Superficial and Surreal. Surprised?

Did anybody catch the new unemployment numbers? A point two percent decrease but that’s only because of seasonal employment.

*crickets*

Okay, how about Obama meeting with the AFL-CIO and the Black Caucus about job creation? Hmm, one’s a union and the other is just a political group made up of millionaires. They’re not really separate entities that are in the business of creating viable employment now, are they?

*tumbleweed rolling*

Do you know why a lot of people missed it? Because they were still feeding at the trough that is the Tiger Woods story, guzzling the slop along with a garnish of the White House crashers, Michaele and Tareq Salahi. Who, by the way, gleefully posted on Facebook, “Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!” which is really just the same as oinking that “I was peed on by Brandy’s brother.”

We all remember Andy Warhol prognosticating that ‘everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.’ However, we, as a nation, have become so addicted to mediocrity that nowadays five minutes will be sufficient. We’ve allowed the TV camera to become as seductive as the Sirens encountered by Ulysses. No, scratch that. More like Circe, who turned people into swine. Like heroin, television is the shot of momentary escapism for those living the emptiest of lives.

Goddamn, where did we go off the rails? Was it Cops or The Real World? What does this say about us as humans? I mean, the desire for notoriety and/or distinction is as old as time as is the desire for schadenfreude. The only change is the accessibility of it all. Too many channels that need/want to be filled, cheaply. Too many channels so there isn’t any sort of priority (or notion) of quality, thus making it ridiculously easy for anyone to be on television. Too many channels that masquerade as ‘reality’ but present nothing more than poorly-acted, scripted windows into the souls of characters who are unqualified to even have an opinion. All these programs and we humiliate ourselves on each one of them. It may not be a good analogy, but there were only 12 people around at the Last Supper, maybe a handful at the assassination of Julius Caesar, and only 2 men on the moon in 1969. History has shown that there doesn’t have to be everyone and his entourage involved in something of significance. Yet, if you check out satellite programming, you’ll find a seemingly endless supply of television channels (enablers) claiming to offer something of significance, but they camouflage it under terms such as ‘special’ or ‘once in a lifetime’ or ‘truly unique.’ It’s because the people involved – from Jonathan Antin to Khloe Kardashian to Puck to Kendra Wilkinson – genuinely believe their own self-importance, and since they happened to be on television, we’ve allowed ourselves to believe it also.

In societies that are on a downward spiral, life and politics (not just in Washington, but in the television network boardroom) become the arenas where the political and media elite – both of whom have long since sold out in order to serve their corporate handlers – rule through image and presentation. Bread and circuses, smoke and mirrors, sand and fog. It’s in this arena where the mediocre are brainwashed and elevated to the superhuman, and we nod like amiable dunces and ask for more Kool-Aid. Did you know that TLC once stood for The Learning Channel? You wouldn’t know that by how they pimped out the Gosselins (who are both probably mega-pissed that they no longer occupy the cover of the tabloids) and their 8 future social liabilities. One could catch performing arts on Bravo, but since NBC bought it, the programming pretty much caters to the Real Housetrash of Orange County, of DC, of Atlanta, et al, ad nauseum. A&E originally featured –shock! – arts and entertainment via concerts, stage productions, and informative documentaries, but now panders to the lowest denominator with trash such as Dog the Bounty Hunter and the god-awful Criss Angel Minddouche. I really don’t have to mention MTV, do I? What a commentary yet we continue to allow it our time, thus encouraging the ridiculous preening and sense of self-entitlement filtered through abnormal behavior. I shudder to think that Steve O is probably small potatoes to whatever gonzo reality show that’s set to come down the pike which requires a desperate jackass to pants Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

