Thoughtless for the Day

Helden (part two)

The point I was trying to make in yesterday's Thoughtless (and yes, in
retrospect, I realize that I could've made my point in less than 2,100
words) was that in the presence of our heroes we tend to devolve into
tongue-tied social retards (of which the "'I hope I don't kill him' guy"
is the most extreme example). There is, quidem, a famous story, which I
just made up a minute or so ago, about Alan Greenspan's first encounter
with Ayn Rand. Greenspan, who had been a devotee of Rand's ever since
receiving a copy of the Atlas Shrugged Coloring Book at tender
age of sixteen, spent nearly seven years rehearsing exactly what he
would say should he ever meet the Mother of Determinism: "My dear Miss
Rand, thank you for unfettering the chains that once bound a young man's
mind to an outdated philosophy." What he actually said upon meeting Rand
was quidem, "Oh dear God, I've shit myself." He said this because he had
indeed, most probably due to the excitement of finally coming face-to-face
with his idol, shit himself: thus earning the nickname "pudding pants".

Greenspan, for obvious reasons, despised be called "pudding pants", and
would often fly into a rage shouting, "That's right douchebag, just keep
calling me 'pudding pants'; because someday I'll be in charge of the
Federal Reserve and then I'm gonna fuck the US economy and your mother in
the ass."

I'm Paul Harvey with the rest of the fuckin' story. Marv, git in here. My
colostomy bag is leaking again!

This is one of the many reasons that I'm glad the entire world sees me for
the total idiot that I am. I don't think I could live with myself if I knew
that people were, on a daily basis, rehearsing what they would say if they
ever met me. I honestly don't know how Scott Biao can stand it.

I found myself rehearsing, in my head, a little speech last Tuesday night
while I was standing in line waiting for Camille Paglia [Keep reading, damn
it! I know that some of you surf over to shoobey Taylor whenever I mention
my fondness for (worship of) Dr. Paglia. Stick with this story; trust me]
to sign my copy of Sexual Personae. We'll get to what I was planning
to say shortly; here's how the meeting went down:

Rodney Anonymous: I just want to say that I loved every minute of your
lecture. [Everybody do the "Brown-nose"]

Camille Paglia: Oh, thank you. You're wonderful.

Rodney Anonymous: No, you're wonderful.

Gentle reader, you may now vomit. Hey. At least I didn't shit myself, or
turn to the person behind me and say, "I'm so excited. Gosh, I hope I don't
kill her."

The truth is that I did love every minute of Dr. Paglia's lecture that
evening. I loved it so much that I'm going to recap some of the highlights,
along with my own thoughts, for you. As stated above, I'm well aware that
many of you are far from being fans of Paglia. Quidem, some of you seem to
harbor a dislike of her which borders on hostility. My goal, if not to
bring you "into the fold", is to, at least, make you understand my
fascination with this woman who, while not forming many of my ideas, has,
time-and-again, confirmed them.

Paglia says: "Forget Michael Jackson; it's the Humanities Department
of Harvard who should be charged with child abuse." Or, in other words,
people are spending their life's savings to send their offspring to
Graduate school only to have said progeny become discouraged by having
the writings of mediocre French deconstructionists such as Foucault, Lacan,
and Derrida forced upon them.

Look, there's nothing wrong with French culture, the study of which is,
in itself, a worthwhile pursuit. And French is such a rigidly structured
language (the French even have a Minister of Culture whose job includes
rooting out foreign influences) that it could benefit from a little
deconstruction (The next time that you rent a French film - I recommend
Brotherhood of the Wolf - listen to the incredible balance in the
phrasing. The problem is that Academics are pushing these pasty French
intellectuals to the detriment of centuries worth of brilliant English
writers. That's why we now have a generation of fifth-rate writers who
were weaned on tenth-rate translations.

Ah, English: that most beautiful and eclectic of languages which draws
from Norse, Latin, and Norman lingual commingling.

