Musings On The Musical Abortion That Is "We Are The World, Part Deux." Et tu, Le Q???

Those who know me l know that, about 99% of the time, I fucking hate remakes - but this rule applies mainly to film. However, the world of music shat an unholy ass-log of a remake after this year's Grammy Awards, apparently.  Let it never be said that some dead horses are above a good beating - in the absence of relevance and/or popularity over the last 20+ years, Lionel Ritchie and Quincy Jones have gone back to the "We Are the World" well. Lionel's always been a little Aqua Velva for my taste - yes, even with the Commodores - but FUCK YOU, QUINCY JONES!!!

It's strange. When that song came out, I was mortally afraid of waking up to "Uncle Ronnie" on the television (my nightlight of choice for over two decades now!) telling me that he'd finally gone cuckoo-go-nuts and pushed the ol' button. Never did I imagine that, 25 years later, these walking, talking, singing wastes of air and food could, let alone would, release the same fucking song, with new "talent."

But let's back up a second. Back to the beginning. WHAT DO YOU SAY, JULIE ANDREWS???

"A very good place to start!"

I agree.

It's weird to think that many of my friends were toddlers when We Are The World came out. I can only imagine, in a pre-Radio Disney world, they were repeatedly bludgeoned over the head with that along with "Sing A Song" from Sesame Street. But I digress...

I held m' tongue in '84. I'll cop to enjoying the role of devil's advocate, even to the point of saying shit for saying shit's sake, but I'd consider myself to be a bit of a dick or a jerk (with a sweet, gooey center) - I'm no fucking asshole. There's a difference, believe me. Shitting on We Are The World at the time would have been like driving a monster truck through a South African shanty town. And as entertaining as that would be, [Believe me - I've tried!] it's just something you don't do. It's, mean. Goddamned mean.

But Quincy and Lionel opened up the door and invited my ilk to this party. See, like Christian rock, We Are The World, as a song, and by extension, it's creators; participants; or even the tone-deaf masses that bought that tripe, believe(d) the material to be above reproach. So after 25 FUCKING years, I can say with a conscience cleaner than Taylor Swift's pussy that:

WE ARE THE WORLD SUCKED THEN AND IT SUCKS 25 TIMES WORSE FUCKING NOW!!! IT'S FUCKING GARBAGE!!! IT SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED!!! IT SUPER-DUPER SUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-UCKED!!!

But for those who don't remember the connection, it was a rip-off idea even then. Bob Geldof (for those not in the know, wiki "Boomtown Rats" and do your own heavy lifting) had, the prior holiday season, put together a charity single called "Do They Know It's Christmas." Far from a revelation, but I mention it as more of a just-in-case measure more than anything else.

The problem with Geldof's team was the line-up, I guess. I'm just old enough to vaguely recall when performers like Sting and U2 were considered "fringe." [Cough, cough!] Other than Phil Collins, as far as the American record-buying public was concerned, the line-up was practically unknown. Maybe a couple Brits with modest Top 40 success, but the US is the only civilized nation on the fucking planet that thinks of Madness as a one-hit wonder.

Frankly, though I'm an admitted cynic, I don't really think that, as a project, WATW was really born of Yankee oneupsmanship. I truly believe it was a spur of the moment riff on something that existed. As a legend of jazz, Quincy Jones' life's blood is based on a lot of that kind of thing. And Geldof wrote a pretty goddam solid song, and I'm certain it was on the radar of the average American musician, if no one else. They weren't ripping off anything so much as - sad as it is to say - "Do They Know It's Christmas?" didn't do so hot.

OK - here's where I'll let the abject, hardline cynic jump out for a second: it's because the record-buying public in middle America - the easily led sheep that were conned into writing their congressfolk about dirty fucking lyrics were fucking...

Where was I?

Oh yeah! We Are The World was fucking terrible, and any friend of mine who bought that abomination at the time with their own money hasn't admitted to it to this day - and at this point, I wouldn't fucking want them to. Shit, I don't know many people who owned much, if any, music by anybody involved. Ok, Maybe Dan Aykroyd (yup, he sung on that shitpile) - a lot of us had Briefcase Full of Blues.

If anything, most of our folks had it, and (pardon the blanket statement) the vast majority of the Baby Boomers thought the band-aid was the panacea. I suppose Mtv had a hand in it with a constant rotation of that video. [Oooooooh! Huey Lewis!] After it fell off the charts, problem solved. Right? They had to move on to tackling the AIDS epidemic by purchasing That's What Friends Are For, goddammitt!

"Hear that? That's Africa!" they'd say, wiping a faux-Native American tear from their world weary eyes. After all, a lot of them saw footage of Vietnam and Kent State on TV dammitt!!! These were stalwart, can-do, people who...

But it was forgetable; it did fall off the charts; and I can only think of one time in the past 25 or so years since it became the footnote it should be that I've even thought about it. In college, my roommate was dating a semester-abroad student from Japan. The night before they had to vacate the dorms and go home, there was a party at the on-campus bar. We got to this party just in time for the last two tunes, one of which...

"There comes a time... When we heed a certain call... When the world must..."

Everybody slow dance! Confession: I wasn't thinking of Africa - Fuck Africa, motherfucker! My mind was squarely in Japan! I think her name was Momoko. Really nice girl. Good kisser. I smirked, but didn't laugh. It seemed to have some significance to the room [We really are the world, man!] and raining on someone's parade is a lot different than instigating debate.

And for well over a decade, I didn't give it another thought. Technically, the notion of a remake shouldn't really bug me, especially considering it was a fart in the wind, and it's bound to linger as long as it did the last time - after all, Celine Dion and The Jonas Brothers are involved.

