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Negative Ads Nastiest EverMarch 15, 2004 |
Washington, D.C. Snapper McGee's TV One the first in this season's line of vicious political "snaps."
Democratic debates for the past several weeks, indeed as early as they started, painted unpleasant, however true, pictures of President Bush as a "man" out of touch with the people and leading America down a path toward unjustified war and economic chaos. Bush, sitting on a monster-sized war chest of campaign finance, reserved specific retaliations until John Kerry emerged as the Democratic front-runner. Many theorize Bush was urged to action by comments ...
n what some broadcasters are calling "news," negative ads have come from both camps lately attacking the leading presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Making the ads particularly noticeable is the level of enmity and unfounded allegation passing muster in attempts to gain early lead in the presidential race.
Democratic debates for the past several weeks, indeed as early as they started, painted unpleasant, however true, pictures of President Bush as a "man" out of touch with the people and leading America down a path toward unjustified war and economic chaos. Bush, sitting on a monster-sized war chest of campaign finance, reserved specific retaliations until John Kerry emerged as the Democratic front-runner. Many theorize Bush was urged to action by comments made by Kerry calling allegations on his defense record as false and referring to those behind the ads as "the most crooked" "lying group I've ever seen." The Bush campaign demanded and apology, and 50 lashes with a leather whip—no, 60! 100! 100 lashes!
The Democratic campaign refused to apologize, and were outraged when an ad began running Friday in major markets, following Thursday's historic terror attack in Madrid which killed 200 people. The ad showed President Bush laying a wreath at the Spanish embassy with an ominous voice narrating: "Thursday, when Spain was the victim of terrorists, President Bush was in the White House all day. Several people saw him. Where was John Kerry?"
Representatives of the Kerry campaign, teen-agers working the phones, described the attacks as "unbelievable bullshit." Campaign insiders suggest the "vicious character" attack inspired the release of a television ad they had originally thought too harsh for airing. The ad uses headlines and quotes from a Los Angeles Times story pointing to a division of intelligence in the Pentagon that privately briefed the White House on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and may have been broken the chain of command and been responsible for the failure of intelligence. The Kerry campaign comment on the story was in text: "WtF?" Those knowledgeable in abbreviations inform us the letters mean "What the fuck?"
The Bush campaign hit back Saturday, with a speculative radio ad featuring the same ominous voice, saying, "You know, they never did catch the killer of Jon Benet Ramsey. John Kerry—you ever been to Colorado?" The ultimate insult, according to insult experts, was the added tag: "John Kerry: Soft on defense, sweet on little girls?"
Democrat campaign spokespeople described their candidate as "super-pissed," but promised retribution in the form of ads that would "tell it like it is." Sunday morning found the airing in metro markets of a hastily-assembled new Kerry ad. In it, aerial photographs of Roswell, New Mexico play to accompanying voice-over. "People are hearing a lot of things about Area 51. And the president hasn't been very forth-coming on what's there. If it's nothing special, why don't we get to see it? But if there's an evil alien menace lurking in the heart of New Mexico… what will it look like?" At which point a super-imposed picture of the president in his jet fighter suit appears on the screen. "George W. Bush. A pilot… but not of our planes."
Also joining the advertising this week was Ralph Nader's under-funded campaign, who passed around a flip book to supporters in town halls. In it, as one flips the pages, a stick figure appears to dance, while text at the bottom of the page indicts the other major campaigns: "The two-party system has the same old song and dance." the commune is currently on a waiting list to receive the flip book when everyone else is done with it. the commune news believes in running a positive campaign against our opponents, and that's why we can say we're positive the folks at Crochet! magazine have bizarre sacrificial rituals every night when the rest of us are heading home. Bludney Pludd is nothing but negative, and doesn't even have enough confidence to disagree with all the nasty things we say about him.
