I received this in the mail today. You know, it's not often that I get this type of recognition for all the work I do for the Republican Party, or as I like to call them -- "da Gopp."
Who knew Reagan founded anything?
Either way, I'm honored. Let this be a lesson to you all. If you do nothing, and make no effort from within the Republican party, you will succeed so long as they have your name and address.
I HAVE JOHN CORNYN's AUTOGRAPH! BEAT THAT!
OK, folks. Just thought I'd share my good news with you.
By the way, I'm a registered Democrat. I've voted and contributed to a Republican candidate or two, but never on a state or national level. I guess they just like me.
As politically correct as I like to think I am, there are certain types of people that I just can’t abide. They come from a region that is known as lawless and corrupt, rife with all kinds of gambling, prostitution and drug dealing. They come to this area, and yes, some of them work hard and deserve the benefits of our other residents, but frankly -- and let’s not kid ourselves -- some of them are just scum and we shouldn’t allow them here.
Cases in Point:
1. Luis Vasquez, 31 and Axel Rodriguez, 23
These two men came to Staten Island and skimmed almost $30,000 from different
merchants along their armored car route. It’s sad to see this kind of crime being
committed against local business owners with employees who work hard to earn the
money that these people are brazen enough to steal.
2. Elio Pintado, 37
Another prime example of the filth these people our neighbors to the South produce.
This one played “hide-the-pinky” with a seven year-old at a movie theater. He did it
before and now he’s done it again. Just like the other two born criminals, he came
over the border with no resistance just to commit this horrible crime.
And they’re not alone… scores of them come over the border every day and commit all kinds of crimes – murder, rape, driving under the influence, littering… but you know all about it.
Question: Do we need these people to commit another crime before we act on something we already know to be true?
Hey, I’m a pretty liberal guy, but even I can see that these people don’t belong here. Given the same rights of every other resident – residents who actually pay taxes here – these people abuse our lax borders and easy access to the goods and services this area provides. They are not to be trusted and their movements here need to be closely monitored.
You know who I’m talking about? That’s right. I’m talking about… people from New Jersey.
I live in a small New York border town. I can spit and hit New Jersey, or as I like to call it, the "Smells-Like-Ass" State. Everything that is evil comes from New Jersey, including the mafia and Donald Trump.
We just have to be able to control who comes in and out. It’s a different culture down there. They don’t share our values. They barely share a language. Have you ever heard them talk? It’s a goddamn travesty.
Hey, I’m not saying New Jersey is all bad. After all, there isn’t a better place to go to get gas. It’s cheaper there than anywhere else in the Northeast. And unlike here, they don’t charge sales tax on clothes. See, I’m no bigot. I appreciate what our neighbors to the South have to offer.
But what we need to do is build a wall from Palisades to Port Jervis. A big wall. If we can get some of that stimulus money, I’d bet we could build a wall so big it will make the Great Wall of China look like the right field fence at a little league ballpark.
Yeah, we need a big wall -- a wall that will keep us safe from those savages from New Brunswick and the Hun from Hoboken. I want a wall so fucking big, we can see it from space. And when aliens from another planet finally become aware of us and decide to land at Newark Airport (obviously), they’ll have to marvel at our wall-related ingenuity as their hover-vehicles are meticulously stripped apart for contraband at the border crossing in Northvale.
That’s right. After the wall is built, we’ll be OK. Until then, I’ll be in the woods in Warwick with my .22 hunting for guys in gym suits -- in a killing way, not a gay way.
For those foreigners who may enjoy this blog (and I know there are at least five of you), Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday that celebrates the life and work of a man who, through the use of oratory and non-violent protest, furthered the cause for racial, gender and ethnic equality. The world had not before, nor since, seen a man who, in the course of only 12 -15 years, raised awareness of injustice and fought for its end so effectively.
Sure, some of you think that Jesus may have a stronger case for this, and you have a valid point. I put it to you, however, that it is still in question that he actually existed. Personally, I think he did exist. Even so, we already have Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, Palm Thursday, Ash Wednesday, Wing-Night Tuesday, and Monday Monday. He doesn’t need another holiday. Nice guy, though – a real mensch.
For most of us, Martin Luther King became the symbol for the fight against universal oppression by racial and religious hegemony, government policy and the free market.
I’ve always felt a great sense of pride in my belief, fostered by my parents, in equality for all people, even Gypsies.
OK, I may still need to work on Gypsies. I don’t think I know any. In the event I do find out that one of my friends is a Gypsy, I will immediately approach him with my wallet in my front pocket, shake his hand, tell him that I am impressed he is so articulate, and mention to him – in an offhand manner – how much I enjoy Django Reinhardt and Gypsy Rose Lee.
Question: Are they even called Gypsies anymore? I've heard they preferred to be called Roma or Romany. Well, that’s just like them! But I’m resolved, as soon as I meet a Romany person, I will make him/her one of my best friends just so I can tell people, “Hey, one of my best friends is a Gypsy… er, Romany… and he’s good people… he’s alright.”
