Dear MoveOn.org, please, MoveOn

Now, as I've entered my late 30s, I have openly and definitely become more liberal than I was in my 20s. Note that I said "more liberal" and not "become a liberal," because the difference is key. Frankly, there are some liberal causes that I simply can not understand, such as the Occupy Wall Street shenaningans and the latest - forgiving student loan debt.

So...you drop $40k a year in tuition, room and board at a fancy private college, starting adult life with $200k in debt, or, you couldn't go to the perfectly-acceptable state college down the street - you HAD to go to an out-of-state public college and pay out-of-state rates, plus the extra bills associated with going to school 1000 miles away rather than 10 miles, and now you want the Government to forgive your student loans because you won't take a job that "only" pays 35k a year and work your way up? Oh HELL NO moveon.org - try something else.

Recent grads should have gotten a god-damned clue and gone to cheaper schools. Every state offers discounts to in-state students. Frostburg is 5k a year in tuition to Maryland residents, and 15k to out-of-state residents. I'd rather be 20k ...in debt than 60k. Not my damned fault that Brandon and Kelsey in Bridgeport, CN, wanted to go to UNC to be with their friends from Screwyou High School only to watch them all bail out, change majors, or develop severe liver problems from binge drinking and banging slampigs at college bars in Chapel Hill.

Look, I will tie this in to Simon Cowell. Stand in awe of my brilliance.

Simon Cowell was the first person to get on American TV in decades and say "you...you are not good enough to be a professional singer." How many people deluded themselves into thinking they were great singers, and that American Idol would propel them into stardom? And Randy was all about doing yo thing, dawg, and coked-out Paula was all about loving your vibe and your heart and being so proud of you and then Simon would say "You have no talent."

Simon Cowell would say ‎"Oh, you're working as a waitress at a chain restaurant and you happen to sing 'Constant Craving' at the karaoke night better than anybody else? Big deal. You can't sing better than these other people, so you may want to try picking up some extra shifts for the dinner rush."

We have raised too many people who think they deserve a well-paying job and an easy life because they happen to be themselves.

Fuck Steve Jobs and his bullshit graduation address to Stanford grads a few years ago, telling them to follow their dreams. Please. If I followed my dreams, I'd be the worst centerfielder the Baltimore Orioles have ever had, and easily the worst date Elle Macpherson had ever been on. What he should have said was "WORK FOR ONCE IN YOUR GAWD-DAMNED LIVES"

We need more Simon Cowells in life.

We needed a Simon Cowell to say "look, you make 50k a year and you have no chance for a raise, so why are you trying to buy a half-million dollar home?"

We need Simon to say "You're working at a FedEx Kinkos and your fiancee' works at JiffyLube - you do not need a $100,000 wedding, especially because he's banging a chain restaurant hostess after karaoke nights and you'll be divorced in 10 months anyway."

We really need a Simon to say "You failed high school geometry; you thought Kaiser Wilhelm was the bad guy in 'The Usual Suspects' and you need a spotter to help you spell "Checkbook" so why in the hell do you think you should go to a a 4 year school?"

We need somebody brave enough to say "Your child is a god-damned idiot who would be lucky to be a shift supervisor at a 24-hour truck stop." Your child is not some misunderstood secret genius; your child is a barely-functioning retard.

We need a Simon Cowell to say "If you can't decide on a major between Political Science, Business Administration, International Studies or Theater, you might want to look at Community College, slick. Save some bucks."

So, we need Simon Cowell to start doing The Dumb Factor or American Ridicule or something to get kids and parents to get their heads out their asses.

NOW HAVING SAID THAT...

We also need for colleges and universities to remember somethings. Such as... where in the hell do you guys get off thinking every last one of you should cost more than Harvard?

Towson State when I went there was about 2,400 a year for in-state tuition. It's now about 2,700 per sememster - I did not know Towson became more than twice as good as it was when I went there 15 years ago. Virginia Wesleyan is 30,000 a year in tuition, and another 8k a year in room-and-board. Um, when I was there for a year and a half, it was about 12k in tuition and 4k in room and board. Did the food suddenly become twice as good? Did the education become nearly 3 times more amazing?

Schools need to stop thinking they're all little Harvards and shit. Frickin' YALE is only 32k in tuition!!! YALE!! Virginia Wesleyan was a nice enough school, and I made some good friends there, but it's NOT nor would it EVER be on a level like Yale. Virginia Wesleyan makes pastors and bank managers. Yale makes Presidents.

I think anybody DUMB ENOUGH to pay the ridiculous rates most of these crappy little colleges charge nowadays is probably too stupid to go to college in the first place.
22 minutes ago ·

Notes On Our Visit to Detroit

I spent this Memorial Day weekend in Detroit, Michigan, with the FutureWife, Siobhan, and our three dogs. We drove out to the Motor City on Thursday after work here in DC, and got there sleep-deprived Friday morning. After a much-needed nap, we ventured out into the city.

Now, many readers would question the choice of Detroit as a locale in which a young couple would celebrate Memorial Day weekend. There are several reasons, ranging from "we've never been there" to "Siobhan's agency could transfer her there one day" to "it's not DC or Dewey Beach." It was that second listed reason that got us searching on real estate websites, looking to see what the housing market looks like in Detroit. If pictures are worth a thousand words, surely the photos of Detroit's housing supply staring back at us through the web browser were on a heavy discount. We saw Tudors, Colonials, Contemporaries, waterfront mansions - all for less than the price of a Maryland boxy townhome in the ex-urbs. As the FutureWife and I both love big old houses, Detroit looked through Zillow, Trulia and HUD.gov as our paradise.

As for that second point, I can tell you this - their housing market looks like somebody forgot to add extra numbers. Houses should be 200 thousand dollars, not, 200.

My FutureWife and I were there Memorial Day weekend, attracted to the dirt-low housing prices and amazing deals. 6 bed, 5 bath Tudors, 5000 square feet - 200k. 7 bed, 4 bath, home theater, indoor pool, 3 car garage, 120k. It was, from the safety of my suburban Maryland home through the lens of Zillow.com, a haven. My smallish house in Rockvillle, 3 beds, 1.5 bath, 2 miles from the Metro, is, even after the housing crisis, 400k. 400k in Detroit buys you TWO mansions! And, as my FutureWife's employer could transfer her to Detroit, we had to check it out in person. If she would be transferred there in 2012, we wanted to see what it looked like. There's only so much that Time Magazine pictorials and Urbanist.com photo spreads and words of warning from ex-pat Michigan folks could do - we needed to see if there was something worth buying if we moved to Detroit.

there is a weird sense of beauty in urban blight and decay when viewed through the work of a skilled photographer or film maker, true. It is a God-damned horrible thing to see in person, simply block after block of abandonment. Waste. Decline. To see people living in half a duplex where the other half has no windows due to fire damage from 1992. To see schools left to rot in the Midwestern winters because there's not enough kids in the surrounding neighborhoods to keep them running. To see churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, massive evangelical christian mega-churches to sit abandoned, falling down. Torn. Like even God, Allah, Yahweh, Buddha and Confucius all got together and decided to leave town. When faith leaves, despair enters.

Detroit doesn't need a bulldozer; it needs a fleet of them. The sheer mass of decaying structures is absolutely unfathomable to anybody who has not seen it. I lived in Baltimore when Baltimore was at its slummiest, druggiest squalor, a city that once held 1.2 million people having maybe 700k. I grew up near DC when you could buy the abandoned warehouses that lined 9th st NW for $20, just to get it off the city's ledger sheet. Baltimore had Dollar House Days - buy an abandoned house for a BUCK and it's yours! Neither DC at its 400 murder a year peak in the 80s or Baltimore at its "The Wire''-esque 90s was EVER as bad as Detroit is now. The sheer square miles of ..... rot.... it needs to go. Period. It needs a Blitzkrieg of Caterpillars and a Luftwaffe of John Deeres. I am a native of Annapolis, Maryland, and the preservation of historical structures is important to that town. It makes it unique, gives it a character. Detroit, to be fair, has hundreds of impressive structures - the Michigan Rail Depot, the gorgeous Art-Deco-era skyscrapers, theaters, the memories of better days. The neighborhoods of Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest, Indian Village - those homes, built between 1910 and 1950, were made for captains of industry and their growing families. In fact, when Mitt Romney's dad was governor of Michigan, they lived in a beautiful home in Palmer Woods, and young Mitt grew up there. Palmer Woods has about 277 houses in it's neighborhood of English-countryside inspired Tudors, Colonials and historically-vital Contemporary homes. There's a Frank Lloyd Wright. Albert Khan. Minoru Yamasaki, the designer of the World Trade Center in New York, has a home in this enclave. It looks like Chevy Chase, Maryland, or Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is a stunning neighborhood, and would be a boon to any city. However, at least 15 houses in Palmer Woods are for sale, and at least that many are abandoned, and only the neighbors get together to mow the lawns and tend to the shrubs, just to give the appearance of vitality. One home, a 4000 square foot Tudor, was listed on Zillow.com as being 140k, while other similar homes in the neighborhood go for 200 to 400. I remembered how charming the house looked like from the web site's pictures - it was a home you could be proud of, to raise a good strong family in - and when I walked up to the slightly-creaky back gate, I saw a series of smashed-in windows and a solarium filled with old empty bags of cat and dog food. The old oak floors were beautiful, but had torn women's' clothing on it, and were lined with excrement, both human and animal. The majestic fireplace still stands, the stained and leaded glass windows remain, the absolutely stunning ceiling with exposed timbers giving an Alpine echo remain, but the kitchen had been stripped of all appliances and plumbing, sold on the streets for a quick buck. I was hit with the most profound sense of sadness I have ever felt - I was inconsolable, frankly, for nearly 15 minutes. I don't know if I was contacted by a spirit of a former resident or the house itself, but I went from "Hmmm...a coat of paint and new windows and some bleach and you got yourself a deal!" to "I.....am....hurting....everywhere" in seconds.

