Asst A.G. With E.D. is SOL in S.C.

When a man can’t hang out at the cemetery with a stripper on his lunch hour without having his emergency sex toys questioned by police, then, well, then I don’t know what.

“COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A deputy assistant attorney general who said he was on his lunch break when an officer found him with a stripper and sex toys in his sport utility vehicle has been fired.

Roland Corning, 66, and the 18-year-old woman with him, an employee of the Platinum Plus Gentleman's Club, gave conflicting stories about what they were doing in the cemetery. Corning gave (police officer) Wines a badge showing he worked for the state Attorney General's Office. Wines, whose wife also works there, called her to make sure Corning was telling the truth.”

Wait. What? The police officer called his own wife to rat this guy out? If the poor man had said he worked at the hardware store, would the cop have checked that out? The whole story sounds like the plot of a Coen brothers movie.

“He then searched the SUV, where he found a Viagra pill and several sex toys, items Corning said he always kept with him, ‘just in case’.”

Okay, who doesn’t keep that stuff handy? I go down the checklist before every trip to the store or the cemetery: Sex toys, jumper cables, Viagra, flashlight and popcorn popper, you know, just in case.

“Corning and the woman were let go without charges. Wines' wife reported the call to her supervisor, who told Attorney General Henry McMaster. ‘We received credible information about inappropriate behavior Monday afternoon,’ McMaster said Wednesday. And by the close of business, he was no longer working here."

He was in a secluded area of the cemetery. If the cop doesn’t start calling his family about it, no one knows. THAT’S the inappropriate behavior.

“Such a trip to the cemetery ‘would not be appropriate, at any time, for an assistant attorney general,’ McMaster said.”

Really? Is that in the employee manual? “Do not go to the cemetery with a stripper.” Besides, he was the deputy assistant A.G. Is he held to the same high standard as the assistant, A.G.?

The girl was 18; they both were released without charges (i.e. there was no crime committed) and he was at lunch. Viagra is not a controlled substance. So the man needed some help to get himself a, uh, “5-dollar footlong”, if you will, on his lunch break. So what? I need caffeine to get up in the morning. If I drink it at the graveyard with an exotic dancer, is my next stop the unemployment line?

“South Carolina has had its share of scandal lately, most notably Gov. Mark Sanford's disappearance in June. His office told reporters he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but he was really in Argentina visiting his mistress.” On the state’s peso!

And the governor still has his job. The 66-year-old deputy assistant D.A. with E.D. does not. Are they running out of politicians in S.C. to pin scandals on? Come on, the guy was not even an elected official.

Todd Snider said it all:

All of my neighbors are all up in arms
About something they saw on TV.
Seems some politician got busted for something
That won't make any difference to me.
I'm sure it's all true, and I'm tired of this, too
But I can't pray for someone to fall.
Let all them people do what people do
I'm just happy to be here at all

I'm happy to be here to vote randomly
On who ought to take the next dive.
I'm eager to see what the downfall will be
And all the hilarity on Saturday Night Live.
You know, mostly it's all scandal TV these days.
That's where the real money must fall,
Down from the smog of some Hollywood haze
I'm just happy to be here at all.

I'm happy to be here
I'm happy to be
Happy

Too Much To Figure Out

The story you are about to read is true. Only the facts have been changed.

I don’t even write this blog. Well, I do, but do you know who “I” am? No. I might not be real.

When you meet someone, you don’t even know if you met them. Fake hair, fake hair color, fake boobs, fake Rolex, false teeth, false smile, faux fur.

Anything you think is real could be fake. Funny “Fail” picture on fail.com? Probably Photoshopped. Funny quote on “Overheard in New York”? Probably made up. Funny Cake on “Cake Wrecks”? Probably cooked up by some faker. Why do I pretend to care? Because it is not as funny if you are trying to figure out whether it’s fake.

And yet, some things are faked in order to make them funny. Reality is scary and we try to escape through humor. The real news is dark humor, but fake news is satire and creativity. That’s why 75% of young people 18 – 35 get their news from the Daily Show, a “fake” news show. 75%. That’s what I’m told. By me.

Daily Show fake news doesn’t bother me because The Daily Show bills itself as fake news. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC are billed as legitimate but they create fake real news. They intentionally distort facts to tell the story they want to tell. They make totally unfounded statements just to stir things up.

I don’t really believe anything anymore, except when it comes to politicians, in which case I don’t believe anyone anymore.

It used to be harder to fake things. To convince their moms they were sick, some of my friends had to chew up oatmeal cookies and spit them in the toilet to simulate vomit. I’m not saying I did that, just making the point the fakery wasn’t always so easy as just getting the Apple Swine Flu app and downloading it.