It would not be in keeping with the spirit of Ill Will and Everything Else just to praise Dr. King and celebrate this holiday. So as we, a nation, engage in a day of sedentary non-action in order to celebrate a man who epitomized non-violent protest (why do we always miss the point?), I would like to direct your attention to some people who may not be so pleased that the good Reverend Doctor King Jr. ever existed.
"When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Trent Lott
“The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.” Rush Limbaugh
“Detaining all Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45 isn’t racial profiling, it’s criminal profiling.” Bill O’Reilly
“Do your duty. Make more babies… By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call "gabachos" -- white people -- are having fewer.” John Gibson
“But basically, if you're talking about a day like today, Martin Luther King Junior Day, and you're gonna understand what civil rights has become, the con it's become in this country. It's a whole industry; it's a racket. It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn't qualify for it.” Michael Savage (nee Weiner, and yes, he is Jewish)
What’s the lesson? The people who rallied against de-segregation and civil rights back then are still around. The names and faces may have changed. They may not use the n-word (as much), but they’re still here. Don’t fall for their claims of a “color-blind” philosophy.
What was evil then is still evil now. The fight for equality for all never stopped. I hope that wherever Dr. King is… well, I hope he has something better to do than watch us… we’ve gotten way pathetic with our Reality TV fetish.
I don’t judge athletes who choose to do whatever they need to do in order to earn the most money in what can only be described as the shortest and most limited arc in the history of career-dom. Most prostitutes can work well into their forties, but free agents in major league baseball rarely work more than ten years, and in the first four they’re kept out of the free market.
I believe in performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. I like it when players hit home runs. I like it when they run fast and throw hard. I also enjoy knowing that when I shell out the dough for an advance ticket, my favorite players will show up to the game because their new, Wolverine-like healing abilities are protecting them from the stress and fatigue-related injuries that accompany a 162-game season.
Mark McGwire used steroids during periods of his career, more or less, since his debut as a major leaguer. He denied it his entire career, even at one point defending his use of Androstenedione, a relatively harmless muscle-builder, as an ingeniously crafted smokescreen for the drugs he was really taking. To quote Shakespeare, this was “a very excellent piece of villainy.”
Yes, looking back, now that there is absolutely no question about it, I find that I have nothing but the highest admiration for Mark McGwire’s canniness in concealing his use of steroids. They really should teach this lie in school along with Hitler’s big whopper at Munich.
But most of all, the feeling I have for Mark McGwire, besides awe, is the incredible amount of laughter that I cannot contain.
He conned everyone, and everyone knew they were being conned. He was Don King without the mouth… until it came to commercials. Here was a guy who denied using HGH, a drug that has curative properties, and for all we know could actually be good for you, but accepted endorsements and took millions of dollars to appear in commercials for McDonald’s!
AND NOBODY BLINKED!
You know, the least the Cardinals could have done was name a field-level box seat after McGwire’s endocrinologist. I mean, hey, let’s be fair.
It occurs to me that Mark McGwire is one amazing guy, and possibly the (least-intentionally) funniest person in the western world. And it wasn’t just McDonald’s. In 1998, he was all over commercial television. He was endorsing anything and everything – all kinds of products. There wasn’t one commercial that he turned down.
I can’t find it on You Tube, but I did find the transcript for one particular TV spot:
MM: Hello, I’m Mark McGwire. You may know me as that guy
who hits all those home runs and looks like an slightly
uglier version of the Michelin Man. Yes, that’s me.
But I’m not here to talk about the Michelin Man,
I’m here to tell you about a problem that,
like many of you, I suffer from: Feminine Dryness.
There is nothing more uncomfortable than being dry
and itchy down there. That’s why I use
Vagisil® Intimate Lubricant and Vagisil® Anti-Itch Crème.
VO: Vagisil®. Mark McGwire uses it. So should you.
If you can find this TV commercial somewhere, I swear I will pay you for it.
I’m telling you, there is no way to overstate just how much of an ingenious liar Mark McGwire was. You don’t even comprehend it. He even had an audience with Pope John Paul II, in front of 20,000 children, and stood there as His Holiness exhorted the youth of St. Louis to condition themselves spiritually just as Mark McGwire conditioned himself physically. And there he was on the stage… smiling like the goofball he wanted us to believe he was.
Seriously! This is a man who lied to the Pope… to his face! WOW!
Say what you want about McGwire and bicker amongst yourselves about how much this affects his standing in terms of eligibility in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and how he lied to the children who watched him play, but again, there is no denying it, he is one extraordinary son-of-a-bitch.
When they erect a Liars Hall of Fame, he’ll be in the Inaugural Class.
I was watching Fox News one night. It wasn’t my fault. I had accidentally fallen off the step-ladder and broke my neck, causing paralysis. The impact of my fall shook my coffee table and inexplicably caused my remote control to switch to Fox News. There I was, immobile, helpless, and being tortured by a psychotic weirdo at a chalkboard.
OK, none of that was true. I’ve never broken my neck. I saw Glenn Beck once. I felt once was enough. I can handle only so much of someone insulting my intelligence. There was something about him that bugged me. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I felt that I had seen this show before.