I guess the main question here is why? USA for Haiti?

We have a rule in my writers' round table: you can't shit on something without being able to provide a solution. So here goes. How could Jones and Ritchie have done another charity single, and come out of it with clean souls? Three simple words. Zombie. Michael. Jackson.

Actually, two. New song. And I don't fucking mean doing the same old shit; adding some rap (which does anybody fucking recall that rap was maligned by many in the music industry - including Quincy Jones - when the original came out); and merely creating a version 2.0 with new, even more useless musical humps.

Imagine, for a moment, that instead of:

"Well, it was 25 years ago that we did it. So we thought we do it again."

[And fuck you twice sideways for saying that, Q!]

He said:

"Well, I wanted to do something to help Haiti, but I'm just an entertainer. I'm not an architect, or engineer or anything else that might be useful. But then, I remembered that I was able to do something to help Africa by donating my time and talent to create a single that made millions for the cause. It's an even more unique opportunity in that this year is the 25th anniversary of We Are The World. So I called Lionel, and the rest, as they say, is history. One more thing: please don't call this assemblage of talent USA for Haiti. It cheapens what we did for Africa."

But we don't live in that world, do we? We applaud the unoriginal - just like we applaud for runners-up in the Special Olympics.

Cabaret Of The Damned: "The Rory Sanchez Experience?"

WANTED: Like minded, sick motherfuckers in Southern California to assist Bugs and me (and one other actress, won't say 'til I get the "yes") with an act we're going to do at open mic night, and if they get it, spoken word venues' comedy night. You don't really have to do anything either. We just really need as many friendly faces between us and the real audience as possible. We do have a couple people recruited to be straight-up blockers ["Silly" Simon Phoenix and "Jolly" Judas Booth], but if you want to do that as well, that would be great.

The only hitch is that, unless we book a spot in advance - most of this is a "you never know" thing, though with three people throwing the same name into the hat, it could up the odds a bit. You kind of have to be into this idea that you're part of our little "street theater" troupe, and you'll probably have to buy some drinks and definitely have to listen to some sad, sad, comedy. Fortunately, I/we know some pretty strange and wonderful people.

Why do we need blockers and friendly faces?

Now a lot of things come out of my mouth that, metaphorically speaking, regularly put me in front of firing squads. It's either a talent, a character flaw, or perhaps even an endearing trait of mine - but either way, it's something I do well. And often.

This act is fucking abhorrent. It's partially inspired by the Andy Kaufman tribute that Bugs and I went to last week. But it ended up being a way of fusing together two bits that Judas and I were working on: Rory Sanchez, the Diabetic Comic and The Worst Comedian in the World.

Now it's Guerrila Theatre - Performance Art. Sure! That's It!!!

I now present, in all it's shameful glory, The Rory Sanchez Experience? And I'm really, really fuckin' sorry. Sort of.

Let me set the mood:

It's open mic night at The Ha Ha Hole or The Chuckle Hut, maybe even an open-minded spoken word venue with a cool audience. If what I've seen so far is any indication, the crowd at the former is mostly other comics... well, and a couple neighborhood drunks hitting the post-happy hour specials. It's only slightly less depressing than a Bukowski novel. In other words, my kind of room.

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for The Rory Sanchez Experience!

Rory Sanchez is a bad 80's-style comedian. I mean, she's not a "flashback" schticky character - in the grand tradition of other hack comics of using their ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and or disability for THEIR ENTIRE FUCKING ACT, Rory can't stop talking about her Diabetes:

You know what's funny about Diabetes? Nothing.

I just got out of a diabetic coma. What day is it?

She points to somebody's appetizer.

Is that any good? Yeah? That's death on a plate for me.

Then I start heckling her:

You're dying now!

Heh. Funny. (recovering) I just flew in from a blood sugar test, and boy is the tip of my finger tired!"

She holds up a finger with a band-aid.

Is this all you do?

No, sir. I take my shirt off for an encore.

Now that would be funny!

Now she's really fucking pissed. But still trying to keep it together.

Man, my blood sugar is low.

HOW??? LOW??? IS IT???

That tears it.

Look dude, I don't want to compete. Why don't you come up here and tell a joke?

I don't want to.

She steps aside.

Come on. You're so smart, you do it.

Other plants in the audience will badger me. So I get up to the mic.

I tell ya, folks. I'm just on edge. That's all. I'm sorry, lady. I just got fired from my job. You may not know this, but when you come to work with blood and semen on the Chuck E. Cheese costume, management tends to frown on that.

Groans.

While we're on the topic of stain removal, anybody know how to get the stench of toddler corpse and zima barf out of the back of an ice cream truck?

Groans.

It was better than my last job though. I was a playground magician. Know what that is? A playground magician is kind of like a street magician - only I made kids disappear.

Groans.

I should be feeling good. I'm in a new relationship, and that always puts a fresh spin on things. She's a model. She's only done Osh Kosh B'Gosh spreads, but I think I can get her on the back of a milk carton by Valentine's Day.

Groans.

What does a child see before it's drugged and shoved into a potato sack? Well, in my house, it's "Finding Nemo."

Now Bugs starts heckling me. She's on crutches. Not in real life, for the act.

You suck!

That's a good insult. You have another one?

You're a fuckin' retard.

Say - what's wrong with you, Speedy? You want the little Insulin girl back up at the mic?

She's funnier than you!

Why are you so uptight, Sugartits, you get molested or something?

As a matter of fact, I did! Make a joke out of that, motherfucker!"

Was he any good?

Motherfucker!!!

