WULAD Web Wround-up
George Pataki pardons Lenny Bruce, and makes it that much harder for me to dislike the Guv'nuh. Wish he'd come up with a better name than "Freedom Tower", though.

Showcasing its brand of hard-hitting journalism, AOL News is your source for the latest in natural disaster and shopping updates:

"It was horrible, the roof was caving in on us," said Madge Woolsey of Paso Robles, whose home was destroyed in the quake. "And what are the nation's hottest toys? What are they, for God's sake?!" She then began to weep silently as the wreckage of her house was thrown on the scrap pile.

And in the Wish-I'd-Thought-of-That Dept., C Monks has his complete Blogvent calendar available for viewing. Well, view it, damn it!

Wrapped Up Like a Calendar Year
This will be the last post until the New Year, and I believe I speak for the entire WULAD Media Empire when I wish you and yours the jolliest of winter merriments. Click here to view the Official Holiday Greeting of DoucheCo and its associated subsidiaries. Catch you on the flip side, mammajammas!

Wrapped Up Like A Guest Blogger: Roger Cedeño
Hi, everybody, I’m Roger Cedeño. You may know me from my days as the wacky, fun-loving right fielder of the New York Mets. But since it seems those days may be coming to an end, I’ve decided to try my hand at a few other trades, and WULAD’s board of directors was kind enough to give me a shot while I consider how to make use of the months of inactivity to come during which I will be earning five million dollars. Thanks, guys! Hope you enjoy the Beluga I sent over!

Now let me start off by saying that when I’m not dropping easy fly balls or driving recklessly, I always make it a point to chow down on as many PowerBars® as possible. Mmm, PowerBars®. They’re like a 95 m.p.h. fastball for your stomach. No, that's no good. Maybe a shot of tequila that doesn’t get you drunk and is made out of nuts and grains instead of whatever they use to make tequila. In any case, PowerBars® get my full endorsement until March 31, with renewal option at fifty grand per year. OK, thirty-five. Call me.

Anyway, I’m really here to inform and entertain in much the same manner as your usual WULAD editorial staff—I want my Ferrari back in the same condition I left it, bizotches—so I’ll start with a little round-up of current events:

According to Some Government Guy, the U.S. is under imminent threat of a terrorist attack, with Washington D.C. and New York as likely targets. Lucky for me, I’m wintering here in my native Venezuela. To all of you who booed me at Shea Stadium: Good luck with that, fellas! But seriously kids—terrorism is no laughing matter. And neither is my batting average! Ba-dump-BUMP! Stay in school.

Looks like Michael Jackson is having some problems with the law again. Having been there, I can only tell him to be strong, Bro, and don’t resist when they want to do the cavity search. It’s no fun driving a Maserati on a donut cushion! Also I have a demo tape, maybe you could pass it along. [Sings] “I’m an… OUT-fielder, GLOVE-wielder, SONG-stealer, don’t ya mess around with me..” What’s that? Copy-what Infringe-what of the what now? OK, never mind. Call me, though, Mike.

And I heard that Joe Namath told some sports-news chick that he wanted to do the quarterback-sneak back in her hotel room—hey editor dudes! I came up with that one! I told you it'd be a riot! Anyway, as Joe and I have both been professional athletes for New York teams ending in "-ets", I can say that the temptation is always there, although I've seen quite a drop-off since I became the laughingstock of the league. But the trick, Joe, is to wait until the camera's off, big guy. Then you can let the love... flow.

Lastly, those WULAD dudes—who best be taking good care of my car—would like me to remind you to check out the Bach Festival. You know, my soon-to-be former teammate Mike Piazza really likes that classical shit. Now I know what they say about him, but let me tell you, he never did anything like that around me, and I consider myself a handsome man, you know. And so what if he keeps a shirtless photo of Richard Marx in his locker? I told you the man loves music.

So that’s it for my first stint as guest blogger here at WULAD—if you like what you’ve read, be sure and let the management know, so they can present me with an offer that doesn’t insult my intelligence and the intelligence of my agent. I mean, let’s be reasonable, people—I know Giambi’s getting $2.5 over at his guest-bloggin’ gig, and I’m much funnier than him. Call me, though. Peace out.

Disclaimer: Parody, not really written by Cedeño, blah blah, any similarity with crappy outfielders living or dead coincidental and not affliliated with blah blah blah, etc.

