Alcoholism: Anybody looking to slander your behavior will always bring up that you drink too much, regardless of the frequency or severity, instantly putting you on the defensive. It’s just like when you make a crack about a gay person, are accused of being homophobic, then scramble to pretend you’re a big fan of men fucking. A relationship counselor once hinted that drinking eight beers during Sunday football hints at a problem — that’s less than a beer per hour, plus it was a lie; it was more like 18. When did alcoholism suddenly become applicable to everybody who drinks enough alcohol to enjoy a hint of its effect? It used to be an affliction proprietary to Irishmen who drank varnish; now if you reach for your fourth beer, you can hear high horses whinny from all directions.

Bruises of Mystery: Good morning. Without any theories as to how they got there, you have a constellation of bruises. Your arms and legs are peppered with small black spots, some newcomers, and some yellowing oldies. The red giant is always found in the most improbable place. How did you get four baseball-size bruises on the interior of your bicep and under your left nipple? You are 90% certain you did not go anywhere near the batting cages last night. What the fuck?

Calculations: You might have flunked out of ITT Tech, but if the problem begins: “40 oz. of malt liquor is 8% alcohol and costs $2.50, while 16 oz of marshmallow-flavored wine is …” you are as fucking aces as Michael Eisner figuring out 9% on a restaurant tab.

Drunk Driving: We all know it’s wrong when we’re sober, just like we know fat or ugly women don’t deserve even the most disingenuous compliments when we’re sober. We also know how quickly our sensibilities erode with each passing drink and how a bogus sense of invincibility simultaneously swells. Unfortunately, we Americans are slaves to our cars and few things suck more than having to contend with waking up hungover and not being able to easily acquire a “Revive” Vitamin Water and a sausage egg and cheese. Sure, there’s designated drivers sometimes, but he’s just the guy that pounds three waters 10 minutes before its time to leave. Don’t drink and drive.

Extract: You’ve gone to a party, underestimated the amount of gin it will take to put you down for the night and the liquor store is closed. A rummage through the pantry, fridge and medicine cabinet comes up blank. You know what you have to do. There’s a row of fiery shooters sitting among the spices and seasonings, some running up to 160 proof with flavors ranging from vanilla to almond. And it’s not like anyone ever uses that shit. By the time your theft is discovered, you’ll probably have made a clean escape to the grave.

Food: At 3:47 a.m., a slice of pizza that has been dessicating beneath a hot lamp to the point where it looks like the skin of a mozzarella elephant has you salivating like a Somali watching a U.N. airdrop. If you’re at home, managing the focus to cook up a box of The Cheesiest makes you feel like a god. On the road, it’s not by chance that the greasiest, most vile drive-through is the one with a line backed up to the streets minutes after last call is enforced. Just don’t try to assuage your doctor’s concern over cholesterol and blood pressure readings by explaining the unlikelihood of you living long enough to have a heart attack. It’s faster to just take the scrips and throw them away.

Gastrointestinal Malaise: A warning to all — do not drink black & tans and eat Burger King onion rings the day before a first date unless you feel the need to frantically sacrifice a pair of boxers to the trash can in a men’s room with no lock.

Hangover: For centuries, saucehounds have concocted snake oils and practiced arcane rituals to combat the cruel penance of a day(s) of pounding head, sizzling confetti shits and chilling sweats, and for centuries, they have failed miserably. Honestly, do any of us really believe a B complex and a glass of water will undo the damage done by a cube of Miller Lite? After that, you could use your urine to pickle deformed fetuses. Drink a water in between every drink? Sure. Why not do crunches between every bite of cheesecake or put on additional condoms during every position change?

Irreparable damage to reputation: When the sun rises and the haze of sobriety sets in, there’s a good chance that the people you were partying with will no longer think the stained carpet, smashed furniture, overturned cat box and felonious assaults were so funny. It’s a thin line between he’s a blast to party with,” to “that guy is NOT coming to my fucking wedding!” Usually this line is crossed when bar buddies invite you into their home. There’s nothing that can be done about it, and anyway, it is better to be dreaded than anonymous.

Job on the Drunk: Look, you are totally in the right here. No reasonable employer can ask you to remain completely sober for eight hours. I mean, if you can’t land an aircraft with a couple of shots in you, what kind of pilot are you anyway? All you need to sail through this requirement at most jobs is a screwdriver in a Minutemaid bottle and a pack of breath cleansing gum and you run almost no risk of being caught.

Kamikaze Pick Up Attempts: Long after you’ve shattered the beer goggles on a fall to the bathroom floor, any actual objectives other than amusing yourself go by the way side. Plus, it’s not like you have any legitimate game at this point anyway. So you approach that blurry thing with the girlish voice by blurting whatever horrible phrase oozes from your scrambled brain. Some part of you is still demanding a mate, but it’s orders won’t be carried out any more efficiently than those from the part of you responsible for walking in a straight line. My personal best here is approaching a girl to tell her about the internet video I had seen of a man being fatally sodomized by a horse. Kablam!!! Sure, a successful pick-up would be the ideal, but why be cleanly shot down when you can honor your ancestors by going out in a flaming ball of social catastrophe?

Law Enforcement: They’re bound to turn up eventually. If you don’t get a DUI yourself, you’ll have to bail out a friend who does. There are those uncomfortable moments when you stumble up to your car, key in hand and see a parked cop car and have to decide what to do, and there are those even more uncomfortable moments when you are led away from work in cuffs. The nasty secret of cops is that they almost never catch you. You can coast for years. You become emboldened and no matter how long your run of luck, you will eventually choose the wrong time to throw an empty whisky bottle at a pedestrian as you run a red light in a deaf school zone. Our only real advice is deny, deny, deny… and bewhite. ”

Moderation: The Drunks Three-Minute Mile.

Nosy Clerks: I prefer shopping in the judgement-free environment of the liquor store, but some times sale prices lead me to the grocery store for several weeks at a time. They might not say anything, but I can see it the scorn in their eyes when they realize I’m the guy who has bought three 1.75 liter bottles of store-brand vodka from them in a week, paying exclusively with Coinstar receipts. Fuck off, asswipe. You scan Apple Jacks for a living, yet you’ve shamed me into avoiding you by choosing a longer line. And of course, the same fucker will card me. It’s a bit flattering, but on the other hand I’m more than 10 years past 21 and have a beard like fucking Euripides, so give it a rest now and then.

On the Road: What is it that makes road sodas some of the most delicious beers? We’re not encouraging the sucker driver to actively drink, but when you’re a passenger on a road trip to a sporting event or whatever, few things feel better than slugging beer in the car. Unfortunately, the pissing situation can become tedious if the vehicle’s owner is fastidious, meaning they don’t like it when you clumsily whizz all over their floor mats while trying to keep your helmet aimed in the mouth of a 32 oz. Gatorade bottle.

Pissing the Bed: You have reached the point where your central nervous system had to take the controls and crash land you on the nearest soft surface. You are unconscious and your system is brimming with diuretics. About four hours later, as basic subsystems start to come back online, you startle from your sleep, feeling a strange chill. Even as you mutter “No, no, no,” flip blankets, strip off clothes and look for a spilled drink that isn’t there, you know what you’ve done. You drank yourself into infancy. If it was your own bed, your mattress will forever be cursed with a faint brown halo of shame, but you control the crime scene, so this is the best-case scenario. If it was somebody else’s bed, couch or floor, nothing can mend that relationship but time. If a still-sleeping innocent was involved, you are bound by your own sense of honor to frame them by whatever means necessary. If you did it in a hotel room, it will probably be the only time in your life that you fear reprisal from a Motel 6 maid.

Queerness: Good times, lowered inhibitions and a sense of camaraderie and belonging — this is why many of us drink. But there is a dark side to the bro-down world of putting your buddies in hug-headlocks — the guy who takes it too far. Maybe he’s gay, maybe he’s just really lonely and drunk, but that lingering arm he draped on your shoulder doesn’t have the same harmless feeling it did when Dum-Dum Jimmy did it to you moments before he went to bang some divorcee in the passenger seat of her Hyundai.

Regret: Even before your 250-grit eyelids grind open to a day pre-emptively squandered, you know there is something to atone for. Prior to blacking out, there are blurry snapshots of offended women flicking through your mind. You feel like something expensive of yours might be broken. You wonder where your car might be parked and if there’s a Jack Russell terrier decaying in your wheel well. You make some casual, “feeler” phone calls to your friends, trying to piece things together. Eventually, one of them answers the phone, not with a “hello” or “’sup?” but an emphatic “Dude!” At this point, all you can do is listen helplessly to whatever combination of staggering, cruelty and law breaking that you weaved together the night before while promising yourself a future of sobriety.

Sadness: As Lenny Leonard so aptly stated, “Nuthin’ like a depressant to chase the blues away.” Intoxication has an inertia to it that can inflate mediocre situations to greatness, or exploit your insecurities to a point where you’re insulting yourself in a mirror. It’s not all that dissimilar to laying a tab of acid on your tongue, only the teeter on the cliff takes much longer and you can go to sleep instead of boring others with profound descriptions of your Dali hallucinations. Every drunken episode is a role of the dice, and many times, sweet escape is denied, and all you’re left with is your miserable self, only crippled to deal with how shitty you really are.

Too Drunk to Wank: Let’s be realistic. Unless you’ve just rocked Madison Square Garden, it’s a pretty safe bet that traveling across the room on all fours, trailing a potpourri of (mostly) human excrement is not going to get you laid. Instead, you spend five minutes coaxing forth an erection, exhaust both arms and try to focus on the booty video on BET without your mind wandering to fantasy football, before giving up and passing out as a man incapable of outperforming even the most frigid monkey.

Unsafe Sex: Let’s just get it out — condoms suck. We’re pretty sure AIDS sucks too, but we know condoms suck. Speaking for my penis alone, it’s a hill climb to nut while sporting a jimmy sober. Tack on a BAC of .20 and you’re setting yourself up for a frustrating finale-free slamfest or, worst case, a bored and traitorous dong. If it was some horrible stranger and you underperformed, you still may feel obliged to redeem yourself at first opportunity instead of focusing on throwing her cell phone in the toilet while tiptoeing out of her pen, so we will responsibly state that abstinence is often the best course of action for the true drunk because why take all that risk to do something so utterly fruitless? Unless she’s really hot.

Van Damme: Along with Seagal’s canon, the Golan-Globus era of JCVD are 3:00 a.m. staples of the basic-cable networks. Along with the aforementioned shit food, your wet brain demands low-quality stimulation as well and what it really craves is a movie that ends with a guy being thrown down a fucking elevator shaft or a bitch in a penguin suit getting executed with less mercy than Rasputin.

Wine: Every now and then, when the buzzes of shit beer and vodka have you bored or you’re about to indulge in a fantastic meal, wine is dictated. In smallish amounts, it is quite pleasant and it ranks up there with tequila shots as a means to getting laid. After heavy amounts, you suffer like a baby bunny trapped inside Dave Lombardo’s drum kit. It also makes your poop greenish-black, which we’ll assume to be unhealthy. If wine is your go-to drink, you are either gay or a gay hobo.

