I’m not sure what it is about novelties that I think is so awesome. Maybe it’s the fact that there is a whole industry dedicated to making fake versions of things we’d rather avoid in their real forms, but are willing to pay for when they’re plastic or rubber. Do people in other countries buy fake barf? What would people in third world countries make of it? How would you explain it to them? “Yeah, I COULD feed an entire family in your country for three dollars a month, but I could also buy fake barf. Yeah – fake barf! You’ve never seen it? Oh, man. You put it down on the table at, like, a party or a bowling alley or whatever, and when people see it – get this – when people see it, oh man! They think it’s real, actual barf! Yeah – barf! You know, like when your body rejects the food… you… eat. Nevermind.” Whatever. They say laughter is the best medicine, so maybe we should be shipping fake barf and poop and penis-shaped ice cube trays over to Iraq. It’s cheaper than real medicine and, let’s face it, medicine doesn’t liven up a party now does it? I guess what I’m trying to say is that novelties rule.

* There are two sections in the print version of my zine (What, you don’t own it already? Buy them all here) entitled “Things That Suck” and Things That Rule,” and I’ll be bringing them into the 21st century here from now on on a marginally regular basis. Big deal.

Pounced.org is a personals site for furries.  You know – those very special people who like to dress up like animals (and oftentimes animals that don’t even exist) at hotel conventions.

Yucky.

E. Annie Proulx, writer of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Shipping News, has outed herself as a big fucking baby in Saturday’s Guardian. Proulx wrote a short story that was later adapted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana into a screeplay for some weird movie about gay cowboys, and she now feels that said gay cowboy movie was robbed of a well-deserved Oscar for Best Picture by some other movie called Crash. In a delightfully cheeky display of writerly wordplay, she refers to it as “Trash.” Get it? Yeah, it’s pretty good. What do you expect? She’s a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Anyway, her printed missive smacks of sour grapes and a lumbering dinosaur of a writer fading into irrelevance with all the style and grace of a frozen dog turd. In it, she proceeds to trash everyone from Philip Seymour Hoffman to Three Six Mafia*, a ballsy move considering the Triple 6 are some of the craziest thugged out dirty south gangsters (read: the ONLY ones) to ever grace the red carpet. Her reasons for trashing Hoffman? Check it out:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg took a little snooze cruise in the courtroom on March 1. Big deal. She’s only, like, one of nine members of the Judicial branch of the United States Government. So if she’s one ninth of one third of the government of the most powerful nation in the world, that makes her only…. let’s see… about 3.7% important. Faulty logic? You’re faulty. Fuck off.

Who could blame her? The hearings were about political redistricting in Texas which, I think, means they were arguing for hours about the shapes of the voting districts in Texas. Just typing that sentence made me nod out a little.

Anyway, the only reason I’m writing about this at all, as you might have guessed from the title, is because as a result of this would-be fiasco, the single greatest courtroom sketch of all time has been created. I will post it now for your viewing pleasure, and then I will shut the fuck up.

Yowza.

Here is an article my cousin Adam wrote about his experience going on Geraldo to talk about Indigo Children.

Running around New York for a week made me forget what the internet is all about. Luckily, all it took was a Ziggy Stardust comic book to bring it all back.

(link)

According to a February 27 press release, Arby’s has begun offering “Arby’s Chicken Naturalsâ„¢, made with 100% all-natural chicken.” What exactly does “100% all-natural” mean? Does that mean all the chicken meat in their sandwiches is now guaranteed to come from real, actual chickens that were alive at some point? Or are they actually trying to imply that the chicken in, say, an Arby’s Chicken Bacon n’ Swiss sandwich, is now going to be organic?

The press release goes on. “By starting with chicken in its most natural form, we have created a better chicken sandwich.” [quote from Doug Behham, Arby’s President and CEO] Other leading fast food companies offer chicken breast sandwiches with up to 29.3 percent of solutions made of various elements including water, seasoning (salt, spices and spice extract), oil, modified food starch, sodium phosphates.”

That’s all well and good, but they never get any more specific in the release than saying the chicken will now be “100% all-natural” or that they are now “starting with chicken in its most natural form,” which is, I can only assume, an actual living chicken. That’s very encouraging.

Interestingly (sort of), in the January 3, 2005 press release announcing the test marketing of said “all-natural chicken,” they say that other fast food companies offer chicken sandwiches with “up to 27.1 percent of solutions made of various elements…” That’s 2.2 percent less than the most current press release! Has the allowance for water, seasoning, oil, modified food starch and sodium phosphates gone up in the past year in the fast food chicken sandwiches we know and love, or is this a distortion of fact perpetrated by the Arby’s marketing machine?!

I intend to find out.

Stay tuned.

So it’s Ash Wednesday. That very special day for those very special people who smear ashes all over their foreheads and walk around like it’s no big deal. In honor of those people, I thought it would be good to take some time out of my busy schedule to think about what I might hypothetically give up for Lent if my people hadn’t, you know, killed Jesus.

1. Thinking too much about locking doors and turning off the gas on the stove.

2. Slapping my cat. This is not a dirty joke. I mean actual physical abuse to my actual pet.

3. Beer, whiskey & ginger ale, & vodka tonics. I just think it would be interesting to find out what would replace them as my regular booze drinks.

4. Meat. Potted meat.

5. Movies with any redeeming value.

6. The internet. Seriously.

7. Using mirrors.

8. Focusing.

9. Facial expressions.

10. Making noises with my mouth (the little explosion ones like “psssshhheeeeeewww”).

11. All the booger stuff.

12. Devo.

13. Umm… corn?

Who am I kidding? I don’t give stuff up. Enjoy your Lent, suckers. I’ll be watching pornos and drinking cocktails on Transgression Island.

Or maybe just sitting at my desk thinking about it.