First of all let me apologize, I had no business being there on the road with you, me with 2 wheels and you with 4. Obviously with your greater number of surface contact points you deserve a much higher level of consideration. Apparently I didn’t even garner a check of your blind spot before violently changing lanes to get around other slow moving traffic.
Also, let me say I am sorry for nearly slamming my motorcycle into the side of your vehicle. In an effort to prevent any damage to your rusty shit box, I decided to perform what we call in biking terms a “Power Slide,” where-in I lay my motorcycle down on it’s side and slide to a stop preventing dents in your car (and less importantly blunt force trauma to myself). Fortunately for me, the soft cushy pavement provided ample room for my motorcycle and my person to come to a gentle halt.
Next let me say thank you. Thank you, obviously extremely busy and important lady. Thank you for taking 30 seconds to stop and look over at me, you know, to make sure I was alive before speeding off to get to your bikini waxing appointment or to have your partial lobotomy fully realized. There were plenty of other people on the road to make sure I was able to get my bike up and off the road.
And finally, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for the new body decoration you provided me. I can’t tell you how many times I have looked at my arm and leg and thought, “You know what would look really great here? Road rash!” To show my gratitude, I have provided below photographic depictions of the new “Body Bling” you gave me. Suitable for framing, I’m sure these pictures will provide a lifetime of conversation amongst your friends of that time you had YOUR HEAD SO FAR UP YOUR FUCKING ASS THAT YOU CUT ME OFF AND NEARLY KILLED ME YOU MINDLESS PILE OF DISEASED AFTERBIRTH!!!!
Sincerely,
Cutty
PS, I hope you drown.
Let’s discuss bad drivers and the havoc they cause in the Forum.
Last night the lady friend and I made the pilgrimmage to the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom to see George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. It was a life changing experience. See, I asked for them to make my funk the P Funk, and that’s exactly what they did.
So, because of that, I’d like to announce my candidacy for Secretary of Funk should Barack Obama win the presidency. I think I have a fairly solid resume, as my last position was head of FEFA or the Federal Emergency Funk Administration. In that position, I was granted the authority to deliver the funk to those who needed it most.
Once sworn in, I’d like to propose the following changes to US customs and laws:
The new national anthem will be “One Nation Under A Groove.”
When at trial, all witnesses will be required to place one hand on a bible and confirm that they will tell the whole funk, nothing but the funk, so help them God.
Once a day, at midday, all work will cease for 15 minutes while all citizens will be treated to a live broadcast of Vice President Star Child, where he will play hits like Cosmic Slop in his world famous diaper.
So, Mr. Obama, if you’re listening, I want to announce my availability for the position.
This weekend was just about the most boring weekend I can remember. Truly awful. I had absolutely nothing to do whatsoever, and I was sidelined with a ridiculous foot injury. So, I spent a lot of time watching shitty TV. And when you watch shitty TV, you watch even shittier commercials.
There was one commercial that I couldn’t escape. I could not hide from it. I tried changing the channels, but it was no use: it was following me around, mocking me. What was it? It was the 9-11 Twenty Dollar Commemorative Siver Leaf thing. Here’s what it looks like:
Now, there are several things about this that I’d like to discuss, but first, I must ask you a favor: please watch the commercial. When you’re done, finish reading. I thank you.
Finish watching? Good. Thanks bud.
1. Government authorized non-circulating Liberian legal tender. So wait, this is actually legal in Liberia? Liberia. Yes, that Liberia.
2. This Coin-Certificate displays a standard $20 denomination on one side. But on the other side, it’s the first time ever that two separate denominations have been used to add up to the full $20 face value – it uses 9 and 11 to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy.
So you’re telling me that the numbers 9 and 11 actually add up to twenty….and you’re using those two numbers to add up to 20 on the bill itself? Srsly? Dood, sign me up.
3. It’s giant size dwarfs any US tender. A big silver liberian coin is larger than our money? I want that.
4. “A silvery tribute to all that were lost on that fateful day”. I can’t even go on any more about this.
Question: are you willing to give up civil rights for more “security” (whether real or imagined) by allowing the government (and the agencies it empowers) more access to your life?
Question: are you willing, or actively wanting to get rid of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms?
Question: do you believe the government has your best interests at heart?
Question: is civil disobedience as a way to protest laws or police action dead?
Question: does anyone really, truly give a shit about rights, as long as we can still buy Ipods, VW Jettas, stainless steel appliances, flat-screen TVs and custom bath fittings?
