making updates that prominently feature political topics is a tough one for me, for several reasons. as an introduction of sorts, let’s quickly break them down: one, i don’t like to talk politics on a “website” devoted to “humor” because it’s a divisive topic, and thus something that runs counter to humor; two, i have a deep fear that my three-person audience doesn’t agree with my politics (which i suppose is what i get for promoting the legalization of heroin and/or blowing up the moon); and three, politics makes me SO. VERY. ANGRY… which is in itself a dilemma.

see, i only write two kinds of updates that approach entertainment: the ones where i am just being completely random, or the ones where i am FURIOUS. i can often get J.Miles to vouch for the latter. the thing is, though, that i don’t necessarily LIKE being so angry and then saying to myself, “okay, time for jokes.” but… for the good of the internet… let’s give it a shot.

Newt Gingrich: the patron saint of people i wish were trapped in a pit of angry snakes

2012 Politics Episode I: Newt Fucking Gingrich

so let’s start with Newt Gingrich. THIS FUCKING GUY. if there’s one thing i have learned from this year’s Republican primary, it’s that New Gingrich is a terrible, terrible person. now, the thing is, i often used to take the position that he was similar to Richard Nixon: smart, but INCREDIBLY unlikeable, and i think you could point to the Republican’s congressional success in the 1990s to support this claim. but after all this recent stuff… well, i will phrase it this way: i have taken to telling my grandfather that if this election was a choice between Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann, i would have to vote for Bachmann. if that’s not a clear point, know that i am notorious in his household for bashing Michelle Bachmann.

i don’t actually know what i hate most about Gingrich right now. is it the fact that he bashes Romney for flip-flopping on issues while essentially doing the same thing himself? sure. is it the fact that he poses as an upright, moral conservative while wife #2 dishes dirt about Newt’s shady dalliances with wife #3 during their marriage? absolutely. let me be honest: there are times when i feel i am the only man anywhere to the right of center who possesses the ability to keep it in his pants when confronted by pretty girls who are not my wife/girlfriend/”special lady” … a mathematical figure made all the more absurd when you consider that, all things considered, women COMPLETELY REJECT MY MANY CHARMS. personally, i think Bill Hicks said it best when he wrote that song about how chicks dig jerks.

BUT I DIGRESS. no, what actually makes me burn with the fury of one thousand rampaging elephants is the whole “grandiose” thing, to borrow Santorum’s word, which i will do because Santorum is, believe it or not, what the British would call “spot on” as regards this issue. “grandiose,” of course, being some halfway-French term for “characterized by affectation of grandeur or splendor or by absurd exaggeration”; Wikipedia helpfully adds that it’s “is chiefly associated with narcissistic personality disorder, but also commonly features in manic or hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder.”

it is the WORST thing about Gingrich: the constant over-hyping of himself as a once-in-a-lifetime historical figure. it’s one thing to have a high opinion of yourself; frankly, i imagine most of these politicians do, because you simply HAVE to have a lot of confidence in yourself to make all this work. as an opposite example, i personally have accomplished next to nothing in my life because i consider myself to be completely worthless… but then again, i never find myself acting like a raging prick on nationally-televised debates, so i guess i have my strong moments.

anyway, anyway, let me close the rant out in this SLIGHTLY redundant fashion (and by slightly, i mean “totally stealing a joke i made earlier today”): so i was reading this Romney-For-President internet site thanks to a random link to the excellently-titled “I Think Grandiose Thoughts” page of burning on Newt Gingrich, and on this page i discovered an AWESOME list of people that Newt Gingrich has compared himself to, which includes:

–Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (”I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher”; obvious choices for a Republican, but clearly figures who outstrip him in achievement and, dare i say it, likeability);

–Abraham Lincoln (”I begin as Lincoln did”; can’t hurt to compare yourself to American’s greatest president, i guess);

–Woodrow Wilson (”I am the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson”; granted, he WAS book-smart, but what a really weird choice for a GOP figure to claim to parallel! plus, Wilson was a fucking scumbag);

–Henry Clay (”I was not a presider, I was the leader … I think Henry Clay’s probably the only other speaker to have been a national leader and a speaker of the House simultaneously”; the arrogance of this statement is hidden by the fact that Americans don’t remember Henry Clay at all anymore);

–Charles De Gaulle (when discussing his departure from Congress, “I believe in the sense that, you know, De Gaulle had to go to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises for 11 years”; not only is this another bizarre pick for a GOP guy –remember that Gingrich’s camp has bashed Romney for speaking French during this primary– but it smacks of a desperate desire to sound really, really smart on Gingrich’s behalf);

–William Wallace (”Remember Braveheart? These people want somebody who plants a flag in the ground, gives a speech and yells “Charge!” That is, someone like him.”; i have to say again that thanks to some personal history of mine, it’s HILARIOUS to me whenever someone compares themselves and/or their life to William Wallace, but unfortunately, this is one of those not-on-the-internet inside jokes);

–Pericles (a source describes Gingrich as “‘an unstable personality’ who talks about four or five great people in history, including Pericles and himself; personally, though, i think this is less conceit and, again, more desperate desire to sound really, really smart on Gingrich’s behalf);

–the Duke Of Wellington (Gingrich likens an appropriations triumph “to the way the British expeditionary force maneuvered against the French during the Peninsular War”; i personally call this notion solid support for Ron Paul’s declaration that Gingrich is a chickenhawk);

–a Viking (Gingrich “terms himself a ‘Viking’”; this one is too fucking hilarious to mock);

–Thomas Edison (Gingrich describes GOPAC, which he led at the time, as the Bell Labs of politics, and added “the first thing you need at Bell Labs is a Thomas Edison”; i can actually see a parallel here, in that Edison was known to be an incredibly unlikeable, unpleasant person, but then again, he was also smart and accomplished some things);

–Vince Lombardi (Gingrich compares Republican achievements to the Green Bay Packers under Lombardi at a time when he’s mysteriously the Speaker of the House; i myself view him as more of a Rich Kotite figure);

–the Wright Brothers (Gingrich asks an audience “to embark with me on a voyage of invention and discovery … to be as bold and as brave as the Wright brothers”; this one is just fucking WEIRD);

–Moses (although, in fairness to Gingrich, this is given as “at one point, he likened himself, lightheartedly, to Moses. he’d help them cross the Red Sea once again, Gingrich vowed, but only if they promised, this time, to stay on the other side”; i’d like to believe this truly was a joke).

seriously, though, fuck this Newton Leroy Gingrich character.

Jennifer Granholm: seen here relating to me through… uh… her wearing glasses? POLITICIANS ARE JUST LIKE JANKLOW!

2012 Politics Episode II: this time i watched Bill Maher for some reason

and to be honest, i don’t know why i did this. i HATE Bill Maher. first, he commits the greatest sin of any comedian: he’s not actually funny. sure, he’s incredibly smug and he’s convinced he’s the smartest man in any room –so while he also hates Gingrich, it seems they have something in common– but he’s not funny. and that’s a deal-breaker: i don’t care what a comedian’s politics are, but he’s got to be FUNNY. take Bill Hicks: he was probably, all things consider, about where Maher is, or maybe to the left of him (or maybe libertarian or something, what the fuck do i know)… but he’s also HILARIOUS. celebrity politics remain worth overlooking as long as they’re producing SOMETHING to take my mind off this miserable fucking existence, man.

plus, as a pro-gun guy, i have seen Bill Maher gleefully try to stack his panel against stances he doesn’t like (say, pro-gun stances), and i have to say this: if your argument possesses that much merit, show me that it does, don’t have some vapid actresses there to bob their heads to co-sign you while you fucking preen and reek of smugness, okay? USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS TO CONVINCE ME.

but i digress. so i happened to watch this episode of Maher’s current show, whatever it’s called, because i SUPPOSE i make poor life decisions, and as part of his panel, he had on former governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm, who at some point began to discuss the topic of Mitt Romney’s lack of blinding success in this primary. to her, a key point was that Mitt Romney being a turbo-rich guy who’d changed many of his positions made him someone that the average guy just can’t relate to. it’s a good point and i completely understand what she means. but there’s something that doesn’t seem right about this, i thought…

…and then, later, when i was outside roaming around in the snow, the thought was fully formed: why is the person who tells me the man worth tens of millions can’t relate to the common man always someone who’s worth mere millions… and who ALSO can’t relate to the common man? or, to put this a more vulgar way, why is it always one rich fucking asshole telling me that another rich fucking asshole doesn’t understand me at all, but THEY SERIOUSLY GET WHAT MY LIFE IS ABOUT?

three quick points for the illustrious Granholm, and anyone else who fits this bill:

–one, i don’t know Granholm’s finances, so i don’t know that she’s actually worth millions. but you know, with politics being what they are, i assume ANYONE who was governor for eight years is either a) worth millions, b) will be worth millions once they start fucking lobbying or c) both a and b. that said, i’m a man about things, so i’m willing to admit i’m wrong if someone will show me that a lawyer who graduated from Harvard, was a US attorney, was governor for two terms, and hangs out with millionaire Bill Maher is NOT a millionaire.

–two, seriously, rich people, stop pretending you “get it.” i’m middle-class, so i don’t waste time pretending to “get” what it’s like to be lower-class/poor/whatever, because i DON’T. oh, sure, i am completely filled with empathy for my fellow man, because if there’s one thing i DO know, it’s that life is short, life is shit, and then you die, and this concept applies to all of us who aren’t raking in that television comedian cash. but i don’t sit here and go, “well, you see, Granholm doesn’t get what it’s like to be in poverty, whereas i do, because i have SLIGHTLY LESS MONEY THAN SHE DOES.”

