Happy Mother's Day...
i know, i know, it's not the typical mother's day greeting, but it made you laugh didn't it? this lovely mother's day rant is from chef john mcdowell, a chef & cartoonist up in connecticut. you can check out his strips on his myspace blog by clicking the banner below.
mom's: go entertain yourself reading his strips while the kiddies make your breakfast.
kiddies: get cookin,' french toast is always nice.
seriously though, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you moms out there!
Anniversario Primo...
happy anniversary! i love you guys!
Going For The Trifecta...
Saturday, May 10, 2008
"Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost?
And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob and he's hankerin' to be a Republican senator and try not to wince in sociopolitical pain when you say that -- isn't more than a little numb to the real world, and that bringing 16 hungry mewling attention-deprived kids (and she wants more! Yay!) into this exhausted world zips right by "touching" and races right past "disturbing" and lurches its way, heaving and gasping and sweating from the karmic armpits, straight into "Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with you people?"
But that would be, you know, mean. Mean and callous to suggest that this might be the most disquieting photo you see all year, this bizarre Duggar family of 18 spotless white hyperreligious interchangeable people with alarmingly bad hair, the kids ranging in ages from 1 to 17, worse than those nuked Smurfs in that UNICEF commercial and worse than all the horrific rubble in Pakistan and worse than the cluster-bomb nightmare that is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise having a child as they suck the skin from each other's Scientological faces and even worse than that huge 13-foot python which ate that six-foot alligator and then exploded.
It's wrong to be this judgmental. Wrong to suggest that it is exactly this kind of weird pathological protofamily breeding-happy gluttony that's making the world groan and cry and recoil, contributing to vicious overpopulation rates and unrepentant economic strain and a bitter moral warpage resulting from a massive viral outbreak of homophobic neo-Christians across our troubled and Bush-ravaged land. Or is it?
Is it wrong to notice how all the Duggar kids' names start with the letter J (Jeremiah and Josiah and Jedediah and Jesus, someone please stop them), and that if you study the above photo (or the even more disturbing family Web site) too closely you will become rashy and depressed and you will crave large quantities of alcohol and loud aggressive music to deflect the creeping feeling that this planet is devolving faster than you can suck the contents from a large bong? But I'm not judging.
I have a friend who used to co-babysit (yes, it required two sitters) for a family of 10 kids, and she reports that they were, almost without fail, manic and hyper and bewildered and attention deprived in the worst way, half of them addicted to prescription meds to calm their neglected nerves and the other half bound for years of therapy due to complete loss of having the slightest clue as to who they actually were, lost in the family crowd, just another blank, needy face at the table. Is this the guaranteed affliction for every child of very large families? Of course not. But I'm guessing it's more common than you imagine.
What's more, after the 10th kid popped out, the family doctor essentially prohibited the baby-addicted mother from having any more offspring, considering the pummeling endured by her various matronly systems, and it's actually painful to imagine the logistics, the toll on Michelle Duggar's body, the ravages it has endured to give birth to roughly one child per year for nearly two decades, and you cannot help but wonder about her body and its various biological and sexual ... no, no, it is not for this space to visualize frighteningly capacious vaginal dimensions. It is not for this space to imagine this couple's soggy sexual mutations. We do not have enough wine on hand for that.
Perhaps the point is this: Why does this sort of bizarre hyperbreeding only seem to afflict antiseptic megareligious families from the Midwest? In other words -- assuming Michelle and Jim Bob and their massive brood of cookie-cutter Christian kidbots will all be, as the charming photo suggests, never allowed near a decent pair of designer jeans or a tolerable haircut from a recent decade, and assuming that they will all be tragically encoded with the values of the homophobic asexual Christian right -- where are the forces that shall help neutralize their effect on the culture? Where is the counterbalance, to offset the damage?
Where is, in other words, the funky tattooed intellectual poetess who, along with her genius anarchist husband, is popping out 16 funky progressive intellectually curious fashion-forward pagan offspring to answer the Duggar's squad of über-white future Wal-Mart shoppers? Where is the liberal, spiritualized, pro-sex flip side? Verily I say unto thee, it ain't lookin' good.
