squidbag

Project K89

During a rare surprise press conference today, the Bush administration shocked the world and the scientific community by at last acknowledging the existence of the phenomena known collectively as Global Warming.  President Dubya Monkeyface Bush has been a holdout on this, knowing that acknowledging the problem would mean doing something meaningful about it, but with recent trends in catastrophic weather, like Hurricane Katrina, estimated to be the costliest disaster in US history, the White House was forced to step forward with an explanation.

Standing in front of blurry photos of Saddam Hussein - seated in a huge motorized black leather chair and petting a white cat - and a large map of Louisiana, President Dubya Monkeyface Bush, looking smug, explained the connection between Hussein, 9/11, North Korea, the US invasion of Iraq and Hurricane Katrina:

"It has come to my attention, and the attention of this administration, that the recent tragic storm known as Hurricane Katrina is actually Project K89, the result of the Weather Manipulation Device, which is in the hands of an unknown, but soon to be invaded, nation.  Saddam Hussein had the technology to use this device, but sold it into the hands of a rogue nation - probably North Korea - sometime before his capture.  During the time when he was plotting with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who is pinned down in the world somewhere by our forces, powerless - I can assure you of that - they decided to use their evil weather machine to warp global weather systems, the better to hide Osama's escape.  See?  After 9/11, they needed to have something that would paralyze the world, so, working together, they developed this machine.  Every time it rains, it could be the terrorists at work.  No longer is simple outdoor life an innocent pleasure.  We must be steadfast in our resolve to do whatever it is we will do.  If you look at the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina and feel a sense of sadness and outrage, it is your responsibility as Americans to support the US when we decide to attack somebody else, and invade, looking for this new WMD.  Thank you and God bless."

Fight the weather, folks.

Katrina's Wake

On Sunday, when I was digging a hole and dumping Quikrete into it to make my mailbox more stable, I was hallucinating from a fever.  I caught some kind of bug on Saturday, and slid slowly into sickness and then back out during Katrina's landfall and devastation.  That's interesting, because it makes the whole thing seem even more otherwordly than it would have.  While digging the hole, I would have sworn, for a split second, that I unearthed a giant bone.  What happens now in New Orleans is going to be much, much worse than that.

Normally a three-hour road trip, it took folks eighteen to get here over the weekend from N.O.  The family next door to us, Don and Zaney, have taken in three families worth of people who don't even know if they have houses yet.  These are just the people related to them, to say nothing of the people their family members know.  The governor is reporting bodies in the floodwaters, and the cemeteries are disgorging their occupants into the streets as the waters push them up and out of graves and mausoleums.  I would imagine that New Orleans currently is like a fever dream, awash in mud and death, and those in charge clueless as to how to stop it.  It's going to be worse than it is right now.

Mississippi has eighty dead in one county, thirty in one apartment complex.  Florida actually got off light this time.  Of the seven dead in the "sunshine" state from the first pass of Katrina, two were guys standing under light poles.  The storm didn't kill these two, folks, low test scores did.  We have people in Escambia still without power, but damage is minimal.  'They' are saying that the toll from this in LA will be 26 billion dollars.  Ivan was $16 billion.  It'll be more than that before it's over, and it won't be over for months.

So, yeah - we're okay, we have power (obviously), we have a friend coming back from Oklahoma (hell of a place to run to) and we're living in the wrong fucking part of the world.

Stay safe and dry.

Katrina

Currently, Hurricane Katrina is headed for the Big Easy, not Pensacola.  I'm not going to be cocky about this or anything, because any moment now, Momma Nature could re-set her bonnet and bring her angry ass to the Cradle of Naval Aviation.  Over the past few days, the denizens of this less-than-fair burg have stocked up on water and batteries, cleaned up yards, submerged their pool furniture, and bought millions of gallons of gas.  Slowly, it became apparent that it was not going to hit us, that we would only get backlash, the brunt being borne by New Orleans. 