–three, i do admit this: hanging out with Bill Maher when he likes your politics is bound to make you look smart and magnanimous in comparison, because he is a jerk.

Jon Huntsman: excited to meet your random goat? hell yes! and it can even bite him, and he won’t mind! man, i miss this guy already

2012 Politics Episode III: a requiem for Jon Huntsman

okay, let’s bring it down to the sad part of this update: and now, janklow with an open letter to Jon Huntsman. well, why did you do it? are you some sort of jerk or something? do you not understand what you’ve left me with in the Republican primary?

seriously, though, as someone who’s not voting for any man who signed off on the concept of banning assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns (i’m looking at you, Obama), let’s consider the Republican primary options remaining in 2011-2012:

–a bloated bag of hateful wind who claims to be the only conservative in the race;
–a crazy person from Texas who’s far too libertarian to be elected president, and thus wastes my vote;
–some dude from Louisiana that NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF, EVER (even if he was also on that same episode of Bill Maher’s show);
–an incredibly expensive-looking robot that seems to constantly change its political positions as it TOTALLY RELATES TO ME, FLESHBAG;
–an ultra-conservative who… well, Google is telling me something about “frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.”

and that’s considering we’ve ALREADY eliminated a crazy person from Texas who’s NOT Ron Paul, a frightening woman who does not need facts because random fictional women tell her things, and that guy that fucked every woman in Georgia. ALL OF THEM.

mostly, though, what i’m sad about is that you totally seemed like a nice, regular guy, Jon Huntsman, even if you DO speak Chinese and worship some weird pseudo-Christian god that South Park ABSOLUTELY SAVAGED with their awesome comedy. and while i know you too are turbo-rich and cannot understand me or my life at all … i also never heard you say you could, and that was nice. maybe you DID say it out of earshot, but fuck it, i know, all the politicians have to say it. i guess i just have to come to terms with that like i’ve come to terms with every other sad thing in life.

still, i’ll miss you. come back and visit me in 2016 when my options are that above list minus whoever lost to Obama in 2012.

another thing i will miss: a Google search for “Huntsman” results in many AWESOME SPIDER PHOTOS

2012 Politics Episode IV: closing thoughts

finally, you know what else is fucking lame? having 2011 have contained anything to do with a 2012 presidential election. we’ve still got TEN MONTHS TO GO. at this rate, we’re spending half a president’s term running for the next term. jesus fucking christ, America, get it together, please.

i am just going to be 100% honest with you, Loyal Reader: this update is incredibly late because i just wasn’t feeling the writing. maybe it’s because it’s 2012 now and i feel old and sad and would rather have just stayed in bed and eaten burritos all week long, but whatever the cause … so little motivation. but here it comes now! and i swear that i tried to add some jokes!

when the cover of the book has this kind of shitty computer art, you KNOW the book’s going to be a masterpiece

Romeo and Juliet: A Modern Day Sequel

so one of the things that seems to happen fairly often, and which i am known to be critical of, is people comparing themselves to Shakespeare. people like Nicholas Sparks do this for reasons i can only assume to be things like “overcompensating for negative remarks by critics” and “effects of severe brain injuries suffered early in life,” but whatever the cause, i always find it childish and annoying. you can’t even attempt to compare yourself to writers in your particular genre? you HAVE to go right to Shakespeare?

however, i have now discovered there are worse ways to defame the memory of one of history’s greatest writers. i don’t recall where i found this link to James Edwards’ Romeo and Juliet: A Modern Day Sequel, but let me be frank: i assumed it was simply a modern day retelling of the story, like in that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and a sexually-confused Harold Perrineau Junior, but it turns out i was wrong:

“Romeo Montague dies for Juliet and his spirit chases her through time. He awakens in this age on a volcano in Hawaii where he meets a wise Zen Master who teaches him about the modern world. Sadly for Romeo though, there is no sign of his beloved wife, Juliet. As the years pass, his memory of Juliet fades. Yet one day, Romeo logs into an Internet chatroom and meets a beautiful young actress by the name of Emilie. For some mysterious reason, both fall in love almost instantly. Romeo slowly comes to realize this intelligent, shy, and alluring young woman is his wife, Juliet — now reincarnated as the famous Hollywood starlet, Emma Gallant. As the two star-crossed lovers recount their past lives in ancient Egypt and Atlantis, they must fight through many obstacles before they can meet again.”

wow.

now, i’ve read a little Shakespeare in my day, to include Romeo & Juliet, and there are some concepts presented here that i do not recall having ANYTHING to do with the original work:
–anyone’s spirit chasing anyone else through time, or spirits traveling through time at all;
–Zen Masters of whatever sort;
–past lives in ancient Egypt and Atlantis;
–also, Atlantis existing at all?

plus, if you’ve setting up a concept that Romeo and Juliet’s spirits have traveled through time after death due to INCREDIBLE LOVE, is it really “for some mysterious reason” that “both fall in love almost instantly?” wouldn’t the reason be all that incredible, time-defying love? the only concept slightly more confusing than this is how James Edwards has not already hung himself in his bedroom closet after realizing what a terrible, terrible person he is.

what truly breaks my spirit (at least until it travels through time and finds my true love), though, was reading a customer review that gave this book five stars.

“As a meditation teacher, I was curious about James Edwards’ sequel to Romeo and Juliet. The idea of soulmates and reincarnation has always fascinated me. It was amazing to witness the intense, multi-life love affair as it is played out against the backdrops of Hawaii, New York City, Hollywood, Ancient Egypt, and Atlantis. We can feel our own past lives in each of these realities as James Edwards blasts opens the doors to these dimensions.”

all i want EITHER of these gentlemen (assuming that Michael Raboy is not James Edwards’ sad alias) to do is explain to me what all this Buddhist-praising, past-life-referencing has to do with the original play to such an extent that calling it a “modern-day SEQUEL” is justified. would it be correct for me to write the Tempest: A Future-World Sequel where Prospero is a space-wizard and Caliban and Ariel his alien robots? actually, now that i look at that idea written out… no one better steal my idea.

…and that’s the image result i got searching for “court OKs barring high IQs for cops”; it’s clearly too ridiculous NOT to use

court OKs barring high IQs for cops

yeah, it’s about what the title makes it seem like:

“A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.”

so while i understand the court was addressing the more narrow question of “was this particular man discriminated against,” and while i understand the logic behind their decision… what exactly is the logic behind the New London PD taking a PUBLIC position that “an IQ of 125 is just too damn high for our police officers to have?”

“But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training. The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.”

seems to me like the real solution here is to put it to the prospective officers this way: if they’re hired and then quit within (insert time frame here), they then owe the police department (certain amount of money to compensate for the wasted training), as opposed to saying, “what we REALLY need in this police department is more idiots who lack career options. let’s give them all firearms and the responsibility to monitor drug dealers with access to ready cash!”

plus, i’d like to know what the percentage of people undergoing training and then quitting REALLY is, because while this can happen at ANY employment that involves significant training, i also can’t imagine it’s THAT prevalent.

“Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law. But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.”

and also… a rational basis for the policy? either they CAN show some numbers (which, were i the New London PD, i would have immediately released in a PR move), or they expect me to believe that people of stupid-to-average intelligence don’t ever get bored with their work. let me tell you something: i have worked with stupid people. i have worked with people of average intelligence. many of them ALSO get bored and quit their jobs, or at least get bored and do their jobs badly.

but what do i know? my IQ is around 160; i am already bored with this story! needs more robots!

Cam’ron still appears to LOVE the color pink; Vado seems more conflicted

and now to close on a final note, i need to link/quote this following article on the grounds that i have found it to be the most hilarious thing i have read in the last few months. you see, there’s a site/blog/whatever known as Refined Hype that covers rap-related news; as a fan of hip-hop, i often read it. one of their writers has a regular feature (Rap Lines That Make No Fucking Sense) that i enjoy. it’s always good, but in this case, said article cited a line from the Cam’ron song “Motivation”:

“I’m pissed again / say his name wrong and get wrapped like a mummy / like that man from Michelin.”

Cam’ron: “Yo, I never understood why Michelin uses a mummy to sell tires.”
Jim Jones: “That’s not a mummy man, he’s like…a dude who’s made up of tires or whatever.”
Cam’ron: “That’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard you say, Jim.”
Juelz Santana: “Yeah, it’s definitely a mummy.”
Jim Jones (shaking his head in disbelief): “Fine, whatever. It’s a fucking mummy.”

this fictional exchange makes me laugh uproariously EVERY TIME I READ IT. is it the sincerely insane notion that Cam’ron really thinks the Michelin Man is a mummy? is the the fictional Jim Jones (who himself is a ridiculous hobo-like figure known for appearing unwashed and mumbling nonsense) being the voice of wisdom? I HAVE NO IDEA. i only know you will never find it as funny as i do … assuming you find it funny at all. it’s possible you don’t.

next “week”: we’ll try to increase the percentage of hilarious material i am responsible for from around 66% to closer to 100%. hey, it could happen! DON’T JUDGE ME!

at this point, it’s probably been pretty well established that our hero janklow is not a big fan of the holidays (at least among our thirteen avid readers, anyway); as such, beyond the token “this is this week’s introduction,” further discussion of said point is QUITE redundant.

that said… i do occasionally try to get into the spirit of the season and savor the very brief moments when mankind actually acts their age over the holidays. it’s not completely impossible; there’s always little moments such as when anonymous donors pay off Kmart layaway accounts or just the generic “watching people stuff cash in those Salvation Army buckets” thing. and to borrow a notion from Patton Oswalt (specifically one from his Finest Hour album, available at fine retailers everywhere), it’s possible for me to look at this and think to myself, “we’re going to make it!”