Question: does the answer to that question come so quickly that you realize the government probably knows it too?
Question: do you believe the government would like to keep us pliable, happy, consuming and feeling safe?
Question: is right now the most dangerous time in all of human history?
This blog post has been percolating for a long time in my head. I finally snapped this morning when seeing a completely benign twitter message from someone. It said:
The article is about how hedge funds hire attractive women with no skills as eye candy, and, actually…you know what…..who cares. That’s not the point.
Here’s the point: someone was actually OFFENDED by the article. They were so offended that they SHARED THE F*CKING ARTICLE WITH HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ON TWITTER!!!!
But let’s move on. The thing that actually drives me clinically insane is the fact that people are offended. Apparently “Thou Shalt Not Offend” was the 11th commandment that accidentally broke off the tablet. The entire notion of something being offensive just boggles my mind. It’s a complete sham. It’s bullshit. Nothing can be offensive unless you let it bother you. It’s just that simple. Sure, something can make you angry. Someone can say something that makes you feel awful. I’m not advocating being an asshole, I’m just saying that nothing I say is offensive unless you decide to let it get to you.
The other problem with the “offensive” tag is that it completely conflicts with free speech, something I’m all for. I just recently heard someone complain “I’m sick of people hiding behind the first amendment.” I’m sorry, what?
Now, if you know me, you’ll know that I’m just about as liberal a fellow as you’ll ever meet. But when it comes to the free speech vs. being offended, hurting someone’s feelings, or being politically correct, the choice is clear. Free speech wins every time. Which brings me to the second example of “I’m offended” that made my skin boil.
Back in April, a student from the University of Toronto wrote in article in the student paper entitled “10 Reasons it’s not OK to be fat“. A guy from a site called “Big Fat Blog” caused a shitstorm, and began a campaign to get people to write to the editor of the paper for an apology. A guy from the “Birdman Blog” wrote:
The article in the newspaper certainly got me fired up enough that I called the Newspaper and asked for a statement regarding it and I am still awaiting a response from the school and I fully intend to pursue this story as a journalist and see what I can do it. It might make it to the air OR it might remain on a blog but regardless, I see this as a chance to do something and stand up to the Ivory Tower and perhaps strike a blow against the monster.
Ol’ Birdman then went on to list the email addresses, phone numbers, etc. of everyone at the newspaper, the University President, etc. Then, again using twitter, people started sounding the horn to raise a mob. Cries of “how could a newspaper print this?” were everywhere. “Send them an email and demand this filth be stopped” was heard across North America.
All because of a student’s opinion in a newspaper NO ONE would have ever read. The enemies of free speech wanted to form a worldwide mob to demand retribution because someone had their feelings hurt. Sticks and stones, my friends. Sticks and stones.
George Carlin, known for his role as the conductor on Shining Time Station’s seasons 2-4 (one of Rube’s favorites), was also known for being a socially observant comedian. He shuffled off his mortal coil this past Sunday. How about we look back on the 7 Words You Can’t Say. Oh, and you probably can’t listen to them at work, unless you’re sequestered in a remote part of the office such as Jimmy and I are, or have headphones. Enjoy.
Weeeellll, loyal readers of THF, it’s time to call a spade a spade.
The guys at assholes and mustaches have officially welched on our blog post bet, and unfortunately, we here at TellHimFred surrendered our thirty-day “take it easy on the welching shitheads” token a couple of bourbon shots ago.
We’re a Boston-based blog, as you know, and the guys at A&M are a couple of West Coasters. Of late, we’ve enjoyed a tentative, Israel v. Lebanon style “we’re-not-actively-nuking-you-so-maybe-we-can-be-friends” style of blog friendship with Magglio and Jericho, but the events of the NBA Championship have led us to an unfortunate and awkward head, which THF is all too willing to exploit for fun and profit.
For those of you without the wherewithal to register a forum ID, I’ll sum up: after game three of the NBA Finals, where 0-2 L.A. lashed back against the many-headed hydra of the Boston Celtics with an 87-81 win, the A&M crew crowed that the Celtics were a flash-in-the-pan team who couldn’t stand up to the might of the Kobe Beef Squad, saying, and i quote: “Fuck you, Boston.” Bristling at this shot across the bow of our fair city, and fully prepared to eat crow and Magic Johnson’s T-Cells if the Cs were to lose, I proposed the bet:
If the Celtics lost the finals, we would compose a blog post, deliniating how the Celtics had lost to the Lakers, and how the team with the best record in the regular season had choked hardcore and let the Lakers walk away with a championship.