The finishing detail - a sticker from the Palmer Woods Homeowners' Association was placed on a back window. It said, in brief, that this property had appeared to be abandoned, and that steps would be taken with the city to secure new ownership as possible. The sticker had a date on it. It said 2006.

The human excrement was not that old.

Once you leave the tree-lined streets of Palmer Woods, you re-enter Detroit as it stands today. A rotting hulk of a church project stands across the street from Palmer Woods, sharing a parking lot with a McDonalds that had friendly employees and a not-terribly subtle hooker and her pimp looking for potential customers. At 2:00pm. On a Saturday. In what would have been a church parking lot.

What is incomprehensible, still, after a week and a half of, quite frankly, my brain OBSESSING about Detroit, is the sheer vastness of the city's decay mixed with its rather impressive wealth. The downtown core, featuring the GM headquarters' building designed to look like a cam shaft from above, is rebuilding quite nicely. The Tigers' stadium is quite lovely. The Lions' new field, sponsored by Ford, is impressive, and somehow keeps a hint of Detroit's art deco past in a modern facade. The skyscrapers that were abandoned in 2006 are being gutted and restored. For a big city based around the car, the downtown core is rather walkable. Greektown is pretty cool, and the massive casinos show there's a bit of glamor left in Motown. The Hockeytown bar, next to Chris Chelios' sportsbar, next to the legendary Fox Theater, mere steps to the sports' stadia...these are all things that every US city *should* have, but doesn't. So, don't let all the Abandonment Porn photos from 2007 scare you - downtown Detroit is a rather vibrant place nowadays, and should get better.

What is ridiculous is that a mere block or two from this fun core are houses that haven't been lived in for *decades.* Detroit is, as Susan mentioned above, a city in need of a culture change. Part of that culture is that this is a place that went, within the span of 5 years, from almost 2 million in the city and growing like a weed to 1.6 million and not ever getting closer to that number again. I personally was very touched by how friendly the average Detroit person was - folks at the restaurants, the ballpark, walking around, looking at homes - but the Detroit of the Roaring 20s was a very racially violent and segregated area, and it wasn't much better through the 1950s. When the race riots started during the turbulent `60s, that spelled the end of a growing Detroit. People and businesses left the city for the more stable (and, frankly, more segregated suburbs). Combine the racial problems with the decline of the Big Three automakers with the rise of better made products from Japan and Germany, and the gas crisis on the early 1970s... that's a bad combination to mix in a city that is still dependent on the auto industry. Every major highway or public structure is named after a city benefactor - Dodge. Ford. Chrysler. Cadillac. The city is far-too connected to the automotive industry, and the unions that for YEARS convinced their members that better days were right ahead. The city prospered under the rise of the Big Three, and essentially let them do whatever they wanted as long as it brought in more taxes and prestige. The once-thriving Poletown - the not-exactly politically correct name for the Polish community - had the entire north end wiped off the map to put in a giant GM plant. The Boston-Edison Neighborhood, once one of the first Black American upper-income neighborhoods, was torn in two so a highway could be built to get wealthy GM and Ford execs out of downtown and up to their weekend retreats in the northwest that much faster. This is a script that is written and repeated in dozens of neighborhoods all over town - stores and shops and churches and schools removed to make room for new factories and roads. Ultimately, what built Detroit contributed to its demise.

However, it's important to note - it isn't just a handful of buildings decaying in an otherwise vibrant city. It's not just 30 or 40 historically-significant structures failing and in need of restoration. It's thousands upon thousands upon thousands in a city with a few thousand after that that need to be knocked down. And I do mean that - knocked. down. Torn down. Destroyed. Removed. Because the only thing worse than seeing a once-beautiful home in need of repair is seeing the three dozen on that same block that are worse, and knowing that it is too late for two dozen of them. The foundations are cracked; the floors have rotted; the wind, rain and snow have weakened every joint and joist. The damage from fires - either set by junkies or the homeless to keep warm, or by desperate homeowners who watched the value of their homes drop by 70% over a decade and just needed the insurance money - is so great that you actually get surprised when you see a block - ANY BLOCK - without a fire-damaged home.

There is no block, not even in the once Beverly Hills / Potomac / Bridgeport-esque Grosse Pointe, that does not have an abandoned home. $2 million dollars once bought you a home in Grosse Point. It can now buy you 10 if you don't need to be directly on the lake, and possibly 15 if you are a shrewd buyer....or, have good credit.

My fiancee' made a great point about Detroit -there's no middle. No buffer. No... warnings. You enter the city limits, and it's like "DAMN" - there's less traffic in the city. There are very few busses. Pedestrians just cross any ole' time at any ole' place because there's not that many cars to deal with. There are very few grocery stores in the city limits, and they're not exactly Wegman's quality either, that's for sure. The Indian Village neighborhood had about 15 houses we wanted to check out - in fact, I showed Jan Louis one home via Zillow.com that had just incredible detailed woodwork and ceilings, and he was impressed at the caliber of the work. The surrounding homes looked equally impressive. Except, in person...they were empty, too, and had been for a while. And the home with this just awesome ceiling and indoor firepit was also home to a dry-rotten patio and deck that hadn't been maintained since... well, I was a lot younger and skinnier back then, let's put it that way. But the next street over, not even 200 feet, was the Decay. The Abandonment. Homes that had caught on fire in 1980 and nobody bothered to knock over the rotted remains. There was no buffer between the once-great neighborhood and the now-bad neighborhood. No middle, only a common thread of empty.

What it took Detroit - and I wish I was joking - nearly 50 years to realize is that it has become a gigantic eyesore. The city was hesitant to knock anything down because - again, I wish I was joking - they honestly thought they might need it again one day. Some mythical, magical day when people stopped buying Hondas, Toyotas and Volkswagons and bought Fords and Chryslers. Let's put it this way - how many of you have heard of Packards? A few? Yeah, Packard stopped making cars back when my mom was a kid, and my mom is in her 60s. The factory that used to make Packards *still exists* though there hasn't been a car made there since the days when I Love Lucy was still on the air - original broadcasts! It's not a tourist site, or a museum, just a massive rotting husk of America's once-impressive manufacturing core. But, Detroit honestly thought that one day, America might enter another great war and would need those old assembly lines to make tanks and jeeps. It is this mindset that kept them from knocking down decaying and empty houses during the population drain because, again, they honestly thought better days were JUST around the corner, and buyers would quickly jump at the chance to live in Detroit.

Detroit has not exactly had the best civic leadership over the past half-century, and recent mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is no exception. Google his name, and you'll quickly learn about his exploits and corruption. He did have a very good, salient point as an African-American Democrat in union-dominated Detroit: that Italian-American Republican Rudy Guiliani in formerly union-dominated New York City had the right idea in turning NYC around. Start paying attention to smaller crimes and code violations and you'll avoid bigger crimes and bigger code violations down the line. The Broken Window Theory that Guiliani fought in NYC was simple - that if you ignore a fine for a broken window, then more broken windows will follow. Fix that broken window early and punish the person who either broke it, or who allowed it to stay broke, and it will get fixed. Kilpatrick wanted to knock down hundreds of abandoned homes each year just go give people in the city a sense of order again. Of course...he also wanted to make sure everybody in his administration got PAID and got busted for it and will now watch Detroit try to rebuild from the comfort of a jail cell. But his successor, former Detroit Piston star Dave Bing, has followed on Kilpatrick's better quality of trying to remove the eyesores and decay. Better to have open space and nature reclaim the fields than to let a modern-day ghost town continue on. His goal - 3000 abandoned, decaying homes to be knocked down this year, with another 3000 next year, and the next two years of his term as well. 12,000 homes. Gone. Sadly, in Detroit, that's not just progress, but also a mere drop in the bucket. However, in a city that basically fiddled while the town quite literally burned, this is a good start. Bing is a good man. Doesn't take a salary. Is open-minded. Wants to save his adopted city. I feel bad for him, because he may have - even more so than President Obama - the most difficult job in the world. Fixing a broken, battered city with next to no tax base. As bad as the Federal Government's problems look, it's important to note that while our 14 trillion dollar deficit is staggering, it's also still less than 100% of our annual GDP. We've been through worse financial stressors - World War II and the Manhattan Project came A LOT closer to bankrupting our country than most people will ever realize - and the Feds have the ability to cut spending on a few Defense and Medicare projects, raise taxes a point or so, and balance the budget sheet. Detroit has no such flexibility - the city has already said that 20% of the roads will no longer be maintained, and that police, trash and fire services will not cover that 20% as well.

what, in the grand scheme of things, is 1 billion dollars? Well, to Detroit, it would allow them to remove nearly 7000 abandoned homes, storefronts, warehouses and factories a year for a good dozen or so years. One billion is also 40% of the cost of ONE B-2 Stealth Bomber, the development, construction and maintenance , a weapon that basically has next-to-no mission anymore. We have 21 of them. A first-strike weapon designed to take out hardened Soviet facilities. How about $9 billion to build the USS Gerald Ford, an aircraft carrier that would be the first Ford-class vessel to replace the still-quite functional Nimitz-class carriers? That's just the build-out. Doesn't include maintaining the ship, putting jets and sailors on the ship. Doesn't even include a complementary continental breakfast or HBO.

