Healthcare! the Musical

President Barack Obama walks out to center stage, enters a single spotlight and sings

(sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)

I am President O-ba-ma
I want health care for everyone
we have a bill that is 2000 pages long
it’s not perfect but it’s very strong
I am President O-ba-ma
I want healthcare for everyone

the spotlight moves stage right to a group of Republican leaders

(sung to the tune of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas)

We’ll never
allow this to happen
we’ll lie and cheat and stall
we’ll make up stories about death panels
we’ll get Glen, Rush and Sean on the call
we’ll win
and let the democrats take the fall

the spotlight moves down to the floor to a group of uninsured Americans

(sung to the tune of Over the Rainbow)

Somewhere out in the world
people have health care
it’s not me or anyone I know
this old world just isn’t fair

the spotlight moves stage left to a group of democratic leaders

(sung to the tune of Another One Bites the Dust)

We wrote a bad bill, we know it
but we’re gonna to push it through
we’re doing it fast, not getting it right
gonna blow a lot of dough
are you ready, are you ready to pay
can you tell we don’t have a clue?
we’re the United States congress
we’re all smarter than you

we are filibuster proof
we have 60 votes
and another repub gone, and another repub gone
we have the votes we need
hey, we’re gonna jam it through
this bill’s all we’ve got

a harp trills in the background as the spotlight follows a newsie holding up a newspaper

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! House and Senate pass health care reform bill! President Obama vows to sign the hell out of it!

the spotlight moves stage right back to the republicans

(sung to the tune of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot)

It’s over
we lost the battle
but we won’t give up on the war
it’s over
the vote is there’s
we just have to lie and cheat some more

the spotlight goes back to shine on President Obama

(sung to the tune of the chorus of We Are the Champions)

I am the champion . . . my friends
and I got what I wanted in the end
I am the champion
I am the champion
no time for detractors
cause I am the champion . . . of health care reform!

the stage lights come up

Glenn Beck: The Blankety Blank of the Year

Glenn Beck has been named the Media Matters’ 2009 Misinformer of the Year. Here are a few more awards I think Glenn should win:

1. Assclown of the Year
2. Conspiracy Theorist of the Year
3. Cry Baby of the Year
4. Misspeller of the year
5. Sweaty, Bloated, Stage-Prowling Manatee of the Year
6. Finder of Communist Imagery in Background Art at 30 Rockefeller Center that No one Ever Looks at of the Year
7. Crap Flinger of the Year
8. Unfunny Pretend Comedian of the Year
9. Misunderstander of Socialism and Fascism of the Year
10. Blog Fodder of the Year

The 22 Million email March

The news was broken a few days ago that technicians have been able to recover 22 million White House emails that were lost during the Bush administration. Now I’ve lost things before, but 22 MILLION emails? What could they have said that no one tried to save them or retrieve them when they realized they were lost? Luckily Cosmic Overdrive has gotten its hands on some of the messages and they shed some light on what the day to day workings of the Bush White House were like:

From: George Bush
To: Donald Rumsfeld
Subject: cool video

Hey Rummy, have you seen that video on the You Tubes of that kitty playing the piano? Can we get that kitty for the next Kennedy Center thing? Get on it.

From: Dick Cheney
To: Dana Perrino
Subject: Fear

I saw the press briefing today. There was no mention of how afraid the American people should be. From now on I want at least 3 mentions of fear to the press every day.

From: George Bush
To: Dick Cheney
Subject: Hey!

Hey grandpa! You awake? Ha ha ha

From: George Bush
To: John Ashcroft
Subject: Nickname

Hey Ashcroft I have a new nickname for you: Asscrap! Ashcroft—Asscrap, you get it? Gotta go, some general is talking to me

From: Donald Rumsfeld
To: All
Subject: Computer Usage

Whoever used my computer last Tuesday while I was at lunch, I’m not paying for all this Indonesian porn you ordered

From: George Bush
To: All
Subject: Fwd: Get to Know Your Friends

I better get this back!
Fill in your answers and forward to all your email buddies
Name: George Bush
Occupation: The Decider
What are you wearing right now: GI Joe pjs
Favorite TV show: Gilligan’s Island
Cocaine or beer: BOTH!
Last book you read: Don’t remember, but the last movie I saw was Rambo III, get ‘em Rocky!
Person most likely to respond: mom
Person least likely to respond: Cheney (come one old man, prove me wrong!)
Woman you’d most like to see naked: Condi (don’t tell her)

From: Dick Cheney
To: George Bush
Subject: RE: Get to Know Your Friends

How many times have I told you to stop sending me this crap? I have a country to run!

The One Not So Wise Man

Last week the mayor of Arlington Tennessee (a suburb of Memphis) with the ironic name of Russell WISEMAN, was upset that President Obama pre-empted the annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas with his speech about the war in Afghanistan. Mr. WISEMAN posted his displeasure on his Facebook page:

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load . . . try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose”

Cosmic Overdrive did a little digging and found these other entries on Mr. WISEMAN’s Facebook wall:

posted November 7, 2009
“So I take the kids to the movies for a fun Saturday afternoon and decide to buy them some candy, wouldn’t you know they’re out of m & ms, you can’t tell me this wasn’t a liberal Hollywood plot to deprive my kids out of a tasty treat . . . screw you Susan Sarandon, you’re probably a muslim”

posted November 23, 2009
“Tried to have sex with the wife tonight, shot down again, 103 days in a row; I know what’s going on, the muslims don’t want me to have any more kids because one of them could grow up to be president, so they’ve brainwashed my wife into not being sexually attracted to me anymore, well thank you Osama Bin Muhammad . . . “

posted December 5, 2009
“The kids have been playing a lot of video games lately so I decided to take them out for some sun and exercise, we’re not out more than 5 minutes and it starts to rain, tell me this wasn’t done on purpose by the earth’s atmosphere to ruin my kid’s day, damn you ionosphere!”

My Completely Fabricated Interview with Glenn Beck

Cosmic Overdrive presents an entirely made up interview with Fox broadcaster and right wing cry baby Glenn Beck. To get answers to my questions I channeled Mr. Beck, trying to get inside his head and yank the answers out like pulling a string from a dog’s ass. I warn you, don’t try this at home. This should be attempted only by a certified lampooner like me. Without further adieu, the interview:

Cosmic Overdrive: Are you insane?
Glenn Beck: Let’s see I tried being a wacky radio DJ, a stand up comic, and a cocaine addict and except for the coke fiend, I wasn’t good at any of them. Now I pull conspiracies out of thin air, I lie all day every day, I exploit my viewers’ fears and I’m making millions. Does that sound crazy?
Cosmic Overdrive: No, it sounds vile.
Glenn Beck: You didn’t ask if I had morals.
Cosmic Overdrive: Touché. How do you make yourself cry on cue?
Glenn Beck: I pinch my testicles. Works every time. In fact the last time I pinched too hard and thought I may have sterilized myself but I was checked out and the Beckster is still shooting live ammo!
Cosmic Overdrive: More graphic detail than was needed. Do you compete with Rush Limbaugh?
Glenn Beck: Hell no! That guy shovels the food in with a front end loader. I’m a little pudgy but I once saw the Rushman squeeze a Christmas ham right from the can into his mouth.
Cosmic Overdrive: What I meant was do you compete with him for influence over conservatives?
Glenn Beck: No, but I do compete with the voices in my head telling me not to wear pants. I usually win but there are days, like Boxer Tuesdays, where it’s just me and my briefs.
Cosmic Overdrive: This interview’s not going the way I had planned.
Glenn Beck: I think you have a deep-seated hatred of conservative TV hosts.
Cosmic Overdrive: Hatred is a strong word.
Glenn Beck: Well, you don’t hate us.
Cosmic Overdrive: Wait. I’ve heard this exchange before.
Glenn Beck: Let me tell you about grab-my-butt Thursdays . . .
Cosmic Overdrive: Interview over. Thank you for your time.

The "The Recession is Over but I Still Ain't Got Nothin' " Blues

That stone just keeps on rolling
Bringing me some real bad news
The takers get the honey
Givers sing the blues
Robin Trower—Too Rolling Stoned

Friends trying to find jobs
can’t get nothing
not even an interview
this “recessions” a tough one
I’ve got a job
hell I’ve got 2
gotta have both
to stay out of the screws

Families everywhere
are losing their homes
no money for the mortgage
who has 900 bones?
The banks take them back
they owned them all along
Citibank and Chase
say “we’ve done nothing wrong”

Health insurance costs
are out of control
40 million of us
have no help with the toll
The government plan is
just stay healthy
politicians won’t stop the insurance companies
because their making too much money

We bail the banks out
because they’re too big to fail
but we the people
our lives are for sale
Even after we save them
bonuses worth billions
get paid out
to greedy Wall Street minions

The recession is over
shouts the news
then why am I still broke
and singing the blues?

Sarah Palin: Going Stupid

Sarah Palin’s autobiography Going Rogue has just been released. What a title, because she’s a maverick, a pioneer, an iconoclast. And why is that? Well let’s face it; normally someone this stupid would try to stay out of the limelight, to not draw attention to their idiocy. But what did Sarah “Rogue” Palin do instead? She ran for governor of Alaska. I won’t cast aspersions on the people of Alaska. When I wonder why they voted for Sarah Palin I have to believe they were under the influence of a mass delusion and they thought they were voting for a valid candidate or perhaps a polar bear. Only when they woke up from their reverie did they realize what they had wrought.

