A JOE'S EYE VIEW

An Interview With Playboy Playmate Victoria Vetri.

2012-01-19T22:39:00.039-05:00

In 1983, I interviewed actress/playboy model Victoria Vetri for Bill George's book Eroticism In The Fantasy Cinema. It was the second interview I had ever done up to that point;my first was with P.J Soles whose film credits include HALLOWEEN, STRIPES and PRIVATE BENJAMIN. The big deal for me was that I was actually speaking to a Playboy Playmate; the dream of every red blooded American boy who ever perused an issue of Playboy.

Tory,as she preferred to be called because she didn't like the name Vicki, was charming ,engaging and generous with her time. My tape recorder had malfunctioned and she very kindly agreed to do the interview over again the next evening. During our second interview, Tory asked if she could change her answer to a question I had asked concerning Roman Polanski, who directed her in Rosemary's Baby. Her original answer was," I'm just glad he's out of the country.", in reference to the statutory rape case during which he fled the country to avoid a lengthy jail sentence. She changed her reply to ," I think he is a very creative director.",which was eventually edited out of the book.

I felt a sense of sadness as I read on the various news websites the details concerning Tory's trial for shooting her husband, Bruce Rathgeb, of twenty five years because she felt he had been cheating on her. Luckily he survived, but Tory was sentenced to nine years in jail for attempted murder. The story received cursory attention but not much more than that. After all, forty four years has elapsed since her appearance in the magazine and Tory hasn't acted in films or on TV for almost the same amount of time.To the jaundiced public, it was a mildy interesting story concerning the downfall of a former Playboy Playmate to be read about and forgotten in a day or two. Such is the attention span of John and Joan Q.Public.

Here is my is my interview with Victoria Vetri from 1983.

JV: Was ROSEMARY'S BABY your first feature film?

VV: ROSEMARY'S BABY was my first feature. I got it because Mia Farrow refused to test with the actors. She didn't want to be bothered doing that menial stuff, so Roman Polanski said,"By the way, how do you look in dark hair and can you look Italian?" I said," Well, I'am Italian." He said," I'd like you to play the part of Terry Fionoffrio, Angela." I said,"Okay" and I played the part under Angela Dorian,my fictitious name. On the set one day he said," Angela, we cannot use Anna Maria Alberghetti name. Can you think of an Italian name"? I said," How 'bout Victoria Vetri?" He said," That's fantastic! What an imagination!" I said," That's my real name." He said," My God, why are you using that name of a sunken ship, The Andria Dorio?" I think Victoria Vetri has more of a -ah,what the hell,it's Italian.

JV: Was Playboy Magazine responsible for you getting the part in ROSEMARY'S BABY?

VV: No. Playboy really had nothing to do with me being in the film one way or another. Because by the time Playboy came out, I had already done the part.Because they mention that in my credits. I had twenty six TV shows,all lead parts, under my belt,plus ROSEMARY'S BABY, plus movies for TV. But they somehow made it sound like they discovered me. Which upset me at the time.

JV: Do you think that "Playboy" in any way helped your career in a positive direction?

VV: I think at one point in my career,it hindered it. I could have been a serious actress and all of the sudden it was like I was a thing,I was a commodity, I was a Bunny, I was a Playmate, and I played nothing but hookers. The types of roles that I went up for were not serious parts. I mean, I'm not saying that you can't play a serious hooker. Look at what Jane Fonda did in KLUTE. It's changed a lot. I was one of the first actresses to do Playboy. Then Claudia Jennings did it after me. I was very close to her and felt great remorse when I lost her in a car accident. I had to entertain that night. I had to sing with a rock group and I couldn't go on stage when I found that out. We had to give people their money back. Claudia and I did a film together called GROUP MARRIAGE. She was a superb actress who was coming into her own and she was a loyal friend. A very creative lady. And I think she was one of the best friends I ever had. The only person I got close to through Playboy and it was a big loss.

JV: From what you told before this interview, I guess you're one of the few people actually born and raised in California?

VV: Very few. I mean, when I used to bartend between acting jobs I say," I'll give a free drink to any native Californian who can prove they're a native." And I was the only one in the bar.

JV: How did you get the part in WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH?

VV: HAMMER(HAMMER FILMS, the English studio that produced a number of horror classics from the 1950's through the 1970's) located me through my agent. They had just done a film with Rachel Welch called ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. They'd seen me in some film,some magazine,it wasn't Playboy, and they said ," Let's do a test on her." I was obligated to Warner Brothers at the time and Francis Ford Coppola did a test of me running through the backs of the lot with a tiger bikini on panting and grunting,flaring my nostrils. Then we did another thing with me singing in front of a sky background with my guitar. They sent the test to London and Aida Young,the executive producer said," Send her over." It was shot in the Canary Islands and at Shepperton Studios. It was about six months work. It took a year and a half for the film to come out. By the time I got to the Bahamas to see the film they couldn't show it, because the color matching was all wrong. So it took two years for the film to come out. It won an award for best special effects.

JV: Did you find it hard reacting to imaginary dinosaurs?

VV: Yes, but I got used to it. I have a great imagination. After a while, they gave me a focal point. They'd say," Look up here" at this guy on a ladder and I would pretend like I saw this imaginary thing. I could see some rushes where they were putting in animation.

JV: In a book titled " HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR," there are stills from WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH which show you in the nude. Where these stills from scenes that were deleted from the version shown here domestically?

VV: No. These were publicity shots. Because once Playboy found out they were in the Canary Islands doing a film and I was scantily clad, they sent a photographer over there. They said," We'll pay you x amount of dollars to do stills because this would be good for our article Sex in the Cinema I said," Ok." Two weeks after we were there,the director(Val Guest) left his wife. He was sleeping with the script supervisor. It was like you could have made a movie within a movie. Everybody was screwing around. People were skinny dipping, drinking sangria instead of tea at four in the afternoon,getting drunk on their asses and it was like party time. Three or four in the morning they'd say," You have to be up at six for a sunrise shoot? Let's stay up all night!" The sad part was when we came back to England and there the wives are, they've gotten letters from their husbands that have fallen in love on location saying," It's over. It was getting old anyway." Here's the wife pouting and holding the child in hand as he gets off the airplane.The director, Val Guest, comes off the plane arm in arm with the script supervisor who he fell in love with and ended up marrying,by the way. So it was like a little mini soap opera. Because you throw these people together and the English are wild and crazy once you get them in a loose environment. But to watch them drop their facade of properness and say," Ah, I'm free." Of course, having a California girl around didn't help because I was the first one to drop a loincloth. And all the girls between shots were getting a tan. After a while it didn't faze anybody.When you're all sitting around half naked it doesn't matter That was quote "a family". I'm still getting letters from a lot of people I worked with on that movie. When the film came to an end they were crying," Oh,I don't want you to go back to America. Stay in touch." That's the closest I've ever come to a family situation working with a film company.

More with Victoria Vetri in part 2 of my interview coming soon.

Lorissa McComas: My Final Thoughts.

2011-07-19T22:55:00.035-04:00

It's been almost two years since the tragic,untimely death of Lorissa McComas and in the past few months I've received several emails concerning her demise. So, let me take a few moments to tell you about this beautiful, charming woman who like the rest of us mortals had her flaws.

In 2006, I was assigned to interview Lorissa for a fledgling publication called Baltimore Flavor Magazine. I say fledgling because although three issues were published,none of them ever saw the inside of a book store or the shelves of a magazine stand . Instead, boxes of Bill George's pet project remain in the basement of his house to this very day;a towering monument to his arrogance and ignorance.

Anyhoo,I interviewed Lorissa because she was going to go to court because her son Tristan was going to be taken away from her. The Child Protection Services Department of Melbourne, Florida considered her an unfit parent due to her activities in the adult entertainment industry. My job(and an unpaid one at that) was to get her side of the story.

Naturally,as a writer I was interested in such a topical and controversial story. I felt the readers of Baltimore Flavor Magazine would find the piece both compelling and riveting. At the last minute, Bill George(a man without a back bone), jettisoned the article because he felt it was too controversial and preferred to feed his readers pap and pablum they could easily swallow as opposed to giving them something they could sink their teeth into. When he uttered the words," Trust me.", I rolled my eyes in frustration and threw my hands in the air. The man is a timid shit heel.

Knowing this was a story too powerful not to publish, I put it in my blog and to be honest, I expected quite a bit of response. I was rather disappointed that I received no comments what so ever about my article. However, after Lorissa died on Nov 3, 2009, I began getting emails from people concerning her death. It is my understanding that she died after suffering a long illness. When I talked to her in 2006 she claimed to be afflicted with RS Dystrophy. Lorissa told me that her legs were a bumpy mess and that she needed a wheelchair to get around.

There is, however, another story circulating that Lorissa committed suicide with a gun after finding her brother Rene dead in her apartment. It seems Rene had stopped taking his Aids medication. This story appears to be more likely since Lorissa's husband Doug owned a handgun. Trying to pin down the facts is rather difficult because both versions of the story are circulating around in cyberspace. Which one you choose to believe is totally up to you.

About six months later, a girl contacted me by phone and wanted to me to interview her about the incident where Lorissa was accosted by a group of people demanding money or they would "beat her ass". She not only was there during the confrontation,but lived in Lorissa and Doug's house for a period of time. This person also claimed to be there when the Swat Team came to take their son Tristan into protective custody.

This girl rambled on for an hour about what is was like living at Lorissa and Doug's house.Unfortunately, she didn't paint a very pretty picture. Lorissa did not shine resplendently by her accounts. She even described Doug as "a pimp who lived off of Lorissa's money". When I mentioned that Doug reportedly found Lorissa's body when he came home from work, she gasped with surprise and said, "He has a job?"

I originally intended to use this information in my blog because I felt this was a story that needed to be told. But the more I thought about it and the more I listened to the taped interview, I came to the conclusion not to print it. For one thing, Lorissa is dead and can't tell me her side of the story. And why tarnish her image in the eyes of her fans? I'm not about to hurl dirt on a woman now deceased; to me that is yellow sheet journalism of the lowest common denominator. I refuse to descend to that level.

Just let me say that when I interviewed Lorissa in 2006, I found her to be a charming and forthright individual. Yes, Lorissa may have had prescription drug dependency problems and she probably wouldn't have been a candidate for Mother of The Year (if what this women told me is true), but none of that matters anymore. Lorissa had more than her share of trials and tribulations in her brief lifetime. Let her rest in peace.

Another Nail In The Coffin of My Pathetic Love Life.

2011-06-08T22:06:00.007-04:00

The picture on your immediate left is the place where my pitiful excuse of a love life resides. I visit there often to remind myself that no matter how hard I try, the elusive relationship I so badly desire is so far out of reach.

Perhaps my instincts are off kilter when it comes to women. Not just slightly off kilter mind you,but completely out of whack and in need of serious realignment. Recently I had met a women who I thought liked me as much as I did her, but instead I ended up getting the shit end of the stick. You know,business as usual for me.

Case in point: two weeks ago at the casino where work I met a female patron named Lynn to whom I felt an immediate and powerful attraction.I took one look into her soulful, brown eyes and knew I had to get to know her better. So, we discussed getting together for a cup of coffee and she gave me her number.

A few days later we talked on the phone and I became even further infatuated with Lynn; we talked about art and music during our long phone conversation. Lynn was articulate,bright and has(or supposedly has) two law degrees. We even attended the same high school;talk about co-incidence! Lynn said she found me fascinating as well. As far as I was concerned this girl was the total package: brains and looks. We decided to change our date from simply coffee and conversation to dinner and conversation to get to know each other better.

Then on Sunday I got a call from Lynn( I was home sick with a vicious head cold) who asked if we could change our date from Thursday to Friday. I agreed and she said to call her on Tuesday so we could talk some more. In the back of my mind however, something didn't seem quite right. In my past experience with women, when a women makes those kind of changes it usually means she's having second thought about going out with me.

I started suspecting that Lynn might cancel on Friday as well. I don't know why but I can sense these things. Anyway, I called her on Tuesday and got her answering machine. Again I felt something wasn't quite right. Well, I was right! When I came home from work, there was a message from Lynn saying that she changed her mind about going out with me. She cobbled up some half assed excuse( I've heard this excuse before so could have to recited it along with her) that I listened a few seconds of before angerly hitting the erase button on my phone. If that miserable c**t expects me to feast on her banquet of bullshit,she has another thing coming. I may be many things, but being stupid is not one of them. I saw this coming from a mile away.

Then to simply leave a "not interested" message on my answering machine instead of talking to me personally shows cowardice on her part,not an attractive trait. As far as I'm concerned, her mealy mouthed speech was just an excuse and a feeble one at that. Proof positive the attraction was never a two way thing. I was in it by myself. Lynn either didn't like my looks or thought I was too short or whatever. So f**k her. It's on to the next one; whenever that magical day occurs.

It's my belief that Lynn called me on Sunday not knowing I was home sick and it was her intention to leave a "kiss off" speech on my answering machine at that time. When I answered the phone she then pretended to change the day of our date, preferring to dump me when she wouldn't have to deal with me person to person. One of the things I despise is a cowardly person; someone without character. Lynn is that type of person.

In closing, there is one nagging question I have about her: if Lynn really has two law degrees why is she unemployed? The legal field is always looking for people to fill key positions and yet she lives in her parents house without a job. Curious indeed.

Saw 3D: More Gore. More Sadism. More Of The Same.

2010-11-12T22:35:00.009-05:00

I've gotten to a point in my life that when a horror film contains gore just for shock value or to gross out the movie goer is the type of film I don't find entertaining. Now before anyone thinks of me as the kind of person who favors G rated Disney films and "chick flicks", let me just say that I am a fan of George Romero's 'Night of The Living Dead' series. I also liked horror films such as 'Re-Animator', 'Don't Open The Window'(British title:'The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue') and 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' to name a few.

However, the horror films of today strive to out do one another when it comes to brutality and sadism. Forget the concept of mood or atmosphere; the horror film maker of the new millennium wants to sicken and disgust the audience to the point to where they almost throw up their popcorn. Sadly enough, some of today's movie goers would probably consider vomiting up their concession snack during the movie(and expensive snacks at that) as "audience participation".

Which brings me to 'Saw 3D', the sixth installment in the Saw franchise. This film is so relentlessly bloody, so over the top in it's savagery that there were a couple of times I was sorely tempted to leave the theatre. My reason for staying was purely a financial one; I payed $12.00 bucks to see it and I wanted to get my money's worth, no matter how repellent I found this movie to be. What I wanted is to be scared.What I got instead is an exercise in sadism and dismemberment. This,alas,is today's horror movie.

The plot revolves around a survivor of Jigsaw, Bobby Dagen, who has written a book about his experiences. Dagen has created a support group of fellow survivors, but he has a secret: Dagen was never a victim of the dreaded Jigsaw. He capitalizes on the real victims ordeal in order to advance his career as a successful self-help guru. Meanwhile, an ex-detective named Hoffman is kidnapping and torturing victims for his own reasons using Jigsaw's time tested methods.

As in the previous six 'Saw' outings, the plot has more twists and turns than a mountain road,but by now the film seems to be convoluted just for the sake of trying keep the audience guessing as to what will happen next. The convoluted plot lines by this time are bordering on the ridiculous, the incredulous and this is a blatant insult to the audience's intelligence.

You can almost sense the filmmakers desperation, because for this sequel the use of 3d is employed as blood, entrails and body parts are splattered in the direction of the viewer in an unflinching manner. Yes, this is thought of by today's hip purveyor's of horror films as entertainment. Perhaps for some but not for me. I want,no demand, outdated elements in a horror film such as suspense and atmosphere. Let my imagination create the horror and the dread that a talented filmmaker can allow me to do. Don't just shove sadism, cruelty and gallons of gore down my throat and expect me to find it frightening.

The dumbest scene in the film is when Hoffman goes to the jail where Saw's wife is being held, intent on killing her(you'd have to have seen 'Saw IV to know the reason why. I didn't). He single handedly murders everyone who gets in his way before offing her. I was amazed,if that's the proper word to use,that the police station was so sparsely populated that Hoffman could achieve this act with relative ease. Once again the filmmakers tried to insult the audiences intelligence. I myself could not believe how moronic this scene was and once again almost left the theatre. But I stayed. You could say I was a glutton for punishment.

But I can honestly say, without reservation, that I won't be seeing anymore 'Saw' sequels. This series no longer appeals to me and I don't wish to witness endless scenes of unrelenting carnage while being told by the filmmakers that this is what horror movie fans like myself want to see. The problem with the 'Saw' franchise is that by now it has become rather long in the tooth, bereft of fresh ideas. Let's hope they and Lions Gate get the hint and pull the plug on this tired, thread bare series before the next installment ends up playing to mostly empty theatres.

Digital Journal Fired Me. Big Deal!

2010-09-15T23:29:00.011-04:00

Today I received an interesting email from Digital Journal's editor, David Silverberg. He stated that my articles would no longer be accepted because of formatting problems, and his staff having to constantly correct my grammar.

Of course, this is a huge hit to my ego as a writer, but it seems strange that all of the sudden this has become an issue. Especially since I've written articles for his web site since 2007. But let me take some time to dispel a few of Siverberg's myths about the quality of my writing.

As for my formatting errors: yes a few of my articles do have them,but most of them don't. I tried to contact Silverberg about this problem and the fact is that I changed my email address over a year ago and never received a reply from him. How can I fix a problem when no one provides me with a solution? I spent a lot of time trying to remedy this and,lo and behold, I finally got it right with no help what so ever from that arrogant dick Silverberg.

As for my grammar: I never received any complaints from him or anyone on his staff until I had he unmitigated gall to ask him why I received no increase in payment for two articles that received ,between the two articles, 4 "like it's" from their readers. At Digital Journal. if their readers rate an article with a "like it" vote the writer gets a certain amount of money. It's not a lot of money;in fact it's a pretty paltry sum considering the 28 articles I've contributed over the past three years.

So Davey boy, if there were any concerns why wasn't I ever contacted? Oh,that's right,I was unable for over a year to change my email address and your lame ass never contacted me. Talk about an inability to communicate! And you have the nerve to give me f**king attitude? And then,when you finally fix my email address, you fire my from your poorly paying website? Go pack sand up your ass,dildo face!

Hey Davey, if my writing was not up to your lofty standards why did you praise my article about Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton saying it" stood out for it's strong opinion and quality writing". Oh, and here's another example: you stated(your words,not mine) about my review of PIRATES 3: STAGNETTI'S REVENGE " :" Joe Vannicola gave a PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN-themed skin flick the Ebert treatment with a well written review". So now my writing sucks. No, my writing sucks because I had the nerve to ask you about payment for my articles,you smug,smarmy asshole of the highest order.

And as for his staff having to correct my supposedly bad grammar, my introductions to part one and part two of my interview with actor Dan Butler were rewritten with no explanation as to the reason why. I've never had anything else rewritten in all the time I've been with Digital Journal, so why all of the sudden was there a problem? What say you, Davey boy?

I noticed when you sent me a "you're fired" email, you made sure I couldn't reply back to you. What the matter, Davey? Are you such a gutless,yellow little coward you were afraid of what I'd say? Or that it might hurt your tender feelings? Maybe you're afraid I'll drive up to Canada and stick my foot so far up your candy ass that when you open your mouth my shoe falls out? Nah,your mangy assed,pompous self isn't worth the effort. However,if this is true you should buy yourself a pair of balls for Christmas. Or in your case, Hanuka. You should even think about going back to school to learn how to properly communicate with people. And one more thing David Siverberg, you suck!

Addendum: I just had a thought. Since Digital Journal is on Face Book, shouldn't it be renamed Dildo Face Book in honor of David"Dildo Face"Silverberg.? I think it's a keeper.lol

Bill George:Red Hot Planet and Beyond Pt 4.

2010-06-17T23:08:00.009-04:00

So anyhoo, Baltimore Flavor Magazine, another one of Bill George's money making schemes,not only set him back about fifteen grand,but as I write this, boxes of the magazine can be found in the basement of his home never to see the light of day.

The shitty part is: not only did I not get paid for my work, but once again that total control freak George rewrote all of my articles. As I read each issue of his vanity mag,it was extremely difficult to control myself; I really wanted to punch his weenie face for treating me with such flagrant disrespect. His favorite boy Steve Vertlieb wouldn't have been treated as shabbily. That's only because Bill George has little or no respect for me and has never considered me his equal when it comes to the art of writing.That pompous,self congratulating asshole!

His next big attempt at the ever elusive fame and fortune was to help finance a micro budgeted,shot on video turd fest titled Hallows Point. He has vehemently denied investing in this unreleased(or is it unreleasable?)clunker made by an obscure filmmaker named Jeffrey Lynn Ward. George claimed that they gave him the title of executive producer because he was such a big help on the production. Yeah. Right.

Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of film knows that the executive producer is the one who ponies up the dough to finance a movie. In this instance, it was three misguided cretins who threw their money at Ward's amateur night excuse for a film. George once again tried to cover his ass,so he doesn't come off looking like some doofus who foolishly squandered his money on another loser of a project. But he did. If I didn't have such contempt for George,I'd feel sorry for him.

George even went that extra mile by going on several horror websites and horror conventions touting Hallows Point as a great film that was destined to be the next big horror movie. On one website, George (under the pseudonym BGeorge238)claimed that " I'll bet the farm this film prompts a franchise." Now, how in the hell can a film prompt a franchise when the first one hasn't been released. It was completed in 2007 and here it is in 2010 and still no takers.But you can't blame George for using such aggressive campaign tactics,he wants to make his investment back!

A couple of years ago when I talked to George,he was animated about his newest project:3D television.He and a group of people were going to shoot films locally, then show them on television using this new and radical 3D process. To me this was just one more lofty pipe dream for him to foolishly toss his money at, for him it was the wave of the future;the opportunity of a lifetime.

You see,Bill George is a dreamer. His dreams are as big and as grand as they come. Dreams that will bring him riches,that will bring him fame. The only problem is,they're never grounded in reality. And that's a big problem. But on the bright side,he has several tax write offs at his disposal.

As an addendum: two years after discontinuing Red Hot Planet, George told me he was thinking about restarting the web site. Imagine the egotism of that dick! Doesn't he realise that once you break the momentum of something, it's hard,if not impossible, to regain that momentum? Oh no, not Bill George. In his special, delusional, little world, there are tons of folks who are patiently waiting(with baited breath,of course)for the return of their favorite horror web site. Is he an ego surfeited asshole or what?

Bill George: Red Hot Planet And Beyond. Part III.

2010-06-08T22:52:00.008-04:00

After spending two years working on his web site Red Hot Planet, Bill George simply ended it without any sort of explanation. Which was unfathomable to my mind because of all the time and money George lavished on a project he truly believed would bring him the money and the fame he's been chasing in vain for over thirty years. The main disappointment for me was that the money I supposed to receive for my hard work was never to find it's way into my bank account.

Steve Vertlieb, in an interview for a web site called Demon Child, grandly stated(probably in lofty,pear shaped tones)," The web site(Red Hot Planet)has fallen into a creative crevasse." My explanation is more blunt and to the point: Bill George became bored with Red Hot Planet and shoved it aside in order to pursue another pipe dream,er, I mean project. This has been a pattern for as long as I've know the putz: start something, grow tired of it and move on.

The arm chair psychologist in me thinks that deep down, George is afraid of success and when something he's involved in starts to gel or come to fruition, he quickly drops it and then develops something new to devote his money and energy on until the new project looks like it'll become successful;then the vicious cycle repeat itself. Or to be succinct: George does everything half assed because he's a half assed excuse for a human being. Oh well, I think it's as good an explanation as any.

Bill Georges next great idea was to publish a magazine which combined sports and women called Baltimore Flavor Magazine. First flaw: Bill George is one the least likely people you'll ever meet to be involved in any sport. Unless sitting at a computer for hours on end ever becomes one,then he 'll be able to enter The National Nerd Olympics. George can't even muster up enough physical energy to mow his own lawn; he hires someone else to do it for him. What a lazy f**k!

Yet, he felt eminently qualified to publish a sports magazine. Okay then. Whatever. Now here comes another fly into the ointment: the women interviewed and featured in Baltimore Flavor were currently starring in an up and coming low budget horror films. One issue(there were three in total)had an article on two bit filmmaker Rolfe Kanefsky and even had a two page pictorial of Kanefsky looking very much the director on the set of his latest tinker toy epic. Now, why would anyone with a tinge of common sense publish a two page photo of an overweight director wearing a baseball cap in a sports and women magazine? Now it had morphed into a sports,women and horror movie magazine.

When I did my interviews, Bill insisted I ask each actress what her favorite sport was in order to justify her inclusion in a sports magazine. I liken it to publishing a magazine about cats and then interviewing monster truck owners, but during the interview asking them if they owned a cat. George sincerely believed such editorial decisions would insure that his wonderful magazine flew off the shelves . The only way that would ever happen is if the magazine stand is outdoors and gets broadsided by a wind storm.

Welcome to Bill George's special little world, a place where his ideas are so original, so radically unique that everyone will excitedly jump on his latest bandwagon and embrace his dream without hesitation. This is how egotistical and arrogant the prick is; you'll love his idea because he thought of it.

Now here's the topper: He decided to distribute the first issue gratis without advertising. What? How was he going to make any money on this venture? This is where George's peculiar brand of logic comes into play; the following issues would contain ads and then the reader would be charged.(As you can see, George thought his latest brainstorm,more like a light drizzle if you ask me,was going to be highly profitable.)

Well,the second and the third issue had no advertising either and for reason unknown, all three issues contained in large boxes, ended up in his basement undistributed . Now if you do the math,each run of the magazine costs about five grand. So, George has approximately $15,000 worth of paper rotting in some dank corner not generating any money. Great business acumen, huh? Don't expect to see his picture on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine anytime in the near future,or ever for that matter.

However, all is not lost; if George ever runs out of toilet paper, he has boxes of it in his basement and it's called Baltimore Flavor Magazine. It's expensive toilet paper to be sure, but at least it'll end up serving some useful purpose.

To be continued....the final installment.(Whew)

Bill George: Red Hot Planet And Beyond. Part II.

2010-06-04T22:25:00.012-04:00

It was during my unpaid tenure at Red Hot Planet that another one of Bill Georges annoying traits reared it's ugly head; he is an unbridled control freak. George thinks he's God's gift to the auctorial arts, his talent as a writer is unparalleled and that there are few writers of his caliber.

In his conceited mind, George considers himself to be The Gold Standard when it comes to writing. More like fools gold if you ask me.His is a stuffy,pompous, pseudo professorial writing style that looks down at the reader while at the same time pretending to be one with them.

He once bragged to me that he never writes without consulting his Thesaurus. How pompous! What a pretentious fop! A Thesaurus is an aid for a writer, not a f***ing crutch! Big words are meant to add color or heft to a writers work, you don't write the article or book around the big word or the fancy phrase, that's both pretentious and insulting to the reader.

Bill George doesn't care because he is on a mission to intellectually impress you and everyone else he meets. Unlike his parents, who spoke like the regular working class people they were, George speaks with the cadence of a highly educated man with a doctorate of some sort. Nah. He has a liberal arts degree which in some cases isn't worth the sheep skin it's printed on.

I know of what I speak because in the late 1970's, I had a friend who graduated with a liberal arts degree. The reason for this decision was actually kind of stupid; a guitar player in one of his favorite bands, Hot Tuna, had a liberal arts degree, so he thought getting a liberal arts degree was a good idea. See? I told you it was kind of stupid. Anyhoo, following graduation my friend found it extremely hard to get a job with his measly degree. One company executive told him that as far as he was concerned, a liberal arts degree meant four more years of high school.

Eventually, he did land a good paying gig, but the company ended up sending him back to school to add to his rather flimsy college education. Now in George's case the soup thickens; his liberal arts degree is in screen writing. Yeah, there sure is a lot of demand for screen writers in Baltimore, Maryland. Is Bill George an arrogant dick or what?

Because of George's penchant for rewiring my work and then having the balls to tell me I should be grateful for his improvements, I began referring to him as The Bard Of Baltimore. (Just as an aside: I didn't know until a year or two ago that this appellation was actually given to that writer/genius Edgar Allen Poe. I used it as an derisive insult to self proclaimed genius Bill George,a self impressed prick if ever there is one.) I even went on several IMDb message boards to disown any of my interviews that George saw fit to completely rewrite using that special auctorial magic only he,that Wizard of Words, can provide.

Although George treated me like a talentless hack, whose sole talent was turning the tape recorder on and off real good during an interview, he did consider at least one writer to be his equal: Steve Vertlieb. They met while in college and since Vertlieb sports the same writing style as George:professorial and chocked full of big words and purple prose phrases. It's saying to the reader, "Look at how well I write,everyone!"

They're like two pretentious peas in a pod.It's as if George believes that he and his boy Vertlieb sit atop Mount Parnassus as both of them look down on the rest of us writers with bemusement and contempt.

George once told me that the reason he never,ever rewrote Vertlieb's articles was because " They're perfect just the way they are." I wish George had treated me with the same respect and equality as he treated Vertlieb. To be honest, to this day I resent and dislike Steve Vertlieb for this reason. The sad part is,it's not his fault; it is Bill George who created this atmosphere of resentment and anger that I feel. Was it purely accidental or Machiavellian in design? Only Bill George knows and he's not one to be wedded to the truth.

However, at one point I won a small victory: after one of our arguments, George went to one of his friends as well as The Red Hot Planet's webmaster JB, showed them my article and asked," Isn't this terrible? Doesn't it need rewriting?" They both replied," There's nothing wrong with his article, it's his style." I would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall for that: imagine the look on Bill Georges face,egg splattered all over, as his delusions of superiority were dashed before his eyes. It felt really good to win for once and have George put in his place, if only temporarily.

To be contined..... I ain't done yet.

Bill George: Red Hot Planet And Beyond.

2010-05-27T23:28:00.013-04:00

There comes a time when you have to cut a so called friend loose. Especially one who lies to your face constantly and yet,when you later confront him with the the truth, thinks this particular trait makes him cute and endearing; part of his charm. The kind person who'll stick a knife in your back and then justify his actions without conscience.

I'm talking about Bill George, a world class liar who presents himself to the world at large as a successful writer and agent. In reality, he is dreamer and a loser whose grandiose ideas have a way of ending up as permanent residents on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. And George has been dancing this fandango of failure for over thirty years while I've occupied a front row seat, witnessing his various schemes and endeavors eventually crash down around him . Ignoring the previous train wreck, and not learning a damn thing from it, he simply picks himself up, dusts himself off and it's on to the next big idea.

But no matter how many failed ventures George has involved himself in, he keeps pushing on hoping that one of his starry eyed dreams comes to fruition and makes him both rich and successful. Unfortunately, he is neither. He lives in a modest home left to him by his parents and,seeing as how he doesn't hold down a full time job, probably lives off of money that he inherited. His mother once told me," He has stars in his eyes." While I'm sure there have been those in his life who have attempted to bring Little Billy back down to earth, he sees things as he wants to see them; not as they are. George is like the eponymous character in The Beatles song Nowhere Man,only he's despicable rather than pitiable.

When I first met George over thirty years ago, at first glance I was impressed as I overheard him on the telephone discussing various film and book deals with supposed movers and shakers in the entertainment industry. Eventually, I came to discover George made these Pie In The Sky deals with people of his similar ilk; fellow dreamers who talked big, but couldn't deliver;much like George himself. Hell,they couldn't deliver a quart of milk if they owned a dairy truck.

Now to be fair, George actually is an agent. However, he's not as well connected in the film industry or as high powered as he presents himself to his clients who just happen to be young, pretty women with little or no acting experience what so ever. George is in reality a bottom feeder;a tiny,microscopic,insignificant amoeba who'll get his trusting clients parts in micro budget,straight to video turd fests that will do zip,zilch nada,squat for their careers. After these poor schmoes figure out this little fact of life, they kick George to the curb. Unfazed, he simply goes out and finds some other starry eyed dreamer who'll buy his line of bullshit hook, line and sinker.

