squidbag

Grand Old Assholes

Not a good week to be a Republican, it seems.

First, there's bitch-boy Michael "Rightupaya" Brown getting up there in front of the House Panel on Investigating Who Dropped the Fucking Ball and blaming everyone from Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco for all the dead and screwed people, and not taking any of the blame himself.  What a dick.  Listen, Mike - and I think there's a statistician or two out there who'll back me up on this, but some of it gotta be your fault.  Here's the thing; you was in charge of the Federal EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT Agency, and the emergency got clusterfucked into the soup, so chances are, you didn't do your job.  You admitted that you were overwhelmed, you admitted that you fell short, you admitted that you has too little resources...maybe you're unclear on what "fault" means.  Regardless, Mike's attitude sucked, you can tell he's not looking forward to being the scapegoat on this for the rest of his life, and he resorted to partisanism and invoking the faith-based to try and wriggle out of it.  Trouble is, we saw you fuck up on television.

Next up, we had John G. Roberts getting confirmed, which was good for the GOP, but it seems like there's some serious blood in the water regarding this next nominee.  That's all anyone was focused on there for two days.  Sort of a sense that people smell a President with a low-approval rating right now, and the whole Roberts thing kind of got eclipsed by the rumblings about "who the President better nominate" to replace the outgoing swinger, Sandy Day.

The Wonder Twins, Tom Delay and Billy Frist, going under the bright glare of the investigative lights might have something to do with that low-ass approval rating.  First, Sen. Frist's possible insider trading of his HCA stock which was in a "blind-but-apparently-not-deaf" trust got mysteriously sold when it was most advantageous for him, but he says it was to "avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest."  I think we can safely say it failed spectacularly in that regard.  Senator Frist is from Tennessee, folks - my home state.  HCA has been large and in charge down there for as long as I can remember.  There's no doubt in mind he was looking to tally Benjamins when he unloaded that shit.  I bet Martha's cell is really nice, Bill.  Then there's Tom.  Tom got indicted, and his guy he picked to do his job as Majority Leader got the shaft, too.  'Cause of those goddamn zealot Democrat prosecutors.  We all know Tom's dirty - NEXT!

For your entertainment, now we have Bill Bennett, who said this week, "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."  Only in this fucking country, in this day and age, with all that has preceded this moment, would people like us have the balls to discuss "context" when it comes to something like this.  Nevertheless, former drug addict Rush Limbaugh (and others right wingnuts, I'm sure) are taking that position, that he was quoted out of context.  Go read the damned context then, and see if you can swallow that more easily.  Racist fucking bigmouth.

And finally, there's Judith Miller, fresh from an 85 day stay at the Greystone Inn, popping up to testify - now that her protected source has let her off the hook and out of jail - that one of her sources for the information in the Plame CIA felony leak case came from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney.  Him plus Karl Rove equals egg on the face of this President, who, as I seem to recall, told us that he'd fire anyone who did this, and claimed that, as far as he knew, it hadn't happened.  So - the question becomes, what did the President know and when did he know it?

Now - if only there was some decisive Democratic leadership that could jump in here and take the reins now that some of the shit's hitting the fan...

RIP Michael Vaughn?

DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DID NOT WATCH THE SEASON 5 PREMIERE OF ALIAS ON 9/29.

I think that's clear enough.  First off, I want to make it clear that I have no emotional need for Vaughn to be alive, and I do not believe that I am clutching at straws here, but I have a theory (and I I'm positive that I'm not alone on this) that Vaughn is still alive.  He wouldn't even be the first person who REALLY seemed dead (or shit, was dead) that came back to life.  Ms. Derevko, Sloane, Emily, Alison Doren, Ricky Gervais, Lazarey, Syd herself - doing that Lazarus thing does not make you King Shit in the world of Alias.  And yes, I know Vaughn was shot like, a bunch of times.  This is Alias, people.  If they're not DOA, they've got a shot.

