Crotch rot

So I was riding my Kawasaki Ninja H2R 7000cc Turbocharged supercharger twin turbo engine V12 down the 605, while lane splitting on a wheelie, when the ass-end of a parked semi crashed into me.

“Hey buddy,” the trucker yelled, “you fucked up my tractor trailer!”

I got up after collapsing on the ground due to internal injuries and shouted back. “Look here asshole!” I said. “I was LEGALLY weaving in and out of traffic when your 18-wheeler was parked on the shoulder! It’s gonna cost $75,000 to repair all the plastic on my bike plus I’ll have to replace the chrome fuel injectors and transmission! A motorcycle like this just can’t take that kind of impact!”

“Fuck your bike!” he shouted back.

Right then, CHP pulled up. “What seems to be the problem here?” the officer asked.

“This mother fucker rammed into my parked semi!” the trucker responded.

I shook my head. “Officer,” I said calmly, “in the state of California, it is plainly legal to operate a motorbike on a suspended license. This gentleman just doesn’t want to take responsibility for jeopardizing the lives motorists like me.”

The officer scratched his head and adjusted his belt. “Well, It appears as though you were driving at speeds that exceeded 200mph,” he replied.

“Don’t you know anything about bikes?!” I retorted. “My RPMs never exceeded 17,000! Meaning that I can achieve a speed of up to 240mph! So I was doing 190, tops! Don’t lecture me on the capabilities of a Kawasaki H2R 9500cc Turbo supercharged turbo twin V12 engine! This isn’t a Honda CBR or a Yamaha R7! Why would I do 190 would when I can easily do 240?!”

Fucking idiot. So watch out for motorbikes on the interstate! My safety is YOUR responsibility!

It’s been a minute since I’ve had some good ass dreams. I think that’s why I’ve been going through a creative rut; my subconscious just kinda crapped out. That is until last night when I dreamt about Dustin ‘Bustin’ Diamond (resurrected from the dead. RIP) reprising his role as Screech for American Legend: A Saved By The Bell Story. It’s entirely possible that I was confusing Screech with ‘Landry’ from Friday Night Lights, as Screech was a Texas high school football placekicker who gets an athletic scholarship to UCLA where he unlocks his secret athletic prowess by switching to wide receiver and becoming a fucking legend. I might run that one through AI and see what it comes up with because I sure as shit ain’t writing that. But I did have another interesting dream, this time involving continuity in the James Bond universe. Obviously there’s been multiple actors that have played the role. Are they all the same James Bond? It’s an age old philosophical question. The solution that my brain came up with is that they are the same character, but each actor represents a different personality because James Bond secretly has dissociative personality disorder. This came to a head, because, in my dream of course, I was James Bond and while on a mission in Berlin, I fought an apparition of Daniel Craig who was actually an internal representation of my mental instability. Fortunately, I was saved by the Bond girl because the apparition was actually a result of an epileptic seizure.

It was alright

Let me be clear: the second season of SNW was a step backwards. It did some things right. It expanded Rebecca Romijn’s Una Chin-Riley, a character that was essentially a non-factor in the first season. And Paul Wesley appears to be stepping into the role of James T. Kirk admirably. But showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Meyers ultimately dropped by the ball by trying to do too much.

Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek, in many ways, encourages genre-hopping. That’s the wonderful thing about science fiction. It can be a courtroom drama, western, musical, etc. and no one will bat an eye. The problem is that old Star Trek use to air 900 episodes a season. Current Trek can only do 10. It’s disorienting to have one episode establish a main character as a war criminal and then make the next episode an over-the-top musical.

Moreover, there’s the problem of Captain Pike and Starfleet competency. I understand that they want to make Pike a more laidback Captain as compared to other Starfleet legends like Kirk and Picard. But Trek fans like seeing their Captains be competent and fully in charge. There’s a reason why Captain Shaw from Picard was such a hit. That dude was a hardass disciplinarian. We LOVED watching him put Picard and Riker, two beloved heroes in the Trekverse, in their place. Pike isn’t Shaw, obviously, but it would be refreshing to see Pike be a more commanding presence (which is why it might be a mistake giving Kirk an expanded role in the series).