Xanax: Among the most popular of all supplemental party favors, with good reason. Unlike military grade painkillers, it’s not commonly mixed with aceta… Tylenol which is pretty, pretty bad for a drinker. Also one of the afflictions for which Xanax is commonly prescribed is being female, so they are in abundant supply outside of gaming and LARPing circles, wherein one must rely primarily on allergy prescriptions. Warning: excessive use may cause two college educated men to forget that the letter “X” is part of the English alphabet and initially post this list without an “X” entry.

Yukin’: Sometimes we want escape so totally that we are willing to nearly kill ourselves. Of course, this is the world’s fault, not ours. As you predictably drink yourself into your standard stupor at a pace that cries for help, somebody offers you a shotglass of something awful. Even though you are a complete boozerocker, you don’t really want it, but at the same time, you don’t want to lose the pointless distinction of being King Drunk. You kick it back and grimace. With the first one out of the way, more come, some of them even reluctantly purchased by you. If you’re any sort of drunk, your grey zone is huge, perhaps a range of 15+ drinks in the comfortably buzzed zone before you hit the wall hard. The spins are merciless. You battle with your own esophageal functions like you’re being assaulted by a poltergeist Max Hardcore. It surges — and is swallowed. You seek water, but it only provides the necessary gastric bulk for total overflow. You know you’ll feel better, but also look like a pussy. You make it outside and, inexplicably, don’t hunch over to expunge the poisons, instead, getting the standing rigors and demonstrating the awesome projectile power of a body rebelling against its own idiot brain. Astute bar patrons watch in amusement, then disgust as you make your way back inside, feeling refreshed enough to request that they resume serving you.

Zzzzzz’s: Even at our best, we need a solid 6+ hours of sack time a night so our next-day snoring doesn’t get us fired. But on a Tuesday night, the aggravating responsibilities of friendship can force you into listening to a dumped buddy moan about how his girlfriend cheated on him (Hint: She’s a coke whore and cheated on you with a guy that has lots of coke) while having a few beers. A critical moment comes where you have to ditch him, but if you love your booze, that may override practicality, especially because now, you have somebody else to drink with, so its OK! Then, every hour on the hour, you calculate and delude yourself — four hours is more than enough, three hours is more than enough — next thing you know, you hear the alarm blare and it almost brings you to tears.

Beastmaster could be a missing book of the Old Testament—why yes, it’s that stupid. It also continues to charm me two+ decades later with its top-to-bottom shoddiness and its brief exposure of Tanya Robert’s beautiful 80’s rack, which really makes it totally superior to any of that creation-whale-hydromanipulation shit.

Beastmaster is the tale of an oil-slathered fuckboy Dr. Doolittle named Dar that was incubated inside of a cow with the Pagan result of being able to control…Beasts, asshole. His stupid tiki-village is destroyed by the arbitrarily marauding Jun Horde, so he sets off on a journey to avenge his people, especially his father, who put up the worst homeland defense since the Maginot Line. Along the way, Dar recruits a strike team of animals that end up being perfectly suited for a myriad of dire tasks and the noble John Amos who apparently squeezed himself into the same leather singlet that Grace Jones donned in the second Conan film, even inheriting her wooden staff because black warriors never get to wield magnificent Caucasian-forged steel—pretty much the prehistoric equivalent of a shitty seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Damn, damn, damn.

I think Dar’s first companion is some raptor—his “eyes”–but the bird proves to be the most useful later, like anybody fucking cares—my favorite bird contribution is Dar’s communication squawk which sounds like the noise an unattended-to Downy would make prior to flapping off of a tall structure. tlineNext, he gets some thieving weasels that he names Frodo and Dilbo or something—never let a guy named Dar give you a name—he carries them in a purse–they are his Jews. Then he saves a Black Tiger, laughably dyed with barrels of Ronnie Reagan’s surplus Grecian Formula 44—the Tiger is his strength, but I don’t remember it doing much besides mauling a few Hare Krishnas that inexplicably welcome melee combat with a 500 pound razor-tipped cat. There may have been other support animals present, but they were not apparent onscreen, so I will assume they kept Dar’s mood elevated by occasionally skittering across his prostate gland.

So they’re off to fight the wizard, Maax, who is in league with the Jun Horde that wrecked Dar’s thatch-town and trampled his pussy dad. Maax inhabits a ziggurat in the middle of the set leftovers from Mos Eisley and ritually sacrifices local children by body-slamming them into a flaming pit, a practice that inspires no civil unrest—to the film’s credit, we actually get to see a youngster die as such, flaunting cinematic balls I never anticipated. Maax also turns townspeople into raging S&M gimp warriors by putting slugs in their ears, but I have yet to understand the tactical benefit of such a force, considering they kill indiscriminately, in fact, I think their entire body count could be chalked up to friendly fire, much like Operation Desert Storm. A trio of butterface witches, kidnapped from Clash of the Titans (and one is Gretzky’s wife!), run the surveillance and evil advice department for Maax and besides “Dye of the Tiger,” provide a stark reminder that the FX budget of Beastmaster probably involved the entire staff being inverted and shaken for change.

Dar secretly arrives in the enslaved town during a community-building child fire. A cute Aryan girl is chosen for the honor this time. She is ripped away from her shrieking parents and hauled up the pyramid. Maax babbles some benediction and then gorilla presses her over his head. Dar squawks, ornithologist eyes roll, commanding his perhaps two-pound avian friend into action. I cannot describe what happens without immediately thinking about a Monty Python conversation about coconuts, swallows and weight ratios, but just as the kid starts to slide towards the fire and Maax is about to speed things up with a quick staff shove, the fucking bird snares her in its talons and flies off. I can believe in magic, Beastmastering and all manner of dumb fantasy shit, but why couldn’t the bird just have fluttered around and distracted Maax, forcing him to drop the kid who would then quickly flee in the disarray? Suspension of disbelief is fine if some context exists that supports it. Leading up to that moment, the concept of lift had seemed concrete, but after, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Tiger turned into a zeppelin by holding its breath.

Some other shit happens with a deposed King and an Underwear Prince Heir, but it sucked and pedo jokes are so played out—thanks a bunch, Catholic Clergy. Dar rescues Tanya Robert’s perfect tits. Marmots get chased by berserker Rob Halfords and one sacrifices itself in a Secret Service-style “Noooooo…” when every good guy suddenly decides to ignore Maax because he was presumably defeated by being gut-shanked with a letter opener. As Dar pumps up the crowd, Maax charges him from behind, dagger in hand. The ever-alert weasel performs the Order Rodentia equivalent of dunking from behind the three-point line, lands on Maax’s back and nibbles him into his own sacrificial fire–naturally since he was a wizard, we are treated to some fromage pyrotechnics to certify his magicalness…thank God that this is the last time I have to write “Maax.”Beastmaster affords us a delicious dual climax. With the evil dictator ashed, the villagers prepare to defend the city against the reprisal of the Jun Horde. Traps-of-the-day are laid, including the ubiquitous cunningly-concealed-pit-of-flammable-goo. The attack comes, Underwear Prince takes an arrow, John Amos savages people with his stick, Dar’s gonads thankfully remain in his fur speedo, etc. After defeating the Jun leader with the lamest slow motion jump kick in film history not courtesy of Van Damme, the good guys find themselves hopelessly surrounded. This is when the bird’s utility peaks. Out of nowhere, these giant, bird-idolizing flesh bats pop up. They have the charming ability to hug you in their scrotal arm flaps and digest you in place, an adaptation that large Americans will doubtlessly develop in the not-too-distant snack future. They liquefy the Juns and all is well.Prince Tighty-Whitey is installed as King despite Dar having done every fucking thing AND having legit hereditary claim and the wise and mighty John Amos is debased and given some token job as the head of the Army, meaning he is essentially in charge of himself because I don’t recall there being any Army to speak of. As for Dar, in a move contrary to every nuance of his appearance, he leaves with the woman—by the way, she’s his cousin. To heal our hearts from the heroic sacrifice of Ferret#2, we see a fresh litter of bastard weasels poke their heads out of his purse as he, his Kentucky Bride and tiger look off into the infinite possibilities in the distant horizon…Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time!Beastmaster holds a dear place in my heart, being one of those ridiculous movies that you stumble upon, and then excitedly say “Oh shit! Beastmaster!” only to have your girlfriend immediately realize that you are clearly, not the one for her. While so many other films have lost their gleam with the death of childhood, Beastmaster remains a fun movie to rot in front of because it never pretends to be anything but top-shelf hokey. Sadly, in this day and age, a titular Google search will probably lead you down a taboo path resulting in a mad scramble to douche your cookies. Watch Beastmaster and enjoy a rare film that is both crap, brilliant and is, amazingly, barely insulting to its audience.

Grade: Five Catherine the Greats out of Five

I once nicked some mid-shaft skin while trimming my pubes with clippers. It healed into this weird hard bump dead-center on the ventral side. Meat skin, especially when held taut against a raging boner, made this petrous lump quite noticeable during romantic events for some time, as I didn’t have medical insurance to get it peeped. Girls never made mention of it, which I found odd because for all they knew, it was a genital wart. I would’ve happily explained it, but none asked and some internal taboo prevented me from discussing dick bumps, even ones of innocent origin.

So, eventually this girlfriend, a Category 5 Whorricane mind you, brings it up, and I explain it to her and she says it feels like “a pearl” is sewn under my skin and it feels really good–this makes me want to vomit. I have anticipated somebody asking and not caring, but I have not foreseen somebody proclaiming that scar tissue helps get them off. In retrospect, I should’ve known better, considering that this girl had recently allowed her gynecologist to go down on her during an examination and had raved about it to her girlfriends who secretly told me—but that is a tale for another day.

Now gainfully employed, I go to the doctor. I explain to him the origin and he tells me that something must’ve gotten in the wound when it was healing, so the body kind of encapsulated it in thick skin. He then asks me if I want it removed so I am left to decide between worrying about explaining the state of my dong to every woman for the rest of my life or having dick surgery. I opt for the latter. Girlfriend actually complains about this, so I bribe her by farting in her mouth and slapping her with a latex glove.

The day of the event comes and I have no idea what to expect. Are they going to freeze it? Put some doctor-strength Compound W on it? Whittle it off with a carrot peeler? Turns out it’s just gonna be a good ole’ appointment with the scalpel, an event I’d hoped was limited to the time when nobody asked me if they could lop off part of my infant penis because some Jew thought it was like giving a high-five to Yahweh or some shit.

I get laid out on an operating table, bottomless. They then drape this blue sheet over me that has a cockhole cut out of it which I realize is Jew-related again. Maybe people wouldn’t hate Jews so much if they didn’t instantly associate them with penile mutilation.

The dick is now terrified, alone on stage like a frozen, talentless child. A trillion candlepower floodlight is now positioned over it, but the warmth does little to ease it back to baseline limpness–instead it remains shriveled, yet rigid and can retreat no further. Next, somebody dumps a cupful of iodine all over my crotch and 100% of it trickles into my buttcrack. Now my dick looks like somebody treated it with Thompson’s Water Seal. At this point, putting a little beret on the helmet wouldn’t have made me feel any less dignified.

Oh, but we’re not done yet. Along comes a needle full of local anesthetic and its big enough to lance Clarence Boddiker. At this point, I’ve stopped looking. Prickles of pain are followed by numbness. It’s there, but not- like a phantom limb.

