I'd like to dedicate this post to Bernadine.

Because injuries caused by really stupid behavior make her laugh. Hard.

The setup: "Jackass Contest", Virginia Beach.

The prize: a trip to Mexico.

The winning strategy:

The winner, who has not been identified, told police that the staples had been applied by the Chicho’s crowd, which had passed around a stapler and shot him at random as he walked through the bar.

At one point, he told police, his testicles had been stapled to his stomach.

“We didn’t confirm that,” Santos said. “I didn’t want to pursue that part of it.”

The man had several slice marks on his side, which were the result of paper cuts or caning, Santos said.

The man also told police he’d snorted hot sauce and salt, broken a beer bottle over his head and swallowed and vomited up a live goldfish.

Throughout the interview, the man repeatedly apologized for reeking of urine, Santos said.

He said one part of the contest had involved his lying on the men’s bathroom floor and making “snow angels.”

The man also had lost the use of his left arm, which Santos said hung at his chest in a sling fashioned from a pair of women’s underwear.

“He did a back flip off the bar and didn’t make it,” Santos said.

Despite his injuries, the man told police that he was proud that he’d won the trip to Mexico.

Well, of course he was. If there's one thing reality tv teaches us, it's that a complete loss of human dignity is a tiny price to pay for a trip you could cover out of pocket if you didn't have to pay your medical bills.

[Thanks to Rick, who loves stupidity nearly as much as Bern does. And to MTV, for providing the youth of our fair country with such high quality programming.]

Update: Rick informs me this came from Dave Barry's blog.

Blah.

I'm 40 today. My left knee has become indecisive about continuing to bear my weight and my coworkers have trashed my desk, but I did score gift certificates for Best Buy and Yankee Candle. Feel free to stop by and tell me I don't look a day over 39.

Politics and the artiste.

Elton John. Linda Ronstadt. Henley. (Bwaha.) Suddenly Springsteen feels it incumbent on him to pen a screed for the NYT and organize a big traveling Woodstock show full of angry lefty musicians (REM, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, John Fogerty; the usual suspects.) You'd think I'd be all over Bruce's shit about it, but you'd be wrong.

Sure, I scorn and fleer; most of the political ideals these people hold dear were fossilized sometime in the Late Cretaceous period (roughly around 1968), haven't been re-examined since, and won't be any time soon. But here's the reason I don't mind them organizing their little pep rallies: the concerts are clearly labelled as political events and are thus easily avoided. Were I to pay upwards of $30 (way upwards, in some cases) to hear any of those artists perform on a regular tour, I'd be livid if they spent stage time blathering about Greenpeace (I'm looking at YOU, Michael Stipe, you pissant) and refusing to play their college radio hits. But here, you know exactly what you're getting.

So let 'em play. I'm curious to see what kind of turnout they get.

Yeah, I know. Big of me to grant permission.

Your CD collection is almost as big as your ego, and you can most likely play an instrument or three. You're a real hit at parties, but you're SO above karaoke.What people love: You're instant entertainment.  Unless you play the obo.  What people hate: Your tendency to sing louder than the radio and compare everything to a freaking song.

What Kind of Elitist Are You? brought to you by Quizilla

I'd argue if I could.

[Via Farm Accident Digest.]

A matched brace of deep thinkers.

I was going to write up a post on the Reagan sibs, but I just don't have the energy.  Enjoy Patti's loopy word stylings, in particular.
Patti Davis airing her Daddy issues in public
Ronnie's latest efforts on behalf of stem cell research

[Courtesy of Bernadine and Angela, respectively.]

That goes double for you, Linda Ronstadt.

Viva Las Vegas:

Before singing Desperado for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush.

Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.

"It was a very ugly scene," Aladdin President Bill Timmins told The Associated Press. "She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose."

Probably a whole audience of hired Bush celebrity harassers.  "Tossed cocktails into the air."  Damn, I miss all the good stuff. 
 
[Thanks to Angela for the link.]

American crushes Elton John's dissent. Again.

In yet another pointless waste of pulp, the old queen just can't shut up about how the left isn't getting its fair share of ink.

Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech.

