Cheeky

I’m at the Liquor and Rubber Balls Sports Bar and Nail Emporium tonight watching the Phillies play the Mets in between tall draughts of  Anchor Steam Beer, which is unbelievably smooth and flavorful even after the fifth one.  Sixth one.  Tenth one.  Holy shit, where am I?  Who’s winning?

In the top of the ninth inning, Freddy Galvis draws a walk, trots down to first base, and sort of crouches while the first base coach leans over to mutter some advice.  There’s a moment or two when the camera focuses on his 22 year old pinstriped ass.  Observing this, no fewer than three women at the bar grab at their own crotches while lustfully screeching the sort of remarks that definitely would have them expelled from Catholic school.

LRBs is a great place to watch a sports event but you need to understand a few givens upon entrance:  The clientele is largely local, lesbian, and alcoholic.

But back to Freddy Galvis’s ass.  I want to know (refer above to quantity of beer consumed) why these obviously gay women are even interested in, let alone turned on by, the buttocks of a male baseball player.  So I ask.

“A great ass is a great ass,” Cosmo tells me.  The only object that spends more time inside LRBs than Cosmo is the cash register, but even that gets cleaned out now and then.  Even a casual observer appreciates that she’s scary nuts.  “Who gives a shit what it’s attached to?”

“A man’s ass is like an elephant,” says Tat.  Tat rides and repairs motorcycles in between visits with her parole officer.  “I wouldn’t want to own one, but I like looking at them.”

“We’re talking about asses,” says Jersey, a towering shaved-skull gym rat with ropy biceps and a sailor’s vocabulary.  “What the hell does buttless old fuck like you know about it?  Wasn’t for your wallet, your pants would fall off!”

At this point — and by now the Phillies have remarkably scored an additional 5 runs in the top of the 9^th — Lu Senz steps between me and the chorus and orders another round (muttering to me that it’s going on my tab).

When I explain to Lu my next question was going to be Which athletes have the best asses — baseball, basketball, football, swimmers, tennis players?  –  she informs me my next question should be, Who’s driving me home?

So I leave it to you, readers.  Which sport produces the best asses?  No, not politics.  Not those asses.

Porn Rocks

Ooh la la.

Researchers have discovered illustrations of female anatomy in a rock shelter in France that date back 37,000 years.

It is “the oldest evidence of any kind of graphic imagery,” said Randall White, an anthropologist at New York University and one of the researchers working on the project.

The drawings include what appear to be images of the female vulva, illustrated by circles with small slits on one side. “You see this again and again and again,” Dr. White said.   There are also very simple images, in profile, of animals, including horses and lionlike big cats, he said.– NYTimes

Study Questions

1. Why is it unsurprising — even predictable — that this primitive erotic artwork is located in France?  Because it’s art, because it’s erotic, or a combination of these?  Discuss your response without using the word “surrender.”
2. Do you think it is more likely that the artist(s) was (were) male or female, or, if a collaboration, were both genders involved?   Which gender is more likely to draw obscenities on walls today?  Use your response in a discussion of evolution, or the lack of it.
3. If the National Endowment for the Arts had been around back then, would this project qualify for a grant?  Would a handful of conservative Congressman then cite the artwork as an obscene waste of taxpayer money and try to shut down the NEA?  Use your response in a discussion of evolution, or the lack of it.  Again.
4. What’s wrong with this sentence fragment: “The drawings include what appear to be images of the female vulva…..”    What does this say about newspapers’ efforts to save money by firing proofreaders?
5. Why do you suppose that the wall also featured drawings of animals?  Is there a natural connection between, say, a vulva and a big cat?  Discuss your response without using the word “pussy.”  Or, never mind.  It’s almost summer.  Go ahead and say whatever you want.

Dissing Disco

In the wake of the demise of Donna Summers and the Bes Gees’ Robin Gibb, Joe Cardona of the Miami Hurled penned quite possibly the single most ignorant and poorly reasoned commentary on disco….ever! Fortunately, very few people even bother to this turdhammer anyway.

Disco was a patchwork quilt of the disenfranchised — it was “blacker,” “gayer,” more Latino and more Jewish than any other American pop culture movement….For many Americans, disco was more than upbeat dance tunes with catchy hooks, it became a symbol of their cultural presence. This is not to say that disco — like most other pop genres — wasn’t musically, artistically and culturally flawed; however, it was undeniably more representative of the country’s distinct flavors.

