TAM Returns

Back from Washington State. The trip went well. The plane trip was remarkably uneventful. Really, there’s nothing to report. My family is doing well. Tanya’s family is doing well. We drove though E Burg to see the ol’ Alma Matter. It’s pretty much the same.

Nothing.

Oh, I caught a cold. That’s exciting isn’t it? No? Well what do you want from me?!

I wrestled a bear in Spokane. A huge Kodiak bear. Its scorching drool burned my face as I pulled him to the frozen ground with my naked hands. Our fates intertwined in one horrendous death roll. Who would triumph? One of us would eventually rise victorious. The other would be strewn about the snowy earth turning the majesty of winter into a slushy, bloody vichyssoise. The struggle lasted for what seemed to be an eternity. My muscles strained against…

None of that happened. I’m tired of pretending that it did. I was just trying to make my Thanksgiving homecoming more interesting for you. I do everything for you. It makes me sick. I’m tired of living my life for you! No, wait! Don’t go! I’m sorry. Would you like me to make you some hot cocoa? It’s no trouble, really.

Let me give you a little advice: Don’t blog when you’ve got a cold.


Fun Fact: It’s really sad that a couple of extraordinarily good looking people can’t go a for a nice dinner anymore without being savaged by bald-headed hoodlums. Are the hoodlums jealous of the handsome couple’s really cool car? I would be. Who wouldn’t want a silver 2002 Echo with no hubcaps?

My god but those people getting their car valet parked are attractive.



Check out lexreturns.com

Oh, and a special congratulations are in order for Vince and Julie! Your recent news was “engaging” to say the least. Congrats a thousand times! You should buy Tanya and I dinner to celebrate!

Again, never blog with a cold.

Updates!

Follow-ups, if you will? There have been some “breaking developments” since my last post. Are they important? No. Not really. But I’ll relate them all the same.

Toys for Tots decided to allow Val Kilmer Jesus into their fold. TfT will simply distribute the proselytizing doll to true believers, you know, it will only give the toy to children whose faith is already fully developed. That’s mighty Christian of them.

Also, there’s nothing like good old-fashioned moral outrage.

Geraldo was on the TV this morning talking about the upcoming “hypothetical” OJ interview on FOX. He thinks the interview is in bad taste. Actually, he called it “disgusting.” He doesn’t feel that it’s kosher to profit off of a killer.

Am I wrong, or is this the same man who wasted hours of my life in the 80s with that whole “Al Capone’s Vault” nonsense? I can still remember my disappointment that the vault was empty. Really. This was my first real experience with hype. And boy was I let down. Sure, I’ve resented Geraldo ever since, but that’s not why it bugs me that he’s chastising FOX (his network by the way) for their OJ thing. No my problem is that at last count Al Capone, a convicted criminal, is responsible for dozens of deaths, even committing a few himself, whereas, as far as anyone knows, OJ is only responsible for two (hypothetically). Yes, neither man was actually convicted of murder, but why does Geraldo reserve his moral outrage for OJ? Because OJ’s an asshole? Probably. But “pots and kettles” Mr. Rivera. Pots and kettles.

Bill O’Reilly is mad too and calling for a boycott of the FOX Network and their advertisers because of OJ. He claims moral outrage but I think the real issue is that Bill is afraid that some actual truth might inadvertently escape OJ’s lips. Truth is Bill O’Reilly’s kryptonite.

Let me clarify something here, I think the OJ interview is in very bad taste. I won’t watch it (I won’t have to, I’ll see clips of it all over every news show, you know, so that the news outlets can vent their own moral outrage, ratings have nothing to do with it, they’ll air the clips because they simply can’t believe that someone would actually air them, it’s a logic that would best be left un-analyzed). I hate the fact that OJ Simpson is going to be paid millions of dollars for his time. But that’s the way things work. He was never convicted in a criminal court of the murders. It’s his right to profit off of his experience if he wants to. Like it or not. No one is making anyone watch. FOX also has the right to make money off this endeavor. Let’s not try to pretend like no one ever profits off of other’s misfortune. Usually we try to mask it as “____ undercover” or “the Real Story Finally Revealed” or “the Story you Didn’t Hear” of some such nonsense. “Hypothetically” is just another entry in the lexicon of “Words to Use When Profiting off of Other People’s Misery.” Sure, it’s sick and twisted, but people are sick and twisted. Don’t think so? Have you played a video game lately?

Anyway, I just wanted to update you on the “recent” developments. “Cause that’s the kind of guy I am.


Fun Fact: Michael Richards in for a world of shit. Check out tmz.com to see his racist ranting.

I’m not quite ready to give Michael the benefit of the doubt. The video is pretty damning. But I can almost see what he was trying to do. It’s almost as if he was “hypothetically” being a racist.

Oh, Michael…


Also, from what I can surmise from Mike’s blog, congratulations are in order. So congrats Mike and Jo.

I Am Full

As of Monday, I don’t need to have any more teeth filled. One more cleaning and the marathon that is my professional oral health campaign is over. I understand that this may not be all that exciting to you, but you have to understand that I’ve been going to the UCLA dental school almost once a week for the last couple months. Things move a bit slower at the dental school. The average visit is three hours. I had 6 fillings, three cleaning and two consultations. That’s almost 33 hours of fun! You would think that I had a couple root canals or bridgework done. Nope, just some fillings and a few deep cleanings.

You can probably begin to understand why I so damned excited that I’m almost done.