…only for my version of his avatar of sloth, the avatar of These Goddamn Holidays, to rear its ugly-but-expected head:

all the below being said, i do admit “a map of Maryland” is a pretty lousy gift. it’s not the most scenic state to look at in map form

THESE FUCKING KIDS.

yes, okay, i understand that every generation says the one after it is the worst of all time and that in doing so, i’m not breaking any new ground. and surely many, many members of MY generation (or even the one before it) were just as bitchy on Christmas, so it’s not like some stuck-up teenage girl in 2011 is the first girl who ever reacted badly when daddy failed to buy her that car she TOTALLY deserves, like, OMG!

so perhaps the actual problem isn’t so much that these kids should all die in a fire clutching their greed, but that all this cutting-edge social media is exposing MY precious sensibilities to it. when i was a child, i couldn’t tell everyone on the internet how much MY parents had fucked me over because they didn’t buy me an iPad or an iPhone or whatever else Apple told all these children their parents would have bought them if only they loved them.

sadly, “Christina Nicole,” you have managed to make yourself sound about as greedy as possible

so yes, i blame Twitter for this. and with the kind of irony only someone complaining about his petty problems and opinions on a crude internet blog can manage, i completely resent them for allowing the average person to live out the fantasy that everyone on the internet might care about their random constant thoughts. i at least have the decency to only post updates around once a week, and usually INCREDIBLY late, at that.

but surely there isn’t anything else about the holidays and/or humanity that i find soul-crushing…

i am hoping this guy in the red shirt is as outraged as i am

new Air Jordans still incite shopper violence 9 years after player’s retirement

oh, wait, there’s the whole “must have this product so badly that i go completely berserk for it and maybe trample a guy to death in a Wal-Mart.” although i think that trampling thing happened in 2008, so i’m admittedly mixing my narratives up on this one.

“Almost nine years into the basketball legend’s retirement, a new version of Michael Jordan athletic shoes can still send fans into a mad frenzy: Stores nationwide were the scenes of violence and police officer injuries Friday, authorities said.”

although i DO like the vague notion that this happened because people are still stirred up about Michael Jordan, even well after his retirement. please note the following, news agencies: no one cares about Michael Jordan. they care about expensive, trendy shoes.

“In Richmond, California, police investigated a gunshot fired outside a mall where the latest version of shoes named after Jordan went on sale for about $180 a pair Friday morning, police told CNN affiliate KGO. A 24-year-old Richmond man was taken into custody in connection with the gunfire, said police Lt. Lori Curran. “It appears right now it may have been just a negligent discharge,” Curran said.”

well, i certainly hope so, because otherwise we’re not so much talking “shooting someone for their expensive shoes” as much as “shooting someone for the RIGHT TO BUY expensive shoes.” i imagine that, at the very least, they’ll be checking your ID extra closely if you follow up murder by firearm with trying to pay for those shoes with a credit card.

and America had many problems in regards to these shoes, including my own great state of Maryland, where:

“Crowds overwhelmed shopping malls, a Montgomery County police officer was assaulted and several people were arrested locally in the frenzy surrounding the release of a new model of Air Jordans. The shoes, which went on sale overnight Thursday, were even rumored to have led to the death of a Washington area man.”

it turned out to be just a rumor, at least. my local mall apparently ALSO saw a fight break out over these sneakers. seriously, Americans, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. this is all over shoes?

“On Friday afternoon, eBay was featuring new pairs of the Air Jordan Retro XI selling between $219.99 and $510.”

and in some respects, this is really the saddest part of all: people weren’t even going berserk to own these rare shoes, but rather, to sell them on the internet for a $40-$330 profit.

THIS GODDAMN INTERNET STRIKES AGAIN

anyway, i guess i should cut the internet some slack because it DOES do me a pretty solid favor: every time i think there might be some amount of hope for humanity, the internet quickly disabuses me of that notion. so actually, thanks, internet!

but in the interest of fairness, i should note that not ALL was bad with Christmas for our hero this year:

this awesome little robot is making me some tea so that i will calm the fuck down. happy holidays, everyone.

recently, we’ve tried some of these highbrow “essentially one-idea” updates, and while they’re good and everything as far as making us feel like we’ve made some mild achievement, they also take much more work, because you have to have an IDEA and then make it relate to some JOKES and man, is that tiring. time to quickly escape back to making fun of recent events!

also normal for rednecks: regular brushes with the law, stays in jail, unflattering mug shots

Arrested Palm City man says fighting normal for rednecks

please let Palm City be in Kentucky… please let Palm City be in Kentucky…

“PALM CITY, Fla. - A 43-year-old man said to have shot at his lawn mower while intoxicated, fought his adult son and pulled a shotgun on the adult son was arrested after being shocked three times with a Taser, according to recently released records.”

DAMN IT. anyway, i’m not going to sit here and tell you he’s wrong. fighting IS normal for rednecks. it’s not normal for everyone else, it’s not socially acceptable, its constant occurrence can bespeak larger problems like “inbreeding run amok” or “too much lead paint in baby’s diet” … but it’s still pretty much one of those things that rednecks do. as they say, there is great truth in whatever cheap bottle of bargain-priced bourbon this man prefers.

“Mark Thomas Wach, of the 4400 block of Southwest 83rd Street in Palm City, was arrested Nov. 20 on charges including aggravated domestic assault with a firearm and domestic battery in connection with the incidents near his home. Wach told a Martin County Sheriff’s deputy he was puzzled about why he was going to jail.”

maybe there was a misunderstanding? as in, he did not understand his rights as they have been explained to him? or what the charges mean?

“”He then stated that he shoots in the yard all the time and that fighting is what redneck people do,” records state.”

ah. well then. although i have to ask, while fighting IS what redneck people do, is shooting in the yard? all the time, even? because i have to imagine the rednecks next door would be concerned about their collection of old-cars-propped-up-on-cinder blocks getting accidentally damaged.

“Wach’s 18-year-old son, who said he wasn’t hurt, said that about 45 minutes before he called authorities, Wach was intoxicated in the side yard shooting a pistol at his lawn mower. Wach went on his son’s porch and began “a verbal altercation with him over (the son’s) mother not paying child support.”"

one thing not mentioned here is that if a drunk gun with a gun whose fighting an 18-year-old can’t even hurt him, then he’s simply not very good at fighting. which, in turn, leads me to believe that despite Wach being a redneck, fighting might NOT be what he does. nor shooting either, if he couldn’t get the job done on that lawnmower. still, you know, i guess it’s good that no one was hurt?

“The son said Wach pointed the pistol “all over,”-”

minimalist, but still, an excellent description!

“-but the son managed to get the .380 caliber handgun away. Wach left, and his son thought he was going home “to sleep it off.”

ah, a classic redneck mistake. see, while we all understand that drunks in general DO eventually have to retreat to “sleep it off,” we should all also recognize that it’s not often as cut and dry as “he behaved badly for a brief period of time, no one got hurt, and then he went to sleep it off.” SOMEONE has to get hurt before the sleeping it off can begin!

“Instead, Wach returned with a 12 gauge shotgun. The son said Wach started to point the pump action shotgun at him, but he wrestled it away. They engaged in a physical altercation, and the son said they rolled out onto the porch. That’s when a deputy arrived and saw them fighting.”

maybe i just haven’t been in that many redneck fights, but i have to admit something: whenever a fight (or “physical altercation,” if you want to get technical about it in an article where a drunk redneck shoots at a lawnmower) involves rolling anywhere, my mind says, “bullshit! this is not the movies! people only roll in MOVIES!” i guess i have to admit regular non-movie people are CAPABLE of rolling… but i just don’t see it happening.

“Wach was on top of his son, and the deputy told him to stop fighting. Wach didn’t, and the deputy shocked him with an X-26 Taser. Wach didn’t follow additional instructions and was shocked twice more.”

for the love of god, why couldn’t you clarify those additional instructions? they might have been HILARIOUS. “okay, now stop thrashing as the electricity courses through you! STOP THRASHING!” (shocks redneck again) although i suspect what happened here is an unspoken policy of “just keep shocking those fucking rednecks until they stop moving.” and i don’t say this to bash the unspoken policy. the unspoken policy is based on sound logic.

“The son wouldn’t complete a written statement because he didn’t want his dad to get in trouble.”

yeah, it might be a little late for that, son, considering the following OTHER things that have happened:
–someone presumably called the cops based on the fighting or the SHOOTING AT A LAWNMOWER IN THE YARD;
–father witnessed by deputy fighting his son, with a pump shotgun somewhere in the mix;
–the part where the son co-signs all the events to whatever news organizations cover this

“The records didn’t state whether the lawn mower was of the riding or push variety.”

…and we’ve discovered the best possible way this article could have ended. kudos, Will Greenlee, kudos.

apparently, this is the face of the person countless New Jersey residents turn to for penis enhancement

the ‘fake woman doctor who killed man, 22, by injecting his penis with silicone during pumping party’

there’s a very strong chance this is one of those “yeah, we can just read the title and stop right here” articles, because not only is that headline BEYOND long and descriptive, i’m always suspecting (or maybe just hoping) that these “rogue plastic surgery” stories are completely fake. but until we prove that they are…

“A fake doctor injected a man’s penis with silicone, killing him, police said Friday.”

for starters, i don’t think you need to add “fake” there when we’re talking about someone who’s jamming silicone into penises; that’s pretty much understood. for another thing, and at the risk of sounding heartless, the loss of someone who’s thinking, “yeah, maybe it’d be a great idea to pay someone to jam my dick full of plastic” is probably not the greatest loss humanity could incur. this guy was probably never going to go into a career in astrophysics or anything like that.

