Can we get started now?

Finally! Thanks Tode.

A Monkey Movie Review

This remake kicks ass. It's cheesy good zombie movie madness all around.

The basic elements are these:

• A well intentioned government defense agency unlooses a virus upon a small town.
• People get infected with that virus and turn into flesh eating zombies.
• The flesh eating zombies kick ass and eat all the flesh they can, sometimes even their own.
• A small group of people are resistant to the virus and they kill zombies with wild abandon.
• The group of virus resistant people in this movie is lead by cute as a bug's ear Mena Suvari.
  

Mena Suvari can lead me out of a zombie-pocalypse any day of the week.

If you like action filled zombie movies with lots of carnage, then you'll love this remake as much as I did.

Halloween blessings to you...

...from all of us here at Monkey Central and from the neighborhood black cat
and retro/vintage black cat.
Boo!

Nobody wanted to play with Timmy...

...because he was 'less than fresh.'

Gallows humor

At the cemetery where they laid Sparky's Aunt Patti to rest yesterday some of us were waiting around for everyone to finish talking so we could all go over to her Uncle Freddie's house. Someone asked, "Does anyone know how to get to Freddie's?"

Her Aunt Janice said, "I can't remember."

Without missing a beat her Aunt Delores, who's got Alzheimer's, said, "Hey, that's what I'm supposed to say." We all started laughing and Delores's smile almost out shone the sun.

Someone shot Lou Dobbs house yesterday

So every Latino immigrant, limp wristed liberal, and President Obama had better have an ironclad alibi.

Seriously though, I bet Dobbs hired someone to shoot his own house. We all know how much he loves paying the victim.

Creepy ceramic clown of the week

"I hope everybody is hungry...

...because I brought home a nice monkey for supper!"

Hater-ade

The hate crimes bill passed and was signed into law today, thank goodness. On one hand it's sad that we have to have another hate crimes bill but on the other when you have people like Bernie Goldberg who spew hate via their books and via their Fox 'News' appearances and then act all innocent and claim it's not their fault when someone acted on their words, then I guess we do need such a thing as a hate crimes bill.

Bernie Goldberg wrote a book that listed 100 people, mostly liberals, who were, in his opinion, destroying the USA. Then this nutcase
stocked up on ammo and decided to go shoot up a church full of liberals because he couldn't kill the people on Goldberg's list. And in his suicide note, he fully expected the police to shoot him dead but instead the wimpy liberals he wanted to kill stopped him and they held him for the police, he said that he was out to kill liberals and he wished he could kill all the liberals Goldberg pointed out in his book. So to me, that's a hate crime and Goldberg is just as guilty of the deaths of those people in that Unitarian church in Knoxville, TN as the man who pulled the trigger. And this kind of thing is what the hate crimes bill that was just signed into law does.

It doesn't make the twisting of Jesus's words illegal, as some on the right have claimed. Preachers can still interpret the gospels in such a way as to demonize gays, blacks, women, and Latinos if they so choose. What it does do is make the act of saying, "Jesus hates gays so it's okay to go out and beat them up or kill them."
So don't be freaking out you born agains, you can still get your hate for gays, women, blacks, Asians, Latinos, and us atheists on. What you can't do is call for us to get beaten or killed in the name of your twisted hateful brand of Christianity.

And no matter how much you born agains hate it, the hate crimes bill made our world a little bit safer from the likes of you.

"Okay Jimmy...

...as soon as you tell me why the caged bird sings I'll tell you where I buried your parents alive. Do we have a deal?"

Guilty of being innocent sometimes

Stolen from Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness:

You can only answer GUILTY or INNOCENT with as little comment as possible. That will be hard for me but I will try.