The scalpel gets broken out and at this point. The dick is grasped. I can feel a little. Its not painful, but its horrible as I can feel the scalpel almost “saw” through threads of flesh– think of cutting the tendrils off a Koosh Ball. Like that, but on your dickshaft.

As if everything I’ve described to this point wasn’t bad enough, some motherfucker opens the door to the room which is right off a busy hallway. He starts chatting with the doctor while the door remains fully open, revealing to all who walk by an isolated orange dick with a huge light on it. Things like that tend to draw the motherfucking eye of passersby.

Like a woman realizing she’s helpless against the man raping her, I give up and go to a blank place. The cutting is done and the stitching beings–eight stitches to be exact. I can’t believe that many are required, but at the same time I’m glad its close to over with and that I have avoided a lifetime of seated urination. They wrap it up in gauze with the helmet poking out pig-in-the-blanket-style. They tell me I can’t have sex or masturbate until the stitches come out…did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical School too? But this no-duh advice actually leads into something I hadn’t forecasted. Those pesky involuntaries of the night–where id rules.

That same afternoon, I fly out to Boston to meet my Dad who is in town for some reason. I do some boozing, then some drinking. Pops drinks a solitary Campari and Tonic with a lime wedge. We’re back at the hotel, asleep in our beds and, sure enough, REM sleep steers me in a randy direction and before I know it, I’m giving that fetid hotel mattress a couple of gentle grinds. Then, pop pop pop. Stitches let loose like rivets shooting from the hull of a doomed submarine. Its sticky and hot down south, but its not that stuff girls swallow in hope of being liked.

I spring out of the bed like a downed karate master and rush to the bathroom and flick on the light to find my hands, stomach and thighs covered in blood. I’m suddenly experiencing the rite of passage of a teenage girl. I frantically try and dam the flow with some Kleenex. My Dad wakes up to see what’s going on (I’d made mention of my “pickle,” but clearly he’d forgotten about it in his slumbery state). So he freaks out and rushes over to help me and, oh yeah, he’s naked. This scene plays out vividly in the massive bathroom mirror. A naked father desperately trying to help his son stop bleeding due to stitches popped from a nocturnal erection that were there only because, some time back, a young man didn’t give pube-trimming the ardent focus it so clearly deserved.

Two weeks later, after having regained its confidence and vigor, the tortured member returned to full active duty, much to the pleasure of the cock-deprived girlfriend who had doubtlessly scheduled daily PAP smears while I was on the shelf. After a performance that saw no embarassment or bloodshed, all seemed well until this was said to me with a disappointed shrug and a wrinkled nose.

“I kinda miss the bump.”

It was bitterly cold the other night and there was no better place to be than curled up with the old lady next to a hassle-free gas fireplace, quaffing some wine, watching a movie and smiling to yourself because you’re not homeless and you know you’ll be getting laid later. We were at her parent’s place and they have a rather large DVD collection, so I figured that their tastes would offer me up something interesting and unseen. A bunch of shite, really. Who owns Mission Impossible 2 and none of the others? Who just has to have their own copy of Hitch on battle-ready stand-by? Giving up any possiblity of cinematic intrigue, I mentally shift to “what can I relentlessly mock?” My question is quickly answered…The Passion of the Christ, of course.

I ignored this movie as much as possible during its juggernaut theatrical release, because I was quite certain that most paying audiences would not welcome some jerk uncontrollably guffawing at their simpleton faith, much less the ultimate suffering of their Lord and Savior. They leave me alone, I leave them alone. Same goes for the bears.

I knew the day would come where I’d be in a safe place with a safe audience in which to Wisenheimer my way through this movie, anticipating giving it no more respect than a Seagal & Biz Markie romp through the TNT graveyard shift in “Beat Box Beat Down.” I was way off. You know how most reasonable people describe this movie as “Jesus getting pummeled for two hours,” right? I thought this was just an over-simplification due to lack of insight, but it is really the case.

I’m like three years late to the Passion dogpile, but that still doesn’t prevent me from stating that this is the most disgusting, irresponsible and pointless movie I’ve ever seen.

90% of the film is Jesus getting beaten to fucking mush, then doing a slow-mo sailor-dive into the dirt.  Pan to Mary making the exact same sad, heavy-lidded face Adrian made every time Rocky got knocked down…repeat cycle 100 times. Torture heaped on torture with the sole intention of guilting impressionable people into acknowledging sacrifice that is ultimately meaningless…dangerous, really.

Then there’s the anti-semitism. I don’t give a good fuck about how any religion is depicted because they’re all blood-soaked hypocrites in my book, but Mel went nuts on this front. It’s easy to cry anti-semitism given historical persecution, but personally, I’m not typically so knee-jerk. The people depicted in this movie are from an age of savagery and should be held accountable only in the context of their time. Maybe the Jews did kill Jesus. So what? For this to really matter, you’d have to acknowledge his value via his divinity, otherwise he’s just another guy who ended up on a cross because he threatened the established power.

Funny how the Jews still get the shit end of the whole “killing Jesus” deal while ironically, the very center of the Catholic Church now lies in the Capital of the Roman Empire. Last I checked, the brutes who so enjoyed their job weren’t the Jews who actually had something to lose in this tale, they were mindless Italians who exceeded the level of torture mandated by their “conflicted” superiors even though they had little or no personal stake in the Jesus matter. Today, everybody loves the Italians…well, at least their food and the Mafia.

Anyway, the Jews have had to deal with this burden forever and its been used as an excuse to hate them, even exterminate them. Mel apparently doesn’t think this is enough. He has to eye-ball fuck you with Jew. The Pharisees are such vile, hook-nosed, bushy-haired sadists that I found myself wondering if they put a pen in the hand of Goebbels’ corpse jumped him with a car battery while the concept art was being developed. Even when the wise and benevolent Pontius Pilate starts playing Let’s Make a Deal with them–first offering up a lovely Flog & Flay package, then a swap where they get a cartoonishly hideous and unapologetic murderer instead of the false messiah–but it proves futile as the bloodthirsty Jews refuse every prize behind Door Number Two, incessantly squawking for the crucifiction of JC like Heeby Macaws. The whole depiction is an insult to everybody, Jew or not, because it is deliberately hateful and ignorant, yet is packaged in a way barely sly enough to dupe most of the audience.

The only other notable thing in this film, and the only thing I actually found humor in, were the over-the-top devils, demons and torturers who look like they just wandered onto the Passion set from a Tool video being shot in adjacent Studio 2C. There was a Borg Queen cuddling her mutant baby. Ridiculous Imps chased Judas to a Michael Hutchence doom. Every earthly villain had a mouth full of yellow teeth framed by a vicious sneer to remind you that they were evil. Like everything in this film, there was never any subtlety. There was no effort to involve the viewer on any level beyond visceral. In all seriousness, it was like being at a Gwar show with Gwar replaced by Stryper…wow, I managed four music references in a single paragraph.

I recalled that a lot of Christians show this movie to ther children, an act that can be equated to nothing if not child abuse. The fact that in parent’s minds, this one-note mortification of corpus christi is exempt from scrutiny due to its untouchable source material, however, I’m sure an F-bomb or nipple wouldn’t enjoy the same leeway within the confines of their twisted ideology. There is no lesson for a child to learn here. There is nothing but mindless trauma and needless guilt to be had, things traditionally learned through repeated molestation, hardly reasonable steps along the Good Path.

In the end, I went to bed exhausted from trying to find a point. Certainly the ceaseless brutality and sickening nature of torture would do this to any decent person, but what bothered me most is that the film’s content greatly effects reality. You don’t just watch it, say “wow, that fucking sucked, glad I’m not that guy,” and go on with your life. This mythology drives the world. It empowers a self-loathing homosexual meth-user to become a leader of millions, the personal sage of arguably the stupidest and most powerful man in the world. The perverse abstraction that a Total Dick God served his child up to die for the salvation of man is bizarre in its own right, terrifying when you realize that so many still hold millenia-old savagery and the accompanying illogical lessons at the very core of their lives.

I couldn’t wait to go to work today to discuss this with my uber-Christian employee. I treat him with respect because he affords me the same, despite the fact that I have a child-out-of-wedlock, admitted culpability in past abortions, and am generally a ranting douche, but I just had to seek his opinion because I needed to know if there was some virtue that a non-believer like myself had missed.

Masking my horror as much as possible, I asked him about it. “It was a very powerful and moving film.” I asked him about the Jew stuff. “Well, the representation of the entire incident is very accurate, I mean, they did kill the Son of God.”–he said that part like Chandler. I asked him if he’d let his kids watch it. “Absolutely not.” One-out-of-three was better than I anticipated, although he isn’t Catholic, so maybe his brand of Jesus is a little less steeped in blood, torture and symbolic cannibalism. I was happy to agree with him on something, although I did feel the need to expand the excluded audience from “children” to “everybody.”

I spent, actually sub-squandered, two hours of my life watching a man have his Birthday Suit made cordouroy, get some speed holes, and then finally, after a truly merciless assault on the viewer, die…at the very least he dies asking why he has been forsaken, at last questioning the actions of his Total Dick God.

There is nothing else to say…This is the worst movie ever. Those who praise it are obligated to, whether it be from fear of fumbled salvation, or cowardly critics afraid of being nuisanced by those defending the legitimacy of their own Grand Stupidity. In this, Passion ceases to be a movie and becomes more of an indictment of humanity. That’s some transcendent shitiness that even Battlefield Earth can’t front on.

Learning. When we see this word, it conjures up images of people
slumped over books or staring glassy-eyed at some droning professor
long bereft of any passion for the subject matter. But learning
encompasses everything, whether it is the fascinating complexities of
the natural world or the knowledge that there exists sentient
individuals that eat their own poop for others to masturbate to. The
Learning Channel and Discovery Channel (henceforth collectively
abbreviated as TLCDC) acknowledge the general theory that the spectrum
of “learning” is essentially limitless, as is exhibited by a large
portion of their current programming focusing on the re-introduction of
the world to all matter of flawed humanity in the form of the
Freakshow, albeit now slathered with a thick layer of cuddles that
obscures it’s inherently exploitative nature and the
Thank-Fuck-That’s-Not-Me sentiment that dwells in the heart of even the
most sanctimonious asshole.

TLCDC has the perfect visual snare for those of us who wander through
channels like an Israelite lost in a mall parking lot—Freaks! Just
think about it. You’re flipping through the wasteland of reality shows,
dull sports and reruns of terrible syndicated comedy when suddenly, you
blast by TLCDC, pause for a moment as the brain processes the flashed
image, cautiously flip back…Oh My. It’s the classic car accident
infatuation, but TLCDC figures that as long as they frame these
tortured individuals in a positive light, they’re free to parade them.

Now I’m not going to digress into some “Ruthless” rant about how
people like this should be spiked off the delivery room floor,
corralled into catacombs or be gifted to the Mengele Institute of The
Dubious Sciences because I must say that I really feel for many of
these individuals, being that life is difficult enough for Normals,
much less for somebody dealing with some of these truly perplexing
deformities and maladies. Yes, most of them have my genuine sympathy,
but that doesn’t mean I want them to have a grand stage where they or
their parents can crawl up my ass with a bullhorn and bellow about how
awesome and triumphant they are and how their God isn’t a total dick.

