Bucket List, Schmucket List

Many people talk about making bucket lists, things they want to do before they die. Some also refer to it as “living life to its fullest”. The problem is everyone’s list is kind of the same:

1. go skydiving

2. run a marathon

3. climb a mountain

4. kill a drifter with a gardening trowel

Always the same. Booooooring. Let’s try and liven those lists up. Here are some suggestions to make your bucket list original:

1. wrestle a badger for a piece of string cheese

2. replace your finger nails with thin slivers of Formica

3. eat only watermelon for a month

4. ride cross country with a long-haul trucker named Spider

5. escape with your life from the cab of an 18-wheeler driven by a man named Spider

6. give testimony against Spider in open court

7. weave baskets from your nose hair

8. win a Pulitzer Prize then denounce your life’s work as derivative and obfuscatory

9. fly first class, sitting in your seat naked and clipping your toenails

10. go into witness protection once Spider is released from his supermax prison

11. eat a T-bone steak covered in potato chips, rutabaga and molasses

12. shove 27 nickels in your ears

13. take a photo of your thumb every day for a year and then exhibit the pictures at a local art gallery

14. paint your entire house red, then have a dinner party and greet your guests with the phrase “Welcome to hell.”

15. kill Spider with a Cuisinart blade when he finds you after being released from prison

These are just a few of the things you can do to make completing your bucket list worthy of a story on a TV news show or the subject of one of those annoying internet lists that make you click “next” a thousand times to find out what that one actor from that TV show you used to watch looks like now only to find out he isn’t part of the list anyway and that fucking website tricked you into wasting 26 minutes of your life.

Now get out there and have fun!

Game Show of the Future

It's 2:30 p.m.; do you know where your Chihuahua is?

Hi, I'm Dan Filibuster, host of "You're Too Old to Remember Shit". Our opening line tonight came from a famous sitcom. OK, contestants, ring in if you know the answer.

Yes, Judy, you got in first.

Judy: That line is from Whiskey Pete and the Dipsy Doodle Twins.

That's right! 100 points for Judy Spermatozoa from Belair Maryland. Whiskey Pete was of course played by lovable curmudgeon Howard Thudbaum who sadly died of extreme boredom 6 months after the show was cancelled.

Our other contestants tonight are Larry Finley of Hamster Crack Iowa and our returning champion with a 61 day prize total of $543 and 16 55-gallon drums of Turtle Wax; please welcome Marge Merge from a small cave in Arkansas!

All right contestants, our next golden oldie is from a song:

I gave you my heart
but all you did was fart

Marge!

Marge: That is from "Your Love is Like a Gas Fire" by Hank Hurlyburly.

Correct! 100 points. Ironically Hank was killed when he held in a fart too long during a blind date and his colon exploded. The other patrons at the restaurant were covered in feces but because it belonged to the legendary country singer they refused to bathe.

Our next category is News. Who said this?

"If I knew I was going to lose I wouldn't have spent my tater money on the campaign."

Larry!

Larry: That was 1932 presidential candidate Elmer "Mr. Potato Head" Tubbs

Correct, 100 points! Elmer spent all of the money used to work his potato farm to run for president where he finished a disappointing 67th in the Republican primary. He ran again in 1936 on the platform "Give me back my tater money."

Now for 300 points and the game, what movie is this from?

"I believe I can fly now that I have bionic elbows!"

Marge!

Marge: Danny Twilight said that in the movie "Robots, Robots, Everyone is a Robot"

Yes! Marge remains our champion.

Now for the Bonus question for Marge to win the grand prize of $36.28 and a claw-foot tub filled with scrap plywood: What TV show is this from:

"Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, bunnies.”

Marge: Oh my God, I loved that show. It’s from Farmer Larry’s Festival of Frolic and Fun!

Yes! Marge is a winner again.

Thanks for watching everyone, join us next week for another edition of “You’re Too Old to Remember Shit ".

Coming This Fall

The TV season used to run from September through May. There were four networks with original programming so you only had to memorize a few channel numbers to get your viewing schedule planned out. Now every nickel and dime network is creating their own original programs. The “seasons” are only 10 or 12 episodes long and they start and stop at any time throughout the calendar year. With so many new avenues I thought I’d pitch a few ideas of my own to every network on the dial and see if I can get a bite.

Bingo and Bango—Identical twin cops get re-assigned as each other’s new partner. Bingo is obsessive/compulsive, reading a criminal his Miranda rights as many as 30 times. Bango is bi-polar playing good cop/bad cop all by himself. Watch the fireworks each week as they try to blend their mental illnesses to solve crimes and not piss off their glue sniffing captain.

Scratch MacDougal—written for the David Kelley assembly line of lawyer shows, this one finds lovable curmudgeon Scratch MacDougal taking any case that walks through his door to pay alimony to 7 ex-wives and keep current girlfriend Maxine happy. Watch Scratch prepare paperwork to close on the first house for a young couple while simultaneously defending a schnauzer charged with public urination.

The Babysitter is a Ninja!—A new reality show places a real-life ninja in a duplex living next door to the Hendersons, Barb and Barry, and their two kids. In between fighting agents of the Yakuza, the ninja becomes the children’s babysitter in the hours after school before Barb and Barry get home from work. Which will get to him first: Danny’s flute lessons or the triad’s assassins?

Meet Pain—Ashley Van Lusterberg lives in apartment 6c of an exclusive building. She works in the corporate offices of a tony New York Wall Street firm and dresses in designer clothing even to go to the grocery store. Apartment 6d across the hall is soon rented by The Painhammer, guitarist for death metal band Maggot Infested Intestines. He dresses in black leather and metal studs even just to go to the liquor store. Watch what happens when they fall in love and Ashley has to introduce her new fiancé to her parents.

Diggin’ That Grave—Rafe and Frisbee are gravediggers at the Dream Lawns Memorial Cemetery. At night after a hard day’s work they like to play cards . . . with the corpses! That’s right, it’s network TVs first zombie sitcom. Will Rafe take the pot with his pair of sixes or will Mrs. Goldberg bluff him out of another week’s pay. And the hi-jinks don’t just happen at night. Watch the hilarity as Frisbee tries to keep the bodies from rising from their graves early, in the middle of the Hightower funeral!

Pam and Eggs—Conman Eddie “Eggs” Larson meets Pam “Vavoom” Greer, a hooker with a rack of gold. They join together to fleece the city for all its worth. But soon they also find themselves raising 3 young children they find living in Central Park. Every day is an adventure as Pam and Eddie teach the kids to spot the rubes and the kids teach them what it means to be a family.

Hopefully in a few months you’ll be seeing one or more of these quality shows coming to a network schedule. I’m not picky, any of them will do, even NBC.

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.