Here's what we know; Jack said he would do whatever he could for both of them - which either means Syd and Vaughn or Syd and Jack's grandchild, you never know with Jack - and made the call giving "full authorization" to APO for...well, we don't really exactly know what for.  It could have been for extraction and transport had Vaughn lived, but they don't usually gear up that much in Alias for shit that doesn't happen at all.  Marshall broke about "thirty federal laws"  Weiss digs up blueprints on a chalet, describes what they're doing as "white collar offenses" and Dixon arranges for transport.  Everyone who still cares about Vaughn is in motion, doing what they can, moving some kind of plan forward.  Then Vaughn's heart fails. 

Try this: Jack gives Vaughn some kind of drug that induces heart failure - but there's a risk, due to Vaughn's injured state.  Syd's last conversation with him is a tear-jerker either because of this risk or because of what he's going to be going through.  Docs come and in and do their heroic effort - and pull the blinds closed, so you (and everyone in the hospital) don't see the end result.  She kisses his "dead" hand, he is wheeled away down a crowded hallway.  His closed (!) casket funeral has stoic faces, and is the most elaborate one we've seen - shit, Emily had a simple graveside ceremony.  It's very showy.  All of this is done while Vaughn is whisked to the aforementioned chalet, then four months go by.  Mostly so we can see Sydney's now-prominent bun in the oven, but also because four months is plenty of time for any Alias character to recover from multiple gunshot wounds.  He'll be out long enough to build suspense, and back during whenever sweeps week is.  This also means that Ms. Garner and Mr. Vartan don't have to see each other for as many episodes - and rumor has it they're not getting along so well.

Or you know, he could come back as a zombie.

Well?

Giant Squid EXPOSED!!!

So, if I ever want to perform on-stage as Squidbag and the Calamaries, I know who to call.  No less than five people sent me this - thank you, ladies - but the gold medal goes to RobotArmMonkeyBrain for getting it to me first.  Congratulations, RAMB!  (The DLF is gonna rock ya!)  I knew as soon as I got up on Wednesday morning and saw this story that I would have to do something with/about it - and quite frankly, it's exciting, so I'm glad.  I've been kind of fascinated with squids ever since Jules Verne scared the shit out of me with one, (simultaneously introducing me to one my favorite literary characters, Captain Nemo) and in high school, a girl I knew (hi, Laura) compared me to one by virtue of slipperiness and ink.  That doesn't really explain it, but I do have the word "squid" engraved on the underside of my class ring, and if you'd like a more complete explanation, make one up.

Anyway, the giant squid in question attacked the camera that these Japanese guys were using to film it, and lost a piece of tentacle, so you know the crew's eating well, anyhow because the tentacle is six yards long.  Actually, they ate well at the end of 2004, when this film was taken.  I'm glad they got the film, even though they fucked the squid up, because it's less depressing than when they wash up dead on shore, and maybe this will lead them to leave the fucking giant squids alone.  Respect the giant squids, people - they are only the advance guard for Leviathan.  Man, I seriously hope there's Leviathan.  Leviathanbag has a suck ring to it, though.

The Fourth

Today is my son Max's birthday.  He's four.  His party was this Sunday past, and he got many gifts.  Lots of people were there, including his friends Christopher and Ben from school, and Ben's sister Kate, and some of his cousins, Wade, Brittan, Lauren, Ashlyn and Will.  Lots of adults were also in attendance.  Max's birthday this year, falling as it does on a Wednesday, has been kind of like Woodstock, with gifts showing up well in advance of the event, then scheduling, people arriving from out of town (Uncle Brian and Aunt Kate drove sixteen hours total for a five hour party, three hours of hanging out, one religious argument, and the Spongebob movie.  They rule.)  Here are some things I think you should know about Max on his birthday.

For the longest time - like, over a year - Max would insist that his hair was green.  He's over that now.

Max can turn himself into a hippo, a snail, an owl, a beaver, a snake or a giraffe, using only his imagination, and a sound effect.  He can also burst into flame, play air guitar, stretch to the ceiling, and fire electricity from his fingers.  At last count, he has "66 superpowers."