The government spent millions putting together the whole Moon landing hoax. Now, with Windows 7, you can create a Moon landing on your computer and upload it to Youtube. The fact is that nearly half of virtually everything on Youtube is literally fake.

To make this blog seem more interesting to me I created some readers, like “Cali”, the girl who supposedly comments here from time to time. This will be a great disappointment to her family, especially her husband, but Cali does not exist and is totally Photoshopped into the comments. All my commenters are fake, except for Anonymous, who is merely insincere.

My point is that I don’t believe I like Michael Moore. Michael Moore found a market for a film about how the free market system is screwed up and Mr. Moore is profiting from it because that’s how capitalism works. I believe everything in “Capitalism, A Love Story” is true in the same way I believed everything in “Borat”. Unless I’m lying just to stir things up.

And That's When Things Got Weird

This is theoretically a humor blog, but what I'm writing about today is not funny like a comedy routine, it's more funny like feeling a cold hand slip around your throat when you are alone watching "The Ring".

Last fall, a couple days in advance of a trip to LA, I quickly grabbed a book of Elmore Leonard short stories at the used book store. I also hastily put some random songs on my iPod just before leaving. As the plane took off I started reading a story in the book. Then I turned on my iPod and set it to shuffle the songs. The first song was by Todd Snider and as a character in the book got fired and said, "I was looking for a job when I found this one", Todd, sang those exact words in the song by the same name.

A month or so later I was reading a book which mentioned a certain old movie and movie at exactly the same moment that a commercial came on AE for that same movie. Shortly thereafter I read something in a magazine while listening to a song that happened to contain the same line. (I don't have the details of these - I should have written them down).

Last night I was catching up on some old New Yorker magazines I skipped last year and randomly took out the 10/13/08 issue. As I was reading, an ad for "The Graveyard Book" (which I had never heard of) caught my eye. As I flipped by that page, my laptop, sitting open next to me caught my eye; I had a new email showing that someone commented on my blog. The person was a first time commenter and I clicked the link to her blogger home page. I scanned down her profile and listed first on her "favorite books" was "The Graveyard Book."

Today at lunch I read an article on MSNBC about the lack of odd characters these days in major league baseball. As I thought about the characters I had watched growing up I first thought of Mark "the Bird" Fidrych. I got home and found out that Mark died today.

So these are, to me, some really bizarre coincidences of randomly crossing things. The REALLY strange thing to me is, why am I so often trying to read and watch TV or listen to music at the same time? Despite the oddness of these incidents, I don't think they mean anything. Or do they? What is the universe trying to tell me?

I Rot the Songs

In a group I belong to, 3 of us out of 10 friends have the same birthday in December. My older friend Bill (Everything You Know About English is Farkakteh) celebrates the day after I do. I have several other friends born around the same time (late November through mid-December), meaning all are Sagittarians. I am more into words than astrology, so what interested me most about this calendaric coincidence is that it would make a good country song: “All My Friends Are Sagittarians”, kind of like “All My Exes Live in Texas”. Now, the majority of people I know are not Sagittarians, but “Some of my friends, but not all and none of my close family, are Sagittarians” doesn’t work so well as a song. Also, I know that ‘friends” does not rhyme with “Sagittarians”, but “exes” doesn’t exactly rhyme with “Texas” either (though it works better than Steve Miller’s “rhyme” of “Texas”, “facts is” and “justice”), but I pronounce the words as “frenz” and “Sagittarienz”, giving the song a hip-hop flava. What I want to write is a country, hip-hop, pop, folk fusion song. I am struggling with it because I can write a parody song given some one else’s tune, but coming up with a completely original song is tough, which is why I’m a number jockey in Cincinnati, not a tune smith in Nashville.
Much of the typical Sagittarian traits apply to me: Interested in philosophy and religion, impulsive and independent, procrastinate, natural comedians (sometimes exaggerating their adventures to entertain people), but sometimes offend by speaking without thinking, and can be argumentative or blunt. Sagittarians are susceptible to hip troubles and leg pain. Okay so far, but also, Sagittarians are great athletes, big-game hunters and fishermen. HA! All these traits ought to be worked into the song, unless they don’t rhyme. But like I said, I’m having trouble; in fact I pretty much just have words that rhyme but have nothing to do with the zodiac or my real friends. Here’s what I have so far:

CHORUS:
All my friends are Sagittarians
We have affinity for philosophy,
Sometimes we act like horse rear ends
Comedians, contrarians, some quinquagenarians
All my friends are Sagittarians



I know some Rastafarians
Braided, bearded, hairy men
Need ganja? They are carryin’
They grow it: they’re agrarian

This woman’s name is Marian,
She is a librarian
‘Til her body turns to carrion
She’ll be Sagittarian

