Joe Blows

I'm frankly too tired to waste my breath complaining about Joe Lieberman -- although it's kind of cool that by merely mentioning his name in a negative way, I can probably be lumped in with the bloggers who are being given so much credit for the downturn in his political fortunes.

I'll leave the flowery argument against his idiotic idea to run as an independent to someone far more qualified than myself: the vastly talented and downright sexy-as-hell Arianna Huffington. (That's her on the left; you didn't really think I was gonna post a picture of Lieberman's ugly face, did you?)

Not only can Arianna articulate my feelings about Lapdog Joe even better than I can -- but in shifting the mantle of intelligent debate to someone else, I free myself up to be as obscene and juvenile as I want.

That's why I can tell you that Lieberman is a fucking idiot, and fully deserved to get his ass stomped by a guy with no political experience whatsoever.

A word of advice Joey: you cozy up to the lying fuckers behind this ridiculous war -- particularly the corrupt monkey at the top of the totem pole of horseshit -- and nobody in your party's gonna have much sympathy for you.

So long, asshole.

Gray's Autonomy

Imagine if you will, a day at the track.

You go up to the counter and place your bet on a major longshot -- let's say a horse that carries 50 to 1 odds. You get your ticket and take your seat and wait for the race to begin; maybe you order yourself a mint julip or whatever the hell else it is that people do at horse tracks (for all I know they're not even called "horse tracks;" for all I know they could be called "racing parks," or "gardens of earthly delight" or whatever. I've never been to one in my life).

So you lean forward -- ticket in hand -- and ready yourself for the sound of the bell. You know full well that if by some miracle of God your horse crosses that finish line first, you're in the money.

Finally, the horses are in the gate and then -- suddenly -- they're off. At first your horse performs as expected -- lagging far behind the pack. The favorite is out in front, and seems to remain there for an eternity.

Then without warning, old Fleabiscuit gets an astounding shot of adrenaline and begins surging forward as the horses push through the back stretch; he begins overtaking horse after horse -- moving switfly and assuredly toward the front of the pack. Meanwhile, you begin jumping with a joy you haven't known since childhood -- your big payday in sight.

But that's when you realize something: as your horse moves closer and closer toward the lead horse and a possible victory, the odds posted on the board for him begin dropping. The closer he gets to finishing first, the more the oddsmakers adjust his chances of winning. By the time he crosses the finish line -- well ahead of the rest of the pack -- his odds are even, and you're screwed.

Does this seem a little unfair to you? Like the oddsmakers should have no right to change the game in midplay to cover their asses?

Well, that's exactly what they did today -- only instead of horses, substitute hurricanes.

Today, the National Hurricane Center altered its predictions for the 2006 hurricane season; it now says that there will likely be fewer hurricanes this year than originally predicted. It's a pretty easy statement to make now that we're almost three full months into the season and for the most part the tropics have been quieter than Carson Kressley at a Hell's Angels bar.*

It's kind of a no-brainer, which is especially bothersome because it comes from a group of people with such big brains.

As it turns out though, the Hurricane Center is only following the same protocol it does every year at this time -- which means that it's following the lead of a team of forecasters at Colorado State University (certainly the first place I think of when I think of folks with a vested interest in the tropics). This team is led by a man most Americans have never heard of, yet he's arguably the most powerful and influential meteorological researcher in the Western Hemisphere.

His name is Dr. William Gray.

Dr. Gray, is the Mr. Blackwell of hurricane forecasting; those who disseminate information about tropical storms hang on his every word as if it were gospel. They treat his predictions with reverent awe and welcome his weather wisdom with the kind of fanfare given to that ridiculous groundhog by the strange little people of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. When Dr. Gray speaks, everyone along the Southeast Coast is expected to listen.

Here's the thing though: the guy cheats.

In the same way that changing the odds in the middle of a horse race would give bookmakers a somewhat unfair advantage, Dr. Gray makes regular adjustments to his "Hurricane Season Forecast" during the season itself; he does it several times in fact. His initial prediction at the beginning of the season typically designates an arbitrary number of named storms, as well as their chances of making landfall; then as the months progress, that number almost certainly rises or falls as circumstances and weather patterns change -- as the storms form or don't form.

