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A Nation Bored: America Waits Patiently for Something, Anything to HappenAn apathetic United States endures a time of deep ho-hum December 9, 2002 |
Raleigh, North Carolina Snapper McGee Some Americans are so desperate for distraction they're tuning in to JAG on CBS.
Though a slate of news stories and pop culture events dominated American consciousness in recent months—including the potential war with Iraq, the November election win for Republicans, the murder spree by serial snipers, movie releases like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and the new James Bond movie Die Another Day, and exciting episodes of favorite TV programs—the past two weeks has found America completely, utterly bored.
A recent survey on what Americans were doing included answers such as, "Nothing much," "Nothing real...
he country as a whole has not been doing anything recently. In fact, leading news analysts propose that the total United States has just been going through the daily grind since, approximately, Thanksgiving weekend.
Though a slate of news stories and pop culture events dominated American consciousness in recent months—including the potential war with Iraq, the November election win for Republicans, the murder spree by serial snipers, movie releases like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and the new James Bond movie Die Another Day, and exciting episodes of favorite TV programs—the past two weeks has found America completely, utterly bored.
A recent survey on what Americans were doing included answers such as, "Nothing much," "Nothing really," "Nothing," "Just chillin'," "Nada, man," and "Not a damn thing."
Periodic droughts of news are nothing new to the American media, such as months ago when the anniversary of Elvis' death was arbitrarily declared important by major news outlets. However, stagnation in news is usually off-set by major events both personal and public, movie releases, new albums, celebrity deaths, even birthdays and individual bits of good luck such as job promotions or marriages. During this unique time it appears virtually nothing of interest is happening; not only on a national scale, but for everyone.
Mechanic Mike Pinzer of Detroit, Michigan, is hopeful for upcoming events, but admits nothing is on the agenda at present time. "It's not like it's bad or anything. It's not bad. It's not good, either… it's just… enh. Y'know?"
Big news is promised in the immediate future for all, from the possibility of military action in Iraq to the Christmas and New Year holidays. Until then, most Americans are left in a state of blah awaiting better times.
"Next year will be the best yet, I believe," said Hoboken, New Jersey Office Manager Stacey Krendel. "I have a strong feeling I'm getting that promotion I've fought so hard for. My boyfriend and are set to get married in February, and after that we'll start house shopping. But right now… piss on all of it. Even the new episodes of all the TV shows are turds."
"My life is completely miserable," said Kansas City, Missouri Barnes & Noble sales clerk Byron Hymen. "But on the up side, the new Lord of the Rings movie is coming out real soon. And the new Star Trek! If I can avoid suicide just another week or so things will be great!"
Politically, news is ready to bloom as well. With the ever-escalating Iraq situation, the growing possibility that Bob Kerry will announce his bid for presidency, and the Supreme Court ready to hear arguments on affirmative action, late December could be filled with presents for the news media. Yet this week, at least, America will need either patience or booze to get through the malaise.
Joey "Glory Hole" Stucker, a resident of the California penal system, summed up: "I'm up for parole in a month, which is good. And I hear the Supreme Court is going to rule on sodomy soon, which will be fantastic. But right now, it's just the same ol', same ol'. Hey, what is Michael Jackson doing right now?" the commune news prides itself on making stories out of nothing, being such big Seinfeld fans. Ramrod Hurley is a commune correspondent famous for his pleasant demeanor and cheerful smile when backing down from an argument, unlike the mysterious Ramrod Hurley lookalike who burned down the local Liquor Shack.
 | Twenty-two Dead and Children Delighted by SnowstormExtreme temperatures bring death, fun to east coast December 9, 2002 |
Raleigh, NorthCarolina Whit Pistol We're not sure of the exact details, but we think it's some kind of winterstorm Stand By Me.
"This is a terrible tragedy, the worst thing that's ever happened to us," said Raleigh, North Carolina security guard Cindy Macon. "We've lost power and had to leave our home. The whole family's been staying in a shelter and I can't afford to miss work, but they've closed everything. We're broke and destitute."