“Justin Street visited Kasia Rivera, 34, at her home in New Jersey for the penis enhancement proceedure on May 5, prosecutors say. But just a day after attending the so-called ‘pumping-party’ the 22-year-old was dead.”

i suspect this question isn’t going to be addressed during the article… but “pumping party?” does this mean there’s a fair number of SURVIVING random dudes cruising around the streets of New Jersey with their whatnots packed to the brim with artificial enhancements? because if so… i mean, damn, New Jersey, i rip on you all the time, but at least TRY to make it difficult for me to do so.

“A medical examiner determined he died of a silicone embolism.”

and to think, we thought only bored and sad housewives were at risk for silicone embolisms… won’t someone think of the children?!

“But blackmarket illegal use by untrained practitioners continues as a quick-fix budget alternative to cosmetic surgery. Doctors say the slow economy has also fuelled the trade.”

now, i suppose the logic here is that people have had their wallets lightened by the slow economy and thus are forced to turn to these shady unauthorized doctors to get their penises swollen with toxic gel… but doesn’t it seem like cosmetic surgery is the kind of thing you CUT from your budget when money is tight? are a lot of people thinking, “man, i REALLY want to get my penis enlarged somehow, but this damn recession is killing me! there must be some cheap, dangerous alternative!”

“There is also no guarantee of medical grade silicon at so called ‘pumping parties’ cosmetic events held in homes, offices and even motel rooms.”

you mean the creepy man/woman/whatever the hell that thing is that’s jamming a massive needle into my penis in the back of his/her windowless van isn’t using actual medical-grade silicone? it’s just a mixture of Vaseline and peanut butter? AND he/she/it isn’t even a doctor? I DEMAND MY $40 BACK, SIR OR MA’AM!

“Last year a New Jersey model was charged with providing toxic buttock boosting silicon calk injections to six women, leaving them needing surgery, the Star Ledger reported. … A fake surgeon was last month accused of carrying out DIY surgery on at least five people in Florida. Oneal Ron Morris allegedly inserted deadly toxins including cement and tyre sealants into her patients, before sealing the wounds with superglue.”

again, it seems wrong to make light… but for Christ’s sake, CEMENT? see, this is why i hope all these stories are fake: i cannot fathom the person who sees the procedure that awaits them –for i highly doubt you get your ass jammed full of tire sealant in a clean, well-lit office– and STILL goes through with the deal. but then again, my great curse is that i’m an optimistic when it comes to the human race.

all the below being said, i could understand if you had to choke your daughter because she talked bad about Aaron Rodgers. i mean, not to DEATH, but the kids have to learn to watch their mouths when Chico’s finest is involved

irate Green Bay Packers fan charged with choking daughter

let me be honest: my immediate assumptions here were “male Green Bay Packers fan” and “asshole teenage daughter who happens to be a Cowboys or Steelers fan totally deserves this.” however, it turns out that NEITHER of these assumptions was correct:

“Police say a drunken woman twice choked her 11-year-old daughter on Sunday after becoming angered by the Green Bay Packers game.”

aaahhh… that’s much less defensible, although if the 11-year-old is a Broncos fan, i’m not going to be TOO broken up about the situation. because the kid’s fine, right? probably!

“The 36-year-old Grand Chute woman was charged Monday in Outagamie County Court with felony child abuse and misdemeanor counts of bail jumping and disorderly conduct.”

let me break it to you all right now: they will never explain what the bail jumping charge is about during this article, and to me, that’s just a sign of lazy journalism. but hey, that’s what modern America is coming to these days. anyway, i like to think she was out on bail for getting in a fight over the quality of Bubba Franks as a receiving tight end… and let me also note that this is a classic inside joke for J.Miles. “OH MY GOD HE’S A PRO BOWL CALIBER TIGHT END!”

“Police were called about 8:15 p.m. Sunday to a Grand Chute hotel where the girl told police her mother grabbed her by the neck during the football game. The woman was drinking alcohol and became upset because the team was losing. The girl said that after the Packers lost, her mother choked her again with enough force that the girl couldn’t breathe, and her mother said, “Do you want to die?” the criminal complaint says.”

see, i just don’t understand the thought process. as a Raiders fan, you KNOW football has mostly been a depressing, painful experience for me. i get the part where you scream the foulest obscenities at the television and wish death on all men; i get the part where you try to kill the pain with alcohol and totally don’t cry because men don’t fucking cry over football, okay? NOT AT ALL. so at what point do you think, “man, i am SO UPSET about the Chiefs beating the Packers that i need to choke my daughter to death RIGHT NOW,” exactly?

…unless that daughter was secretly a mouthy Chiefs fan. i’m not discounting the possibility.

“The Post-Crescent is not naming the woman to protect the identity of the child.”

which has the negative aspect of making it MUCH more difficult to mock this woman on the internet.

“The woman’s husband told police she also threw her dinner on the floor, broke a lamp and attempted to punch him in the face because she was upset about the game, which marked the Packers’ first loss in 14 games this season.”

okay, question: did all of this come before or after the child choking? because if it was before, how did we not see the escalation coming and just slide on out the damn door? and if it was after… really, are we bitching about this in the aftermath of child abuse? “well, Grace got really mad about the Packers and choked the hell out of Grace Junior … AND THEN SHE FUCKING BROKE A LAMP AND I WAS ALL LIKE, POLICE, GET THE FUCK IN HERE AND TASER THIS BITCH INTO SUBMISSION.”

…unless it was a turbo-nice lamp. again, i’m not discounting the possibility.

“The child abuse charge carries a maximum sentence of 12½ years of imprisonment and $25,000 in fines. The woman could face up to nine months in jail if convicted of bail jumping and 90 days on the disorderly conduct count. She is being held in jail on a $2,500 cash bond.”

also, STOP FUCKING TEASING ME WITH THE BAIL JUMPING CHARGE.

anyway, next week we’ll have a belated holiday update? yes? sure, let’s promise that.

recently, our hero janklow was attempting to drive to work in the morning when he came into contact with some road repair being performed by the illustrious members of the Maryland State Highway Administration. it… did not go well. the major problem, however, was that i’m not exactly sure who i should be blaming for some of the specifics of this situation, causing our hero to fume with impotent rage… and i think we all know what THAT means.

and now, janklow with an open letter to the Maryland State Highway Administration.

fuck you, man(s), fuck you

well, why did you do it? are you some sort of jerks or something? do you not understand what various times of day mean and are called? or the very concept of detouring traffic around obstructions? or is there some kind of “blah blah blah lazy government workers blah blah blah” commentary i should be getting into here? alright, alright, point made; let me break this down.

the initial road that janklow drives to work has the misfortune of having only one lane in either direction, but a respectable amount of traffic nevertheless; some would probably say too much traffic, although those people tend to be either a) older folks or b) janklow. Maryland’s State Highway Administration has been telling us for some time that there would be impending road closures at night due to, you guessed it, nighttime repairs. the morning in question, however, has led me to believe that the State Highway Administration has some sincere problems.

problem one: apparently no one at the SHA knows what “night” means

as in, it’s eight in the morning… so why are the roads closed? why are we still doing repairs? now i SUPPOSE there’s some legitimate reason to explain all this, like delays or something… but let me just say this: if i can’t even SEE any work being done, it’s hard for me to believe that there are CURRENT repairs going on this morning. it’s fair to say that i am not America’s most trusting soul.

problem two: apparently no one at the SHA knows how a detour works

i initially followed a detour that went on… and on… and on… before being forced to abrupt stop in a massive backup that led me to believe the initial plan by the SHA was something along the lines of “eh, direct everyone down into the swamp region of this county indefinitely and hope everything works out.” i admit this is an optimistic portrayal of their thought process –i suppose it’s equally likely people were just high– but i submit it bespeaks poor planning.

so our hero then decided to follow some available back roads, which a) found him being a school bus, b) led to the discovery of surprise detour signs, and c) ultimately deposited us back at the original detour. i really, really want to believe that this was done on purpose rather than accident, because then at least there’s some halfway-intelligent pranksters at work behind it all as opposed to some horrible, empty-headed entropy at work making all things more difficult for no rhyme or reason.

problem three: apparently someone at the SHA knows how a detour works ALL TOO WELL

after backtracking some ways to a traffic circle, our hero THEN discovered the following detour sign, which i shall now represent in cartoon map form:

…where the “joke detour” is where i found myself trapped in a cruel loop, and the “hidden detour” is a detour sign in the circle ONLY visible when you’re facing it. so i think we see how helpful THAT is.

then began a long, long meandering route that had randomly-located detour signs that seemed to point nowhere in particular AND sometimes directly in contradiction to the previously-seen detour sign. and i’ll just say this: i don’t have anywhere NEAR the world’s best direction sense, but i know this area a little… and i am pretty sure i left the state twice and saw one of those arching “here there be monsters” sea serpents during the course of following this detour.

ultimately, i HAVE to assume this was intentional, because it was too complicated to be solely the work of idiots. so, okay, Maryland State Highway Administration, you got me. i had to drive to Virginia and back and sit behind a school bus. YOU WIN THIS ROUND. KUDOS. and anyway, eventually i got to work and everything worked out okay…

…except for the part where i passed off all this off as a legitimate update. so the joke’s actually on you, loyal reader! AHAHAHAHAHA! wait… that’s probably not very conducive to repeat viewing. i’m sorry, loyal reader, you know i love you. i just get so FRUSTRATED sometimes.

in the past, i’ve written a few words here and there about experiences at our local sports stadium, FedEx Field, home to the generally mediocre play of my grandmother’s precious Washington Redskins. that said, it has been some time since i had such an update (say, 2007 or so), but recent events (possibly to include the Redskins-Patriots game) have inspired me to produce additional commentary in this vein! words that denote pretend excitement go here! yeah!

THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT DO AT A FOOTBALL GAME REDUX

i think it’s long been understood that Patriots fans have various emotional problems; that being said, it doesn’t mean you should keep feeding them alcohol

now, generally speaking, most opposing fans know the drill when you’re at a football game hosted by another team: resist the urge to act incredibly asinine, less a band of those local fans express their distaste for you and your team physically… and by “distaste,” i mean “raw and unbridled hatred,” and by physically, “that thing where you are struck by beer bottles, battered about the face and groin, and then hurled from the upper deck of the stadium.” now, to be clear, i am not supporting such physical violence in any way, but i also recognize as a matter of fact that it can (and, sadly, does) happen. that said, there are always going to be guys violating this advice. it happens. but sometimes… it’s a woman doing so. which brings me to a few points.

01. getting hammered and talking ridiculous shit remains poor form, even when you’re a woman.
the only difference is that either you’re going to get a pass on your behavior, as a) most guys won’t really get in the face of a woman and talk shit back at her regardless of her actions and/or words, and b) depending on your looks, there’s a chance those guys would rather not lose their 0.00013% chance to fuck you by calling you out on your bullshit. now, given the filthy mouth and general appearance of the Patriots fan female i am speaking of, it was PROBABLY the latter in this case. the problem with this point, of course, is that drunks can’t pause in the middle of their ranting and general misbehavior to realize their poor behavior is poor and change it, but that’s nothing new.

02. it’s still incredibly lame to cheer your team’s offense when they’re on the field.
because we all understand that this is stupid as it is the DEFENSE that wants noise (because of the disruption to the opposing quarterback) and the OFFENSE that wants quiet, right? it’s only done as a “fuck you” to the local fans who are cheering on their defense, and it simply makes you look like a stupid football fan. now, not to be sexist, but i would think that the average female football fan, who’s probably used to people assuming she doesn’t know shit about football because, you know, GIRLS, would want to try all the more to make an impression of football intellect. but again, alcohol enters the picture here.

03. if you’re a drunken, ranting woman’s boyfriend, stop bringing her beers.
there was a part of this game-slash-drunken-woman-experience where the woman’s boyfriend (who was a Redskins fan) brought back a pair of beers. at this point our section, which was composed of a mix of Redskins and Patriots fans, all wondered in unison, sometimes audibly, “who is that beer for?” it turned out that one of the beers was for her, which, considering her drunken, swearing state AND the fact that said boyfriend had already acknowledged to people how hammered she was, seemed to be, in our mind, a poor idea. because let’s be honest: when someone is drunk and aggressive, has giving them more alcohol EVER been a good idea?

04. when your fellow fans cheer your departure, you’re clearly not a good fan.
so eventually this drunken woman, whose name i will assume was Fuck Yeah Tombrady, given the general thrust of her conversation, left with her boyfriend trailing behind her, at which point our immediate area –which, again, contained many Patriots fans– cheered her departure. now, since the general rule is that opposing fans stick together in an opponent’s stadium, this may indicate to you that i am not simply a salty Marylander hating on a woman whose team won that day.

THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT DO IN THE BATHROOM AT A FOOTBALL GAME

ah, the men’s bathroom at a stadium: the scene for so many sad, sad happenings

bathroom etiquette is a bit of stickler for me, and as such, i’ve probably written about THAT in the past, here and there. but, as always, the bathroom at FedEx Field has once again led to my disappointment, and thus i must present things that i feel people should not be doing in the bathroom:

01. for starters, and as a throwback to past material, you should not loudly and aggressively declare you’ll be fucking anyone in the ass. especially in an “assault” kind of way; i suppose it’s less offensive if you’ve meant it to be romantic all along.

02. attempting to slide past me in the line in the bathroom? unacceptable. do you think there isn’t a massive line in the men’s room after a game? do you think that, while i have been standing here for fifteen minutes, i didn’t realize that you were ahead of me? honestly, the only possible explanations for this behavior could be “i’m a drunken and oblivious asshole” and “i feel like i can do whatever i like in the face of small men.” i deem neither of these explanations to be acceptable.

03. cutting the line in the men’s bathroom, is, to say the least, even worse than trying to slide past me. and when you declare “oh, no one’s waiting to use the stalls” to jump ahead of some fifty guys, you should be aware that no one thinks you’re clever. the rest of us are just taking part in that reasonable portion of society that acknowledges “rules” and things like that.

so, okay, this was not a phenomenally-sized update and a little redundant, but that happens sometimes. oh well!

in trying to keep the hate flowing into “more and better, or, if not better, at least more” updates, i have admit that i flipped out about Donald Trump regarding the first article below and went into this long-winded and incredibly-profane rant about Donald Trump. the sad part is, i used some very colorful terms of reference for him, but i’ve kind of lost track of them now that i have calmed down, and that’s an absolute shame.

anyway, we’re raging against some common targets of hate here today: Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg. to keep the topics 100% redundant, i’ve mixed in an update about an Amish story we covered a few weeks back. enjoy!

Donald Trump just wants us all to keep him in mind for the “most punchable face in America” title, even if he knows, deep down, that Sean Penn has him beaten

Donald Trump mentions his reality television show to complain about being called a reality television personality

let me preface this remark by saying that, with all due respect, the Republican attempts to find a presidential candidate have been something along the lines of a fiasco, and this just reminds me of how much i wish we had NOTHING to do or say about the 2012 election until, you know, 2012. but, hey, once again we find Donald Trump trying to make himself an extra couple of dollars by getting involved in this GOP mess once again. a couple of people, at least, seem to understand that this is ridiculous:

“At least two Republican presidential hopefuls are declining to participate in a debate moderated by real estate mogul Donald Trump. Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman will both skip the debate, citing concerns about the seriousness of the event.”

now, i think this is maybe a little insulting, but ultimately deserved, as, you know, Donald Trump is a goddamn reality television host and danced around the idea of running for president, throwing out outrageous and/or self-promoting remarks before bowing out prior to having to file financial documents that might prove what a liar he is about his net worth. BUT I DIGRESS. the point is that “concerns about the seriousness of the event” seem legitimate. i’ll let Ron Paul handle this:

“The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the face of that office’s history and dignity,” Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s national campaign chairman, said in a statement. He added, “Mr. Trump’s participation as moderator will distract from questions and answers concerning important issues such as the national economy, crushing federal government debt, the role of the federal government, foreign policy, and the like. To be sure, Mr. Trump’s participation will contribute to an unwanted circus-like atmosphere … Mr. Trump’s selection is also wildly inappropriate because of his record of toying with the serious decision of whether to compete for our nation’s highest office, a decision he appeared to make frivolously,” Benton said.

so there isn’t much more to say on THAT point; i’m pretty sure Paul hit all the buttons, with the possible of exception of “Trump’s rank hypocrisy on matters of international trade,” “Trump consistently lying about his net worth, business acumen and success at anything other than inheriting money from his father” and the whole deal with Trump’s hair.

now, there’s basically two ways Trump could have taken this type of response: a) be childish about it, or b) take this opportunity to stress how serious Trump takes his role in this debate, how unfortunate it is that Paul and/or Huntsman won’t be there, and, you know, be the bigger man about it. so, of course, Trump went with choice A.

“As I said in the past and will reiterate again, Ron Paul has a zero chance of winning either the nomination or the Presidency,” Trump said in a statement to CNN. “My poll numbers were substantially higher than any of his poll numbers, at any time, and when I decided not to run, due to the equal time provisions concerning my hit show The Apprentice, I was leading the Republican field.”"

so let’s hit the main problems here:

01. the fact that Trump says Paul, who i’m not a great fan of, but who is currently polling second or third (depending on the poll) has “a zero chance of winning.” now, i know i have implied that Trump is not the business whiz he claims, but if you equate “consistently drawing around 20% support” with “0% chance of winning,” it might explain some things about Trump.

02. it did not take me long to find examples of Trump, who DID once poll well in the Republican field, having poll numbers equal to or worse than Paul’s “at any time.” for example, here is Donald Trump falling to a fifth-place tie at 8% with… Ron Paul.

03. has there been any evidence that Donald Trump dropped out of the race “due to the equal time provisions?” because i recall his statements at the time being more along the lines of “business is my greatest passion, and I am not ready to leave the private sector.” now, true, the two ARE related –Trump is in the business of making money by being Donald Trump– but it sounds like he wants to claim he HAD to not run, as opposed to recognizing at the time that he could not run successfully.

04. it’s furthermore clearly a lie that he was leading the Republican field when he decided not to run. see also: that fifth-place tie with Paul thing.