If It Ain’t Baroque, Don’t Play it for 168 Hours
WKCR, my favorite radio station, has begun its annual festival dedicated to Bach, my favorite composer, during which they play his music continuously for a week, my favorite duration, from New York, my favorite city. It features such music-nerd-friendly events as nightly Cantata Request Hours, the Jazz meets Bach show, and interviews with über-music-nerds whose Bach Fu is so superior to mine that it leaves me to weep silently while listening to the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor by the light of a single candle, a broken shell of a man. Along with (non-yellow) snow and crates of clementines, it’s one of the highlights of the holiday season back there. (As opposed to San Francisco, where the holiday highlights include manger scenes constructed out of discarded drug paraphernalia and chestnuts roasted over an open hibachi with mango-chipotle compote.) If you’re in the NYC area, tune to 89.9 FM, or listen to it on the web here.

If the National Review Printed This, I’d Protest
We lead you into the weekend with a bit of “foreigners are funny” humor that’s acceptable because everybody knows I’m not a racist even though I did once drunkenly remark that “those Koreans sure like their restaurants brightly lit” and I may have pretended to be Black to get into college where I had a brief romance with Rae Dawn Chong before being exposed as a white guy in front of my teacher, James Earl Jones, and it’s true that I was once in the Klan but that was only to meet women. That said, WULAD presents...

The 5 Most Entertaining Items on a Thai Menu I Got Recently

5. Rare Naked Shrimp with Spicy Paste (Ten bucks extra if you want a lap dance.)

4. Pork Rib Pickle (“You got your pork rib in my pickle!” “You got your pickle in my pork rib!” Both: “Heyyyyyy…”)

3. Angle Wing (About 45°, I think.)

2. Lord (No thanks, I ate God for lunch.)

And the Number One Most Entertaining Item on a Thai Menu I got Recently:

1. Deep Fried Balls

OK, this is a sub-par post. I admit it, I'm coasting. So just allow the dulcet tones of the Bach Festival to drown out the screams of my joke writers while I beat and coerce them into squeezing more ideas out of their tiny, mashed-potato-like brains. Cheers!

The brains of the WULAD Cleverness-Wasting Council are still sore from crafting the Neal Pollack acrostic, so while their synapses refresh themselves, we humbly pour you a big cup of…

WULAD Web Wround-up
First on the menu: This is the sort of thing that made me an atheist.

Platypuses hunt with electro-sensors… and they will never stop hunting you.

Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus (who makes occasional use of the nickname I suggested for sports-medicine-enthusiasts, "MedHeads") has got great overheard quotes from baseball's winter meetings.

I neglected to mention the other day how much it bothered me that the operation which resulted in Saddam Hussein’s capture was named after a Patrick Swayze movie. Luckily, Chatterbox is all over that shiznit.

Dances With Stereotypes
The Times had a piece yesterday about the ongoing battle of Little Big Mascot, which introduced me to my new favorite white Midwestern idiot, loudly proclaiming his unawareness of said idiocy:

John Gadaut, a lawyer in Champaign, said he had spent more than $5,000 on keep-the-[Illinois mascot] chief billboards and buttons. "I'm a Native American," said Gadaut, who is white. "I was born and bred in Illinois. The chief means something to me, too. People keep saying we have a mascot. No, we have a symbol. … It's my whole heritage in front of me. Hey, these people can be my heritage even though this guy's skin is not my color." He dismissed … opponents of the chief as "leftist social engineers."

(See here for some examples of rightist social engineers.) I suppose he’s correct in a sense; mocking and denigrating minorities while appropriating romanticized caricatures of their culture is definitely a part of his heritage. However, the article failed to mention far and away the most heinous—yet most widely accepted—example of Native American minstrelsy in the sports world: Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians. Although the esteemed Chief has been ostensibly replaced in his “official” capacity as mascot—by a ridiculous Youppi-esque monster called “Slider”—his toothy, blood-red mug adorns the team’s caps, jerseys, and nearly every piece of fan merchandise. In addition to its general offensiveness, I also hate that shit-eating grin because it makes me dislike the Indians (the team, not the ethnic group)—one of the younger, scrappier, and more exciting teams in baseball—intensely.

But I digress. For my final no-new-effort-required item, we continue the series begun Monday:

Wrapped Up Like An Internet Search, part II: The Douche
The following are 100% genuine searches that have led (presumably disappointed) searchers to this tiny shack by the internet tracks:

• Origin of douche
  
• Why we douche
  
• Douche for sexual pleasure
  
• Do they say douche?
  