And this is what has interested me, listening to the fine Christian people of Pensacola be relieved that we were not going to be hit by another hurricane.  Like it or not, when you wish not to be hit by a storm, you're wishing it on someone else.  It's not like they change their minds, "Oh, Cuba was nice, I think I'll head back."  They'll say, "Oh, thank god it's not coming here."  Curious.  Like saying, "Man, I'm glad God decided to smack holy fuck out of N'awlins, and not us!"  Point out the underlying hypocrisy of this, and you'll invariably hear, "Well, we've had our share."  I don't remember that from the Bible.  You think Jesus did his share?  What about Job?  "And the Lord saith, 'Thou hast done thy share, and can quit now.'"

They keep showing pictures of people praying on the news, as they hie their asses from the Delta. (I have to watch, as my wife is a storm junkie.) Maybe there's something about Christianity I don't fully understand, (probably a very large number of things) but I would think the proper Christian attitude towards destructive weather would be resigned piety.  "Ah well, such is the will of the Lord," that sort of thing.  If there's anybody you could really blame bad weather on, it's the Wiccans.  They're in contact with goddesses and such.  Or what about animist religions?  Don't they have some say in this?  Actually, I know why we're having this hurricane - it's Pat Robertson.  He's still drawing breath, folks.  Pat fucking Robertson.  Kill him now, and save us from another Katrina.

That Old Squidbag Charm

Those of you who have had the thought, "Someday his mouth's going to get him killed," will enjoy this story. 

Today in Pensacola, people are nuts.  There are lines at gas stations, arguments, people shooting each other nasty looks as they begin preparation for Hurricane Katrina.  Most people have gotten word of some kind that it's a cat 2, and will be a cat 3 or 4 when it gets [here.]  This is sort of an algebraic statement, since no one knows what will happen to it in the Gulf, and the word "here" can represent anything between Biloxi and Tallahassee.  Most Pensacolons (just calling them what they are) have resigned themselves to the worst, and so, in the 100 degree heat, they are driving around, getting gas, battening down hatches, and trying to get their shit ready to be destroyed again.

I for one am REALLY goddamn wishing I had already put my house on the market.  Being unemployed, I have spent the last couple of weeks doing yardwork and trying to get our house ready for potential buyers.  This shit (hurricanes and morons misbehaving) just heightens my anxiety, so it's safe to say that tensions are running high.

As I was driving home, (windows down, having a stogie) I spied a roadcrew with signs and flaggers on 297-A, so I slowed down to about 20 mph.  Then to 15.  One worker decided that wasn't slow enough, and yelled, "SLOW DOWN, ASSHOLE!"  I slammed on my brakes, pulled off into the grass verge, and got out.  I went over to this prick, got a comfortable foot or so into his dance space, and said, "Take it back, jackass."  (Everyone sounds like Clint Eastwood when you talk around a cigar, by the way.)  He responded with a "Jesus - fuck - okay," and I ended my mini-lecture with a "Watch your fucking mouth."  I got back in my car and pulled away before I noticed the other sign that said -

Wait for it...

INMATES WORKING.

Those sheriff guys were really watching me drive off, I bet.

Bring Me The Head of Pat Robertson

Those who have been acquainted with me for any length of time will know that I have long wished for my own fatwa.  Everybody seems to have them these days, and I want one of my own.  And now I have one.  I am issuing a fatwa against that hypocritical fuck, Pat Robertson, who is lower than the grubs under the dead rosemary bush I just ripped out of my backyard.

Pat, (shown here covering the hole in his chest where he was staked in his coffin a few years back) has recently hit the news pages again for issuing a fatwa of his own against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, apparently because he thinks Hugo is paranoid (I have readers who are qualified enough to name whatever condition it is when you think someone should die because you think they're paranoid.) and because Hugo's country has oil we ought to have.  This alone should be enough to get one of you to go and kill Pat for me, but I also have...let's see...twenty-three dollars.  Twenty-three bucks to the first person who brings me Pat Robertson's head, so I can crack open his puny skull and shit on his empty braincase.  Rumsfeld condemned the statement, presumably miffed that Pat's nutty enough to give away our evil plans, and the stauch defenders of the faith like the Christian Coalition, Family Research Council and Jesus' Buddies, Inc. were "too busy to comment."

