t like us talking during the pre-preview commercials. You know the part of the movie when they tell you to turn off your cell phone? He turns around and tells us to, “shut the fuck up!” I being a lover not a fighter, said something to the effect of, “Relax man, the movie hasn’t even started yet.” Well, this was like an act of war to this idiot and we proceeded to argued thru the actual movie previews, the very piece he was apparently intent on seeing. Dumbass. In the end, District 9 didn’t need any help sucking but even if it was even remotely tolerable, I would have hated it based on my movie going experience. Where is the stupid, zit-faced kid with the flashlight and the ill-fitting uniform jacket when you need him?

The films, and I use the term film loosely, had to come with some critical acclaim, starred actors that we’ve actually heard of and was in genuine theaters not one of those straight to video pieces of garbage. Has there ever been a “straight to video” movie that was any good? You didn’t see Godfather II put out on Beta or laser disc. Why? Because it’s good and they didn’t mind spending money to promote it. I think porn is sold “straight to video” because it pretty much sells itself. They don’t need big opening night events with stars spilling out of limos in fancy clothes to sell their wares they just put a big set of melons of the cover of the box and give it a catchy name like, “Ass Pirates in Space Part 10.” Then they sit back and collect their profits.

Anyway, to be on this list the movie had to be of some prominence it had to be billed as a winner and I had to hate it.

Worst Movies Ever

Nacho Libre

Donny Darko

Year One

The Wall

Avatar / Dances With Wolves

Nacho Libre –

When I turn on Netflix and see Nacho Libre headlined as the new big release it makes me think less of Netflix. Like, seriously, how do you not see what a toolbox this Jack Black guy is and not worry about risking your reputation being sullied by just how awful a person and actor he is? It’s like bringing a whore home to meet your family. Everybody knows what she is and is horrified by her but stands aghast at just what lows you’ve fallen to. Her who-ha is hanging out all over the place and your old dirty uncle may catch a glance at it every time she sits down but what’s really going on is that your family is thinking that you’ve lost you dignity and your mind. In this example, you are Netflix and Jack Black is the whore. I didn’t really need to point that out but I wanted to add someplace in here that, “Jack Black is a whore.”

I hate Jack Black. He irritates me to no end. My problem with him stems from his propensity to over act from, what I perceive to be, a more than unsatisfied need for attention. I hate him. I’m using the word “hate” here. I also believe that playing a part in a movie may actually tame or corral him pertinent to his role in that film which translates to him being an even bigger knob in real life than he is in his inane movies. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I hate him.

In this cinematic embarrassment, Jack Black plays a monk tortured by the dream that he should have been a Mexican professional wrestler. Brilliant, right? Hard to believe that the writer of this trash didn’t win an Academy Award. Eventually, he can stand it no more and goes out to pursue his dream and becomes Luchador. Incidentally, Luchador, in Spanish, means “wrestler.” Can’t believe they went so far out on the limb with the character name, duh.

There aren’t words here to describe just how much I hate this movie. Without Jack Black this waste of celluloid would never have made it off the cutting room floor. I don’t know what celluloid is or if they even use it any longer but I’ve heard other people use the term and stuck with tradition here. Let it suffice to say that if they had invested in a flip book and crayons and drawn the whole thing, it would have been a huge waste of crayons.

I cannot fail here to mention that the vision of a rather rotund and filthy Jack Black in a leotard is not something I ever want to entertain again. I’m sure it was intended as some attempt at humor but all it did was remind me that he, in spite of what I may think, has a penis.

The New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis said that Nacho Libre was “endearingly ridiculous.” Are you kidding me? I will never respect your opinion again. Not that I did in the first place because I’ve never heard of this Manohla person before but c’mon! You work for The New York Times for God’s sake. At one point you must have had some credibility to rise to these sorts of ranks but it was all lost in two short words.

Steven Rea from the Philadelphia Inquirer said, “Black’s “caped” Luchador grows on you like a fun guy.” What does that even mean? “Grows on you like a fun guy?” Perhaps Mr. Rea was misquoted and meant to say “grows on you like a fungi?”

If you do chose to see this movie, might I suggest an Ativan to help deal with the resulting anxiety induced by this atrocity?

Donny Darko –

I am aware that there is a rather large cult following for this next movie, Donny Darko, but, in spite, of that myopic crowd of low standards, I must say that this is just a nauseating movie. I mean, what the hell is going on in this flick? What’s with the giant evil stuffed rabbit? There is mention of time travel though I saw none of it. Do I need to be tripping to understand and appreciate these movies? I hardly think that I should have to be in a chemically induced hallucinatory state to appreciate a movie!

Jake Gyllenhaal is in this movie. It’s weird because I have lived under the assumption that this Jake Gyllenhall guy and the guy who played Spiderman, Tobey Maguire were the same person until I saw them both in this other stupid movie called Brothers. One of them, not sure which since I can’t tell them apart, comes home from war or some shit and finds his brother banging his wife. Certainly not a cool circumstance to come home to but can you really blame her? She probably couldn’t tell them apart either.

Anyway, dumb movie, don’t see it. This idiocy is saved from being the worst ever by the creative minds who brought us Nacho Libre.

Year One –

I think I have made my feelings about Jack Black known, He sucks and so does Year One. Incidentally, Netflix is now headlining this ridiculous piece of sophomoric garbage as their “new feature.” I’m now starting to think that my decision to hitch my wagon to Netflix horse was a bad idea.

Does Michael Cera really act or does he just bring his little whiney bitch real-life attitude into his movies?

The Wall –

Is Pink Floyd’s The Wall really a movie? I’m often asked that when I go into one of my rants on how insipid a film it really is. I think that if we’re using the word “movie” to describe something that I enjoyed and had an impact on me either positive or negative then the answer is no. But I did see this horrifying example of cinematography in a theater, so I say it’s a movie and I also say that it is the fourth worst movie of all time.

I hate this movie so much that it makes me not want to listen to the accompanying album which is sad because it really is a great piece of rock and roll. Bob Geldoff, frontman of the 70’s and 80’s band, The Boomtown Rats, plays Pink, a tortured rock star descending into madness. You know who really descended into madness? Me. Watching this movie as like taking the Space Shuttle to Belleview. At least Why does he have to be so dirty? The whole movie disgusts me and gives me a feeling of needing to shower with acid and a Brillo pad.

Avatar / Dances with Wolves –

I realize that both of these movies are hugely popular and gated tons of money but I am telling you that they are just awful, the worst. Why are they grouped together here? You might suspect a tie but you would be wrong. It’s because they are the same damned movie! One has blue people and the other Civil War soldiers but intrinsically, they are identical and it pisses me off. Let me make it clear that I detested Dances with Wolves long before Avatar even came out. It’s too long and agonizing. In fact, the original cut was over six hours long. Holy shit!

Back to DWW and Avatar being the same movie. Think about it, in DWW we have this Civil War guy sent out to the middle of buttfuck nowhere and he makes secret friends with the supposed to be “enemies.” Thru his interaction with these people, he becomes one of them and ends up fighting for and with them. Then you have Avatar, a guy dresses up as a blue dude to infiltrate the enemy and ends up falling for another blue chick and fights for them against his own people. Tell me, what the damn difference?!?!