05. Trump makes sure to mention “concerning my hit show The Apprentice” despite the fact that this is a major argument of Paul’s as to why Trump is not serious. i officially award this point to Paul.

of course, Trump was not finished:

“Few people take Ron Paul seriously and many of his views and presentation make him a clown-like candidate,” Trump said. “I am glad he and Jon Huntsman, who has inconsequential poll numbers or a chance of winning, will not be attending the debate and wasting the time of the viewers who are trying very hard to make a very important decision.”

again, “few people” as in “as many as were supporting Trump when Trump fled the race.” but the real question is going to be who else participates in this debate. see, if Bachmann or Santorum are there, there’s no way you can claim to only have people with consequential poll numbers here, as Bachmann’s have dropped and Santorum polls on par with Romney… and neither, if you ask me, have a chance of winning. and yet the man polling SECOND in Iowa won’t be there for Trump’s debate in Iowa because he has inconsequential poll numbers?

Trump should probably also not call other people “clown-like.” pot, kettle, all that. let’s just close with the remarks from Huntsman’s campaign:

“We have declined to participate in the ‘Presidential Apprentice’ Debate with The Donald,” Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said in a statement. “The Republican Party deserves a serious discussion of the issues so voters can choose a leader they trust to defeat President Obama and turn our economy around.”

exactly.

well, at least they’re recognizing the authority of the court by removing their hats. that’s something

FBI arrests 7 Amish men on beard-destruction charges

let me just take a brief interlude here to talk about a topic i touched on somewhat recently: a rogue band of Amish gentleman who were apparently stealing beards from rival Amish for purposes of general humiliation. it would be remiss of me, however, to not point out a colleague’s response to this story: “are none of these gentlemen aware that beards grow back?” anyway, it seemed like there was no easy way to make this story more ridiculous, but here we go:

“FBI agents on Wednesday raided an Ohio compound and arrested seven Amish men on hate charges in connection with haircutting attacks on other members of the usually isolated Christian religion.”

yes, that’s right: hate charges. now, i don’t want to make light of these serious anti-beard charges, but doesn’t it seem a little weird that Amish-on-Amish crime qualifies as a hate crime?

“The early morning arrests opened a window in the world of the Amish, who are known for shunning modern conveniences, using horses and buggies rather than cars, and preferring to deal with their problems within their traditional and ordered communities, without going to outside civil authorities. …All are charged with conspiring to carry out a series of assaults over the last few months on Amish men and women, cutting off their beards and head hair with scissors and battery-powered clippers. The acts were especially heinous to the Amish who believe there is a biblical injunction to shaving when men marry.”

although let me remind the audience that these charges had the Amish beard-thieves having non-Amish people drive them around, as well as the aforementioned use of battery-powered clippers… so i am not sure how much longer we can claim the Amish “shun modern conveniences” with a straight face. also, there’s no distinction in the religion between “voluntarily shaving” and “having your beard stolen by force?” this seems unnecessarily strict. if a married Amish man’s house catches fire and his beard is burned off, is that also “especially heinous?”

“If convicted, the suspects face up to life in prison, the government said.”

…for stealing beards. sorry, for the HATE CRIME of stealing beards. nope, still seems weird.

anyway, the motivation for this attack seems to have been the excommunication of Mullet’s group, described as “a schismatic group with some of the attributes of a cult,” and the rest of the Amish, whose beards the Mullet team seeks to seize. there do seem to be some clear ways in which Mullet’s group qualifies as a cult:

“Mullet, as head of the splinter group, excommunicated those who left… Samuel Mullet Sr. has forced extreme punishments and physical injury to those in the community who defy him, including forcing members to sleep for days at a time in a chicken coop… Mullet “has been ‘counseling’ the married women in the Bergholz clan and taking them into his home so that he may cleanse them of the devil with acts of sexual intimacy.”

and let’s be honest: it’s not really a cult unless the leader has come up with some elaborate and/or illogical explanation that requires him to sex up all your wives and/or daughters. “uh… see, your daughters are acting wild because of the devil… so i better fuck them until that’s resolved.”

“Mullet said that he didn’t order the haircutting but didn’t stop his sons and others from carrying it out. He said the goal of the haircutting was to send a message to local Amish that they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they were treating Mullet and his community, according to the court papers.”

you know… something tells me that this defense of “i didn’t tell them to do it, but i didn’t stop them from doing it, as i approve of the message it sends” is going to result in something less than a total acquittal.

you just know Bloomberg is thinking, “okay, you may have a very fancy uniform, but the one i had made for myself as commander-in-chief of New York City is MUCH fancier”

Mayor Bloomberg continues to generally be a self-important asshole

so let’s keep the theme of “seriously hating on political figures” going for the week. i don’t think it’s any secret i have a low opinion of Mayor Bloomberg, largely because of his incredibly deceitful ways with MAIG, as well as the whole “rules limiting terms should only apply to mayors who are not Bloomberg” thing. but it helps me greatly when he makes self-promoting remarks like these:

“Trying to offer some idea of the scope of New York’s workforce, Bloomberg got a bit carried away with himself. “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh largest army in the world,” he said.”

so let’s start with this. it’s not the seventh-largest army in the world, Bloomberg, it’s your police force. while i understand (and often complain about) the fact that many police have militarized themselves to the point of THINKING they’re in the military… they’re not. would Bloomberg seriously compare the NYPD to what appears to be the seventh-largest army in the world, Turkey? i know Americans have a high opinion of themselves, but my money’s on the slightly more heavily-equipped 620000 members of the Turkish Armed Forces.

also, this is a complete lie. if the NYPD has roughly 35000 officers, 4500 auxiliary officers and 5100 school safety agents, then their force of 44600 is outnumbered by something like 70 countries if you ONLY count active-duty personnel (remember again: seventh-place Turkey has 620000 ACTIVE-DUTY members of their armed forces). so there’s also that. and since the lie is less about what the NYPD can do and more about self-praise… well, i think this says something about Bloomberg.

“I have my own state department, to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance.”

yeah, i cannot imagine why the federal government would be annoyed with the fact that the mayor of a city claims to have “his own state department.” surely most mayors would be within their rights to interfere in the realm of international affairs? of course, Bloomberg neither elaborates or has a track record of being honest thus far, so maybe there’s really no reason for them to be annoyed.

“We have the UN in New York, so we have entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have.”

so either Bloomberg thinks he has access to diplomacy that the federal government does not have which, as a member of the UN security council, they clearly do, or he thinks he has access to diplomacy that the CITY of Washington, DC doesn’t have … which makes me have to remind him where all those embassies and diplomats can be found. either way, more nonsense!

my major question at this point is if all these New Yorkers are aware they elected a man who’s mentally handicapped to the mayoral office.

“Bloomberg also got in a sharp dig at Albany, one of his least favorite places on the planet. Speaking of the difficulty he’s had getting higher-mileage standards for taxicabs, the mayor said turning to Albany for help wasn’t much of an option. “Our state is so in the pocket of some of the entrenched interests. They won’t force anybody to help us in this energy dependence that we have.”"

so i’m trying to remember how Bloomberg made all that money he has… and then i remembered that it was things like “investment banking” and “financial news and information services media company.” surely he has no connection to entrenched interests! this is where i would laugh if the audacity of this remark wasn’t so goddamn depressing.

next week (or whenever the update comes out, whatever), we’ll think about doing something a little less angry… although i have to admit that, since it’s the holiday season, that’s unlikely. but we’ll see!

one of the laments i have commonly made on the internet and to people who are able to escape from the combination is the lack of love shown to the American sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David. i promote it and quote it as best i can, as does my trusty Irish sidekick, and i understand that it ran from 1995-1998, so it’s possible the youth of today wouldn’t know much about it… but it’s still a damn shame. Wikipedia points out that “Mr. Show typically opted for absurdist comedy over current pop culture jokes or recurring characters,” and honestly, that’s the best way to put it, as well as the likely reason why i think it’s better than the average sketch comedy show.

so recently, our hero had a marathon of Mr. Show’s four seasons (although, given the 5-episode runs of seasons 1 and 2, it’s more like three seasons) in an attempt to cheer himself up for the goddamn holidays, and while this did not work, it pointed out to me that we could use a “best Mr. Show sketches” listicle here at house of hate.

janklow’s 13 favorite Mr. Show with Bob and David sketches

note: for ease of titling these sketches, since the format SLIGHTLY varies on the DVD sets, i have turned to our trusted friends at Wikipedia for the titles. here we go!

Mr. Show with Bob and David: your kids won’t even remotely begin to care about it

13. Dalai Lama/Monk Academy (season four, episode five)
synopsis of the skit: okay, from the jump i have to cheat a little, because this is more like “two long, mostly-connected skits,” but it’s important to understand how absurd this show can be. “Dalai Lama” has a kid (Bob) randomly chosen to be the next Dalai Lama, with his slacker friend (David) showing up to visit. they clash, they learn a valuable lesson… and then we immediate move to “Monk Academy,” where the monks are competing in a 500-year-old competition with a fat kids’ camp. i think you say what i’m saying.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: when competing with the fat kids, there’s a bike race where David lures the fat competitor away with a trail of candy. that’s the joke, right? David then pops out of a bush and slits the kid’s throat. it’s SO excessive that i find it wonderful. yes, i may have emotional problems.

12. Beating Hippie (Generation Gap) (season two, episode three)
synopsis of the skit: as part of their opening/monologue/whatever you want to call it, Bob and David are lamenting the fact that as Bob was raised at a time when people respected each other, the mid-1970s, while David came of age in the late 1970s, they’re from different generations and just don’t relate. however, then they realize they’re brought together by their mutual distrust and hatred of hippies.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: one of my personal running jokes is, having been born in 1979, to tell the Irishman and other people born in the early 1980s that we’re from vastly different generations for comic effect. so i think you see why this joke works for me.
bonus Irishman remarks: “remember that skit where Bob and David are talking about being from different generations and end up working together? hilarious.”