When I punt kicked this sleazy, smarmy little dick out of my life in 1993 after hanging me out to dry(I had written an article for a French magazine and never received payment for it)I had no intention of ever seeing him again. However, my mother died in 1999 and when I found out that George's mother had died a few years later, I empathised with the emotions he was going through and feeling that my friend needed me, I reconnected with him. I found out, much to my eventual disappointment, that George remained a backstabbing,lying,scheming creep who hadn't changed one iota. He was still smarming and sleazing his way through life,using people in order to achieve his grand and lofty dreams of fame and fortune.

The ironic thing is, George once complained to me that he's losing his friends and yet can't seem to fathom the reason for their departure. Surely it can't be anything he's done. He's so honest, dependable and truthful. Yeah, and I just won the Powerball! If integrity was money, George wouldn't have enough to buy a gumball.

In 2004, I began working on Bill George's web site Red Hot Planet. And so began two years of being rewritten without my permission, having to fight George tooth and nail to leave my articles alone,being promised payment for my work and yet not seeing one damn penny, in addition to other equally shitty deals that went down during that period. All engineered by that ego maniacal piece of shit Bill George.

To be continued.....

The Big Lie At Delaware Park.

2010-02-11T17:40:00.007-05:00

There is is thing that I've learned in my many years in the work force: management lies.Especially when it comes describing it's workers. At Delaware Park the upper management seemingly takes a dim view of the slot attendants. We're never quick enough,friendly enough or fast enough when it comes to the patrons. If the patron is demanding,insulting or downright rude, we're to smile,be insanely cheerful and take it. Well, not me. If some jerkass patron treats me as if I'm a pile of horseshit, I won't be rude or nasty, but I won't fawn all over him and pretend to like it either. That's not in my job description.

Which brings me to what happened in November. I was having a really crap crappy day when I was called over to a jackpot by slot control on my radio. As I approached the patron, he was calling and waving me over to him the same way you would call a cat or dog. Since I'm not a domesticated pet(at least the last time I checked I wasn't), I didn't appeciate this guy's rude behavior. I explained that he didn't have to call me because I had already been contacted by slot control. I paid him his money and he gave me at tip.

Well, one of the upper management muckity mucks struts over to me and asks why I wasn't nicer to the patron. I explained my side of the story and was given a lecture about how being nicer to the patron would help increase our tips( which have gone down dramatically since the machines have been programmed to pay out at $1200.00 as opposed to $400.00 and up).

I thought this was the end of it until I saw a posting at one of the cash booths that went like this: A customer hit a $1600.00 jackpot turned, saw an employee a few rows away and called out for assistance.(Lie number one: I was heading in his direction after being called on the radio and wasn't standing around with my hands in my pockets playing a rousing game of "pocket pool".)The employee responded but did not show a sense of urgency or congratulate the player on their win. Instead the employee proceeded to "explain" to the customer that there was no need to call out for an attendant because one would be sent by radio. (Lie number two: to reiterate, what I actually said was he didn't have to call out to me because I'd already been contacted by slot control.) Needless to say the player's mood changed,they lost a considerable level of excitement and did not tip the employee.(Lie number three: I received a $5.00 tip from Mr.Rudeness.) This missive full of falsehoods ended with the admonition that if I had rushed over and joined in on the celebration, the patron's level of excitement would have continued and the potential for the employee to receive a tip would have increased significantly.(But I did get a tip. Remember?) The letter ended with a stern: THE ABILITY TO CHANGE THESE TRENDS IS IN OUR HANDS.

The funny thing is that the upper manager who took time out of his busy day to write a lecture to the slot attendants about good customer service used to work at another casino as head of the security department. What? He's never worked as a slot attendant, has never had to put up with rude,demanding and impatient patrons and he's climbing up on his high horse to pontificate about what he considers good customer service? Unf**king believable!

The bald truth is: no matter how nice you are to the patrons or how much you do for them,some tip and some don't. Unless of course,you're ready to vigorously kiss their ass and that's something I'll never do. End of story. I do my job and I do it very well without bowing and scraping to anyone. I don't remember signing a paper when I came to work at Delaware Park agreeing to leave my dignity and self respect at home.

The real pisser is that the lie was repeated at a recent Town Hall Meeting when a slot attendant dared to raise the issue of the lowering of our tips. One of the upper management at this meeting went into a tirade about how the slot attendants don't show enough enthusiasm when paying off a jack pot(I guess he expects us to run over whooping and hollering while clapping our hands in excitement. Yeah. Right. Like that's ever gonna happen.).

Of course, the story of how a sweet and wonderful patron was mistreated by a mean, nasty slot attendant was dusted off and offered up as proof as to why the slot attendants tips were low. As this sorry sack of lies was regurgitated once more,the entire room erupted into groans of disapproval. Too bad the real story didn't get equal time.

If I didn't need my job and didn't give a shit in a bucket as to whether I got fired or not, I would have gotten up, walked up to that little bastard, called him a liar to his face and then told the roomful of employee's what actually happened.

In other words:the truth.

The Raw Deal At Delaware Park.

2009-11-06T10:30:00.002-05:00

As of last week it became official: I work for a sweat shop. You see, for about the last year a rumor had been making it's way around Delaware Park about how the management intended to raise the jackpot pay outs on the slot machines to $1,200. This mean the tips(and our paychecks) would decrease dramatically.

Naturally, one always hopes such rumors are untrue, because tips have always been a part of our salaries. Well, the management, without ever actually telling the slot attendants a damn thing, did this dirty deed to us . Oh, we received a letter from the head of the techs apologizing for what he called "a miscommunication". But to me(and many others) it was nothing more than a page full of typical management bullshit replete with crocodile tears; they knew damn good and well what they were doing to us and didn't care.

The upper management knows they've got us over the proverbial barrel;the economy is the shitter right now. Jobs are scarce, so we've got nowhere to go except the unemployment line. Upper managements lousy, stinking attitude is: Like it or leave. So they can do to us whatever they please; we slot attendants are merely numbers to them and nothing more.

And most of the slot attendants are totally pissed! To quote a co-worker," We'll now be working for McDonalds wages." However the well paid management doesn't give a pinch of shit about our shrinking paychecks. They continue to receive their fat paychecks while those in the slots department with families and bills are forced to take second jobs. In other words, they'll be working twice as hard to make up the difference. It's damned unfair.

This particular point was driven home to me on Monday when seven bus loads of customers came to Delaware Park. At the end of the day I was sore and tired from running around servicing the patrons for eight hours. I came to the realization that I was working harder for less money. I felt taken advantage of and it sucked big time.

The worst part is that management could have easily waited until January to make the change. It's no skin off their ass for them to have postponed the severe drop in our paychecks. Oh well, Merry Christmas to us!

Now your most likely thinking," But what about their union,Local 27? Won't they come to their members rescue and right this terrible wrong?" Yeah. Right. That lousy, lazy, lethargic group of turds, the bastards who sold us up the river during the last union negotiations to this date have done, zip, nada, nothing, zilch, squat. What a great union, huh? They're too busy patting themselves on the back for the shitty contract they negotiated for us five years ago to bother helping us now.

Oddly enough, some of the slot attendants are beginning to rejoin the union in a last ditch attempt to regain some of our lost power. As one co-worker said to me," It's us against them." But as I've mentioned before in a previous blog titled " Why I Quit Local Union 27", it is a weak, ineffectual, impotent union. A union is supposed to be the lion that looks out for it's members welfare. Our union dues were going to support a fat,lazy lion without claws or teeth who does nothing but lay around all day. Nowadays, said lion is on life support gasping and wheezing for breath. But who knows? Maybe the union membership will dramatically increase and the union will become more powerful than it has been in years. And in turn they'll be able to right this grievous wrong done to the slot attendants.

But I'm not going to hold my breath on this one. And neither should anyone else for that matter.

Why Internet Dating Sucks.

2009-04-10T00:15:00.017-04:00

MICHELLE EVANS 78, My Nigerian Sweetheart. Yeah. Right.

I'll confess, in my quest for a soul mate I've had more than my share of misadventures. The way things have been going for me, I feel as if I'm some sort of "loser magnet". And with each passing year that feeling is becoming stronger and stronger. I've dated or have been involved with alcoholics, insane woman,women saddled with more baggage than a luggage store, or who have more issues than a magazine stand and at least one welfare cheat. Am I a "loser magnet" or what?

In 2002 after I finally got onto the web, I discovered a number of Internet chat sites and dating services. I was under the somewhat naive belief I would be meeting all kinds of available women because,after all, the world wide web covered a lot of uncharted territory; somewhere out there women of my dreams was waiting for me.Hoo boy, was I in for a jumbo sized surprise. And not the pleasant kind of surprise, either.

My first Internet sweetheart(if you can call her that) was a woman named Sue(chat room non de plume: Busy Mom67) whom I met while surfing AOL's chatrooms. After a brief cyber encounter, I called her on the phone and our conversation began at twelve noon and lasted until between eight or ten that night;if memory serves me right. We both agreed there was a connection and after a week of long, heartfelt talks we decided to meet at a mall near Philadelphia since she lived in Hellertown, Pa and I lived in Newark, Delaware.

Upon our first encounter, I presented Sue with a bouquet of roses as a token of my affection. As we conversed over lunch at an local restaurant Sue suddenly got a call on her cell phone. Sue told me that she had to go home immediately but never said what the reason was. Being the sensitive soul that I am, I said I understood and we promised we'd meet again.

Well(you knew there was a "well" coming up didn't you?), she made and then proceeded to cancel each and every meeting we were supposed to have over the next few months. Now, I'm a patient guy, but after half a year of this asinine horseshit I finally asked if Sue was interested in me or not. Sue said that we lived too far away from each other(two hours to be exact) and that she wasn't sure how she felt about me. When I reminded Sue about her claims of having feelings for me, she replied," They're just words."

Let me tell you, I felt like I'd just been kicked in the teeth. Sue had been stringing me along me for the entire time, so I immediately stopped all communications with her. It's a shit shame the way some people play with your heart and then cut you loose after they've had their fun. Oh well, at least she never asked me for any money.

Which brings me to someone I made the acquaintance of on Yahoo who goes by the moniker of Michelle Even78. This was a few months ago, but the relevance will soon be made clear to you.I began an IM correspondence around November of last year with this person who from the get go acted as if she were my girlfriend and that we were destined to be together.

Now here's where things get kinda sticky. First off, Michelle claimed to be an American living in Nigeria where she made a living as an interior decorator. She also told me she was from Baltimore, but was currently working on a decorating project and would be returning to America when the assignment was over.

There was something about her that didn't quite gel as far as I'm concerned. From the get go I smelled the proverbial rat, so I mentioned how much I liked Baltimore's Inner Harbor. She stopped IMing me for the evening. Still, I kept corresponding with her just to see how far Michelle was willing to go with her deception.

Although Michelle sent me her picture I don't think, in fact I'm damn sure, that she's not the woman in the picture. You see, when I downloaded her picture into the "my pictures" page, there in the corner of her photo was a caption that read: Computer Models. So Michelle is probably grossly overweight and homelier than a beat up shoe or she just might be a guy. The mind boggles as the stomach turns.

During one of our IM conversations, Michelle mentioned that her birthday was coming up and she needed $400.00 for a dress. She wanted me to send her the money, even though we barely knew each other. Thus began a weekly ritual of Michelle asking me for various amounts of money. During the Christmas holidays she asked me to send her $750.00 for plane fare in order for her to come and visit me.

Now, maybe it's just me, but don't interior decorators make a lot of money? Here she is constantly crying poor mouth which leads me to believe that Michelle is either a world class liar or is the most incompetent interior decorator in the world whom no one would hire even as a joke(personally, I suspect the former). As far as her wanting me to finance her visit, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts if I had sent Michelle the money, once the cash reached her grubby little paws she would have disappeared like a thief in the night. And I would have been $750.00 poorer.

In hopes of squelching Michelle's constant wheedling me to send her cash , I pretended to be flat busted broke. Of course I'm not, but I hoped this would encourage her to stop asking me.You know, you can't get blood from a stone. But she kept trying. Oh boy, did she keep trying.

Then the final shoe dropped: one day Michelle wanted to know what bank I used and even had the unmitigated audacity to ask me for my account number. I told her it was none of her business and that's when Michelle wrote to me" Why won't you give me your account number?" We've been together for six months." Wait one freakin' minute! Our only communication was IM messages with each other and she thinks we're in a relationship? Yeah. Sure we are.

I immediately logged off of Yahoo and removed their chat site from my computer. And with that, I once again put another notch in my loser belt. People like her I can well do without. Maybe I should just get a dog instead.

What She Says Vs. What She Means: Breaking The Code.

2009-02-12T23:42:00.016-05:00

There's an interesting phenomenon when dealing with women, there is a code they employ where something that is said ain't exactly what it means. I've come to believe that women really believe in their heart of hearts that we men are stupid beyond human comprehension and will swallow whatever bullshit they dole out. In the interest of helping all of you guys out there, here are some helpful morsels of info you need to know to guide you through the male/female relationship jungle.

1. When she says,"It's not you,it's me."

Bullshit. Hey guys,take it from me;it is you. I discovered this little pertinent fact in a 1994 issue of Playboy magazine. In 1995, when I dated a women named Helene,(or Crazy Helene as she was christened by the people where we both worked) she dumped me saying I wasn't good enough for her(for a fuller account of the entire mess, check out my earlier post entitled "My Misadventures In Romance." At one point while she was kicking me to the curb, Helene said," It's not you, it's me." I was both pissed and yet somewhat fascinated. For her to entertain the idea for even a nano second that I'd buy her feeble assed< comment showed me just how pathetically stupid she thought I was. It also pointed out to me how incredibly crafty and intelligent Helene thought herself to be. Sorry Crazy Helene, you're not that smart. Not by a long shot.

" I'll call you."

So you're talking to this woman whom you're attracted to and you ask for her phone number. She says," Give me yours and I'll give you a call." Dude, that's a no brainer. She's not gonna call you! You've been shined on. You'd have a better chance winning money from a scratch off lottery ticket. And if you really, really think you'll hear from her, boy, expect to wait for a very looooong time. At least until eternity ends, to be exact.

Let me think about it."

Ya know, once upon a time when I was more positive type of fellow, I really thought in my heart of hearts that when a women said those very words she actually gave the matter some thought.Yeah. Right. Recently I heard that particularly phrase recited to me not once, but three times within a years time frame, so I'm now hip to the facts: the broad wants nothing to do with me when she says that. End of sentence.

It first began with woman I know at work named Dawn. She's decent looking, but to be blunt, I wouldn't be kept nights fantasizing about her, if you get my drift. However, Dawn considers herself to be her families gift to us poor,miserable, undeserving men. Okey. Whatever. Anyway, I asked her out on my birthday because I thought it would be nice to have a date while celebrating my natal day. She said," Let me think about it." Well, I didn't see her again for about a week after my birthday had passed and incident was never mentioned again.

The next time I heard those five discouraging words was when I asked someone named Sherri out a few months later. Naturally the two of us never dated, so that was that. Now, you would think I would get the message at this juncture. Oh no! Not me, Mr. Optimistic. I'm still looking for the pony in the horseshit. The only problem is that I'm up to my ass in horse dung with no pony in sight.

The third time this crap occurred was when I asked a co-worker named Connie out on a date. Again, I got that same old, shopworn expression. This time,though, I had a different reaction; I thought that maybe she was just playing hard to get and I decided to pursue her. Big, big mistake. Connie eventually told me point blank that she wasn't interested in me. It's a good thing I didn't waste too much of my precious time on the likes of her. So now the jury is in folks; "Let me think about it"actually means: "I don't want to go out with you. No way. No how."

Now that I'm armed with this knowledge, the next time I hear those words of discouragement I'll simply tuck my tail between my legs and crawl away like the dog that I am. I enjoy a challenge, but I also know what a brick wall is and I'm not going to beat my head against it.

You know, when I told someone I was going to write an article about the code females use(as opposed to simply telling us men the truth), their reaction was," Don't do that. People will think you're being angry and bitter." Hmmmm.....Let me think about that.

The 2009 Anti-Valentine's Day Hatenanny!

2009-02-12T23:15:00.013-05:00

Welcome to my Anti-Valentine's Day Celebration where hostility and anger reign supreme. On this saccharine day of the year those of us who are lacking a significant other are forced to endure "cute couples" as they walk hand in hand,gazing at one another all google eyed with stupid,sappy expressions on their miserable love struck faces. I wanna grab a shovel and smack the both of 'em upside their slap happy heads.

People who have yet to find their "soul mate", "love of their life", "special person" (feel free to add your own sickeningly syrupy sweet phrase.That is if you have one and then proceed to cram it up your ass with an air compressor) find Valentine's Day interminable at best and sadly depressing at worst. I intend to exorcise my demons of loneliness by railing and decrying against a day that if I had a special someone I would be celebrating with instead of ranting and raving. So in place of a Valentine's Day Hootenanny, welcome to my 2009 Anti-Valentine's Day Hatenanny. Let the hostilities begin 'cause this is season when hate turns me on! And if I'm in the same, unhappy situation next year, be prepared for another barrelful of belicose bitching from me. Crapppy Valentine's Day!

Hallows Point:The Scariest Movie You'll Never See.Yeah. Right.

2008-12-17T00:04:00.015-05:00

If you believe all of the fake hype generated by one BGeorge238, you'd think Hallows Point is a potentially great horror film in search of an audience. To quote a few of his zestier comments :" I'll bet the farm it's the sleeper of the year"," The U.S enthusiasm for Hallows Point has proven quite infectious" " and " The movie is likely to prompt a franchise."

Words of lofty praise which take on a whole new meaning when you discover that BGeorge238 is in reality Bill George,executive producer(that means one of the films investors) of Hallows Point. Naturally he hopes the movie will rake in big bucks; he wants to recoup his investment! Duh!

The Hallows Point movie website appears to look interesting until you actually watch the trailer, then you're left with the distinct impression the film is a,cheesy, micro budget rip off of Nightmare On Elm Street. The problem here is, a cool looking website does not make for a good film. If producer George really did bet the farm on this stinker,his property may soon end up in foreclosure.

This tinkertoy film is the so called brain child of filmmaker Jeffrey Lynn Ward, someone you'll probably never hear of and your life won't be the poorer for it, if truth be told. That being said, Hallows Point isn't Ward's first time in the directors chair. In 1993, this wannabe filmmaker lensed a movie titled The Dwelling starring 80's scream queen Michelle Bauer.

Well, it sat and sat and sat amassing cobwebs and dust for a ton of years. In an article for the website Evil Dread, Bill George, under the pseudonym Arthur Jefferson(Stan Laurel's birth name), made the grandiose claim that the film was unreleased due to legal problems. Knowing as I do from personal experience George's aversion to the truth, it's more than likely Ward's movie blew out the ass and reeked with such a foul stench that no video company would touch it with a ten foot pole.

But our intrepid filmmaker did not let this bump in the road to cinematic immortality deter him.In 2007, Ward cobbled up a few more bucks, got Michelle Bauer to work for nothing(save for airfare and lodgings) to shoot a prologue and an epilogue. Yet,no surprise here,even after he gussied up this turkey with the added footage and gave it a snazzy new title " Black Reign", the video companies still weren't lining up around the block to add this turd fest to their roster of current releases. As the saying goes: You can put a dress on a pig,but it's still a pig.

The astounding thing is, even after Wards maiden voyage sank without any fanfare, he somehow he managed to procure investors for his next effort, Hallows Point. P.T Barnum sure was right: There's a sucker born ever minute.

Ward also procured Bill George as not only one of the films investors, but as it's main promoter/cheerleader. George even inserted an untalented actress, Allexus Young, into Hallows Point.Young literally has all the emotional range and depth of a plastic doll. Watch her pitiful, one dimensional performance in ARACHNIA and you'll see what I mean first hand.She's little more than a beautiful face and figure who can't act her way out of the proverbial paper bag.

Since George serves as her agent, in addition to his duties as associate producer,she got a rather large part in an even larger dud. As you can see, Bill George's carbon foot prints are all over this unreleased(or is it unreleasable)belly flop of a movie. Note to other filmmakers:If you want your film to be a success, don't let Bill George anywhere near your set; even chase him away with a wooden baseball bat if need be. He's a one man modern day version of the plague.

Hallows Point was officially finished in 2007. However here we are on the cusp of 2009 and Mr.Ward's opus remains in a state of cinematic limbo. No video company has yet to release the film. And next year doesn't look very promising either. I hope Bill George had enough sense to use this as a tax write off.

Despite Ward's and George's continued optimism for a big release and even bigger financial pay day, Hallows Point might just suffer the same fate as Black Reign; never to see the inside of a video store. Unless of course, either Ward or George carries a copy of the DVD into the store with them.

RIP Forrest J. Ackerman: A Childhood Hero Has Died.

2008-12-08T23:46:00.018-05:00

Last week, one of my childhood heroes, Forrest J. Ackerman, died at the age of 92. He was the unofficial leader of a group of baby boomers now known as Monster Kids. Even at the age of fifty four,I still proudly consider myself to be one. During the late fifties through the 1960's we were exposed to the Universal horror classics of the 1930's and the 1940's via television. We also enjoyed the American International drive-in treats from the 1950's, the infamous Hammer Studio horrors,not to mention the many other genre films available to TV stations,while munching on potato chips and glugging bottles of soda(root beer was my soda of choice).

And if merely watching films were not enough to slake our thirst for the weird, the fantastic, there were monster toys,monster trading cards, monster shaped candy, 8mm home movie condensations of monster movies and last,but surely not least,were the monster magazines. Most were run of the mill(the notable exception of course being Castle of Frankenstein edited by the notorious Calvin Beck.),but the one magazine that stood out from the pack was Famous Monsters of Filmland,which was later shortened to Famous Monsters. But to those of us loyal readers it was simply referred to as FM. From the colorful,eye caching covers to the pages chockful of information and entertainment,it was fifty cents well spent as far as the devoted Monster Kid was concerned.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher gave our class the assignment of naming those men and women we admired most. My classmates and friends chose sports figures, military heroes or people who performed acts of supreme bravery. You know, the usual suspects. The two people who I wrote about were Boris Karloff and Forrest J. Ackerman. Naturally,I received a razzing from my fellow classmates for what they considered as odd choices for heroes.

My defence was:Boris Karloff was one of my heroes because at the age of eighty years old, wearing a leg brace and breathing with only half a lung, continued to act in movies because in his words," I want to die with my boots on." As for Forrest Ackerman, I reasoned that he brought so much pleasure to people all over the world though his work as the editor of a magazine called Famous Monsters.

It all began at the tender age of eight when I watched The Outer Limits on television and discovered a science fiction world of monsters, space ships and interplanetary exploration. Quite an experience for one so young. The following summer, I watched Voodoo Island starring Boris Karloff on one particularly hot afternoon(the reason I was indoors that day) and from then on was hooked on horror and science fiction movies.

One day in a pharmacy I was browsing the magazine section and spotted a periodical called Famous Monsters of Filmland. I was so enticed by the rendering of Bela Lugosi as Dracula on the cover that I purchased it immediately, thus beginning a fourteen year relationship between myself and Famous Monsters.

Many was the time I would buy the latest issue,reading the contents voraciously as I walked home.Each issue was an event that I eagerly waited for each month.It was a world of imagination that inspired me to read the works of Edgar Allan Poe, H.G Wells, Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker. People like Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Sr and Jr., Bela Lugosi became household names to me. And I was even allowed to take a peak behind the cameras at some of these movies as they were being filmed. All of this wonderment was at my disposal for a mere sawbuck. The man responsible was Forrest J. Ackerman or as he was known to millions of fans:Uncle Forry

In 1974,on the eve of my twentieth birthday I packed my things and headed to New York City to spend the weekend at The Commodore Hotel where I attended the first Famous Monsters Convention. There I was, green as an ear of baby corn, all by myself in the Big Apple and I had a blast.I made some new friends,watched classic horror films,wandered around the various dealer rooms and sat in the hotel lobby with fellow genre movie lovers talking about films til the wee hours of the morning; among other interesting actives I engaged in during that magical weekend.

And I finally met Forry, the man who had guided me through the mystical world of imagination. I remember after eagerly unpacking my bags and heading for the convention, entering the darkened room where the publisher of Famous Monsters(some say scoundrel),James Warren, was giving the attendees a welcome speech. As I glanced to my left I suddenly noticed I was standing next to none other than Forrest J.Ackerman, my childhood hero! There I was, suffering from a severe case of "tongue tied disease". I couldn't even manage to squeak out a pitiful,"Hi Forry" and sadly watched as my idol made his way to the stage where he would speak to the roomful of Monster Kids. Later on I finally met Forry and even had him autograph my convention souvenir book.

Eventually, I stopped reading Famous Monsters because as I was growing up, the magazine remained in a state of juvenile limbo. James Warren's motto from the first issue was " I'am twelve years old. Make me laugh." Well, I was twenty two and needed articles that had more depth, more intellectual content than Famous Monsters was offering. Hell, the magazine was even beginning to feature lame brained fiction. This however was engineered by Warren;Forry had nothing to do with this sad state of events. Thus, my love affair with the magazine came to an end and I moved on.

Years later,in 1995, I saw Forry again at a movie convention in Baltimore. It was there I told him just how much he and Famous Monsters meant to me when I was kid. As I delivered my verbal love letter to him, Forry had the look of of a proud father whose son was giving him heartfelt praise; he seemed genuinely touched he had such a positive influence on someones life. And I know for a fact I wasn't the first person to say this to Forry, but it came from the heart. As were similar proclamations that came from the untold number of Monster Kids who ever picked up an issue of Famous Monsters.

As I say goodbye to Forry Ackerman, I'm also saying a sad farewell to a part of my childhood. Goodbye Forry,you were the Uncle some of us always wanted but never had. And although you were an atheist, let me just say in the words of Jimi Hendrix: If I don't see you no more in this world, I'll meet you in the next one.

Disco Donna and Her Friend Fat Cathy

2008-06-12T23:14:00.010-04:00

The year was 1979 and I worked at Delmar Photo(a photo developing lab) as a delivery driver. As far as jobs go, it wasn't a bad gig; my route covered the Delaware/Pennsylvania area and all in all I had my share of interesting experiences during the six years I was employed there.

One day, two girls fresh out of high school (Donna and Cathy) were hired to work in the lab.Although at first they didn't know each other, both girls quickly struck up a friendship though I couldn't figure out why because they were completely opposite: Cathy was obese and unattractive while Donna was a total stunner. When together they appeared to be a female version of the Odd Couple.

Cathy claimed she ran track in high school,but I seriously doubted it. With her ample girth,I imagined Cathy majoring in home economics instead where she more than likely scarfed down every one of her culinary creations.But in her mind,she was a real looker any man would desire. Oh well, let her have her illusions, because between her extreme corpulence and a disposition that was miserably caustic,I didn't consider her much of a catch. Except of course if you find fat,nasty women irresistible,then Cathy would definitely be the girl for you.

Donna, a cute confection, was acutely aware of her external beauty and carried her herself as if she were the most beautiful woman in the room. Upon our first meeting, she let me know in short order that she would never go out with me because I wasn't her type. And I had yet to ask her out. Talk about an inflated ego! To be honest, I found her to be unbearably vain without a brain in her head. Sure, Donna knew about monumentally important topics like fashion and make up.However,subjects such as politics or current events went right over her well coiffed but empty head;so I had no real attraction to this preening Barbie Doll who had looks but no substance.The nickname Disco Donna was bestowed upon her because of her passionate love of disco music,which enjoyed a burst of popularity during the late seventies/early eighties. She was the type of person who would mindlessly bebop her way throught life.

As to the reason for this mismatched pairs close friendship, it was a matter of simple deduction:Donna didn't consider Cathy to be any sort of competition when it came to the opposite sex. Whenever they hung out together,the guys who were attracted to Donna wouldn't have given Cathy's fat ass a second glance. While the guys who gravitated toward Cathy were realistic enough to know that a babe like Donna was totally out of their league and wouldn't have given them the time of day.

Now,except to exchange pleasantries with the both of them when at work, I never had much to do with Donna and Cathy; which brings me to a rather unpleasant incident that occurred. One day, I began getting irate phone calls at home and work from Donna's boyfriend accusing me of having an affair with her behind his back. Threats were uttered and I began to worry. One of my co-workers,an illiterate hillbilly named Rocky, taunted me about what Donna's boyfriend would do to me when he got a hold of me.

This went on for a couple of weeks and at one point I said to Donna," Why is your boyfriend threatening me? You won't even go out with me!" Eventually Cathy and Rocky admitted they had played a prank on me,laughing all the while. Cathy was laughing so hard tears of mean spirited merriment poured down her jowly, pig like face. I didn't find their cruel joke the least bit funny and from that day on I despised the both of them. I mean, what the hell did I ever do to them to deserve the despicable prank that was played on me? Years later when I read Rocky's obituary in the newspaper I thought to myself " So f***ing what." I hated that little hillbilly prick anyway. To me, his death meant there was one less piece of white trash walking the earth.

As far as Cathy concerned,I eventually had my own private laugh at her expense. After not having much success with men,she finally found someone who would put up with her,I mean, love her. His name was Mike and was introduced to her by a mutual friend and co-worker Cliff. He was a cartoonish looking fellow;picture Icabod Crane with a huge adams apple and a galumphing walk. One day, Cliff informed me that Mike hadn't seen Cathy for two days because he was avoiding her. It seems he wanted to break up with her but didn't have the intestinal fortitude say anything because Mike was afraid she'd beat the shit out of him. Cliff swore me to secrecy, so being a man of my word I refrained from throwing this juicy little morsel in her fat face. Something I would have derived extreme pleasure from doing.

In the end, he continued dating her(I wonder what feeble excuse he gave her explaining his two day absence) and they eventually married. It's more than likely Mike came to the conclusion that Cathy was the best he would ever do, so better to have her than nobody at all. Or perhaps he still harbored fears Cathy might go ballistic and beat him up, so he did whatever was necessary to avoid incurring her wrath. Ah! What some people do for love. Or to keep from visiting the Emergency Room for that matter.

And although I never saw them after leaving Delmar Photo,(if I never set eyes on that miserable cow ever again there will be no void in my life,that's for sure) I did run into Donna The Magnificent. I was married at the time and my wife managed the GNC vitamin store in the Christiana Mall. By co-incidence,Donna happened to be working as a clerk at a music store called Wall To Wall Sound. You always knew when Donna was on duty from the thump da da thump of the disco beat(now called Dance Music) which emanated from the stores sound system. Donna presumablywas getting herself pumped up before hitting some dance club after work to boogie oogie oogie into the wee hours of the morning.

One night as I waited in front of the GNC store for my wife to get off of work, Donna happened to standing a few feet away from me and was talking to a friend about her recent wedding. She prattled on about the gown she wore,what kind of shoes she had on, how hot she looked ect,ect,ect. Not once, however, did Donna ever mention anything about the groom.It was all about her(naturally). You would have thought she had married herself;a Dennis Rodman of the eighties if you will. And although I know differently,well,anything's possible.

The Death of A Childhood Friendship

2007-12-07T02:36:00.002-05:00

It's a rather ironic thing about friendships, especially the ones forged during our childhood. They can end at a moments notice and for a variety of reasons. It is at the same time sad,yet also inevitable. My childhood friendship came to a sudden halt because of something as insignificant as a football.

I met Billy Glennon when we both attended St.Peters parochial school and the two of us immediately became friends. Then Billy and I discovered that we lived in the same neighborhood. We hung out at each others house and even joined the Cub Scouts together. Along with another friend of ours, Brad, and my brother Mike,we got involved the the sort of shenanigans kids are prone to do.

On one of our excursions, our party of four went to The Wilmington and Western Railroad station(an old time steam locomotive exhibit)where we discovered quarters, dimes and nickels that had fallen out of visitors pockets. Afterwards,as we greedily counted our bounty of coins, Billy was upset that we'd found more than he did. He thought this was unfair and so did we, so Brad, Mike and myself without hesitation gave Billy a portion of our money so that we'd all be even. After that minor tragedy was averted, our happy little group found it's way to a delicatessen where we indulged in chocolate covered cupcakes and bottles of soda.

Billy moved away about a year or so later because his fathers job required that the family relocate to another state. I didn't see him again for five years. When I did, our reunion would be less than joyous.