Max likes to help in the kitchen.  He has helped me cook bacon, make quiche, pancakes and scrambled eggs.  We have baked a cake.  His mom helped him make candy and marshmallows not long ago.  Max's favorite foods include pizza and chocolate milk (duh) but the diet version of this is his favorite soda.

Speaking of marshmallows, as far as Max is concerned, those are "washmallows," the things above his eyes on his face are called "eyebrowns," and the kitchen tool that Eric insists is called a turner is actually called a "spatulope."  These presumably play with deer on the open range near prairie homes before being rounded up and pressed into kitchen service.

Max is fond of rushing into a room and announcing that "there's trouble downtown!  We've got to go far away, to Australia, and Texas."  My wife says that the Australia stuff comes from this book - thus far we don't know about the Texas thing.

Max still likes techno, including his uncle Eric, Overseer and the Supreme Beings of Leisure.  He also likes Bob Dylan, most hard rock, banging on a piano, dragging his guitar around the house and plucking at it in odd locations, his uncle Brian's music, the music on Dora (the only show he talks and sings with), any kind of bass drums, and most anything played fast and loud.  No, really.  He can also identify the music from the Star Wars movies in about nine notes.

Max learned to swim, without floaties or anything, over the summer.  Pretty good for a kid that was terrified of the water five months ago.  (He had once had an incident.)  He likes to dive in, doing bellyflops or cannonballs (which look a lot like bellyflops) and cheats like a madman at Marco Polo, often going after his mom more than anyone else.  There are now pictures to the side of him swimming - taken with a shitty disposable waterproof camera.

When someone talks into a radio on television or in the movies and says, "Roger," Max thinks that Roger is the guy on the other end of the radio.  I know this, because while prentending to evacuate a submarine in his room, he said (into a toy flip-open cellphone he was pretending was a radio) "Get everyone off the submarine, 1-2-3!  Roger, and you get off, too!  Roger!"

Max has learned the name of this Marvel Comics character, but still just as often refers to him as "Rockman."  I think this must be a function of being a toddler, learning the proper name of something without attaching any real or primary importance to it.  Rockman is still one of Max's favorite fictional characters, along with Green Lantern, Spongebob Squarepants, Plupok the Snail, and a few others.

Now is the part where you join me in wishing Max a happy birthday.

Shinges!

"Man, if only my legs hadn't been on the rails when I fell asleep on the railroad tracks last night - I wouldn't have had them both sheared off by that passing freight train in the pre-dawn hours!  OW; my fucking legs!"

Has this ever happened to you?  Would more portable legs - legs that just fit better into the contours of our society - make your life easier?  Well, maybe it's time you tried Shinges!  That's right, Shinges.  Before you know it, Shinges will have you saying, "Goddamn, that's handy."  Shinges - a special surgical technique for inserting a locking hinge into the middle of the shin, creating an extra, forward-bending knee - is a procedure developed by Dr. Erskine Badger of the University of Western Toledo.  Using his revolutionary new technique, now available for four easy payments of $39.91, you can fold your legs up and fit them almost anywhere!  Mob boss got you crammed in a trunk - Shinges just could be your answer!  Riding in Coach Class, or in the back of those too-tight-for-TV police squad cars?  Once again, Shinges.  Someone short-sheeted your bed?  I'm telling you, Shinges.  Get Shinges today - they come with an endorsement from Qualii Sovarpitar, the famous contortionist;

"With Shinges, you can do what I had to train my body for years to do - today?  Is that right?"

Get Shinges today!

Kids & The Corps

More than once, I've been asked to substantiate my claim that comic books have important lessons in them for kids.  Mostly, the people who ask me shit like this are ignorant of comics - and a bunch of other stuff - so I go over it and hash it all out.  Superman and Martian Manhunter are aliens, Thor's a god, Wonder Woman's an Amazon; that means anyone can fit in and help people if they try hard enough.  Green Arrow's looking out for the little guy.  Spider-Man?  Everybody now: "With great power comes great responsibility."  Daredevil's about working within systems, in his case the law and the Catholic Church, and what happens when those systems break down.  The Punisher is an object lesson in the rejection of systems.  The X-Men represent the best stories about racism being told in comics, and Batman's about determination. The Fantastic Four is about family, (and a somewhat non-traditional one at that) the Hulk's about what happens if you don't keep it together - and so on.  The amount of thought I've been forced by these conversations to put into this has led me to the conclusion that there is one shining example in comics of lots of things kids need to know - the Green Lantern Corps.