So step right up, Folks! Come stare in awe at Nature’s Forgotten
Children! All Manner of Impossible awaits caged behind these heavy
curtains to toss your senses like a cork on New Year’s! Ladies and
Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages! It is my distinguished
honor to present you with…

The Two-Headed Girl:

They’ve been on the scene for quite some time. Hell, I recall them
being on Oprah over a decade ago, back when a fella had to roll the
dice that the talk show scene would provide him some oddity because the
internet was still a mighty mystery. Most recently, we got a glimpse
into their daily life as teenage girls, meaning two heads or not,
they’re bound to be vapid, superficial bitches. As expected, we follow
them through their snotty day, only pausing here and there so they can
explain to us whatever neurological juggling act they have to do when
it’s time to whack a softball, drive a car or prevent a modern-day
Hercules from checking off #2 and #12 from his Labor List. Then, the
sick makers of the show have the audacity to ask them about boyfriends,
meaning they’re forcing us to ponder the intricacies of sex with
somebody of such “unique” design who also happens to be sixteen. They
are not simply satisfied with our marveling, they want us to intrude
well beyond good taste because the mind-boggling semantics make it seem
ok. It’s not. Don’t go there, Mr. TLCDC Producer, uh-uh.

Exploitation Level: High. These girls function very normally, so the
real story has been left to our tacky imaginations where tasteful
boundaries do not exist.

The 200 Flavors of Midget and Dwarf:

For the run-of-the-mill variety of these “little people,” I say eat it.
You’re short and have the forehead of a telekinetic without the
perks…big fucking deal. Your life is a series of mild inconveniences
and your overcoming of them is barely remarkable. You might be on the
receiving end of a casual double-take from a passerby every now and
again, but the odds of you really freaking somebody out, even a kid,
are slim as your stunted forms are so well-entrenched in our culture;
and in cute ways to boot. There is however, a strain of small that
really breaks my calloused heart—the Primordial Dwarf. These people are
normally proportioned, but tiny—we’re
talking like sub 3-feet here and weighing barely in the teens. There
was this poor little girl who was around nine years old or so and
weighed about twelve pounds. Instead of charging at life with her tank
brimming with overcompensation like in those shows where midgets bitch
about there not being midget-specific clothes, she cried endlessly and
just begged aloud for normality in her hauntingly high voice. Watching
that was sad because here was a person that would forever be treated
like a child while oddly, her more larger, more disproportioned peers
seem almost commonplace in our minds as they hammer out our Christmas
gifts and their effigies pepper the lawns of our White Trash. Really
though–If 98% of the obstacles in your life can be obliterated by a
stepstool, you don’t have it so bad.

Exploitation Level: Low. Very Low.

Tumor Kids:

An unexpected glimpse of these poor kids will have your mind doing
somersaults as you alternatively mutter “Oh my God” and “Get in here”
to whoever happens to be nearby. There was this kid named Novemtree who
was from somewhere in SE Asia…it was almost impossible to make out
facial features beneath the massive amounts of tissue that had
ballooned his head to the size of a baby elephant’s. On another show, I
caught an eyeful of a girl whose entire face was basically a massive
nose—not to be cruel, but my first thought after “I’m not fucking
watching this” was Opus from Bloom County.
There wasn’t much well-spoken English in these stories, so aside from
the visuals, I probably know more overall about whatever child got the
lead in that Christian Children’s Fund ad…by the way, I wonder how
Raquel is doing?

Exploitation Level: Low. Could be higher, but the Third World is two full worlds away from me.

Harlequin Babies:

Yowza. This might be the 9-2 off-suit hole cards of genetics.
Fortunately for these babies, they typically die very early, sparing
them a life of amazing discomfort in every form. There was one show,
however, that followed the life of a now-teenage boy stricken with this
horrible disorder where his skin is constantly sloughing off like that
of a microwaved Irishman. To compensate for this, he must eat a massive
amount of food throughout the day and night simply to maintain his body
mass. When he’s not doing this, or making it snow epidermis, he’s
slathering himself in lotion to keep his skin moist and less prone to
the infections that normal skin would stiff-arm with ease. All in all,
he perpetually lives the life of a burn victim that will never properly
heal and his every action might lead to the demise that he’s ducked
since birth. Again, points to him for surviving this long, plus his
innocence makes me admire him because he’s never had to be anything but
strong, so he doesn’t possess the bloated pride that might sour his
struggle.

Exploitation Level: Medium. It would be higher, but the kid’s
dignity saves him, much to the chagrin of whatever PT Barnum descendent
developed this show.

Litterers Will Be Prosecuted:

Couples wanting a child perpetually find themselves throwing up gamete
airballs and going bankrupt buying pregnancy tests, none of which will
turn black and read “God Says: Give It Up, Bitch,” and end the futility
once and for all. So they flee to God’s arch-nemesis, Science, to
correct their traitorous plumbing. Now there’s probably some wonderful
natural mechanism that has doomed these people to a DNA dead-end, but
sadly, Science can be used to unwind the order of things and often well
beyond the intended point. So suddenly, Infertile Turtles find
themselves simultaneously prego with enough kids to bring a smile to
Joseph Smith’s lips. Now this is when the real nuisance comes in—we’re
supposed to feel bad for them because they have all these fucking kids!
Now their life has more screaming, shitting and puking in it than the
Alabama State Fair and we’re supposed to feel bad that they purposely
forsook their clean, selfish lives and decided to let some low-paid lab
tech create a frappe out of their fluids and blast it into the woman’s
uterus with whatever force was necessary to best her mate’s impotent
dribble. Honestly, inbred farmers do the same thing to cows and with
more dignity. Also, thanks for shitting six kids into the world that
you can’t afford to take care of…I’m sure my taxes will somehow make it
into their college funds, preventing me from buying a Porsche the
second my own, singly-born children leave the nest. If you can’t pop
one over the fence after hundreds or thousands of sexual encounters
where the foreplay solely involved checking the woman’s temperature, go
check out an Adoption Agency…there’s probably a reason why humans
beings only have two nipples.

Exploitation Level: Low. These people are actually exploiting you into sending them free diapers.

The Girl Without a Face:

Mel Gibson starred in a similarly-titled film where he played a
super-handsome man with a half-scarred face and Billy Idol had a song
called “Eyes Without a Face,” which is a pretty apt description of how
this girl began her life…The Girl Without a Face would happily say fuck
you to Mel Gibson and Billy Idol, presuming she can speak. Possibly the
most horrific facial deformity I have ever seen, GWAF had to literally
have a face built for her by doctors from virtually nothing, the
original structure being so extremely minimal that it resembled a clam
shell with googly eyes glued to it like a souvenir you’d find along any
trashy boardwalk. I have no doubt that best effort was made all around
and the lofty goal of a ballpark face was achieved,
unfortunately–please forgive me–it approximates the face of a Tusken
Raider. Now this is the type of deformity that freezes unprepared
people in their tracks. This deformity blows minds, crushes courtesy
and practically demands explanation for the sake of one’s sanity. It is
also one of the most glaring examples of why TLCDC can eat my
properly-encoded ass.

Exploitation Level: High. Difficult visuals with a narrative that
might as well be a sermon. If they had openly forsaken their God
instead of sucked up to him even more, things would’ve been way
classier.

Fatties:

If there’s anybody I don’t feel so bad for, it’s these people. If they
somehow violated the laws of matter and gained 100 pounds every time
they had a bite of a rice cake, I might pity them, but we all know this
is not the case. If you eat 20,000 calories before you get out of bed,
which is never, and burden some poor caretaker with your
hyper-gluttonous lifestyle, you’re kind of a Dick. Hell, I’ll spot you
up to 500 pounds, but the moment you realize that you are no longer
able to move and it’s not due to a spinal cord injury from a stray Crip
bullet, your humanity fades and you essentially become a giant tapeworm
that will scream like a withdrawing junkie when shorted a dozen donuts.
So we get to see these Meat Mountains cry salty tears from atop their
mashed, fetid mattresses or the couches they’ve literally grown intowhile
they rattle off their staggering daily intakes and we are somehow
expected to feel for them. We see them struggle their weight down “low”
enough so that they can get their traitorous stomachs clamped down to
the size of an egg, a laughably medieval means to damn the caloric
river that flows during their every waking moment. Then, in the end,
we’re expected to applaud their bravery when they waste away to a
still-obese individual wearing a jumpsuit of hanging skin. Out of any
of these stories, these are the least tragic because frankly, I’d
rather have to meter every bite and exercise like a maniac if I was
dealt that bad genetic hand, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than
having two heads or no fucking face.

Exploitation Level: High Fructose Corn Syrup. There’s not much to
the story but “I’m fat.” The viewer points and wonders “where does the
poop go?”

In general, the above examples aren’t meant to be objects of ridicule;
rather they are intended as evidence to indict TLCDC for their
exploitative programming. I can only speak for myself, but as I’ve
watched these programs proliferate over the last few years, I’m left
wondering about their necessity. What, if anything, do I learn from
them? What merits do they possess?

After spending many hours deciphering my awkward reactions to these
tales of woe, I find myself a little annoyed because these programs
bait you into uncomfortable mindsets. At face value, they are
chronicles of triumph over adversity and tests of faith and, if you
even possess a shred of decency, you’ll feel uplifted when the credits
roll. On the other hand, if you’re like me, you’ll skip the feel-good
schmaltz and look for the bad… and what you’ll find is that yes, you
are watching this primarily due to morbid curiosity, you’re watching it
to learn the answer to the unanswerable question “What the fuck?”
Countless people suffer every day from injury, disease and poverty, but
they don’t suffer in a sensational way and therefore, do not entice a meandering audience into the Venus Fly Trap of TLCDC.

So maybe this isn’t precisely a bunch of Victorian onlookers with
rotten tomatoes ready in hand, gawking at a shackled Lobster Boy in
blatant disgust, but then again, substituting a packaged sense of
concern doesn’t suddenly make it acceptable to stare at people whether
it is because of harmless amazement or genuine horror. I say leave
these stories for the medical community, charitable institutions and
others that could help alleviate these people’s suffering leaving us,
the useless masses, oblivious for we have nothing to offer but pity at
best, scorn at worst.

In the end, don’t watch these shows…it’s nothing but Rotten.com with
saccharine storylines and a bunch of self-righteous people trying to
make lemonade out of Chernobyl Lemons. So thanks, TLCDC, for reminding
me of the inherent foulness of my own humanity. And oh yeah—“Thank Fuck
that’s not me.”

Johnny Lawrence—the timeless bully—handsome, wealthy and rolling deep
with sniveling minions eager to knock a nerd another strata or two
below rock bottom. To be perfectly honest, Johnny was the most fearsome
movie villain of his day because he was real,
whereas I had a high level of confidence that I would never get pantsed
in gym class by Predator. But as is the intent of these articles, we
will reverse gravity and present this fearsome thug in a new
perspective, for there is a tale to be told beyond the rise of
Machhio…all one must do is rip themselves away from the guilt-tainted
sympathy for the weeping underdog and peer through eyes that focus on
what really matters…Power!