Asked someone to marry you? - Guilty-But thank goodness we split up before it ever happened.
Ever kissed someone of the same sex? - Guilty-no tongues though.
Danced on a table in a bar? - Guilty -and proudly so.
Ever told a lie? - Guilty-I've told many, I used to be in sales after all.
Kissed a picture? - Guilty
Slept in until 5 PM? - Guilty-mostly when sick though.
Fallen asleep at work/school? - Guilty on both counts.
Held a snake? - Guilty-held one but hated it
Been suspended from school? - Innocent.
Worked at a fast food restaurant? Guilty-I worked at Burger King for about three weeks in the mid to late '80's. It was not a happy time in my life.
Stolen from a store? - Guilty-I stole food and cigarettes when I was broke.
Been fired from a job? - Innocent. I've been laid off from jobs but never fired.
Done something you regret? Guilty-I regret not taking some of my classes in college a bit more seriously.
Laughed until something you were drinking came out of your nose? - Guilty
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? - Guilty
Kissed in the rain? - Guilty
Sat on a roof top? - Guilty
Kissed someone you shouldn't? - Guilty
Sang in the shower? Guilty-But I usually sing in the car when I'm the only one in it.
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? - Guilty
Shaved your head? - Innocent. My hair line may be receding but I still have a good amount of hair. I won't hesitate to shave it if needed though.
Had a boxing membership? - Innocent-I'm not into getting hit, especially in the head and face.
Made a boy/girlfriend cry? - Guilty-Mostly not on purpose though.
Been in a band? - Innocent. I have no musical talent whatsoever and I can't sing on key either.
Shot a gun? - Guilty. But I haven't done so in many years. I detest guns.
Donated Blood? - Guilty.
Eaten alligator meat? -Guilty.
Eaten cheesecake? - Guilty, sweet Jeebus, guilty.
Still love someone you shouldn't? -Innocent.
Have/had a tattoo? - Innocent. Tats are not my thing. I hate needles and pain. And let's face it, they look like shit when they fade and your skin starts to sag.
Licked someone, but will never tell who? - Innocent.
Been too honest? - Guilty. But not often enough sometimes.
Ruined a surprise? -Guilty.
Ate in a restaurant and got so bloated that you couldn't walk after wards? - Guilty. Tennessee is the 'all you can eat buffet state' after all.
Dressed in a woman’s clothes -Guilty. Did so for plays I was in.
Joined a pageant? - Innocent, unless you include the rich pageant we call life.
Been told that you’re handsome or beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said? - Guilty.
Had communication with your ex? - Guilty but I didn't initiate it and it didn't end well.
Got totally drunk on the night before exam? Innocent. I've been stoned but never drunk.
Got totally angry that you cried so hard? -Innocent.

The belle of the insurance company ball is getting ready to...

...screw us all. Traitor Joe is going to help the Republicans filibuster the health care reform bill.

After all the shit the Blue Dog 'Democrats' put us through over this thing and now Lieberman's treachery, do you really need any more convincing that the US Senate has been bought and paid for by the multi national corporations? Almost every member of the US Senate is beholden to some corporation and they put their interests in front of ours every single time.

Shame on you Connecticut for returning that snake to the Senate. Shame on you Harry Reid for letting him keep his chairmanship and seniority on all his old committees. And shame on us for letting corporations have so much control over our politics and our lives.

Bummer

The other day whilst in a large corporate book store I spotted this on sale:

It was selling for around $79 when it first hit the stores and I saw it had been marked down to $25. It's every issue of Rolling Stone from it's first issue in 1967 up through 2007 on CD Rom.

For me in the 1970's Rolling Stone was a lifeline. I read every issue I could get my hands on to find out what was going on in the pop culture world outside of boring old Lee County, VA. I learned all about new trends, bands, movies, and a shitload about geo-political goings on from the pages of Rolling Stone. Without it I would have been lost in a sea of willful ignorance and idiocy.

So when I saw this set was on sale for a third of it's original price I promised myself I'd buy it when Sparky went to get her new John Irving novel. So off we went this afternoon and she got her novel and I got my Rolling Stone on CD Rom set. But when I tried to load it I got a shock. The program that installs the reader keeps telling me I don't have enough memory to install it so it aborts.

Obviously, I'm pissed and I want to resolve this issue. So what I want to know is, how can I fix this problem? Do I get one of those flash drive thingys? Will that make it work? Or do I need to do something different? I deleted a bunch of programs that I hardly ever or never used and still it tells me I don't have enough memory. My computer is not that old and I don't have a bunch of huge programs that take up too much space on it. So what the fuck can I do? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, because I'm dying to go through all those issues from the 1970's and '80's again. And I'm really super keen on going through the issues I didn't read the first time around.

Help a monkey out will ya.

A different view

I love these Soviet era paintings about World War 2. They give a whole different view on the conflict that shaped so much of the 20th century and it shows that the people who lived in the USSR were just like us, decent folks who loved and fought for their country even if they didn't always agree with their government. You can see more of these great paintings by clicking here.