As a former stand-up comedian, I used to study others’ acts. I wasn’t alone. We were all in competition so we all studied each other. Every now and again, we found someone who was trying to rip off material from another comic, or as in the case of Denis Leary, an entire act (see Bill Hicks). There were quite a few comics in the city who were labeled as thieves. Well, when I saw Glenn Beck that night, my “thief” alert went off.
I couldn’t figure it out. Where did I see this before? I knew that I had seen an entertainer use a chalkboard to illustrate points to a viewing audience before. I know it was some kind of conservative analyst. So I continued to watch…
Can you feel my douche chills?
I would laugh if I didn’t know that millions of people listen and watch him, and that they don’t know how to spell “oligarchy” either. Nonsensical rant after nonsensical rant at the chalkboard…
What? Huh? SEIU? Soros? Huh? Am I missing something?
Then it hit me. My thief alarm is going off because he is not making any sense. When someone steals material, more often than not, he doesn’t understand completely what works about it. He doesn’t make sense because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. All he knows is that he likes writing things on a chalkboard. Who else used to write on a chalk board? I KNOW WHO! I’VE SEEN CLIPS OF IT!
He used to have a show in New York in the 50’s and 60’s… what’s his name? What is his name? He used to write on a chalkboard too! He actually made sense! He may have been off a tad, but he makes sense! Beck is stealing from THIS GUY! Bishop Fulton Sheen!
You may not agree with him, but Sheen was 40 times the talent that Beck was. If I could, I’d edit these clips together to contrast them without clicking back and forth, but why don’t you try it by clicking on them alternately.
There are so many great clips of Bishop Sheen on YouTube. I don’t agree with him a lot, but at least I found the well of talent from which Glenn Beck has siphoned his entire act. Really, Sheen is fun to watch. He’s like Beck, without the paranoia or douche chills. Well… maybe some of the paranoia… You don’t have to watch it, but you can always enjoy the rest of the Two Wars sermon. I’ve embedded it below.
Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be engaged in two separate and unrelated series of articles. Because I cannot concentrate on one subject, I will be alternating between the two which I believe are entirely unrelated.
1. They Don’t Make ‘em Like They Used To
On the Sundance Channel, there was a show called “Iconoclasts” in which a camera crew followed around a movie star/celebrity, who followed around an older movie star/celebrity that inspired the former movie star/celebrity. Robert Redford followed Paul Newman, Rene Zellweger followed Christine Amanpour, and Ren followed Stimpy. I’ve never seen the show and I’m not even clear if the show is still on TV.
What I am starting is something quite different. We are all influenced by people we’ve seen or read about, or by people who have told us about someone they’ve seen or read about. There’s no getting around it. Every one of us is a copy of a copy of a copy, diluted and combined with other impressions from other copies. Sometimes we resemble our progenitors greatly and sometimes we resemble our progenitors waaaaay too greatly. Basically, sometimes we emulate naturally and sometimes we steal.
I may be stealing the concept of “Iconoclasts” from the Sundance Channel, but I believe I’ll be making it more interesting. The “Iconoclasts” of the previous generation will be contrasted with the, for lack of a better term, “Hacks” of our generation. Every article will focus on current persons and how they have stolen, misused and misunderstood the people they endeavor to emulate, and/or the people they hope we don’t remember.
For example, there is a famous Radio/TV talk show host on Fox News who may be actually stealing show biz concepts from a Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York who died thirty years ago. Can you see where this is going?
If you have any ideas for subjects, I’m game. Send ‘em on over.
2.Stealing Can Be Fun!
In this period of economic recession/depression/free-falling panic, we all need some help. Most of us seek help through the power of God, alcohol or meaningless sex. The rest of us know better – we seek money.
You may be tempted to steal a Mars Bar at the 7-11 or a nice sweater from Lord & Taylor. You may pad your expense account or be so bold as to take some cash right from the till. Well, that’s chump change. You ought to know better. You ought to know how to steal… for real.
There are many large corporations that cannot account for all of their funds at a specific point in time. Those who embezzle funds from their companies, large and small, are usually caught. After all, if you’re stealing AND counting on that pension to get you through your old age, you’re probably stretching yourself a little thin. Never mind that, these days most companies don’t have the cash for you to steal, and they’re looking for any reason to can you like a dollop of bad bisque.
You need to start thinking bigger, as in bigger government. What better company to steal from than the company that steals from you? And they print their own money! Name another company that does that.
You can take advantage of so many departments and programs, and the last administration worked so tirelessly to rid the government of any of those pesky oversight positions. Now, with the latest stimulus cash infusion, it’s time to reap that sinful apple from the overflowing tree of institutional incompetence.
There used to be a guy in glasses dressed in a book costume who sold you a pamphlet that listed all kinds of government programs. I killed that guy. He’s dead. I burned his costume and donated his glasses to the poor. All he did was sell you a pamphlet. That won’t tell you anything.
Every article here will be a step-by-step instructional manual featuring the many ways to strip, defraud, bamboozle, drain, and shanghai local, state and federal government funds. I hope the articles amuse you as they fill your pockets up with cash.
* * *
I know you’re going to love these series – all six of you. If you do, tell your friends. If not, tell NO ONE.