I remember sitting thru both movies thinking just kill them all. The soldiers, the Indians, the blue people. Just all of you die so I can be put out of my misery. It hit my while suffering thru Avatar that I had seen this movie before and was equally despondent. At that point I realized that this crap was the same damn thing as that Civil War bleeding heart bullshit. I was nearly in tears. Isn’t it bad enough that they made this once let alone twice?!?!

There you have it. The Top 5 Worst Movies of All Time. I would add that if there were such a thing as a Top 6 list I would have added The English Patient. All that sand left me feeling depressed and the story was agonizingly long. I have come to the conclusion that if I’m watching a movie and subconsciously wishing everyone would just die so I could leave the building, it’s probably not a good movie.

Top 5 Things Vikki Said…

Posted on by JP Shaver

My Top 5 Things Vikki Says, aka, Vikki-isms

My friend Vikki is moving to Nashville. I have known her for more than ten years and she and her husband Dan have become two of our closest friends, I will miss her more than she realizes. (I’ll miss Dan too but this is about Vikki.) Vikki mentored me when I started working in her department a decade ago. She didn’t have to, but she took the time to teach me everything she knew about our chosen field of work. I will never forget that nor will I ever be able to repay her.

Vikki is from the Philippines and these one-liners will seem a lot funnier, if you don’t know Vikki, said with a nasally Pilipino accent . She has lived in the United States for well over twenty years and has an amazing grasp of the English language for someone who didn’t grow up here but she struggles with similes. In her defense, as if it isn’t hard enough to learn a foreign language, how does one pick up on and understand the connotation of things like, “built like a brick shit house,” when you’re just trying to remember how to count to ten? Obviously a person isn’t put together like an outhouse built from bricks but how the hell is a newbie to English supposed to know that? For that matter, where did this phrase come from anyway? “She’s built like a brick shit house?” I blame the Commodores for this one (their popular song, She’s a Brick House) though someone added the shit house part later on and that kind of ruined it for me. I personally, don’t like to think of women having to expel waste. I choose to think that they exude a flower scented air thru the pores of their skin.

Or how about, “Colder than a witches tit?” What the hell does that mean anyway? I don’t know any witches and therefor have no inner knowledge of what their breasts feel like but I don’t fathom them being any colder than any other women’s. When I was a kid people thought it funny to start reeling off this stupid poem that started with, “There once was a man from Nantucket…” They always stopped there. I don’t know anything else about this Nantucket guy but I always assumed that they stopped there because of the implication of Nantucket rhyming with “fuck it.” Stupid. Old humor is stupid.

My point here is that learning a new language is hard enough without having to figure the “behind the scenes” meanings of our American colloquialisms. Vikki is no worse than anyone else, her downfall is that she had the distinct misfortune of sitting next to me for the last ten years and I have kept a detailed Word document detailing her more hilarious attempts at using these phrases to her advantage. Not one of these on the list was ever intended to sound filthy or sexual, it just came out that way when mixed with my dirty mind.

So as an homage to my friend, who I will miss very much, I present the Top 5 Things Vikki Said:

Top 5 Things Vikki Said

“This bonus money is really burning in my hole…”

“I can’t cram anymore in my box, it’s pretty full…”

“I like the smell of Ryan’s taco…”

“It’s so long and thick, all the way to the tip…”

Anything that has to do with her calling somebody named Dick or Peter

“This bonus money is really burning in my hole…”

Back when we first started working together, Vikki and I would get a quarterly bonus check based on how well we performed. That perk has since been phased out probably because we were making too much money. Can’t have that kind of bullshit going on. Anyway, after receiving a particularly large check, the kind of check that goes beyond paying bills with and requires the purchase of something rather extravagant, Vikki blurts out at the top of her lungs, “this bonus money is really burning in my hole.” To this day, I have no idea exactly where Vikki was storing that check.

“I can’t cram anymore in my box, it’s pretty full…”

I realize that this isn’t really an attempt at a simile but, seriously, how can this not be on the list? I think that my adding commentary to this can only lessen the effect so I will just leave it at that.

“I like the smell of Ryan’s taco…”

Vikki and I, with our friend and co-worker Ryan were sitting in the Tequileria in the Cleveland airport waiting for a flight to take us to a trade show in Vegas. I feel compelled to reiterate that The Tequileria is a Mexican restaurant and it’s in an airport. It’s gross but they make a strong taco.

Ryan, having arrived early, ordered a big plate of airport Mexican and was elbow deep when Vikki and I got there. Vikki fought the urge at first but finally succumbed to the enticing aroma of re-heated swill and said, “I like the smell of Ryan’s taco!!” For those unfamiliar with the slang definition of the word “taco” let me quote directly from the Urban Dictionary:

taco

I especially like how Urban Dictionary tells us how to use the word in a sentence, how handy, right? How was poor Vikki to know that saying that she liked the smell of Ryan’s taco would be taken to mean that she delighted in the smell of his supposed privates? I mean, if, in fact, Ryan happened to be a chick.

“It’s so long and thick, all the way to the tip…”

I would also include here, “My God! It’s so black!” Not necessarily because they just seem to go together but also because they were spoken within minutes of each other. Frankly, I have waited my whole life to have a women speak these words to me, I guess not the black part as I’m as white as a sheet, but alas it isn’t to be. Getting back on track, years ago Vikki and I went out for a rushed smoke ahead of a pending late winter storm. These two comments stemmed from a giant icicle hanging from the building and the approaching dark clouds. Totally inert until thrown into the mind of a pervert.

Anything that has to do with her calling and asking for somebody named Dick or Peter

When one has the sense of humor of a 12 year old there is nothing funnier than fart and dick jokes and Vikki has always offered up a never ending supply of them although always inadvertently.

“No, no, no, I want Dick,” an instant classic. I never really understood why a grown man would choose to be referred to as “Dick” when there are other less hilarious options like Rich or Richard. I realize that “dick” may have been just a guy’s name fifty years ago but it’s a whole new ballgame now.

Others in the same vein, “Harry, I’m looking for Dick” or “Hi, is Peter in?” I will always hold this one in high regard, “Hang in there Dick!” “Good afternoon, is Peter in?” I’m not really sure how you’re supposed to get Peter to the phone without asking for him but it’s still hilarious.

“I work well with Peter”

“I work with Rod a lot”

“Hey is Dick around today?” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a women say this, I would have – nothing

There are literally 6 pages in Word form, amassed over the years, of these classic one-liners, way too many to go into here but maybe someday I will just list them all out.

I will miss collecting your gold, kid, but I will miss you way more.

Top 5 Things You Can’t Say Anymore

Posted on by JP Shaver

Things You Can’t Say Anymore

Apparently, there are words that you can’t say anymore. Words that were, just a few years ago, perfectly acceptable and mainstream. I don’t mean obviously horrible words like N bombs and other slurs, I just mean words that were pretty conventional not long ago and now when I innocently drop one of them make me sound like a full-on purveyor of genocide. Mind you, some of this hoo-ha is a bit out of control and part of the problem are the overly sensitive, politically correct, hipster douche bags who won’t even watch a football game because the violence makes their beard hair curl and their skinny jeans cinch up around infantile penises. So, I guess, take this with a grain of salt.

Things have changed a lot over the years. I remember watching programs like Leave it to Beaver and they couldn’t even show that Ward and June slept in the same bed. They had these little twin beds. As if they showed a queen sized mattress in their bedroom we would suddenly be filled with thoughts of Ward sticking it to June good and hard. Hell, you couldn’t even show a toilet on TV. Where did the Brady kids pee? Like seeing a toilet would make me think of Marcia taking a shit and result in a need for martial law? However, it was societally acceptable to call a black guy, “boy.” Bob Hope gets fined by the FCC for saying “hormone” and the police use water cannons on people protesting for civil rights. Seems odd.