Plus, I hate needles, and you haven’t lived until you’ve had a dental student adjust a needle that’s jabbing you in the jaw while being guided by a supervising instructor, “okay, now, just move the needle a little more to the left, more, can you feel the bone? No? Okay, push it in a little more, why don’t you wiggle it around a little more…you know what, why don’t you just take the needle out of the patients mouth and jam it in his eye. Aw, he won’t care…”

In case you were wondering, due to the instructional “trial and error” nature of the dental school, I’ve averaged about 6 shots per visit (not during the consultations) which puts the number of times I’ve had a thin piece of metal lodged in the general vicinity of my check at about 54.

Okay, enough of that. It’s making my skin crawl. On to a slightly less aggravating subject…

OJ Simpson is going to tell us all how he “would’ve” murdered his wife and her boyfriend “if” he had done it.

Hmm.

Personally, I thought the prosecutors did a pretty damned good job of telling us all how The Juice did it the first time. But it will be interesting to hear it from OJ’s own mouth, even if it is all “hypothetical.”

This is no joke. FOX will air a couple of “specials” with OJ to coincide with the release of his book. I’m not going to make any snide remarks about the FOX network, and not only because they put food in my gut, but because I don’t blame them. It’s a good business move. They didn’t talk OJ into telling his “story.” They’ll be able to escape all this with just as much integrity as they’ve always had, the only difference is that they’ll be a hell of a lot richer (that is until the family of Ron Goldman sue them for emotional distress).

OJ’s the one who’ll look like an opportunistic monster. But then again, we already knew that about OJ. I just can’t believe that he’s more interested in having money than looking like he’s innocent.

OJ’s always been a bit on the crazy side but was he always this insane? Or do you think that the guilt of getting away with murder pushed him over the precipice?

Ah, well…hey did I mention that I don’t need to get anymore fillings?


Fun Fact: Toys for tots recently refused to accept the donation of a toy company who makes a talking Jesus doll. The doll quotes scripture and the people at Toys for Tots were concerned that the doll might end up in a non-Christian household and thus be a problem.

What TfT didn’t realize is that’s exactly what the Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Co. was hoping for. The only thing that could be better for the toy company than converting unwitting poor kids would have been if Toys for Tots rejected the donation and the story made national news thus providing free advertisement and an opportunity for moral outrage that would spur sales of their otherwise obscure product…oh.

In case you are looking for a talking Jesus doll, here’s a picture.



And if you don’t like Jesus, you can buy the doll anyway, put dirty clothes on it, soak it in gin and tar heroin and call it the “Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in The Doors” doll. Pull his string for delicious irony.

Y?!

First of all, let me say that I’m very excited about the results of the election. I’m happy that the overwhelming majority finally realized that Bush and his cronies are a bunch of idiots. Now it’s the Democrats turn to show just what morons they can be! Go Dems!

Also, the proposed cigarette tax in California failed. The proposition would have increased the cost of a pack of smokes by over $2. A ridiculously unfair tax levied on a small number of taxpayers. Yes, okay, I understand that smoking is bad (I smoke…and I’m trying to quit…there, I said it. I’m trying to quit. Happy now?!), and I approve of encouraging others to quit, or better yet, not to start smoking in the first place. But the cigarette tax as a way to make people quit smoking seemed like a plan similar to the president’s plan to “democratize” Iraq. But the proposition wasn’t greeted as a liberator and cigarettes remain “affordable” at only a little over $4 a pack. Thank goodness.

Okay, this sort of leads me to my point today. As we all know, cigarettes are the root of all of America’s problems. I mean if we didn’t have second hand smoke there would virtually be no more death! The trains would run on time. Brittany Spears could have worked things out with K-Fed. There would be no more drunk drivers, drug deals gone bad, kidnappings, rape, mental illness, air pollution, asthma (as we know, the smog in LA is made up almost entirely of cigarette smoke) and the price of a barrel of crude wouldn’t hold the country hostage anymore.

The city of Santa Monica has taken this to heart, they’ve pass an ordinance to ban smoking on their beaches, at their public areas, restaurant patios, bus stops, movie theatre lines and the Third Street Promenade (which means that since I won’t be able to advertise that I’m a smoker by…well…smoking, questionable people will no longer harass me for smokes, they’ll have to settle for loose change).

Good for Santa Monica, right? I mean, they’ve really taken the public’s health and made it a priority.

Well, on Tuesday voters overwhelmingly approved Measure Y which establishes that crimes involving the adult, personal use of marijuana are the lowest law-enforcement priority for the Santa Monica Police Department.

Yep, it’s now more illegal to smoke cigarettes on Santa Monica streets than it is to smoke pot.

No, no, I can see the logic here. It’s not like marijuana is a hard core drug. I get that. People don’t smoke pot and go crazy. It’s not like Reefer Madness out there. Marijuana is a pretty harmless narcotic (especially if you already have a relatively low amount of brain activity). I mean the only aspect of pot smoking that could be harmful is the smoke. But it’s only a plant. No one has ever been harmed by inhaling the smoke produced by burning a plant right? Besides, the smoke produced by burning a joint or lighting a pipe isn’t really smoke at all. It’s pot smoke. It comes with a really cool mellow buzz.

Here’s the key to making pot smoking safer than cigarette smoking: Hold the smoke in your lungs as long as is humanly possible.

…Santa Monica…

Fucking morons.


Fun Fact: Okay, I’m going to say something kind of embarrassing here, but it’s a fact so I thought I’d share it.

As you know, Kirstie Alley wore a “bikini” on Oprah…

…I thought she was kind of hot.

I must be getting old.

Also, I was looking on the internet to find some pictures of the Santa Monica Pier sign, I couldn’t find any good ones fast, but I remembered that I did some location scouting recently in Santa Monica, so I thought I’d throw my own picture up.

Also also, as an extra bonus, if you’ve ever wondered what it looks like under the famous Santa Monica pier…

Vote!

Go and vote today.

Oh, and while you're at the polls, maybe think about voting Democrat?

Please? For me?

I have student loans!