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Legislators Mull National "Do Not Rape" List August 18, 2003 |
Washington, D.C. Junior Bacon Defendant Kobe Bryant appears in court with his lawyer, who just finished a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats
Inspired by the sensationalized rape charges brought against NBA superstar Kobe Bryant by an unnamed Colorado woman, the registry would provide a way for U.S. women to proactively opt-out of unwanted sexual encounters with any of the growing legion of clueless sexual predators populating America’s bars and dark alleys.
The proposed list would mirror the recently created “Do Not Call” registry and the impending “Do Not Spam” list, and would mandate that all men intending to have rough sex with strange...
.S. lawmakers, called on to help clear the murky waters of consent in sexual situations between adults, responded today with a plan to create the national “Do Not Rape” registry, a centralized list of American women who are officially not asking for it. Inspired by the sensationalized rape charges brought against NBA superstar Kobe Bryant by an unnamed Colorado woman, the registry would provide a way for U.S. women to proactively opt-out of unwanted sexual encounters with any of the growing legion of clueless sexual predators populating America’s bars and dark alleys. The proposed list would mirror the recently created “Do Not Call” registry and the impending “Do Not Spam” list, and would mandate that all men intending to have rough sex with strangers would be required to check the list of names every three months or risk up to a $1,500 fine, jail time, or neither. “If a woman says no, but only fights you off half-heartedly, that’s the most encouragement many of these guys will ever receive,” explained defense attorney Richard Spackle. “It can be very confusing.” “Like what if she’s saying ‘No, no, no!’ but the guy’s Hawaiian or something and his name is Nono? That could happen. You gonna send Nono to jail just because he thought she was cheering him on? That’s discrimination, plain and simple.” Legal experts and sports fans applaud the proposal, hailing the list as a step forward into an enlightened new age when the public will no longer have to guess which of the two people involved in a rape trial is the total piece of shit. “This legislation could bring relief to many who desperately need it,” commented legal expert and student taxidermist Rutherford Wank. “Women who speak up with allegations of rape will be spared the muckraking and character assassination all too common in the modern rape trial. And even more importantly, American males will be free to fuck crazy bitches again.” Other proposed lists reportedly being discussed in Washington include a national “Do Not Kick My Dog” registry, a “Do Not Masturbate to My Image” registry, and the controversial “Do Not Exploit My Unskilled Labor” registry, which has already drawn harsh criticism from several U.S. corporations. As of press time, no exploitive, dog-kicking masturbators could be reached for comment. the commune news has always been a firm believer in the concept that “No” means “No.” Unless you’re in Russia, where we’ve heard “No” means “Pancake.” Ramon Nootles is loath to discuss his own rape trial, other than to mutter “she was black as night and the size of an panda bear” in a quivering, terrified voice from time to time.
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 December 6, 2004
O Captain!Before my days as a newspaperman, and slightly after my days as the Spoonman, I served my time in the American school system as a teacher. Or a learning person, as we used to say before they invented proper grammar.
My earliest teaching experiences were at a prep school, the kind where it's all boys (or girls, but I couldn't land a gig for that one) and they have to wear uniforms and conduct themselves like rich and snobby gentlemen. At first, the fellows were all leery of me, because I was so close to them in age. After a while, they came to think of me as their favorite teacher. Some of that was because I was so close in age, they thought they could trust me, but it was more than that as well. I actually enjoyed teaching, and tried to make all the subjects we studied connect to their own lives.
This is not always an easy task. We were going through a rough period where ventilation and air conditioning was being forced into the classroom, and while I think I did a good job, I couldn't always make the kids see the value in knowing how the thermostat works. I did better in other subjects, like teaching poetry.
All of my students came to love Walt Whitman quite a lot. Before my class, they thought of him as some stuffy, recently-dead hooligan who wrote homo garbage. But then I actually read a few of the poems for them, some of them in an amusing Italian dialect, and they were thrilled. One student told me "I Sing the Body Electric" was...
