The key to a good relationship is finding someone who has a similar temperament, words of wisdom John McCain has followed. The warm-hearted man, best known for calling his wife a cunt, has picked fellow petulant, barely-politician Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska who it seems fired the police commissioner for failing to make a case against her estranged brother-in-law serving under him. It goes without saying this election that voting red is a vote for red-faced temper tantrums, which, along with cock insecurity, has been the force behind our foreign policy decisions since the birth of this fine nation.

ABSURD LINES ON CNN FIVE MINUTES AFTER SARAH PALIN WAS PICKED AS VEEP:

"She loves Mooseburgers, the American people can really relate to that kind of person."

"I mean, we don't know much about her yet, except she's a really attractive woman."

"The first reaction in political circles: What in the world was McCain thinking?"


Mmmmm mooseburger. On a scale of 1 to 100, how much do you, American reader, relate to this?

What was McCain thinking? I mean he's the oldest candidate in history and may in fact be having a heart attack while I type these words, yet he picks an inexperienced Governor from a state no one remembers, who has only held office since 2006 and is already embroiled in a scandal. I feel like this is somehow Michael Chabon's fault. McCain read the Yiddish Policemen's Union on the crapper one day and it reminded him Alaska existed and introduced the possibility of sending all liberal Jews there.

Unless the Palin pick was a feeble attempt to position his old white man candidacy as less white and less old manish. If that was the case he should have picked me. I would have campaigned as a Minnesotan hippie female by the name my Native American brethren bestowed upon me during the years I lived with them on the reservation--Walking Big Tits--and stood for the values of free love, abortion sucks, man, spontaneous blackface, and a meritocracy that awards the top 2 percent of earners with unlimited FEMA-sponsored BlowJs.

Because as it is, the Perfect Ratio/McCain ticket has a better chance than the Palin/McCain ticket.


From the Department of Obviousness: Tina Fey is the clear pick for Sarah Palin impersonation humor.

Though I won't be going near Palin's name on the ballot with a ten-foot abortion vacuum, I have not been pleased by the somewhat misogynist pundit talk I've witnessed so far. One commenter on CNN, arguing why Palin isn't a good choice for women rationalized that she's a "bad mother" because as everyone knows Downs Syndrome babies require a lot of attention and running for office with a newborn baby is just "bad parenting". Female voters will be critical of her for putting her baby second.

A multi-level offense, in that it assumes female voters are retards who don't care about actual issues, and because it accuses Palin of something a man would never be accused of. Punishment in a McCain/Perfect Ratio presidency for this particular pundit would be sodimization by Judd Apatow while watching Look Who's Talking Two.

Sometimes the people on TV make me feel CRAZ-E.

KRAFT MARKETING MEETING 6/12/08

Don Draper: Jews are the only ones spending during the recession...but Jews are notoriously thrifty.

Roger Sterling: But what do they want that they don't have? Our Lender's line is the best we got.

Draper: What if we enhanced Lender's? What if came up with some irresistible combination of Jewishness? What do Jews want? PEGGY! Come in.

Peggy Olsen: What do Jews want? Well, I guess, um, bagels with schmear. And, uh, circumcised penises?

Draper: Thank you Peggy. May I present the new, easy bake bagel with schmear, shaped like a circumsised penis. Only put your mouth on the circumcised.TM



pic via Molly Tumblr!

I don't remember much about Eliot Spitzer. I know he was tough on Wall Street criminals. My grandma feverishly believed he would be the first Jew-pres.

Then he boned a call girl that looked suspiciously like Audrina from The Hills. That ended that.

Wish #1 of blog post #234: I wish The Hills would stay out of politics. No boning Audrina dopplegangers. No more candidate endorsements from Heidi. And someone rescind Spencer's right to vote please. Don't make it a decision, make it a surprise.


Vice-Pres 2008- do it for the American Bubbies.