And yet sadly, by the late 1970s after revolutionizing the popular landscape and dominating the music charts for the latter half of the decade, disco was being scorned and assailed. I am hard pressed to remember any other musical or cultural movement that suffered the virulent backlash that was thrust upon the genre. –Miami Hurled

If you can stomach the entire essay, you’ll see that his argument boils down to a bizarre  accusation of bias and racism.  Disco was dissed because minorities liked it.

Most folks I hung out with at the time hated disco  — not just the music, which we found repetitive, unimaginative, shallow, and just plain obnoxious — but the whole greasy scene.  It struck me as a return to the 1950s, a deplorable era of conformity, anti-intellectualism, and cliques.  The one notable difference was that there was a wider variety of available drugs, although the two of choice — cocaine and Quaaludes — never appealed to me.

But by and large, we hated disco on its musical merits.  It was lame music with a mechanical beat and by-the-numbers lyrics.  It had a beat — you could dance to it  — and nothing else.  Send the musicians home.  We have a drum machine and big speakers.  Lights!!  Drinks!! Drugs!!

But Cardona wants to make this a moral issue.  He thinks we hated disco because Black, Latin, and gay artists (like the Bee Gees?) celebrated it.  And this was before Disco King John Travolta  earned a reputation for grabbing masseurs’ asses.

The Miami Hurled is famous for the imbeciles it awards opinion columns.  Cardona and Glenn Garvin — ferchrissake, Garvin made his living reviewing teevee shows before somebody thought he should write political commentary  –  merely continue the tradition that brought us Dorothy Gaiter, Daffy McCollum, and Buckwheat Steinback.  Writers with little wit or wisdom to spare, they occupy a netherworld of opinion devoid of genuine earthly experience, not quite intelligence, but brimming with  over-intellectualized dander.

Late in the 70s, my cousin took over a south Jersey club and turned it into a Disco.  His timing was poor — disco was just starting its well-deserved decline.  And he wasn’t a disco guy to begin with.  One Saturday night somebody spray-painted DISCO SUCKS on the pristine white wall of the building.  Observing it the next morning, he just sighed.  “Can’t argue that,” he said.

Cardona says that makes him a bigot or racist or something.

Poll Cat

So intense is my concentration on the porn sequence playing out on the screen that when the telephone rings, I absently answer it.  (The phone, not the porn.)   Multi-tasking ain’t my thing.  My idea of multi-tasking is reading on the toilet.

“Blghh rhgh yop mmnyh?  Phjkilly omnerst wooha ugproo?”

Okay….. either I just got a call from an endangered indigenous Amazon tribe, or I’m holding the phone upside down. No, neither.  Turns out it’s a California-based polling service.   They talk funny.  Why did I answer the phone?

“We’re calling registered voters in your area?  We’re trying to establish which issues are important to voters in South Florida and would greatly appreciate your input?”

Are you asking me something, or telling me something?  I can’t tell when everything you say finishes on a higher note than where you started.

“Sir, I’m asking if you’re willing to answer a few questions for our poll?”

Huh?  Now you’re asking me if you’re telling me you’d like me to answer some questions?

There’s an uncomfortable pause during which I hear papers shuffling and voices in the background.

“Sir, I have some questions?  Are you a registered Florida voter?”

* sigh *  Yes.

“Are you registered Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else?”

Yes.

Another uncomfortable pause.  “Which one of those, please?”

Something else.  Want to guess?  Here’s a hint: it’s the name of a color, and if  it’s0 what your cheese sandwich looks like, don’t eat it.

“Thank you sir for your participation and that’s all my questions?”

Fine.  Because I know this stupid game and I don’t play nicely with others.

Depending on who pays for this so-called poll, the questions will start innocuously enough, then turn into pure bullshit propaganda.  It’s called a “Push Poll.”

Let’s say it’s on the ‘Pubs’ dime.  The first question might be, “On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very satisfied and 5 being very unsatisfied, how would you characterize your satisfaction level with President Obama?”

That’s neutral, but it’s just to disarm the respondent.  The next question is something like, “Using the same 1-5 scale, how would you rate your satisfaction with the President’s plan to raise taxes on the middle class?”

And then, “How would you rate your satisfaction with the present administration’s plan to introduce additional  job-discouraging regulations on private businesses?”  Next, “How would you rate his plan to allow illegal immigrants to vote in the general election and take welfare money to get free health care?”

Got the idea?  The little cretin doesn’t even write any of this down.  The whole point is to insinuate these poisonous little lies disguised as questions into voters’ feeble brains.

