MOVIE REVIEW: TRANSFORMERS

I resisted seeing this film based on the fact that I still think the Transformers was the stupidest fucking cartoon this side of the Cabbage Patch Kids. I am not alone in my assessment, as my hero Randall of “Clerks” referred to it as an affront to God and the sacrifice of his only begotten son .Maybe he went a little overboard with his assessment of the concept, but his heart was in the right place: The idea was stupid as fuck.

However, the movie is pretty damn good! This is mainly due to the human performances that ground the film in utter watchability (is that a word?) and make the viewer give a rat’s ass what’s going on. Plus, the screenwriters & director Michael Bay wisely chose to keep the actual Auto-bots and Decepticons (no, I’m not making those suspiciously Earthbound sounding names up) mysterious as long as possible. This gives the human characters a chance to shine.

Following the George Lucas school of Blockbuster Film Storytelling, we are given likable, relatable characters to help guide us through a preposterous concept. It’s a smart move, because otherwise the more intelligent viewers would see the Transformers idea for what it really is, namely a buncha improbably organic robots with the ability to disguise themselves as vehicles fighting over a fucking cube.

But this is not just any cube (is it ever?) Just once I’d like to see a movie with a bunch of morons fighting over a pretty piece of cubic zirconia. Instead, we get the standard end-of-the-world scenario with a cube containing enough destructive power to re-decorate the entire planet.



I was disappointed that none of my questions were answered, most notably where the hell did these living machines come from? I don't mean their home-world, I mean who made them this way? Were they a cyber-organic weapon that achieved self-awareness or did a dying race turn themselves into these ugly-ass things to avoid extinction? One sentence would have lent some credibility to the film, but one sentence might have wasted precious explosion time.



And the explosions don't stop in what has now become a typical Michael Bay outing, an almost overwhelming, poorly edited, prolonged action sequence with a plot buried somewhere in-between all the noise and lights. Not necessarily a bad thing if that's what you're looking for, and I guess I was that fine Sunday morning 'cause it was one helluva ride.

I'd never seen Shia Labouf in anything before, mainly because his name makes me want to bitch-slap him into infinity. But he was great, as was most of the rest of the cast. John Tuturro in particular stands out as a cocky, power-tripping special agent of a section whose role is nobody's business.

If anything, the movie's third act, the part the Auto-bot geeks were waiting for, is where the film falls apart a bit. Much like The Chronicles of Narnia, this movie throws everything except its underwear at you for the last 3o minutes! Action sequence after explosion after death scene fill the screen in a confusing mess of bad editing and over-blown pyrotechnics. At once I yelled out, "I don't know who the fuck is who in this movie unless they look like people!" And despite not liking the cartoon, I know the characters.

The Decepticons are not developed at all in this film. Head baddie Megatron (Again, I don't make these stupid-ass names up) was always more interesting than Optimus Prime, the leader of the good guys. Yet he is given about 15 minutes of screen time and isn't all that impressive when he shows up. Oddly enough, the human drama on the ground keeps the movie moving and interesting. The fight scenes between the robots were cool and all, but it would have been liking watching the American Godzilla if not for the great acting and dialogue.

Visually, the movie is mostly impressive. The effects are top-notch, the integration of human and non-human is seamless. Why the designers gave the Transformers teeth is beyond me, and reduces their overall great appearance to something out of a 1950's B-movie. I chuckled a couple times when Megatron's face was filling the screen because he had cavities and an over-bite.

Despite any negativity in my review, this was as good as a Transformers movie could be. I sure as hell couldn't have written a better screenplay because I wouldn't have taken it seriously enough. The appeal of these silly toys never made sense to me and I was shunned a lot as a kid for it, but the hell with 'em. I stand by my assertion, in spite of having enjoyed the movie.

The real test of a good film based on what is euphemistically referred to as "licensed material" is whether or not it would have been a good movie without the gimmick. This one would have and that's good enough for me.

***1/ out of ****

MY 90'S MUSIC LIST, part the first

When lccb makes a request, everybody rushes to fulfill it. At least, I assume that’s what people do. She’s pretty scary sometimes, and I can’t imagine the consequences of not doing what she says.

I mean, I don’t wanna make her sound insane or dangerous, but she just might be…insane…and…danger…um, let’s move on. I think she’s here! Act like I am talking abouit something else….

Um, so yeah! Margerine is definitely a happy alternative to butter! Oh, hi lccb, how’s it hanging’. Hey, guess what I done? I wroteded one of them lists that are all the rage. About what? It’s the one you asked for about overrated Nineties bands. Have I pleased you, mistress? No punishment today? Oh, thank you!!! Thank you, thank you!!! And Ize goan starts wit da white stuff 'cause massah say so!

Once I’ve applied lotion to my sore hiney, I shall regale you all with my list of overrated Nineties bands and solo acts….

Rub in a circular motion, up & down, up & down, in & out…don’t ask!!!