She charges the stage. I mean, she hobbles to the stage.

I get it, I get it. I'm sorry that he fucked you crippled.

She hits me in the nads with her crutch. Rory steps back up and shakes her hand.

That's when I kick the crutches out from under Bugs, knocking both of them to the floor.

I get up and grab one of Bugs' crutches - and start jabbing her with it.

Rory starts pounding on my back. I turn around.

I'll put you in a real coma, you fucking cunt!!!

I swing for her head. She ducks.

Then we all yell, "...And SCENE!"

Rory says, "Well! I think that went pretty well. What about you guys?"

Bugs and I agree.

Then we hold hands and bow - and I give the girls flowers.

My great-grandmammy Vinehamner actually wrote this bit. I have nothing to do with it.

Three Big, Steaming Piles of “Who Gives A Fuck?” [or "Fuck The Lawyers, Let's Kill All The Publicists!"]

I’m not big on topical stuff. I’m not slamming those who do it - and I’m not saying I'm above it. Some people are better than others at the "So what’s in the news today?" format than others. I guess - and again, this is my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt - I’ve just considered it to be a lazy approach. The newspaper (or in my case, news feed) comes everyday. In the case of television and the Internet, it’s a ‘round the clock feed. And I don’t think being able to respond to news stories with a couple snarky quips is particularly unique. I'm pretty sure, almost everybody is good at it - if only to amuse themselves. But I digress…

So what’s in the news today? What’s going on?

You hear about this one? Tiger Woods has beeen stricken with Wandering Cock Syndrome. And it turns out that he had multiple ongoing affairs. Wow! A famous athlete with tons of money who’s been told, practically since birth, that his shit doesn’t stink had an affair? Good fucking grief! No way! Tell me more!

Yeah, he does seem like a nice enough cat. But people tend to forget that he was a golf prodigy, and even as a kid, was already in the public eye. Kind of makes me wonder if his old man was like Joe Jackson.

SMACK!

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

"If you don't make that bogey, you little shit, I'm going to give you something to really cry about!"

But considering where that guy's life is at, I'm shocked only in that people are shocked. With that kind of money and (relative) power, I'm surprised he doesn't travel everywhere  by parade. First, maybe a dozen or so dwarfs riding elephants; followed by 100 dancing girls; then, of course, some clowns; and the man himself on a chauffeur-driven Harley Davidson trike.

You see this one? Turns out a couple of star-fucking reality TV douchetards crashed a White House hootenanny? I guess it was a stunt of some kind to promote themselves, or their reality show, or... Holy fucking shit! Does anybody give a French-friend fuck about this? I guess someone does. Now they're having Congressional hearings about it. Let's see - the country is how many dollars in debt, the world itself is on the brink of fucking ecologic and economic meltdown and the people we elected to help run the country are wasting their time with what? Our tax dollars at work...

And Meredith Baxter (formerly Baxter-Birney) came out. The world stopped rotating for a split-second while a baffled nation paused to yawn and say, "Who's that?"

Now look, I know the totality of local news - praticularly in the City of Angles - makes The View look like a fucking MENSA meeting. Actually, though, it ain't a hell of a lot better when it comes to more "legitimate" news sources. You know, the "hard news" stations. I guess the main dividing line is that, every so often, when Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer have to read fluff pieces as lead stories, you can see something behind their eyes...

"Today in the news, Britney Spears cooked her baby and put a turkey in a stroller and took it to The Grove. Sources close to the singer say that..."

Then Wolf pulls out a gun that would give Dirty Harry penis envy.

"I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!! ET TU, GREY FOX?"

Then, a very sullen Anderson Cooper comes out and pulls a gun. He seems more like a Derringer kind of boy, though.

They both take aim at each others' foreheads, and scream "SIC SEMPER TYRANNUS!!!"

Freeze frame.

Cue the music.

Roll credits.

Now I know that the miasma of doom and death that is the world today isn't quite the thing most people want to wake up to. So I look the other way on clown-cars like The Today Show, or Good Day LA. I like an anchor team where Steve Edwards is the heavy news guy.

I think, however, Steve-ster's beleaguered routine is schtick. I'm not saying he doesn't do it well, I just think he took a couple night classes at The Adler Academy or something. If his "Why me, O Lord?" look was the real deal, he would have stabbed his co-tards in their throats by now, at the same time, with a couple of ninja tsais. His hair would spring back into its "magic afro" form he sported in the 80's

As the security guards jump, he'd scream, with a savage look in his saucer-eyes, "I'M RIGHT!!! I'M RIGHT!!! YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT!!! SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

And with her last, dying breath, Dorothy Lucey asks, "Is that Spanish?" And croaks.

But you have to wonder if it's a chicken and the egg situation. TV is ratings driven, and I guess there's not a lot of commercial value to telling people how fucked up things really are and how, unless we really change how we do things as a planet and people, we're doomed. Well, not without doing it in the form of a History Channel doomsday prophecy piece. I guess mega-tidal waves and nuclear holocaust brought on by a character in The Bible are easier to process than the ramifications of climate change and global imperialism. I guess if we plunge into the abyss in a sexy, stylized, Roland Emmerich kind of way, we can say it wasn't our fault.

All right. There's a freeway chase on Fox I gotta go watch...

FUCK-MONKEY CUNT-TARD SHIT-BATTALION!!! [or "In Defense of Filthy Language" - part the first]

I am all a flutter. I have finally contributed something to the global lexicon. Sure, it's just a humble definition (for UrbanDictionary.com), but I'm feeling accomplished. Finally! Immortality!

