Earlier in the week DJ brought to my attention a startling fact: apparently you people are not very literate. Well either that or the content on this site is just too stupid- though no particular post comes to mind. Here’s the evidence:

88% Basic 11% Intermediate 1% Posts by Patty O’Leary

Not looking good. Well, luckily I work in a library and I happened to have some archive access. That’s right! I have access to archived books- really famous manuscripts that have never been released! So, in an effort to boost our reading level, I stole this exclusive chapter excerpt from Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick. These particular chapters were censored from the original publication because they describe the whale’s penis and Ishmael’s diatribe on whale semen. It’s pretty boring stuff, but I can guarantee you that this is 100% real. I stole these documents from the library I work at and copied them here, word for word, verbatim. Enjoy:

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I’ve found that making up systems is pretty easy. It must be one of those human impulses, to find a sense of logic in everything. Of course none of it is true. I don’t really buy into many systems of thought used to explain human emotions. For example, maybe you’ve heard of psychological term “displacement,” which is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects affects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe or acceptable. So, when your Mom loses her job she comes home and beats your Dad. OK, I guess we can use a term to describe that emotional reaction- but I’m always a little wary of these things. The same goes for dream interpretation. Yes, I think dreams can tell you things, but sometimes people can be too quick to apply a simple system of logic to the infinitely more complicated processes of the psyche.

Having said that, here’s a system I’ve developed (in about 4 minutes) to describe the intricacies of love (feel free to comment on the variety of flaws and over all under-development in the comments). I’m calling it the F.A.I.L-S.A.F.E system of romantic development. Let me explain:

The system is divided into two parts. The first, F.A.I.L., outlines what I imagine to be the ideal person to start a relationship with and then explains why this person cannot exist. The second, S.A.F.E, offers a more realistic set of qualities to pursue in the opposite (or same) sex.

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What do you do on a Friday night when all the money in your bank account is in default because your stupid cell phone company decides to debit your account twice for no reason, and all you have is two dollars and a poodle full pennies?

Let me tell you- You get drunk! You grab everything in sight and you get your ass to the corner store immediately. When I got to the Saba Grocery Store on Castle Hill Ave I had two objectives.

1. Find the cheapest beer in the refrigerator.
2. Haggle the guy at the counter for a cheaper price because all I had was 2 dollars and a thousand cents.

Objective one was a slice A pie. I found this piece of shit…

… and since it had something growing on the top of the can, was half crushed, ready to explode at any given second and without an expiration date I decided- “hey, this can’t be too bad.” So I grabbed two of them shits!

Ah, but what about all those pennies!?

Fuck yeah. How responsible and Badass can a person look?

Luckily, the guy at the counter was great. He pretty much let me name the price for all the garbage I was buying.

Ghetto Greatness Achieved.

You know what?

If I said that really condescendingly it would be a good insult, but if I say it with a smile it sounds like I am about to tell you something, and I am! There is one thing I like to do before I sit down to write blogs. Nope, guess again, I like to put on some groovy tunes! Well, hey, let’s get real: it’s about a week into December and from what I can remember I am getting weak in the knees with anticipation. Am I anticipating the antifreeze? No! I’m anticipating the poinsettias, mistletoe, wreaths, ivy, holly and evergreens! As I began this blog I put on one of my all time favorite Christmas songs: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

Go ahead and press play there, it makes a good background track.

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It’s no wonder that everyone is developing more and more negative biases towards twenty-something hipsters. First there is all the exhibit-A photo evidence at “Look At This Fucking Hipster”.  Second, we’ve got all these so called “indie” bands that keep popping up on Jimmy Fallon. Today I watched some band I’ve never heard of called “Bats for Lashes” and they were really sour. Triple H was the other guest on the show and I’m sure as he was watching from the sidelines he was thinking, “So this is what those hipster fags are listening too. Beating them up is now justified.” And as if that wasn’t enough, now hipsters are punching defenseless shit.

The Chicago Tribune reports that a 21 year old snob named Pablo Fernandez left the Lollapalooza music festival and proceeded to begin petting a horse. Seems innocent enough, but then the officer that was sitting on top of the horse told him to knock it off. The kid refused and, instead of just walking away, punched the horse!!! The horsed reared onto its back legs in the middle of a huge crowd and the 21 year old equestrian terrorist was sent to jail for the night.