• Forced douche
  
• Picture of douche bag
  
• Douche pictures
  
• Douche container
  
• Crack up like a douche
  
• Wrapped up like a douche meaning
  
• Wrapped up like a douche bag
  
• Douche bug
  
• Douche bagel
  
• Douche the Marlins
  
• Great douche
  
• Erotic douche
  
• Android 18 douche
  
• Monolith douche
  
• Chicken douche
  
• Douche for dogs
  
• Dancing douche
  
• Douche Bag Dave
  
• Dave is a douche
  
• Steve is a douche
  
• Brad is a douche
  
• Neil is a douche
  
• Steve Bartman douche
  
• Rupert Murdoch douche
  
• Ann Coulter is a douche
  
• John Kerry is a Douche
  
• George Bush is a douche
  
• Have A Douche Break

Well, if this has tought us anything, it's that everyone—whether you're Steve Bartman, George Bush, Android 18, or even Douche Bag Dave—could use a Douche Break now and then. Don't forget to write!

Wrapped Up Like A Roast: WULAD Salutes Neal Pollack
It may be reasonably asked why I, a relative slime mold on the evolutionary ladder of literature (of which the Right Honorable Mr. Pollack is the slippery topmost rung) am qualified to contribute to his Celebrity Roast; after all, I have never met the man, nor shared his bed at the fantastic ranch and amusement park which bears his name, nor even felt his gentle, clammy hand clasp the nape of my neck in the most stepfatherly of manners. This concern is appropriate; but before I attempt to befoul the great litany of tributes preceding this one with the stain of my sophomoric pen, I ask that the assemblage consider the tale of the following missive I received from He Whose Tea I Am Not Worthy To Bag, which I believe amply demonstrates the depth of my connection to this brilliant, pasty man.

I cannot describe the elation I felt upon the appearance of the name “N_Pollack” in my inbox one shimmering day; it was beyond my wildest expectations that my PayPal donation of $13.56 would prompt a personal reply from the Man Himself. No, thought I, it must be a form letter from some anonymous lackey, a pale and pimply coffee-runner in the lowest basement of the Pollack Media Empire’s most remote outpost. I did not dare to dream that a lowly scribbling piss-ant such as myself would be the recipient of a personal reply from one who obviously wipes his brain’s nether regions each day with writers exponentially more prominent and talented than I, checking to make sure they have removed all traces of metaphorical stool before consigning them to the septic tank of his subconscious. But I was mistaken.

“Thanks, Ian,” the G.L.A.W. wrote—immediately uplifting me by typing my pitiful name with those glorious, if warty, fingers—“whoever you are!” (The warmth! The wit!) Mr. Pollack, or “Dad,” as I have taken to calling him, then closed with an exhortation to a Higher Life:

“Rock on,” he wrote, and signed with the touching sobriquet “NP.” Needless to say I needed an extra helping of yams that night, if you know what I mean. So without further ado, I give you my own humble homage to the man who may be the suppository cure for the cultural constipation of our society:

N is for the Need which he ably fills
E is for Eczema, and his plethora of ills
A is for Awe which spreads, tumor-like, as we read
L is for the Lard he devours while on speed

P is for the Pride which he humbly swallows
O is for Orgasm, which inevitably follows
L is for the Love which he showers on the reader
L is for the Lubricant this requires by the liter
A is for All of his appreciative progeny
C is for the Codpiece which hides his androgyny
K is for Knowledge, his work’s very crux;
...and these are the reasons why Neal Pollack Sucks.

Godspeed, you great doughy, balding avatar of American prose.

Random Mockery of ESPN to Distract You From Bush/Saddam Victory Parties
I’ve never thought that Jayson Stark was a great baseball writer, but did he really pen the following sentence?

And now, if Pudge [Rodriguez] also signs on, [Vladimir] Guerrero will be able to smell the sweet scent of two fellow Latinos deciding that Baltimore is their kind of place.

Yes, he did. Smell those Latinos, Vlad. Mmmmm.

And does the lack of capitalization in the following tagline not make it seem like a radio station is offering to perform oral sex on Roger Clemens?



That’s all. You can go back to watching them trim Saddam’s eyebrows now.

Nefarious Despot Celebrates Capture of Nefarious Despot
Well, you’ve no doubt already heard that Saddam Hussein—who you may recognize from the South Park movie—was found at the Command Center Dirt Hole from which he was leading Iraq’s insurgency with an iron fist, so his capture will of course result in the cessation of hostilities. Within a few hours of President Action Figure’s PR victory, the local news teaser was already asking, “Does the capture of Saddam Hussein now guarantee President Bush’s reelection?” (Do I detect a Fair and Balanced hand in crafting this question?) And double agent Joe Lieberman, still smarting from the symbolic foot Al Gore recently inserted in his hoo-hah, used the opportunity to resume his pummeling of candidates critical of the President—although this approach may hurt him when he gets around to asking voters to support the President by voting for Joe Lieberman. Shortly after hearing the news, I spoke to WULAD Wregular Shan-bear.

Me: So, what do you do now if you’re the President’s handlers?
Shan-bear: Masturbate.
Me: No, after that.

