Monkey Muck

Ooo, la la

2012-01-29T01:14:00.002-05:00

And that's why we love them so.

Reminder

2012-01-28T18:56:00.003-05:00

I don't write this blog for anyone but me. If you like my posts, fine. If not, then I don't give a shit. If no one read this blog I'd still write it anyway. Same thing with the art I make. I could care less if you don't like it.

Also if you're looking for 'A' list comedy material or searing political satire to be here every day, forget it. And if you feel the need to tell me I've done better posts than the one you just read, fuck off. No, really, fuck off. I don't need anyone to tell me shit like that. You don't write this blog, I do. I decide what goes on here and if you hate it, then stop fucking reading it.

That time you spent telling me much you hated my posts could be used to do something helpful, like oh, I don't know, perhaps picking up trash, reading to the blind, or eating something fatty that will clog your arteries, give you heart disease, and kill you before you have the chance to bitch about the creative endeavors of someone else.

New work

2012-01-28T17:58:00.002-05:00

'The dead speak but we can't understand them.'
(Mixed media on pre stretched 8" x 10" canvass)
$50 minimum donation to my PayPal account, shipping and handling not included.

Business as usual

2012-01-28T10:08:00.006-05:00

Bank of America is willing to work with, and by work with I mean bleed it's customers a little less, people who are in mortgage trouble, but they'll only do so if these people promise to stop saying mean things about them on the internet.

How very fucking nice of them. Bank of America makes a shitty shady mortgage deal that rips people off and when they complain about it they get told to shut the fuck up or they'll get no help. Thank gawd I never made a deal with those thieving bastards and since I didn't, they can't tell me to be quiet. So I'll use my bully pulpit to say that Bank of America is a criminal organization run by thugs and gangsters whose mission in life is to steal from the poor so that a few already rich white guys can get richer. Bank of America doesn't give a shit about anything but taking as much cash out of people's pockets as it can. They suck and they ought to be ashamed of themselves but instead they're proud as a peacock that they rob, ruin, and ravage neighborhoods all over this country. Fuck you and your sociopathic behavior you fourth rate robbing asswipes. I live for the day your corporation goes into bankruptcy.

Twitter is now going to censor tweets in other countries. But, let's be honest with one another, they're probably already doing it here in the USA as well. They say they have to do it in order to keep offices open in those repressive countries that need to censor their citizens. I say they're doing it because they put profit above all things and they don't give a shit about freedom or letting people speak their mind.

It's been well documented that people used Twitter during uprisings and protests. They used it to coordinate meetings, tell others where the cops were, and to get more folks out to demonstrate, and all these things are an anathema to repressive governments. People in our government praised plucky freedom loving protestors in other countries who used Twitter like that, countries like Egypt, Libya, etc, but they then turned around and demanded Twitter give them the names of people who used their service to do those very same things in our country. They are still in the process of prosecuting people who use Twitter like that during the G8 protests awhile back. And guess what? Twitter complied with their requests.

So yeah. Twitter sucks ass. Just like Yahoo who gave up Chinese dissidents, and Microsoft, and Apple, and all other companies that do the bidding of dictators and repressive regimes. People cry, "What are they supposed to do? They're just following orders given to them by governments where they do business." If they are a US based company what they are supposed to do is to extend the same rights and freedom of usage to people in other countries that hey do to US citizens and if the countries they want to do business with won't allow that, then they need to get the fuck out of those countries. "But they won't make money if they do that!" So the fuck what. Making money and securing profit is not the be all and end all of life. It's more important to do the right thing than it is to make a buck and if more people and businesses adhered to that principle, then this world would be a hell of a lot better off.

Business needs more ethics and we need to stop patronizing unethical companies. Do business with companies committed to making the change you want to see in the world. And if you don't fin any, then start one.

Betcha didn't know these fun facts about candy

2012-01-27T01:53:00.002-05:00

The rich also made candy out of the poor. They found that candy made from Irish children tasted best.

Too bad they made precious little else or they would have remained a world super power.

Chinese children are among the most easily pleased children on earth.

Children in Mexico are well acquainted with skulls because of all the skull fucking their parents engage in.

Mud and the livers of Jews were also treats tykes in the Middle Ages enjoyed.

Bonus fact about the Middle Ages:

Pants were optional in most countries during the Middle Ages.

Brunette of the week

2012-01-26T01:18:00.000-05:00

Misty Stone.

A Monkey movie Report

2012-01-26T00:16:00.002-05:00

I sat through this piece of shit the other night:
I hate films like this. Making fun of obsessive fans is like shooting fish in a barrel, you can do it but it's not much fun and there's no sport in it.

I can hear the makers of this turd now, "Hey dude, not so fast, we put a few hot chicks and Olivia Munn in it so we're not making fun of these people who obsessively collect Star Wars shit. We love these people!" And to them I reply, "Bullshit, you love them only because you like to make fun of them. Hey, I've got an idea, let's all make a film about asshole filmmakers who like to mock obsessive sci fi fans."

Skip this mock fest and watch one of the original three Star Wars films instead.

Variations on a theme

2012-01-25T01:02:00.001-05:00

One day at the wash-a-rama.

A Monkey Movie Report

2012-01-24T01:19:00.002-05:00

This film was Francis Ford Coppola's feature length directorial debut and it's full of artsy shots, weird camera angles, and modern jarring music. It's also not bad but it's not very good either.

The film starts out with a man and a woman walking down a dock and getting into a boat. You can tell right away he's one of those henpecked movie husbands who is about to die at the hands of his super sexy scheming wife (played by the wildly sexy Luana Anders). They set out in the row boat and after it's made clear that the wife will scheme her way into getting her hands on the family fortune, the husband drops dead. She then tosses his body in the water and miracle of miracles, it sinks, it doesn't float. She then forges a letter telling his mother that he's been called away on business. After slipping the letter under the mother's door she tosses his suitcase and the typewriter in the same pond she dumped his body in.

The next day we find out the action is taking place at Castle Haloran in Ireland, but it's an Ireland where hardly anybody speaks with an Irish accent, in fact only men wearing hats and the woman who runs the pub speak with anything close to resembling an Irish accent. We also find out that the family, the mother, her other two sons, the scheming daughter in law, and the fiancee of one of the sons, have all gathered at the castle to get to know one another while the immediate family, the mother and her living sons, are going to have a private ceremony for the long dead last child, a girl named Kathleen.

Everybody with any connection to the castle sees that the family isn't right and things are downright weird. The youngest son who was playing with his sister when she fell into the pond and drowned has bad dreams and mopes around when he's there. The older son, a sculptor, and a bad one at that, tries to look moody and sexy while trying to scare his sister in law and cop a feel off his fiancee when he can get a minute or two alone with her. The mother has a breakdown at the grave of her dead daughter, as the younger son said she would, and her doctor comes to treat her and the rest of the family.

By the end of the film the scheming daughter in law has gotten hers, one of the Irish guys in a hat gets his head chopped off, they didn't come out and say it but I'm pretty sure he gets murdered because of his heinous fake accent. The mother has yet another breakdown. And the oldest son marries his fiancee and he tries to consummate their marital love by bedding his lovely wife on a pile of artfully arranged hay that looked so full of dust and allergens that I started to sneeze in sympathy for the actress who had to do that scene on top of that shit.

I'm sure when this film came out it was shocking and different. After all, it does feature an axe murderer and scheming women. But even overlooking some of the sillier stuff that bogs the film down, it really isn't very scary at all. Coppola tried to pack the film with red herrings that were simply not believable and modern 'scary' music that was a cross between the Twilight Zone theme and the theme from Psycho. He tried to rely on gimmicks rather than story, at one point they drain the pond and there's not trace of the typewriter, the dead husband's suitcase, or his body.

Of all the performances Luana Anders's stands out. She graces the screen with a burning sexiness that is riveting to see. She stole every scene she was in and after her character got killed much of the air went out of the story. I should have turned it off after she bought the farm.

There were quite a few performances I hated in this film and chief among them was the one given by Patrick Magee as the doctor who treats the mother, Lady Haloran. Magee runs, or should I say skulks around acting smug and above it all and when his character tries to connect others, either with the fiancee or the troubled younger brother, he comes off as a condescending asshole. His accent was also a sore spot with me, it was neither Irish nor British, it was some kind of weird quasi European accent that grated on my nerves so much so that I wanted to jump into the film so I could throttle him for using it. Eithne Dunne as Lady Haloran was also simply not believable, her attempt at portraying a psychologically fragile character came off as laughably funny.

The only way I can recommend this film is if you're a fan of Coppola's work and you're on a mission to see all of the features he's directed or if you want to see what horror movies used to be like. Or if you want to learn to worship at the altar of uber sexy Luana Anders, then this film is for you. Otherwise, it's not worth it, the whole thing is kind of dull, labored, and artlessly overwrought.

Reaction to the Newt's victory in South Carolina

2012-01-23T00:58:00.002-05:00

"Newt won? Holy shit, that's great. I'll have this pig broke in and ready for him to marry soon as he divorces that scheming but soon to be ailing Calista."

"Son of a bitch! Newt's 'victory juice' smells and feels a lot like man spackle."

"I was hoping he'd win. Now, can we stop the covert racist talk and just do it all overtly? Fuck Juan Williams and his 'I hate work so let's kill whitey and take all his women' ass.

"Fear not my love, I voted for Santorum."
"That's what I was afraid of you asshole."

And finally:

Feel the Newt-mentum America!

Circles make every thing better

2012-01-22T01:08:00.003-05:00

I made a few new mixed media art cards yesterday.

Double review

2012-01-21T00:07:00.004-05:00

Our love for BBC produced period dramas is well known so last year on her birthday I gave Sparky the first series DVD of Lark Rise to Candleford. Then wonder of wonders, my local library got the rest of the DVD sets for the other three series they made of this show and after seeing series 2 and 3 this summer we just finished series 4.

