In Limbo?

According to a new document produced by the Roman Catholic Church titled "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised," limbo is no more. I'm so glad this is cleared up now. In it, the authors conclude, "the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptised infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision." Rumor has it one version of the document also "hoped" that all unbaptised infants who die would go to Candyland for all eternity, but the American Dental Association objected, claiming that the toothless should not mock the toothed and cavity-plagued living with their eternal consumption of wonderful sweets.

On a much more serious note, PEHOCAC sends our condolences out to the victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre on Monday April 16 and to all those who have been distressed by the media's (particularly NBC's) continual coverage of this unfortunate event.

Father Figure

Holly, for some reason, has great insight into the male psyche. That is why this photo from the front page of most newspapers across the country today confuses me:

I have never seen a man get more excited about the news that he is the illegitimate father of a baby girl. You'd think he was Rocky Balboa, celebrating the fact that he jogged through Philadelphia without getting arrested for steroid possession. I wonder why he's so excited?

P.Kitty, I'm very glad you're working on PEHOCAC's "official" history/herstory, the she-said-he-said struggle for the freedom to blog intelligently, humorously, truthfully and hyperbolic-like. The mainstream media can criticize us for being "confrontational," "controversial," "maintaining an extremely limited reading audience" and as "constantly taking one step forward, two steps back." Just wait, mainstream media, just wait. You'll see. As I told The Paper Cat for his book, "We're so far ahead of our times that we actually see the backs of our own heads." Suck on that, Larry King.

Killer

Well, Holly has it right on numerous counts. For one, our "vacation" has been a blast [of cold, high pressure water]. I, for one, had a lot of fun in the pool [being water boarded]. But in the end, [having refused to surrender the logon password to PEHOCAC,] I think the trip was could have worked out even better [for the guards].

But Holly is also right on another count, even if she didn't provide quite the whole story. If you think Vote for the Worst is out to "ruin" American Idol, then you probably realize that 神田ブログ is trying to ruin PEHOCAC. Yeah, you can believe I'm pissed. I mean, can you believe they are trying to vote me off the blog? I mean, we don't even accept votes! Well, I guess we do if readers send them, but we don't do anything with them. Shit, that's not even true. I would probably try to sell them on eBay.

But I've been busy since "vacation" ended. I've started to write a book. The working title is "A People's History of PEHOCAC". I hope to fill it with all the stuff that mainstream historians want to don't want you to know about the blog because it doesn't fit with the "accepted mythology" of Holly and me being unerring comic geniuses with our fingers on the pulses of both Hulk Hogan and the international literary avant-guard. Like how how the seemingly most stupidest posts are really the best, because our real audience hasn't even been born yet. Or how the blog was on the brink of being shut down for not paying our blog bills, before Turtledaub pointed out that we don't pay any blog bills. Hopefully Ann Coulter reviews this bad boy when it's finished.

Fake Plastic Mlamlamla

Sorry kiddies for the long absence. The Paper Cat and myself were "removed" from our "previous situation" and "debriefed" by "attorneys working for the 'government.'" The Paper Cat will talk more about this delicate situation when he "returns from vacation." And no, this is not a "cypher" [wink, wink!!].

The only really important thing that has happened to civilization since last we spoke has been its very decline, aka the continued attention paid to American Idol. I've seen one episode ever about three years ago (my predictable quick capsule review: it sucked ... hard), so I cannot be called an "expert" on these "important matters" which I'm repetitively referring to in "quotations."

But since I am an American, I just happen to be aware of the current controversy surrounding "singer" Sanjaya Malakar. Apparently he's quite bad, but keeps winning because of his looks (I, for the record, am pleased to see a young man of Bengali/Italian American descent causing so many young hearts to swoon) and because of a website called Vote for the Worst which seems to be a hilarious attempt to sabotage the show.

More intriguing perhaps is the claim by the show's main draw, Simon Cowell, that he "won't come back" to the show if Malakar wins.

If Cowell leaves the show, it will cease to be watched and it will get canceled, destined to be forgotten like some of these pop icons from the past 50 years: Bobby Sherman, Tab Hunter, Leif Garrett, Tiffany, Tony DiFranco, Fabian and Debbie Gibson.

Vote for Sanjaya!

Then we Americans can get the television programming we deserve.

Sixteen Stone

Several months ago, the following question was asked on the cover of an issue of Rolling Stone: Is George Bush the worst president ever?

