Friday Random 11

It’s Halloween. Do you know where your costume is?

I wasn’t much in the Halloween spirit this week—Libby’s too young to really trick or treat, and I don’t need to eat eight pounds of fun-size Snickers. That changed when we watched an excellent episode of Paranormal State this week. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Paranormal State is like The Real World meets Poltergeist. Find out what happens when the dead stop being polite and start being real scary. It’s cheesy, but really good cheese, like the kind they sell over by the deli department instead of in the cheese case. There's also just enough freaky stuff to keep me hooked week after did-you-hear-something week.

Anyway, they had a special hour-long episode this week involving a woman possessed by a demon. The episode progressed in standard fashion: the girl was experiencing weird, violent episodes, including writing on her flesh. The Paranormal State team suspected demonic activity, so they called in a priest. An Episcopal priest.

“Way to bring a knife to a gun fight,” I said to TLB.

They performed the exorcism and the woman eventually seemed fine. Except, at the end when they show an update of how a client is doing, it said she had another possession episode a couple weeks later.

Well, duh! The lesson, kids, is when you suspect you have the black soul of one of Lucifer’s minions nestled between your heart and what’s left of the Taco Bell meal you ate, call a Catholic priest. Because if there's one thing Catholic priests know, it's how to use their hands to expunge inner demons.

1) “Sara’s Angel,” Steve Earle. A nice bit of old-timey instrumental work that wouldn’t sound out of place during a montage from O Brother, Where Art Thou? Even funnier considering the GOP Republican candidate likely believes she has an angel watching over her.

Which brings up a conversation I had a while ago with my oldest friend. He was on the fence about who to vote for: he’s one of those economic/foreign policy conservatives who’s also pretty liberal on social policy. I suspect he was probably leaning toward McCain until the Palin announcement. We talked about her, and we discussed how we really don’t want Tribulation believers near nukes. (BTW, welcome to a special religious bigotry edition of the Random 11!) It’s not hard for me to picture Palin believing, as Bush does, that God speaks to her, and that her meteoric rise is part of God’s plan. And then, should the awful happen and she assume the presidency, that God “tells” her to start a war that ends with nukes going off. Although, since I’ve been playing Fallout 3 this week, I at least feel more prepared if that does happens.

2) “Thick as Thieves,” The Jam. I believe this was the theme song at the last AIG sales meeting.

3) “Are We the Waiting,” Green Day. It’s odd how dated I find American Idiot. I loved it in 2004. It was perfect for the election that year, and one of the first major-label albums to take a direct shot at the political chicanery gripping the country. However, it sounds completely out of step with this election. Maybe it’s because things feel like they are finally going to change, at least a little. Dare I say it: I have a little bit of hope during an election season.

4) “Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire),” AC/DC. I’ll bet Joe the Plumber likes him some AC/DC. This song has a line I’ve always loved: I’ve got patches on the patches of my old blue jeans / Well they used to be blue, when they used to be new, when they used to be clean. Bon Scott wasn’t all sex and Satanism, ladies and gentlemen.

One funny AC/DC tidbit: I heard a song from their new album, Black Ice, on the radio the other day. When the song ended, the DJ came on and said, “That’s a track from AC/DC’s new album, Black Ice, and one of four songs on the album with the word ‘rock’ in the title.” No hint of irony in his voice, as if it should be no surprise that AC/DC would have an album featuring four songs with “rock” in the title. I cracked up. In fact, I wish they had put “rock” in the title of every song on the album.

5) “Blues Before and After,” The Smithereens. I was in college when they were in their heyday, driving a beat-up Datsun (!) that looked like it had survived a Sarah Palin apocalypse. This is the car that, the first time I drove it, the glass on the passenger side mirror fell off as I pulled away from the curb. It also broke down the day I had to take the GRE. It was, in short, a metallic pile of dog shit. But, it had the most kicking set of factory speakers ever. Big, booming speakers that probably were responsible for shaking loose all the moving parts on the car.

I loved when The Smithereens would come on the radio when I was in that car. I worked as a pizza delivery guy at the time, so I was in my car a lot, and I would crank this song and every other Smithereens song I heard. So, despite that car giving me about 18 months of pure grief, I enjoyed driving it because of those speakers and the kind of music that got played on the radio. Sadly, no video for this rocking tune on the YouTubes.

Funny ending: this was the easiest car I ever sold. My father and I dropped it off at a vacant lot where a lot of people put their cars up for sale. My dad put a sign up in the window: $500 OBO. Why walk? We went home to have lunch, and we had a call within 30 minutes. We went back to the lot and sold it to a woman for $427—she literally gave us every dollar she had on her. So I guess every burned-out clutch has a silver lining.

6) “One Little Victory,” Rush. My favorite music moment of the last ten years was the first time I heard this song. I’ve obviously been completely unabashed in my Rush fandom. At the start of the 2000s, though, that fandom had waned quite a bit. The band had been rather hit-or-miss during the 90s, and on top of that, the double-tragedy suffered by drummer Neil Peart (losing his only daughter in a car accident and his wife to cancer within one year) made it seem like they were probably done. Finally, after a five-year gap, they released Vapor Trails. I heard this song on my way home one night and felt completely kicked in the ass (in the good way). I know it’s geeky to be that much of a fan, but I was so happy to see them not only back, but rocking like every song on their album should have "rock" in the title.

7) “My Dirty Life and Times,” Warren Zevon. I am a death baby. I’m somebody that will need to go quickly and obliviously, because if I have time to think about it, it’s not going to be pretty. At the same time, I have always loved the artistic epitaph—the work where the artist knows he or she is producing the last thing they will ever produce. Zevon’s The Wind is one of those, a sad yet uplifting album of a man knowing he’s going to soon, so he wants to make one final lasting impression.

8) “A Nigga Witta Gun,” Dr. Dre. The new Chris Rock HBO special was just okay, but he had a very funny routine about listening to rap songs with his white friend. He talked about how, if the white friends were with him, they always skipped over the n-word in rap songs, mumbling something or just saying nothing. Yet he knows when they are by themselves, they not only sing it, they shout it. Like a smart man once said, it’s funny cause it’s true. Also: funny cat video set to this song.

9) “Don’t Steal Our Sun,” The Thrills. No kidding. It snowed her Monday, enough to put a pretty decent dusting on the surrounding rooftops for a few hours. I went into season-affective disorder mode (also known as “being a baby”). Well, lo and behold, it was almost 60 here yesterday, warm enough that we took Libby for a walk after work for the first time in probably a month. So I’m hanging onto that sun as long as I can. This is also a great, great song.

10) “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” The Pretenders. Bouncy. Seriously, it’s impossible for me to not tap a toe or finger to this song. This also gives me a chance to link to the pretty sweet MTV video site. You can find lots of actual--gasp!--videos on it.

11) “Royal Gregory,” Holy Fuck. What better group to lead into an election weekend where a young black senator looks poised to beat an established white war veteran for the presidency than one named “Holy Fuck”?

And it’s catchy, too.

Happy Halloween, and get out and vote if you haven’t already. Although I know it’s tempting to abstain from the process in the hope that not voting will kill P-Diddy.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What robo calls are we receiving?

10) I’m Joe Biden, and I’d like to take just a few hours of your time....

9) This is former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. I’m not calling to endorse anyone, I’m just wondering if I can crash on your couch.

8) I’m John McCain, and I’m here to tell you that I’m...I’m...sorry, my memory isn’t what it used to be...where are my goddamned glasses so I can read this script?

7) Hello, I’m William Shatner. Did you know that you can now cast your vote on Priceline.com—with no poll taxes?

6) This is Cindy McCain. Please stay on the line while one of my servants tells you why John McCain is the best choice for average Americans.

5) [Handel’s “Messiah” plays] Good day, this is Barack Obama.

4) Shalom, my friends. I’m Joe Lieberman. I urge you to get out and vote for a real mensch, John McCain, and for Sarah Palin—what a shiksa!

3) This is the Coalition for Undecided Voters. We’re calling to tell you that we have no idea why we’re calling you.

2) Good evening. This is the Republican Party. We’re going to tell you why Barack Obama will destroy America. If you hang up before we’re finished, you acknowledge that you are a terrorist and will be placed on a watchlist.

1) Hi ya, this is Sarah Palin...no, don’t hang up, it’s actually me. They wanted to give me something useful to do before the election. So, how’s it goin’?

Are you a real American?

Sarah Palin recently discussed how happy she is to speak in front of real Americans. But what makes a real American? Take these handy quiz to find out how you rate.

