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 December 12, 2005 |
Baltimore, MD Junior Bacon An undated file photo of amateur philosopher Phillip Flaggart, who at the time of the taking had never been out on a date.
"A picture's worth a thousand words," repeated sayings fan Dennis Tudd, shaking his head in wonderment. "That kind of says it all, though a picture would say it all even better. You know."
Even within the sayings-geek community, Flaggart remained the enduring subject of controversy, with factions split between those who believed the man a humble genius, and those convinced Flaggart was a lucky moron. Flaggart himself fanned the flames in a 1987 interview, explaining that he was dr...
illions of Americans failed to mourn this week at the death of Baltimore-area rug salesman and unknown modern American philosopher Phillip Flaggart, originator of numerous lite-philosophical sayings such as "A picture's worth a thousand words," and "Why buy milk when you have a cow at home?" "A picture's worth a thousand words," repeated sayings fan Dennis Tudd, shaking his head in wonderment. "That kind of says it all, though a picture would say it all even better. You know." Even within the sayings-geek community, Flaggart remained the enduring subject of controversy, with factions split between those who believed the man a humble genius, and those convinced Flaggart was a lucky moron. Flaggart himself fanned the flames in a 1987 interview, explaining that he was drunk at the time he first said "A picture's worth a thousand words" and didn't know what he was talking about. "Phil had a real talent for being misunderstood as more profound than he really was," explained Flaggart's late wife, Lucious. "I remember that night, and what Phil said was 'That picture's worth a thousand bucks,' referring to a blurry Polaroid he carried around that was supposedly a picture of Farrah Fawcet's left tit." Flaggart fans remain undeterred, however. "Don't even talk to his wife," sneered Tudd. "She's never been a pro-Flaggart." Lucious Flaggart retells a similar story about another famous saying attributed to her late husband, "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." "He was standing in line for a movie in New York, and Andy Warhol overheard him say what he thought was 'In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,' a line which Warhol then stole for himself. Luckily for Andy, he didn't hear what Phil actually said: that in about fifteen years, miniature furniture was going to be really popular. Phil never knew what he was talking about. He was drinking a lot back then, too." Whether Flaggart was a genius or a boob, he's definitely dead now, a fact upon which even the pro-Flaggarts and the Flaggart-doubters can agree. "Dead, misunderstood genius," summarized Tudd. "Dead moron," disagreed a solemn Eugene Frits, a leading Flaggart-doubter and roommate to Dennis Tudd. "Maybe he was autistic, you ever think of that?" retorted Tudd, just before the interview grew ugly. "Maybe you should kiss my ass and do your own dishes for once, buttfuzz," explained an agitated Frits, moments before this reporter ducked out the fire escape to the sound of breaking dishes, heeding the Flaggartism about getting the fuck out while the getting the fuck out is good. the commune news doesn't know what the fuck that last story was about either, so don't you dare come around asking us. Ramon Nootles is not unaccustomed to turning in stories revolving around things that happened to him while in strange apartments, but this is the first time there weren't any half-drunk cocktail waitresses or foxy surprise transvestites involved.
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Ecuador president declares state of deep shit
Economy on the way to recovery, absolute for real no joking this time
 Brit Sailor Apology Video Obviously Just Photo with Superimposed Talking Lips
Library fiction section now officially forbids masturbation
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Muslims Protest Violent Cartoons by Fucking Shit Up Cheney Comrade Injured During Hunt for Bin Laden Stealers Wheel Win Super Bowl, Says Heavily Accented Man Colin Farrell Claims Responsibility for Groin Injury That Sidelined Kwan |
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 January 10, 2005
I've Fallen, and I'm Missing Survivor!Help me!
Oh sweet lord, please help me up!
I'm old and I've fallen down and I'm afraid I may have shattered my pelvis on the cold, unforgiving tile of this floor! And I'm missing the beginning of Survivor!
No doubt they'll find me here in a few days, stuck to this floor like a squashed bug, once the smell grows strong enough to overpower my neighbor Gladys and her hellish brood of cats. Then some nice orderlies will come in and roll me onto a stretcher, my pissed pant-suit long since gone bitterly dry and packed with the pea-green product of my evacuated bowels. And they'll have a good laugh at poor old me, lying dead on the floor with no idea how this season's exciting Survivor midseason finale shaped up, the cold glint of unknowing flecked within my glassy eyes!
How cruel to live a life with no finale! Eighty-seven years and Edith Walker is cancelled to make way for a midseason replacement. How sad to live such an anticlimactic life. If only I could have waited another fifty-four minutes before taking my catastrophic tumble, I could have died a fulfilled woman!