In case all of this isn't enough to spur you people to action and bring me back Pat's head, here's some other shit he's said along the way that should make you want to fill his head with dogshit and staple his mouth shut;

"The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers?"  Jefferson had slaves, right?  Another reason to avoid deism, I suppose.

"[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."  So any of you homosexuals who are in church to worship or go to weddings and stuff?  Better get on the ball, son.  You've got infecting and spitting to do.

"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist."  This man is a public speaker.  He has a television show.  "This, that and the other thing?"  You fucking moron.  Oh, and apparently my grandmother is the Antichrist.  And so were my in-laws for a brief period.  All I want to know is; if they're the Antichrist, what the fuck does that make me?

"Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals – the two things seem to go together."  It's the robes.  You put a man in a dress, and it's a slippery slope from there.  I ever tell you about the time I fucked Anton LaVey?  Man, I get more gay sex at those Satanist gatherings...whooh.

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different...More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."  Except for the part about the Liberals having no army and not killing anyone and nobody being born (unless it's again) Christian - you can see where's he's coming from with this one, right?  I mean, Hillary...Hitler?  Yeah?  You see that, right?  Man - it makes you think.  And wait a minute - the Christian minority in America?

And everybody's favorite, the classic: "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."  I don't want my wife to leave, and that infanticide thing sounds harsh, but I don't really see any problems with the rest of the feminist agenda.  "Kill their children?"  I think Pat is smoking some bad shit.  I think Jesus would kill your ass, Pat.

German Liberty & Iraqi Justice

Yesterday, an increasingly desperate "President" Dubya Monkeyface went on his "Please Support my Disastrous War" tour, much to the chagrin of thinking folks everywhere.  Thinking (as, indeed, I too might've) that he could avoid thinking people by going to Salt Lake City, Utah, the President instead ran slap into a bunch of angry anti-war veterans and some of the 57% of Americans who think he's fucking this thing up.  Some of them live in Utah.  Holy shit.  Uh, the President chose this tour over talking to Cindy Sheehan, who would have gotten a lot less press if he had just listened to what the fuck she had to say two weeks ago instead of being the arrogant, rigid cocksmoke that he is.  He went to a fucking Little League game, folks - but there's just no time for Cindy.  At the depths of a new low, President Monkeyface called out from the bottom of the well of American discontent (yeah, you like that?), comparing this war with World Wars I and II.

What a schmuck.  He actually said this - "In a single lifetime, many of you have seen liberty spread from Germany and Japan to Eastern Europe to Latin America to Southeast Asia and Africa and beyond..."  I'm sorry, but - WHAT?!?  This whole Bush family inability to master our milk tongue thing has got to fucking go. Syntax, motherfucker!  Apparently, the origin point of liberty is the Fatherland.  Yeah, okay.  Are they in this war?  The Germans?  'Cause you would expect these paragons of liberty to be involved in "spreading freedom."  Finally, this description of liberty as a virus says to me that some speechwriter somewhere needs to be taken out and asphyxiated with a Bartlett's.  The big kind, that need their own pedestal.

I would imagine that some people - perhaps those who remember those wars, commonly referred to as the "great wars," (welcome to America) will take exception to his comparison, if they understand it.  Probably because of the broad support for those other wars, and because of the clearly-defined enemy most people believed there was.  I mean, we did have people in prison camps who didn't deserve it, and invasions - are those things the basis for this comparison?  I think it's funnier that Dubya is still trying to tie 9/11 to Saddam's ass.  Apparently invoking the date every six minutes - there's more straw-clutching going on here than a scarecrow with jock itch.

A fucked war, Rove the felon traitor, trading Sandy Day for Opus Dei, and John fucking bulldog Bolton - apparently you gotta get a blowjob from an intern for people to really hate you.  Otherwise, the President would be begging for change at an off-ramp.  And I wouldn't give it to him.  'Cause it's probably for drugs.