It was during my junior year, I found out that Billy would be a student at St. Marks and was slated to play on the football team as a quarterback. I was delighted because I'd be hanging out with my friend again. I couldn't wait to see him. One day,I was in the cafeteria when I saw him walking down the isle. I got up from my table and went over to greet him, my hand outstretched. Billy never even looked at me. He simply whisked past me; it was as if I wasn't even in the room. It both hurt and sucked at the same time. Why would my friend treat me as if I were a non person?

Wait a minute-I think I've got it- he was a hotshot high school jock, while I who was not athletically inclined was a nobody; someone to be ignored or ridiculed. You see, in high school there is a certain hierarchy that still exists today in these supposedly enlighten times. The jocks are regarded with awe,exalted to an almost god like status because they can f**k with a football or f**k with a basketball.Those who aren't athletes can either function as their hangers on or be considered as "outsiders". I sure as shit never wanted to be a "hanger on". How demeaning that would have been. I'd much rather be an "outsider" and keep my individuality.

When I was in high school the outsiders were called either "dicks" or the ever popular(with them,not us.)"sissy dinks". One time, I was having lunch with some friends where we just happened to be sitting at a table one row over from where Billy and a group of fellow pig skinned brained pricks happened to be. They overheard our conversation and were groaning, rolling their eyes and making uncalled for comments. Naturally,we ignored their ignorant behavior. But if the same thing occurred today, I'd march right over to their table and tell them in no uncertain terms," Our conversation is none of your f***ing business. So f**k off, assholes."

I'd like to take a moment to mention that Billy had two sisters, Colleen and Sheila, who also attended St.Marks. Now,they had been students at St.Peters as well, but since they were two gawky, skinny little girls, both of them pretty much went unnoticed by me during those years. By the time they hit high school,both of them had developed quite nicely,thank you very much. They were referred to as the Glennon Babes by the male populace of St Marks because of their gorgeous faces and knockout bodies. I know for a fact that many a hormone charged teenage boy at my school had fantasy's about them. These girls could have easily had successful careers as models once out of high school. I'll go even further than that to proclaim that Colleen and Sheila could have perhaps gone on to pose as Playboy Centerfolds, much to the delight of the male alumni of St. Marks. Yes,they were that hot. A couple of years after graduating high school, I read in the newspaper about Colleens impending marriage and that she was studying to be a nurse. I thought her career choice was a terrible waste of a drop dead pretty face and a killer figure.

Anyhoo, Billy during the next two years of high school never once spoke to me. Our friendship was now a thing of the past. After a while I ceased to care because he became mind over matter. I didn't mind because he sure as hell didn't matter. And although I haven't seen him since St. Marks I still have not forgiven him. If I were to run into him somewhere, I wouldn't as much as give him the time of day. We're not friends anymore;the two years he ignored me in high school completely erased any friendship we ever had. There are definite do's and don'ts when it comes to friendship. And just because he could kick a football a f***ing mile was no reason for treating me so contemptuously. You don't do that to your friends.

An Apology Is In Order.

2007-08-27T00:35:00.001-04:00

Since I started my blog back in February of 2006, I have endeavored to make it as entertaining and informative as possible. And although I have tried to check for spelling errors it had recently come to my attention that many of my posts are dotted with misspelled words. Let me apologize and let anyone who reads my blog know that this error is being remedied as I write this to you. I should have proof read my posts more thoroughly and for that I am very sorry. Although I do refer to my dictionary, there are those times I assume I've spelled a word correctly without double checking. As the saying goes: When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me(truer words have never been spoken).

What galls me is that I pride myself on being a professional writer. Sure, I haven't made any money on it as of yet,but I do put my best foot forward when it comes to my writing. However, sloppiness is a key factor here as well as an inattention to detail.

Now that I've found out where the spell check icon is, there should be no more misspelled words. Again, for those of you who have read my blog with any regularity please accept my apology.

My Misadventures In Romance:The Day Crazy Helene Kooked Out.

2007-08-18T00:37:00.004-04:00

Let me step up to the plate and confess to you, when it has come to a few of my previous relationships with the fairer sex, there's been a time or two (maybe even three or four times as far as that goes) when I haven't used my best judgement. Loneliness, desperation,the need for affection have driven me to seek the company of women who were totally wrong for me. You know the drill, any port in a storm.

This can said about Helene. The best word I can use in describing her is psychotic.If I had employed rational,clear thinking instead of going with my heart, I could've avoided a whole world of insanity that I was more than willing to put up with.

We met when I was working as a telemarketer at a company called Dial Direct. From our first meeting there was an unmistakable chemistry between us. And although a a co-worker named Doug once warned me about becoming romantically involved in the work place ( his advice was: Never meet your honey where you make your money.) I turned a deaf ear and followed my heart instead. Considering the eventual outcome,I should've followed his advise to the letter.

The first thing about Helene that I considered rather off putting were her racist views. When ever she mention black people the N word was thrown about with disturbing regularity. One time, I mentioned that I like getting a little tan during the summer. Helene replied humorously,"Don't get too tan or I won't go out with you." But it was the way she said that remark which me feel as if she really meant it,all kidding aside. This alone should have set off an alarm in me to drop her like the proverbial hot potato and find someone else,but I just ignored it. My rationale was that just because Helene was a frothing at the mouth bigot was no reason to stop seeing her.You know,live and let live,to each his own;ect,ect.Proof positive that loneliness really does make us throw our common sense right out the window.

Then on top of that were her outbursts. Little things she would say or do that made me question her sanity. At the time I didn't have a car,so Helene would drive me to work and back home.One day on our way to work Helene,for reasons unknown, appeared to be agitated about something. When I asked if anything was wrong,she simply brushed it off. Then, without any provocation Helene began talking about "goggle heads", how they should be put into a room and have their heads cut off. She shouted," F**k 'em all! Kill 'em!"

As you can imagine,I was shocked by this outburst. But the worst was yet to come. At one point,Helene fished a half smoked cigarette butt out of the ashtray, lit it and began puffing away nervously. Suddenly, she took the steering wheel and began zigzagging her car across the two lane highway before finally composing herself. Helene said she was sorry and the remainder of our trip was uneventful. But I don't mind telling you that I was unnerved,as well as being a little scared, by her unexplained psychotic behavior. This was one thrill ride I surely did not enjoy: Helene's Tunnel of Insanity.

Now at this juncture, most men would've run away from her screaming. You know, thanks for inviting me to share your insanity, but no thanks. Not me. I chose to view her actions as quirky and colorful. For some unfathomable reason I still wanted her as my girlfriend.

Then came the beginning of the end. It was the New Years Eve of 1994 and we had made plans to go out to a party that evening. While we were at work, Helene all of the sudden announced that her mother was in critical condition at the hospital. She said she was going to see her,so she had to cancel our New Years festivities. Naturally I understood,even though her manner was strange. The way she darted her eyes away from me and her nervous mannerisms as she talked made me suspect Helene wasn't being truthful with me.

When we saw each other the day after New Years I asked Helene how her mother was doing. She replied vaguely," She's okay,I guess." Wait a minute! Hold the phone! Helene's mother was supposedly in the hospital practically at deaths door and she guess's her mother is "okay"? Something fishy was definitely going on. I didn't want to know the truth, so I never pressed the issue although in the back of my mind I felt Helene had been with someone else that
evening.

It was on Valentine's Day,that special,romantic day, that Helene kicked me to the curb. She bluntly informed me that I wasn't good enough for her,but she still wanted to be friends. I could not freaking believe it. I let her rampant racist comments go unchallenged. That day she had her manic episode during our drive to work I passed it off as a quirky occurrence. I willingly and charitably put up with her foibles yet Helene considered me to be beneath her? Unbelievable!From that day forward we co-existed at work amicably if distantly.

Helene eventually was fired. She had this annoying habit whenever a co-worker, especially a black co-worker,would tap or touch her on the shoulder to ask a question of leaping out of her chair shrieking," Don't touch me! I don't anyone to touch me!" This lead to the people in the office to refer to Helene behind her back as "Crazy Helene" and "Crazy Girl" while I had the dubious distinction of being known as "Crazy Girl's Boyfriend". Cute, huh?

Anyway, following several repeated insane outbursts, Helene was called to the office to be told her services were no longer required. And although I was at lunch during this bit of day time drama, I heard from many sources that after Helene was fired she said sarcastically to the supervisor(an African-American)," I never liked working with you f**king niggers anyway." So with that parting salvo Helene was gone from Dial Direct. Way to go,Helene. Way to go.

Although I never saw her again after that day(and am I thankful), several years later I bumped into one of my co-workers,Alicia, who had an odd encounter with Helene. Alicia was selling real estate and Helene called her up out of the blue wanting to purchase a house with money her father had left to her in a trust fund.

Poor Alicia. She spent an entire afternoon showing Helene different houses that were for sale. After few days passed, Alicia contacted Helene inquiring if she was interested in any of the properties that had been shown to her. Helene said that she decided instead to buy a house directly from one of her friends rather than deal through a real estate agent. When Alicia,who was a seasoned real estate agent, advised her against this course of action,Helene replied vaguely," Oh, I know what I'm doing."

And that was that,until a day or two later when Helene called her back. But it wasn't real estate Helene was interested in. She wanted to know if Alicia wanted to go to a movie with her that evening. As you can imagine Alicia was livid;she spends an entire afternoon showing Helene prospective houses only to be blown off by her in the end and now she's inviting Alicia to the movies. Alicia's response was far from polite. But what can I say? That's Helene for you.

Sex Offender Faces Possible Lethal Injection.....Here's Hoping.

2007-03-08T22:23:00.002-05:00

Hey people, check out the loser on the left. He's John Couey and this specimen of dogshit kidnapped, raped, then coldbloodedly murdered nine year old Jessica Lunsford in 2005. Couey entered the Lunsfords home through an unlocked door,abducted Jessica and took her to the trailer where he lived(ironically located literally meters away from the Lunsford home). After sexually molesting the girl,Couey stuffed Jessica body into two plastic garbage bags where she died from asphyxiation.

What boggles the mind is that fact that Couey, a convicted sex offender,slipped under the radar by not bothering to inform the authorities in the Florida town of Homosassa that he had moved into the area. According to his record, Couey was accused in 1978 of grabbing a girl in her bedroom, placing his hand over her mouth and kissing her. In 1991,this pervert was arrested on a charge of fondling a child. Sounds like an upstanding pillar of the community,huh?

Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but if I ever found out that this kind of morally bankrupt slime bag was infesting my neighborhood; I'd welcome the deviate by whapping him upside his sick, twisted head with a wooden baseball bat. It might not do him a whole hell of a lot of good, but I'd enjoy it immensely.

Circuit Judge Richard Howard will be the one who ultimately decides whether Couey gets a life sentence(also known as three hots and a cot for life) or the death penalty. With sentencing to begin next Tuesday, Couey's lawyer had a psychologist testify that he suffers from mental illness and metal retardation. Oh com'on now, you mean his lawyer couldn't come up with a more original defense than that? Why not play sentimental violin music as he attempts to muster up sympathy for his degenerate client?

Maybe the jury will be predominately comprised of the kind of people I refer to as the boo hoo hoo for the criminal crowd. Not only will they make sure that Crazy Couey will be comfortably ensconced in a cell for the remainder of his worthless life, they'll probably insist one of the guards put a mint on his pillow every morning. We can always hope the jury shows him the very same brand of mercy he showed his victim instead.

Couey, probably acting on his lawyer advice, is playing the part of the mentally unbalanced murderer to the hilt; he sways slightly in his chair while staring with a crazed expression for the benefit of the jury and the media. Hey Couey, you're not fooling anyone! This is your big moment to make the jury (whom you hope are criminally gullible) feel pity for you so that they'll hand you a life sentence, thus sparing your perverted ass death by lethal injection. Lethal injection? This piss poor excuse for a human being should be shoved up against a wall and without the benefit of a blindfold put to death by a firing squad. When an animal begins to attack humans, it's put to death. Well, Couey is no better than an animal and ought to be treated in much the the same fashion.

However, a positive accomplishment has come from this terrible tragedy : Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, became an activist who lobbied for tougher laws which will monitor sex offenders more carefully. His efforts came to fruition when Florida lawmakers enacted "Jessica's Law mandating longer prison sentences and lifetime tracking via global positioning devices for sexual predators convicted of molesting children under age 12. This landmark ruling is the reason other states are introducing tougher legislation on sex offenders. Enacting such laws will certainly make it harder for child predators like Couey to corrupt and possibly end the lives of their potential victims.

Introducing Alexxus Young : The Next Queen of Hip Hop. Not!

2007-03-01T22:37:00.001-05:00

Alexxus Young is among the many beautiful women in this world who believes that she is the next big star. I've met Alexxus(real name Chris) on a couple of occasions during my two year stint at the website Red Hot Planet and can honestly say except for her physical appearance, she didn't exactly make much of an impression on me. She came across as vain, self absorbed and very impressed with herself. I didn't particularly care for her type when I was younger and I find myself even less patient with women of her ilk at the age of 52.

Oh, she manages to earn a living doing local modeling jobs in Baltimore, but this rather narcissistic young lady considers herself a serious actress,despite never having taken an acting class and appearing in a handful in locally filmed, low budget movies. Some, which as I write this, remain in a state of cinematic limbo as they await a video distributor to release these micro budgeted, backyard epics to the public at large. But Alexxus ,with her feet firmly in the air, thinks of herself as a seasoned thespian who has mastered the craft of acting. Yeah. Sure. And I'm going to play guitar with Korn on their next world tour.

As far as her talent is concerned, I once heard Alexxus attempt an English accent and had to bite my tongue to keep from bluntly informing Little Miss No Talent that it was the worst sounding accent I've ever heard. Oh, she can't sing for shit,either. One time, I phoned editor Bill George and got his answering machine only to be treated to her tone deaf rendition of a Christmas song. For a moment,I thought a cow had wandered into Bill's office, turned on his answering machine and began mooing into it. Yes, she was that bad.

Alexxus(Chris) is another in a long, inexhaustible lines of wannabes. You know the type: I wannabe an actress. I wannabe a singer. I wannabe famous- it just goes on and on and on into infinity. Yet, she has nothing in which to back up her ambitions with. She's simply a beautiful woman without any real substance.

In yet another effort to showcase another of her talents(ahem!), Alexxus has recorded a hip hop single under the nom de plume of Mary Jane called (get a load of this) Pimpin' Aint EZ 4Shez. Alexxus is so immensely proud of this latest endevor she downloaded it on her website for her adoring fans to enjoy.

I listened out of curiosity and came to the immediate conclusion that it was fair to bursting with crappiness. Among the singles deficiencies(and oh boy are there plenty) : The song itself is by turns hackneyed, cliched and most importantly, ridiculous to the point of inducing snickers of derision from the real members of the hip hop community. Naturally, the f bomb is dropped gratuitously throughout.

Besides the grammatically incorrect title, Alexxus happens to be a white girl who hails from an affluent, middle class background. Her stab at musical fame as the first white queen of hip hop has a rather false ring to it. But from all appearances it seems that Alexxus is attempting to make a name for herself in the entertainment industry, despite having no apparent talent.

Hey Alexxus, here's an idea for you to mull over: find yourself a rich sugar daddy who will happily bankroll your various vanity projects. Oh,the critics will have a field day as they cheerfully roast and lambast your latest film, record or any other endeavor you try to foist upon an unsuspecting public as entertainment(remember Pia Zadora?). But on the other hand , you'll be in the public eye as the paparazzi snaps pictures of you incessantly. It's too bad that as far as the public is concerned, you'll never be considered a serious actress or a talented singer; instead you'll exist only as a celebrity content in having your little moment in the sun. And if truth be told, that's your ultimate goal, is it not?

I Hate Valentines Day! Arrrrgh!

2007-02-09T23:18:00.001-05:00

The Cemetery Where My Love Life Resides Permanently.

That's right. I hate Valentines Day with every fiber of my five foot five being. If Cupid actually existed I'd hunt him down, chop him up with an axe, stick his corpse in a cast iron box, weld it shut, bury him twenty feet deep, then build a shopping mall built over top of his grave.

During this time of year love is in the air and poor schmucks like me have to stand on the outside looking in as couples who are so cute you wanna douse 'em with gasoline then light a match bill and coo to the point of creating
nausea.

As for me, I just survived a kind of semi-date where the woman whom I had taken a fancy to told me she wasn't interested in any type of relationship. She's the kind of women I've been meeting as of late. Wounded birds who because of previously bad marriages or relationships that soured quicker than a quart of milk left out of the refrigerator on a ninety degree day have no interest in romance. They want to be (okay guys, say it along with me)" just friends. "

Well, I don't want another friend. I want a girlfriend, a lover, a significant other. Don't give me second place. That's dead ass time. I want the big prize; nothing else is acceptable. I once told a woman who handed me that well worn phrase if she wanted a friend to go to the local A.S.P.C.A and get herself a goddamn dog.

Hell, my luck is so shitty I asked a co-worker ,who is hardly the hottest babe on the beach to be honest about it, out on a date and was turned down quicker than a bad idea. I mean, everyone should have a positive self image. But this woman with bad skin and a less than curvy figure is overdoing it a tad, I do think. She's much too picky for her own good. As for her reason, I'd need a eight year degree in psychology to figure that out and even then I don't think I could come up with a definitive answer.

So this Valentines Day(like last year and the year before) I'll be all be my little lonesome enjoying heaping bowlfuls of my own bitter stew. I may just call off of work to sit home and sulk (and I must admit I have mastered the art of sulking. In fact, I've elevated it to an art form).I'll already be in a crappy mood; seeing couples in love holding hands just might make my day that much more crappier and I need that like I need an ass full of hemorrhoids.

However, if by next year I do find that special lady to share my life with, I'll be too happily in love to do any beefing, griping, bitching or grousing. Hopefully, I'll be totally head over heels in love and will be boring you with the all of the sappy details. But the way my miserable excuse for luck is going I wouldn't place any bets on it.

Pop Culture Icon Anna Nicole Smith Dead At 39

2007-02-09T18:04:00.002-05:00

Following her untimely demise at the age of 39, as the body of Anna Nicole Smith was undergoing an autopsy in the office of the Broward County Medical Examiner, the scene played out as if it belonged in a Fellini movie. A line of TV satellite trucks were positioned outside of the medical examiners office and waited like a pack of ravenous wolves for any news that could be immediately transmitted back to the various news shows. But most people witnessing this prime example of the intense public interest in Smith's death, cast a jaundiced eye toward the bizarre proceedings. Jacques Gill,a 73 year old retiree from Quebec summed it up with the succinct comment," Well, that's America."

You're right on that count, Jacques. That most definitely is America. We love our celebrities. We love to cheer them on when they're on top, but we also get a thrill out of kicking them in the teeth when they're down. It's a modern day spin on the Roman gladiator spectacle with our beloved celebrities in the arena while the we the public view their meteoric successes and plane crashing failures with equally voyeuristic fascination.

And so it was with Anna Nicole Smith. To be blunt, I never considered her an actress; she was mainly a celebrity. Although Smith aspired to be the "NEW" Marilyn Monroe, she only managed to achieve the dubious honor of being a pale imitation. You see, Marilyn Monroe could act(check out films like NIAGRA,BUS STOP or THE MISFITS and see for yourself) while Smith specialized in playing the sexy,ditsy blonde in every film she appeared in. And all you have to do is check out her skimpy film credits on IMDb to see how minuscule her career as an actress was. Smith's specialty was just being herself on The E Channel, which required no real acting chops. Her crowning achievement was The Anna Nicole Smith Show, playing herself naturally, which from the previews looked to be a real snoozefest. Unless of course,you're a fan of hers; then the show was an hour well spent.

When Smith first appeared on the landscape, she was lionized for her beautiful face and buxom figure; even after it was discovered her bustline was the result of silicone implants as opposed to Mother Nature as she claimed at the time. When she married 89 year old millionaire J. Howard Marshall, the under the hairdryer set licked their chops in salacious glee. There was a seemingly unending supply of fodder for the tabloid journalists,to be sure.

Then, Smith gained so much weight she resembled a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Float and people shook their heads in disbelief and muttered to themselves as they stood in line at the grocery store check out lane, " How could she let herself go like that?" After her association with Trim Spa and Smith lost all of the weight(and then some), her adoring fans gushed about how wonderful she looked.The public either adored her, envied her, reviled her or made her the object of their pity. It's all part and parcel of living in the glaring spotlight; the price one must pay to be a cultural icon.

Now, Anna Nicole Smith has died, leaving behind an infant daughter, Dannielynn, who will never get to know the kind of person her mother was except for Smith's public persona. Dannielynn will see her mother on The Howard Stern Show in a drugged stupor and slurring her words. She'll watch a music awards show where once again Smith appeared on stage doped up and almost incoherent. She'll thumb through many magazines to see her late mother's photographic image. But that's all Dannilynn will ever have. That and the reminiscences of family members.

In the end,Anna Nicole Smith left the world as an iconic legacy to be remembered for years to come.The actual person may have been clouded by prescription drugs, self indulgence, self destructive behavior, and an unabashed love of publicity, but her pop culture stature remains intact. Smith's mortal self has shuffled off this mortal coil, but the image she presented to the world stands firm as a reminder of her existence.

Nothing To Be Ashamed Of.

2007-02-06T22:49:00.003-05:00

So there I was, driving home with a load of groceries while listening to Rush Limbaugh. Now,just to reiterate (in case you haven't read my previous article about him) that although I do listen to him on occasion, I'm not a ditto head. There are several issues where he and I part company. But when it comes to issues like less government interference in our lives and less taxes, then that's where we are in complete agreement.

But what really stuck in my craw was when a female caller was telling him how ashamed she was because of her liberal political beliefs when she was younger. This woman went on to say that liberalism was "an evil"(or did she say "a sickness") and that's when my eyes rolled back into my head in exasperation.Which by the way is not the smartest thing to to while driving down a busy roadway(just wanted to throw that in there). I mean, she was practically begging Rush to forgive her for what she felt were the sins of her youth.

She chastised herself for being part of the late sixties/early seventies radical movement which advocated tearing down the old establishment and building a new form of leadership. Well hell, most of us in that particular age group witnessed the killing of political radicals and the brutalization of war protesters on TV every night and in the newspapers. We thought the older generation was out of touch(and let's face it,they really were),so it became instilled in our conciseness that a major change was in order. So we protested and became radicals intent on changing our society.

Was our generation simply a gaggle of self deluded, drug induced,long haired liberals? Not at all. And although there were those whom experimented with substances, a lot of us were merely young and idealistic. After all, it was clear to us that the so called adults were botching things up. Yet when our generation spoke up,we were told to keep quiet and fall in line with the status quo. We saw the older generation being happily complacent as long as their bellies were full and their material possessions were plentiful as they damned and blasted the drugged out hippie culture while freely imbibing alcoholic beverages from their well stocked liquor cabinets.

Seeing this hypocrisy, the radicals protested in order to be heard. We wanted our voices, our opinions to be listened to and taken seriously. In our youthful zeal, we felt that the old power structure needed to be dismantled so the cry of " Burn, Baby Burn" was chanted. As soon as our generation grew up, we learned this was a woefully impractical and destructive solution. But in our youth this seemed to be the only viable solution. We wanted wanted change and we wanted it immediately. The impetuousness of the younger generation.

I,however,have to take a minute and confess something to you; I wasn't an bonafide radical. I sat in the bleachers as the true radical protesters took to the streets and cheered them on. I never participated in a protest, carried a sign or put myself in the way of the police in order to get arrested. I was there on the sidelines giving the power sign and dressing the part. Oh,I talked the talk alright,but never walked the walk. I was a radical in name only,passionately espousing my political views from the safety of my home and the places where I hung out at.

And although I have gained more knowledge in the thirty some years since those days of revolution as well social evolution, I feel no shame, no remorse or self recrimination for my liberal, activist leanings. I was who I was during that period of time. As I learned more about politics and the world in general, my opinions changed. After all,if I think and feel the same way at 52 as I did at 18, then I haven't accrued very much in the way of knowledge during my lifetime; I haven't evolved as a person.

As I mentioned before ,the woman who was berating herself on Limbaughs show for her days as a former liberal said at one point during her on -the- air mea culpa that she considered liberalism either "a sickness" or " an evil"(To be honest,I can't remember which). Now lady, if you want to wear your finest hair shirt when looking back on your past, well then, party hearty. But liberalism is neither " a sickness" nor "an evil" but another point of view. If you or your self appointed,self anointed leader of the conservatives have zero tolerance for any other political views except your own then you are just as judgemental as the Democrats that look at the Republican party in the same negative vein.

As far as I'm concerned, I have never or will I ever look back on my idealistic, liberal days with self loathing or any sort of self recrimination.So Rush Limbaugh, if you expect me to become contrite and plead for your unwanted and unneeded forgiveness for the convictions I held in the past, don't hold your breath. It ain't gonna happen.

Hillary Clinton Wants To Be President. Is She Right For The Job?

2007-01-22T00:40:00.001-05:00

When Hillary Clinton announced her bid for the much coveted 2008 presidential seat, there were no gasps of disbelief or declarations of " Whatta surprise!" from anyone. Unless of course, you've spent the better part of the last fifteen years holed up in a cave or have simply been glued to the boob tube rapturously watching soap operas,dimwitted talk shows and other light weight fare.

Ever since her husband Bill occupied the oval office back in 1993,she has none too secretly nursed similar political aspirations. And remember their joint proclamation, " You get two for one" meaning they would be jointly running the country? Well, if Hillary gets elected we'll have to endure another four years of Bill Clinton as the co-president. Now, for those of you who thought that President Clinton "walked on water"(and you know who you are), well, Hillary's ascension into the White House will seem like a Godsend. The two of them in tandem will once again weave their special Democratic magic. Which in turn means: higher taxes and more useless do gooder social programs. The average, hardworking taxpayer will again be viewed as the governments veritable piggy bank from which these said programs will be financed.

And to prove that some social programs never die ( they simply lie in wait until their eagerly anticipated resurrection), Hillary's much touted health care bill will be hauled out of moth balls, dusted off, then presented a second time to the American people 15 years later in hopes that this time her precious bill will sail effortlessly through Congress. Suffice to say,going into detail about what some political wags referred to as Hillary Health would take up far too much time here, so search Google for the skinny on this flawed plan that was touted as a panacea for our countries health care woes.

But like all liberal Democrats, feelings will be the order of the day. Remember when President Clinton told all of us that he "felt our pain"? Well, it's kinda hard for me to really take seriously how someone who wears expensive suits,confers with people of power and privilege and feasts on $500.00 a plate dinners can relate to the average, hard working taxpayer who shops at Value City,rubs elbows with his equally average friends and chows down at Ruby Tuesdays. Yet these rich,influential politicians can somehow "feel our pain". I doubt it. Or perhaps I'm being a tad too cynical? Nah,I was right the first time.

Please keep in mind, Hillary Clinton is cut from the same liberal cloth as her husband. To be honest about it, I really can't tell one from the other as far as political ideology is concerned;unless of course you compare libidos in which case Bill Clinton becomes the front runner in that race.

However,if you pine for the bygone days when William Jefferson Clinton ran the White House, then by all means vote for Hillary. Sure, your wallet will be a tad lighter from paying for all of Hillary's and the predominantly Democratic Congress's well meaning social programs, but you'll derive that warm n' buttery feeling from doing what's right for your fellow man. And in the end, aren't feelings what liberal politics are all about?

Kidnapper Cries " Not Guilty". Yeah. Right.

2007-01-21T23:51:00.001-05:00

It never fails to amaze me that certain people have an incredible capacity for deluding themselves. Murderers on death row, for example, proclaim their innocence despite the cold, hard fact (i.e. Their finger prints found at the murder scene, their DNA found on the victim's corpse,ect,ect.) that prove otherwise. These nimrods spend countless hours attempting to vindicate themselves and enlist their bleeding heart lawyers to waste the courts valuable time to achieve this end. All in order to convince the rest of society(and themselves in the process) that the court system condemned the wrong man.

I know someone who is into substance abuse, or to be blunt about it : he's a coke head. This guy blames his mother and certain members of his mothers family(they were prone to alcoholism) for his addiction problems. He however, is an innocent victim. It's not his fault. I once said to him," Until you look in the mirror and say to yourself, 'It begins with me and it ends with me' you won't get any better." Well, my pearls of wisdom were totally wasted; I would've gotten more out of talking to an ashtray. He would much rather play the blame game than take responsibilities for his addiction; after all, that path is a much easier one to take.

Kidnapper Michael Devlin is deluding himself as well . Faced with charges of kidnapping two boys (one of them was held by him for four years) Mike told the press,and I can't believe the following words can out of his mouth, that life was good for him during this period. Good? Good for who? There is the possibility that sick, scumbag molested Shawn Hornbeck during that four year period. Especially with the statement that he ," was never really interested in romantic relationships", but wouldn't say if he was attracted to women.Which is very revealing if you ask me. Should evidence of molestation is proven, justice will be served if pervo boy is locked away in a jail cell for the rest of his shabby, sorry life. Or even better, letting the other inmates play a rousing game game of " kick the can" with Mikey using him as the can. Oh well, it was a thought.

The other victim, Ben Owenby, was only held captive for two weeks,which probably means that sicko Devlin didn't have much time in which to torment him. In the meantime, authorities in Lincoln County are looking into another missing boy case , that of 11 year old Charles"Arlin" Henderson who vanished in 1991. One detective called Devlin " the most viable lead " in the case. In other words, all the signs point in his direction.

Meanwhile,Devlin's attorneys, Michael Kielty and Ethan Corlija, have refused to return reporters phone calls seeking their comment on the case. Those poor schmucks are probably burning the midnight oil as they rack their collective brains coming up with a defense for their sicko mucho client . And while Devlin himself refuses to discuss anything about the case he did plead not guilty on Thursday to charges of kidnapping Ben, but has not entered a plea as of yet about the kidnapping of Shawn. Not guilty of kidnapping? Get a clue, Mikey! You forced him into your white pickup, you mentally defective asshole! That's kidnapping. He sure as hell didn't climb into your truck of his own free will. His lawyers, of course, will fall back on that old and trusted,yet effective defense: Devin is mentally ill and was not responsible for his actions. Horseshit!He and he alone is culpable for his heinous misdeeds and should be dealt with harshly by the court system.

Devlin stated that his own parents, who live near the prison where he resides in have not visited him since his arrest. Hey Mikey, don't tell me this comes as a great, big shock to you. You have to realize that having a son arrested for kidnapping two children and who is also accused of child molestation is not something most parents would take pride in. So ,I wouldn't expect them to strut proudly around their neighborhood announcing to one and all that their son is a kidnapper in jail. If anything, Mikey; you're a badge of shame, a black mark on your undeserving parents lives.You've disgraced yourself and them by your actions. And still, you plead Innocent of all charges. Unbelievable!

Devlin made a telling comment when he said in an interview," I'm not worried. It's inevitable.I will eventually have to deal with it. I haven't exactly done a great job of representing myself so far." No you haven't, Mikey. Not in the least. If anything, you've shown us you're your own worst enemy.

Working For Nothing.

2007-01-12T23:07:00.004-05:00

When I left the website Red Hot Planet, it was due to not seeing one damn dime of the money promised to me, in addition my dealings with editor/former friend Bill George. It was a situation containing lots of hard work on my part, but few tangible rewards. As for that whole can 'o' worms, I'll open that up at another time. But for now I'd like to expound on how I worked hard promoting two horror movies and in return receiving squat for my endeavors.

When Bill asked my to interview all seven of the actresses for 2001 MANIACS I agreed because as is his habit, he writes checks with his mouth that his ass can't cash. I fell into Bill's special little world where promises reign supreme, but the follow through never actually happens.

The first disappointment occurred when Bill(the Bard of Baltimore) ruthlessly rewrote each and every one of my interviews without my consent. After a lot of shouting and name calling, I finally got him to leave my writing alone. Well actually,his unwanted interference stopped after Bill showed (in his eyes) my piss poor hackwork to Red Hot Planets web master J.B and was told that there was nothing wrong with my style of writing. JB then called Bill a control freak. It was quite a victory for me! But I can and never will take credit for any of the interviews; the words are not mine. It's a matter of integrity. A component Bill sadly lacks.

