"Short people got no reason to live..."

Poppycock, I say! I also say that Randy Newman should crawl back under the rock from which he came and never again darken mankind's doorway with his noisome presence. History is rife with meaningful men of diminutive stature... men who did great things and men who effected great horrors upon the world; men who made us dance and men who made us think; men of finance, academia and art. Anyway, on the eve of the ultimate celebration of that which is manly, the Super Bowl, I thought it would be fun to assemble an All-Pro Squad of history's short men of consequence... 11 men a side, position by position... offense, defense and even a head coach, so here we go...

We'll start on the defensive side of the ball... we're gonna go with a 4-3 base...

Defensive Ends:
James Cagney (actor), Glenn Danzig (musician)... a couple of intense, agile, high-motor guys that will come and keep coming on every snap

Defensive Tackles:
Ariel Sharon (military/political leader) and Yasser Arafat (terrorist/benchmark of fashionable headwear)... forget the olive branch when it comes to this odd couple on the inside. They'll plug some gaps and blow up some running lanes

Linebackers:
Outside-Lenin (revolutionary/father of the Soviet state), Joseph Stalin (first General Secretary of Soviet Communist party/mass murderer); Inside-Ghengis Khan (Mongol marauder)... these guys are the playmakers. Not quite right in the head, they go sideline-to-sideline, laying waste to anything in their way

Secondary:
Cornerbacks-Gary Coleman (actor), Alexander Pope (poet/satirist)... undersized, but quick of both wit and feet, these guys can cover; Safeties-Pablo Picasso (artist), Toulouse-Lautrec (artist/deviant)... these hard-drinking, hard-hitting, unbound artists will paint the field... with pain

And now for the offense... we're gonna line up a three-wideout, one back set...

Wide Receivers:
Flanker-Prince (musician)... sleek and cat-quick, too slick to cover, he can go deep; Split End-Tom Cruise (actor)... has the strength to beat the jam at the line of scrimmage, he has all the right moves and brings a real science to the game; Slot-St. Francis of Assisi (friar/patron saint)... he's an animal across the middle and nobody's a better go-to guy on the Hail Mary

Tight End:
Andrew Carnegie (tycoon)... as hard as steel, he blocks and catches and will give anything and everything of himself to help the team win

Offensive Line:
Tackles-Honore de Balzac (novelist/playwright), Paul Williams (composer/songwriter/musician)... brilliance and individuality on the ends; Guards-Mickey Rooney (actor), Danny DeVito (actor)... a couple of stout workaholics; Center-Dudley Moore (actor/musician)... the anchor in the middle and the line's spirited leader

Running Back:
Sherman Hemsley (actor)... shifty, with great hips and moves, he can take the football and move it on up the field

Quarterback:
Igor Stravinsky (composer)... the author of the offense, conducting of symphony of splendid strategy

And, of course, you need the right man at the helm...

Head Coach:
Napoleon Bonaparte (despot)... he is a leader that can march a team deep into the playoffs, but has yet to prove he can win the big one

Not so rough for a "first draft"!

I've not made much pasta from scratch, and, until this week, I'd never made gnocchi... well, I whipped myself up a batch of ricotta parmesan gnocchi, then pan-toasted it with some garlic and green onion and threw together an alfredo sauce...

I gotta say... it wasn't bad at all (though, as you can see from the picture, I went a little too heavy with the sauce). I'd even go so far to say it was rather tasty. I already know a number of things I'll do differently, but, all-in-all, a pretty good first effort.

I wonder... The Art Edition!

I wonder...

Would Edgar Degas be so revered if, instead of ballerinas, he chosen to do dozens of works depicting Parisians killed by the cholera epidemics of the 19th century?

Would Raphael find the humor in this?

How Peter Paul Rubens would feel about being most well-known for having his name used to describe fat chicks?

Does this photo of Salvador Dali and Man Ray disturb you as much as it does me?

Why isn't Pierre-Auguste Renoir's lament to friend Frederic Bazille, "Triple shit! You are stark raving mad bastard!" appreciated as being one of history's great quotes? Just in case you're wondering, it was an expression of Renoir's horror at having learned of Bazille's enlistment into the French service upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Bazille was killed in battle, by the way.

Welll... maybe just one more!

A coworker and I went out after work last night, reassuring each other that we'd keep the evening low-key and call it a night well before last call... of course, we left the bar at 4:30 this morning. Sometimes, it doesn't help to be a regular.