Here’s where our story takes a sharp left turn, a rogue turn, if you will. Sarah’s Circus of Stupidity would have remained in Alaska, a gentle, warming sense of amusement on those below 0 nights if it hadn’t been for John McCain. Or as he became known during the 2008 election campaign, John “Dear God I will do anything if you just let me be president” McCain.

John, in his infinite wisdom, asked Sarah to be his vice president. Most people, who knew their brains weren’t firing on all neurons, would have said no. But you know our Sarah, she’s a dope. I mean rogue. What does she do? She says yes, John, I will be your vice president. I will do interviews in which I say nothing but “you betcha” and “Bill Ayers” over and over again. I’ll say things in a homespun, folksy way meant to endear me to people but instead come off sounding like Granny catching a possum down at the ce-ment pond. I’ll go into a debate so unprepared that somewhere a chimpanzee watching the event will be heard to mutter, “You gotta be kidding me. This is a joke right?”

The gauzy haze of the Bush years was finally lifted and the American people rejected the bumbling please-let-me-win desperation of McCain/Palin and elected Barack Obama president. We thought we had seen and heard the last of Sarah Palin. But instead of staying in the wilds of Alaska and leaving us alone, she quits as governor, writes her memoir and becomes a nuisance by spreading herself all over the TV and newspapers like a stomach virus.

Our long, national nightmare continues . . .

The Partycrashers

Boise State, TCU, Cincinnati: Thank you for your college football seasons thus far. We appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into creating such exciting and fun-to-watch teams and can imagine the thrill it must be to be undefeated this late in the season. We wanted to say thank you . . . and you shouldn’t have bothered because you’re not getting into the national title game.

Even if you win out and end up undefeated for the whole season we are not letting you in the club. Why? You’re not in the SEC or Big 12 of course. Those are the only two conferences that have any relevance. At least that’s the consensus of the talking heads on ESPN, Fox, CBS, ABC, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We realize that you’ve worked just as hard as any other Division I school with the coach spending months recruiting the best players available, the tough two-a-day summer practices, the game planning, dealing with injuries, etc. Yes, you’ve done all these things, but you haven’t done them in the SEC or Big 12, so it’s a moot point.

Oh, and don’t feel like you’re being singled out. We don’t care about the Big 10, The ACC, the MAC, Conference USA, the Sun Belt or the PAC 10 either (except USC, we’ll always care about USC no matter how many games they lose to Stanford and Oregon).

In fact you really don’t need to have a football program. By all rights you should just shut down, save that money, use it elsewhere at the university because we’ll never let you in the title game. What would this country be coming to if the National Champion of Division I college football was Boise State or Texas Christian? I mean that would be un-American. We’d have to be communists to let that happen.

You should just be happy that we ALLOW you to play in bowls against the teams we do let into the championship game, such as Boise State’s 2006 defeat of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl or Utah’s 2008 defeat of Alabama in the Sugar bowl.

Because you see, those games are the real reason that we don’t want to let you play for the national championship.

You might actually win.

The Fearmongers!

This Tuesday at 9 it’s a new episode of Fox’s hit drama The Fearmongers! This week’s episode: Dr. Death!

Starring Glenn Beck as The Douchebag:
“Conservatives are awake. 9/12ers are willing to do the hard things. We know what this means! We’re taking time out of our busy lives, taking time away from their families; they’re attending town hall meetings. They are calling their representatives. How many times do we have to be yelled at by your people in Washington? The 9/12ers are willing to stand in line and take our shoes off before the plane actually hits the tower.”

Michele Bachmann as Wingnut Michele:
“I’d love to have everyone join me so we can go up and down through the halls, find members of Congress, look at the whites of their eyes and say, ‘Don’t take away my healthcare.’”

Virginia Foxx as Birdbrain:
“Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. . . . I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room – this very room – and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.”

Tonight’s episode is brought to you by the Republican Party:
The health care reform bill is right outside your door! It's wearing a vest of explosives. Don’t let it into your home! Terrorists! Conspiracy! Fear! Listen to us!

And FOX News:
Tune in to tomorrow’s episode . . . whoops, I mean newscast, to hear all about how democrats sweat sulfur from the bowels of hell and republicans’ saliva cures cancer! Fox News, we lie so you don’t have to!

Mediocre Minds

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
Albert Einstein

As evidence that Mr. Einstein knew what he was talking about I present these signs seen at various Tea Party protests:

“Obama listens to Mao, I listen to Fox News”
“Obama and his Marxist buddies are after your freedom”
“The American taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s ovens”
“Obama loves taxes, bankrupt USA, loves babykilling”
“Barrack Hussein Obama: The new face of Hitler”
A cartoon of Obama slitting the throat of Uncle Sam

and the vilest of them all:

“National Socialist Healthcare Dachau Germany 1945” printed over a photo of a pile of dead Jews

This is the devolution of this country. Soon we’ll be back to single-celled paramecium swimming in the muck. How did we go from a country of intelligent, thoughtful, progressive pioneers to degenerate, ignorant, hate-spewing separatists?

If there is even one person, much less a thousand, who think these type of incendiary signs are appropriate to the national discourse, then as a country, we are lost.

Tales from the Morning Hours: Newspaper Delivery

It’s 3 a.m. and a moonless sky greets me when I leave my house. The air has turned colder as the calendar has flipped to November. I’ve already worked one job and now I’m off to my second, running on caffeine, sugar and being too tired to care. I deliver newspapers.

This is my city. Well, actually I live in a small town eight miles south of here and I don’t deliver papers to the whole city, just ten or twelve streets in a residential neighborhood so . . . you know what, never mind.

Edgehill, Westwood, Greendale, Prescott, Randolph: these are the mean streets of my route. With ranchers, A Frames, Cape Cods, one on top of another, you never know who you’re going to run into. One morning it was the 70 year old man in his boxers waiting for his newspaper at 3:30 a.m. Another day it was a guy in the dark, on his porch, in his underwear with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, surprised I was handing him a newspaper like he didn’t remember he had a subscription. Then there was the drunk girl who had obviously just gotten home at 4 a.m. and couldn’t comprehend what a newspaper was. There’s the guy walking his dog at 4 in the morning, or another man who was standing along the road drinking a cup of coffee in his bathrobe and slippers. Drunks, insomniacs, and people without pants: These are the hard cases I meet on these rough and tumble streets.

While you’re safe at home in your bed I’m up and out on the roads with ne’re-do-wells and rapscallions. So you enjoy yourself while you sleep, dreaming of tomorrow at your normal job with regular hours and vacation pay and health insurance and weekends off. I’m delivering the morning paper because who else is going to do it? You? You pansy. You wouldn’t have the guts to get up and do this job.

And the complaints I have to deal with. Like the guy who complained that his paper was wet when it was in a tube and it hadn’t rained in 4 days. Or the morning I had car trouble and I had to call my sister to come help me finish the route and ended up finishing 20 minutes late and the one house had already called to complain they didn’t get a paper. Oh, I’m sorry ma’am; did I scar you because I didn’t get your paper there by 6? Do you wake up in the middle of the night sweating and screaming, asking your god why there is so much pain in your life because you couldn’t read Marmaduke at precisely 6:01 am?

You think you can do this job? Ha! I’d like to see you try. No, really, I want you to try because this effing job is killing me. Please take over my route. I’m tired all the time, people are driving me nuts, it’s always raining, I don’t make enough money for the amount of work it is, soon it will be 30 degrees and I’ll be driving around with the windows down just daring the flu to attack me. All that stuff I said earlier about you being a wuss? Just kidding. You can totally handle this job.

Tim Pawlenty's Empty Words

Tim “Good ‘n” Pawlenty, the vanilla, republican apologist governor of Minnesota, said some things about President Obama in an interview with Newsmax.com that I found to be stupefyingly ignorant.

Pawlenty called Obama’s economic policy “corrosive to . . . freedom and liberty”. Excuse me Tim, what about Bush’s economic policies like deregulating Wall Street which led to the collapse of the past year or spending $12 billion a month on the Iraq War, and I believe Bush was still president when the first $700 billion were given to the banks. And how exactly have your freedoms been eroded? You’re still free to say any disingenuous and asinine thing you want. The constitution hasn’t been changed by this administration’s spending policies.

More from Pawlenty: “His solutions are federalization of policy, spending way beyond anything we’ve seen in terms of deficit levels, spending the country into bankruptcy”. When Bush entered office we had a SURPLUS. A surplus, Timwit, is defined as “an amount in excess of what is needed”. When Bush finally, mercifully, left office we had a $600 billion deficit. If you are so worried about debt levels you should have opened your freaking mouth somewhere between 2004 and 2008.

Pawlenty: “History proves that it is weakness, not strength that tempts our enemies. And he is projecting potential weakness, and enemies may see that and their respect may be reduced as a result . . .” How could other countries respect us less than seeing us elect a chimp-brain like Bush TWICE? Opening dialogue and maintaining good relationships with world leaders is not weakness you clod. Do World War I and II ring a bell in your tiny, oxygen starved brain? One country allied with another, fighting a common enemy? Alliances built on trust and common ground, that’s strength.