Today, though, on TV, you can show two people hammering the shit out of each other on the freaking toilet but I offend when I say “retard?” I’m lost.

I guess in hindsight they aren’t the kindest of words and I’m not really sure how “retard” ever became societally acceptable but I grew up using them and never thought of them as offensive, they were just descriptive words.

When I was in elementary school they had a classroom in the basement where they educated the “slower” kids. Back then we called them retards. The word makes me wince now but back then even the teachers called them the retarded class. There was always a rumor served with a stern warning that these kids liked to bite and if they broke your skin with their green pointed teeth that you would be doing time in the basement class right along with them. Like being mentally challenged, I think that’s what we say now, is caused by some mutant virus.

My mother used to be a piano teacher and every Wednesday night we had to go to Bart’s house so she could teach him and the rest of his creepy family how to play. Bart was this pale green color and he had pointed fingers. He and his siblings would hide in the walls and jump out at you if you happened to walk by. Certainly this kid was green from hiding in the walls and was clearly deprived of sunlight but how does one get pointed fingers? And why were they in the walls in the first place? Meanwhile, my school has a room full of “retarded” people and this green little bat-fingered mutant is in the “normal” class? WTF?

bat boy

Writer’s note:

My favorite joke of all time relies heavily on the use of the word retard and I am going to have a hard time giving this up. In fact, it’s the only joke I can remember. It goes like this, what’s better than winning a gold medal in the Special Olympics? Not being retarded.

I can’t help it. It’s funny to me and I know it’s horrifying.

Oriental is bad to say anymore, too. Apparently it is a general racist term given to the Asians by the British who colonialized the region to rape and pillage resources until they were all used up. They treated the Asian people like garbage in addition to this name change and now I guess I shouldn’t be wondering why they find it offensive. I suppose if some snotty assed British d-bag came into my country and announced that they were in charge and decided to start calling me a cracker, I would be offended too. I am working on getting rid of this word but the progress is slow. I mean no harm though.

I have become accustomed to labeling something that I don’t like as “gay.” I don’t mean anything derogatory to gay people, in fact, I don’t even think of a gay person when I say it. It really makes no sense to use the word “gay” in this context as I’ve never heard anyone say, “that’s so fucking heterosexual,” when they are upset. My friend Brad, who happens to be flamingly gay, in a personal, vainglorious crusade against the word “gay” being used in this manner, does, in fact, use the phrase, “that’s so heterosexual.” He sounds like an idiot.

Webster’s defines the word “crippled” as lame, lamed, disabled and/or impeded. It goes on to offer some synonyms as if the damage done wasn’t enough:

Bad, castrated, damaged, debilitated, disabled, disarmed, disqualified, emasculated, game, halt, halting, hamstrung, handicapped, hobbling, hog-tied, incapacitated, inoperative, invalidated, lame, limping, maimed, paralyzed, prostrate, spavined, weak, weakened

How was this word ever adopted to describe a person on crutches or in a wheelchair? No wonder people get pissed when you use it. I don’t even know what “spavined” means but it sounds shitty.

The last word on my list is Columbus as in Christopher Columbus. Every October 12th Facebook and Twitter erupt in protest to the celebration of the anniversary of this guys “discovering” of America. First of all, he didn’t discover shit. People were here already and he and his merry band of sailors managed to infect the majority of them with smallpox to the point of nearly driving them to extinction. It seems odd, in the United States to have a holiday to celebrate some Italian dude’s inadvertent viral genocide against an entire continent of indigenous people but I don’t complain because this major d-bag usually gets me the day off.

Things You Can’t Say Anymore

Retard

Oriental

Gay

Crippled

Columbus

The Creepiest Sexual Predator Songs of All-Time

Posted on by JP Shaver

I was torn here as to whether I should break this post up into five smaller posts but was worried that some of you wouldn’t care for the subject matter and wouldn’t stand for an entire series on the music of sexual predators. Hence, I made an executive decision and decided to deal with it like one would pull of an old Band-Aid. Work your way thru it and let me know what I have forgotten.

The Creepiest Sexual Predator Songs of All-Time

This isn’t a subject that’s on my mind a lot but, I’ll tell you what, when one of these songs comes on, I, like Elvis, Get a Dirty, Dirty Feeling. I don’t want to hear songs that make me uncomfortable, it’s not fair to the listener. I didn’t molest anyone. I’m not the one who should be feeling greasy here. I think most people take these songs at face value and don’t want to dig deep. I on the other hand offer the:

Creepiest Sexual Predator Songs

Baby, it’s Cold Outside

You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful and You’re Mine

Into the Night

Rock and Roll Part 2 (Gary Glitter)

Anything by or involving Pete Townsend

Baby It’s Cold Outside –

Should a Christmas classic really be a play–by-play on how to drug and rape a girl? The answer is no, in the event that you’re torn here. The idea for this ditty came to me over Christmas when, having heard the Dean Martin Christmas classic, Baby It’s Cold Outside for the 100th time, I actually started to listen to the words. I’m not sure what villainy caught my ear initially but the first verse is a good place to start:

My mother will start to worry – Beautiful, what’s your hurry My father will be pacing the floor – Listen to the fireplace roar So really I’d better scurry – Beautiful, please don’t hurry Well Maybe just a half a drink more – Put some music on while I pour

The first thing we can surmise from this is that clearly, this girl lives at home with her parents and they are already worried as to her whereabouts. She could be a college student, yes, or maybe even an old maid type but that line of thinking requires a little effort. It’s much easier to assume by the wording that this poor girl is a 16 or 17 year old high-schooler and you can actually hear her pleading for her life as Dean Martin begins feeding her alcohol to commence the date rape feeding. First of all Dino, it’s illegal to serve alcohol to minors and then secondly, what the fuck? You’re Dean Martin for god’s sake! Do you really need to inebriate an innocent teenager to get laid? The first half of the next verse gives a little more clarity as to what this predator has in mind.

The neighbors might think – Baby, it’s bad out there Say, what’s in this drink – No cabs to be had out there I wish I knew how – Your eyes are like starlight now To break this spell – I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell

The neighbors might think what exactly? Maybe they have kids too and maybe they should know about this hyena living on their block. “What’s in this drink?” Are you fucking kidding me? As if the alcohol isn’t enough for this innocent, Dean is now slipping her a ruffie? My God, I cannot believe that I have been listening to this song for decades without a clue of what’s really been going on. I can’t help but feel like I should do something to help.

Now that the date rape drug is starting to kick in….

I ought to say no, no, no, sir – Mind if I move a little closer At least I’m gonna say that I tried – What’s the sense in hurting my pride I really can’t stay – Baby don’t hold out Ahh, but it’s cold outside

A serious crime is being committed here. Plus now she’s calls him “sir?” Yikes. Like he’s one of her dad’s friends or something. No means no, Dean, and she said it three times.