The aftereffects of the Spitzer scandal are much harder to forget, mostly because they won't go away. The sexual inclinations of one lowly Governor managed to spawn a media clusterfuck of articles on both:

1. HIGH CLASS, WELL EDUCATED CALL GIRLS
2. MARRIED MEN HAVING/WANTING AFFAIRS

Wish #2 of blog post #234: I am really sick of reading these articles and I wish they would stop. Media outlets should feel free, however, to keep posting the accompanying sexy pictures.

A picture from the most recent high class hooker article in Radar:

Marisa Tomei and Prince Harry do it for $$$$

It's not that the Radar article wasn't positively salacious and fully consuming. It's just that these kind of pieces feel like Mad Libs by now.

This one was titled "The Secrets of a Hipster Hooker."

I mean, c'mon.

High Class Call Girl Article Mad Libs:

THE ____________ (Insert Noun: Secrets/Secret Life/Diary) OF A ___________(Insert Descriptor: High Class/ Ivy League/ Just-Like-Your-Daughter) _____________ (Insert Sexy Noun for Whore: Hooker/Prostitute/Sexy Money Fairy).

Can we just legalize prostitution already? Legalization always kills media thrill.

I mean maybe I'm just jealous because I don't have the best vagina in New York. Sometimes I don't fully comprehend when my inner misogynist rears her ugly clitoris.

The prettiest vagina in all of New York goes to Ashley Alexandra Dupree.

Apparently it looks like God's face



and sounds like Madonna's Ray of Light album.



As long as I brought it up, you should really take a look at the Google Image results for "God's face". FASCINATING.

My vag doesn't stand a chance against such loin aesthetics. Ever since a large, politically conservative Russian lady started fuming about all the "disgusting" gays in New York, slapping my thigh angrily for emphasis as she waxed my bikini area, I've been too afraid to go back for grooming.

Gratuitous picture of hairy, but lovable animal:


Mostly, I pray for the demise of the high-class hooker article because I'm afraid as chick writer that one day I'll pitch a story on, let's say Uganda's flailing fish industry, and a male editor will write back: "This looks great! Can you work in an angle about prostituting yourself to a destitute Ugandan fisherman? How much could he offer you? What did you have to do, etc.? File next Tuesday?"

What is far worse than the recent stream of prostie pieces however, is the slew of articles on married men craving affairs. Males think about extramarital sex. HOW IS THIS NEWS?

The most despicable offender thus far was Philip Weiss' New York magazine piece, "What Makes Married Men Want To Have Affairs?"

I mean, I understand that emasculated Beta-males are trendy nowadays, but this is just ridiculous. Weiss bases his entire argument on the fact that he really wants his wife around to like, you know, darn his trousers and shit, but he also wants to have sex with lots of other people (and, moreover, it's not his fault! Science says he can't help it!). Thus the BabyMan whines:

Sitting in Schiller’s, I explained Squire’s history to my friend and suggested that we could change sexual norms to, say, encourage New York waitresses to look on being mistresses as a cool option. “That’s fringe,” my friend said dismissively. Wives weren’t going to allow it, and we men grant them a lot of power; they’re all as dominant as Yoko Ono. “Look, we’re the weaker animal,” he said. “They commandeer the situation.”

Wish #3 of blog post #234: I wish that no writer ever again will treat young tattooed waitresses as toddler-esque, half-formed beings who would fuck married dudes because it was "cool". It's like, wouldn't it be great if mentally disabled babysitters thought that dick-sucking was as fun as eating a popscicle? Yeah! But our wives would never go for it! Damn!

This article is simply relationship fear-mongering. It's the sex equivalent of those scary wolf Bush ads from Election 2004. And it's not as if there haven't been good articles written about the desire to cheat. It's hard, dudes. People aren't really meant for monogamy. But don't write an eight page diaper rash of a piece that incessantly wails, "BUT WHY CAN'T I JUST HAVE IT ALL?" Just, like, get a Deevorce. Or go bone someone, quick and clean, Don Draper-style. Just don't make us listen to you whine about your own choices.