He won’t shut up: “President Obama has governed in an extremely liberal way, and he hasn’t accomplished many major initiatives, but the few that he has have been almost exclusively partisan.” I agree partially. Obama hasn’t accomplished much so far and I’ve been disappointed in his administration. But for a republican to complain of partisanship is like Bill O’Reilly complaining that Keith Olbermann is a blowhard. Obama said he would listen to new ideas except the republicans don’t have any. They keep handing him the same old dead carp wrapped in newspaper and want to call it caviar. Obama’s smart enough to shove it into the trash disposal and move on.

This interview Pawlenty gave was a lot of empty words wrapped up in his own ambition. Pawlenty has presidential aspirations. God help us if someone this dense gets elected again.

The Comedy of Glenn Beck

MC: And now welcome to our stage from the FOX network, Glenn Beck!
Audience: Yea, woohoo, (whistle) (clap clap clap)
Glenn Beck: Thank you everyone, its great to be here at the Zany Banana Laughing Ha Ha Hut and it’s always a thrill to come back to Boise. It looks like we have a nice fiscally conservative crowd tonight. The other day I was on my TV show telling some lies and I got a phone call from Sean Hannity and he said “Hey, knock it off, that’s my job!”
Audience: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: How many socialists does it take to screw in a light bulb? I don’t know because I don’t understand what socialism is. I just swing the word around like an uneducated, fear mongering baboon.
Audience: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Heckler: You’re a loser! You’re not funny!
Glenn Beck: Oh look we have a liberal in the crowd. You probably want me to talk about global warming.
Heckler: You’re a douche bag! Bring out Gallagher!
Glenn Beck: Hey pal, come up here and I’ll put my carbon footprint up your ass!
Audience: ha ha ha ha oooh ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: I’d better be careful or I’ll end up on Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World.
Audience: Yeah ha ha h a Go for it ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: Hey do you guys have hobbies? I have a hobby. I like to spin conspiracy theories. I had this one a few weeks ago where I said that President Obama had a deep-seated hatred of white people but I didn’t think he hated white people.
Audience: oooh ha ha ha ha ahhh ha ha ha ha
Glenn Beck: I know. Think about it. This is the kind of stuff I think about all day. It’s just how my mind works. Another thing I like to do on my show is cry. I like to cry a lot on my show because . . . the reason is . . . that I just . . . (sob) love this country . . . (weep) so much.
Audience: awwwwwww
Glenn Beck: What’s not to love? Where else could a doughy, talentless clod like me make millions speaking for hours on end on subjects I know nothing about? Thank you everybody! I’ll be here all week! Tip your waitresses! Try the veal! Don’t buy into socialized medicine!

The Noble Nobel

When the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year it is inevitable that we have a collective conversation on whether the winner deserves the prize. The 2009 winner was announced last week and it was a shocker: President Barack Obama.

I support Obama but I don’t deify him. Those that do are as wrong as those that deified George Bush. I voted for Obama mainly because I didn’t believe in John McCain anymore. I was worried about Obama’s lack of experience, but like a lot of people I wanted to believe in his message of hope.

I am disappointed in the president’s desultory performance so far. I try to temper that with the fact that he’s only been in office for nine months, but there is little to be excited about. There are too many projects started and not getting finished or being completed in a half-assed fashion so we end up with watered down solutions to problems.

What I do agree with are his attempts to broker better relations with republicans and with other countries. George Bush called himself a uniter and not a divider and he was the exact opposite. He divided the citizens of this country and separated us from the rest of the world. Obama has had many meetings with republican leaders and leaders of other countries trying to bridge the gap the Bush administration created.

The operative word is “trying” or “attempting”. Partly because of limited time in office and partly because of reluctance by the other parties involved, Obama hasn’t accomplished any of these goals.

The Nobel Peace Prize should be for a person’s body of work or for one grand accomplishment that’s effect is felt worldwide. As much as I admire Obama for trying, he has not succeeded yet. I believe the Nobel committee made a mistake.

Mr. Lucky

It's poker night and I finally have a good hand after an hour of crap. I bet, my friend Scott calls, and when we turn over our hands he has once again pulled the exact card he needed on the last deal to win the hand.

You might say, “maybe you just suck at poker” and I wouldn’t argue much. Maybe I do. But poker is part skill and part luck. My skills have improved over the years but my luck hasn’t.

So what is luck? I’ve been pondering this for years and cannot come up with a definite answer. Some people say its just random chance and there is no way to quantify or define it. But there are some people who never win at a game of chance while others win repeatedly, so how is that random?

Years ago when I was married we worked for the same company which had a Christmas party every year. During the night they pulled employee names for door prizes. We went to this party 6 years and in 5 out of the 6 her name was pulled for a prize. Me? The 1 year she wasn’t. In percentages that’s 83% to 16%. Does that sound random? We could add in the TV and $50 cash she won in drawings that my name wasn’t pulled either. That puts her at 87% and me at 12.5%. Random? I don’t think so.

So what makes some people lucky and others not? Is there a force in the universe that is attracted to some and repulsed by others? Can you really be “born under a bad sign” as Albert King sang? What about the God factor? Could some people just be more blessed than others without explanation? Certainly that’s possible, but I really can’t see God caring about who wins the majority of 60 hands of poker in a night. So how does Scott end up the big winner 90% of the time?

Some think it’s the power of positive thinking that brings success. While I believe it’s healthier to think positively than negatively, it can’t explain “luck”. By this logic if a million people bought a lottery ticket and they all thought positive thoughts they would all win, which is impossible.

So can we say luck is a combination of random chance, positive thinking, and blessings from a higher power? That doesn’t feel right either. Maybe luck really is unexplainable and that just pisses me off more. There are a lot of things I can handle not understanding, like quantum physics, but not comprehending “luck” bothers me. Much like the career of Charlie Sheen, it feels like you should be able to explain it, but you can’t.

Bandwagons Ho!

Why are sports talk show hosts so quick to jump on and off someone’s bandwagon? These men and women are paid entirely too much money to just sit in front of a microphone all day and spout opinions about sports. Then doofuses like me listen and complain. Yes, I am helping to keep these knobs in their cushy jobs; you didn’t need to point that out.

So why is there no objectivity or real analysis among these sports talkers? The example I will use is something I just heard today. Before the NFL season started it was a consensus that the Denver Broncos weren’t going to be very good and the hiring of 32 year old Josh McDaniels as head coach was being questioned. Jay Cutler wanted out so they traded him. Brandon Marshall wanted out so they suspended him. Denver’s two best players wanted out of the organization and a lackluster preseason spelled mediocre at best for the Broncos.

Four games into the regular season Denver is 4-0. Today talking head #1 asks his co-host “Do we reassess McDaniels’ ability as head coach?” and the answer from talking head #2, “Yes, we do. He’s done a remarkable job.”

Has he? Brandon Marshall’s sudden love of his head coach could be nothing more than Marshall realizing he was flushing his career down the toilet by being branded T.O. junior. Let’s look at that 4-0 start:

Game 1: Denver-12 Bengals-7 Denver won on a fluke play with 11 seconds left. Take that away and they lose 7-6. You might say, “but the Bengals are a different team this year”. Are they? They followed up a big upset of the Steelers by going into overtime with the dreadful Cleveland Browns so how good the Bengals are is debatable.
Game 2: Denver-27 Browns-6 I could field a team of 8 high school players, 2 guys out of the stands, 4 women from a Pilates class at the local gym, 3 verbally abusive construction workers, 5 soccer players and Raider QB Jamarcus Russell and beat the Browns.
Game 3: Denver-23 Raiders-3 See above only replace Jamarcus Russell with Browns QB Derek Anderson and the Browns with the Raiders.
Game 4: Denver-17 Cowboys-10 The best team they’ve beaten this year but that’s still not saying much. If you said before the season started that Denver would beat Dallas in week 4 that would have meant more, but through 4 games Dallas is 2-2 and has turned out to be pretty quotidian. Romo looks terrible, they don’t have any big play receivers and the defense is average.

So Denver has beaten 2 horrible teams and 2 middling ones. But Talk Show Boys 1 and 2 think we have to reassess Josh McDaniels and the job he’s done. Denver is starting a stretch where they play San Diego twice, the Ravens, Steelers, Redskins and Giants. If they come out of it 8-2, 7-3 or maybe even 6-4 we can reassess the team and the coach, but they could easily be 5-5 or 4-6 after the Giants game. What will the Talk Show Twins have to say then? They will waffle back in the other direction and say “the Broncos are about what we expected them to be”.

All I want from my overpaid, ego-inflated talking heads is a little objectivity and analysis that goes beyond what I can do myself, and I’m getting neither.