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Duke Prosecutor Disbarred, Accepts New Position as National Scapegoat High Gas Prices Threaten Tradition of Setting Homeless People on Fire Bob Barker Ceases to Exist After Retiring From Television Tree Bark Face Turns Out to Be Likeness of Jesus Lookalike Vance Waxman |
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 December 13, 2004
Burn, Bridges, BurnStrangely enough, it seems at least one person who isn't rich has benefited from the election of George W. Bush—that person is me. Make no mistake, politically, I am on the left and voted for Kerry, who is already fading from the memory like the name of that band that did the "Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm" song. But the election of Bush, as much as I hate to admit it, helped me, because Red Bagel failed to show up at the appeal hearing last week for my "indentured servitude" case, due to his barricading himself away from humankind in his bunker, and the judge actually ruled in favor of yours truly.
What does this mean? I'll cut to the chase: "Free at last, thank God almighty!" That's right, my torturous time at the commune has come to a close.
For the quick summary, I worked here once, left quite happily, then made the mistake of writing a thinly-disguised off-off-Broadway play about my time here. Bagel sued, I lost, and I couldn't pay all the odd "emotional damages" I was sued for, so in one of those creative sentencing deals, I came to work at the commune. Not happily, and not without plans for escape. Friday my escape became reality. I turned in my resignation to Gay Bagel, serving in his A.W.O.L. brother's stead, who said he was sorry to see me go. I called him a fat-headed penny-pincher who is out to turn every good thing, and bad thing, in the universe into an immoral profit.
It's all part of my "let's burn my bridges on the way out" policy....
º Last Column: A Vote For Bush is A Vote For Bush! Bush!
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Strangely enough, it seems at least one person who isn't rich has benefited from the election of George W. Bush—that person is me. Make no mistake, politically, I am on the left and voted for Kerry, who is already fading from the memory like the name of that band that did the "Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm" song. But the election of Bush, as much as I hate to admit it, helped me, because Red Bagel failed to show up at the appeal hearing last week for my "indentured servitude" case, due to his barricading himself away from humankind in his bunker, and the judge actually ruled in favor of yours truly.
What does this mean? I'll cut to the chase: "Free at last, thank God almighty!" That's right, my torturous time at the commune has come to a close.
For the quick summary, I worked here once, left quite happily, then made the mistake of writing a thinly-disguised off-off-Broadway play about my time here. Bagel sued, I lost, and I couldn't pay all the odd "emotional damages" I was sued for, so in one of those creative sentencing deals, I came to work at the commune. Not happily, and not without plans for escape. Friday my escape became reality. I turned in my resignation to Gay Bagel, serving in his A.W.O.L. brother's stead, who said he was sorry to see me go. I called him a fat-headed penny-pincher who is out to turn every good thing, and bad thing, in the universe into an immoral profit.
It's all part of my "let's burn my bridges on the way out" policy. That's right, I'm leaving, this time for good, and wanted to make sure I never come back by finally blowing my stack at this inept bunch of geeks and freaks. Promote Raoul Dunkin, will you? Two can play the name-calling game.
First off, my friend Lil Duncan, of no relation to me. Lil, everyone knows you've had every man in this office—even Stigmata Spent, who is definitely a man—yet I'm apparently too good-looking, too normal, or possess no hideous body parts like Ted Ted's tiny wings, so I'm not good enough for your bed. Or your chair, your desk, the area under your desk, your kitchen, your apartment hallway, Bagel's desk, your parents' bed, my desk, or any of the other numerous places you've danced horizontally. So to hell with you. And everybody knows you stuff your bra more than Stigmata does.
Ramrod—I know just where that rod's rammed. You're a miserable tight-ass and all your business ventures fail because everybody, including the God you don't believe in and your own mother, hates you. I don't fear reprisal from your "evil twin" either because I live too far on the other side of town, and you can't afford the bus fare on what they pay you here.
Ted Ted… you're short. There, I've said it. If you're thinking of jumping me as I leave work tonight, you angry little fairy, I warn you right now I'm packing a flyswatter. Bring it on, I say.
And let's not forget Bludney Pludd… oh, too late. Actually, Bludney, I think you're a decent, if pitiful, member of this staff. I'm leaving some spare personality in my wastebasket when I leave, I don't need it anymore. Feel free to scrape it out.
My friend Shabozz Wertham, I'm going to say something truly devastating to your African-American pride: The Internet was invented by Al Gore, the world's whitest man. I don't care how many documents you provide, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had nothing to do with it.