Name a single instance of the US government actually making anyone shut the fuck up.  I can't get away from people like Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and John himself flapping their gums about how they're not allowed to flap their gums.  Who the hell's stopping them?  Well, no one, actually.  But they're "chilled" by the lack of warmth with which their brave dissent in service of brutal autocracy in the middle east has been met in middle America.

"There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine, Interview.
"There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American," he told the magazine.

Give me a name.  Cite me a single example of HUAC taking some liberal wank like Camryn Mannheim out in handcuffs in the middle of the night.   Then comes the dead giveaway "in MY day" self-centered navel-gazing baby boomer drivel:

The singer said things were different in the 1960s.
"People like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Beatles and Pete Seeger were constantly writing and talking about what was going on.

Yes, they were.  The judgment of time has not been kind to their idiotic opinions.

"That's not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts - or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter," he said.

Because you're boring the fuck out of the public, which has already determined that there is a serious problem that requires the attention of serious-minded people, and they don't want to hand you $70 a ticket to hear you bleat about things you have readily demonstrated you're not capable of grasping.  The solution, from your perspective?  Tell your pinko anti-American friends to write catchier songs.

He voiced concern that it appeared acceptable to speak out if you were pro-Bush, using the example of country singer Toby Keith, but not if you were critical of the President, as in the case of country rock band, the Dixie Chicks.
"On the one hand, you have someone like Toby Keith, who has come out and been very supportive of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - which is OK because America is a democracy and Toby Keith is entitled to say what he thinks and feels.

Mighty fuckin' gracious of ya, Elt.  Toby Keith gets a free ride on that rather terrible "Red White and Blue" song because people support the sentiment.  They share the sentiment.  There is a strong feeling in this country that someone needs a military boot up their ass.  In the face of that sentiment, the fact that the left can't comprehend that the majority of this country doesn't want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya means they're not going to crack the top 40 with "Ode to Osama".  Sorry, dude.
 
This kind of hysteria from the guy who sang "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", yet.

"But, on the other hand, the Dixie Chicks got shot down in flames last year for criticising the president. They were treated like they were being un-American, when in fact they have every right to say whatever they want about him because he's freely elected, and therefore accountable."

First, their behavior was unAmerican.  Or,  more properly, anti-American.  Second, note by whom they were treated that way.  Certainly not the big, scary Bush administration, unless you believe George Bush mandates record sales (and if he does, we're going to have to have a chat about certain acts.)  It is a sure sign of ego run amok that entertainers are so sure the entire world revolves around their opinions they think there's an actual organized effort at the top being galvanized to stop people from buying their cds.  I have news for you:  you're just not that important.  Nobody cares what you think.  Now shut up and play "Island Girl", you deep thinker, you.

[Via Drudge.]

Red neck, white socks, blue ribbon beer.

Via the Corner, Slate's "Red state/Blue state" quiz.  And yes, I trended into the red by a comfortable margin, though knowing what the LIRR referred to hurt me a bit.

To my surprise...

Richard Cohen slams Ron Reagan for borrowing his dead father's coat to speak at the Democratic convention. [Link via Jonah Goldberg on The Corner. I don't go reading Cohen articles on my own, and since Charles abandoned his ongoing "Scourge of Richard Cohen" project, I've been ignoring his existence.]

It's hilarious to me that the Democratic party thinks getting one of the sillier Reagans to speak at their convention is supposed to be a political coup of some sort. Why on earth would this be a blow to the Republicans? Little Ronnie's never been *on* the reservation, if it comes to that; it's not like he's wandered off and we're trying to lure him back. Last I'd heard of him before the funeral he was wearing leg warmers and whining about he just wanted to--DANCE!--and I haven't taken him seriously in the twenty years or so since then. It surprises me that anyone would.

Sleaze offensive.

First thing I saw when I signed on AOL: "Donald Trump would 'fire' Bush over Iraq invasion", with an article apparently redacted from an upcoming August "Esquire" interview.

Am I supposed to give a flying fuck? Really, is this supposed to be a slam of earthshattering proportions; should I be feeling the foundations of the GOP shudder from this critical blow? Because, frankly, the man's a political idiot, billionaire or no.

"Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way.

Details. I want details on precisely how Donald fucking Trump would have handled Iraq.

Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?," Trump said.

By that ridiculous standard, America is not a particularly wonderful democracy. As is bemoaned every four years or so, the percentage of eligible voters who just don't fucking bother is staggering. And yet somehow we manage to muddle through.

"C'mon. Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he'll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn't have," Trump said in excerpts of the interview released in advance to Reuters.

Right. That's exactly what happened in Germany and Japan. If the short-sighted among us would sit down, shut their cakeholes, and let the adults do their jobs, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Trump would probably have fired Churchill. Fuck him.

Beautiful.

Paula just e-mailed me the following from the Hollywood Reporter, Monday July 12, 2004, Page 3 in the clips section:

Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus dubbed Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" a communist-style propaganda work after seeing it at a festival in Karlovy Vary. "We were used to such messages in the Communist days," Klaus said. "Everybody has open eyes and can understand that this is propaganda. It was a weak film that tells us nothing new."

Apparently "avant-garde" is now a synonym for "shitty".

And the act should probably be billed as "O DEAR GOD NO".

[Thanks to Angela for the giggle.]

In which Michael Moore is eviscerated once more.

Screedy goodness from James Lileks.

Addendum: Dean Esmay gleefully links to Lileks with the further observation that anyone who finds Moore even remotely defensible is a scumbag by association. Personally I wouldn't go that far; I prefer to cut the ignorant a certain amount of slack.

De gustibus non est disputandem.

Ian Hamet points me to Terry Teachout's Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index (TCCI). I respond not because I necessarily agree or disagree with Teachout most of the time, but because of my Pavlovian need to respond to lists of things from which to pick.

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises?
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington?
4. Cats or dogs?
5. Matisse or Picasso?
6. Yeats or Eliot?
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin?
8. Flannery O’Connor or John Updike?
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca?
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning?
11. The Who or the Stones?
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath?
13. Trollope or Dickens?
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald?
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy?
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair?
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham?
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers?
19. Letterman or Leno?
20. Wilco or Cat Power?
21. Verdi or Wagner?
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe?
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash?
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis?
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando?
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp?
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt?
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin?
29. Red wine or white?
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde?
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity?
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev?
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev?
34. Constable or Turner?
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo?
36. Comedy or tragedy?
37. Fall or spring?
38. Manet or Monet?
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin?
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James?
42. Sunset or sunrise?
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter?
44. Mac or PC?
45. New York or Los Angeles?
46. Partisan Review or Horizon?
47. Stax or Motown?
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin?
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello?
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine?
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier?
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers?
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde?
54. Ghost World or Election?
55. Minimalism or conceptual art?
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny?
57. Modernism or postmodernism?
58. Batman or Spider-Man?
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams?
60. Johnson or Boswell?
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf?
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show?
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table?
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity?
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni?
66. Blue or green?
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It?
68. Ballet or opera?
69. Film or live theater?
70. Acoustic or electric?
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo?
72. Sargent or Whistler?
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera?
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma?
75. Sushi, yes or no?
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn?
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee?
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove?
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham?
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe?
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones?
82. Watercolor or pastel?
83. Bus or subway?
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg?
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser?
87. Schubert or Mozart?
88. The Fifties or the Twenties?
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick?
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce?
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins?
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman?
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill?
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann?
95. Italian or French cooking?
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord?
97. Anchovies, yes or no?
98. Short novels or long ones?
99. Swing or bebop?
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"?

Total of 91 responses, with 57 in concurrence with Teachout, giving me a TCCI of 62.6.

Comments:
I really can't imagine choosing the Who over the Stones. The Mercer vs. Porter choice was much harder, as was Steely Dan vs. Elvis Costello. Batman vs. Spiderman is only valid if we're talking about campy 60s Batman; otherwise count that as a non-response. Oh, and I loathe--LOATHE--"Chinatown" with a passion scarcely to be borne within woman's breast.

Maraschino ice cream.