The Wilhelm Scream

Wilhelm.wav

Sometimes, it takes you a little while to pick up on something.  I am a movie geek.  I like movies, know actors and directors, and see connections and meaning in movies when some others do not.  I have a big collection of movies.  I am somewhat given to referring to them as "films," even as that becomes less and less applicable, and I will watch a movie I like over and over, quoting the dialogue in real-life situations if it seems to fit.  If any of this describes you, then you are also a movie geek.  There's bigger movie geeks than me, and some of them knew about this before I did.

This would never have happened had I not been discussing Sin City with Brian on Friday.  It also would not have happened if Max had not watched Toy Story over the weekend.  And probably not if I hadn't been watching Planet of the Apes just now whilst grilling some hamburgers.  It's something I had noticed before - it's in one or more of the Raiders movies - but if I thought about it at all, it was me thinking that they were similar.  It was not until thinking about these movies in tandem that it hit me - whatever lazy synapse that needed to get off the brain couch finally moved its ass - and so I went onto Google and typed in "action movie scream."

I got this, from Wikipedia.  "The Wilhelm Scream."  Who knew?  Ben Burtt, one of my favorite geeks, named it, as you'll learn from the article, and it's a stock sound.  (Listen to some of what Ben has to say on the Star Wars DVD commentaries some time - major cool geek status.)  Go here and read the complete story on the scream.  I have that feeling where you stumble upon something, organically, that a bunch of other people already know about, and you get it all at once.  Like falling through the skylight of a Masonic lodge, maybe.  Yeah.  Anyway, I thought I'd share it with all of you, so you can come to my geek party.

Now I gotta go watch all these movies again.

Mad Libs, Bitch!

Today I was (NAME OF HUMDRUM EVENT IN LIFE) and it struck me finally that (EXPLETIVE) (NAME OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL, COUNTRY, or RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION) is completely (EXPLETIVE) (COMPLEX OFFENSIVE INSULT).  I mean, due to the total lack of (BASIC HUMAN QUALITY) extant in (NAME OF ORGANIZATION, GROUP, or SPECIES) in (PLACE NAME, MOST OFTEN ONE OF AUTHOR'S RESIDENCE), we have a (EXPLETIVE) situation unlike anything since (POSSIBLY OBSCURE HISTORICAL EVENT, POSSIBLY ACCOMPANIED BY EXPLETIVE).  For instance, the last time (NOUN) happened, we (REFERENCE TO SOMETHING IN DISTANT PAST, MOVIE, OR COMIC BOOK, POSSIBLY AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION, + EXPLETIVES, THREATS OF VIOLENCE), and that's really saying something.  The only thing keeping me from (ACTION VERB) myself is (???) and that's only going to (VERB) for just a little (EXPLETIVE) longer.  The whole pack of them are complete (BIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE SLUR, EXPLETIVE, OR BLASPHEMY - POSSIBLY ALL THREE), and frankly I don't see the rationale behind (DOGMATIC POINT OF VIEW OR REFUTATION THEREOF).  (BLASPHEMY), (SUMMATION STATEMENT ABOUT HUMAN CONFLICT, INHERENTLY AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CONTRADICTORY POINTS OF VIEW, LENGTHY HISTORY OF SUBJECT TANGENTIALLY RELATED, OR VITRIOLIC POLEMIC.  LADIES' CHOICE.)

I wanna know what you think -  (FAKE RADIO STATION CALL-IN NUMBERS, REFERENCE TO AUTHOR'S HOMETOWN).

(This entry has no connection to actual Mad Libs, which shortened many of the road trips of my childhood.)

Reality TV X

Heh.