So, while yes - Detroit needs a culture change away from the union mindset and that the Big Three will save them, and that the city needs to help itself - let's not forget something. Detroit's factories and workers built the tanks, the jeeps and the personnel carriers that essentially won us two World Wars. That city made the automobile cheap enough and standardized enough that nearly any citizen, regardless of education or class, could afford and learn how to drive one. That city gave us a distinctive musical heritage - the Motown sound - that is uniquely American, much like another city, New Orleans; it too a victim of a man-made disaster, gave us Jazz. Yet, New Orleans, a city that I will kindly point out - is BELOW FRICKIN' SEA LEVEL - had to be rebuilt after Katrina struck and the levees fell. It is a fact that New Orleans is sinking, and will, in the next thirty years, will require the greatest civil engineering feat in American history to even *begin* to not sink, let alone rise up a foot or two. I'm sorry, but it's true - there's a good chance that New Orleans won't make it to 2050, 2060. Or sooner.

You want to take the same chance with Detroit?

Fixing the Super Boring Halftime Show

It's been a couple of days since the valiant Green Bay Packers defeated the evil women-hatin' Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers. We've had countless diagrams and breakdowns of the key plays on the sports' channels and websites, but the pop culture and news sites are stuck on Christina Aguilera's inability to sing the National Anthem correctly, and the annual debate about which commercials scored more than Mark Sanchez at a high school prom.




Also in the post-game debate has been the halftime show, this year featuring everybody's favorite dancing legume, the Black Eyed Peas. They used a lot of lights and dancers and Usher and the microphones/lip syncing was off and their stage didn't light up the whole way, but really, what do we really recall about their performance?

Fergie yelled at the viewing audience, and really didn't sing very well.

I've always thought she was attractive, but after this show, I'm beginning to think it might just be her hair extentions that I like. She has a nice figure, but she's got some strong facial features, and when she yells...it's not terribly sexy. It's like I'm being yelled at by a hippie Marine.

So, it seems that a lot of folks felt the halftime show felt kind of flat, or, just out-right sucked. Well, I will say this - that's what happens when you use a band that makes their magic in a studio on a computer. It'd be like complaining about T.Pain's real signing voice - well, DUH - his speciality is AutoTune, not "singing live on worldwide TV in front of 100,000 people."

Apparently, it's not Xtina's speciality, either.

Think back over the past 20 years, when the Super Bowl became a cultural juggernault. What shows do you clearly remember as being incredible?

2) Prince simulating masturbation using a shadow on stage and playing his guitar better than anybody else has on such a stage.
1) U2. Bono on a heart-shaped stage. Edge just rocking. Adam Clayton laying down a great bass riff. Post 9/11. The names of the victims scrolling behind the band.

I just gave myself a chill writing that. Remembering it. Finding it online and only making it halfway through because the emotions came back. You ever wonder why old veterans cry during parades? I don't question it anymore. They were young once, too.

Everything else though has ranged from "pretty good" - Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones - to "ok" - The Who did kinda rock - to "not bad" - Tom Petty - to "not good" - Michael Jackson popping up all over the Rose Bowl. Then dancing with kids? WHAT?!?!? - to "bad bad bad" - Diana Ross in a helicopter. Anything with Kid Rock. The Phil Collins/Christina Aguilera bizarre mix and the Nelly/Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake thing. We all remember Janet's deflated passenger-side airbag, but nobody remembers that whole entertainment portion was crap.

I still maintain the worst even was 1992. Gloria Estefan and Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill. Two ice skaters and a woman who never rocked once the Miami Sound Machine got busted in a cocaine smuggling ring.

Go watch the video. Paul Tagliabue should have been fired for this.

Basically, the NFL is 2 for 20 or so. That's "minor league shortstop" at best.

What the NFL has done - besides given a last paycheck to clearly-past-their-prime acts - has been the glorification of the mediocre and the popular, while not exactly reflecting the strengths of the sport, the location of the venue, or the popularity of certain genres at a time. The halftime show is about 5 years behind at best, and 25 at worst.

My advice on fixing the Super Bowl Halftime Show would be to try to reflect the actual time and location of the event. Now, the U2 show in New Orleans in 2002 was amazing, but, if there was ever a show that demanded some Bo Diddly or some other old blues/rockabilly guys... something to reflect New Orleans. Granted, the Big Easy is one of the more preferred locations for the event, and will host it again in 2013, so they'll get another crack at making the show more relevent, but what about a place like... Dallas? Dallas is not exactly snonymous with "studio-based, over-produced mindless dance music" like the Black Eyed Peas. I'd have gone with a country-based show, especially since it's been a few years since a legit country artist was featured. Something featuring Dallas' history in the West, the stockyards in Ft. Worth, maybe?

Since next year's event is scheduled for Indianapolis, I'm going to give the NFL free advice right now. All Indy has going for it is auto racing and cheap pharmaceuticals. So, tie-in an auto racing theme with the biggest, best band from the general area - Dayton Ohio's The Black Keys. They have the chops, playing in front of a mostly hometown crowd, they're hip and on the rise.

My guess is that John Cougar Mellancamp will be performing. Probably that gawd-awful "this is MY COUNTRY!!!" song, too.

After that, it'll be back in the aforementioned New Orleans, and then it goes to the new Meadowlands... and Mark Sanchez's girlfriend STILL won't be allowed to drink legally. But a New York/New Jersey Super Bowl - you know the NFL won't be able to pass up potential-team owner Jon Bon Jovi - could feature some incredible acts with the songs and the power to play on America's biggest stage. Jay-Z. Run DMC. Wu-Tang. Those are all viable options showcasing New York's rich hip-hop heritage. In fact, tell me you couldn't imagine "Empire State of Mind" blaring through there right now?

They could go towards New York's rock history - Lou Reed, Blondie or what's left of The Ramones would be possible acts, if the NFL had their way. But what about up-and-coming bands that could rock the audience? Interpol. MGMT. The Bravery. The National. Or... how about one act who could combine both hip hop and hip rock?

Ratatat.

Never heard of them? Check out this or this. The language is NSFW, but the riffs are NSF anybody.

OK, so maybe they're a little too on the edge. But there's still somebody that could save us from a Katy Perry/Justin Bieber halftime show.

Muse.

They have the the requisite spectacle, and can flat-out jam. The kids love them, and their parents think they remind them of the glam rock-era Bowie mixed with Queen with a heaping teaspoon of Motley Crue. Ask anybody who saw them tour with U2 in 2010 - Muse can dominate a stadium. In fact, make the New York Super Bowl the Old York Super Bowl - get them and the Infadels to jam and see if Kasabian wants to sit in. A tribute to England, a potential expansion site, and something that would blow the doors off the joint.

And, if Bill Simmons' idea of a Las Vegas domed stadium ever comes to fruition, bring in some dancing Elvis impersonators, Michael Buble' and The Killers. DONE. Do NOT over think this.

Let the Super Bowl rock. Instead of having countless pundits and writers yawn about yet-another boring halftime show, or something that's rather dull, give them something you've never done before, NFL - don't follow, but LEAD! Show that you have an idea of what is popular, and do it without recruiting MTV or Facebook or The Wiggles or whatnot to "find out what the kids are listening to these days."

Now, I'm sure they're in the planning stages of these up-coming shows, and thinking "Hey, let's do a tribute to disco!" or "There's a band my trophy wife likes... Marooned Live or Marude Fide or something like that." NO! Stop. Step away from the decision-making process. In fact, go jump off a building. Preferably a tall one with little-to-no awnings to break your fall.

Or, barring all that...bring back Brian Boitano. He seemed like a nice guy.

Why I Hate the South...and the North

Your states started a war to keep people enslaved.



Your people enjoy and take pride in being undereducated, overweight and isolationist.



You belabor under the belief that houses require wheels.



Even when he is obviously wrong, undeniably factually in error, or making a logical jump so great as to be defined by professionals as borderline insane, as in "there's no way any sane person can think he's not making this crap up," you still think Rush is Right.



You soak sour pork in vinegar and dare call it barbecue - an affront to all things holy.



Your idea of birth control is doing jumping jacks and using Cheerwine in an unauthorized manner. Your mothers take their entire litter of whining little deep-fried future felons to Walmart as a bizarre combination playdate/educational experience/day care/chance to meet their real dad operating the fork lift as opposed to 'Marty' the guy who randomly sleeps in Mommy's bed.



You should have convinced Britney Spears to go topless when she was still young and firm. You had her during her formative years, and, quite frankly, I expected better from you.



You still have Stuckeys. You're hoarding all the Steak`n' Shakes along with your partners-in-arms, the Midwesterners.



You won't spend 60 minutes with your kids watching Sesame Street, but you'll drag them to some place called "Talladega" and make them watch cars go around in a circle for 4 hours.



You somehow think "sweet tea" is vastly superior to, and will refuse to drink, regular old "tea with sugar." You can not taste the difference, but your Type 2 Diabetes spawning in your leg can.



SOMEBODY is giving donations to Sarah Palin, and, last I checked, it wasn't us.



Your accent grates like a delicate Roquefort on an antique Mouli grater.



You do not know what that last sentence means.



You are convinced that wrestling is real. life. drama.



Your insects are the size of a Hollywood starlet's dogs. Even a small dog is a big bug.



Truck Nutz.



The Dukes of Hazzard, despite your most earnest thoughts and wishes, is not a documentary.



One of your people invented a thing called a cotton gin that contains no gin. Bad form.



