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Today's piece for the Daily Banter expands on the outrage over two commercials produced for this weekend's Super Bowl broadcast.

Here's the opening shot:

"There’s an old saying that I used to live by but which I let fall by the wayside years ago because it kept getting me into trouble: It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. I’m sure you understand how this philosophy works, particularly if you’re married. Basically you just go ahead and do whatever the hell you want, even if you know it’ll infuriate your partner, and pretend to be sorry later. Sure, you’ll spend some time in the dog house, but you got to do whatever it was you wanted to do in the first place. Beats asking if it’s okay ahead of time and risking him or her telling you no. Nobody wins there. Well, you don’t win, and that’s really all that counts. (See why I eventually abandoned this way of thinking?)

Asking for forgiveness instead of permission is the selfish asshole’s credo. If you are indeed a selfish asshole, it should be tattooed across your upper back.

With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder why so many of the various companies paying a bloody fortune for ad space at this year’s Super Bowl have decided to prerelease their commercials on the internet in the run-up to the game."

Read the Rest Here

High Note

This is my favorite story of the day -- because you all know how much I hate Glee and its egomaniacal creator, Ryan Murphy, who believes that all bands should not only give their songs freely to his unholy creation so it can utterly destroy them, but should also grovel at his feet for seeing fit to use their music in the first place. (And no, do not tell me that he redeemed himself with American Horror Story; that show is predictably self-indulgent and ridiculous.)

Well, kind of like the Foo Fighters before him, Glee picked the wrong guy to fuck with when they decided to rip-off Jonathan Coulton without giving him an ounce of credit.

Zap2It: Glee vs. Jonathan Coulton/1.28.13

Picture of the Day

Posted to Reddit by an Applebee's waitress named Chelsea who has since been fired for doing so.

The receipt was apparently signed by a local pastor who, as you can see, removed the included tip and wrote, "I give God 10%, why do you get 18?"

The original title that went with the Reddit post read, "My mistake sir, I'm sure Jesus will pay for my rent and groceries," which is pretty good.

My comment would've been more like, "Because I actually exist and was able to take care of you."

I have no doubt that Chelsea, as a budding internet sensation whom many already believe was unjustly canned, will be the beneficiary of a massive Kickstarter campaign or something like that, inadvertently making her just as insufferable as the asshole who took away her tip. But for now, she's got my sympathies. Besides, once people figure out who the pastor is and begin personally bombarding him with the abuse he deserves, it will all have been worth it.

Instant Update: That took no time at all. The pastor is 37-year-old Alois Bell of St. Louis -- he's a she, not a him, by the way -- and she's now apologizing and kind of groveling for forgiveness from an entity even mightier than God: the internet. "My heart is really broken," she says. “I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.” She goes on to say that the stiffing was a lapse in her usually good judgment. By the way, Bell was the one who called Applebee's and got Chelsea fired when she saw the receipt online.

Quote(s) of the Day

"The Coke commercial for the Super Ball is racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish Camel Jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world."

"What message is Coke sending with this? By not including the Arab in the race, it is clear that the Arab is held to a different standard when compared to the other characters in the commercial."

-- Imam Ali Siddiqui, president of the Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies, and Abed Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, respectively, calling Coke's new Super Bowl ad racist and demanding that it be changed before it airs during the game this Sunday

I was just about to present this without comment, because, like the "controversy" over the Jamaican White Guy Volkswagen ad, it's just that absurd. But I think it's worth making it clear that I do in fact believe that no group of people is above any other group of people -- regardless of race, religion or ethnicity -- and will therefore treat the Arab-American organizations taking offense to this ad exactly the way I'd treat anyone else demanding satisfaction over something so silly and inconsequential: by saying, for God's sake, sit down and shut up before you make yourself look any more ridiculous. It's a fucking commercial -- save the indignation for something that actually matters. It's not like there aren't enough real problems out there for Arab-Americans to contend with on a daily basis.

Listening Post

These guys have a new album out and, for those who happen to live in the L.A. area, they're doing a quick residency on Monday nights in February at Los Globos in Silverlake.

Here's Gliss -- The Weight of Love.

Chicken Tender

Today's Daily Banter column asks whether the battle between Chick-fil-A and the gay community has finally ended. At least two people seem to be trying to move in that direction -- but is their truce to be trusted?

Here's the opening shot:

"According to the stats that the Daily Banter numbers crunchers keep track of, one of the most popular columns I’ve written for this site had to do with my decision not to eat at Chick-fil-A anymore. I’m sure you’ve only recently been discharged from Walter Reed and are still nursing serious physical and psychological wounds from the Great Chick-fil-A War of 2012. I myself haven’t been able to sleep since returning from the front, haunted by memories of old people and drag queens beating each other to death in the street while chicken sandwich mortar fire rained down like death from above all around them. And pickles — so many pickles.

For the few who were lucky enough to be living under a rock or in a neutral, sane country at the time, in July of last year Chick-fil-A President and COO Dan Cathy made a lot of enemies within the progressive and gay community by stating in no uncertain terms that he and his company were against same-sex marriage and would continue to support Christian, anti-gay initiatives. The resulting dust-up turned into exactly what every politically charged, pop culture-fed controversy does these days: a media circus, with a freaking chicken sandwich suddenly becoming a cudgel in the never-ending left-right culture war.

Well, six months later the dust has finally settled and, in an admittedly surprising move toward peace that the Jews and Palestinians could learn a thing or two from, one of the marriage equality activists who initially decried the unabashedly anti-gay stance of Chick-fil-A is now 'coming out' and admitting that in the resulting months since the whole controversy blew sky-high, he’s struck up a friendship with Dan Cathy."

Read the Rest Here

Assistant Quote of the Day

"He fired a warning shot and then when the car was accelerated to go in reverse he perceived it differently. He’s an elderly man, he perceived the car going towards his house, towards him."

-- A lawyer for 69-year-old Georgia man Phillip Sailors, who shot and killed a Hispanic guy who had accidentally pulled into his driveway, supposedly because he thought the guy's car was trying to ram him when it in fact was backing up

Apparently, a GPS mistake had led the victim, 22-year-old Rodrigo Diaz, along with his girlfriend and two other friends, into Sailors's driveway. Witnesses say Diaz recognized that something was wrong, but Sailors had already rushed out of the house carrying a gun and screaming, "Get off my property!" (Please take a moment to revel in the almost perfect old-white-guy stereotype.) Diaz reportedly rolled down the window to apologize as he was backing up and that's when he was shot. Sailors is now charged with murder.

You know, this should go without saying, but if you're too goddamn old to be able to tell which direction a car is going I think it's safe to say you're too goddamn old to be allowed to own a gun.

What do you want to bet that in the moments before Diaz's ill-fated turn into Sailors's driveway, Sailors was sitting in front of his TV doing what he does for hours each day: watching Fox News? Maybe this is how the network will continue to lose viewers. They won't just die off -- they'll be arrested for angrily, frighteningly reacting with deadly force to every little perceived threat.