Here’s a re-enactment I found:

runner up

I have tons of problems with this shit. Has this kid never read “Black Beauty”? Of all the animals to punch, why pick a horse? Why not a cat? I’d punch a cat for sure.  Actually, I take that back. The cat would likely be on the ground, so I would probably just kick it. I’d kick a cat no problem. You’ve got a cat? No questions asked, I will kick that thing. Same goes for cocky pigeons. But I would never kick a horse. I’m sure Pablo Fernandez wouldn’t kicked a horse either. That’s just asking for trouble. Trouble in the form of a hoove to the throat, if you know what I’m saying. The horse is just too big to get a good kick in. Really if you are going to attack a horse, punching is the way to go. Let’s see are there any animals out there that I would punch, rather than kick… well first, they would have to be out of my leg reach. You can kind of just slip in a quick squirrel kick without breaking stride, but any animal above the waistline is going to need some fist-attention. I mean obviously a human face would be a perfect target for my fist, if it were on the right person. But this contest is strictly limited to the lesser animals. Maybe an ugly whale. I don’t think my fists have the force to penetrate the blubber, so I’d be safe from getting stuck in its intestinal goo. Though a whale punch seem somewhat anti-climatic. It’s like punching a big couch or a snowdrift. Maybe a walrus. Just POW! Punch a walrus right in the side of the head and walk away. I’ve always had something against walruses. Don’t they seem a little bit high and mighty? I think walruses kind of just lounge around thinking that they’re the “kings of the sea.” Fuck that. Emperor penguins are the kings of the sea and I would never punch an emperor penguin (because they’re back in the kicking category). I’d like to punch a walrus right off its high horse.

Still, there must be a better option…even though the more I think about it the more tantalizing punching a walrus becomes. How about this: I punch a cheetah while it’s on the move. Like that stipulation? A cheetah is running by at 65mph and KA-POW! a punch right in the side. Even the most lackluster punch would knock it off its feet at those speeds. Again, I would just walk away after impact. I guarantee that video would go viral.

But, nah, I like cheetahs enough. Not worth it. Plus, when am I going to find the time to do that.  Come on Roy, think! There must be some punchable animal out there. Mhmm. You know what would really set people off? If I punched one of those guys from the new “Were The Wild Things Are” adaptation. People are already going nuts for this movie. I’m sure if I were to punch one of those totoro knock-offs people would be up in arms.  Perhaps even more so if I punched the child star. But I don’t want to do any of that,  I’m just saying I’m sure it would get quite a reaction. I need an animal that I could punch and people would be like, “Oh, OK, he punched a  _____. I’m fine with that.” I’ve got it! A yellowjacket. I know it’s thinking outside the box, but stay with me here. Yesterday my brother and sister came running to me saying that there was a HUGE yellowjacket in the basement and I needed to kill it. Their definition of huge was 1-inch, which for a yellowjacket is pretty huge. So I went into the basement and killed the thing with a newspaper. But wouldn’t it have been cooler to just punched it dead? Nobody would ever bat an eyelash if I went around punching bugs into submission. Hiking through the woods I’d look like a paranoid schizophrenic, but really I’d just be getting rid of all the pesky mosquitoes.

What was I talking about? Oh right, the kid (re: person my age) who punched a horse:

No doubt he was running up to the beast to drunkenly get an I-Phone picture of himself petting it. It would prove to his Twitter following that he liked animals and justify his PETA t-shirt. If you are wasted enough to punch something, don’t punch the giant mammal punch the pig riding it. What made this guy make the jump from massage to brute force? Let’s be honest, do cops need anymore reason to distrust youngsters? If the cops up in my college town of New Paltz got word of this I’m sure they would invest in a whole fleet of ponies, with the hope that some idiot would punch one and they would get a chance to pelt a crowd of students with rubber bullets and electrified nets.

I should also point out that I have no reason to identify this kid as an authentic hipster. I just figured that since he was at Lollapalooza he must have been. I’ll also assume the name “Pablo Fernandez” was meant to be ironic and his actual name is Conrad Pinskey and he looks like this:

That snapshot isn’t even from “Look at this Fucking Hipster,” but when I came upon it a couple days ago I knew that I’d be able to use it for something before the week was done (and before anyone says, “Hey, that picture could just as easily be you”, let me rebut: 1) I don’t go to Music Festivals; 2) I would never wear that dumb outfit because it would draw too much attention to my failing biceps and irregularly tanned thighs; 3) I don’t dance with my eyes closed because I like to observe all the looks of astonishment and glee that my gyrations conjure.)

(One more point about that picture: What is the girl scoffing at? Yes she’s attractive enough, but she’s still got white nail polish, a little mermaid boob-mask and ruffled granny-panties….so I mean come on. At least the retard behind her is having a good time. Maybe she’s coming to the realization that she has chosen the wrong social-stereotype to adopt.)

OK. I don’t know how much more time I can devote to these morons.

The moral of the story:
-Don’t try to punch something you’re not.

