Jon Stewart with Chucky Schumer

Thanks Max

Steve's Theme

It is decreed, by general consensus within my circle of close friends that the following is my theme song... it was put to a vote last night, we had a whole formal proclamation written on a napkin that was later used to mop beer off the potato skins plate in an attempt to rescue the one remaining skin...

Artist/Band: Buffett Jimmy
Lyrics for Song: Piece Of Work
Lyrics for Album: License to Chill
(with Toby Keith)

I'm a piece of work
I'm iron and lace
I'm shy, right up there in your face
I'm all dumbfounded
Stubborn as an ass
Sharp as an arrow in a pile of glass
I'm a sweetheart, genius, restless jerk
Lord, have mercy
I'm a piece of work

Well, the Lord made me on a long thin limb
Made sure I'd remember him
Or her in the middle of a long, dark night
Creation crazy, death sheet white
Made in the image of a lion shocked lamb
I am who the hell I am
Ever better, bad to worse
Down to the letter
I'm a piece of work

I'm a piece of work
I'm an angel's fiend
Bathed in lavender and gasoline
Scared brave, shallow in an ink black well
Lightly browned in the fires of hell
Wicked, holy, full on fake
Best known for my big mistake
I'm Zen wise, peaceful, gone berserk
Good God Almighty
I'm a piece of work

I'm a dreadful sight and I just don't care
Spent all morning pulling out my hair
I woke at dawn with a crazy spin
Half the day trying to glue back in
Mother, Bloody Mary, please
Wipe that smile right off your knees
I'm the CEO of the mail room clerks
Lord have mercy
What a piece of work

I'm a piece of work
I'm a love sick boy
Cloth cap, caviar and corduroy
All over the map, just a lost in space
With a filthy mind and a choir boy's face
Heels up, head down, straight on through
Watch out, woman I'm a get to you
I'm a gladiator with a mind to irk
Good God Almighty
I'm a piece of work

Birthday Boy

Tomorrow’s my birthday.
I’ll be 37 and all I can think about as halftime nears is how I fucked up the first half. The other day I had spaghetti sauce cooking on the stove and I flashed back to my childhood. I had dreams once, they sure as hell don’t reflect my current reality, but then does it ever?

Here’s a happy birthday song from me to me… yeah ‘happy’...



and the icing on the cake... as cruel as it sounds, we've started the deathwatch for the 17 year old son of my cousin who had a stupid car accident yesterday. I grew up with this woman. She's tough, but a parents worse nightmare is at her doorstep. Life is nasty bitch sometimes and the only thing that holds it all together is love and faith. Without that, we're nothing but a bunch of chattering monkeys feeding and fucking our way to the end.

It’s been a tough few months for me... I lost yet another job, money is tight and I’m struggling to hold on to few things I have. It’s bleak and dark and sometimes I just don’t know if I can swim the currents... then, out of the blue I hear a song on the radio... now, I know this song by heart, strangely it’s been there every time I’ve felt like this... it’s been that cold splash of water on my face just when I need it the most...

Looking For A Different Kind of 'Hi-jacker'

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage." ...more...

So... what we're saying here is that we can only beat off to state sanctioned smut... guess I’ll have to say goodbye to my 'bi-sexual midgets who blow donkeys' collection volume 1-4... (Volumes five and six feature 'bi-sexual midgets who wear petticoats and smile suggestively at one another while playing cards with a donkey’…

Bungled war in Iraq – OK
Slow response to Katrina victims – OK
Taking my porn away – VERY BAD

Grow up GW, even conservatives like a little nasty filthy porn on occasion…

Senators vs. Roberts

A report on the confirmation process in succinct Daily Show style:

Lewis Black On Evolution

Another great Back in Black segment from The Daily Show:

Family Dollar Shows Concern... for Family Dollar

Woman fired after rescuing siblings from Mississippi

Family Dollar gave permission, then quibbled with time
By IAN DEMSKY
Staff Writer

COLUMBIA, TN —An employee was fired from her $7-an-hour job at the Family Dollar store in Spring Hill after taking time off to rescue two younger siblings from hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, she says.

Kolonie Sims, 20, third-in-charge at the discount retail store, said her bosses and a district manager gave her permission to go.

But when she got back Monday after two days in Mississippi, Sims said, she was told that she no longer had a job.

"I had to get my family," she said. "I had to get them. I went and did what I said I was going to do."

Her bosses didn't necessarily object to her trip, she said, but objected to her leaving work four hours early on Thursday and not leaving for Mississippi until late Friday.

Family Dollar officials declined to comment yesterday, citing a policy against talking about individual employee situations. ...full story...

Damn. That's heartless.
Family Dollar.com

Insanity In The Court... Again!

School Pledge Is Unconstitutional
By DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO, Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

I just have one thing to say to this judge:

Is the Republican Party Racist?

It’s a perception that’s long been held in American politics. The Republican Party is anti-black and racist and the Democratic Party is pro-black and anti-racist. The Republicans cry foul and point to their history of fighting for civil rights, the Democrats scoff at such lunacy. Without getting into a long and arduous debate over which side is correct in it’s assumptions regarding the other, I feel that both parties have a lot of work to do and that neither are blameless in regards to the treatment of blacks in America.

That said I have long felt that the literature of a time period was a reflection of life during that time. A person wishing to know how the English elites lived in the Victorian Era would get a good idea of the reality of it by reading Jane Austen or Emily Bronte. Likewise, a person fifty years from today who wants a snapshot of our culture would do well to read Grisham, Clancy, or yes, even King and any number of romance novelists. Not an exact image by any means, but a good ‘feel’ for how it was.