My sister will be suspicious – Man, your lips look so delicious My brother will be there at the door – Waves upon a tropical shore My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious – Gosh your lips look delicious

This poor defenseless child is practically in tears at this point and the ruffie “Uncle” Dino slipped her is in full gear. As she begins to slip into the blackness, she tells Dean that her family is going to be hunting him down like a dog and he responds with incoherent, drunken babblings. She’s like, “dude, my sister is going to think I’m a whore and my brother and aunt are going to probably beat your old decrepit ass if not kill you and all you have to say in that swarthy, bullshit, pseudo Italian drawl is, gosh my lips look delicious?”

Henceforth, when I hear this song I feel like I will feel like I’ve witnessed a violent felony being committed. Nothing like a festive Christmas rape to ring in the holiday season, eh Dean? I can almost hear him thinking, “Once I’m done defiling you sexually, I’m going to cut your body to ribbons and decorate my tree with your entrails.”

She’s Sixteen –

Moving on, I expect better from a Beatle. I don’t know why I do but I just do. However, Ringo Starr’s song, “She’s Sixteen” is an absolute predatorial atrocity. This song is like the anthem to the predators demographic. It’s creepy as fuck and makes me feel like I need a shower after listening to it.

You come on like a dream, peaches and cream, Lips like strawberry wine. You’re sixteen, you’re beautiful and you’re mine. (mine, all mine)

You’re all ribbons and curls, ooh, what a girl, Eyes that sparkle and shine. You’re sixteen, you’re beautiful and you’re mine. (mine, all mine, mine, mine)

I’m sorry but a sixteen year olds girl’s lips do not and should not convey the thought of strawberry wine. First of all, she’s sixteen, you creeper and secondly, what is strawberry wine anyway? I don’t have any experience with the flavored wines but I cannot imagine that drinking them would result in me want to molest a child.

Writers note:

This one time my wife and I went to a winery with another couple. This place prided itself on a particular homemade bottle of swill that they labeled their “Secret.” I thought it tasted like the secret was that they poured a bottle of Windex in it, and chose not to indulge. Later I watched my three fellow bacchanalians vomit in the parking lot. Some secret. Score for me!

Continuing, ribbons and curls? Really? This description brings thoughts of little Shirley Temple to my mind and does not, for even one second, take me down the road of wanting to molesting her. But apparently Mr. Starr sees things differently.

This guy is a freaking Beatle for God’s sake and could have his choice of just about any women he chose yet opts to croon the melodic stylings of child rape? I am at a loss.

I think it’s important to note here that the song, at least syllabically, would have worked just fine if he had said, “You’re eighteen, you’re beautiful, and you’re mine.” Right? All of this could have been avoided if she, whoever she may be, would be of legal age. I cannot imagine that somebody didn’t point that out to Ringo when he proposed this song to the record label. Like, “Hey Ringo, what if we just changed it to her being eighteen so we can avoid all the impending rape scuttlebutt that will inevitably come from this?” Did he argue with them? Did he claim that he was being artistically marginalized? “You’re stifling my creativity man!” Creativity here being rape. Ugh.

Into the Night –

I think it ironically apropos, in a sick way, that the third song on the list also has issues with a sixteen year old.

She’s just sixteen years old Leave her alone, they say

Benny Mardones, whoever the hell that is, took the world by storm with this musical testament to rape back in the late 70’s, as I recall. It really is a good song, by my standards, and Mr. Mardones has a fine voice but why does she have to be sixteen?

Again, as with Ringo Starr, would it really have been that hard to start the song off with, “she’s just eighteen years old?” Eighteen and sixteen have the same number of syllables and eighteen is actually a legal age you creepy fuck.

According to the second line of the song, “Leave her alone, they say,” even his friends are telling him to stop doing this. Dude, this is solid advice. Listen to these people! They are the voice of reason in your life!

As if this whole thing isn’t bad enough, Benny tells his friends that they don’t have a clue. “This is about love and you don’t know a damn thing about it. Nothing’s gonna stop us! We’re in love, man”

Separated by fools Who don’t know what love is yet

Charming.

If I could fly I’d pick you up I’d take you into the night And show you a love Like you’ve never seen – ever seen

These aren’t words to a song, they are escape plans. Pick you up and fly you into the night? And “show you a love like you’ve never seen?” Yeah, I’m sure she hasn’t seen love,Benny, she’s sixteen fucking years old you creepy old bastard.

It’s like having a dream Where nobody has a heart

You mean like her dad? Because you’re 35 years old and stalking his daughter. He probably just doesn’t understand love either.

It’s like having it all And watching it fall apart And I would wait till the end Of time for you

This is apparently the part about where he is serving time. A little advice Ben, you don’t have to wait till “the end”, two more years, when she turns eighteen, would’ve sufficed.

I can’t measure my love There’s nothing to compare it to

I can think of something to compare it to, child molestation.

Another couple of thoughts on this disaster. As if Into the Night wasn’t enough for this guy, the album Never Run Never Hide, also covers two other rape classics, Too Young and Hold Me Down. This guy is clearly making a statement, that he digs kids.

Rock and Roll Part 2 –

Every person that has ever been to or watched a sporting event on television knows this song. I promise that 70 percent of you can’t put a name with the tune but you have heard it dozens of times. The song has no words. How does a song with no words make it on the list of Creepiest Sexual Predator Songs, you ask? Simple, because the guy who recorded it has been sentenced to sixteen years in prison for sexually abusing girls.

Yes, the song played at every NBA and NFL game for as long as I can remember by Mr. Gary Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd was sentenced to prison for molesting three girls back in the 70’s. How it took forty years to bring this pig to justice is another story but doesn’t change the fact that this guy is a fucking animal.

Here’s the list of crimes he was found guilty of:

One count of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of thirteen.

Nice spread for a guy who is being paid ridiculous amounts of money in licensing fees by the very sports teams we know and love.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that he isn’t allowed in Vietnam for the very same litany of crimes.

I felt compelled to add a photo of this douche bag from his greatest hits album. First of all, Greatest Hits? Seven out of ten of you didn’t even know who this guy is yet he has a hits album? Secondly, if that isn’t the picture of a fucked piece of trash, I don’t know what is. Think Jo Anne Worley after a Halloween bender. Can you imagine the emotional damage done to you having been molested by this guy? As if going thru something like this isn’t bad enough, he’s wearing a metal sleeveless suit with a riveted collar. At least rape me in a fashionable manner. This would be like if the Tin Man got a rusty, metal erection, instead of a heart, and put it to you.

.gary glitter

Writers note:

Those of you under the age of 45 have no idea who Jo Anne Worley is, so, think Jack Black dressed up as a women who’s dressed up as a man. Make sense? Probably not but neither does it make any sense that the multi-billion dollar professional sports industry uses the music of this freak to pump us up at their games. There is no shame.

Pete Townsend –

Am I the only person who knows that The Who’s Pete Townsend was arrested for downloading child pornography on his computer back in 2003? Every time I bring it up I get the same response, “not Pete Townsend from The Who!?” Well what other fucking Pete Townsend is there that I would bring up? Like, “Hey man, did you hear that Pete Townsend got arrested for looking at child porn?” “What?! The guy from The Who?” “No, not that guy. My garbage man Pete Townsend.” Really? Duh.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Who fan. I don’t even like The Rolling Stones much because it makes me feel like I’m cheating on The Who. There is a theory out there that says that you can’t be a golfer and a softball player at the same time. The swings are too different and one screws the other. Now, I don’t play softball because it requires running, something I gave up long ago when I decided that smoking was much more fulfilling. But this theory, for me, holds true for The Stones and The Who. Take your pick because you can’t have both. Why? I don’t fucking know. It just is.