Anonymous says: Fuckin' A right! Is there anything sadder than
encountering an English Major (or a Theater major, for that matter) who
knows no Shakespeare (I mean anything other than someone who begins a
serious critique with "Fuckin' A right!")? I've met such people, and they
are not a pretty sight. They are the walking-wounded victims of the fallout
from the cultural Chernobyl that is a decades-long attempt to rid academia
of the influences of "Dead White Males."

Paglia says: "Poststructuralism and postmodernism are killing art
and literature and, therefore, must go" The poststructuralist practitioners
of the New Criticism had their heads planted firmly up their Francophile
asses. They denied the influence of nature and psychology and treated the
human body as a passive object that could only be acted upon.

Postmodernism's ironic, reserved sneering cool has made unbridled
enthusiasm taboo.

Anonymous says: Agreed. Or, as Umberto Eco once said to A.S. Byatt,
"Thanks to postmodernism we can no longer say 'I love you, truly, madly,
deeply.' We must now say, 'As Barbara Courtland would say, "I love you,
truly, madly, deeply."'" Umberto, to the best of my knowledge, didn't say
anything about poststructuralism.

Paglia says: "It's impossible to find a good poem about an animal
or a sport." All of the recent poems written about animals are about
suffering animals. That is to say that the animal's suffering is
being used as a metaphor for the author's suffering. You're dying cat is
an analogy for your recent divorce. OK, we get it. Now take Mr. Whiskers
to a goddamn therapist and shut the fuck up.

And here's the depth to which poems about sports have sunken:

Oh, look at me
I'm watching baseball on TV
Hey, I'm just a regular dude
Like Byron, Keats, and Langston Hughes


Anonymous says: While I do mourn the present sorry state of animal
and sports poetry, I see these genres less as toxic wastelands more as
fertile pastures waiting for just the right strapping field hand to plow
them. And that young farmhand is none other that RATYHTL's own Poet
Lauriat, Brian Nirvana.

Brian, I know that this is a great deal of pressure to put you under, but,
seeing as April is National Poetry Month, would you be so kind as to favor
us with either a poem about an animal (and not, tempting as it may be, Rick
Santorum) or a sport? I wouldn't ask if I didn't think that you were up to
the challenge.

Paglia says: "The pro-sex wing of Feminism, with the invaluable
help of Madonna, won the war for the heart and head of the movement."
Andrea Dworkin and the rest of the anti-sex crowd have been relegated to
mere footnotes in the history of Feminism: crushed, as it were, beneath
the spiked heel of Suzie Bright's Saturday Night Sex boots.

Anonymous says: Here I must, respectfully, disagree. Camille, your
side has not won the war: only nearly every battle fought since 1987. As
much as I despise Dworkin and would love to see her audience dwindle to
the dust bunnies on her crotch, experience has taught me that anything
that ugly and hateful, like a boil on the ass, never permanently goes
away. Just when you think it's safe to go back into the bookstore, Dworkin,
whom I'm positive I once battled in game of Dungeons and Dragons back in
1981 when she went by the name "Shambling Mound, will be enjoying (if it
is, indeed, possible for that hambeast to enjoy anything) a resurgence in
popularity. Besides, can any movement that is buoyed by The Material Girl
stay afloat forever?


Paglia says: "It's time for writers and artists to stop portraying
religious people as ignorant hicks." There's a reason why, if you listen
to Right Wing radio, so much venom is being spewed towards Leftist writers
and artists: we asked for it. There's an entire country out there,
somewhere between New York City and LA, that believes in Jesus Christ and
we'd better get used to that idea because things aren't going to change
anytime in the foreseeable future.

When we started to mock these people as backward rubes, and when we began
pissing (literally) on the things they hold sacred, we began to seal our
own artistic doom. Why do you think that funding for the arts is being cut
from the budgets of school systems?

Further more, Artists and writers need to break from there little cliques
and from the myth of the Bohemian lifestyle, and make the effort to court
the acquaintance of people who hold different believes from themselves.