Needless to say, Dr. Gray's forecast record is excellent. No wonder everyone listens to him; technically, he's never wrong.

Now I'm not a meteorologist. I certainly wouldn't want to in any way disparage those whose job it is to keep millions of people safe from monstrous and deadly storms; in fact, it's worth mentioning that once one of these things forms out in open water, it's astonishing how accurately the National Hurricane Center can predict its likely path. But as for divining the actual number of hurricanes and their potential targets months in advance? Call me Ian Malcolm, but it would just seem like common sense that there are far too many variables to make any kind of accurate assessment.

And that's what it comes down to; if Dr. Gray wants to continue issuing his forecasts -- adjusted for context or otherwise -- then there's certainly nothing wrong with that. They should however be taken as more of a novelty than the rock on which to build your hurricane preparedness plan. You know, like those commercials that say, "For entertainment purposes only."

Like I said, I'm no meteorologist, but hell, even I could pick a random number and still be right by the end of hurricane season -- as long as you let me change my mind a few times while the race is still on.

(*Having grown up in South Florida, I'm well aware that a lack of any major storm is actually par for the course at this stage of hurricane season. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew didn't hit the United States until August 24th; obviously, that was the first named storm of that season. Last year's busiest season on record was an anomaly, and one that even Dr. Gray couldn't have predicted in his wildest meth-fueled fantasies; but don't think for a second that it didn't affect his initial forecast for this year. The guy almost certainly hedged his bet and aimed high -- hence why pulling back now seems especially fraudulent.)

Kitsch a Falling Star

Rebecca: This is so bad, it's almost good.

Enid: This is so bad, it's gone past good and back to bad again.

-- Ghost World

I'm not now, nor have I ever been a member of the "Kiss Army."

In fact, I'm pretty sure I can safely say that if there were ever an opposing force facing the Kiss Army in battle, I'd probably join up willingly -- no draft required. I'd do this for no other reason than the fact that I and my Band of Brothers would almost certainly emerge victorious against an army of acne-addled kids who had to stop fighting every few minutes to masturbate, or roll a set of ten-sided dice to determine their next move.

In deference to those for whom I haven't made myself clear enough: Kiss fucking blows; they always have. They're probably the single most overrated and undeserving phenomenon in rock history -- and this is coming from someone who'd pay good money to watch every Grateful Dead/Phish fan mauled by bears. That, my friends, is saying something about the depths of my loathing for the geniuses who brought you that masterpiece of musical affirmation, I Wanna Rock & Roll All Night (and Party Every Day).

That said, you can imagine my reaction when I learned that A&E's latest foray into the creatively-exhausted reality series genre would be a show called, Gene Simmons Family Jewels.

For weeks now, the advertising for this monstrosity has been unavoidable in New York City; everywhere you go, it's impossible not to find yourself staring into the aging mug of Gene Simmons as he self-parodically flashes the "devil sign" with his fingers. It's enough to make you realize that the only reason you probably didn't find that so ridiculously funny back in the 70s is because -- well -- you were really fucking high.

If the unfortunate return of Gene Simmons were an isolated incident it would be easy to overlook, or at least blow off as the purely nostalgic lark of a former General in the Kiss Army (Ret.) who astonishingly went on to find employment that didn't require wearing a blue apron and a button that reads "How Can I Help You?" -- such as A&E Network Executive. As it turns out though, Mean Gene is just the latest in a string of people you probably never cared about in the first place, who've seen their careers miraculously resurrected by the cultural affliction known as reality TV.

Thanks mostly to cable channels like VH1 (the worst offender), Bravo and A&E, the nagging questions that've been haunting you day and night -- "How's Peter Brady's love life?" "What's Danny Bonaduce doing to make himself even less commercially palatable?" "How can Flavor Flav single-handedly destroy the legacy of Public Enemy?" -- can be answered as only an unscrupulous camera crew and a has-been in need of a paycheck can.

The problem though is the way it's being sold to you.