In some ways the high class hooker type-article and the Philip Weiss type-article go hand in hand, or Pee in Vee, more aptly. The high class call girl-- young, alternative, beautiful-- is exactly like the tattooed waitress of Weiss' wet dream. Only she costs some bucks.

Maybe someone can write the Weiss-spends-one-night-working-as-high-class-male-hooker article?
That would finally be an interesting twist.

Vicky Christina Barcelona: JAVIER PUSH THEM AWAY FROM EACH OTHER FOR THE SAKE OF THE WORLD!!!!

Woody Allen's wet dream marks the end of CINEMATIC HISTORY.

Really, where can cinema go post-Scarlett-kisses-Penelope-on-screen? It makes sense to insert a cultural sploogetopia into heavenly descriptions of the afterlife (i.e. 72 virgins await your arrival in the clouds)-- that provides a goal, something to strive towards in life, like Michael Phelps' vision of the fifteen chocolate chip pancakes, five ham and cheese sandwiches, and vat of butter waiting for him at the end of his last lap. But to make it into a feature-length motion picture? UM, BAD IDEA. What can our eyes take solace in after voyeuristic pleasure has reached its unsurpassable climax? Francis Fukuyama may have been totally wrong about The End of History, but I am fully convinced (in the way only a neoconservative cinephile can be) that this heralds the demise of American cinema.

The End.
(seriously, THE END.)

Why Tropic Thunder Is Not Only The Funniest, But The Smartest Comedy Of The Summer.

While comedies don't have to be smart to be funny, and by some mysterious force of American stupidity, smart comedies (Arrested Development) have been unable to hold their own against inane ones (Two and a Half Men), satires sure as hell do have to be painstakingly intelligent. At the risk of sounding like an overeager T.A. I'd like to make the following case for the braininess of TROPIC THUNDER: THE SMARTEST MOVIE OF OUR TIME (the weekend) AND THE BEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN (starring Ben Stiller, while having a tampon in).



Tropic Thunder is a meta-satire. A movie about a movie, the plot centers around a group of five outwardly egotistical, inwardly trembling actors on location in Vietnam to make the Greatest. War. Movie. Of. Our. Time. Tropic Thunder's barrel is obviously aimed at the excess of the Hollywood blockbuster and the level of seriousness with which everyone in the industry considers their work. As you've probably heard/read/seen already, Robert Downey Jr. plays Russell Crowesque "method" actor, Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes a pigmentation operation to darken his skin for the role of the black sergeant.


I know who I am! I'm the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!

An aside on dudes disguised as other dudes: The mild uproar over Downey Jr./Kirk Lazarus in blackface is as retarded as Simple Jack. Downey himself has rightfully said that the mask is intended to be a statement on "actors' narcissism". And blackface isn't the only mask used in the film. When Speedman is kidnapped by Asian heroin growers, he falls under a Stockholm Syndrome-like spell, seduced by his kidnappers' love of his critically slammed film Simple Jack. The drug lords paint him up in whiteface and force him to perform the entire movie. By the time the rest of the actors make their way to Speedman's holding cell, he's so bowled over by his newfound fame that he's donning permanent Simple Jack-whiteface. When Lazarus tries to convince him to escape and the two tussle over identity ("This is the first time I know who I am!"..."That's not who you are! You're the star of Scorcher!)-- the comedy is in watching two actors in disguises so far removed from their true sapless identities argue about who they really are. The inclusion of whiteface and blackface isn't about race at all, rather it's just a representation of the characters' absurd level of artifice. JEAH.

Maybe the smartest part of the meta-satire is the way that Tropic Thunder makes the audience implicit in its critique. The movie begins with a series of hilarious commercials and trailers starring the five main actors that also serve to give us an idea of the "actor type" they represent. Ben Stiller's actor/character, Tugg Speedman, stars in a trailer for his tired-and-should-be-retired action series Scorcher. Kirk Lazarus is seen in a high drama, monks-in-love Brokeback spoof called Satan's Alley. However, there's no clear demarcation between the start of the movie's spoof trailers and the actual trailers we just sat through, causing a moment of temporary confusion. And as funny as this blend of actual with fictive is, it's also a bit incriminating: Like, you're the dumbasses who exalt these kind of movies and make them blockbuster hits.