11. Change For A Dollar (season one, episode one)
synopsis of the skit: a man (Bob) asks a store cashier (David) for change, prompting a series of telephone calls from one superior to another (all alternating played by Bob and David) asking if the cashier should give the man change.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: each guy does something weird while thinking about whether or not they should approve the change; Bob, as the company’s CEO, does a ridiculous little dance that always makes me laugh. that’s the reason.

10. Week-Long Romance (season four, episode ten)
synopsis of the skit: a man (Bob) and his girlfriend have broken up for a week, and when reuniting, discuss the ridiculous things that Bob has done in one week’s time: joined a Christian rock band, got engaged to another girl, starred in a blowjob movie with one “Crystal Knockers.” periodically, wronged persons from the past week assault him.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: so the Christian rock band attacks Bob because Crystal Knockers and Bob did this blowjob movie. then, while explaining this, Crystal Knockers’ boyfriend assaults Bob for embarrassing his girl. Bob’s girlfriend exclaims, “you gave the blowjobs?!” Bob responds “the MOST blowjobs” with this tone that gets me every time.
bonus Irishman remarks: “isn’t there some skit where they’re dressed up like some terrible New Age band?” (that’s how this skit transitions into the next one) “yeah, that one’s hilarious.”

09. Lie Detector (season three, episode three)
synopsis of the skit: a man (Bob) is being given a lie detector test by a team of employees (including David) that runs through a series of more and more outrageous claims that all prove to be true: alcohol and drug use, stealing space plans, killing a man with his mind, skinny-dipping with a girl David had a crush on, dressing up like a lady of affluence and seducing a rich man, and derailing a train with his penis and eating it piece by piece (all for charity).
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: as we’ve seen, it’s often one remark that makes me fondly recall the skit, and in this one, after Bob admits that he’s smoked crack, the employees crack up and one asks what it was like. Bob answers, “it was great! it’s crack, it gets you really high.” everything said in this skit is insane; this remark just SOUNDS the funniest.

08. Indomitable Spirit (season three, episode four)
synopsis of the skit: Terry (David) and the gang are a band of handicapped people succeeding despite their limitations, later turning out to be non-handicapped but spreading a message of hope. then Tommy (Bob), who HAS lost his arm, shows up to accuse them of tossing him out for being handicapped; David counters that Bob simply was a shitty drummer. a very confusing debate occurs.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: there’s a part where the band runs through their handicaps: Terry has no arms, Jimbo is missing his arms too, Mickey is just a hand. then Fran (Sarah Silverman) declares “i’m Fran, and i’m a woman!” it’s the best. further, David is INCREDIBLY exasperated in this skit, and i love it.
bonus Irishman remarks: when discussing it, the Irishman struck a line and quoted the “i’m a woman” line. i admit it, i laughed.

07. Mom And Pop Porno Shop (season two, episode two)
synopsis of the skit: Mom and Pop (Pop being Bob) run a porno shop: they fuss over customers, scold their child, resist selling the shop to a representative of big business, and have an encounter with a ten-foot-tall version of Great-Great-Grandpa who appears to look like God and who promotes the hell out of pornography.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: the part where Bob is scolding his son Jimmy (David) for not putting away a box of big black dildos. not only is it good, but the way he ends the exchange with the cry of “don’t blame the dildos!” is classic. it also gives us the chance to quote the skit and threaten people with “next time you’ll get more than a dildo to the head!” and let me remind you, young man, that stupid “all anal action” paid for that precious mountain bike of yours!

06. Date With The Queen (season four, episode seven)
synopsis of the skit: the Queen (David) is bored with her guests, so she tells each of them she wants to hang out with them and them alone, and to not mention it, before asking her guard (Bob) to throw everyone out. this is where the comedy ensues.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: okay, for one thing, the fake mustache being rocked by Bob is hilarious. HILARIOUS. second, it has to be the way this skit ends with Bob declaring “that BITCH” before it cuts to a scooter chase. and do you see how NONE of that seems related to what i said the skit was about?

05. The Joke: The Musical (season one, episode two)
synopsis of the skit: the theme for the episode is Senator Tankerbell (Bob) enforcing US Senate oversight on comedians: he declares an Appalachian puppet lewd and lascivious and makes David wear a performance-controlling shock collar. later in the episode, David is inspired to make a musical version of an “approved” joke that the senator tells to open the episode: the old one about a traveling salesman putting his
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: so before David has the idea for the musical, he’s greeted by Senator Tankerbell, who’s been “magically transformed into a twinkling light,” and who knocks David to the ground for being mouthy. i LOVE this interaction between a spotlight and David. also, the musical features Jack Black singing like a madman about putting/not putting your dick in these three holes, and that has to be worth something.
bonus Irishman remarks: i started to comment about the one where Senator Tankerbell controls David, which prompted “-and then he gets knocked out by a glowing light!” so you see how we’re united by this show.

04. Taint (season four, episode six)
synopsis of the skit: Garry Flank (David) rises to the top of a theoretically successful pornography empire by promoting men’s taints in his magazine, from discussing five-inch taints (”it’s insane, this guy’s taint”) and insisting that taints (or, in other publications, “t’wasn’ts” and “t’werents”) were what America wanted to see.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: honestly, it’s just the fact that they keep talking about taints. it never stops until the skit does.
bonus Irishman remarks: “wait, you know what you can’t forget? the taint episode!” that says it all… but then the Irishman started quoting the “then tragedy struck… CAPTAIN Tragedy” part of the skit, so i think we know what skit he was angling to get in the top spot.

03. Fuzz: The Musical (season three, episode two)
synopsis of the skit: in season one, Bob and David had a skit about Ronnie Dobbs, notorious for constantly getting arrested all over the place; in this one, the guy who filmed him makes a musical about Ronnie, his battered spouse and some cops. it’s weird to see them have recurring characters, i know, but you have to accept it.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: as one commenter on a YouTube video puts in, these singing skits work because David can actually sing a little; the part where David (as Ronnie Dobbs) breaks into his “Y’all Are Brutalizing Me” absolutely kills it. they’d later make a mess of a movie based around this character (Run, Ronnie, Run), and Mandy Patinkin makes this joke work just as well, because he can really sing.
bonus Irishman remarks: the Irishman specifically called out the part from the original season one, episode one skit where David breaks character to rant about the shitty conditions in which HBO has them working. just throwing that out there.

02. Blowing Up The Moon (season three, episode six)
synopsis of the skit: scientists and the President declare that we can, no, MUST blow up the moon; people seem very excited about it, and astronauts seem to figure it’s time, since there really isn’t anything else you can do with the moon. again, this is what we mean when we talk about “absurd premise.”
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: there’s a part where protestors are picketing the destruction of the moon; during this, Sarah Silverman declares, “we’re spending so much money, millions of dollars, to blow up the moon, when there’s so many things right here on earth to blow up! we’re earthlings, let’s blow up earth things!”
bonus Irishman remarks: “don’t forget the one where they blow up the moon.”

01. Worthington’s Law (season three, episode seven)
synopsis of the skit: essentially, the skit is based around this premise: “listen to your friend, a person who makes more money than you, is better than you, and therefore beyond criticism. this is called the Worthington Law and it’s used to gauge the value of human worth.” David takes the role of Carl Espick and berates us into understanding this.
why janklow thinks this skit’s so funny: yelling “more money equals better than” never gets old. never. watch it and tell me i’m wrong.
bonus Irishman remarks: THIS is the skit that we quote constantly; when discussing the best 13 skits, we both immediately mention “Worthington’s Law.” that might be all that needs to be said.

so, two things:
01. clearly season three is the best season;
02. there’s BOUND to be some great skits i skipped… but then so no one but me and the Irishman love this show, i guess we’ll never know. oh, that’s a little sad. also, let me close with a completely unrelated video that, as the Irishman can attest to, made me laugh so hard i hurt myself:

you know, after last week’s nonsensical and completely unnecessary rant about a topic that probably only bothers me, i told myself, “self, it’s time to focus up and try to create some more traditional comedy laughs. let’s do our best to make that happen, okay?” and i even meant it!

…but then i saw something that made me about as irrationally angry as the Mummy (1932) does, and that’s when i knew we wouldn’t be leaving the realm of “janklow being too damn mad about nothing of consequence” any time soon. so let’s just get it over with, okay?

Hawaii 5-0 also features one of America’s most punchable faces in the form of Scott Caan; it may not be his fault, but it certainly doesn’t make the show more appealing to me

janklow is totally enraged by fucking Hawaii 5-0

so once upon a time there was this police procedural (although i don’t think they used that term back then) called Hawaii 5-0 where, according to our good friends at Wikipedia, “the show centers on a fictional state police force led by former U.S. naval officer Steve McGarrett.” the damn thing ran for twelve years, so i guess we can say that a) it must have been really popular for some reason (maybe the whole “book ‘em, Danno” thing) and b) it was inevitable in today’s climate of unoriginality that SOMEONE would attempt to remake it.

also, twelve years of dramatic crime… in Hawaii? you kind of assume that cities like New York and Los Angeles and Chicago have lots of dramatic crime and organized crime and, to boil it down, fodder for police procedurals… but Hawaii?