There are 3600 sectors of the DC Multiverse, and Earth is located in 2814.  As a sector, we can have more than one active Green Lantern at once, but we will always have at least one.  We've had at least six that I can think of, five of whom are currently active.  The Green Lantern Corps functions as a sort of intergalactic police force and peace corps (if you can imagine the two co-existing) with it's representatives chosen based on will, imagination, and where they come from.  Sort of the best of the best of your sector.  The system works for the same reason it worked when cops used to come from the neighborhoods whose beats they walked.  Green Lanterns are all races, sexes, histories and backgrounds, (Yup, that's a sentient planet in the picture - Mogo.  The joke is, Mogo doesn't socialize.) all wielding the most powerful tools in the universe, limited only by their will and imagination.  Diversity, acceptance, striving for what's right, good, and appropriate to the situation, mind over matter, determination - what more could you ask for in a comic hero for children?  Well, I'll tell you.  (You knew I would.)

As I mentioned, Earth has a bunch of GLs.  So do a lot of other places.  Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, (yes, yes - I know) Alan Scott, Jade Scott, Guy Gardner, Katma Tui - all of them are GLs.  When a kid pretends to be Superman, you have to be Superman.  Same with just about anybody else I can think of - your identity is subsumed by the role.  But you can be you and still be a Green Lantern.  You can still be Chuck from Idaho, the Green Lantern.  It's kind of like a religion, when they function like they're supposed to.  Here's a system of beliefs, (and a ring) you apply them and make the changes necessary for a good fit, and do your thing for community.  There's even a ritual, for those inclined toward such things.

Teach your kids about the Green Lantern Corps.  In a world where most of what our kids observe is not what you would like them to copy, Green Lanterns have a lot of good things to teach.

Niggers and Crackers

I work with someone who is ignorant.  No, really.  The work of comedian Killer Beaz, out of Mobile, Alabama, is over her head.  Earlier this week, she asked me where I had gone for lunch.  When I replied, "The Chinese place across the way," she made the gag-yourself-with-index-finger motion made popular by Karen Carpenter and one of the Olsen Twins, adding, "I hate Chinese."  What, all of it?  "Yeah."  About atheism, her thoughts are summed up by the phrase, "I just don't know how you can't believe in God."  Finally, when I offered to give her the book I had just completed (which I had just described, while she listened attentively) she responded with, "Oh, no thanks, I don't read books."  You know, like some people don't smoke.  Or go to church.  Or anally insert live hand grenades.  She just doesn't read books.  Because she's fucking ignorant.

Need more proof?  Okay.  Almost every day so far of my employment, she has managed a racial slur against black people.  Whether it's using the word "nigger-rigged" on my first day, or telling me that Nina Simone is "nigger music," she manages to work it in.  (She doesn't like Johnny Cash, either, for the record.  Nor INS, Brother Robbins, Vini and the Demons, Black Flag, Danzig, Chemical Brothers, A3, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Rob Zombie, STP, Lightning Hopkins, Miles Davis, Harry Connick, Jr., Blackalicious, De La Soul, Wally Pleasant, Ani DiFranco, or Primus.)  The best one so far, though has been against my use of the word "motherfucker."

We have casual swearing where I work.  It's not guaranteed under OSHA or state law or anything, but everyone seems to do it.  We work with machines that often don't do exactly what you'd like.  So far I've heard numerous shits and damns, and one notable, "fuck, fuck, FUCK."  When things fail and I'm working with them, I've been favoring "son of a bitch," or, "motherfucker."  When I said this one day whilst shutting off the press I was working, I heard from behind me, "I thought 'motherfucker' was a nigger cuss word."  I admit, my reaction to this was not up to par, and I tried to have a conversation with her, instead of caving in her head with my Chuck U. Farley autographed edition Louisville Slugger and calling it a day.  Eventually, after exhausting things like "you and I are not alike," I begged off with a joke, and have since been trying to ascertain how deep this ignorance goes.