I went on to say that I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Prez’s people start negotiating with Saddam, to talk him into copping to involvement in the September 11 plot in exchange for not being executed. (That is, after they finish touching up the the "MISSION REALLY ACCOMPLISHED THIS TIME" banner for the deck of the U.S.S. Photo-Op.) I felt like quite the cynic for immediately bringing this up—even people as colossally dissatisfied with the direction of the country as I am can agree that Saddam is an evil murdering butthole and that Iraq will be better off without him running around—but soon saw that I wasn’t the only one who thought of this one. People like us should really be working for the Action Figure administration, since we can clearly think like the Bad Guys when properly motivated (wink wink, my own island kingdom, nudge nudge).

"But what kind of sanctimonious political claptrap is this," you might ask, "We come to WULAD to be entertained!" Well, to fight off the Guaranteed Reelection Blues, we’ve decided to recycle an already tired idea by posting the first part of a comprehensive report of Exciting and Confusing Searches which have recently led inquiring minds to our virtual doorstep, along with the kind of incicive commentary you've come to expect from our highly trained, slave-wage-earning editorial staff. It's...

Wrapped Up Like An Internet Search, part I: The Perverts

• "having sex with twins" (OK, standard enough in the greater scheme of things.)
  
  
• kinky slideshows ("And that's Uncle Bill in the body stocking next to Suzy Mae and her goat boyfriend. Next slide...")
  
  
• "crushing things" woman videos (Getting farther afield…)
  
  
• girls wrapped up (Let’s see them go to the prom without me now!)
  
  
• woman pull up shirt ballgame (Not often enough, unfortunately.)
  
  
• hairy nude coed girls (Try the international dorms.)
  
  
• mamby girls sex (But keep those pamby girls away from me.)
  
  
• anal cavity searches at customs (Only if you ask nicely.)
  
  
• Neil Bush Sex Romps (See also Embarrassing Presidential Brother Syndrome, or Roger Clinton’s Disease.)
  
  
• "Laura Bush naked" (Shannen Doherty's got the pictures.)
  
  
• naked blonde NY hotel heiress (Yeah, what was her name again?)
  
  
• DID MAGIC JOHNSON HAVE A HOMOSEXUAL ENCOUNTER (He might tell you if you stop shouting.)
  
  
• Magic Johnson + group sex (Busy guy.)
  
  
• c-baby nude (Hey now! Getting a little out of line!)
  
  
• free c-baby panties (Callin’ the cops now…)
  
  
• People wrapped up in bags (And lovin’ it!)

If you, the loyal readers, find this incredibly tiresome, make sure to drop by my spider hole and voice your concerns so I may ignore them accordingly. Good day to you, and to the woman this morning who said, "What an annoying bus driver."

WULAD Web Wround-Up
This is where I will identify things that you should read and enjoy and you can then read and enjoy them, or read them and not enjoy them, or not read them and not enjoy them, as the case may be. But if you don’t read them, you can’t enjoy them. And if you’re not going to enjoy them, at least make it a non-enjoyment that comes from reading them, rather than a non-enjoyment that comes from non-reading, as that leaves open the possibility that you may not have non-enjoyed them had you not non-read them. You may even have enjoyed them. So read them.

Finally, a good love poem.

For the last-minute Xmas shopper: the gifts that keep on giving.

And now, an event you have no doubt all been waiting for with increasing impatience, it's...

Wrapped Up Like a Pledge Drive
That's right, the Paris Hilton Crotch Shot Foundation’s drive is officially over, and although we may see an increase in Crotch Hunters as Ms. Hilton’s star continues to rise, I did say that December 10th would be the end. Here’s just a sampling of the variations which led brave seekers to our humble web-ode:

paris hilton crotch
paris Hilton crotch shot
paris hilton money shot
conjunction paris Hilton
Neal Pollack Hilton
paris+hilton+suck+toes
"the lovely and talented" "Paris hilton"
the wit and wisdom of paris hilton

And so on and so forth. (I knew that Pollack was somehow in on this.) For the final accounting, I turn the festivities over to someone who knows more about the topic of Paris Hilton’s crotch than anyone alive—you know her, you love her, it’s the Hostess with the Mostest, the Heiress with the Barest, the Debutante with the… anyway, it’s the lovely, talented, witty, wise, and etc. Miss Paris Hilton!

