RevSpork

Burning Questions - Now rated G

1. What, to you, is the perfect pop song? (This need not be your favorite song, or even a song you particularly like.)

2. Where *does* the time go?

3. You were born blind. Describe the concept of "green."

4. You were born deaf. Describe the concept of "James Brown."

5. Happiness is the splice of life. What the hell am I talking about?

6. Has the Democratic primary turned into one big snoozefest where the media is so desperate to spice it up, they'll dig up anything even remotely related to the candidates, as long as it's negative and will stir up American voters for a full three seconds before switching over to the Food Network? Or does the fact that nobody seems to care about the primaries anymore even faze the media anymore? Am I paranoid to believe the media is conspiring with the Bush administration to make the election so boring, Americans will throw up their hands in disgust, let Bush and Cheney cancel the election, and gladly live under martial law as long as the government promises not to axe "Dancing with the Stars?"

7. Or is it past my bedtime?

I don't own one, but...owie

From cnn.com: Last month, in an American surgical first, doctors at the University of California, San Diego, removed the appendix of a 24-year-old patient through her vagina. Surgeons Santiago Horgan and Mark Talamini made a small incision in the wall of the patient's vagina, through which they passed surgical tools and a small camera to the appendix, removing the organ through the same incision.

Three thoughts:

1. Note to surgeon: don't sneeze.
2. I'm well aware how small cameras can get nowadays, but I can't help visually associating a "small camera" with a regular disposable one. Then I have to go lie down.
3. The organization these surgeons are members of? Natural Orifice Consortium for Assessment and Research, or NOSCAR. Where's the S, you say? I don't know. (Maybe they rented the leftover S from 1-800-MATTRES.) Looks like NOCAR to me, and I presumed that went without saying; I don't care which orifice they're digging through to pluck your appendix, there had better not be a freakin' car in the operating room.

For the entire article, click here. It sounds like an improvement over conventional surgery, but still...I think I need more time to not think about it.

More burnin' Qs for 2008

Man, this year bites so far. Let's inject a little happy into it:

1. After sex, most couples cuddle or fall asleep. What's the silliest activity you've done after nookie?

2. As you walk into your dining room, you somehow cross a hole in the time-space continuum. It is now 1958, and you're a dog named Scruffs. Your only way back home is to pee on someone from 1958 you really hate. Who do you pee on?

3. You're going to add the 1st season of "Love Boat" to your Netflix queue, aren't you? Don't deny it.

4. What would have to happen in 2008 for you to emigrate from the USA?

5. You've just joined a roller derby team. What name do you give yourself?

6. "Iron Man" is soon to be in theaters. What comic book character should never, ever be on the big screen?

7. A movie about you has debuted on the Lifetime Movie Network. Who plays you?

The First Burning Questions of 2008

1. To Hillary Clinton supporters who really want her to win for the historical value: wouldn't you rather have the *right* woman for president, instead of just any woman? This particular strain of Hillary fans remind me of guys in bars so desperate for a lay, they'll hit on anyone with tits.

2. Question for you music fans: you are in possession of a time machine, but you can only use it twice: your destination and your return. Would you:

a. go back to April 1980 with a box full of antiseizure medication, prescribing it to Ian Curtis of Joy Divison;

b. go back to June 1967 and spook Syd Barrett with his future solo albums, so much so that he goes off drugs;

c. go back to 8 December 1980, contact the New York City police and alert them to the presence of an armed, deranged Beatles fan in front of John Lennon's home at the Dakota Hotel providing a photograph of the gentleman;

d. or go back to 2 February 1959, to the Clear Lake, Iowa, airport, with a stack of obituaries of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper from a couple days later.

3. You are a peanut butter sandwich. Due to some major freak of nature, you are given the choice of jelly or jam, or none at all.

4. What is your Golden Rule?

5. What is the greater source of joy for you: a sense of accomplishment, a cool drink of water, an orgasm, the affection of your pet, or the laughter of a child?

Thoughts on porn

Note: the concept behind this post might make one suspect I'm a drooling porn addict, but honestly, I haven't watched a single porn movie since I got divorced nearly seven years ago. I occasionally read books about porn, and watch movies and television shows about porn, but I don't actually watch it. Chalk it up as yet another in my collection of eccentricities. Collect them all!

1. After watching several episodes of a naughty little show on HBO On Demand, I am now convinced that the late, great Gracie Allen was reincarnated as porn star Katie Morgan. I find her inexplicably charming; I prefer her witty repartee about sex over her actually having sex. Is this wrong?

