Tonight, Idol was all about the musical leavings of Rod Stewart, or rather, his selections from the quote-unquote great American songbook... and if there was ever a time for American 13 year-old-girls to unite and become of one mind, it's tonight -- and they should come together to toss Ace Young.
The illustration above is a visual pun to suggest how "out of his depth" he is. Or, if you prefer, he's "in over his head." Or, he is "fucking charmless and greasy." Your pick.
Because I've gotten so many requests, it's time for... "The Prostate Update."
Today, it looks good. After slapping on a rubber glove and slipping my finger into the rectal cavity, here's what I did:
–By gently rotating my hand, I used the pad of my index finger to feel to the left, right and then directly backwards (i.e. towards yourself) and along the sacrum. I made note of any irregularities/masses. I did, however, feel a fluctuant collection, common in the case of my pelvic abscess associated with a perforated appendix.
–I oriented my finger so that it was directed anteriorly upon prostate gland, which I palpated through the wall of the rectum.
It was then important for that I made note of the following:
–The prostate has two lobes with a cleft running between them -- I distinctly felt each lobe, which were symmetric. There were no discretely firm areas; normal prostatic tissue feels more or less like the tip of your nose. (Anything firmer is suspicious for malignancy.) If I had felt a firm area, I would've checked to see if the prostate was freely mobile, or if it had felt fixed to the pelvis -- which can occur via direct extension of a malignancy.
–This was important -- did my prostate gland feel big? If the criteria for a healthy prostate size is that it's small enough to get my finger over the top of the gland, then no. Not too big.
I hope that tides you over, dear reader. Next week, I'll fill you in on... "The State of the Perineum."
I suppose it's no secret that I know the names of Chewbacca's extended family. It's not a stretch to assume that I would be able to rattle off the members of the founding Avengers team from 1964. Likewise, it's also a good bet that I'd be the guy you turn to if you ever needed to know what the names of Voltron's five pilots were (Pidge, Lance, Allura, Hunk, and Keith... and Sven, for extra credit).
So, what I want to know is how these bits and bytes of information somehow neuter me in the eyes of my fellow man -- more specifically, my fellow man who sees no conflict of interest in himself memorizing every erg of baseball ephemera, post 1981.
Is there really some qualitative difference between what you specialize in and what I specialize in? I'll give you, dear reader, a snippet of actual dialogue from an encounter I had last year with an all-around decent gent who wouldn't process this duality:
Me: OK, I'm a fag for waiting in line to see "Revenge of the Sith" in Jedi robes (which I didn't even do--Ed.) and half-a-man for getting excited about "X-Men 3." How does that vary from your obsession with fantasy baseball and football stats?
Him: Because those are sports.
Me: Granted, but it's just as detail-oriented and irrelevant as my hobbies.
Him: No, I don't think so.
Me: You don't think so?
Him: Yeah, not so much.
Me: How do you rationalize the difference?
Him: (getting defensive now) Because sports are something that men do.
Me: I'm a man. This is what I do, and level of detail is equal to your constant nattering about E.R.A.s.
Him: There's no comparison. Sports are for men, comic books are for nerds.
SWEEEEEET! I found a DVD of "The PJ's" in a dollar bin at my favorite video store! And who's up for "Professeur Foldingue 2"?
ME! I am! Give me more of that!
I'm having a Sweet 16, y'all! I want you all to come and party with me! (Except you. You're fat and stupid.) My mommy and daddy are going to pay for EVERYTHING, and they know that this day has to be ALL ABOUT ME. Not that it'll really be much different from every day that precedes it, or any of the ones that will succeed it. Regardless, I have a HUGE list of demands that I need met, 'cause I want this bitch to be off the hook. I want it to be bigger than the VMAs, crossed with the assassination of Thomas a Becket, times Brad-and-Angelina's wedding, plus the Oscars, added to the Armenian genocide by the Turks, multiplied by the SUPER BOWL! And that's how big this is going to be! Off the HIZZIE!
The first thing I need is White House to be painted PINK, my FAVORITE color... because that's where this is going to be. Then, I want Ryan Cabrera and Condoleeza Rice to duet on Nelly's "Grillz" with backng vocals by John F. Kennedy. I also want a pony. But it has to be spray-painted PINK. And JFK has to be able to pop-and-lock and breakdance... on the Constitution, spread out on the floor like a cardboard box. Daddy will do it for me because he LOVES ME! LOL!
I need to have catering by Thomas Keller of Per Se, because I love the little quenelles he makes. But I want all the food gilt with gold leaf. AWESOME!!! And I want a helicopter flying overhead the whole time, dropping Blackberries and Patek Phillippe watches onto the crowd.
Then, I want daddy to get scientists to invent a chimaera, the fabled fusion of animal and plant tissue together in one hoary organism -- profaning the very meaning of life itself. This abomination of reality would unlock a searing hellscape of crimson, sulfuric fires that will scour the face of mankind from the planet, leaving only a molten stew of peptides and animo acids, the damned leavings of a uncreated race of upright savages who pushed the boundary between life and un-life past the point of no return. The hideous slurry would vaporize off the barren surface of this cursed world and travel, molecule by molcule, through the vaccuum of space until each particle collapses inward upon itself at the rim of the grand event horizon that will end this farsical charade we know as reality.
The Tew Nork Yimes has a story today about the mad spike in gaudy mausoleum sales. The wealthy boomers spoken to in the article are convinced that you can take with you, and they are spending to prove it:
"Some have more square footage than a good-size Manhattan studio apartment, their interiors fitted out with hand-knotted carpets, upholstered benches and nooks for the display of memorabilia. In late 2004, a Southern California family ordered a mausoleum with room for 12 coffins, 20 cremation niches and a patterned marble vestibule."
My favorite quote was from some gorgon named Nancy Lohman, who ruined everybody's day who read the newspaper this morning by saying, "The mausoleum says, 'I'm really significant in this world, I think I'm really significant to my family,' and this is one way to communicate that to the community."
I lift a mug of coffee... start drinking... reach this sentence... *sssppoooffssshhh!!!* (comical spit take)
Somewhere in a subterranean burial plot, Jessica Mitford is spinning at a rate equal to the new centrifuge pioneered by Iran to enrich it's uranium gas.
We walked past a restaurant this past weekend that specializes in Sardinian fare.
That's from Sardinia. Somewhere in Italy, I suspect.
More to the point, Sardinia seems to be named after the "sardine" fish. That stuck with me -- an entire region of Italy where all of society is based on the briny little fish. Much like the Ottoman Empire was based on putting your feet up, Sardinia has a proud heritage derived from said fish. Just think of it -- maybe the stories of Sardinia's founding involve schools of fish with little golden crowns on their heads fighting off hordes of Vandals to settle a kingdom on a little patch of land in southern Italy.
Or, better yet, perhaps a sardine serves in a wolf-mother role, like in the legend of Rome's founding. Romulus and Remus... and all that.
Sardines.
Here are some of the stories making news on this beautiful Saturday afternoon:
–"Robot Birth Simulator" is gaining popularity.
–Trump hires Wyclef to perform at concert.
–Tennessee authorities continue to hunt killer bear.
Yeah, I hear there's also a bunch of stuff about killing, too. I hear. But let's keep the major wires focused on what really counts -- hungry ursines and digital wombery.
Didn't Eric Carmen sing "Hungry Ursines?"
I made a terrible Biff Loman in a 1992 class video short-film adaptation of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman."
However, I acquitted myself nicely as Meyer Wolfsheim in a similar adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."
Yes, the celebrated, esteemed (add "veteran" to that list of adjective these days) actor, of stage, screen, and cathode ray tube. I couldn't help but notice that my name was dropped a few days ago in some worthless jeremiad, so I figured I'd amble on over here and take a look at what's going on in this new "blogozoid." For myself.
I don't know a whole lot about these blogs -- my granddaughter Stevie tried to get me to start one of these "Mythings" accounts, but it just looked like a bunch of bleeping and blooping. I must be getting old. Maybe you can add the terms "imposing" and "barrel-chested" to that list of adjectives. I mean, that's what that website the "Internet Film Webbase" says about me right here.
Hey, that's a neat trick -- how did I do that? I managed to speak like a computer. Lemme try that again: "In 1986, I starred in "F/X" with Aussie sensation Bryan Brown." That was pretty sweet.
Does anyone even know where that guy is these days? Used to be, whenever he was in Connecticut... er, I mean, Connecticut, he would come by Greenwich and we'd get a coffee together. That stopped around 1992. Chrissakes, that's almost 14 years. I guess the kid's not a sensation anymore, either. I remember he shot himself in the head in "Cocktail".
That takes me back to the time I was hanging out with Stallone in ’82 in the Pacific Northwest... beautiful country, that. Shot "First Blood" up there. Ted Kotcheff, the director, came up to me midway through the shoot and tells me, "Sylvester has a great popular sense, as good as any writer I've ever worked with. He knows what audiences want to see, and what they don't want to see." I'll be damned if he wasn't right as rain.
I think I had a steak the size of Popeye's forearm at a bistro in Olympia. They had soft funnelcakes, too. I can't eat funnelcake anymore, with the damn high blood pressure. Next thing I know, some doc in a blue scrub'll whisper the word "diabetes" in my ear. Pop had it, unc had it. Wilford Brimley has it too, but I hear he manages it well.
I gotta talk to Stevie when I get back home... I can't seem to fucking stop doing it now that I've started... speaking like a goddamn IBM.
Well, it looks like the Ryan McFadyen crowd is making my statcount leap, twice as high as normal. For all the first-time readers getting their first taste of the ’Salad, I welcome you to the SaladBowl and will just take this opportunity to admit that I was one of the millions of bystanders in the country to crucify the Duke lacrosse players before the evidence came in.
Nonetheless, I agree with the national diagnosis that the university has a severe image/egality issue on its hands.
Who profits? I do!
This one is tough. I just heard that two of my best friends are beginning the process of dissolving their marriage. Yikes.
Theirs was the one I always pointed to. I was really just a kid when I met them, and they seemed to have everything all figured out, all the time. They are (relatively) older and (certainly) smarter than me, and I always thought the best I could do was emulate their thing, because it seemed to work well. Of course, there's also the facts that A.) I'm severely naive, and B.) I only see what I want to see. I have no way of knowing what it looks like from the inside.
Married life is wonderful, and I can't see something happening that would make me feel antagonistic -- seriously antagonistic -- to my puddingwife. But, this is a reminder of how fragile these things can actually be, at least between two humans not sharing the same brainstem.
Feels like a few bricks were chipped away from the bottom today, making the whole structure just a little more unsturdy.
Who in the balls had the nerve to consign jug-eared Elliot Yamin to the bottom three last night? Motherfuck! It was almost made up for in the overdue expulsion of Go-ey Home-ington from the show, leaving seven standing.
I thought the effete Ace Young was going to take a dive, and I'll wager that most of the viewing audience had that same idea, because he sucks at everything he does. Especially when he sings "We Will Rock You." If Ace goes into the kitchen and tries to pan-fry an egg, I bet he'd screw that that up too; because he sucks, I'm saying. But I'm not going to complain that Bucky is on his way back to his rapidly-imploding stinkburgh of Rockingham, N.C., so he can continue developing cirrhosis on the same barstool that his dad did.
The Yamin thing is hard to understand. His version of "Somebody to Love" was crazilous in its gooditude. The Diabetic Slugger from Virginia is at his best when he's veering across chord-changes like Lindsay Lohan after a peach daiquiri in a Maybach on Ivar Ave. This week's song was his best go since Stevie Wonder week, when he handled "Knocks Me off My Feet" quite adroitly.
The only other performance worth noting was my man Taylor Hicks doing "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," a cop-out after we were teased with "We Are the Champions," but an exciting performance nonetheless. He's still my canine in the combat.
After the scabrous Kellie Pickler goes, any cut to the remaining five will be hard... this is as juiced a top seven as there has ever been, in my estimation. But I do have a friendly wager with the Bossbomb about Pickler -- I say she's gonna take this thing because every little white girl in the not-so-dirty south is going to text message her all the way through, deserving or not. And she's certainly not.
A 49-year-old woman died from riding the "Mission: Space" ride at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. That's too bad for her family, it really is, but people -- they better not shut down that fucking ride.
I love that ride. I need that ride.
I need Disney attractions to live a normal life at this point. I'll say anything and go to any length to cover Walt Disney World's ass. I will set up camp at places where lies call home, places like "Lying Cheatastic Wonderland," "Fibbonacci's Fib Cave," and "The Amazing World of the Fantabulous Canard."
Seriously, shut that ride down at your own risk. This isn't Knott's Berry Farm we're talking about here -- this is the home office. No fucking shit.
[UPDATE: 4/14]
Florida medical officials are stating that the woman suffered from severe hypertension before she got on the ride, and that she actually expired from a brain-bleed. Good, now step off, homes!
Why did it take so long for L.A. Child Services to pay a lil' visit to the Spearsderline household? Was the writing on the wall the not emblazoned as big as "Turk 182?" So, little Preston Blurpblorp Bigglebuggle Spears the 3rd fell down in a broken babyseat and bumped his head.
Er, scratch that -- he actually broke his skull and developed a blood clot. Oops, I'll try not to do that again!
Between this and the Malibu baby-steering incident, you know that there MUST have been a smattering of other irresponsible, terrifying things that Britney has done to that child, y'all, that haven't been reported. Things such as:
–Leaving the baby in his clothes while washing and tumble-drying them.
–Deep-frying the baby, forgetting which hand the okra was in.
–Using the baby as a doorstop while moving furniture into K-Fed's dope "Smoove Move Room."
–Mailing the baby off in the AmEx envelope, instead of a check.
–Leaving the baby on the dressing-room peg at Fred Siegel.
–Groggily feeding the baby a nippled-bottle of Rum Brughal the morning after partying at the Chateau Marmont.
What do I identify as? Heritage-wise, nothing. I don't care enough about any cultural partition to be thought of as that. With today being the first day of Passover, and coinciding with this story in today's Times, there seems to be a lot of thought in the world today about "what you are."
My boss took the day off to observe. Of course, tomorrow he'll go back to eating bacon oyster cheeseburgers, so you see how far his piety travels. But, he offers, "This is a big one. You have to observe it." And then, you have my father-in-law's take on hearing the boss took off today: "For that bullshit?" I prefer the latter Judaic outlook, myself.
Everywhere I peek, someone is wrapping themselves in some intangible cultural signifier. "I'm Irish-Catholic." I'm Roman-Catholic, Italian from Brooklyn." "I'm Brian Dennehy." "I'm West Indian." "I'm Trinidadian." So what? What does that do for you? How's that whole Ukrainian thing working out? Do you get some sort of special password to drink free at Samovar? Why do you care so much where grammy and grampy came from? Don't the goddamn labels just divide and cordon people off into ever smaller populations? Why do we have the instinct to do that?
My families come from Italy, Ireland, and Poland. And I don't give a fuck. I don't think of myself as Italian-American, Irish-American, or Polish-American. I am, however, a tremendous jackass -- and that's the only signifier that matters to me.
Here's the thing, I took a Cialis about 45 minutes ago. I was already erect -- that wasn't the problem. I already walk around priapic half the day. What I was looking for was rock-hard abs. I'm gambling on that delightful pharmaceutical-grade rigidity being transferred to my abs, obliques, lats, flats, glutes, flupes, and klutes.
(And just so everyone knows, I'm off the market, ladies. And men. And lady-men. And mutated ant-centurions.)
Concluding a trilogy of cinema-themed posts, why hasn't (or by now, hadn't) the success of 2004 brilliant Zak Snyder remake of "Dawn of the Dead" result in a greater rainmaking for its two dynamic leads, Sarah Polley and Jake Weber?
They proved themselves more than capable of anchoring a speedy, hectic action movie, which, I might add, made an ASSLOAD of cash. Sure, no one came for the leads, but once you sat down in the chair and started watching, weren't you glad they were there? Polley's had the chops for years, and "Dawn..." was better than her last big-budget go-around in "Go." Weber is a bit-part guy who's cemented a bunch of projects with decade of solid character work (I first saw him in HBO's otherwise scabrous "Mind of a Married Man," where he was intriguing as the caddish Jake Berman) -- this was his largest project to date.
Sure, Weber is holding Patricia Arquette's soiled bathrobe in NBC's "Medium," but whubout his big payday? And Polley's upcoming slate looks fairly obscure (as befits her career M.O., frankly). Hell, even Ving-effin-Rhames barely got a bump -- what'd he score, "Kojak?"
Want to make a trillion bucks with me? I have a killer idea -- hear me out for five minutes before you slam a door on my penis.
Do you remember the 1987 movie "The Monster Squad?" We gon' remake it. It's begging to be remade (hence the title of this post). It's an airtight premise, and you would all be on the same page as me right now if not for the miserable failure of "Van Helsing," which had a similar concept, save for a deadly dry and unironic interpretation.
That premise, for those who don't remember: The classics of the Universal Studios horror vaults converge in an unholy pentenary -- Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, the Mummy, and Gill-Man (not to be confused with Gil Gerard) -- with designs on destroying humanity, or something approximal to that. Before they can get their act together, a couple of screwy kids manage to do what Van Helsing and others fail at -- namely, killing all the monsters. There's comedy, there's chills, there's comedy, there's thrills, there's comedy... there's also the horribly old actor Leonardo Cimino playing a Scary German Guy. It has it all, or close to it all.
I daresay that horror and comedy have rarely been fused so well into one tasty McD.L.T. Deluxe of entertainment. In the spirit of similar schticky comedies -- a "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," say -- this would make a snappy, slapsticky, screwball-ky, horr-thrill-com for the "24 Laguna Scrubs" generation.
I'm loving having Bill Paxton on my picture-radio-box every Sunday night in the pleasing HBO soap "Big Love." I've been a huge fan of Paxton's since John Hughes's 1985 classic "Weird Science" and his wonderfully unhinged Chet; he followed that up with 1986's unforgettable "Aliens" as the delightfully.... unhinged... Pvt. Hudson.
Anyway, I was just wondering why in "Weird Science" if the Donnelly family were from suburban Chicago, why was their eldest son somehow Texan?