We both really liked this show. It has all the requisite things in a BBC produced period drama, great costumes, locations, great acting, sets, and this one had the added pleasure of being overtly political. The basic story is that Laura, the cute blonde in the center, is from Lark Rise, a poor working class village, and she gets the chance to move to Candleford to work in the post office which is run by her distant cousin Dorcas. The lives of the citizens of both the towns inter mingle and as time progresses all sorts of interpersonal dramatic and gentle comedic things happen. Lives grow complicated, love finds those who seek it, and everyone's lives are a bit richer and better because they all got close and folks had their back at one time or another.

I liked the fact that this show got political at times, it showed the plight of the working people and the indifference of the wealthy towards them. I also liked the many guest stars that it had and the fact that they didn't wear out their welcome. The show had several characters that it was built around and other characters came and went as needed. It was all very British and all very good. My favorite characters were Minnie the post office maid, the Pratt sisters, priggish Postman Brown, Alf, Twister and Queenie, and Robert and Emma.

After seeing all four series of this show I liked the first one best but all of them are worth the time. This one is highly recommended.

I read this slender hardboiled Mexican mystery in a three day span. It's only 162 pages long and the story flew by at break neck speed.

A one eyed gimpy legged private eye is hired to find out why a woman's husband and brothers got murdered and why she's being muscled out of the money left behind in her father in law's bank account. The private eye is an intelligent but world weary guy who has seen his share of the ugly side of Mexico City and it's corrupt government officials. He's also old friends with a criminal who's high up in the crime world. His investigation takes him to places he doesn't want to go and he finds out that his hometown of Mexico City is even more corrupt than he imagined. With the help of a couple of retired pro wrestlers and a novelist named Paco Ignacio he solves the case and helps to bring a little bit of justice to a town that needs it badly.

I loved this book. I loved how fast the story moved and how Taibo painted all his characters. I'm sure things in Mexico City aren't as bad as they sound in this book and I'm sure Mr. Taibo his taken literary license with other tings about his adopted country. I also love how he made himself a character in the book. I could see elements of the famed Latin 'magical realism' in this book and they added to my enjoyment of it.

I highly recommend this novel and I'll be seeking out more books by this author.

Another one bites the dust

2012-01-20T00:55:00.002-05:00

Rick Perry dropped out of the Republican race so he could spend more time with his homophobia.

Mittens is feeling mucho pressure to release his tax returns. He's reluctant to do it because he knows Democrats will make his vast wealth a huge issue in the general election, as well they should.

Newt is pissed off he's getting questions about his marriages and his infidelities. Poor baby, he made Clinton's infidelities an issue, so his should be fair game as well.

Ron Paul is claiming that the Federal Reserve...oh wait, I don't give a shit what the racist homophobe says. He's never going to be the Republican nominee and with a little luck, he and all his followers will travel to the libertarian paradise known as Somalia where there is no government and plenty of personal liberty.

Obama is licking his chops at the thought of any of these ass clowns running against him.

Today in unnecessary apostrophes

2012-01-19T00:26:00.002-05:00

This photo was taken at my local wash-a-rama.

Hey, hey, Paula

2012-01-18T00:48:00.004-05:00

The backlash against the critics of Paula Deen has begun.

Sure, she's diabetic and she withheld that fact from her public until she had a deal with a big pharmaceutical company. Now she says she going to cook healthy food by golly! I wonder if she hadn't got a deal with an insulin maker, would she still cook the same artery clogging saturated fat filled sugar cooked dreck she built her culinary career on?

Of course some of the defenders of Ms. Deen claim that people who are criticizing her are doing so because she's a woman and because she's fat. So that of course means that the men who criticize her for adding to the obesity and diabetes epidemics are doing so because they hate women in general and fat women in particular. Well, sorry haters, that's not true. I could care less if Paula was skinny or a dude, she made shitty fat filled food that will kill you if you eat it all the time. I'd say the same thing about a man if he had built his career on this kind of shit.

The last group of her defenders is the one I love to hate the most, those who claim that Deen with her cuisine of early death did nothing wrong and that no one forced people to make and eat the crap she made. Follow along here if you can, Deen went on TV and cooked fatty bad for you food for years. She sold cookbooks with her recipes, there was a magazine devoted to her and her cooking. She endorsed everything from factory farmed ham to gravy mixes, to whatever else she could make a buck off of. She plastered her name on cookware, on anything she could, and she made it known that she was the comfort food chef of renown. So given all that, did she really think people wouldn't follow her fat laden example and buy and eat the shit she relentlessly shilled? She now claims she's an entertainer, not the food police and it's not her fault if you watched her show and followed her advice. She's blameless if you bought her magazine and cookbooks and you had a heart attack from eating a bacon grease flavored cake with butter cream icing. I may be wrong, but in any of her shows, or cookbooks, or her restaurants, are there signs or disclaimers telling people not to eat her food or to eat it sparingly? No.

The fact is Deen encouraged people to eat shitty fat filled food and she charmed millions of idiots and they followed her advice. They bought into her spiel and now she wants you to believe it's not her fault that people get fat and have grave health problems from eating a diet that she has pushed on them since day one. The tobacco companies said it wasn't their fault that people got lung cancer from smoking cigarettes, they said no one forced people to smoke. Handgun makers tell you it's not their fault people get shot and killed by people who use handguns, no one forced them to use a handgun. If I go on TV for years, write books, and have a magazine that tells you to beat up and murder Estonians and Latvians, then I shouldn't be surprised when Latvians and Estonians end up beaten and murdered. But Paula Deen's logic says that I'm blameless because I didn't do any of the beatings or murders. Bullshit.

The fact is Deen wants it both ways. She wants to be famous for her gawd awful food that will induce heart disease, strokes, and send you on the path to diabetes, and she wants no blame for those who get a heart attack, a stroke, or get diabetes after eating her food for years and years. If she didn't have a guilty conscience then she wouldn't be doing a one eighty and taking up healthy cooking. The fact is she's a whore for corporate cash. She wants the fame, the adulation, and as much cash as her grubby little hands and her big bank accounts can hold.

Defend her if you like but don't insult me by doing it on my Facebook wall or in the comments section here. Rebut me all you like, just do it on your blog or your Facebook wall.

Who said it?

2012-01-17T01:03:00.000-05:00

"I'll beat a man within an inch of his life if he calls me a Midwestern potentate masturbater."

"I got drunk and fucked a tree stump, so what?"

"Communists make the tastiest snacks. And I know that because I roasted one and made tapas out of him."

"I'd go to church more often if I sobered up in time. And if I wasn't a stone cold atheist."

"Sex tours to Thailand ate up all the profit I made last year, but boy was it fun."

"Middlesboro, KY isn't hell on earth, but it's close."

"My beard is made from the shaved pubes of homeless men that I murdered."

"Someone tell me again what I'm famous for and this time make it something interesting like brain surgeon or trapeze artist."

"If a negro can fart the melody to The Star Spangled Banner, I'll pay him a million dollars and I'll eat my straw boater."

"If you were a stock on the stock exchange, I'd buy you and hold you."

"I'm not interested in openings where I can't stick my penis."

"I want to be known as the father of orgasmic gardening."

A double movie report

2012-01-16T10:42:00.002-05:00

I saw Videodrome back in 1983 when it first came out. I was pretty stoned when I saw it but I remember thinking that it was mindblowingly cool and Debbie Harry was even sexier than I had ever imagined in my feverish imagination. I saw it again the other day when the cold winter winds howled and it's still one of the most mindbendingly cool films ever. And Ms. Harry is still insanely sexy.

James Woods plays a skeevy TV executive who works for a tiny yet provocative TV station that broadcasts everything, as one character in the film says, "...from soft core porn to hard core violence." By chance he sees a snippet of a broadcast of a show called 'Videodrome' and his life is changed forever. Reality and hallucination begin to mix in his mind, and ours as well, until we don't know what's real in the film and what he is hallucinating. It's all very twisty and turny and I'm not sure what we're supposed to believe by the end of it all. Was the whole story a product of his imagination? Was none of it real? Was some of it? Either way, it's all very interesting, gory, and sexy at times.

Even though some of the film is really dated now, VCR's and video cassettes are featured prominently throughout, it holds up really well. This is highly recommended.

Green Grow the Rushes is exactly the kind of gentle comedy that made the British film industry a giant of the 1950's and '60's. And it's precisely the kind of gentle character study that would never ever get made today, especially if that asshole the Prime Minister of Britain gets his way.

This sweet little film tells the story of a small British coastal community that was given a special dispensation by King Henry the Third to elect their own magistrates, enforce their own laws, and to levy their own taxes, basically they're an autonomous province in all but name only. So for hundreds of years this corner of Britain got to do things their own way and as a result some of the residents have taken to smuggling and other slightly dodgy ways to make money. The powers that be can't let well enough alone and they investigate the little marsh community in order to bring it in line with the rest of modern post WW2 Britain and inevitably they clash with the locals and hilarity ensues. It's all very low key and very British, which means there's more than a touch of class consciousness and the like. It's all very effective and endearingly fun as well.

Richard Burton is impossibly handsome in this film and Honor Blackman, best known in the USA for her role as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, is super sexy in an innocent way in the movie as well. But the real comic performance that rocks this film is that of Roger Livesey as Capt. Biddle. His timing is impeccable and his dry as dust slightly crooked sea captain performance is a thing of beauty.

I highly recommend this beautifully shot black and white beauty.

Huntsman out

2012-01-16T10:27:00.003-05:00

The least psychotic Republican candidate is dropping out out of the presidential race today.

But saying he's the least psychotic is like saying that being murdered by poison is better than getting murdered by being shot because it's less painful.

The king is dead, long live the king

2012-01-15T11:42:00.001-05:00

More brilliant mid century graphic design. This one looks like something I might come up with.

More hypocrisy, Republican style

2012-01-14T10:48:00.002-05:00

A Congressman, who went to college courtesy of benefits he got from big government, voted to cut Pell grants to low income students. When confronted over it, he told the young woman to shut up her complaints and go join the military.

I guess that's a step up from telling her to fuck off.