Now, when I met the films director Tim Sullivan, in addition to actresses Christa Campbell and Wendy Kremer at The Horror Mania Convention in 2005, I said nothing about how my interviews with them were rewritten because I didn't want to rock the boat, so to speak. I simply bit my tongue and accepted their compliments. Tim even went so far as to personally thank me for my hard work promoting his film. And although I never felt the interviews were really mine,since being entirely rewritten they didn't reflect my writing style at all; their appreciation gave me that cozy, warm feeling one gets from the praise of others. Even if I didn't think I entirely deserved it in this instance.

And what did Lions Gate(the films releasing company) do for us in turn? Um, nothing. We didn't even get a copy of the dvd. Red Hot Planet had a readership of about 20,000 a month. We gave Lions Gate a whole shit load of publicity. Bill even promoted one of their lame ass releases called MONSTER MAN ( This little gem is about a group of teenagers being chased through the woods by a monster called F**k Face. I can say without reservation I won't be renting this turd fest from my local video store anytime soon.). We received no promotional dvd's. No appreciation. No nothing. Instead of them saying "Thank you for what you've done for us.", Lions Gate's shitty attitude was," F**k you for what you haven't done for us." And Bill, because he's a gutless, ass kissing joke of a man, thinks this is appropriate treatment. Well, I sure as hell don't!

At another Monster Mania Convention I met and interviewed producer/director Federico Sanchez who was promoting his film ETERNAL, as well as his sister, the lovely Victoria Sanchez who was one of the films stars. A week or two following the convention I contacted Federico about interviewing the films star Caroline Neron. For those of you scratching your heads and mumbling," Never heard of her.", Ms. Neron is a very big star in her native Canada. For me, this was a big coup!

Anyhoo, all three interviews were put up on the website for the enjoyment of our 20,000 readers. When ETERNAL was released on dvd, how do you think the films releasing company, Regent Releasing showed their appreciation? They didn't. As in the case of Lions Gate, we received no dvd, no thank you, no recognition at all. I got the none too subtle impression that both companies felt they were doing us a huge favor by letting us promote their films. Wrong, you cheapskate dicks! We did you the favor by giving your movies extensive coverage on the Red Hot Planet website. So, get your heads out of your collective asses, you miserly, pinch penny bastards!

Bill, as usual, simply shrugged and took it on the chin. As you can see, Bill George really is a grovelling,genuflecting little dick! I,on the other hand, refuse to be treated like a chump who is to be used and ignored . A little respect is in order here, guys. Also, a little gratitude would be nice. Not a lot mind you, but just enough to let me know my labors are appreciated. If it isn't in these video companies vocabulary to utter the words thank you, a free dvd will suffice.

Rosie O' Donnell Vs Donald Trump. Can't They Both Just Get Along?

2007-01-11T23:30:00.002-05:00

You know, we as a society must lead mundane, ordinary lives. I mean, how else do you explain our endless fascination with the trivial, the nonsensical? As an example: something like The Rosie O'Donnell/Donald Trump Feud getting a truck load of media attention as John Q. Public(and let's not forget Joan Q. Public. That would be unfair to the ladies.) focuses it's complete attention to their on going war.

This shameful,shallow drama began unfolding when Trump(who owns the pageant) forgave Miss USA , Tara Connor after she indulged in a an evening of drinking despite being underage . On that night, Ms. Connor proceeded to paint the town red and Miss USA Pageant officials in turn ended up seeing red after her late night revelries made the front page news. There was a hue and cry to wrest the crown from Ms. Connor's head for her blatant disregard of the pageants rules, but Trump intervened and made the decision not to discipline little Ms. Party Animal.

Rosie O' Donnell fired the opening salvo on The View by calling Trump "a snake oil salesman" and from that point the fight began. Trump responded with a nasty,vitriolic verbal assault claiming he could steal her girlfriend, Keli. After that, Rosie brought her girlfriend Kelli on The View saying," I was afraid to leave her at home in case someone with a comb-over came and stole her from me."

Since then, we've been treated to their constant non stop petty bickering. Oh,The Views studio audience ooh's and ah's whenever O'Donnell opens up her over sized mouth and once again verbally lashes out at Trump who in turn spits out another volley of bellicose verbiage. An endless cycle if ever there was one.

To her credit, Barbara Walters , a friend Trump, has tried to calm the waters between the two opponents but to no avail, their cat fight rages on. And we love it. It's as if everyone can't get enough of Trump and O'Donnells very public battle. If we can't see it on Inside Edition, there's always Talk Soup, the internet or the various entertainment periodicals available at our local magazine stores.

Sooner or later John and Joan Q. Public will grow tired and gravitate their limited attention span to something or someone else. You know, the next new thing. I know in my case, I've grown weary of the name calling, the exchanges of hostilities in the eyes of the media. Hell,I've grown tired of the whole mess(or is bored the word I'm looking for?).

In any event, Trump and O'Donnell should shake hands, let by gones be by gones and go their separate ways. Besides there's always another pair of celebrity combatants just waiting in the wings for their moment in the spotlight. And all of us(to our discredit) wait breathlessly so that we can watch the drama unfold before us.

Saddam Hussein Is Dead. Is Anybody Out There Sorry?

2006-12-30T22:51:00.002-05:00

The madman Saddam Hussein is dead. Yes, this iron fisted dictator received his just desserts when a few days ago he was hung by the neck for the genocide of 180,000 Iraqi Kurds. He was also responsible for exterminating 150 Shite Muslims. Hussein looked a blind eye when his two psychotic sons captured women off the streets and raped them as a twisted way of getting kicks. Hussein was ruthless. He was an evil man. There was no humanity inside of him whatsoever.

I realize his followers will make a martyr out of him. These blockheads, through warped logic and brainwashed thinking, will remember this despicable imitation of a human being as a their brave and noble leader. Well let 'em have their illusions. When all is said and done, history will tell the real story of Saddam Husein and that's all that matters in the grand scheme of things.

Now to go after Osama Bin Laden and assassinate him. It's a sad fact to admit this, but only through force and only through the death of Bin Laden can we show the al-Quada just how serious we are in trying to stop them . The only language that group of terrorists understands is fear. And if that's what it takes to cease the killings of innocent people and the destruction of cities; then so be it.

My Tribute to James Brown.

2006-12-30T00:10:00.001-05:00

THE GODFATHER OF SOUL GIVING HIS
AUDIENCE EVERYTHING'S HE'S GOT.

In the world of entertainment, certain words are usually bandied about when describing an entertainer. The music industry uses terms such as genius, icon and innovator with such frequency that these very words lose some of their impact as well as their meaning. However, those three words aptly decscribe the late James Brown. James Brown died early Christmas morning of congestive heart failure and the world of music lost one of it's giants.

Whether it's soul, r&b, rap or hip hop; all of these musical genres owes a huge debt to Brown because he was an inovator. As the Godfather of Soul, Brown definitely has earned the mantle of icon. For fifty years, he has shaped the musical landscape, even if the soul, rap,r&b and hip hop genre isn't your particular cup of musical tea. And although the word"genius" is casually tossed about whenever music critics are at a loss for the right acolade to describe a singer or musician , all one has to do is examine the man's body of work to see how the appellation fits Brown like a glove.

I must confess that as a teenager I didn't particularly care for James Browns music. I was grooving to the sounds of The Beatles, Iron Butterfly, Uriah Heap and other rock and roll bands. His brand of music didn't move me in the slightest. Then in 1973 at the age of eighteen, I witnesed a revelation . A movie called THE TA.M.I SHOW appeared on late night television and as I watched Brown performing a song called Please, Please, Please his prowess as a performer almost knocked me out of my chair. His vocal style. His dance moves. When Brown had finished the song,I had a new found respect for both the man and his music. That night I realized why James Brown was called The Hardest Working Man In Show Business.

Now after half a decade of wowing audiences the world over, James Brown, The Godfather of Soul will now go on to his final reward, while his legacy remains with us for generations to come. He shall now take his rightful place as one of music's Immortal Legends.

The Continuing Story of Gina and Lori

2006-12-29T02:17:00.001-05:00

During an article I wrote concerning abortion, I mentioned two ladies (if you can call them by that term) named Gina and Lori who used to come into the GNC ( General Nutrition Center) store I managed. I didn't go into my entire association with them because I didn't want to stray too far away from my topic. However, I thought now would be a good time to tell the rest of the story.

As I mentioned before, Gina was an obnoxious, abrasive, in- your- face women who hurled acidic insults at me whenever she and Lori came into my store. I got the none too subtle impression she thought of herself as a hysterically funny person; a female Don Rickles. Unfortunately, she was sadly mistaken on that point. Except for her best friend Lori, who laughed raucously at Gina's tasteless, lame brand of comedy, no one else who visited my store considered her to be God's gift to comedy either.

Both ladies were high school dropouts. And while Lori was attending a city funded continuing education program, Gina was trying to enlist in the Army. Gina's problem was,as the recruiter told her in no uncertain terms, before entering the armed forces, she have to get her G.E.D as well as shed thirty pounds. After much foot dragging Gina finally earned her G.E.D, but losing the prerequisite weight was a feat she just couldn't achieve. She would joke about being cursed with a slow metabolism.But the more obvious reason was her love of doughnuts. Everyday I saw her carrying a bag of freshly baked sweets she purchased from a bakery located a block away from my store. Gina never offered anybody one of her precious powdered treats. Not even Lori whom she referred to as" My dearest friend."

I always found this particular dynamic to their supposed deep and abiding friendship rather amusing.One day, I saw them walking together down the street. Gina's beloved bag of doughnuts was held on the right of her as Lori walked on the left side. Suddenly, Lori noticed an expensive pair of shoes in the display window of a fashionable women's clothing store and walked around Gina to get a better look at them. Immediately, Gina quickly moved the bag to her left side. I watched the entire incident from my store shaking my head in disbelief. Gina could not bear to part with one miserable,measly doughnut and offer it to her" Dearest friend." Yet, at the same time, she was also annal enough to wonder why it was so difficult for her to lose any weight.

Eventually, I found a better paying job with good benefits which meant leaving GNC, the abrasive Gina and her synchophant friend Lori far, far behind. About two years later I ran into Gina. Although I attempted to avoid eye contact with her and beat a hasty retreat before any words could be exchanged. Gina( unfortunately for me) recognized me and I was lulled into a narcoleptic stupor with tales of her so called life. Poor Gina still couldn't get the Army to take her into their fold; she remained thirty pounds overweight. The recruiter finally laid down the law telling Gina it had been two years and that until she got serious about joining the Army, buckled down and lost the weight not to waste her time.

Gina was also jealous because Lori had graduated with a degree in electronics, which meant that she was enjoying a career while Gina was still drifting. She was mad. She was bitter. Gina felt life was passing her by while blinded to the fact it wasn't bad luck or cruel fate that befell her; it was poor decision making which proved to be her undoing.

As for Gina's one woman peanut gallery, I found her working at a local mall as the manager/machine repair person of a video arcade. We were having a pleasant conversation(Gina wasn't there) when all of the sudden Lori noticed a group of teenage girls dressed provocatively and began a tirade about how they dressed like "little whores". This coming from a woman who once bragged about the sexy outfits she wore to the clubs and the variety of "one night stands" she enjoyed. Now all of the sudden Lori is the Queen of Morality? As the saying goes," People who live in glass houses should get dressed in the basement." Or is it " shouldn't throw stones "? Anyhoo, even if Lori had gone through a moral rebirth,so to speak, because of her past she had no right to be anybody's judge and jury. But I held my tongue and said nothing. I knew I'd be talking to a brick wall in any event.

My Christmas Message.

2006-12-22T22:49:00.002-05:00

You know, I'm starting to lose my Christmas spirit. It's been happening to me bit by bit over the last few years. And while I should be awash with the joyfulness of the Yuletide season, instead I 've become rather jaded by the sight of inflatable Santa's huffing and puffing on lawns all over my area. During the day,before these plastic, holiday decorations are inflated to their full glory, they resemble colored garbage bags stewn across the homeowners yard. It gives the neighborhood a sort of "white trash" quality. And that's not a good thing.

Another reason for my lack of enthusiasm for Christmas is the retail industry, that greedy,profit mongering money machine. It used to be that Christmas advertising began the day after Thanksgiving; a tradition that remained steadfast for many a decade. Now, the retailers begin their assault on the American wallet(or pocketbook if you're female) following Halloween. Some entrepreneurs have gone as far as pushing Christmas ads back to late September! Is it any wonder many of us are feeling a serious drop in the Holiday spirit? The retail industry has sucked the magic and the warmth right out of Christmas. Tis the season to spend money. Spend a wad of cash. Fa La La La.

Maybe it's just me, but I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people out there equate Christmas with getting a shit load of gifts. And while giving and receiving presents is a part of the holiday tradition, Christmas is also a time of visiting friends and relatives, talking and laughing, making toasts and enjoying each others company. Oh,and let's not forget the array of food shared by everyone at the holiday table. I've got to tell you, put all of these components together and Christmas day doesn't get much better than this.

One of my best Christmas memories as a child was when my Godparents(I have four Godparents. It's kind of a long story, so suffice to say I'll tell you the whole shebang at another time) would visit my families house on Christmas Day with their children in tow. Then a day or two later, we would visit Kenny and June at their house, then around New Years Eve we'd hang out at Donald and Jody's . Now that was a really festive time! This went on for a number of years until my parents got divorced. That was the year no one showed up to our house on Christmas Day. It was the worst Christmas I ever had. Although I received some nice presents from my Mom and Dad , my Godparents presence, a vital part of Christmas for me, was missing. It was if my family and myself had suddenly developed the measles.

I heard later on that they felt uncomfortable about my parents divorce, so they thought it best not to come over. But still, I could not shake the feeling that something had been taken away from me. When I got my licence, I did go over during the Yuletide holidays to visit them, but it was never the same.

On the other hand, when it comes to thinking of Christmas strictly as a day when presents of all shapes and sizes are due them, my ex-wife's nieces Sara and Annie take the prize. On this supposedly festive, religious day; avarice reared it's ugly head as these two girls judged their gifts by how big the box was and how expensive the present appeared to be. Most of the time Sara and Annie complained unendingly since these presents did not please their high falutin' tastes, which turned a supposedly pleasant day into a bitch and gripe fest.

When my ex-wife Bari and I later discussed their ungrateful behavior, she'd dismiss the entire incident saying with an indulgent chuckle," Oh, Sara and Annie are just being typical little girls." I always considered them to be a couple of miserable, malcontented brats who needed to be told that Christmas gifts were surely not their birthright and that they should be appreciative of the presents bestowed upon them.

A few years later,when Sara was sixteen, I heard rumors of how she dumped her boyfriend on Christmas day because she felt he hadn't spent enough money on her. However, Bari was the indulgent sort of Aunt whom I half suspected if her precious nieces poured gasoline on a homeless person and then set that person on fire, she'd think they were just being mischievous little girls. In her eyes Sara and Annie could do no wrong.

What I'm saying is: Christmas is a time of celebration. It's a time of people coming together. A time of merriment and happiness. Let's all try to remember that and one day perhaps we'll effectively remove the soulless, commercial aspect from this Holiday of peace and love. It would be in humanities best interest to do so.

Something I Just Have To Get Off My Chest.

2006-12-11T23:54:00.000-05:00

Recently, I changed to Bogger Beta. I didn't want to change because I'm from the school that says: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I was informed however, that everyone on Blogger would eventually be switched. Reluctantly, I made the change and was immediately sorry I did.

I had chosen, like before, to not have the div breaks when I wrote my blog. It's something I prefer to do myself(am I a hands on guy or what?).

Well, the result was all of my previous blogs looked like one giant run on sentence without any paragraphs. To my mind, this makes me look like someone who is unable to craft a paragraph which is far from the truth.

And in the case of my piece on bottom feeder lawyer Lynne Stewart, the first sentence was way up top, while the rest of my article was shoved to the bottom. I'm going to try to fix this, although it doesn't look as if I'll be able to. The point is, I'm sorry for the mess and will make damn good and sure this does not happen again because I endevor to make my blog look as professional as possible. You know, somtimes change really sucks.

My Thoughts on The Abortion Issue.

2006-12-09T23:39:00.002-05:00

Abortion. Now, there's a hot button topic to bring up if ever there was one. When I told a friend of mine that I would be writing about this controversial subject on my blog, he gave me a thoughtful glance and said," Joe, you're going to open up a big can of worms on this one. I can tell you that right now". But this is one subject I' ve been mulling over for quite some time and I feel now is the time to speak my piece. And I fully realize I won't be the darling of either the conservatives or the religious right. But I could give two hoots in hell.

Here's the deal: I don't think the church or the state has any right what so ever to dictate to a women what she should do when it comes to her body. You see it all the time, tv news footage of protesters throwing themselves in the way of women as they attempt to enter abortion clinics. As far as they're concerned, the pregnant women has to carry the child to term and then has to give birth. If the anti-abortionists can manage to sway any women from the idea of ending her pregnancy, they've won a moral victory in their tiny, little minds.

However, they won't be the ones to suffer from morning sickness, they won't see the stretch marks on their bodies, suffer through nine months of pregnancy(something I 'd love to see a man go through) and then finally give birth. This particular phase of the child bearing experience can last for many agonizing hours. So after all is said and done, the only chore the right to life group has is to smile in smug, self righteous satisfaction. Their job is done. However, for the women who just delivered her new born baby; her job is just beginning.

Now,I'm not pro abortion. I'm not advocating that all women go out and murder their unborn children. What I'am saying is, if a women gets pregnant and for whatever her motives are, doesn't wish to carry the fetus to full term, the decision is hers . It's not for the state decide and it's surely not the church. I have to tell you, it really rankles me to no end when conservative Christian right to life groups feel the women owes it to them to have the baby that is inside of her body in order to give them that warm and fuzzy feeling they get whenever someone falls in line with their way of thinking. The way I see it, if the women can square it with her conscience and feel perfectly justified in getting the abortion, it's her call; no one else's. No matter what you or I think is right.

Yet,there are legitimate reasons for aborting a pregnancy. My mother had been stricken with a paralyzing stroke in the mid 1960's. A year later, she became pregnant. Mother was told by her doctor that as a result of the stroke she had suffered, her body was still recuperating. The prognosis was if she gave birth to her baby, she would die. My mother had to make an extremely difficult decision, abort her unborn baby or face her own mortality. This is not a choice that can be easily made. Her dilemma was made even more difficult by a well meaning, but idiotic priest who told my mother she should have the child and die so that she would go to heaven. Stupid jerk! You call that a choice? She wanted the child to live, yet she didn't want to die either. My mother was between a rock and a hard place, that was for sure.

Let's add into the mix the sad fact that no one, and I mean not one person from either side of my miserable excuse for a family came to our aid during this time of crisis. If my mother had died giving birth, my dad would have had three children to take care of without anyone's assistance. The fact that chafes me the most is, those same relatives who were conspicuous by their absence were more than happy to come around and visit us the very minute my mothers health improved. In the end, she chose to abort the baby, although it was a choice that caused her many bouts of grief and guilt for many years to come.

On the other side of the coin, there happen to be equally frivolous and capricious justifications for ending a pregnancy too. In 1986 I was the manager of a GNC store located in Wilmington. It was there I had the misfortune of meeting Gina and Lori, two of the nastiest people it's been my displeasure to ever make the acquaintance of. Especially Gina, who was an abrasive, in your face individual. Lori's function appeared to be as her sidekick. Many was the time I was thankful when they left my store to go torment somebody else. I needed their particular brand of horseshit like I needed sack of rusty door knobs.

One Friday as I was closing up the store to go home, the terrible twosome came in to tell me that Gina was pregnant(her deadbeat boyfriend was currently serving five years in jail for armed robbery. He was a real catch, eh?) and that she would be getting an abortion on Sunday at the local abortion clinic. I didn't want to know any more, I really didn't, but my curiosity got the better of me. So I inquired as to the reason for getting rid of her unborn child. Gina's response was that a baby was too much of a responsibility and would put a crimp in her social life.

Now, I should've known better, but again,I broached the question of what would her boyfriend think? After all, he was the baby's father. Gina contemptuously replied that he was a first class loser and she didn't give a shit what he thought anyway( is that love or what?).

Anyway, that Monday morning when Gina and Lori came barreling into my store the first words out of Gina's uncouth mouth were," Well, I finally got that piano off my back!" If you're shocked upon reading her ghastly, ugly comment, you can well imagine my reaction not only hearing the words but seeing an expression on her face of someone who just didn't care. This was followed by a series of tasteless and horribly unfunny jokes about abortion which thankfully I've permanently blocked from my memory. All I remember is wishing the two of them would just go away and never darken my store again. That someone could actually equate a human life with an inanimate musical instrument was something that I clearly found incomprehensible to my way of thinking . But again, this was Gina's choice to make. Not mine. And certainly not yours.

At the end of the day, when the votes are tallied up, a women's body belongs to her. Let her make whatever choice she sees fit to decide upon. Let her also live with the long range consequences as well .Whether we agree with her decision or not should never even enter into the equation.

A Word About Today's Cutting Edge Comedian's

2006-11-25T23:41:00.001-05:00

Is it just me or do most of today's new comedians rely on swearing like drunken sailors as a way for getting laughs? Now, I'm no prude;I enjoy listening to George Carlin, Richard Pryor and similar comedians who occasionally drop the F bomb. But with today's comics, the majority of their routines are crammed with vulgar,course language. It's as if the use of foul language nowadays is the routine itself.

One time while I was listening to Comcast Rhapsody Radio, there was a female comedian who dropped the F bomb( as well as the MF bomb) a number of times. I remember thinking," Is this really necessary? " I know if I ever see her name again in the "now playing" window, I'll immediately switch to another performer. She's simply too crude, too base and much too reliant on toilet humor for my tastes. Oh,I also don't think she's very funny either. However, if your idea of gut busting comedy is someone swearing endlessly; then she's the comedian for you. But not for me.

Now you're probably thinking," I bet Joe wouldn't mind if the comedian using vulgar language was a man." You know, the old double standard. Well you couldn't be more wrong. I don't care if the comic is a man or a woman; a comedy routine that relys on a stream of swear words to get laughs becomes tedious after a while, it's as if they have nothing funny to say, so vulgarity is used in place of actual wit.

Hell, it's even in video games you can download online. My friend Larry and I were in the computer room in his house while my 14 year old nephew Joe was there downloading a video game on his computer. As Larry and I were talking we heard a gruff military voice bark," Are you ready, motherf***er?" He quickly turned to his son saying," Joseph, turn it off." Larry and I couldn't believe a video game contained that kind of language. Especially a game young kids can gain access to.

Look, I employ swear words into my vocabulary at times. I'd be kidding you(and myself) if I said otherwise. But if I did that all the time nonstop , I would wonder, really wonder, about my intelligence. And while some people see the use of foul language as just words, in reality it's a lazy, easy way to communicate. It takes no effort to blurt out offensive four letter words. Maybe today's new breed of comics should go back to the old school of comedy which chooses substance over shock value.

Don't get me wrong, shock value can be funny. But used over and over again,the audience becomes inured to this and the comedian has to seek out new ways to shock and offend them. It's known as pushing the envelope. However, don't you think that these days we've pushed the envelope far enough?

O.J Simpson Fumbles The Ball- And It Couldn't Happen to A Nicer Guy

2006-11-21T22:40:00.001-05:00

Ten and a half years ago, a murderer was found not guilty. Oh, almost anyone with an once of common sense or an ability for deductive reasoning knew deep in their hearts that O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife Nicole and her companion Ron Goldman in a fit
of jealous rage. The verdict split people into factions; there were African-Americans who thought he was guilty, but were felt it was justice that a guilty black man was let go in return for the many other innocent black men who had been unjustly sent to jail. While many white Americans were appalled that a murderer avoided life in prison and believed it was on account of Simpson's reputation as a former gridiron superstar that paved the way for his acquittal.

I clearly remember that day. I was working as a telemarketer and as Simpson's verdict was pronounced, the entire office went off the phones to listen. When he was pronounced not guilty, one of my co-workers, Christine, let out a big cheer; the way one cheers for the victory of a close friend. The problem was, she didn't know Simpson personally. Christine was simply happy that an African-American like herself had beaten the rap and was now free. I've often wondered how she would have felt if it was her own sister who had been savagely knifed to death by Simpson. And not her "soul sister" either, but her flesh and blood sibling. Would Christine have felt the same sense of elation if her sister's killer was pronounced "not guilty"?

Since then,Simpson(who has proclaimed his innocence) made a vow to devoted his time and energy tracking down the real murderers of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Well, it's been eleven years and he ain't found 'em yet. I guess he was a far better football player than he is a detective. Oh well, at least he's tried. Not!

The moment that actually brought home to me the fact that Simpson did commit those murders was when he did was interviewed by Ruby Wax on her television show . He came up from behind her and pretended to stab Wax with a banana as he sang the music from the shower scene in PSYCHO. This was followed by the two of them sharing a merry chuckle over his cute little antic. His action was not only a lapse of both taste as well as good judgement on Simpson's part, it amply displayed the actions of a man who was making fun of the fact that he was indeed a murderer who had gotten away with his crime. It was a blatant in-your-face gesture. At one point during the interview, Simpson said if he did kill his ex-wife Nicole it was out of love. Yeah, the jury's in on that one. He's definitely not the killer.

Now, Simpson is making an attempt to enrich his bank account by publishing a book titled ," If I Did It, Here's How It Happened", a hypothetical story of how his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman would have been killed if Simpson was the murderer. The book was to be published by Regan Books,who (surprise,surprise) is owned by Fox News Corp (some coincidence, eh?). There was also to be a two part TV interview special to coincide with the release of Simpson's book.

However, an outraged public made it's disapproval known. So Rupert Murdoch, chief of Fox News, cancelled both the book and interview special. But, an interesting news items has recently surfaced; it seems Denise Brown,Nicole Simpson's sister, is incensed because Murdoch offered her family( as well as the the Goldman's) "millions of dollars" which she felt was being offered in order to buy their silence. News Corp spokesman Andrew Butcher has denied the allegation that their offer was an attempt to keep both families quiet by saying," There were no strings attached."
He went on to say that the offer was for the families to split the profits from the book and tv deal after the company made back it's investment in the two projects.

In any event, O.J Simpson's book and tv deal had been broadsided by a nauseated public who has grown weary of his often repeated claims of denial in the deaths of his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman,while his actions tell a far different story. Simpson not only has gotten away with murder, the unhappy reality is: he's going to receive a fat pay check even though the two projects will never see the light of day. And you know,it isn't fair.

Michael Richards Kamakazi Comedy Routine Or How To Destroy A Career In Just Three Minutes.

2006-11-21T21:59:00.002-05:00

The dreaded foot in mouth disease strikes again. A few months ago it was Mel (how dry he was) Gibson who spewed a mouthful of anti-Semitic bilge at a cop in an alcohol fueled rage. After justifiably being skewered by the Jewish community as well as the general public at large, Gibson admitted he had a problem with alcohol(does 'ol Mel have a firm grasp of the obvious or what?) and promptly entered a rehab facility.

Now it's Michael Richard's turn to jam his foot into his over sized mouth. Believe it or not,he out did Gibson in the racist epithet hurling department. Last Friday while on stage at the Laugh Factory , Richards was being heckled by Kyle Doss, an African-American. He suddenly became ballistic and screamed at Doss ," Fifty years ago we'd have you hung upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass." Richards then called Doss the N word a number of times as an audience member filmed his vitriolic tirade. Since that night, Richards has been receiving an avalanche of well deserved fallout.

From all of the commentary on the various news and entertainment shows, the Richards incident will undoubtedly make Mel Gibson's racist remarks seem mild in comparison. The tape itself can be viewed on TMZ.Com and I have to tell you, as I watched the footage I wanted to cringe. How those kind of comments can be said in a public place in this day and age is totally beyond me, because behavior such as this will not and cannot be tolerated.

But, it happened and it's the sort of episode that can't just be erased. So now Richards has deservedly had his feet held to the fire and been made completely accountable for the ugly words he shouted in a nightclub full of people expecting to be entertained. Instead, they were repulsed(some even walked out of the club in disgust) by racist slurs uttered by someone who really should have known better.

Despite a sincere, heartfelt apology from a very contrite Richards on The David Letterman Show ; he said via satellite," I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this.", forgiveness seems to be very slow in coming. Especially from the African-American community,who have taken extreme offence at Richards ballistic performance and I don't blame them for one second. On that evening his supposed comedy routine was by turns racist, vulgar and most importantly not funny at all. The audience was there to laugh and instead came away from the comedy club disgusted and angry, because his rage was all too real.

Log onto TMZ. com to see the tape; this was not an act. Richards really does have a lot to live down. I don't feel sorry for the man in the least, but I do have compassion for him. All one has to do is look at him when he appeared on Letterman, to see a deeply sorry and truly apologetic man.

The truth of the matter is, the black community may not ever fully except Richards apology because they believe that he was saying what he really felt, that deep down he really is a racist in his heart. Especially after he spat out the N word the first time. Richards didn't stop, but keep screaming the racially changed word over and over during his so called comedy act. Plus, he claimed to have gone back to the Laugh Factory the next night to apologize. But from all accounts none was given. The general consensus is that Richards waited too long to make amends.

Since then, he has hired publicist Howard Rubenstein as a crisis expert(or spin doctor to be exact) in an attempt to salvage his severely damaged career, because there are a lot of people who would get a huge kick out of witnessing Richards do a crash and burn number. These are the very same people, by the way, who once loved him as Kramer on SEINFELD.

Only time will tell if Rubenstein can repair the career train wreck engineered by his client. Sometimes the public forgives and other times they don't. Right now as far as Richards is concerned, whose career at this moment is hardly red hot, time is a commodity he can well afford.

Saddam Hussein Senteced To Hang. Any Questions?

2006-11-10T09:29:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, November 5, was a good day for me. The sun was shining, the weather was windy , but not too cold, I enjoyed a nice cigar on my way to work and Saddam Hussein(or as some wags refer to him : So Damn Insane) was sentenced to be hung for the crime of murder against 150 Shiite Muslims. Knowing that mass murdering, deposed despot will be soon swinging from the end of a rope appealed to my sense of justice.

As his sentence was announced, Insane Hussein shouted such catchy phrases as," God is greatest" and the ever popular," Long live the Iraqi people!" It appears that his ilk truly believes that as long as they proclaim their supposed devotion to God, killing in his name is an act The Almighty would completely approve of. What these zealots lack in common sense they more than make up for in animalistic savagery.

So here we are, pleased as punch that this barbarian will be getting his neck stretched when all of the sudden a fly finds it's way into the ointment. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak came out with a statement on Thursday that he was against Hussein being hung because it could make Iraq explode into more violence. Mubarak was quoted as saying," Carrying out this verdict will explode violence like waterfalls in Iraq." Uh huh. I see. Maybe they should simply slap Hussein on the back as they let him out of prison with the admonishment," Now you've been a bad boy Saddam, old buddy. You just make sure don't do it again. Okey?" And I'm sure. I mean, really sure. As sure as I'm sitting here writing this, that he'll flash them his most winning smile and sincerely reply," I'll be a good boy from now. I promise." That should do the trick. That is, of course, providing you're a permanent resident of Fantasy
Land.

Hussein will be separately tried for the genocide of 180,000 Iraqi Kurds in the 1980's. This soul less monster should be spared the death penalty? Please, cut me a break! This is the same wretched excuse for a leader who extolled to his followers the idea that they should gladly die for the glory of Iraq and then was found cowering in a hole saying meekly to his captors," I 'am the President of Iraq. I want to make a deal." Huh? Whatever happened to dying for your country? Talk about a clear cut case of do as I say, don't say as I do. And there are people in Iraq who loyally follow this walking mound of jello as if he were God's right hand man. Oh well, there's no accounting for taste.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the statement," The way I understand the law that we passed...the execution of the sentence should happen within a month,one month. I expect it to happen before the end of the year." Let's hope the Iraqui court doesn't overturn his conviction and instead give Hussein a life sentence. His heinous crimes against humanity demand extreme punishment in the form of death. And the sooner the better. Here's an idea: they should hang Hussein before Christmas. Consider it as a Christmas present to the entire world.

Rush Limbaugh Vs. Michael J. Fox : A Rush To Judgement.