Everyone has heard the sad news about Michael Jackson and I like to think that everyone was at least somewhat saddened. I mean if you don’t like Michael Jackson songs, then what’s the point? While everyone was upset, some people, some very deeply devoted fans, were nothing short of devastated…physically , emotionally, spiritually. One of these people was our good friend Megan Riebesell.  She won’t be able to see Michael in London this summer, but the least we could do was let her share some words with you. – Roy

Hello.  My name is Megan Riebesell and I am here to talk to you about the biggest tragedy this planet has ever seen.  As you must have figured out by now, I’m referring to the death of Michael Joseph Jackson.  During this period of confusion, referred to by psychologists as “Stage 1: Denial” in the model for the five stages of grief, it is hard for people to see clearly to the issue at hand.  In hopes that this article will make it easier to cope, at least for the mere few it may reach,  I am going to use this forum to share some of my experiences with Michael, and discuss how his passing has affected me, Megan Riebesell.

It was obvious from a young age that Michael was probably not supposed to have ended up on earth.  Something went wrong, somebody messed something up.  Whoopsies!  Typo, wrong planet, something like that.  People kind of started to realize this when the J5 made their first appearance on Ed Sullivan in 69.  If you saw this you’d probably notice what could develop into a debilitating overload of soul and groove.  Certainly too much to be contained by the small, frail body of an11 year old.  If you went even further and watched this one you’d additionally notice that he’s not moving the way that a child who probably just advanced to having legible handwriting should move.

So lots of people were sort of catching on, J5 ruled with 4 consecutive number one hits on the billboard chart, which was the first time this had ever happened.  I have to assume that people who actually lived through his emergence were desperately rationalizing: “Okay this kid will probably grow out of it in like 4 years when he’s a fucked up teenage mess.”  I think a lot of people would have been more comfortable with that scenario.

Instead, Michael decided to fucking unleash his maniac talent on everyone full throttle.  By the time when most kid stars would start to totally burn themselves out, realizing they completely missed out on childhood and collapsing beneath the pressure of the limelight and everything, Michael invented a new way of dealing with all of it.  He figured since he was irreversibly damaged and would probably never fully work through it, he might as well use the one thing he did get out of it, which was being raised as a fucking psychotic perfectionist.  So he decided to just like create everything.  He focused all of his dysfunctional shit as well as his superhuman talent-energy, and took music and entertainment to a level that didn’t even exist yet. Flawlessly.  Pretty much: wake up, think of the bass line to Billie Jean, brush your teeth, oh start doing THE MOONWALK, um go downstairs, grab a banana,  redefine music videos , and then finally head off to work at the studio inventing pop music, etc. Day in the life of MJ.  No biggy.

By 1994, Michael has already released Thriller, which is still the top selling record of all time, and is onto his 4th best selling album already (and has done all that other shit that you’ll wikipedia later.)  People as a whole are immersed in the new world of entertainment he has created.  I’m starting to feel a little weird about how many consecutive times I can jump all over my couches screaming to the Free Willy theme and still get emotional at the end.  Ironically enough, this is around the point when everyone starts to turn on him.  He’s just doing his thing, inventing everything that people ever like ever so that everyone can copy him forever.  Yea, he’s fucking crazy as fuck considering everything, but he’s still just pumping all of that into amazing visual and auditory masterpieces for the whole world to enjoy.  He’s touring selling out shows on every continent by now and it’s a little bit daunting for humans to discover that one being can pretty much hypnotize a good amount of their entire species at one time.  It’s to the extent where an alarming amount of people literally become incapacitated or unconscious, sometimes needing medical attention, when in his presence.  I mean yea, I know, Beatlemania and everything, but seriously this is different.  Full grown men had to be lifted out of the crowd, sobbing and hysterical. The physical reactions people had just to seeing him on stage was unsettling.  Humans detected an unmistakable cause for concern.

If you’re going to watch one video in this post, watch this one. With the lights off.

Everyone flipped out when they realized Michael Jackson had too much power over the human race.   So we just did the thing where we criticize someone until we bring them down to our level.  We thought it was weird that he was had a chimp named Bubbles, wanted to buy the elephant man bones, made his house into a peter pan amusement park,  cried at the end of Men in Black, etc.  Personally,  I don’t see what’s so weird about being a fucking CRAZY person after having a dramatically shitty life, and having to be a vessel for all of those insane songs and dance moves that needed to reach earth somehow. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty confident that a normal, psychologically sound person would not be capable of even one of his countless feats.   Still, most people were feeling uneasy about the whole situation.  We felt compelled to exploit all of his quirks until we had completely forgotten about all of his contributions.  On top of being the victim of a really unfortunate skin disease analysts agreed that MJ suffered from another shitty condition, body dimorphic disorder.  Jeez, what a weirdo, feeling like he needs to change his physical appearance.  Anyway, as it turned out, no one could see past his physical appearance, so his music became secondary to gossip about his strange lifestyle, and he was slandered for the rest of his life. After this, Michael decided that he would rather hang around chimps and little kids only.  Again, to me this seems like a pretty basic cause-and-effect type situation we have here.  However, the masterminds of mankind determined that he must have been molesting kids.  Not the monkey though, oddly enough.