Ramon Nootles will stick his dick in anything that moves, and quite a few things that don't, if he hasn't scored in a while. You're the best reporter here, now that I'm leaving, but you still report about as well as I do after a case of beer and five whiskey sours.
Boner Cunningham masturbates, and no one here will admit it. He's doing it right now, pretending to do a chalk drawing of Ivana Folger-Whatever. And she knows exactly what he's doing—I can hardly say anything more incriminating about her than that.
As for her ex-, Mr. Nacutchacokov—Bagel's never going to bring you home. Just accept it.
I realize I'm leaving some of you out, and take that as the final insult—in an office full of pure abnormalities of human existence, you don't stand out well enough to be mentioned. And I save the finale for my lovable father figure and arch-enemy, Red Bagel himself. Red, you are a spectacular douchebag. You haven't ever come anywhere near the truth with any of your theories—if the truth were a fart, you couldn't even sniff it, that's how determined the truth and you are to avoid each other. I would wish death upon you, but it would rob me of the joy of seeing this little two-bit operation fold without my talents.
As for you, commune reader—I've got no beef with you. You've already suffered enough. Good-bye, so long, and see you nevermore. º Last Column: A Vote For Bush is A Vote For Bush! Bush!º more columns
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|  February 16, 2004
On the Vindication of Stockcar Car RacingThe smell of exhaust, the thunderous roar of engines, the crashing plang of crashes. The air of the Daytona 500 still lingers, and though as of press time I can't declare the winner yet, aren't all we NASCAR fans the real winners?
The think-tank "steering" NASCAR, so to speak, has been increasing efforts to publicize the variety of NASCAR fans there are out there, and to broaden the appeal to those who believe it a sport for the trailer park set. But those like yours truly have known for years that NASCAR speaks volumes about the human condition. Man and machine in a life-or-death struggle against other men and machines; it is the essence of what it means to be a sentient being in the twenty-first century.
It is time NASCAR "outed" those cowardly intellectuals who still publicly deny their affection for the sport of stock car racing. Not to cast unkind dispersions on those doubtful souls, it is difficult to acknowledge just how much we love the thrill of car racing when it is so sadly stigmatized in our culture. The tragic assumption is that NASCAR appeals only to the undereducated working classes, the passive drones lacking upward mobility, the drunken and shirtless, but we can finally reveal the brilliance of NASCAR and our enthusiasm for it now that we've found safety in numbers.
I remember as a youngster, sitting in front of the fire and listening to the melodious voice of announcer Rudy Skaggs as he provided commentary on the...
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The smell of exhaust, the thunderous roar of engines, the crashing plang of crashes. The air of the Daytona 500 still lingers, and though as of press time I can't declare the winner yet, aren't all we NASCAR fans the real winners?
The think-tank "steering" NASCAR, so to speak, has been increasing efforts to publicize the variety of NASCAR fans there are out there, and to broaden the appeal to those who believe it a sport for the trailer park set. But those like yours truly have known for years that NASCAR speaks volumes about the human condition. Man and machine in a life-or-death struggle against other men and machines; it is the essence of what it means to be a sentient being in the twenty-first century.
It is time NASCAR "outed" those cowardly intellectuals who still publicly deny their affection for the sport of stock car racing. Not to cast unkind dispersions on those doubtful souls, it is difficult to acknowledge just how much we love the thrill of car racing when it is so sadly stigmatized in our culture. The tragic assumption is that NASCAR appeals only to the undereducated working classes, the passive drones lacking upward mobility, the drunken and shirtless, but we can finally reveal the brilliance of NASCAR and our enthusiasm for it now that we've found safety in numbers.
I remember as a youngster, sitting in front of the fire and listening to the melodious voice of announcer Rudy Skaggs as he provided commentary on the Daytona 500 over the a.m. radio. My parents listened along as well, smiling joyfully, as mother carved her decorative wax candles and father worked on his novel. Though I mostly cheered for Dale Earnhardt (before he was Dale Earnhardt Sr.), I admit it was a joy simply to hear anyone win.