Trent Franks: Doing Absolutely Nothing For You

Representative Trent Franks from Arizona, a staunch anti-abortion advocate, said last week that President Obama was an “enemy to humanity” and had “no place in any station of government.” These statements were made because of Obama’s support of abortion rights. Let’s take a look at what Trent Franks has done for us in 2009:

Unemployment Compensation Act of 2009—extends unemployment 13 more weeks in the hardest hit states. Franks vote: NAY
Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act—Federal government will now issue student loans, keeping interest rates low and saving $87 billion over 10 years. Franks vote: NAY
Food Safety Enhancement Act—updates food safety laws to improve the FDA’s supervision of the nation’s food supply. Franks vote: NAY
American Clean Energy and Security Act—establishes a system to limit emissions of greenhouse gasses. Franks vote: NAY
Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2009—prohibits mortgage borrowers from certain abusive and predatory lending practices. Franks vote: NAY
Helping Families Save Their Homes Act—allows bankruptcy courts to restructure the debt on home mortgages. Franks vote: NAY
Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act—expands consumer protection for people using credit cards. Franks vote: NAY

So, basically, as long as you’re still a fetus Trent Franks has your back. He’s your best buddy, your pal and your benefactor. He’s the Sundance Kid to your Butch Cassidy, the Poncho to your Cisco, the Barney Fife to your Andy Griffith.

But once you’ve taken your first breath, Trent Franks doesn’t give a shit about you. He won’t lift a finger to help you, you bi-pedal, air breathing, non-womb living beings.

You don’t have a job? You should have stayed in your mama’s belly. It’s a hard world if you’re not ready for it, or if you’re not a Congressman. You want to keep your house or have clean air? You wouldn’t have to worry about those things if you’d have stayed unborn. You’re overextended on your credit cards and need help? You know who doesn’t need help with their credit? An embryo, that’s who. Stop whining you fully developed adults. Who told you to grow up?

Politics in America: A One Act Play

Cast of Characters:

Joe Miller: 44, used to have a programming job for a mid-sized software company. His job went to China, now he works at Starbucks

Scene: Joe’s kitchen. He enters and turns on a small TV to listen to the news while eating breakfast

CNN Headline News: A bill has been introduced in the House as a way to say thank you to the American people for their support during these trying times. The bill calls for the government to bake a cake for every citizen. It’s called Have Your Cake and Eat it Too, bill HR 50766, written and sponsored by several democrats. The bill is 15,612 pages long of which 15,611 pages have nothing to do with cakes, no one has read them and they are meaningless. If you want to read the entire bill you can find it at www.thegovernmentwastingyourtime.gov
The response from the Republicans has been swift.
Rush Limbaugh: This is a blatant attempt to sabotage the health of the American people. I myself have recently lost over 1000 pounds and I don’t want anything to do with this liberal confection.
Mitch McConnell: Why a cake? What if you like pie? I’d prefer to have a nice elderberry pie. The democrats say they want to say ‘thank you’ yet they’re limiting our choices to cake. What if someone wants a cruller or a torte or pudding or Jello? This is just another example of the Democrats limited thinking.
John Boehner: There is a provision in this bill that if you don’t have the paper work filled out by December 31 someone in the government will choose what kind of cake you get. What if they choose a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing and you have a peanut allergy? This amounts to nothing more than a death panel where someone in the government could make a choice for you that could be deadly.
CNN Headline News: We asked the white house for a response.
Whitehouse Spokesman Robert Gibbs: This is just another republican lie, a continuous stream of invective to cause fear. There is no provision for a deadline and no one in the government is going to pick your cake for you. In fact you don’t have to participate in the program. If you don’t want a cake, don’t fill out the paperwork.
CNN Headline News: There was a Tea Party protest today in Blacksburg West Virginia. We asked one gentleman what he thought of the bill.
Tea bagger: This bill says that I have to have a government made cake! I don’t want a government cake! If I want a cake I want one made by my grandmamma! What’s happened to our freedoms?
CNN Headline News: Whitehouse spokesman Robert Gibbs had this to say when seeing that footage: “Again, for the 105th time, there is no provision in the bill that forces anyone to take one of the cakes.” Also today, the president addressed the press.
President Obama: We would like to have bi-partisan support for this bill. To that end, we are willing to compromise and possibly add an option for a fruit cup or a side salad.
CNN Headline news: We talked to the head of the ACLU this morning and got this message.
ACLU spokesman: If there’s not going to be a cake then there is no point in the bill. The whole point was to say thank you to the American people. You don’t say thank you with a fruit cup or a salad. You say it with a big chunk of moist cake and sugary icing.
CNN Headline News: Of course the late night comedians had their say last night.
David Letterman: In response to this democratic bill, David Vitters from Louisiana has introduced his own competing bill that calls for hookers and Chevrolets for everyone.
CNN Headline News: Before we take a break, here is a roundup of other comments and reactions.
Nancy Pelosi: Since my leadership is so polarizing and ineffectual, I have no comment.
Michele Bachmann: I’m insane!
Michael Steele: I have to find out from Rush how I feel about this bill. I’ll get back to you.
Harry Reid: My opinion is, hey, where are you going? I have something to say.
Hillary Clinton: Oh, am I in this administration?
Glenn Beck: One word: Conspiracy
Bill Clinton: Would I like a piece of cake? Absolutely. Served on the ass of a 19-year-old co-ed preferably. This is off the record right?

Joe turns off the TV.

Joe Miller: Same shit, different day.

Award Shows Suck

Now that 30 Rock has won the Emmy for best comedy for the 35th year in a row, is the show going to be funny this season? I know Hollywood and the entertainment media are so far up Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin’s asses they do regular dental cleanings while they’re there and I like Tina Fey, but I’ve tried watching 30 Rock and it’s just not that funny. In fact I don’t know anyone whose opinion isn’t “meh” concerning this show. Are we giving the award to 30 Rock merely because Fey did a killer impression of Sarah Palin?

How many more years will it be before the voters actually watch the nominees before casting their vote? How many years in a row did Tony Shaloub win for Monk, 17 . . . 18? And Kelsey Grammar started winning for Frasier in the early 50s, 40 years before the show went on the air. Again, I like Shaloub, Grammar and their shows but the Emmy voters are like a bulldog with a bone, once they get their teeth into a show or an actor they won’t let go. The Shield was one of the best dramas ever made for television and it never won the Emmy for such. Watch the last 2 seasons and tell me Walton Goggins as Detective Shane Vendrell wasn’t the best actor on TV and he didn’t even get a nomination. Hell, Michael Chiklis deserved an Emmy just for the scene where he confessed all of Vic Mackey’s sins to the ICE agent and I don’t believe he was nominated either.

Of course, all awards shows are like this. I don’t think the voters actually watch or listen to any of the nominees, preferring instead to divine their picks by reading chicken entrails. Do you remember 1988, the first year they gave out a Grammy for Heavy Metal and they awarded it to Jethro Tull, a band as far from metal as Elton John is from subtlety? Note to voters, metal bands do not have fey British guys playing the flute on one leg.

How about the Oscars from 2006: The Departed for best picture? Martin Scorsese’s 115th mob movie with Jack Nicholson playing himself, that’s the best we could do? Or 1998 with Saving Private Ryan, one of the most amazing movies ever made, but Shakespeare in Love gets the Oscar. Spielberg films the invasion of Normandy so vividly veterans who were on the beaches for real are brought to tears, but we’re going to give the award to Gwyneth Paltrow in a beard. Now I love Dame Judi Dench, especially in the British TV series As Time Goes By, but she gets an Oscar for 8 minutes of screen time? I fully expected her acceptance speech to be “Are you shitting me?”

All this brings me to one conclusion: award shows suck.

The Great Interrupter

The Great Interrupter
for Kanye West
sung to the tune of The Great Pretender

Oh yes, I’m the great interrupter
Interrupting because I’m a douche
My need is immense
I interrupt because I’m dense
I’m a narcissist on the loose

Oh yes, I’m the great interrupter
alone in a world of me, myself, and I
I play the game with no shame
dreaming of myself is the only time I cry

Too real is this feeling of how great I am
Too real when I must be the center of attention at all times

Oh yes, I’m the great interrupter
just braying and hee-hawing like a jackass
I’m in love with my reflection
In front of a mirror I must pass

Too real when I know I am all things to everyone

Oh yes, I’m the great interrupter
Just preening and posing like a wanker
Don’t fear, I’ll never go away
I’ll keep popping up like a canker
Interrupting you . . .
Interrupting you because I’m Kanye

Glenn Beck: The Czar of Conspiracy

Do you remember the movie Conspiracy Theory where Mel Gibson played a mentally unstable man whose life was consumed by paranoid delusions? For Glenn Beck this mediocre film was a watershed moment. It apparently gave his life direction and induced a psychotic break in Glenn’s feeble mind.

Glenn met more dullards like himself and convinced them to give him first a radio show and then a TV show on Headline News. Finally, he got called up to the show: the decepticons of Fox news gave him an hour a night and lots of publicity. Glenn’s mental breakdown has now reached Michele Bachmann-like proportions.

Last week on his show he was deciphering some artwork at 30 Rockefeller Center that he believes contains communist imagery. Now it’s hard to say what Glenn’s point was because after he rambled, spit and stalked his set like a bloated Yeti, he said, “What does this all mean? I don’t know.” So, since Glenn himself isn’t helping us I will speculate that he’s saying he believes John Rockefeller, who commissioned the artwork, was a commie pinko rat who wanted to bring about the downfall of America by subversively hiding communist symbols in plain sight.

One problem with this evil scheme that Glenn fails to recognize as his brain unravels like yarn from a spool: no one looks at this artwork. Case in point, Glenn asks one of his behind-the-scenes people if they had ever seen these images. The man answers he’s worked at 30 Rock for 29 years and had never seen it.