Perhaps this the scariest aspect of our squishy birthin' tale: Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation. Is that an oversimplification?
Why does this sort of thoughtfulness seem so far from the norm? Why is having a stadiumful of offspring still seen as some sort of happy joyous thing?
You already know why. It is the Biggest Reason of All. Children are, after all, God's little gifts. Kids are little blessings from the Lord, the Almighty's own screaming spitballs of joy. Hell, Jim Bob said so himself, when asked if the couple would soon be going for a 17th rug rat: "We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them." This is what he actually said. And God did not strike him dead on the spot.
Let us be clear: I don't care what sort of God you believe in, it's a safe bet that hysterical breeding does not top her list of desirables. God does not want more children per acre than there are ants or mice or garter snakes or repressed pedophilic priests. We already have three billion humans on the planet who subsist on less than two dollars a day. Every other child in the world (one billion of them) lives in abject poverty. We are burning through the planet's resources faster than a Republican can eat an endangered caribou stew. Note to Michelle Duggar: If God wanted you to have a massive pile of children, she'd have given your uterus a hydraulic pump and a revolving door. Stop it now.
Ah, but this is America, yes? People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their families if they can afford it and if it's within the law and so long as they aren't gay or deviant or happily flouting Good Christian Values, right? Shouldn't they? Hell, gay couples still can't openly adopt a baby in most states (they either lie, or one adopts and the other must apply as "co-parent"), but Michelle Duggar can pop out 16 kids and no one says, oh my freaking God, stop it, stop it now, you thoughtless, selfish, baby-drunk people.
No, no one says that. That would be mean."
me again, i swear, i'm done talking about these wackos. i promise. well, at least until baby #19. Read more...
Nevermind The Tater Tots...
"The other day I was reading an issue of People magazine (it's educational, you know) and they had an article on the Duggars. Apparently Mama Duggar and man-stud Jim Bob are expecting baby number seventeen. Or baby eighteen. At this point, the number is really not important as you can be rest assured that said baby's status in the Duggar household will be short-lived and he will be cast aside like a stained onesie at a garage sale once weaned, leaving Mama Duggar to get her insatiable baby fix from the next baby and the next until her uterus drops to the floor and tells both Madame Duggar and Jim Bob to eff off for good and takes off for Mexico with the first truck driver who picks it up while hitchhiking on I-40.
That poor uterus.
Whatever number baby it was, the article was accompanied by a list of various and sundry items the family goes through a month including, and I am liberally paraphrasing here because I don't expect you to fact check this, about 3000 pounds of tater tots, thirteen tubs of Crisco, and 14 dozen jars of Miracle Whip. But what I am not paraphrasing is this: The Duggars ONLY use twelve rolls of toilet paper. TWELVE. How is that even possible? I can personally go through that much in a week. Now admittedly, when I grab a wad of toilet paper, it's likely to resemble a pom pom. And not the new kind of tiny pom poms that today's wimpy cheerleaders carry. I'm talking about the old school kind from back when I was a youngster, the big-assed kind that are easily four times bigger than your head. Yeah, that much toilet paper.
So maybe the Duggars are more economical than I am. I understand that. But assuming that there are at least eighteen ass wipers in the Duggar household (if the smallest Duggar is still in diapers), that's still slightly less than half a roll a week. Paris Hilton got more than that in jail and you know what a tragedy that was!
Um, anyway, that's all I've got on that. It's just that I've been mulling over this for a while and I really had to get it off my chest. I'd like to write more about it, but I just realized my left boob is still hanging out from my pumping session a few minutes ago and I have to reign it in.
Before it takes off for Mexico."
i'm back, butter here, it's me again... while doing research for the earlier post on said topic, i came across this blog entry and felt that it was worthy of posting. funny how year old news is new again. if you have a minute, follow the link at the top to the original blog; the comments are priceless! Read more...