2006-11-09T02:08:00.001-05:00

There are probably some of you who read my blog and think," Joe's conservative on a lot of issues. I bet he's a big fan of Rush Limbaugh." Well, you couldn't be more wrong about that . True, I sometimes listen to his radio program while driving around, but let me assure you I'am certainly no dittohead. And while I agree with him on some issues, there are many others where he and I part company.

For example: One time Limbaugh talked about a group of people who were holding a protest. He stated that protesting disrupted the natural order of things(I'm paraphrasing, of course.) and that we should let the elected politicians change that things we don't like about our government. In other words, we should just keep our mouths shut, stay at home and let the politicians work their special magic. It seems Limbaugh has forgotten that America was founded on protest. Our fore fathers didn't sit idly on their hands as the British ran roughshod over this country.

Then there was the time Limbaugh spent many a program bashing President Clinton. If truth be told, I'm not a exactly one of Clinton's biggest fans. But after years of Limbaugh raking him over the coals on a seemingly daily basis, Clinton challenged him to a debate. There are other talk show hosts who would have gladly jumped at the opportunity to go one on one with The President in front of a live audience. I know of one Philadelphia radio talk show host named Irv Homer who would've shown up with his notes in hand ready for a lively debate.

What did Limbaugh do? He made a big joke about it on his show and the matter was quickly dropped. I know of a few people who stopped listening to him after that because they felt Limbaugh was all talk and no action, or as a friend of mine aptly put it," He's just an entertainer." After his constant haranguing about what a lousy job Clinton was doing in the oval office, when push came to shove Limbaugh turned tail and hid in the safety his E.I.B booth,refusing to confront the man he criticized and satirized mercilessly to no end.

Limbaugh reminded me of a kid I knew years ago named Jimmy. For reasons unknown, he harbored an irrational dislike for my friend Paul and told everybody who would listen about what a complete jerk he thought Paul was. After awhile Paul grew damn sick and tired of Jimmy's constant back stabbing. One day, I was at the neighborhood park while Jimmy was doing his anti-Paul shtick when Paul just happened to walk up to him and asked," Do you have a problem with me, dick face?" Jimmy's face took on an expression of total fear, as if the angel of death had suddenly appeared before him.He looked down at his shoes and gulped an almost inaudible," No ." Jimmy suddenly bolted away from Paul with such speed you would have thought a rocket was attached to his ass. Believe it or not, Jimmy never, ever bad mouthed Paul
again.

Recently, actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinsons Disease, did a television endorsement for Claire Mc Caskell of Missouri. Mc Caskell, running for the U.S Senate, is a proponent for stem cell research. In the tv ad, Fox is shown displaying the signs of this degenerative disease from which he suffers. It was a powerful case for lifting the government ban on embryonic stem cell research.

Yet on his show, Limbaugh accused Fox of acting for the camera as he imitated the actors symptoms of Parkinsons by shaking spastically for the dittocam in an ill attempt at comedy. After dodging the well deserved brickbats of critics and fans alike, Limbaugh defended himself on his program claiming that certain news shows sped up the tape for the purpose of sensationalism.

Now Rush, that plane doesn't fly. I saw the footage of your spastic movements on a cable news show and it definitely wasn't speeded up. Now, I realize you think that you're smarter than ninety per cent of the people on this planet and that most of us have the mental capacity of an eggplant. But I,like many people, have eyes. I can determine what sped up video looks like; plus when you speed up a video the sound speeds up as well. At no time did your senatorian voice sound as if you'd just inhaled a lungfull of helium.

However,to be fair, Fox did candidly admit in his autobiography that before appearing at a congressional hearing on embryonic stem cell research he didn't take his medication in order to make an impact at the hearing. I've seen him on several talk shows and even when Fox is on the medication, The Parkinsons is still quite visible. But on one program, Fox was interviewed before his medication kicked in and it was painful to watch. And I for one applaud Fox for not hiding from the media making both him as well as his condition visible to the entire world.I can fully undrestand him wanting scientists to find a cure for his affliction, not just for himself but for all of the Parkinsons victims. And that is admirable.

Limbaugh, on the other hand, shot from the hip without first knowing all the facts. But then again, mouthing off is his stock in trade. He's part political pundit and part court jester as well as being judgemental and intolerant of any point of view other than his own carved in stone beliefs. Limbaugh has been lambasted by the media for his statements and justifiably so. He acted like a bull in a china shop, but Limbaugh wants everyone to just let him mouth off as he pleases without any accountability on his part. But from all appearances it's not likely he'll get his wish this time. Sorry Rush.

A Deleted Scene From ET Has Been Uncovered!

2006-10-28T23:53:00.001-04:00

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With Halloween just around the corner, I've decided to reveal a never before known secret about a much beloved science-fiction classic. Not many people know this, but prior to the 1982 release of ET : THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, a scene was edited because director Steven Spielberg was concerned that it was way too adult for family audiences. Believe it or not, this one scene threatened the film's PG rating, so Spielberg shrewdly excised some of the footage. Having recently discovered this interesting piece of information, I have opted to reveal what exactly the deleted scene entailed to my readers.

Remember the scene where Elliot, Peter and Gertie were in Elliot's room and Gertie asks if ET is a boy or a girl? Elliot replies," He's a boy" and the subject is dropped. In the unedited version,Elliot's older brother Michael asks," Well then, where's his thing?" ET replies," It's detachable." In the next shot, Elliot is seen examining it when ET shouts," Hey, give it back! You've had it long enough!" ET then asks Elliot," But tell me, is it long enough?"

Obviously, this ventures into adult territory,so as you can see it was a wise move on Spielberg's part to omit this scene and not to compromise a film he intended for the entire family. Reportedly, Spielberg destroyed the existing footage, vowing to never to allow this deleted portion to be viewed by the public at large(that's you in case you're wondering whom I'm referring to), thus tarnishing the films reputation as solid family fare . But it's my opinion that movie goers have a right to know this vital information. Remember, the truth shall set you free! But on the other hand, a good lie can be vastly entertaining too.

My Thoughts On The Death Penalty.

2006-10-27T22:33:00.002-04:00

This week two psychopaths were given a well deserved dose of lethal injection after years of appeals . First was religious cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren(aka The Shame of Ohio) who in 1989 casually murdered a family of five followers because he felt they were not enthusiastic enough about his teachings (perhaps they didn't shout hallelujah loudly enough to please him as he spouted his warped religious profundities) .

During his trial, Lundgren unapologetically referred to the murders as "pruning the vineyard". He went on to tell the court (this'll floor you) that God had commanded him, through interpretation of Scriptures,to kill the family. So, in his defense, Lundgren trotted out that tired, old bromide that homicidal maniacs have spouted for decades in order to avoid the death penalty: God made him do it. Uh Huh. Happily, this didn't deter the jury from deciding that Lungren's claim of insanity simply did not cut the mustard and condemned him to lethal injection.

His wife Alice and son Jeffrey,who assisted Reverend Psycho with the murders, were spared the death penalty (how unfortunate) and instead received life sentences. If I had my way, Lundgren would have been strapped into old sparky(with his faithful wife and demented son sitting on his lap) and fed thousands of volts of electricity. No peaceful death for him, he didn't deserve to be treated with such kindness.

Next, we have the lethal injection of Florida serial killer Danny Harold Rolling, whom in 1990 savagely butchered five female college students. Rollings, of course, blamed his murder spree on abuse he suffered as a child and his treatment in prison. For good measure, he claimed to possess good and bad multiple personalities. Sure he did. Yeah. Right. Sorry Danny, that's fish three days old; I don't buy it.

When asked for a last statement, Rolling treated witnesses and prison officials for two minutes to something that resembled a hymn with the refrain," None greater than thee,O Lord, none greater than thee." I don't know about the rest of you, but right now the tears are welling up in my eyes as I'm writing this. And if you believe that, let me tell you about how I helped my great uncle Thomas Edison invent the light bulb.

As I see it, the fact that these two vermin were finally put out of society's misery is a good thing. I would have been totally pissed off if instead they had been handed down life in prison. Or as I refer to it as : three hots and a cot for life. The thing that really sticks in my craw is it took seventeen years for Lundgren and sixteen years for Rolling before their executed. You can thank the A.C.L.U and other criminal rights activist groups for that . It used to be when a person was convicted of murder, it took several months for them to meet their maker, not years. We used methods such as hanging, the gas chamber and the ever popular electric chair to rid the earth of the murderers in our society.

But somewhere along the line criminal rights groups began rallying around these psychopathic killers by saying that they were people who deserved their rights while the victims of their horrific deeds became merely faceless casualties to be cast aside . Add to the mix years of seemingly endless appeals by their lawyers and the wheels of justice are slowed down to a snails pace. The murderer continues his or her worthless existence while the victims family and friends wait for what must seem like an eternity for justice.

The rallying cry of these groups is the word rehabilitation with a capital R. Just how you go about rehabilitating a psychotic murderer or one who deliberately chooses to kill others as a way to earn a living is something I have difficulty in fathoming. Yet, psychologists for the past fifty years have been researching the psyche of the serial murderer to find out the reasons for their behavior, with the hope that this anti social conduct may be prevented in future generations.

The sad fact is that there will always be those in our society who kill others. I wish a pill could be invented or a psychological treatment program could be implemented that would eradicate the violent and murderous tendencies in human beings. However,those who willingly go down this path should be dealt with harshly and shown the same mercy they afforded to their victims . No lifetime of free room and board, food, medical care and counseling; which in the end becomes a burden on the taxpayer. Premeditated murder shouldn't be rewarded and the murderer be should not be allowed to excuse their actions with convenient finger pointing and cliched rationale("I had a bad childhood","the prison system made me this way"," I grew up in a bad neighborhood", ad nauseam).

We must return to the old fashioned way of shortening the period of time from conviction to execution and return to the gas chamber, the electric chair and the hanging gallows as forms of punishment for cold blooded murder. As for the A.C.L.U and all of the other boo hoo hoo for the criminal groups out there, you can all take turns kissing my ass.

Thought For The Week.

2006-10-19T11:08:00.000-04:00

Now, I realize that there are those of you out there who are so fed up with partisan politics that you'll choose to stay home instead of going to the polls in November to vote. Hey, I kind of agree with you(remember, I said kind of); one does get weary of Democrats and Republicans bickering like school kids on the play ground. Each side claiming that they hold the answer to America's problems, if only we elect their political party.
This term, each party wants to control The House Majority in Congress. The Republicans are trying to retain their hold on the Congressional House while the Democrats are using every resource they can muster to regain control once again. Their main thrust is blaming President Bush for all of America's current ills . Quite frankly, their anti-Bush campaign is becoming repetitive as well as painfully tiresome. Can't they be more inventive?
These days Bush bashing is no only an easy campaign platform for them,but totally expected if one aspires to be a true Democrat. Then again, a few years back the Republicans did attack former President Clinton rather vigorously(although that time the attack was warranted, if I may say so.).
But getting back to what I was saying, each party points the finger at the other one during times of turmoil. When a recession is bad, one party blames the other party's ineptitude .When times are prosperous, the party in charge claims they're the reason for the prosperity. As the saying goes: success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan.
My point is, if you don't like the way Congress is doing it's job then get off your hind rump quarter,(or ass if you will) get into the voting booth and let your voice be heard. Whether you vote Republican or Democrat isn't important(unless of course, if you're the Democratic or Republican candidate running for office,that is). The main thing is to let Congress know your opinion on the issues. However, if you apathetically remain at home believing your one vote doesn't count, then don't come crying to me afterwards about how much the Congress sucks. You had your chance.

Lynne Stewart Gets A Slap On The Wrist As Justice Gets A Slap In The Face.

2006-10-17T22:11:00.001-04:00

You know, I gotta stop reading the newspapers. I also have to give up watching tv news shows and listening to news radio; hell, the way things are going I might as well move to an isolated island for that matter. You see, it seems that ever time I turn around the world gets crazier and crazier with each passing day. And just when I begin to delude myself into believing that the world couldn't get any stranger than it already had become, something(or someone) comes along to prove me wrong. Believe me,it sure is tough to be an optimist these days . Every time I look for a pony in the horseshit,I find myself up to my elbows in horseshit but the damn pony is nowhere to be found.

On Monday, October 16th, Judge John Koeltl gave lawyer Lynne Stewart a slap on the wrist for committing the treasonous act of sneaking a letter out of prison written by Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman , her client at the time. The inflammatory missive penned by Abdel-Rahman encouraged an Egypt-based terrorist organization to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law. Convicted in 2005,that evil, blind towel head was sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting to blow up five New York landmarks and assassinate Egypt's president.

Stewart also broke an agreement to use translators at her meetings with Abdel-Rahman solely for legal matters and use them to pass on messages to the sheik followers in Egypt. But instead of having her obese carcass tossed into a jail cell for a well deserved 30 years (a verdict sought by prosecutors), Stewart was given a far more lenient 28 months sentence behind bars. In addition, the judge also ruled that Stewart could remain free on bail while she appeals her conviction.

Now you're probably sitting there scratching your head in bewilderment thinking to yourself," Why would he give her such little jail time considering her crime of treason?" Well(hold on to your chair), Judge Koeltl felt the light sentence was justified given Stewarts recent treatment for breast cancer as well as her 30 year career representing the poor and unpopular clients. By unpopular he meant clients such as, a former mob hit man and a man accused of trying to kill nine policemen. In other words, Stewart represented the cream of the crap,the scrapings from the bottom of an already rancid barrelful of the flotsam and jetsam in our society.

Big deal. Who cares? I could give a pinch of shit if she rescued orphans from a burning building while carrying a boxful of baby kittens down a rickety, old ladder. Stewart is a bleeding heart liberal who willingly aided and abetted terrorist activity. Yet, her attorney presented Stewart as a victim. That's right,a victim . And seeing Stewarts obese mug smiling in self satisfied triumph as she waddled away from the courthouse while her supporters cheered victoriously was vomit inducing to say the least. My question is, where in the hell were her detractors booing and name calling while pelting her with rotten eggs and moldy tomatoes?

Please, I need a moment to calm down before my blood pressure goes through the roof and I end up suffering a massive coronary. This is justice? Not in my book! Now here comes my favorite part, despite Stewart losing her licence to practice law(can you spell disbarred?), she sincerely hopes the verdict will vindicate her and that she can go back to her career as a do gooder, liberal lawyer. Not only is Stewart unrepentant, she's delusional as well. Obviously her high cholesterol count is severely affecting her brain.

In the wake of the terrorist attack on 9/11, her sentence is a supreme insult to anybody who lost a friend or family member on that tragic day. Still, the judge, in his wisdom,(?) saw fit to give Stewart merciful leniency; a courtesy her terrorist client would never see fit to show his victims. Judge Koeltl felt that since she had lost her licence to practice law, Stewart was no longer in the position to repeat her crimes. But, suppose she somehow manages to become reinstated? Let's face facts ,she'll go right back to defending the terrorists, the criminals-the scum of the earth. And that will be the ultimate injustice.

Just For Chuckles.

2006-10-13T00:58:00.001-04:00

"Damn house guests. Always eating my leftovers."

To Vote Republican or To Vote Democrat? That Is The Question.

2006-10-12T20:58:00.001-04:00

Look people, I know a lot of you are really pissed at the Republican Party at the moment and a lot of this anger stems from the recent Foley scandal. Also add into the mix the war Iraq, which many feel is not worth fighting and President Bush's approval rating has steadily fallen to a disappointing 37 percent. But the main thrust of the American peoples discontent is the Foley debacle that has the mainstream media licking it's chops in anticipation of more salacious news to come(sometimes they remind me of a pack of wolverines circling hungrily over a fresh kill) concerning this particular news item.

In the meantime, the Democrats are currently enjoying a 23 percentage point lead among the voters. But, before the majority of you voters out there begin to arbitrarily leap aboard the Democratic bandwagon in search of change, let's look at some facts: The Democratic Party is well known for their tax and spend proclivities. If the Democrats take over Congress better hold on to your wallet, because this group loves nothing more than to create expensive social programs that don't actually work but gives them that warm, fuzzy feeling of helping their fellow man. This is all at the expense of hardworking Americans like you and me,of course.

The Democrats seem to believe that there is this big, bottomless pot of money where they can obtain as much as is needed for their liberal,do-gooder programs. Well, I'll let you all in on a big secret,(promise you won't tell anyone. Okey?) there is an endless source of money and it's us the taxpayer. I don't know about the rest of you, but I really don't have a whole hell of a lot of dollars that I can spare right now.

And let me take you back to 1993 for a minute. This was the year the Democrats had control of the Congressional House. They were attempting to push a bill through Congress that was loaded with pork and promised to raise our taxes. On of their more moronic ideas was the invention of Midnight Basketball for the inner cities. You remember Midnight Basketball,don't you? (during their participation in this supposedly wholesome sport, the players drank forty ouncers, toked on blunts and someone was shot with a gun at one of the games.) It was a shining example of a liberal,do-gooder idea gone terribly wrong.

Anyway, getting back to what I was saying about the bill the Democrats were attempting to get passed; a radio talk show host in my area advised his listeners to call their local Congressman and let it be known they did not want that bill to be passed by Congress. To no ones surprise, it passed through effortlessly. In the next days paper there appeared picture of members of the Democratic Congress with big shit eating grins on their faces; they won all the marbles . The problem was that many of their constituents called their office to ask them not to vote this bill through and were cavalierly ignored. These supposed servants of the people turned their backs on the voters in order to do what they damn well pleased.

To echo the sentiments of Ross Perot (he really did have a couple of good ideas. At least I think he did.), they are our employees. They're supposed to do what we tell them to do, not what they want to do. It's all too apparent many politicians have arrived at the wrongful conclusion that they attended a coronation when it was in reality an election instead.

But go ahead. Vote democratic and watch as our taxes go up and the defense budget goes down.All one had to do is look at the economy to see exactly what the Republican leadership has accomplished. There is no magic involved, just sound economics. By implementing tax cuts and not raising the personal income tax, we have more money to spend which means more goods will be purchased thus allowing our consumer driven economy to thrive. Which in turn means the jobless rate will remain low as well. What it all boils down to is a series checks and balances. A lesson yet to be learned by the tax and spend policies of the Democratic Party.

Pedophile John Mark Carr Is Set Free. Is There Something In The Water In Sonoma County?

2006-10-07T00:40:00.002-04:00

I don't believe it. John Mark Carr, that dirty slime bucket, sleazy pedophile and all around repellent sack of shit has had all of the child pornography charges against him dropped. The Sonoma County Courthouse released Carr because the prosecutors misplaced his computer on which contained evidence of child pornography.Nor will he be registered as a sex offender either according to news reports.

Hey now, let's back this up a bit. It's bad enough that sickomucho was given a get out of jail free card, but to not register him as a sex offender? Hello! Carr is a sex offender.And a pedophile. And a disgusting pervert as well. After the statements he's made to the press and the information obtained by law enforcement, it doesn't exactly paint a flattering portrait of him. Except of course if you're a member of N.A.M.B.L.A (that group of sexual deviants); he's probably their role model and patron saint.

And if that sick, warped excuse for a man thinks for one microsecond that he'll be able to go back to his former career as a teacher, Carr is not only a pervert but totally insane to boot. Unless N.A.M.B.L.A creates their own school(God help us if they do.),Carr has about as much of a chance of resuming his teaching career as a donkey has learning how to play the harmonica. The shame of it all is, he's free. Carr should be watched very carefully before he makes his next move.

Who's The Daddy: Idiocy in The Media.

2006-10-04T23:06:00.001-04:00

There definitely has been some very interesting current events that have transpired during this past week. First off, there was the Capitol Hill brouhaha over Republican Rep Mark Foley, whom resigned last Friday when it was uncovered he was sending sexually inappropriate emails to teenage male pages. Foley resigned from his political post,naturally, under a cloud of shame. Yet, a recent article in The Drudge Report has suggested that the incident was a prank concocted by several of the pages. The information somehow fell into the hands of a secret operative in the Democratic Party who in turn gave the information to the press. Rest assured, there will be more coming out on this juicy little story as other information comes to light.

Then we have the situation in Iraq where approximately 700 policemen were pulled out of service when it was found out that these men were linked to death squads. The death squads were responsible for Sunday's massacre where twenty four workers at a frozen food plant were kidnapped and later killed. This band of murdering thugs were also known for snatching Sunnis off the streets and killing them for no reason.

The most tragic event to happen,however was when milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts barricaded himself in an Amish schoolhouse located in the small town of Nickel Mines, Pa. Roberts brought with him a 9mm semi automatic pistol, twelve gauge shotgun and a rifle; as well as 600 rounds of ammunition. He then wounded five innocent schoolgirls ,killed five others and a teachers aide before committing suicide. It seems he was tormented by the twenty year old memories of molesting his two young relatives. Roberts had left rambling suicide notes in which he declared his anger at God and life. There have even been reports that he had never completely gotten over the death of his baby daughter some years back. This horrible tragedy has shaken an entire community and changed the lives of many forever.

But what news worthy happening has been given tons of coverage by the media and the rapt attention of the public at large? It's the story of Anna Nicole Smith's recent delivery of her baby girl and the two men who claim to be the baby's biological father. It seems that current boyfriend Howard K. Stern(no, not Howard Stern the repulsive shock jock.) and ex-squeeze Larry Birkhead are claiming bragging rights as to which one fathered the child.

Yes, believe it or not,this stupid,trivial and even nonsensical three way soap opera is considered major news. Oh, the other three stories will be covered by the television and the press. But will these important new events be fodder for discussions over the water cooler at work? I don't think so. More than likely the hot topic that'll have tongues wagging will be who is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby. And that story my friends will be the one given the lions share of attention by the media at large. It'll surely sell lots of newspapers and keep the great unwashed glued to Entertainment Tonight and other tabloid journalism shows. As for me, I could care less who the father is. I have much more important things to ponder over. And so should you.

President Clinton Pops His Cork On Fox Sunday News.

2006-09-27T23:19:00.002-04:00

It was rather amusing to see former President Bill Clinton go ballistic on anchor Chris Wallace during an interview on Fox Sunday News. I personally missed the event(I was at work) but when informed about it by a co-worker, I made it a point to view clips from the show via the internet. And Wallace wasn't being the least bit confrontational or combative while interviewing Clinton. The question that seemed to cause former President Clinton to overreact was when Wallace asked," I understand that hindsight is always 20/20, but the question is,why didn't you connect the dots and put him(Osama Bin -Laden) out of business?" Clinton immediately went on the defensive by saying that his administration did more than President Bush to go after Bin-Laden before the terrorists attacks. Then he called Wallace's question,"a conservative hit job. "

Following the interview, Clinton's aide told the press they felt the question was more of an attack. And on Wednesday, former President Clinton's spokesman Ben Yarrow said," Chris Wallace was clearly carrying the water for Fox" while roundly criticizing the network's supposed " right wing political agenda." Since then, wife Hillary Clinton has gotten into the act tearing into Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, claiming that Rice did not take Osama Bin Laden seriously enough before 9/11.

As you can see,(hell, even a blind man can see this coming from a mile away.)the old political blame game has begun as the Republicans and Democrats take turns pointing the finger at each other. But it's time to face some facts: yes, President Bush was informed in August of 2001 during a daily intelligence briefing that Bin Laden was planning a deadly strike within American borders.

Unfortunately, The C.I.A and The FBI had separate files on several suspected terrorists and for reasons never revealed, neither intelligence organization shared their information with the other; an egregious decision that caused the deaths of innocent people and the destruction of The World Trade Center and The Pentagon. However, placing the blame squarely on the shoulders on President Bush seems to be the new favorite pastime of both the liberals and Democrats as they rally together in an attempt to regain their majority rule in Congress come November.

In the meantime,Former President Clinton has been busy beating his own drum about how during his term in the Oval Office,"We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's got." Sure Mr. President,whatever you say.

Now, while it's true that Clinton was never briefed about threat of Bin-Laden's Al-Queda terrorist group to our country, he did know about The bombings of two U.S embassies in Africa which 224 people were killed and wounded 5,000 ,as well as the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. These unprovoked attacks proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Al-Queda wanted to murder as many American's as they could.

According to a 9/11 Commission report: Despite irrefutable evidence of the threat from Islamic terrorists,there was no National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism (undertaken) between 1995 and 9/11. The report concluded with:Clinton's flaccid response may have led Bin Laden to make the inference that such attacks,at least on the level of the Cole,were risk free.

Bush,however, began taking steps to create a plan with the intent purpose of eliminating the Al-Queda threat to America within three to five years,shortly after stepping into The White House. Even before the August 2001 briefing, it was Bush who ordered the deployment of armed ,unmanned aircraft to kill Osama Bin-Laden and his lieutenants. This decisive act effectively demonstrates Bush's leadership qualities. And also serves to point out the differences between the two men in times of crisis. History will one day bear out the plain fact that George W. Bush is a far superior commander in chief than Bill Clinton,despite what Clinton,wife Hillary, and the rest of the liberal left thinks. Mark my words.

How Far We'll Go for Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame.

2006-09-23T00:44:00.001-04:00

It was artist Andy Warhol who once proclaimed,"In the future, everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame." And in this day of hungry media vultures intent on filling tv and newpapers full of wholesale sensationalism, there are those who crave recognition and are more than willing to earn their own fifteen minutes.

You see,we are a culture of celebrity, as well as notoriety . There is the kind of celebrity who becomes a cultural icon, whose fame exceeds their own mortal existence while they live on in the publics consciousness for decades to come. Then there is the disposable celebrity: famous today, forgotten by lunchtime tomorrow. But to many of the unwashed, who live a dull, plodding, day to day , mundane existence; temporary fame can be exhilarating, even if it is brief .

Take The Jerry Springer Show for example, a show which brazenly,yet humorously brags it is the worst show on tv. However, it does serve one function; it gives those people out there who will never amount to a whole hell of a lot their little day in the sun. They can parade their sordid problems in front of the entire nation as Springer's studio audience insults and jeers them for an entire hour. These folks are by turns fat,unattractive,ignorant beyond belief and some of them should even take into consideration paying their local dentist a visit A.S.A.P. They're not just the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, they're the scrapings of the scrapings, desperate to grab onto their own fifteen minutes of soon to be evaporated fame.

It's losers on parade and we out there in the television viewing audience are voyeurs witnessing these simple saps willingly debase themselves in front of a tv camera just so they can brag to their friends and neighbors," I was on The Jerry Springer Show." While the viewers watching at home point, howl with laughter and say," Hey Harry, check out the assholes."

Sadly enough, I myself have looked through the same slime encrusted window at these shameless exhibitionists from time to time, with equal parts of amazement and total contempt. But hey,they're on national television and after all, this is the ultimate goal for which they allowed themselves to be presented as a laughing stocks wherever The Jerry Springer Show is televised. But when all is said and done, is this really entertainment?

TILL DEATH: An Example of Cynicsm In Our Society.

2006-09-21T23:48:00.001-04:00

I was anxiously awaiting the debut of Till Death because of one reason: the return of Brad Garrett who so deftly played the put upon,long suffering Robert in the hit tv series EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND. This would surely be a sure-fire hit, especially with the talented Garrett at the helm. So, on September 7, I tuned in expecting to laugh my ass off. Instead,I sat through a mildly amusing show that brought home a most cynical message: Marriage Sucks.

According to the writers,(the husband and wife team of Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa) marriage is wonderful and romantic in the beginning but after a number of years it curdles like a bottle of old milk. What a wonderful message to convey to today's viewing audience. Not!

That's right, Fox network. For years, ever since MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, you've bombarded your audience with shows that depict the downside of marriage.And while the couples depicted do end up staying together, they are portrayed as unhappy, bitter folks resigned to being shackled to one another until the Angel of Death comes along to release them from their life of total misery.

It's my guess that a television show which portrayed people in a happy, healthy and harmonious union wouldn't reap the barrel of laughs that two people in complete and total misery would provide. Our society has become rather sardonic when it comes to marital relationships and one might say tv is simply mirroring us as we are. If so, it is sad making to think that we view marriage in such a downbeat fashion.

Now, to be fair I thought I'd give the show a second chance. However,I endured approximately five minutes of the Sex for Furniture episode before throwing in the towel and switching the channel. It was unfunny and(once again that word rears it's ugly head) cynical. From all the ads promoting the new series, Fox seems to predict TILL DEATH will be a smash hit. Perhaps. But from where I sit, I don't see it surviving more than one season. If the show winds up lasting for a few seasons or more,it'll prove that cynicism is more prevalent in our culture than it ought to be. And that ain't funny.

A JOE'S EYE VIEW: In Memory of September 11, 2001.

2006-09-11T10:06:00.000-04:00

A JOE'S EYE VIEW: In Memory of September 11, 2001.

Photos courtesy of Sara Schwittek. To see more of Sara's
amazing 9/11 photographs, be sure to visit http://www.foureyes.com/towers.

In Memory of September 11, 2001.

2006-09-10T22:25:00.002-04:00

Photos By Sara Schwittek
It's been five years since the Twin Tower suicide bombings and it's still difficult for me to find the right words to articulate my feelings as to the shock, the horror and the sorrow our nation, as well as myself, experienced that day the unthinkable happened: we were attacked on our own soil by foreign terrorists. Following years of relative safety,( Pearl Harbor was the last time an enemy came to our shores with the intent of destroying us.) our country became complacent and all of us were lulled into a false sense of security. All of us deluded ourselves into thinking that America could not be touched, that no foreign enemy would dare bring the war to
us.

Then with a snap of a finger, a group of Al-Qaeda towelheads took control of four passenger planes ,two were sent crashing into The Word Trade Center, one was used to seriously damage The Pentagon, while the passengers of Flight 93 turned the tables on the hijackers and heroically sacrificed their lives by forcing the plane to crash in a deserted field before it could be used as a tool of destruction on The White House. And as all of us watched those terrifying images on television of The Twin Towers becoming engulfed in flames and then crumbling to the ground in a cloud of smoke,every American knew in our collective gut that we weren't impervious to acts of aggression by an enemy outside The United States; we were more venerable than we ever imagined.

But along with the televised and newspaper images of destruction,loss of life and utter devastation there were examples of heroism,sacrifice and a nation coming to the aid of a city in time of need. People from all over the country drove to Ground Zero to let the 9/11 attack survivors know that they were not alone.Those unable to travel to New York donated money,blood and much needed supplies to the firefighters and police officers who were sifting through the rubble. This heinous act of demolishing a city by a bunch of Al-Queda suicide creeps(Their self styled,religion is nothing more than a band of self righteous hate mongers bent on destroying those whose don't share their so called religious beliefs) brought a nation together.For a while most of us(regretfully there were a few less than honorable scoundrels who reared their ugly heads) put aside our personal cares and woes to reach out and offer our assistance.

In other words, America showed what it was made of with the declaration:go ahead you soulless Al-Queda murderers, revel in your destructive, vindictive(and despite your proclamations of your love of God) godless displays of hatred toward us; we'll come back with a vengeance.

Let us never forget September 11, 2001 . Let's show Bin Laden and his gang of Al-Queda towelheads that we weren't beaten by any stretch of the imagination. We made have been wounded but America is still standing giving Bin Laden a collective middle finger.

But let us also not forget the black radio stations who on that day of tragedy told their listening audience to rally to the aid of their Muslim brothers and show support for the terrorists. Every one of those racist radio stations should have had their broadcasting licenses yanked and the stations shut down. The equally racist dj's should have stood trial for treason and then been deported, the A.C.L.U be damned.

We should also remember those idiotic politicians, those political hacks who expressed a desire to provide counseling to the captured terrorists so that they'll see the error of their ways and want to be our friends. They're kidding right? Please tell me they were kidding. If not, every one of those sniveling,spineless, liberal excuses for elected officials who uttered those wishy washy statements should be given the boot by their constituents come re-election time. Let them serve the Al-Queda terrorists tea, cookies and understanding. Not me. The only thing I want give them is a bullet in their heads.

These people are never going to be our friends. We Americans have been offered three choices by the Al-Queda: Join them. Kill them. Be killed. With such a limited menu to choose from you can see there's certainly no room for negotiation, no middle ground. So it's up to us to eliminate these piss poor excuses for human beings starting with the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. He should then be decapitated, his severed head mounted onto a stick and have a parade march through the streets of ground zero displaying the decapitated Bin Laden. I'm one hundred percent sure no one witnessing this event will shed any tears. Oh, and as a finishing touch, video tape the event and then send it to his home country for their viewing displeasure.