But in the end, Tropic Thunder loves the subject of its satire too. The filming of the epic war movie begins with intensive bombing, a helicopter getaway, and Ben Stiller getting shot several times and still surviving. At the end, when the Tropic Thunder actors no longer acting for the movie, but rather escaping for their lives, they still unrealistically survive intensive bombing, gunshots, and pull off an impossible helicopter getaway. The actual ending is as cliched as the one that was being mocked in the beginning. And that's what was so great about the movie, and satire in general: It is always a labor of love. Hollywood is ridiculous, its vanity boundless, but we would never, ever want to live without it.

Up next! The magical realism of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (i.e. How One Pair of Jeans Fits All Four Girls of Differing Body Sizes!) You probably want to unsubscribe to this blog now.

Beijing Opening Ceremony

Matt: "You know not one person has been able to watch this without making the joke 'I bet their families get shot if they make a mistake.'"



Somewhat related:

I'm no economic expert, but I'm willing to bet that part of the dollar's rising strength is due to Michael Phelps' insane winning spree at the Olympics. I mean Americans want to see their country winning in something to compensate for the downer war in Iraq. Watching Phelps command every single Gold medal in the host country that basically owns us, well, that's confidence boosting! And true patriots take that confidence straight to the mall! It should be a matter of policy that every week the economy is in the doldrums network TV should play a montage of Phelps swimming really fast, throwing off his googles, and fist-pumping with a manly grunt, "JEAH!" Lube up the economy with America's number #1 energy juice: testosterone.

What Do Women Want? I'd like to think this is an age-old question, but according to my historical source, Mad Men, Don Draper only starts to mull over the issue in the form of "What is wrong with my depressive wife?" during Episode #9 (so circa 1959-ish?) of the first season. It's like watching Lars realize his sexy real doll is in fact NOT a real girl, only here Draper is realizing that hot to trot, doll-like Betty is more real than he had fathomed. Before Draper graced our televisions and the whole feminist movement came to fruition, for the most part asking what women want was like pondering what your Manimal pajamas want. Those were the kind of questions you pawned off on your awesome assistant, Peggy.

Peggy knows the mysterious desires of both women and Manimals..... and she's only a little afraid to present them.



Case in point: Peggy's ad pitch for Belle Jolie lipstick, which she presents to a room full of mocking men, is the damn truth: "Women want to feel beautiful and unique, like they're the only girl in the room. Sometimes they want to MasterB on the washing machine. They want their birth control to really prevent unintended pregnancy. They want respect at the workplace, and also the attentions of their now married ex-hook up. And on a more personal note, Don, we all want to have sex with you."

The females are the most well-rounded characters on Mad Men, and I'm not just talking about their insane bodies. I love them. Especially the Ginger.

The What Do Women Want? question really came to a head with Mel Gibson's 2000 thriller, confidently titled What Women Want. Once Mel is endowed with the ultimate power of hearing the trashy thoughts of females all around him, he's finally able to understand the complicated species that is Sexus Womanius, and ultimately fall in love with Helen Hunt. Which makes it blaringly obvious that instead of slaving away trying to rid the world of the menstrual cycle, scientists should be concentrating on giving dudes mind reading powers. If they can save Mel Gibson, surely it could help McCain to hear what the cunty trollops around him are thinking?

Mel knows the secret of what women want, and that secret is to be called "Sugar Tits".

"What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

Only there was some sort of mistranslation in this particular mind reading-- probably due to wireless interference from a cancer-phone-- because women don't want to be called sugar tits, they just want tits that taste like sugar.


Mmmmmm...sugar tits.