We precariously teeter on the abyss of moral nihilism; the kind of age that Bones McCoy would lambast when faced with situations that flew in the face of human evolution and intellectual capacity. We have trashed our educational systems, converting them into processing plants that spit out clones and drones taught to not ask questions and to pursue a career as a human directional for the nearest gated community or check cashing outlet. The arts and humanities, which use to be a respected discipline of both logic and compassion which required thinking people to take a step back and examine ourselves with big questions about the meaning of life and of life with a purpose has taken a backseat to our interest if a syphilitic gnome can find love with tattooed ass hats found slithering on Sunset Boulevard. Literature, long maligned by rote, manufactured opinion, low standards, and an increasingly illiterate public, continues to celebrate the bland while truly original artists get threatened with something far worse than violence or censorship – apathy (unless you’re Stephanie Meyer). Our news media, which should be pursuing answers to questions, has hopelessly confused PR spin and intellectual fluff with actual news, thus refusing to keep the public in the know or give a voice to critics as to the state of the nation or the corporate machinations behind it. (It’s very interesting to note how the government considers corporate-owned media as being ‘free press’ while blogs and alternate news sources get labeled as ‘mere opinion.’) And since we, the soma’d multitudes, can’t be bothered to question ourselves (probably because we don’t know how or due to our fear of knowing the answers), or question what we pay exorbitant amounts of attention to, or question the ramifications of our (in)actions, it’s all the more easier to gloat about Tiger Wood’s marital problems or ruminate on Jessica Simpson’s empty uterus. We figure, ‘as long as it’s them and not us.’

The mania over this kind of useless entertainment, this useless knowledge of a scripted, manufactured lifestyle that will never be in the ‘reality’ of most people, was designed by our consumer society. Why do you think television is referred to as programming? We’re the ones who baked the bricks and laid the cornerstone for this huge pyramid to honor the cult of the self. And we still do. Every time we click on E! or ET or whatever shiteous ‘reality’ show that poses as news or an insight into the human condition, we somehow manage to dismiss a little more compassion, a little more honesty. The cult of self-entitlement and self-importance that permeates these shows merely underscores that ethics and fairness and good ol’ fashioned minding-your-own-fucking-business are now largely irrelevant. Success is solely defined in terms of money and a decent Q factor; there is no bad publicity, only a bad publicist. Manipulation in any form is an asset. And our moral collapse(s), be it temporary or long-term, depends on our ability or inability to disengage ourselves from it.

70’s Superstar Series

Every week we will feature a new entry in our 70’s Superstars Series. Collect ‘em all! Just like Wacky Packages except with more polyester and cinematic iconoclasm…

This week’s 70’s Superstar is Hal Ashby.

Born William Hal Ashby in Ogden, Utah, Ashby experienced a tumultuous childhood that included the divorce of his parents, his father’s suicide and his dropping out of high school. Ashby was married and divorced by the time he was seventeen. Ashby moved to California where he became an assistant film director, winning the Academy Award for film editing. Ashby has often stated that film editing provided him with the best film school background outside of traditional study and he carried the techniques learned as an editor with him when he began directing.

Ashby directed his first film, The Landlord, in 1970. He soon embraced a counterculture lifestyle, became a vegetarian, and grew out his hair long before the ridiculous little ponytail on men look. Over the course of the decade, he directed several acclaimed and popular films, including Shampoo, The Last Detail, the still brilliant, off-beat romance Harold and Maude, and the social satire Being There, which resuscitated the career of Peter Sellers, who many had written off as a lost cause. He also directed the Woody Guthrie biography, Bound for Glory, which has a distinction of being the first film to use the Steadicam. However, his most commercially successful film was Coming Home, one of the first films to deal with returning Vietnam veterans; Jane Fonda and Jon Voight won Best Actress and Best Actor awards, and Ashby was given his only Best Director nomination.

After the filming of Being There, Ashby became notoriously reclusive and his behavior eccentric (he would pacify former girlfriends by hiring them as film editors or refused to eat food in the presence of others). As studio executives grew less tolerant of his perfectionism – he was scheduled to direct Tootsie – he found offers being refused and grew antagonistic towards production policies. Eventually, his later films were shelved or subjected to massive re-editing. In an attempt to revive his career, he discontinued his drug use, cut his hair, and began to frequent Hollywood parties as to suggest that he was once again ‘respectable. Unfortunately, his reputation preceded him and he never worked in film again.

Hal Ashby died in December of 1988 of pancreatic cancer. However, today he stands as an underappreciated auteur of the New Hollywood era. Earlier this year, a tribute was held to honor his work. The event, hosted by Cameron Crowe, featured appearances by Bud Cort, Jon Voight, Judd Apatow, and others, as well as a rare musical performance by Yusuf Islam, then known as Cat Stevens, who proclaimed, “The impact of my musical legacy was due in part to the fact that Hal Ashby embraced my albums and used them (as a soundtrack) for his amazing film Harold and Maude. People are as tied to that film as they are to my music and this event is an opportunity for me to honor the memory of the man.”