They Haven't Listened Bob...
i've been struggling all day about how i was going to go about writing about this. this family's behavior has irked me for years, in duggar-time, since baby #14. i've seen the 'specials' on the discovery channel, i've read the articles in people magazine and i've watched them unknowingly make complete a**holes out of themselves on national television.
the latter, i witnessed again this morning on the today show. they were on for a follow-up segment about ludicrous baby #17, and to celebrate mama duggar for being an excellent mother; to which she responded with the surprise announcement that she was f*cking knocked up again. i use the term 'mother' here loosely. i know parents who struggle with the too few hours in day raising one or two children; the juggling of a career, cooking, cleaning, etc... yet the people i know, the real mothers, will deprive themselves the extra hour of sleep to be sure they have quality time to spend with their child or children. how is it humanly possible for two parents to 'mother' 17, soon to be 18, children?
brainwashing. mommy and daddy are merely the factory. the older kids raise the younger ones. none of the children leave the house. like most families of the quiverfull faith, they are all home schooled and un-socialized. they have no idea what the real world is like, because they are sheltered from it. the producers of the today show whisked several of the older children away to buy mom mother's day gifts, and upon learning of this on live tv, mama duggar gasped. what, in of all places, new york city, were her poor sheltered children exposed to? a homeless man sleeping on the street? an asian artist sketching faces? a hodgepodge band of bucket drummers? or maybe even the naked cowboy? oh no!
i don't pray much, but like the jessop's that escaped the polygamist cult in texas, i pray that someday some of these kids have a chance. i hope that the god that they believe in so strongly gives them the will to run away, change their name and live the american dream with a significant other and a child or two. i hope that the cruel and unusual way of life that they are trapped in right now doesn't scar them for life, and i sincerely hope that none of them take out their anti-social anxiety on a public place, from the top of a bell tower one day...
Manboobs...
Thursday, May 08, 2008
so they say that things happen in groups of three. or is that just bad things? well, whatever the case, the other day i made the photo above for my good friend margz out in seattle; after she lovingly sent this photo that she mistook for being my dad. (margz, by the way, is going to be the next britney spears. hopefully not in the crazy, head shaved mother kind of way, but brit-brit nonetheless. just check out the player at the bottom of this post and you'll know EXACTLY what i'm talking about!) so anyway, today i sign onto myspace and this annoying little ad pops up on my homepage. you know, that supposedly gives you free ringtones if you 'help the chicken cross the road,' or 'arm wrestle george dubbya,' or 'shave rosie o'donnell's legs' or my favorite where they give you a pair of scissors and you have to 'chop off the redneck's mullet.' anyway, you get the drift. today, i found this new one on my page. and how fitting being that i made the above manboob picture earlier this week. i swear on all that is buttery, I DID NOT alter the picture, other than circling the words 'fat man' at the top, to accentuate the fact that the boobs are indeed on a man. though you cannot see it, he's bouncing on a trampoline so it's difficult for you to hit him with the pies... he bounces, and so do they, and thus, those manboobs are real.
AS PROMISED, MARGZ'S GREATEST HIT...
A Cheap Bastard...
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
and now, a post from special guest blogger, 57 year-old, newark taxi driver, mohamed khalil:**
a few weeks ago, on april 21, i picked up a collar-popped yuppie wannabe with a violin case at newark airport; my last fare before heading home for the night. after arriving at his destination and stopping the meter, he handed me $40 for his $39 fare and said heroically "keep the change." i fakely smiled and waited for him after he closed the door, to see if he was going to try and cross the street; because after all of that and a long day of work, i was feeling a little frisky and wanted to play a little game of chicken. no dice.
the next day was my first day off in two weeks, so i decided to kick back and watch maury povich with my hookah and a nice bowl of kava. and what to my wondering eyes should appear but my collar-popped yuppie with a red tinge to his ears. he was begging and pleading for any information regarding his lost violin, which he had left in his taxicab on his way back from the airport. after recognizing him, i check the back seat of my pimped out taxi with rims, and low and behold, there was his beloved violin. i made contact with him through the information on the news, and arranged a meeting to return his violin. the next day i reluctantly met with him again and returned his crusty old violin and he gave me a $100 reward.