Yesterday I was emailed this blog, which I could have sworn was called What Women Really Want, but I guess it's What Women Never Hear. Hence the long, overdrawn postulation on the former question. But, eh, it really doesn't matter what shit is called because it all smells the same. This particular blog is an attack on the state of modern womanity, authored by A. Guy. Maligned. (of course), that assumes modern women hate sex but succumb to it just for male attention, and this is an ill choice, as a male only wants to marry a respectful virgin.

Nuggets of Wisdom include:

--Women make unmarried sex so easy that men don’t have to pay attention to her needs, drives, and desires. But doubts arise about her history and worth for marriage, if she’s too easily conquered.

--Accepting sex as fun matches his nature perfectly, but it violates her own. She adopts masculine as more important than female values and learns to act more like a guy. Her identity becomes embedded in masculine fun, fun, fun.

--Hunter-conquerors appreciate tantalizing, challenging, and hard-to-capture prey. This motivates men to investigate a woman intensively instead of just for sex.

--Women abandon femininity, modesty, high moral standards, and other female strengths just to have a boyfriend or husband they can’t keep.

According to A. Maligned Guy, women only want:

1.) Marriage

2.) Kids

At this point, who thinks A. Guy. Maligned is Midge Decter's blog alias? I do!

Of course this is just another addition to the look what feminism has done to you fear-mongering of late. The kind of argument that assumes women are made unhappy by their freedoms (despite the studies that have shown women under 50 are happier than their male counterparts), and that reduces one to sound off like an idiot by having to argue such a basic premise: Lots of women want lots of different things. Like, duh.

This is just the beginning of What Women Want:

Kashi GoLean, a lunch with Amy Klobuchar, the transcript of Sarah Silverman's and Jimmy Kimmel's break up, never to hear "You Make A Better Door, Than a Window Maureeeeen", calamari, the complete DVD collection of SportsNight.

Best Show Ever:


To violate Michael Cera, to see Tropic Thunder, to snag an even-tempered boyfriend, tickets to Neil Diamond live in concert, for Kirby Puckett never to have sexually harassed those women in a Minneapolis restaurant bathroom, to understand why China is so kooky:

Like just, WHY dub?


A Noxema exfoliator for prurient uses, a Jewish schlub, world peace, the latest Dr. Dog album, perfect bangs like Feist, a baseball stadium hot dog, an international Facebook friend, a copy of War & Peace, the new translation:

When Will I Be Done? I Await the Day With Dread.

Disclaimer

Just for the record, I wasn't trying to define an one-dimensional stereotype of an actual female, but rather, a male director's wet dream of an indie fantasy female. Also, if you've noticed my penchant for rim job jokes in these pages, it's pretty evident I'm making fun of myself. That is all.

Ew.

Not to be a killjoy semantic stickler, but doesn't calling these realistic newborn dolls "Reborn Babies" connote, oh I don't know, that they're dead babies brought back to life?

Help A Squidz

Regularly scheduled blogging is being interrupted to bring you the following servicing announcement. By servicing announcement I mean a statement intended to entice you into servicing me.


Squidz helping squidz, tentacle in tentacle, giving each other the creepy eye.

Bubbelahs,

Have you ever dated for a warm bed?

I'm looking for some help on a story I'm working on about the intersection between New York apartment dwelling and dating. Of course people find lots of retarded reasons to stay with someone they shouldn't or date someone they know isn't right, but the difficulty of finding an affordable New York apartment and the pain of moving out of it once you've landed one with your significant other seems like a major reason to stay in a dying relationship. I'll admit, I've moved in with a boyfriend out of necessity when my heart wasn't fully in it, and yes, I felt horribly guilty, but my guilt wasn't any match for the alternative dread of finding a sublet somewhere last minute. I want to know if this happens frequently in New York-- couples overextending the last dying breaths of their relationship because they live together and it's just too damn hard and expensive to get a broker, pay exorbitant fees, and break free from cohabitation. I'm interested in the flip situation too: couples moving in together before their relationship was ready for it, just to save money. Or more generally: What are the ways moving in with a boyfriend/girlfriend in New York effects relationships, and why do people decide to live together or cease living together?