Anonymous says: Well, yes and no. Piss Christ was a cowardly
work designed to infuriate "lowbrow" middle-Americans. Is there anything
more annoying than an artist who creates a "shocking" piece and then cries
like little bitch when everyone is shocked? Had Piss Christ been
called Piss King and featured MLK suspended in urine, how many
people on the Left would've supported it?

And, as for little Boho cliques of artists needing to broaden their
horizons, a trip past any coffee shop makes this point self-evident.
"No one understands my poetry but you, Serge." "And no one understands my
art but you, Leon." Um, fellows, maybe, and this is Just a thought,
that's because you both suck.

This said, I still can't help but feel that I have a duty (some might say
a calling) to mock the religious. This might be due to the fact that they
make it so easy for me to do. Look, if you can upon a fifty-four-year-old
man who still believed in Santa Claus, would you mock him? Of course not,
you'd patiently explain to him why Santa isn't real. Now let's say that
fifty-four-year-old man is the President of the United States and he was
elected by a bunch of people who also believed in Santa Claus (call them
the residents of the Red Suit states) on a platform of denying rights to
people who don't believe in Santa Claus. You'd mock the living shit out of
him and his jolly little elf followers. Well that's just what I do.

Why is it that you never hear people on the Right saying "It's our constant
need to portray Leftists as traitors who are bereft of all morality that
causes them to see us as banjo-plucking street preachers. We should really
cool it." ?

And while were at it, where is the ire that non-fire and brimstone
Christians should have for the "God Hates Fags" branch of the Jesus
worshiping family? If you Peace and Love Christians would reign in your
outhouse dwelling, Bible thumping, Fag hating bretheren, I could go back
to writing about the Ancient World. 99.9999% of Muslims are not
terrorists. Do you know whom Muslims mainly have to blame for their image
as terrorists? Well, it's not Bill O'Reilly and it's not Pat Buchanan. It's
the 19 rim-lapping mule-fuckers who ran out of frequent flyer miles on
September 11th.

Remember, because this is the LAST TIME that I'm going to say this, when I
mock a Christian for putting hot sauce on his or her kid's tongue, I'm
not mocking all Christians: just a particular subset of Christianity
that happens to be comprised entirely of child-abusing dumbfucks.

Maybe I need to temper these pieces with the inclusion of lines such as
"You sick child-abusing dumbfuck. Can't you see that when you do stupid
shit like disciplining little Cody by making him chug-a-lug Tabasco you are
also, by means of guilt-by-association, tainting the image of decent
Christians everywhere whose only crime is to believe that an invisible
being controls all of the events in the Universe and has done so since the
beginning of time"?

Send me an article about a group of sick child-abusing dumbfuck Jews,
Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, or Atheists and I'll gleefully bust
their tiny balls too. Of course, neither Jews, Muslims, Buddhists,
Zoroastrians, nor Atheists have ever tried to place a large, granite
monument outside of a Federal courthouse in Alabama, so you may now be able
to understand why I've been so lax in getting around to them.

Paglia says: "Joni Mitchell's Woodstock is the greatest works
poetry to be published since Sylvia Plath's Daddy."

Anonymous says: Joni Mitchell? You're shitting me, right, pudding
pants? Where's the hidden camera? Am I on Punk'd? Camille, if you
were looking for a female lyricist to lionize, why not go for someone,
like Patti Smith, who can actually write? Joni Mitchell's Woodstock
has all the artistic merit of the Jiffy Pop jingle.

Paglia says: "The best way to write about social injustice is from
the perspective of one of society's victims." Case-in-point, William
Blake's heartbreakingly brilliant The Chimney Sweeper .

William Blake wrote:

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,
'Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.'

And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! --
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.


Paglia says I'm wonderful.

The Latin word of the day is:
quidem - in fact





Rodney on 04.09.05 @ 08:30 PM EST [link] [No Comments]

Helden (part one)

I've both spoken and written about the following incident at great length
(some might say "ad nausium") in the past, but I can't help feeling that,
in light of a recent development, it bears repeating. If you've read of
head it before (and, given my tendency to repeat myself, there may only
be a small tribe in Borneo who haven't), please feel free to skip down a
few paragraphs.