(with acknowledgement to The Daily Show for inspiration)

1.Your relationship status:
a) single
b) married
c) divorced but remarried to person I met at a sanctity of marriage rally

2. How would you describe your home town?
a) full of culture and diversity
b) full of little pink houses
c) free of blacks

3. Your car is:
a) a hybrid with a Darwin fish on the back
b) an SUV with a yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon
c) a monster truck in the shape of a bald eagle

4. Do you own a firearm?
a) no
b) yes
c) that’s “firearms”

5. Drug of choice:
a) coke
b) meth
c) Jesus

6. What’s on your TiVo?
a) Project Runway
b) 24
c) anything with Kirk Cameron

7. What’s the last thing you killed?
a) a mimosa
b) a moose
c) a Muslim

8. Where do you get your news from?
a) CNN
b) Fox News
c) The Bible

9. How often have you been to Wal-Mart?
a) less than once a month
b) more than once a week
c) taking this quiz from the Wal-Mart breakroom

10. Welfare:
a) is necessary to help provide food and shelter to the poor
b) is necessary to provide help to my investments and tax shelters
c) would be better spent building churches

11. What are your feelings on evolution?
a) It’s a fact, supported by mountains of evidence.
b) Humans have evolved an ability to ignore mountains of evidence when politically expedient.
c) I throw feces when someone suggests I came from a monkey.

12. What are your feelings on homosexuality?
a) Homosexuals deserve all the rights of heterosexuals.
b) Homosexual marriage should not be allowed.
c) Homosexuality should be outlawed so that I’m not tempted.

13. When it comes to illegal immigration, you:
a) support amnesty
b) support strict enforcement of our immigration laws
c) support the construction of minefields along the Mexican border

14. How do you feel about universal health care?
a) The government should make it easy for everyone to get affordable health care.
b) The wealthy should be allowed to harvest the organs of the uninsured.
c) We already have universal health care: prayer.

16. Muslims:
a) should not be harassed because of their religion
b) should not be surprised that they are harassed because of their religion
c) should avoid harassment by changing their religion to Christianity

17. When it comes to Iraq, we should:
a) withdraw as soon as we can
b) keep our troops there until Iraq is independent
c) keep our troops there until they trigger the End Times

18. When it comes to offshore drilling, we should:
a) protect the environment and not drill
b) create thousands of new jobs producing hazmat suits for wildlife
c) drill like daddy’s home from the still and full of ’shine

19. Freedom:
a) means being able to disagree
b) isn’t free
c) is for people who share my beliefs and/or skin tone

20. Who would you consider the greatest president?
a) Franklin Roosevelt
b) Ronald Reagan
c) Sarah Palin


SCORING:
a) 3 points
b) 2 points
c) 1 point

20-30 points—Red Wood
You love America so much, you get aroused saying the Pledge of Allegiance. You like your portions big, your truck bigger, and your border fence the biggest. Jesus is not only your co-pilot, he’s your spotter, re-loader, and bombardier.

31-40 points—White Flour
The ingredients are there, but you need some fire to make them rise up. Try a little less compassion and a little more kick assin’. Trade those Dockers for some camo and skip soccer practice to take the kids hunting.

41-60 points—Blew Stater
You stir up treason like you stir milk into your latte. You want our government to take from the rich and give to the poor, instead of acting like a Christian nation and preserving tax cuts. You put your trust into science and fancy thinking, when all the thinking you need was done 2000 years ago. We’ll never preserve our freedom if we let people like you do what you want.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Which other Americans are we spotlighting in our campaign speeches?

10) Melvin the Underemployed Man Whore.

9) Vito the Completely Legitimate Businessman.

8) Russell the Beneficiary of Affirmative Action Who Now Hates Affirmative Action.

7) Mary the Fully-Armed, Pro-Life Soccer Mom.

6) Akbar the Cabbie Who Shares the Same Name as Akbar the Terrorist.

5) Lisa the Accidental Internet Porn Star Thanks to Her Asshole Ex-Boyfriend.

4) Cookie the Anti-Immigration Rodeo Clown.

3) Yvette the Eavesdropping National Security Agency Operator.

2) Frankie the Guy Who Can Eat His Weight in Ham and Now Needs Health Insurance.

1) Joe the Fictional Political Talking Point.

Friday Random 11

Why do I get sucked into those VH1 Greatest Whatever shows? TLB and I wound up watching the Greatest Songs of the 80s before the last debate—which, aside from some fun conversation, was really a waste of time. They drag out the same sub-Kathy Griffin celebrities—it’s bad when your celebrity coup is Barenaked Ladies. Said celebs repeat the same inane stuff: “I totally moonwalked in my bedroom to ‘Billie Jean’!” or “Night Ranger is totally underrated.” Nothing interesting like, “I couldn’t play Culture Club without totally touching myself” or “I totally tried to hang myself while watching the video for ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ but the rope totally broke, and then I looked up and saw George Michael’s ‘Choose Life’ shirt and I totally wanted to live.”

Yet there I sit, a rat in front of the food dispenser, sucking it all in while thinking things like, “T’Pau was totally ranked too high” and “‘99 Luftballoons’ is totally better when you can’t understand the lyrics.” I’m either too easy or VH1 has made a pact with Satan to cast a spell over me that makes it impossible for me to change the channel. I’m totally guessing it’s the latter.

On to the tunes....

1) “A Gallon of Gas,” The Kinks. Here’s how fucked up gas prices are: I got an e-mail, sent to everyone in my company’s office, that there were stations near the office selling gas at $2.89 a gallon. The double-indemnity is that Marquette has the highest gas prices in the state of Michigan. So my inbox is getting e-mails that have nothing to do with me and taunting me at the same time.

2) “Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation,” AC/DC. Funny that the first two songs are gritty 70s throwbacks, considering that it feels like 1978. Energy problems, Russians invading territory of sovereign nations, inflation, malaise...really, we just need a hostage crisis to complete the ensemble.

3) “Fashion,” David Bowie. The most annoying season of Project Runway finished this week. I’ve been watching the show for a few years now, and certainly the combination of fashion and reality show would attract a cadre of cobag personalities. This year, though, was ridiculous. I hated everyone on the show at various points of the season. They were either bland or bitchy most of the time. On top of that, they really weren’t the greatest designers, unlike the talented groups of the last two years. The one thing I was looking forward to was the reunion show, since most of the entertainment for me came from watching the contestants savage each other in their little confessional interview spots. I couldn’t wait for all these whiny emus to be in one room, watching clips of them verbally stab each other in the back. So what did Bravo do? Not give us a reunion show. And yes, I’m more upset about this than the current economic situation. That’s what’s wrong with this country, people like me.

4) “At and T,” Pavement. I love any song that starts off with the line, Maybe someone’s gonna save me/my heart is made of gravy. Oh, they knew how to write ironic hipster distanced nonsense back in the 90s.

5) “Chasing Cars,” Snow Patrol. Kathleen recently posted about how she envisioned pregnancy as a montage, like you see in the movies. That makes me think: don’t some songs just feel ripe for montages? This one seems that way, like you could practically write a scene of Ross and Rachel breaking up around it. And here to prove my point, a video montage setting this song to Grey's Anatomy.

6) “Satin in a Coffin,” Modest Mouse. I have been listening to these guys and Built to Spill a lot lately. There’s a quality to their music that complements the weather right now: that feeling of fall getting ready to give way to winter. Maybe because both bands mine the ground of bittersweet, sad, and angry, which matches how I feel about the onset of winter.

7) “Don’t Speak,” No Doubt. The thing I notice about getting older is I’m constantly playing the Has it really been X years since Y? game. For instance, it’s been 13 years since No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom came out. Have we really had Superstar Stefani for more than a decade? These kinds of revelations make my mortality feel like it’s on fast forward.

8) “Puke + Cry,” Dinosaur Jr. I’ve done plenty of the former, not so much of the latter. In fact, last month when I went to the Bears game in Charlotte, I was a little wobbly from boozing the night before. I was in the hotel room with my brothers when I felt the inevitable Stalinist digestive purge coming. As I hurled in the bathroom, my brothers cheered for me outside the door. I heard “Yeah, Brando!” and clapping. It’s hard to throw up and laugh at the same time. This video also reminds me how much I miss the old HBO music show Reverb.