Positive art card message of the week

2012-01-13T09:51:00.001-05:00

5.5" x 7.5" mixed media art card on cardstock. Minimum donation $15, shipping and handling included.

Brunette of the week

2012-01-13T09:47:00.001-05:00

Claudia Bassols.

You know what the internet needs?

2012-01-12T00:33:00.003-05:00

More pictures of British comedienne Melanie Hudson.

You're welcome.

Something to believe in

2012-01-11T00:45:00.005-05:00

Some people who believe in one of the Bronze age religions love to claim that if you're an atheist then you believe in nothing. And that's untrue. I can't speak for, and would never presume to speak for, any other atheist but I believe in many things and here's some of them:

I believe religion is a racket designed to enrich a few people, witness the untold wealth of the Vatican and the Protestant mega churches. The gospels speak against amassing great wealth yet modern Christian ministers have twisted and parsed scripture to allow themselves to become wealthy and to assuage the consciences of wealthy people.
I believe all religions are a way for the few to control the many.
I believe in science and the scientific method. Science doesn't claim to have all the answers but we know for a fact that what science discovers is true because of the scientific method.
Even though we've been awful to one another and we will stab each other in the back if it suits us, I believe in the essential goodness of people. There are some bad apples among us, both religious and non religious, but by and large people do the right thing or want to do it and are kept from it by corporations, religions, or governments.
I believe in doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because I fear the wrath or judgement of a deity if I don't.
I believe that when we die our energy goes into other things, so that means I believe in reincarnation of a sort.
I believe in speaking out against hypocrisy.
I'm not perfect and I know that others aren't either. I don't expect perfection from myself or others.
I believe that you should avoid: any one who says they have all the answers, anyone who tells you they are a Christian within 30 seconds of meeting you, any business that uses a Jesus fish in it's advertising, any business that calls itself 'Golden Rule_____.'
I believe you can believe in any religion you like as long as it doesn't infringe on me or as long as you don't try to convert me to it.
I believe religion is like your genitals. I'm happy for you if you like yours but don't try to show them to me unless I tell you it's okay to do so and don't force them on kids.
I believe we all evolved from a single common ancestor. And the fact that we did so was a matter of chance and natural selection.
I believe that we are not alone in the universe and that many planets contain all sorts of forms of life.
I believe that the only reason we haven't found life on other planets yet is because the universe is so vast a place that looking for and finding life on other planets is like trying to find the head of a pin that's been dropped somewhere in the Pacific ocean.
I believe that one day humans will get off this planet and colonize other planets and I hope that we don't make the same mistakes there that we made here.
I believe the world will be a much better place to be when we leave all Bronze age religions behind. Or at least recognize that they are all myths.

A Monkey Book Review

2012-01-10T00:53:00.004-05:00

I don't usually read fantasy novels. They're just not my cup of tea. I don't give two shits about dark taverns in made up lands that are run by busty wenches who dabble in the black arts and sleep with legions of elves, trolls, and other mythical hairy small woodland creatures. Novels about human royals stripped of their rank and class being forced to go on harrowing quests to slay the evil wizard and to retrieve the underwear of befuddlement and chests containing untold amounts of gold, silver, and Thracian cock rings don't appeal to me anymore. However, many people I respect have been raving about the HBO adaption of A Game of Thrones, so I felt like I should read the novel before it came out on DVD.

It took me a little over a month to read this massive almost 700 page novel but it was time well spent. The action is fast and furious, the characters don't sit around moping and scratching their asses while pondering life's inequities. They go and do. And boy, do they do and do and do. The story never lags, it moves along fast, well as fast as an almost 700 page novel can move.

For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it's about the scramble for power and glory in a quasi medieval very much like Europe land called Westeros where winters last 10 years or so and summer can be 7 or 8 years long. The main families that are clashing are the Lannisters, the Barthenons, and the Starks. The Lannisters are wealthy and powerful and from the south and the Starks are powerful and respected and from the north. Other families vie for power and influence and the Byzantine intrigue at times puts ol' Byzantium to shame. Alliances come and go almost as quickly as the wind blows.

I'm not doing the story justice with my oversimplified break down of it, it's really very very good and Martin is a very good story teller. He's not the greatest of writers and at times his prose is a bit clunky, but what matters here is he knows how to tell a gripping well paced story.

I liked this novel very much and I look forward to the next book in the series and if you like epic stories about villains and heroes in an age before electricity, then you'll like this massive novel too. I'm now all set for the mini series to come out on DVD, in fact, I'm now eagerly awaiting it.

Justice is served

2012-01-09T19:45:00.003-05:00

Cousin Smart Ass got his ass handed to him in the PayPal dispute he started with me. He sent me a donation and I sent him four art cards, albeit conceptual art cards that I knew he would hate. He did indeed hate them but I fulfilled my end of the bargain and he got his cards. He tried to claim he didn't get what he ordered but art, being subjective, is art and he got four art cards. I just got an email from PayPal telling they resolved the matter in my favor. Here's what they said:

"We have concluded our investigation and have decided in your favor. Any funds that may have been temporarily held have been returned to your account."

So I got my money back, he got his art cards which he hates, and he knows that I don't want any contact from him ever again. It's a win, win, win!

Triple Movie Report

2012-01-09T00:17:00.003-05:00

I saw The Krays when it first came out nearly twenty years ago and I remember thinking then what a smashingly great film it was. I saw it again the other night and while I still very much liked it, I could see some major problems with it.

The film is about Ronnie and Reggie Kray who were two hoods who rose to the highest ranks of the London gangster world in the 1950's and '60's. They were identical twins who ruled the underworld with an iron fist and yet they remained uber loyal to their doting mother. Much of their rise in this film is left to your imagination as most of the nitty gritty of how they got to the top is left off screen, the film hits the high points of their rise and it wisely focuses on the relationship between the brothers, the twins and their mother, and on the love lives of the brothers. Overall, it's very stylish and very good and the leads the Kemp brothers, who some may remember were the guys who founded the rock group Spandau Ballet, acquit themselves nicely considering they're musicians and not actors. Billie Whitelaw as their other is the real star of this film though, her performance is stunningly good. Also note worthy are Susan Fleetwood as Aunt Rose and Katie Hardie as Frances the doomed girl who marries one of the brothers.

My problems with this film are how much of the meat of the story of brothers rise that's not shown, the forced ending that feels oh so tacked on, the fact they showed nothing of how the Kray brothers empire got taken down, and the horrible old man make up they used on the Kemp brothers in the final scene where they pay their respects to their mother at her graveside.

Overall though, this film is worth your time.

Alec Baldwin is one handsome dude and he's believable as an action hero. Penelope Ann Miller is one hot babe who makes a stunningly sexy heroine. The Shadow is a well known property that should have a sure fire built in audience of comic book geeks and pop culture nerds clamoring for it. By all rights this film should have been box office gold. So what went wrong in this production?

For me it was the following:

When Baldwin becomes The Shadow he was saddled with some ridiculous make up and a fake nose that was so big it had it's own gravitational pull. There was no reason to slap all that hideous make up on him.
They decided about an hour into the film to ramp up the screwball comedy quotient between Miller and Baldwin. Big mistake. Not that they didn't have chemistry, it just didn't fit in the film.
For a hero who can move about while practically invisible, The Shadow suffers a lot of damage in fights. He gets hit by arrows, shot, and beaten up, repeatedly. One of those things once might have been okay but when all three happen, it stretched my already over stretched suspension of belief.
The supposed doomsday bomb that was going to do untold horrific damage to New York city was laughably easy to disarm.
The ending felt forced and tacked on, like it was written only after they'd shot most of the movie.

But if you like campy period movies, then you'll enjoy this film.

Speaking of campy movies, Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is one campy fun as hell movie.

A couple of hillbilly dudes out for a weekend of manly beer drinking and cabin fixing run afoul of a group of college kids out for a good time in the deep backwoods of the West Virginia mountains. Through a series of misunderstandings and mishaps, most of the college kids end up dead and to the outside eye it looks like our hillbilly heroes are to blame. But things are not what they seem and the boys manage to save the day.

This movie trades in some of the most egregious stereotypes about the mountain south but it's so dang fun that I can't quibble too much about how bad they make folks in this area look. Trust me, there are no hand cranked water pumps at gas stations and kids don't wear straw hats and overalls any more. And yes, we all wear shoes, most of us shower everyday, and sister fucking has declined so much in recent years that it's hardly a problem any more.

See this film but don't believe the stereotypical shit they put in it.

Here's your instruction for the day

2012-01-08T00:17:00.001-05:00

Think about this for a while

2012-01-07T11:14:00.002-05:00

The awful truth

2012-01-06T01:04:00.002-05:00

Here is what will happen in the Republican nomination race:

Romney, barring any major gaffe or scandal, will buy the nomination because almost always Republicans nominate the guy who finished second in the previous election's primaries.
Evangelicals will hate Romney's religion and they'll squawk about it but in the end they'll support him.
Evangelicals will support Romney because they generally support a Republican, even though supporting Republicans goes against everything that Jesus Christ stood for, and they'll support him because once he gets the nomination he'll ask Santorum to be his running mate.
Santorum shores up the radical right religious part of the party and Romney shores up the greedy financial Wall Street cocksucking wing of the party and together Romney and Ricky will run hard against Obama.

It's all moot though because Obama will win re-election and that will cause radical right wing ministers heads to explode. Republicans in Congress will become even more obstructionist and nothing will get done until 2014 when Democrats win back enough seats to get some programs passed.

Final Iowa results

2012-01-05T00:59:00.003-05:00

The corporate media won't tell you the final results in Iowa, but I will.

Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
Ron Paul
Newt Gingrich
Rick Perry
Michele Bachmann
Jon Huntsman
Herman Cain
Tim Tebow
An Egg Salad Sandwich
Player to be named later
Ronald Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Reagan and Goneril
Gilgamesh
Azaroth the Blighted One
Sarah Palin's funk filled dirty thong
Tantoo Cardinal
Nipsy Russell
Russell Crowe
Seriously, anyone but Romney
867-5309
Ron Paul's racist homophobic newsletters
The First Presbyterian Church of Des Moines newsletter
Holy shit, we're gonna be stuck with a dude named 'Mitt' as our nominee

Two new art card series

2012-01-04T01:49:00.002-05:00

Instructional art cards.