With Kirk, Uhura, Spock, Chapel, and Scotty now introduced to the show, it’s now only a matter of time before McCoy, Sulu, and maybe Chekhov are brought on. So it’s gonna piss me off if they try to remake TOS, UNLESS they skip over those three years and go straight on into The Ongoing Mission, which finishes up Kirk and Spock’s original five-year mission then leads right up to The Motion Picture. In fact, this will almost certainly happen.

Another trip around the sun

It’s my birthday weekend and everyone has been up my ass for not taking my simvastatin. “You’re 114, dad! You’re not gonna live forever!” my elderly son keeps yelling.

Well I’m still alive, so I must have done something to piss god off!

So anyway, I’ve lived through yet another calendar year and I’ll probably live through another.

Happy birthday to me 😔

It’s time (Part IV)

“You gotta get me out of this,” Darrel pleaded to his agent. “I’m not even supposed to be talking to you on the phone. If they find it, they won’t feed me!”

“Well I’m going through the agreement now and I’m sorry Darrel, it’s pretty ironclad,” Big Beef explained. “Besides, how bad can it be? It’s only a goddamn seminar!”

“I’m telling ya: Darrel, the other one, is trying to kill me here! Is there anything in the agreement about accidental death?”

Big Beef scanned the pages again. “Yes there is: in the event of your death, the publisher is entitled to the rights of your entire bibliography plus a $50 million payout from insurance.”

“Damn it Big Beef! Why did you let me sign that?”

“I thought you read through the whole thing!”

“I’m telling you Beef, when I get out of here I’m gonna shove my fist right up your….”, a big beefy guard interrupted the conversation by tapping Darrel on the shoulder. Darrel turned around and the guard snatched the phone and crushed it with his bare hand, case protector and all.

“Back to the auditorium,” the guard ordered.

“Can I at least piss first?” Darrel asked.

“No.”

Darrel slowly walked back into the auditorium trying to hold his piss in and took his seat. On stage we’re five volunteers sitting in a row, one of whom being Janet Young. They all had a look of death on their faces.

Moments later, Dr. Paul Westinghouse hopped back on stage with all smiles. His face was bandaged up from the ass pounding he took earlier. “Alright,” he said to the audience, “the first lesson in teamwork is sacrifice. I just had all of you drink one gallon of water. So shortly everyone will be pissing their pants. Fortunately we can avoid this embarrassing situation if one of our five volunteers makes a valuable sacrifice.”

Everyone looked at each other while the five volunteers sat stone faced. “So allow me to explain the situation,” Paul continued. “All five of our volunteers have ate a fully stuffed burrito each. But here’s the catch: one of the burritos was laced with an insane amount of laxatives. And those burritos were PACKED with jalapeños, eggs, beans, cheese, you name it. So that shit gon STANK.” Paul then took a second to readjust himself for dramatic effect. “Fortunately for that individual,” he continued, “if one of the other four members volunteers to shit their pants in front of everyone, then everybody in attendance will be dismissed to use the bathroom and/or change their underwear. If the random person who ate the laced burrito shits their pants first, then that person will be forced to sit in their shitty underwear all night. Moreover, if anyone in the audience pisses their pants before any of the five volunteers shit, this process will start all over again. Any questions?”

Silence befell the room.

“Alright! So someone better start shitting or else this entire auditorium will be flooded with piss!”

It’s time (Part III)

“I need a volunteer from the audience,” Paul requested.

Everyone looked at each other, puzzled by the strange presentation. No one stood up. “Are all of you chicken shits? Come on, volunteer goddamnit!” yelled Paul.

The flustered speaker scanned the auditorium for some poor bastard to pick on. Then he found him: a crew-cut jabroni, easily 6’3, with a potbelly poking through his tucked in polo. The man towered over the diminutive Paul. When he reached the stage, he crossed his arms in a defiant gesture. But Paul wasn’t intimidated.

“What’s your name sir?” Paul asked.

“Bill Hickman. Vice President of Development at Eckhart Automotive.”

“I see. And do you have children, Bill Hickman, Vice President of Development at Eckhart Automotive?”

Bill rolled his eyes. “I have two daughters,” he said.

“How old are they?”

“17 and 23.”

“Are they hot?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are. They. Hot?”

Befuddled and offended, Bill looked at the audience and then back towards Paul. “What are you getting at?” he asked.

“Answer the question Bill Hickman, Vice President of Development at Eckhart Automotive. Are your daughters hot? Meaning, would you fuck them?”

“You are one sick son of a bitch!”