By the way, the following story is guaranteed to be 100% true:

About a decade or so ago, the Dead Milkmen had sold out a show at The
First Avenue in Minneapolis. Following the show, the venue, in a wonderful
display of generosity, opened the bar to us and assigned a young lady the
task of making sure that we got back to our hotel safely. Joe, Dave, and
Dan called it an early night, but Dean, Matt, and I stayed on to drink into
the wee hours. To our delight we found ourselves joined by our good friend
Bobby Schayer; who, at that time, was drumming for Bad Religion.

We drank steadily until the sun came up; then we decided that it was time
to head back to the hotel (the fact that the club was closing and tossing
everyone out played a large part in this decision); so we piled into the
car of the young woman who'd been assigned to make sure that we arrived at
the Hilton in one piece (sans a few brain cells) and departed. Bobby kindly
agreed to return to the hotel with us to help Matt and I drain whatever was
left in our mini-bar.

We were standing on the curb thanking the young lady for the excellent
performance of her duties, when, as if out of nowhere, there suddenly
appeared a guy in his late teens or early twenties who pointed over our
shoulders and breathlessly panted, "He…I…he…I waved…he…He waved
back!"

Matt immediately took on the role of translator, "OK, he waved back. It's
a good story; really, it is, but it's missing just one small piece of
information: who is he?"

The kid blinked in astonishment and look at us as if we were a group of
escaped mental patients instead of the pack of hopeless drunks. That look
said, "Who the fuck else could 'He' be?" The kid swallowed three or four
gulps of air and blurted out, "Robert Smith, of course."

It took a few minutes, but we finally got the story out of the kid. It
seems that he was standing on a corner a few yards away (what he was doing
there at 5am we were never able to figure) when a tour bus drove past.
Instinctively, the kid waved at the tour bus not knowing if its occupants
were Dead Can Dance or Alabama (no doubt on their way to one of our
nation's fine State fairs). The curtains of the tour bus parted and there,
lo and behold, was the kid's hero, Robert Smith, smiling and waving back
at him. The kid immediately set of running in search of someone to impart
the good news of this miracle sighting to. He ran smack into us and, by
extension, his destiny.

"Oh, yeah,' said Bobby, "I think I remember our manager saying something
about us sharing a hotel with The Cure in Minneapolis."

"Hey," I said turning to the hyperventilating kid, "How would you like to
meet Robert Smith?"

"You…you…he…Robert…me…meet?"

"I promise."

Now, despite have been a huge fan for many years, I don't actually
know Robert Smith; so you might think that I'd just made a promise that
I couldn't possibly keep. However, this story takes place back when I was
young and single: back when not only was I a huge fan of Robert Smith, but
also a huge fan of young women between the ages of 19 and 24. It was one
of these young women who, a month earlier and nearly 1,500 miles away,
during an unbelievably lengthy explanation, over beers, of why she was
definitely NOT a groupie despite he propensity for sleeping with musicians
happened to mention that se knew the alias that Robert Smith used when he
checked into hotels (No, the girl didn't sleep with Robert Smith; which we
may chalk up to Mr. Smith's good judgment and not to a lack of effort on
the part of the young lady).

Of the over one million people in the greater metropolitan area, the kid
had managed to bump into one of only a handful of people who not only knew
where Robert Smith was staying, but also under what name.

"You…you promise?"

"I put my arm around the hopeful lad's shoulder and slurred into his ear,
"Of course I do. After all, I'm Jesus Christ; aren't I?" The creepy part
is that, looking back, I think I actually meant it.

Dean poked his head back into the car of the young woman who'd been saddled
with the task of chauffeuring our drunken asses home, and who'd been
watching the drama on the sidewalk play out, and said "Um…could you please
drive us to just one more place?"

So we, along with our new, kinetic friend piled back into the car and sped
off towards Bobby/Robert's hotel while I explained "the plan" (which
consisted entirely of "Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking") to
the kid.

"Oh, God! I can't believe…I…he…I'm his biggest fan! I …I never dreamed…
Robert Smith…I hope I don't kill him." Somehow, those last six words
failed to fully penetrate our pickled brains.

We pulled up in front of the hotel and the kid and I sprinted (I would've
preferred to slowly stagger, but the kid was doing everything in
fast-forward mode and I didn't want him to reach the front desk before I
did: that would be disastrous) inside. Before I could say a word, the woman
at the front desk pointed at me and said "Hey, I recognize you from TV?"

This was back when Punk Rock Girl was being shown three times an
hour on every television show from Headbanger's Ball to Black
Separatist Farm Report, so the only people in whom my presence didn't
stir feeling of familiarity were either blind or exceedingly elderly (like
the members of Sonic Youth).

"Oh, thanks," I said "My name is…Paul Westerberg. Yes, I'm Paul Westerberg
and I've come to visit my good friend Robert Smith. He's staying in your
fine establishment under the name of M T." [No, not "Mr. T",
"Marlo Thomas", or "Marisa Tomei".]

Now this woman recognized me from a music video. She had, living in
Minneapolis, heard the name "Paul Westerberg" before. And I knew the
Kabalistic secret name of God. Therefore I must be the genuine article.

"Oh, yes. I thought that was you. Mr. Smith is in room 1403. I'll call him
and tell him that you're on you way up."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to surprise him. I can't tell you how
long it's been since we've seen each other." Technically, both of these
statements were true.

With the nice front desk lady's approval, I headed toward the elevator with
the kid, who was now convinced that he was dreaming, in tow. I pushed the
"up" button, turned to the kid and said, "From here on, you're on your own.
Good luck." We shook hands and I ducked out the back way.

In the car, on the way back to our hotel, we suddenly found ourselves
recast as Olympian Gods who had managed, with a few puffs of breath, to
steer a small ship full of Greeks to the Land of the Golden Fleece.

"That kid is about to meet his hero"

"He'll remember this night for the rest of his life."

"We've made a young boy's dreams come true. We're like some sort of
fucked-up Make-A-Wish Foundation".

And then the car grew eerily silent.

"'I hope I don't kill him'," we mouthed in unison. What had we done?

"Just what the Hell did you do last nigh?" That was the question that my
manager asked my at 10:00am the next morning when, after letting the phone
ring about three dozen times, I finally crawled from under the blankets and
answered his call.

I swear by Hephaistos that I could actually feel his anger through
the phone. I don't think that my parents sounded as menacing when, during
my pre-teen years, they had become convinced that I'd vandalized a local
church (A crime for which I was later exonerated, much to the surprise of
everyone including myself: it really did sound like the kind of thing I
would've done).

Just what the Hell had I done the night before? To be honest, I couldn't
remember. Since our drinking spree coincided with "Club Sex" night at the
First Avenue, the list of illicit acts that I could've committed was quite
lengthy; thank you. I can sense that some explanation is called for. Once
a month, on Wednesday night from midnight until dawn, the First Avenue
would host an event called "Club Sex" that was exactly what the name
implies. Dean, Matt, and Bobby sequestered themselves in the upstairs bar,
so their contact with the participants of "Club Sex" was practically nil.
I, on the other hand, being a "people person", felt the need to mingle.

But just what the Hell had I done? Turned my boot inside out and used it as
a urinal? No, I'm pretty sure that was Alexander Soljenitsin. Had I turned
someone else's boot inside out and used it as a urinal? No, that was
definitely William Howard Taft. Drawing blank after blank, I decided to
take a shot in the dark, "Did I make my favorite horse a Senator?"

"Electra is pissed."

"Well she did sleep with her father…"

A bit of free advice, if you'll allow me: NEVER make an obscure
mythological reference to someone who is angry at you. They will NOT find
it endearing.

"I've been on the phone with them all morning. They're threatening not to
distribute the album. The Cure is one of their biggest groups…"

Electra? The Cure? With a loud, rusty creak, the gates of my mind swung
open and a wave of dark memory, like fetid water, washed over me.

"'I hope I don't kill him'," I muttered and began fumbling for the remote.
If that kid had taken Head on the Door literally, CNN was sure to
have the story. My stomached turned in upon itself. Oh God of Israel, if
you let this cup pass me by and not only will I never attend another "Club
Sex" ever again, but I'll never even look at another beer. "Please tell me
that kid didn't hurt Robert Smith."

As it thankfully turned out, the kid didn't harm Robert Smith. He did,
however, scare the living shit out him.

Most Rock Stars when confronted a with the fish-eye view through a hotel
door peephole of drunken fan screaming "Wake up, man. I love you" would
call either the front desk, the cops, or both. Robert Smith, being a
genuinely nice guy actually opened the door, thanked the kid for his
enthusiasm, gave him a hug, and offered him two free tickets to that
night's Cure concert if he would just go away.

The kid would have none of it. He had come with the intension of become
Robert Smith best buddy for life and he wasn't leaving until he achieved
this lofty goal. Robert Smith upped the ante three times (offering the kid,
in addition to the tickets; an autographed picture; a guitar; and, finally,
some of his own clothing, if he would just go away) before he broke down
and called the front desk; who then sent hotel security to remove (drag)
the kid from the premises.

So how did this fiasco get traced back to your friend and humble narrator?
Well, on the ride to Robert's hotel, Bobby had apparently, and with the
best intensions, told the kid that it was The Dead Milkmen who were making
his dreams come true. I'd like to think that it was Bobby's sense of
modesty, and not his wicked sense of humor, that kept him from mentioning
Bad Religion. Robert Smith, for his part, had the presence of mind to ask
the kid, while he was being led away and proving that boys do, indeed, cry,
just how he knew where to find him. The kid spilled the beans.

I spent the rest of the day on the phone, profusely apologizing.

Why am I telling you this story? I'll explain that tomorrow.




Rodney on 04.08.05 @ 02:49 PM EST [link] [21 Comments]

We put the GRIM in Grimaldi.

Hey there, pre-teen Grit salesmen; there's an ultra-long post in the works
(honest). In the meantime, those of you with Real Audio can enjoy today's
episode of The Paul Kircher Show in which we learn about the upcoming turf-
war between the FEC and Bloggers, I ask an expert on Papal History teh most
inappropriate question EVAR, and the Royal House of Grimaldi is subjected
to the sort of treatment normally reserved for the International House of
Pancakes.

_ . _


_ . _


_ . _


_ . _



_ . _

Real questions and answers
from the Ayatollah's official website

Today's Question

Is playing cricket forbidden? And what about watching cricket and other
sports on television?

Answer: There is no objection in it.

[For those of you keeping score: Chess is forbidden; Cricket is not.
- Ayatollah Anonymous]

_ . _


_ . _



_ . _






She went where no man has gone before in Victoria's Wet Secrets and
Euro Girls Never Say No

He's the smooothest man in outta space

Happy birthday to ...

Ronita who turns 24 today.

And Mr. Colt .45, Billy Dee Williams, turns 68. (68? That can't be
right)




The ancient Greek word of the day is:
hbh - youth

If the above word looks like ippojshit to you,
then you need to go here
and download the SPIONIC font for either MAC or PC. Dude.


The Latin word of the day is:
lascive - wantonly





Rodney on 04.06.05 @ 07:02 PM EST [link] [18 Comments]

Hopped up on goofballs

Words used to mean things: simple, direct things. For example, the word
"car" used to mean "automobile". Somewhere along the way "car" came to
mean "Fascist Bully-BoyMobile. Why don't you pile your dozen little
no-necked monsters into your 'murdermachine' that runs on the blood of
the poor and drive: drive all night and day fueled by that trucker speed
that you can legally at 7-11's below the Manson-Nixon Line: drive until
you finally get to Disney World where your beat little Austin/Cody/Dakota
to a goddamn bloody pulp because he pissed his pants on Space Mountain.
Ha, ha Fucker. You slaved away in the billing department of Toxic Third
World Baby Food Inc. for ten years to accumulate three days worth of
vacation time (not to mention maxing out your credit cards to afford the
trip) and now it's been ruined by the same little crybaby who bawled like
a little girl the first time he got tackled at Pee-Wee football. Well,
you'll show him: he's going hunting with you this fall rather the little
pansy wants to or not. And if he sheds so much as one tear, only one of
you will be coming back."