I'm afraid I'll never get to see which of those nice young men ate the rat testicles.
Alas, I keep beating my cane on the floor, hoping to thwart my Survivor-missing fate, but I don't think Mr. Humphreys downstairs has even noticed. Probably too busy watching Survivor, absorbed in its midseason-ending...
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Help me!
Oh sweet lord, please help me up!
I'm old and I've fallen down and I'm afraid I may have shattered my pelvis on the cold, unforgiving tile of this floor! And I'm missing the beginning of Survivor!
No doubt they'll find me here in a few days, stuck to this floor like a squashed bug, once the smell grows strong enough to overpower my neighbor Gladys and her hellish brood of cats. Then some nice orderlies will come in and roll me onto a stretcher, my pissed pant-suit long since gone bitterly dry and packed with the pea-green product of my evacuated bowels. And they'll have a good laugh at poor old me, lying dead on the floor with no idea how this season's exciting Survivor midseason finale shaped up, the cold glint of unknowing flecked within my glassy eyes!
How cruel to live a life with no finale! Eighty-seven years and Edith Walker is cancelled to make way for a midseason replacement. How sad to live such an anticlimactic life. If only I could have waited another fifty-four minutes before taking my catastrophic tumble, I could have died a fulfilled woman!
I'm afraid I'll never get to see which of those nice young men ate the rat testicles.
Alas, I keep beating my cane on the floor, hoping to thwart my Survivor-missing fate, but I don't think Mr. Humphreys downstairs has even noticed. Probably too busy watching Survivor, absorbed in its midseason-ending magnificence. I can just imagine it. Eliza dancing a celebratory dance as Twila is voted off the island. Oh, no sense in torturing myself; the show's nearly half-over now. But by some cruel fate I've fallen within view of the bathroom clock, so I know by the minute just how much of my precious Survivor has ticked away.
Maybe if I press my ear closer against the floor I can overhear some of the show on Mr. Humphreys' television. Hmm. Nothing but muffled voices. It doesn't even sound like Survivor. Hard to be certain, but this isn't much like how the show sounded the episode after I'd dropped my hearing aid in the toilet. What could that old fool be watching? I bet it's Murder, She Wrote. I'm afraid I've long overestimated Mr. Humphreys, that tasteless old fart.
If only I'd thought to set up a series of mirrors in the hallway so I could see the television from the bedroom floor! That oversight seems foolish in retrospect. As well as ever turning off the TV in the first place. You never know what can happen right before Survivor, putting the TV knob cruelly out of reach! I should have thought to just turn my hearing aid off—that's like having a remote control with me all the time, and one that works through walls and around corners even if you're laid out on the bedroom floor like a pancake on the griddle.
Oh, how foolish I've been. What a foolish, wasted life. Hopefully the next old bag that takes my place in this apartment will learn from my cautionary tale and never turn off the television, lest she pick an inconvenient time to be voted off the island of life!
Oh, my. Is that a rat? Well, at least I won't starve to death. º Last Column: Christmas is Cancelled Due to Lack of Interestº more columns
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|  September 30, 2002
Just a Minor Setback in the Raoul Dunkin StorySalutations to you, commune reader, assuming you're reading these columns and not merely gazing at the pretty colors while waiting for your Girls Gone Wild video clip to download. Forgive my gruff manner, but the Raoul Dunkin story has taken a swerve and crash lately, and I'm not in the best of moods.
In life you like to feel like you're constantly moving forward, and not backwards. Sometimes it's necessary to take a step backward, then two steps forward, like some kind of insidious conga line of the damned. Let's just say that I'm back in that conga line, stuck in the back with my paws on Sampson L. Hartwig's dusty hips and with Boner Cunningham's Vaseline-coated palms sliding up and down me in a sickly fashion. Back at the commune—neither above nor below hell, just slightly to the left.
A recent court ruling decided that maybe I could pay a judgment debt to the commune and Red Bagel in particular by returning to work here, and I suppose it's fair; or if not fair, un-appealable. I've gotten over arguing with my lawyer and blaming him for everything gone wrong in my life and I'm here to make peace with it all, and introduce myself to you. Not that you haven't had an introduction already, thanks to my friends at the commune; not a day goes by where I don't hear, "Hey! It's Palace Limp-Dick Raoul Dunkin!" or some other witty greeting on the street. Mine will be a little more personal.
I started off at the commune in the...