However, if the Cs were to win, the Assholes and Mustaches crew were to write a post on tellhimfred, outlining how they were wrong, that the Cs had held up their end of the Ainge-Rivers bargain, and mastered the 2008 finals after all.
Well, we know how it ended.
And we waited.
We gave Maggio and Jericho a THF ID to write a post.
Nothing.
We posted on our forums, nakedly goading them into writing something.
Nothing.
(Sigh)
Now, we at THF realize that the rest of the U.S. hates Boston. I mean, HATES us, like wicked bad, like the Superficial hates Heidi and Spencer. It’s understandable; we have the worst fans in all of sports.
But this is worse than that - the A&M guys have demonized Boston sports, under the guise of “we support west coast teams because they don’ get no respect!” to the point where they’re willing to just say “fuck Boston.”
Weeeelllp. Here’s how it shakes out. The LA Lakers lost the fucking finals, and the game which they lost it was the biggest deficit in NBA finals history. Say whatever you want about Boston as a city - The. Celtics. Kicked. LA’s. Ass.
Kobe? He may be the best player in the NBA, but on a team that chokes harder than a man with an auto-erotic asphyxiation fetish, he might as well just strangle himself on the bench, which is exactly what he did for a good portion of game 6. Sorry, guys, but you need starters AND a bench to win in the NBA.
For those of you loyal forum readers out there, you’re already aware of the term “junk shove”. Ms. Connections coined it in a forum post - it’s another term for moving.
Well, this past Thursday I discovered that there is another, more applicable definition of “junk shove”, when I had outpatient heart surgery at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I had, most of my life, a condition called SVT, or supra-ventricular tachycardia. It’s not serious, but irritating, and if left un-dealt with during an episode, can be very unhealthy. Recently, medical science has come up with a reasonably non-invasive process to cure SVT, and after a recent visit to my cardiologist, I was convinced that this ultra low-risk procedure was the way to go.
Now, naivete has never been my strong suit; I consider myself pretty hard-headed and realistic, but after having the initial consult with the doc, he had my head full of visions of a casual, drop-by, oh-while-you’re-at-it-can-you-fix-my-heart kind of a thing, like a “oh, did you just perform surgery on me? I thought I felt something!” sort of procedure.
Yeah, no.
Now, I don’t have any doubts about the skill level of the medical professionals involved with this institution, and after last week, I would recommend them to anyone. But the structure of Mt. Auburn hospital, especially the electrophysiology lab, is reminiscent of a disused rail station or perhaps a poorly kept grocery store. Bad tiles, shitty flourescent light, uncomfortable 1970s-era chairs and magazines, helpful arrows pointing out distant tie racks and exposed plumbing - let’s say my confidence wasn’t initially inspired.
So here we go. Take off all your clothes sir, and put on this ill-fitting paper-like robe. Backwards. Don’t worry about your ass being exposed, we don’t care. Next, lie on this gurney, and lie still while we shave only part of your chest to accomodate the sticky pads for the EKG. (Oh yeah, by the way those are going to hurt like fuck later when we peel them off.) Yeah, your chest looks like someone who fell asleep at a frat party. OK, leads hooked up, check. We’re not through shaving though. We have to denude your downtown of hair, which we will do by having a 60 year old nurse drape a washcloth over your cash and prizes, shove them out of the way, and go completely apeshit with a beard trimmer. bzzzzzshzzzzzbzzzzzzz “so, what kind of band are you in?” bzzzshzzzzzzvzzzzzGGGGggg (aaaaagh!) “whoops, sorry.”
Before you go, there’s a 24-year old female med student who would like to ask you a series of irrelevant and irritating questions about you. Please try to be polite and not to rip out her eyes and piss on her brain, which is of course, what will be going through your head the whole time she is speaking.
OK, time for the surgery! We wheel you, flat on your back into the little anteroom, which looks kind of like the scene from Jacob’s Ladder when the dude with no eyes sticks a horse needle into Tim Robbins’ forehead. Don’t be alarmed, but we’re going to tie your wrists in these restraints. Yeah. That’s normal.
OK, yes - we heard you when you told us that your body is highly tolerant of opiate-based anaesthesia (most medical professionals are aware of the cross-tolerance between opiates and booze, and yeah, you drink too much, dood) but we’re going to go ahead and give you the standard dose, and wait till you grit your teeth in completely lucid pain before giving you some more, then finally some benadryl to make you pliable.