Guy Gravy

Definition:

In restaurants, it is "boy butter" mixed into the gravy on dishes for rude customers, or any other person the provider of the butter doesn't like.

Note: it can also be mixed into salad dressing, or dessert topping, or barbeque sauce, or condiments, or...

Example:

"Bonjour, Chef Pierre, comment êtes-vous?"

"Très bien."

"Bon. That woman at table 2 actually snapped her fingers at me and called me 'boy.' Can you believe that shit?"

"Then Chef Pierre will prepare some of his world-famous guy gravy!"

"Bon! Merci beaucoup!"

I love to curse. It's one of the many juvenille things about me that I've just learned to accept about myself. Sometimes, I just don't want to work too hard when it comes to making somebody uncomfortable. And people's response to my sailor mouth is a pretty fair guage of how uptight a room might be. If ya can't take, "clownfucker," my political and religious views are REALLY going to piss you the fuck off!

I'm good at it, too. I've had a lot of practice, after all. My parents were of the neglectful variety of wine-chuggin' suburbanites, the kind of people that they used to hype with a cover-story in Time Magazine, "Latch-Key Kids And Their Horrible Parents." Film at 11... But they weren't so bad. Just, um, distracted. And my desire to curse actually had a positive effect in that it made me want to learn the definitions of "big" words, to take my game to the next level.

Cursing 101: You fucking bitch!

Advanced Cursing: You fucking cretinous, myopic cunt!

So I spent a lot of time in front of the television. More specifically, my old man was a movie fan, AND he had cable. So for two exquisite weekends a month, I would fill up on movies and HBO comedy specials, returning to the playground with all the colorful language I'd picked up. In those days, I was prone to immitating George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, and Robin Williams. [Holy shit! Remember when Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams were the "dangerous" comedians??? Sigh. Me neither.]

I was pretty good at keeping it under wraps, at least in "official" settings. As strange as it sounds to me, I was really afraid of "trouble" as a kid. Strange how it didn't hold me back from doing a lot of stupid shit, but either way, getting sent to the principal's office was the sort of ignominy my parents simply couldn't bear.

Who'd have thought I'd be trying to turn it into a livelihood?

I have been "in trouble" for my fucking foul mouth a total of five times in my life:

1) In the fourth grade, a little girl kicked me in the nads. "Bitch," "balls," "shit," and "dick."

2) In the sixth grade, a boy punched me in the nads because my friends Lester, Ricky and I called him "goober." I guess on a level, I really deserved that. "Bitch," "balls," "shit," and "dick," were all there - but I'd added "cocksucker," and "motherfucker" to my repetoire. I got in more trouble because I laughed when the principal, Mr. Huling (?) was reading off the list of words my teacher had heard me say, which he now had to read back to my mother. He was a very dignified, stoic guy who kind of looked like Martin Luther King. But he also had a very slight speech impediment, making the really good words even funnier.

3) Seventh grade. The word in question... "fetus." That's right. Fetus. We were making banners in print class for Mothers' Day and, having gotten sick and tired of the usual greeting card shit, my banner read "Happy Maternal Parents' Day From Your Fully Developed Fetus." This is the one instance where I didn't catch it from both school officials and my parents. My mom thought it was funny.

4) Eighth grade. I hollered, "Shit!" after my friend Duane had slapped me in the back of the neck, as was the custom back then... Actually, this was the first time I pissed off a government official too. You see, if you scream fucking foul shit in front of George Slavefuckin' Washington's tomb (at Mount Vernon) - even if you've just been given a huge "pink neck" - it's perceived as being less than reverent. I wonder if Washington ever cursed. Well, if he didn't lie, he'd have to. Right?

5) College. The truth is that, to this day, I've got no fucking idea what I said. I know I offended an older woman who was doing costumes for a production I was in. I said something to another actor across the room, and she took offense. So I guess there were two times where my parents weren't called... Being the 90's, it's a fucking miracle that she didn't press some kind of charges. It was a little weird to me because, having spent a significant chunk of my childhood acting, everybody backstage had "Sailor's Mouth." Actually, I was more leary of the people who didn't curse a blue streak. And with good reason - they were usually motherfuckin' pederasts.

Actually, there's a sixth. And it was in a professional setting, so it's particularly embarassing. Still fucking hysterical, actually. I was working for SBC at the time, so much of my day was throwing on my headphones, "down periscope, silent running." I don't like to make too much "water cooler talk." I like to choose who knows things about me, and even one's taste in movies and TV does telegraph a little info about you. In this case, my screensaver was a Bill Hicks quote that I'd set to scroll, "Do you think I'm wearing all black in the summertime because I'm a #$%@&* ray of sunshine???" Seriously, I even blocked out the dreaded f-word!

Personally, I don't quite get it. Any of it. Shit, by now, it all just bounces off my ears. And it seems to me that most people are pretty good at code-switching. Everybody's got a grandma they don't want to curse in front of. But the comedians who make a point of telling you that they're above "working blue" are making up for the fact that they don't fucking have much of an act.

"You ever notice how hot dogs come in packs of eight, where buns come in packs of 10? What's up with that?"

I just keep thinking that a lot of censorship is unnecessary bullshit. Most people have heard the words, yet the conservatives act as if people would go apeshit if curse words made it on the air. For example, I always love AMC's versions of R-rated pictures. Gotta make sure that the "seven words" and boobs don't sully the delicate ears and eyes of the children who might be watching Sudden Impact.