the next day on the news, i find out that that 'crusty' viloin was made in 1723. it didn't belong to mr. philippe quint, he had borrowed it from some kabillionaires in upstate new york. it's valued at 4 MILLION DOLLARS! a 4 million dollar violin that this dumbass leaves in a taxi, and i get $100 bucks? oh, and least i forget the 'free' 30 minute concert at the taxi-stand at newark airport. thanks phil, you're generosity is deeply appreciated. i'll remember that next time you cheap bastard. i should have sold it on ebay!
**mohamed khalil had absolutely nothing to do with the actual writing of this entry. and to the contrary, he did not expect nor want any reward for returning the instrument. he made several comments about how he had merely done 'what any good american would have done.' the 57 year-old khalil emmigrated to the united states from egypt in 1980 and is a proud citizen of the united states.
here's a bit more info.
Stepping Out...
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
here's just one example of the support that comes from the readers of this site, that started as a personal release, and has turned into a whirlwind! thanks to the cray & bickford family blog, i've even gotten some more ideas for helping with the 'housing crisis' that is far from a crisis, thanks to craigslist and couchsurfers everywhere! HERE is the blog that she wrote for me, one of which i appreciate very much! thank you mama cray!
The Itchy Palm Scandal...
Monday, May 05, 2008
after searching the web all week, and trying to figure out what the hell was making my hands itch like a bastard, i think i finally figured it out.
thank you to all that recommended benadryl and/or caladryl that didn't do crap for the palms. i guess i'll just have to deal with my first, and hopefully last, allergy with no assistance from anything other than a voodoo doctor.
sodium benzoate and/or sodium bisulfite. that's the crap that i'm allergic to. i think. thank god it's not the mangoes that i have been eating the hell out of, or i may have climbed a mango tree and hung myself from the vines. in case you're wondering, sodium benzoate and sodium bisulfite are used as preservatives in many food products, and is naturally found in acidic food products. my dad makes pickled sauerkraut, it's a hungarian thing, that is used as a condiment in hungarian cooking. everytime i eat it, itch ahoy!
i did find some other interesting possibilities while i was researching the possible causes on the net. here are two of the funnier ones:
A Cinco de Mayo Greeting From The Sausage Queen of Deerfield Beach...
one too many horrible experiences cause me NOT to toast you today with an ice cold corona, however i will tip my delicious margarita your way on this drunken holiday. happy cinco de mayo folks!
The Proverbial Gutter...
Sunday, May 04, 2008
i haven't posted a photo in a while, but i came across this gem today. although it's a crude and ignorant photo, it is one of my favorites; with rex & dallon, the san diego troublemakers. notice my ever-present SuFi and my shirt that reads 'i french kissed kelly kapowski.' i snatched the quote from my sister, i think it's going to be my new personal credo.
My Soundtrack...
Friday, May 02, 2008
i've been thinking long and hard about how to respond to all of the emails that i received after posting 'james earl jones and a liter of bourbon' a few weeks back. i tried to respond to as many as i could, but i must say that eventually started copying and pasting my response, as it was far too much to type over and over again. i especially enjoyed all of the comments along the lines of 'chocolate rain' is a catchy song, but i don't get him at all... to this day, my friends, i don't either. my guess would be that tay zonday's popularity stems from the curiosity of people wondering: is he serious? could he be serious? this has to be a joke, and the like. curiosity has killed the cat this time, making his youtube videos some of the most popular on the site. and with hit counters jumping, it must just fuel his desire to make more, because he thinks everyone just loves his music.
so the majority of the emails were asking about the music that i listen to, and frequently included a question about 'do you listen to ________?' so do i make a list? do i jumble together a few short lists by genre? i still don't know as i sit here typing this, how it will come together, but i'll figure it out and make it work.