Two conversations I wish I had had

Back before my heart attack five years ago I went to the gym three or fours days a week, I had started going to the gym the year I had my heart attack in order to stave off having a heart attack but it didn't work. Anyway, one evening after working out I was sitting in the steam room working up a good sweat
when a goofy looking gangly doofus walked in and sat across from me. I could tell right away he was one of those guys who wanted to talk so I did my best to avoid eye contact with him and that brought me about two minutes of peace. He finally couldn't take it anymore and be blurted out, "I'm in investments." I said nothing and closed my eyes hoping he'd get the hint that I didn't want to talk to him. But he took my silence as permission to keep talking. He said, "Yeah, investments. I give Christians investment advice. That's my job." I was determined not to take his bait so I remained silent with my eyes closed and my laid back against the wall. "Yep," he continued, "I advise Christians where to invest their money." I may have farted at that point to try to shut him up or run him out but the smug little peckerwood continued, oblivious to my attempts to ignore him, "Now you may not think Christians need investment advice but boy, they sure as heck do!"

It was at that point that I should have said, "Yeah, they need to be told not to invest in companies that pollute willfully and those that try to downplay climate change. They need to avoid companies that make weapons, bullets, and other murderous devices. They need to be told to invest in companies that treat and pay women the same as they treat and pay men. And they need to be told to invest in companies that are committed to social, economic, and sexual justice and equality."

However, what I actually said was, "Can you not see I'm ignoring you? Now, please leave me the hell alone or I'll go to the front desk and lodge a complaint against you." That shut him up long enough for me to finish my steaming.


Back when I sold for Myers Tire Supply I used to work with manufacturers reps from time to time and one day I was working with a rep from a company that made a line of tire changers and wheel balancers that we carried. He was a stereotypical testosterone driven salesman, which meant he was homophobic, racist, and misogynist. In between sales calls that morning he started bitching about a pair of shoes his wife had bought for him. They looked like this:
He kept saying he thought they were 'gay.' He said, "I don't know why my wife bought me gay shoes."

At that point what I should have said was, "I do. It's because she wants you to turn gay. She knows that all gay men are oversexed and wildly insatiable and they live to pounce on and have gay sex with straight men so they can turn them gay. It's a fact. They love sex so much that they have it all the time and they quickly run out of other gay gays to have sex with so they then start searching out straight guys who dress gay, like you. She thinks that if some gay guy sees you in those shoes he'll have no choice but to make you have gay sex with him. I'm pretty sure all women who have been married as long as you and her have want the same thing."

But what I said was, "Holy fuck man, you're an idiot. Now shut your yap and let's go sell some equipment so I can get rid of you."

Are you celebrating John Irving Day this Tuesday?

Irving's new novel Last Night in Twisted River comes out tomorrow and Sparky is beside herself with glee over the news and she'll be snapping it up soon after it's released. He's her favorite author and she's been on pins and needles awaiting his new book. So, if she doesn't return your calls or Facebook you back for a few days, you know where she'll be, reading her new Irving novel.

I used to be the same way about Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut books. But Robbins last few novels left me cold, I didn't even finish the last one, and Vonnegut is dead, so there you go.

Anyhoo, happy John Irving Day and go ahead and get the hell offline and read a book, it won't kill you you know.

Olympic profiles (Norwegians with huge balls edition)

Last week the Olympic torch was lit and it's making it's way to Vancouver for the 2010 winter games. The custom for many years has been to light the torch on Mount Olympus in Greece, the home of the Olympic games, and then do a relay for months on end until it reaches it's the home country of where ever the games are being held. However in 1952 the Norwegians in Oslo wanted no truck with tradition and they boldly flouted it. According to the Olympic website, "A symbolic flame was lit in the hearth of the Morgedal House in Norway, birthplace of Sondre Norheim, the great pioneer of modern skiing, and then relayed solely by skiers to Oslo."

Jeebus love 'em, those Norwegians stuck a log in the fireplace of the father of modern skiing and off they went. Ya gotta love some rule breakin' Scandinavian folks.

On a personal note, the poster for these games is one of my favorite Olympic posters ever. Compared to this one, the one for the Lillehammer games of 1994 looks wimpy.

When the west was lusty

Oh pulp art, how I love you so.

And yes, the top cover is from a gay western.

Who's that girl?

I bought a baggie full of someone's old photos at an antique store today, it had a $5 price tag on it but I offered the guy $2 and he took it. Here's a smattering of what was in that little baggie:


I feckin' love photos like these. They're little pieces of a history we didn't know we shared.

Who's pissing off the Christian Taliban now?

My good friend Calvin is! He posted this picture


on his blog in this blog post. And of course this pissed then off. Strangely, it also pissed off some people who claimed that they weren't Christians or religious. They said Calvin was being mean to the Christians by putting up his blog post and using the above accurate picture, in other words Calvin wasn't being respectful enough of the Christian fairy tale for their tastes.