OK, here we go, in no particular order:

- PEARL JAM, a.k.a. the other Nirvana: These guys were the second runners up to the Grunge throne. I’m not really sure what that means, though. Maybe they would inherit a kingdom of patchouli and flannel. Whatever the throne consists of, these guys were destined to be number 2 despite writing better songs on a technical level and often tackling political issues. Pearl Jam wasn’t whiney and self-indulgent like Nirvana. In fact, there was a masculinity to Eddie Vedder’s vocals that lent some authenticity to what he was doing. But ultimately, Grunge sucked and so did they.

- OASIS, a.ka. the incorrectly dubbed “New Beatles”: I am a huge fan of music from the UK. In fact, I often find it top be superior to music from the U.S., especially in the last 20—25 years. But that doesn’t mean everything out of the UK is great, hence my feelings on the Gallagher brothers known as “Oasis.” I’m not sure why these Brits were hailed as the New Beatles. Their music wasn’t melodious, their vocals were scratchy and annoying and their lyrics were sub-standard at best. I actually had the displeasure of sitting thorough an Oasis concert a few years ago because Travis was their opening act and it was horrible. This was a band that received much undeserved praise, especially considering how many of their contemporaries were superior them in ever way.


- SOUNDGARDEN: To say I despised this band and its lead singer might be a bit of an understatement…if not for the fact that it’s true. Nothing rankles my beanbag more than some pretentious nitwit troweling out terrible lyrics in the name of meaningfulness. Talk about your latch-on hacks. If you go back far enough, you will see a very different Soundgarden. Back then, Cornell was part of a substandard heavy metal act with a sparse following. But when Grunge hit, he suddenly became the most angst-ridden, warbling, angry loner like, ever! Songs like “Blackhole Sun” with its nonsensical title might have impressed the kiddies but the rest of us saw right through it. “Spoon Man” was even dumber. Now Cornell regularly serves as a living reminder that he fronts a terrible remade version of Rage Against the Machine, one of the better bands of the Nineties.


- KORN: a.k.a. The guys who told the other bands to “Follow the leader.” Into what, exactly? Mediocrity? Sophomoric garbage that would’ve never been popular if other more talented bands had been given airplay? Macho posturing of the sort we though we’d seen the end of in the Eighties? Does following the leader involve waiting until all the popular bands have self-destructed or lost their edge to exploit an opening in the market? If so, this was the great fucking band ever!!!

- LIMP BIZKITT: a.k.a. The first punk/rap band to use a midget as lead-singer. It was amazing watching the cute little guy cavort around with his little hands gripped around his little MIC and act like he was all big and bad and from the streets by way of the US Navy. The Biscuit came along, like Korn, at the perfect time to exploit an enormous gap between prior and next musical movement. Basically after Grunge and before suburban white kids latched firmly onto hip hop, rap/metal was the king of rock. Some of it was pretty good, and some of it was Limp Bizkitt. Low-brow, inane, lacking in any artistic merit or guilty pleasure pop appeal, these guys drove a rusty nail into the skull of a musical form that was limited at best. Stupidest moment: Remaking George Michael’s “Faith” as a screaming punk anthem with swears while missing the fact that the song was funny enough in its original incarnation.


- STONE TEMPLE PILOTS: Of the overall toilet that was the early to mid Nineties, this was a band that often shone brighter than the other turds. That is by no means an insult. They were actually pretty damn good. Of all the Grunge-ites, STP (Named so that they could use the gas station logo, according to myth) employed actual rhythms and scales to their music while still maintaining cred with the angst-ridden fans.

- NINE INCH NAILS, a.k.a. “My ex-girlfriend is a total bitch:" Although they technically began in the Eighties, NIN’s decade was the self-loathing Nineties. By turning his horrible luck at relationships into a cottage industry, Trent Reznor was able to write some of the best music of the decade. Industrial music purists loved to argue that NIN wasn’t that style of music, but whatever it was, it was much better than most of the other crap coming out around the same time. In fact, NIN continues to record great work even now.

More to cum in the future~

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS...

From time to time even one such as I runs out of relevant topics about which to blog. But even worse is when the topics and ideas are there but something blocks me from actually rendering them into something worth reading and commenting on. When that happens, I usually tend to fall back on one of three options: Absurdist posts, Lists, or cowering in a corner, covered in my own excrement and drooling into a rubber tube.

This time I have decided to go with a list, mainly because I haven’t eaten anything today and would find myself hard-pressed to summon anything of a waste-like nature.

Allow me to explain the Genesis of this here list. As music lovers get older, they start throwing things into lists of greatness and not-so-greatness. It is as inevitable as being arrested when you walk through the streets without pants claiming Jesus took them because he didn’t wanna look weird when he goes out on a date. Trust me, no cop in the world is capable of understanding the reasons behind that! Come to think of it, neither were the prisoners in holding.

But this post isn’t about how I am misunderstood. This list is the result of a series of conversations I’ve had with my friend Al, one of a small group of people whose opinions on popular music I respect. I’ve written about this before, but nothing angers me more than know-nothing radio DJ’s that claim to know things about bands only to display their woeful ignorance with comment after comment. DJ’s referring to performers as one-hit wonders because only one song by them gets played anymore despite that same artist having more than one top ten hit in their resume is a pet peeve shared by us both.