ANYWAY, so they finally remade the show in 2010, only now Wikipedia says it “covers the actions of a small special state task force created by the Governor of Hawaii to investigate serious crimes throughout the Islands, as Hawaii does not have a conventional state police force.” i guess it didn’t do well enough, so they brought in teen heartthrob Terry O’Quinn to spice it up, but it’s still on the air. which brings us to the “irrationally angry” part of this update.

now, i don’t watch Hawaii 5-0. i don’t watch reruns of the original Hawaii 5-0. so i really shouldn’t care what the show does… and then i saw this advertisement:

…and i flipped the fuck out, for a short list of reasons:

01. “Steve went into North Korea, on a personal mission”: for one thing, it’s OBVIOUSLY a personal mission, because there are exactly zero professional reasons for a single member of a Hawaii-based special state task force to be sent to fucking North Korea. but beyond that… who the hell is going to NORTH KOREA on a personal mission? don’t the people watching the program at least say to themselves, “well, this sounds unbelievable.”

02. “…goes terribly wrong”: again, OBVIOUSLY. i admit this is nit-picking because this kind of exposition is the way commercials for television programs work, but i am still annoyed on some level by the network needing to point this out. what would the episode be about if Steve completed his mission and came home without incident?

03. “we’re going to bring Steve home”: okay, maybe i’m just a shitty friend and/or co-worker, but if i knew someone as a professional colleague on a state police force, and i came to work the next day and someone told me, “hey, Steve got captured on a personal mission to North Korea! are you ready to help rescue him?” …well, i would probably just stay at the office and get caught up on my paperwork. this is not a mission for Hawaii cops! even ones that now include me! call the fucking State Department!

04. “…and you won’t believe who comes to the rescue”: and which point the ad tells me that this unbelievable guest star is Jimmy Fucking Buffett, and i completely lose it. Jimmy Buffett? why is this an awesome, unbelievable guest star? he’s not an action star; he’s not a guy known for playing cops or military dudes. he’s not even an actor! and if you want to say his string of cameos make him an actor by default, FINE, he’s a shitty actor not worthy of Special Billing.

and look, a cameo is supposed to be a cute, “hey, look who’s in this film or television show” moment, not a major selling point. so if this is another cameo, who cares? and if it’s not… again, why is Jimmy Buffett a massive “get” for Hawaii 5-0? what audience that doesn’t watch Hawaii 5-0 already is going to be excited to see it? and what ridiculous “parrothead” who watches Hawaii 5-0 just to see their lord and master Jimmy Buffett is going to stick around as a regular viewer.

really, i shouldn’t find this so offensive, but GOD DAMN THIS SHIT.

there’s a joke here about how even Jack Abramoff thinks Dan Snyder is kind of an asshole, but i don’t want to get sued for making it

janklow is totally enraged by fucking Jack Abramoff

and then i visited with my lovely grandmother and i happened to catch a glimpse of Jack Abramoff on her television, and maybe i was still keyed-up from all that Hawaii 5-0 nonsense that made me lose my damn mind… but, okay, i flipped out again. i’m fucking tense, okay?

so… Jack Abramoff. he’s a former lobbyist and businessman and, as far as i am concerned, a current scumbag. he was, according to the Internet’s most quoted encyclopedia, “at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides” and ultimately he “served three years, six months of a six-year sentence in federal prison before being released early,” and, okay, that’s probably Wikipedia for the week.

now, look, i get that you can get convicted of a crime, do your time, realize the error of your ways, and come out a better man who’s living clean. i’m forgetting about the fact that men who don’t steal millions get slammed with years on years more time than Abramoff because their offense is somehow “worse” (i’m looking at you, drug laws). i’m forgetting about the fact that those will less money often do more of their time. so what’s the deal? it’s me watching Jack Abramoff sell a book while basically implying that he was only convicted because every so often the government needs to give us a show.

first off, even if true, that’s not the SOLE reason you were convicted. in fact, the selling point for Abramoff’s new book-writing, ratting-out-corruption persona is that he ADMITS he committed crimes and went to jail for them. so spare me the tone, okay?

second… a book? really? and maybe this isn’t about Abramoff so much as it is the fact that every asshole out there seems to be cranking out books in a world where quality authors probably see money that pales in comparison to said assholes, and in which a table full of adults can be overheard discussing the merits of the Twilight and Harry Potter “sagas.”

look, i don’t mean to come off like a pompous prick with an English degree, but those are fucking books for CHILDREN. and if i come across hard evidence that women whose qualifications for writing a book are ‘i was married to somehow who was involved in a massive financial scam’ or ‘a Congressman texted me photos of his penis’ are making more money than Cormac McCarthy, then i may just have to kill myself. because this is not necessarily a society i can be part of.

but actually, to be honest, what really made me flip out was when Mike Huckabee said that Abramoff had done bad things, but was not a bad person. so… what’s the bar for being a “bad person,” then, if stealing millions of dollars is not enough? do you HAVE to murder a series of prostitutes?

…maybe i should start smoking cigarettes. i hear that calms you down. also:

guns that let us pretend we wear a bodysuit and fight crime in Africa

actually, it doesn’t let us do that at all, but it IS a CZ SP-01 Phantom, so it has a cool name going for it. now i just need to slap a bayonet on this thing and call it a day.

it has probably been noticed that there are a few topics about which our hero janklow feels very strongly (such as, say, all that feminism in movies) which the mention of results in him getting all worked up and ranting about said topics for however long it takes to get them out of his system. usually, though, i feel like there’s a sound argument contained in all that noise; sometimes, though, i must admit that the argument is far more rooted in my irrational hatred.

which brings us to the Mummy.

the Mummy absolutely enrages me. he is the worst movie monster. the WORST. something about the very concept makes me fill with anger. but let me see if i can make my case here.

ah, what appears to be a well-soiled old man. surely this movie will be incredibly frightening!

the Mummy is the worst of the Universal monsters

while this is a little before the time of, well, almost everyone who’s on the internet, i think it’s still common knowledge that Universal Studios cranked out a world-famous assortment of movie monsters: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man (i mean, he’s a monster in a moral sense, anyway), the Wolf Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and, i guess, the Bride of Frankenstein. famous characters, all of them, although i suppose you can attribute that to the strength of the original material in several cases.

the Mummy is the worst of all of these monsters. now, okay, SOMEONE has to be the worst. i guess that’s not necessarily the Mummy’s fault. but it’s a definite black mark when i’m thinking of “who could the worst Universal monster be” and my mind doesn’t immediately leap to “mole people.” and i suppose it’s a little rough to be paired with iconic monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula. but are you telling me that if the Mummy didn’t exist, i’d be on the internet bitching about the Invisible Man? unlikely!

i think it’s telling that the Mummy looks most unsettling when he’s NOT in his mummy makeup

the Mummy is a completely lame monster in general

this lameness, i think, is the crux of the matter. Frankenstein is turbo-strong and probably hard to kill; Dracula can change into a bat and seduce the hell out of some women; the Creature from the Black Lagoon has claws and a swimmer’s physique. ultimately, all of these monsters are a threat to anyone who should run afoul of them in a dark alley; the Invisible Man can at LEAST make off with your wallet or something.

the Mummy… he does what, walks very slowly towards you? eventually he chokes you to death? is this a monster you can evade by, you know, jogging slowly away from him? granted, it’s not like Frankenstein is going to be winning any foot races against the Mummy, but he at least looks a little menacing. the Mummy appears to be a collection of soiled rags that intends to kill you… very slowly… eventually. at least the mole people have a certain, as the French say, “i don’t know what” going for them.

i asked my father to describe “what it is the Mummy does,” and he said something along the lines of: “well, he chokes you, and he’s very strong, so you can’t get away from the choke.” it, to say the least, is a little less impressive than the Wolf Man savagely ripping you a new one with his claws.

i think it also helps to note that Boris Karloff notably played both Frankenstein and the Mummy, and yet you never hear him described as “the guy that played the Mummy.” we always reference Frankenstein. subconsciously, we all know how lame the Mummy is, even if we don’t want to admit it.

apparently he came back from the grave to get chicks. this is actually a fair assessment, and not a joke

the Mummy spawned an awful series of “sequels”

one of the less-noticed lame things about the Mummy is that while it spawn an EXCESSIVE number of sequels … they’re not actually sequels. instead, the Mummy was unnecessarily and secretly remade eight years later as “the Mummy’s Hand.” eight years later? this is generally code for “the original totally sucked.” and THEN they made a bunch of sequels to that movie: the Mummy’s Tomb, the Mummy’s Ghost (and i must note that the concept of an undead being having a GHOST seems entirely excessive) and the Mummy’s Curse.

but one thing my father (who must have watched these Mummy movies one too many times) pointed out is that they added some ridiculous “tana leaves” requirement to all of those post-1932 sequels: apparently these magical Egyptian leaves are what the Mummy needs to live and thrive and slowly, ever-so-slowly, kill his eventual prey.

i like to think Fraser is screaming with rage and disappointment as he finds out how terrible of a movie series he’s made

the Mummy is to blame for those Brendan Fraser Mummy movies

considering that they’re essentially an attempt to remake (and then add sequels to) the Mummy, i am totally blaming it for these awful, awful films. the problem with the Mummy was that people expected me to take it seriously, not the lack of awful, awful CGI effects in the original. i think they’re supposed to make me think the Mummy is filled with powerful magic, but actually, i think i prefer “…and then you get slowly strangled by a dead guy.”

and then the Mummy remakes spawned the atrocious Scorpion King films (plural! how the fuck did anyone think it was a good idea to make two of those?), which, in turn, is something ELSE i can blame the Mummy for. goddammit.

next week, maybe something more rational? we shall see.