"I'm going to be around until the Atomic Energy Commission finds a safe place to bury my liver." -Phil Harris

This evening, I had the opportunity to enjoy an installment of one of my favorite television series, The Universe. The title of tonight's episode was Strangest Things... appropriately enough, it showcased some of the more unusual items in our crazy cosmos, one such entity being interstellar clouds of ethyl alcohol, some as large as 1,000 times the size of our solar system. Yes, ethyl alcohol... the very same substance that gives our adult beverages their oh-so-enchanting intoxicating effect. Apparently, amongst the wonders that populate creation are big-ass clouds of booze! How cool is that?!?!? Alas, also present are no-fun substances such as carbon monoxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, formic acid, aldehydes and cyanides. I suppose the concept of great, galactic kegs, floating out in the void was too good to be true.

One last thing as long as I'm on the subject of The Universe... one of the regular contributors to the program is Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory... and she's quite the hottie...

She has NASA JPL and Cosmic Diary blogs.

Ah, beauty with brains and colossal cocktail clouds... the universe is a pretty f'ing cool place!

"No, I don't like weakness... but I like to drink!"

I think it's fair to say that amongst films that feature instances of alcohol-induced idiocy, National Lampoon's Animal House is often looked at as being the gold-standard of the American cinema, BUT... after having tonight viewed From Here to Eternity for about the 37th time, it dawned upon me that the manifestations of drunken moronity in this film may very well rival, if not surpass, Animal House in both depth and measure.

That being said, I must concede that John Belushi's character, John "Bluto" Blutarsky, is a runaway winner over Ernest Borgnine's Sgt. James "Fatso" Judson in the charm department.

A g(h)as-tly first!

I know a few other people that have been through this experience, but, up until today, I had been astute enough to avoid it myself. I'm driving down the feeder road after just having left the gas station... a car pulls up beside me, honking... the passengers within pointing and gesturing at me with wild, horrified fervor. Instantly, I realize what I've done... I glance at my passenger side rear-view mirror to confirm what I already know; to behold the handiwork of my profound oblivion. Sure enough, there's the gas pump and hose assembly, dragging along like some sort of garish piece of jewelry. So, I stop, remove the wayward mechanism, coil it up and place it on the floorboard of my car, return to the gas station, walk inside with it in my hand and an ear-to-ear smile on my face and inform the attendant that, "This belongs to you!" I then do as I am told, place the hose on the floor and head on my way.

Comcastic? More like Craptastic.

As consistently brilliant and entertaining as ESPN's "This is SportsCenter" promos are, the countless promotional spots run by Comcast for their services provide the omega to ESPN's alpha, the opposite end of the spectrum of that which is clever... they never fail to be excruciatingly stupid. Regardless of the motif, Comcast's ads always manage to deliver the very heights of lameness and vapidity... truly, the worst series of promotional advertising I have ever seen.

Turtle soup, anyone?

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." -Oscar Wilde

I just saw an advertisement (by the way, I emphasize the second syllable in advertisement, not the third. I feel very strongly about this and, thus, was compelled to inform you of as much) for a stage production entitled "Menopause: The Musical", and it got me to thinking (which is always a dangerous thing... that's why I try to avoid thinking altogether)... fellas, we need a performance of some sort showcasing the beautiful metamorphosis that is the masculine manner of maturation. How about "Songs of the Sagging Sack"... or perhaps "Prostates a Poppin'!"... maybe "Ears, Nose and Back... Thar's Hair Up There!" would make a fine tragicomedy... "Infatuation, E.D. and Me" just screams poignant!

Yeah.

"What so wild as words are?" -Robert Browning

After a long hiatus, it's time for the return of Ted's phonetic favorites! Please enjoy five words that I happen to enjoy!

grandiose, annihilate, whimsical, forlorn, maudlin

Today's Bonus Word: Priggish

"Power is a great aphrodisiac"

That quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner and former head of the U.S. Department of State under two presidents, Henry Kissinger. It was a statement made by the diplomat extraordinaire in respect to his notoriety as a "ladies' man". As you can see, Mr. Kissinger, while a brilliant man of great influence, doesn't exactly embody the contemporary concept of physical fairness.



My contemplation of Mr. Kissinger's "way with the women", and his subsequent assertion as to the reasons for this, led me to look further into some of history's other noted "Casanovas"...




Benjamin Franklin




Albert Einstein

Calvert DeForest aka Larry "Bud" Melman

"The Elephant Man", Joseph Merrick

Chewbacca

Meatwad

Shit... I got nothin'.