9) “The Sporting Life,” The Decemberists. Probably my favorite lyricists working right now. They manage to be catchy and clever without being simplistic or pretentious. This song just drips with pathos, too: the narrator chronicles how his ineptitude at sports causes him to earn the scorn of his father while losing his girlfriend to the captain of the other team. That’s a story treatment for a Michael Cera movie right there.

10) “The Real Slim Shady,” Eminem. OH FACK, I CAN’T STOP HEARING MY BROTHER’S VOICE WHENEVER EMINEM COMES ON!

11) “One by One All Day,” The Shins. There is little that a little Shins can’t fix.

Have a totally bitchin’ weekend.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What last-minute campaign slogans are we unveiling?

10) Yes, We Might.

9) Creating Thousands of New American Jobs...in the Middle East!

8) I Don’t Need Your Vote, I’ve Got ACORN.

7) Ready to Return to Congress to Do All the Things I Neglected While Running for President!

6) Never Hugged by President Bush.

5) Change You Could Spare? Seriously, This Public Financing Thing Sucks.

4) A Man of Many Convictions, All of Them Thrown Out on Appeal.

3) I Sucked at History and Don’t Even Know Who the Weathermen Are.

2) Apocalypse, Now!

1) Keep the White in White House.

Saying hi to Baby Jesus

Sorry for not posting a Random 11 today. We are out of town, getting ready to have Libby baptised at the church where TLB and I got married in 1247 (A.D.). My brother Tickle is going to be the godfather, which means that Libby will likely have a gambling problem by the time she is eight.

Who am I kidding, she'll have a gambling problem no matter who her godfather is.

The baptism is funny in that, while neither TLB and I have been very good about going to church, we never hesitated about having Libby baptised. We've even started going back to church to set an example for her. If my daughter winds up becoming jaded and sarcastic about religion like her old man, that's fine. But if she does wind up at that point, I want it to be because she chose to feel that way, not because I'm that way.

Yes, I realize that makes no sense. Neither does having a person who takes a vow of celibacy counseling couples on the marriages. Embracing life's contradictions may seem silly, but at least I still get a hug.

Update: It was worth it for the cake alone. If they replaced communion wafers with this, the Church could fill those pews again:

Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we encouraging kids to read?

Special unabridged and unedited edition!

12) Developing the Super Mario Brothers Karamazov video game.

11) Publishing a pop-up version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

10) Creating McSweeny’s: The Cereal, with a short story on every box and marshmallows in the shape of today’s literary stars!

9) Adding a shitload of zombies to Beloved.

8) Inserting sound chips in Atlas Shrugged that play Rush songs while you read.

7) Introducing kids to Orwell through Pixar’s Animal Farm.

6) Developing a new, modern update on the works of Leo Tolstoy: Tom Clancy's More War and Less Peace.

5) Giving Jay Gatsby super powers to make him really great.

4) Playing up the lesbianism in Mrs. Dalloway.

3) Broadcasting new reality show, America’s Next Unknown Novelist.

2) Creating text-message version of Finnegan’s Wake.

1) Reducing the amount of words that go into reading.

Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

The last two nights have been the worst I have ever had as a sports fan. There’s a reason “Cubs” and “collapse” start with the same letter, but I didn’t expect them to get treated like the guy who gets killed the first night in Shawshank Prison. The 1984 defeat to the Padres and the 2003 loss to the Marlins were tough, but this is just unbearable. Ugh. Nothing to do but watch Game 3 and cheer for a win.

Couple that feeling with seeing that all it takes to score a political “victory” is not appearing like you got off the short bus to appear at the vice presidential debate. It’s like Bush in 2000 all over again. “Hey, maybe he could sit in the Oval Office without protective headgear. He’s got my vote!” Fuck. Me. CNN’s political pundits are normally a waste of carbon, but one of them made a good point after the debate. When 9/11 happened, Bush was of course whisked away on Air Force One, leaving Cheney in charge for a few hours. Could you imagine Palin in that position? At least Voldemort knows how to get shit done.

Finally, a very slippery Fish subjected me to this video, which is so awful, it made me question the existence of God. This launched a bad rock cover arms race between him, Jennifer, and almostinfamous. Well, I have news for all of them: your national intelligence estimates were wildly inaccurate about the status of my WMV program. I have the enriched plutonium and the system to deliver it. This is so bad, Clarice Starling would rather listen to the lambs screaming.

Okay, I obviously am more wound up than Lewis Black after a pot of IHOP coffee, so I need some music to soothe the savage beast.

1) “The Dark of the Matinee,” Franz Ferdinand. Even when I’m down, FF knows how to put a little shake in my booty.

2) “Roundabout (Live),” Yes. There’s just a little extra wank, courtesy of Rick Wakeman, in this live version. The music is good enough that I don’t care about the lyrics coming out of Jon Anderson’s mouth. And you know what today's music really lacks? Sequined capes.

3) “Fool to Cry,” The Rolling Stones. I have taken the whole dad thing in stride. I am delighted with Libby and love being a dad, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten more sentimental or anything. Except, a few nights ago, I had my little girl on my lap and was reading Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree to her. And damn if it didn’t start getting dusty in the room. I felt like I was 12 again and trying not to lose it at the end of E.T. Why is the boy such a dick to the tree?!

4) “The Ballad of Peter Pumkinhead,” XTC. Here’s a happy tale of a do-good idealist getting crushed by the powers that be. I love how they made such sunny music with such dark lyrics, always a great combination.

5) “Punch Drunk,” Uncle Tupelo. Their working-class desperation unfortunately sounds pitch-perfect right now. It’s too bad Tweedy and Farrar can’t reach across the aisle and work together again.

6) “Fifty Years After the Fair,” Aimee Mann. Her first solo album is still my favorite. The songs are catchy without being trite, her lyrics (especially the couplets) have plenty of zing, and the arrangements make a delicious stew out of 60s, 70s, and 80s guitar-driven pop music.

7) “Kick Push,” Lupe Fiasco. The only hip-hop song dedicated to skateboarding? I dig the beat and the horn sample (which I think I know but can’t quite place).

8) “My Little Needle,” Alkaline Trio. A little Chicago emo seems appropriate today. Hmm, heroin. Now that could cure those Cubbie blues, couldn’t it? This also reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is supposed to go to Africa, but she tests positive for opium. Peterman confronts her and says she's under the spell of “yam yam.” I have no idea why, but that always makes me laugh.

9) “Shellshock,” New Order. Nice to see iTunes has a sense of humor. Honestly, this would be perfect for a Game 3 promo. Never give up until your heart stops beating. Yeah, well after Saturday, I may need to be revived by House.

10) “Anarchy in the U.K.,” The Sex Pistols. Mega-fun to play in Guitar Hero III. I wish they made a breakaway Guitar Hero guitar, so you could smash it without breaking it. I am a giant nerd. Pre-Sid video here with Glenn Matlock on bass.

11) “Unguarded Moment,” The Church. Practically a blueprint for early 80s college radio pop: serious, over-annunciated vocals offset by soaring, but non-wanking, guitar. They should have been bigger than they were. But then again, so should most of us.

Have a good weekend. Hopefully the Cubs will too.

A Few Minutes With Sarah Palin

The CJSD exclusive Celebrity Reacharound!


CJSD: Governor Palin, thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Palin: My pleasure. Say, is that shirt made out of moose hide?

CJSD: No, it’s cotton.

Palin: That’s too bad.

CJSD: Governor, you have been many things. Wife, mother—

Palin: Boy, those two were this close to being reversed.

CJSD: Sportscaster, Mayor, Governor, and now GOP Vice Presidential nominee. How have these experiences prepare you to deal with the possibility that Senator John McCain could become a drooling vegetable within the next eight years, leaving you with supreme control over the White House?

Palin: You know, experience can also take on many different forms, like water. It can be solid, it can be liquid, it can be a gas. My experience is like that, kind of wet and gassy sometimes, but solid too. For instance, when it comes to catching terrorists, my experience as a homemaker is pertinent.

CJSD: How so?

Palin: Well, one time, I was preparing sandwiches for Bristol and her friends. They love pickles on their sandwiches. But the pickle jar would not come unstuck. Todd and the boys were out seal-clubbing, so I was on my own.

One of Bristol’s friends suggested running the jar under hot water. Now, I see that as appeasement. Why should I take the time to warm up a jar of pickles that should open when I tell it to?

Bristol, bless her, suggested whacking on the lid with a knife. That got me thinking. I decided to take it one better. I got out my shotgun and blew the jar open.

CJSD: Did that work?