Johnny is the All-Valley 18 and Under Karate Champion three years
running. He’s entering his Senior Year in High School and is very
popular. He’s a country club member. He’s fit, athletic and dashing.
All in all, you couldn’t really imagine anything being imperfect at
this point in his young life, as he is arguably at the apex of his
demographic. But alas, there is a flaw and, as it is the most
persisting nuisance facing humanity since Eve fumbled away paradise,
it’s because of a woman.

Johnny’s female social equivalent and the predestined vessel for his
seed, Ali, has recently broken up with him for unspecified reasons, but
I will presume it’s because she felt she was too fat to deserve such a
perfect boyfriend. Following the age-old rules of rebound, Ali’s
hormones shove her in the opposite direction of Johnny and, given that
he’s as Alpha as they come, any alternative is bound to suck…

Daniel Laruso—a gangly, bastard being supported by a shrill mother
driven by big dreams that barely rival welfare. Daniel is poor,
unrefined and inexplicably cocky,
probably as a result of his hot-Moorish blood getting an octane-boost
with the confidence instilled via YMCA-taught Tai Cheese. But despite
these terrible handicaps, things start out well enough for Daniel. He
makes a quick friend when he kicks the door of his new Section 8
housing into the face of Freddy the Mexican. Awed by the ability to
raise one’s leg parallel to the ground while screaming an
Asian-sounding exclamation, Freddy inquires with amazement “Hey, was
that karate?” as if Daniel had just smashed flaming cinder blocks while
wearing a Gi full of piranha. Realistically Freddy asking Daniel if
that was karate was like asking every guy that can get a boner if he’s
a porn star. Fuck you, Freddy.

But the innocuous meeting with Freddy has a snowball effect as it sets
in motion a series of events that lead our flawless hero, Johnny, to
first encounter the darkened, ugly form of Daniel…And what greasy beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Reseda to be born?

Courtesy of Freddy, Daniel has been invited to an All-Male Valley Scum
Beach Party that happens to be adjacent to a Rich Hills Girls Beach
Party, complete with a space-age battery-powered tape deck. As the
grunting boys perform amazing Feats of kickball for the largely
disinterested group of girls, something terrible happens. Ali, the
alpha female and explicit property of one Mr. John Lawrence,
inexplicably falls under the slummy spell of Daniel during an extended
moment of creepy eye contact. Ok, let’s be serious here… does anybody
have fond memories of making instant friends and reeling in prospects
of raw-dogging the Prom Queen during their first half-day after a
disruptive trans-continental move? Didn’t think so…but wait…I hear dirt
bikes in the distance!

Perched atop a nearby cliff top is our Johnny, talking excitedly of
his impending senior reign and enjoying a celebratory beer with his
bros. But soaring moments tend to be fleeting as Johnny is quickly
grounded when alerted to trouble brewing on the sands below.
Justifiably infuriated by the unexpected sight of his chunky girlfriend
being courted by a coltish stranger in home-made cut-off jean shorts,
Johnny intervenes.

Johnny confronts Ali’s betrayal, but she has already succumbed to
Daniel’s musky spell and the simple, classless future he might offer.
Instead of talking it out, Ali keeps cranking her boombox up to 11 in a
petulant display, using it as a dumb shield against his overwhelming
reasoning. Tired of her childish reaction, Johnny lobs the radio into
the soft sand, not intending to break it of course, but only seeking to
maneuver the conversation in a constructive direction. But the apparent
disregard for Ali’s property is all it takes to spark aggression in
Daniel’s brutish mind and it is at this pivotal moment that he decides
to stick his big, marinara-stained nose where it doesn’t belong.

Daniel rushes to the aid of the radio in a weak attempt to cull
favor from Ali with a grand display of the obsequiousness a
relationship with him would offer. Johnny, annoyed by yet another
middling distraction, tries to hand Daniel the radio so he’ll hopefully
rush off to fence it, but in the process, accidentally shoves him to the ground because he greatly overestimated Daniel’s ability to stand.

Daniel, fueled by New Jersey Choochery, rushes Johnny, who properly
reacts to the low threat level with a harmless trip, hoping that it’ll
send a clear message of dominance in its effortlessness. Unfortunately,
all it does is cause a fresh surge of garlic-tainted adrenaline to gush
into Daniel who doesn’t get the point, even after his second
embarrassing face plant. Johnny, not wanting to further humiliate
Daniel, drops his guard just long enough to catch a total sucker punch
that bloodies his nose. No man should be expected to absorb such an act
of cowardice with grace. In a quick flurry that is more reflex than
response, Johnny handily dispatches Daniel, knowing that dropping him
will be the only way to cease his macho charges and spare him serious
injury.

Ali somehow manages to chastise Johnny for defending himself from
the spaz attacks of this busybody stranger and opts to rush to Daniel’s
aid as he lays sobbing and bleeding in the sand like the Everywimp in
the first cells of a Charles Atlas advertisement. A fine moment comes
when Daniel’s group of potential friends garnish the beat-down sundae
with a bright cherry of disgusted insults and dismissive gestures as
they leave his prone form to be nipped at by the crabs.

The next day is Daniel’s first at his new school and he gets to
make his already awkward debut sporting a black eye that would make Ike
Turner nod in proud approval. Seriously, we’re supposed to root for a
guy who is so pathetic that he’s a black-eyed joke before
his first day at school? A guy so squirrelly that he’s already
blatantly ducking “bullies” in front of Ali, despite being in the safe
haven of school? A guy who pulls his sweatpants up to his armpits, then
starts hurling punches when legitimately slide-tackled during kickball
tryouts? Daniel is the antithesis of a hero. One moment, he is craven,
slinking unseen between sanctuaries, the next he is an opportunistic
savage, master of the cheap shot.

Hoping to up his Karate repertoire, Daniel ventures to a local
school that he sees across the street from the restaurant his mom moved
them across the country to be a hostess at. It is called Cobra-Kai and
it is, for the purposes of the film, the factory of Daniel’s
tormentors. The sensei of this school is a hardened veteran of the Viet
Nam conflict, the highly-decorated John Kreese. Kreese is a hard man,
but like any good teacher, he instills in his students a simple, yet
powerful morality that promotes strength, overcoming of fear and the
defeat of those that would bring you harm…shit they apparently don’t
teach you at the Newark Y. Obviously, Daniel flees the situation
instantly because, God forbid, he opts to impress with bravery or even
humility.

As Daniel peddles his way home on his Huffy, the Cobra-Kai ride up
next to him on their expensive, motored bicycles. They tease him
innocently for a moment, but Daniel freaks out needlessly and goes
armadillo, losing control of his bike as it rockets to an uncontrolled
10mph down the mildest of slopes. A simple accident precipitated, once
again, by the fact that Daniel is a clumsy, spastic dunce that doesn’t
realize that the new guy is supposed to get hazed just a little before
blending into the social slurry. Instead of taking the growing pains,
Daniel goes into a dejected tantrum that catches the attention of a
tiny, mysterious Asian who will eventually show him the path to
quick-fix, unearned respect.

Several weeks suddenly pass and it’s Halloween. There are no
yellowing bruises decorating Daniel’s face, so it’s safe to assume that
Johnny and the Cobras have graciously left Daniel alone for some time.
Daniel decides to go to a school dance solo and, once again, falls into
popular-girl-pussy like it’s an ocean of goddamn quicksand. After
molesting Ali in the portable shower (originality points won courtesy
of Asian mystic), Daniel is pegged in the face by an egg and, due to
some blip in his neurochemistry, decides not to instantaneously
spear-tackle the guy in the chicken suit and rain haymakers on his
beak.

Daniel ventures to the bathroom to clean up the first literal
egg-in-the-face he’s received thus far and, in the process, spies
Johnny in one of the stalls. Instead of, I don’t know, fucking leaving
the bathroom and proceeding with Mission: Sodomize Ali, Daniel decides
he’s going to even the score by getting an unsuspecting Johnny wet. I
don’t know how this plan played out in his head, but I don’t think it
went beyond the wetting stage because it’s slightly difficult to escape
reprisal when you not only run out of the bathroom in obvious guilt,
but you are also dressed as a ten-foot tall fucking shower.

Johnny, needlessly provoked once again by a cheap shot, sets out in
pursuit, friends in tow because that’s what friends do…they get your
back. They chase Daniel outside into the night, where he causes
additional harm to innocents as people crash their cars trying to avoid
him as he flees comeuppance. Being weak, he is inevitably seized by the
angry pack just before he’s able to scale the fence surrounding his
ghetto, crushing his hopes of having his mom chase the Cobras away with
wild swings of a broom. Johnny draws Daniel to eye level and
breathlessly asks of him “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could
you?” A fair question leveled at a recidivist coward in desperate need
of recalibration.

Since punishment akin to spankings had demonstrated little effect up to
this point, it was time for Daniel to be shown his place via the heavy
hand. It was the only way, otherwise, Daniel would eventually wrong
somebody not possessing of mercy who would fuck him up worse than any
BMX accident could ever cover up. Just as the stern lesson is starting
to take, Tiny Asian appears in a cloud of Dragon’s Breath to fuck it
all up…pathetic really, a skilled martial artist beating up a bunch of
seventeen-year-olds.

With the balance of power now destabilized by the introduction of a
child abuser, Daniel goes on the offensive and demands of the Cobras to
be left alone, otherwise he’ll sic his murderous Nisei on them again.
Sensei Kreese, with his superior understanding of Asian codes of honor,
suggests that Daniel and Johnny square up on-on-one to settle things
once and for all, like champions of yore. But once again, Daniel’s
inherent weakness requires all manner of accommodation instead of him
once again denying that the new kid’s lot in life is to just shut the
fuck up and wait for the opportunity to prey on newer kids. So once
again, Johnny must turn the other cheek and agree to leave Daniel alone
until the All-Valley Tournament where he might be sufficiently trained
to avoid crying in a crumpled heap after a two-second ass-beating.

With the cease-fire in place, the Cobras honor the decree as expected.
What does Daniel do at first opportunity? He runs up to the Cobras, Ali
in tow, to flaunt his untouchability! He even stakes passive claim to a
black eye he didn’t even deliver! “Haha! You can’t deservingly kick my
ass cuz’ your Sensei said so!” What a fucking greasy pussy bitch. I’d
sooner cheer for the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

At this point, the pacing of the film dies, as we are bored to death
with karate training cunningly disguised as Koi Pond maintenance,
Daniel building confidence within the safety of his snow globe
existence and a very normal, healthy friendship developing between a
young boy and a reclusive old Japanese man that may or may not have
tampered with American radar emplacements on Oahu, c. December 7th,
1941.

So tournament day finally arrives. Johnny is the heavy favorite to
win, being that he is a three-time champion and has achieved this
spectacular level of success through years of diligence and hard work.
Daniel shows up unprepared, lies about being a black belt, steals somebody
else’s black belt and then he, Benedict Akira and Ali all conspire to
dupe a kindly ring official into breaking the rules to Daniel’s
advantage.

The tournament begins and Daniel starts off with his typical Clinic
in Spinelessness, going so far as to be pre-terrified because his first
opponent appears to be meditating. After running out of the ring a few
times like a gay elephant fleeing a mouse, he gains his composure and
wins with a few unspectacular moves just as the first thumps of “You’re
the Best Around” swell, escorting us into the montage that speeds us
through the tournament.