“On a scale of 1 to 5, Are you satisfied that if the President is re-elected, a foreign-born Muslim socialist who hates America will have the opportunity to nominate radical liberal Supreme Court justices, shit on the Constitution, and hire elitist homosexuals to overrule Congressional mandates…..and did you notice that he’s Black?”

No, I’m not playing along.  Not when I have porn to watch on my favorite Lactating Amputee Midget Bestiality web site.  Life is too short for me to lower myself to talk politics.

These Sighs

The dreaded day arrives.  I wash my face, wipe my ass, clothe myself, and drive to the Lauderdale Lakes office of the Division of Motor Vehicles.  There’s no getting around it.  I need to renew my driver’s license.

“It rained all night the day I left……”

I arrive a bit early.  There are several lines swarmed around hand-scrawled signs which do nothing but confuse me.  One says APPOINTMENTS with an arrow pointing to a dead end.  I stand there for a few minutes trying to figure out where the hell I’m supposed to stand/go/report.   I look so forlorn and/or dangerous that some factotum takes pity and asks me what I need.  I don’t say “tequila,” which is my first thought.

Turns out they didn’t have me on the appointment list.  I am about to freak out, but then we figure out that my appointment was last week.  (“What’s wrong with you?” Guido asks me,  later, when I tell her.)

But the place is damn near empty!  They take me immediately.

I have everything — passport, social security card, expired license, 1099, two utility bills with my name and address.  A very friendly agent processes all this, nodding affirmatively.  But then the fatal moment arrives.  Eye test.

It’s one of those devices you stuff your face into and peer through two apertures.   She asks me to read Line 5 at the bottom of the screen.  At the bottom of the screen there are 4 colored shapes numbered 5-6-7-8.  It’s a red stop sign  (just the shape), a yellow circle, a 6-sided thingy shaped like home plate, and a triangle.  Nothing to read.

She insists Line 5 is a string of letters.  I kept arguing.  There aren’t any letters.  Just the numbers 5-6-7-8 and a series of icons.  She keeps saying Look at the bottom of the screen, and I keep telling her what I’m reading IS at the very bottom of the screen.

So she turns the screen around and fiddle-fucks with it and when I look in again the shapes are gone and the letters are there.  I see them.  But now my left eye — the really bad one — can’t read the letters at all.  There’s a smear of coloration swimming in a grey fog of mucous.  This is how I see the world.  The World According to Squathole.

“If you can’t read the letters we’ll have to send you to an eye doctor,” the agent  tells me.

Wait–why?  Suppose I’m blind in one eye — which I just about am — what’s the difference?  I know several people with that affliction,  and they all drive legally.    At least I’m not dead like half the folks who commute on I-95 daily.

But this is not the time to argue.  This is the time to cheat.  I pull back a bit and get my right eye to focus enough that I can rattle off the letters correctly.  Success!

“I don’t know how you saw those shapes,” she says.  “You must have very good eyesight.”

Ha ha hahahahahahaha!  That’s a first.  My eyesight is even worse than my looks.  And now I have an official photo from DMV to prove it.

Anyway, 30 minutes later I am outta there with a new license.  What a wunnerful world.

Seeya on the safe Florida highways.

Credit Where Credit Is Dude

Headin’ outta town.  Gotta buy some airplane tix.  Check a few websites, find the best deal.  Book the flights.  Go to pay — and my American Express card is rejected.

This hasn’t happened to me since President Alzheimer was semi-coherent.  So I purchase the tickets with another card, and call AX to find out what happened.

I quickly ascertain that about 18 months ago, AX reduced my credit limit.  Without even telling me!  I’m hurt.  I ask why.  Nicely, of course.

“It could be several reasons,” I learn.  “We constantly upgrade our databases based on credit reports, or a late payment, or other data that impacts your account.”

I understand what it could be, but what I specifically asked is, What WAS it.  You know, in fact?  Reality?  Wha’ happened?

“I can’t tell that from our records, sir.   You would need to contact a credit agency and request a copy of your report.”

Wait a minute —  YOU have access to this report and I don’t?  I’m YOUR customer.  This is MY account.  Why do you conceal information about MY account with YOU when you’re okay blabbing to this third-party agency, which, as you just told me, might not even be relevant to a decision YOU made about MY credit line?

“That’s the policy you agreed to, sir, when you signed on.  We can change your credit line based on any information we gather, and we are not obligated to either reveal those sources or even inform you when we make changes.”  She pauses.  “You’re fucked, faggot.  Go find some ass to suck on.”