I don’t have a particular song to break down from Mr. Townsend but the story is still a peach. So a little over ten years ago, Scotland Yard or some shit like that kicked in Pete’s door and took him to jail for downloading kiddie porn. When questioned by the police, Townsend said that he downloaded the pictures of naked children, he paid seven pounds for the pleasure, so that he could prove that British banks were in bed with, no pun intended, pedophile rings in laundering money. He claimed that his decision to pull the trigger on this filth was “insane” but he had investigating to do. Sort of like a British Inspector Gadget except for Pete isn’t wearing anything under that trench coat.

Investigating? Pete Townsend would not be the guy I would call to investigate any crime let alone pedophiles. I wouldn’t mind asking him to bust his guitar over the molesters head much like he did on stage back in the day but having him sitting on his home computer trying to save the world is not what I would picture from this guy. He also claimed to suffer from White Knights Syndrome. Ha! He felt like looking at pictures of naked kids would help him understand better what it was like for a child to be raped by their uncle. What is this guy talking about?

He also made claim that Russian orphanages were complicit as well. Everybody always blames the Russians for everything.

One small piece I will offer in Old Creepy Pete’s defense is that they didn’t find any other illegal material in his laptop. They did find a lot of lube in the keyboard though which made it difficult to further the investigation.

It took him almost seven years to publicly defend himself against the allegations and claimed that he was suicidal over the whole thing. Seven years? Let me tell you something, if someone accuses me of having anything to do with profiting emotionally or financially from sexual abusing children, I am not going to wait seven fucking years before I say, “uh, hey, I didn’t do that shit.” I mean fucking Winona Ryder called a press conference within hours of her arrest for shoplifting to defend herself against stealing a god-damned sweater from a department store and they had her on video doing it!

Maybe Pete was really trying to be porno Batman, I guess we will never know the truth. Like I said, I’m a huge Who fan and none of it sits right with me. Fucking douche.

So there it is. Please let me know if I’ve left anything out.

Clothes Shopping Where I’m Not Wanted

Posted on by JP Shaver

Even as a “soon-to-be 50 year old”, I still like to think of myself as a snappy dresser. It’s really all I have left. The hair on my head is falling out and miraculously reappearing in my ear and my body is morphing into some uncontrollable blob, so anything I can do to cover up with nice clothing is not only sparing me indignity, it also is, I’m certain, appreciated by those who have to look at me.

I have become, in my eyes at least, a fat, bloated hog. I sweat when it’s 55 degrees and my only exercise comes from walking outside to smoke and bending over to try and touch my toes to stretch out my hamstrings.

There are a couple of pieces of wisdom I have garnered over the years though that I feel compelled to share with those who share my affliction. Always wear nice shoes. They will draws the viewer’s eyes downward and away from your whistling nose or your sun-damaged scalp. It’s much better to be complimented on a nice new pair of Allen Edmonds wingtips that you’re sporting, than to have someone staring at your disproportionate head size compared to your giant burgeoning gut. Also, I’ve been wearing a lot of plaid lately. Really, gingham shirts are a Godsend to me. I find it throws off the eye of the viewer and makes me appear thinner. The multi-colored squares confuses their rods and cones making it difficult  to get a feel for just how oddly shaped I’ve become. With these shirts, I have become a walking eye-bending optical illusion. A human Mobius strip, if you will.

Why do I need these fishing line like hairs in my nose? It wasn’t thick like this when I was a kid. Is there some pollutant that hovers around the five foot mark that causes this? Is it now protecting me from something? Why didn’t I need them when I was younger?

There aren’t a lot of men’s clothing stores at the mall anymore, if there ever were. Let’s face it, most men my age have their shopping done by their wives but women have stores for every make and model that they come in. There are stores for skinny women, stores for your larger class of women and short women have something called Petite. Mix all those stores together with all of the sizes and lifestyles that go with the aforementioned classifications and you have the definition of disparity. We men have five sizes to pick from. Five. And really, we have only three. There’s Small, Medium, Large, XL and XXL. Men don’t wear small or medium. I call those sizes extra-large boy. You may call it Asian XL or Slim-Fit.

Sure you have your fitted shirts with sizes like 18 ½ – 34 but you have to be measured for that and few men are going to slow down enough to allow for fitting. I’ve been fitted for dress shirts before and I know my size but knowing my size isn’t the dilemma. The problem is finding a shirt that particular size. I have short arms that rival someone genetically damaged by Thalidomide exposure. Picture Cee-Lo Green or if you’re not familiar with him, a T-Rex. Mix that together with that fact that I have eaten myself into looking like one of those Russian onion dolls and voila! I can’t reach the bottom of my pockets anymore.

Anyway, I’m at the mall with my wife recently and she’s popping in and out of one store after another, treating them rather frivolously, as far as I was concerned, but when you have the volume of material available, why not? I, on the other hand, am stuck with the department stores who begrudgingly throw out a smattering of men’s clothes, mostly, I think, just to draw in more women. One store, a major retailor, has a whole level dedicated to women’s wares. The entire second floor is booming with hip music and even has a lighting scheme. Where is the men’s department? In the basement in a tiny little corner surrounded by bedding and kitchen appliances. They had more options of coffee grinders than they did men’s shirts. I’m 49 years old and I do not want to wear team jerseys with some crack head’s name on the back of it! However, according to this store’s demographic research, I do, as that was all they had for sale.

I gathered myself and headed back out into the mall determined to find a store that shared my appreciation for looking good at my age. First stop, Express. I was greeted by Ian and by greeted I mean to say that he looked me up and down and said out of the corner of his mouth, “let me know if you need any help.” Ian was a prissy, glorified bagboy and was not the slightest bit interested in trying to make a sales commission off of me and clearly did not greet me in the style afforded the young, thin and hip. I had the feeling that what he was really saying to me was, “let me know if you need any help with that mess you call a body and please get out of here and by the way, the first step to making a better you is to admit that have a problem and do, indeed, need help.” He looked at me like I was the Elephant Man and the only way I was going to be allowed to buy anything would be to first promise to rip out any tags that connected me with their fine store. Ian was clearly more interested in having my not ruin the “street-cred” of his product than a commission.

Fortunately for Ian, nothing in this store fit me as, apparently, they cater to “men” who wear the aforementioned extra-large boy size. Having told Ian to go fuck himself, I walked out with as much of my self-esteem as I could muster and headed to the next store this one doing business as H&M.

This was not a better experience. The girl who worked in this establishment simply nodded at me upon entry as if to say, “Yeah, right, you fat old fuck.” Much like the department store, the “men’s” apparel was shoved into a corner and most of it sized for a boy. I would need to develop a nasty cocaine habit and start clubbing on Ecstasy before I could fit into any of this gear. In addition, the music in this place is programmed, I think, to drive people like me away. It was some irreverent, hippity-bippity club banging scat played intentionally loud so that if I stayed in there longer than the time it takes to buy a gift card for my daughter or my would-be effeminate son I would be lying on the ground writhing in pain like I was experiencing a full-body neural seizure.

What’s with the smell in Abercrombie? Why is it so dark?

I did not end up buying anything that day. What I did do was stop for Italian on the way home and ate a gigantic meal with a meatball the size of my fist but this kind of behavior is what got me into this predicament in the first place.