For those of us who lack historical perspective and ideological persuasion (i.e. born during the Gerald Ford presidency), the answer is yes, especially given the debacle in Iraq and his "new strategy" for success over there, which is really just another moniker for "more of the same, plus 21,500."

Sure, George W. Bush is a douche, but he's not the worst president ever. That award goes to William Henry Harrison, the ninth Commander-in-Chief of our nation.

Hell, even the official White House biography only gives Harrison's presidency one paragraph. So, the story goes, he was elected the Whig Party candidate in 1841. He gave his inaugural speech on March 4th in the winter cold of Washington D.C. without wearing a jacket. Did I mention he was 68 years old, then the oldest president to be elected? Yeah. The plot thickens. His inaugural address was nearly 9,000 words long, and took well over two hours to deliver. Needless to say, this dumbass spent the next month dying, and enacting some bullshit legislation.

Harrison died April 4th, 1841. His presidency only lasted one month. But what most people don't know is that on March 28th, Harrison, in an opium delirium, drafted the Robot Futures Act of 2141, which placed the powers of the Presidency, Senate, House and Judiciary in the hands of artificially intelligent "mechanized decisionmakers." He envisioned the world, three hundred years from his own time, as a glorious illustration of pure sublime Enlightenment, where mankind had created all the tools necessary to make life as convenient as possible. This would be a good world. After this "nonsense" was passed by weak politicians just to please a dying old man, Harrison came down hard from his opium high and realized that we could not trust the machines. Harrison then drafted the Decision to Annihilate the Machines Act of 2141, basically sending every American human alive into hand-to-hand combat with the laser-guided borgs. The war he envisioned was worse than the stuff in The Matrix and Terminator combined.

This legislation will affect all of our great-great-great grandchildren. The beyond-the-grave power of this depraved ghost of a dead president must, MUST, be reckoned with, or we will all be batteries for machines or Yorick-like skulls crushed under the feet of cybernetic robots for pure dramatic effect.

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," my ass. William Henry Harrison ... WORST PRESIDENT EVAH!

It's Easy to See Without Looking Too Far That Not Much Is Really Sacred

Simon Cowell doesn't like the music of Bob Dylan. That doesn't bother me. What does bother me is the fact that he thinks Kelly Clarkson is "a young Aretha Franklin," and that he purportedly thinks she is better than Bob Dylan.

For the record, Kelly Clarkson is no Aretha Franklin, young, old, zygotic or dead. She's an older Debbie Gibson whose producers and A&R people scour the sounds of the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Minutemen for material. Her music will be forgotten in three years, unlike the "dull" sounds of Bobby Zimmerman.

With sensibilities like these, it's no wonder American Idol-ification has sweeped the globe and lowered the bar for lowest-common-denominator cultural "expre$$ion" (yeeeeaaaah, how punk was that?). To quote an American friend of mine in exile in London, "The masses are asses." Sure, Cowell makes waaaaaay more money than the lumpenproles who watch his shitty show, but he is clearly a reflection and a projection of our tastes in popular entertainment. He is like Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) from the film All About Eve (1950). I wouldn't call him an asshole, because he is not: he is merely a conniving businessman and taste-shaper who knows that by appearing to be an asshole, he will have a greater influence on his show's viewership because he dominates the conversation.

Just look at what I'm doing right now :)

Hair

In some wonderful news, Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell both died today. They were both killed when the hot air coming out of their mouths burnt them to death. The citizens of the mortal universe are glad that they don't have to hear about this non-story between pompous windbags in the news any more.



RIP Donald Trump (1946-2007)




RIP Rosie O'Donnell (1962-2007)

You Can't Judge a Book

... by looking at the cover (unless, to quote Johnny Rotten, "you cover just another") or by comparing it to its film adaptation. Because Holly Go-Heavily has plenty of spare time right now (and P-Cat knows the reason why), I decided to read Robert Bloch's novel Psycho (1959). This is one of those rare instances where the film (1960; dir. Alfred Hitchcock) is superior to the book it adapts. Bloch is a straight-up hack with no knack for suspense, pacing or character depth. There are plenty of key differences between the novel and film. Since more people are familiar with the movie, I'll talk about how the book differs. Norman Bates is a forty year-old virgin who wears glasses, is a Texan (or Oklahoman), and an overweight alcoholic who dabbles in the occult. His interest in taxidermy is only mentioned once: he stuffs a squirrel. Norman Bates and Mary Crane are, basically, both driven to madness (in admittedly vast and varying forms) because they want to get laid, but social forces are working to prevent this from happening. I could go on and on (which I won't) about the subtle changes Hitchcock's screenwriter Joseph Stefano made when he adapted Bloch's novel to improve upon the original, but I will refrain here. The point of this long-winded exercise in bloggorrhea is that yes, indeed, there are some novels/books with film doppelgangers that are much better (this, of course, excludes novelizations of films), though not many. Here are some that come to mind:

++ Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones (1749) --> Tom Jones (1963; dir. Tony Richardson)
++ L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1899) --> The Wizard of Oz (1939; dir. Victor Fleming)
++ Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968) --> 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968; dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Actually, these are all I could think of. Now, to be honest, I've not read Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1938), James Jones' The Thin Red Line (1962), Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1969), Stephen King's The Shining (1977), Paddy Chayefsky's Altered States (1978), Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy (1985, which was adapted as GoodFellas), Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho (1990) or Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1996), which seem like they'd be better as films, but I could be totally wrong on this.

Can you think of any, Paper Cat? Anybody else out there?

What You Want

All I want for Christmas is a Democracy. And not just any Democracy:

CHINESE DEMOCRACY

Get with the program, Axl. I need my GnR fix, stat.

Ho ho ho

So I'm sitting here watching Pee-Wee's Christmas Special from 1988, yelling and screaming whenever somebody says "year". And my friend is going nuts because just as he rememberd, The Del Rubio Triplettes! make a special appearance. I'm think about how great Pee-Wee's green snowsuit and white boots are, and also how Jingle Cats ruined my life. Well, that's probably a stretch. Those cats didn't ruin my life, but they certainly did kill the dream. I have always had a dream to have cats sing songs for me. But Meowy Christmas by the Jingle Cats was a total letdown. Hopefully those People Eating Tasty Animals people can get those cats away from the recording studio long enough to make a nice chop suey style dish out of them.

Happy holidays!

A Spectre for You

Though I rarely take sides with the people at PETA, I think the "animal-rights" organization needs to be called in for this one. Mike Spalla, the "genius" behind "Jingle Cats," is at it again, exploiting felines (and canines) for his sick and depraved need to cash in on the "holiday season." Seriously people, this is a war against Christmas! Mr. Spalla takes stray cats (and dogs, for his new project), dresses them up, and records them. These animals, without a home, receive no compensation for their talents. Is this not the foulest, most pornographic thing you've ever heard? He gets off doing this, and he gets away with it. And where is PETA now? Probably at some busy intersection in some hippie town showing people, in the tradition of the Pro-Lifers, photos of slaughtered and exploited animals. I eat meat, sure, but making ANYBODY sing Christmas songs, unless they're Run-DMC and they've just got their mitts on the hot track "Christmas in Hollis," should be against the laws of man, animal and Manimal.

People who record Christmas songs know it's an easy way to make some cash because every holiday season, that one annoying and uncreative relative we all have that doesn't know what kind of gift to give reaches deep down inside their vacant imaginations and gets us a Santa Claus tie, Nativity placemats, Menorrah earrings made of pewter or a disc of Kenny G. belting away at "Little Drummer Boy" for 45 minutes. That relative will get you "Jingle Cats," "Jingle Dogs," and, whatever Spalla the Exploiterer comes up with next (what: "Jingle Baby Seals"?), and you'll be the victim of his wicked war against animals.

Do you think Jesus really wants to come back to Earth and listen to this drivel? What would Jesus do? WWJD? He would banish Mike Spalla to hell ... hell, I tell you.

Happy Holidays from Ebeneezer Go-Heavily

Oops I Did It Again

When one of your annoying relatives irritates your e-mail inbox with particularly bothersome attachments, they often feature chain mail photo montages with a specific theme. One of the these is the obligatory FUNNY CHURCH SIGNS message. Well, here are a few that I find hilarious, so as to spare you from having delete 'em from your inbox:

At least these believers are honest!

I had no idea our boy Turtledaub went BORN AGAIN. At least he's staying true to his punk rock roots.

Okay, so none of these are real. I am exploiting a website (as you can tell by the inconspicuously present links) called Church Sign Generator. But reports about Britney Spears' demise are true. Like Paris Hilton and, ahem, my former love interest, Britney Spears has dropped out of the human fold due to her perpetual irrelevancy. Aside from making bare midriffs cool and her early career talent for tantalizing pervy old men with her Lolita-jailbait charm, her computer-aided voice (CAV), bad choice in marital material, and wonderful parenting skills have distracted us long enough. So Bye Bye Britney.