You took all the hockey teams from nice, hard-working Canadian towns, changed their names and then got distracted by something shiny resembling the Virgin Mary in a Ford F-350's headlight outside of Plant Runoff Creek, Kentucky, and forgot you had them.


Seersucker. You have a lot to pay for that.



According to Jim lasted twice as long as Arrested Development. Not really your fault, but you're getting the blame anyway.



Every once in a while, you develop an amazing talent, like Terry Southern, and promptly ignore him cos' there's a water-skiin' squirrel on channel 49.



You openly dislike the Federal Government and then get mad when the Federal Government doesn't give you enough money.

-----------------





Why I Hate the North





IT IS GOT-DAYUMED COLD UP HERE, Y'ALL!!!!

Bad gifts from Gawker.com

My mother's favorite movie is A Christmas Story because my aunt gave me the similarly-awful gifts as the aunt did to Ralphie. And, as these occurred in the years prior to the movie, her gifts weren't some sort of homage - they were simply horribly inappropriate.

Before I turned 4, she gave me a bottle of non-alcoholic wine. Except...it wasn't non-alcoholic. It was a Cab Sav. I drank "the funny-tasting grape juice" from my sippy cup, taking careful measures not to spill any of the special juice. 30 minutes later, I took a tumble down her stairs in Arlington, VA, adding a noticeable scar to my head and a look of shock from my poor mother when she realized her sister unwittingly fed my pre-school alcoholism.

The next year, I got a pair of bright pink denim jeans with the cartoon character "Ziggy" on the back pocket. I know it was 1978, but I was a boy, and Ziggy was hardly a symbol of youthful pride. Ziggy also looked like he was grabbing a feel down my drawers.

The next year, I got a silver bell that had a music box in it. It played a stamped-tin version of "The way we were." Looking back, I'm convinced my aunt wanted me to be a drag queen.

In 1980, she got me a subscription to "Omni" Magazine. A magazine about science, discovery and the future aimed decidedly at adults. I was a smart 6 year old, but...damn. This magazine was over scientists' heads, much less a kid who couldn't make the t-ball team.

The next year, she continued on the science theme and bought me a microscope. Not a Fisher-Price microscope, or something geared for kids, but the type you'd have used in a good high school biology class or in college. Here's the kicker - the thing was missing a piece in the lens assembly, so everything I looked at was black. She thought she unlocked the secrets of the universe for me; and I thought that I was losing my vision at the ripe old age of 7.

She then decided to get me books on ridiculous subjects over the next few years. French Impressionist Art designed for a college student, not a finger-painting 8 year old. A technical cookbook. A medical textbook about anatomy, thinking I'd be a doctor. The kicker was a bunch of reproductions of Civil War battlefields done up in a horrific oil paint style akin to that of tourist trap sea shells.

My mom eventually remarried, and my step-dad had his flaws, but he was a very good gift giver. When he saw my aunt get me a ridiculous gift for an 11 year old boy - a book on saving for retirement - he basically called her a freak. "Buy the kid a toy!" he exclaimed. She replied "they're a waste of time for such a fertile mind! No child needs a toy."

Thank goodness she never reproduced.

The next year, she bought me biotech stock from a horribly mismanaged company. Any casual observer knows that stocks *generally* go up. This stock was purchased at $7 a share over 20-some years ago. It was last trading on the NASDAQ for less than a dollar before getting delisted a couple of years ago. Meanwhile, the same amount of money she pissed away could have bought Dell - then a penny stock! - and I'd have had about 5000 shares of it by now. Or even Microsoft, which has split several times since then. Either one could have bought me a car, or a house, or paid-off my student loans. Her quote -"'nobody will remember them in 2000. Biotech is the way to go!"

*sigh*

She eventually decided on a few years of checks at the urging of my mother, and at the constant badgering of other members of the family. However, she couldn't let my college major of Radio and Television Broadcasting with a journalism and history minors go unnoticed. She bought me a series of books about legends in broadcasting and print - Dan Rather, Ted Turner. All the President's Men. She'd finally gotten me appropriate things to my life! However, she told me not to bother being a local sportscaster or a morning show deejay - both of which I ended up doing - but to *RUN* a network. So, she bought me the William S. Paley biography. He ran CBS for years, and was a titan in the industry. To be fair, it was actually a decent read, and had awesome historical photos of the early days of the CBS empire.

It was so awesome she bought it for me again THE VERY NEXT YEAR.

Same book. Same version. Same printing. Same cover. Everything.

My contribution:

I received another book the next Christmas. I'll give you a hint - the paperback version of the William S. Paley book.

The next year, my mom and my aunt were poking around the mall, and stopped in a bookstore. My aunt was going to get me a book for my birthday.

Yup. You guessed it.

My mom said "how many f*cking times are you going to buy him that book?"

My aunt actually had no idea that she'd bought me the same thing three years in a row.

I'm now 37, and I received her package in the mail for Christmas this week. I'll open it Saturday, and I can already tell it's a book.

Defending the President

Like he needs my help, but really, this photo sums it up for me. Excuse me while I wipe a small thing that..um...flew into my eye just now.

He's more American than we've had in the office for a long time.

Keep Common Sense Alive

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My message on Title24

Mr. Helder,

Once upon a time, I worked in a suburban office park surrounded by scores of mid-priced, casual dining options nearby. Before that, I worked in the downtown of a large Midwestern city, and could eat in all sorts of Establishments from 4 star steak houses to casual Italian places or sandwich joints with good food at affordable prices. My first Government contracting job placed me in Crystal City, Virginia, offering a wonderful assortment of lunch and after-work-oriented establishments. I am now stationed in L'Enfant Plaza, where my options for dining are either a cafeteria that offers entrees that could double as a salt lick; a few chain sub shops that offer bland - sometimes moldy - sandwiches; and, a series of weigh-and-pay restaurants that shovel mass-produced crap upon the hungry masses.

Had I known that L'Enfant Plaza was the area where affordable, decent food went to die, I would have asked for hazard duty pay.

My job, mind-numbing at best and downright stressful at worst, has but one real respite - when my Facebook or Twitter feed tells me that Sauca, El Floridian, Curbside Cupcakes or even DCSlices is coming to sell their wares in L'Enfant, or Federal Center SW, or by the Smithsonian. The future of a mind-numbing 2011 is only parsed by hearing that Fry Captain, a Korean taco truck - heck, even a Mac-n-Cheese truck sounds awesome - when compared to a corn-syrup and MSG-laden existence.

I can see why established, brick-and-mortar restaurants would complain about the food trucks - it's competition, and competition can be scary. I will also note that the restaurants of D.C. never minded the regular old run-of-the-mill food carts that sell hot dogs, chips and sodas to the tourists running around the Mall. Now that they have some sort of competition, they are in a panic, and rather than innovating, revamping their menus, or offering higher-quality products, they're whining to their elected officials to put the food trucks in a competitive disadvantage. Notice that it's not the places designed for lobbyists and expense accounts that are complaining - Charlie Palmer Steak, Fogo, Central and Oyamel aren't crying because there's a new type of dining option on the streets. It's the places that serve barely-edible food, thinking that a silly mobile truck is taking their customers away. Make no mistake - people aren't leaving the existing establishments against their collective will - they're going because the trucks offer better, more interesting food options.

Please consider any legislation that attacks the food trucks is a ruling against competition, and against the citizens who live and work in the District.

Sincerely,

Raymond Bradley
www.dcfud.com

The Expendables - I AM A MAN!

I saw The Expendables friday night. The theater cheered for the first appearance of all of the bad-ass guys, the theater booed for the trailer of the next M. Night Shamending movie, applauded the new Jeremy Renner/Ben Affleck/Jon Hamm movie The Town, and damned near gave the Old Spice Guy commercial a standing ovation. The movie has exactly zero continuity, zero story line, minimal character development, and plot holes the size of Nebraska. However, a lot of stuff gone blown the hell up, and various exclamations of "MEN! MANLY MEN!!, "USA! USA!" "SUCK IT EAT PRAY LOVE!!!" and a theater-wide "AMERICA!!! FUCK YEAH!!!" call-and-response were shouted towards the end.

The entire audience was 90% male at the showing in DC, and I would say every single one of us were in on the joke.

The movie is so manly, it got me pregnant.

Soft Mall.

finally checked something off the old informal, non-written, but still kinda-there Bucket List - play softball on the Mall.

When I was a little kid, my aunt worked at Treasury, and she'd sometimes take me into work with her. "Take Your Kid to Work" days were tough on her because she couldn't have kids, and by having me around, I was her child-by-proxy. We usually took the underground tunnels over to visit Uncle Paul for lunch, and to head over to the Metro, but one late-summer day, we walked along the Mall. The sun was just ever-so-slightly beginning to head towards sunset, and I watched these folks play softball with the backdrop of the Monument behind them. It seemed so damned idyllic, and so utterly amazing to see how such a space could be used - the very same stretch of land that I saw the 1976 Bicentennial Fireworks from, the kite festivals, the lingering protests from the MIA/POW crowd, the historical pictures of the Hoovervilles and the Freedom March...and here were these folks playing softball, laughing, smiling, competing. I guess it was about 1984, where any normal 11 year old Baltimore fan like myself simply assumed that a career of baseball greatness awaited me at Memorial Stadium, and I snickered at these Government workers, lawyers and Hill staffers trying to play a clearly-substandard game. So while I thought *I* would never play such a gastly sport like softball - real men play baseball, damn it - I had to admit, they looked like they were having the time of their lives.

So, I thought "once my obvious Hall of Fame career as a Baltimore Oriole is over, I will play softball on the Mall and show these punks how it is DONE."

Check and mate, Life, Irony and Fate. Check and mate.

my latest DCFUD rant.

From : http://www.dcfud.com/?p=2259

Food writer Jacquelynn D. Powers recently listed 6 food trends she wants to see disappear in an article for The Daily Beast. For the most part, she’s pretty spot-on on identifying the most notorious offenders - bacon overload is indeed a slippery slope, folks - and sliders are appearing on more menus than buffalo wings in the `90s.

But when she declares ”Food Trucks Drive Me Crazy” because they’re expanding in hip, dynamic cities, and possibly gumming up New York City’s already gummed-up traffic, I have to wonder if she has ever stepped her foodie foot in the shoes of the average D.C. office drone, like, frankly, me. Walk a mile in my shoes, Powers, and see if you aren’t BEGGING for a food truck by the 1000ft marker.

Had I paid a bit more attention to societal trends in my youth, I doubt that I would have majored in Mass Communications with the intent of working in radio and television. Had I realized how much it would suck moving town-to-town, up-and-down the dial WKRP-style, I would have followed my aunt’s wishes and gone to business school. Had I overruled my city-fearing mom, I’d have used my savings from my childhood weekly allowance to buy dozens of the Dollar Houses that I *KNEW* would be worth millions one day, making me Baltimore’s youngest, most adorable slumlord. Had I realized how much I’d like helping a future girlfriend study for medical school, I would have followed my grandmother’s wishes and been a doctor. Had I realized how ridiculously well-connected my uncle was on the Hill, I’d have become yet-another DC policy lawyer with a blog, a BMW, an expense account and at least one hot Russian spy mistress. However, I didn’t realize a damned thing other than Mass Communications is the easiest major you can possibly have short of Mime for the Vision Impaired and still get a Bachelor of Science degree from an accredited university. It gave me the job skills to be one hell of a morning show deejay – if people still listened to the radio – and how to wear a suit while on-camera so that it doesn’t bunch up around the shoulders. Sadly, that’s a lesson I could have learned by simply renting Broadcast News and saving $10,000 in student loans.

My point? I am not a high-falutin’ big shot lawyer, doctor, real estate developer or business expert that can afford to dine in the District’s many high-end lunch establishments on the client’s dime. Chances are, you aren’t, either. I’m a standard Government drone - a cog in the not-terribly-well-oiled machine that runs D.C. - and I do have neither the money nor the three hours to kill to eat at places I can’t pronounce. I get about 30 minutes to either stand in line at a McDonald’s, a Potbelly, or a Weigh-and-Pay; drown my over-developed taste buds with over-salted salad dressing on an under-flavored salad; and then scurry back to the office before my over-paid, under-qualified bosses yell at my near-tardiness. So excuse the hell outta me if I want a little variety in my life, and the easiest way I can achieve a temporary sense of dining Nirvana is to eat a Cuban sandwich perfectly prepared in the back of a big white truck that could have been hauling plumbing supplies a couple of years earlier for all I know.

The District has been a little slow to hop on the big city food truck ride, but now that we’re on it, why stop? A quick look at the Washington Post’s new food truck’s Twitter aggregator shows a pretty decent sampling of wheel-based dining options. Tacos. Pizza. Subs. Indian food with a kickin’ soundtrack. Cupcakes. Cupcakes. OK, maybe Powers has a point about the overpopulation of cupcake outlets, but at least these are GOOD cupcakes. But the main issue is this: for those of us unwashed masses who yearn to eat free, getting ethnic foods and sweet treats from the backs of trucks serve as welcome respite to the otherwise mind-numbing lack of variety and flavor we’d otherwise endure. Not to get too NRA on ya, but they’ll get my food trucks when they pry my cold dead fingers from their bumpers.

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Since this is more of a rant than an actual review, I’ll simply say that the Cubans from El Floridano; Curbside’s Cookies and Cream, Orange Dreamsicle and Sweetbites’s Pina Colada cupcakes; DCSlice’s pies and Fojol’s whimsical sense with buttered chicken and basmati rice are all pretty WHAMMY!-worthy. Mad I missed your favorite truck? Tell them to drive to L’Enfant Plaza and ask for good ole’ Five. Interested in a new dining truck idea? Drop me a line. I have thoughts.

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Well, colour me unimpressed

A few weeks ago, my friend John mentioned that he'd been hearing rumors about a reborn HFStival. To folks of a certain age - say, late-20s to early-40s - HFStivals were synonymous with incredible music, awesome cameos, and the type of delirium that overexposure to the sun, dehydration and possible eardrum damage that stews into a wondrous bouillabaisse. Some of my best concert experiences happened at HFStivals - INXS, Foo Fighters, Prodigy, James, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Siouxsie and the Banshees, drinking with John Stewart, hugging Jewel and then watching her get smacked in the mouth - the list could stretch for pages, if I wanted to name all the incredible acts I've seen, thanks to my erstwhile employer.

Hell, here's No Doubt rocking out in 1996. Look at the vitality in this shot.



Yeah. I took that.

So, lo and behold, the rumor mill ground up some fine-powdered truth. Imagine my excitement and surprise when I found out the HFStival is back, baby! The date has been set - September 18th. They've got a place - Merriweather Post Pavillion. Two stages - a local and a main stage. The lineup is out - and it's not exactly overwhelming. From WHFS HD2's website, here's the link, and tell me which of these main stage bands sets your 2010 heart a-flutter. If this was 1997, this lineup would be solid. Hell, bring back Clinton/Gore and let ole' VP Al clean up this mess in the Gulf. It's 2010, however, and I think Third Eye Blind is the only band that has had a hit in the last decade. The Local Stage is fine - Jimmies' Chicken Shack, Fools and Horses, Jah Works, Honor By August - those are some quality acts. But the main stage... wow.

I swear, it's like a Midwestern State Fair of Alternative Rock. I'd expect this lineup to grace the Nebraska State Fairgrounds next year with Bachman Turner Overdrive, Kansas and The REAL Beach Boys playing the next night. Everclear will always have a soft spot in my heart - after all, I got to hang out with them in the 1996 HFStival, and Art Alexakis has more daddy issues than all the characters in "Lost." Lit? My Own Worst Enemy is a good tune, but they could never duplicate the success of that song. Presidents of the United States of America? Fun for a few songs, but I saw them back in their hey-day, and didn't make me say "hey." Fuel - two hits, and then wanted friggin' Chris Daughtry of American Idol to be their new lead singer. WEAK. And really, has a band ever gotten more publicity for saying "placenta" than Live, or, in this case, the remnants of Live?

As for Marcy Playground - they had ONE song. ONE. And, it's not even a good song. "I smell sex and candy, here. Who's that lounging in my chair?" Wow. Bob Dylan must be scared of that poetry.

Who came up with this Hot Tub Time Machine splatter-pattern of late-90s detrius??

I'm sure a few thousand people will show up, and they'll listen to the bands, and bemoan that HFS is gone, crying about the state of local radio as they stash their iPods, and the people who obstensibly run HFS HD2 will trot out old favorites like Weasel or Johnny Riggs and everybody can pretend it's 1998 again and everything rocks and they will tell themselves that they still rock. But isn't this merely a lame money marketing ploy to bring together some past their prime musical acts and call it an HFStival when the true title of "Has-Beens, Used-to-Bes and Never-Weres Invade The Suburbs" is so much more appropriate?

Towards a Better Telecomic

For those of you who remember me as a child, this may be hard to believe. For those of you who have known me in my thirties, this will not be a surprise at all. And, for those of you who met me during college and my 20s, this will be more explanatory than anything else:

I am FAT. Note that I did not spell that with a PH.

Now, I'm not grotesquely fat by any stretch. I'm hardly the Second Coming of His Donut-Holeyness John Goodman or anything, but I've indeed got some pudge. The lingering effect of my lung infection of 2007 was a lung steroid regimine throughout 2007, 2008 and half of 2009. Can I breathe easier? Eh...not really. Did I gain 35 pounds? Oh yeah.

The lung steroid was supposed to make my lungs stronger, more capable of fighting back this bacterial Visigoth sacking my Roman bronchiole. Unfortunately, my immune system did a passable version of Nero, and the steroids simply turned me in a reasonable facsimilie of the little-known emperor Corpulous. You won't find him on Wiki, but that name sounds like it'd be perfect for a pudgy Caesar.

See, this is a great lesson in doctor/patient communication, and the fallout of poor doctor/patient communication. The steroids did accomplish one goal - turn my already-strong appetite into a movie character ably portrayed by Jason Stratham. Much like Spinal Tap's amps, my pie hole got turned to 11. The steroids turned me into an eating machine - part-Joey Chestnut eating hot dogs, part Monty Python skit, one thin mint away from a horrible explosion.

TO that end, I have come up with my motto for 2010 - Less. Just Less. Less food. Less gluttony, which, hopefully, will lead to less gut-on-me.

What I've decided to do is a form of public humiliation. A lot of toolbags get on the MySpaceter or the Twitbook or what-have-you, and post up sexy photos of themselves. For years, I thought "Look at my abs!" was a nice way of saying "Look where my scout leader touched me!" Well, I'm going to use a similar form of public humiliation on myself. If I DON'T lose weight, and get rid of my mid-30s paunch, I'll post up decidedly UNSEXY photos of my flabs, and let you all mock them incessantly. And I want you to make those barbs HURT - no mercy. Make me cry, though if I had any true emotions left, I might indulge your slings and arrows.

So begins 2010, a week before it says so on the ole' Blackberry.

Merry Christmas to all. May your holidays be decidedly less-sucky than most.

I Can't See Russia From My House Because There Is No Alaska

For those of you who have sauntered over to my blog from Facebook, welcome. This is OBPOPCULTREF, which, way back when I started this lofty project, was either going to get me a book deal or back into broadcasting. It has done neither, and done so in spectacular fashion.

What it has become is a digital diary, of sorts. It's ebbed and flowed as much as the tides in the Bay, but with less pollution and more crabs. I never intended it to become a diary, but, that's what it somewhat is - a place to opine, rant like a less-funny and less-cancerous Bill Hicks, wax nostalgic in rose-coloured glasses and to occasionally whine like a little bitch. Tonight's post is going to be a bit of rant and a bit of whine...and some nostalgia. I've put off this first part long enough.

Bubby, the dog my mother and I have split custody of the past 11 years, passed away on August 4. I had to put her down due to internal bleeding - her spleen had ruptured, and she was bleeding from her lungs and heart. It was the humane thing to do, and I don't regret putting her to sleep. She would have died in a matter of hours, possibly a day or two tops, anyway. I hoped to allow her to pass away with some dignity, with myself and Kramer by her side.

The end, and this is probably true for all of us, comes when we least suspect it. I made no illusions of my dogs' immortality - I knew when I moved to Rockville last year that this would probably be Bubby's, and possibly Kramer's, last house. Bubby was 12 1/2 years old, which, for a larger dog, is a goodly amount of time. But if you had seen Bubby on Saturday, August 1, you'd swear that dog was 5 or 6. She ran around with Bart and I outside, chasing after us as we rode our bikes up and down the street. She was a puppy again, even if for a moment, wagging, barking, and, God damn it, she was smiling.

That next evening, she seemed lethargic even by her lazy standards. Bubby was never an active dog, but she was always responsive and alert. The next morning, I took her outside so she could do her business, and instead of bee-lining it to the backyard, she tried to crawl under the deck. That is never a good sign.

Some dogs will try to hide when they *know* what happens next. It's a weird, inane trait that I've seen in a few dogs. It's as though they don't want to be a burden, so they go out of sight, thinking that their last few moments on Earth should be spent in solitude.

At the time, I figured it was simply her bad hip acting up. I planned to take her to the vet on Tuesday, see what's going on. She was too healthy to be TOO sick, right?

That night, I carried her into the little futon we have in the spare room, and I laid down with her, holding her until she could fall asleep. I had given her a couple of aspirin and a nighttime pain pill, since I could tell she was in discomfort.

The next morning, that Tuesday, I carried her out of bed to the yard, so she could take a bathroom break. She simply panted and tried to crawl under the shrubs. I called the emergency vet around the corner, and Dr. Hambright, another vet here in Rockville. Hopefully one of them could see her, and tell me what was wrong with her hip.

An hour later, I'm at Dr. Hambright's office with Bubby in my arms, and Kramer on a leash, sniffing everything and being the friendly, happy dog he is. Dr. Hambright took one look at Bubby, and whisked her into the examining room. Five minutes later, he gave me the awful diagnosis.

"Massive internal bleeding, mostly due to cancer."

I was stunned. How could this dog, who had been SO lively and just a few days before, have been riddled with cancer? Surely there would have been a sign, a lump, something, right?

Sometimes, it's all internal, and the dog can't tell you if something feels less-than-normal. Dogs don't get mammograms.

Within thirty minutes, I had called Mark, Bart and my mom, and we said our goodbyes. Bart couldn't believe it, seeing her frolic like she did on Saturday. Mom, who had been here in Maryland to visit over the Fourth of July, was a mess. She had commented routinely that she couldn't believe how great the dogs looked. And now, barely a month later, Bubby would pass on.

Gene Weingarten, the immensely talented writer for the Washington Post, had written a feature about his beloved dog, Harry, in 2008. I've linked to it here. Please, go read that, and come back in a few moments to read mine.

You done? Crying, aren't you? If you're not, you either didn't read the whole thing, or you're not a dog-person. With Bubby laying there on the table, I remembered that entire story, and something he said in a follow-up chat on the Post's website. A person asked Gene how he could be there by Harry's side as he was put down, that the questioner himself couldn't do it. Gene said, and I'm paraphrasing, that dogs don't ask much of us, really. Food, shelter, affection. In return, they give us companionship, warmth, security. They're not as needy as children, don't require the constant attention of a baby. The least we can do, in their final moments, is to be by their side as they slip off into the great unknown. They're sick, they're scared, and they need some sort of reassurance.

My Lord did those words stick in my head as I held Bubby's paw. I held her paw through the entire process, telling her the constant truth that she was an absolutely wonderful dog, and, frankly, a great friend. I wanted to be there for Bubby, and Gene and his wife were for Harry. One final kiss. A wag.

Except Bubby had too much grace, or pride, for that grand of a gesture. She was classy, reserved. She stared off straight ahead, looking a thousand yards away. Never made eye contact with me but for a moment, never acknowledging Kramer, or even the vet. She passed away gently, probably pissed off that I had taken her to the vet. Her name was Bubby, and much like my Grandmother for whom she was named in tribute, she didn't like much fuss.

"She's gone" said Dr. Hambright, his stethoscope to her heart. He's been a vet for years, and he's probably said that a thousand times. He still said it with compassion and a crack in his voice. He'd just met me, and my furry brood, and yet, he knew. For that, I thank him.

I came in with a dog, and I'd be leaving with a corpse. That's a hell of a bait-and-switch there.

I took that day off work. I was in no state to go sit in a quiet cubicle with only my thoughts and regrets to keep me company. I took her lifeless body home, not exactly sure what to do with her remains. I took Kramer down to the hardware store with me, where we bought a camellia plant, amazingly enough called a Kramer's Supreme Camellia. Seemed like I had to buy that, huh? I planted that in the backyard with her remains in a simple ceremony, where Bart, Mark, Kramer, and our friends Stefanie, Elaine and her dog Koosh attended.

So, that was the memorial for Bubby that I have neglected to write for the past two and a half months. The "wax nostalgic" part is now complete. Let me now switch gears to rant and whine.

Last month, one of our neighbors stayed home during the week, and heard howling coming from our house. Obviously, it was Kramer. He had handled Bubby's passing so incredibly well - no whining, no chewing, no messing in the house. He handled it, dare I say, better than the humans in the house did. Mark had been looking for Bubby to let her out when he got home from work. Bart wanted to take her for a walk. I wanted to take her for a ride in the car. All of us momentarily forgetting that was no longer an option. Kramer had seemed to be the portrait of strength through all this. In a way, his normalcy made it easier for us to be, well, normal.

Except, he wasn't. While he was alone, in the house, he was a sad, lonely dog. He's never been one for doggie day care - one attempt back in Virginia with Bubby had the day care center remark "all they do is sleep!" He doesn't need 10 walks a day, he doesn't need 500 chew toys. He needed a friend, a furry friend during the day while his humans were out earning a paycheck.

So, I went to the Humane Society in Montgomery County last month. I figured that they would probably have quite a few dogs - given the lousy economy, I'm sure for some families, a canine is no longer an affordable luxury.

Even the best, cleanest, friendliest animal shelter is still a depressing place. Dozens of dogs living in close quarters, some who routinely mess in their pen, and cats with horrible litter pan aim, plus various rabbits, birds and lizards, it makes for a hell of a smell. It's like a Bouillabaisse made by an evil witch who learned her spells at Le Cordon Bleu. The cats are meowing, the dogs are barking and howling, and the smell of wet dog fur and dried urine hits your nose, it's sensory overload, and not in that fun "Vegas Casino" or "Awesome Theme Park Ride" kind of way.

It's like a prison. I've never been to a real prison, but, this seems about right. In fact, Mark noted that when a dog was let out of the pen to go outside, all the other dogs barked and howled like the old-time prisoners clanging their tin cups against the bars. "Here comes the new guy, let's razz him!"

In this four-legged Shawshank, most dogs have a look of desperation to them. They want out, and they will wag their tales, bark, jump enthusiastically, howl, run around in circles, anything to get the attention of a potential adopter. They don't know how desperate things are, how close to euthanasia they may be, or even how they ended up in this place. They just want to get out.

Other dogs are a little more mellow. Either they're older and just naturally calmer, or they're in a state of shock. Their eyes are scared, you can see it. They're not looking to impress; they just can't believe they're not where they were before. Maybe a family abandoned them. Perhaps they got away from their house, and had no idea how to get back. Who knows their backstory, really, for many of these dogs?

One of these dogs was Coltrane. Coltrane is a fairly young Lab/Pit Bull mix. He has, much like his namesake, a lot of soul. You can see the fear, the unease, in his eyes. He is not a barker. He is not a whiner. He is scared, and he is stunned. But the kindness and gentleness was obvious. He locked eyes with me, and it was amazing how those two dark eyes could show so much emotional chaos. I could tell he wanted to be somebody's pet, if he wasn't already a pet beforehand. I wrote down his name, just in case I didn't see any other dogs I liked. He looked like he might take some serious time to socialize.

Which brings me to this point - The Montgomery County Animal Shelter seems to have room for about 100 dogs. They're not completely full, but, they're close. Maybe one or two empty stalls. More than half of the dogs there are either pit bulls, or pit bull mixes. Some have obvious scarring and wounds that are consistent with fights, but most are simply pretty healthy dogs. Why are so many of them in there? I don't know exactly, but I'd reckon that most apartment complexes and community associations here in the County are not exactly pit bull-friendly. For the love of God people, read your *&@&! lease before you adopt a dog.

The pit bulls and the pit mixes are so numerous that the other breeds and non-pit mixes stand out. Flash, the German Shepard/Basset Hound mix was too cool for words, and fortunately, he's got a new home, away from the Canine Riker's Island. The huge Mastiff who is more content to eat his bed than to sleep on it. Then, there was Alaska, a positively lovely Malamute/Husky mix. Her friendly face and soft fur had me immediately, and she wagged her fluffy tail when I said her name. Her eyes were alert, ears perked, but was not as needy as the scores of dogs around her. I spent some time next to her cage, and she was very comfortable with me. I was pretty sure I would put in the adoption paperwork for her, provided she got along with Bart, Mark and Kramer.



This is where things get screwy. I met this dog, felt an instant connection, and had a good feeling about my ability to train her. The kennel staff member told me that I could bring Kramer buy for a fence visit - meaning Alaska would stay in the back outdoor area while Kramer would walk up to her from the parking lot, and sniff each other through the fence. I brought Kramer by the next day to do this, but was told by a different senior staff member, in a very direct, very rude tone, that they don't do that process anymore. I would need to put in the adoption paperwork BEFORE introducing her to Kramer. THEN, before meeting Kramer, I would need to have my human housemates meet her. THEN, before meeting Kramer again, I'd have to be judged worthy of adopting her. Only THEN could Kramer meet the new dog.

Weird, I replied. I was just told the opposite thing yesterday about the fence visit, but, hell, we can save everybody a ton of trouble if we just see if the two dogs get along. Kramer, despite anything Mark, Bart or I say, has the most important word. Or, bark, in this case.

A sympathetic worker arranged for a fence visit after all. Kramer and Alaska met through the fence, sniffed each other and wagged their tails. They seemed like fast friends, even though Alaska was a good 20 pounds heavier than Kramer and was obviously really excited to be outside. They seemed fine with each other, and she was responsive to me again.

I went back inside, and filled out the application for Alaska. She'd be a big dog, a big furry handful indeed, but I was certain she'd be a great pet. I filled out the paperwork, including my job info, my lease info, stuff about my house, my car. Part of the application deals with previous family pets, and pets I had cared for. I stuck with the highlights - JJ the Pomeranian, Bud and Vern the Chows, Glomer my rescue kitty in Des Moines, and my beloved box kitten Squeaky. Of course, Kramer and Bubby. I threw in some info about Uncle Larry's old dog Bandit, a lovely Norwegian Elkhound he had back in the early 1980s, figuring that more furry dog experience would look awesome on the application.

I thought right. The woman looked over the adoption paperwork, and noted "oh, Chow Chow and Elkhound experience, excellent... ." I didn't have the heart to tell her that my Elkhound experience was mainly getting out of the way of that horny furry bastard's unneutered crotch. That dog was pretty, but he was the jackrabbit of dogs. He humped my leg, my mom's leg, Uncle Larry's leg, my grandma's leg, the old tree out in the backyard, various shrubs and plants.

Here's where I should have known this would get fouled up - Alaska had been in the pound for barely two weeks, but already had two adoption applications in. The Humane Society does not tell you this when you put in the effort to meet the dog, get to know the dog, get kind of attached to the dog - they tell you this AFTER you have put in your application. Well, shit. Thanks?! Hell of a thing to meet this gorgeous, amazing dog, and find out "You're number three on our list for her."

Number three? Sheesh. That dog was essentially a high school student looking to go to college. Choice one would be the school she REALLY wants to go to. Choice two may not be as good academically, but she'd have a lot of friends there. Choice three was the local community college that's known for having a kick-ass vending machine. We were choice three.

I sneaked a peak at the applications in front of mine. Application number one, choice number one, was an address in Potomac, Maryland, on a street named after an old famous author. Potomac, for those of you who don't know the socio-economic levels of The Old Line State, is the wealthiest zip code in the wealthiest state, per capita, in the United States. It is home to diplomats, heads of state, actors, writers, lawyers, Arab oil barons, British royalty, Jewish property developers, Japanese tech investors, Italian shipping tycoons, and the dozens of Latina women who clean their houses. How wealthy is Potomac? You know that show "Beverly Hills 90210?" The original script was called "Potomac 20854." The town has big cash money, and I figured that Alaska would look wonderful in a house where the guest house's guest house is bigger than our house.

Alaska's first-choice school was Oxford, and we were TESST Electronic Schools, where you can train to be a printer or copy repairman in just a few short weeks. We ranked about one step above Sally Struther's old infomercial school and one step about Larry the Cable Guy's "Get `Er Done!" School of Toilet Clogging.

I went home pretty convinced we wouldn't get the dog, and it was too late in the evening for me to fill out paperwork on another dog.

Imagine my surprise when, almost two weeks later, I get a phone call from the Humane Society. We were now the number one application, and they needed to meet Mark and Bart. We went up last Saturday and met the dog. The gang loved her. Hopefully she could meet Kramer that day, too, and we could head on home, a two-dog household again. Alaska was friendly and hyper and sweet and excited, just like a young dog should be, but we were told we couldn't introduce her to Kramer yet. She'd been in the shelter for a month, and I hoped that her time there wasn't giving her too many bad habits. However, she responded well to my commands on the leash, lending credence to my theory that she merely needed some discipline and affection to become a great pet. She leaned up against Mark and Bart, and she offered me her paw without prompting. Yup, that sealed the deal. We wanted her. We just had one more small step...

The Adoption Nazi.

Now, she's not really a Nazi. She's got a thick accent, very much like Zorba the Greek. And you can tell she's a nice enough lady, and genuinely cares for dogs. So, she's definitely not really a Nazi. However, she is the interviewer for the Humane Society, and what she says, goes. She's like the matchmaker, a canine Yenta, if you will. If she doesn't get a good vibe with the adoptable dog and the potential owner, no dice. I could easily picture her saying "No dog for you for ONE YEAR!"

(Hey, my dog's named Kramer for a reason. I didn't love "Seinfeld" the TV show as much as I loved the characters on it. )

Kramer and I went to the Humane Society on Wednesday afternoon, hoping to FINALLY get this dog, nearly a month after this saga began. All we'd need is for the two pups to like each other, I pay the adoption fee, and we've got a new dog.

I knew something was wrong when I pulled into the parking lot. Alaska was straining against her leash, and the poor little female kennel staff member could barely hold her. She was extremely excited, but not towards me, or the car, or Kramer in the backseat. A large man took Alaska's lead, and kept her still. I take Kramer out of the car, and walk him towards Alaska. She strained at her leash again, to get a good look at Kramer. At this point in his life, Kramer is all about everybody, meaning that he wants to smell everything, and the big furry dog is about as interesting as the Adoption Nazi, the little female staffer, the large man, or the tree in the front yard. He eventually got over to Alaska, wagging his tail. So was Alaska, but the man had a hell of a grip on her leash. She started barking, and leapt forward, running into Kramer and knocking him off his paws for a second. She barked again, as Kramer smelled other things in the area. She lunged again, and this time the guy yanked back on the leash, making her bark and growl for a second.

The Adoption Nazi had seen enough.

"No, No no you cannot adopt this dog! This dog hate your dog!" she exclaimed through her thick accent. "She will hurt your sweet dog."

The large man hauled Alaska back into the kennel.

I said "she seemed a little riled up before I even pulled into the lot. I could see her straining-"

My Big Fat Greek Adoption Nazi interrupted me. "No, Alaska is not good with dogs! She hurt your dog!"

For the record, Alaska's adoption sheet, the canine equivalent of a Playboy Centerfold Data Sheet, said she's great with other dogs. She also likes long walks, cold weather, and Steely Dan.

That was the last I saw of Alaska.

The Adoption Nazi was not through, though. She asked me about what kind of a dog I was looking for, who Kramer would enjoy. I expressed shock that Alaska was so leash-aggressive around Kramer, because they were fine a few days a-

She cut me off again. "You like young dog? Old dog?" She said it like one of those doormen in front of a strip club in a seedy part of town. "Hey kid, you like redheads? I got redheads in here. You like Asian girls with stab wounds? I got Asians with stab wounds in here."

I resigned myself to the fact that Alaska was not to be. Adoption Nazi will not allow it. If I want to see Alaska, I'd better book a Carnival Cruise.

I asked about the funny Shepard/Basset hound mix, and found out he'd been adopted this weekend. I mentioned that I was looking for a younger dog, if not really a puppy. She said "I have a six year old Border Collie mix."

Unless you're talking about a tree or Roman Polanski's sexual preferences, six is not exactly young, but, Bubby was half Border Collie, and they are generally good dogs. My semi-photographic memory kicked in, as I went through the mental inventory of dogs I had seen on Saturday. I didn't recall too many middle-aged dogs...maybe he just came in...

Or, maybe, it's because the only other dog that matched the breed mix was a lot older than six years old. She trots out Bobo, a sweet little old man, but every bit of ten years old, if not older. He's a Border Collie/Shepard mix, with a completely gray muzzle, gray hair all through his coat, cataracts, a potential thyroid problem, some arthritis in his legs, potential hip dysplasia, a sore on his tail - all this I gathered in about the same time as it took the Adoption Nazi to write off the Kramer and Alaska love story. But, he's exceedingly nice to Kramer. They smell each other, and, you'd swear looking at the two of them, that Kramer was the six year old, and Bobo was the almost-ten year old. But, the Adoption Nazi swore he was six. She made me a copy of his information, and it showed he'd been microchipped, given all his shots, and this was his second tour of duty at the Humane Society. He'd been adopted last year, and brought back when the owners couldn't care for him. Uh-oh.

She went to get some more info on Bobo, when two of the Humane Society workers began talking back-and-forth about Bobo, as I petted him and Kramer.

"He is the sweetest thing!"
"Such a good old man!" (six year old dogs are rarely called 'old.')
"He'll be a great pet!"
"Did they get his cataracts fixed?" (thought he had those)
"I don't know, maybe it's on his sheet."
"Is his tail still bleeding?" (called that one, too)
"Nah, that's good. Shame about his arthritis." (I am on a roll at this point. Take me to Vegas! I can't lose!)
"Yeah, his hips are sagging." (I just hit a five-team parlay and covered the spread)
"Not much tartar on his teeth." (well, at least there's that.)

The Adoption Nazi brings me another form full of Bobo's info. It verified that he was a nice dog, very sweet and gentle, and very friendly. The previous owners couldn't afford to keep him, and, shocker! - he's at least 8 years old. They don't know, exactly. Judging from his looks, he's much older. I've never had a dog look this old, even the cancer-ridden Bubby, who, aside from some gray flecks on her muzzle, looked pretty young her whole life.

Now, this is where I call "Bullshit!" on this whole process. 30 minutes earlier, I'm looking at a healthy, fluffy, furry, energetic ball of joy and excitement named Alaska. She's not even two years old, ready to play, and to be loved, and to be a great pet for the next decade. I'm now looking at an elderly dog, with the thick, cataract-affected eyes of an old dog, with a lot of gray fur, a bad hip that probably can't be fixed, and the bulging eyes common in animals with bad thyroids. He's not in pain or any kind of suffering, but, he's not exactly the picture of health. Alaska, SHE'S the dog I want. A dog who is going to be a blast, energy and love. It's like I just saw an online personal ad, and the pictures on the ad are of a woman twenty years younger and fifty pounds lighter. That doesn't mean the older woman in front of me doesn't have value - just don't LIE to me. Don't pull a bait-and-switch on me.

If the Adoption Nazi had said "we have an older dog, very sweet, he needs a good home for his last year or two..." then you know what? I'd have considered adopting Bobo on the spot. At least fostering him - that's what fosters do. He's a kind old soul. But I just lost Bubby two months ago, and it still hurts. Hell, Squeaky ran away back in 2005, and I STILL keep a picture of that cat on my wall. I'm not a fool - I know Kramer doesn't have too much longer left in him, despite his ridiculously good health. He's a big dog, and he's got, what, one or two left in him? Maybe three, four would be pushing it, who knows? Bobo...hell, I couldn't take losing another pet so soon.

I just re-read my memorial to Squeaky that I linked to above. Damn I miss that cat.

In any event, I drove out to the Wheaton Regional Park with Kramer for a good walk and a chance to play with the dogs in the dog park. He was happy to be outside, and I was seething about the whole ordeal. Almost four weeks of practically courting the Humane Society and this dog, and I came up empty. This was almost 10 hours of my time, gone. That beautiful Alaska, sitting inside that kennel another night because she was overstimulated. That sweet old Bobo, sitting inside as well because he wasn't. And Coltrane, hopefully finding some peace.

All four of us wondering what they have to do to get adopted.

Thanks to Unsuck DC Metro

Check out my lovely camera phone work on their latest "Hall of Shame" character.

New blogs for the lazy blogger...

I'm now writing over at the Church of Purple Jesus. Football, Adrian Peterson, and general trash talk.

Also, I might be doing the same thing for The Angered, which is a caption website. Hard to write pictures, though.

Just thought of this...

I'm sure somebody else has, too, if you Google for it enough...

Why do we have so many football teams named after birds and cats, two
species that would totally suck at football? Ravens, Falcons,
Seahawks, Eagles, Cardinals, Bengals, Panthers, Jaguars

If a dog is man's best friend, then dogs would like teams named after
people. Patriots, Bucs, Raiders, 49ers, Cowboys, Redskins, Vikings,
Steelers, Packers, Chiefs and, potentially, big dogs would like the
Giants and Titans.

Dogs would be scared of Bears, Chargers and especially the Jets. Loud
noises and what not.

Dogs would run around with the Rams, Bills, Broncos, Colts, and
Texans, potentially trying to herd them.

Dogs would laugh at the Dolphins. Their wacky antics delight us all.

Dogs would never even see the Browns.

The death of a disco dancer

So, Michael Jackson died today. He was 50 years old, but his nose was only 8.

The news has been going crazy about it, as though nobody has ever died in the history of ever. NBC canceled their kinda-funny Thursday night lineup to switch to "All Michael, All The Time." CNN, knowing that nothing sells like death, ignored the death in Iran, Iraq and God knows what other country we couldn't identify on a map to go Whacko on Jacko. People were lining up outside UCLA Medical Center to get updates, or official word of his passing. CNN interviewed people on the streets of New York for their opinion. Some of the folks were crying. Newscasters did their best "grave, serious voice," the kind that Walter Cronkite used to save for the death of a President, or real honest-to-God Kings, not kings of pop.

Oh, yeah, Walter - I hope you'll rest in peace, by the way. It was reported that you were on Death's Door the other day. Some places reported that you were dead. Much like Abe Vigoda and that Monty Python skit, "I'm not dead yet." You were an inspiration to me during my budding television career, but more like in the whole "I probably shouldn't smoke while on camera" way than anything. Still, your grace and gravitas is sorely lacking in today's media. I miss it. We've been a little busy back here in the mortal coil to give you a proper send-off. Iran is squashing an uprising, using men with guns to shoot women with amazing cheekbones, haunting eyes, and more courage than the average man could ever imagine. The Republican Party is having a hell of a time keeping its collective zipper up, as two prominent GOP members got busted for cheating on their wives - one who railed against President Clinton for his adulterous tendencies, and the other who used tax money to go bang out some hot Latin love down in Argentina.

Fellow TV professional Ed McMahon died as well, a Korean War veteran, a beloved sidekick, and, in no small way, responsible for the viral video craze to catch on during the internet age. He and Dick Clark doled out bloopers during prime time, a predecessor to YouTube and all the DVD extra features we demand. 9 Washington D.C. citizens died in a horrific mass transit accident, and the repercussions of which has made the city you used to travel through a virtual blockade of slowed trains and slower cars. Former sex symbol Farrah Fawcett died today as well, succumbing to her years-long battle with cancer. And, on top of that, I think I read where some bomb went off in Iraq, killing another 50 or so folks. Nothing major, you know, when compared to a guy who kept a pet monkey, wore half as many gloves as society would demand, and had more face lifts than hit singles the past 20 years.

Let me get this straight - Gary Glitter writes a catchy tune, but he loves teenage Asian boys and their teenage Asian boy bits. He goes off to Vietnam to get a few for some sort of bizarre pre-teen sex/drugs/rock and roll/ thing and we can't listen to him anymore because he's a child molester. They stopped playing his big hit, "History of Rock and Roll Part I" - which you may know better as the "dot-da-da-daaa Hey! You Suck!" song. I get that. Child molesters are bad, at least, that's what Megan's Law told me.

BUT, Michael Jackson, who paid out MILLIONS of dollars to settle multiple child molestation cases, who had photographs of all sorts of nude children, and who damned near dropped his own son off a balcony a few years ago - *HE* is worth eulogizing??? Is it because, unlike Glitter, he had more than one Top 40 hit? He had almost as many Grammies as face lifts, but he's been around more kid privates than Pampers and been on more children than Osh Kosh B'Gosh, *HE'S* worth honoring? Crying in the street over? He's worth that?

Because that's what it comes to - celebrity. Michael Jackson was a child star. He was part of our lives way back before disco with the Jackson 5 and made a rock/urban hybrid sound on "Thriller" that only Prince (and ONLY Prince) could possibly emulate. (Linkin Park, take note of that. You've sold a lot of albums, but you still suck. Just a FYI for ya.) He did some acting - remember The Wiz? - and even turned his lesser-talented siblings into stars themselves, though Janet was legit in her own right, but LaToya, Tito, Jermaine, Randy, Reggie, Action, Pollack...sheesh. Really? REALLY? Really...?

Jackson became the King of Pop because nobody sold as many records as he did. Elvis, the Beatles, the Stones (Rolling and Roses), not even the amazing Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines combo, sold like MJ. He was a worldwide megastar. And, nobody became the poster boy for the excesses of wealth and trappings of fame like MJ. Neverland Ranch, Bubbles the Chimp, the obsession with the Elephant Man, the obsession with the Little Children - think about it - average folks who don't even care for Michael Jackson's music knew more about his personal life than almost any other celebrity. Who's the biggest star in the music world right now? Beyonce'? Miley Cyrus? The Jonas Brothers? Fergie? Bono? Bet you can't name their pets. Bet you can't identify the names of their houses. I'll wager you can't even guess who *their* necrophiliac crush is. The only person who has as identifiable questions would be the President - we know he lives in the White House. We know he recently adopted Bo, the First Dog, though, as far as we can tell, has yet to dig up the bones of JFK and put them in the Lincoln Bedroom.

But you could do all that and more with Michael Jackson. Hell, owning the remains of a dead man famous for his bizarre disfigurement wasn't even THE WEIRDEST thing Michael Jackson is known for!

Perhaps MJ's greatest feat was making people give a crap about him well-after he had so obviously lost his marbles. This manchild abused countless children, and yet was still free to roam the Earth. God knows how much therapy those children have had, and will need, just to even THINK about becoming normal. And, how much more they'll need after 10 hours of constant television coverage of their abuser, treating him as a deity.

All because of a couple of hit records.