Stir 1 cup of sugar into 2 cups of heavy cream and bring nearly to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Cool and add 2 more cups of heavy cream, the juice of 1 orange, and one of the following:

1/4 tsp. almond extract, or
1/2 tsp. wild cherry extract, or
2 drops angostura bitters

Drain the liquid from a 16 oz. jar of maraschino cherries (without stems) and add the liquid to the cream mixture. Chop the cherries roughly (about 3 seconds in the food processor) and add to the cream. Chill until quite cold, at least 2 hours or overnight, and freeze according to the directions peculiar to your ice cream maker.

Vote early, vote often.

And please vote for "Ice Station Zebra".

Brando.

Nothing profound to say about him, except that, years ago, he made me really understand the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech in Julius Caesar for the first time. Thanks for that.

I think most of the tributes are going to be left-handed, to put it politely. To hell with that. Here's to the talented fat man.

Reader survey.

Saw this on Sheila's site a couple of days ago and just now got around to lifting it:

1) What is your favorite type of bookstore?
A. A large chain that is well lit, stuffed full of books, and has a café.
B. A dark, rather dusty, used bookstore full of mysterious and vaguely organized books.
C. A local independent bookstore that has books by local authors and coffee.

B. If I'm looking for a specific book I usually don't bother going to a bookstore, I order it online. If I'm browsing, I'd rather browse in a place that might have out of print stuff.

2) What would excite you more?
A. A brand new book by your favorite author.
B. Finding a classic you've been wanting to read.
C. Receiving a free book from a friend in the mail.

B. Most of my favorite authors are dead.

3) What's your favorite format?
A. Novel
B. Short story
C. Poetry

I waver between A and B; my reading stamina is not what it used to be, and a good short story is like a good stiff drink. Then again, sometimes I do like to immerse myself in another world, the deeper the better. Poetry brings up a distant third.

4) Favorite format, part II.
A. Contemporary fiction.
B. Classic novels.
C. Genre (mystery, espionage, etc.)

B, with C close behind.

5) Favorite format, part III (none of the above) Fiction or non?
A. Almost entirely fiction.
B. Almost entirely non-fiction.
C. A mix of both.

C.

6) Does the design and condition of the book matter?
A. Yes, I love a well designed book and keep mine in mint condition.
B. No, the words are what matter.
C. Yes and no, I appreciate good design and treat my books with respect but I am not obsessive about it.

C.

7) On average how many books do you read a month?
A. I am lucky to read one.
B. I am dedicated. I read 4 or 5.
C. I am a fiend. I read 10 or more!

Some months I don't read at all; others I read four or five books simultaneously, keeping them in different rooms and picking them up as the mood strikes. So, um, A to B.

8) Do you prefer to own or borrow?
A. There is a particular joy in owning a book. I have a large library.
B. Why spend money when you can read it for free? I use the public library.
C. Different tools for different job. I do both.

C.

9) Where do you get (the majority) your book news?
A. Newspapers.
B. Magazines.
C. TV
D. Blogs.

I don't really get "book news", per se. D, I guess, in a way.

10) Are books a professional obsession?
A. Yes, I work in the field (writer, reviewer, publisher, teacher, etc.).
B. No, I do it for fun.
C. Kinda, I write the occasional review but have a regular job outside of books.

B.

Signs.

The funniest thing about this is the dry "what is it now?" tone of the article. The second funniest is the term "crop artists".

[Via Dean Esmay.]

These are getting more and more time consuming.

Word game via Ben Kepple, who got it from Emily Jones:

1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book No. 1 -- first sentence.
3. Book No. 2 -- last sentence on page fifty.
4. Book No. 3 -- second sentence on page one hundred.
5. Book No. 4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty.
6. Book No. 5 -- final sentence of the book.
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.

A prince was born to the royal line of England on January 6, 1367, in the abbey of St. Andre at Bordeaux and given the name of Richard. He was allowed only one cup of coffee. He knows more about the Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not make a mistake if he tried. Yet the latter's position was still not as commanding as he wanted it to be. Our story closes here, as the terms on which Richard relinquished his conquests are to be found in every history of the period.

Book titles furnished on request.