I proudly present the first installment of "The Worst Ever"... The Worst News Open Ever

I've decided I'd like to start highlighting some of the delightfully disgusting and jaw-droppingly awful little gifts that life gives us... in seemingly great abundance, I might add. I look at this as an opportunity to showcase that which is the very best at being bad... the kind of things that make you sit there with your mouth agape as the query, "What the hell was that?!?!?" drifts through your mind repeatedly.

I'm hitting lead-off with something very near and dear to my heart... local TV news, the industry in which I make my living, such as it is. This is the showopen for the 10 PM newscast at WSVN, the Fox affiliate in Miami. The "showopen" is usually a flashy, graphically-driven animation used to intro the talent for that particular newscast... and in this instance, the "headlines", a quick (well, in most cases... certainly not here) video and sound montage teasing the stories being covered in the upcoming newscast has been incorporated into the show open... with spectacular results. I've been doing this for more than 12 years and this is far and away the absolute worst open to a newscast I have ever seen... it's loud, obnoxious and excruciatingly long. The damn thing gave me a headache. Anyway, without further adieu, I give you WSVN's 10 PM showopen...



For what it's worth, I'm quite certain this was the brainchild of some nitwit consultant... and most consultants are people having previously worked in news that failed miserably or were run out of the business, and are now handsomely compensated to tell those of us still in the business how we should do things if we want to be successful.

Yup.

I know it's so very wrong...

but I must admit, when I saw this headline today on the Yahoo front page, "New presidential limousine to be unveiled during inauguration", this image popped into my head instantaneously...



Yup.

And I don't really care all that much, as long as I'm sportin' a rubber bung

These days, I find myself looking Florence flask...

but I feel Erlenmeyer flask.

All that aside, deep down in my soul, I have little doubt I'm 100% volumetric flask!

Yup.

I wonder...

with this coming Tuesday bringing the swearing-in of Barack Obama as our nation's 44th President, will "Howard Stern Show" Wack Pack-er King of All Blacks feel compelled to abdicate his "throne"... or at least assume a less audacious appellation?

I wonder.

Good God Almighty!

This coming Monday, my little sister turns 30... my little baby sis, who used to pee on me during diaper changings; whom, as a toddler, I used to delight in tormenting, mentally and physically (for no better reason than she completely lacked the ability to seek recourse); who, at the age of three or so, clobbered me on the back of the head with a brass cat statue when I wasn't looking for no readily apparent reason (as you can see, she got her revenge!); who used to sing songs that she made up as she went along; with whom my friends and I used to play the "Potty Monster" game; who was identified as "gifted and talented" back in elementary school (she was, and is, quite "special" in a lot of ways actually... haha!); who horrified me beyond words the first time I heard her use profanity, saw her smoke, etc., etc.; for whom I felt responsible when we were young, and who is now my drinking buddy and best friend. 30 years old... wow!

It's not that I consider 30 old, not by any stretch. I'm 35 (I think) and I still feel (and act) like a stupid kid (the people that will confirm this are legion), and, where it counts, she is much more of an adult than I... She has a "real person" job (complete with actual professional obligations), a husband of soon to be six years, a home, two cars and two dogs (meanwhile, I have no less than three stuffed plush monkey toys). All that being said, as stunted maturation leaves me in my perpetual, and mostly blissful, state of delusional youth, I always feel at my youngest (and my happiest) when spending time with my sister... and as young as I feel, I look upon her and see a joy and exuberance of youth even greater than my own (even when she gets really drunk and cries for no reason!) and I know that regardless of age, health, fortune... whatever, she will always be my little sis.

But, shit, 30 years old?!?!? When the hell did this happen???

From "The Thing That Only Eats Hippies"

What do they taste like... Some kinda treat?
How many hippies can this monster eat?
It ate Stills and Nash before they could shout
And then it chewed on David Crosby but it spit him out!

All the punks are gonna scream "yippee!"
'Cause it's the thing that only eats hippies

There it goes...
Gonna send 'em all to that big Folk Festival in the sky
So long suckers!!!

Fit as a fiddle... and ready for love

Rather...

Fat as a firehouse... and ready for fudge.

Um... I should probably drop a pound or two.