People who once had some small amount of cultural relevance -- deserved or not -- are now promoted as comforting kitsch; their images from long ago are given an ironic twist and repackaged for a new kind of audience which has supposedly understood from the start that these celebrities were always worthy of a certain amount of good-natured mockery -- even if the folks in the spotlight never understood it themselves. Their second-wind has turned them into my generation's version of lava lamps and lawn flamingos -- so uncool that they're cool.

Right now, no one's riding this wave higher than "The Hoff."

In case you're unfamiliar with The Hoff's humble beginnings, he used to be known as "David Hasselhoff," pathetically-awful actor, Messiah to the German people and a fucking laughing-stock to everyone else. He unknowingly worked damn hard to earn that kind of derision; he was a near-lethal combination of arrogant and untalented. The thing is, he still is. The only difference between the Hasselhoff that everyone teased mercilessly throughout the past two decades and the Hasselhoff of today -- besides the several million he's made off the rights to Baywatch -- is his willingness to cynically capitalize on his own absurd image. Make no mistake, there's a difference between learning not to take yourself too seriously (Shatnerization?), and callously milking the public's kitschy fascination with you. There isn't a chance in hell that The Hoff ever thought he was half the asshole the rest of us did for all those years.

I had honestly hoped that my generation -- the so-called too-cool-for-their-own-good slackers of Generation-X -- wouldn't follow the example set by the Boomers, who arrogantly believed that their childhood was so fucking special that everyone would willingly open wide for the nostalgia they constantly forced down our throats. Technically we're not -- what we're doing is worse. At least the Boomers sought to relive the good old days through the people and places that were beloved by them; in classic dickhead Gen-X fashion, we're digging up the corpse of our youth and kicking its skull off by inflicting idiots like Hasselhoff on television audiences, of which we're a part.

Larry Miller once did a really great bit during his stand-up routine where he said that getting re-married is like putting sour milk back in the refrigerator in the hope that it'll somehow be better later.

If The Hoff, Mean Gene and so many other second-wind celebrities were pretty much sour to begin with, why the hell do we expect them to go down any better now?

(Incidentally, Gene Simmons's real name is Chaim Witz; am I the only one who thinks that Chaim Witz's Family Jewels -- in addition to probably being a very real shop in New York City's diamond district -- would've been an infinitely funnier and more clever title?)

The Lizard Kings

A disclaimer: if you're looking for brilliantly articulate prose tonight, you're goddamn well looking in the wrong place; I've been drinking all day.

Thankfully, it's this very fact that merits mention.

After my little experience with M. Night Shyamalan, I pretty much figured that the mere thought of being in the same room as a paid actor or director would illicit the kind of reaction from me that Vietnam vets have when they hear the sound of helicopters -- or maybe the way Inspector Dreyfus reacts when he hears Clouseau's name in the Pink Panther movies.

Then I met the guys from Broken Lizard.

This afternoon, I was lucky enough to spend several hours hanging out, drinking, and of course laughing with the comedy troupe who brought you the hysterically funny Super Troopers, and who are now pushing their new movie, Beerfest.

Suffice to say that -- thank God -- everything you'd expect is true; they're fucking great guys, and if you don't run out to the theater to see this movie the minute it comes out I'll hunt you down and kill you.

I have my ways.

Favorite "I rule" moment of the day: after spending several minutes standing at the bar watching the Warner Brothers promotion folks try over and over again to put a quarter into a glass of beer, I grabbed my own beer off the bartop and while strolling casually past the quarters table -- without so much as slowing down or looking in that direction -- picked up the quarter and sunk it in one shot.

Me and a kid named Alex Acosta were the undisputed quarters champs of my high school's graduating class; my record is 168 in a row.

Hey, ya gotta be proud of something in life.

Thanks to Jay, Paul, Steve, Kevin and Erik for a hell of a good time.

The rest of you, Beerfest opens on August 25th; be there.

High Fidel-ity

As I've mentioned from time to time, I come from what is arguably the dumbest place on Earth.