"Thanks, WULAD. Of all the people I’ve met in life, you’re the most recent. [Ba-dump-bump!] No, really, it’s great to be here, but remember I just had my arm up a cow’s ass! No, I gotta tell you, I haven’t met anybody who loves people as much as WULAD does—not since that German Cannibal Guy! [Crash!] But speaking of cannibalism, I want to talk to you about something that’s really been devouring my attention lately… [Groans] That is, it’s been eating away at me… I mean to say it’s like a big barbecued penis in my mind …

"But seriously, folks, the plight of the people of Afghanistan is no laughing matter, and I’m happy that my crotch has played a small part in making things a little better for them… ‘cause it sure hasn’t done me any favors lately! [Ba-dump!] No really, people, my crotch has gotten so popular it just hired its own agent! [Crash!] And it’s getting top billing in my next TV show—they even decided to call it The Simple Life of Paris Hilton’s Crotch! [WULAD whispers in Paris’s ear.] Ah, we’re running long, eh? You’re just afraid these people will get used to real comedy! [Laughter.]

"Anywho, WULAD’s crack statistical team has informed me that the final tally of Paris Porn-Seeking hits was—drum roll please...

"462! That’s right, folks, 462 of you came looking for pictures of me and/or my crotch, and every one of you helped raise money for this worthy cause. My crotch goes out to you! [Curtain raises and 462 blind, hairy-palmed middle-aged men in white tuxedos bow simultaneously.] And thanks to our generous pledgers—Belle, Shan-bear, OATO, NBG, C-Baby and the CEO of WULAD Enterprises himself—the PHCSF has successfully raised a grand total of $35.03 for the Afghanistan Relief Organization!

"Now, before I go, I just want to thank Leon, Rickie, Tom, Ashley, Luis, Brittany, Chelsea, Greg, Nora, Shelby, Mahmoud, Racquel, Lawrence, Shaniqua, Reginald, Bret, Rod, Nancy, Igor, Dmitri, Ngoyo, Ping, Theophilus, Buck, Trot, Piotr… [Music swells.] Wait! I’m not done! [Music stops.] Also Mom, Dad, my agent, my crotch’s agent, Jesus, Shannen Doherty, Pedro Martinez, Don Zimmer, President Bush, Gavin Newsom, Ronald Reagan Jr., the folks at Red Bull, the folks at Stolichnaya, Rush Limbaugh’s maid, Darya Folsom, the doctor that cured my phobia of Walloons, Kazuo Matsui…" [Music swells and security escorts Paris from the stage as she begins to throw up into the audience.]

Last of the Election Crap
OK, so after some last-minute hemming and hawing, WULAD ended up voting for Gonzalez, who lost, and Harris, who won. But I’m pretty sure Mecklin of the Weekly is correct in saying that either candidate would make a good mayor, even is one of them is a courageous crusader for the voiceless and the other is a soulless lackey for the plutocrats, as the Eternal Protest crowd would have you believe. (Which I don’t, incidentally.) After casting my weighty vote, I headed to the Laundromat for another civic duty, and was greeted at the door by a homeless guy who proceeded to smoke crack in the corner while the patrons loaded their washers. I didn’t bother asking him if he was acting in his capacity as a symbol or if this was just his normal routine.

Last of the Pledge Drive Crap
Today is officially the last-ass-last day to pledge to the PHCSF—which is too bad, since the flow of crotch-seeking visitors is holding steady—and may even be getting stronger since “the lovely and talented Paris Hilton” (as one Googler sought) seems to become more of a cultural phenomenon each day. And the Afghanis could really use the dough, I would think. But I can’t milk the six poor souls I roped into pledging forever, and I promised that December 10 would be The Last Day. So drop me a line at the e-mail to your right and chip in a little holiday Hilton hope for those less fortunate. Hell, you could even skip my sorry go-between ass altogether and just donate to them directly. Tomorrow: the final tally, when we learn just how obsessed with celebrity crotches our nation really is.

Last of the Recycled Crap
I’ll close this abbreviated filler-post with a little piece I threw into the e-mail flotsam a few years back. And let it never be said that all Wrapped and no Up makes Like a dull Douche…

Hey guys! I know it sounds far-fetched, but I tried this and it worked!

Microsoft, as part of a promotional e-mail tracking test, is sending out squads of beautiful supermodels with huge bags of free money and shiny sports cars to anyone who forwards their tracking message. The supermodels are instructed to become the personal sex slaves of anyone who helps with the tracking test, to help clean up around the home, and to pay off the mortgages of their new masters; in fact, Microsoft is offering to set up a personal stipend of one million dollars per day for each respondent—so great is their need to test this new system.