“Come on, Bill! We’re both men! Just tell me!”

“I’m not gonna stand here and listen to this shit!” Bill said as he began to storm off stage. Paul was persistent. “They must be uggos then!” Paul taunted.

“One more word out of you mister…”

“It’s doctor!” Paul interrupted. “It’s Doctor Paul Westinghouse! I didn’t spend eight years in college just to be called ‘mister’ by pissants like you!”

“That’s it!”

Bill rushed the stage and punched Dr. Paul Westinghouse in the face. His thick wired framed glasses smashed onto his nose and blood instantly poured out. Laying on the floor, Paul removed the broken frames from his swollen eyes. “Is that the best you got?” the defiant doctor asked Bill. “Your daughter hits harder during foreplay.”

Bill kicked Paul in the mouth, knocking out several teeth. He then dropped to his knees, with Paul between his legs, and began relentlessly whaling on his face.

The audience sat in petrified silence. They looked to the sleeveless guards and then to each other. No one moved a muscle. It was only when Bill began to strangle Paul that a gaggle of audience members interfered.

“I’ll kill you!” Bill screamed as he was pulled away.

Paul struggled to get to his feet. Battered and bruised beyond recognition, he staggered to the podium to hold himself up. After cooling off, Bill began crying in a corner by himself. While everyone was in a state of shock, Paul spat blood onto the carpet and laughed. “Don’t worry, this always happens on the first day,” he assured the frenzied crowd, “please take your seats.”

Right when everyone sat back down, Paul collapsed to the floor. Everyone jumped to their feet again, but two sleeveless guards waltzed up to the stage to bolster him up. “Please be calm,” he continued, “there’s a lesson to be learned here: teamwork. None of us know each other, yet you all rushed to your feet to save me from certain death. We’re meant to work together. Regardless of the circumstances, we will find a way to work together, especially when it involves the certainty of death.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

It’s time (Part II)

“That’s why they sent me to this seminar: so that I could be a “team player” by never “asking questions,” explained Janet Young, CFO of Pissrock LTD. “I had no idea that our company was a money laundering operation for the CIA. Oh well. You live and learn. So why are you here?”

“I fucked my publisher’s wife,” replied Darrel.

“Oh.”

The large auditorium was filled with bean counters, attorneys, doctors, and various captains of industry. Darrel presumed himself to be the only “artist” in attendance. The rest were pissants, vultures, and grifters. But not him. No sir. He had actual talent.

Darrel picked his nose and passed gas as guests piling in. He was ready to have these three days over with so that he could return to the real world of booze and revelry (and to fuck his boss’s wife). Finally the auditorium was full. Large men in cutoff sleeves closed the doors and crossed their arms. The room fell silent.

Minutes later, a small balding man in a tweed jacket strolled down the center aisle and approached the stage. He climbed up the stairs, placed his hands behind his back, and with a slight smile he gazed at the audience silently. This went on for several minutes.

Finally the man spoke. “We’re born. We grow. Then we die,” he said. “Some of the most talented people in America are in attendance today. And many of us will be dead in 20 years. Most of us will never remember you.”

The silence persisted for another minute before he spoke again. “Today we are in the growth stage of our lives,” the speaker stated as he paced back and forth. “So we have a choice: face your fears and continue your growth…OR hasten your journey to the final stage of your life: death.”

Then the speaker walked back down the stage steps and, still facing the crowd, he extended his arms and gave a big smile. “I’m Paul Westinghouse,” he proclaimed, “and I’ll be your guide on this voyage of self discovery.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

It’s time (Part I)

Darrel snuck out of bed to take a shit. After he clogged the mistress’s toilet, he received an urgent call from a familiar number. “What are you doing at my house?” the voice angrily asked.

Darrel was tired of the hiding. He knew the jig was up. “I’m fucking your wife, what do you think?” he replied.

After a moment of silence, the voice responded. “I’m coming for you.” Then caller hung up.

For the first time in awhile, Darrel actually felt fear. He could barely get his ass wiped before he heard the front door swing open. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself. He slowly opened the bathroom door and tiptoed towards the back entrance.

“Hold it there buster!” Darrel heard from behind. Startled, he quickly turned around to find the mistress’s husband, also named Darrel, holding a Desert Eagle pistol. “Darrel,” said Darrel, “it doesn’t take much to kill a human being. Don’t you think that Desert Eagle is a little much?”