"Hooray!" said Evansville, Indiana schoolboy Ricky Teegan. "Snow's everywhere and they closed school! I hear they're probabl...
nowstorms blanketed the east coast early last week, stopping work in hundreds of towns and cities and creating countless traffic accidents. In the worst cases, 22 in North and South Carolina were killed in storm-related incidents. Schools were also closed in a number of states, thrilling children from grades kindergarten through 12.
"This is a terrible tragedy, the worst thing that's ever happened to us," said Raleigh, North Carolina security guard Cindy Macon. "We've lost power and had to leave our home. The whole family's been staying in a shelter and I can't afford to miss work, but they've closed everything. We're broke and destitute."
"Hooray!" said Evansville, Indiana schoolboy Ricky Teegan. "Snow's everywhere and they closed school! I hear they're probably going to be closed tomorrow, too. This is the best thing that ever happened to us!"
1.2 million homes in the Carolinas were left without power, and power companies are projecting days will be needed to make repairs. Sledding and snowball fights were also rampant in the area, as well as other snowed-in areas throughout the United States.
"We were going to go ice skating at the lake, but the ice was too weak," said Lakewood, Tennessee teen-ager Jamie Farnsworth. "No luck at all!"
"Our son was killed when his car broke through the guard rail and landed on the frozen lake," said Naomi Marquette of Toquin, Ohio, through thick tears. "The police said he survived the crash, but… he broke through and drowned in the water. The ice was too weak."
Greenville, South Carolina police chief Jim Walters said of the snowstorm, "Several houses in the area have lost power, and there have been at least twenty-five car wrecks at last count. But even worse, I hate to think of the impoverished and elderly people in town who can't afford to heat their homes. Once the roads are cleared and everything starts back up like normal I imagine the calls to pick up frozen bodies will start pouring in."
"It's fantastic," said Washington, D.C. college student Mitch Kursky. "I woke up at eight and just turned the radio on. School's closed! I turned up the thermostat, wrapped myself up in the blanket, and went back to sleep."
Initial snowfalls Tuesday and Wednesday covered much of the east coast, and though the snowfall ceased and the snow began to melt by Wednesday evening, extreme temperatures turned the melting snow into ice, creating even more road hazards and danger for travelers, as well as ice balls for snowball fights.
Echoing city officials across the country, Albertville, Illinois mayor Jean Harper advised residents, "Please stay at home if you can, if you are unessential at work or are sanctioned by employers. The storms may have lessened, but the roads are still extremely hazardous in some areas."
"I'm so glad I have the day off," said Caton, West Virginia middle school teacher Ned Murphy. "I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet day all to myself. A quick drive out to rent some videos ought to give me some entertainment. I think I'll order some pizza, too. If they take longer than an hour to get it to me, I get it at half-price." the commune news is bursting at the seams today—looks like it wasn't really a good idea to perform our own hernia surgery. Ivan Nacutchacokov is our foreign correspondent, and when we can't endanger him with any overseas news we send him in to cover weather catastrophes and natural disasters.
| Study finds low I.Q. causes lead paint eating, not other way around |
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 December 9, 2002 I Want to Be a Cartoonthe commune's Clarissa Coleman BOINGS! out a new idea I was really enjoying that new Adam Sandler movie until someone told me it was a cartoon. Maybe it's my lousy depth perception, but I couldn't tell. He had all the usual facial range, I just thought they air-brushed him in the film or something. But no, he was a cartoon in it.
I didn't really like cartoons until that. Cats and mice running around trying to destroy each other... so? All I can think about is how some talented actors are out of work because some stupid sidewalk artist worked cheaper. I work cheap, folks. And don't give me any of that crap about special effects or anything. Shoot at me, stick firecrackers in my mouth, drop me off a cliff and toss an anvil down after—you don't know how bad I want to work. And stupid cartoons are taking perfectly good jobs.
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º Last Column: The Net Lacks Fake Nude Clarissa Coleman Pics
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I was really enjoying that new Adam Sandler movie until someone told me it was a cartoon. Maybe it's my lousy depth perception, but I couldn't tell. He had all the usual facial range, I just thought they air-brushed him in the film or something. But no, he was a cartoon in it.