For years, I tried in vain to alert the world outside Miami to the kind of unbridled insanity going on inside Miami. I'm pretty sure that I can say without fear of contradiction that the handful of decent minds who call the city home often feel like the spouse of a seemingly-loving, but secretly abusive husband -- in a perpetual cycle of vicious beatings followed by quiet dinners with the neighbors who would never in a million years believe the truth. "Oh, but he's just so nice. He can't really be a complete sociopath," they'd say to each other later -- after they had left the house, gone home, and unknowingly enabled the next beat-down.

No one would believe that Miami regularly behaved as if it were the only Third World country on American soil -- that is until Thanksgiving of 1999, and the arrival of a kid named Elian Gonzalez.

What followed -- although painful in its complete lack of logic or reason -- was what I had waited for my entire life up to that point. The crowds of crazies gathered; the circus started; the world watched. For the first time in my lifetime, television cameras and satellite trucks gave Miami a window to the world, and allowed everyone else to see what I'd known for years: the place is fucking bat-shit nuts.

At the core of this lunacy, is one man; he's a man who you -- like most people -- have probably gone your whole life without ever giving a second thought.

So let me ask you a question: do you care about Fidel Castro?

I didn't think so.

Unfortunately, Miami cares about little else. In Miami, Castro is a constant, all-consuming presence. He's a demonic force which can never be exorcised. He's a boogeyman who -- despite his old age and inability to keep the electricity on in most of his own country -- is credited with everything from placing "spies" in top positions of local government, to knocking certain TV and radio stations off the air, to backing-up your toilet. He's a bearded devil who's been elevated to near-mythic status by a vocal group of idiots who still call themselves "exiles," despite the fact that their forced migration happened to land them in the wealthiest country on the planet -- one that's never demanded a thing from them and in which they've consistently thrived. I cannot stress in strong enough words the impact that Fidel Castro has on almost every facet of life in Miami.

During Elian, the derangement reached such outlandish levels that it caused some to practice what they called "civil disobedience" -- lying down in front of cars on causeways and backing-up traffic to make their point. City and county leaders also thought it a good idea to create their own foreign policy -- refusing to cooperate with federal agents or anyone else who dared think about forcibly removing Elian from the hourly Little Havana dog-and-pony show, sponsored in-part by the City of Miami Chamber of Commerce and Gus Machado Ford.

When bands from Cuba have had the complete lack of common sense to stop in Miami, they've been met with death threats and violent protests from crowds of people who are too fucking dense to realize that by censoring the arts, they're performing a near-perfect impression of the man they hate to the point of madness.

At one point, the simplest way to win a local election in Miami was to go on WQBA -- the cleverly-monickered voice of intolerant conjecture for all of Dade County -- and tell its audience of highly-suggestible zombies that your opponent was, in fact, a communist. Let me say that again so that it can sink in: in an American city, not only would you not be laughed out of town -- but you could win a city councilman's seat, by calling someone a communist. Why Joe McCarthy never retired to Miami is beyond me.

And of course, anytime anyone has dared to suggest an end to the worthless embargo against Castro's Cuba, it's been advisable that he or she be wearing something akin to Kevlar. Nevermind the fact that the rationale behind the sanctions was disproven decades ago. Put it another way: if your home were on fire with your family trapped inside, would you pull at a locked door for an hour, or at some point would you attempt to find another way in? Now imagine pulling at that door for 48 fucking years.

I could go on; believe me when I tell you that there are enough examples of this kind of absurdity to fill the Orange Bowl.

Based on all of this, it's no surprise that the news of Fidel's unprecedented ceding of power to his brother turned the streets of Miami into one big block-party. There was screaming and honking of horns. There was Cuban flag-waving. There were people dancing in the streets -- a combination of old folks who romanticize a pre-Castro Cuba, and kids who've simply spent their entire lives having the religion of Castro-as-Lucifer drilled into their heads. I challenge you to name a bigger party for an impending death that didn't also involve the public execution and dragging-through-the-streets of royalty. In Miami, the possibility of Castro's demise reverberates inside the echo-chamber like the trumpets of the gods.

Outside of Miami though?

Once again, do you care?