2. I've seen porn legend Jeff Stryker's stryker (in a coffee table book at work, if you must know), but I never actually *heard* it. I recently watched an episode of Pornucopia, and he was being interviewed for an episode on same-sex porn. The show cut to an old Christmas-themed porn film (why not?) of his, where Mr. Stryker invites the viewer to sit on his lap as he gently pulls aside the flap of his robe, and his penis taps the edge on his Barca-lounger with a loud "thump," a sound not unlike that of a dead pig being dropped into an empty dumpster. I was startled - and deeply disturbed. (I think I pulled off a "thwap" once, but that's the closest I've ever gotten.) I tried to sweep away my inadequacy. "Bah, that sound was probably the work of a Foley artist, dropping a dead pig in an empty dumpster." But then I thought, "Holy cow, if one can't be certain that wasn't the real sound of his dick dropping a mere inch onto the edge of a Barca-Lounger, then that's one seriously scary phallus." Remind me not to co-star in any of his movies; I walk funny enough as it is.

Those are my thoughts this evening. Tune in next week, when I discuss the work of James Ensor, Belgium's famous painter.

Merry Christmas!

To all you merry little Christmas imps who've been listening to holiday cheer on WLIT since mid-November and have made my seventh consecutive retail holiday season my most "festive" ever:

You're all evil, Xmas addicts. You've turned a relatively benign family holiday upside down like the crucifixes in your blood-soaked bedroom. Your soul is darker than a shadow's asshole and slimier than a Jolly Rancher in Paris Hilton's twat. If there is justice in the universe, your genitals will dry up like ash and your earwax will burst into flame with every jingle bell ring. Your only blessing is that all the retailers you have tainted with your toxic aura this holiday season have not risen up as one and slain you. Every Santa, every elf, every denizen of Winter Wonderlands should piss on your screaming toddlers and puke directly into the gaping chest wound Rudolph gored into your flesh. May you shit broken Christmas balls until the end of time.

And have a happy new year, everybody!

The idiocy of brand marketing

I'm perusing the latest Stephen Colbert literature in the bathroom when I found myself staring at the new package of toilet paper the wife and I recently purchased. It's a nine-roll package of Angel Soft toilet paper. You know the logo: a smiling infant wrapped in a blanket. But what does a baby have to do with angels? The closest guess I could come up with is the infant itself is an angel - an angel baby. And the message here is:

I'm wiping my ass with a baby angel.

Brand marketing is so totally screwed up.

This is all your fault

We're rapidly approaching upon the twentieth anniversary of the Harmonic Convergence. This whole hoo-ha was supposed to usher in a twenty-five year New Age of Peace, topped off with the "End of History" occuring near the end of 2012. What did we get instead? A New Age of Renewed Cynicism, Tragedy, Paranoia, and Fear. If the HC was supposed to herald the end of the hell cycles, it didn't do squat.

Man, did you screw this up.

I don't care if you were named Time's Person of the Year; so was Adolf Hitler and Newt Gingrich. The Harmonic Convergence needed you that day in 1987; while believers meditated their buns off, you were lying in bed, getting baked on cheap ditchweed while listening to your new Replacements tape.

You really messed up the universe, dude.

So, twenty years later, what are you going to do to fix it? We only have five more years until the End of History, and I (the only person left out of Time's Person of the Year, I must add) will not sit idly on my sofa watching the Cartoon Network, as you apparently plan to do. I plan to nap on my sofa with the TV off, because quite frankly, I can't wait for the End of History.

My floor smells springtime fresh

I set a personal record today in the fine art of washing clothes. I did not one, not two, not three, not four, not close. I did TEN loads of laundry this evening. And keep in mind we don't have a washer & dryer in the apartment; I did all this in my apartment building's basement, with the two washers and dryers down there. It took seven hours to finish, and the last three loads are unfolded because I'm so damned exhausted.

You know what's even crazier? There are STILL dirty clothes on the floor! It's insane!

Why are music box tunes so lame?

I've been looking into getting a music box for my friend Meem's new baby. I've nosed around the web for a little bit, but I can't find anything particularly fitting for a baby of Meem's. The problem is - let's face it - music box tunes are lame.

Can you believe that the funkiest tune I've been able to find on a music box is "Yellow Rose of Texas?" (Assuming you believe this to be funkier than, say, "Can you Feel the Love Tonight") I was hoping for something a little more modern, such as "Beat on the Brat" or "Venus in Furs." Hell, I'd pay some good money for a music box that played either tune. But sadly, they don't exist; you get stuck with "Jesus Loves Me" or some other freaking ancient public domain song.

Don't rock musicians have music box rights in their contracts? I mean, I know music boxes can't play complicated tunes - I'm not asking for Brian Eno here - but the Ramones' tunes are pretty simple; how hard could it be to create a music box tune for "Sheena is a Punk Rocker?"

We freaks are getting older, having kids. We cannot stand for lame-ass music in music boxes; our kids are screwed up enough as it is. Go to your local mall and scream into the San Francisco Music Box Company store of your choice: "WE WANT COOL MUSIC BOX TUNES!" If they refuse, threaten to sing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" at the top or your lungs until they capitulate. This is WAR, dammit.