Cats.

My year in TV

2012-01-03T01:19:00.004-05:00

Inspired by Professor Chaos, long time blog friend, here's my round up of TV stuff from 2011. Not all of these shows came out in 2011, but I did see them in 2011, so there.

Best Show-Hands down it's The Librarians. It's one of the funniest shows ever. And don't get me started on Robyn Butler, swoon...
Best Comedy-Summer Heights High. Yeah, it's another Aussie show, so what? Chris Lilley is the comedic shit. I can't wait to see his new show that's finally hitting out shores.
Best Guilty Pleasure-McLeod's Daughters. This Aussie drama is chock full of enough gynergy (that's female energy for those of you out of my loop) to power a small city. It's a rustic soap opera about two half sisters struggling to keep their ranch in Australia alive after the death of their father. Lot's of emotion, sweaty women on horse back, and gals being there for each other.
Best Cop Show-Luther. I missed this one when it first aired on BBC America but I'm almost through with the first season on Netflix and man, am I hooked. It's over wrought, it's cliche filled, it's super cheese-tastic, and yet I can't look away. Ruth Wilson is too cute for words and Indira Varma remains a work of art. Idris Elba ain't bad either.
Best Crime Show-Breaking Bad. I resisted this show for years. Then I watched a couple of episodes on my old cable on demand channel. It was okay but I didn't like the violence and torture. Then once we got Netflix, I gave it another shot. Holy shit, am I glad I did. The best thing about this show for me is the performances of the supporting cast. All in all though, it's a good story that's well told by good actors. I'm not going to gush any more over it or tell you that you must watch it, but yeah, it lives up to it's hype.
Best Snobby British Aristocratic Masterpiece Theatre Show-Downton Abbey. I fucking love this show. The daughters, the servants, Elizabeth McGovern, everything.
Most Overhyped British Comedy Ever-Red Dwarf. I fell asleep during most all of the episodes I watched.
Best TV Move on My Part-Getting rid of Charter Cable and getting a Roku. Netflix, HuluPlus (which has over 500 Criterion Collection films), Internet Archive Channel, BBC News, RT News, public domain film channels, bad sci fi and horror films channels, anime channels, and more on the Roku. And no Fox, no religious channels, no shopping channels, I program in what I want and fuck the rest.
Second Best TV Move on our Part-Saving up all through the fall and buying ourselves a 32" flat screen TV for Christmas. Our old TV was about 18 years old and for the last year we'd have to turn it on a half hour before we wanted to watch it so it could warm up. Our new TV, it's the bomb.
No Thanks, I'm Good-Shows I still refuse to see include Mad Men and anything by that Whitney woman.

Praise our wealthy lords and masters!

2012-01-02T00:44:00.004-05:00

Not that he'll see it but I did it anyway. I told Rupert Murdoch to go fuck himself on Twitter.

I had decided to stop using Twitter after a Saudi asshole bought a huge stake in it but when I heard that the ghoul Murdoch was now on it, I had to say my piece. But really, is he worried his twisted 'greed is good and unrestrained capitalism for you but corporate welfare for me' message isn't getting out there enough? Or is he one of those doddering old fools who want to appear to be hip? Either way, fuck him.

If I want to know what he's got to say I'll watch his propaganda channel Fox 'News.' Which by the way, I won't because I don't give a shit what that piece of shit liar has to say. Unless he's going to make a complete apology for all his corporate crimes and spend the rest of his days cleaning toilets in the slums of Mumbai and Sao Paulo as penance for all the harm he done.

For all I care he, his sons, his rapidly aging and dried out Chinese trophy wife, can all go tie a cinder neck and jump off a ship out in the ocean. Like all bullies, they'll all go away as soon as we make them pay for their bullying or we stop paying attention to them. Fuck you Rupert, fuck your ill gotten fortune, fuck your lies, and fuck Twitter. I'll never use it again.

A Monkey Movie Review

2012-01-02T00:36:00.002-05:00

Comedy is very subjective, what I find funny you may not and vice versa. I found this movie to be hilarious, but I can see how others won't.

Three socially stunted man children run a detective agency that specializes in childish mysteries. When confronted with growing up and a real life murder mystery they nearly crumble. But they face up to both tasks in different ways.

The premise is amusing and it's carried out to perfection by Donald Glover, best known from his stint on Community. His two cohorts at times wear a bit thin, but they are funny too most of the time. Aubrey Plaza is good in a straight role and the rest of the cast acquits themselves quite well. I laughed so much I cried while watching the scenes in the strip club and the ones at the holiday party at the end of the film.

I highly recommend this silly goofy comedy.

Brunette of the week

2012-01-01T04:07:00.002-05:00

Carrie Brownstein.

Things that need to happen in the new year

2012-01-01T02:48:00.002-05:00

Twenty-something cashiers need to learn how to make change and that they are there to serve the customer.
Creepy old men who want to hit on twenty-something cashiers need to do that shit when there aren't people waiting in line behind them.
Large sums of money need to appear in my and Sparky's bank accounts.
I need to be more grateful for friends both near and far that I've made over the past few years. Since most of my family is either dead or dead to me, you friends are my family now.
Red light cameras need to short circuit and radar guns need to malfunction.
HBO needs to unchain itself from it's idiotic outdated corporate policies and either release it's many series to Netflix streaming, HuluPlus, or make their Roku channel a subscription service.
My teabagging Congressman who refuses to introduce a bill making drug testing mandatory for all people and companies who receive any federal monies needs to resign and get the hell off of Fox Noise.
The interstellar travel and the underwater cities we were promised when I was a kid need to materialize soon. I'm not getting any younger.
My frequent insomnia needs to be more infrequent.
Weight needs to be shed and sheds need to be weighed.
The 99% of us who aren't stinking rich need to stop voting against our self interest so that we can turn out the incumbents who keep us down.
Americans need to get over the delusion that if we keep electing Democrats and Republicans that things will magically change. Things will never change until we smash the corrupt dictatorship of the two party system in our country.

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll think of other things that need to happen in 2012 later, so stay tuned.

So long Banquet Hall...

2011-12-31T15:19:00.001-05:00

Give it up for our new house band, The Eager Beavers!

Sock monkeys!

2011-12-31T10:38:00.002-05:00

Going down right now in Iowa

2011-12-30T00:22:00.002-05:00

Newt is wondering where his support and his boner went.

Ron Paul is attending a KKK rally and demanding to know why you're calling him a racist.

I'm on the hustings drumming up support for the Monkey Party.

Michele Bachmann is praying her husband isn't gay.

Herman Cain is delivering 'the pizza.'

Rick Perry has finally learned to lick it before he sticks it.

Mitt is slowly turning into John McCain.

Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman were spotted making out in a Motel 6 outside of Des Moines.

Household repairs

2011-12-29T11:39:00.000-05:00

Fuck toilets.

Two reviews

2011-12-28T10:26:00.004-05:00

The words that most describes this graphic novel are 'fragile' and 'delicate.'

It's about two French teenagers who are outsiders in most every way. The girl, Lucille, hates her body and is an anorexic as a result and the boy, Vladimir, holds himself responsible for his father's suicide. They finally meet about halfway through the book and they run off together and form a fragile delicate relationship that suffers a major shock.

This work is well written and well drawn. The illustrations are simple in style but they pack a big punch. Don't be daunted the size of the book if you ever pick one up, most of the pages are dialog free drawings.

I highly recommend this one.

This witty and urbane documentary will leave you with a smile on your face and a hunger for some Chinese food. Or perhaps Japanese food, depending on your preference.

The film tells the story behind fortune cookies in America. And yes, the ubiquitous Chinese fortune cookie that we know today was invented here in America. Unless it was invented in Japan that is. All sides of the story are shown and it's up to you to make up your mind as to which one is true, but really, does it matter?

This fun and winning documentary is highly recommended by this blog. The film is available on Netflix instant and it's also on the Snag Films channel on Roku.

A Monkey Movie Report

2011-12-27T01:59:00.002-05:00

Meek's Cutoff is beautifully shot, well acted piece of unrelentingly bleak cinema.

This film tells the story of a group of settlers on the Oregon trail who lost their way and who just about have lost their will to keep going. Wagons break down, water runs short, members of their party start to falter, native Americans dog their wake, and yet they keep going even though some of them want to give up and turn back east.

The performances in this film are all quite good. Michelle Williams as the young wife of one of the leaders of the party is quite effecting. Her quiet resolve and resignation is tempered with a cautious optimism that's borne of necessity rather than belief, things can't get worse so they have to get better and soon is what her character must be thinking. Bruce Greenwood, hiding behind a wild and wooly beard and hairdo, is the vainglorious know it all scout who may be leading the party to their doom, it's his best role in years. Shirley Henderson, my Scottish adopted actor, see the side bar on this blog, is in this film and she's eerily good too. She was also another moody western a few years back if you remember, that film as called The Claim. And finally Rod Rondeaux as the Indian who is literally roped into going with the settlers party is also very good.

I recommend this film but be warned it's bleak and it has one of those endings that may unsettle some.

Here's your Boxing Day present

2011-12-26T14:12:00.000-05:00

The most depressing doll ever made.

The 8 oader bill

2011-12-26T00:57:00.001-05:00

The rain king's bitter tears now drip on to the 8 oader bill.

It's Chrimma day!

2011-12-25T10:00:00.002-05:00

Santa rules.

Season's greetings from Monkey Buddha!

2011-12-24T00:36:00.001-05:00

And from me too.

A cinematic appreciation

2011-12-23T10:15:00.002-05:00

I first saw this film back when it came out in 1990, back when I was living in Roanoke, VA. I was the only person in the small art house theatre where it played. I remember thinking afterwards how much I loved it and how much I immediately wanted to see it again. Alas, my finances at the time prohibited me from seeing more than one film a week. When I finally got a VCR a few years later I kept looking for this film in every video store I went in. Alas, no luck.