The ecstasy never diminished. I went away to college at Cornell and labored intensely toward my philosophy degree, but the weekends were spent with my NASCAR enthusiasts group, other students of philosophy, the humanities, the sciences, business, or refrigeration repair, watching the bouts on the television and discussing the nature of modern man and his relations to technology, vis-Ă -vis the loss of humanity and the mistakes of unwelcome pit stops later in the race, all between commercials, of course.
Would that I were one of those pilots of the gods! That could accelerate my own chariot adorned with logos by Quaker State and Tide, edging ahead of the greatest athletes of all time, such as Richard Petty and A.J. Foyt. If only the nerves of steel were mine, the lightning reactions needed I owned, and I had a driver's license. But lacking these, I am fortunate like the rest of us to be a spectator at this, the greatest test of human and engine endurance the world has ever seen.
The Daytona 500 of 2004, as tradition dictates, has drawn the most notable celebrities. Ben Affleck, LeAnn Rimes, and the president George W. Bush. Only the noble game of stockcar racing could attract such individuals of diverse backgrounds and professions—the men and women at the top of their respective fields. Of course, in the presence of such newspaper-worthy names, other intellectuals are unfortunately disregarded, but I understand many others turned out for the event. Placido Domingo, Susan Sontag, Joyce Carol Oates, George Will, Noam Chomsky, Ben Kingsley, John Updike, Ralph Nader, all are fans of the sport of kings. Unsurprisingly, I might add; for aren't we all? º Last Column: You Made Me Love Youº more columns
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Quote of the Day“If you love someone, set them free. If they do not return, then you were stupid for following my advice.”
-Bachard RichmanFortune 500 CookieDon't blame anyone else for your own problems, blame EVERYONE else. Try a new deodorant this week, your friends agree the theoretical kind hasn't been cutting it. You will meet a small armadillo that will teach you arithmetic, but few will buy that story at the trial. This week's lucky karate moves: The Iron Ostrich, Yun-Wi's Forceful Throat Massage, Western Ballsack Slap, and The Forbidden Tongue Stomp of Zi-Zi Tohp.
Try again later.How Did Rat Poison Get in Food for Dogs & Cats?| 1. | Particularly sly British mouse known only as Nigel | | 2. | Adult illiteracy: Secret shame of the pet food industry | | 3. | Turned back for one minute; Islamic fundamentalists cats & dogs go shithouse on production line | | 4. | Mislabeled bags were manufactured for special Ted Nugent brand of pet food | | 5. | One man determined to get the fucking dog to play dead already | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 2/7/2005 Buenos Aires, America. Hope you're all doing as well today as I was yesterday. Today? Not so much. But I wouldn't kick yesterday out of bed for eating crackers. While in it. Bed, that is. Because you can get a lot of crumbs on the sheets and then you're sleeping all night with cracker crumbs poking you in the ass, unless you sleep in pajamas. But still, even this would not sour me on yesterday. Good day.
Today, however, I've got to review the latest ugly orphans Hollywood has dropped off on our Entertainment Policing doorstep in the black of night. You notice they keep the cute ones for themselves. Cute babies referring to good movies, in this in-depth analogy of my creation. Nope, we get the uglies, and the thrill of giving them a quick once-over before selling them to the...
Buenos Aires, America. Hope you're all doing as well today as I was yesterday. Today? Not so much. But I wouldn't kick yesterday out of bed for eating crackers. While in it. Bed, that is. Because you can get a lot of crumbs on the sheets and then you're sleeping all night with cracker crumbs poking you in the ass, unless you sleep in pajamas. But still, even this would not sour me on yesterday. Good day.
Today, however, I've got to review the latest ugly orphans Hollywood has dropped off on our Entertainment Policing doorstep in the black of night. You notice they keep the cute ones for themselves. Cute babies referring to good movies, in this in-depth analogy of my creation. Nope, we get the uglies, and the thrill of giving them a quick once-over before selling them to the Chinese. So on to the movies!