º Last Column: The Pen
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Before my days as a newspaperman, and slightly after my days as the Spoonman, I served my time in the American school system as a teacher. Or a learning person, as we used to say before they invented proper grammar.
My earliest teaching experiences were at a prep school, the kind where it's all boys (or girls, but I couldn't land a gig for that one) and they have to wear uniforms and conduct themselves like rich and snobby gentlemen. At first, the fellows were all leery of me, because I was so close to them in age. After a while, they came to think of me as their favorite teacher. Some of that was because I was so close in age, they thought they could trust me, but it was more than that as well. I actually enjoyed teaching, and tried to make all the subjects we studied connect to their own lives.
This is not always an easy task. We were going through a rough period where ventilation and air conditioning was being forced into the classroom, and while I think I did a good job, I couldn't always make the kids see the value in knowing how the thermostat works. I did better in other subjects, like teaching poetry.
All of my students came to love Walt Whitman quite a lot. Before my class, they thought of him as some stuffy, recently-dead hooligan who wrote homo garbage. But then I actually read a few of the poems for them, some of them in an amusing Italian dialect, and they were thrilled. One student told me "I Sing the Body Electric" was the best verse he had ever heard, and I don't think he was trying to get extra-credit by saying it. I gave it to him all the same, though.
Then, they fired me from the job. My students took it hard. They threatened to protest when I told them I had been fired for reading all the poems in an Italian accent. They said they would storm the school, bust out all the windows, and rape the faculty, but not because they wanted to do it. They wanted to show support for me. I told them if they wanted to show support for me, really wanted to prove their loyalty, they would continue their educations and forget about my troubles.
They did that. But on the last day, as I was escorted off the campus, they all leaned out the windows and recited my favorite Walt Whitman poem, chanting "O Captain! My Captain!" just like Grand Funk Railroad later would. They turned all this into a movie, but since they threw out my original draft screenplay, I want no part of that Hollywood garbage.
I eventually wound up in public schools, where my under-informed and incompetent teaching made me fit in quite well. It had been the real reason I was fired, of course. No one's ever been fired for reading poetry in a bad accent. º Last Column: The Penº more columns
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|  February 3, 2003
Aye, She Chimmied Me ChongaTime to face the facts, Omar Bricks loves Mexican food. I am a certified Mexican Food Freak. Not to be confused with a Certified Mexican Freak, that's some kind of license you need to wrestle down there, keeps them from losing all their wrestling jobs to people from Tennessee. It's all a part of NAFTA.
Part of the fun of Mexican food is pretending you speak Spanish. Because what the hell do those people know, you could be Juan Fuckin' Valdez for all the waitress cares. She just wants to get back into the kitchen to do another line of crank before the buzz wears off. So you can really lay it on thick, rambling off some nonsense about chimichanga presidente allegro amigos. It's a blast. Sometimes you can even pass for a local if you order everything BellGrande and don't ask for mustard. They don't put mustard on shit down there, don't ask me why. Another trick is to put your exclamation points upside-down, if you happen to be writing something down. That doesn't come up much when you're ordering food, I know, but you'll impress the shit out of everybody if you can pull it off.
Sometimes I like to really do it up and go in there wearing a blanket with a neck-hole cut in it and some kind of crazy garage-sale hat. The busboys love that shit, I come in and it's all "Ah, gringo! Chinga tu madre pendejo!" It's like Cheers, it's awesome. One time I came in strumming a mariachi guitar I found in the trash and those guys had to hold each other back from...
º Last Column: Balls to the Wall
º more columns
Time to face the facts, Omar Bricks loves Mexican food. I am a certified Mexican Food Freak. Not to be confused with a Certified Mexican Freak, that's some kind of license you need to wrestle down there, keeps them from losing all their wrestling jobs to people from Tennessee. It's all a part of NAFTA.