I didn't really like cartoons until that. Cats and mice running around trying to destroy each other... so? All I can think about is how some talented actors are out of work because some stupid sidewalk artist worked cheaper. I work cheap, folks. And don't give me any of that crap about special effects or anything. Shoot at me, stick firecrackers in my mouth, drop me off a cliff and toss an anvil down after—you don't know how bad I want to work. And stupid cartoons are taking perfectly good jobs.
Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, that's what I say. Or somebody said it. I said if you can't beat 'em, hire someone bigger to do it, but that doesn't apply in this case. I got to thinking about the cartoon stuff, though, and decided I could do that—the voices, I mean.
I went to my agent, Dusty—I call him that because he's so old his skin has flaked into a fine layer of powder over his entire body—and told him to get me some voice work. He sent me to a telemarketing firm, so I obviously went back and had to straighten things out with him. He's ancient, people, he's scared of new-fangled technology, like telephone devices. But he did get me a voice audition at this big animated studio.
Let's just say we didn't get along. There's no room for improv in cartoons, it turns out, and their writers are complete crap, totally unrealistic dialogue. If someone was hitting you with a hammer, which would you say: "Hey, Telly! Ooch! Ooch! That stings!" or "Step off, motherfucker, or I'm a rip your head off and skull-fuck you!" The stupid director tries to tell me they can't say "skull-fuck" on Saturday morning cartoons, but everybody remembers that one Smurf used to say it all the time. I told him I'd clean it up but after a few rehearsals—well, you'd be surprised what you can't say on Saturday morning these days, or as I like to think of it, "Satur-Nazi morning."
I figured then I'd try to get on one of those night-time cartoons like The Simpsons, but they said they only hire celebrities to do voices. I know, ooch, that stings. Been on the air twelve years and they think they know showbiz better than me. I even called back, pretending to be Tracey Gold from Growing Pains, but they told me the same thing. I bet they wouldn't have said that if I told 'em I was Boner.
Well, if all that fails I can at least try pitching an idea for my own cartoon show. How hard can it be?
My idea is border collie, just like Lassie, and I'm always getting into funny jams week after week. Say like my owners have this baby and they're neglectful parents and shit, they leave me to watch the baby but the baby gets out and buys crack or something. Now I've got to get the baby to chill out and mellow before the parents get back. Oh, and I talk. I'm a talking border collie with a catchphrase, like, "Holy shit!" or something. More clever, maybe, I don't plan on writing it. Just pitching the idea and sitting back to collect those Creative Consultant checks. It doesn't have to be a border collie either. It could be a malamute or something funnier. I'll let the writers work on it.
What I'm saying is that I've got ideas, folks, big fat gold-shitting ideas. Somebody needs to ring me up and put me back on TV, even in two dimensions. º Last Column: The Net Lacks Fake Nude Clarissa Coleman Picsº more columns | 
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Quote of the Day“Get out of my way, you're crapping up my genius, dumbnuts.”
-Ayn RandyFortune 500 CookieAll of those great things we said were going to happen to you last week? Yeah, sorry, we had you mixed up with your brother. You're fucked. Try parking your car at the far end of the lot and walking this week: everyone finds the way you jiggle when you walk highly amusing. Your friends and the packaging aren't lying: that's not toothpaste. Did you really think you were going to get away with naming your son Pringles? This week's lucky ass creams: Vaseline Intensive Hair, Ditch the Itch Ultra, Smooth Movers Hibiscus Scent, Baby's Ass in a Bottle, Johnson & Johnson No More Flaming Mass of Ground Hamburger Hemorrhoid Salve.
Try again later.Top 5 Movies with Top in the Title| 1. | America's Next Top Hovel: The Movie | | 2. | Top Dog 2: More Chuck Norris and a Talking… What Do You Mean the Dog Can't Talk? | | 3. | Top Nun | | 4. | Pop on Top: A Dirty Cartoon with Rhyming | | 5. | Spinning Yarns: Robin Williams Tells Stories About Tops For Two Fucking Hours | |
|   Bush Declares Environment Part of 'Axis of Evil' BY squirrel robinson 12/9/2002 PLuGged UpScreamin' firecrackers were going off in my head. Pop pop pop. That's how firecrackers sound.