After years of searching for it I decided that the film hadn't been real that it must have been some kind of hallucination that my feverish mind had made up. I chalked it up to those 5 or 6 hits of acid that I did back in the 1980's.

Amazingly enough, the other night Netflix instant streaming threw one of it's crazy lists up on my TV and there in a list if German language films was my beloved The Nasty Girl. I couldn't be 100% sure it was really there because unlike every other film and TV show on Netflix streaming, there was no poster for this film. So I clicked on it. And yes! It was really the film I had seen over 20 years ago. And yes, it was just as good, even better than I remembered.

The film is about a smart young woman from a close knit Catholic family in a small German town who wins an essay contest while in school. When another essay contest comes around she decides to enter it. The theme of this essay is 'My Town during the Third Reich.' As she researches the topic she finds out that the stories she grew up, that many in her town were brave resistance fighters and that the Jews of her town were treated better than elsewhere in Germany under the Nazis, weren't true. When it's obvious she might find out the real truth, the town's people set out to stop her, but in the end, the truth prevails.

This film is wonderful. It's a blend of straight ahead story telling, magical realism, a comedy of manners, a sweet romance between the title character and her husband, and what happens when the truth meets local legend. Lena Stolze is a standout in her role, she's in nearly every scene, and by the end of the film I defy you not to be in love with her. I suspect you'll also see how this film tells uncomfortable universal truths about uncomfortable situations in every town's history.

This film is firmly in my mythical top ten of all time favorites. I highly recommend you see it.

The heretic's dream of flight is on the 8:17 A bill

2011-12-22T11:47:00.002-05:00

7.5" x 5.5" mixed media future currency from the past mythological art card. Minimum donation $25.

Happy solstice!

2011-12-22T01:23:00.001-05:00

The longest night of the year, for most of us in the USA anyway, is tonight. I'll be using it to wish for a warm winter.

The usual suspects bring 'the stupid'

2011-12-21T01:48:00.002-05:00

A person, a friend of a friend, on Facebook wanted to be cool and hip by knocking Christians who demand we all say 'Merry Christmas.' She agreed with our mutual friend that Christians are far too sensitive to people like me who refuse to say it but then went on to say that after all Christmas was only one day while the Jewish holiday this time of year is eight days long and so is Kwanzaa. Then she betrayed her true nature when she went on to claim "I personally think Kwanzaa is b.s..."

So basically she was okay with letting Christians have their holiday which celebrates the virgin birth of the son o' God and with the Jewish holiday which celebrates having a miraculous amount of oil for their lamps, both stories are religious fairy tales, but she's not okay with African Americans celebrating their African heritage. Nice racism you got there girl.

Another friend posted about his son's school, the Gideons had dropped off a bunch of Christian bibles to be given away to the kids. One mother, a non believer was furious that her son had been given one and she registered her dissatisfaction. Then one of his friends pointed out that kids are subjected to atheism every day in science class so what was the problem with them getting to see the other side of the issue.

Yeah, let that last sentence sink in.

As if science is intrinsically atheist because it teaches us things that contradict the Christian book of fairy tales. Teh stupid, it boggles the mind sometimes. I reminded this dunce that science isn't biased, it's impartial and factual. He shot back that evolution was only a theory and if not for the Christian bible we would not know compassion and how did evolution explain compassion anyway, did it evolve in us or something? Since there is no way to explain the facts to stupid people, I blocked him so I would have to see his stupid assertions. I sincerely hope the idiot hasn't reproduced, or if he has, I hope his kids evolve more than he has.

Monkey Movie Report

2011-12-21T01:42:00.002-05:00

This film answers the burning question of what happens when your son, who is shaping up to be a major asshole, accidentally dies in an auto erotic asphyxiation accident.

This is a clever finely acted film and most of the credit for making this film work so well is Robin Williams. Wisely, the director reigned him in and didn't let him be the wild 'wacky' improv a minute Robin Williams who I have grown to despise to much lately. He's calm, controlled, and cool in this film and thank gawd for it. It wouldn't have worked otherwise. Daryl Sabara nails his role of the seething disgusting teenage son who snuffs it while dusting his dolphin.

I highly recommend this black comedy.

I ain't never satisfied

2011-12-20T01:23:00.005-05:00

Current mythology bores me. It's been dissected, fought over, codified, redacted, and disseminated for centuries. We've got the Greek stories, the Roman, the Christian, the Norse, the Indian, the Native American, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum. I'm sick of it all so I'm inventing my own.

Our culture at this point in history worships money so the mythology I'm inventing is currency based. My myths are the ones of the peoples who live in the 12 peninsulas. The peoples of the 12 peninsulas put their myths on their money so that every day they are reminded of their creation story, their heroes, their villains, their triumphs, their tragedies, and of what makes them them.

If you're a follower of my art page on Facebook then you'll get to see these mixed media collages as I make them. If you're not a follower of my art page on Facebook then that's your loss. I'm adding bits of the story as I post the collages and once I get them all done, I'm not sure how many there will be in all but do I have a number in mind, I'm going to publish them in an e-book format. In the e-book I'll flesh out some of the myths and characters that make up the peoples of the 12's collective myths. For instance right now all you know about this myth card/unit of currency is that the prayers of the Cranberry Pope for the crimson swimmers are ineffectual.
Later you'll learn why they are ineffectual.

And you'll learn why the release of the new Cluckers Day 8=8 bill is a cause for such joy.

Perhaps I'll also clue you in on what goes down when the Council of Four finishes their judgement of the multi hued astronaut. Or perhaps I'll leave that to your imagination.
Each of the original mixed media art card collages in this series are yours for a donation of $25 each to my PayPal account. I also take checks (US banks only) and money orders. I'm going to offer these through Society 6 as well, once I get signed up on there that is.

Old white guys wearing glasses weigh in on the issues of the day

2011-12-19T00:29:00.003-05:00

Ripley Knockaround of Jupiter's Thigh, Iowa says, "I want to use live ammo in the war on Christmas. These Jewish atheist gay Muslims got to realize that we Christians are tired of being oppressed into saying 'Happy holidays' and 'Season's Greetings.' I'm ready for others to die because of my beliefs."

John Ivanisectickwi of Raleigh, North Carolina says, "I have a tiny penis. That's all."

Lurid Panhole of Whigs Bottom, Oregon has this to say, "Kim Jong Il may be dead but the love his people have for him will live on, much like the anthrax I spread in the local deli restrooms and truck stops will live on."

Dothan Larkswinger of Love Canal, NY is excited about Michele Bachmann. "I bet she's great in the sack. And the sack I mean is a burlap sack that's full of rabid badgers and a cinder block that's been tossed in a river."

"While you're reading this bullshit blog post gays are getting married and Mexicans are converting to Mormonism. And no, you can't have my name or city and state of residence."

A very Monkey movie report

2011-12-18T04:09:00.002-05:00

This 1967 Japanese gangster film is so over the top that it redefines the words 'over the top.'

The anti hero, Japan's third ranked contract killer, has a fetish for the scent of boiling rice. In fact, it gives him a chubby. Yes, you read that right, the aroma of boiling rice takes our anti hero to the bone zone. But that's not the most over the top thing about him.

What sets our anti hero apart from the rest is his cheeks. He was either going through some serious dental work while filming this picture or he had implants put in there. Or perhaps he's got rice balls stuffed in his mouth and maybe this is where Marlon Brando got the idea to stuff his cheeks for The Godfather. But whatever it is, it's highly distracting.

"Distracting from what?," you might ask. Well as best I can describe it, here's what happens in this film:

our anti hero decides to help out a former ranked killer who has gotten fired. They are to pick up a guy from point A and deliver him safely to point B. Assured that nothing could go wrong they jump in. Then everything goes wrong and the former killer gets killed, along with a bunch of other guys.
our anti hero has wildly athletic sex with his comely young wife in their fabulous mid century modern furnished apartment. Then they decide to kill one another and they spend a good bit of the movie either sniffing boiling rice, having sexy sex, or trying to shoot, stab, or burn one another.
our anti hero meets a mopey gangster gal who hires him to kill a foreigner, who looks Japanese. He fails and she says because he failed she must kill him but she wants to be killed too because she thinks she just a walking corpse. Of course they get naked at times, he sniffs boiling rice, they have sex, and then they try to kill one another.
Pretty soon the film just devolves into a bunch of scenes where the anti hero with the chipmunk cheeks does crazy shit, cries, has break downs, wants sex, sniffs rice, and does other crazy looking shit.
Then near the end they try to slap some semblance of a plot on the screen and they have chipmunk cheeks have a showdown with the number one ranked contract killer in Japan. They face off, have a bunch of weird bonding scenes, then they kill one another.

Yeah, it's as fucked up as it sounds but one thing is for sure, it's all visually striking and pretty fucking cool. The fact that it's shot in black and white makes it even better because color would have been distracting, it would have taken away from the essential craziness of the film. The women are super sexy, especially chipmunk cheek's wife, most of the other gangsters aside from chipmunk cheeks are cool as heck, and the interiors are chock full of cool mid century modern stuff.

As crazy over the top and disjointed as this film is, I still highly recommend it. It's a perfect example of Japanese excess storytelling and film making. They took what was thought of as a uniquely American genre and they put their crazy stamp on it. I loved this film.

Goya!

2011-12-18T00:08:00.002-05:00

I'd like to build a time machine so I could go back in time to party with the great Spanish artist Francisco Goya.

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

2011-12-17T00:47:00.004-05:00

Today's episode: whole poached chicken.

Start by filling a stock pot half way full of water and add a table spoon or so of sea salt, add more if you like it saltier.
Put the water on to boil.
As your water boils, clean out the inside cavity of the chicken. Toss out any livers, necks, or whatever else is in there. Then when your water comes to a boil gently slide your chicken in the water.
Let the chicken boil for 5 to 10 minutes then turn the burner off.
Cover the pot and let the chicken sit in the hot water for about an hour to an hour and a half. If you like, turn the burner back on and bring it to a boil again as you fix whatever else you're going to have with the chicken.