Here's how it works: simply forward this to thirty-seven of your friends, family, etc., and in one week your choice of either a) a Victoria's Secret runway model in a bitch-red Mercedes coupe, b) a Soul Train dancer in a black Lexus SUV, or c) a member of the New York Jets Dance Squad in a '67 Charger will pull up in front of your house, adorn you witha solid-gold diamond encrusted tuxedo, and your days of struggle and disappointment will be over! You will have joined the ranks of the immortals! I know what you're thinking—too good to be true!—but this has been independently verified by Dr. Werner Wittgenheimer at the University of Munich (WWittgenheimer@UMunich.Ger). See you on the Riviera!

Note to SFers
Read this piece (short ad view req.) before voting for a little response to all the anti-Gavo, pro-Matt-Gone hype that's been floating around. You still may not want to vote for him, but check it out anyway, because unsubstantiated non-policy-based mudslinging helps nobody.

I’m Your Venus
Well, there’s a lot of ground to cover today—aside from the fact that we San Freakin’-Franners are headed to the polls to choose our next mayor, or alcalde, as they say in "Zorro", today is also the penultimate day of the Paris Hilton Crotch Drive; and perhaps most importantly, there are dwarf riots in Africa. Dwarf riots! Let’s begin.

I’m Your Mayor
As the Day of Mayoral Reckoning has approached, the WULAD Endorsement Committee has spent quite a while listening to interviews, reading position papers, etc. We’ve compiled the following summation of what we’ve learned, so that you, the busy voter, don’t have to waste your valuable skeeball time sifting through all that razzmatazz yourself:

• Gavin Newsom is not a Nazi. It turns out he’s not even a Republican.
  
  
• Matt Gonzalez is filthy stinkin’ richer than Newsom, and no, you can’t see his tax return.
  
  
• Newsom doesn’t believe candlelight vigils can defeat homelessness.
  
  
• Gonzalez once held a candlelight vigil for his missing socks.
  
  
• Newsom talks like he’s tired of explaining it to you idiots, again.
  
  
• Gonzalez attended the Jonathan Richman show last Friday in his trademark "Only Suit," though he did not call C-Baby "Little Mama."
  
  
• Newsom has a 30-foot anaconda named "Pepe" in his garage that he plans to use to fight aggressive panhandling.
  
  
• Gonzalez was raised in a remote alpine cabin by Jaye P. Morgan of The Gong Show.
  
  
• Newsom was born with eight fingers; his current thumbs were transplanted from a serial killer after his botched electrocution.
  
  
• Gonzalez is the only man ever to escape from Alcatraz; at the time, however, he was known as “Clint Eastwood.”
  
  
• Although Newsom appears middle-aged, he is actually 87 years old, the last of a line of long-lived Northern kings and heir to the throne of Gondor.
  
  
• Last week, Gonzalez dressed up as Billy Bob Thorton dressed up as Santa Claus and touched me in an inappropriate way while I sat on his lap.
  
  
• Newsom once told a reporter to “go suck my mammy’s left buttcrack.”
  
  
• Gonzalez is not related to “Speedy” Gonzalez. However, outfielder Juan Gonzalez of the Texas Rangers is his great-grandmother.

Now you have the facts, so get out there and vote, my lovelies!

At Your Deblogger
Tomorrow is the last day to pledge for the sounds-like-a-joke-but-it’s-actually-for-real PHCSF. The coffers are looking pretty bare, so dig deep and pledge a cent or two per Crotch-Searching hit toward Afghanistan relief efforts. Otherwise this will be just one more clever idea that ends in crushing disappointment and yet another depression-induced Cheetos binge.

Now, some of you may be thinking, "yes, yes, elections and Paris Hilton and self-aggrandizement is all well and good—but don't you have anything to say about what we really care about—the Mets' acquistion of Japanese shortstop phenom Kazuo Matsui?" And you are right to ask, my friends. But as years of Met-induced-pain have resulted in permanently low expectations, I leave the prognosticating to the experts listed to the right of your screen and silently pierce my Roberto Alomar voodoo doll with pin after heartbroken pin.

Finally, kudos to the blogtacular WWKAD? for mentioning this relative piss-ant of a blog today. From tiny acorns grow mighty oaks, which are then cut down to make DuraFlame logs and biodegradable kitty litter.

An Army of Two
Well, it wasn’t easy—due to the overwhelming response—but WULAD’s esteemed panel of judges has selected the two winners for our prestigious Wrapped Up Like a German Cannibal Joke contest. In second (also last) place, we have a delicate yet powerful evocation in verse of the greater relevance that a solitary German cannibal can have to the brotherhood of man and the human condition. From Ryan:

Internet to the rescue
Lonely only child
He ain't lunch, he’s my brother

…with an auspicious start like this, we can no doubt expect great things in the future from the pen of this Bard of the Bay. Also he has an amazing collection of porn.