I literally fell out of the chair, and metaphorically threw up. I stood with a scream, a loud, "Arrrrggh!" That's what a scream sounds like. The clients grabbed me and strapped me back into the chair.
"You big gaywad," said Toro-san, the Japanese businessman who led this pack o' goons. "Fredddy Hotwire, if you can't take the heat, get out of the electronic kitchen."
Fredddy Hotwire, that's me. If you need someone to store all your memories, all your brainwaves, everything that makes you a person—that's me. I carry people's personalities in my head, like a backup disk. It's a luxury only the rich can afford, and if you're rich and dying like Toro-san, for ex...
Screamin' firecrackers were going off in my head. Pop pop pop. That's how firecrackers sound.
I literally fell out of the chair, and metaphorically threw up. I stood with a scream, a loud, "Arrrrggh!" That's what a scream sounds like. The clients grabbed me and strapped me back into the chair.
"You big gaywad," said Toro-san, the Japanese businessman who led this pack o' goons. "Fredddy Hotwire, if you can't take the heat, get out of the electronic kitchen."
Fredddy Hotwire, that's me. If you need someone to store all your memories, all your brainwaves, everything that makes you a person—that's me. I carry people's personalities in my head, like a backup disk. It's a luxury only the rich can afford, and if you're rich and dying like Toro-san, for example, it's a necessity.
Toro-san is not an old dude, he's a young dude, like me. But he's a dude that pissed off the wrong dudes, if you catch what I'm slinging, and he's about to be a dead dude. So he needs a righteous dude like myself, a memory-storage unit dude, to store all his memories until a new dude can be sacrificed to receive an overwrite of his old memory data. Dude.
I barely had a chance to get a solid breath before the doors burst open in rings of flame. It was a flamethrower, duh, held by Frankie Pyro. Pyro was a 7-foot fruitcake with nuts on top—metaphorically—who took big checks to wax anybody who got in someone else's way, and his waxing style of choice was a flame thrower. As the firespitter stepped into the room, behind him came Gyro Jim, the schizophrenic cyber-head who offed people with a rotating food processor gun. Also with them was their associate Karl. I got no beef with Karl, really, we get along alright.
"Long time no see, Fredddy Hotwire!" said Pyro.
"Your mother's a fucking bitch-whore!" I shouted to my old enemy. I like cursing.
"You won't be so silver-tongued when I cut it out of you," Gyro Jim said.
Hey! I just noticed—Pyro and Gyro. Their names rhyme. But that was the least of my problems right now. Still, pretty cool and all.
Pyro and Gyro came charging at me as I sat like a sitting duck in my duck chair, or nest or whatever. Now, I may look like hot shit, but I ain't able to take on two bad-asses at once, and Karl, whom I've got no beef with, even if I was hot shit. And I was about to become real hot shit in a second, if Pyro got me with that torch.
Just then, as opposed to much later after an ass-whipping, Toro-san stepped in the way of Pyro's torch and burst into flames. At first I thought he was being all kind and shit, and I didn't get him even a birthday card. Really, I didn't know when his birthday was, though he kinda looks like a Taurus. Probably just because his name sounds like Taurus. But no, Toro fell to the floor by my feet as his bodyguards held off Pyro, Gyro, and Karl.
"Fredddy," he groaned, words smoking off his lips as they crackled and sizzled like Canadian bacon. "You have my memories. All that's left of me is in your head now. Take care of us… get me out of here! Hello, Dolly!"
Strange last words, but the dude ran in front of a flame thrower, not the kind of guy you can easily explain. Toro-san turned his head to the side, coughed, and a penny came out. Dead.
I didn't need to be told twice, or even once, it just so happens I was ready to leave when dumbass-san stopped me to tell me with his dying words to leave. I did a triple flip out of the chair and landed behind Gyro Jim—thank DataGod for my cybernetic calf implants! I shouted a quick "hi" and "bye" to Karl on my way out, then I was on the run—to the NetDome.   |