OUT AND ABOUT

You take a secret camera (maybe in a codpiece) into a few random places, the parking lot of a nightclub, the men's room near a park, shower stalls, and capture possibly homosexual men, just becoming aware of their sexuality, as they make novice passes at one another on their road to self-discovery. Capture every miscue, every flub, all the inexpert cocksmanship as these young men discover they're gay the hard way. Take our fascination with vicarious living and voyerism to the next extreme as we watch underage and newly-out gay guys fuck one another in tight, cramped places, (ha!) and discover new things about the gay lifestyle. It's time Americans everywhere knew what a glory hole is, people!

RANDOM ASSAULTS

Pretty self-explanatory, the show will go on for as long as the guy on it can get away with what he does. Once a week, some brutal fuck for hire (I do not currently have a day job) will stalk and assault a person on the street, preferably with a rubber mallet. The first half of the show is our criminal tailing the person home, checking out their place of work, whatever it takes to get familiar enough with his intended victim's routine. Then, just after a commercial for cheeseburgers or something, this guy comes tearing out of nowhere, whacks some grandmother, some priest, some window washer (during sweeps week it should be a blind guy or someone in a wheelchair), and goes running off like a bat out of hell, with a mini-cam strapped to his hat. He then has to get away from cops and across state lines as fast as possible, and do the whole thing again next week. You could work in some regional material and local interest, what with all the travel. Like Antiques Roadshow does.

THE CELL

No, not that shitty J. Lo film. A group of ordinary people, like a model, a graphic artist, a teacher, a garbageman and a clerk, say, must operate exactly like an Al-Quaeda cell in the United States. Starting out with minor funding and fake visas, they must enter the country, penetrate society, and figure the whole thing out. Their mission? To release a balloon full of "anthrax" over the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. For a year, we will follow the exploits of our little cellies, and watch as they conceal their true intents from the people they love, sell drugs to fund their terrorist activities, take flying lessons, etc. Entertaining and educational, this has multiple dimensions, and creates suspense through fear. I recommend making the audience at home guess what city the terrorists are in from clues (They could be next door! Does that look like St. Louis to you?) and maybe vote on an objective, now that I think of it. The "Survivor-style" fun begins when members of the cell are forced to vote on who will blow themselves up for Allah, and must decide who is too important to lose to martyrdom or cops.

RELIGIOUS CULT

Like Punk’d, but with cults instead of Asshole Kutcher. The show begins in Nowheresville, Middle America, where the downtrodden and/or disenfranchised can be easily found. Our cult leader, Sheng, with hidden cameras mounted all over his body, will have six one-hour episodes to convince, draft, and otherwise assemble a cult, using only the powers of persuasion at his disposal, and maybe drugs. Over the course of the season, we will see the exploitation of these "acolytes," with weird sex, the strange food, the fucked-up haircuts, and chanting, chanting chanting! How far will these contestants go for the cult? Will they lie, cheat, steal, take it up various orifices? What will be the story? Finally, in the double-long season ender, the "Candid Camera"-like reveal will show the location of the hidden cameras, and the participants will get to kill and maybe eat the cult leader - upping the ante for next season. All remaining show participants will then be reprogrammed.

REPROGRAMMING: THE SERIES

Uh...moving on…

UN WEAPONS INSPECTOR

“Nope. These are the seals, just as you left them. No, we have not been enriching uranium in any way. WM whats?” International hijinx ensue (but without Bette Midler as the Ringmaster) as the UN Weapons Inspectors fly to country after country to evaluate the nuclear capability and chemical / biological threat contained in an ever-growing list of rogue nations. They arrive, are cautiously welcomed, check into hotels, and we see their build-up to going out to the sites. The emotional preparations. Think “COPS” with blue helmets, hosted every week by former “it” guy Hans Blix, a name made for media. “Is this your anthrax? No man, that ain’t even mine. We make baby formula!” Season ending punchline comes when the inspectors are sent to the United States to check out allegations of extreme military spending and build-up, not to mention weapons of mass destruction armed and pointed at other nations.