“Shut your mouth!” Darrel responded. “The only reason I won’t blow your brains across the carpet is because you made me A LOT of money. Your book, My Ass=Your Face, spent 91 weeks on NYT bestseller list. You’re a cash cow. And as my father always told me: never slaughter your cattle in the living room.”

“So you’ll let me keep fucking your wife then?”

Darrel cocked the pistol. “Get the fuck out. I’ll figure out what to do with you later.”

“Yes sir.”

***

“Goddamnit Darrel!” screamed Bob “Big Beef” O’Connell. “You can’t fuck your publisher’s wife!”

“C’mon Big Beef!” retorted Darrel. “You’re my agent. If I wanted a guilt trip, I would’ve spoken to my bartender!

“You need to start thinking with the right head! The publisher is considering dropping you!”

“Jesus, Beef!” Darrel exclaimed. “You can’t let them do that! They know all the skeletons in my closet! Like, literally. I literally have skeletons in my closet that they know about!”

“I spoke to Darrel. He said that fucking his wife was bad enough, but clogging his toilet went a too far. He said that they will keep you on if you attend a sensitivity seminar.”

“Sensitivity seminar? Another one?!”

“Yes. Not one on sexual harassment though. This is a teamwork workshop for big name executives.”

Darrel was beside himself. “You tell Darrel that I’m a writer, AN ARTIST! Not a goddamn suit!” he shouted.

“Darrel says that he wants team players. Now the seminar is three days long. NO ALCOHOL. So deal or no deal?!”

Darrel rubbed his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair. “Hand me a fuckin pin,” he finally ordered, then he begrudgingly filled out the application.

After storming out of his agent’s office, Darrel pulled out his phone and dialed up the other Darrel. Unfortunately it went straight to voicemail. “Listen here mother fucker,” he stated in his message, “I’m getting tired of these boring ass seminars. And for that, I’m gonna fuck your wife again!”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Freakin Friedkin!

When I think of 70s auteur cinema, I don’t think of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, and others. I think of Michael Cimino.

I also think of William Friedkin, who passed away yesterday at 87 years of age. Fans of the horror genre are in mourning because he made one of the most important films of the decade in The Exorcist. But let’s not forget his other pioneering achievement in Sorcerer, which, a few years before Heaven’s Gate, managed to steer Hollywood away from director-focused pictures. Friedkin was a pioneer in that way.

But he also directed The French Connection which garnered him an Oscar for Best Director. For me, the picture defined Hollywood cinema of the 1970s. Along with DP Owen Roizman (who also died earlier this year), Friedkin created a vision of NYC that was grimy and downright disgusting. Honestly, the city never looked better. While the picture presents itself as a run-of-the-mill police procedural, the ending flips the script. Instead of catching the bad guy, Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle accidentally kills a fellow cop and is left shooting at the shadows. The French Connection was a game-changer.

Of course, the movie is best known for its car chase sequence, where Friedkin bravely put at risk the lives NYC motorists and bystanders by failing to obtain permits to film such a thing. He was a maestro at shooting these scenes. He’d try to duplicate his success with the car chase in Jade, switching out the streets of NYC for San Francisco, and let’s just be honest: it was genius. But too bad that David Caruso is no Gene Hackman.

Billy Friedkin also claimed that he only ever did one take. I have a hard time believing that, but salute. If only Michael Cimino had learned that trick, Hollywood history might’ve turned out different.

RIP Billy Friedkin

Rip Pac-12

There’s been a few notable deaths this year: Tina Turner, Sinead O’Conner, Paul Reubens…but the biggest has been the demise of the Pac-12 Conference.

Of course I said the same thing in my very first post about Big 12. Now, two years later, the Big 12 looks as powerful as ever. But as it stands now, the Pac-12 will only have four schools going into the 2024 season (Stanford and Cal will almost certainly be picked up by another conference in the next year or so).

The most sensible option is to have the remnants of the Pac-12 join the Mountain West Conference. But no disrespect to San Jose State and Fresno State, I’m sure Stanford and Cal will see these schools as a massive downgrade from playing Oregon, UCLA, and USC every year. So that marriage won’t last long. In short, no matter how we roll the dice, the Pac-12 is cooked.

Poor Bill Walton. Gone are the days of him saying “the Conference of Champions” to fill up airtime 😔