Palin: Oh yeah. Not only did it open the jar, but it taught all the other jars a lesson, that there will be no compromise when it comes to opening. Although, sadly, the blast destroyed all the pickles in the jar. But better for those pickles to be free and in pieces on my kitchen floor than to live under glass tyranny.

CJSD: Speaking of which, if you were to become president, what would your plans be for withdrawal in Iraq?

Palin: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

CJSD: What would be your criteria for withdrawing from American troops—

Palin: That word, “withdrawing,” what does that mean?

CJSD: To remove, or pull out.

Palin: Oh, if there's one thing we don't do in the Palin household, it's pull out.

CJSD: The economy has overshadowed even national security in this election. If you were in charge, what would you propose doing to help solve the crisis?

Palin: Lemonade.

CJSD: Lemonade?

Palin: Yes, I’d sell lemonade. We have plenty of it, and the markup is incredible. I would require everyone coming into the country to buy a glass of lemonade.

CJSD: How would you implement that?

Palin: If you come through customs, you buy a glass of lemonade. If you cross the border, you buy a glass of lemonade. In fact, I’d make illegal immigrants buy lemonade, too—if you pay for the lemonade, the border patrol would count to 100 before coming after you again.

CJSD: How much would you charge for the lemonade?

Palin: Between 50 cents and $25 a glass. I’m still working with my economic consultants on the pricing.

CJSD: What about job creation? Have you suggested any plans to Senator McCain?

Palin: I have. First thing is, everyone gets fired from their jobs. That would create a whole lot of jobs. Like more than ever. And then we would hire people for those jobs. Problem solved!

CJSD: What as the Senator's response?

Palin: He said he is taking it under advisement, which is just like him really considering it. Yay!

CJSD: You have described yourself as a woman of faith.

Palin: As God is my witness!

CJSD: How does your faith influence your decision making?

Palin: How doesn’t it? I get up every day and I ask Jesus what to do.

CJSD: You mean you pray?

Palin: No, I have a little statue of Jesus, playing baseball with some boys. And I say, “Baseball Jesus, what should I do today?”

CJSD: And does Jesus respond?

Palin: Only on Mondays. But he gives me my list for the week, so it’s all good, you know.

CJSD: What about evolution? Do you believe in it?

Palin: Nah.

CJSD: What about the dinosaurs? How do explain fossils?

Palin: They are the remnants of Lucifer’s battle with God, before he was cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven.

CJSD: Really?

Palin: I’m sorry, I didn’t explain that very well. I should have said “before Lucifer was cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven,” because “he” would make it sound like God was cast out of heaven. And that would be just silly.

CJSD: What about abortion? You are pro-life, but you recently said you also believe there’s a right to privacy, but that states should also be able to regulate abortion.

Palin: Yeah, I was taken out of context. But I’ve also come up with a solution. I have a plan to arm all fetuses.

CJSD: Arm them?

Palin: Yeah, give them guns. I’d require them to be medically inserted as soon as the little guys have thumbs. Mothers would still have the option to have an abortion, but the babies would have the option to exercise their Second Amendment rights and shoot their way to freedom. Everybody wins. We just have to find a way to shrink the guns.

CJSD: Finally, why do you feel John McCain should be the next president of the United States?

Palin: I’ve given this a lot of thought. I take this honor, this nomination, very seriously, so I have studied the presidency very carefully. And one thing I’ve noticed: every single president has been a white man, and most of them older. That’s what statisticians call a predictor.

CJSD: Governor Palin, thank you for talking with us.

Palin: You bet. Here, have some beaver jerky. I cured it myself.


Note for mouthbreathers: Like most things on this site, this is a work of fiction. If you're not smart enough to figure that out, go to Ted Turner and resign from CNN right now.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What strategies will we be using during the vice presidential debate?

10) Showing a little breast/ball cleavage.

9) Sidestepping tough questions by reminding voters how we passed out oranges to youth league hockey players after games.

8) Talking non-stop until the everyone in the hall falls asleep, then peeking at the moderator’s question cards before he wakes up.

7) Promoting the historically accurate accomplishments of the Democratic party, such as how Franklin Roosevelt created the Apollo program and JFK could have cured with cancer with his tears, except he was too tough to cry.

6) Forgoing talking points in favor of insulting the audience, Don Rickles style.

5) Saying, “asphinctersayswhat?” under our breath every time our opponent talks.

4) Repeating the question loudly, looking thoughtful, then repeating what the guys in the van say into our earpiece.

3) Finishing the details to our solution to the financial crisis: returning America to a pelt-based economy.

2) Practicing saying “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” without giggling.

1) Praying. Lots and lots of praying.

Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

The Cubs clinched the best record in the National League this week. The timing is so perfect you would think they planned this century-long World Series drought.

I am on an e-mail list with a bunch of the crew from the Vegas trips, and the Cubs have been a frequent topic of conversation the last few months. As you can imagine, given their mishaps over the years, it’s easy for Cubs fans to be pessimistic. There is, however, a fine line between pessimism and psychotic nihilism, when every positive indicator is just one more deceptive illusion masking some imminent Cub-ian collapse.

Our resident Cubs Nietzsche this year was Sugar Ray, he of the MILF Hunter T-shirt and commando approach to undergarments. He joined forces with Double Down, he of the Dow Jones blackjack swings and an actual Milwaukee Brewers fan (yes, they exist in the wild). They began with the Negative Nancy stuff in the first month, predicting with Shakespearean foreboding that the Cubs' first two series against the Brewers—they went 2-4—would have dire consequences at the end of the season. Keep in mind, this was in May.

Double-Down more or less stuck to that line of reasoning, but Sugar Ray continued to dump on everything Cubs-related. Every small mishap was a grand tragedy, every triumph tempered by some polyp of negativity. What’s worse is that Sugar Ray—a self-proclaimed Cubs fan— justified his endless stream of doom and gloom as being “realistic,” even as the Cubs went on to win more games than anyone else in the National League and had strong stats in every major stat category. All season we asked what more a Cubs fan could ask for.

Tickle finally had enough. “Sugar Ray,” he wrote, “you are banned from watching the playoffs with me.” Others joined in: Hawkeye, Pancake Z, Veetz, Smoke...none of them would allow Sugar Ray to watch the Cubs playoff games with them. Tickle threatened to board up Sugar Ray’s house for the month of October so he couldn’t come out.

A couple weeks ago Sugar Ray mentioned he got a Garmin, one of those car GPS things. He was raving about how it could suggest restaurants and all the other cool features.

“Maybe you can program it to show all the places where you are forbidden from watching the Cubs,” I wrote.

So go Cubbies, and long live rock....

1) “Rock Star,” Everclear. I don’t want to be a loser, I don’t want to be an almost was. Despite being positive about the Cubs, there is no question that their other shoe is shaped like the Sword of Damocles, ready to drop on the nearest Cub about to make a key catch in foul territory or trying to close out a championship series against serial-cobag Steve Garvey. I am excited, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared.

2) “Hey Jude,” The Beatles. In my book, “Let It Be” just edges this out as McCartney’s best composition. However, this by far has the best na na na's in rock history.

3) “The Seer’s Tower,” Sufjan Stevens. From the album Illinois. I was surprised that he didn't record a song called, “O Steve Bartman, Whither Go Our Hopes for Joy in Wrigleyville (and a Triumphant Trumpet of Ha Ha Ha's for the South Side Sox Fans).” That's a little joke for you Sufjan fans.

4) “Any Colour You Like,” Pink Floyd. Johnny Rotten said it best on his t-shirt: I hate Pink Floyd. Without the presence of a bong and laser light show (or at least a lava lamp and black velvet Dark Side of the Moon poster), I don’t see the point. If it’s not “Wish You Were Here” or the admittedly awesome instrumental “One of These Days,” I’m skipping.

5) “What the Snowman Learned About Love,” Stars. The snowman learned that, while wearing a condom did protect him from PTDs (Precipitation Transmitted Diseases), the insulating power of the latex melted his snowballs. Yes, it wouldn’t be a Friday for me without a dick joke. Awesome user-created YouTube video for this song.

6) “Look for Me (I’ll Be Around),” Neko Case. She could sing about anything and make it sound like the most beautiful yet haunted thing in the universe. With her voice and her approach, she’d turn the Lucky Charms theme into a twangy epic about how the quest for one’s lucky charms are really about the failed dreams of youth and how we placate ourselves on life's marshmallows, sweet distractions that ultimately leave us feeling empty. How’s that for a toy surprise?