CHORUS

One pretends she’s a thespian
She also is a lesbian
She won’t eat meat or marry men
She’s a vagitarian

So, not all my friends are men
Some are more ovarian
And even imaginary friends
Of mine are Sagittarians

CHORUS

We’re characterized as mutable,
Think everything’s disputable
We’re blunt, unlike our arrow,
Don’t follow the straight and narrow

We’re impulsive but procrastinate
We’re honest but exaggerate
Legs hurt from the brains we’re carryin’
We are proud Sagittarians

CHORUS

See, it’s pretty lame. I invite you to make a much better song, produce it and upload to YouTube and link to it in the comments. When some record label or artist buys it, we’ll split the profits. Or just write some lyrics in the comments. Here’s some leftover words you might use:
Bavarian, Aryan, clarion, barbarian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, non-sectarian, sectarian, Wagnerian, centenarian, grammarian, libertarian, vegetarian, proletarian, seminarian, Unitarian, veterinarian, authoritarian, disciplinarian, egalitarian, humanitarian, octogenarian, parliamentarian, totalitarian, utilitarian, septuagenarian, begins and ends, portends.

(I was going to use the Sagittarius image from this site, because it's pretty right on, but I couldn't get past the misuse of "your" instead of "you're".)

The Devil You Know

RECENTLY EDITED
(This has nothing to do with the "Profit From the Rapture" book contest in the previous entry* - but read this anyway, then scroll down and enter the contest)

I don’t listen to the radio much anymore so finding new music artists that I like has to be somewhat serendipitous. My best talent scout has gone off to college and I no longer get to suffer through her music in the car or in my house in order to find the few gems in “contemporary” music (I’m usually late to the party. By the time I asked to copy Allie’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” CD, she told me no one listens to that anymore).
I do listen to Bob and Tom in the morning to provide a little comedy stimulus and that’s where I first heard Todd Snider (who has been around a while).

They found a store with a sign that said their beer was coldest.
So they sent in Brad 'cause he looked the oldest.
He got a case of beer and a candy bar, walked over to where all the registers are
laid his fake I.D. on the counter top.
The clerk looked, and turned to look back up and stopped.
He said "Son, I ain't gonna call the cops, but I'm gonna have to keep this card"
the guys both took it pretty hard.

Not that I ever tried to buy beer when I was underage, but I, um, had a, uh, friend who did. Todd even had a song that connected to the accountant/mathematician side of my brain.

They say 92 percent of everything you learned in school was just bullshit you'll never need
84 percent of everything you got you bought to satisfy your greed
Because 90 percent of the world's population links possessions to success
Even though 80 percent of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population
Drinks to an alarming excess

Though there is somewhat of a kinship between Todd and my inner flower child,

Tree huggin’, love makin’, pro choicin', gay weddin’, widespread diggin’ hippies like me.
Skin color-blinded, conspiracy-minded, protesters of corporate greed,
We who have nothing and most likely will ‘till we all wind up locked up in jails
By conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males

I am a child of the 60s and Todd is much younger

My old man says the Woodstock generation
Found a way to make this nation
Open up its eyes and take a look around
And he says my generation
Ain't good for nothing

and has had quite a different lifestyle from mine.

I came in off a dead end street
Walked in slow and took a back row seat
I knew I had nothing new to say
So many people looking so burned out
I couldn't help feeling bad about just having to be there anyway

A friend of a friend from work came in
I never have known what to make of him
He'd always seemed to be so insincere to me
You know I've always been afraid of a 12 step crowd
They laugh too much and talk too loud
Like they all know where everyone should be

So when we went to his concert last night at a small theater in Covington, KY, we wondered what kind of crowd to expect. I told Karen it would probably be young, unemployed, recovering alcoholic, drug addicted, lazyass hippies.
We walked in off a Covington street, anticipating unwashed losers we’d meet, I knew we would feel so out of place. But so many people looked just like us, recovering hippies who were fifty-plus, with gray in their hair, age on their face.
Then when a friend of my in-laws came in, it made me laugh, made my head spin, this just would not seem to be where such old folks would be. I’d really picture them in the symphony crowd, where the music’s instrumental and not too loud, where blue-hairs go, not young dudes like me.
Seriously, friends of my wife's parents? at a Todd Snider concert? That was just wrong. More young people came in later. It ended up being a broad range of ages and, on the surface, not what I expected. I really wanted to ask some people if they were unemployed, recovering alcoholic drug addicts but Karen stopped me. Probably they were just former tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, barefootin’ folk-singin’ hippies like me.