EXPERIMENTAL DRUG PROTOCOL

Somewhere, there’s a group of people, desperate, broke, bored, looking to get high, looking to make a quick buck people, who will sign up for this. Erectile dysfunction drugs get tested on someone. Everything’s got to have a test group, and since those Tuskeegee guys screwed up uninformed testing for everybody, now you need volunteers. AZT inhibitors, cancer remedies, anti-anxiety drugs – everything can be entertaining under the right circumstances. The placebo group will just have to tough it out while two-thirds of our volunteers grow unexpected hair, develop new sex organs, and have massive bicameral breakdowns within the brain. The side effects are what will make this show worth watching, as each week, a panel tests some new and different unreleased drug. Get the FDA to slap their approval on this, and it’s television!

BAREKNUCKLE

This can be celebrities occasionally, but prisoners would be better. "Celebrity Boxing" was a pale shade of what this could be. We bring back Marquis of Queensbury style boxing, and we take the sport back to the early 19th century. Until you've watched two guys on Death Row hammer the shit out of one another for 35 rounds for a chance at parole, you haven't really lived, have you? We could also take people on opposite sides of an issue and put them in a ring together...who would win this one: a born-again Christian pro-lifer who stands outside and yells at pregnant women all day and has Christ in her corner, or the unwed woman, high on rage, who had to walk past the bitch to get her last abortion? Basically, I don't see any reason why America can't just work out all of our problems as we should, with fistic brutality on television. Get Mills Lane in there, and I think it's a hit.

JUSTIFY YOUR CAREER

Instead of letting the studio audience and the people at home (who, let's face it, are average TV viewers, and thus, unqualified to judge entertainment) vote for an unestablished no-name who's already taken a beating from idiot critics like Simon Cowell (who just ripped off that Weakest Link chick's routine anyway) why not put someone who's established up there and let us have a shot at voting whether or not they get to keep the career they have. Celine Dion, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, Britney, the Killers - shit, I think of a host of people ripe for this treatment. Let them sing their way past the vindictive fop, up to the stage, and then let us eliminate them one by one with honest responses from the American people. No gimmicks, no lights, no back up bands, no production - no agents or soda contracts - just you and and the microphone, baby. And people in the audience shouting “Freebird!” and “You SUCK!!!” Think you can hang on to your record deal? Good luck.

Man, I hate television.

I Live In Hell.

Now the fuckers have asked Joe Scarborough to jump into our senatorial race, when he would be much more use sucking my nuts.

Okay - heck.  I live in heck.  I acknowledge that I could live in places like Fallujah, Darfur, or even Washington, D.C., but you have to admit, this is pretty bad.  I really can't imagine anything uglier than this.  Sumos with pre-cancerous oozing tumors wearing body paint and cottage cheese wrestling - that might come close.  But come on, sports fans, there's no way this can be pretty.  Katherine Harris cannot seem to get any kind of percentage against Democrat Bill Nelson, who's liked and respected in this reddest of red states, and so some idiot's bright fucking idea is to make this whole place into "Scarborough Country."  Which is like "Scorched Earth" only slightly different, and with fewer tanks.  I can only imagine the mudslinging that will ensue if he should decide to get into this race.  Between the comments he's made on his show, his suspected corruption, his time as a Congressman, her involvement in not one but two disasterous Florida elections - not to mention the love and respect they both seem to command from their fellows - well, the best we can hope for is a Feingold-like win for Nelson where he strides, untouched, through the King Hell Shitstorm and gets re-elected.  Or they kill each other.  I'd watch that on TV.  Vote for it, too.

This amuses me; imagine, for a moment, that you are a Florida Republican.  (There'll be time to wash up later.)  You're settling down to dinner after a good solid prayer with your family, Fox News is on mute in the living room.  The phone rings.  Exasperated, you answer, and it's a political fundraiser call.  You have to decide whether you're going to give your money to Joe Scarborough or Katherine Harris.  Shit, I think brain aneurysms would become commonplace as, faced with this ludicrous choice, the body revolts, and Republicans collapse in a fine mist as blood shoots out of their eyes.

So there is a potential upside.

(The phrase "King Hell Shitstorm" is the property of Matt Olson, copyright 2005.  Used here by permission of the author.)