7) “London’s Burning,” The Clash. The gurgling anger in Strummer’s throat makes this song. The link is one of those "misheard lyrics" videos, and it's pretty funny considering I've heard this song 1000 times and still don't know all the words.

8) “To Here Knows When,” My Bloody Valentine. Pink Floyd for the Pitchfork set. I have tried, really, to get the “genius” of this album. In fact, after P-Fork claimed it as the greatest album of the 90s, I picked it up for 99 cents in a CD club bargain sale. It’s creative, it’s different, it’s beautiful in spots, but it fucking bores me to tears. This track sounds like five minutes of a great song malfunctioning in my tape deck.

9) “Innocent Bones,” Iron & Wine. The male Neko Case, who can make anything sound delicate and wispy with his whispered singing. He would turn a close loss in fantasy football into a bittersweet tale of realizing that, in God’s fantasy football league, we can never score enough points to overcome our mortality. Even if you draft well.

10) “Blitzkrieg Bop,” The Ramones. Hey, ho, let's go! pumps me up so much, I could run through a wall. A thin Styrofoam wall, but a wall nonetheless.

11) “Ask,” The Smiths. What better way to head into the weekend than a Smiths song in which Morrissey almost sounds happy. When you grade that on a curve, that equals pure bliss for most of us.

Have a great weekend, and if you happen to be sitting along the first- or third-base lines at Wrigley in the next month, let those foul balls go!

Top Ten Tuesdays: What's keeping us up at night?

10) Lycanthropy.

9) Buzzing sounds from wife’s side of the bed.

8) Foreboding, disembodied head of Paul Krugman.

7) Creeping ourselves out by counting cloned sheep.

6) Weighing whether Cubs World Series championship is worth triggering Apocalypse.

5) Current cardboard house much breezier and pebble-strewn than former foreclosed house.

4) Severe Viagra malfunction.

3) New Starbucks I.V. bag.

2) Gnawing feeling that life is but a series of empty, meaningless actions designed to distract us from staring at the infinite blackness of an uncaring universe/thinking about fantasy football lineup (tie).

1) “President Palin.”

Friday Random 11

It's one more random than 10!

A funny story from last week’s Bears-Panthers game. It was hot and muggy in Charlotte, and our seats, while offering an excellent view of the field, were about three feet from the sun. At halftime I went to get something to eat, grabbing a pop, hot dog and pretzel, the last two items having mustard on them.

I began the long, sherpa-esque climb to our seats. I noticed, as my feet trudged up step after step, that my shorts were about to fall down. They were loose to begin with, and I had forgotten to pack a belt. But the 90 degree weather and my profuse sweating turned them into a khaki slip-n-slide. As I tried to adjust my hands to pull them up a little more, I gave my mustard-laden hot dog a big fat hug, leaving a paintball-sized splotch of golden yellow on my dark blue Bears shirt.

Tickle, being the loving brother he is, pointed at me and yelled out, “Hey, that guy’s got mustard all over his shirt!” Which the Charlotte fans enjoyed also pointing out for the next ten rows. Have I said how much I like my brother?

On to the tunes...

1) “Blowin’ in the Wind (Live),” Bob Dylan. There’s one thing I hope eventually fades from the political horizon: fighting over the 60s. This election in particular seems really bad, with McCain’s POW status on one side and whether Obama ever shook hands with one of the Weathermen on the other. Enough. The 60s are over and it was a tie. We can have sex more easily but pot's illegal. We know that Vietnam was a colossal clusterfuck, but if you say that, you can kiss your political career goodbye. We have enduring music from that time, but also saw that music turn into Starship and $300 Stones tickets and "Ebony and Ivory." Let's just move on.

2) “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” Alice Cooper. We, meaning the American voting public, are full of shit. Barack Obama rose on a platform of playing nice with others, which resonated because we, the voting public, are supposedly tired of electoral politics being fought in the drainage ditch outside the rendering plant. However, when Senator Matlock started going negative, it’s like he had a Sears Die Hard plugged into his campaign. And you know, it’s always been that way ever since John Adams ran for office. So fuck it, let’s embrace it. It’s not that I want campaigns to do anything illegal or immoral, or that I even want more attack ads that make balloon animals out of the facts. Instead, make commercials like the Tina Fey-Sarah Palin sketch, where you show just how stupid and empty your opponent is without having to cite anything. Or run a wordless ad of McCain hugging Bush, set to the tune of Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting." That's negativity you can believe in.

3) “Favorite Thing,” The Replacements. My favorite fuckups. The Let It Be album is just so young. It’s got that energy and pathos and anger that you only have for such a brief time in your life. You do have to move past that period or you wind up looking like a joke (or, sadly, like late guitarist Bob Stinson, dead). It’s just kind of sad to let it go.

4) “I Get Wet,” Andrew W.K. I don’t know what possessed me to buy this years ago. I think I heard “Party Hard” and thought it sounded like a fun, tongue-in-cheek song to drive really fast to. Then I got the album and realized that he didn’t seem to be kidding. It’s like swallowing codeine-laced Pez. Oh, and he’s apparently a motivational speaker. I wonder if he uses this album cover for his posters.

5) “Who Are You,” The Who. Insanity is trying to mimic Keith Moon on a set of plastic toy drums, which I have been trying to do since buying The Who Track Pack for Rock Band. Even this song, one his more straightforward, gives me rhytmic epilepsy.

6) “Hey Ladies,” Beastie Boys. The best cowbell this side of “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” Awesome video too.

7) “City vs. Country,” Mobius Band. One of my favorite songs that few have heard of. I don’t usually get too uppity about being a music snob. I enjoy pouring melted megahit cheese on my good-for-you indie music broccoli. Every so often, though, I like having a little nugget of music to call my own. This is one of those nuggets.

8) “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” Guns N’ Roses. I love it now as much as I did then. The song got played to death, Axl became a bloated joke, Slash, Duff, and Matt Sorum formed the GnR tribute band Velvet Revolver...none of that matters. I still do the Axl shake and air guitar the solo. That’s the sign of a classic.

9) “The Well and the Lighthouse,” Arcade Fire. Neon Bible is about as good as music has gotten in the last 10 years. I get annoyed when people complain that music sucks these days when albums like this are being made.

10) “Dim,” Dada. They will always be known for their one hit, “Dizz Knee Land,” but this song is the one I kept over the years. The Lovely Becky had this on cassette (!) back when we were dating, and we would throw it in the tape deck (!!!) of my car, roll the windows down, and drive with this song blasting.

11) “Closing Time,” Semisonic. Welcome to CJSD TV’s Buzz Bin. We’ll be playing hot new videos from all your favorite 90s groups that have disappeared into the ether. Up next, the latest from Harvey Danger!

Actually, I still dig this song and the very underrated album it hails from. Make a catchy, guitar driven song that has a singalong chorus, yet adds some other flourishes (musical or lyrical), and you can pretty much take me to bed. Musically, that is.

Have a great weekend. And if you’re going to a football game, watch out for that mustard.

Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we rescuing our financial institutions?

Special day late and 85 billion dollars short edition!

10) Increasing the street value of retirement accounts by changing them to 401 kilo plans.

9) Allowing the full drilling of previously restricted taxpayer deposits.

8) Unveiling our stimulation plan for the new Merrill Lynch.

7) Requiring CEOs to have golden chastity belts so they can’t fuck over the economy.

6) Offering them a pre-approved line of credit with no interest for six months on their balance transfers!

5) Making Senator McCain write a book report on Economics for Dummies.

4) Constructing a giant, federally insured couch that will store emergency currency under the cushions.

3) Rounding our losses down to the nearest trillion.

2) Putting their schwag on eBay before they run out of money.

1) Giving the free market the freedom to get government handouts.

Friday Random 11

I have a dream. A small dream, but a dream nonetheless. The dream is that the next person who controls the White House will be smarter than a fifth grader. Yes, I’d much rather have a Democrat, but I would take someone smart and competent at this point. There’s nothing worse than having your rights trampled and the trains being late all the time. Punctuality of mass transportation is one of the few perks of fascism.

The presidential races made it look dicey. I felt both Clinton and Obama were smart, even if I wished both had more experience. The Republicans were more questionable. Fred Thompson looked like couldn’t eat without having someone cut his food for him. Mitt Romney was a free-market Mormon Ken doll. Giuliani didn’t appear to know how to even campaign for president, let alone be one. And Huckabee, while an awesome Colbert guest, believes he didn’t come from no monkey.