"Woman" used to mean "female of the human species". Today it's became a
synonym for "plaintiff".

_ . _

I'm a little worried about Lisa Whelchel (AKA TV's Blair from The Facts
of Life). It's early April and I haven't gotten one of patently bizarre
E-letters since February.

Her website offers no clues as to her disappearance and neither does the
Motherhood Club site. Speaking of the Muthahood Club, the "Ask Dr. Mom"
section is finally up; although it's not nearly as promising as we'd all
hoped: in other words, Dr. Mom never advises anyone to beat their child
with a Bible while wearing scratchy undergarments. In order to somewhat
temper our disappointment, I now (in a nod to MAD magazine) present Dr.
Moms We'd Like To See…you clod!:

My name is Annie and I am a mom of a 7 month old daughter. I receive
[sic] the Christian Women's magazine and I noticed an ad for your website.
It is such a wonderful resource for moms! What an encouragement. I did have
a question for Doctor Mom if that is possible. My question is that my
daughter, Katie, has been showing signs of temper tantrums when she is not
being fed fast enough or when she wants an object that she cannot have. I
didn't know, with her being so young, if she really is having temper
tantrums or not. And if she is, what do I do about it? It's so hard for me
to not loose my mind over it. My main concern is to do what is best for
her, and that is what I am unsure about.

Thanks so much!
Annie from Tennessee

Dear wretched sinner,
How is your daughter ever going to learn to be subservient to her future
husband if she can't learn to be subservient to her parents? You need to
take one of those Christian Women's magazines, roll it up, and beat the
willfulness out of that junior Jezebel. Once you've taught the tiny servant
of the Anti-Christ that the only time she should raise her voice is to
either sing a hymn or Toby Keith's God Bless the USA, you should
take a few minutes of "Mom Time" for yourself: to mortify your sinful
flesh.


My name is Laurie, I am a home schooling mother of two, a 6 year old and
4 year old. My question is, any good ideas for not getting so "stressed
out" with my "strong-willed" 4 year old? When she is angry she tends to
SCREAM and throw things around and fight me on her time out. I make her
stand in a corner for 4 minutes whenever she talks rudely and doesn't want
to change her attitude or if she is out right mean. This is when the
screaming and tantrums begin. I will just walk away and eventually she will
calm down after she screams "I want to hug you!!!" (sometimes I feel that
is a power thing). When the timer goes off, she knows her time is up--she
gets a hug and kiss and ALWAYS apologizes on her own and cleans up any
messes she might have made in her anger. She has the sweetest, biggest
heart but has trouble controlling her temper. Is this normal for this age?
If I say black, she says white.

Thanks!

Laurie
Michigan

Dear Failure in the Eyes of God,

Your daughter is obviously the Whore of Babylon whose coming was foretold
in the book of Revelations.




Rodney on 04.05.05 @ 11:49 AM EST [link]

Baaad Mutha Superior

Yesterday Michelle "Wife of Joseph, mother of Jesus" Malkin published a
list of writers whom, in her almond-shaped eyes, had disrespectful of
the memory of the Pope by penning articles which relied on facts rather
than religious dogma.

Personally, I would've loved to have been on that list, rubbing shoulders
with the likes of Chris Hitchens; and, as an Atheist, you might that I
wouldn't have anything nice to say about the late Carol Wojtyla (who was
also known by his "street name" of Pope John Paul II). On the contrary,
there are plenty of nice things that I can say about the man: he was one
of the few religious leaders who were perfectly OK with the idea of
Evolution; he was opposed to the death penalty; he publicly apologized for
the Catholic Church's collusion with the Nazis, before, during, and after
WWII; he forgave the shithook who shot him; and he stood firmly
against the US invasion of Iraq (he would later chastise Bush, to his face,
about the Abu Ghraib scandal).

