van morrison just finished mumbling through a song on the first late night with jimmy fallon. i didn't understand a word of it. but i still enjoyed every note. that's how i know... [that van is a classic]
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last august i wrote THIS post about new books that you shouldn't bother reading. included on that list was 'i hope they serve beer in hell' by tucker max.* a week later, someone sent me a copy with a post-it note on the the cover that said nothing more than, "you're going to love this!" it's been in the back of my car ever since.
two weeks ago i was in barnes & noble looking for a new book to read and asked the cute bookrista if she had any recommendations. after explaining that i enjoyed the sarcastic wit of david sedaris and augusten burroughs, but had already read all of their books, she recommended that i read tucker max. she continued, "he's like david sedaris before he quit smoking, meets an immature augusten burroughs." that, my friends, sounded good to me. so i left. and when i got home i dug the paperback out of the back of my car and started reading.
four chapters in, i realized that it had been a really long time since i had laughed that hard while reading a book. i'm still not finished with it, and it's getting even better page by page.
*[don't bother squinting to read this, it's not that important.] ok, so i was wrong. it's a good book. fuck it, it's a great book. hell, i may even go see the movie. the blow from admitting that i was wrong seems less severe if i write it in smaller font and hide it in the footnote. so that's what i'm doing.
i'm pretty sure ever blog that i read posted a comment about this yesterday, but i didn't get around to reading it until just now. the fact that it's fake doesn't really matter, because the 50 or so reviews that people took the time to write on amazon are HILARIOUS. check it out over on amazon before it's too late. (LINK HERE)
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Wow! So much better than playing school or house for brainwashing—-I mean, acclimatizing today's tots to the realities of the Global War on Terror. I especially appreciated the enclosed signed photo of Michael Chertoff and his letter explaining how necessary it is to start educating today's youth early with toys like these, especially as their elders just don't seem to be taking the whole thing seriously, what with posting snarky reviews on Amazon and all, and it's going to take a while to get KBR's re-education camps in Nevada up and running properly. I know my little four year-old grandson was really impressed with this set. He's now so scared it's undone a whole year of potty training and he's now wetting his pants about five times a day.2)
I've heard that they were going to publish a coupon and code, to allow us to buy this for $9.11, they're just waiting for the economy to drop a little more then it currently is. Its a marketing thing I know... In addition they plan on offering a collectors version that will have the metal detector painted GOLD, though they'll have to use lead based paint because its cost effective. I love toys :-)3)
I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger's shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger's scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said "that's the worst security ever!". But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.[amazon via slog] Read more...
The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillance society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillance System set for Christmas. I've heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I'll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interrogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush).
in case you don't get to look at enough of my ugly mugg on these here internets, i highly recommend you pick up a copy of seth godin's new book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, from amazon or a bookstore near you. in it, not only will you get a sexy picture of my face on the dust jacket, but you'll also enjoy the newest literary gem by the marketing genius that is, seth godin.
[buy 'tribes' on amazon]
in celebration of world vegetarian day today, i ate bacon (happy rosh hashanah too!) for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch (i know, hot dogs are arguably considered meat), and i'm planning on a nice rare steak for dinner. how will you celebrate?
i think that anthony bourdain has pretty much summed up my feelings on vegetarians best in his book 'a cook's tour.'
[a cook's tour: global adventures in extreme cuisine, by anthony bourdain] Read more..."...It was difficult for me to be polite (though I was outnumbered). I’d recently returned [to California] from Cambodia, where a chicken can be the difference between life and death. These people in their comfortable suburban digs were carping about cruelty to animals but suggesting that everyone in the world, from suburban Yuppie to starving Cambodian cyclo-driver, start buying organic vegetables and expensive soy substitutes. To look down on entire cultures that’ve based everything on the gathering of fish and rice seemed arrogant in the extreme. (I’ve heard of vegans feeding their dogs vegetarian meals, now that’s cruelty to animals.) And the hypocrisy of it all pissed me off. Just being able to talk about this issue in reasonably grammatical language is a privilege, subsidized in a yin/yang sort of a way, somewhere, by somebody taking it in the neck. Being able to read these words, no matter how stupid, offensive, or wrongheaded, is a privilege, your reading skills the end product of a level of education most of the world will never enjoy. Our whole lives - our homes, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the food we eat - are all built on a mountain of skulls. "Meat," say the PETA folks, "is ‘murder’." And yes, the wide world of meat eating can seem like a panorama of cruelty at times. But is meat ‘Murder’? Fuck no."