Rainbow Power(less)

Lost in the recent media hemming and hawing that was the gay crusade letting Obama know of his inactions, two groups in California – Equality California, which was the organization that the led the campaign against Proposition 8; and the Courage Campaign – want to try again, in 2010 and 2012. Hey, that’s great. Good luck to you, seriously. I have friends who are gay and I still fail to see the apprehension on not allowing gays to enjoy the fiscal incentives and emotional connectivity that marriage offers. I want to see them happy. Is that really that wrong?

Everyone knows Prop 8 failed not because of homophobia, but because it was a shoddily run campaign. There was a serious underestimation of the clout of the Yes crowd and of the conservative moral attitudes of minorities, all who came out and voted.

I would think that if you wanted to run a campaign that supported a civil rights issue you’d stick with images of the persons or group whose rights were being questioned. But the catch here is the thin line that divides people isn’t skin color or gender or physical abilities; it’s the sexuality. Much like the civil rights groups of the 1950’s or early 60’s had to distance themselves from the more fringe elements of the movement, such is what the gay movement has to do to themselves.

A few suggestions.

One: Retire the rainbow. Give it back to the Christians and let them run with it for a while. It’s meaningless now and its association with the GLBT crowd is somewhat anachronistic. The implication of unity is now shown to be a fallacy when thousands upon thousands show up to do a lot of shouting of ‘We’re everywhere!” yet cannot unify themselves to effectively put pressure on their congress people.

Two: The need to find new spokespeople and disassociate from the fringe elements. Just like out-of-touch politicians cannot grasp the day-to-day life of the average citizen, polarizing loudmouthed figures such as Rosie O’Donnell or Melissa Etheridge or Harvey Fierstein cannot either. So, it’s time to retire Ellen Degeneres and Perez Hilton and Elton John. You cannot have any sort of elite personality representing because they, like their heterosexual counterparts, have very little in common with the daily trials and tribulations of ‘the regular people.’ Also, you might want to consider dropping the images of fishnet t-shirts on roller skates sporting popper necklaces to represent the cause. I’d venture to say don’t even use a person who has an earring or who looks thin and withdrawn. And this may sound even more heretical, but put the sex back in the bedroom. Don’t base activism on when you’re going to get that next hookup. Base it on the productiveness that can be offered to a community, so should that productivity be threatened, the potential loss can serve as a more cohesive and persuasive rallying point. Such an action can be done without any reference to sodomy. La Cage Aux Folles may fire up your support, it also fires up the opposition.

Three: Take a cue from earlier activism. Imagine for a moment if the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s took a page from contemporary gay activism. Do you really think that would have flown? Do you think any sort of progress would have been made if Martin Luther King had marched arm-in-arm with rifle-toting Black Panthers threatening to rape white women? No, because if it had, Barack Obama would be driving Miss Daisy, Oprah Winfrey would be just another housemaid and Kanye West would be working in the kitchens. Thus, militant gay or lesbian groups threatening ‘glamdalism’ or violence is not going to win anyone over either. So why did it work back then? Because the black leadership at that time presented themselves as clean, well-dressed, well-behaved, and of a good conscience.

This worked.

A kabuki-masked man dressed as a nun sporting a 6-foot dildo threatening to come after children is not going to win over middle-America, let alone America in general.

This will not work.

Also, hit your opposition where it counts – the wallet. Take a cue from the Montgomery Bus boycotts done in the 1950’s. That only took a year and two weeks to get the point across. Instead of just withholding campaign donations, threaten to withhold a vote. That gets attention real quick.

Although there’s no denying that the gay community is politically active, maintaining the level of dedication is just as, if not more, elusive as it is for other groups. I’m willing to believe that during the worst years of the AIDS crisis that many people did and/or said nothing for fear of ‘guilt by association.’ When hate crimes occurred, how many really hit the street and how many stayed home and hid? When there were marches in the streets last year after Prop 8, how many used it as a chance to hookup? Since the only link between gays and lesbians is the sexual attraction to the same gender, the ability to mobilize on common issues is difficult because the commitment is only temporary.