So.....I'm looking for good or bad women or men who have been in this kind of predicament before, on either side of the equation, and who are willing to go on the record talking about it. (Of course names can be changed). If you know of anyone please send them my way at ren@alumni.brown.edu. All respondents get a Werther's caramel hard candy, just like Grandpa used to dole out. Yes, a decidedly small buttery bribe, but if you suck with light pressure they last, like, 25 minutes.

P.S. I have a post on ThisRecording !!!!

Pee Pee Ess. Check out Oh Animals! It's positively feral.

Obviously I disagree with John McCain on everything. Except maybe skin cancer. Though I'm even reluctant to give him a 100 percent pass on the cancer issue, because if he would just take a cue from his wife and cake on makeup like a trollop, he probably could have avoided his cancerous predicament. Makeup, you see, is like wearing SPF 15.


Because of this benefit, it really rapes my goat when dudes are like, "You look so much better without makeup." First of all, don't disguise an insult as a compliment. I never tell boyfriends, "Oh, you look so much better when you don't wear all that armpit hair." And secondly, looking like a harlot these days is called being CANCER CONSCIOUS. Moreover, making oneself up only gets more commanding with age: on the elderly, makeup has a way of reminding everyone around of their own mortality. At least I see my eventual demise in the heavily rouged cheeks of Cindy McCain. I am amused that you can buy that power at Sephora for like 50 bucks.

Another thing that sodomized my chicken recently was McCain's moronic attempt to play the race card by accusing Obama of playing the race card. I'm not good at cards to begin with so someone is going to have to explain to me WTF "playing the race card" even means. Obama's black, duh. So when he points out that he looks different from past presidents that's unfair or something? What's the difference between that and McCain highlighting his war experience or his skin cancer survival? I play the skin cancer card all the time, and you know what? It gets me laid. It works much better than the abortion card for some reason.

This is my formal warning to politicians: the "playing the card" metaphor must be retired. It just doesn't fucking make sense. There's no way to play a card unfairly in a game of cards: you can make a bad play, or a brilliant play, but if you can actually play a card, you're automatically within the parameters of what is fair.




Which one of these hotties can't say that they're black? Is this a trick question?

No one likes a white dude complaining about a black dude's "unfair" advantage. No one likes a Bob Ewell. That kind of personality went out of vogue in 2003 with the Michigan Affirmative Action lawsuit. The only Internet presence Patrick Hamacher has now is on Facebook and he does not even have a lot of Facebook friends.

No one likes a serious old white dude either. McCain went about his campaign all wrong from the get go. He's up against a hot, new, obnoxiously hip guy, and he responds by morphing into the crotchety old Grandpa shaking his cane in the air decrying Obama's popularity. Also using a word like "trollop" doesn't make him appear any younger. Then there's his temper. Did I call McCain an old white dude? I meant an old beet red dude. No one likes seeing grandpa figures get mad. It brings back memories of the belt.

Last night, over at Liz's, we were talking about how McCain should have positioned himself as the kitsch counter-cultural candidate. Voters these days are way into perverse postmodern ballot casting. I hail from the state that elected Jesse Ventura, a penis doppleganger with a moustache. Two years ago, a vampire ran for Governor under the slogan "Politics is a cutthroat business" and promised to impale child molesters on the steps of the Capitol Building. I'm telling you people love this kind of gimmick. At least Minnesotans do. Though now I'm wondering if this vampire's political run was just a marketing scheme for HBO's True Blood. Their ads are intense, to say the least.

If I were running McCain's campaign. I would have sold him as a Steampunk. WALL-E is a Steampunk, and people seem to love him.

Genuine Steampunk robot (left).


STEAM-E WALL-E (below).






SteamCain McPunk would have 1.) Made McCain's loss more fun to watch and 2.) killed the Steampunk movement. Both of which I wouldn't mind happening.

SteamCain McPunk or something:

It's pretty obvious I'm not at work today. SteamCain McPunk and I are renting City of Lost Children and burnishing our brass knuckles togeths this afternoon.