Well, you know what? Unless you agree with them 100 % and accept their fairy tales as fact they will never ever leave you alone. It matters not a bit to them that you don't believe. They keep trying to turn you into one of them. If you tell them to leave you alone, they keep coming at you endlessly repeating their version of their fairy tale. And they claim they only do this because they love you and want to save you from hell so you can go to heaven. So no matter what you say they keep trying to turn you into one of them.

They say are using their freedom of speech to talk to you about their fairy tale and they are merely exercising their freedom of religion to try to rope you into being a part of their particular sect. So, it's all perfectly fine for them to use those rights which are given to them under the US Constitution. However, it's not okay for you to use your right of free speech to say anything they decree as bad about religion and their fairy tale. They love to ignore the fact that freedom of religion also means that you and I are free not to have one if we so choose. They shout we're declaring war on their fairy tale by not joining them in their mass delusion. They say that we have to respect their fairy tale while they show no respect for our decision to think for ourselves and to not join them in their religion.

Well, I call bullshit on them. No matter how many times you tell me the 'good news' about Jesus I'm not going to believe it. No matter how many times you invite me to your church, I'm not going to come. No matter how loudly you proclaim that you are a true believer and that I should be as well, I'm going to scoff at you. And I'm going to back up people like Calvin who choose to speak out against the Christian Taliban and their insidious anti intellectual, anti science, and anti common sense nonsense.

If you believe in one of those fairy tales, be it the Christian one, the Jewish one, the Muslim one, the Sikh one, the Scientology one, or the Wiccan one, then that's fine. It's your life and you can choose what you believe in. I choose to believe in common sense and what I can see, hear, feel, taste, and touch. I choose to put my faith not in things I can't see or hear, but in what's real. If you get off on Jesus, or Moses, or Joseph Smith, or Xenu, then that's on you, just don't try to make me believe in the same shit as you and don't tell me or my friends that we should keep quiet and show your religion some respect if you don't respect our decision not to have a religion.

And you people, especially you born again Christians, need to stop using your book of fairy tales to justify hating on gays, black people, Mexicans, women, and science. Grow the hell up and evolve with the rest of us, or even better, just leave all of us alone, we do fine without your Bronze age moralizing.

What you got old man?

I'll pass thanks.

Runchefway update

Top Chef update:

• I was sorry to see the lesbian with the funny eyebrows, Ashley, get booted off a few weeks back, I thought she was a much stronger chef than Robin or Eli.
• Speaking of Robin and Eli, it was a toss up of who I hated more but now since the sight of that fat little repulsive bastard Eli makes me vomit it's safe to say that I would like to see him gone fairly soon.
• I was glad to see Ash go because he was about the most milquetoast doormat of a guy I have ever seen on that show. I'm pretty sure he's never had an original thought in his life. I hope he'll always have someone around to tell him what to cook and what to think about things.
• Yo Laurine, you really should have washed your hair before going to run the front of the house in the last installment of restaurant wars. Greasy is never a good look for someone who is working with the public.
  
• And finally, you chefs may think all those tattoos make you look hip, trendy, and cool, but I'm here to tell you they don't really. They actually make me not want to eat food prepared by you. I'm afraid that one of those things may be infected and dripping pus into my food. Would it kill you people to cover those things up? (And there's no need to leave me any comments about how your tats are super cool and keen, I'm not into them but if you are then that's cool, I just don't want to see or hear all about them. Okay? Good.)

Project Runway:

• How long will they keep Chris there? I'm beginning to think they're keeping him on the show just so they'll have someone to make fun of and mock. I liked his early designs but he's obviously peaked far too early. He's got to go.
• Speaking of people who've worn out their welcome, Logan is still on the show and he's still making the most boring shit I've ever seen. Jeans and a fucking T shirt? Really Logan? That's your idea of Hollywood? Dude, you need to be designing shit for skate punks, second amendment conspiracy theorists, and redneck hipsters like Miley Ray Cyrus.
• I was sad to see Shirin get booted. I thought she's a much better designer than Nicholas, who got booted last night thank goodness, Logan, and Christopher.
• Irina is a talented designer but boy howdy is she a bitch or what.
• I'm pretty sure Irina, Althea, and Carol Hannah will be in the final three. Or the eastern European chick could make it if she doesn't sabotage herself by not having any confidence in her work.
• After having had that walking STD Lindsay Lohan on as a guest judge, I was glad to see they had an actress who is actually hot, Milla Jovovich, on the show last night. Milla exuded charm, wit, and grace, while Lindsay oozed stolen prescription meds, long days in a tanning bed, and sour malt liquor when she was on the show.
  