Part of the fun of Mexican food is pretending you speak Spanish. Because what the hell do those people know, you could be Juan Fuckin' Valdez for all the waitress cares. She just wants to get back into the kitchen to do another line of crank before the buzz wears off. So you can really lay it on thick, rambling off some nonsense about chimichanga presidente allegro amigos. It's a blast. Sometimes you can even pass for a local if you order everything BellGrande and don't ask for mustard. They don't put mustard on shit down there, don't ask me why. Another trick is to put your exclamation points upside-down, if you happen to be writing something down. That doesn't come up much when you're ordering food, I know, but you'll impress the shit out of everybody if you can pull it off.
Sometimes I like to really do it up and go in there wearing a blanket with a neck-hole cut in it and some kind of crazy garage-sale hat. The busboys love that shit, I come in and it's all "Ah, gringo! Chinga tu madre pendejo!" It's like Cheers, it's awesome. One time I came in strumming a mariachi guitar I found in the trash and those guys had to hold each other back from coming over to high-five me. They love it when they see white guys who are down with their culture.
Mexican food is great because it's all interchangeable. You can order anything off the menu and it's no worries because it's all the same shit. They might put the cheese on top instead of on the inside or it might have rice and beans instead of beans and rice, but it's not like they're suddenly going to whip out a tray of duck's nuts or anything like when you're fucking around with the menu at an Asian place. About the worst thing that can happen is you get shredded beef instead of ground beef, I guess they have a lot of problems with turbo-prop planes crash landing in cattle fields down in Mexico or something, I don't know. But overall the risk factor is pretty much no promblemo.
The biggest problem I ever had with Mexican food was one time in a restaurant when I wanted to re-enact one of those scenes from the Westerns where the big fat Mexican guy is sitting there with chiquitas on his lap and he's drinking beer and eating grapes or whatever. You know the guy, always laughing at the white guys, never takes a shower, gets shot at the end. Anyway, I wanted to be that guy for the course of a meal, but the waitress just wasn't down with it. Why she'd rather be busting her ass carrying hot plates instead of sitting on somebody's lap and eating grapes is anybody's guess, maybe she wasn't really Mexican.
Come to think of it, I don't think there are too many big Mexican families in Wisconsin that are cranking out blonde waitresses named Gwenyth these days. Shit. That's the last time I'll eat at Chili's.
"Authentic Mexican" my ass. Bricks Out. º Last Column: Balls to the Wallº more columns
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Milestones1969: Rok Finger is deeply offended by the sights at Woodstock, which has little if anything to do with his favorite Peanuts character.Now HiringTrombone Player. Follow Bludney Pudd around office playing hilarious "wahnt-WAHNT" everytime he does something pathetic. Overtime guaranteed.Top Freak Dancing Steps| 1. | The Funky Jock | | 2. | Running Teenage Father | | 3. | Shotgun Wedding | | 4. | The Discarded Fetus | | 5. | The Shut Up This Is Just How I Dance | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 7/7/2003 All right, America, who's hungry for a movie? And I don't mean just a "popcorn" movie, as the saying goes, I'm talking a juicy, full-bodied meal of a movie. One that if you watched it every day, in ten years you'd shit out a strange, grayish thing that used to be your liver. A real movie. You are? Me too. Let me know if you find one.
All I've got here to offer this week is Hollywood's latest batch of "films," waiting to crap up your brain stem like arterial plaque. Will they do the job, numbing your barely-firing synapses to the pain of a life who's only success thus far as been contributing to already alarming obesity statistics and supersizing your prostate? I suppose, but don't blame Roland if your brain dies like a shark that stopped moving.
All right, America, who's hungry for a movie? And I don't mean just a "popcorn" movie, as the saying goes, I'm talking a juicy, full-bodied meal of a movie. One that if you watched it every day, in ten years you'd shit out a strange, grayish thing that used to be your liver. A real movie. You are? Me too. Let me know if you find one.