*Mr. Snider does have a song for the Rapture

Keep Off the Grass

Study: Marijuana potency reaches 30-year high in 2007" Heh,heh: 30-year high, get it? John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said, "Today's report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana." Would that be the anachronistic views expressed in Refer Madness, that marijuana would lead to "shocking acts of violence and incurable insanity"? Or the anachronistic views of the 70's they tried to sell us - that we'd all become heroin addicts? In high school, in 1972, we saw an anti-marijuana message featuring Sonny and Cher, because naturally we all found them incredibly cool role models. We laughed at these messages - ah, probably we were stoned.
If there is an anachronistic view of marijuana that we would pass on to our children when we learn that their pot is more potent than ours was, it is this:
"Son, back in my day, we had it tough. The dope wasn't like it is nowadays. We had to toke a lot harder and a lot longer to get high. And we had to cut little circles out of our window screens to put in the bowl of the bong. Flies would get in the house and shit, but we sorta got fascinated, just watching them buzz round and round and buzz while we were getting buzzed, that was so cool, they're buzzing and we're buzzing, and bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........We had to walk miles barefoot to get to the store for chocolate chip cookies and Doritos, and they didn't have the sour cream and onion kind then. But we would find this one Dorito that was a perfect triangle and then just stare at it and, like, dude, it is SO triangular...... triiianguuulaaar. That word is weird. So, what I was saying, the only advantage we had was that album covers were a lot bigger - good space for cleaning seeds and stems out of your dope. No way you can use these damn tiny CD jewel boxes. I can't even see the seeds anymore without my glasses. And what're you gonna do with an iPod? The downer was that one side of a vinyl album is only 20 minutes and we had to get up and turn the f'ing record over all the time. Though sometimes it was kind of hypnotizing hearing the needle at the end of the track...skzzzzzzz..chi-clunk..skzzzzz..chi-clunk..skzzzz.......where was I?"



Potent marijuana = Puritan jam at one
Late for the sky = Fatherly tokes

Update

D.B. or not D. B.

If I Only Had a Brain

"Americans are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution. Depending on how the questions are asked, roughly 30 to 40 percent of Americans believe in each."

Once again, Todd Snider has a relevant lyric:

"They say 3 percent of the people use 5 to 6 percent of their brain
97 percent use 3 percent and the rest goes down the drain
I'll never know which one I am but I'll bet you my last dime
99 percent think we're 3 percent 100 percent of the time"

A Parachute and a Few Hundred Dollars Were All That They Ever Found

Looks like Todd was a little early (song from 1994) in calling the parachute find.
Will they ever see old D. B. Cooper again?

In "You've Got Mail", Joe Fox says "The Godfather answers all of life's questions. What should I pack for my summer vacation? 'Leave the gun, take the cannoli.'"
I believe Todd Snider has a lyric for almost all situations.
Dr. Suess covers the rest.

B Double-E Double-R U N, Beer Run

(this post's title is from here)
Reason #5 why I like my new neighbors:

Today was a typical Midwestern summer day, hotter than the hind hubs of Hades (an expression my mother taught me - apparently Hades' chariot has rear wheel drive which makes the hind hubs get hot). Actually, comparing the Midwest to Hell doesn't do it justice. Hell, being on fire, has a dry heat, much like Las Vegas and, therefore, would be tolerable and even welcoming to tourists who would never visit southwest Ohio in July or August.

Here, it is humid and infested with flying bugs which would frighten Satan's hounds. So there is almost no good reason for being outdoors working on a day like today, except if you washed your deck last week and need to seal it before it rains tomorrow. You have to wash your deck because the persistent humidity turns to a green, slippery gunk after prolonged contact with wood. (Deck sealing tip: When you spray the water seal on the deck, you walk backwards so that the sweat pouring from your head falls on the newly sealed area and beads up in small puddles rather than soaking into the wood.)

Speaking of hell, I was ready to sell my soul to the devil for a cool breeze or an ice cold beer.

So, there I was, halfway through this project, when my new neighbor walked over and asked, "John, are you a beer drinker?" Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear genuflect in the woods? "Why, yes, I occasionally enjoy a brew." "I have some beer in that refrigerator over there", he said. "Please get yourself some."

This was quite a generous offer and brightened my afternoon - but wait, it got better. He said, "see the tap in the side? Just get yourself a glass and take what you want."

Oh. My. God. The man has a tap. In a keg. In a refrigerator. In his garage. A garage which is no more than ten steps from my driveway. I slowly turned and, with sweat stinging and gnats buzzing in my eyes, I gazed at the kegerator like a cartoon man crawling in a cartoon desert stares at a cartoon mirage oasis.

I finished sealing the deck, and went to the tap and pulled a glass for myself and one for Satan and we toasted the man who is my new neighbor and my new best friend.