So in the time between now and 2010 or 2012, what should these groups be doing? Obviously reassessing their strategy, get the attention of financial donors and do what they can to dispel the myth that gays are bitchy, hyper-emotive, and out for blowjobs every other hour of the day. But the question goes begging: will it be enough? Because another defeat in California will certainly set back the legalization of gay marriage – not just in that state, but everywhere – for years. No one will donate for a losing crusade and no one will stand up for something that even the supporters cannot cohesively organize.

Recent Reads

I’m Stimulated…

The Obama administration has their 1 year anniversary coming up soon. For the life of me, I can’t recall or point to one thing they’ve done that has helped the nation. Of course, the big Event of their more-than-likely-one-term-in-office has been the $787 billion stimulus bill that was passed in February. Promised as a job saver – albeit temporary (but they don’t tell you that) – and an economy booster, here is where some of the money went.

- $300,000 for a special GPS-equipped helicopter that would be used to search for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state. Whatever happened to those hand-held Geiger counters that they used in the old monster movies in the 50’s? What, those don’t work anymore?

- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. Two teams who suck. A waste of cash. I hear that Los Angeles is looking into building a new stadium, despite the fact that they don’t even have a football team.

- $11 million for Microsoft (they were suffering?!) to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Washington, which are separated by a highway. Bill Gates could not front the $$ for this? Not even for a goddamn traffic light and crosswalk?

- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women. Joe Francis or Vivid can provide this for nothing.

- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle and the nun moth. Aren’t most of these bugs going to end up on the windshield anyway?

- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that has not been used for three decades. So then after six decades of non-use, the dilapidation will only look thirty years old.

- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased. No comment necessary.

- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minnesota, which will probably collapse after the first hard winter storm.

- $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are being funded by stimulus money. Just a reminder that YOU’RE paying for your traffic delays.

- $1.5 million for a fence that would deter would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio. With the inevitable (but unspoken of) Depression coming our way, that better be a big ass fence.

- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago. If it’s public housing in Chicago, these people aren’t going to give a rats ass about the environment let alone friendly.

- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival. Phish fans rejoice. Now go away.

To paraphrase Jack Woltz

Can't afford to look ridiculous. But we are.

from The Godfather: Just to show that I’m not engaging in partisan favoritism, let’s also add on the trillions spent under an administration led by the retard from Texas and his partially robotic Vaderesque minion for two pointless wars that are still very much alive under this administration despite campaigning as the candidate who’d end the conflict(s) in 2009. This is making anyone who voted for ‘change’ look ridiculous. It’s making the country look ridiculous. And if the US is to be taken seriously on the international stage, then we can’t afford to look ridiculous. Now you get the hell out of here!

Can’t Blame This One On Your Usual Suspects, Maxine…

The House ethics committee said Thursday it’s investigating whether California Rep. Maxine Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock — and whether the couple benefited as a result. Waters is the No. 3 Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and chairwoman of its subcommittee on housing. She has been an influential voice in the committee’s work to overhaul financial regulations, but came under scrutiny after former Treasury Department officials said she helped arrange a meeting between regulators and executives at OneUnited Bank last year without mentioning her husband’s financial ties to the institution.

When you’re on the CREW list for corruption in Congress – this year, as well as 2005 and 2006 – then someone is going to come after you. When you try to shut down a major newspaper (the Los Angeles Times) and a station it owns (KTLA) because they published allegations of nepotism, then someone is going to come after you. When the city was being torn to shreds by the riots in 1992 and you call it a ‘rebellion,’ then the hammer is going to fall. When you get into a racially-tinged hissy fit on the House floor about a denied earmark requested for a public school employment center that you named after yourself, then karma is going to nail your ass.

This was just a matter of time, and it’s about time.

Death is Really Inexpensive Nowadays…

Wal-Mart is now in the mortuary business, selling caskets and urns at a fraction of the price. Does this surprise anyone? My only surprise is that I thought it would have been Costco or Sam’s Club. I mean, it seems like it would be perfect in some weird existential consumerist timeline. You buy the huge packages of diapers, then (de)evolve to the huge packages of processed foods, then the huge packages of extra-absorbent adult undergarments, then to the inevitable casket. They do like nice and comfy though, however, I’m going to go with the Krazy Kasket from the people at Mattel.
Questions: 1) Where do you store these things if you get it on a once-in-a-lifetime sale? and 2) what is the exchange policy?