We see the well-trained Cobras making quick work of the
competition; Johnny especially dispatches his foes with practiced
perfection. We also see Daniel, even with the assistance of cinematic
smoke and mirrors, perform Karate moves with all the grace of a
rusted-out Asimo.

As the final tournament brackets start to take form, Daniel must fight
a series of Mini-Boss battles in the form of the second-tier
(non-Johnny) Cobra-Kai. In the semi-final round against Bobby, Sensei
Kreese, tired of watching the deceptive Daniel scale the ranks and
dishonor millennia of tradition, tells Bobby he wants Daniel “out of
commission.” Bobby follows his order, but still summons the character
to apologize, despite the fact that Daniel, a supposed practitioner of
Karate, should perhaps be capable of self-defense. Unfortunately,
Bobby’s attack was only sufficient to deter instantaneous Western
methods of healing, but unbeknownst to him or anyone else, Daniel has yet another Ace up his sleevein the form of the Japanese Shiatsu Knee Fix, again courtesy of Mr. Omni-Tool-San.

Johnny, a given in the Finals, is accepting the trophy after another
amazing run unfortunately soured by a default victory, courtesy of that
guy that fucks up everything for him. But like a decapitated and
thought-dead villain in the B-est of horror films, Daniel emerges from
the locker room, his game knee pinned together by the very will of the
Khans. There will be a final apocalyptic fight after all. Good versus
Evil. Light versus Dark.

Sensei Kreese, fully confident in his student’s superiority,
rewards Johnny’s months of patience by allowing him to punish Daniel in
the one arena where outside influences will not affect the outcome, a
place where warriors kill and cowards are slain. Get a point. Give a
point. Maintain the stalemate until every unearned achievement that
ever drove Daniel is mashed out by fist and foot. Deconstruct him, and
then reform him into a true man from the basic elements.

Johnny bats Daniel around as easily as he did on the beach many months
before. Perpetually overmatched and on the defensive, Daniel skits
around the ring like a cornered mink, his fear and weakness on display
for hundreds to see. Once again, Kreese tires of this sheepish show and
the infamous request of “sweep the leg” comes into play, a maneuver
considered illegal in the tournament, but probably only so because
Daniel’s mother somehow stole the tournament rule book and tailored it
to suit her son’s statued fighting style. Johnny, still only a student,
questions his teacher’s motives momentarily, but the leg is swept
nonetheless and Daniel’s balky knee crumbles anew, this time with no
hidden parlor tricks available to repair him.

Everything is unfolding according to Darwinian law, until the
first-point-wins Sudden Death comes into play. Johnny, who has
dominated every single moral and physical challenge up to this point,
suddenly finds himself staring at an idiot wobbling on one foot with
his arms held up like those of a gibbon-gone-terrestrial. In this one
flawed moment of uncertainty mixed with overconfidence, Johnny charges
Daniel face-first and is rewarded with a punt to the nose, courtesy of
the lamest animal-themed-style outside of Platypus…plus, I thought
contact to the face was illegal?

The fair-weather crowd erupts and rushes the ring; fond memories of
Johnny’s glorious reign are shoved aside like pencils in a Halloween
horde. The ecstatic Daniel is hoisted onto strange shoulders as he
celebrates his ill-gotten victory, never accepting it as
tainted-lightning-in-a-bottle, but no matter, for we have countless
examples of the type of person he really is; a weak, opportunistic
instigator doesn’t become Mr. Bushido because of one fluke Crane Kick.

And from the throng of revelers, who should emerge, bloodied and
defeated, but still rising above it all, even in his darkest moment?
Johnny, that’s who. And what does he do but wrest the All-Valley 18 and
Under Trophy from the announcer’s hand and presents it to Daniel
himself, proudly saying “You’re all right, Laruso.”

If this is not the most selfless cinematic moment in history I don’t
know what is, but as I sit here and appreciate the big picture one last
time, I realize something important has somehow been left unspoken for
these 20+ years…

“Johnny, it’s you that’s all right, Man. It’s always been you.”

Every now and again, when our sensibilities are weakened by a paralyzing hangover and Sunday boredom, the networks will slip a hideous reality show slug into your brain like Kahn Nonnien Singh. These shows don’t really seek to amuse as much as they seek to annoy and apparently, being annoyed passes for entertainment these days. In past years, I’ve endured a nasty case of the “Rich Girls,” still get itchy outbreaks of “My Super Sweet 16″ and, most recently, a show called “The Pick Up Artist” has gone full-blown in my blood.

This show is about an asshole former magician who calls himself “Mystery.” Mystery has applied his vast knowledge of evolutionary psychology to the human dating game and apparently, found some renown as a pick-up coach to awkward failures. As a general mission statement, this doesn’t seem like the worst idea ever, especially considering very few of us have the sack or skillz to walk up to a group of women cold unless we’re in that golden zone of say 19-19.5 drinks. Yes, not a bad idea at all, except for the fact that a major component of the success Mystery offers hinges on looking like fucking this!!!

“I am this full of shit!”

Mystery cleverly refers to this type of appearance as “peacocking,” because women have obviously developed an instinctual lusting for superfluous Yanamano welding goggles and Dr. Seuss hats over the eons. Along with Mystery, there are two other Co-Masters that I’d name Emo-Gupta and Lord Rodent of Sussex if they weren’t already named “Matador” and “J-Dog.” These two are graduates of Mystery’s School of Box and you can still clearly see their nerdy vestiges peeking out from behind their black nail polish and aped machismo.

So this motley trio is tasked with turning a squad of eight sexless Melvins into a new brand of Melvin that has sex. It’s a standard mishmash of nerd stereotypes: 45 year-old virgin, fat sweaty kid, timid Asian, effeminate guy, undeservedly cocky Indian, plus a couple of pretty normal-looking guys crippled with zero game. This Nerd Herd will be coached to overcome their fears and ultimately, one of them will attain the status of “Master Pick-Up Artist,” which comes with a $50K payout and probably requires you to legally change your name to something like “Mr. Plow.”

We’re only a couple of episodes in, but I suspect that we’re not going to reach some flowery revelation of “just be confident as yourself,” because Mystery and Co. are just so intoxicated on their own bullshit that I cannot detect anything approaching genuine beneath their absurd exteriors. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not hatin’. If anything, the women who scramble to hang on their every word are far more ridiculous in the end, especially considering that a major component of picking up woman is to be a smug prick and bat around lame, quasi-edgy balls of conversation.

Thus far, the Nerd Herd has been forced into a couple of club situations so the Masters can assess their student’s baseline incompetence. Some actually engage other clubgoer’s with cringe-worthy blather only to flounder horribly when the conversation was volleyed back to them, creating truly agonizing awkwardness before fleeing back to the periphery. And those were the brave ones. Others froze up so hard that they walked out with pigeon shit covering their shoulders. It’s now Team Mystery’s turn to show these noodle-dicks how to roll. Mystery, Matador and J-Dog glide in da club like a SWAT Team dressed by Rob Zombie. Instantly, they’re chatting up women after using bizarre openers that should reasonably send the ditsiest skank on the Jersey Shore into giggling hysterics. They’re also being pretty dicky, insisting that the girls buy them drinks if they are to continue to enjoy their company. That thought begins to stir in my mind again and sadly, it’s not focused on pounding these arrogant jester’s heads in…woman really do love assholes.

The nerds watch in awe. They will follow these Muff Messiahs to the edge of bad taste and beyond. They will dress like Avril Levine and adopt the latest innovations in male makeup and hair coloring first established by Zartan’s crew. They will learn the craft of the glib tongue and how to strut Hot Topic plumage that shouldn’t even be available in adult sizes. They will learn the unimaginative lexicon of Mystery as he boldly approaches “three sets” and uses casual “neg” gestures to soothe dames like Ben Kenobi ducking Stormtroopers at sobriety checkpoints.

What it comes down to is Mystery will get a handjob from your girl under the table while you impatiently tolerate his prepared icebreakers while your guard is down because he’s wearing a backpack that looks like a giant trilobyte…if you are a woman, you’ll think (or whatever the female equivalent is) “Why do I want to fuck this guy so badly?” And so a snare of a million questions is laid for us, the viewer. Will VH1 have the balls to show us what happens when the newly crowned Pick-Up Master lands his first girl, only to simultaneously ejaculate and shart while unzipping his parachute pants? Does Mystery have lessons for those of us not so full of righteous self-contempt that the only solution is to dynamite our very person and replace it with a Styrofoam Hearst Castle? How does a man with an open tab at Sephora maintain worthwhile friendships within his own sex? Most of all, we need some goddamned answers as to why our instincts were so off, why this guy is such a…muh…muh…Mystery! All we can do is wait and watch as this arrogantly dispenses his wisdom and we watch helplessly saying “No fuckin’ way that would work!” while watching it work to perfection.

“Shredder gets all the girls.”

As another glorious season of NFL looms, so stirs the work productivity vampire known as Fantasy Football. This will be the first or last in a series of uninformative articles that you should completely ignore if you hope to ever have your name etched onto the side of your league’s coveted shitty plastic trophy. Perhaps I should wait until I draft my team to share this insight with you, being that whoever graces the ‘07 Furious Georges’ roster, no matter how touted by prognosticators, will surely flame out and insure that I have wasted yet another $500 and 17 noon-to-midnight Sundays jerking off to yardage statistics with no less than five televisions cluttering my living room to the point where its feng shui flow would inspire seppuku in any gay man who saw it. Nevertheless, as is the case in my life overall, I lust for knowledge, but always fail when attempting to apply it to my benefit.

This edition is an exhaustive study of NFL running backs that we could say something mean about. If you want to hear that Rudi Johnson will boringly grind out 1,400/12 this year and without raping his babysitter, just as sure as you’ll blow a chance at sex by saying “Two seconds! Let me check my fantasy stats for the night game,” you’re in the wrong place. We are simply here to give you unique insights that cannot be found in the two dozen fantasy magazines which all derive their names from different arrangements of the same five words and form a trail of false knowledge leading you from your computer, to the ATM, to the crapper.

Frank “Barbaro” Gore

Gore has all the skill in the world and plays on an ever-improving offense in the NFC O’Douls division. He was one of the most productive backs in both fantasy and big-boy football last year. He’ll also miss at least a quarter of the season because he is as delicate as Tinker Bell’s hymen. Also, in some very rare cases, notorious malingerers who have just signed long-term contracts with enormous signing bonuses will fall off slightly in production the following year. That doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t draft him, because if you are a savvy player, you should have a decent third back by the time Frank reunites with the stretcher, and when he’s healthy could be a baby LT.

A gamble worth taking only in the mid-late first. He floats like a butterfly, but he breaks just like a little girl.

Lendale “I’m Luvin‘ It” White

Watching Lendale play Farley to Bush’s Spade at USC was a feast of scoring for every football taste. Unfortunately, NFL money has allowed Lendale access to levels elite deliciousness that he never dreamed of in college, thus he spends the off-season covered in high-priced crumbs, football of secondary concern to accidentally biting off one of his own fingers during a 3a.m. Godiva binge. Fortunately for Lendale, he plays on a team that has one offensive star, that being Vince Young, so he may have some default opportunities. Unfortunately for Lendale, Vince Young is a better running back, despite being a quarterback.

