I Have A Beer, You Have A No Beer Beer

I'll never take a chance on an unfamiliar 6-pack again. Earlier today I purchased a sixer of Shiner Blonde, having been a fan of Shiner Bock, which I tried for the first time during one of my trips to Austin, TX. The Blonde isn't terrible, but it totally lacks a finish. The taste is just kinda THERE and that's it. Oh, I'll finish every bottle, to be sure...it's a sin to waste beer. But I can't afford to spend my meager allowance on a brew that isn't totally kick-ass, nawhamsayin'?

Hitchens vs Sharpton II

Christopher Hitchens debated Al Sharpton on Chris Matthew's Hardball program Thursday. This was a rematch between the two, the first bout taking place back in May at the New York Public Library (FIND IT HERE!) Initially, I wondered why Hitchens would bother debating Sharpton, who is an intellectual gnat. But after watching this second debate, it's clear that Hitchens isn't simply trying to increase book sales. He's also perfectly happy to allow a simpleton like Sharpton to "hoist himself by his own petard" and highlight the nonsense often spouted by "people of faith". The good Reverend constantly accused Hitchens of maneuvering rhetorically in an effort to dodge the question of the existence of God (among other questions), while Hitchens gleefully continued to provide answers in such a way as to zoom over Sharpton's head. I still have to wonder, however, why Sharpton is presented to us by the media at all, having long ago lost whatever credibility he may have once possessed.

Are You Ready For The Summer?

But, the real excitement of course is going to come at the end of the summer, during Sexual Awareness week. We import two hundred hookers from around the world, and each camper, armed with only a thermos of coffee and two thousand dollars cash, tries to visit as many countries as he can. The winner of course is named King of Sexual Awareness week and is allowed to rape and pillage the neighboring towns until camp ends.

My Ol' Kentucky Home

I live in Northern Kentucky and have for most of my life. But if I'm outta town, travelin', or chattin' it up with folks online, I usually say I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio. It's not cuz I like Cincinnati, or dislike KY, cuz I don't. It's just a geographical convenience. Most folks have heard of Cincy (good or ill) and it's just 15 minutes up the 'spressway and 'cross the mighty Ohio River. From now on, however, I'm gonna give props to the great Commonwealth in which I was born and reside. Here's why...

Wot's A Fucking Wobble Board?

This notorious bit of audio, recorded surreptitiously, never fails to crack me up. A must-hear for any fan of This Is Spinal Tap, the details and the MP3 file can be found
RIGHT FUCKING HERE!

Some Weird Sin

A fetish is sometimes described as "any nonsexual object or concept that can arouse erotic feelings in a particular person". We, as adults, are pretty familiar with most of your common objects of fetishism: hair, shoes, leather. But
HERE'S A NEW ONE.

New Reads And This Sopranos Nonsense

Finally got a hold of Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour. I read Kitchen Confidential when it came out years ago and really enjoyed it, but why they tried to turn it into a sit-com...I dunno. His show on the Travel Channel, however, is very good. The Food Network is awful anymore and I can't watch it, so No Reservations gives me my exotic food and travel fix. I wanna read The Nasty Bits and Typhoid Mary, but I'll prolly stay away from Bourdain's novels, despite my admiration for his writing style. I can't seem to get into fiction anymore. I may re-read an old favorite, such as Fred Exley's brilliant A Fan's Notes, or Donleavy's The Ginger Man, two books that are never far from my nightstand...uh, I mean milk crate, but fiction doesn't do anything for me lately. There's so much to learn out there and so little time. Certainly, fiction can often get closer to the truth of something like human emotion, but I'm a frickin' robot, so...And I like history.

Which brings me to America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon, by Mark Hamilton Lytle. "The Sixties" have always been grist for my mill, so I'm really lookin' forward to this one. Also in my bailiwick is Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950's and 1960's. (I seem to favor books with subtitles). Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, Dick Gregory, my man Lenny Bruce, and many others, analyzed and put into historical perspective.