Then, in this GOP Twit of the Year contest, McCain somehow won. I have a lot of issues with McCain and certainly am rooting for the other guy, but McCain’s capacity for thought is definitely a step above his current boss. He could, say, find Georgia on a map without always guessing it’s right above Florida.

Biden, while a boring VP choice, is a smart guy, too. So there we were, 75% of the way toward getting back to the notion that presidents and their emergency successors should, you know, be kinda smart, until we arrived at this:

Ms. Palin was clearly caught off guard when Mr. Gibson asked, “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” Seeking direction, and perhaps time to formulate an answer, Ms. Palin leaned back, smiled stiffly and said, “In what respect, Charlie?”

Initially unwilling to define the doctrine, Mr. Gibson said, “What do you interpret it to be?”

Ms. Palin asked, “His world view?”

Mr. Gibson said, “No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.”

Ms. Palin responded: “I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation.”

Mr. Gibson, finally defining the doctrine as “the right of anticipatory self-defense,” still struggled for a direct answer, asking twice more if she agreed with it before Ms. Palin answered: “Charlie, if there is a legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country.”

Chevy Chase should get out a dress, wig, lipstick, and glasses, because his career could be back in business.

1) “Svefn-G-Englar,” Sigur Ros. The most astounding song of the decade. Too much? Well, in the Age of Hyperbole, I understand the skepticism. But no other song since 2000 wowed me like this one. The grandeur of the sound, with reverbed guitars stretching from the bottom of the ocean all the way to heaven, mix with the intimacy of the vocals to produce something that feels like a hug from a giant cloud. Easily a desert island song for me.

2) “Scared,” Duffy. I got this album for TLB, who liked Duffy’s hit single “Mercy,” a song that initially frustrated us because we thought it was Amy Winehouse. I dig Duffy’s voice, and that’s 80% of enjoying music like this.

3) “Evil Urges,” My Morning Jacket. If Prince had been born in Lexington, Kentucky, his albums would have sounded like this. Seriously, there is a song on this album that I would mistake for Cameo if I didn’t know better. Word up, indeed.

4) “Wild Horses,” The Sundays. A great cover of the classic Stones tune. I think there are two ways to cover a song, especially a classic, well. You either completely mess with it, changing it into something so radically different that it bears little resemblance to the original. This is tricky, because people will give you a short leash when it comes to fucking with a classic song. The other method is to stay close to the original, but play it in such a way that it sounds like it’s really yours. This is the latter. It’s not that different from Mick and Keef, but the soaring female vocals and chiming guitar give it a gentler, almost ethereal feel.

5) “She Goes On,” Crowded House. My friend Bob recently moved back from Iowa City to San Francisco, and he has been tormenting me with “guess which act I’m going to see” e-mails. One of those acts was Crowded House. I was filled with jealous rage. We didn’t even get the lead singers of Warrant or Ratt up here this year. At one point over Labor Day weekend, I had Libby out on our back deck. There’s a “Blues Fest” here every year, and I could hear a band playing a pretty competent but practically note for note cover of “Jessica” by The Allman Brothers. That's about as good as it gets in these parts.

6) “Weekday Bender,” Paul Brill. New to me, and a tune worth hearing again. There’s a bit of Semisonic in here (I mean that as a compliment). And really, what’s not to like about a weekday bender. Anybody can drown a weekend in a bottle. It takes true liquor gravitas to do it during the week.

Speaking of which, I’m reading Steve Coll’s excellent book on the rise of the Taliban and bin Laden, Ghost Wars. There’s one anecdote where the CIA in the late 90s caught Mir Amal Kasi, the man who murdered three CIA employees outside of Langley in 1993. The CIA put out a massive manhunt for him and finally caught him after a few years. Upon hearing the news, CIA Director George Tenet told the CIA employs to celebrate and “have a cocktail before noon.” So George Tenet, this song is for you.

7) “Me and the Bean,” Spoon. This song sounds nothing like Nirvana, but Britt Daniels vocals sound eerily like Kurt Cobain’s—the low-key, haunted Cobain of the Unplugged album.

Speaking of eerie and haunting, TLB and I are addicted to Paranormal State. It’s like Blair Witch meets Scooby Doo, with a bunch of Penn State kids hopping in the Mystery Machine to fight ghosts and demons. I am very jealous of anyone who has had any sort of paranormal or supernatural experience—as much as that stuff freaks me out, I would get a big kick out of something like that happening to me.

8) “Street Fighting Man,” The Rolling Stones. I have always been more of a Beatles guy than a Stones guy, but this is a great song. I love how Bill Wyman’s bass sneaks out of the background at the end of the chorus.

9) “Ragged Wood,” Fleet Foxes. Like listening to the sun shine on your face. A terrific slice of folk-rock. And, heh heh, they said wood.

10) “One Reporter’s Opinion,” Minutemen. They really could do a lot in two minutes.

11) “Stand Back,” Stevie Nicks. My favorite song by her after Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” I appreciate how she was able to basically take a synthesizer-heavy dance beat and turn it into a distinctively Stevie Nicks song. Because after a long day of casting spells and communicating with fairies and making voodoo dolls in the shape of Lindsey Buckingham, even witches have to cut loose.

I am off tomorrow to Charlotte to watch Da Bears play the Carolina Panthers. I originally hoped I would be attending this game after the Bears posted a respectable loss to the Colts. But after last week’s improbable spanking of God’s second-string quarterback, I, like Sarah Palin, believe God is sending the NFL in a new direction. For did not the scriptures say, “And a little neck beard shall lead them?”

Have an awesome weekend.

The Marriage of Tickle

We stood inside a beautiful old cathedral, bathed in multicolored light from an army of stained glass windows, rehearsing for the wedding of my brother Tickle. During the rehearsal, as my brother prepared to embark on a lifelong journey of love and happiness with his new wife, we discussed how much it would take to get him to crap his pants during his wedding.

“$3000,” said Hawkeye, the man who always plays the role of J. Poop Morgan in financing this scheme.

“No way,” said Sugar Ray, the Brad Pitt of our group: pretty to look at, difficult to listen to when not following a prepared script. “No one would pay.”

“Oh, they’ll pay,” said Hawkeye.

“He won’t do it,” said Veetz, one of Tickle’s oldest friends, his shaved white head looking like a sno-cone waiting to be covered in syrup. “K would kill him.” K being my future sister-in-law.

“Actually, for $3000, she might be okay with it,” Tickle said. “It would pay for our honeymoon.”

I knew Tickle was marrying the right woman because I knew he wasn’t exaggerating. I had once asked K what she thought of Tickle nearly crapping his pants for $1000 in Vegas. “Considering how much money he lost, I almost wish he had done it.”

As the bishop in The Princess Bride said, “Wuv, twoo wuv, will last foreveh and eveh.” Tickle had indeed found his Princess Buttercup. And because he knows that, he did not poop himself walking down the aisle. At least, not intentionally.


Beach Blanket Bride

The story of Tickle and K began on the beaches of Florida, many years ago. Tickle, during seven of the more than 2,300 days he spent as an undergraduate, went to Florida with Sugar Ray for spring break. Along the way, they met K and her friends. I have drank a lot with my brother, and I have seen how he is with his friends. At no point have I ever detected even trace elements of Marriage Material. I can only imagine what he and Sugar Ray must have been like in a setting of Jello shots and wet T-shirt contests and MTV beach houses.

Yet, as K told us during her dinner speech at the wedding, she went back to the hotel, called her mother, and said she had met the man she was going to marry.

Wuv, twoo wuv indeed.

The man she was going to marry, however, was going to take a while to marry. He had to finish school—a fate he approached with the speed and energy of slime mold slowly devouring a rotten tree trunk. He then had to move to where she was, as he was a couple of “I” states to the east. He had to find a job and save money and be ready to settle down and all the myriad other things a man has to do before he finally accepts that having someone love him for the rest of his life is not such a bad fate after all.


The Groomsmen Get Groomed

At the rehearsal dinner, Tickle and K whipped out a little something they whipped up to honor the wedding party. It was a sheet of paper, lovingly designed and laid out, that talked about each of us.

K’s side was as sweet as she is, discussing how much her bridesmaids meant to her, how they were like sisters, including my sister, E. It was a hug in print.