Cooking the chicken in this manner produces a super juicy moist end product. I usually make a soy dipping/drizzling sauce to go over the chicken meat the first night I make this. I put about one third cup of soy, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a spritz of lemon or lime, a chopped green chilli that's been deseeded and ribbed all together in a saute pan and I let it come to a boil and then I let it cool a bit, then I drizzle it over the chicken. I also usually serve mixed steamed vegetables (broccoli/cauliflower/snow peas/what have you) with this dish. And sometimes I make soba noodles with this chicken. It's dead simple to make, juicy, and delicious.

I use the left over chicken to make everything from quesadillas, chicken noodle soup, chicken salad, and chicken paninis.

We're not Jesus people

2011-12-16T00:27:00.001-05:00

We're Santa people!

I tried

2011-12-16T00:21:00.002-05:00

I watched about two thirds of this film last night. It's a late 1960's satire about American imperialism. What started out funny and trenchant soon morphed into something else. The first 30 minutes are hilarious, the second 30 grow tiresome because they keep beating the joke to death, I skipped the last 30 and watched the third episode of the first BBC Luther series.

No recommendation on this one. Watch it if you like. Meh.

Oops, he did it again

2011-12-15T00:43:00.002-05:00

The Spineless Wonder is gonna do it again. He's going to cave to the military/corporate complex that really runs this country. He's not going to veto the awful defense bill that will allow indefinite detention of Americans in the name of the never ending wars of terror.

I voted for a change when I voted for Obama. What I got was more of the same. Fuck it.

I'll probably be in a solitary confinement prison cell next to Bradley Manning once President Traitor signs the bill. Happy fucking Christmas America.

Thanks

2011-12-15T00:25:00.003-05:00

Many thanks to those who contributed to my fundraiser. I appreciate each and every one of you. Your generosity has touched me deeply.

And to my cousin who is fighting to get his donation back from me, you're scum. If the cost of the certified letter I sent your conceptual art cards to you is the price I have to pay to keep you out of my life forever then it was a great investment. I realize that you were raised with an incredibly huge sense of entitlement when it comes to me and my family, but seriously asshole, you need to get help so you can figure out why you have this deep sick need to be liked by those you used to bully. Consider yourself lucky you got the art cards I sent you. And you be sure to let the concept I wrote on them sink in that thick drug addled skull of yours, I know all those years of smoking pot have made you stupid, but damn, it's not that hard to figure out. I don't like you, I don't want to be around you, I don't want you to be around me, and none of that will ever change.

Self portrait with green hair and a monkey

2011-12-14T16:14:00.001-05:00

4.5" x 6.5" mixed media collage on cardstock. Minimum donation $20.

A double movie report

2011-12-14T01:30:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Netflix instant streaming I now get to see a bunch of Hammer horror films I missed out on earlier in life. I watched this one recently:
Once Hammer got the formula for these films down pat, there was no stopping them. The figured out how to make these kinds of film cheaply so they made a quick return on their investment and they churned them out like hotcakes. Which is not to say they were bad, most of them weren't, but just because they weren't bad didn't mean they weren't cheesy. And this one isn't bad but boy is it cheesy.

The film starts out with a scene, Van Helsing killing Count Dracula, that obviously been clipped from a previous film and tacked onto this one. Once they established the fact that ol' Dracula is kaput, they set about trying to bring him back to life in swingin' 1970's London. When the credits finish rolling we're treated to a scene inside a house where a bunch of groovy hip 30 year old teenagers are grooving to a rock band while snooty blue bloods with gray hair look on in horror. They quickly zero in on the main group of kids that the film revolves around, among them a young male character whose last name is Alucard (It's Dracula backwards! Get it?) and Van Helsing's great grand daughter, played by Stephanie Beacham who had some gravity defying breasts back in those days, and who sports the one of the worst hair cuts in the history of British cinema. On the plus side it also features the wildly sexy Caroline Munroe.

Beacham and her pals want nothing more than kicks, booze, dancing, music, and to wear bad clothes while sporting horrendous hairdos and side burns that would make Chester A. Arthur ashamed of himself. They let Alucard talk them into a black mass that will raise Dracula from the dead. The mass works, Munroe gets bitten and dies, and once the cops bring in Beacham's granddad, Van Helsing's grandson, played by a sallow looking Peter Cushing, things really get going.

Of course they get Dracula in the end and Beacham and her fine boobs don't go to the dark side. It's all pretty formulaic but it's fun. I loved the lengths they went to to try and cover Beacham's gawd awful shag haircut. The clothes and cars were a hoot as well. And perhaps the best thing about this film was the opening scene where the oldest teens in the world are grooving to the swinging sounds of the now forgotten rock band Stoneground. If you're looking for an hour and a half of cheesy horror, bad clothes, sexy women, and old dudes fighting it out, then this film is for you. I recommend it but I'm warning you it's cheesy as all get out.

I saw The General back when it first came out on VHS years ago and I recalled really liking it back then in the late '90's. I especially liked Brendan Gleeson's performance. I watched it again the other night and while I still liked it very much, I couldn't but think that deep down, no matter the amount of mythologizing and trying to make Martin Cahill look like a modern day Irish Robin Hood, he was nothing more than a criminal who gamed the system.

Cahill was a well known criminal who was famous for never doing a crime that he hadn't meticulously planned out. As time went on and his legend grew his crimes grew bigger and more audacious. And the response to them by the Irish police, known as the garda, grew more audacious. As happens to most all well known criminals, Cahill took one step too far, he tried to sell stolen paintings to the Ulster Volunteer Force, a Protestant paramilitary group that was at war with the IRA. When the IRA found out that he was selling them the paintings so they could resell them to buy more weapons to use against them, the IRA, as is the common thinking, had Cahill murdered. This film purports to tell Cahill's story from his beginnings as a petty thief up to the day the IRA had him whacked.

I still loved Gleeson's performance as Cahill and I really loved Maria Kennedy Doyle as his wife and Angeline Ball as her sister and Cahill's lover. Both women play tough roles with a great deal of tenderness. The rest of the cast is good as well, although Jon Voight appears to be out of his element. His accent isn't up to par and he looks out of place, although I'm sure director John Boorman cast him in order to secure financing.

As I said, I liked the film upon seeing it this my second time, but I had a few problems with it. The glorifying of the life of a common criminal is one problem and the other is Boorman makes it look like the garda was in collusion with the IRA in Cahill's murder.

All in all though, I recommend this film based purely on the performances of Brendan Gleeson and Maria Kennedy Doyle. They alone make it all worthwhile.

Food chain frolic

2011-12-13T18:23:00.001-05:00

10" x 4" mixed media collage on cardboard. Minimum donation $25.

Clubs seeking members

2011-12-13T00:37:00.003-05:00

The Anti Anti Semitic Society of Provo, Utah

The Princeton White Slavery Ring

Future Bureaucrats of Greater Albuquerque

Circle Jerk Fellowship

Alfred Packer Assembly

Posting of clubs looking for new members should not be taken to mean that this blog supports these clubs. We list them merely as a public service.

Cal's nightmare

2011-12-12T10:43:00.001-05:00

5.5" x 7.5" mixed media collage on card stock. Minimum donation $30.

Amazing

2011-12-12T01:01:00.001-05:00

After I publicly call out my cousin for his bullying, all my trolls went away.

Crazy huh.

Not all Criterion Collection films are great

2011-12-11T13:15:00.005-05:00

Made in 1977 and released in 1978 this film doesn't hold up well at all. I'm sure if I saw it when it came out, back when I was a horny teenager, I would have loved it. Now, not so much at all.

The film has an interesting plot, Queen Elizabeth the first has her court alchemist transport her, him, and a lady in waiting 400 years in to the future so she can see what becomes of her beloved England. What follows is laughably bad.

The first clue you've entered pretentious art house hell is when you see that the queen's lady in waiting is a dwarf. Then once transported into the future the shit storm of pretentiousness hits you like a hurricane. We're treated a treatise on history from a woman who's hair was done up by the lead singer of Flock of Seagulls, and who's make up was done in a clown college. Her name is Amyl Nitrate and unfortunately, she's all through the rest of the film. People sit around in squalid graffiti filled rooms, have the least sexy looking sex ever, and look all late '70's punk rockish. Periodically they take the time out to go hang out around things that have been set on fire where they meet other people who like to hang out around things that have been set on fire and who like to do it while wearing masks or dancing. When they tire of that they go meet others who include a bald guy who is obviously a campy homosexual who loves to either start each sentence off with a maniacal laugh or end one the same way, and after awhile, it gets super annoying.

Everybody has a 'cool' punk rock name like 'Crabs,' 'Bod,' and 'Holy shit I can't believe this shitty film is in the Criterion Collection.' Most of the women take off their tops and walk around with bare breasts at some point, so the film has that going for it. And some of the guys do full frontal nudity and their penises swing free and breezy, after all if they show boobs, they gotta show dick too.

The characters mope around complaining that it's the end of the world or the end of love or the end of some other stupid fucking pointless ephemeral thing. Then for no reason at all the cops, who up to this point have benignly smiled as people got beat up, shit got blown up, and cars got stolen, start to behave like cops and they murder some of the annoying characters. But when not getting murdered by the cops, who patrol the streets of future London while wearing motorcycle helmets even though they don't ride motorcycles, some of the characters have sex on top of red plastic sheets, sit around looking dopey, and perform 'musical' numbers.

Yeah, it's all a big fucking pretentious mess. It's fucking dreadful and will make you hate punk rock, art house films, bare breasts, London, the 1970's, and if you're not careful, life itself. I nearly lost the will to live while watching this shit. I'm guessing the only reason they put this turkey in the Criterion Collection was to show how a film can be emblematic of it's times. Or maybe they wanted a shitty pretentious piece of crap in there as a palette cleanser.