When I heard there were lawyers who were actually looking forward to acting as his council in a court of law, my jaw almost hit the floor in disbelief. Someone was actually anticipating defending such a worm infested sack of shit as Bin Laden? Sure,this kind of high profile case would most definitely be a major stepping stone in a defense lawyers career. But defending an evil mass murderer ? How could this person look at themselves in the mirror every morning and not want to vomit profusely?

In any event,we should never forget the victims, the hero's and the day of September 11,2001 which shook our country to it's core. More importantly, it was the day we galvanized as a nation exhibiting to all of the other countries in the world that we as a people stand together in times of crisis.

Vinnie's Pizzaria: Pizza Pies and Mafia Ties.

2006-09-05T22:26:00.001-04:00

This is one of those "strange but true" stories. The kind of story if I were to tell someone at a party they would give me a skeptical look and reply ," Com'on Joe, you're bullshitting me." However, I'm being completely honest. Besides,would I lie to you? (Perhaps if it were a matter of national security I might have to. But that's besides the point.)

Anyhoo, this happened in the mid 1980's. I was married at the time and my then wife Bari and myself would take her nieces Sara and Annie to see their father at his pizzeria. He and Bari's sister Sandy had a particularly acrimonious divorce, so the onus of the responsibility to insure that Vinnie saw his daughters rested squarely on Bari and my shoulders. The two girls didn't seem very anxious to visit their Dad, for reasons never spoken, and I always felt as if Bari and I were practically dragging them to his pizza shop kicking and screaming all the way.

The moment the four of us arrived, Vinnie was a charming and gracious host.We always ate for free thus putting Vinnie up a couple of notches in my estimation.(Hey, I'm a guy. Feed me and you pretty much have a friend for life.)He always asked me about my family even though he had never met them. And I must admit he made every effort to close the gap that existed between him and his two daughters, but Sara and Annie were kind of standoffish. This I always attributed to their mother Sandy who would go to great lengths to tear him down as a father whenever she could. I know this for a fact because she went off on a anti-Vinnie harangue one time in my presence. With information I culled from the other family members, Vinnie may have not been a nominee for Husband of The Year,but denigrading him constantly to his daughters was going a tad overboard in my opinion.

During these visits, I couldn't help but notice these well dressed Italian guys in their mid to late twenties who drove up to Vinnies Pizzeria in black Trans Ams wearing open silk shirts and gold necklaces, hanging around as if they owned the place. I naively came to the conclusion these were friends of Vinnie's who came by to just shoot the breeze. In a couple of years though, I would discover a scenario more sinister than I could have ever imagined. The kind of scenario I though was found mainly in books or movies;not in real life.

By 1987 my five year marriage to Bari was over and done with,even though we still dated each other in between relationships with other people.(I know, it sounds totally bizarre. But it worked for us as far as we were concerned.) One day, Bari called me asking if I had read the newspaper.She said if I hadn't to buy one immediately, that I would be shocked when I read it . Damn if she wasn't dead on the money. I about fell on the floor upon reading that Vinnie's Pizzeria was closed because he had been arrested by the police for his involvement with a drug trafficking ring ran by the Mafia.His pizzeria was where the illegal narcotics were being sold from.

In order to spare his precious carcass from serving serious jail time, he turned government informant. This in turn meant Vinnie, his new wife and child had to go into the government witness protection because from that day fore ward he was on the Mafia's hit list for rolling over on them. According to the newspaper article, a couple of days after Vinnie closed his shop, a tough looking man walked into the pool supply store a few doors down from his shop and asked if anyone had seen him. When the manager said that he hadn't,the tough looking man nodded his head and replied," Don't worry. We'll find him."

This was a little hard for me to digest. Vinnie in league with the Mafia? And I mean, I realized he wasn't quite on the up and up. Especially the time he regaled me with stories about him paying off The Board of Health with envelopes containing cash and lunchs on the house. All in exchange for them turning a blind eye and not bothering to inspect his restaurant. As for the reason Vinnie became involved with the Mafia, I never found out the hows or the whys for that matter.
Now, I didn't feel all that sorry for the man. I'm a firm believer that when you make your own bed you have to lay down in it. However, I did feel sorry for his wife and child who due to Vinnie's poor judgement were forced to uproot their lives, have their names changed and live in some undisclosed location far from family and friends unable to ever see them again.

But I felt especially sorry for his daughters Sara and Annie. They not only would reconcile themselves to not having any contact with their father,they had to endure unmerciful teasing from their classmates.For not only was Vinnie a figure of criminal notoriety, according to the newspaper everyone interviewed for the article said they thought Vinnie's Pizzeria served the worst food they ever ate.

As for myself, I remembered the meals I had at Vinnie's as being fairly tasty according to my finely tuned taste buds. But then again maybe my judgement was clouded because the grub was given to me gratis. At least that's what I think.

The Saga of Lorissa Mc Comas: An Unfit Parent or a Victim of Conservative Justice? Part II

2006-08-28T23:02:00.002-04:00

To recap the previous post on adult film actress Lorissa Mc Mcomas: The State of Florida was taking Lorissa to court in order to revoke custody rights of her son Tristan because she was deemed an unfit mother due to her involvement in the adult entertainment industry.

This tragic series of events transpired because of a good Samaritan deed in which Lorissa and her husband let a girl they knew,who was having a rough time, move in with them. The girl in turn tried to blackmail Lorissa about her work in adult entertainment and threatened to have the authorities take her baby away(talk about gratitude). When Lorissa refused to give in to the ungrateful girls demands, the girl returned with four friends and was further threatened with bodily injury if their demands were not met. As soon as Lorissa's husband came home, her former captors called the police on Lorissa and her husband Doug, claiming he had pulled a gun on them for no apparent reason.

Eventually, every one of the blackmailers refused to take a lie detector test, knowing full good and well they'd fail it hands down and the police ended up dropping the charges. But Lorissa's child was still taken from her by Child Protective Services. Lorissa said to me in a voice full of despair and emotion," I would call this a modern day witch hunt. They came and took my baby away, no questions asked . They don't care who's right or who's wrong;they just take
him."

When Lorissa steps into the courtroom in Melbourne, Florida to fight for the right to get her son back, she will not be allowed to speak on her behalf. According to Lorissa,if she says anything other than her name she'll be held in contempt of court and will be put in jail. And to think that all of this brouhaha is based on her former career as an adult entertainer . Lorissa said that she gave up her participation in the adult entertainment world to devote all of her time in raising Tristan ,while vehemently denying ever doing an sort of
porn.

But here's where her story begins to fall apart: despite her protests of never being in films or pictures of a pornographic nature,doesn't film titles such as STRAP ON ADVENTURE, LOVE GAMES and ESP:EXTRA SEXUAL PERCEPTION at least suggest a type of pornography? Also, check out Google and you'll find Lorissa Mc Comas photo sites described as porn. I mean, we can bandy about semantics till the cows come home.However, the definition of the word pornography according to the dictionary is: Pictures, writing or other material that is sexually explicit and sometimes equates sex with power and violence.

Another matter that particularly puzzles me is: with the court hearing which will determine whether Lorissa loses custody of her son Tristan looming over her,why is she reopening her website complete with nude,provocative photos? Lorissa also intends to restart her 1-888 phone line and her production company. Isn't this a self destructive action that'll insure her son will definitely be taken away from her? The problem is that the more you look into Lorissa's terrible ordeal, the more questions that surface instead of answers.

Lorissa claimed that the police in Melbourne go out of their way to harass her and her husband constantly. There was one time according Lorissa, she was given a ticket even though her car was parked in the driveway because the edge of her car stuck out of the sidewalk. When she told the officer giving her the ticket," I think we're going to be moving." The policeman's reply was a rather curt," It's probably a good idea, because nobody here likes your kind. You need to go back to Hollyweird where all the weirdo's are."

Upon contacting The Melbourne Police Department in order to get their side of the story I was informed there were only three incidents. In 2002, Lorissa was in a car accident. In 2004 there was a problem concerning her and some other dancers. Someone they were performing for attacked them so the police were called. In 2005 Lorissa was given a speeding ticket.

What about Lorissa's claims of unending police harassment? If I were a die hard conspiracy theorist, I'd make the case of a massive police cover up; but there is no tangible proof of that. The police records clearly show only three encounters with Lorissa .Unless you want to believe that the police reports were altered in an attempt to hide their unabashed provocation of a person they see as unfit to live in their community. But again, where's the proof that I can present as being iron clad? It's basically a case of her word against the police departments. I guess, when all is said and done, you can believe whom you want to.

I really do wish Lorissa well. When I talked to her, she came across as a sweet, delightful lady. And although I was unable to uncover the ruling of Judge Griesbaum on the day of July 31, it is my sincere hope that Lorissa got rightful custody of her son Tristan. Because is it really the governments right to take away a woman's child based on her profession as long as the child is in no way involved in it? Lorissa said to me that her son was never,ever exposed to her adult entertainment work and she wasn't going to reveal the nature of her profession to him until he reaches the age of eighteen. Should the government have the right to intrude into her life at all? As Lorissa said at one point in the interview," Even if I did hardcore porn, say if I were Jenna Jameson,does that mean I don't have the right to have my baby?"

Just So You'll Know.

2006-08-22T23:24:00.001-04:00

For those of you wondering why I didn't continue with my article on actress Lorissa Mc Comas as promised, I was so infuriated upon reading about perverted sleazeboy John Mark Karr being treated like some sort of potentate instead of the sorry sack of worm infested shit he is,well , I was compelled to put my two cents in. But I will definitely conclude my article on Lorissa next week. I have unearthed some interesting information that just might make the wait worthwhile.

And while I have your attention, please feel free to email me or leave your comments about the things I write about. I really want to know your opinions. Unless it's of a negative nature and then you can keep your opinions to yourself. After all, I'm very sensitive and just might crawl into a corner and cry. Naw, just kidding. Comments of all kinds are welcome. Let me know what you think.

Murder Suspect Given Royal Treatment at Tax Payers Expense.

2006-08-21T22:32:00.001-04:00

PORTRAIT OF A SCUMBAG.

You know, just when I think that I've seen it all, and believe me I have been witness to a number of strange occurrences in my life; something more weirder and/or bizarre than before comes along to boggle my mind even further. And the populace of Boulder, Colorado are shaking their collective heads in disbelief as well.

For reasons that make entirely no sense at all, Jon Bennet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr was treated to a business class plane flight from Thailand to Los Angeles at a cost of $2447.00. The bill for Karr's most excellent adventure will more than likely be footed by the citizens of Boulder, who are fuming over this type of expenditure for a suspected child sex abuser and murderer. Especially since at the moment,the city's school funding is being cut. I sincerely hope certain elected officials of that city won't be too hurt or disappointed when shown the door come election time.

Instead of being shoved into a crate which would then be nailed shut,relegating the wooden box to the baggage area of the airplane and being given a packet of saltines and a bottle of water (okey, alright- to show that I have a heart, bore a few air holes into his crate and give him a magazine to read.Isn't that more humane? Happy now?),Karr was treated to a sumptuous meal starting off with a pate appetizer and a green salad with walnut dressing. He then dined on fried king prawns with steamed rice and broccoli. To top off this meal fit for a monarch,dessert consisted of a slice of Valrhona chocolate cake. His choice of liquid refreshments were fine champagne,a French Chardonnay and a cold can of top shelf beer. His hunger appeased from the aforementioned feast,Karr chose to watch THE LAST SAMURAI starring Tom Cruise; remember,the taxpayer is paying the freight for this extravagance.

Now wait a damn minute! Hold the phone! Are we talking about a regular passenger enjoying a business class trip complete with meal and a movie who paid for it themselves using their own hard earned money? Uh,uh. The beneficiary of such luxury is an accused child murderer,pedophile and pervert. Karr is an miserable excuse of a man; a sickening, grotesque imitation of a human being who should have had his sorry ass kicked out the door of the plane the moment the highest altitude was reached.

The actual cost the Boulder, Colorado taxpayer will end up being closer to $10,000, but hey,at least he was caught. According to Commissioner Will Toor," It's a relatively small amount of money. The expenditure of a modest amount of money in bringing a suspect back in this case is not something I would anticipate a lot of people being upset about." Think again,Will. Think again.

The Lorissa Mc Comas Saga : An Unfit Parent or a Victim of Conservative Justice?

2006-08-10T17:00:00.002-04:00

I originally was to have this piece published in Baltimore Flavor magazine last month , but the editor, Bill George, kept putting it on the back burner. He probably was of the mind that the magazines target audience was more prone to reading lighter fare such as roller blading, extreme skate boarding and fluffy interviews with up and coming actresses. Unfortunately Bill,who possesses a press agents mentality, is not one to delve into controversial subjects. But this is a story that must be told because it deals with a double sided issue: should a woman because she works in the adult entertainment industry be declared an unfit parent by the court system?

There are several paradox's to the life and career of Lorissa Mc Comas. She claims to have never done pornography, yet several of her videos have been labeled as softcore porn. Just check out her film credits on the IMDb. You'll find her adult film work interspersed with legitimate films and tv commercials. A Google search reveals Lorissa's name on several porn web sites. Upon investigating these websites,there are pictures of Lorissa touching herself in a provocative manner.But when I presented this information to her during an interview, she steadfastly maintained that this was not pornography. In her words," There is no insertion,no penetration, no real sex act committed. I've never have done sex with a man on tape.Yes, I've done softcore. But I'm not hardcore pornography and I don't do live hardcore pornography from my home." From Lorissa's perspective, she merely works in the adult entertainment industry. But one nagging question that persistently keeps cropping up is: isn't the adult entertainment industry and pornography pretty much one in the same?

So as of July 31, at 8:30 am the fate of Lorissa's parental rights were decided by Judge Greisbaum at the Viera Courthouse in Melborne, Florida. I attempted to contact Judge Greisbaum's office for information on the case,but was told they couldn't say anything about the case due to legal technicalities. A message left on an editor's answering machine of a Melbourne newspaper was never returned. I 'm left with Lorissa's version of the events which have turned her entire life topsy turvey. When I first talked to Lorissa I felt as if she was being the victim of a modern day witch hunt by a morally self righteous government agency. But as I kept listening to the taped conversation, certain things she said that didn't quite fit upon closer examination; there were inconsistencies in her statements. And while I promised Lorissa that this wasn't going be an ambush article presenting her in a bad way, I have to be honest, none the less, and call things the way I see them from the evidence presented to me.

In addition to her battles with the Florida Department of Child Welfare, Lorissa has contracted a crippling disease called RS Dystrophy, affecting her bones and joints to where it's difficult for her to walk. Sometimes she has to rely on a wheelchair to get around. " From my knees down I look like a bumpy mess," Lorissa says with a touch of humor. " But the rest of me still looks great. I can still work, I just have to wear pants now. So basically I won't be doing the nudity I did before. I'll just be doing regular clothed roles. That's all.".

Add to this tragic tale the fact that her brother is dying from AIDS.(At one point during the interview, he mischievously interrupted to say about his sister," So beautiful.")Then on top of all of that, Lorissa's mother died of cancer and her father became so distraught following her death, he committed suicide one night while she was acting in a movie; one wonders how Lorissa can even begin to cope with everything that has been heaped onto her plate.

But like all stories, let's start at the beginning: Lorissa began by modeling for Playboy, thus launching her career in the modeling industry. It was this association with Playboy that helped Lorissa to get a part in the movie SPRING BREAK : SORORITY BABES, which opened a door for her towards a career in acting. With a touch of well deserved pride, Lorissa told me that when she was on the cover of Playboy Book of Lingerie, she was also on the Deans list while attending Miami University.

Another honor bestowed upon Lorissa was being voted in The Top One Thousand Glamour Models of The Twentieth Century. Her name will go down in history as one of the one thousand most glamorous pinup models of all ages ; along with sexual icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch and Bettie Page,to name a few. She used the notoriety of being glamour model as a springboard for acting roles in sexy, low budget thrillers. Lorissa considers her career to be in higher end B movies or even A-ish productions in the motion picture industry. She told me at one point that she'll never do movies like THE BARE WENCH PROJECT anymore.

This was Lorissa's time for her career and personal life to flourish. It seemed as if the world was her oyster. But life, or fate if you will, had other less than pleasant situations in store for her; Lorissa would soon be facing obstacles and challenges that would bring financial problems, a mental breakdown and even cause her a series of physical ailments.

Lorissa moved from Los Angeles to Florida to help care for her mother who was stricken with terminal cancer. As Lorissa said to me," I was in bed with her and she physically died upon me. Which was traumatic enough. I had to go do a movie after her death, a couple of weeks later. When I left to go do the movie, my father blew his brains out. When I came home, my Dad's brains were all over the wall. That was the worst, most tragic loss in my life."

Lorissa then went into a deep depression. Turning into a recluse, she stayed at home, didn't call anybody and went as far as to disconnect the phone so nobody could call her; whether it be for movie roles or anything else for that matter. The trauma of her parents deaths resulted in Lorissa having a nervous breakdown which resulted in her not believing that her parents were really dead,but rather she thought she was on a reality tv show that was being mean to her. Following this incident, Lorissa was placed in the care of a mental hospital for three days.

As for her child Tristan being removed from Lorissa's care by the Child Welfare Department, it was an act of kindness on her part which proved to be her undoing. As the saying goes : No good deed goes unpunished.

It seems that Lorissa let a young girl move in with her and her husband Doug; a girl who had her share of problems which at the time Lorissa knew nothing about. The girl repaid their kindness by attempting to extort two thousand dollars from her, saying that if Lorissa didn't come up with the money she would call the authorities and have Lorissa's baby taken away from her. Naturally, Lorissa refused and then girl's threat escalated to her telling the authorities that Lorissa did porno right in the house with her baby around. One day, the girl returned accompanied by two three hundred pound girls and a male accomplice when Lorissa's husband wasn't there. The wheeelchair bound Lorissa was threatened by one of the three hundred pound girls who grabbed her crutch , stuck it in Lorissa's face and said they'd beat her f***ing ass if she didn't give them the money.

Prior to all of this, Lorissa had been on the phone talking to a long time fan. The fan happened to be listening to the altercation and immediately called the police department. When the police arrived, the two fat girls hid behind the door and promised Lorissa bodily harm if she dared to tell the police anything. Lorissa was so scared she lied to the officer saying there were no problems. After the policeman left the premises, her tormentors said they would leave her alone if she didn't say anything to anybody about the incident. At this juncture, her husband Doug came home. Unbelievably, the girls, who had previously held Lorissa hostage, called the police charging that he threatened their lives with a gun.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Something On My Mind.

2006-08-04T16:01:00.001-04:00

I had started out writing about the senseless hate crime of last week,where at a Jewish Charity event a whacked out loser named Naveed Afzal Haq entered the room using a 13 year old girl as a shield. He then opened fire,using two semi automatic pistols. Five women were wounded and another,Pam Waechter, was killed. Hag, who is a Muslim, said after his arrest,"These are Jews and I'm tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."

Haq(or Bald and Ugly as I refer to him), is no more than a spineless, cowardly bastard, a wannabe man with jelly as a backbone for terrorizing a group of women. If he tried that on a room full of men, he probably would have gotten his ass beaten to a pulp or better yet, would have wound up dead. And to use a 13 year old girl as a shield? That is completely and utterly the act of a coward; there are no two ways about it. A family friend told reporters that Haq was a quiet loner with few friends. (Big surprise,huh?)

It's very hard for me to write about this because I cannot even begin to understand hate crimes. And I hope to God never in my lifetime to ever come close to understanding these kinds of deplorable actions. It's totally alien to my way of thinking to rational why some screwed in the head nut case takes it upon his or herself to right a supposed wrong by shooting someone for racial,religious, even political beliefs.

I 've said this before and it looks like I'll say it again, killing never solves an issue. All it does is wreck innocent lives,while giving the murderer his much desired fifteen minutes of fame. (Although I find it more than a little ironic that before entering the King County courtroom, Haq requested through his public defender that he be allowed to personally not attend the hearing or for him not to photographed or video taped. District Judge Barbara L. Linde prudently denied both of Haq's requests.)

From what I've read about Pam Waechter, she was a tireless worker for the Jewish community and was loved by everybody. She deserves to be remembered by those whose lives she so profoundly touched. While on the other hand,Dipshit -- er I mean Haq(no I was right the first time) should be strapped to a gurney and have poison shot through his veins. No lifetime of three hots and a cot for wacko boy.

Now, some of you are thinking," But didn't he just say that killing never solves an issue?" Yes, I did say that. But I was talking about the killing of innocent people, not murderers or the criminally insane who take lives for either unjustifiable or mentally unbalanced reasons. It all boils down to this, there really is a difference between the two . But we'll open that particular can of worms at another time.

My Choice For Asshole of The Week.

2006-08-03T00:00:00.003-04:00

Well folks, the votes have been counted,the nominee's were selected and after much deliberation and soul searching I have made my decision. Sure there were quite a few nominee's whose idiotic posturing and infantile antics made my selection a rather tough one to be sure, but one person in particular stood out from all of the others as a shining example of loutish behavior.

And the winner of The Asshole of The Week Award goes to none other than Mel Gibson,who after spending an evening soaking up the sauce at a trendy Malibu restaurant was arrested for speeding. He became belligerent towards the arresting officer and said," The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?" (Great going, Mel. Now, let's see how far you can stick your foot into your mouth without gagging.)

As expected, the fallout from this scandalous incident has begun to rain down upon poor Mel, and from where I sit it doesn't look pretty. There are those in the media who are of the opinion the repercussions will go beyond legal penalties, that Gibson's career could possibly go into serious meltdown. (By the way,did you get a load of the police mug shot that the AP wire service ran? With that slightly disheveled look and an impish smile,it appears as if he's posing for a recent publicity photo.)

Gibson's anti-Semitic statements have placed further strains between himself and members of the Jewish Community,which began when they felt he portrayed Jews as being responsible for the death of Jesus in his film THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. And though he has apologized directly to the Jewish Community for his thoughtless remarks, former TV producer Merv Adelson has refused to accept Gibsons mea culpa and had gone as far as to take out an ad in The Los Angles Times to chastise movie studio heads for not strongly condemning him.

Gibson has even entered an out patient program for alcohol abuse as his way of showing atonement. But there are those cynics who believe this is simply Gibson's attempt to save both his ass as well as his career as an actor/director.

If convicted in a court of law, he won't do any jail time; after all it's a first time misdemeanor drunken driving offense. But, in the court of public opinion,the verdict could go either way. After all,we Americans do worship our movie stars; to us, they are our royalty.

As for Hollywood's ultimate decision on the fate of Mel Gibson,well,the jury's still out on that one. As the saying goes:money talks, bullshit walks. In the movie capital of the world, money in the box office takes precedence over bad behavior and anti Semitic comments any day.

Time For A Change. ( A Writers Lament.)

2006-07-17T21:59:00.002-04:00

For that last two years I've been a contributor to the website Red Hot Planet. And I have had to put up with more than my fair share of idiotic horseshit. To put it bluntly,not only has there been a lack of any financial remuneration, but I've had my hard work extensively rewritten to the point of my particular writing style being completely eviscerated. And then,on top of that to be told I should be grateful for his improvements to my submissions.

But, let's start from the beginning: I first met Bill George in 1977 when he sold movie memorabilia from his parents home in Baltimore. Every few months I would make the trek from Delaware to Maryland to buy posters, stills, 16mm tv spots and other movie collectibles from him.During my formative years as a collector, Bill was a major source for my purchases.

It was in 1983 that Bill enlisted my help in a book he was writing called EROTICISM IN THE FANTASY CINEMA. I interviewed actresses Victoria Vetri(also a former Playmate of The Year), PJ Soles and Angelique Pettyjohn. I was paid with movie memorabilia instead of cash,something my then wife was not very happy about, but Bill painted a rosy, pie in the sky picture claiming this would be great exposure for me and that next time I would see money!

But the big fly in the ointment for me was: when the book came out my name was dumped inthe acknowledgement section where you put the names of people lent a still or a movie ad for illustration purposes.This did not sit with me at all because I provided three interviews and as such rated a byline beside the interviews.Bill gave some sort of bullshit rational which I have long since forgotten, but promised (he's a past master at making empty promises)that I would get full credit on his next book called DRIVE-IN MADNESS.

Here's a fun fact: Bill wasn't entirely sure some of the actresses I contacted would want to be featured in a book titled DRIVE-IN MADNESS, so he instructed me to tell them that the book would be titled: CHEESECAKE:BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. I wondered about the ramifications when the book was published and these actresses got a gander of the real title,which was a far cry from the one I had described to them. But Bill never thinks about such negative aspects,he's too busy chasing his dreams no matter whose toes he steps on during said chase.

To make a long story short,due to publication delays(engineered by The Imagine Publishing Company)the book never saw the light of day. Now for me this was a crushing blow because I had five complete interviews which also featured my byline next to them. This could have been a big stepping stone for me,but I guess it just wasn't meant to happen.(I tell myself that when I'm waxing philosophically.)

For some odd reason, Bill was always working for foreign horror movie magazines who paid in posters instead of money. I had an interview published in a French magazine called Mad Movies and when I received a package of stills and posters in the mail as opposed to a check, my wife was not exactly jumping up and down for joy. She always thought that Bill was more talk than action and felt I was wasting my time dealing with him. But I naively kept going down this path because I thought that Bill probably knew what he was doing. Little did I know he was flying as blindly as myself,but Bill had a talent for convincing me (as well as others ) that he knew more than he actually did.

It was in 1993 that we had a big falling out. He sent an interview I did with Producer Sam Sherman that was originally to be used in DRIVE-IN MADNESS to a French publication L'CRAN FANTASTIQUE and once again swore that I would be paid monetarily and not with a pile of paper memorabilia. Again, I put my trust in Bill(or as I've come to regard him: Three Dollar Bill ) It was at this period of his life he became editor of an American magazine(What happened? Did Bill finally run out of foreign magazines to work for?) called FEMME FATALES. He also developed quite an ego, because when I asked him to send me a copy of L'CRAN FANTASTIQUE, Bill said he was too busy and I should write to them to get it. I pestered him for a couple of weeks before he grudgingly sent one to me in the mail.

Then I waited for my payment. And waited. And waited some more till I started getting rather peeved about not receiving any financial compensation for my interview. When I called Bill, he once again stated that he was much too busy with his magazine to help me out and told me to write to the French publication myself.

Now wait a damn minute, he's the person I sent the interview to who in turn sent it out the people at L'CRAN FANTASTIQUE. Bill communicated with them,not me. So it was his responsibilty to see I got the money due to me. But, God forbid, he was too engrossed with his new pet project to give an ounch of shit about me and my problems. You see, I was in the fiscal shithouse and needed the money very badly. I ended up writing to the French people and requesting payment for my work. And if you think I ended up with a check for my endeavors, you'll also believe that the Easter Bunny visits my house every April and supplies me with endless amounts of candy. For Bill to hang me out to dry like that was unconscionable. As my friend, Bill was supposed to watch my back,not stab me in it. I felt as if he'd turned his back on me and it sucked.

I broke off contact with him for about eight years. I saw him a couple of times at some horror film conventions but kept my distance because I was still in a state of rage about the dirty deal that had been done to me and knew if I had the opportunity I'd do something he'd end up being sorry for. My anger reached a level when at one convention, in 1998, I saw him out of the corner of my eye and thought he was heading for the mens room. All I could think of was how I'd gotten ripped off as he stood on the sidelines doing zip,zilch,nada, nothing. I felt it was about time Bill got some payback, so I went in the mens room to confront him. Thankfully, he wasn't there .

But still, I was anxious to extract my pound of flesh and was extremely disappointed I wouldn't be collecting it on that day. So I spent four more years stewing in my own juices while hating Bill George, fervently wishing I could shove my foot so far up his ass, it would've taken every person who lived on his street to remove it. Or barring that, perhaps major surgery.

Anyhoo, sometimes it takes a tragedy to soften ones point of view. Bill's mother died in 2001 after a bout with cancer. When I heard about her death, that Bill was having a difficult time coping with it , I called him up because my own mother died in 1999 and I knew exactly the sort of hell he was going through. Besides, eight years had passed. I was never going to receive any money for my interview; that was ancient history. But most importantly, a friend needed my help.

So we renewed our friendship. I must admit that I like Bill. True, he has a tendency to lie or at least exaggerate. And he's not the most giving human being I've ever come across. In other words, there are times he'll do something for me but only if it benefits him. But still, he's a charming, sometimes helpless kind of a guy and one cannot help but like him.

But then in 2004, along came Red Hot Planet where egos and creative differences began rearing their ugly head once again. Bill asked me if I would do interviews for the website. This time was going to be different, I would definitely see payment and I'd be paid by the end of 2004. The trouble started when my interviews, both introductions and questions were completely rewritten without my consent. When people who had read my contributions would complement me on them, I'd be honest and say that the interviews were not mine,that they had be rewritten. I refuse to take credit for something that isn't mine. One time Bill rewrote a question I asked of an actress who was on an episode of CHARMED to read, " Did you have a blast with the cast?" Now, I would never in a million years ask such an asinine question. That's the kind of question a twenty five year old would ask, not a guy in his late forties. From there it only got worse.

When director Irvin Yeaworth (THE BLOB, THE 4D MAN and DINOSAURUS ) died, I submitted an interview I'd done with him in 1988. Bill rewrote my introduction even though he wasn't present at the interview and never met Yeaworth.Feeling angry, humiliated and heartsick over the mutilation of my work I emailed Bill and said I quit Red Hot Planet. I told him I felt my talent as a writer wasn't appreciated and that my function seemed to be limited to turning the tape recorder on and off. He emailed me back and pledged that things would change. They didn't.

The same thing happened over and over again. And I quit over and over again, and told my friends not to read the interviews because I didn't write them. Bill kept telling me I should be grateful that he improved my work,while I insisted no improvements were required. He even took one of my unaltered interviews to the webmaster(the sneaky little bastard) and showed it to him in hopes he would agree that my writing was in desperate need of Bill's special auctorial
magic.

Bill unfortunately has a puffed up,overrated opinion of his gifts as a writer. The dick.The webmaster ,J.B, told Bill that there was nothing wrong with my writing, that he was a control freak and should leave my interviews alone. I hoped this would be the turning point, but I still had to fight tooth and nail to keep my style from being buried by Bill's overdramatic, bombastic, didactic, purple prose.

As for the supposed pay date of 2004, it was pushed up to 2005 which was then changed to 2006. As of this day, July 19, 2006, I haven't seen one freakin' penny for my two years of hard work. And two free movie previews , free admission to two horror movie conventions and a handful of free dvd's from a video company is hardly proper compensation.

A few months ago, Bill pushed Red Hot Planet on the backburner, where it presently languishes in cyber limbo, to embark on a new endeavor: Local Flavor magazine. Again, he enlisted my participation.And as before,(this is really getting old and tired) I've been promised money. However, Bill has gone back to his old ways and is brazenly rewriting my material while telling me I should put up with the situation because that's how it goes down in the world of publishing . Following another heated argument, he has given me his word,as usual, that as of the 4th issue of Local Flavor magazine, he won't rewrite my interviews any more.

Here's how it's going to be from this day forward: if I open the 4th issue of Flavor and it's business as usual, I'm quitting. This time my proclamation is for real as well as being etched in stone. And no placating words,no lame explanations nor any more transparent promises will sway me. My writing style is something I will no longer compromise with . I put my own individual personality, my humor and my creativity into my writing. I told Bill if he feels my work is lackluster and not up to his epicurean standards, then let me go and get someone else who won't mind when The Bard of Baltimore performs his wizardry with words on their article. I truly believe that he is attempting to put me in my place and show me who the big boss is. But I steadfastly refuse to be treated as a monkey who operates a tape recorder.I think he should f**k off and leave my writing alone.

I've let Bill know that if Local Flavor magazine does not pay me by the end of this year, I'll no longer be working for free. I'm tired of busting my ass and receiving only a pat on the back and a heart felt ," Good job , Joe." Bill once told me that it shouldn't matter if I get paid, it's the idea of getting my name out there that matters. Uh, uh. I'm not playing that ridiculous,time wasting game anymore.