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Salutations to you, commune reader, assuming you're reading these columns and not merely gazing at the pretty colors while waiting for your Girls Gone Wild video clip to download. Forgive my gruff manner, but the Raoul Dunkin story has taken a swerve and crash lately, and I'm not in the best of moods. In life you like to feel like you're constantly moving forward, and not backwards. Sometimes it's necessary to take a step backward, then two steps forward, like some kind of insidious conga line of the damned. Let's just say that I'm back in that conga line, stuck in the back with my paws on Sampson L. Hartwig's dusty hips and with Boner Cunningham's Vaseline-coated palms sliding up and down me in a sickly fashion. Back at the commune—neither above nor below hell, just slightly to the left. A recent court ruling decided that maybe I could pay a judgment debt to the commune and Red Bagel in particular by returning to work here, and I suppose it's fair; or if not fair, un-appealable. I've gotten over arguing with my lawyer and blaming him for everything gone wrong in my life and I'm here to make peace with it all, and introduce myself to you. Not that you haven't had an introduction already, thanks to my friends at the commune; not a day goes by where I don't hear, "Hey! It's Palace Limp-Dick Raoul Dunkin!" or some other witty greeting on the street. Mine will be a little more personal. I started off at the commune in the beginning of its web birth. I was the first to point out to Red Bagel that a black background and black text make the stories more difficult to read. My thanks was a dirty scowl and a desk drawer full of cooked noodles, which would have been more of a disappointment if I weren't so happy to receive the desk at the time. In short, I helped make the commune what it is today. If you hate me, I don't blame you, I hate myself for it. And since I took off for brighter horizons after we were established, everyone else from that era hates me also. Well, excuse the hell out of me for wanting those nice little perks of a secure job, like being paid in American currency and not having to wear disguises when going into the office. How dare I long for something more than spending drunken nights in the newsroom with the stereo playing, "MacArthur Park" while fearless Editor Red Bagel explains again how the strip searches are necessary to prevent government agents from wiring us in our sleep to eavesdrop on the office. Until the lawsuit, in fact, I was never so sure of anything in my life as I was leaving the commune for M-TV. Sure, M-TV fired me for lacking "pep," whatever that is, but it set me on the paths of waiter jobs and doing maintenance on the machines at Kinko's that brought me back to writing—serious writing, playwriting. I was doing pretty damn well. My mistake was not more cleverly disguising my life story and, particularly, the Red Bagel character in my play. You got me, Bagel, what can I say? Once you were kind of like a father to me. Now you're completely like a father: I hate your guts and I can't wait until you're dead so I can inherit your rock polisher and other knickknacks. Then you'll finally have done me some good. But again, this is a minor setback. The Raoul Dunkin story is much longer than this, and this is merely the depressing drunken newsroom "MacArthur Park"-listening conspiracy-drowning calm before the storm. Like Gloria Gaynor, I will survive, and unlike Gloria Gaynor, I will have another hit. Rest assured, though, until that day, Raoul Dunkin will put all his effort into making the commune better than it's ever been. After I have a cigarette. I'm jonesing for one bad. º Last Column: Christmas is Cancelled Due to Lack of Interestº more columns
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Quote of the Day“We'll meet again. You might say that's impossible, since people can only meet once, but they haven't factored in my patented time machine and early-onset Alzheimer's.”
-Capt. Don Spacegain, Year 3054Fortune 500 CookieNow's the perfect time to launch your alternative news website. Thursday's haul proves your friend's theory that the Halloween is really the only lucrative time for trick-or-treating. For your information, he's going to shoot his old woman down 'cause he caught her messing 'round with some other man; you don't need to know everything. Lucky son of a bitch.
Try again later.Top-Selling Software| 1. | Windows XPlodes | | 2. | Norton's Anti-Social | | 3. | The Sims Hot Threesome | | 4. | Doom: Columbine Commemorative Edition | | 5. | Mavis Beacon XTreme Typing | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 11/25/2002 Hello Yellow, America! Step right up for another dose of Entertainment Police love, and just see if you don't come away with a lump in your throat or breast. Like our forefathers and foremothers before us, pointing their forefingers in a vague gesture of thanks, we're here to give thanks that the holiday movie season is finally upon us. Just as the pilgrims gave thanks that they wouldn't have to sit through any more Indian "coming of age" tales or movies about animal spirits walking around and shitting everywhere, we give our thanks that the big budget movies are finally here. The food industry may try to convince you that you're happy this Thanksgiving because you're eating dried out turkey with your hideous in-laws, but we all know better than that. That smile on your face can be...