See it if you must but know that I warned you.

Six

2011-12-10T23:38:00.001-05:00

4.5" x 6.5" mixed media on cardstock.

Movie review times 2

2011-12-10T00:33:00.004-05:00

This 1950 British mystery holds up quite well. The body of a murdered woman is found by a little boy and two detectives piece together the story of her life and final days through interviewing the people who knew her and who interacted with her in her last days. Each person interviewed portrays their relationship with the murder victim differently, it's kind of like a British version of Rashomon.

The performances are all top notch, as is the direction, and the look of the film. If you're one of those philistines who won't watch black and white movies then you're an ass who should stop reading this blog right this minute. The lack of color actually aids in the story because the shadows and grey tones in the film become supporting characters.

Jean Kent and Susan Shaw are impossibly beautiful in this film. They are so glamorous that's it hard to focus on what they are saying when they're onscreen. And young Dirk Bogarde is incredibly handsome in this film as well.

I recommend this one. This film is available on the Criterion Collection on HuluPlus.

A man born in Communist Poland makes it over to the USA and makes it big in the polka music world centered in Pennsylvania. He marries a local beauty and they have two kids and they run a business centered around the polka and Polish gift business. The man, Jan Lewan, keeps his business empire and life afloat by running a Ponzi scheme centered on his entertainment business. When it all comes crashing down and hundreds of people, mainly easily duped senior citizens, lose millions.

This shortish documentary is a fascinating look at the world of polka and the people pf the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania who are huge fans of it. It's also a interesting look at greed, the greed of the Lewans and those they swindled. Jan Lewan eventually went to prison for his crimes but he comes across as someone who still blames others for his misfortune. He takes all of the glory and none of the blame, as does his wife and some of his band members. His wife and some of his old band take the attitude that no one forced anyone to invest in Lewan's scheme and that those who did who lost money were greedy anyway so they deserved what they got in the end, which makes his wife and the band members who espouse that tripe unrepentant assholes worthy of scorn and derision. Lewan went to prison, served 4 years of hard time in a maximum security prison in Delaware and one year in a federal pen. He's out now and he's back in the music business and if he or anyone connected with him asks you to invest in him, run the hell away.

This film proves the old saying that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

I enjoyed this documentary even though polka music and the old people who love it creep me out. It's on Netflix streaming if you want to check it out.

Warnings from the future, distractions from the past

2011-12-09T13:49:00.002-05:00

Peril. 5.5" x 7.5" mixed media on cardstock.
Minimum donation $30.

Little village. 4.5" x 6.5" mixed media on cardstock.
Minimum donation$17.50.

Hiro takes a fall. 4.5" x 6.5" mixed media on cardstock.

Minimum donation $17.50.

Tiny little bullies

2011-12-09T00:07:00.004-05:00

I hate bullies. I hate it that some of these bullies push kids like this to suicide.

Growing up I wore black horn rimmed glasses, wasn't 'tough,' and was smarter than average. All this made me a target for bullies. Yes, I encountered bullies in school, but what's worse was when I went home, the house I lived in was full of bullies.

When my mother got killed on the operating table in 1973 in a Detroit hospital my two brothers, my sister, and I got packed off to live with my crazy aunt and her family. It became pretty clear pretty quickly what the deal was in her house. The deal was she treated us like crap, like we existed to serve her and her kids. She bullied us and treated us like second class citizens, and as a high school friend who I recently reconnected with on Facebook said, "...much like indentured servants; offering you one act of humanity, by allowing you guys to sleep inside the house." If we crossed one of the many boundaries my crazy aunt laid down, she'd think nothing of hitting us with belts, her fists, switches, and once, when I was 12, she threw a stainless steel sauce pan at me. On the day I got out of the hospital after my emergency appendectomy in the mid '70's, I got home and was laying on the couch reading the latest issue of National Geographic that I had gotten out of her purse, it had been sticking up out of her pocket book so it wasn't like I had to dig around in there to find it. She saw me reading it, snatched it out of my hands, and screamed at me for 'stealing it.' She shouted that if I hadn't just gotten out of the hospital she'd have whipped me for stealing her magazine.

And of course all this bad behavior by her towards us didn't go unnoticed by her children. They quickly learned to treat us like we were second class citizens who were there to be bullied. If we had some possession, be it a book, a piece of candy, a record, whatever, and they wanted it, all they had to do was to tell their mother we wouldn't share it with them and she'd force it from us and give it to them. They also copied her violence and psychological abuse towards us. My eldest cousin found out one day that when hit in the nose I would sneeze uncontrollably, so of course for the next few weeks he would chase me down, punch me in the nose to get me to sneeze, and he encouraged others to do the same. His brother not only used physical violence to bully me with, he loved to spread the rumor that I was, as he used to put it, 'a queer.' Both of them encouraged others to treat me and my siblings as badly as they treated me.

I made the decision after my heart attack to cut my crazy aunt and her bullying pack of jackal children out of my life. Being around them, hearing them, hearing from them, all brought my stress levels to rise. So I cut them out of my life. It took awhile for my crazy aunt to get the hint that I didn't want to talk to her when she called me. She finally quit calling and not too soon after that she died. Most of her children got the hint that I didn't want to talk to or hear from them and they quit bugging me.

But one of them has recently tried to establish contact with me through this blog. And because he was raised with such a high sense of entitlement towards me and my family, he can't imagine why I don't like him, won't let him comment on this blog, and don't want him in my life. And like all bullies, he's oblivious to all the bullying he used to inflict on me. When I remind him of some of the shit he and his dead mother used to do to me and my siblings, his only response is to tell me I need 'help.' Actually, I needed help back when I was living in that house with him and his crazy mother. I told him in an email recently to fuck off and I hope it sinks into his drug addled brain. Having a person who used to bully you try to be friends with you is like your rapist wanting to hang out with you right after he finishes raping you.

If you're being bullied, tell someone. And if they don't do anything to help you, keep telling people until someone does help. I couldn't tell anyone for years because the person who was supposed to be looking after me was the ringleader of the people who bullied me the most. And in a strange way, I'm glad others from that era saw what was going on because it shows that I wasn't making shit up and that outsiders could see through the mist of lies and smokescreen of respectability that my crazy aunt tried to project.

Shocking, not so shocking

2011-12-08T00:37:00.004-05:00

Manga woman is shocked that the Obama administration has caved to the radical religious right on the birth control pills issue. They've over ruled the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services won't allow women under the age of 17 to get birth control pills with out a prescription. Why does yet another cave on their part surprise anyone any more?

And staying with the subject of Obama caving, I'll be shocked if he vetoes the defense bill that contains the unlimited detention on US soil provision. This lose to an election year he'll cave and allow that bullshit to pass because he's afraid of being seen as being weak on defense. He won't veto and we'll all be rounded up before you can scream, "Dictatorship of the corporation!" at the top of your lungs.

The thing that really shocks me this week is the claim the progressives didn't do enough to get Obama to go along with their agenda and therefore they bear a share of the blame for his failure to be a strong progressive president. I call 'bullshit' on that notion. Obama took office and he and human piece of shit Rahm Emmanuel did everything they could to push progressives under the bus. It's hard to influence policy when those at the top are binding and gagging you. They ignored us and then blamed us when the problems started happening. Remember human piss stain Robert Gibbs telling the people in the professional left to shut the fuck up? Yeah, I thought you did.

The moral here is don't be shocked at what Obama will cave on because he's got no back bone, has no idea how to govern, and will blame progressives for sabotaging whatever he's done.

Vote Green in 2012. It's time to turn out all the liars and corporate whores. Occupy our government.

Another German gal has stolen my heart

2011-12-07T08:41:00.004-05:00

I'm in love with Hannah Cheesman and this performance piece she wrote and stars in. I love how she moves, her accent, her expressions. I'm besotted with her Canadian Teutonic hotness.

Click here to see my new German crush.

Unintentional hilarity

2011-12-07T08:04:00.000-05:00

Swag!

2011-12-06T15:57:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite people ever sent me some swag. It's a 4" x 4" mixed media collage.

Thanks much Kim! You're the best!

It's time for a David 'Wallbuilders' Barton 'history' lesson!

2011-12-06T10:45:00.005-05:00

Back in the early days of America, while we were still a colony of England, homosexuality was rampant. The English were sending over boatloads of queers to bugger the godly and Jesus loving American colonists. But some of the brave Americans fought back by pouring hot lube on the British Nancy boys:

One of the brave American colonists, Roger Buggery, prayed many days to Jesus for a solution to this problem. And after 40 days of prayer filled days and masturbation-less filled nights, Jesus told him what to do.
Jesus told him to leave his good lady-wife and to hightail it to a shipyard. So he bid his good lady-wife adieu and told his Negro slave Mandingo Biggun to keep his wife well looked after in his absence.

With his wife in the good hands of his trusty God given slave, Roger went to the shipyard.
While there he made a giant wooden phallus that he was going to use to ram the buttocks of the King of England with so that the king would feel what it was like to be anally abused, which is what all those British gays were doing to the godly Americans. Jesus had told Roger that in this one instance it would be okay to violate the king with gay sex because it would teach him that it was bad, and that would make him stop sending all those child molesting raping hard bodied gays to our shores.

After 40 days of work and 40 nights of his wife being looked after by his upright slave, Roger Buggery finished the giant wooden dildo and he set off for the old world to rape the King of England with it. Once word got out that Roger was on his way, they did everything they could to stop him. They attacked his ship:

They put on wigs and swore oaths against him:
They smoked pot and took LSD in order to expand their minds so they could come up with better ways to stop Buggery. They scoured the internet and consulted astrologers to find ways to stop the king from being 'Rogered,' and yes, this is where that expression comes from, that's a fact, it's in the Bible.