But now, it's the moment you’ve all, or at least both, been waiting for, when we reveal the champion of the first biennial WULAD Jerman Joke Jamboree: none other than Richard, who demonstrated his poetic prowess and mastery of the form with this mighty trilogy of epic limericks:

There once was a cannibal named Armin
whom news reports spoke of as charming
He sat down with Mr. B
and cut off his pee-pee
Would you say that his smile was dis-arm-ing?

Armin was on trial for killing
his actions were gruesome and chilling
but cannabalism aside
it couldn't be denied
in this case the victim seemed willing

So the Cannibal's on trial—whatever;
the thing that'll impress me forever
is two people meeting
for long-term or just eating
Ain't it great how the internet brings folks together?

Bravo, Herr Kontestmeister. For the rest of my handful of readers, who are content to sit on life’s sidelines and watch clashing titans like Ryan and Richard tackle the real challenges, I will make no effort to evoke remorse; I can only say that if you saw the dazzling prizes that are currently en route to the two wordsmiths above, you’d crap yourselves with jealousy. And speaking of amazing lists of two, it’s time for…

The Two Most Creative Lines That Strange Men Tried to Use on C-Baby This Weekend, vol. xmcvi
Not content to use old chestnuts such as "Hey, Little Mama," our two award-winners broke new ground by offering the following gems while C-Baby was en route to a show by her Secret Boyfriend:

Second Prize (a week in San Tropez with Leon Redbone and the cast of the hit TV show “A Very Busey Christmas”) goes to the guy who said: “I know this sounds crazy, but I lost my car. Do you want to help me find it?” Strangely, she declined, but that should be no reflection on the quality of the invitation.

And the coveted Grand Prize (a tuxedo made entirely out of scraps of “intimate” laundry that I stole from Paris Hilton’s room at the Four Seasons while she was handing out campaign leaflets for Matt Gonzalez) goes to the brilliant man who asked, “Excuse me, would you like a small woman’s coat?” (This contestant later fell back on the hackneyed "Are you a dancer?" but his opener is nonetheless staggering.)

That’s all the contests for today. Feeling left out because you didn’t win anything? You can fill that emptiness in your soul by pledging to the PHCSF—where everybody wins, and the holiday cheer and Valium egg nog is always flowing.

This Entry Practically Writes Itself
Amid all the exciting developments in current events (such as mad scientists trying to scare the good industrialists with talk of killer greenhouses, monkeys taking up arms and joining the cola wars, and colleges ruling that students may not film figure skaters having sex in the classroom) the WULAD news team, with the participation of C-baby, has been following the German “Gentleman Cannibal” story with particular interest. (I especially like the close-up photos of his teeth, and look forward to seeing him host his own late-night variety show in Berlin.) While contemplating the incontemplatability of it all I’m reminded, however, of that wise Cassandra of nerd literature, Douglas Adams, who saw it all coming:

'I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing there inviting me to,' said Arthur, 'It's heartless.'

'Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten,' said Zaphod.

On that note, I’d like to commence the official Wrapped Up Like A German Cannibal Joke Contest. Readers shall submit to the comments link below one or more jokes, puns, limericks, haiku and yada yada concerning, but not limited to, the topic of the German gentleman cannibal. The joke(s) may be any length but must make witty use of the possible multiple meanings of the word “kraut.” At least one winner will be selected by the WULAD Word Wranglers’ adjudication committee, and that winner will receive a stunning prize of some sort, which is guaranteed to be at least as cool as the prize I got from C Monks’ novel-titling contest. Participation in this contest is mandatory.

The San Francisco Treat
In keeping with this week’s theme of showcasing the best and brightest of San Francisco’s intrepid street personnel, I wanted to give well-deserved props to the man who was alternately frightening and entertaining the crowd waiting for the bus this morning; he was standing on the corner of 4th and Market Streets, with a long scarf and those giant sunglasses which seem to be favored by a certain breed of eccentrics, holding his suitcase tight to his body and shouting, at the top of his lungs, “I am New York! I... love... human... beings!”

“Shadd-ap!” yelled the construction workers.

“New York!” shouted the suitcase-hugger as he crossed the street, possibly in search of more human beings to love.

Speaking of which, why not show your love for those who have recently had the crap bombed out of them (I mean literally, not figuratively) by our fearless—and soon to be pensionless, if the Action Figure in Chief gets his way—military by pledging to the Paris Hilton Crotch Shot Foundation? There are only six days left to convert that plethora of Parisian porn-hunting into real dollars for the Afghanistan Relief Organization. Otherwise all those fruitless Crotch Shot searches will truly have been for naught.

The Two Most Interesting Freaks I Saw Yesterday
Belle reminded me that I failed to mention in my earlier post the two Polk Street denizens who each had profound effects on me and my nose during the brief time their stars shone brightly in the sky of my life.