Hello Yellow, America! Step right up for another dose of Entertainment Police love, and just see if you don't come away with a lump in your throat or breast. Like our forefathers and foremothers before us, pointing their forefingers in a vague gesture of thanks, we're here to give thanks that the holiday movie season is finally upon us. Just as the pilgrims gave thanks that they wouldn't have to sit through any more Indian "coming of age" tales or movies about animal spirits walking around and shitting everywhere, we give our thanks that the big budget movies are finally here. The food industry may try to convince you that you're happy this Thanksgiving because you're eating dried out turkey with your hideous in-laws, but we all know better than that. That smile on your face can be directly traced back to seeing Stephen Segal kick that guy's ass with a Christmas tree. So without further delay, let's get to the late November movie releases.
In Theaters
Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nuts
Eventually, gross-out humor in the movies had to go too far, alienating even the retarded adolescents and middle-aged pro wrestling fans who have made it a goldmine for studios and Tom Green over the last decade. It looks like Adam Sandler may be the one left holding the hot potato when that song stops, because his new film is so over-the-top it makes There's Something About Marty look like Dating the Mormon Way. This time around, Sandler plays an annoying, mealy-mouthed loser named Sadam Andler who has his mother's penny-pinching passion for Mexican pharmaceuticals to thank for the fertility pills that caused him to be born with eight testicles. Sandler milks those extra nuts for all the comedy they're worth, including a nauseating mix-up involving a blind man buying grapes at a produce stand, not to mention Andler's gut-wrenching hazing at the hands of the Chinese ping pong team. If you had to say something good about the film, I guess you'd point out that it's animated, which saves us from any disturbingly realistic nutsack textures. And that's more than enough reason for me to give thanks this year.
Diet Another Day
Bond's apparently getting a little chunky in the ass section these days, as was bound to happen eventually. It's tough to keep the pounds off after 40, even if you are a super-secret limey sex machine. Pierce Bronson squeezes his lumpy can into the penguin suit for one more go-around as he saves the world from rich idiots once again and tries to get into Chuck Berry's daughter's pants. I suppose it's about as good as the last 87 Bond films, but I have to admit it leaves stretch marks on the torso of believability at times. So you're telling me that the Ministry of Spy Shit can outfit 007 with a cell phone built into a tic-tac no problem, but they can't get their hands on some Fen-Phen for this guy? Please.
Extreme P.O.S.
Truth in advertising is a concept that rarely applies to movie titles, as evidenced by such famously misleading crocks as Babe and Naked Lunch. But every once in a while Hollywood spits out an appropriately named flick just to draw in the curious, like Knock Off or Senseless. Well, as Britney Spears would say: "Shit, They've Done It Again." Aiming at the same audience that tapes Mountain Dew commercials, the producers put together a cast of albino piercing models to snivel their way through an hour and a half of weakly justified snowboarding stunts and truly horrible music. Originally titled Duuude!, the producers eventually decided to hedge their bets by giving the film a heavily ironic title, figuring it might give them a shot at Sundance and betting that Generation Ysters wouldn't notice, anyway.
The Friday After Next Friday
Apparently the original title, Two Weeks From Now didn't make it clear enough that this was a sequel to Ice Cube's stinky horror flick I Still Know What You'll Do Next Friday, though you'd think that would be a good thing. If I were them, I'd call it Ain't No Way This is a Sequel to That Shitball, which might cause some translation problems when they release the film in Singapore, since I hear they eat shitballs there. Hey, when in Rome. In the long run, it probably doesn't matter what they call it, since it'll be on Beta in about two weeks. Every once in a while a movie does so poorly they skip the DVD and VHS releases all together and put it out straight to Betamax, figuring that the poor suckers with those types of VCRs will buy anything to try and recoup their entertainment investment. Usually they reserve that honor for Tim Allen movies, but I see them branching out in this case, trying to make inroads into the "found this thing in the dumpster" demographic.
Wes Craven Presents: They…
It's always sad when an artist dies in the middle of a project, leaving us to wonder what might have been had they not opted to crap out early and cheat us out of something that might have been great. Who knows what funny things John Belushi might have yelled, or how fat Jim Morrison might have got, had they not been taken from us so soon. Less compellingly, but more relevant to this review, who knows what horrormeister Wes Craven would have called his last film? He managed to finish the film but kicked off before he could finish naming it, leaving us to wonder what the proper title would have been. They're Invisible But Sound Scary As Hell? They Look Like Throw Rugs But They Eat Your Feet? They're Right Behind You, Dipwad!? The possibilities are endless, and the movie's no help because it's awful, but who knows how good it could have been with the right title?
And that's all she wrote, ladies and gender-neutrals. Check back next issue when we hit the sweet spot between Thanksgiving and Christmas and marvel at all the wonders scheduled for release within. By the way, for those of you have been asking, word is that word on the street is that Margaret Cho's Thanksafuckinglotgiving has been delayed once again, look for that to hit theaters in April.   |