"Only sick music makes money today." Friedrich Nietzsche

Even as out of touch with what's popular today as I am, I realize that, these days, it's not unusual for a rap album to top the charts... and, to that end, I see that hip hop "artist" Lil Wayne had 2008's best-selling album, an opus entitled "Tha Carter III". Now, allow me to backtrack for a moment... I grew up in the 80's, listening to rap music at a time when most suburban white kids didn't listen to rap music. Amongst my favorites were Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie and the rest of Marley Marl's Juice Crew All-Stars, Eric B. and Rakim, EPMD, Whodini, PE, A Tribe Called Quest, LONS, Boogie Down Productions, Kool Moe Dee, LL... and then there were groups such as NWA, 2 Live Crew, etc... the stuff I could never let my parents hear. I was a huge fan of rap, and I still enjoy those artists to this day, however, I cannot stand, more or less, anything that's been released in the last decade plus. I contend that my tastes haven't changed, rather the genre as a whole has gone down the crapper. Having made this assertion, I must acknowledge one thing about hip hop that hasn't changed... the nature of most rap lyrics: extremely profane, violent, pro-substance abuse, misogynistic and homophobic. It astonishes me that as rap has entered the mainstream, and arguably become the most popular manner of music today, the degree of all variety of vulgarity inherent to the genre has not been toned down at all... it is even seemingly flaunted. This is, of course, the observation of someone admittedly on the outside looking in, and for this reason, I thought I would, using the marvelous medium of the world wide web, present some lyrics from the songs of 2008's top-selling album to see if they back up my claim. Let's see what we have here...

From the track "3 Peat":
A fuckin right hoe I might crazy go on these niggas I don't give a motherfuck Run up in a nigga house and shoot his grandmother up what! What I don't give a motherfuck get cha baby kidnapped And ya baby motherfuck It's tha Carter 3 bitch better put ya supper up Hollygrove I throw it up like I'm tryna lose my gut Fuck is up beat him up like a million uppercuts Got a million duffeled up for the fuck of it Shit get on my level you can't get on my level You would need a spaceshuttle or a ladder that's forever However I'm better if not now than never Don't you ever fix ya lips unless you bout to suck my dick Bitch swallow words taste my thoughts And if it's too nasty spit it back at me (Please forgive the complete lack of lyrical structure, but I couldn't sensibly sort this garbage out were I inclined to do so)

From the track "Got Money":
Bitch ain't shit but a hoe in a trick But you kno it ain't trickin if you got it You know we ain't fucking if you not thick And I cool your ass down if you think you're hot shit So rolex watch this I do it 4 5 6 my click Clack goes the black 4/5 And just like it I blow that shit Cause bitch I'm the bomb like (tick tick) Yeah!

From the track "Playing with Fire":
They say you're nobody til somebody kills you But where I'm from you're nobody til you kill somebody And you kno what they say When you're great it's not murder it's assassinate So assassinate me bitch Cause I'm doin the same shit Martin Luther King did Checkin in the same hotel in the same suite bitch the same balcony Like assassinate me bitch

Poetry... pure poetry. Bill Shakespeare's got nothing on this guy!

Must be a heart-warming moment for a parent... your reason for being, your sweet little baby, who you've raised to be an asset to humanity, your ten-year-old child asks for Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III" because all his / her little friends have it. How can you say no? After all, it's 2008's best-selling album!!!

December 21, 2012, baby!!!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Frequently, someone will ask me, "What is your favorite movie?" Or, perhaps, "Who is your favorite band?" And if they're a woman, "Won't you please just get the hell away from me?!?" At the moment, I'd like to address the first two of these sort of questions. I really have a wildly varied set of enthusiasms, and, due in large part to this, I've never really been concerned with identifying my favorite this or my most adored that. Hell, there's a lot of material to chose from here, folks! Anyway, world, due to your fascination with my fondnesses, and subsequent endless inquiries into such, I've decided to relent, and thus, I am about to give you a very brief and hastily compiled list of some of my faves. Please enjoy... and leave me the hell alone!

Favorite Films: Star Wars, The Godfather, Sweet Smell of Success, The Usual Suspects

Favorite Bands: At the moment, I'll go with The Anniversary / The Only Children, Tilly and the Wall, The Velvet Underground

Favorite Books: "Naked Pictures of Famous People" -Jon Stewart, "The Odyssey" -Homer (Fagles translation), "The Idiot" -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Favorite Comedian: Brian Regan... in a runaway

Favorite Actor: Joseph Cotten

Favorite Actresses: Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth

Favorite Restaurant at Which to Avoiding Dining: Chili's

Favorite Sub-Saharan African Country: Tanzania... in a close one over Botswana

Sports Favorites: MLB-Houston Astros, NFL-Dallas Cowboys (I hate you, Tony Romo!), NBA-Houston Rockets, I guess... I mean does anybody like the NBA anymore?, NHL-New York Rangers, NCAA-University of Houston, Non-American Football-Arsenal, Athlete (Overall)- Vince Coleman, Golfer-Paula Creamer (YUM!!!), Hot Oil Wrestler-Miss Candy