Round 2-3, because sometimes a 265-pound blob will fall forward.

Steven Jackson talks the way a whale shark would in a movie. If his lower lip were shaved down a little, a concurrent reduction in drag would drop his 40 time by at least one full second. Jackson exceeded all expectations last year, especially as a receiver. The offense around him has only improved this off-season, so look to him to enjoy even less defensive focus, but at the same time, a drop in total could come as a result of them obtaining a pass-catching TE in Randy “NFL Wifebeater #4,678,” a large red-zone threat in Drew “White Wide Receiver” Bennett and drafting similarly skilled Rutgers’ Brian Leonard, not to mention Torry “Sam Handsomer Brother” Holt and old-ass Isaac Bruce. Will there be enough offensive krill for Jackson to get his daily two tons?

No. 2 overall pick, but was ‘06 a fluke? Get it?

Brian “Hoveround” Westbrook

The Philadelphia faithful are the the bottom rung of the subterranean ladder of NFL fandom; scum-filled lunch pails who make Raider Nation look like Skull and Bones. They hardly deserve, in Westbrook and McNabb, the most exciting action duo since Van Damme last played a clone of himself and/or twins. This glorious, action epic is cursed, however, because both stars are black, so it is impossible to predict which one is going get to bumped off halfway into the show.

Let someone else gamble their season on and early- or mid-first-round pick. If he falls to you, catch him with oven mitts on.

Willis “Johnny Appleseed” McGahee

Anybody that thinks McGahee was a dick for being critical of the city of Buffalo, N.Y., has never been to Buffalo, much less as a young millionaire. In fact, McGahee was so bored that he had to pass his time impregnating three different women, which by the way, Willis, amounts to 17% of your GROSS income to each of them! Just because Applebees is the only bar in town doesn’t mean its time to play fire and forget with the local womenfolk because clearly, they want nothing more than to flee Western New York themselves, and what better way to do so than by becoming a millionaire simply by whispering “its OK, Willis. I’m on the pill”? I’m not sold on his transition to Baltimore. He had one good year, and that was two full seasons ago. You can blame the Bills for being shitty overall, but any great player will show flashes regardless of the dirt squad around him.

Safely Pull Out McGahee’s name in the Late First Early Second Round.

Larry “Grandmama” Johnson

Yeah, everybody calls him Grandmama now, but Wax has been doing it for years, so hit a knob. Holdouts, schmoldouts. Priest, Schmiest. Punishing work load, Schmunishing Schmork Schmode. The only thing that could worry me regarding LJ, would be if: 1) he started hanging with Javon Walker and 2) it became fashionable among the thug set to pack silver bullets in the club. I mean, everyone gets wet over the consistency of Rudi Johnson, when the same numbers for LJ would be as disappointing as a blind date showing up wearing a promise ring. On top of that, he had almost 450 touches last year with only two fumbles. That’s almost as impressive as Shawn Kemp not having AIDs.

I’d rather draft third than second. LJ and Jackson are both fine picks, and I’d still have time for a meditative dump between picks.

Shaun “of the Dead” Alexander

Alexander is one saltine bastard. Sure he’s piled up great numbers over the last six years, but you have to credit much of that to a once-dominant O-line, because Alexander certainly ain’t wowing with his speed, power, receiving skills or dentition. Like so many others stricken with lameness, Alexander has a kickin‘ case of the Christs, as exhibited by naming his children Heaven, Trinity and D’Ezekiel and last year, proclaiming to his coach that prayer had healed his broken foot in less than two weeks, even though it has yet to fully heal some 10 months later. Alexander is still a great No 2. because he has little competition for carries, and he will still burrow past Walter Jones’ taint frequently enough to plop in the end zone, but he’s certainly not the Fantasy Samson he once was.

Blessed is He Who Takes this Late-First-Round Bargain.

Cedric “Less Entertaining than Robert Guillome” Benson

Oh how I wept when Chicago drafted Benson. He’s an unspectacular runner, which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but the last good back we had was featured in Super Tecmo Bowl, where he earned the name Neil “Before Your Master” Anderson in my geekish clique. Since then, me Bears have tried to plug their needy hole with Enis, A-Train and that Muslim guy from Colorado. And for a while, it looked like Benson was poised to carry on the torch of shame as he waited behind Thomas Jones. He looked good the second half of last season, however, and has already knocked one would-be tackler out for the year in pre-season. Plus he seems to be the type to thrive on a heavy workload. Thomas Jones is gone and the back up to Benson is just last year’s third stringer, “Not That” Adrien Peterson (although the guy has some talent). So now you’ve got the precious blood diamond of the NFL in Benson: a true featured back. No having your team drive to the one and coach sending in the fat guy to punch it in. None of your back getting one carry in the second half because Fred Taylor gets hot. It’s a bit like dating a girl a league or two down from your own. Not the sexiest thing in the world, but you’ll get all the play you want.

The needle on the neutrality meter is pointing to a picture of Katherine Harris here, but I believe Benson is worth snagging at the top of the second round.

Deuce “Deuce” Mcallister

“Dulymus” is Deuce’s real name and, if memory serves, he was the cheapest character to use in Street Fighter 2. Everyone sings the praises of a guy like Deuce because he is willing to be a team player and forgo personal glory so that his team can have the opportunity to lose in the playoffs. But in the world of high stakes, professional t-e-a-m sports, the one-I-ed man is king. Unfortunately for him, the utter ineptitude of the Houston Texans front office allowed the team from Gumbo Atlantis to select a player known as Reggie Bush, effectively starting a countdown on when Deuce’s big-money contract would be chased out of town faster than a Klansman in a FEMA T-shirt. If Reggie continues to adapt to the pros like he did in the second half of last season, its just a matter of time before they hire some cheaper, big-bodied tackle sponge to keep Mr. Bush spry.

For now, he’ll be a solid No.2 running back, just like he is on his own team.

L “Ghat Damn” T

Anybody else seen a profile of “LT at home”? Tragically, the young superstar has already wed. Whenever I hear of someone striving for years to become a top athlete or famous musician, then instantly marrying, I think of De Niro bellowing, “It defeats its own purpose!!” in Raging Bull. LT’s wife is hot, but you get the distinct impression she is running the show. Hidden cameras would reveal LT running up and down the hill on their property with a $15,000, out-of-favor, six-month-old china hutch tied to his back as his wife glances through a tiara catalog and chats with their live in manicurist. But I also detect a Lady Macbeth quality about her that contributes to the upside of the obvious No. 1 overall pick. Behind every great man is a venal she-jockey, flogging him to fill the cavern where her soul should be with ever more status and shiny shit. A repeat of last season is a lot to ask for, but rest assured that Mrs. T will still be able to look down her nose at Larry Johnson’s wife at the United Way charity ball.

Thank fuck that the NFL punditry can finally stop humiliating itself with talk about how the Chargers “passed over” Mexico to get LT. If you need to know who to take No. 1 in this draft, a certain someone could use you on a Virginia jury.

Ahman “It’s Not Savvy Drafting” Green

As one of the main cogs of the once-intimidating Packers, Ahman has had his fair share of success, culminating in an incredible season in 2003 that was only bested by Priest Holmes. Nowadays, he is in steady decline and this is most evidenced by the fact that even the Packers didn’t want him, despite having no real alternative. But damned if that high mileage and those sagging numbers didn’t scare off the Houston Texans, who were happy to sign the 30-year-old, injury-prone back to a lucrative contract and give him the opportunity to get his spine atomized behind the most laughably unaddressed offensive line in NFL history. Another knock on Ahman is that he would be the last person a museum curator would hand a Ming Vase to in the event of a fire — the guy simply cannot hold on to the ball. This is medically based on him having armpit skin all over his forearms or something, but the problem didn’t seem to abate once they enveloped his arms in custom rubber-tire post-apocalyptic battle sleeves like they tended to do every fall in Green Bay. Now he’s in Houston, the highest per-capita sweat-producing city in the Northern Hemisphere, so one can only imagine the ball hitting the ground more often than Sean Preston Federline.

If he’s around in the fifth, fire away if you’re thin at RB, but save two roster spots for Ron Dayne as insurance.

Reggie “Easy Joke” Bush

Like many an SC sorority pledge, we saw Reggie do things that we’d never seen any man do before when he was in college. And unlike the Alpha Pi house, we didn’t wind up with burning bushes of our own. With the rise of the bikini wax and flood waters, this is the only Bush anybody in New Orleans wants to see. And so forth. Reggie is pretty clearly the best platoon back available because, even if Deuce gets hot and takes over the rushing, he’ll put up wide-receiver-type statistics from the backfield or whereever else they decide to line him up. If you’re on the fence with Bush and some other guy, remember that Reggie will make for far more entertaining viewing as you gorge on foods from the salt and lard families, and refresh your team’s online stats every four seconds for the next 16 Sundays of your well-balanced and productive life.

Like his decision to go to SC, Reggie’s receiving prowess means money in the bank. His upside as a runner is almost limitless, so why not reach for him in the mid-first?

Brandon “Jigganaut*” Jacobs

If there’s anything to look forward to in what will certainly be a bleak season for Big Blue, it’s the opportunity to watch this beast. Jacobs is like 6′5″, 270 and has 4.4 speed. He is as intimidating on the field as he is in a Chinese communal shower or haunting the dreams of white supremacists with liberal daughters. If he learns to lower his pads, prepare to clearly see “Oh, fuck” on defensive back’s faces as he breaks through the front seven — this happened last year to Ronde Barber who could be seen laughing in futility while he was plastered to Jacob’s chest like a hood ornament. With no Tiki around, Jacobs will cease to be a one-dimensional goal line plunger and probably be in the mold of a Larry Johnson — a punishing runner that tires out the defense and finds the end zone at least once per game.

Unproven but underrated. A steal in the first half of the second.

*This joke is not offensive, because Wax is brown too.

Exercise made queasy

In this day and age of ever-increasing convenience, the animal that is man is constantly challenged to survive in a way millions of years of evolution never planned for — we must defend ourselves from ourselves. Where we once had to expend calories to obtain calories, we can now have the most unnaturally delicious foods delivered right to our ant-infested bedsides. Rest was once the reward after the belly was filled with hard-gotten sustenance; now it is the native state, broken only by the need to evacuate lipid-filled floaters and alien sugars or to search frantically for a truant remote control. Work no longer consists of actual work for many, having become little more than effortless transit between chairs and a computer with different bookmarks.

So while we as a society have wandered further and further away from the evolutionary triumph we once represented, some of us find it necessary to create useless toil to avoid the unreachable shoelaces, the eclipsed genitals and ritual defeat at the hands of the bathroom mirror. This leads down a clownish road fueled by varying levels of self-obsession and masochism, trying to recapture whatever latent warrior spirit that sustained our weak bodies and strong minds through the eons until we became the irresponsible masters and rapists of the world. This leads us to the gym.