Oh yeah, this post may contain spoilers. So don't read it if you haven't seen the current episodes yet.

Literary round up

This novel tells the story of a bunch of female soldiers, who aren't supposed to be soldiers because having females serve in the army of their mythical country is an abomination unto their god Nuggan. Beyond that I'm not going to say any more about the plot because I don't want to spoil it for those who have yet to read this book. But what I will say is this book is indeed funny in parts, it's very enlightening in parts, and it's very entertaining in parts but it's about 150 pages too long. I know Terry Pratchett is huge, I know he sells a lot of books, I know he's beloved by millions of ardent admirers, but holy hell, the man needs an editor to tighten his books up, especially this one. Having written a couple of novels, one good one and one very bad one, I know you want to keep piling hardships on your hero but after awhile it just get tedious and maddening to the reader.

All in all thought it's a good, if too long read. I recommend it and I'll be staying away from Prachett books for a bit because I don't want to get burned out on them too soon.


I found The Orchid Thief to be very good at times and not so good at other times. Ms. Orlean is very scatter shot in her telling of her tale about orchids and the people who obsess over them. What's she's done, in my opinion, is try to meld two stories together. The story of the title character, the quirky obsessive orchid thief could well have stood alone in it's own book but Orlean chose to pad that story with a lot of history about orchids and the people who hunt and collect them. I liked both sides of the story but weaving them together as she did shortchanged the impact of both of them.

But even with that flaw it's still a very good read and I highly recommend it.

And now I must make a confession. I confess that I love the various adaptions of the novels of Charles Dickens but I have a hard time reading the original novels themselves. I tried reading A Tale of Two Cities and Hard Times but both left me cold. I found the style too off putting to really get into them. However, if you put a BBC/PBS adaption of them on, I'm all in. Heck, I'm all in on the ones the British film studios made in the 1940's and '50's. I'll even watch Oliver! but hand me the novels they're based on, and I'll hand them right back to you.

I know, I know, I'm a Philistine. And I've learned to live with it.

Poppin' fresh Elvis

He comes in two flavors, peanut butter banana and chicken fried gravy.

Our School

Our school is a very big building out on Route 4 past the trailer park and it's right next to the dumpsters that are always on fire. And all kinds of people go there, even people who start sentences with the word 'and.'

Most of the people who go to our school take a bath or a shower before coming to school. But not the Lingerfelt brothers.
They are very poor and they have no inside bathroom, so they wash up in the puddle outside. No one says anything about it to them because if you do they will kick your ass into next week. They are some mean little mother fuckers, those Lingerfelt boys.

Some of us walk to school. Those of us who do get to pass by the crossing guard lady who smells like Scotch, sour flop sweat, and failure. We like her very much except when she forgets to take her pills.

Some of us who don't walk to school take the bus.
And some of us have gotten into cars with older men with German accents who promised to take us to school. Although only a few of us who did that and survived were still 'normal' when he finally dropped us off at our school.
Black kids go to our school.
So do white kids.
As well as freckle faced kids who get spooked easily. By the way he acted during the last field trip, you'd think that this kid hadn't seen ritual Satanic cattle mutilation before or something.
Blind kids go to our school too. They love to feel things like this globe and the inside of Mr. Henderson's pants pockets.
Some old people work at our school. They smell like mothballs and cancer.
Our school librarian is nice but we all worry about her fashion sense.
We get lunch every day at our school. Our lunch usually consists of whatever small woodland animals the lunch lady can trap, strangle, and fit between two slices of white bread that's been slathered with Murkle Wip. (Murkle Wip is the knock off brand of Miracle Whip and our school buys by the pallet from Big Lots. They also buy a lot of salt peter from there too.)
We have male teachers at our school.Women teachers too.
And for the first time this year they let a Presbyterian person teach in our school. Boy, what's next? A Unitarian? Hahahaha, that's a joke, our school board would never let a Unitarian teach in our school!
We learn math, science, and reading in our school. And we also learned how to make hash brownies that only the grown ups get to eat.
After our teacher has a few brownies she gets really mellow and all touchy feely, but not in a Mackenzie Phillips's daddy sort of way. So we got that going for us. After a long day of learning and inhaling the fumes from the burning dumpsters we're all glad to hear the last bell of the day ring because then it's time to go home. Usually only one or two kids get trampled pretty badly in the rush to leave our school, but most of the time, it's the weak ones so no one cares much.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to our school.

Will it end here?

Well, ummm, okay then. Maybe it won't end here.