It goes pretty fucking far.  Open racism is not rare in Pensacola, Florida, but it takes someone really stupid dumb ignorant moronic foolish to assume every other white person is just like you are.  The total proof of her complete ignorance came yesterday when she was complaining about not being able to pronounce "nigger names that they just make up" like the one our building's cleaning lady has.

The cleaning lady's name is Colette.  Must be those French niggers making up all the names.

Unprovoked Hostility

I think it's time you all knew the truth about me.  I am not the kind, compassionate, patient soul I play on TV.  I am part antichrist.  I am really the sort of person who makes *67 calls from pay phones threatening religious organizations he finds in the phone book.  They don't even have to do anything to me first.  "Hi, this is Jesus.  Look - friendly warning?  All this praying and shit you're doing?  Waste of fucking time - cut that shit out or I'm coming down there and piss in the rectory!  Dad's pissed at you - you know it, buddy.  Put some Christians on the phone right now, I'm gonna chew them out.  Fuck you people.  I'm sick and fucking tired of you crazy, mouthy fucks running over everyone with your faith-based opinions, so here's something you can have faith in - I'm gonna kick your saved ass if I see you.  I'm gonna have a second coming right in your ass!"  This is when they usually hang up.  If you think this is intolerant and savage - you do not live in Pensacola, where these self-righteous fucks dominate the media every damn day.  Mostly, I think this might be motivated by the conundrum I confront daily on the news - how is it that Christians can pray to God and trust in His plan to help them survive and get through the killer storms He sent?  Fuckers.

I am so beating all of you to Hell.

Fortune Cookie Wisdom

I think there's some vengeful, nasty, twisted bastard writing fortune cookies for distribution in the Pensacola area.  I have recently gotten two or three of the weirdest fortunes ever, even though I can no longer eat the cookies.  Several days ago, I got this one: "You are motivated by fear."  First off, no one is solely motivated by fear.  Second, if I wasn't, I am now.  Fear of this fucking Chinese restaurant.  That's not even a fortune, it's an assertion.  I didn't want a "groundless assertion cookie" at the end of my meal, thank you very fucking much.  More recently, I got "The mirror looks backward at you," which sounds a little like one of the guys has been reading too much Nietzsche to me, or is just sick of his job.  Finally, my favorite recent one - received yesterday, with Hurricane Rita making her beeline for the Gulf Coast, and hurricanes never a too distant memory - "The coming month shall bring winds of change in your life."  Now, as the fortune cookie fortune form goes, this one's good.  Vague, but promissory.  It's just that it's loaded with meaning right now.  ("Aw, even the Chinese are against me.  What's the use?  I can't fight fate.")

None of these are as good as my buddy Jones getting "You are pretty" last Thursday.

Master of Magnetism

This is why you love Magneto.  Why you love villains in general, but right now - Magneto.  For those of you who missed it,  in Ultimate X-Men #6, after the United States government launches an invasive preemptive strike on Magneto's base of operations in a sovereign nation (which, of course, could never happen in real life) Magneto turns the tables on Washington, and attacks the nation's capital with hundreds of killer robots.  In this panel, while the White House burns on live television, Magneto addresses the nation over the quivering, cowering, naked form of George Dubya Bush, referring to him as a "shifty little daddy's boy."  Clutching a burning American flag in hand, he threatens the human race with extinction for their arrogant, divisive, segregationist and aggressive attitude, then nearly flattens the President with a limo (whose "Dubya" license plate is clearly visible) before the intervention of those damned X-Men.  And he would have gotten away with it, too - if not for those darned kids and their dog!  Ian McKellen is fantastic as Maggie on-screen, but they would never, ever let him do this - and that, dear friends, is why comics will always be better than movies.

(Click here to see the last time I showed you Dubya in the funnypages.)