With all that's going on in the world -- all of the threats from people who don't play by the normal rules; who don't safely follow the paradigm of an aging tyrant who wants nothing more than to keep himself in power; who are true believers and whose only wish is to be rewarded in the next life -- isn't Castro sort of, well, so 1980s?

As the Fidel deathwatch continues in Miami, and local and national politicians scramble to appease the city's powerful voting bloc by spouting silly, antiquated hardline rhetoric, the rest of the nation goes about its business -- ambivalent to the circus in the south -- completely unaffected by its craziness.

Couldn't be happier to be a part of that nation.

King of the Booze

I'm going to create a MySpace profile under the name Mel Gibson, then post a comment on the site of every Jew I can find asking him or her for help in solving my drinking problem.

If this sounds laughable, trust me when I tell you that it's no more ridiculous than the real Mel's real solution to his very real public relations disaster.

It's a given in Hollywood that once you've screwed yourself beyond all hope of redemption, your only option is a seemingly heartfelt mea culpa from the fax-machine of Burson-Marsteller; but today's little olive branch to the Jews of the world from Team Gibson takes the cake -- or the matzo as it were. Mel's facing some potentially career-decimating fallout in the wake of his recent Malibu adventure; in fact, it's a safe bet that Harvey Weinstein has already the made the secret phone call that'll bring the Hebrew Hammer down on him during his stint in rehab. The question everyone seems to be asking however -- besides, "Holy shit, who dresses that man?" -- is, "Can he come back from this?"

It's a very simple question that actually hints at a much deeper issue.

Is it possible to say the things that Mel Gibson said and not be a bigot?

I have no doubt that many will argue with this, but I happen to think that when a person becomes enraged beyond all comprehension, he or she has the ability to say just about anything. I also think that when a person becomes enraged beyond all comprehension at someone in particular, he or she is likely to say the most hurtful thing possible -- focusing on whatever words might inflict the most damage; that includes slights against that person's race, religion, sexual orientation -- whatever will hurt the most. It's the verbal equivalent of grabbing a baseball bat during a brawl and swinging it at your target as hard as you can. Add alcohol and you've got yourself a recipe for regret.

This is why, in the heat of the moment, not all racist comments automatically prove their speaker to be a racist.

Unfortunately for Mel, he's got some personal history working against him in this department -- and this may be what inevitably sinks him. It's one thing to say you were drunk and pissed-off, but that argument holds absolutely no Manischewitz when it's been common knowledge for some time that you may have a personal beef with God's chosen.

Get ready though, because the truly comical part of this whole saga is still to come; it'll be the aforementioned Mel Gibson Hebrew Enlightenment and Redemption World Tour -- whereby Mel walks his own personal Stations of the Cross through the spots where Judaism endured its darkest hours. Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has already suggested that Mel follow-up his apology with an introspective pilgrimage to Auschwitz (which incidentally was just rechristened -- in surreally Prince-like fashion -- "The Former Nazi German Concentration Camp of Auschwitz.") This is the same logic that demands the obligatory empty-gesture of sensitivity training for every idiotic professional athlete who makes an off-the-cuff comment that happens to offend someone. It'll be completely worthless for anything more than a photo-op of Gibson peering solemnly into an oven, and a flowery prepared speech entitled "I Learned Something Today." It'll also be a mission which Mel Gibson will undertake willingly -- if you define willingly as "done only because you screwed yourself squarely in the ass and now have to make amends or you'll be doing Left Behind sequels with Kirk Cameron for the rest of your life."

My suggestion -- simply because it would be more fun to watch: make Mel join the Israeli Defense Forces and station him right on the front lines near Lebanon.

It's the only proper punishment I can think of for What Women Want.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Has anyone ever heard of a dog dying of natural causes?

I mean without any human assistance -- be it behind the wheel of a car, or the plunger of 100 CCs of sodium pentobarbital?

Do dogs ever just, ya know, die?

While we're at it, am I the only one who'd like to see that series of annoying Bush's baked-beans commercials end with Jay Bush having his crafty, intellectual property-stealing golden retriever, Duke, put to sleep?