Looking good, Billy Ray! Feeling good, Louis!

A Belated RIP to Elton John

Posted on by JP Shaver

Elton John

Worst Elton John Songs

Goodbye England’s Rose

The One

The Last Song

The Club at the End of the Street

The Circle of Life

Writers note:

(In order to qualify for such distinction a “worst” song must have been popular. It cannot qualify if it was intended to suck and just take up space to round out an album.)

I can’t help but to include the eerily similar case of Sir Elton as long as we’re on the subject of musicians going off the deep end and becoming shitty.

Elton John was literally the hottest thing going back in the 70’s. Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison had all offed themselves leaving him pretty much the only game in town. He was Captain Fantastic, man! Hit after awesome hit just spewed from this guy. The costumes and the theatrics further added to his greatness.

But…

I think Sir Elton’s downfall started with the release of the re-make of Candle in the Wind, a tribute to 50’s mega-star Marilyn Monroe. Let’s be honest here, Elton was and still is clearly a gay man. He did a fine job of deflecting our attentions away from in it a less than tolerant age for that sort of flamboyance, but he was clearly gay. What I’m saying is, nobody was buying the whole in love with Marilyn thing. In love with her clothes or her style? Fine. But wanting to jump in the sack with her? I think not.

Not that I didn’t like the re-make of Candle, I did, in fact I liked it better than the original what with that whole orchestra thing going on behind it.

As with Billy Joel, a woman was the impetus for Elton’s decline and I am officially calling Princess Diana guilty of this heinous crime. Not that she can respond to my accusation as she is thoroughly dead but had she not died we would never have been subjected to the re-re-make of Candle done to the words of her life, Goodbye England’s Rose. So dumb. Like embarrassingly dumb. I get the same feeling about this song as I would if I was to ever walk in on a friend masturbating to the Mick Jagger / David Bowie Dancing in the streets video.

He says things like, “our lives were torn apart.” Torn apart seems a bit extreme. I mean she was hot and all but I didn’t have any trouble getting up for work the next morning and I don’t recall missing a meal from grief.

He also calls her, “our nation’s golden child.” Really? I mean she died in a car accident philandering around at high speeds with her boyfriend. Hardly, I would think, the pride of a nation.

Anyway, as I mentioned before getting sidetracked, this musical atrocity, England’s Rose or whatever it was titled, as if that wasn’t bad enough, we had to watch this blithering idiot sobbing in the front row of HRH’s funeral. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with crying at a friend’s funeral but doing it for the whole world to see all the while sporting these cartoon-like, giant, red plastic eye glasses took to another level of stupidity that I will never be able to reconcile back into even a modicum of respect for the old boy.

Sir Reg has an already established proclivity for using his music to memorialize friends as he did with Empty Garden, his tribute to the slain John Lennon and that song kicks ass. There’s no syrupy bullshit here and I don’t remember him falling all over people at the funeral doling out the last pieces of his dignity through his tears.

I should say here that I couldn’t care less if he’s gay. This has nothing to do with anything but his music going gay. I don’t care what Elton does with his free time just keep giving me the music I love or loved, in this case. Bring back the Elton in the Donald Duck suit pounding away at Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting and take back this blithering idiot.

Best Elton John Songs

I Feel Like a Bullet

I’ve Seen that Movie Too

Talking Old Soldiers

Levon

Madman Across the Water

Al Roker

Posted on by JP Shaver

Fuck you, Al Roker

Let me just start this yarn with a disclaimer, I think weather men, rather, weather people are horrible. I don’t see any reason to get into their ridiculously bad track record, and I think those of us who reside in the northeast part of the country are more sensitive to their inaccuracies than the rest of the country that lives in Valhalla comparatively.

Weather people are suits. These days they’re good looking, fake and emit a glimmer of mind numbing stupidity which is probably why they appeal to most of the populous as they share those attributes, not the good looking part as most people are pretty much gross. I mean what is a meteorology degree anyway? My own sense is that most of these people come out of college armed with a major in communication and are hired to lull us into a false sense of security in them mostly based on wanting to bang them. Most of the weather people, at least in my town, are hot chicks. I think I’m more inclined to be forgiving when it comes to a ruined day at the beach, and let me say that by beach I mean ground up rocks poured on the shores of Lake Erie, if the bullshit forecast came from a “meteorologist” whose wearing a tight skirt and a blouse with a button undone.

In my day, the 70’s, the weather person was a guy, an old guy, and you trusted him. He slid giant wooden boards around to show you what carnage he thought was coming. There’s a guy in my hometown of Cleveland who has been doing the weather for longer than I have been alive. In the last 10 years or so he has become an inaudible, curmudgeonly old geezer who a few years ago received a beat down with a glass ashtray from his younger unstable wife and this valiant weather warrior was still doing the weather, bludgeoned face and all! That’s fucking heroics, man! Can you imagine taking an ass whooping from someone with an ashtray and still rallying to give the people their forecasts?

Turns out that this crazy chick actually made this greasy old farts career even bigger than it was before. This guy was already an icon, a hero of 35% accuracy. He hosts an annual festival to a fucking caterpillar every spring here in northeast Ohio and literally draws tens of thousands of people most dressed up as their favorite larval lepidopteran. But standing there gloriously delivering us our seven day forecast with his swollen and blackened eye, chipped tooth and fat lip actually endeared this guy to the community even more. I mean come on!

In reality, this chump should have been off the air decades ago, is (was?) married to a crazy thug half his age who clearly was not in it for his looks or charm, hosts a caterpillar festival and most importantly is wrong 70% of the time!! Icon? I think not.

My friend Howard, who has a dream of living out real life Celebrity Death Match type brawls with aging icons, is chomping at the bit to get ahold of this guy. We frequently will play the “what if” game with Howard and propose cage match scenarios like, “You against today’s 100 year old Clint Eastwood but you have both arms tied down and can only kick him. Would you beat him?” A strange sense of palpable anger comes over Howard’s face when the best of these proposed geriatric pugilistic grudge matches are offered and he will make grandiose claims of being able to roundhouse kick Mr. Eastwood into oblivion. “Muhamad Ali, with Parkinson’s, all shaky and shit but you can only spray him in the face with floral scented Lysol but I will allow you to beat him with the can once the contents are emptied.” You get the idea.

Which all leads me back to the point, Al Roker.

In spite of all of the vitriol about my animosity for weather people, I hold no particular grudge against Mr. Roker that I wouldn’t hold up to any other so called “forecaster” because I am, as you now know, the self-appointed meteorological Diogenes. In fact, Al is the only person doing the news that I have ever met.

Writers note:

Upon further review my prior statement about Al Roker being the only newscaster I’ve ever met is not true. I have actually had encounters with two other local news celebrities but nothing on the level of Al.

Back in the early 90’s I was a father of three and thought it would be a cool idea if I bought a Porsche 911 that was for all intents and purposes a two person car. There is a back seat but it’s apparently not intended for child car seats. Brilliant move but chicks dug it and that was important. I quickly noticed that in this car I could be a syphilitic, one eyed drooling mongoloid and girls would stare me down like I was fucking Paul Newman or something.