70’s Superstar Series

Every week we will feature a new entry in our 70’s Superstars Series. Collect ‘em all! Just like Wacky Packages except with more polyester and mangled English…

This week’s 70’s Superstar is Charo.

Born in Murcia, Spain as Maria Rosario Pilar Martinez Molina Moquiere de les Esperades Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Najosa Rasten, Charo is known for her flamboyant yet comedic stage presence, her cleavage revealing outfits, and her trademark phrase of “cuchi-cuchi.” She studied classical and flamenco guitar under the tutelage of Andres Segovia, and was twice named Best Flamenco Guitarist by Guitar Player Magazine. Married at a young age (which she claims was merely a business contract) to bandleader Xavier Cugat, she moved to New York City where she performed with Cugat’s orchestra in New York and Las Vegas. She appeared on Laugh-In in the late 1960’s where her utter lack of fluency was played as a comic focus. By 1971, she was headlining shows in Vegas, reportedly making as much as Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. Throughout the 1970’s, she appeared on The Love Boat, Donny & Marie, The Mike Douglas Show (which she guest hosted at least once), and notoriously campy Brady Bunch variety show. However, by the late 1970’s overexposure had damaged her popularity, and she spent much of the 1980’s and 1990’s in Hawaii. Over the last decade, she returned to television with commercials for Sprint and Geico insurance, as well as appearing in VH1’s The Surreal Life. She still puts in appearances in Las Vegas and Branson, Missouri, as well as the annual Jerry Lewis MDA telethon, and was the Celebrity Grand Marshal of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade last year.

This Insane Kansas Life

Next month marks my one year anniversary in Wichita.  It’s no secret that I’ve noted its charms and its drawbacks.  Down-to-earth people?  Yes.  Genuine dive bars with genuine characters?  Yes.  Live music scene?  No.  With the new Intrust Arena downtown almost complete, maybe, just maybe, there’ll be a name band that will come through – someday – but  Wichita missed the U2 boat (or vice versa) and Springsteen is doing Kansas City but that’s it.  Hell, Britney Spears did KC earlier this year.  I guess I’m spoiled in some respect.  Having lived in California, having been in several bands,  and having done shows from San Diego to San Francisco sort of reveals a lot to someone as to the reality and vibrancy of a music scene.  You’d expect every metropolitan area to have something going on.

Which brings me to my point.  Insane Clown Posse is coming to Wichita next month, playing the Cotillion Ballroom, which is a mere 3 miles – smelling distance – from where I live.  Which means someone will buy tickets.

Now, any normal person would probably head to the Cotillion, climb onto the roof, and pour boiling pitch on anybody actually waiting to get in to see these cretins.  I don’t know what the tickets are going to cost but no amount of money thrown at me would get my ass inside that venue.

Some people like might prefer  Kinkade over Renoir.  Some people may get off on Matchbox 20 instead of Sonic Youth.  Others may choose Hook over Schindler’s List.  It’s all a question of taste and I think everyone can agree that there is certain criteria that has to be met – be it the beat, the look, the emotion(s) – that makes it into something we admire. 

If I were to give a violin to Lindsay Lohan or a drum set to Verne Troyer, no sane person would pay money to listen to that grand concerto of failure.  Likewise, if I were to feed a steady diet of Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, and Gwar with numerous shots of Patron to some person with irritable bowel syndrome and had that person squat over a canvas, I wouldn’t expect a lot of buyers lining up for that masterpiece either.

Insane Clown Posse is that very canvas. 

Evidently these troglodytes have been around for almost twenty years.  They’ve also involved themselves with the WWE and ECW so their resume is festered with white trash credentials.  I mean, how is it possible for this to survive?  Is the today’s talent pool of music so depleted that this tenacious strain of idiocy continues?  Something is very wrong.

Part of me is reluctant to admit that when there is no vital music scene other than schlocky white boy blues or rehashed, Guitar Center-approved heavy metal, then variety is squashed and since no one is being exposed to anything ‘new,’ the result is the acceptance of the musically stunted.  I’ve heard people in this town adhering to this notion that blues is a ‘state of mind’ which is utter bullshit – and a fist in the face to anyone who’s been on the receiving end of a lynch mob or attacked by police dogs or battered by fire hoses during the civil rights era.  ‘State of mind?’   Yeah, a skull fracture due to a truncheon shampoo delivered by cops is just a state of mind.  Wal-Mart not having a WWE t-shirt of Batista (or the ICP for that matter) does not equal the blues.