I've always been a fan of The Sopranos, but I'm not gonna pollute the InterWeb with a tiresome assessment of the series finale. I enjoyed it and thought it was fitting. To those idiots who insist on speculating beyond the ending and the dimensions of the fictional world that is The Sopranos I say, "Get over it!" Did you see Tony get whacked? No! Then he didn't get whacked. Case closed. Yes, it's fun to use one's imagination, but television is not a highly participatory form of entertainment. Your input doesn't matter. We weren't voting on Idol. Ya' wanna participate, get a box of crayons!

You may notice that I have finally terminated my boycott of YouTube. I mean, fuck, I"m BLOGGING fer chrissakes, so what the hell.

My computer seems to be limping along okay so hopefully I'll be able to post more and more often...like anybody gives a shit. HULLO? Hullo? hullo? Dig that echo.

More Cowbell

Charles Nelson Reilly - (1/13/31 - 5/25/07)

Battle of the Bands

The greatest video ever created!

Attention

Attention. Here's an update on tonight's dinner. It was veal. I repeat, veal. The winner of tonight's mystery meat contest is Jeffrey Corbin who guessed "some kind of beef." Congratulations, Jeffrey! You've just won a brand new Chrysler Cordoba and you can pick it up at Mortie's office.

Canadian Football Fans In Crisis

He Died For Our Sins

People Pollution

Read Much?

Like most voracious readers, I'm always working on 2 or 3 books simultaneously, with a smattering of magazines and cereal boxes thrown in as well. Here's a handful of recent reads worth looking at:

The Tummy Trilogy - Calvin Trillin. The common man's gourmand originally published these three volumes between 1974 and 1983, helping to popularize unpretentious American eats and eateries. Cincinnati-style chili, however, remains an enigma to the rest of the world.

Queenan Country - Joe Queenan. Subtitled A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country, the brilliantly funny Queenan crisscrosses Great Britain in hopes of defining the country's unique character. I've always been a great admirer of Queenan's work, this being the 5th book of his that I've read.

Sunday Money - Jeff MacGregor. MacGregor and wife spend 40 weeks in an RV following the insane grind of a season of NASCAR. Never being one of the reported 75 million fans of stock car racing, I still found this book highly entertaining and informative. MacGregor is a talented writer, reminding me of Tom Wolfe and George Plimpton.

Eichmann In Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt. This is political theorist Arendt's controversial first-hand account of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann's 1961 trial. With this work, Arendt explored her notion of the "banality of evil", an often misunderstood idea that is still debated today. Light reading this ain't, but Arendt's prose is brisk and direct, making this work accessible to most anyone.

In the same vein, I've just started The Coming of the Third Reich by historian Richard J. Evans. The first volume of a proposed three-volume study, Evans looks at the radical changes that turned, in less than a generation, the progressive and vital Germany of 1900 into the aggressive and murderously racist predator nation of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.

I'm also planning on rereading Neil Postman's media study Amusing Ourselves to Death. First published in 1985, I first read this critical attack of television (among other ideas) about ten years ago. It was reissued with a new introduction in 2005. I happened to look at it again recently and found it still quite relevant. I've been slowly killing myself by means of amusement for years!

Lastly, I've been glancing at my copy of issue #17 of The Baffler, the (very) sporadically published periodical out of Chicago that examines modern consumer culture. Heady stuff sometimes, but fun.

Okay, youngsters! Got your library card?

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here!

Some of the "celebrities" who attended this year's Kentucky Derby: Jenny McCarthy, Melissa Joan Hart, Star Jones, Bobby Flay, Kevin Sorbo, and skank-banger Larry Birkhead. Welcome to the Zatso "Z" list. I piss on the Queen from a very great height.

Here, however, is a link to Hunter Thompson's brilliant Derby article originally published by Scanlan's Monthly in June, 1970.

Do What Thou Wilt...