Call me cynical, but it’s hard to warp people’s minds with meaningful symbols if they never look at them. John Rockefeller was smart and savvy enough to amass one of the world’s largest fortunes, but couldn’t come up with a better plan to seduce people to the dark side than cryptic symbology that not even Dan Brown ever noticed?

Clearly, Glenn has gone bye bye. Farewell, Glenn’s sanity, we hardly knew ye.

The Conservative Michelles: Bringing the Crazy

Michele Bachmann: Congresswoman from Minnesota

Michele is on record that she is trying to stop health care reform through prayer and fasting. I say the way to stop Michele Bachmann is with a 2 by 4. Thank you everybody, I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitresses.

Seriously, while I also believe in prayer and fasting, the God that I worship would not want these powerful gifts to be used to defeat something that could potentially benefit millions of people. Recently Michele made another bold statement that the Democrats will do anything to keep women like her and Sarah Palin from becoming president before a Democratic woman holds the office.

You devil Michele, you uncovered our nefarious plan: to have any democratic woman become president before an ignorant, narrow-minded attention whore. The plan was revealed in a scroll, once thought to be apocryphal, but eventually discovered in a hidden chamber on the Kennedy compound (along with a kick-ass recipe for cock-a-leekie soup). Written in a cipher where the numbers 1-37 represent the vowels of the alphabet and a variety of coniferous trees stand in for the consonants, the message was translated as:

When a dark haired woman comes from the north, the acid of lies and ignorance dripping from her tongue, the world must marshal their forces to stop her from being elected as leader of the United States. If a woman from the Democratic Party can be elected first it will dilute her power and she will fade to black. If she is elected first, it means the gene pool of the United States has been drained and we are now no better than amoeba.

Michelle Malkin: Bat-shit crazy columnist and TV pundit

Michelle Malkin is a gainsayer. Whatever President Obama says, Michelle says the opposite. She doesn’t think, she just screeches like her hair is on fire. If Obama declared Michelle the greatest person in the world, she would deny it. Here is what I think her column the next day would read like:

In his latest bit of liberal propaganda, President Obama has declared me the greatest person in the world. This is a transparent attempt to make me look like a sane, rational human being. The Democrats will stop at nothing to make people believe that conservatives like myself, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck aren’t lying, egomaniacal mouth-breathers. This isn’t a dictatorship Mr. President. You can’t decide who is open-minded or well-balanced and then declare it to the world as if it were fact. My loyal readers know how deep my psychosis runs and that my vile, uneducated rants against conspiracies that don’t exist preclude me from being branded the greatest person in the world. Nice try President Obama.

The Power of Music

You’re in line at the supermarket waiting to pay for your new issue of Mad Magazine and a quart of low grade motor oil when the piped in music starts playing the song you lost your virginity to. Without realizing it you’ve been transported to the back of your dad’s ’78 station wagon. In the market line you’re gyrating in a way that has caused the other patrons to move slowly away from you and the music is interrupted by a page for security.

That’s the power of music. Songs enter our heads and become glued to a certain memory or event so every time we hear that song we are instantly in that moment.

A few examples from my own life: I’ve always loved the .38 Special song Hold on Loosely. The first time I heard it was on a bus to an away track meet in 10th grade. One of the upper classmen always had his boom box with him and being the early 80s it was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle with enough buttons and switches to land small aircraft on the football field. I remember the bus was just pulling away when he tuned the radio to FM 104 and they played Hold on Loosely. Every time I hear the song I’m taken back to that bus.

There’s a song I don’t hear often but it conjures up one specific memory each time. It’s The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton. It starts like this:

In 1814 we took a little trip
along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
and we caught he bloody British in the town of New Orleans

A few summers ago my brother and I played basketball after work a few days a week. During one game I asked what the score was. He replied “its 18 14”. He then proceeded to sing The Battle of New Orleans while doing a little dance. And he knew every effing word: The chorus, every verse, and every inflection that Johnny Horton used when he recorded it. More than his singing though, I’ve been traumatized by the dance.

My last example is actually an introduction to a song and not the song itself. It’s 1977 and I’m in 7th grade. Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo has just come out. One of my classmates brought it to school and described the intro to all the jealous boys. We got to music class and lo and behold we had a substitute. Jim sweet talked the sub into letting him play some of the record because we were just having a study hall anyway. Jim put on the oh-so-subtle Wang Dang Sweet Poontang and we all listened to Ted:

Nobody out there came to me mellow tonight did ya?
Ain’t nobody out there that even wants to be a little bit mellow is there?
Anybody wants to get mellow you can turn around and get the fuck outta here all right?

Whenever I listen to Double Live Gonzo and that intro, I’m back in 7th grade in the music room under the withering stare of the hapless substitute who I think was wondering why she ever went into teaching in the first place.

An Essay: How to Keep Your Owner Awake When He Desperately Needs Sleep by Phantom T. Cat

The first thing you do, and this will take days if not weeks of preparation, is get a urinary tract infection which causes you to have trouble controlling your bladder. Then you pee on his bed once or twice which makes him completely paranoid that every time you jump onto the bed you’re going to pee again.

Now, let’s say your owner has 2 jobs, one of them being a paper route. Let’s say he normally uses the weekend to catch up on his sleep, but this past Sunday he got up early to go to church and now he’s going to bed early Sunday evening hoping to get a few extra hours of sleep. You wait until he’s settled then you jump on the bed. This simple act keeps him awake because he’s worried you’re going to pee. The next thing you do is go down to the end of the bed and sit on the right side, moving around as much as possible. I start off by cleaning myself vigorously top to bottom so that I am in constant motion.

After a few minutes I decide the right side of the bed isn’t comfortable anymore and move to the left side. The left side isn’t quite right either so I move to the center. This of course isn’t right as well so I go back to the left, then the right, center, left, right, left, center, left, center, left, right, left, center, right, left, right, left, center and right before jumping off the bed entirely.

Wander aimlessly around for no more than 10 minutes then jump back on the bed and do the whole left-right-center three step again. He’ll be relaxing a bit because he’s so tired so now is when you walk up, stand on the pillow next to his head, put your butt in his face and meow for no apparent reason. After you get shoved down to the end of the bed, lie down and clean the area he just touched, throwing in a few indignant meows for good measure. Then stand up in a huff and jump off the bed.

You’re ready for something new now. Wait about 15 minutes, just when he’s finally starting to drift off to sleep, and then you get onto the night stand and leap from there to the center of the bed bringing your entire 15 pound weight down as heavily as you can. A string of curse words will follow and a hand may sweep out at you as you run to the end of the bed.

Once you’re at the foot of the bed, return to the left-right-center gambit one more time, but only for a minute or two or you may find yourself with a foot in your backside. Now it’s time for the piece de resistance. This time you’re going to leap from the bed to the nightstand, but you’re going to miscalculate the landing so that you crash to the floor making a racket causing your owner to jump out of bed and turn on the light. He will check for damage to the furniture and then ask you if you’re all right to which you reply, “Of course, I meant to do that.”

More curse words will follow but at this point your job is done. You’ve caused him to get little or no sleep for the past 3 hours and now he has only 2 more hours before he has to get up. Being the compassionate kitty that you are, you can now crawl onto the bed and go to sleep comfortably allowing him those 2 precious hours.

We Laughed Our Asses Off

Today I am saying goodbye to a friend. Steve passed away Monday August 17, 2009. I’ve known Steve for nearly 20 years. We worked together at York Graphics Services. Along with 4 or 5 others we formed The Brotherhood of the Sword. We got to dress up like Vikings and knights and fight with our home made PVC pipe and duct tape swords. We ate, drank, fought, danced and laughed our asses off.

We went to the movies a few times a year, went to concerts in Long’s Park in Lancaster during the summer. We went to the renaissance faire and the Celtic fling. We played poker, watched Penn State football and we laughed our asses off.

We smoked cigars while reciting lines from Monty Python movies. We watched episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 over and over again, and we . . . well, you know what we did.

One of my fondest memories was a July 4th when we went to Long’s Park to see a free concert by the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra culminating in the 1812 Overture. They had 16 restored Civil War cannons to provide the explosions for the denouement. After the concert there was an extended fireworks display. There were at least 6 times we thought we had witnessed the grand finale and clapped vigorously only to have the show start up again. Even though we were enjoying it, we started to look at our watches and go “ok, let’s wrap it up. Some of us have to go to work tomorrow.”

Walking through the expansive crowd were teenagers selling glow sticks. The sticks were flexible and the ends could be snapped together to form a circle. Most of the teenagers walked zombie-like over the grounds just collecting a paycheck. But there was one young man who fully embraced his summer job. He had 3 or 4 of the sticks around himself like necklaces and several more twirling around his arms. And instead of shuffling through the crowd, he danced. He jumped and twirled and thoroughly charmed many parents into buying glow sticks for their children.

Steve nicknamed the young man Puck. He shouted “Go Puck. Show ‘em what you’ve got.” We watched the kid dance and flit for an hour and we laughed our asses off.

Goodbye Steve. I will miss you.

Quick Hits

Advertisers are pulling their ads from the Glenn Beck Show since he called President Obama a racist. My question is, how do we get Glenn Beck to pull out of the Glenn Beck show?

Michele Bachmann’s son Harrison has joined Teach for America. This is part of Americorp which Michele herself termed a “re-education camp” for young people. Today we’re going to teach Michele a new word. The dictionary defines "irony" as incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.
Repeat after me Michele: Irony. No, not iron. Not Iran. No, not I run away. No, I didn’t say Ernie . . .