The first: I'm walking up Polk toward Victor's Pizza, through the fairly funky stretch of that street as it passes through my neighborhood (anecdote: guy walks up to me and says, "Which way is the good part of Polk St.?"; I thought, "Good as in gourmet food, or good as in transsexual prostitutes?"); suddenly I feel my nostrils spasm as I detect an awful stench. I look down and see a scruffy, mumbling man crouched on the corner, his hands agitating a big sack of what look like decomposing animals. A woman from the crêpe restaurant-by-day/Korean nightclub-by-night storefront in front of which he's set up shop looks on helplessly, no doubt trying to figure out how to get him to move his project elsewhere. I pick up the pace to try and put some distance between my nose and this tableau, and as I pass a group of skater kids I hear one of them say, "Did you see that guy? He's selling rotten onions!"

The second: as Belle and I are sitting a few blocks east, drinking beer at a watering hole known for its preponderance of Elvis Costello and Tom Waits look-alikes, I suddenly see a scrawny arm (I know, I have no room to judge) in front of my face, accompanied by a voice shouting, "Excuse me, could you smell this?" I look up to see a skinny art school kid, and quickly get out of the way to let Belle handle this one. She does so admirably, and the two spend the next few long minutes talking about their shared love of the printing press while I think about how I might get home without subjecting my sinuses to another pass by Ye Olde Moldy Onion Shoppe. But our friend and his cargo had moved on, perhaps to a happier place, where everyone is anxious to buy rotten vegetables and smell each other's arms, late into the Polk Street night.

Stick Your Dainty Hand Inside the Cow of Charity
Paris Hilton stopped by the WULAD Wranch last night and sipped a low-carb martini while watching the premiere of her new TV show from the comfort of my Corinthian leather beanbag chair. While she was excited about the prospect of showing her buttcrack to America in a more family-friendly way than she has in past months, she was most enthusiastic about how much publicity the show could generate for the PHCSF and its worthy cause. Sure enough, by the time I was tucked in bed and Paris was at the local unemployed web-designers' shelter serving soup, kindness, and Red Bull Cosmos to those less fortunate, the heretofore-diminishing tide of Paris Porn hits had swelled once again to a torrent. So why not pledge a penny or two per hit, and make up for all the bad things you’ve done in the past? Santa is watching, and his wrath is mighty.

Enough with the Democracy, Already
Meanwhile, here in San Freakin'-Fran-cisco, we’re bearing down on yet another election—some mayoral runoff or some shit—and the consensus is that we can either have the status quo (hand-picked successor of current mayor), or the status quo plus (President of the Board of Supervisors). The Chronicle wisely focuses on the most important issue of the campaign: fashion. (via Belle.)

Take Me Out to the WULAD
And a coupla baseball items for that tiny percentage of my tiny readership who can be bothered to pretend to care, even if it's only to humor me and hold off the crushing power of my self-doubt for one more day: Peter Gammons talks to Mike & the Mad Dog about the hot stove market, including why Mets fans are in for a long hot summer of a long dark winter before they can get to their long dark winter of a long hot summer. The Times has an entertaining piece on the rebranding efforts of perennial Japanese League not-so-lovable losers the Nippon-Ham Fighters (“Take ye back, ye scurvy ham!”):

They have been awful for decades on end, with exceedingly rare exceptions, and—as if to highlight their ineptitude—they play in the same city and stadium as the legendary Yomiuri Giants…One Japanese sports executive says the team’s image is so dismal that the team “could actually devalue the ham brand.”

Lady on the 27 Bus, 9 a.m.

Yeah, I been tired
Everyday I gotta go all the way out there to get my dose,
or they throw you back in jail
Been tryin’ to get off the stuff
but they don’t want me to
you know, they want to keep getting that Medi-CAL money

You should come to my place, there’s an open bed
since my friend got sent up for two stabbings
There was some mofo comin’ after her
so we got a coupla big knives, like machetes
and went down to Market Street—she’s Mexican,
and you know how those Mexicans are with the knives—
I told her she shoulda got rid of that yellow knife

They got two whatyoucallem
witnesses for the defense, though
but she’s the sweetest, give you the shirt off her back,
she don’t weigh but 90 lbs.

She’s a whatyoucallem, not a transvestite
one of those other things
Anyway it was three times,
you’re, you know, career criminal,
so she got life in prison
but I think she’s where she wanted to be
if you know what I mean

I was going through her drawers
to see if there was anything worth keepin’,
and I found one a them big things,
you know, with the …
they says, Ain’t you afraid to sleep next to her?
I says I’m the last person
she’d ever use one a' those things on.