Due to recent employment difficulties I’ve found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands and have been catching up on some reading that I was putting off until, well, I had a lot of extra time on my hands. As such, I’ve begun re-reading ‘The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes’ a huge and complete tome of the fictional detective’s life written by Arthur Conan Doyle between 1891 and 1905. The reason I mention this and indeed the reason I’m writing this piece is because of a passage I stumbled across while enjoying ‘Adventure V. – The Five Orange Pips’ published originally sometime between July 1891 and December 1892 in the London magazine The Strand.

In the passage a young gentleman has come to Mr. Holmes’s Baker Street residence and began to recount past events to help the detective understand the man’s predicament. During the narrative he says this about an uncle:

"...About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe, and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the Negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them..."

Imagine how startled I was to see, in a story written 112 years ago, a reflection of the Republican Party’s policy of ensuring the rights of blacks.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying the Republicans are as pure as the driven snow in regards to this issue, but in fairness, neither are the Democrats. A political body is only as good as the individuals who combine to create it and as a party, the Republicans have a long held policy of supporting constitutional rights for every citizen in this country, as this hundred-year-old passage published in an English magazine illuminates. To that end, it is unfair to throw a blanket accusation of racism across any political ideology, whether liberal or conservative, and serves only to make the accuser look foolish and ignorant.

Steve Doss
Editor, Narratives of the Weird
http://www.notweird.com

Are You Shitting Me?

When I read crap like this:

45 Bodies Found at New Orleans Hospital
Sep 12 4:00 PM US/Eastern

By BRETT MARTEL
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS: The bodies of 45 patients have been found at a flooded-out hospital, a state health official said Monday amid otherwise encouraging signs large and small that New Orleans is climbing back two weeks after it was slammed by Hurricane Katrina.

The bodies were found Sunday at 317-bed Memorial Medical Center, which was abandoned more than a week ago after it was surrounded by floodwaters, said Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals.

I can't help but think: WHERE THE FUCK WERE THE FIRST RESPONDERS!!!!

Plastic Boobs

Rob Codry of The Daily Show, reports:

Another Mystery Solved

And this is a little more important than anything NASA spews outta it's stinkhole:

Crocodile Huntress

TARENTUM, Pa. - Crocus, a 2-foot pet alligator escaped from his backyard enclosure, but was captured by a girl who used what she learned on a nature TV program.

Nicki Hilliard and several friends saw the animal swimming in the Allegheny River.

Hilliard said she learned how to catch the animals safely by watching the television show "Crocodile Hunter." The secret is to grab the animal's snout and hold its mouth closed.

The kids put the animal in a beverage cooler and took it to the police station, where it was locked inside a cell until owner Belinda Thomson arrived to claim it.

Thompson said neighborhood cats opened the fence in her back yard, enabling Crocus to escape.

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

GoodBye Gilligan

Whoopsie

Looks like the New Orleans Mayor let these school buses sit in the parking lot instead of using them to… umm… bus folks out of the city during the MANDATORY evacuation.

Takes a large pair of BRASS BALLS to do that and then criticize the government after the storm: New Orleans Mayor Fumes Over Slow Response

An aerial view of flooded school buses in a lot, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005,
in New Orleans, LA. The flood is a result of Hurricane Katrina that passed
through the area last Monday.(AP Photo/Phil Coale) © 2005 The Associated Press.

Statistical update: In this photo are approximately 200 buses, perhaps more (I counted 210). The average school bus seats 80-89 adults comfortably. For the sake of argument we’ll round to 80.

Based on this photo, and assuming all the buses run properly, the mayor of New Orleans could have in a single trip, moved 16,000 people out of the city. If we highball the number using 210 buses seating 89 adults we get 18,690.

Taking into consideration the amount of time before Katrina made landfall, these buses could have made two trips moving 32,000 to 37,000 people out of New Orleans.

We're talking Big Brass Balls here.

Update 9/04/05: The Drudge Report has the following:

Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'...

And this mayor is *still* dissing the feds... Really, Really, Big Brass 'Nads on that guy...

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

This looks good too:

Just Like Heaven

One of the things that helps keep me married is the fact that, although a man, I like a good romantic comedy... this one here looks purdy good:

Where's Fats?

'Fats' Domino Missing in New Orleans

Thursday, September 01, 2005
By Roger Friedman

Katrina Benefits Should Acknowledge Local Legends

Before NBC, MTV or anyone else puts on a telethon to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, they might want to explore some ancillary issues. To wit: New Orleans is a city famous for its famous musicians, but many of them are missing. Missing with a capital M.

To begin with, one of the city’s most important legends, Antoine "Fats" Domino, has not been heard from since Monday afternoon. Domino’s rollicking boogie-woogie piano and deep soul voice are not only part of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame but responsible for dozens of hits like “Blue Monday,” “Ain’t That a Shame,” “Blueberry Hill” and “I’m Walking (Yes, Indeed, I’m Talking).”

Domino, 76, lives with his wife Rosemary and daughter in a three-story pink-roofed house in New Orleans’ 9th ward, which is now under water.

On Monday afternoon, Domino told his manager, Al Embry of Nashville, that he would “ride out the storm” at home. Embry is now frantic.

Calls have been made to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s office and to various police officials, and though there’s lots of sympathetic response, the whereabouts of Domino and his family remain a mystery. ... more

Copyright 2005 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.