The Cosmic Overdrive award for best comeback line goes to Representative Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) who was asked by someone at a town hall meeting "Why are all Americans being forced into a government-run health care and insurance plan?" Larsen answered “With regards to the first comment about being forced to buy health care, I'll say it again... The bill does not force anybody to buy health care ... The bill does not force people to change their health care plan. Now folks will say that's not true, but I've got facts on my side and you've got Glenn Beck on your side.” And brother when you have Glenn Beck on your side you have been screwed worse than Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan.

Lou Dobbs says there are legitimate questions about President Obama’s birth certificate. I think there are legitimate questions as to why Dobbs is on TV and not working as a Walmart greeter.

Actor Jerry O’Connell has entered law school. Great, now he can sue himself because of all the shitty movies he’s made.

Sarah Palin is still an idiot. What, you need more proof than the past 10 months? Okey Dokey. There is a provision in the proposed health care bill for money for end-of-life counseling. The Wasilla Whackjob has interpreted this as the government setting up ‘death panels’. Well Susie, grandma wasn’t feeling well so we drove her out into the country and dropped her off at a farm where she could run free.

Aerosmith: Getting Their Asses Kicked by Father Time

Concert Cancelled in Venezuela While Joe Perry Fights Off Knee Infection
Seven Shows Postponed After Tyler Injures Leg
Bassist Hamilton Pulls Out of Tour to Recover from Surgery
Brad Whitford Needs Surgery after Hitting Head Getting Out of His Ferrari
Tyler Breaks Shoulder in fall from Stage

These are the stories fans of the rock band Aerosmith have been seeing for the past few months. Every member has had at least one surgery within the past year and their current tour has now been postponed for the second time due to an injury suffered by singer Steven Tyler, each time while . . . dancing. Yes, the Bad Boys of Boston are turning into our grandfathers right before our eyes.

Aerosmith is my all-time favorite band. I still believe that Rocks is the best hard rock album ever recorded. I have seen them live 8 times and will see them 8 more . . . if they survive their current tour. I have a ticket for the July 3 show in Hershey, PA which was postponed when Tyler tore a leg muscle, but I’m wondering if I will get to use it. Brad Whitford hit his head so hard getting out of his $300,000 Ferrari that he needed surgery? Really? That’s beyond a Spinal Tap moment.

After the postponement my brother sent me an email to tweak me about Aerosmith being too old and fragile. He suggested I become an Alice Cooper disciple because he’s been rather healthy since almost dying from drinking 723 cans of Budweiser a day for several years. I responded with a tirade worthy of . . . well, people who like tirades. But with each injury it’s getting more difficult to defend them.

To that end, I think it’s time for Aerosmith to re-record some of their songs to better fit their current ages and health status:

Sweet Emotion will now be Sweet Imodium
Train Kept a Rollin’ is Train? What Train? I Don’t Hear a Train
Toys in the Attic becomes I’m Lost in the Attic
Walk This Way is redone as I Need My Walker
Last Child is of course Last BM
Back in the Saddle changes to Back in the Lazy Boy
Love in an Elevator is rewritten as Love in the Back of an Ambulance

These will all be on their new CD Who Remembers Where We Parked? The recording will be done as soon as they finish the current tour which should be in a year or two.

The Art of Cheese

Why do we listen to KISS? Yes, I’m talking about the rock band that performs in wild star child, cat, warrior and spaceman makeup and studded leather. I’m talking about the band no one paid any attention to until they put on the makeup and when in the 80s they took it off, we screamed to God on high for them to put it back on because we had forgotten how intensely ugly they were.

I was around 12 years old when KISS exploded in popularity and while I never joined the KISS army, I did read some of their literature. I had the albums like all my friends and we debated whose makeup was cooler. Even now 30 years later I pull their greatest hits CD out and enjoy a listen. My question is why, because if you pay attention while you’re listening, they’re not very good. They’re not great musicians, the music is simple and an elementary school student could write better lyrics. Sure, little Billy’s verses wouldn’t have as much overt sexuality as Gene Simmons’ but they would have better rhyming structure.

So why do we like cheese? No, not tasty Muenster or Gouda, I mean music and movies and television shows that we know aren’t high on the art scale but we enjoy them all the same. For example, I really like the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. But the acting wasn’t the greatest after you get past Patrick Stewart and my brother and I can punch plot holes in the scripts like we’ve shot it with an AK-47. When they did a “message” episode they beat you like the proverbial dead horse, buried you, dug you back up and beat you some more. You screamed “I get it! Message received!” but the blows just kept coming. Still, its one of my all time favorite TV shows.

I guess the simplest answer is these shows and music give us something we’re looking for. They provide an escape and while we’re in our little off-kilter world we can overlook the things they don’t do very well. We use them for our amusement but never admit our addiction.

With Star Trek: TNG there was the obvious desire to flit among the stars as easily as I now drive to the Wal-Mart for cat litter and I liked the characters and the way they interacted with each other. I think I would have enjoyed hanging around with them.

This brings us back to KISS. For me the facileness of the music is actually a plus in this case. I like simple hard rock guitar riffs and a good back beat. While I’m jamming with Ace Frehley I can ignore the ridiculous lyrics and the taint of machismo that comes off of every song like an incontinent musk ox.

It turns out cheese can be good for you. I mean, don’t sit down and listen to 9 straight hours of European power metal or watch the entire series run of Bosom Buddies right away. You have to ease into it. But when your tolerance is built up, invite Buffy and Hildegard into your home and serve them up with a delicious plate of Feta and Havarti.

Peter King: Douchebag of the Week

Representative Peter King (republican, New York) says that health care reform is “not a major issue among the American people.”

Hey numnuts, sorry, Representative Numnuts, I’m an American citizen and I haven’t had health insurance for over a year because I can’t afford it. I work with 3 other people in the same situation. One of my brothers doesn’t have it because he can’t afford it. I have friends, a married couple with a young son, both out of work and they don’t have health insurance because they can’t afford it. I know you’re a stupid, stupid man but is any of this sinking in? Do you ever go out and talk to anyone you purport to represent?

I’m one person from a small town in Pennsylvania. Including myself I just gave you a portrait of 7 people who don’t have health insurance because of the prohibitive cost. These are just people in my personal orbit. Can you imagine how many of us there are across the country and how many individuals we represent who aren’t insured, who doesn’t go to the doctor or dentist or eye doctor because they can’t pay the bills?

Health care reform isn’t an important issue? What is an important issue to you Representative King of the Assholes? I’m guessing making sure you get re-elected so you and your family GET FREE HEALTH CARE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES would be at the top of your list.

Let me take a shot at some other issues important to you: Continuing to pocket money from lobbyists, keeping your mistress and hookers secret from the nosy media, misrepresenting facts, good old republican fear mongering, and disingenuous behavior of all kinds.

I call on our friends in New York state to vote this buffoon out of office next election. To quote the late Bill Hicks, “we have to rid the world of all these fevered egos”.

Beckster and the Bachmanninator

This fall on Fox it’s the new hit comedy Beckster and the Bachmanninator. Watch as a U.S. Congresswoman and a right wing radio/TV host share an apartment, trade paranoid delusions and deal with the liberals across the hall.

In the pilot episode, Michelle gets added to some important lists and Glenn contradicts himself faster than any man in history. Let’s watch:

Theme Song:

It’s Glenn
and his pal Michelle
They’re crazy
but they can’t tell

She calls him Beckster
he calls her the Bachmanninator
They’re paranoid
together!

Opening: Michelle Bachmann sits at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.

Michelle: It says here that the National Republican Congressional Committee added me to a list of the most vulnerable incumbents in 2010. I’ve been added to a lot of lists lately. I’m on that waiting list for the new experimental anti-psychotic drug, I’m number one in frequent flier miles on Crazytown Airlines, and I’ve just been added to the advisory board for the support group Making Paranoia Work For You. Oh yes, last night I joined that new Facebook group Republicans Against Fact Checking and of course there are my duties as treasurer for the Joseph McCarthy Fan Club.
Michelle looks at her watch.
I forgot, Glenn is on Fox and Friends this morning. I wonder how it’s going.
Michelle turns on the TV.

Glenn: President Obama has over and over again exposed himself as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.

Fox host Brian Kilmeade: Many people that work in Obama’s administration are white so you can’t say he doesn’t like white people.

Glenn: “I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people.

Music: Mwapp Mwapp Mwapp Mwaaaaaa

Michelle: Oh no, he did it again. That's my Glenn!
Cue laugh track and applause.

Join us next week when Al Franken and Michael Moore move in downstairs and object to Michelle and Glenn constantly blowing their own horns. Goodnight everybody!

Odds 'n Ends

Liz Cheney

“I very well may run for office”
Who cares? Run for office, take a shit, clip your nails, eat a turnip, who gives a rat’s ass? Just stop talking you narcissistic twit.

Pat Buchanan on “Morning Joe”

“Well, first, with regard to Levi, I think first dude up there in Alaska, Todd Palin ought to take Levi down to the creek and hold his head under water until the thrashing stops.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh Pat, joking about murdering a young man, and everyone on the panel laughs right along. Drowning someone is hilarious! I know whenever my lungs fill up with water I can’t stop guffawing. Oh, one thing Pat, you rake, weren’t you one of those self-righteous gas bags who were outraged when David Letterman made a joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter? Yeah, same old Pat Buchanan: Hypocritical shithead until the bitter end.