All I've got here to offer this week is Hollywood's latest batch of "films," waiting to crap up your brain stem like arterial plaque. Will they do the job, numbing your barely-firing synapses to the pain of a life who's only success thus far as been contributing to already alarming obesity statistics and supersizing your prostate? I suppose, but don't blame Roland if your brain dies like a shark that stopped moving.
In Theaters
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Sean Connery and a bunch of guys you wouldn't pay to wash your car play a ragtag assortment of comic book geeks and gaming nerds who are called upon to use their skills of denial, make-believe and lack of social acumen to save the world from a villain you won't understand if you've ever had sex or paid your own rent. While it is kind of fun to watch a bunch of nitwits pretend they're mostly fictional historical figures (and I'm talking about the characters here, though I suppose the same could be said about the actors themselves), seeing this movie is a high-risk proposition since unless you can convince people at the theater that you were actually coming out of Charlie's Angels 2 or some other breast-fest, the association alone may brand you permanently undateable.
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde
Making a sequel to Bob Dylan's greatest album is a fool's gamble, but attempting to make that hypothetical sequel as a film is where that crackpot idea rubs up against genius. Luke Wilson and Reese Witherspoon finally pretty-face their way into the roles they were born to play, transforming themselves into Bob Dylan and Joan Baez for this gripping political musical. Wilson pulls off an uncanny impersonation of Dylan's dying Muppet singing voice and Witherspoon is smart to re-imagine Baez as a perky blonde who's more fun than anyone remembers the actual Baez being. Is it art? Hell no, but who sent you over here looking for art? Joke's on you, Poindexter.
Pirates of the Caribbean The Ride The Movie:
The Curse of the Black Pearl Harbor
Man, talk about a movie title that's tough to shoehorn into a request for a date. You're better off just taking her to the dog track. As for the movie itself, it's pretty much the same as the ride. You get a little wet and laugh at people getting raped and pillaged, and there's a funny dog. The problem is that the ride is only 20 minutes long, so the last hour and 40 minutes of the film are a bizarre revisionist vision of history where the Japanese bomb Detroit but are defeated by Cuba Gooding Jr. and the Shirelles, then are doomed to an eternity of karaoke-singing Motown hits badly as punishment. Sometimes it feels like you're watching a whole other movie, though they did throw in a few swashbuckling, cell-phone waving Japanese pirates here and there for continuity's sake. Every once in a while I think you just have to blame a movie on bad seafood.
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Sequel
Brad Pitt reprises his role from the dwarf-themed slasher hit Seven for the inevitable sequel, this time struggling with his good-lookingness while trying to track down grandma-eating stand up comedian Sinbad. In this go-around, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Pitt's constantly PMSing partner who has to be told not to be so macho all the time, and Michelle Pfeiffer reprises the Paltrow role as a head in a box. Some scoffed I'm sure, but I thought the choice of Sinbad as the villain was an inspired one. Anyone who's sat through Housesitter knows Sinbad's way scarier than Kevin Spacey, or even Spacey carrying around Anthony Hopkins in an infant huggie.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Meatheads
Only a barely-articulate robot played by barely-articulate Austrian muscledick Arnold Schwartzeneggar can save John Conner from a sub-literate gang of sent-from-the-future bodybuilders intent on kicking sand in Conner's face and stealing his girl. While the high-school bully theme and surf-guitar soundtrack might seem like an incongruous departure from the previous two films, it actually breathes new life into a series that was getting tired. After all, you can only fart around with the concept so long before the audience starts wondering why the machines didn't just send one of those unstoppable killer Terminators way back in time to kill Sarah Connor's great great grandma while she was making iced tea or something, before they had helicopters and one-handed cocking shotguns and exciting shit to get in the way. I'm sure if they went back far enough they could have found some slow-running ancestor who would've been easy enough to Ginsu, preventing the need for all these sequels.
And that's the way we were, America. Was it good? No, but it was on time, and that's all that matters in Europe. Join us next week when we see if the titles of the new releases spell anything funny in anagram form.    |
