Negative Ads Nastiest Ever

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.

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Thanks to an unprecedented number of Jurassic Park sequels, the BBC's "educational" series Walking with Dinosaurs, and countless truly putrid CGI dinosaur DVDs aimed at children, these terrible ugly beasts of yore have never been more popular. However, none of these irresponsible Hollywood types with their sexy and exciting CGI tools will tell you the real secret truth about these terrible beasts: Dinosaurs were boring.

Take for example the Snorasaurus, the most boring dinosaur ever to walk the earth. The Snorasaurus spent his days sitting in the mud, staring straight ahead and giving no indication whatsoever that it was alive or dead. Eventually, the Snorasaurus would evolve into his modern-day cousin, the legendary boring pet the iguana.

Clearly, the public has been sold a bill of goods about dinosaurs and how exciting they supposedly were. Few will tell you the truth about the Disappointadocus, the most overrated dinosaur ever to live, or his cousin, Hypalamus. That doesn't fit into their neat little "dinosaurs were awesome" worldview.

Few dinosaur lovers today would be loving it if they crossed paths with the Australopithasaur, an Aussie dinosaur known for its withering, pithy tone and general bitchy demeanor. This miserable beast was closely related to Cockbastaranus, the "Asshole Lizard" whom annoyed all others and was often killed by other dinosaurs as a matter of principle, in spite of its inedible meat, which was uniformly stringy and bitter.

The most famous disappointing dinosaur of all, however, was the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the "Terrible Lizard." And in this case, the name was perfectly fitting, as the Tyrannosaurus was uniformly terrible at hunting, fighting, mating, and all other dinosaur activities. This hapless creature was also known as the biggest pussy in all of nature. In spite of its impressive size and terrifying appearance, the Tyrannosaurus was easily frightened by other dinosaurs, birds, ground squirrels, and the sound of the wind rustling through tree branches. Because of his incredible cowardice, the Tyrannosaurus spent most of his time running away from various threats, real or imagined, and hiding among bushes and shrubberies.

These weren't the only miserable dinosaurs of course, as the unfortunate roll call goes on and on. Few scientists care to remember the Oshitodon, a dinosaur known for causing problems it would then blame on other dinosaurs. Most consider this clumsy oaf of nature best left forgotten.

Possibly the strangest of the dinosaurs was the Nonudodon, a dinosaur with a paralyzing fear of nudity, which would fashion strange, primitive articles of clothing out of branches, rocks, pelts and the patchwork skins of other dinosaurs. These modest creatures were often only seen at night, foraging on the forest floor for accessories.

Despite the claims of a few pissy scientists bent on ruining the fun for everyone else, dinosaurs and early man did in fact coexist, and they threw wild parties. Early man loved nothing more than getting dinosaurs piss drunk on fermented goat milk, and this led directly to early man's nomadic nature, since nobody wanted to hang around camp anymore after the dinosaurs had started barfing all over the place.

Dinosaurs did pose a special problem for early man, however, since many early cave-dwellers were trampled by Tyrannosaurus that were running away from threateningly-shaped clouds in the sky. Eventually, early man had to take to traveling around in giant man-sized boots with foot holes cut out of the bottom, knowing dinosaurs would never step in the boots because lizards don't wear shoes.

But how did all these dinosaurs get their names? After the discovery of strange reptile fossils in 1857, Sir Edward Albey named the theoretical beasts Agranamapeus, which is Latin for "Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! ArrggggaaaaahhhhhhhHh!" Sir Dingus Reily found this name to be accurate, though lacking in social graces, and proposed instead the name dinosaur, Latin for "Lizards so big you'd totally shit."

Unfortunately, the names of dinosaurs have often reflected the biases of the scientists doing the discovering, especially in less-enlightened historical times. Case in point is the Beaneramus, a small herbivore once commonly found in the land that is now Mexico. Thankfully, modern-day scientists have taken the liberty to give this beast the more politically-correct name of the Labambadon.

Likewise with the Krautosaur of Southern Germany, the bi-curious Fagodon, the McSaurus of Scotland, and the Frogonomin, the French "bird of meat" that once terrified the part of the skies that is located very near to the ground.

Now that you know the truth, do a good deed today and spread the disappointing word to all the small children you can find, before they get all carried away.

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The situation has darkened, good people. Frequent readers of my column, and despite what everyone says I'm convinced they exist, will remember my recent revelation that I was a pro-wrestler briefly in the '80s. To my surprise, everyone has been extremely warm and receptive about it. I mean, I haven't heard anyone approving of my lifestyle or remarking how brave it was to come out and admit it, but it is pro-wrestling, a little resistance and unspoken prejudice can be expected. Either that or none of them have read any of my columns.

But not everyone has been so accepting. As I discovered Thursday night when I came home and found a note pinned to my door.

It was a hand-scrawled note with sloppy penmanship and spelling. But I knew all-too well who it was from and what it was about. It read:

"Finger! So yur the 4-Feet Nitemare. Yu turd. I new Id find yu sonir or laytir. Im a kill yu like I wud have kild yu then. Yu run away cowird. – MD"

At first I suspected my family physician, Dr. Scrudd. But then I remembered seeing his handwriting on countless prescriptions and it didn't match at all; Scrudd's pen is blue, this one is black. Finally, after hours of meditating, falling asleep, waking up again to start meditating once more, I realized who my anonymous adversary is.

The Masked Dude has come back for revenge.

When I discussed my pro-wrestling secret life, I left out a lot of details so as not to gross out the general public who is uncomfortable with such information. But one important bit that needed mentioning was my furious antagonist, The Masked Dude. He was five-foot tall, the second-shortest wrestler in the Dandies of America league I was part of, and had a severe complex about it. He was remarkable for many reasons: His glittering sequined spandex pants, his red glossy boots, his hairless, flabby mid-section, and his match record of never having won once.

Usually The Masked Dude was hopelessly overpowered by his opponents. Some of them reaching heights of up to 5'11", with vicious names like The Vicious Scrunch and Eddie "Pin Them Drunk" Vicious, The Masked Dude soon proved to be a laughingstock of the D.O.A., which was already the laughingstock of wrestling fans everywhere, who are the laughingstock of the rest of us, so you can imagine the shame. The Masked Dude was intent on gaining respect, and I soon provided the best possibility of winning a match.

I was a good wrestler. Good? Hell, I was possibly the best God ever created. Really? Thank you, that's sweet. But for all of my talent my winning record was frequently fifty-fifty, meaning I won half my matches and half of that was won by deceitful tendencies. I was merely making up for a game that was stacked against me, me being short and not that good at wrestling the way they wanted to do it. But actual statistical match records were the lowest in the league, next to The Masked Dude. He sought me out obsessively, and thus started our rivalry. I thought it ended when I hung up my tights, sniffed them curiously, then threw them away for good. But apparently not.

I have to admit I'm a little worried. I don't know when and from where and at what time The Masked Dude is coming after me. I assume he's reading this column, since he's the only one who's mentioned my former pro-wrestler status, and I hope to implore him to let bygones be bygones and blowguns be blowguns, to put the past behind us and start anew as friends who share a common history.

But don't mistake this as fear or cowardice, Masked Dude. I will put the smack down on you wicked if you want to get shitty with me.

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