So somehow by the time his last album hit, which was of course no Thriller, but still better than most things, lots of people were too embarrassed to go into a record store (remember those?) and ring up the latest from the world’s  most renowned child-molester at the time.  And who could blame us?  The trials got way more publicity than, lets say, when he founded the Heal the World foundation, whose mission was to  provide medicine to children and fight world hunger, homelessness, child exploitation and abuse.  Or his being a major contributor to 39 additional charities in his career.  They got even more coverage than when all of the profits from smash hits “Man in the Mirror” and “Heal the World” went to charity.  Probably even more well known than the “We are the World” video, which he coordinated, gathering the biggest musicians at the time to record a song that raised millions of dollars for famine relief.  Or how on the 123-show world tour for “Bad” he invited underprivileged children to watch for free and sing with him on stage, and then gave donations to local hospitals, orphanages and other charities in every place he visited.   The trials, which were unsuccessful in providing any actual evidence of molestation, are still more widely acknowledged than how the “Dangerous” world tour, where he danced like a fucking maniac for 65 shows and then gave all of the proceeds, I repeat, all, ALL of them to Heal the World.  After that he sold the broadcast rights for the show to HBO, took that money and put it towards HIV/AIDS research.  And remember when his afro caught on fire during the filming for that Pepsi commercial? Haha ha ha!! Guess what?  He took the money from that lawsuit and gave it to the hospital where he was treated and started a burn ward for research and technology in severe burn treatment.  Then he got plastic surgery because he was self-conscious about his scalp and we made fun of him for the rest of his life.  And said that he touches babies.

So after trying to withdraw from the public eye, (unsuccessfully, as tons of brilliant journalists and psychoanalysts made whole careers out of obsessing over his weirdness) Michael comes back at the world and announces “THIS IS IT.”  A 50- show tour taking place at the 02 stadium in London, possibly his last performance ever.  In tradition of MJ, he had invented some kind of crazy 3-D background scheme that would transform the experience of seeing  a live concert.  He committed to giving the world one last show, granting everyone the chance to forget all about the baby-dangling and plastic surgeries and just enjoy the fucking immaculate presentation of all of the songs that make everyone dance no matter where they are.   He agreed to subject his 50 year old body to putting on 50 more seizure-inducing performances which would have allowed millions of people to enjoy the same magic that had possessed them for decades.  It would have given millions the opportunity to experience the intense, uplifting energy that looks more powerful and mind-altering than any drug trip.  An experience that is unexplainable, but proven by concert footage of full grown adults losing the ability to hold themselves up.  I was going to be one of these people.

Michael Jackson has left behind a whole world of humans who were touched by his timeless legacy.    I’m sure that even those of you who didn’t spend $750 on airfare to London have the same feeling of emptiness in your lives as I do right now.  But remember, we are all in this together.   Take advantage of your neighbors and comrades who have probably all have attempted the moonwalk at one time or another, and might need someone to commiserate.  Talking it out feels good.  Even if it leads to both parties drunkenly agreeing that Michael Jackson was more important than Jesus, or the holocaust, and then the conversation becomes a little uncomfortable.  Just get it all out.  Letting yourself come to terms with how you feel will help you to reach the final step in the grieving process: Acceptance.  Make this tragedy easier for yourself and those around you.  Heal the world. It’s what Michael would have wanted us to do.  We’re all going to get through this.

This week’s podcast marks a definite change in direction. After 50 rambling messes, we (I) decided to take the reigns and practice some preproduction for realsies. Of course the day between recording and posting, Michael Jackson died. Hopefully, everyone will be very very tired of hearing about him, as unbelievable as his death truly is, because there is no coverage here. We do talk about Ed McMahon at length – let’s face it, Michael Jackson and maybe even Farrah Fawcet are really raining on his funeral procession. We also invented a game called “Carcass or Surgery” where I had to guess whether or not James added a term from a sex-change operation to a Carcass lyric.

We also decided to feature some new music this week from bands LAF and Zero System. Don’t let James’ fucking their names up in the intro fool you, we do really like these bands. If you want your music featured on the show, just send some mp3′s in an email to SmartassRadio@gmail.com.

Here’s the show:

Click here for .mp3

Here is the clip of Ed McMahon drunk: