WULAD vs. The Old People
For reasons I will never begin to fathom, the cosmos has recently chosen to throw in my general direction some of the Bay Area’s most ornery, belligerent senior citizens (and “citizen” is an extremely charitable designation). I present, for your incredulous perusal, three examples of these Silver Shriekers, in the hope that you might gain some appreciation of the creeping menace our Cherished Elders represent...

Route: 1 California, outbound
Time: Monday, 6:30 p.m.
The California bus during rush hour resembles a roller-coaster, except that riders are usually standing, tightly yet awkwardly packed, and not buckled in; therefore flying limbs, briefcases, or small children are not an uncommon sight. It climbs and descends some of San Fran’s steepest hills—somehow the intrepid MUNI drivers manage to slam on the brakes even while driving up them—so at any given moment a passenger may be thrown forward, backward, or sideways, often with extremely comedic results, except when they land on you. This particular day I’m standing, sardine-fashion, near the front of the bus, when a guy in his early 20s steps on the bus with a briefcase and a soda can. I hear a piercing voice coming from the seniors/disabled seats, in front of and below me.

Shrill Old Lady: Hey! You can’t have an open soda on the bus!

Soda Guy: It’s almost empty, don’t worry.

SOL: What?! You can’t have soda on the bus! Put it away! Put it away!
[SG shakes his head and turns to face away from SOL.]

SOL: This stupid guy won’t put his can away! You can’t have a soda on the bus! Hey, stupid! [At this point something in me clicks. I know it’s pointless and I’ll end up regretting it, but I take the plunge anyway.]

Me (softly but deliberately): Hey, chill out, lady, OK?
[I know, not a very characteristic thing for me to say, but I’m new to this “champion of the defenseless” gig.]

SOL: Excuse me?!

Me: Chill… Out. It’s not a big deal.

SOL: Not a big deal?! This jerk won’t put away his soda!

Me: He’s not a jerk, he’s just a guy with a soda!

SOL: He’s going to spill it on all of us!

Me: He just told you it’s almost empty! Why don’t you wait until after he spills it, and then you can yell at him.

SOL: After he spills it?! That’s too late! [To other riders:] After he spills it!

Me: Because he’s not going to spill it, is what I mean!

Guy Towards Back of Bus: It’s against the rules! Stop harassing the lady!

Me (getting increasingly freaked-out): Who’s harassing who?!

We pull up to my stop, and I realize soda guy has been off the bus for some time. As I step to the curb, I hear SOL screeching at Guy Towards the Back, “After he spills it! You shoulda knocked that guy’s block off!”

Route: 3 Sutter, outbound
Time: Wednesday, 5:35 p.m.
As I often find that even the relatively narrow profile I present when carrying my trumpet case on my back still manages to become a huge obstacle to certain high-maintenance bus-riders, I decide to duck into the exit stairwell at the middle of the bus and thus stay out of the aisle. While standing there (seemingly) unobtrusively and staring blankly out the window at the posh hotels, automotive repair shops, and back-alley massage parlors of Post Street (where I once overheard a hotel guest asking a concierge, “Yeah, but where do I find the whores?”) I start to feel pressure on my back; when it fails to abate after a few seconds, I turn around to see a wiry and frazzled-looking elderly guy pushing into my coat. I look questioningly into his fierce eyes.

Frazzled Elderly Guy: Are you getting off at the next stop?

Me: No.

FEG: Then why are you standing there?

Me: I’m trying to stay out of the aisle.

FEG: How’re people gonna get off? People have to get off, you know.

Me: I’ll let you by when you need to get off.

FEG: I’m getting off now!

Me (getting frazzled myself): You’re getting off while the bus is moving?

FEG (confusedly): Well, no…
[I see a seat and decide to give up the fight.]

FEG (to himself as he steps off the bus): Too many people on this bus...

Route: 27 Bryant, inbound
Time: Friday, 9:10 a.m.
I often nervously watch old people board the bus and slowly make their way to a seat, often still lowering themselves as the bus slams into gear and tears away from the curb, thanks to our expert drivers. On more than one occasion I’ve had to catch an unfortunate senior who loses his or her balance and starts careening down the aisle. This particular day a wizened woman in her who looked to be in her eighties decides to walk to the back exit from her seat at the front of the bus while the bus itself is making a speedy turn around a corner; all the passengers along her route hold their hands out as she passes, lurching back and forth with every step. As she tilts past, flailing for the occasional support bar, I say, “careful…”

“I’m too old,” she snaps, “is that what you’re saying? Too old to ride the bus, eh?!”

If I somehow live to my golden years, you better believe I’m going to milk the crotchety old guy thing and make the youngsters pay for all this abuse.

Nothing New Under the Douche
Matthew Tobey recently found that The Onion had, intentionally or no, stolen his idea for a story about Governator Arnold’s use of movie titles in campaign speeches; I’m now stealing that concept to point out that a recent McSweeney’s item on The Goonies has quite a few similarities to my Top Ten Problems with same, published earlier. I’m not alleging plagiarism, of course—The Goonies is, after all, a gloriously appropriate vehicle for satirical criticism—I believe that this is just a further example of the dictum that any idea you can think of has already been done, possibly by many, probably better, and the internet is a marvelous tool for demonstrating this. Therefore The Onion was only acknowledging the ultimate futility of developing new ideas by coming up with other people’s ideas retroactively. Further, I’ve stolen the previous “nothing new on the internet” concept from Defective Yeti, and this entire post has been lifted almost verbatim from a comment I left on Matthew Tobey’s aforementioned site. Anyway, it’s time to get back to work on my screenplay—it’s about a group of kids who find pirate booty.

Take Me Out to the WULAD
Or, Titillating Tidbits of Triumph, Tub-thumping and Troglodism at Game 1 of the American League Division Series, Oakland Coliseum.

[Note to non-baseball fans: Since this post contains humorous anecdotes and incisive observations about society not limited to the purview of Our National Game, it is suitable for general readers and is not to be skimmed over lightly like an air-dried pudding. Thank you.]

The WULAD News team was fortunate enough to send a delegation to the opener of the American League playoff series last night between the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox, consisting of myself (not having picked a favorite yet) and Belle (an old-school Boston girl). Here are some of the highlights—close your eyes, read them, and you can almost smell the peanuts. Or maybe read them and then close your eyes.

Pre-game. During the singing of our National Anthem by a trio of unfortunate a capella Air Force harmonizers, three crimson-bedecked Bostonians—two twins (as I told Belle, “They got the same strain of ugly”) and an alpha-male ringleader with ball cap jauntily askew—hold their Bud Lights high in the air as a kind of alcoholic’s salute to our cherished ideals of 40-foot flags, fireworks, and terrifyingly low-flying fighter jets. “America,” they seemed to be saying, “this Bud’s for you!”

Bottom 2nd inning. Due to Belle’s desire to experience the feeling of eating a hot dog without actually consuming der verboten schnitzel itself, she devises an ingenious plan to create a “Not Dog”, demonstrated below:


You’ll notice that this plan, while providing Belle with her condiment-laden dogless dog, leaves me to contend with a massive, double hot dog, the likes of which I will never see again. (And I must add that one “Coliseum Dog” alone is at least 1.5 times the size of Pac Bell Park’s corresponding “Giants Dog.”) In a tribute to the heroic efforts being put forth by the players below, I valiantly attack and defeat this Monster Dog, ignoring the pleas for temperance coming from my digestive system. If I don’t devour this hot dog, I think, the terrorists and other freedom-hating enemies of nitrite-infused forced meats have already won.

Mid 4th. In the men’s room, I see a man standing at a urinal watching a portable TV he is holding with his free hand. I vow never to pick up a TV I find on the sidewalk again.

7th Inning Stretch. After I sing the one-note-displaced version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (“Take ME out to the ball-GAME, TAKE, Me out to the crowd BUY,” etc.) that my dad taught me (a version of which was later recorded by the Skeletons), the bouncy A’s girl next to me asks, “what song were you singing?” (Belle: “Any time you see a ponytail pulled through the back of a ball cap, it’s a bad sign.”)

Top 8th. We hear a kid in the row behind us tell his family he wants to start the wave; Belle tells him he should “go down there and do it!” “I’m too embarrassed,” says the kid. So Belle offers to embarrass herself with him, and down they go to the front row. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get anybody other than me and the kid’s parents out of their seats, one of the obnoxious Red Sox fans mentioned earlier starts flipping the bird to the two would-be wave-makers. “Hey,” shouts a voice from behind me, “that’s my kid you’re flipping off!” Belle yells to the flipper-offer, “I’m a Boston fan!”, not realizing until afterwards that this will not endear her to the rest of the crowd. So they resign themselves to the immobility of their audience and make their way back up the stairs. “Hey Boston-boy,” yells Belle when she gets back to her seat, “Why you flippin’ me off? I’m on your side, you idiot!”

Mid 9th. As the accumulated alcohol starts to stew in their systems, the tempers of the increasingly rowdy Bostonians start to rise. At one point we watch as Alpha-Sock, while arguing with one of his A’s fan-buddies, pours his Bud Light slowly and deliberately on A’s boy's head. “Please,” I think, “start fighting and get kicked out!” But, deferring to Alpha’s authority and fearful of the consequences of challenging clan leadership, the buddy merely turns away and changes his shirt and hat, sitting down to sulk and give his den-brothers the silent treatment.

Bottom 9th. Belle castigates me for failing to enthusiastically root for the Red Sox to win. I tell her I want more baseball, extra innings, etc. After the Boston bullpen gives up the tying run, I tell her, “Let them win it in the 11th.”

Bottom 10th. As the night deepens and the pitchers come and go and still the game endures, we feel our posteriors slowly turning to permafrost. Belle suddenly gets a craving: “Mmmmm… Coffee ice cream…” Belle’s cravings are a little weird.

Top 11th. The Red Sox fail to take the lead. “You said they’d win in the 11th!” barks Belle. “You promised!” (Most creative anti-Boston sign: a giant green placard reading “1918”—the last year the Red Sox won the World Series.)

Bottom 12th. Answering my increasingly non-silent prayer, a giant, formidably burly A’s fan and his significant other plant themselves directly behind our favorite group of rowdy Red Sox supporters, and suddenly their chest-beating dwindles to a low murmur. It could also be that, as Belle points out, “they stopped selling beer like two hours ago.” Minutes later, making his best effort to finish the game on the same calendar date it started, Ramon Hernandez lays down his perfect “walkoff bunt” to win the game for the A’s and a roar rises from the suddenly vindicated locals. Our bouncer-sized A’s fan laughs uproariously at our Beantown Buddies, and throws a crumpled napkin at Alpha-male, who makes his best “How scandalously uncouth of you, my good man; whatever were you thinking?” face and makes for the exit along with the Lee twins, “Ug” and “Home.” (Yes, old bad stolen joke.)

Post-game. Apparently the builders of the Coliseum never considered the idea of thousands of fans simultaneously leaving the stadium for the BART station, since the only route across the railroad tracks to the platform is a footbridge less than 20 feet wide with a chain-link roof and a razor-wire lined archway entrance which reminds Belle of Auschwitz. Naturally, we have another half-hour or so to stand around and listen to endless recaps from the trying-to-stay-happy-to-keep-from-screaming-in-cold-and-frustration fans. “Hey, that was a hell of a play in the fourth, eh?” … “Yeah, that was a good one.” … “And how about that one in the fifth?” … “Yeah…” As we finally step off the train back in San Fran, we pass a man wearing an A’s cap, a green shirt, yellow shorts and tights, and a long yellow cape with “A’s” on it. Somebody sees him and shouts, “Go A’s!” but he glances suspiciously out of the corner of his eye as if to say, “what are you talking about?” That's the spirit, slugger. For Belle and WULAD Sports, this is Yours Truly signing off from Oakland. Back to you in the studio, Kitty.

Wrapped Up Like A Guest Commentator
Today, WULAD proudly presents the following contribution, from your friendly neighborhood Obstreperous Coworker:

SF Gate: Truly Unbiased Voice of the People
Here's my impression of a (shortened) unbiased article from SF Gate on police brutality:

"Cops don't be treatin' black people fair," said one man while chugging a forty and scratching his balls with a 357 Magnum. He would only identify himself as Short Fatty. Another woman we spoke to as she bought cigarettes and vodka for her underage daughter snapped, "the cops deserved to be lynched, them racist bastards."

But other residents from a nearby neighborhood disagree. Todd Wilmore had the kindness and decency to speak to us on his way to seminary school. "The police do an excellent job of protecting citizens from all walks of life. I am honored to live in a city that has the privilege of employing a police department that exemplifies courage, honor, and impeccable judgement."

"And remember," Obstrep adds, "if you go to Oakland, don't miss the plastic seat on the fence; you might get a pole up your ass."

Axis & Allies & Fuzzy Q-tip Hats
This story (via C-baby) describes a Texas high school marching band director who was shocked, shocked that the audience at a football game could misconstrue his field show featuring a Nazi flag as anything other than the masterwork of historical drama it was. (Am I the only one who's surprised that, this being Texas, nobody saluted?)

I, for one, mourn the lost days of wholesome, family field shows such as the following:

In 1990, the [Stanford] band was briefly banned from the state of Oregon for hacking up a stuffed spotted owl during a half-time performance at the U. of O. In 1994, 21 bandmembers made national news for performing "She's Not There" on the steps of the L.A. County Courthouse during the O.J. Simpson trial. And last year the university was forced to apologize to Notre Dame for a half-time performance in which a member conducted the band with a crucifix while dressed in a nun's habit and recited a script that said Irish culture consists mostly of "fighting and starving."

Still WULAD After All These Years
Yes, yes. Long time no blog. I’m still working on Law & Order: Special Douche Unit Part III, which can be expected this week. But hopefully the glamorous new graphic above will dazzle and distract you enough that you’ll forgive the relative lack of new or interesting content. Today’s content will have at least one of those attributes, however.

Wrapped Up Like 162 Games
I feel I should conjure up some sort of post-mortem on the long, dark winter of a long, hot summer that the New York Mets inflicted on themselves and anyone unfortunate enough to consider themselves a fan this year—but I don’t feel like it. Instead, read this good Times piece on some of the historic match-ups that could be headed our way in the Centennial Fall Classic. Here are the battles I’m rooting for, in order of preference:

• Cubs/Red Sox: The “Impossible Dream” Series—with Red Sox in 7, extra innings, heart attacks from Logan to O’Hare.



• Giants/A’s: The “WULAD Most Likely to Get A Ticket” Series—Gotta say I’d pull for the Elephants in this one. Barry’s got lots of gas left in the tank anyway, so we might as well make him wait a few more years so as not to tempt him to retire early.



• Braves/A’s: The “God I Hate the Freaking Braves” Series—How about the near-canonized John Smoltz walking Miguel Tejada with the bases loaded to lose Game 7? Or, as a last resort,



• Giants/Yankees: The “Destroy All Monsters” Series—I never, ever, root for the Yankees, so Clare-bear & I could let bygones be bygones and support the Real Baseball League together in peace and harmony. (He’s still wrong about expanding the playoffs, though. You want more baseball? Extend the division series to 7 games. I shall say no more on this subject.)

Belle and I will be live and in person at Game 1 of the A’s/Red Sox division series Wednesday, so those few of you who give a rat’s ass can tune in Thursday for a full report on Pedro, Hudson, the excitement, the cockroaches, the whole Network Associates Coliseum playoff experience. Until then…

The Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital
I leave you with a letter I sent to Mimi Smartypants after reading the schedule for a James Joyce conference to which she linked:

Dear Madam:
I happened to notice that one of the lectures at the Joyce Conference is "The Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital" by Rhoda Zabargian. Rhoda Zabargian?! I was talking about the freaking Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital when Rhoda Zabargian was running around in her freaking kneepants wiping her nose and flunking kindergarten. I was giving lectures on the Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital in my freaking sleep when Rhoda Zabargian was boinking her professors to try and keep a 'C' average! I was wiping my ass with papers on the goddamn freaking Bildungsroman as Cultural freaking Capital when Rhoda "don't know much about the Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital" Zabargian was copying her thesis verbatim from Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital for Dummies, which incidentally I wrote!

That said, you may rest assured that in no way is my opinion of Rhoda Zabargian and her "knowledge" of the Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital affected by the fact that she left me at the altar and ran off to Burning Man with a pole-sitting Gypsy, but not before shouting loudly about some of my very private medical problems in front of the assembled guests, including several highly regarded Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital scholars; or that, ever since, I have abandoned my position as the Rhoda Zabargian Distinguished Chair of Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital Studies at Yale to devote as much time as possible to maintaining the magnificent gothic shrine to the memory of our lost love that I have painstakingly constructed out of 400+ lbs. of cured cold-cuts in my apartment. Rhoda, please come back! I didn't mean it. You're the genius of Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital—I'm just a worthless hack. I wouldn't know a Bildungsroman from a hole in the ground. Rhoda? Please, I'm sorry...

Set, Spike, Snivel
You know those little travel-agency pop-up ads that have little games on them, like hitting a baseball, or striking out a batter, or carrying luggage across the street, or the fat guy who jumps off a diving board? Well that goddamn volleyball one, man, I can’t hit that damn ball for the life of me. I have spent literally minutes trying to spike that freaking ball, and I come up with nothing. But you see, I’ve had a tough road with volleyball through the years, so this is no exception:

• When I was in 4th grade our gym class was playing volleyball, and although I’d managed to stay out of the way for most of the game (as part of my ongoing strategy to avoid scrutiny from the snarling, stuffed red jogging suit of a teacher and überjock kids), my peripheral vision suddenly detected a speeding white mass hurtling toward my head. I did what any red-blooded, 98-lb., last-to-be-picked nerd would have done, which was to shield my face with my hands while frantically ducking as the ball bounced off my head and out of play. I immediately heard a guttural explosion from the sidelines. “Carey!” shouted the jogging suit, “what the heck was that?! I want effort in my class, how are you going to grow up to be a man,” etc. “I’m sorry,” I whimpered, “but I tried.” (Well, tried to get out of the way, anyway.) This feeble attempt at self-defense brought on a torrent of invective the likes of which Thomas Jefferson Elementary had never seen, and may never see again. In some hallways of the school, on a quiet day, you can probably still hear his roar echoing faintly from the distant Reagan years.
  


• In the summer of ‘90, I went to a pool party with my second girlfriend, about whom the less said, the better. (She wasn’t a fundamentalist Christian, though, which put her way ahead of the first one.) Some guy she used to date was in the pool, playing water-volleyball… I got in and half-heartedly played a few minutes, but the smell of hot dogs on the grill far outweighed the stench of my miserable play, so I got out in search of forced meat on a bun, and to avoid further embarrassment. My girlfriend sulked for the rest of the party and her gabbing friend later told me she thought I’d acted “like a wimp.”
  


• Three years later, I once again found myself confronted with my old nemesis, this time on the glass-strewn blacktop of my final year of Phys Ed. One fine day I looked up to see the familiar sight of an off-white round missile flying at my head—I finally had the chance to right the wrongs of the past and start anew! With lightning quickness, I threw my hand up, and felt a shooting pain as the ball jammed the knuckle of my middle finger, then fell to the ground, its mission accomplished. As my finger started to swell, I saw my P.E. teammate, the giant, burly she-male star of the league champion Varsity volleyball squad, walking toward me with clenched fists and a curled upper lip. “Dumb… shit!” she growled, her rage barely contained within her thick, quaking frame. After a second of staring fiercely as I looked back in horror, she turned slowly and lumbered back to her position. (Later, in the non-combat atmosphere of Economics class, she said sheepishly, “Sorry I gave you a hard time in P.E. ... I get serious about volleyball.”

These are the kind of stories that make C-baby say, “your childhood makes me sad.”

You Can’t Steal Home Again
This post is sort of about baseball, but also about life, laundry and the pursuit of sappiness and all sorts of other pertinent stuff, so I suggest that those of you who usually skip the baseball-related items withhold your groans and eyeball-rolls until the end.

So last night I’m crumpled on my cat-battered chair, laundry finally done (after at least a week of being ill and improvising solutions to my lack of underwear—you don’t want to know), remote in hand, switching furiously between watching the Oakland Athletics scrappling with Rodriguez’s Rangers, and the Mariners fighting for their post-season lives with the Anaheim “Last Year is A Lifetime Away” Angels… both games are in the ninth, with Oakland able to clinch the division with a win and a Mariners loss, lots of drama and all that, and although I’m pulling for the A’s—not only because they’re the Bay Area equivalent of the Mets, having a more blue-collar (for millionaires, that is), younger and scrappier feel than the yuppified Giants juggernaut, but also because I want to see the Red Sox in the playoffs instead of their wild-card-rival Mariners, even if they’re likely to lose spectacularly—I really don’t want it to end.

The thing is, I already miss the baseball season. Well, those of you who are still reading are thinking, that doesn’t make any sense, since a) it’s not over yet, there’s still a week of regular season left, as well as the excitement of the playoffs, World Series®, etc.; and b) in another sense it was over long ago, as “my” team has been out of contention since June and is currently fielding a group of striking janitors in place of its professionals, all of whom are more urgently needed in the Dominican winter league training camps or at their jobs as jugglers and sketch-artists at Disneyworld. I admit those are valid points, but—I just like knowing that there are baseball games happening. I guess it’s some of that summer-worship I’ve had since grade school (excluding a seven-year respite during my stay in New York, when the summer months were so miserable and malodorous that I couldn’t wait for the snow to come), or maybe it’s the inevitable brightness that a game on TV brings into my apartment whether or not I’m actively paying attention to it. You could say that might not be a good sign for my life in general—that I’m relying on the flickering images of frolicking overpaid man-children to make my living space comfortable—but there it is. And I miss it when it’s gone.

Anyway, back in the real world of last night, the baseball gods honored my wish and sent both games to extra innings, and I was able to relish that bit of grassy eternity for a little while longer. That is, until the two heroes of the night—Adam Melhuse of the A’s and Tim Salmon of the Angels—won the games for their teams and left the A’s with the division title. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to enjoy the rest of the season, but I’m secretly pulling for every single game from now until Commisioner Bud hands the trophy to somebody (hopefully not wearing white and blue pinstripes) to go 10, 11, 16 innings, and put off as long as possible that long, dark wait for April.

Nuts 'n' Bolts note: You may have noticed that the WULAD faithful (that includes you) now have the ability to leave comments, praise, criticism, insults, write-ups, come-ons, put-downs, triple-dog dares, etc. beneath each post. I encourage you to do this early and often. However, the comments boxes/links/whatever have been disappearing occasionally due to server issues at the thingamajig provider, so if at first you don’t succeed…

Hail to the WULAD
President Bush was on TV last night being interviewed by my former lover and nude racquetball partner Brit Hume (of the relentlessly muckraking FoxNews), whose Fair and Balanced queries nevertheless made the Main Man revert to his “Are you going to make me pretend I give an armadillo’s caboose about what those unbelieving cityfolk have to say about my Divinely Inspired rule?” smirk, which shows less teeth than Cheney’s but has that downward-turned-corners-of-the-mouth thing that communicates his disdain pretty well. All in all, it seemed like a good interview, but I was kind of surprised by a few of his announcements:

• that he was un-retiring Gen. Wesley Clark and appointing him Chief Smiles Officer for the Army’s new door-to-door Baptist Erotica Book Club fundraiser in either Afghanistan or Iraqistan, he forgets which;



• that he was setting up a new high-security detention facility in Cuba specifically for librarians; and



• that he and Atty. General Ashcroft were working on a revised, “Opt-In” version of the constitution, although he assured the citizenry that the proper Applications for Civil Liberties (CL-40 if single, CL-40z if married, CL-X if gay and married, CL-Ø if Muslim, CL-$ if campaign donor, CL-69 if Bill Clinton) would be available at your local Wal-Mart on every third Wednesday in months not containing the letters A, E, I, O, or U (also Y if Homeland Defense Alert Level is “Yellow” or higher).

Also I found it strange that he inadvertently referred to Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Benevolent Feudal Lord of the Yee-haw Surfin' Cowboy Fiefdom of Californ-eye-ay,” and then corrected himself by calling Schwarzenegger “He Who Shall be Seated at the Right Hand of the Mighty Sovereign King. Begone!”

Brushes With Brushes With Greatness
Over the course of my many travels, journeys, wanderings, escapades, undertakings, voyages, exploits, sexploits, jaunts, treks, excursions, sexcursions, adventures, expeditions, sexpeditions, madcap romps, and the like, I have been fortunate to have many encounters with people who have had encounters with some of the shining stars of this world—the glitterati, if you like—and I would like to share some with you, the reader, in the hope that some of the magic that rubbed off on those that met these remarkable people, which in turn rubbed off on me in a slightly reduced amount, might somehow pass a small residual part of that vicariously vicarious sparkle to you and your workaday existence, or sexistence, as the case may be.

• My dad once went to a party that the late John Ritter was also attending.


• He also saw Roy Scheider at an airport, but didn't say anything to him because he (Scheider, not my dad) wasn't wearing a shirt.


• A friend of mine shared an orange with Allen Ginsberg.


• The same friend also watched The X-Files with former governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown.


• Another friend went to Jon Cryer's wedding.


• The same friend once rode in an elevator with Dabney Coleman.


• My sister met Magic Johnson at a party and said he was a jerk.


• Another friend flashed her boobs at Chris Isaak (I don't blame her—he's a handsome guy. Not that I'd have sex with him. Unless maybe there was a lot of money involved or if I thought it would advance my career. Forget I mentioned it.) (Chris—call me.)


• A woman I used to work with met Fidel Castro, or so she claimed. She may have been hallucinating.


• Another friend's mother is old friends with Orlando Cepeda. (This is technically a brush with a brush with a brush with greatness.)


• Timothy Busfield once cut my dad off on the freeway.


• At a party, S.F. mayor Willie Brown once said suggestively to a friend of mine, "Gimme some o' that sugar."


• While doing a headstand in yoga class, a friend fell over and landed on Willem Dafoe.


• A different friend witnessed a confrontation between the same Willem Dafoe and a juice-bar employee. (Celebrities!)


• I once got hit on by the daughter of a famous funk drummer from the 70s whose name I will withold for fear of legal action. (My mind is goin' through them changes, though.)


• A guy I used to work with played a voice on an answering machine in Sleepless in Seattle.


• Another friend saw the woman from Law & Order at The Vagina Monologues and said her head looks much bigger than on TV.

Now doesn't everybody feel just a little bit less insignificant? I thought so. Got further B.w.B.w.Gs? Send them in and I'll publish the best of them, and you, too, will be able to share some small part of that twice-reflected glory.

Why, Spock, Why?
This video (via Dave Barry) brings to mind an issue that my dad talks about a lot when discussing his collection of ugly (or otherwise remarkable) ties—that there is a four-part process that has to take place in order for something so outlandish to exist: first, someone must conceive the idea ("I've got a great idea for a ____!"); then someone must agree to sponsor it ("That is a great idea for a ____. Let's make it happen!"); somebody has to actually produce the thing ("Are you sure that's how you want it?"); and finally, a consumer must actually buy it (or for our purposes, watch it). In the case of this video, I find it truly staggering that this project made it from conception, through approval and production, and all the way to being shown on TV—yet there it is. Fascinating. And really, really bad.

Take My Freedom—Please!
Attorney General and Dark Lord John Ashcroft has been on a kind of a book tour lately, and by “book” I mean to say "horrifying Draconian evisceration of the cherished priciples of our free society." He's very disappointed with all of us and our failure to get on board the Civil-Liberty-Smashing Train that is the "USA Patriot Act," which was originally to be called the "Terrorism is Bad Act." He wants us all to stop worrying about little things like constitutional protections, the rule of law, and such, and focus on the big picture of the need for the government to be able to abuse the rights of its citizens unchecked in pursuit of dangerous terrorists such as telemarketers. The idea is for the public to put its faith not in mamby-pamby laws like the Bill of Rights or the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution, but in the good intentions of a benevolent protector government, which he assures us is really acting in the best interest of us all—and by "us all" I mean to say "the Republican Party and other non-troublemakers." I trust him, don’t you? He has such an honest face.

In Happier News
I don’t know about you, but I just love seeing the phrase “appreciation for a woman's round, tight butt” in a news story.

Take Me Out to the WULAD
The S.F. Giants clinched the National League West title last night, making them the first team in the majors to seal up their division. They have spent the entire season in first place, which has only happened nine times in baseball history, and have been at least 8½ games ahead of their closest competitor since July. How boring.

The Mets, meanwhile, are proving to be gracious losers, resisting the temptation to play “spoiler” by beating any playoff-contending teams. Apparently their historic sweep of the Braves last month was a kind of last hurrah before rolling over and inviting the rest of the National League to slap them around, ridicule them, sleep with their wives, call their children names, and dance on the grave of this pitiable season. But wait ‘til (the year after) next year!

New Bottle, Old Whine
In the continuing interest of reminding you how entertaining this website can be, I've been gradually moving most of my favorite posts from the old, inconvenient site to the archives of this one. If you just cannot live by the semi-daily bread I give you alone, feel free to browse the weekly digests under "Archives" at right. I'll be glad you did.

Neighborhood Spotlight
As a new feature, WULAD will be turning its attention to notable attractions in the area; our global readers can get a taste of San Fran without leaving the comfort of their dilapidated, tiny-Styrofoam-ball-oozing beanbag chair, while local readers can visit these Scintillating Spots themselves. Today’s column focuses on All-Stars Donuts—truly the crossroads of San Francisco. How can I begin to list its charms? As the ironically praise-laden Guardian cartoon hung non-ironically on the wall notes, they’ve got coffee, cops, speed freaks, and free parking. And at 5th and Harrison, it’s conveniently located only a block from the city Mental Health Services office! The folks I see there are mostly tired-looking middle-aged men eating omelets with blank stares, technology-industry hipsters picking up their coffee on the way to their pink slips, and construction workers buying a hundred bucks’ worth of crullers and Snapple—but then I’ve never been there at 3 a.m., when it must get really interesting. This morning a not-too-disheveled guy in a colorful scarf walked in while I was paying for my item superficially resembling a bagel, approached the counter, and said to all or none of us, with a fierce look in his eye, “Pure and simple... beauty,” followed by something unintelligible. Nobody paid any attention to him. “The words,” he continued as he walked back out the door, “the words. Words!” (This is right around the corner from where I passed a man one day shouting into a hedge, “God, I’m the devil! I’m the devil, God!”) But the staff is indefatigable and gets the job done in spite of it all, although once they gave my bagel to somebody else and I had to wait for them to make another one. Four stars!

In other news, occasionally lovable demagogue Michael Moore sums up a few of the arguments which could potentially influence those who still think Bush is a pretty O.K. guy. I don’t know anybody like that, but if any of you do, share this with them. I might add something about how no administration has ever had the power to hold American citizens indefinitely without charge or judicial review, until now. Just kidding! I’m sure they’d only use that power against somebody who deserved it.

Coming soon—the thrilling conclusion to my tale of Law & Order & Public Urination.

Skeletons in the Closet
Gubernatorial hopeful Ah-nold told Oprah yesterday that an interview from the 70s in which he described drug use and group sex was part of an attempt to promote interest in weightlifting by telling outrageous stories that glamorized the sport. WULAD’s crack research team has discovered that this was in fact an ongoing strategy for Schwarzenegger, and presents the following interview excerpts as examples...

Playboy Magazine, 6/24/84, promoting The Terminator: “Well, you know James Cameron and I spent a lot of time driving around L.A. on a motorcycle killing police, you know, to try to get used to the role… also we jumped on Linda Hamilton, but you know, Cameron can’t do it in front of other guys.”

Variety, 5/15/88, promoting Twins: “Well, I spent a lot of time having sex with twins to prepare for the role, and one time me and the twins jumped on Danny DeVito and took him upstairs, but he was still mad about what Judd Hirsch did to him on the set of Taxi.”

Ladies' Home Journal, 7/18/90, promoting Kindergarten Cop: “Well, you know I spent a lot of time asking people 'who is your daddy, and what does he do?', to get used to the role... also I took a bunch of kids and threw them in jail and interrogated them for hours without food and water, but this was before I really knew much about the script other than the title. And I’ll tell you a secret—this is not a tumor, either.” [pointing and winking.]

Sacramento Bee, 8/24/03, campaigning for Governor: “Well, in the old days I spent a lot of time at hash parties, and one time me and Danny DeVito jumped on Arianna Huffington, but you know Cruz Bustamante can’t do it in front of other guys. Also I have hired a hit man to kill Gray Davis, who I could crush like a twig between my rippling thighs, but I am too busy with the group sex, you know. Join Arnold!”

Captain Marble
He's... looking... at me!

Raising the Clark Bar
Sources say that Wesley Clark has decided to throw his hat into the presidential ring. The great thing is that the Republicans will still try to find a way to paint him as weak on defense (even though he was a decorated general), Ann Coulter will still call him a traitor, it’ll be fun. In case you missed it the first time, here’s my list of potential campaign slogans for my new favorite army guy:

• "I took it to Slobodan Milosevic—Now I'm going to take it to the economy!"
• "If I can command a bunch of Bulgarian fighter pilots, just think what I can do with Congress!"
• "Let's pretend the Kosovo Muslims are the Democrats, and the Yugoslav army is the Republicans, and the Croats are the swing voters, and the Montenegro militia is, um..."
• "The Serbs don't hate me for nothin'!"
• "Blowing shit up for America since 1966!"

The Harsh Face of Potty
Via C-Baby, this is the most gritty, noir-esque paragraph ever found in a Yahoo! news item...

His head is shaved. His red-and-yellow T-shirt proclaims "Cute Girl!" His loose, white-cotton shorts are grimy with dirt. Suddenly, he stops in mid-stride and squats, the seam of his pants parting smoothly to allow a stream of urine to pool onto the concrete.

James Ellroy, look out.

Loosely Organized Blatherings (LOB), vol. xcvii
News flash: Howard Dean is 5'8". I don't know about you, but I doubt the short-man-thing helps with a guy who is going to be painted by his opponents as a soft-on-defense Volvo-driving liberal. If you're thinking that I have lost all idealism and become a pragmatically-minded cynic, you're absolutely correct. In this climate, it's all about electability, and to be honest I'd vote for this guy if he was willing to call himself a Democrat and I thought he could beat President Action Figure. So for the time being I am officially all about Wesley Clark. As I was telling my obstreperous co-worker, I don't know where he stands on the issues and I don't really care. He can win, so get on board and we'll sort out the details once Mr. Giving-Grant-a-Run-for-His-Money-as-Worst-President-Ever is back to Texas and what he does best: running companies into the ground while using taxpayer funds to get rich. On to other business.

I know Clare-Bear hates Lance Armstrong, but I happened to see him yesterday, speeding up the steep grade of Taylor Street with 50 or so of his closest friends. I later learned that he started the race with a fever of 102°, and decided to drop out after a measly 50 miles of steep climbs and hairpin turns. What a wuss.

----------
Me: Does this outfit make me look like a dork?
Her: You mean more than usual?

Take Me Out to the WULAD
Rob Neyer tackles the anti-Met propaganda myth that Robbie Alomar has turned his season around since being traded and is a big reason the White Sox are contending. Let's face it, kids—he was mediocre at best in New York, and he's proving to be nothing if not consistent in Chi-town (.262 avg., .336 slugging, .357 on-base percentage with Mets; .256, .336, .350 with ChiSox). Maybe a little spitting would help motivate him.

Interesting piece in today's N.J. Star-Ledger regarding former Met (and Cardinal, Cub, Oriole, Dodger, Ranger, Yankee, etc.) Todd Zeile's new gig as unofficial player advocate for the movable feast that is the Montreal Expos. Selig and the owners are so obviously not motivated by anything resembling the interests of the team (the article details several of MLB's broken promises so far), and Zeile, who has been with the team for less time than it takes to fry up a plate of Canadian bacon, has taken up the banner in a big way. (Interesting side note: Zeile is also the most furiously blinking man ever to step into a batter's box.) The League's half-ass plans to continue to use the team as a traveling-sideshow until they can find an appropriate eccentric millionaire and/or gullible municipality with tax money to burn to take over the franchise are an insult to the team's players, alumni, and remaining fans. Not to mention Youppi, apparently fighting for the rights of gay mascots everywhere.

Wrapped Up Like a Criminal Justice System, part II: The Long Douche of the Law
(Part I to be found here.) In our last episode, our hero had moved to California and begun a new life, full of magic and wonder and worlds away from Sheridan Square, the memory of that July day in 1996 buried deep in his random-access (or is it read-only?) memory...

However, one day last year my remote control happened to land on a rerun of NYPD Blue—the fat cop was questioning some doofus, and mentioned that “somebody wit your name and date a’ birt is wantet fer questionin’ en Da Moyne…” I had a sudden anxiety attack: it’s the bithdate and the name, that’s how they find you! See, as I’d gotten older I would occasionally think of my unanswered summons and wonder if I might have guessed incorrectly that I was off the hook—but when I left New York, I figured that even if there was a warrant, they’d never think it’d be me all the way in San Francisco. The logic wasn’t real strong, but it was easier to not think about it than to go to the courthouse and possibly be shot 19 times, as was occasionally happening in those days. But the date of birth! How many people with my name could've been born on my birthday? I quickly changed the channel but the seed had been planted in my mind that perhaps I had not emerged unblemished from the incident as I had assumed for years.

In an uncharacteristically assertive move, I decided to call the NYC Summons Information line and see what they’d have to say. I was prepared to hang up the phone suddenly and leave the country if necessary. The person I talked to was surprisingly cooperative for a New York public servant and listened to my whole stupid tale of woe. “Yeeeah... you prawbly got a wuarrant. Lemme look it up.” After taking my name and D.O.B., she informed me that yes, I was officially a Wanted Man.

—Well, is there anything I can do about it from here?
—You don’t live heah?
—No.
—Have you got a lawyeh heah?

I asked if I could just take care of it the next time I was in town, or if I had to worry about being hauled across the country if I got a speeding ticket. She told me it was just a New York thing, although I wasn’t sure I believed her, especially in the Big Brutha Law Enforcement climate of the post 9/11 age. I had visions of being carted down to Gitmo Bay with a sack over my head, forced to shave my beard and tell my story about the smelly French guy to a secret military tribunal. It did not feel like a good time to be on the wrong side of the law.

Nevertheless, time passed and I was not arrested. Which brings us to this spring, when I get a glittery invitation in the mail to the wedding of Howé—one of my best New York buddies and the reason I can say I’ve attended a Passover seder in a law office—and I decided that, in keeping with my new philosophy of dealing with problems rather than ignoring them until they became absolute emergencies, I would set aside some time on my trip to do a little sightseeing at 346 Broadway, home of the NYC Municipal Criminal Court.

Coming Soon: The thrilling conclusion to our story! Will our hero be forced to spend weeks rotting in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, living on dirty soap and food scraps discarded by rats? Or will he engineer a daring escape and begin a life on the run, with no one to trust but his own wits and his mastery of disguises and regional accents? Tune in Next Time...

Keeping it Simple
No pontification today. Read about my friend Lydia's mother here. Support real patriotic ideals here and here.

My only little tribute is this slideshow, featuring photos of New York chugging along in its indomitable New York way, as seen on my trip last month. I hadn't been there since October of 2001, and it was inspiring to see the rejuvenation.

Wrapped Up Like a Criminal Justice System, Part I
If I may, I'd like to take you, the reader, on a journey—a journey to a simpler time, a time when men were men, and Schwarzneggers were actors, and "Yahoo!" was just something you said when you got laid, which I never did—the golden olden swollen days of July 1996. Picture a young whippersnapper, fresh (well, a year-and-a-half fresh) off the boat from Reno and wide-eyed at the phantasmagorical wonder that was Manhattan. That was me, and since I had nothing better to do (being in the midst of a four-year bout of involuntary celibacy and related social ineptitude), I found myself one day agreeing to play with a trio on a street corner for tips. In those days any opportunity to play was considered a good thing, and the more horrible the experience, the more an aspiring music ascetic could feel he was really "paying dues" and transforming himself from shiny suburban band-geek to grizzly world-weary urban jazzbo. The organizer was a French drummer—nice guy, but not a fan of deodorant, unfortunately. He assured me that people did this sort of thing all the time, so we made our way across the village to Sheridan Square, at 7th Ave. and Christopher Street, less than a block from the famous Stonewall, and within shouting distance of real jazz venues like the Village Vanguard, Smalls, and Sweet Basil. (Only the Vanguard is still around.)

My previous experiences with New York outdoor playing had been harmless enough—the only trouble we'd run into happened one afternoon when two cops approached me and my co-buskers in Washington Square Park and said, "Don't get us wrong, we like the music, but when we come back, you guys might wanna be gone." (No mention of crackin' skulls, but we chose not to make an issue of it at the time. This was before certain members of the NYPD started making a habit of turning unarmed people into Swiss cheese.) This particular concerto al fresco started in a similarly innocuous way, with a small crowd of passersby gathering to listen to our particular brand of college-kid jazz, clapping and even dropping the occasional dollar in the pungent French guy's bass drum case.

Within ten or fifteen minutes, however, a burly guy in a polo shirt was mumbling quietly and strangely to us, and it was only after I saw his little badge-necklace that I realized he was one of New York's finest, and we were being given three of the millions of quality-of-life summons mandated by Hizzonner Rudy Giuliani (not yet the secular saint he was later to be canonized, he was mainly known then for his Tough-On-Crime-and-Dung-Art stance), who insisted there were no quotas—and yet the cop could have told us to leave, but chose to issue us all summonses instead. "There's lots of jazz clubs around here," he pointed out, "why don't you people play there?" Indeed—I couldn't wait to go to the Vanguard and tell them that Officer Krupke had insisted my band play at their club. ("I know you guys have Herbie Hancock booked for next week, but the cops said we have to play here. Sorry. You can put your stuff over there, Pierre.")

Of course, some of the more civics-minded members of the crowd started giving the cops a hard time for ticketing us: "This is New York," said a greasy old guy holding an open beer in a paper bag, "people come here to play, you gotta let 'em play!" Our polo-shirt friend promptly gave him a ticket, too, which seemed to break up la resistance. After the fuzz left, I took my summons and my $3 share of the earnings and bought a lousy burrito made by a Korean guy.

Through a boring series of events, I missed my original court date, but Le Drummer a L'Odore, who had gone when he was supposed to, told me he sat in a courtroom for a few hours before the judge said "Unreasonable noise? What does that mean?" and dismissed the charge. Great, I thought, I'm in the clear! If he threw that one out, I'm sure mine was tossed, too! Well, duh, says everyone, including my older self—of course not, you idiot. But it was easier to forget about it... right? All that changed when, six years later and two time zones away, I happened to stumble upon a repeat episode of NYPD Blue...

Will the Law catch up with our young hero? Will he be sentenced to 10-20 years of pre-reviewing submissions to McSweeney's or the Reader's Digest joke page? Will he flee the country and fall in love with the buxom teenage daughter of a Lithuanian sword swallower? Tune in tomorrow!

To Be Continued...

Current Events, Shmurrent Shmevents
Neal Pollack is overflowing with praise for Our Fearless Leader's recent answer to those who suggest things aren't going completely swimmingly in Iraq. There's also some fairly loose (meaning I agree with her but she muddies the water with a lot of unrelated details) vitriol from a 9/11 widow directed toward Showtime's dramatization of President Action Figure's "action" on the day in question. But enough gloom and doom.

Interchange this morning...
Me (face in pillow): "You want some Mini-wheats?"
Her: "What?"
Me: "Mini-wheats?"
Her: "Mennonites?"

At Long Last
After much delay, WULAD is proud to present—ripped from the headlines and ribbed for her pleasure—"Chocobaby in the Heartland." Start the show by clicking here, then just hit the little right-arrow button to the upper right of the photo to go to the next one. Someday I'll figure out a more professional (read: less janky) way to display photos. (Any suggestions that don't involve spending money or learning anything? E-mail me using the link at right.) Hungry for more? Check out the action figure, which doesn't really look much like her but it's the thought that counts.

Mass-debating
The Demo hopefuls went at it last night, and although I didn’t watch the entire debate, I did learn a few things:

• Carol Moseley-Braun is related to neither Johnny Moseley nor Eva Braun.
• Bob Graham exists.
• Dennis Kucinich no habla Español. Really no habla.
• John Edwards reminds me of the annoying guy from my high school Student Council, and has the same haircut.
• Howard Dean could easily host “Sabado Gigante.”
• Before becoming a senator, John Kerry was a successful actor.
• Apparently not everybody in America speaks English. How did I miss that?

Speaking of which…

Fun with Foreigners, or "Wo ist Die Cable Car?"
C-baby and I were talking the other night about the people she meets at her job. She mentioned that whenever a European comes in she finds herself automatically referring to them, mentally or verbally, as German, even though many of them may actually be Austrian or Belgian or Swedish or whatever.

Me: Yeah, I don’t know what it is, you can just tell Germans walking down the street, the little glasses, the sandals, the spiky hair and paleness. I always wonder, what would it be like, I mean, can you imagine being like that your whole life—you know, being…

Her: German?

Me: Yeah…

Her: You’re wondering what it would be like to be German your whole life?

Me: Yeah, I mean… don’t they realize how weird they are?

I don’t know whether I was having a moment of xenophobia or xenophilia or just plain stupidity. You be the judge.

That New Blog Smell
Just when you thought the Pentagon couldn’t get any more horrible. If I see one of those things at my funeral, I implore anyone present to promptly discover a method for reanimating dead tissue so that I may be resurrected and then can beg to be killed again, naturally after playing taps myself on a real instrument and smothering the offending electro-bugler with my burial jacket.

LEGAL NOTICE:
The paragraph following this one will deal with baseball. You are welcome to skip it, although this does not negate your obligation to read anything following it studiously. In the future, I may explore strategies such as posting baseball-related items in a different text color, but I view this as a last resort since it is my goal that my interests—all of them—become your interests, and that one day the one-sided but many-faceted virtual community that is WULAD will be one seamless and unassailable monolith of common cause encompassing the entire spectrum of Yours Truly. Or as I am fond of telling Chocobaby, my world is your oyster. On to business.

The rookie-laden Mets, who in the opinion of my boss should be headed for the Triple-A World Series, swept the mighty, smug, best-record-in-the-game Atlanta Braves, who stopped by Shea for the three-game drubbing on their way to the NL East title and the playoffs. While the Civil War-style rivalry has lost some bite since 1999 (when über-goat Kenny Rogers walked in the winning run in game 6 of the NLCS), it still gives me more pleasure to watch the Mets beat the Braves than watching them beat any other team with a name not starting with “Y.” The Times has an incomprehensibly negative take, while Mark Hermann of Newsday believes this augurs well for the future of a franchise that, as little as three months ago, seemed headed for years of misery.

Non-baseball fans start reading again now! Hopefully everyone approves of WULAD’s new look—I think you’ll agree that a non-tech-savvy soul such as myself is better off with the “blogging for dummies” approach here at Blogspot, although I never had a problem with Diaryland and wish them well. Onward and Upward!

The Medium is the Mess
I’ve been MIA since coming back from the Other Side, but here’s some nourishment for the starving minds of the WULAD faithful. Coming soon: I take on the NYC criminal court system—and win!

The results are in, and jazz musicians are crazy. Or perhaps we are sane, and the rest of the world mad!? No? Never mind. I once asked saxophonist Ernie Watts why he thought so many great jazz musicians had gotten mixed up with drugs, etc. over the years—his answer: “Maybe because you spend your whole life learning how to play, and nobody gives a shit.” I can only testify to 15 years’ worth of truth to that so far.

Chocobaby and Chelle-belle have recently expressed dissatisfaction with the way they’ve been portrayed on this site; C-baby says, “You make me sound like a bitch,” while Belle thinks “I come across as a vacuous party-girl.” In the interest of fairness, WULAD will take a closer look at these issues and see if we can’t find some mutually agreeable resolution. Let’s take the impressions one at a time.

• Belle is a vacuous party girl. This impression might come from quotes like “We rock!” or “I’d have sex with me,” or “Baby’s open for business!” Belle, I must point out that you did say those things, but I do admit I’ve left out more weighty quotes of yours such as “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” “U.S. construction spending advanced for a second month in July as home building increased on the heels of a drop in mortgage rates the previous month,” or “Despite increased corporate control of the media, there is very little outright censorship of the news in this country. There is, however, a kind of selective historical memory that makes it difficult to even recall events which go beyond what the noted M.I.T. linguist Noam Chomsky has referred to as the ‘boundaries of thinkable thought.’” I’ll try to paint a more complete picture in the future.

• Chocobaby is a bitch. On any given day, one might find a blog entry detailing an interchange such as this one:

[C-baby laughs.]
Me: What?
Her: I’m just thinking of all the stupid things you’ve said in the past 20 minutes.

Or,

Me: Sorry, I got sidetracked, I’ll stop rambling on about uninteresting crap.
Her: Are you suggesting that what you were saying before was interesting?

Her main beef was that “you never put in there that I think it’s cute when you say stupid things.” Which is true, since I guess I thought it was funnier without the Awwww factor. I’ll concede the point and try and be more, uh, Fair and Balanced from now on, hopefully without alienating my cynical hater-of-all-things-cute fan base. (For those who still like their Chocobabies served cold, I’ll add her fine quote from the below-mentioned party: “Shut up, you stupid Canadian!” But she meant it in a cute way, I think.)

Speaking of C-baby, she was kind enough to call my attention to the fact that G-Monsta’s logo has been appearing all over lately.

You Don’t Know the Meaning Of ‘Tough’
So the tribes gathered last Sunday for the illustrious Ker-Bear’s birthday extravaganza, held this year at Kilowatt, the Mission district’s home of unnecessarily nasty bar staff and cash-gobbling, frequently overridden jukebox. Yours truly apparently got hisself pretty well Wrapped Up Like a Drunk, and, among other ill-advised escapades, challenged the mighty Shan-Bear to an arm-wrestling match. Well, maybe “match” isn’t the right word—“rout,” “sacrifice,” or “public humiliation” might be more apt. After humoring me for a few short seconds, she lowered my arm to the table like a sleeping baby, while yawning and doing math problems with her other hand. As I limped off to nurse my wounded pride, C-baby commented, “You are so tougher than he is.” Shan-Bear paused for a minute and said, “Yeah, but he’s tough in other things, like the saxophone.”

Return of the Native
Back on the left coast. Tantalizing tales of neurotic nostalgia in the New York netherworld will be filtering in over the next few weeks as breaks in the torrent of fan-hitting-shit allow. Also wacky wonders such as C-Baby’s Tour de Heartland slideshow featuring the Hamburger Helper hand. For now, tids and bits…

MTV has been stealing ideas from my dreams again.

So Ah-nold smoked hash and participated in a gang-bang. Which gubernatorial hopeful among us hasn’t? Cast the first stone.

Chocobaby, font of wisdom:

• “You’re like halfway through your life, I think you can start to take some risks now.”
• “I love it when you talk about nerds as if you aren’t one.”

Wrapped Up Like a Big Apple
Tomorrow I will actually be making good on my previously empty threats to take a vacation, so expect sporadic posts for the next week. In the meantime I suggest you cleanse your ravenous blog-hungry palates with a dose of intelligent trousers, a dysfunctional abominable snowman, that crazy painter guy's brother, or the real “Miami Vice.” Or just read my old stuff again, because it’s just that entertaining (hit “older entries” at left). But first, a few tidbits before I go...

Eating a beef/broccoli/noodle dish with Chocobaby at a restaurant in the Haight:

Her: “These noodles aren’t even that wide.”
Me: “Yeah, they’re definitely Chow Enjoyable, but I don’t know if they’re Chow Fun.”
Her again: “You are so stupid.”

At a bar this week with Chelle-Belle, Shan-Bear and Ry-Ry. Chelle-Belle makes the following observation: “We rock! People who don’t like us suck! Yeah, we’re sitting at a bar drinking canned beer out of cozies, but we rock!” Rock on, my Wayward Sons (and daughters).

The Night the Lights Went Out in Flushing
In an unprecedented act of baseball desperation, the San Francisco Giants sabotaged the entire Northeastern power grid yesterday to avoid being swept by the Mets. Sources tell WULAD that shortstop Rich Aurilia, pitcher Jason Schmidt, and first baseman (and make-out king) J.T. Snow were seen leaving a power plant at Niagara Falls around 4 p.m., while suspicious men in black and orange were reported in nuclear power plants across the region, often carrying wire cutters. Unnoticed by authorities was the fact that Felipe Alou’s ventilator mysteriously continued to function throughout the outage. Now, I’m going to leave Barry Bonds out of this, since he may actually have been with his ailing father, but the rest of the roster has some questions to answer. If the proof is in fact found, I believe the strongest of penalties should be imposed—the Giants should cede at least a first-round draft pick to the Mets for the inconvenience, and possibly some high-level prospects as well. The WULAD newsroom will keep you apprised of any developments in this breaking story.

So Goddamn Fair and Balanced I Nearly Had a Spontaneous Orgasm
I’ve received a lot of mail in the past few minutes regarding my assertion that the S.F. Giants were responsible for the massive power outages in the East, and the most consistent complaint is that my coverage is not Fair and Balanced.

Well, I ask you, Mr. and/or Mrs. Gentle Reader, in this day and age, who is to say what “Fair and Balanced” really means? If by “fair” you mean “having or exhibiting a disposition that is free of favoritism or bias,” then you may have a point; by this definition it may not have been fair when I reported that Rupert Murdoch (guardian of the NewsCorp empire) was a chest-bursting extraterrestrial eater of man-flesh, or that columnist Steve Dunleavy was a member of NAMBLA, or that TV personality Bill O’Reilly enjoyed flossing his teeth with his own pubic hair after gorging himself on a large plate of delicious fried baby—but if by “fair” you mean “of pleasing appearance, especially because of a pure or fresh quality; comely” or “lawful to hunt or attack,” then I believe my comments are as fair as the pale, creamy flesh of managing editor Brit Hume’s buttocks, which I have seen firsthand on many a dreamy night.

And if by “balanced” you mean “taking account of all sides on their merits without prejudice or favoritism,” then perhaps it was not balanced for me to claim that Al Franken was the greatest journalist, author, and human being living on the planet today, and that his new book was directly dictated to him by God Almighty, and is the infallible and indisputable Word and Law of the Lord Most High—but if you mean “containing different elements in suitable quantities or suitably arranged to produce a satisfying and effective whole,” then I say to you every word I write is as balanced as the perfect spheres of conservative author Ann Coulter’s flawless breasts, which I have also seen on many glorious evenings, although Brit Hume has not.

In closing, I must fairly say in a balanced manner that you will find no blog that is more fair, more balanced, or more Fair and Balanced® in all of Creation than this one: your very own, friendly neighborhood, Wrapped Up Like A Fair, Balanced, Douche.

If You Don’t Run for Governor, Don’t Complain
It’s been an introspective day here at WULAD… we’re starting to realize that maybe we’re not among the front-runners for the recall election. Some of you may point out that WULAD is not even officially registered to be on the ballot, or that it’s not actually legal for a weblog (and a fairly unheralded one at that) to run for governor—but those of us destined for true greatness can’t always be bothered with the little details. While we’re not ruling out making a late run as a dark, dark, almost pitch black, so-freaking-dark-you-can-barely-see-it horse, our attention has now shifted to the vigorous competition among the remaining 196 or so candidates to secure the coveted Wrapped Up Like An Endorsement.

While there are no clear favorites as of this writing, we did receive a watermelon this morning from Gallagher, with a note describing it as a “goodwill gesture.” Fruit is fine (no mangoes please) but money talks, people. I would also accept a State chauffer, a Hustler subscription, “Diff’rent Strokes” memorabilia, a Hummer, a hummer, or nude photos of news columnists. In the name of democracy, my inbox is always open, folks.

Trouble in Paradise
We’re going to need some counseling; my wife is also running for governor. I’d like to point out that although she may “look” more gubernatorial than me, she’s very weak on the issues. Sorry, hon!

Those Zany Yellow Journalists!
In case anybody felt the urge lately to sugarcoat the venomous bile spewed forth on a daily basis from the New York Post (resident chest-bursting alien Rupert Murdoch’s oozing propaganda orifice), I came across the following flag-up-his-ass demagoguery. Steve Dunleavy, for anyone unacquainted, is like an Australian Shakespeare—that is, if Shakespeare was a virulently nationalist, race-baiting near-illiterate (his eloquent comment on the 41-bullet salute shooting of the dangerously unarmed Amadou Diallo: “Nobody believes this anti-police nonsense…”)—who seems to think he’s more American than Americans. But the worst part is that I can’t shake the feeling that he’s making it up, that he knows exactly what to say to rouse the rabble, and doesn’t give a koala’s ass whether it’s true or not as long as it furthers the half-truths, stereotypes and bald-faced lies his esteemed news-fuhrer is currently interested in slinging. I can picture him laughing it up while the straphangers rail against the Hollywood-traitor-conspiracy; meanwhile, never is heard a discouraging word on the complete lack of a connection between September 11 and Iraq, and the many connections between Al Qaeda and the buddy-buddy Saudis that the Bush administration is attempting to sweep under the rug. But man, did you see that American Idol?

Funny Things My Friends Once Said, vol. xcviii
My old buddy FayJay, commenting on a coworker of ours: “I used to think L. was weird, but then I realized she’s just Turkish.”

Little, Yellow, Different
Lots of Pac-Man in the news. The universe seems to be telling me to revisit that early obsession of mine, perhaps as a way of integrating the struggle of my inner child with the challenges of the disempowered male adult in a postmodern capitalist society dominated by Western hegemony—it may have something to do with the logos, and it definitely has something to do with the Other. Or it may just be that I’m bored and I’d rather play childish video games than confront the harsh reality of our long, inevitable march toward death. In any case, it’s time for some Wacky Wisdom about our favorite armless, legless yellow hero!

• Many people don’t know that Pac-Man is an electronic rendering of an actual species, seen here in its natural habitat.
• The official story is that Pac-Man’s name came from the Japanese word “paku-paku”, meaning to flap one’s mouth, but this is a dirty Communist lie.
• After an extensive search, the original model for Ms. Pac-Man has been discovered.
• The pattern for the first Pac-Man board was astronomically calibrated by the Druids so that the sun rising on the summer solstice will be perfectly aligned with the back of your pathetic, balding head as you sit at your Atari in your BVDs, listening to “Carry on, Wayward Son”, again.
• The game of Pac-Man originated in ancient Rome, with condemned Christians in the Pac-Man role and ravenous tigers as the ghosts. Instead of little dots, contestants ate shards of glass, and there were no “power pellets”, unless you count the rocks being hurled at the Christians by bloodthirsty spectators.
• I recently listened to “Pac-Man Fever.” Man, what a great song!
• Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde are based on the Buddhist concept of the pretas or “hungry ghosts”, spiritual beings residing in the hell-realm below the devas and asuras, whose suffering is honored in the symbolic offering of leftover food, and further… I had you there for a minute, didn’t I? Eh?
• At first hearing, it sounds like Pac-Man is saying “waka waka.” But if you listen more closely, you’ll find he’s actually saying, “please kill me!”

Campaign Central
Lots of Demo hopefuls in the news… Bush secret agent and probable Pod Person Joe Lieberman is vigorously attacking Howard Dean and the potential shift away from mealy-mouthed Republican-appeasing in the Democratic ranks. Joe seems to think he's going to win over the pick-up truck reg'lar guy conservatives by being a less charismatic version of Bush. But wait, you may be saying, didn't WULAD express a similar viewpoint in its anti-Department of Peace piece of a few days ago? Sort of. The difference is that I want the potential candidates to stay away from unnecessarily flower-powery language and focus on the very solid grounds for regime-change-at-home. Lieberman actually is conservative in many ways, and doesn’t even want the Democrats thinking about progressive change, let alone talking about it.

There's also been a lot of buzz about an army guy nobody knows much about—the buzz is probably due to the fact that, well, he's an army guy, and presumably can't be accused of being anti-army. (Although it's interesting that while both of our most recent Commanders-in-Chief took steps to avoid military service, Clinton is considered a yellow-bellied draft-dodger, while Bush is a walking, talking G.I. Joe figurine, complete with flight suit. As my mother was fond of saying, "Don't these people remember that everybody was trying to get out of going to Vietnam?") I agree it might be nice to have somebody speaking for the left (a presumption, since he hasn't declared a party affiliation) who would counter the right-wing propaganda talking-point that questioning the administration's policies is unpatriotic and/or cowardly.

Wrapped Up Like A Governor
Amid all the madness surrounding the California recall election, it has been discovered that virtually anybody could be our next chief executive, from Arnold "I'm Detective John Kimball! I'm a cop, you idiot! Stop whining! I want to ask you a bunch of questions, and I want to have them answered immediately! You son of a bitch! Who is your daddy, and what does he do? But I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach!" Schwarzenegger to Larry "Responsible for my Sexual Awakening" Flynt. Accordingly, WULAD has decided to begin a preliminary process to research and assess the potential creation of an organization to gauge the support for the possible formation of an exploratory committee to raise awareness and build a network for the conceivable campaign of WULAD to be a candidate for the next governor of the Great State of Iowa! California, I mean. Donations, in the form of money or liquor, will be accepted, and they are tax-deductible, in the sense that you will have less money left to pay taxes after you give some to me. Just drop me an e-mail and I'll forward your generous gift to the committee, which is currently chaired by my cat Babbaz, who is very good with money. Those donating $10 or more will receive a voucher good for one special pork-barrel favor, such as a veto or lucrative state contract. And may the best man or blog win!

It's Friday, which means it's time for…

Wrapped Up Like A Mailbag

Dear W.U.L.A.D.,

godammit, stop ragging on dennis kucinich. see, you're more guilty than most because you can actually appreciate the value and potential of a department of peace, but you still belittle it because him for it because it makes him "unelectable." he is only unelectable because people like you, who are intelligent and informed, won't grow some cajones and support the motherfucker. he's just trying to run for office with honesty and integrity and make some real changes. He's certainly better than howard "politician face" dean who, once in office, will certainly continue to support the status quo and pat himself on the back for making minor clintonesque changes that will be utterly forgettable and reversible the minute some snaggle-toothed conservative sumbitch takes over the office again.

—Obstreperous at Your Office

Well, Obstrep, if I'm guilty of anything, I'm guilty of caring too much. But seriously, "Department of Peace" smacks so much of the 60s hippie "liberal" stereotype that has been forced down the collective American throat by the right (and effectively, I might add—it's no wonder liberals now want to be known as "Progressive") that you may as well nominate Slim Goodbody or Grandpa Al Munster. The sad fact is that much of our electorate doesn't know that they agree with liberals or progressives or whatever on many if not most issues—just like many women don't want to be called "feminists" but they want equal opportunity and pay and sexual freedom and all that other jazz that feminism stands for; it's the idea of feminism they don't like, an idea carefully cultivated and stigmatized by its enemies. So I believe it's important that a potentially successful democratic nominee not oversell his peace and love credentials. Bush, for example, said all the right words about unifying the country, tolerance and blah blah blah to appeal to mainstream voters (who incidentally would have elected Gore in a landslide if not for the endlessly insulting breaches of trust of Clinton), but once elected (or whatever you want to call it) has of course revealed himself to be further to the right than Reagan.

The American Left is lacking something all right, but it's not cojones—it's the ability to build a coalition based on common ground with the Center, and there is a lot of it. And that means being sensitive to the fears of the mainstream populace who have been brainwashed to believe that liberals can't wait to run up the white flag and hand the country over to Osama. And if by some miracle Kucinich were elected and began instituting "real changes" to the government, there would most likely be enough voter backlash (we don't after all, live in Denmark, and the right will continue to be a major force for the foreseeable future) to hurl him out of office faster than a speeding Peace Train and possibly finish the Democrats as a major party for good.

This doesn't mean I think Democrats should say what the voters want to hear just to win the election, or pretend to be conservative (a la Daschle), or actually be conservative for that matter (a la Lieberman, who I'm convinced is a Republican plant); I think they should look for the areas where they can build support (the economy, corporate welfare, the environment, sensible foreign policy, civil liberties) and leave the ruinously divisive ones (gay marriage, the death penalty, disarmament, etc.) for later, when we actually have some clout. In closing, help me Al Gore, you're my only hope!

Dear W.U.L.A.D.,

Enough with the endless political diatribes. Show us something funny already.

—Groaning in Greenland

Fair enough. Here it is.

The Wisdom of Age
As today is the 29th anniversary of my entrance upon the world stage, I thought it appropriate to share some of the insights that have occurred to me during the many ups and downs and unders and throughs of my ever-waning life. Therefore, W.U.L.A.D. presents for your edification and infotainment…

The Paradox of our Time
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

We have computers that can balance our checkbooks, but can't murder our enemies.

We have more productive crops, but not more productive craps.

We have Wrapped Up Like a Douche, but we don't have Wrapped Up Like a Family.

We can tune a piano, but we can't chicken salad.

We have movies like "All-Asian, All Anal," but not "All-Asian, All Kindness."

We have Wrapped Up Like a Douche, but we don't have Winona LaDuke.

We can go to the Moon and back, but we can't walk across the street to spy on our sunbathing neighbor.

We can take the boy out of the country, but we can't take the country out of the boy, except surgically.

We have more possessions, but fewer demonic possessions.

We have taken God out of our childrens' schools, but we can't keep Him out of their hearts, except with really good porn.

We have hi-speed internet connections, but we don't have hi-speed riding lawn-mowers. But man, if we did…

We think old people are soooo cute, except when they're racist.

We rush to buy the new Madonna album, but I saw an Echo & the Bunnymen CD on the floor of the bus today.

We're not gonna take it, no, we ain't gonna take it.

We have projectile vomiting, but we don’t have projectile happiness.

We have a payroll of $86 million, but we're in last place in the NL East.

We have six-foot Brazilian She-males, but we don't have six-foot Brazil nuts. Think of all the freakin' Brazil nut butter, though.

We have more smooth jazz stations, but fewer torture chambers.

We have the Sausage McMuffin with Egg, but we don't have the Sausage McMuffin with Bacon.

We have Wrapped Up Like a Douche, but we don't have Wrapped Up Like a Douche-bag.

It is a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just search for a naked picture of Britney Spears, which is available here.

In honor of the anniversary of her nativity, W.U.L.A.D. proudly presents…

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Shan-bear
(Note: I had to remove the links to individual photos, but you can click here to see the entire series of 13. Just click on the arrow above each photo to see the next one.)

I
Among twenty snowy mountains
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the Shan-bear.

II
I was of three minds
Like a tree
In which there are three Shan-bears.

III
The Shan-bear whirled in the autumn wind
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a Shan-bear
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflexions
Or the beauty of innuendos,
The Shan-bear whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the Shan-bear
Crossed it, to and fro.
The Mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Hyde Street,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the Shan-bear
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the Shan-bear is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the Shan-bear flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of Shan-bears
Flying in a green light
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Polk St.Station
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
for Shan-bears.

XII
The river is moving.
The Shan-bear must be flying.

XII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The Shan-bear sat
In the cedar limbs.

God Day at W.U.L.A.D.
This guy gives a lot of pro-God arguments before admitting that he left Atheism because he met a hot girl with a Bible.

These guys (who you remember from the Virgin Mary on the frozen window) chime in. (Elsewhere on the site you'll find interestingly biased takes on the Inquisition, Papal Infallibility, and other fun stuff.)

These philosopher dudes think they can kick your faith's ass.

Read this. Now read this. Now this. Now read this one. And now this. Got it?

In this interview, the Big Guy reveals that, among other things, he's big on clichés and platitudes, and loves scenic vistas 'n' shit.

He's also wondering "what part of NOT don't you understand?"

But it turns out He's actually got his own home page, so this is all moot.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for…

Contest Results
The first semiannual W.U.L.A.D. contest is officially over, and what a dazzling array of creativity! I want to emphasize what a difficult decision the judges faced, and that, due to the overwhelming quality of responses, you should all consider yourselves winners. That said, here are the Official Results:

Receiving the prestigious Second Prize, we present the following staggering entry from… Mandrew!

If I were a frog and all and the frogs took over then I would be king. (Not to mention I get to carry around a bunch of males on my back with those enlarged throat sacks. They would all want my extra reproductive organs that resulted from exposure to the common pesticide, atrazine, banned by most European countries, and yet for some reason, not by the US ... hmmm. And since the American Dream pretty much states that bigger is better, and more is better, then with two or, better yet, three sets of reproductive organs I would be better. Hence, what I was saying—I would be king.)

Way to get political on our asses! For your efforts, you'll receive the Second Prize, which is… nothing! Better luck next time, Mandrew.

And now, earning the even more prestigious First Prize, we present the following entry, coming all the way from… Chocobaby!

If I were a frog and all and the frogs took over, I would make sure that Ian never missed the bus, which is coming in ten minutes, and if he misses it he'll be LATE!, but I wouldn't let him miss the bus, if I were a frog and the frogs took over.

Way to work in a personal reference! It's just this kind of variety and ingenuity that made this contest so special. C-Baby will receive a signed photo of G-Monsta in a compromising position. I'd give her the thong, but she'd never wear it.

Which brings us to the most prestigious prize of all, the Grand Prize, which goes to… Nobody! Because I only got two freakin' entries! I want all of you "loyal" readers who couldn't take time away from your "precious" jobs as emergency physicians, etc. to go sit in the corner, and think about what you did. I shall say no more on this subject.

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR REGIONAL ZOXON OVERLORD
GREETINGS EARTHLINGS. ON BEHALF OF THE SECTOR SUBCOMMAND, I EXTEND OUR WISHES THAT YOU AND YOUR SNIVELING UNDEREVOLVED HUMANOID FAMILIAL UNIT EXPERIENCE A PLEASURABLE DIURNAL CYCLE.

FIRSTLY, OLD BUSINESS—PLEASE REMEMBER TO REPORT IN ZOXON ALPHABETICAL ORDER ("§" COMES BEFORE "µ", PEOPLE!) FOR DAILY MEDICAL "ADJUSTMENT" AT YOUR ASSIGNED PROVINCIAL SUBSTATION. I EMPHASIZE AGAIN THAT WE EXPECT CHEERFUL COOPERATION WITH THESE NECESSARY AND MINIMALLY INVASIVE PROCEDURES. AND I MUST ADD THAT IT STIMULATES OUR HUMOR NODES WHEN YOU PROTEST YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN ANALLY PROBED BEFORE—YOUR SUB-PRIMATE MINDS ARE OBVIOUSLY UNABLE TO FATHOM THAT ZOXON CABLE CARRIES YOUR SHOWTIME NETWORK.

AS WE MENTIONED IN OUR EXECUTIVE DECREE OF 234.34.3.5545 FOLLOWING THE UNFORTUNATE UPRISING IN HOBOKEN OF THE EASTERN SECTOR, GATHERINGS OF 4 OR MORE HUMANS WILL NO LONGER BE PERMITTED, UNDER PENALTY OF SPECIES REASSIGNMENT. HOWEVER, IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO OUR ATTENTION BY ONE OF THE MANY DISGUISED ZOXON OPERATIVES LIVING AMONG YOU THAT A CUSTOMARY ANNUAL RITE OF CELEBRATION IS APPROACHING—IN A SHOW OF OUR UNDERAPPRECIATED GOODWILL TOWARD EVEN EARTHLINGS, THE LOWLIEST SERVANTS OF OUR EXALTED EMPEROR, HIS HOLINESS ALF VI (MAY ORGON BLESS HIS NAME) WE HAVE DECIDED TO FORGO ENFORCEMENT OF THIS RULE ON 2376.345.365 (THURSDAY, JULY 24 OF YOUR PRIMITIVE SOLAR CALENDAR) FOR THE COMMEMORATION OF THE "BIRTHDAY" OF HUMANOID 2187G-76T, KNOWN TO YOU AS "IAN ______."

PLEASE REPORT TO THE BAMBOO HUT (479 BROADWAY AT KEARNY OF THE SAN FRANCISCO REGIONAL FIEFDOM) AT APPROXIMATELY 8 PM ON THE AFOREMENTIONED DATE TO COMMENCE APPROPRIATE FESTIVITIES. [FOR THOSE HUMANS WISHING TO BEGIN EARLIER, THE PRE-FESTIVITIES WILL TAKE PLACE AT SPECS, 12 SAROYAN PLACE (COLUMBUS AT BROADWAY), FROM THE COMPLETION OF YOUR DAILY WORK CAMP SCHEDULE UNTIL THE OPENING OF THE BAMBOO HUT.] ALLOW 5 OF YOUR MINUTES FOR BODY CAVITY SEARCH.

WE ARE TOLD THAT LOCAL CUSTOMS DICTATE THE INTAKE OF FERMENTED LIQUIDS LEADING TO HUMOROUS DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION, BATTLES FOR CLAN LEADERSHIP AND MATING RITUALS. THOSE DIRT-DWELLING HOMINIDS WHOSE APE-LIKE ANTICS STIMULATE AN EXCEPTIONAL NUMBER OF OUR NODES MAY BE SELECTED TO APPEAR IN THE NEW HOLODISC "EARTHLINGS GONE WILD! VOL. ±¥«.", NARRATED BY ZOXON MINISTER OF ENTERTAINMENT JOHN-XARXQON TRAVOLTA.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT YOUR LOCAL HUMAN PACIFICATION COUNCIL AT THIS PRIMITIVE ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS.

THAT IS ALL. LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR, OUR BENEVOLENT PROTECTOR! OBEDIENCE IS STRENGTH!