let me start off by saying this: music is a huge part of my life, without it things would be so boring. could you imagine a movie without a soundtrack? a play without a score? a roadtrip without an ipod? music is amazing, the way it can transport you somewhere else or hold you in a moment forever... a time, a place, a person, can be subconsciously ingrained in your memory forever with a simple tune or lyric...
if you asked about my 'favorite' music, i would say: what genre? what day? what's my mood? my taste in music is ever-changing and ever-expanding. i tend to circle around old classics like james taylor, csny, cat stevens & carole king, with a little weather report, mixed with a lot of maroon 5, topped with a healthy helping of justin timberlake and jason mraz, garnished with a dollop of zach macko & far north and a sprinkling of colbie caillat. cipes and the people is simmering in my cd player right now, with lady antebellum on the back burner, and billy joel's "summer, highland falls" has been on the last ump-teen playlists i've made. i listen to music to rock out at times and veg out at others. imogen heap goes well with a nice dinner, while cascada goes really well with dancing, and harry chapin always relaxes me. what more can i say? music is me.
so i came across an interesting bulletin on myspace the other day, where you put your itunes on shuffle, and fill in the songs as they pop up to make your 'life soundtrack.' i figured that would be a good list to fill in, without the shuffle mode of course, to tell you a bit more about me and the tunes that i listen to. so, if my life had a soundtrack, it would look something like this...
BEGINNING CREDITS: rain king - counting crows
WAKING UP: sleeping to dream - jason mraz
MOM: 100 years - five for fighting
DAD: cat in the cradle - harry chapin
MY SISTER RO: wagon wheel - old crow medicine show
MY SISTER CHRISTI: least complicated - the indigo girls
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: fly - cipes and the people
FALLING IN LOVE: magic - colbie caillat
FIRST SONG: tiny dancer - elton john
BREAKING UP: summer, highland falls - billy joel
POP SONG: love song - sara bareilles
THE HIGH SCHOOL YEARS: yearbook - hanson
PROM: time after time - cyndi lauper
FIGHT SONG: enemy - sevendust
LIFE: everyday - james taylor/life - keller williams
THE COLLEGE YEARS: the world ain't slowing down - ellis paul
DRUNKEN STUPOR: willow tree - g. love & the special sauce
MENTAL BREAKDOWN: pacing the cage - jimmy buffett
STARTING OVER: going away - the clark family experience
DRIVING: southern cross - crosby, stills, nash & young
ENTERING THE 'REAL WORLD': billy - james blunt
GETTING BACK TOGETHER: caught up in you - .38 special
MID-LIFE CRISIS: fool in the rain - led zeppelin
WEDDING: only you - yazoo
BIRTH OF CHILD: float on - modest mouse
REFLECTING ON LIFE: tapestry - carole king/heartbeats - jose gonzales
HOLIDAYS: celebrate me home - kenny loggins
THE 'SENIOR' YEARS: reelin' in the years - steely dan
FINAL BATTLE: numb/encore - jay-z & linkin park
FLASHBACK: here in this diary - the ataris
DEATH SCENE: falling down - ben jelen
FUNERAL: the only promise that remains - reba mcentire & justin timberlake
END CREDITS: the words - zach macko & far north/simple man - lynyrd skynyrd
BLOOPERS: can't get it right today - joe purdy
of course that's not all of my favorites, but it's a good selection of the music i love. it's strongly riddled with indie artists from myspace, as much of the time that's where the great music really comes from...
Sweet, Sweet, Chocolate Love...
Thursday, May 01, 2008
as you all know, it's not a holiday around here on the site without an awesome vid from JayVideo. you know the ones: misunderstood st. patrick's day, those cute little chocolate bunnies reproducing on easter, or my personal favorite 'chocolate love' on valentine's day.
jay & leah, the masterminds behind those gems, are up for a people's choice award for 'chocolate love,' for best digital animated short.
if you love those videos as much as you tell me you do, please take a minute to go cast your vote by clicking this divine little button:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