So like I said, I'll cop to being just enough of a hack to take advantage of the wonderful gift the uptight people in the world have given me. If I'm really, really lucky, I'll piss the right people [or should I say "Right"?] off. See, cursing alone - feh. Eventually, everybody tunes out. Now when you have ideas that you get across with cursing, that's another thing altogether. You give them an easy "obscenity charge," and they'll holler about it for ages, which makes any intelligent person want to hear what you have to say. And you really can't buy that kind of press. Sure, it's a cheap tactic, but fuck it!

It's either that, or I'm going to have to develop a serious Blow habit...

The Misery Of Others Is Your Best Entertainment Value [or "Sympathy Porn"]

I have a brief, "nutshell" review for Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (that is the movie's actual title): File under "Things I'd really like to un-see."

The annual AFI film fest was in town this week. For one of America's oldest and most respected film institutions, they made a super-cool, down-to-earth move - they offered mass quantities of free tickets to the proletariat. YOU HEAR THAT, REDFORD??? PUT THAT IN YOUR PATCHOULI BONG AND SMOKE IT!!!

Actually, I like Robert Redford - and Sundance. But it's nice to know that a film fest held in what most people regard as the centerpoint of all things superficial might just be one of the most accessible this side of SXSW. There's more to the festival circuit than starfucking and schmoozing. But I digress...

I wanted to see Vincere - a movie about Mussolini's first wife - but Simon Phoenix wanted to see Mariah Carey in person... you know, why the fuck am I sugarcoating it? He wanted to check out Mariah's ass in person because he wanted to see if it's beautiful shape in pictures was a Photoshop thing. And I really didn't feel remotely bad about indulging that desire. Not one goddam bit.

A brief pronunciation guide before we proceed:

serious = sir-yus
important = imp-hor-t-an-t
issue = iss-see-ewes

But, brevity being the soul of wit (which makes me the biggest fucktard of all time when you really think about it) Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire was, in a word, terrible. In twenty-two: one of worst and most gratuitously repugnant films since... I don't know, what the fuck was Tyler Perry's last movie called again?

I know certain folks love them some "serious" "imporant" films. Fare with lots and lots of issues.

And motherfucker! Did Precious ever come with issues. Let me break it down for you, in the span of one movie, nay, ONE FUCKING CHARACTER you had the following issues:

• Teen pregnancy - Precious is pregnant.
• Teen motherhood - Precious already has a child that her grandmother is taking care of. Her classmates are at varying stages of teen motherhood, too.
• Incest - The father of Precious' children is her father.
• Rape - I don't know, is incest ever consensual? What do you say, "Papa" John Phillips??? "Don't look at me. Ask the Gyllenhaal kids." You're a sick fucker, "Papa" John Phillips!
• Poverty - Precious and her abusive mother live in the genre's requisite urban squalor. Naturally, they live on government aid.
• Down's Syndrome - Precious' first child, Mongol (short for Mongoloid, ain't that charming?), has Down's Syndrome. Look at the bright side, she didn't refer to it as "Corky."
• Illiteracy - Precious can't read, although she has enough skill at math to matriculate to an "alternative school." The one goddam good thing that happened to that poor girl in two fucking hours of celluloid!!! TWO!!!
• Obesity - Precious weighs 350 pounds. Her abusive mother keeps her heavy to make her less attractive to her father.
• Abuse - see above comment. Oh yeah - she beats the shit out of her on a regular basis, verbally berates her, and at one of the film's many climaxes, attempts to drop a TV on top of Precious and her new baby boy.
• Prison - Daddy is in prison. But not for raping his daughter...
• Drugs - Of course.
• Absentee father-ism - You know, the mom really seemed to miss the man.

AND... 

Take a guess. You know what I'm about to say, don't you?

Drumroll please...

• AIDS!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO-FUCKING-HOOOOOOOOOO!!! JACKPOT, KIDS!!!

Precious is also tied to a railroad track by moustache-twirling villain, Snidely Whiplash, in the third reel. She's rescued by her father, who was walking home after being discharged from prison. So he rapes her AGAIN, not behind, but IN, a dumpster. But he hits her in the head afterward, and she loses her mathematical ability, thus costing her the scholarship to the alternative school. As she's going home from the meeting at the school where she loses her scholarship, she drops her first child in the gutter. The kid's puffy coat makes her a virtual life raft, but alas, poor Mongol is washed down a storm drain. While trying to fish Mongol out of the drain, she sets the newborn on the bench at a bus station. That baby is abducted by a man wearing a t-shirt that said, "Black Market Babies For Sale!!! Just Ask Me!!!" and an 800 number. As she's crying at the bus station, Corky from Life Goes On says, "You deserve to lose your babies you retarded cunt!!!" and kicks her into the gutter. The bus arrives, running her over, but NOT KILLING HER, and roll credits.

Feel-good movie of the year, folks! OF THE DECADE. Just ask fuckin' Oprah!

Does "SPOILER ALERT" really count when not a soul I know would see this for any other reason but duress?

I didn't see that last part of the film. Simon told me all about it. I was about to go into hysterics, so I left early. Laugh at Oprah, and that bitch will find you. She's friendly with the Scientologists, and you know what that means!!!

After the show, Simon punched me in the face.

"OW!!! Fuck was that for??? You could have left with me, you asshole!!! Mariah had already split!!!"

"It's because you're white."

And you know what? After seeing that picture, I knew he was right - so I went back inside and punched myself in the face. I caught Tyler Perry in the lobby.

"Punch me in the face!" I said.

"Nigga please. We may have a black President, but I'm still not hitting a white man in this town. At least not with cameras around. Now if this were Chicago... Call my publicist."

And then he went across the street to shoot another movie, Madea Turns A Trick. Only took him twenty minutes. Then another ten minutes to edit, and he did an about face, and went to its premiere BACK INSIDE THE CHINESE (packed house - fucking packed). Say what you like about Tyler Perry, but that dude is prolific!