Favorite German Political Party: Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union (CDU / CSU) Coalition

Favorite Roman Emperor of "The Twelve Caesars": Vespasian

Favorite Cheese: Gruyere

Favorite Bar: Kay's Lounge, Houston, TX

Favorite Beer: The one in front of me

Favorite Child-Labor-Exploiting Sneaker Manufacturer: Nike

Favorite Political Pundit: Kirsten Powers (AND I'M A REPUBLICAN... GO FIGURE!!!)

Favorite Networks: Food Network, Discovery, History Channel

Favorite Pastime: Sleep / Belching (Tie)

Favorite Fruit: Apples / Paul Lynde (Tie)

Okay... ENOUGH, DAMN IT!!!

Goethe said...

"Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless."

And that brings me to today. I've spent the last several hours efforting (TV TERM!!!) a decision on just where my friends / coworkers and I should go this evening for beverages of the fermented variety. We have our regular haunts, but tonight, we all seem to be of the "let's do something different" mindset. Keep in mind, "something different" will, more than likely, be an establishment I've only been to 75 times in the last 10-15 years, as opposed to 350. Anyway, after stating that I felt like frequenting someplace somewhat "Bohemian" tonight, my friend threw out a solid suggestion, and I signed off on it. So, in short order, we're heading off to Cecil's... and, my dearest Goethe, I pray that the decision to do so does not have long-term ramifications on the remainder of my days.

I realize that there are varying degrees of gravity inherent to the types of decisions an individual must make in life, and that choosing where one wants to drink for the evening would probably not be considered one of the more significant selections to be made, but hey, we are talking about alcohol and me, after all! :-) I could meet my future wife; I could very well be blinded in a knife fight; I might just get off easy and only lose my pants during the course of the evening... one thing is certain, The Velvet Underground's Heroin and Venus in Furs will be played on the jukebox.

Golden MySpace Classics... Texas' Citadel of Stupidity's Greatest Hits, Vol. 6

Original post date: July 24, 2007 - Tuesday

The path to a man's heart...

... is to start with an 11 to 12 inch incision in the chest... then, the breastbone is split in two. A retractor is then used to pull back the breastbone and ribs in order to open up the chest...

...or so I've read. Please keep in mind, I'm no expert or anything... about this... or much else really.

Please love me!

"Sex is an emotion in motion." -Mae West

Despite the recent economic downturn, and a subsequent dismal holiday season for America's retailers, the video game market continues to boom... and the Nintendo Wii is a huge part of this surge in sales. Especially popular this Christmas, the Wii Fit... a platform that further ramps up the virtual / interactive gaming experience... the latest step in the process of further immersing the gamer into the game. As I contemplate how this computerized course continues forth, my sick mind begins to wonder... how far removed are we from the roll-out of the Wii Kama Sutra mat? I eagerly await the sort of fanfare that will surround the debut of this inevitable, initial mainstream foray into the realm of "sensual gaming"!

Let's not go Krogering

So...

I'm on my dinner break and I'm wandering around the Kroger located adjacent to my place of employment, looking for some sort of sustenance. In a cooler case near the self-checkout kiosk, I see a nice looking tray of seven-layer dip. Hey, while admittedly not a well-balanced meal, some tortilla chips and dip would certainly sate my hunger for the evening... so let's see what this seven-layer selection is all about. I pick up the container and realize it's a healthy amount of dip, somewhere between a pound and a pound-and-a-half I would guess... certainly more than I would eat in one sitting, so I'm thinking I'll purchase it and munch on it all weekend at work. Flip it over to check out the label... $17.99 FOR THE FREAKING SEVEN-LAYER DIP!!! Yes, you read that correctly...

$17.99 FOR SEVEN-LAYER DIP!!!

Apparently, the folks with the Kroger company are not aware of the fact that we are in a bit of a deflationary cycle at the moment... either that, or they're of the opinion that seven-layer dip is worth it's weight in gold. Sheesh!

Hey... We're off to a great start!!!

Nobody dressed up as Baby New Year, went to a holiday gathering and slaughtered a bunch of partygoers, then burned the house down... at least not to my knowledge. Congrats, mankind... 2009 has gotten underway swimmingly!!!