Now:
1. Puncture 6 holes in the groin, three on each side of the junk, to access the femoral artery and vein.
2. Insert tubes into said holes.
3. Play “fun with catheters” in all 6 of these tubes.
4. Run a catheter through the femoral artery, up into the heart, to begin exploration. Oh, you can feel that? Yeah, isn’t that a messed up sensation? A tube running through your whole circulatory system? Yeah, it’s weird.
5. Poke the heart electrically several times, inducing tachycardia, see where the problem lies. That feels good, don’t it? I bet you’re beginning to wish we could put you out for this, no?
6. Electrically destroy the small extra piece of tissue on the heart that is causing the tach. ZZZZZZZZZAP! Wow, that looked painful!
7. Poke the heart electrically again, to make sure you can’t induce tach anymore. Yep, we fixed it!
Now for the fun part! We remove each tube rather painfully, and bandage you up. You now have to lie absolutely flat and more or less motionless, on a hospital gurney, for 4 hours, lest you pop those holes open and bleed out in less than 2 minutes. OK, ok, i see you’re losing your ever-loving mind. Here’s a valium.
OK, 4 hours is up, let’s get you the eff up and out of here! See ya!
Seriously. In at 8 a.m., junk-shoved at 9:30, and out at 5:00 p.m. What a crazy world.
P.S. - Huge props to Mrs. Hoffa for taking care of my cranky ass for the last few days. I would have had some pretty serious issues without her. Big ups.
I just saw an article over on digg.com saying that there’s going to be a Smurfs movie, and it’s going to be live action. Coming out soon: The Incredible Hulk- a remake of a remake that failed. They just made a Hulk movie in 2004…and now they’re going to try it again.
And ontop of that, TV is equally worthless with a new “The Mole.” This is the same reality show that failed before. Perhaps it was ahead of its time? Were we, the American public just not ready for such a compelling reality show?
Nope. That’s not it. There are just no new ideas. Wait, that’s not true. There are plenty of new ideas, but the head honchos at the movie studios and TV networks just won’t take risks. It’s just easier to remake something that people remember from years ago instead of trying something new. It’s not about quality, it’s about making profit. I understand that. But come on, can’t you make money from something innovative?
So, since I’m so sick of the bullshit we’re being fed in TV and the movies, I’m going to just give away some great ideas. Go ahead, steal them. I’ll watch ‘em. And to you, dear TellHimFred.com reader: please submit your own ideas. I’ll compile them and send them to NBC, CBS, and Fox. Oh, and HBO. Just not ABC.
I. The “In Space” Series:
This is a series of reality shows inspired by the Ron and Fez show. It starts with the general premise that everything is better in space.
Afraid of Space- The idea: let’s say 30% of all people would love to be astronauts. They’d love to go to space. But what about the other 70%? We have a reality show where we send people who are absolutely petrified into space. Whether they compete to see who stays, or if we just shoot em into space against their wishes (X Effect Style), that’s up to you, Network Brass. But tell me you wouldn’t stay glued to the tube watching people fight to stay on the planet, and when they’re in space…..just losing it.
Pigs in Pace- That’s pretty self-explanatory…..you send pigs into space.
Celebrity Rehab in Space- You send a bunch of drug addicts and Dr. Drew into space without drugs. They have no alternative to staying clean.
Again, the “In Space” series is from a discussion on Ron and Fez.
II. Oh really? Prove it.
This is a reality show where you guess how well you can do on ridiculous tasks, then make you do them. For instance, we’ll ask you how many 5 year olds you can take out before being knocked to the ground, then we’ll make you do it. Stupid shit like that. Yeah, not a great idea, but I’d watch it.
III. Five Minute Movies
A show where you give people a camera and actors, and they have to make a five minute movie. Best one of the week wins and moves on.
IV. Rating The Talent
Dead simple: Two guys in lawn chairs set up on the sidewalk on the beach. As girls go by they rate them, and the audience can agree or disagree with their scores.
V. Sex and the City: The Next Chapter
In this movie, we go 40 years into the future when all the bags on Sex and the City are in their 90s, and we have old ladies reciting the same dialog the awful hens did during the show.
So, let’s see what you have for ideas. I’m just warming up, and I think the overall idea is much better than the stupid examples I just gave. Other than pigs in space: I’m all in on that one.