But nothing worked because you can't stop a manly man whose giant wooden phallus is filled with Jesus spirit. God led Roger to the King's palace bedroom where he eased the giant dork of divine justice into the King's booty hole. As the phallus violated the King, the King's heart melted and he ordered the transport of the gays to the USA stopped. Once they had finished their business with the wooden penis, the King signed a treaty with Roger that said that the Americans were indeed the chosen people, not the Jews as had been previously reported in the liberal Jewish controlled media, and that the gays would go to Australia instead of America.
There was much rejoicing when the news got out. Roger went home after months away and there he found that God had performed a miracle. Roger's wife had become great with child while Roger was away on the Lord's business. Her swollen belly was proof that God blesses those who do his work.

So the lesson in this lesson is that if we do the work of Jesus, just as Buggery did, then the Lord will bless us. The other lesson is to not listen to the liberal media or academia because they'd never tell you about this bit of forgotten history. And finally, the last lesson is, all the gays need to be deported to Australia.

Praise Jesus!

Just plain dumb

2011-12-05T19:10:00.001-05:00

If you keep leaving comments that never see the light of day, then that should be a sign that you're not welcome to leave comments on this blog. You'd think that lesson would sink in, but you'd be wrong.

Damn you Australian TV!

2011-12-05T01:30:00.002-05:00

You sucked me into watching yet another of your TV series.

In other news, I'm still trying to raise money for a new pair of glasses. If you can, please donate to my PayPal account. Any amount you give is appreciated and donations of $25 or more gets you four random art cards.

Thanks.

Family Values

2011-12-04T01:50:00.002-05:00

I recently watched the Canal+ miniseries Borgia: Faith and Fear on Netflix. This series is not to be confused with the Showtime series starring Jeremy Irons. But I'll safely say without having seen the Showtime series, the Canal+ series beats it hands down.

This series plops us into the middle of Rome in 1493. It's a time of intrigue and shifting loyalties all around. Priests, cardinals, and bishops during this time were attracted to women and they not only slept openly with then, they had children by them, and they actively promoted their children to positions in the church.

With the impending death of one pope, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, played brilliantly by John Doman, plots and schemes his way to the papal throne. He uses anyone and everyone around him to get what he wants. He pimps out his daughter, he pits his sons against one another, and he uses other cardinals like they are his pawns. After his ascension to the papacy he uses kings and queens to do his bidding, with mixed results. As you expect all his machinations and double dealing come back to bite him on the ass and by the end of the series he gets what is coming to him.

I found this 12 episode series to be an over the top brilliant, gripping piece of work. Doman, Marta Gastini, Isolde Dychauck, Art Mailk, Dejan Cukic, Assumpta Serna, and Mark Ryder are all very very good in their roles.

The story line and most all of the acting in this show is very good but I did have a few problems with it. Since it was filmed in Europe, primarily for a European audience, many European actors were cast and their accents clashed at times. I know, I know, I'm petty to complain about someone's English accent when English is their second or third language, but there you go. Some of the characters were hard at times to understand, especially the kid who played Juan Borgia. Another thing that bothered me was the anachronisms. At one point Pope Borgia tells a woman she will be banished to a city fifty kilometers from Rome. The only problem with that statement is there was no such thing as a kilometer back in 1493, the metric system had not been invented yet and it would not be invented for another 300 plus years.

But all in all, those two things that I didn't like pale in comparison to what I did like. I loved most all of the performances, the look of the show, the music, the realism, the beautiful women, and the multi dimensional characters. Since this show was produced for the European market, there is a fair amount of nudity and lots of talk about sex. Violence also abounds, so be aware but don't let either of those things keep you from watching this great show.

I highly recommend this show and if you have Netflix streaming and don't watch it, I'm going to excommunicate you.

A warning from the future, a distraction from the past

2011-12-04T00:19:00.002-05:00

'Signals'
5.5" x7.5" art card collage
Minimum donation: $25

Sure,

2011-12-03T00:14:00.001-05:00

things were more relaxed in the Mexican Leagues, but the hats took a lot of getting used to.

Christmas Eva 2011!

2011-12-02T02:48:00.005-05:00

The lawsuits stemming from last's years Christmas special 'A Very Special Grease Fire Christmas' have been settled or thrown out of court so that means it's time for this years special! I'm pleased to announce that this year's Yuletide spectacular will be televised on the Schleswig-Holstein Channel on Roku. And I'm even more pleased that my co-host this year is none other than German actress Eva Habermann!
The show will open with Ms. Habermann 'polishing my glockenspiel.' Once I calm down from the excitement of that she and I will sing a lovely duet version of 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland.' Then I'll slowly undress her with my eyes while I sing the John Mayer song 'Your Body is a Wonderland' to her.
Then we'll go out into the streets of Schleswig-Holstein where we'll hide the sausage as we toss boiled anthrax coated potatoes at street urchins. I know, it sounds fucked up but apparently it's a German tradition.
Next up it's back inside the studio where Ms. Habermann will recreate some of the action scenes from the Lexx films she was in while I sit and stare and mumble softly to myself. If I recover my composure in time we'll do a song and dance medley of Bulgarian disco Christmas classics.

As we go to commercial I'll pop a fistful of industrial strength Viagra and pray that it kicks in quickly. And as I wait for it to do so after we come back from the break, we'll run a condensed version of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol.
Once ol' Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas I'll celebrate by trying to pull down Eva's top.
It's okay if it comes down because they show boobies all the time on TV in Europe. She'll retaliate by trying pants me while she sings a dirty version of 'Jingle Bells' in her native German.

Next up it's time to do a sketch about a modern day baby Jesus.
We'll teach the baby Jesus the true meaning of Christmas while the Bethlehem doctors work round the clock trying to put his little stomach back inside his body. His tummy popped out after he ate too much frankincense and myrrh. After the operation we'll call in our super secret surprise guest Dana Delany to clean up the mess from the operation.
Miss Eva and I will then be whisked off to another part of the studio where we'll change into evening clothes, she into a swanky sparkly dress:
And I'll put on a tux and we'll do a romantic duet of 'What are you doing New Year's eve?' Our song will be made even more special because we'll be backed by the Debilitating Leg Pain Dancers:
During the commercial break after I show Eva my yule log again, I'll discover she's about a quart low on Christmas cheer. So I'll make her change back into her Oktober fest dress that highlights her cleavage. While she blows smoke at me I'll do my best to fill her up with as much Christmas cheer as I can, but I'm only human you know.
Finally the Christmas magic will kick in and there'll be a Christmas miracle in the form of a jet that whisks us off to a sun drenched tropical island.
After we rub sunblock all over each other, we'll close the show by swimming nude in a lagoon that's been sprinkled with flowers. We'll kiss, canoodle, and sing Mele Kalikimaka (The Hawaiian Christmas Song) as the closing credits roll.

I'm certain that this years special will be the best ever for me.

Brunette of the week

2011-12-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

Shannon Woodward

So long, it's been nice

2011-12-01T02:05:00.003-05:00

The US Senate voted to allow unlimited detention of American citizens on US soil in the name of the war of terror. Think about that. They will soon be able to classify anyone they like, from a peace and justice agitator to a union organizer to a migrant worker to an elementary school teacher with a passion for social justice, as a terrorist and they can hold them forever. They're going to turn our whole country into a Gitmo.

As if the unlimited detention thing wasn't bad enough, they also desperately want to censor the internet. They claim it's to stop piracy and to keep us from downloading their shitty movies and TV shows that keep us locked into the vicious cycle of consuming and wage slavery, but most of us know what the real reason is. They are shocked how fast the 99 percent movement grew, they are frightened we'll use the internet to keep connecting and to keep organizing and that one day it will be the lynchpin of the machine we use to overthrow them and sink their rotten to the core economic and political system. So they're acting to stop us.

These two acts by the people who have stolen and lied their way into power should prove to everyone that they will stop at nothing to keep us down and to keep themselves on top. They are hell bent on ruining our nation and enslaving us.

We had a good run. We got a minimum wage, 40 hour work weeks, a modicum of workplace health and safety laws, we ended child labor, we got integration and civil rights pushed through, but then when it suited them they broke our unions and set us against each other. The vast majority of the current generation of kids growing up will not do as well as their parents, unless they're in the wealthy elite class that is.

If we continue on the road we're on, the USA is doomed. The dictatorship of the corporation is ruthless and it will not brook any dissent.

So long America, it was fun while it lasted.

Oh, the agony!

2011-11-30T15:36:00.002-05:00

That man just remembered that he forgot to donate to my fundraiser that I'm having to raise money for a new pair of glasses with scratch resistant lenses. He's distraught over the fact that he could have donated any amount and that a $25 or more donation gets you four of my handmade art cards. Don't be like him. Don't suffer with the guilt and it's subsequent agony. Donate today. Here's how:

Things were a lot faster in 1968

2011-11-30T02:00:00.003-05:00

From the 1968 edition of the Home Health Encyclopedia:

Three to five minutes? Those guys were stallions!

All apologies

2011-11-30T01:30:00.001-05:00

I apologize for having to go to moderated comments. I'll switch back soon when the assholes who insist on being insulting and contrary leave. Like all bullies, if we just ignore them they'll go away.

The internet strikes again

2011-11-29T09:30:00.002-05:00

The idiot governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback, seen here trying to act all intelligent and shit, got his dictatorial hand slapped over the weekend, by a teenage girl no less.
Emma Sullivan, my new free speech hero, wrote a disparaging remark about him on a social network site and the governor acted like all petty tinpot dictators do, he tried to have the girl muzzled and punished. But when the outrage over the incident reached a boiling point, he backed down and tried to blame his staff for being over zealous. Hahahahahaha, yeah, right, It was his staff that's at fault. We all believe that.

The plutocracy always blames their underlings. The 99% has granted us freedom of speech, provided of course you don't actually use it. Incidents like this are why they want to censor the internet. They will stop at nothing to break our dissent and to keep their gilded privilege. But all their clumsy attempts at silencing us will ultimately fail because sooner of later, freedom and justice wins out.

And Gov. Brownback, you still blow a lot you dissent squelching asshole.

This shoud clear a few things up for some of you

2011-11-28T16:07:00.000-05:00