In Theaters Now:
The Boogeyman
You ever have a friend who always wants to go dancing? Isn't that terrifying? I'm actually surprised that nobody thought to make a horror flick out of that concept before now, I guess Hollywood's horror elite have been too enamored with the horrors of Japanese consumer electronics lately to notice when a good idea crawls up their ass and opens a lemonade stand. But somebody finally got around to it this year, probably after a harrowing night out hitting the clubs with some self-described "dancing-machinery" or "funk-robot," as they tend to prefer to be known. Unlike most of us who save dancing for extremely inebriated wedding receptions or the funerals of particularly delicious enemies, there is a small subset of the population that will latch onto any excuse to dance: 80's night, PTA meetings, bar fights, spring, or even the opening of a new Blockbuster. I for one find these "boogeymen" to be at least twelve times as scary as Freddy Krueger or Martha Stewart.
So they definitely started with a good idea, but then they funked it up by casting the guy from that TV show about those sneaker-wearing comet cult boneheads in the main role. Sure, I believe that guy could be a dancing asshole, but I'd never buy that anybody would see enough redeeming value to keep him around as a friend regardless of the dancing thing. He would have boogied his way right out of my address book with the first few convulsions of his mashed potato.
Itch
Will Smith is back, and not a moment too soon. Audiences have been clamoring for his "just black enough" attitude for months, and don't think that animated Card Sharks movie came anywhere near yanging their yin. I've heard tell that some have even resorted to watching reruns of Smith's 1980's sitcom The French Prince of Belfast, which I can only hope was a wild exaggeration. Either way, Smith is black (that's a combination of "back" and "black," FYI) as the world's greatest lothario, who nevertheless can never get a date because he's scratching his balls all the time. Can a new miracle cream change his crotch-handling ways, and his luck with the ladies? Can an orangutan play the trumpet using a hand-held vacuum cleaner? I don't know the answer to either of those questions, thanks to an extremely long men's room line at the theater and a recent infomercial with an unprecedented cliffhanger ending.
Pooh's Hemp Movie
Everybody's favorite pot smoking bear is back for another slow-witted adventure in what was probably the most poorly animated film I've seen since Pearl Harbor. But since the animators were probably stoned at the time as well, I can pretty easily forgive their lazy scribbles and the indiscriminately psychedelic watercolor work that pervades this film.
What I can't forgive is Pooh's latest turn as an incessant hemp advocate, spending the entire movie trying to get everyone in the hundred acre woods to buy his shitty homemade hemp rope, writing paper and ponchos. Their patience already stretched thin by Pooh's candle-making phase, the entire menagerie of Pooh's dope-head buddies spend the majority of this film sitting at home with the lights out, hoping to fool Pooh into thinking they're not home. Although the movie's politics are likely to offend some, kids will just be thrilled to see that the studio's contract negotiations with all the main stars were successful, and piglet, rabbit and Owl all came back to appear in this latest Pooh vehicle.
The Wedding Date
If you thought a blind date was a lot of pressure (unless you're dating a blind girl, which would probably be less pressure than normal, but that's rarely the lucky card you pull on a "blind" date), try the wedding date: a strange practice that apparently exists somewhere, where you get to know someone new through the process of marrying them. If you think about it, it makes sense. Unless you think about it too much, then it stops making sense again and wraps back around to stupid. But the movie doesn't last that long, so it only seems really stupid on the drive home, by which time it's probably too late for a refund. Nice trick, Hollyweird. They must've learnt that one from the guys who made that Illegal Alien Vs. Sexual Predator movie.
Anyway, this movie's got that girl from the show where the girl's got the gay guy living in her closet, which is something to say about it. I have to admit I liked the idea of a blind date where everybody's throwing you a party and you get dressed up all snazzy and there's a priest, sure beats the usual disappointing night at the Sizzler where you remember half-way through that the last time you wore those pants, you spilled a whole bottle of Ranch dressing right on the crotch, and that shit doesn't come all the way out, even if you had remembered to use the stain stick. So I give this movie three stars, out of forty.
And that's a wrap America, and the curiously large contingent of Swedes who read the commune. Don't start your bawling, you got your fair dose of Entertainment Policery, and barring a back-alley run-in with Smokey Robinson I'll be back in two weeks with more smoldering pap. Plus you'll have a dose of my unwilling protégé Orson "Sunshine" Welch next week to tide you over. Until then, don't fear the reaper, unless he wants to go dancing.   |