Like I said, I love a good drama. I'm not so much as a film-snob, as I am a cinema nut. Yeah, there's always the "escape" aspect to a movie. But escape, for me at least, doesn't have to entail unicorns and/or laser guns. If nothing else, I simply prefer movies with unicorns AND laser guns. Get it straight.

But seriously, I love it all, genre wise. It's like music. I can't pick a style I prefer over everything else. The main thing: take me into a world, any world. You don't have to take me away, just get me into a mind that isn't mine. Deal?

To me, saying that a film is "great" just because it's realistic is a fucking cop-out. It's as if a story gets automatic street-cred simply because it's close to a reality people WHO DON'T LIVE SAID REALITY can believe about people who aren't affluent liberals. I'd love to say it's a white, affluent, liberal thing, but Oprah and Tyler Perry are on board.

Did anybody else see the fucking parallels to The Fuckin' Perils of Pauline??? I don't get a dramatic structure that just heaps shit upon shit onto a character only to give the character more shit in the end. Not too put too fine a point on it, but it feels like torture.

It doesn't have to have a happy ending. But I guess that's the other problem. No matter what, and here's where I'm going to be a purist, every good drama (in the general sense) involves three things: goals, obstacles and the achieving or failing at those goals despite or because of the obstacles. It's just how it works.

If I want to see the reality of a tragic and sinking situation that just continues and continues, well, I can step outside my door for that. Fuck, somedays, all you have to do is stay home for that!

I was talking about this with my friend, Double E, and she coined a term that I think is particularly appropriate: Sympathy Porn. And this is without any knowledge of the horror sub-genre of "Torture Porn," the term and the films. I'd love to take credit for creating it, but I'll certainly exploit and disseminate it with no problem whatsoever. It's true.

Obviously, "porn" here isn't referring to hardcore sex movies. [But I want to state for the record that I really, really, REALLY love that kind of porn. I'm watching some now. Real deviant shit. I should fucking be locked up.] It's more an issue of exploitation. More specifically, it's the exploitation of emotion to cover up what appears to be total lack of artistic intent. Silence of the Lambs and Hostel both scare the holy fuck out of you, but the latter goes for the jugular, while the other has emotional beats that lead to crescendos, choices and moments of serious jeopardy.

And I'm not saying one is "better" than the other. "Better" is a useless term. I've got no issue with exploitation pics. Sometimes, ya just need that, you know?

Same with porno-porno, right? But then again, that's the one where I think the more exploitive version is the more honest one. I have one word in the other direction: Skin-emax. Seriously, when those folks try to act... Well, it's beneath all of us, I think. And I mean the entire human race.

Sensuality as a dominant theme in a movie-movie is more difficult. A lot of the time, it comes off as pretty retarded. Henry and June and 9 1/2 Weeks were pretty good. But then again - goals, obstacles, yadda yadda.

So to me, Sympathy Porn, entails those stories that basically play on the heartstrings in absence of real story. "I can't do this artfully, so I will clobber you over the head with a sledgehammer of woe." You know: pretty much anything that has the words Oprah Winfrey or Toni Morrison attached to it. Fuck - The Color Purple is the trifecta of this genre! You've got Spielberg's suburban white guilt and inability to empathize with black folks mixed in there! There are plenty of movies that play pathos artfully. It's all in the pacing.

Now let's keep this between us. I'm scared of very little in this world. The Wrath of Winfrey is one of them. She has a pack of wild dogs that she's raised on nothing but human flesh (milk-carton kids, you know), testosterone shots, and pure fuckin' hatred. I saw it in a  conspiracy theory 'zine...

Stuck on Fuck [or "How To Talk Dirty and Make Somone Squirm"]

I've spent a substantial portion of the last couple days on lines. And since I've managed to fucking forget some portable reading material each and every single fucking day, I've had a lot of time to think. Ordinarily, I'd just be thinking about sex on its own, but in light of the "Baby, I wanna fuck you so bad..." bit, I've been thinking a lot about sex and violence.

Try this experiment - if you dare!

The ideal place to do this would be work, unless you're a K-12 teacher. But regardless of what you do, it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to do. HR people are more superstitious and cowardly than entertainment industry people. It's just that the perfect "control group" would be a bunch of individuals who know you, but in the most vague way possible. It may or may not work with close friends, it just kind of depends on how deep your conversations go. The shallower, the better.

Why? This experiment has two phases.

Phase I is easy. I guarantee you, if you did this at work and left it at that, you wouldn't be in hot water. At all.

Just discuss an injury with somebody. You don't have to use my "script." Feel free to do anything you want with it. The main thing is that the injury can NOT, under any circumstances, involve an injury to your "naughty bits." No crotch shots, no hits to the tits, and so on. But lay it on thick.

Example:

I nearly lost two of my toes when I was a kid. [Note: true story, for the record.] I was riding a Honda "Kick and Go" scooter. It was like a Razor scooter, but a little bigger, and it had this little pedal at the back you would pump with your foot to make the scooter go.

There was a decal with "rules" on the handlebars. One of those rules was "no bare feet." I'm a fuckin' kid! Think I'm going to pay attention to your silly rules?! Bah!

So I'm laying in the middle of the hot-ass street, in August, with the second and third toes on my right foot wedged between the tire and the chain. Now the chain, being a moving part (and greased up) was gradually slicing into my toes - went all the way to the bone, incidentally. I don't know which hurt worse - my toes, or my ass and legs. I don't know if you really can fry an egg on a hot sidewalk, but I know you can braise a seven year-old!