Jon and Kate Gosselin

America held hostage Day 72
I still don’t care.

Glenn Beck

Glenn complained of the soft questions tossed at Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on day 1 of her confirmation hearing. One problem, day 1 has no questions, only opening statements.
It’s analogy time!
Glenn Beck is to insanity
as
incapable of cogent thought is to Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is to Too Many Monkeys in the Monkey House
as
The voices in his head is to In Control

The Train for Crazytown is Leaving the Station . . . All Abooooard!

Victoria Jackson, an untalented, unfunny comedienne from some of the “black hole” years of SNL announced today that she’s moving from How-the-Hell-Did-I-End-Up-On-TV-burg to Crazytown. Yes, Victoria has sold her home on Notalent Boulevard and bought a townhouse next to Michelle Bachmann on the corner of Not-Wrapped-Too-Tight Lane and ParanoiaComin’ForYa Avenue. Miss Jackson announced her move into the medicated neighborhood with this unintelligible rant on her website (who gave her a website?). Her words are bolded, my comments are italicized:

You see, evil doesn't just show up. It disguises itself as something nice; so you'll let it in. It tricks you. [...] Crazy doesn’t just show up. It gussies itself up as a blond woman, goes on TV for a while, hides out in well deserved obscurity and then one day leaps out at you screaming about Hitler and selling her cat’s hairballs as “folk art”.

Social Security and Medicare are broke. Baby boomers, like me, are getting old and will soon be asking for it. Socialized medicine makes people die. Look out! Socialized medicine has a knife! It’s crazy! Oh my God, now it’s causing cancer by offering affordable prescription drugs! You stand in a long, long line with a breast lump, clogged artery, or sharp pencil stuck in your eye, Do you know a lot of people with pencils sticking out of their eye? I must admit to being ignorant of this plague of No. 2’s being stuck into the old optic nerve. My bad. and someone like the DMV person, who can't speak English, has chewing gum, an attitiude [sic], really long fake nails that curl up at the end, and is talking on a cell phone, enjoying their power trip moment, is finally face to face with you. They mumble something incoherent about paperwork. You die. One less person in line for Social Security and Medicare! Considering we’ve never had socialized medicine in the United States, this seems like speculation on your part. Indulge me my speculation for a moment: your show business career is sort of like a UFO sighting. It came out of nowhere, no one could explain it, we all felt violated by your presence and then it was gone.

Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas! I know it’s been a long time since I took Civics class in high school, but I don’t remember the part of the constitution that gives the president the power to kill Nanna, Memaw, Grandma, Granny, Oma, and Grandmama.

Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn't like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where's the public debate between scientists on "Climate Change/Global Warming?") I’ve read numerous debates on the subject. Books are published about it on a regular basis. You really ought to pick up a newspaper or magazine occasionally between going off your meds. Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O's nationalized car be? State car? Hell, the car companies will probably be dead within the year. The state car will be our legs because with gas prices rising for no reason we won’t be able to afford to drive anywhere even if we had a car. So... kill off the weak. That's the plan. Tax the workers to death. This old GOP chestnut won’t work anymore whackjob. Obama just passed the largest middle class tax cut in history. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist [sic], socialist, and communist. Evil kings kept all the money they collected Victwittia. Obama has given away around $800 billion to prop up failing businesses to keep millions more from losing their jobs. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do or if it will work, I’m just saying medieval kings and fascist dictators kept all the money for themselves. Now it's called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band. WTF?

The Women of the GOP: Insane in the Membrane

Missouri state Representative Cynthia Davis

In a press release the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services spoke about a summer food program which provides “food during the summer for thousands of low-income Missouri children who rely on the school cafeteria for free or reduced-price meals during the regular school year.” What is Davis’ take on this program?

Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted . . . Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator.

You know what else is a positive motivator? The sense that someone cares about you, positive role models who show these children that their lives can get better. I also believe children should be allowed to be children as long as possible before we let the world crush them. These Missouri youngsters will have a more enjoyable summer vacation if their bodies aren’t wracked by hunger pangs. Jimmy’s dreams of one day playing baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals will be all the sweeter if his teeth aren’t falling out because of a vitamin C deficiency, while his sister Janey’s paranoid delusions from a lack of vitamin B-12 could be kept to a minimum while she practices backyard gymnastics.

Soon-to-be-Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

10 things we know about Sarah Palin:

1. she’s stupid
2. she’s narcissistic
3. she’s not too bright
4. she loves attention
5. she’s not the smartest moose in the woods
6. Sarah loves her some Sarah
7. she’s living in the governor’s mansion but the lights aren’t on and the door is unlocked
8. she will exploit anyone including her own children if it gains her something
9. man is she stupid
10. she wants to be president of the United States and if the citizens of this country ever elect her to that post we will officially be the country with the dumbest population on Earth

Michelle Bachmann

Michelle Bachmann is paranoid.

How paranoid is she?

Her ideas are even too far out there for Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck! The man who agreed with one of his guests that the only hope to save America is for it to be attacked by terrorists again! The man who openly wishes for the deaths of Americans, backs away from Michelle Bachmann, wipes his hands and says “I’m out.”

Michelle’s latest missive from Bedlam is that she won’t fill out the 2010 census form because she believes that President Obama has nefarious plans for the information collected. Her reasoning? Roosevelt used the census information during World War II to put Japanese citizens into internment camps.

While the government has already admitted its mistake during the war and apologized to the Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned, I believe we must revive this program. We only need one camp, actually just a building, large enough to house Michelle Bachmann. We’ll call it Camp Conspiracy and erect it in Missouri so the low cost school lunch program can feed her and Sarah Palin can stop by occasionally for a photo op and to exploit her family.

Nitwits

Nitwit #1 Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer, whose CNBC show might as well be renamed “Oily Man Yells Nonsense at You For an Hour”, believes that he knows how we all feel about President Obama. In a discussion with Joe “I Was a Congressman So I’m Smarter than You” Scarborough, he said:

“When Americans hear health care reform, it just means tax increases. Until we get the economy moving again, I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit.”

You want the most powerful man in the world, the most visible man in the world, and the elected leader of this country . . . to just go away for awhile. With the economy in ruins, the major car companies going bankrupt, the health care system out of control, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the unrest in Iran over the elections, the never ending disputes between Israelis and Palestinians, North Korea threatening the world with nuclear weapons, etc., you think Obama . . . should just go away. And this isn’t just your postulation. You believe we, the American people, also want him to go away.

Yes Jim, you have your thumb on the pulse of the American people. Wait, that’s right, your thumb is up your ass because you’re a shouting, sweating, prevaricating buffoon. Roll your damn shirt sleeves down you braying jackass and stop acting like you do your TV show to help people. You do it because you get paid an obscene amount of money to give bad investment advice and play a keyboard of morning radio DJ farting noises. You, Jim, are who the American people would like to just go away.

Nitwit #2 Representative John Culbertson

From Twitter, tweeted by Culbertson:

Good to see Iranian people move mountains w social media, shining sunlight on their repressive govt – Texans support their bid for freedom

Oppressed minorities include House Repubs: We are using social media to expose repression such as last night’s D clampdown shutting off amends.

I was walking through the supermarket parking lot the other day and I thought I recognized the driver getting out of a beat up Toyota Celica as millions of Iranians taking to the streets in protest of their sham election and fighting for freedom with some paying with their lives to defy Iran’s supreme leader who continues to threaten them with death if they don’t lie down like lambs and accept the false election results. But then I realized it was just Republican Texas representative John Culbertson going in for some corn pads and a lottery ticket. They look so much alike and their struggles are eerily similar.

Much like the Iranians who live in an oppressive environment forced to accept whatever bile Ayatollah Khameini spews forth and to be ruled by whichever lunatic he picks to be president, Representative Culbertson lives in a big house, gets paid an exorbitant amount of money for which he does nothing useful, gets free healthcare for life for he and his family, can say anything about the president without fear of physical torture and has freedom of religion, thought, satellite TV shows and ice cream flavors.

So you see, it was an honest mistake.

What's in a Name?

I noticed that the republicans like to change the name of things to suit their own needs and misinform the public. For instance, President Obama’s plans to redistribute some of the wealth in this country so we can all have a chance at a better life is referred to by some as “hope for the future”. The republitards refer to it as “socialism” and act as if someone just farted into their breakfast cereal.

Then there is the estate tax, a tax which only affects the wealthiest 1% of the country, but the republicheats started referring to it as the “death tax” to confuse people and make them believe it would affect them so they will throw their support behind repealing it.