As far as Red Hot Planet is concerned, if and when Bill starts it up again I won't do any more interviews until he can present me with a clear and definite timetable of when and how much I'll be paid. He can get as mad at me as he wants. There'll be no more freebies from Joe. Either cough up the cash or thanks but no thanks. And if my decision negatively impacts our friendship, then it wasn't much of a friendship to begin with. It's time for me to take a stand.

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time I Ran For Mayor?

2006-07-05T23:20:00.001-04:00

Near the Delaware state line in Pennsylvania there is a small town called Aston. One year, this town advertised in the paper for a mayor. (I know, I know; mayors are usually elected. But, this is my story.) Anyhoo, I went to the town hall to apply even though I had no previous experience in politics. They asked me about my salary requirements and I replied that thirty thousand a year was sufficient financial remuneration for such a complex position.

Well, I didn't hear from them for about a week, so I called up to find out if I was still in the running for the job of mayor. I was informed that someone else was chosen. When I asked why I was passed over, they said the main thing that ruined my chance for the position was my demand for thirty thousand dollars a year. They felt I was Aston for too much money.

Please tell me you saw that one coming.

My Craw And Why I Stick Things In It.

2006-07-05T22:26:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to expound on a statement I made in my last post about something sticking in my craw. Do you realize there are some unfortunate people in this world who don't have a craw in which to stick things in? Since I do have one, I consider myself pretty lucky.
Just thought I'd throw that one in there.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does.

2006-07-05T20:45:00.003-04:00

Back in the wild and crazy seventies, I auditioned for a band,the name of which has long since faded from my memory. Unfortunately, I didn't make it past the audition.They said I wasn't quite what they were looking for(whatever the hell that means). However, I immediately became fast friends with the lead singer, Larry. Now, this isn't Larry, my close friend of over thirty six years whom I've written about before in my blog. So as to avoid confusion I'll refer to the other Larry as Larry B.

Anyhoo, Larry B eventually left this band,who made such an indelible impression on me that I can't recall the bands name or the names of the other musicians for that matter, to join a group of more talented musicians called ACCIDENT. So when I wasn't trying to join or put together my own band, I would hang out at their rehearsals and accompany ACCIDENT to their gigs.It got to the point where I was hanging around them so frequently,the lead guitar player, Bob, on occasion would jokingly refer to me as "our bands official mascot". I knew he used the term in a rather affectionate way, but it still kind of stuck in my craw to be called a mascot. As did his habit of rubbing my head when he said it. I almost expected Bob to stick a dogie biscuit in my mouth. Oh well, at least I would have had something to chew on.

One night I accompanied Larry B and his girlfriend Valerie to a night club in New Jersey called Dr. Jekyll's where his band was the main attraction. That evening, the opening band was FALSE TEETH and they were pretty good,except for the lead guitar player. Now, it wasn't that his musical skills weren't up to par, but it was his facial expressions that were disconcerting.And while a lot of rock guitarists usually tend to make faces while blasting off a particularly searing lead, this guy was overkill. He looked as if he were in the middle of having a seizure on stage. I didn't know whether to cheer him on or call a paramedic.

After FALSE TEETH finished their set, Accident came on and proceeded to rock the house.It was no wonder Dr. Jekyll's kept asking them back time and time again, because this band always delivered the goods. And I'm not just saying that because Larry B was a good friend of mine.

On the way back home, Valerie told Larry B and myself that while she was in the ladies room she noticed etched on the door of one of the stalls a declaration of devotion to the band FALSE TEETH that read: I Love Fake Teeth. The three of us enjoyed a hearty chuckle over this poor girls inability to spell the word false.

But it made me wonder because false is not a complicated,multi syllable word; this girl is either poorly educated(which would be a damning indictment of the educational system where she lives) or she has a smoked picnic ham for a brain and is really, really stupid. Personally, I lean more toward the second choice.

Just So You'll Know.

2006-06-22T17:40:00.001-04:00

If it seems that I'm not updating my blog more often in the next week or two, it's because I'm writing an article for a new magazine called Flavor. It's a magazine combining elements of girls,sports and movies. In other words: it's a guys magazine. The article I'm involved in concerns an actress/model named Lorissa Mc Comas. She recently had her child taken away by Child Protection Services because in these people eyes, since Lorissa has done nude modeling,worked in soft core movies and has an adult website she is deemed an unfit mother. All this despite the fact she has never exposed her child in any way to her business as an adult entertainer and would never think to do so in a million years. Plus, Losissa said to me she has never done porno as far as she's concerned.

Which brings me to an interesting point: should a female who works in the adult entertainment industry such as Lorissa McComas be subject to having her child taken away and placed into foster care? Despite that fact that her son was well cared for and that she took time off from the adult entertainment industry to look after and educate her child. Her son wanted for nothing and yet, because of her involvement with this industry, should Lorissa be vilified and categorized by Child Protective Services as an unfit parent? Let's bat this topic around a bit and tell me what you think. I'll be adding more information to my blog as the article progresses, so in the meantime, email me with your opinions either pro or con. Is this a modern day witch hunt or an appropriate action considering the circumstances? This should be prove to be very interesting.

The Story of Timmy Flynn.

2006-06-19T23:36:00.005-04:00

Timmy Flynn was the most obnoxious kid in my neighborhood and I was not alone in that opinion. It seems a lot of the other kids I knew felt the same way about him. Whether it was the charming habit of picking his nose while engaging in a conversation with you or constantly stating "My Mommy says" whenever he didn't like the rules to some game we were playing,Timmy was every kids ideal candidate for "Biggest Pain in the Ass in the Neighborhood".

But everybody else put up with the little butterball(Timmy was overweight for a kid his age) except for me. That was because he went out of his way to deliberately piss me off. What Timmy would do is wait until he saw me, at a safe distance of course, then he'd yell," Up yours, Vannicola!" and stick out his tongue while giving me an obnoxiously annoying "Bronx cheer".

Had I been a few years older, say sixteen or seventeen,I would've simply ignored him while thinking he was both immature and in immediate need of psychological counseling. However,since I was a mere tadpole of twelve, I took umbrage to his display of hostility and would run after Timmy as I screamed at the top of my lungs," You're gonna die,Flynn!" Timmy having the home court advantage of distance would run screaming bloody murder,despite the fact that I had yet to lay a hand on him,to his house and then close the door leaving me to shake my fist at him in frustrated futility,muttering curses as he pressed his pudgy mug against the picture window making grotesque facial expressions and singing, " Nyah,nyah,nyah,nyah." And Timmy seemingly went to great lengths in order to annoy me. I have always suspected he had a day planner in which he wrote:

Eat Breakfast.
Go to school.
Eat lunch.
Come home from school.
Annoy Vannicola.
Eat dinner.

Many was the time as I came off of the school bus there was Flynn(again, at a safe distance) greeting me with his favorite phrase," Up yours, Vannicola!", while once again sticking out his tongue and offering up a loud Bronx cheer. I in turn would holler at him while shaking my fist threateningly, "You're gonna die, Flynn!" With that,we were off to the races as I chased Flynn through various peoples yards intend on wielding death and destruction upon his person(or as much death and destruction as my puny twelve year old fists could muster).We would climb over fences and tunnel our way through exposed sewer pipes as Timmy ran toward the safety of his families home. I must grudgingly admit that for a fat kid,he was rather athletic. And as always, Timmy would make it home just in a nick of time and(as usual)I would rattle my fist at him and grumble as he made faces at me from behind the living room picture window singing his song of defiance.

But fate,unfortunately for Flynn,would soon turn the tables in my favor. One day, I was with my buddies at the playground and shooting the shit with them as I hung upside down from the monkey bars. Suddenly, there was Flynn. He had gathered enough nerve to walk right up to where I was and go into his little hostility shtick,probably thinking I couldn't dislodge myself from the monkey bars and climb down quickly enough;which would allow him time to run toward the comfort and succor of his house. Wrong! I immediately swung down, landing upright. I then repeated my often uttered threat and the chase was on.

I was literally no more than a few yards behind Timmy,but it looked like he would evade me once again. This time, his mother accidentally locked the front door on her way to the grocery store, so Timmy had no way to get into his sanctuary.Upon discovering this,he let out a bloodcurdling scream(what range.what pitch.) and I proceeded to chase him around the length of the house. After about ten minutes of this activity, I caught up to Timmy, tackled him,and proceeded to give him a good pounding.

It was at this point that his mother drove up in the Flynn families ugly green station wagon. Timmy and I suddenly stopped fighting and stared at her with a dumbfounded expression on our faces as she said," Stop beating up Timmy,you hooligan! Go home,Joe, you nasty ragamuffin!" (Although I had no idea what she had called me, I later looked up those two words in the dictionary.

Now, I didn't mind that she called me "a hooligan". I mean,I 'll give her that one.But I did take issue with the term ragamuffin. My parents made sure I always wore nice clothes and I combed my hair at least four times a day.Ragamuffin indeed! So having achieved my objective,I happily sauntered home looking forward to a nice dinner since Tuesday was meatloaf night which was served along with with mashed potatoes and green beans.Hooray for me!

When I enter the house however, the first thing I heard my mother say to me was," Mrs.Flynn just called me on the phone. She said you beat up on Timmy. Is this true?" In my defense I mentioned that Timmy insulted me and make faces at me as well. And that I felt justified in smacking the roly poly little schmuck upside his round head. This did not cut the mustard with my mother at all who sternly announced that I was to go to bed with no supper that night.

No supper? No mouthfuls of my mothers savory meatloaf? This was terrible! This was unjust! If I knew about the A.C.L.U back then,I would have contacted them and I guarantee you that, by God, they would have intervened. I would have been sitting in front of a plateful of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans with fork in hand in no time flat. Democracy in action!

The sad reality was, I went to my room sulking and feeling very sorry for myself(as well as my rumbling,empty tummy). But I had learned a powerful lesson from this experience: chasing Timmy + beating the tar outta him = no meatloaf for Joe. So from that day forward, I left Timmy alone. And by the same token, never again would I hear him bellow the hated phrase," Up yours, Vannicola" complete with disrespectful nose thumbing and wrath inducing Bronx
cheer.

After that incident, I made sure to behave myself so that I never missed out on dinner ever again. Well-except for the times I refused to eat the evenings meal consisting of spinach and eggs. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Conspiracy Theorists: The Lunatics Are Among Us.

2006-06-10T01:25:00.001-04:00

Is it just me or in the past thirty years or so have there been a proliferation of certain groups of people(wackjobs,nutballs,fruitcakes-insert your own descriptive noun in here) who believe in their heart of hearts in a large scale governmental conspiracy? The trend towards belief in governmental conspiracies started with the assassination of President John Kennedy and through the ensuing years has encompassed events such as The Bombing of Pearl Harbor right up to the horrors of the attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Now, these poor,deluded bunch of halfwits are out in cyberspace claiming that the death of Al-Zarqawi,that soulless, murdering, self righteous, religious zealot , was another link in the chain of the U.S governments involvement in the attacks on 9/11. That's right, they have so called proof that Al-Zarqawi was a (get a load of this) CIA operative as well as the 9/11 suicide pilots.And even Osama Bin-Laden is on the CIA's payroll as well.(If this is true,I wonder if Bin-Laden has any taxes taken out of his weekly paycheck.? Does he file taxes at the end of the year? The mind boggles.)

The conspiracy theorists warped and convoluted logic has them convinced that the U.S government orchestrated the attack on the Twin Towers in order to: (a.) Get it's greedy little hands on Iran's much desired oil supply. (b.) Start a war with Iran. Oh, the plot gets even thicker: President Bush deliberately lied about imagined weapons of mass destruction in order to invade Iran, take it over and steal that countries oil.

Well, I'm going to gladly throw a few large flies into their rancid ointment. First off, if we went to war with Iran because of oil, why has the price of gas jumped to $3.00 a gallon? Since we invaded that country and effectively kicked Saddam Hussain's ass to the curb,gas should be dirt cheap for us Americans. After all, we went there to steal that countries oil, so the spoils of war belong to the victor! But the price at the pump sure hasn't gone down.

Second, I'll bet the last dollar in my pocket our government would not be so coldbloodly conniving,so dastardly as to deliberately plan the destruction of the World Trade Center causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people while seriously damaging the economy of New York City, not to mention the rest of the country.

Alas, these rebels without a clue preach their gospel of conspiracy with a smug, self assured zeal. These are the kind of folks that see black helicopters flying sinisterly through the night sky. And I know a couple of people(one is a good friend of mine) who buy into this conspiracy theory when they should know better.

Sure, there was a time when I myself believed in government conspiracies and cover ups. But,as I've learned more information about certain subjects,the less I'm inclined to automatically jump on to the latest conspiracy theory bandwagon. Now, while I believe there was a conspiracy involving the assassination of John Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald and others , I'm not longer of the opinion that the attack on Pearl Harbor was known in advance by the U.S government and that they allowed the tragedy to occur so they could declare war on Japan, thus giving our country a reason to officially enter World War II.

Look, the conspiracy theorists will always see what they want to see;even if shown evidence to the contrary. They'll wear blinders, immune to the real truth, so they can continue spouting their brand of illogical paranoia through the internet and at public gatherings, as well as publishing moronic, half baked, paranoia inducing books on their favorite subject: Government Conspiracies. Whether or not you believe them in the end, is entirely up to you.

Good News, America. Al-Zarqawi is Dead.

2006-06-09T23:56:00.001-04:00

This week,on Wednesday June 7,2006 Osama Bin-Laden's second in command, Al-Zarqawi, that execrable excuse for a human being, was killed during a U.S air strike at a safe house.(guess the house wasn't really that safe,huh?)Also killed in the bombing was his spiritual advisor(big joke there), who by his lack of compassion or feelings for those not of his religion,wasn't very spiritual to begin with. Another al-Quada towel head,Abu al-Masri is supposed to take the reins of this pack of murdering,unmerciful savages in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi,known among his followers as "The Slaughtering Sheik" is believed to have been the man who beheaded American hostages Nicholas Berg and Eugene Armstrong in two particularly horrible video tapes in which the captors chanted,"God is Great!" before brutally dismembering their innocent prisoners. In their black hearts, these animals actually believe this is a Holy War and that they are the good guys.

Hey you wretched al-Quaida bastards,I've got a big,unpleasant reality for all of you to face. When you die,and I'm hoping that day'll come real soon, you ain't making it to Heaven. More than likely you'll all be roasting in Hell. They'll be no 73 virgins waiting for you to cuddle up with-more like 73 demons to torment you for all eternity. God does not condone the heinous behavior of brutal killers,no matter how many times or how loudly you invoke his name.

The thing that confounds me the most about Al-Zarqawi is that his followers consider him to be a hero.Yes,you heard that right-a hero.Oh well, there's no accounting for taste.Or poor judgement for that matter.

So the al-Quada has been dealt a serious blow via two 500 pound bombs. And while I would've been deliriously happy if Osama Bin Laden had been in that house along with his best buddy Al-Zarqawi(seeing a photo of both of their corpses plastered all over every American newspaper would've warmed my heart),I'm willing to wait. Because we'll eventually get Bin Laden. Maybe not anytime soon, but our forces are currently searching for him and they are determined to capture Bin Laden dead or alive(though I must confess, I lean more toward the dead side of the list myself). Hey Binny,you twisted psychopath, better start looking over your shoulder, 'cause we're coming for you. It's only a matter of time.

Prom Night 1973 - An Evening to Forget

2006-05-24T18:15:00.001-04:00

A few years ago,there I was watching Howard Stern on television. I usually don't go out of my way to view Stern's program because there's nothing more pitiful than watching people willing to debase themselves on national television for their fifteen minutes(although,I understand it's now been whittled down to fifteen seconds) of fame. And Stern is the ring master; watching these folks make total asses of themselves as he laughs and pokes fun at them while millions of viewers laugh like a pack of hyenas along with him.

On this occasion, Stern was actually helping someone for a change. It seems this eighteen year old guy needed a date for his senior prom, so Stern made arrangements for him to escort a porno star named Houston to the affair. Now on the surface this seems highly unusual,but hey,the kid was the envy of the entire male population of his high school(not to mention his neighborhood). In addition,he got lucky that evening. Now,imagine bedding a voluptuous goddess on prom night.How great is that? Her porn star status not withstanding,of course.And(as if the lucky bastard needed any more good fortune coming his way.) he ended up living with her for eight
months!

On my prom night I didn't get so much as a kiss. The evening,which most people remember as romantic and magical,was a stale,dull affair and was about as romantic as going to the prom with your first cousin whom you ended up taking because no one else was available . Anyhoo,as I watched this eighteen year old teenager lip locking with the stacked, blonde porno star, I thought to myself," Where was Howard Stern when I needed him?

You see, I was in a dilemma: my girlfriend Delores couldn't go with me to The Senior Prom because her father didn't like me. Well, he didn't mind me as much as he minded my appearance. I had long hair and equally long sideburns, so her father preferred she date a boy who was more clean cut(too bad there where no Mormons living in the area.).

My best friend Larry and the girl he was dating, Rosemary, heard about my plight and decided to fix me up with her friend Anita. Seeing as how I surely did not relish showing up stag at The Senior Prom, I readily agreed because Anita was considered a total fox by the male populace of St. Marks. Guys I knew and even total strangers would come up to me in the hallway to pat me on the back and call me a "Lucky dog". As you can imagine, this did wonders for my ego.

Then a short time later, Delores called to let me know that her father had relented and that she could go with me to the prom. This was definitely good news for me. However,when I told Larry and Rosemary about the change of plans they told me Anita had rented a gown and that I had to take her. I countered back that Delores was my girlfriend while I had spoken to Anita a total of three times. But they insisted, so I backed down and broke the bad news to Delores who was surprisingly understanding about the whole thing. Considering the lousy time I had,in hindsight I should have stuck to my guns and insisted on going with my girlfriend instead.

Though out this entire debacle, in the back of my mind I suspected that Rosemary and Anita were merely using the two of us as convenient escorts. Especially when it came to the supposed relationship between Larry and Rosemary. Larry felt that she was his girlfriend,but the way Rosemary acted towards him I really had my doubts. The defining moment for me was when Larry and I went to an outdoor rock concert at Rodney Square. He was going to meet her there and yet despite a rather lengthy search Larry never did find her. When we bumped into her friend Phyllis, she said that Rosemary didn't come to the concert.

One night,the three of us went over to New Jersey to a nightclub called The Crescendo. At that time,the drinking age in New Jersey was eighteen,so a horde of thirsty eighteen year old Delawareans descended upon the clubs in that area to imbibe vast quantities of alcoholic beverages before toddling drunkenly back to their home state. When Rosemary and I talked about the outdoor rock concert(where she was supposedly absent from),she mentioned one of the bands and how good their rendition of Wars Cisco Kid was,it became clear Rosemary was there because Larry and I had listened to the same band. Why she hid from him that day I'll never know.I suspected she was seeing someone else on the side, but I never told Larry(until many years later)because I knew this would completely crush him.

So I went through with the charade although I knew I wouldn't have a very good time. I wouldn't be slow dancing with my girlfriend at the prom and then at the end go to the beach to watch the sun come up. I'd be hanging out with a girl I barely knew and at the end,if we went to the beach, she would probably hang out with her friends while I sat on my hands wishing I were elsewhere.

During the fiasco I jokingly refer to as my senior prom(held at the elegant Mendenhall Inn), Rosemary and Anita told me while Larry was in the mens room that they were going to see if the two of them could score some pot. Rosemary asked me not to tell this to Larry because he'd disapprove. And with that they left me to sit at our table eating the remainder of my
dinner.

The entire evening started to take on the makings of a tv sitcom. Larry came back from the restroom and asked where the girls were. I said they left to talk to some friends and he went to look for them(he wanted to make sure our little group was together). Anita came back on two occasions and we danced to a couple of fast songs before she left to rejoin Rosemary in their quest for the sacred weed. Larry returned and asked if they had come back. I replied Anita did and left, but Rosemary hadn't. He once again went in search of the girls and I returned to stare at my empty plate.

It was at this juncture that I began thinking about the good time I was having. I looked from the table where I was sitting at out towards the courtyard and saw a couple slow dancing in the moonlight.That should've been me and Delores. This should've be a wonderfully romantic evening with my girlfriend, not me sitting by my lonesome at a table waiting for Rosemary and Anita to do a drug deal while Larry wandered around the restaurant looking for them. Yeah, I was having a whole barrel of fun.

After the three wanderers finally returned,we went upstairs to get our pictures taken(did I really want any sort of reminder of this farce of an evening?). Across from the room where the photographer had his equipment set up was a refrigerator where the white wine was kept.The four of us found out that some of the other females were sneaking bottle of wine under their gowns,so we decided to do the same. As far as I was concerned this dreadfull night needed all the help it could possibly get.

Our little quartet then decided to leave the restaurant and find some place to drink the purloined wine, then we'd go bowling. Why we ended up in bowling alley is something at this late date I simply cannot for the life of me fathom.I can imagine the looks on the other bowlers faces as they watched four people dressed to the nines in tuxedos and evening gowns throwing bowling balls as part of the evenings festivities.

Anyway, before leaving , I ran back to our table where the waiters were serving desert(a slice of ice cream covered with a halved peach) and gobbled it down. The way I figured it was, since I was having an incredibly lousy evening the least I deserved was desert. Although was all is said and done, I would have enjoyed it much more if the ice cream and peach treat had been eaten slowly, as opposed to being inhaled.

The following day Larry, Rosemary, Anita and myself hung out for a while before the lackluster affair came to a welcome end. I never saw Anita again after that and to be honest,if I never see her for the rest of my life I'll die a happy man. As for that sorry excuse for a senior prom,I sometimes think back on the dark,dank,sham of an evening(like once every ten years) and wish I'd stayed home. I would've saved money, plus there was probably something good on tv that night.

Postscript: A year after graduation,I worked for a truck driving school putting up application standees in business's. On one of my travels I was in the same area where The Mendenhall Inn was located, so I stopped in to see if they'd allow me to place a standee in their establishment.The manager politely declined and while we were conversing,I mentioned that I went to St.Marks and that our school held it's prom there in 1973. The manager informed me that was the year many bottles of wine had been stolen from the upstairs refrigerator,so they stopped holding senior proms at their restaurant.

Thought For The Week.

2006-05-15T23:34:00.000-04:00

A co-worker was telling me about the problems she was having with her boyfriend. At one point in the conversation,she asked," Why do you men have to be so testy all the time?" Well, at the time I couldn't come up with an appropriate reply to her dilemma. So after work, as I sat at home I thought of an intelligent reply to her problem and it goes like this: Men have testy-cles which produces testosty-rone.
So sure, on occasion we males do get testy. I mean, given the circumstances what choice do we have?

Why I Quit Union Local 27.

2006-05-11T21:20:00.001-04:00

At first, I believed in Local 27, The United Food Workers Union. I bought into the many promises the union reps made to me and the other members.But the day came when these promises were not kept,their honeyed words turned to vinegar and I became angry, causing me to tender my resignation from this empty, ineffective and impotent organization.

I'd resisted joining for two years because the place I work at(Delaware Park) was an open shop. I honestly didn't feel the need to join. Then one day, I was at home hanging out when a union rep showed up at my door(how did we survive before Map Quest?). At first, I was dubious about this stranger in my home trying to enlist me into the union until he said," I understand the slot attendants are going to be doing taxables.(taxables are jackpots exceeding $1,199.95) Well, we think this is managers work and we're going to see to it that you either get more money or you don't do them." That did the trick for me;I joined immediately. The upshot of the story is, we ended up doing taxable jackpots anyway despite the reps promise.

About a month later, I saw this gentleman at Delaware Park playing the slots during my shift. He noticed me and flashing a winning smile called out," Hey Joe, How's it going."I walked up to to him replying in a rather unfriendly tone of voice," Let me tell you about it..." and proceeded to inform him about how after his promise to me, the slot attendants were doing taxables. Mister Pass The Buck held up his hands in a defensive manner and quickly stated," All I do just sign members up."

Here I had become a member based on a promise and I'd just been lied to. Despite this unhappy unfolding of events, I remained a member of Local 27. I was convinced that at the time of the union contract renewal,they would step up to the plate and do right by us.I kept this hope alive for a year and a half. I might as well have believed in The Easter Bunny when all was said and done.

During the year and a half, our union rep,Henry, would come by and check on us,oh,once in a blue moon. Sometimes I wondered if the union was cognizant that our chapter existed at all;that's how infrequently we would see him. But as soon as our contract was being renegotiated,Henry suddenly decided to show up and visit us with a frequency never before demonstrated.

During these meetings at the union hall ,Henry made another slew of promises and even though I'd been lied to before,again,I believed him.The slot attendants were becoming increasingly dissatisfied because of the installation of ticket slot machines,our tips were decreasing and our paychecks were $30.00-$40.00 less(the amount would decrease even more in the coming months.). We were told they'd fight to get our hourly rate increased by $2.00 an hour.

Another promise made concerned blackout days. Blackout days are the days where a slot attendant can't take the day off,unless the person calls out sick. These particular days are considered Delaware Parks busiest times,hence the term blackout days. Well, Henry announced that he thought blackout days were unfair and the union would do something about it.

Then came the day all of us union members looked forward to with anticipation :the new contract. Despite the fact that none of the slot attendants were allowed to attend the negotiation meetings, many of us assumed that the person representing our group fought like a pit bull to get more money,in addition to a better contract. In reality, the rep rolled over like a floppy eared puppy and eagerly accepted whatever scraps Delaware Parks owner doled out to them. We didn't any raise, but the slot techs received a very nice two dollar an hour pay hike.

This was particularly galling since out of the entire tech department only two of them belong to the union. The blackout days remained in effect. However, we got an extra ten minutes added to our break(Hallelujah! Saints be praised!). And,it is in our contract that if Delaware Park doesn't need as many slot attendants in the future, instead of being laid off the employees would be given other positions;i.e housekeeping or some other low level,low paying, menial position.

Oh,and we were told another lie: Henry said," You'll still receive the same rate of pay." I immediately countered with," That's not true, Henry. We 'll lose our seniority and be paid whatever the starting rate in that department is." His mealy-mouthed response was," At least you'll still be working."

I can just see in now: I'll be making a whopping $8.50 an hour. I will then go to my car loan company and say," Could you please lower my monthly car payments? My weekly paycheck is much lower than it used to be." I'll also give the same speech to the cable company,car insurance, gas and electric,ect. And I'm sure, I mean really sure,as such as I'm writing at this moment that they'll all say in unison," Okey, Joe. We understand. You can pay us less." Yeah. Right. And then I'll hit the Powerball for one hundred million while I'm at it,too.

As you can imagine, the roomful of union members was hardly beside themselves with glee.Actually, it was more like an angry lynch mob. Now, just take a moment to think about whom we wanted to lynch. If you guessed the union reps,then put a little gold star next to your name;you earned it. Anyhoo, there was a whole lot of grumbling going on and the entire room was going to turn this feeble joke of a contract down cold. We were ready to rumble!

Now, you're probably thinking that our fearless union leader was readying to rally to our defense, that this fighter of the working man would go back to the bargaining table and tell Delaware Parks owner that this paltry contract was unacceptable and we wanted more! I wish.

What our representative said was(now get a load of this)," I could go back to the bargaining table, but he won't give you anything more. This is the best we can do." So instead of a fierce pit bull for a union rep,we had a friendly lap dog who rolled over on command.

I was totally and completely disillusioned. Plus, I was mighty pissed about the entire debacle. Add to that a case of intestinal virus, and the day after our crappy excuse of a union contract was pushed through I angerly went to the union hall to resign. I was given a phone number of the main office which when I contacted them, I was informed that it would take a a year before my resignation would be in effect. Naturally, I didn't like this answer. So I did a little research and found out that if I went right to the human resource department with a note stating that I wanted out of the union, it would take only two weeks. Local 27 lied again! Because in exactly two weeks I no longer had the union extracting $5.75 a week from my hard earned paycheck and getting nothing but hollow words in return.

What galled me the most was the fact that I actually believed in this union. For a year and a half I thumped the tub in their defense, because I bought into their shallow, meaningless promises hook,line and sinker. I think I was as angry at myself for my naivete as I was was for the unions outright dishonesty so they could continue to keep fattening their organization with our weekly union dues.
Although the story doesn't end very happily for us union members, Henry wound up with a fat payday; his reward for embedding the useless, worthless Local 27 into the fabric of Delaware Park for another four years. Following his windfall, he retired with the sizable bonus in hand.

It was Local 27 who ended up the winner in the union contract negotiations while the members they were hired to represent came out of it the losers. And let me assure you, I'm one sore loser. Recently, Henry's replacement came around Delaware Park shaking hands and introducing himself to the employees. I wouldn't give him the time of day; that's how angry I am at the union.

Let me be blunt, the way the existing members feel about them at the moment, Local 27 may not be around in another four years. So the union better start to prepare themselves for the day when their presence is no longer welcome. Because that day is definitely coming.

The P.C Patrol Is On The Loose Again!

2006-04-30T00:51:00.001-04:00

The latest casualty in the war of political correctness is Adidas(that overpriced sneaker company whose motto should be: if you have to ask how much our sneakers are, you can't afford them)who issued a sneaker with an Asian face on it with a tongue sticking out. Well, the Asian-American community became so upset that Adidas immediately pulled the shoe off the market faster than a major car manufacturer yanks a defective automobile out of a car dealership showroom.

The upshot is,by appeasing offended political reps like Queens Assemblyman Jimmy Meng and Queens City Councilman John Liu(whom I think would have more constructive things to do with their time than getting mortally offended by a sneaker with an Asian face on it.) and pulling the shoe off of store shelves, Adidas created a demand. People began buying them up like the sneakers were going out of style,which I guess in a way they were. Even Ebay got into the act where the $250.00 shoe went for $350.00(and I thought I was spending a lot of money paying $60.00 for my pair of sneaks).

People, it's an overpriced sneaker with an Asian face that has a tongue sticking out!Let's have a reality check, okey? I just don't see any racial slurr's happening here. But unfortunately, in these political correct times we live in, every ethnic group sees racism lurking in words, gestures and innuendo. And everyone is walking on eggshells in order not to offend anyone. Meanwhile, ethnic politicians are making careers for themselves by beating the drum of prejudice and nit picking over the most trivial incidents.

Oh by the way, shouldn't these politico's be representing all of their constituents and not just the ones who are of their same race? And if they're going to get their nuts in a knot over something,make sure it's more than a face on a sneaker with a tongue hanging out. There really are more important issues out there, I can assure you.

A Latino Version Of The Star Spangled Banner? I Don't Think So!

2006-04-29T23:43:00.003-04:00

The pro illegal alien activists are at it again and they're beginning to really piss me off. These yo-yo's are planning a national work boycott is planned for May 1, where they threaten to flood the streets with millions of Latino protesters in order to demand amnesty for illegal immigrants. It's gotten to the point where several Latin American singers have recorded a Spanish version of The Star Spangled Banner and plan to sing their shitty little ditty at these pro illegal alien rallies. It's called Nuestro Himno(English translation:Our anthem). Now imagine our classic National Anthem with Spanish lyrics and a Latino beat. Sorry jerks, that isn't The Star Spangled Banner by a long shot no matter how politically correct you are.

But, here the Latino crybaby protesters come once again, telling us that we have to cater to their demands. We have to learn to speak Spanish because they don't feel like mastering the English language except for a few words. We must bend over backwards to accept their culture while they totally ignore ours. We must also allow illegal aliens to continue living in America without ever becoming citizens.I say, let 'em march in the streets chattering in Spanish, waving stupid signs and banners, also in Spanish, because most of us won't know(or in my case give a damn)just what it is that they're belly aching about in any event.

President Bush made an excellent point on Friday when he said the only way to proudly hail The Star Spangled Banner is to sing it in English. I sure as hell don't want to have it changed into a Latino, shake your ass, dance song. After all, there are millions of other songs the pro illegal immigrant activists can crap up without ruining The Star Spangled Banner. It was written for America, to be sung in English. For our National Anthem to be sung in any other language or to be rewritten with an entirely different meaning is unacceptable.