Although I would think that Insane Clown Posse would easily sell out a toilet stall at the Golden Corral Buffet, I will be very dismayed to see if they sold out The Cotillion.  But I won’t know, and I won’t care because I’ll be at the bar, watching a 60-something year-old man sing ‘Mr. Bojangles,’ and it would be light-years ahead of anything that Shaggy B Dope could muster.

Casual Observations

If you watch The Simpsons (or remember when it was truly great), you’ll recall Helen Lovejoy’s plea, “Won’t somebody think of the children?” I just had what must have been the 3rd voicemail reminder from the local middle school reminding parents to submit the order forms for the cookie sale the school just had. Which brings me to the Lovejoyean point: I am quite surprised that teachers or administrators fail to see the somewhat hypocritical nature of these fundraising ventures. Picture this: the student comes home with this catalog of ‘gourmet’ cookie dough and pizza mix that you are sort of strong-armed into buying. I use the term ’strong-armed’ because the classrooms will have this unnecessary scoreboard that tallies the sales of this crap per student. If your child’s name is near the bottom of this thermometer looking thing, then they expect a little guilt and shame to loosen the wallets. I guess it’s okay to teach students about the ‘eat or be eaten’ philosophy this early. I’m not a teacher after all. So yeah, right there you have this superfluous competition. Yet at the same time, the school districts and the local governments proudly announce that they’re cutting back the availability of junk food on campus while the big government informs us that we are still grossly overweight, yet they the schools turn around and force the kids to sell – that’s right, you’re learning – cookie dough and pizza mix. By the way, the stuff that these organizations are hawking is ridiculous. A tube of dough that makes up less than two dozen cookies* lists close to $10 and the pizza stuff cooks up the equivalent of a small Tony’s pepperoni that I can find in the freezer at Dillons for less than $2. So all this profiteering goes back to the schools (right?) and yet we have kids who spell ’skills’ with a freaking ‘z’ at the end. Is it just me?

*Purchased cookies are stale and hard. Fresh cookies are soft and chewy. Science has now perfected the fresh stale cookie.

Remember when we started the slouch towards Iraq and many questioned why the Bush daughters couldn’t enlist and put on a uniform (sans underwear cuz that’s how they roll)? I do. I’m sure they do too, but you know, after a few pitchers of Mai Tai’s… The underlying message at that time was that of a certain elitism. My well-to-do kids versus your so-so kids. Well, Barack Obama had his George Bush moment last week. Did you catch it? It was a little subliminal but the message was there. Some kids are more important than your kids. Late last week you had the White House declaring that swine flu was ‘an epidemic’ and a national emergency. You had Sibelius literally pounding the podium with her Manolo demanding that everyone should get innoculated immediately. Lost in all this was the fact that less than 1000 people have died from the flu. Even more lost was the fact that the actual immunizations kill more people than the flu itself. Lost in all this was why weren’t Malia and Sasha innoculated? Still waiting for that change…

Long-term mobile phone users could face a higher risk of developing cancer in later life, according to a decade-long study. The report, to be published later this year, has reportedly found that heavy mobile phone use is linked to brain tumors. The survey of 12,800 people in 13 countries has been overseen by the World Health Organization.

Think about it. Who is at risk here? Practically the entire spectrum of the truly useless. Coked-out starlets, reality show douchebags, lawyers, Wall Street executives walking on eggshells hoping that their million dollar office doesn’t get reported, Kardashians, rappers, drug dealers, Ashton Kutcher. Goddamn! Meanwhile, the useful professionals such as doctors, writers, hobos, painters, garbagemen and prostitutes will not suffer one iota. My eyes are tearing up here.

Genius. Absolute genius.
Take Star Wars, cut it up into 15 second increments. Then allow the general public to recreate in any medium the 15 second scene. What? You don’t have a Princess Leia wig? Don’t sweat it – an old set of headphones will suffice. You can’t reproduce the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon? Hey, the driver and passenger seats of your Tercel will work just fine. Need a Jabba The Hutt? Ask that guy that plays WoW all day in his mom’s basement.

Go to http://starwarsuncut.com  and put in your proverbial 2 cents. It’s far far better than Spaceballs or that Thumb Wars crap.

Can't be any worse than Attack of the Clones.