Okay, she didn’t say that last part.  Not in so many words.

She informs me my credit limit, which used to be several thousand dollars, is now $600!  This is American Express, the card I’m not supposed to leave home without?  With a $600 credit limit, I can’t leave the house.

Back in graduate school — no job, no money, no other income, no credit record, no assets (and, it turned out, no future) — I had a $10,000 credit limit with these asshats.  Which I promptly blew through and reneged on and dared them to come get me, which is another hilarious story and the reason I couldn’t get an AX card for two decades, and only got this one through Stealth, Manipulation, and Deception.  Which is also the name of my legal counsel.

“You can apply for an increase now if you like,” she offers.

Really?  What do you need to know?

“Personal income for your last reporting year and any liquid assets in your name.”

Barely able to stifle my laughter, I give her some wildly inflated numbers that put me comfortably into what is known these days as the 1%.  She puts me on hold to subject me with to Donna Summers Muzak — how appropriate .

“We can increase your credit limit to $3,000,” she says upon returning.

That’s all?  How do I get back to $25,000, where we started? (*snort gasp rattle*)

“You can apply on-line for an increase in 6 months,” she says.  “If nothing negative has been reported, the increase will be considered.”

My nose having grown to the length of Peter North’s pork sword, I thank her kindly, hang up, and mark the calendar.  Wow, a reason to live another 6 months!

I love corporate America.  I’m so relieved our fate is in their competent hands.

Physicians: Gag Thyselves

I just hate it when physicians attempt to reason.  Few of them are innately capable, and their training discourages it.   Here’s further proof:

In a controversial finding that will affect at least 44 million American men, a government task force published its final recommendations against regular prostate cancer screening, concluding that the harms of the simple blood test far outweigh any potential benefit.

Most important, the task force found that, at best, one man in every 1,000 given the P.S.A. test may avoid death as a result of the screening, while another man for every 3,000 tested will die prematurely as a result of complications from prostate cancer treatment and dozens more will be seriously harmed.

Dr. Michael L. LeFevre, the co-vice chairman of the task force and professor of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri, said the recommendations, published online Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine, were based on the best scientific evidence available.

“Change is hard,” Dr. LeFevre said. “It’s hard for all of us, both within and outside the medical profession, to accept that not all cancers need to be detected or treated, and that there are harms associated with screening and not just benefits.”  — NYTimes

Uh-huh-huh.  He said, “hard.”

That’s right, Doc.  Just thin the herd, right?  We’re all programmed to die anyway.  So what the hell — let a few million more middle-aged men just pis hot lead for a few years while their cancer spreads into their bones and organs, and they die in writhing agony.

I speak from experience here.  The prostate glands in my family incubate cancer like the Everglades breed mosquitoes.  Every male on my mother’s side was diagnosed, including my older brother, and then me a year later.  We were all treated for it, and so far, none of us has died from it.  I’ll let you know how my brother and I turn out (we’re the only ones left — the other passed away from other causes).

In my case, I did exactly what this study advises NOT to do.  I had annual PSA exams, and when the numbers indicated an increasing trend, I had a biopsy.  The biopsy revealed a moderately aggressive presence of cancer.  I had radiation therapy.  My dick still works and I don’t wet my pants.  Ditto my brother.

Keep in mind, too, I was completely asymptomatic.  And if you do the research as I did, you’ll find that my diet, weight, and overall lifestyle are paradigmatically inhibitive of this kind of cancer.  In a world that respects nurture over nature, this would never have happened.  But biology is destiny.  This was as programmed to happen as my brown eyes, vanishing hairline, and weakness for redheaded women.

Do the researchers take this sort of scenario into account?  Evidently not.  They shoot their scenes with a wide-angle lens, and little details like my particular life simply get passed over.  They’d be just as happy if I skipped the testing, avoided the treatment, let my cancer bloom, and perish.  It’s only data, right?

Gentlemen: ignore this report.  Especially if there is a history of cancer in your family, have yourself tested, and, if cancer is indicated, have a long talk with an experienced oncologist to determine whether or not treatment is worthwhile, and at what cost to your health and lifestyle.  You may opt for “watchful waiting,” or may elect treatment of one kind or another.  But knowledge is power — and life or death — despite the reservations of these quacks and bean-counting bureaucrats.

Nobody gets out of here alive, but while we’re here, we need to choose wisely.