It's time these illegal immigrants went to the time and trouble to learn our language and assimilate into the American way of life, as well as becoming legal citizens. When my grandfather came over from Italy as a teenager, he learned English, as well as immersing himself into the American way of life. As the saying goes: when in Rome do as the Romans do. This new breed of immigrants (legal and illegal) wants to bully us into adopting their culture and language at the expense of our own and to ignore our country and it's heritage.

In case they don't ,however, wish to go to the time and trouble to assimilate, here's another thought:if we ignore them maybe they'll just go back to where they came from. Oh well, I think it's worth a try at least.

Coming To Me With Their Hand Out.

2006-04-18T23:37:00.001-04:00

I received a letter from my Alma mater St.Marks in which I was informed that it was time to give back for the four wonderful years I had there. Being a St.Marks alumni,means getting such letters on a regular(as well as irritating) basis. And sometimes you'll receive a letter saying that out of so many of my graduating class only a small per centage donated money. It's a tactic meant to shame those of us who in the thirty odd years since we graduated haven't felt the need to fork over any more cash to them than they 've already been paid. It's almost as if every one of us owes the school our eternal gratitude(as well as our money).

Maybe they've forgotten this little fact of life, but going to St.Marks was not free. There was tuition, books,supplies;nothing was given to us gratis. It was a case of :

My parents: here's your money.
St. Marks: Here's your sons education.
Me: Thank you.

You could say that I have no school spirit and you know something? You'd be absolutely, one hundred per cent,fourteen carat correct. The point is, I owe St. Marks nothing. And being blunt about it,my four years of high school were hardly four magical years. Now, I know certain classmates who whenever they mention their years at St Marks begin getting misty eyed,a catch develops in their throats as they wax eloquently about the joyful memories of high school. But not me. In reality,I had some good times. But I also had quite a few bad times as well. I met some really nice people. I also met my fair share of dicks, too. In essence, it was four years of school and nothing else.

So, they can send me letters chastising me for not being a more generous alumni member all they want, it won't make me loosen my purse strings on their behalf. As far as I'm concerned they've already been paid, my debt to them is no more.

School Bullies:You Don't Have To Have To Suck It Up And Take It.

2006-04-16T22:34:00.001-04:00

I recently overheard a conversation between two former high school football jocks in the locker room at the gym where I work out at. One of them was complaining because his son had been suspended from school for bullying a classmate. The kid who was being picked on was smaller and wore glasses,so that was reason enough for his being hectored by the larger, albeit, pea brained moron. As if his son was perfectly justified for his loutish behavior,the ex jock proclaimed," I don't why the other kid didn't just suck it up and take one for the team! Besides, the big kids always pick on the smaller kids. It's a right of passage!"

Now,I don't know what possessed pig skin boy to make such a ludicrous statement because first off: life isn't a damn football game. The smaller boy shouldn't be expected to "suck it up and take one for the team". Second: being bullied is a "right of passage?" For who I wonder. I sure as hell can't see the kid who's getting pushed around coming out of the situation with anything remotely positive. So it's the loutish bully who actually comes out ahead. Who, when he grows up(physically not intellectually) will rationalize his actions with the blanket statement," Boys will be boys."

Well, that kind of asinine mind set needs to be corrected due to the fact that these days,the kids being picked on are fighting back by bringing knives and guns into school in order to exact revenge. I'm certainly not advocating this as a way of righting a wrong. But when one feels his back is up against the wall,that person deals with the problem with the only option they feel is open to them. If they tell their parents or the teachers,the other classmates will consider them a tattletale ,a rat and will be ostracized by the other students. And unfortunately, peer acceptance in the school environment is paramount. Except for those who are strong and secure within themselves and don't need the approval of the in-crowd for self validation.

I faced a similar situation in 1972 when I was a student in St.Marks High School. I'll readily admit I was never one of the popular students and was never accepted by the self proclaimed cool cliques; those batches of conformist yahoo's who proclaimed their individuality but in reality went out of their way to be part of the status quo . In other words, they never walked the talk. And, unlike the average high school student, I could've given a pinch of shit if I was popular or not. I didn't have a lot of friends, but I did hang around with a cool group of people. So, unlike the idiotic urban legend circulating around St.Marks, I wasn't universally disliked either. I always considered it to be a case of quality as opposed to quantity.

For whatever juvenile reason, my friend Larry and I were made the targets of a group of tough guy wannabes who individually wouldn't have said boo to either of us,but clump them together and they suddenly became our tormentors. The taunts and jeers finally escalated to an incident were we were cornered in the mens room by these creeps. Two of the ring leaders, Gary Stoltz and his feeble minded accomplice Bill Hatten, were trying to make Larry and I fight each other. We refused to comply with their demands and by shear force of will managed to escape. During our escape, Stoltz viciously grabbed my science paper and tore in in half(the asshole was probably jealous. I'd gotten an A for my hard work and Stoltz,a dimwitted clown,was known for his stellar C- average. College was definitely not in this loser's future.)

Now I could have kept quiet, this was after all part of the high school code. However, I was well aware that this brand of abuse would go on,even escalate further . So,Larry and I went to the principles office and that's where the antics of these band of punks were officially put to a halt. Both of us were branded as "rats", but those bullies were off of our backs and we never suffered any reprisal or consequences. Our friends were still our friends and the people who didn't like us,still didn't like us. So, nothing changed. And although I seriously considered bringing a baseball bat with me to school to even the score(nothing would have evened the score better than breaking Stoltz and Hatten's arms and legs), I never followed through with my plans. Which,in hindsight, was the right thing to do. Not to mention, it was the legal thing to do as
well.

And since in recent years there have been incidents where the victims of bullies have brought weapons to school and have killed those responsible for tormenting them, schools have adopted a no tolerance policy when it comes to sadistic cretins pushing fellow classmates around as a warped, twisted way to get their kicks. It's now socially acceptable to report school bullies to the proper authorities. No one going to school should ever have to suck up any sort of abuse. It's not a right of passage and neither is it part of the curriculum.

Moussaoui Deserves Death!

2006-04-10T23:56:00.001-04:00

The memory of the horrifying events on September 11,2001 still reverberate through my mind even after almost six years have passed. I was at work that day(at a telemarketing office) selling worthless insurance products to credit card holders who could've cared less. Then at around ten'o'clock, the office manager came into the room and calmly told all of us to put down the phones. She said that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center and the building was burning. The entire room feel into silence at that moment as all of us looked around at each other. Then came the news of a second plane crashing into the other World Trade Center building and a sense of disbelief seemed prevalent among everyone in the room. The office manager said that she was closing the office for a few days and would let everybody know when they could return to work.

A group of us stood outside discussing the events that had previously unfolded, when one of the co-workers walked up,an expression of shock on his face, and announced that The Pentagon had been blown up. First, The World Trade Center towers had been attacked by two passenger jets. Now the Pentagon had been hit. What was happening? I tried to calm down my co-worker saying that we should all go home and watch the news on television for further information. He grabbed my shoulders and said in a panic stricken voice," The Pentagon's been destroyed,Joe! It's all gone!" I reiterated we should all go home to watch the televised coverage and find out all of the facts.

Like most of you on that day,I spent hours watching the televised newscasts of the triple tragedy created by the extreme radical Muslim group al-Qaida. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of religious group, who supposedly love God, could engage in this act of mass slaughter without such a heinous act weighing on their consciences at all. It seems that their God is a God of hate and destruction;not a God of love or compassion.(Well, what can you expect from a band of yellow cowards who behead their victims while covering their faces with a towel. These punks are a craven bunch,if I do say so.

And now we have Zacarias Moussaoui on trial for conspiring with the al-Quaida to fly a plane into the White House.During the trial Moussaoui had been defiant,mocking and unrepentant. His lawyers have attempted to elicit sympathy from the jury(and the rest of America) by citing his impoverished childhood in France and throwing in a claim of mental illness into the mix. Pardon me if I don't boo hoo hoo for this waste of a human being. And while the majority of Americans want Moussaoui put to death for his part in the 9/11 massacre,his lawyers(whom he has shown nothing but contempt for)want him to be given a life sentence.

So while the families of those killed during that horrifying September day will for the rest of their lives have to live with the results of Moussaoui's heartless actions; Moussaoui will be eating three squares a day, sleeping in a warm bed, will be afforded medical and dental care; all at the taxpayers expense. There is an outcry that if Moussaoui is executed he will become a martyr to the al-Quaida followers. Well, so what? If he is executed, he'll be a dead martyr and that's just fine with me. In fact,(the A.C.L.U be damned) on that glorious day when Moussaoui The Traitor is put to his rightful death,let's bring back the gallows for this very special occasion! Hang 'em high! It's exactly the sort of justice he and the rest of his al-Quaida buddies richly deserve.

Illegal Immigrants: Why Do We Have To Bend Over Backwards For Them?

2006-04-10T22:21:00.001-04:00

Immigrants come to America for a better life. Okay, I've got that. But they don't want to become American citizens? They also don't want to learn the English language. We're expected to learn their language instead. And as a person born and raised here in America, I'm pretty damn fed up with the prevailing attitude of these immigrants that we must cater to their whims. No,I don't think so.

Now, before those of you out there hurl epithets such as racist or anti-Mexican at me, let me say that I'm not for closing up the borders tighter than a sealed zip lock bag. But come here legally and register as a U.S citizen.When my grandfather migrated from Italy to America in the 1920's, he did it the old fashioned way by traveling to Ellis Island and becoming a naturalized citizen. He didn't feel the need to sneak over under cover of darkness and worm his way into this country. And, he never came here with a sense of entitlement,unlike the new breed of immigrants. My grandfather went to the trouble to master the English language,he didn't expect anyone else to learn Italian. In other words, my grandfather assimilated to the ways of his adopted country. He didn't come to these shores with a list of demands and expectations that were to be met.

The new breed of immigrants wants everything handed to them on a silver platter. They wish to live here but on their terms. This means illegally and they'll become American citizens when they're damn good and ready. We must learn to communicate with them in Spanish because learning speak English is too much of a bother. And they'll live the American dream without ever assimilating into the American culture. They want their cake and eat it too.

That brand of "gimme" logic doesn't fly with me. To all of those immigrants out there let me say this :We shouldn't have to bend over backwards for you,no matter how many rallies you congregate at bitching and griping for special treatment.And if you're here illegally, become a legal citizen or go back to where you came from. It's as simple as that. Learn to speak English because I won't start learning to become fluent in Spanish anytime soon. I once saw a tee shirt with a saying on it that expresses my feelings on the subject quite succinctly: Welcome To America. Please Speak English.

The Barklays Badly Managed,Damn Near Bancrupt Bank Blues.

2006-04-01T23:17:00.001-05:00

Poor Barklays Bank. By 1990 this formerly thriving financial institution was now drowning in a sea of red ink. In fact, the only place you would find more red ink is at your local Office Max. But the reason for this dilemma was clearly Barlays fault.

In the 1980's, Barlays Bank specialized in providing credit cards for clothing,stereo and department stores. The sales staff,always poised and positioned to earn the much desired commission,pushed through credit cards,giving them to people who never should have received cards in the first place. These cards were issued to the type of consumer who had neither the financial resources nor the desire to make good on their incurred debut. One department store actually issued a credit card to a self employed mime artist! I'm not kidding.

Now, Barklays overpaid executive managers should have seen these red flags from the jump and quickly nipped the problem in the bud, instead of letting years go by,letting bad credit card debt mount and doing nothing until it was too late. Which is exactly what they did. Either these executives were asleep at the switch or they naively hoped the problem would somehow iron itself out eventually. Yeah, and pigs fly!

By early 1990, Barklays Bank had one foot into chapter eleven and the other foot on a roller skate, so a solution needed to be found. It was decided that selling off their white elephant was the best way out of a terribly bad situation. But first, they needed to alleviate the overwhelming amount of delinquent accounts in order to make the bank appear to be more profitable to the potential buyer . To achieve this agenda , an aggressive campaign was mounted: Barklays Bank would use their existing staff of collectors and add to that fifty temp workers. With this method, they hoped to eliminate enough of the bad credit card debt making their failing thrift appear to be financially solvent. It was crunch time at Barclays Bank;the heat was on!

Now, here's where I come into the picture.It was December 1990;the recession was getting worse. The DuPont Company and Hercules Chemicals were laying people in Delaware off in alarming numbers. The jobless rate was so high that on the average there were fifty people applying for one job. Former high ranking executives were now scrambling around for whatever jobs they could latch onto.Temp agencies were packed with unemployed people looking for gainful(if temporary) employment.

One day, I noticed in the help wanted section of the paper an ad for credit card collectors through a temp agency. To be honest, at first I wasn't interested in working in collections.I considered debt collectors to be mean,heartless,relentless bastards hounding those who through no fault of their own were unable to pay the credit card company. But,unemployment doesn't pay all that much and since my job prospects seemed slim to none,working in collections suddenly didn't appear to be the monstrous profession I had previously thought it to be. The things we'll do to keep the wolf away from our door.

Anyway, the temp agency procured the position for me, so bright and early Monday morning there I was(along with ten others)being trained as a collector. We were informed the bank expected us to go on the phones after our training and collect ten thousand dollars a week. The trainer made this feat seem as easy as falling off the proverbial log. Following four days of training,we got cracking on Barklays delinquent accounts,attempting to meet the ten thousand dollar a week quota.

On my first week, I collected about twenty five hundred dollars. Not bad for just staring out of the gate,if I must say so. The second week, I pulled in five thousand dollars from the default accounts in my files. I thought, for someone who'd never done collections before, my performance was picking up momentum and that in a week or two I'd reach(and maybe exceed)the ten thousand dollar mark . But there were dark clouds on the horizon.

During one lunch break, a fellow employee came into the break room and told everyone he'd overheard a meeting where the head manager stated,in a voice bordering on hysteria,that the head honchos at Barkleys demanded that efforts to collect on past due accounts be stepped up. It seems they were on the verge of selling their crumbling financial institution and the delinquent accounts had to be purged even further to make their portfolio appear more attractive to the interested buyer. This was to be achieved by any means necessary or people were going to be fired.

At first, I thought this guy was gilding the lily,so to speak ,by making the situation more dramatic than it really was. Suddenly,as if on cue, everyone in the break room saw the board room door open and the managers filed out one by one; each of them scowling and ashen faced. There's nothing more foreboding that a group of scowling,ashen faced managers,let me tell you.

About an hour before quitting time, one of those managers asked all of us to log off of the phones because we were going to have a meeting. It was actually more of a lecture than a meeting. He shouted that we all had to step up our productivity,but wouldn't tell us the reason why. The lengthy harangue ended with," Everyone in here better start pulling in more money and it better start today!If not, we'll start cleaning house!" With that he slammed his fist against the wall,calmed down a bit and then left the room.

At the end of the third week, I'd collected seven thousand in past due debts. I was supremely confident that next week the ten thousand dollar goal was well within my grasp. Then, the hammer was dropped on me. That night, the temp service called me to say my assignment had been ended,that my performance was not up to par. Not up to par? I had never done collections in my life and here I was raking in seven grand in past due accounts.But they were going on a firing jag, getting rid of temps and even their full time employees with ruthless abandon, the coldblooded bastards. The managers were also on the chopping block as well;no one was being spared. The worst part of this was, I got fired two days before Christmas. Merry Christmas to me!

I never found out if Barklays Bank ever unloaded their unwanted white elephant on another bank or if they simply sank into the morass of delinquent credit card debt and were flushed down the sewer with all of the other mismanaged business's; a fate those creeps more than deserved. And frankly, I could've cared less. But on a plus note:while I worked there I did meet a delightful woman named Peg with whom I had a wonderful year long relationship. See? Every cloud does have a silver lining.

A Moral Dilemma: Doing What's Right.

2006-03-26T23:13:00.001-05:00

During the summer of 1990, I began working for a now non existent company called Stewart Sandwiches as a route driver. The money and the benefits were substantial enough to make the decision to leave the other McJob I was at(a well known storage company) a particularly easy one. As I said, the money was good and having tangible medical benefits(as opposed to being constantly promised them)was a definite improvement. Plus I enjoyed the job. Except for having to put up with the owners, Dick and his wife Shelley,two people who should have put an end to their wretched excuse of a marriage a long ,long time ago.

Not a day went by during the four months I worked there that myself and the other three people who worked at Stewart Sandwiches weren't subjected to their petty bickering and naked animosity. One time, Dick was so infuriated by an insult hurled at him by his shrewish wife that he gave her the finger in front of everyone. Their rancor extended to Dick arriving at work driving his beloved black Mustang while Shelley drove her white Lincoln Continental.

Whenever she deigned to stay home during one of her moods,Dick would be in high spirits. No wonder, he didn't have to argue for eight hours incessantly with Shelley. And since the wife was away, Dick felt free to regale us with stories about the twenty five year old mistress he was screwing on the side. One time he was bold enough to bring her by and show her off to us! Dick was always going on and on about how young and pretty she was,unlike Shelley. And we were treated to blow by blow descriptions of their sex life,while Dick nudged whoever was closest to him in the ribs all the while winking and giving a thumbs up.

Now,I will confess that Shelley was not the nicest person that God ever let draw breath. She was bellicose and rather short with people. I imagine that being married to her was no slice of heaven;more like a long,torturous tour through Dante's Inferno. But Dick once told us point blank that he was staying married to Shelly because it was "Cheaper to keep her"; that a divorce would put a serious crimp in his finances. So,while he remained unhappily married to his wife, Dick would sneak off to get some loving with his girlfriend, whom he kept in a nice apartment and provided living expenses for.

Whenever she would broach the subject of Dick leaving Shelley and marrying her, he would paint a false picture of financial ruin incurred should divorce become a reality. Naturally, his girlfriend not wanting to kill the goose laying her golden eggs agreed that their current arrangement was indeed mutually beneficial. The matter,at least for the moment, was dropped. Dick was successfully juggling a sham marriage and a torrid love affair at the same time,while myself and the other three employees heard endlessly about his double life . Dick was quite proud of himself. Behind Shelley's back, Dick would refer to her as " Shelley Stank Vein" and" Mama Ugly Vein" because of a rather predominate vein which ran the entire length of her leg, incurred during the birth of their only child,a son named Bob.

Out of curiosity, I asked why he didn't take her to a plastic surgeon to get the supposedly disfiguring vein fixed. Dick replied he felt this was throwing good money after bad and why waste money on that middle aged shrew when it could be better spend on his younger, prettier honey? I may not have liked Shelley in the slightest, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Her husband,in my estimation, was a slimy,ball-less weasel.

By September of that year, the recession was upon America and Stewart Sandwiches was feeling the effects of it. Sales became sluggish at certain stores, so the routes were trimmed as the accounts who weren't doing sufficient business were eliminated. Unfortunately, someone at Stewart Sandwiches was going to be laid off. Three guess's and the first two don't count as to who the unlucky person was. If you guessed me, then put a little gold star next to your name. You know the rule, last hired/first fired.

As Dick told me the bad news, he assured me that I would get an excellent reference from him. He then shook my hand and wished me good luck. This was during a very bad recession however,so jobs were hard to come by. I lucked out and procured a posit on as a collector at Barklays Bank,a financial institution attempting to rid itself of millions of dollars of delinquent accounts while trying to find a buyer for their white elephant(I 'll go into detail about this story at a later date). The upshot was, this failing bank expected each collector to rake in no less than ten thousand a week or they were shown the door. I was shown the door after a month, so it was back to pounding the pavement in search of gainful employment.

Around Christmas time of that year, I received a call from Dick at twelve midnight. He was in quite a predicament, one of his own making. It seems that his wife Shelly suspected he was cheating on her and she in turn threatened divorce in which she stood to take him for half of everything. Dick wanted me to verify his story of spending time at a local tavern and lie to her that he and I spent evening in this establishment knocking back beers and playing pool. I felt this was simply asking too much of me and that I shouldn't get involved in a situation which was not any of my business. Never the less, I asked Dick if I could take a day or two to think it over and then give him an answer. He unexpectedly roared at me," Tell me now, Goddamn you! Shelley'll put my ass into a sling if you don't come through for
me!"

Now, I felt bad for Dick, but I was at a moral crossroad: do I lie for him when I know this is the wrong thing to do? I mean,was it my job to help Dick maintain he and Shelly's cardboard cutout of a marriage? Or do I tell Dick no and risk offending him? He didn't allow me the time to think things through, but I knew in my heart what the answer was. The right answer, that is. I said I wouldn't lie for him and that my conscience was more important than his double life. Dick shouted at me before hanging up," I'll fix you, sonofabitch! I'll fix you!" I thought to myself," What can he do to me? I don't work for him anymore." Talk about famous last words!

For the next month or two, I must have applied to fifty to sixty places for a job and noticed I was getting nowhere. Then, during a second interview for the position of liquor store manager, the owner informed me that when he called Dick for a reference,he was told," No comment at this time." No comment at this time? Whatever happened to my excellent reference? Needless to say, I didn't get the position. Yes, this is how Dick, that miserable,gutless, cheating pile of crap got even with me for not lying on his behalf. If it weren't for the fact that I would have gotten arrested for assault, I would've kicked his candy ass up and down the street where his business was located. Instead, I took it on the chin. But from that day forward Dick and I were enemies.

A few years later, I heard rumors he and Shelley moved to Florida in order to save their comedy routine they called a marriage and opened up another business. Other rumors surfaced that Dick snuck his girlfriend down there as well and was still carrying one with his double life. Whatever the truth is,all I know is that I stuck to my guns and did the right thing,despite the consequences. In the end, that's all that actually matters.

Joe Sees America(and Canada too!).

2006-03-21T21:18:00.004-05:00

So there I was,traveling from my home state of Delaware, though the Pocono Mountains to The Holiday Inn in Liverpool, New York , where I would be attending Cinefest 26. For those of you unfamiliar with this event,it's a film festival where fans from all over come to see old ,rare movies, buy movie related items( 16mm films, movie projectors, dvds,ect.) and talk to one another about this wonderful hobby. And when movie fans get together, we don't only discuss the latest releases playing at the local cineplex,but about the films, actors and filmmakers from Hollywood's rich and glorious past.

At the place where I work, I was once engaged in a conversation with a female co-worker about the 1976 remake of KING KONG. She actually said to me," That's an old movie,isn't it?'' Now,this girl is in her mid to late twenties,but still, that kind of remark tells me that in her mind an old movie is one not worth watching. She certainly wouldn't enjoy Cinefest at all. This is a place where black and white movies and films more than ten years old aren't relegated to the realm of antiquated obscurity,but where the stars and the films of bygone days are talked about and remembered fondly. And people such as esteemed critic Leonard Maltin(see picture at the top) and author Arthur Lennig(his latest book is a biography of Bela Lugosi titled The Immortal Count. Buy it. You'll like it.) attend the convention not as luminaries,but simply as one of the fans. I can't wait till I return next year.

Another reason I was in Upstate New York was to visit the neighboring country of Canada. Now was the time because I had discovered that in 2007, anyone crossing the border would be required to brandish a passport instead of simply showing the border guards your drivers licence and a copy of your birth certificate. It's a sign of the times(sigh).

Originally, I had planned to drive to Niagara Falls(barrel optional)to enjoy one of natures magnificent wonders, but I had been up until three in the morning the night before,so by the time I actually got rolling it was eleven thirty in the afternoon.The four hour trek each way meant that I wouldn't be back at the hotel until very late. There was, however,an option open to me: it was only a two hour hop to Ontario and back. Sure, it wasn't Niagara Falls, but I would still be able to visit Canada and check out The 1000 Islands near the end of New York State.

If you ever have the chance to visit The Thousand Islands do yourself a favor and go there. It's a place where the river is dotted with small islands. On the islands summer homes have been built, each with it's own boating dock for going to and from the main land.Imagine being on your own island, looking out at the water and seeing natures splendor sans the ugliness of urban sprawl. Not a bad way to spend one's summer, I do think.

After savoring the beauty of The Thousand Islands, I headed for Canada to see what wonders awaited me. What did await me was the customs officers at the Canadian Border who proceeded to ask me a slew of questions and run a background check on me while thoroughly searching my car for contraband. Twenty minutes later, with that out of the way I was free to roam through Canada to my hearts content.Unfortunately, time was not on my side so I went to a local casino to play the slots and enjoy a delicious prime rib dinner. Then, it was back to my hotel room in New York. I promised myself that next year I would to see Niagara Falls come hell or high water(as the saying goes).

It was later on that night a vicious snow storm began. I turned on the television in my room where the local weather man informed me that it was expected to accumulate between three to five inches. This was not part of my plans. I mean, I checked the weather report before I left and there was no mention of snow in the New York State region. At least there was no mention of it on Thursday, the day before I left. It was just two or three more days before the start of spring. Now this isn't suppose to happen. Or at least, it not suppose to happen during my trip.

The first thing I did as soon as I woke up was look out the window to find a winter wonderland in the middle of March(did I already mention this wasn't suppose to happen?). Although it was still snowing, I decided to pack my things and head back to Delaware before the snow accumulated to the point of making the roads impossible to maneuver my car through. I need not worry,though. Even with the falling snow, the roads were clear and the visibility manageable.

During the drive back a strange thing happened:at one point, I drove through a part of New York State in which it wasn't snowing at all and there was very little snow on the ground. Then about a half hour later it became almost blizzard like and the snow started sticking to the road. I even noticed a car that had slid off the road and into a ditch. Luckily,a police car was on the scene to help the stranded motorist.It was twenty to thirty minutes after that the snow storm stopped completely and the roads were clear again. By the time I reached the Poconos,there was not only no falling snow, but no sign of snow anywhere -period.

All I know is, next year I'm going to have a little talk with Mother Nature before I next venture forth to Liverpool. I'll ask if she can hold the snow,at least until I leave. Oh well, hope springs eternal. As do I.

Cinefest 26 Here I Come.

2006-03-13T22:18:00.001-05:00

This weekend I'll be attending Cinefest 26 held in Liverpool, NY , a convention where film enthusiasts from all over come to appreciate old movies. There's a large dealers room containing 16mm films,movie posters,dvd's-anything movie related can be found. Old,rare films are shown to an audience to whom a black and white film isn't automatically relegated to a forgotten antique status.

It's a place where movie buffs can talk to one another about the rich history of movies past and not just rave about the latest blockbuster playing at the local cineplex or the newest, hottest stars on the screen today while entirely ignoring the classics from cinemas past masters.

People such as Arthur Lennig (author of a biography on Bela Lugosi titled The Immortal Count)and esteemed critic Leonard Maltin can be found rubbing elbows, not as luminaries but as just"one of the fans". Cinefest is for those who collect as well as enjoy the art of film. I'll provide you with a detailed report and a few cool pictures.

So until next week,I'll leave you with a favorite quote of mine from the film AUNTIE MAME : " Life is a banquet and there are suckers out there who are starving to death."

Thought for the week.

2006-03-12T23:55:00.000-05:00

I found myself at the dentist a few weeks ago getting my six month check up. As the dental assistant was cleaning the tartar from my teeth I had a thought: Tartar is bad on your teeth and yet it's great on fish.

I know,I have entirely too much time on my hands.

My Peaches and Herb Story.

2006-03-12T23:10:00.001-05:00

So, there I was auditioning for a wedding band. As a rule, I loathed the idea of playing in a wedding band. I wanted to rock out on stage and at these functions you had to play crap like Daddy's Little Girl and similar middle of the road songs. You could play a few rock and roll numbers for the younger audience members, but your band had to appeal to everyone at the wedding reception. The father of the bride was more than likely footing the bill for his darling daughter's special day, so a lot of musical compromising was in order.

It was for that reason I swore on a stack of bibles I would never play in a wedding band and sacrifice my rock'n'roll heritage for a few dollars. But,when I learned that wedding bands could rake in some nice cash, suddenly playing lame songs in a formal setting didn't seem like such a bad deal. And sometimes they fed you. Another plus.

So it was for this reason I found myself,along with other hopefuls, trying out for one of the most popular wedding bands in the area called The Dream People. They enjoyed a reputation as being a polished and professional group who always wore matching powder blue tuxedos during a gig. Sure, the music was lame and the thought of having to wear a powder blue tux was enough to induce vomiting, but the money was the main inducement for the long line of musicians at this audition.

As I waited my turn, another guitar player and myself struck up a conversation. He told me, " You know, I once played with Peaches and Herb." (For those who don't remember, Peaches and Herb's biggest hit was a song called Reunited) I thought to myself," Pack up your guitar and go home, Joe. This guy's got the audition in the bag. He's a professional and you're not."

Well, when he got up to play, this guy didn't show anybody anything. I was as good as he was.If he did play with Peaches and Herb it must have been in his dreams. After he left, another guitar player who overheard our conversation said to me," I think what he meant to say was he packed peaches and smoked herb."

A Word On Counting Your Blessings.

2006-03-05T23:39:00.001-05:00

It seems to me that too many people bitch and whine about the things they don't have. They don't have enough money. Their house isn't nice enough. They could or should be doing better in their lives. They should have more things. Nicer things. Ect,ect,ect to the point of inducing nausea. Or just wanting to smack them upside the head with a rolled up newspaper.

Which reminds me(You knew this was coming. Didn't you?) of the time I shared a house with a woman named Kathy. No, there was no romantic goings on(I'd tell you if there were. Honest.)we just split the rent and utilities and lived totally separate lives. It's not that we didn't like each other or that we didn't get along. On the contrary, we co-existed together quite well, it's just that we were two very different people with absolutely nothing in common.

Well, one night I was in my room reading when I heard her complain to her boyfriend, whose name by co-incidence was also named Joe(I guess you could say that her house was the only one on the block with a couple of swell Joe's in it. Oh well..... I thought it was funny.). Kathy as pissing and moaning that she didn't have enough and that at her age (30) she deserved more. Joe(who knew if he wanted to squeeze her he had to appease her) agreed wholeheartedly with her self pitying diatribe. I wanted to go out into the living room and remind of her of all the things she had. She had a job and wasn't lacking for money. She had food and wasn't going to go hungry anytime soon. She owned two horses and even paid to house them in a horse stall. She had a car. At the time, I didn't. She enjoyed the companionship of a boyfriend. I was between relationships during this period. Kathy really wanted for nothing and yet she still didn't have enough. I never brought the matter up, but I wanted to ask her what would be sufficient for her to consider having enough? What was it that she sorely needed in her life to fill this void?

There was a time I was a passenger on The Pity Train. It was during a transitional period when there seemed to be lot on my plate and I did my own share of pissing and moaning. My best friend Larry and I were hanging out in Philly and although we were having a good time, in the back of my mind I kept thinking of all the upcoming challenges facing me and I began feeling sorry for myself. Suddenly, Larry and I passed an all night band deposit lobby. In the lobby, on the floor, was a homeless man in a sleeping bag trying to get some shut eye as the glare of the city shone down on him. He had no privacy.People walked by the deposit lobby and probably looked askance at him, hoping he didn't wake up and then try to panhandle money from them.Suddenly, it hit me. With all of my problems, I didn't have it anywhere near as bad as this homeless man did. Next to the kind of life he was living(if you can call it living.), I was doing pretty damn well and immediately got off of The Pity Train.

It's been said hundreds of times before, but at the risk of appearing cliche, I think I'll say again: There's always someone else who is worse off than you. So during those times when you're down(for whatever reason) just remember to count the things you already have in your life and not dwell on the things that you don't have. You'll be surprised how many blessings you already have.

Getting Unctuous.

2006-03-05T22:59:00.002-05:00

I was recently purchasing a nice bottle of Merlot for consumption after a hard day at work, when I talked to one of the store associates about the wine I was about to buy. I was unfamiliar with this particular vintage and I wanted to know if he had tried it and his opinion of the wine. He replied that it was an unctuous wine and thought that I would enjoy it. After making my purchase, I headed home to shuck off my shoes, get comfy on the couch and enjoy this wonderful Merlot while watching a dvd.

On the drive home I started thinking that if a wine is unctuous that's a good recommendation to buy it. Yet if a person is unctuous, that's a downright bad thing. Let's say,for example,I invite a friend over to have a glass of wine and I say," You'll really like this wine. It's unctuous." He'll come over anticipating a taste treat. But, let's say I called him and said, " I'm bringing over someone to meet you. He's an unctuous bastard." Well, he'd look forward to that about as much as he would being poked in the eye with a pool cue .

Just something to mull over as you drive home some evening when you have nothing better to think about. Like I did.