Tickle’s side took a different approach. For instance, here was my entry:

Brando: Groomsman and my older, less athletic brother
Origin: Chicago, Illinois
Strengths: Overanalyzing, his brothers, Trivial Pursuit, dancing on platforms in Vegas
Weaknesses: Played lots of Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. He is a member of the fan club for the musical group, Rush.
Fun facts: Recent photo discovery has revealed that Brando actually thought he was Don Johnson from Miami Vice in the 80s.
Quote: “Mom, is my warlock costume clean?”

Tickle gave us all a little roasting, with some lighthearted inside jokes that gave us all a good laugh. But our youngest brother, Snake Anthony, got it the worst of all.

Strengths: Pizza engineering [he’s worked at the same pizza place almost as long as Tickle courted K], growing facial hair [at one point, his driver’s license photo made him look like a roadie for Phish], getting weird

Weaknesses: Bananas, cheese tacos, graduating college in a timely fashion [he is challenging Tickle’s matriculation record]

The cheese taco comment stems from Snakes’s picky, bland eating habits as a kid. He hated to eat most foods, but he loved it when my mom would make a “cheese taco”: a couple slices of American cheese microwaved in a tortilla. To this day, if I ask Snake what he wants to eat, I ask if he wants a cheese taco.

Fun facts: The circumference of Snake’s head has not changed since he was five years old.

This is true. My brother was 11 1/2 pounds when he was born. Ten of it had to be his head. He had the biggest melon of any baby I’ve ever seen, and it wasn’t until his 21st birthday that he actually grew into his head.

Quote: “Mom, I’m done!”

This was the coup de grace, the spine-ripping Mortal Combat comment that sent everyone in my family except Snake into fits of laughter. When Snake was a kid and learning to use the bathroom, he insisted on having my mother wipe him when he was finished. He would sit on the toilet and call out, “Mom, I’m done.” He would continue to chant this over and over, like some kind of Buddhist mantra, until my mother appeared. What made it even funnier was how big he was: my brother looked at least 2-3 years older than he was because of the size of his head. So here was this child who looked around six, calling over and over for our mother to clean his bum.

Tickle told me about Snake’s quote before the rehearsal. When I told Snake what Tickle was doing with the groomsmen list, he immediately knew what his quote would be, and sadly shook his large, but now proportional, head.


Commando Sugar Ray

Sugar Ray showed up to the rehearsal in white pants and a tropical floral shirt that made him look like an extra from the movie Blow. We kept calling him Escobar all night.

Commenting on the pants, Sugar Ray nonchalantly mentioned that he doesn’t wear underwear when he wears white pants. It took a moment for this horrifying revelation to sink in. Sugar Ray explained that he didn’t want his underwear to show through his pants.

I turned to Smoke, who gets called that because one of his strengths is “treating his glaucoma.” “I’m not comfortable even when there are two layers of clothing separating me from Sugar Ray.”

Later that night, at a bar after dinner, Sugar Ray sat laughing and talking with Tickle, his legs open and carefree as he rested his feet on two different bar stools. My brother stopped, screwed his face up for a moment, and then let out a cry of disgust. Apparently something much worse than panty lines made an appearance in Sugar Ray’s pants.


The Story of Pancake Z

Z served as Tickle’s best man. He is called Z because has one of those long Polish names that inevitably get shortened, like Coach K. Z is a large, nice guy, easily the nicest of the groomsman. Which is why he gets shit on constantly by his friends.

A few of the groomsmen were staying at Tickle’s house, and the day of the wedding, Z got up and made them pancakes. Smoke started calling him Pancake Z.

It’s usually the stupidest nicknames that stick the hardest. Tickle heard Smoke and also began using Pancake Z. By the time I got to the church, the whole wedding party called him Pancake Z.

“Stop it,” Z said. “That nickname will never stick.”

“I think it’ll stick like batter on an ungreased skillet,” I countered.

Veetz found a poster in the front of the church, an ad for a Catholic periodical. It showed a stack of pancakes with “Food for the body” on one side, and a stack of the periodicals with “Food for the soul” on the other. Pancake Z seemed anointed by God.

When we lined up for photos, the photographer kept pointing and saying “you” to direct us. After she pointed to Z, Tickle said, “you can call him Pancake Z.” She proceeded to call him Pancake Z every single time, except when she shortened it to “Pancake.”

We mixed it up a bit. We tried Flapjack Z, and I also suggested Griddle Cake Z. But we kept coming back to Pancake Z. It’s been over a month and it has stuck. This is why Z’s quote was, “I hate my friends.”


The Cock Lamp

The wedding went off without a hitch. It was a beautiful, touching ceremony, without a hint of irony or smartass comment.

Then the fun started.

The wedding party departed in one of those hotel shuttle buses that had been converted to a limo. We traveled around downtown Des Moines, drinking ample amounts of beer and stopping to have our pictures taken by the very nice but artistically aggressive photographer. At one point, we stopped near a reflecting pool in the middle of some office buildings. The photographer ordered the guys to take off their shoes and socks, roll up their pants, and go stand in the water. The bridesmaids were to hop on our backs for a “fun” photo. We protested but complied, because for some reason, when you hold a camera in your hand at a wedding, it’s like a scepter that gives you royal authority over the wedding party.

I had the added bonus of having my sister E on my back. I decided to make the most of the situation. After stepping into the scummy water and getting the photo taken, I set her back down. “That was surprisingly arousing,” I said.

“Gross, Brando!” E yelled. That made the bacterial foot infection I was bound to get worth it.

We arrived at the reception, and Pancake Z pulled the groomsmen aside to review his master plan for the toast. This requires a little history: Tickle and his friends have long had a habit of stealing things from each others domiciles. Never anything of actual value, but definitely things of sentimental value or items that would supremely annoy the other person. Tickle was one of the worst culprits, and very sneaky in his kleptomania.

Pancake Z decided to get a little revenge at the reception. He and the other groomsmen hijacked a whole bag of Tickle’s possessions. Most of the items were just jokey stuff, but a couple were true treasures of Tickle. One was a commemorative Indiana basketball plate that Pancake Z had lifted months in advance. Tickle knew one of his friends had taken it and was genuinely pissed about the theft. But the true Ark of the Convenant was Tickle’s cock lamp. My brother—30, college educated, homeowner, and soon-to-be husband—owned a lamp showing a rooster crowing. It was a prized possession.

Once Tickle and K were distracted by wedding activities, Pancake Z had the guys bring the booty into the cloakroom. We would strike during the best man’s toast.

As with the bridesmaid/groomsmen sheet at the reception, K’s maids of honor (she had two) gave their speeches first, delivering sweet, lovely speeches. After melting the hearts of everyone with their praise of K, it was our turn.

Pancake Z stood, turned to my brother, and said, “Wow, spring break. Heck of a way to meet chicks.” He spoke for a bit longer about Tickle and K, then turned the mic over to me—Z wanted a family perspective on Tickle’s nuptials and also needed a distraction to fetch our props. I didn’t write a prepared speech, but it went like this:

Many of us in my family did not think this day would come. Or, if it did come, turn out quite like this. You see, when Tickle was a toddler, he used to walk around in my mother’s heels carrying a toy purse our sister had, a purse shaped like a little house. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re absolutely right—he looked fabulous. But we had questions.

On top of that, Tickle was already married to a group of men. He and his friends have very close, almost intimate relationships, calling each other by pet names and arguing like married couples. So, again, we had questions.

But one day, my brother departed to search for a bride, as many men do, on the beaches of spring break. There he found K, to which I and the rest of my family are eternally thankful. Not just because K is such a wonderful, welcome addition to the family, but because she is the one wearing the heels and carrying the purse.

After I finished, Pancake Z announced that he had some gifts for Tickle. We proceeded to cover the table in front of them with an assortment of crap: work boots, t-shirts, videos of terrible movies, and a ton of other knick-knacks. We presented the Indiana plate, causing Tickle to launch into a series of “I knew you had this” assertions. Finally, we lifted the cock lamp on the table, setting it in all its frozen crowing glory right in front of the bride and groom. It is doubtlessly in numerous wedding photos.

Tickle gave a speech, one that was surprisingly straightforward for the most part—I think my brother was a little overcome. K spoke after him. She said the immortal words many say during wedding speeches: crying as she said, “I said I wouldn’t cry.” Amid her thanks and joy, she referenced the cock lamp by name, which was awesome beyond words. Addressing my family, her voice made extra high by trying to hold back her emotions, she said, “And I want to thank my new family. I love you guys, and I love coming to Grandma’s for Christmas, because it’s so hot and loud and everyone yells at each other.” It was one of the most touching cases of Stockholm Syndrome I have ever seen.


“I think I should take my shirt off.”