I'm screaming my fucking head off, trying to get the attention of my brother, friends and/or babysitter - who were all inside the trailer, [That's right! At my roots, I am very much "trailer trash."] watching cartoons. That's right. Screaming. Not yelling, "Help!" - a nice, high pitched, co-ed being murdered scream. I was seven, and I think the last thing I was worried about at that moment was whether or not I'd take some shit for "screaming like a girl."

After what seemed like hours, an old lady came out. Say what you like about the elderly, but that woman was FAST! She ran out, assessed the situation, dashed back into her place, and a couple seconds later, was out in the street with her toolbox, taking apart the rear wheel. It had to be like diffusing a bomb or something - one wrong move and she'd have had a toe-less hysterical seven year-old on her hands!

But it didn't end with a visit from the paramedics. At the hospital, they had to give me a local anesthetic and sterilize the area. Having a dirty chain saw into your fucking toes is like setting up a bacteria colony.

Now I wasn't a particularly skittish kid when it came to injections, but fucking SIX of them into an already injured area on a little foot - OH THE FUCKING AGONY!!! I know the doctor thought he was being helpful when he told me not to worry, it would just feel like a bee-sting. However, being a little alergic to bee stings, that really was no comfort. At all.

Now give it a couple days.

Phase II is where you'll get into trouble. It's going to be like riding a mechanical bull. I'm pretty sure you'll get "thrown" in a matter of seconds. Again, you don't have to stick to my script. But this time, you have to discuss an orgasm with the same person. Try not to lay it on thick this time. Even straight-up lie if need be. But don't pull any punches, either.

I was with a girl, briefly, I called "Planet Janet." This is because being with her was like being in another world. Free-spirited, "hippy-adjacent" kind of girl. Super-cool when it came to movies and music. Didn't own a TV. Not a college girl, but she read.

She went with some friends and I to a Santana concert. The guy riding in the back with us must have sensed the chemistry, because I shit you not, he chose to ride in the trunk all the way from LA back to Riverside. Maybe he thought she was going to give me a handjob underneath my poncho... In any event, we were passionate, but not exhibtionists - so we made out all the way home.

During the show, she grabbed me by the back of the head and just planted one on me. I'm not a timid guy, and I was working my way around to it, but I really have to say that I love a woman who takes charge! Fuck yeah!

Oh yeah - I'm not so narrow as to say "she was the best I'd ever been with." That's frat-boy bullshit. BUT SHE IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLANETS IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. I loved being on her. And her on me. And to the side. And up against the walls. And on pretty much every stick of furniture in our apartments. I mean, I'd read some of the Kama Sutra in hopes of blowing somebody's mind, but she walked me around the fucking block.

Do you know I actually lost count once? Not hers - mine. Lost. Fucking. Count. I was so there, I actually forgot how many times I came. Sure, we were baked like cakes a lot of the time too, but I swear that weed has never really affected my memory that adversly...

Did you stop reading yet??? I rest my case.

Baby, I Wanna Fuck You So Bad That I'm Going To Kill You!!!

This is hardly a new song.

I've been watching a lot of AMC this week. Actually, I watch that channel a lot, period. It's mostly white noise as I'm writing. There are very few movies in their rotation that I haven't seen at least once, if not, many times. For a guy with basic cable, that and Turner Classic Movies are the best I can do.

So of course, the week leading up to Halloween is packed full of horror movies. Not a bad thing at all. I mean sure, they're going to be censored and all, but "bleeps" and dialog drops don't even phase me anymore. Trust me, I know what "fuck" sounds and looks like when somebody says it - it's my favorite fuckin' word after all...

But something occurred to me just now, and it all boils down to "fuck." In word and deed. Censorship - more to the point, what we in the United States of Advertising choose to censor and not to censor - says some pretty crazy shit about our culture. Apparently, showing the eating of entrails; shoving pencils into throats; eviscerations, guttings and decapatations is all kosher. Show some tits, or say the "f word" and our society will fall fuckin' apart at the seams.

I'm not judging horror films, or film violence in general. Hey man, I fucking LOVE film violence! Love, love, love it! Real violence, not so much - BUT THAT'S BESIDE THE GODDAM POINT, ISN'T IT???

And I love cursing.

And I adore nudity. The one thing that's great in real life, AND in film. There should be more of it. Well, except for about 90% of confirmed nudists. Those people give me the fucking creeps - and fuck is it with all the "Chili Cookoffs"??? But I digress...

Let's just agree that I'm not talking about porn here, ok? I'm not that fucking shallow. I mean I am that shallow, but I'm just not talking about porn right now.

And I am a fully functioning adult, and cinema fan, who's seen pretty much fuckin' everything when it comes to film, and managed to get through this life without imitating anything in a movie - even as a kid. Good, bad, and unholy - I feel that I'm far from unique when I can say in all sincerity, "That's just the movies."

Two thirds of the above, "questionable items," are, by and large, censored pretty much across the board in this Great Land of Ours. [Unless you pay for your tits and "fuck."] And it doesn't take a fucking media analyst to determine which two. Strides have been made in the cursing and violence departments - and don't get me wrong, I am grateful. However, nudity remains elusive.

A lot of it has to do with the FCC's decision that showing it on TV means that we endorse it as a society. The "Parenting of (Adult) America," I guess. But then it says something really fucked up about our governmental parents. If nothing else, it's pretty obvious nobody's getting laid over there. I don't know why. If current shenanigans in The House of Representatives are any barometer, I have to believe that Washington D.C. (home of the Free Communication Censors) is just fucking crawling with hookers.