"Murder, as one of my Khmer pals might tell you, is what his next-door neighbor did to his whole family back in the seventies. Murder is what happens in Cambodia, in parts of Africa, Central and South America, and in former Soviet Republics when the police chief’s idiot son decides he wants to turn your daughter into a whore and you don’t like the idea. Murder is what Hutus do to Tutsis, Serbs to Croats, Russians to Uzbeks, Crips to Bloods. And Vice Versa. It’s a black Chevy Suburban (which, more than likely, US taxpayers paid for) pulling up outside your house at three in the morning and dragging away your suspiciously unpatriotic and over opinionated son. Murder is what that man sitting across from you in Phnom Penh does for a living - so he can afford a satellite dish for his roof, so he can watch our Airwolf reruns, MTV Asia, and Pam Anderson running in slow motion down a Southern California beach."
"Hide in your fine homes and eat vegetables, I was thinking. Put a Greenpeace or NAACP bumper sticker on your Beemer if it makes you feel better (so you can drive your kids to their all white schools). Save the rainforest - by all means - so maybe you can visit it someday, on an ecotour, wearing comfortable shoes made by twelve-year-olds in forced labor. Save a whale while millions are still sold into slavery, starved, fucked to death, shot, tortured, forgotten. And when you see cute little kids crying in rubble next to Sally Struthers on TV, be sure to send a few dollars."
some music, like that of the jonas brothers, is better left unheard. some movies, like those starring tom cruise, are better left unseen. some jokes, like those told by jay leno, are best left unlaughed at. similarly, some books are better left unread. these 5 can be found cluttering the shelves of a bookstore near you. (do the world a favor and leave them there.)
in no particular order of suckiness:
I. behind the bell by dustin diamond
"my porn tape sucked or didn't(?) i don't know, but it wasn't good; and my career is over. so how about i dish dirt on all of my mildly more successful co-stars of a show that ended 15 years ago." good idea screech, you do that.II. i hope they serve beer in hell by tucker max
tucker max is a self-described king of douchebaggery. he drinks too much, fondles women, causes scenes and generally acts like that guy that no one ever wants to be around. but he's proud of it. so proud that he wrote a book about it. and word on the street is there's a movie is in the works too. tom cruise deserves to play this douchebag.III. through the storm: a real story of fame and family in a tabloid world by lynne spears
this book was originally titled "the lynne spears guide to fucking up your children," but for some reason they switched it up just before publication. too bad for them, they missed the perfect mother's day window for release. this book will no doubt prove instructive to any stage mother willing to milk her daughters for all they're worth, subsequently ignoring them when their pregnancies/mental breakdowns interfere with a novelty t-shirt sale at kitson.IV. life with my sister madonna by christopher ciccone & wendy leigh
nothing says "i'm tired of being a nobody and living in my sister's shadow" like an unauthorized biography/tell-all. this douche rivals tucker max in the royalty department. word in the valley is that he only wrote it as a bitch slap because guy ritchie doesn't like him because he's gay. get over it. write a book about your boring life you hack.V. fleeced: how barack obama, media mockery of terrorist threats, liberals who want to kill talk radio, the do-nothing congress, companies that help iran, and washington lobbyists for foreign governments are scamming us... and what to do about it by dick morris & eileen mcgann
the follow-up to, no joke, outrage: how illegal immigration, the united nations, congressional ripoffs, student loan overcharges, tobacco companies, trade protection, and drug companies are ripping us off... and what to do about it. and stay tuned for their next book, for which i even came up with a title for them- "passed out: what you are by the time you have read halfway through the title of any of our books, why books like this aren't covered under major bookstore return policies, and why you shouldn't care what we have to say because we are hacks... and what you can't do about it." eh? ehh? what a title!?! dickie, eileen, call me... i'll lease you the name rights.[snapped elements from defamer.com] Read more...
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