Cosmic Overdrive has decided that in the rich tradition of the republiclods, we need to refer to them by new names. Names that better reflect their true nature. So start using these new names right away to impress your friends, win new clients and lower your cholesterol:

Old Name: The Republican Party
New Name: Douchebags R’ Us

Old Name: The Republican National Committee
New Name: Spittin’-into-the-wind-o’rama

Old Name: Michael Steele, head of the Republican National Committee
New Name: Captain Duh

Old Name: Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader
New Name: MC Old Whitey

Old Name: John Boehner, House minority leader
New Name: Orange Julius

Old Name: Rush Limbaugh
New Name: Blovi McBloviator, aka The Zeppelin

Old Name: Newt Gingrich
New Name: Teabag, the nuttiest racist in the west

Old Name: Glenn Beck
New Name: Gus the Flatulent, Corpulent Cow or The Mighty Methane Metastasizer

Old Name: Sean Hannity
New Name: Pansy Ass, Chickenshit, Liar; take your pick. Mix them up, be creative; Pansy Shit, Chicken Ass, Big Effing Liar

She's Baaaack

It was quiet in Normaltown. The sun was just setting and folks had meandered home for the day. But as they shut their doors and the moon peeked over the horizon, something frightening returned to their burg. An auburn-haired dervish of howling, slobbering insanity roared down Main Street shouting “Conspiracy! Factual Inaccuracy! Fear!”

“Run!” the people cried, “Its Michele Bachmann!”

The good citizens of Normaltown quickly locked their doors and windows, pulled the shades and prayed to God for deliverance from “Chicken Little” Bachmann, but it was too late. The crazed congresswoman ran up and down the village streets, arms flailing, pupils dilated and frothing at the mouth.

What was she cackling about this time? It seems a car dealership that was shut down by GM was given a reprieve when the owner solicited the help of his Democratic senator who arranged a meeting with GM. Michele focused on the fact it was a Democratic senator who facilitated the saving of this business and she shrieked:

. . . We now have an imperial presidency where the President has appointed various czars reporting directly to him. And now he is reaching into the confines of private businesses and overnight rendering them virtually worthless—unless, unless they have a special tug, a political tie to a local Democrat Congressman. Is that what we’ve come to?

Of course, Michele doesn’t have time for “the truth” or “reality” or “facts” or “principles”. She has conspiracies to uncover. The aliens will be here for her soon and she has work to do before they reach Earth.

So while she was contacting the mothership she missed the part of the story where the owner of the salvaged car lot has no political ties to the Democrats. The man has never given a dime to a democrat, but has given over $100,000 in the last decade to republicans, including . . . this is the best part . . . wait for it . . . here it comes . . . over $6000 to . . . drum roll please . . . Michele Bachmann!

When the Normaltown residents learned of this they rushed out of their homes pelting Michele with reference books, newspapers, congressional reports and laptops already linked to Google and Yahoo. “We’re thinkers here in Normaltown,” the mayor bellowed while hitting Michele with a biography of Joseph McCarthy. Michele fought back with her patented cries of “Socialism!”, “Socialism!” and even “Socialism!” But it didn’t work.

The townspeople chased her back into the arms of the Minnesota state media who devoured her and regurgitated her back onto the local op-ed pages with titles like “Why Won’t She Shut Up?”, “Bachmann Writes New Dictionary, Only Contains One Word” and “Oddly Familiar Woman Shrieks at Passersby”.

Digiview Productions Thinks They're My Mother

When you’re a heterosexual male like myself and you’re watching a bad movie, at some point you inevitably think “the only thing that can save this film is if it has female nudity”. Now imagine that as you’re watching, the clouds suddenly part, a brilliant light shines into your living room and a choir of angels serenades you with a canticle signaling God has granted your wish: a beautiful naked woman appears on screen.

But something is wrong. A frisson of doubt passes over your now clammy skin. As you stare at your TV you realize that all of the “naughty bits” or “good parts” or “t & a” or “the unmentionables” or “the twins” are blurred out. Instead of a pair of breasts winking at you, you see an undulating square of color that seems to repeat in a mechanized voice, “denied, denied, denied”, thus making this the single worst movie watching experience of your life, even worse than having to sit through anything with Julia Roberts in it.

A few weeks ago I was watching a 70s martial arts movie called The Bodyguard starring Sonny Chiba. Quick review: dull, confusing, bad fight scenes. The movie just happens to have several scenes of topless women in it which were blurred out by Digiview Productions, the company that packaged and sold the movie. Apparently, Digiview thinks they’re my mother.

Did I need to see the exposed breasts? No. I Wanted to, but didn’t need to. Were they going to change my opinion of the movie? No, the movie was bad start to finish with or without naked women.

My problem is with the censorship. Any creative endeavor be it a novel, a painting, a sculpture, a movie, a song, whatever; needs to be controlled by the artist. The artist decides how they want their piece to look, sound or read. We as the patrons then decide on a personal level whether we like it, dislike it, are offended or don’t care. Digiview Productions doesn’t have the right to decide what is acceptable to the general public. You could argue that The Bodyguard doesn’t have any artistic value so it doesn’t matter. It was a grind house exploitation flick filled with violence and nudity merely to titillate. But I think it does matter. It was still the film maker’s decision as to what went on the screen. Digiview Productions is no one’s moral compass, nor arbiters of artistic expression.

In fact, let’s look at some other points of the movie that Digiview didn’t have a problem with. There are expletives in the film, including a few F-bombs, but they aren’t edited out. There are many fight scenes including one where a man’s upper arm is shot by so many bullets his arm actually tears off and he stumbles away spurting blood everywhere, Again, Digiview found this to be acceptable. So hitting, kicking, swearing, shooting, stabbing, torture, and murder are all a-ok, but a naked woman? Get thee behind me Satan! Digiview, if you don’t like naked women in movies you should have chosen another film to distribute.

Don’t try to think for me; I’m smarter than you, I can handle it myself. Don’t try to be my moral guide; considering what you find acceptable versus what you don’t, I’m better off following the philosophical teachings of my cat. Don’t put yourself on a pedestal; your movies are being sold at a dollar store for 50 cents and that’s what I think you’re censorship policy is worth.

Here Comes Da Judge

I don’t know anything about Sonia Sotomayor. I have no idea if Obama made the right choice or how she will be on the Supreme Court should she be seated. But I do love anything that gets the Republitwits all sweaty and sputtering. Let’s take a look at some of their statements from the past few days:

Mike Huckabee: “The clearest indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric.”
The fact that you think anyone cares what you think is a clear indication you lost brain cells along with all that weight. Implicit in our rejection of you as a presidential candidate was our desire for you to just go away.

Newt Gingrich on twitter: “Saying that her background as a Hispanic female allowed her to understand cases in a different, better, manner than her white male contemporaries. Imagine a judicial nominee said, ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman’ new racism is no better than old racism.
Aside from the fact you took her quote out of context, you should know a racist Newt since you are one. You would also know if she cheated on her spouse since you have experience with that too. Oh, also lying, obfuscation, bloviating, fear mongering and general douchebaggery.

Mitt Romney: called the pick of Sotomayor “troubling”
What’s troubling Mitt Rombot is your belief that your opinion was solicited any more than Huckabee’s. By the way Mittens, have you ever had an original idea or do you read your life off of a talking points memo?

Michael Steele: “Republicans will reserve judgment on Sonia Sotomayor until there has been a thorough and thoughtful examination of her legal views.”
What he’s really saying: I’m releasing a vanilla statement because I’ve tried my “street” persona, my “buffoon” character, my “bad cop” routine and my “duh, I’m a moron” shtick and gotten my ass kicked for all of them.

Rush Limbaugh: “Do I want her to fail? Yeah. Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes! She’d be a disaster on the court. Do I still want Obama to fail as President? Yeah. He’s going to fail anyway, but the sooner the better.”
Do I want you to choke on a Bob Evan’s brown and serve sausage while having your third plate of breakfast? Yeah. Do I want you to fail to negotiate a turn in your car while secretly listening to NPR and slide under the rear wheels of one of those super sized dump trucks that haul stone from a quarry? You bet. Do I want you to have an aneurysm while squeezing out your morning dump into a lily-white bowl? Yes, and the sooner the better!

Do You Remember Who Finished Third?

This past Sunday the ESPN bottom line had this to say:

Castroneves wins 500, Danica 3rd

This was the announcement that Helio Castroneves had won the Indianapolis 500, one of the most prestigious auto races in the world. What got my attention though was ESPN feeling the need to let us know that Danica Patrick finished third in the race.

I’m not a racing fan but as a sports fan I know what the big events are and who the participants will be. I also understand what a thrill winning the biggest race of the year must be and this was Castroneves’s third time in the winner’s circle. To me, the unnecessary addition of Patrick’s placement took something away from the announcement.

The bigger question is why are they still reporting where Danica Patrick finishes in every race? She’s been on the IndyCar circuit for 5 years and has 1 win. I get why she was a big deal 5 years ago: Not many women drive in any of the professional racing leagues, be it NASCAR, IndyCar or the NHRA and she has the potential to be very good. But when does public fascination give way to reality? She’s been a member of two good racing teams and in 68 races has won 1 time.

I’m not a golf fan but I get annoyed when I hear “Angel Cabrera won the Byron Nelson Classic today. And Tiger finished 13th.” Again, I think that takes away from the winner’s time in the spotlight. But I do understand it even if I don’t like it. Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world and one of the best there’s ever been. Every time he steps onto the golf course he has a better than average chance to win the tournament.

The same can’t be said of Danica Patrick. She doesn’t win. 5 years and 68 races with good equipment and she doesn’t win. So why is ESPN reporting where she finishes if it isn’t 1st? When does the whole “we’re paying attention because she’s a woman” become “we’ll pay attention again when she starts winning”? For me the time has passed.