So I pile my two oldest into the back seat of this chick magnet and head up to the bookstore. Fortunately, they were small, something like 5 and 3 years old and they couldn’t be seen. I pull into a parking space get out and see the brand new news anchor who coincidently worked and still works for the same channel as that old weather disaster mentioned earlier, and she’s wearing short pant overalls with a wife beater t-shirt underneath and no bra. Yes, I picked all of that up in less than 3 seconds. Obviously attracted by my car and not me, she immediately comes over and strikes up a conversation with me. Nothing big but enough to show interest until my two kids come piling out of the car screaming “shut up” at each other as loudly as possible. By the time I had turned back around, she was gone. I guess there are limits to the pull of the Porsche.

My third encounter with local celebrity came when I was selling Christmas trees in the parking lot of my kid’s catholic elementary school. Never one for community sales drives, I would rather just write a check to make up the difference and spare myself the whole humiliation of asking my family and friends to buy magazines and fruit, I reluctantly joined in because my brother-in-law at the time said we could drink beer while we did it.  What he failed to mention was that the church frowned on us drinking beer and felt no need to leave the doors to the bathroom unlocked. So, it’s 15 degrees, snowing and I’ve been pounding beers in order to numb myself from this hell and now I have to pee. There is no place to relieve myself so I pick a spot in the back where the extra Christmas trees are stored and unload. Not on the ground, mind you, but on the trees themselves. I know, gross and pretty mean. I feel badly about it to this day. I mean it’s not like it keeps me up at night but it has become a story I tell every Christmas to help assuage some of my guilt.

This loudmouth blowhole from, again, coincidently, the same station employing one Al Roker at the time, shows up and wants a tree but he wants one from the back, the fresh ones not the picked through garbage we were trying to sell tonight. This guy is a real prick to us. I’m out here schlepping fucking trees so I can afford to get my kids a proper education and this asshole finds it copasetic to treat me like I’m his man-servant. Eat shit you douche! So I took him to the back of the lot and showed him some of the brand new trees we just got in and won’t be for sale till this weekend. Of course he says something to the effect of, “please see that you do, you know who I am right?” And I’m thinking, yeah I know who you are, a fucking elitist shithead who’s about to get a tree covered in my fresh urine.

So I head back to the spot where minutes earlier I had just finished relieving myself and grab the very tree which now has yellow pee icicles hanging from it. They seemed to twinkle in the moonlight and it gave it a glow that says to a man, yeah, that’s right, this is my tree.”

The best part to me was when I was strapping his pee tree to his car he commented that the freshest trees always smell the best and that’s why he wanted a new one. Meanwhile shards of frozen pee were breaking off the branches and making the most delightful noises when they pinged against his car and all I could smell was beer soaked urine.

Back in the early 80’s Al Roker was the stout, portly, or, let’s just say, fat weatherman for the NBC affiliate in Cleveland. He was the cheerful and jovial kind of fat that you like in your overweight people. Not like those mean and fat people who hit the grocery store counter out of breath from carrying a twelve pack of Keystone Light, a bag of FunYuns and a pack of unfiltered Camels. Not this guy, Al had talent which is probably why he flew up the charts and is now the weather baron for NBC’s The Today Show as I type this. He’s tightened up his health game too since making the move to NYC and is not the stout young man I remember.

Anywho, I had wrecked my car in the spring of 1982. It was a pretty sweet machine too. 1973 Buick Century, black with an awesome red pleather interior. I had a rubber Gumby figure on the dashboard because Gumby was sort of retro cool thing in my mind at the time. I don’t think anyone was ever really impressed by my appreciation for Gumby and probably just further cemented in their minds that I was, in fact, a giant dork.  Well, I had been going out with this horrible girl, Debbie for a few weeks. Debbie was what we would call today, a whore. I, on the other hand, was your typical, run of the mill, inexperienced d-bag with nothing but sex on my mind but absolutely no game to get anything. I benefitted from Debbie’s whoredom though as she easily made up for what I lacked in game with a steaming look of carnality that said, “I know you have a car and because I hate riding the bus to school, I’m willing to trade sex for a lift.” I will say, in my defense, that, and I think anyone who can remember what it’s like being a horny 16 year old kid, that if she was willing to give it up to me for a simple ride to where I was going already anyway, then count me in! Debbie was also and I’m sure to this day still is a gritter. What is a gritter you ask?

A gritter is a just a quick step above the classification of hillbilly. It’s like a hillbilly with a union job. My friend Pete and I invented the term a few years back while working a straight commission phone sales job. We labeled three tiers of gritter-dom back in those days. Your Tier One Gritter was like gritter-lite, had some money but still held onto the things of the gritter like tight cuffed jeans tucked into a pair of white Converse high tops. The most serious of the gritters were the Tier Three’s. These people were fresh from the hills but somebody in the family had some money and was able to buy their way out. They name their daughters things like Tiffany or Angel. Their boys were named DJ or some assortment of initials and until the age of 8 all had rat tails on the backs of their heads. A typical gift you might want to score for a gritter mom would be one of those Time Out Kids you find on those Amish buffet restaurants or even you really want to take it up a notch, a cinnamon broom.

So this bitch, Debbie thinks it funny if she takes her cigarette and jams in into Gumby’s crotch and proceeds to stick him back on the dashboard with his junk, now, melted into a greenish black mess. Well, it wasn’t more than another day or two that my buddy Scott and I are tooling around in my badass 73 Century with this 350, 4 barrel engine, whatever that is. I know absolutely nothing about cars. I hit a patch of wet leaves and slide head-on into Craig Milovich’s tree-lawn oak tree. Apparently there are over 400 different types of oak tree. Bet you didn’t know that. Anyway, this was clearly Debbie’s fault for burning Gumby who apparently has god-like divination capabilities given him by his creator Art Clokey. The Wrath of Gumby, in essence. If you asked my friend Scott, to this day, all of this happened because of that gritter Debbie and her sacrifice of Gumby’s genitals. Gritters think stupid things are funny like that fat lummox Larry the Cable Guy.

I had a lump on my forearm from smashing it on the rearview mirror that looked like I had an extra elbow and the car was a total loss. My parents told me that walking to and from school for a while would be a good lesson for me to not drive like an asshole anymore but I’m sure they were just terrified to turn me loose as a rider on their insurance policy. So I was walking now. School was three miles from my house and to top it all off, Debbie, for some reason, was no longer interested in me. By the way, not only did I have to drive her whore-ass everywhere, she burned my Gumby and I never got so much as a hand hold.

Scott was now equally immobile because of my loss and I took to walking to his house as it was a mid-point respite on my walking “lesson.”

I swear to God that this story has something to do with Al Roker….

As we round the corner to the last street before Scott’s we began to take what amounts to about a ten second shortcut over the corner of someone’s front lawn; shortcuts are big to kids. I swear, the first time we dare to take this time saving path, we hear, “Hey! Hey, mother-fucker! Get off my god-damn lawn!”

Now we both had noticed the acrid scent of bad weed some three houses earlier and had made comment of it. I, having absolutely zero experience with marijuana, pretended to know with some stupid remark like, “Wow man, buy some better stuff.” As I said, I was a dork.

Now, being called a mother-fucker is always a starting experience and as our heads snapped back in the direction of the verbal hostilities we see two older looking black gentlemen sitting on the porch sharing a spliff the size of a paper towel roll both now getting up from a pair of cheap aluminum lawn chairs in what looks to be our demise. Both of these men were enormous and not because I was an undersized 16 year old, they were freaking huge, mid six footers.