We ate, we drank, and we danced. Hawkeye and Trapper owned the dance floor the same way they did in Vegas, scorching the tiles in tandem with their wives. My Grandma—and one of Libby’s namesakes—got out on the floor, too, boogieing to “Shout” and “Brick House”:

The bar stayed open a good four hours, allowing the wheels of celebration to be excessively lubricated. Few wheels were more lubricated than my father’s. After all, he was paying for the booze.

Dad is a funny guy. Growing up, he had been a pretty stern authority figure—a funny man, but not one to put up with shenanigans from his children, who constantly engaged in shenanigans. Yet, as a child, he had practically been a greaser from The Outsiders, engaging in all sorts of hijinks, usually fueled by alcohol. That side tends to make an appearance at things like his son’s wedding reception.

In the men’s room, late in the reception, I ran into him. We were both sweaty and drunk. “It’s pretty hot in there,” Dad said. “I think I should take my shirt off.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” I replied.

Rhetorical questions are not meant to be answered, but my father answered mine by removing his tuxedo shirt. He spent the last hour of the reception in a sleeveless athletic t-shirt, having a grand time, and making my mother laugh despite her attempts to not to encourage him.



The apples didn’t fall far from the trees.

The reception finally came to a close, and we returned to our hotels and homes, trying to soak in that Tickle was now married. That seems much more odd than his ownership of a cock lamp.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What changes are we making to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Special extra big bailout edition!

11) Borrowers facing foreclosure must serve as indentured servants of Chinese investors who own their mortgages.

10) Bad credit risks can get pre-approved with qualified military enlistment.

9) Instead of being FDIC-insured, all future loans will have faith-based guarantees.

8) Board members will be chosen from winners of public Monopoly tournaments.

7) Once per year, a virgin hedge fund manager will be offered as a sacrifice.

6) Risky loan behavior will be curbed only through financial-abstinence-only education.

5) Shareholders are to be rounded up, shorn of their stock certificates, and put out to pasture.

4) High adjustable-rate mortgages may be exchanged for high-caliber weapons under new “ARMs for Arms” program.

3) All employees must wear matching question-mark suits.

2) Future CEOs must have at least one redeeming quality.

1) Taxpayers will be required to purchase their own lube.

Friday Random 11

I turned 38 yesterday. My brother Tickle “congratulated” me by reminding me that my father once owned a t-shirt that said “40 and Sporty” on it. “That will be you in two years,” Tickle said.

We laughed because my father seemed so much older than I do. By the time my dad was 40, he had four kids, worked two jobs, and was fully entrenched in adulthood. I feel like I just entered adulthood. Tickle is still waiting for his adulthood visa, which I suspect he won’t get because he’s on a maturity watch list.

Yet, at 61, my dad doesn’t seem old at all. This is a man who, just a few weeks ago, took his shirt off during the reception at Tickle’s wedding (which I’m finally going to post this weekend). We’re going to a Bears game in a couple weeks, and I know he’s going to be knocking back beers and cheering just as rabidly as we are. Maybe the fact that he was so sporty in his forties is what kept him young.

1) “Come Together,” The Beatles. I have to hand it to McCain, it is amusing to see him try to play the “come together” card. The whole RNC has been “Democrats bad,” epitomized by the dog-whistle shrieking of Sarah “fuck community service” Palin. He then comes in and says we have to overcome the Bipartisan Rancor, making it sound like that monster that Jabba the Hut kept in a pit in the desert. Except that the biggest cheers of his speech came when he went after Obama. Good luck with all that.

I also love that he treated his hug buddy Bush like Lord Voldemort, transforming him into He Who Shall Not Be Named. And we’re supposed to believe that the party of change is the party in charge....

2) “Don’t Get Me Busted,” The Donnas. An odd dilemma in female empowerment. Is it refreshing that a group of young women can play simplistic three-chord rock and sing about nailing anything that moves as well as the boys can? Or is it just sexism wearing a strap-on? And am I part of the solution or part of the problem for liking this?

3) “What Would Wolves Do?” Les Savy Fav. This album (Let’s Stay Friends) is so up my alley. It’s got great hooks but plenty of punky fire, along with bits of 80s production like the drums in this song. And who doesn’t love a little howling?

4) “Pinhead,” The Ramones. The other day, I had a discussion with one of my friends: Top 5 movies you liked but would never want to watch again. I listed American History X (mostly because of the street curb scene), he mentioned Schindler’s List. But really, the top would have to be Todd Browning’s Freaks, which inspired this classic Ramones song. I saw it when I was in grad school and it was about as unsettling of a movie as I’d ever seen. The ending of this song always projects the ending onto my brain and gives me a bit of a shiver.

5) “Big Boring Wedding,” Guided by Voices. I miss Guided by Voices more than any other group that disbanded. Even though singer Robert Pollard was the main force and has gone on to recording solo, there was something about him in a band format that worked so much better. He could crank out catchy, rocking ditties like this song as if he had a goose that laid golden pop songs. This is one of the ones that hooked me early.

6) “Welcome to the Terrordome,” Public Enemy. I got suckered into one of those VH1 greatest videos of the 80s marathons last weekend, and at one point they brought up Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.” I was never a big fan, because Public Enemy didn’t really speak to me. But I’m always impressed how revolutionary this still sounds. The beats, the samples, and especially the attitude sound just as innovative and intimidating as they did nearly 20 years ago. That’s one of the most difficult feats in popular music, as yesterday’s “Revolution” is today’s Nike commercial or supermarket music. I doubt we’ll ever see Public Enemy selling minivans or mutual funds.

7) “Rehab,” Amy Winehouse. I am always surprised that people express surprise at our fascination with public train wrecks. We live for train wrecks. Publicly destroying our pop culture icons is the new gladiator combat, with TMZ and Us Weekly and blogs as the new arenas. Kudos to Winehouse for not only recognizing that, but embracing it and writing songs about how fucked up she is. That keeps the emperor’s thumb in the up position.

8) “No Lucifer,” British Sea Power. From their album, Do You Like Rock Music? My question is, how can you like rock music without Lucifer? I’m not a big fan of the devil, but damn if he isn’t a demon in the producer’s chair.

Also, if you’re going to call your band British Sea Power, you should be playing some sort of combo of prog/metal/math/space rock, not refried U2. Not that I don’t like the song, it’s just that I expected something that lasted as long as a voyage across the Atlantic, that packed the wallop of broadside blast into a French frigate, and that had a little scurvy in its musical gums.

9) “Junior Partners,” Sloan. On the other hand, if you are a Canadian rock trio, you automatically get the benefit of the doubt from me. Actually, this wouldn’t be out of place as a lost track from Abbey Road.

10) “Nothing Better,” The Postal Service. Also, if you rip off the 80s, you’re bound to get a listen from me. In the case of The Postal Service, they got lots of listens. A catchy synthesizer/drum machine beat, nice male/female interplay in the vocals...they had me at the first *BOOP*.

11) “Your Time Is Gonna Come,” Led Zeppelin. The churchy organ opening is awesome. As I’ve gotten older, I think Led Zeppelin I has moved into the top slot of my favorite Zeppelin records. IV is a deserved but overplayed classic, III is eclectic but kind of a mess, and II, Physical Graffiti, and Houses of the Holy have too much hot dog filler amid the classics. This is the only Zep album where I don’t skip a track.

And I’m begging, pleading really, for them to license some songs to Rock Band. I’ve got Keith Moon, I’ve got Neil Peart, and now I need John Bonham to complete the banging on plastic drums hat trick.

Have a great weekend. I will be having my first Daddy-Daughter Day with Libby on Sunday, teaching her how to yell at the TV during sporting contests.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What did we not disclose during the vetting process?

10) Demonstrated foreign policy experience by invading Kamchatka from Alaska.

9) Once dropped a bunch of mescaline and rode a moose naked through downtown Cicely.

8) Our brother, Michael, was the rotating head of an anarcho-syndicalist commune that advocated a filth-based economy.

7) Approved the construction of a tuna factory on the Island of the Blue Dolphins.

6) Advocated the teaching of The Flying Spaghetti Monster along with evolution.

5) Pushed for development of vehicles that could run on burning books.

4) Lobbied for earmarks to build a bridge to Tarabithia before throwing support to more popular Hogwarts projects.

3) Nipples harden at the phrase “abstinence education.”

2) To tell a family secret, our grandmother was Dutch.*

1) Didn’t look under the burka of our running mate until the night before our political marriage.

*not safe for work