Sure he was also an intolerant, inflexible, ideologue who had willingly
chained himself and his followers to an outmoded belief system and had a
hand in helping pedophiles avoid prosecution; but, as far as intolerant,
inflexible, ideologues who willingly chain themselves and their followers
to outmoded belief systems and had a hand in helping pedophiles avoid
prosecution go; he wasn't too bad.

As I've pointed out on numerous occasions, I have a huge soft-spot in my
heart for the Catholic Church (and for the Greek and Russian Orthodox
Churches as well as the Coptic Church). I've spent years reading everything
I can get my almond-shaped hands on about the Catholic Church. I never
cease to be amazed by how much more I, an outsider, know about Catholicism
than people who grew up within the Church do. For example, my wife, though
not a practicing Catholic, was raised by a Catholic family in the most
Catholic of all places - South Philadelphia - yet had no idea that St.
Christopher had not been a Saint since Woodstock.

I even have a favorite Pope (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, AKA Pope John XXIII)
and a least favorite Pope (Eugenio "Stinky" Pacelli, AKA Pope Pius XII);
this is why I feel uniquely qualified to pick the next Pope; or, failing
that, to at least pick the color of the next Pope.

Let's make this official…

I, Rodney Anonymous, speaking for closet Catholics everywhere demand that
the next Pope be Black.

First of all, while there are tons of Black Saints (St. Martin DePorres,
St. Peter Claver, Saint Katharine Drexel, and St. Darnell the Smooooth),
there hasn't been a Black Pope since Pope St. Gelasius I who died in 496.
Yeah, Whitey has no problem with handing a Black parking attendant the
keys to his car, but when it comes to the keys of St. Peter…

Secondly, and - in my book, at least - most importantly is the kick that
the rest of us will get from watching working class Irish-American and
Italian-American Catholics take their marching orders from a brother. Many
members of these two groups are notoriously bigoted (while many others,
in a strange paradox, are often incredibly liberal and tolerant) despite
the fact they themselves are not White.

Now it may come as a shock to many Catholic Americans of Italian or Irish
heritage to lean that they are not White, but everybody has to face the
music sometime: unless, of course, that music is "Dixie"; in which case,
feel free to turn your backs.

So why aren't Shamus and Tony White? Well, they fail the Triple-K/Double-C
Test. This test simply states that if you can't join either the Klan or
most Country Clubs, you are not White; so stop checking that box
on forms, OK?

And if all of that doesn't convince you that the next Pope should be black,
this will: wouldn't you love to the Popemobile totally pimped out with
really sweet rims an' shit? I know I would.


Real questions and answers
from the Ayatollah's official website

Today's Question

Is caviar of sturgeon fish halal or haram?

Answer: If sturgeon is known to have scales (even by origin as some
say), there is no obejction in eating the caviar and the fish itself would
also be subject to being halal. If it is not known as a fish to have scales
but sold by muslims, who do not consider unscaled fish to be halal, there
would be again no objection in eating it.

[You guys live in the middle of the fuckin' desert; are fish really that
big of an issue? - Ayatollah Anonymous]

_ . _


_ . _



_ . _






He stared in Peak Practice, The Devil's Tattoo, Lady
Audley's Secret, Ultimate Force, and Hornblower: Mutiny
None of which are porn films !

He fronted the greatest band of all time

Happy birthday to ...

Jamie Bamber who turns 32 today.

And Social Distortion's Mike Ness turns 43.




The ancient Greek word of the day is:
anastaurow - impale

If the above word looks like ippojshit to you,
then you need to go here
and download the SPIONIC font for either MAC or PC. Dude.


The Latin word of the day is:
alii - others




Rodney on 04.03.05 @ 04:22 PM EST [link]