Both Scott and myself were and still to this day are rabid basketball fans. I’m not sure how many school days were in a semester back then but let’s just say in the area of about 80? I, to impress my father, and because I had to have language credits, enrolled myself in Ancient Greek. I had rampant dyslexia as a child or some kind of fucking learning disability and could barely speak the English language but I somehow thought I could handle learning a language that had died our over 2000 years ago. I quickly gave up and spent my Greek class time sitting in the cafeteria playing paper basketball with Scott.

We folded about one inch of both ends of a sheet of paper up, cut a hole in the middle of that fold and wrote in the names of our favorite players on this pseudo court. Scott was a giant Sixers fan and I was obsessed with the Lakers. We used a pencil to flick at a paper wad to shoot it through the goal. I was mind numbingly entertaining. Blah, blah, blah, when I got my report card it had, and can remember the number to this day, 63 absences from Ancient Greek; I failed.

My point here is that we immediately recognized these two foul mouthed giants the second they emerged from their hookah den of a porch. Now I don’t mind bring Al Roker’s name into this scenario as he was nothing but a fine upstanding gentlemen, more on him later, but these two idiots might object to having their names brought into print for being stoned and verbally accosting two boys who had just lost their car, Gumby and Debbie all in the same week.

Suffice it to say that they were both highly recognizable names from early 80’s NBA ball. One played for my hometown Cleveland Cavaliers and the other for the San Antonio Spurs, both of quite renown with their respective teams. I even had a poster of the Spurs player on my bedroom wall! Regardless, it was late April and because the two of them were getting high on the porch, it should be a pretty good indicator of just how shitty their teams were at the time. Neither one in the playoffs that were going on at that time which might explain their “mother-fucker” outburst.

We profusely apologized for our intrusion on the grass and ran home scared shitless and Al Roker had witnessed the whole thing! You see, he lived smack in the middle of Scott’s house and the pot heads house. Al was a nice man and I’m sure he still is though I don’t know what gastric bypass surgery does to a man personality. Al told us to stay away from those men, that they were “doing dope” and might be dangerous. To this day, I’m not sure if Al knew who these guys were. I mean he’s a weather guy.

As the days passed, I noticed Debbie in the school cafeteria making a move on another tard with a car and I was not happy about it and walking most of the way to Scott’s house that afternoon in the rain didn’t make things any better. By the time we reached the pot-head b-ballers house I was irate. They noticed us coming and offered fair warning that we were not to touch the lawn. “Hey you two dumb mother-fuckers, don’t touch my mother-fucking grass!”

In a moment of blind, misguided badassedness, clearly not a word, I turned and purposely picked up my foot and stomped it onto their lawn while keeping fuck you eye contact with one of the greatest basketball player of all time. A hero of mine. That was it, it was on now. I’m carrying a twenty-five pound backpack full of books for homework that I had no intention of every doing, was soaking wet and was about five foot seven at the time. I was being chased by two six and a half foot world-class athletes, saddled with nothing but sluggishness, the munchies and professional disappointment who both happened to have a stride longer than my entire frame.

They never caught us, though I sure they could have if they really wanted to. I mean, what were they going to do? After that day we took a different route home and never saw either of them again.

But we did run into Al Roker as we sped away and he grabbed us and said, “I thought I told you two to leave those gentlemen alone?” Al was pissed. As I look back on it today, Al, at that time, was the spitting image of Stanley from the movie Friday. I yanked my sleeve out of Al’s hand and said and this is the part I feel badly about, “man, shut the fuck up!”

Yeah, I know, its shitty. Al didn’t deserve that, he was just looking out for us. But, and I pride myself on this, I might be the only person on the face of the Earth to have told Al Roker to his face to fuck himself and that makes me feel good about me.

Billy Joel gone full retard….

Posted on by JP Shaver

Billy Joel

I have for many decades kept Top 5 lists on hundreds of subjects. I feel like it helps me define myself in some twisted way. Now that would also mean that there has to be at least five items to add to a particular list, hence I have no Top 5 Best Nickelback Songs but they surely could show up on my worst things ever list along with Hitler and cheap toilet paper that lets poo get on my finger.

I love Billy Joel, not the late 80’s Billy Joel but the 70’s and early 80’s Billy Joel and I hate Christy Brinkley.

Billy Joel brought us songs like Piano Man and Captain Jack in the 70’s. His songs were not songs you play to feel good, they were filled with emotion. He was a man who sang about life and mostly the pain of life. He was a man you would want to sit down and have a drink with, mostly because he would make you feel good about your issues while he laid out his fucked up morass. His album The Stranger doesn’t have a bad song on it and could easily stand as a greatest hits collection on its own. Enter Christy Brinkley. You’ve heard the term “Jump the Shark?” She made Billy Joel jump the shark; he went full retard.

Back in the 70’s there was a television show called Happy Days, not great TV but it was all we had. There was a character, Fonzie, who was your typical 50’s badass, leather jacket and all, except he never really did anything bad. Well, I guess he rode a motorcycle and in 70’s television his hog was a euphemism for gang rape, hard drugs and irreverent music. Today’s “Fonzie” would be shown raping women, shooting heroin while head bangin to Foo Fighters but back then you’d have to lobby the Federal Communications Commission to say the word hormone.

Anyway, this stupid character Fonzie decides that he is going to jump over shark infested waters on waterskies, of course, wearing his trademark leather jacket. Can’t imagine salt water being good for fine leather but from then on the show was absolutely unwatchable. Fonzie cleaned up his act and I think actually became a teacher. Hence the term, “jump the shark.”

Seriously, New York State of Mind is one of the best songs ever made. It literally makes you want to be in the city and I hate New York City. This man who brought us such amazing music meets this horrible yet admittedly gorgeous model at the top of her field and suddenly he’s giving us the likes of Uptown Girl? The video alone makes me recoil in horror. He’d doing choreographed dancing in an auto repair shop in it for God’s sake! It’s like he was under anesthesia and woke up saying incoherent, idiotic things and someone happened to be there filming it and, oh yeah, they showed it to millions of people. Lord knows we’ve all done stupid and embarrassing things to try an impress a women just not in front of the world on a stage, or an auto repair shop, in this case.

Speaking of videos, the number one worst video of all time has got to be “Dancing in the Streets” featuring David Bowie and Mick Jagger. If you haven’t seen this I encourage you to find it via your favorite search engine and watch the most deplorable display of bisexuality ever filmed. Mick’s shirt actually becomes more and more untucked and unbuttoned as the video progresses. It’s like a four minute play by play of Bowie undressing him. I actually turn away from embarrassment while watching it.

Back to Billy Joel, all of the passion for the agony that was his life was now being spewed out of him in gay theatrics and pathetic pandering to this horrible women. I don’t begrudge Joel happiness and certainly none of us would have turned down a chance to bang Christy Brinkley but, damn, hold on to at least a shred of your dignity!

I also had the impression that he was rubbing her in our collective faces. Kind of like one of those fuckstick kids in your neighborhood who always got ice cream and made sure to come outside and eat it in front of everybody.

I have an idea that at this point in his life even Joel realized what a jackass he made of himself because he has vowed to never make an album again citing “not wanting to open himself emotionally.” All I can say is, thanks, because if it’s going to be some testament to getting laid, I can do without it.

That being said, here’s my list of the Top 5 Best Billy Joel Songs –

Best Billy Joel Songs

New York State of Mind

Vienna

The Stranger

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

Baby Grand (I believe this to be a post-gay release but still good)