I have patronized many a gym in my pedestrian-workout lifetime. There were the ones dominated by terrifying Power Lifting Battle Ogres that would slap each other’s bloated faces before they screamed through sets of bar-bending lunacy. There were gyms in urban YMCA basements where wide-eyed homeless men would wander in from the shelter side of the building only to be yoked when their masturbation to the aerobicizing women warranted action level. There were the Guido-infested Chooch Gyms where any incidental eye contact was immediately met with a Puffed-Chest Death Challenge meant more to alert Support Guidos to the situation than to scare you away on their own. But for all of the above macho nonsense and random insanity, none of these places could really compare with a single workout I had at a growing chain called Planet Fitness.

Planet Fitness’ core philosophy is that it is a “Judgment Free Zone.” This seems reasonable to counteract the distraction, intimidating atmosphere and equipment soiled by popped back zits accompanying serious lifters, or so I thought.

Before I list off some of the cunning countermeasures which would have been unnecessary if they had just named the place “VaGymNa,” let me first say that this joint is largely purple, and it is so overwhelming that I felt like I was entombed in Grimace’s colon.

• There are no scales in the locker rooms. Too judgmental, apparently. Some people like to use scales to track their progress, but God forbid somebody sees one and feels bad about the fact that they’ve spent years doing absolutely nothing except buying yachts for the Keebler Elves. I presume that they don’t allow nude showering either, opting for some sort of Dong Socialism where you have to wear a bathing suit stuffed with a universally-sized sockball.

• Dumbbells go up only to 80 lbs. If 80 lbs. is the highest, the day you, Slob, actually get to use it for an exercise is a psychological triumph! You’ve hefted the mightiest weight there! You’ve scaled the Everest of Mediocrity!

• There are two total free bars in the place, and they’re dedicated to bench press — don’t even think of moving one of them or the Smile Police will assault you and put you in your place with pleasant condescension akin to being blackmailed by Mormons. Everything else is a purple machine that makes you really good at building functional muscle perfectly suited to push a car off your crushed toddler, but only if its at exactly a 37-degree angle, seated.

• You’re not allowed to wear bandanas. Personally, I believe in this rule, because as far as I’m concerned, bandanas are suited only for gypsy heads and around the necks of German shepherds, but Planet Fitness has a different reason! Bandanas promote gang violence! I’m not sure if this is because the Planet Fitness CEO cried during Boyz N Da Hood, but to be fair, I didn’t work out at the PF on Crenshaw. When it comes to gang violence, PF sez ”Squash it!”

• You’re not allowed to bring in water containers larger than 20 oz. Who the fuck would even think of this? Apparently, this is because dreaded meatheads will bring in a full gallon of water for a workout! Our targeted member demographic would never exert themselves enough to drink more than 20 oz. of water during a workout! Water fountain? Fuck that. I’d sooner drink out of Tubgirl.

Shhhhh, I’m trying to workout over here!!

• The Lunk Alarm. When I have described this to people, they think it is some exaggerated boogeyman created to justify my burning hatred for this place’s lameness. It isn’t, and I know this because I experienced its damnation in the heart of the Judgment-Free Zone itself! The Lunk Alarm is a device coupled to a decibel meter. Should you make any detectable noise from straining from a lift or shifting the Earth’s axis with an 80-lb. dumbbell dropped from two inches up, you will be treated to the Lunk Alarm, a spinning purple light accompanied by a siren that goes “WHHHEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR WHHHEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR” for a few seconds while everybody you can beat up horghs at you in Bizzarro Darwinistic fashion. Personally, I felt pretty judged.

Inevitability

I worked out at this place once for less than 30 minutes. I actually left in the middle to go work out at my own house. For the record, at 6’0”, 190lbs, I am by no means some hulking individual, but I do realize that exercise requires exertion, and when you are at the limits of exertion, moderate noise might escape from your body or you might quickly have to put something down because you can no longer hold it — again, causing some noise, but often preventing your intestines from being blasted into your scrotum. I do not advocate screaming, grunting, clouds of chalk, menacing, shivvings in the main yard or anything of that sort. I respect the fact that people are there to better themselves, be they Genetically Unlucky Wobblers, Charles Atlases or the Old Man Who Takes 45 Minutes to Cover Up His Ballsack Chandelier in the Locker Room.

The thing is, a lot of motivation comes from unspoken competition. Other people are your bar, and by neutering “respectful intensity” or whatever you’d call it, Planet Fitness is providing a disservice to its clientele. They’ve created a place that is all safety and no challenge. If people are being loud, you go tell them to keep it down; you don’t create this stupid mob shaming mentality with a fucking horn and light show. Somebody who has never exercised before should see it as difficult, not as easy, because easy is what they’ve followed their whole lives until their doctor told them to exercise or die.

“38-38-38? Only if it’s 20,000 BC”  *whip crack*

Is the need to exercise a ridiculous symptom of what we’ve become? Absolutely. I recall being in a third-world country and driving by this guy at about 6 a.m. while I was on my way to get drunk at some ritzy beach resort that I couldn’t afford valet service at if I were in the states. He was a slight man, covered with stringy muscle, and he was tasked with moving this huge pile of stones, the lightest being around 70 pounds, I’d wager, about 100 feet to a riverside. At around 6 p.m., we drove back the same way, and he had almost completed this Herculean Labor. Twelve hours later, in scorching heat, this shoeless guy moved hundreds of huge rocks, by hand, over a considerable distance. That image always stuck with me, because I always wondered how he would respond if I told him that I moved heavy shit around for no real reason just to do it because my everyday life is so fantastically lazy. I envisioned myself as a Jacob Marley with no moral to impart, but possessing of his arcane powers enabling me to whisk this man away to a Planet Fitness and watch his strong heart seize in fatal disbelief.

So as we spiral further and further to a mean waistband of 40, we find that even the only source of our healthy salvation is being diluted to appeal to our universal tendency for path of least resistance. Places where you should seek absolution for the sins of gluttony and sloth have become just another location to half-ass your way through life, all the while filling yourself with undeserved esteem when you proudly announce: “I’m going to the gym,” then proceed to use all the equipment as furniture and assume that fitness can be achieved through osmosis. Planet Fitness is an absurd juxtaposition of health coupled with the very laziness that undermines it. In the end, this isn’t about their retarded mission statement; it’s about the hypocrisy that penetrates every facet of our lives. Everything is tending toward lowered expectations, thus making the previous low standard the new high. We live in a world where “your personal best” is what you strive for when, in truth, your personal best fucking sucks.

Basic Overview: Chiseled Greeks in Snuggies brutally plowing your orbits for 100 minutes with raw masculinity. You want to exclude gays from the military? Screen 300 in boot camp and have the drill sergeant perform random crotch taps. “Jesus H. Christ, Pyle! Are you a fudgepacker!?” All the gays will be purged from the military and will then occupy themselves by adopting Christian children tragically orphaned by dumb wars.

Two minutes into the film, I upped the customary single-seat gay buffer zone from my male friends to a full row. At that moment, I assumed that every man in the theater, gay or not, would soon be helplessly jerking off their male companions through popcorn tub glory holes. Within the first 10 minutes of the film, a cunning attempt is made to quell the imminent Tsunami of Fabulous growing in the audience by verifying that the Spartans are totally not gay. They do this by referring to the Athenians as “Boy-Lovers,” which *whew* instantly absolves the Spartans from their implied lustings, much in the same way homophobic jocks deftly hide their locker room desires by calling every nude bathing associate a fag.

This movie is extremely thin, even for one based on a “graphic novel,” which is what Nerd Spin Doctors use to divert attention away from the sad reality of “comic book.” It chronicles the macho strut of King Leonidas, a bullheaded Spartan King who must rally all of the warring Greek city-states together in an effort to prevent a bleak future of mulatto children. His stout leadership is naturally undermined by schemers, greedy politicians and ugly people, so he must subvert the laws of his land and cling to the core Spartan values, those being stabbing and growling every word through bared teeth.

The tale of 300 is narrated by a One-Eyed Warrior who has a really annoying, warbling voice with an accent of indeterminate origin. I only mention him because he is the wielder of most of the film’s non-shouted dialog, with the rest being lame verbal judo to every presented challenge or yelling, “Push!” like it was max-out day on flat bench. I’ll say no more about him, because he is a dick.

The mighty 300 set off to break the spirit of the coming Persian hordes with their superior skill and a great geographical advantage which places them firmly in a crevasse shaped like a rectum. This essentially encompasses the bulk of the film.

The Spartans form an impenetrable wall of shield and spear, varying squads of Novelty Darkies attack and are repelled. Form wall, Novelty Beasts associated with darkie countries are repelled. Everything is shot in sultry slow motion, so the violence and the attempted poetic motion that fuels it can be savored for maximum effect and shallowness.

Common means cannot best the impossibly outnumbered Spartans, so treachery is the only route to their undoing. In accordance with the established theme, the mighty Yin of the physically perfect Spartans can only be undermined by the weak-willed Yang of the grossly malformed.

The honorless Hunchback, Rocky Dennisus, quickly finds his way into the favor of the invading Persian King after being snubbed by Leonidas. The rival King, Xerxes, is a truly perplexing combination of Barry White’s Voice, The Creepiness of a Tucked Jame Gumb and the NBA center of your choosing. He also has so much gold shit hanging on his face that it looks like he got bukkaked by King Midas.

Xerxes offers up the Hunchback boundless pleasure in exchange for the means to defeat Leonidas. This boundless pleasure package includes some sex with some equally deformed butterfaces and, inexplicably, a fucking wizard hat.

So we see the betrayed Spartans begin to crumble, and their predictable doom begins to loom heavy. A few “key” guys die, but to really give a shit about any of them, you must have deemed them to be the hunkiest of the bunch earlier on, because you certainly can’t differentiate any of the meat via character development.

Eventually, the Spartans are beaten. Sure, there’s a last-ditch moment where Total Dum-Dums think they might win, but Leonidas pulls a Scott Norwood with his javelin and then gets turned into a Human Lite-Brite along with everybody else in an impossibly heavy hail of arrows that is ubiquitous in every modern film featuring arrows. Prior to his Jesus Christ Pose death, Leonidas does take a quick moment to make the traitorous Hunchback feel really guilty.

We do get a tacked-on, feel-good ending where the Greeks have unified and are led to victory by the redeemed Robert the Bruce, but it’s ultimately meaningless and the outcome is mercifully implied instead of blasted with ejaculatory force into our weary eyes.

300 was somewhat enjoyable upon first viewing. Over-the-top and shamelessly mindless, it was visually entertaining and did well in the all-important category of inspiring snarky comments from the crew. A second viewing on the laptop left me bored as fuck. 300 is just too paper-thin to be enjoyed on repeated viewing. Even the juxtaposition of modern-day right-wing politics gives this movie a little too much credit, considering that macho warmongering isn’t exactly a novel concept, plus the film clearly promoted fourth-trimester abortion at its onset.

At its core, 300 is a simple nerd fantasy, a little taste of heroism and savage times that pokes at the dim embers of nerd fortitude. It is safe to embrace the strong of a different era as well as to imagine your flabby self as being capable of similar feats even though you can’t catch a football, but when the fantasy ends, its time to slouch back into reality where the modern equivalents of your on-screen champions are probably your most hated persecutors.

It is also clearly a fantasy for another demographic, but if you don’t ask, I won’t tell. Teehee.