I'd say "whores," but that I have a lot of friends in "the industry." II'd like to be back in myself. Do you understand how much swag one can... It's un-cool.

So, what we're to infer by these practices is that, as a society, all shades of fucked-the-fuck-up violence is cool, cursing's fine, as long as it's between midnight and four o' clock in the morning, but one nip slip and Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake have to go on an "apology tour," as if they'd just worn swastikas and read "The Communist Manifesto" while having anal sex ...on Sesame Street.

Meanwhile, in a substantial portion of the rest of the globe, most people were going "Yawn... so?"

I'm not a parent, but I think I'd be a little more upset with my kid seeing decapitations than I would them seeing full frontal nudity. At least I can explain full frontal and say, "Trust me, what you're feeling is a very, very good thing. When you're older..."

I can say that about drug usage in movies too! Not that I'd want to have that conversation as the result of my kid watching a Cheech and Chong picture, mind you. If anybody's going to expose any child of mine to either of those, it's going to be ME goddam it!

You can't fucking say that about eviscerating a co-ed, now can you?

Fuck me! Where the fuck did this paternal side come from? That must be tabled.

But then again, I was raised in a polar opposite environment. By the time I'd hit puberty, I'd seen Porky's almost as many times as I'd seen Star Wars. Stripes too. Oh man! PJ Soles full frontal in the shower! I didn't know what the hell to do with them, but I sure as fuck knew I liked girls.

And cursing! It's a talent, really. Learning to lead a double-life started early. A toe-headed, cherubic exterior, a mouth like a sailor and a contempt for pretty much everything authoritarian was practiced on the playground and embellished with "fuck" as many times as I could work it in. If the powers that be knew what I was REALLY thinking about them, they'd have put me in that special class with the kids who burn shit.

I still proofread my stuff to make sure there's just enough cursing, for the record. Now, I see it not only as a talent, but as an art form, too! It really is! That's right kids! Get a degree in Communications, and you can back any daffy shit that comes out of your fucking pie-hole with RESEARCH!

In the Vinehamner home, violence was definitely off the menu. Nudity and cursing weren't a problem when it came to comedy. But they were pretty strict about that stuff when it came to heavy adult drama. I think it had more to do with the "heavy adult drama" thing than it did with tits, ass and fuck. In word and deed.

We had the first Beta Max on our block, so my parents' friends would come over. A lot. This was when VHS movies were completely unbuyable because they cost a hundred bucks a pop. You know - the stone age. I also had to walk uphill, both ways, to and from school and my lunch was rancid meatloaf in a bucket. We used to sing for nickels in front of the local Five and Dime to earn enough money to buy combs for my sister, Marie's beautiful hair. But I lost my voice doing it. And it turned out that she had sold her hair to a wigmaker to pay for my voice lessons. O cruel fate!

...so the Beta Max was a big thing amongst my dad's friends. A lot of times, it was a whole bunch of people, kids and adults, crammed into our living room to watch bootleg copies of Star Wars and Bugsy Malone. But every so often, it was "Adults Night."

No kids to play with, just, "Go to your room," and "Because I said so, that's why!"

And it wasn't even racy shit - my parents weren't cool enough to be 70's swingers. It was usually shit like It's Alive, Alien and even One Flew Cuckoos Nest. If it wasn't for the fact that we didn't have ONE bootleg copy of a cartoon (except for Fritz the Cat) I'd say that it was because of a real understanding of what's "good" and "bad" media for kids at certain ages. As it stands, I think, with regards to violence, it was that I was so skittish with horror as a little kid, they had to stay up with me for a week after I'd watched The Mole People.

This incidentally, is how I became a big comic book reader. Pretty much the same story telling method as movies, but something  that I could read that wasn't a dreaded "words book" while banished to my room. The Star Wars wallpaper only got my imagination so far.

My brother and I would have to do GI crawls across the foyer floor, just to make it to the kitchen for water.

What the hell do you think you're doing???

Gettin' water.

Get back in your room!

But...

I'll get you your damn water!

This is about the time that the alien would burst out of John Hurt's chest or Nicholson would go on a particularly "salty" rant.

Aw goddammit!!! Room! Now!

But I guess there's fallout when anything goes when it comes to being cool with cursing and T&A, too. It's just that the fallout isn't as bad as, say, letting a media that tells your kid that violence is ok, but that sex is verbotten and unspeakable, babysit your child and wondering why the only outlet for their emotions appears to be blood and...

Wait, I got confused. You see, I was writing a letter to my local PTA and, well, shit happens.

The most that happened to me was getting sent to the Principal's office when a girl kicked me in the nads. The playground monitor came over because I was grabbing my crotch and cursing like a sailor. "You goddam bitch!!! My balls!!!" (it's a bloody good thing I hadn't discovered "cunt" or "fucktard" yet!) and so on. Forget the fact that the little sucubus had field-goal'ed my cobbles before the fuckers had even fucking dropped!!! I'd said dirty words!!! Oh the ignominy my mother most have felt during that phone call.

What happened?

Your son has quite a mouth on him, Mrs. Vinehamner. He said pretty much anything you could imagine in an R-rated movie. He seems to be fixated on girls a little too much for a kid his age, too, but we're mainly worried about the cursing.

Oh lord. Did he curse at a teacher?

Well, no. A playground monitor heard him saying things like well, "shit," and, "bitch."

Why?

A little girl kicked him in the testicles. But we're mainly worried about the cursing...

This wasn't the first time my mouth got friendly with a bar of soap. This I assure you.

I wonder what the fuck ever happened to Pe'le... I hope her trucker husband gave her syphillis and they had to amputate her labia.