However, we don’t always agree. Part of the fun is the fact that we don’t. I mean, it’s not like he’s a woman or anything. They are required to agree with my every word, laugh at my every joke, and sleep with all my angry loner friends, male and female alike.

Lately I have been in revisionist mode, reevaluating the supposed “greatness” of bands from the Eighties and Nineties who, in retrospect, weren’t all that great after all. My list seems to grow on a daily basis, but for your benefit I have narrowed it down to a mere ten:

TOP 10 OVERRATED BANDS OF THE PAST 30 YEARS:

10) THE CLASH- I’m not saying they weren’t a good band. But I tend to think some bands come along at just the right time and reap the benefits of coincidence beyond their talents. At a time when the choices for fans of white music generally ran from underground punk to hard rock to soft pop, the Clash created a niche by infusing reggae into their punk rock approach. Originality doesn’t always equate with greatness, however, and most of their catalog is filled with stunningly underwhelming music.

9) U2- Again, not saying this is a bad band. In fact, they are probably one of the best to come out of the Eighties and their longevity speaks for itself…I suppose. Although I am no fan of the Rolling Stones and they continue to crawl out of their coffins and prance around like trained monkeys. My issue with U2 is that I think they receive credit for things they don’t necessarily do first. Their music is good and all, but much of it is ripped right out of the Simple Minds songbook. You may think Simple Minds if the “Don’t you forget about me” band, but they have been around just as long as U2 and outside the U.S. are recognized for their innovation and musicianship. U2 gets all their credit, thought, and that truly pisses me off.

8) The Sex Pistols- Buncha unkempt youngsters from the UK with tendencies towards violence and rage get together and form some sort of band that consists of guys who hate each other and like to break stuff. Oh, and they are the first to write a song basically telling the Queen to fuck off. There was no greater collection of anarchists in the music world than the Pistols, and that was their downfall. Popularity doesn’t lend itself to self-destructive movements and these guys were no exception to the rule. Closer examination reveals, however, that their music wasn’t much to brag about. Simplistic chords, little skill, and an over-reliance on shock value served only to hasten their demise as a band and given birth to hundreds of candy-ass imitators.

7) THE EAGLES- Did you know these guys are the biggest selling concert band in the United States? WHY!? They are by no means a sucky band, but are they really that good? Is it just because Southerners have no taste and they love rock that comes with a twang and a drawl? Just sayin’! THE EAGLES??? I may not hate them like Jeff Lebowski, but how much of their music can you listen to in one sitting? Not to mention the undeniable fact that most of their work has become a cliché. I have come to believe “Hotel California” is legally required to played at all times on at least one radio station in the State of Michigan.

6) TUPAQ- Rappers in general tend to be overrated simply because there isn’t a whole lot of talent involved in what they do. Talking to a synthesized beat and acting like you’re going to kill everyone in the room isn’t so much a talent as a gimmick. What Tupaq did do in the midst of all the gangsta posturing and misogyny was inject some actual lyricism into the proceedings. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised when I read some of his poetry, but it was diminished by the kind of guy he was. The hood rats might revere him as some kind of black messiah for the streets, but ultimately he was just a thug with a vocabulary.

5) THE POLICE- (Ducking) Sorry, I know these guys have become a sacred cow to current concert-goers, but upon further examination, they weren’t all that. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say the only great thing they did was the Synchronicity album. I suppose if you see greatness in an act based on a handful of catchy tunes, the Police are your band. But it’s a body of work that impresses me, and they simply don’t have it. There were other bands around the same time doing much better work and most of them are now forgotten because they didn’t have Sting as lead-singer. Charisma went a long way in the Eighties, as evidenced by that trip through Hades called “The Stray Cats.” Sting’s solo work from the middle point of his career is often better and more consistent than his material with the Police. Andy Sommers and Stewart Copeland have admitted they were just along for the ride with Synchronicity, which means they added NOTHING and most likely held Sting back.

4) ELTON JOHN- Right below Pants, Cabinetry & Sunsets, this is my most hated enemy. From my memories of having to listen to “Yellow Brick Road” as a child because of my mom to the day EFB and I had one of our worst fights and that awful “Harmony” was playing, Elton John has always been there to kick me when I’m down. I can think of groin pulls that are more pleasant than listening to his horrific voice, and his songs are like bad cabaret tunes from some forgotten sailor wanna hump-hump bar. Some men find greatness and some have it inside them. In John’s case, lover Bernie who wrote all the songs thrust it deep inside him. Not an ounce of worthwhile talent in this annoying, gimmicky flamer. He once had the nerve to criticize David Bowie for modernizing his sound. Bowie’s retort: “At least I don’t make my living off dead blonds.” Ouch! Girls, please!!!

3) PRINCE- Honey, somebody’s strangling the cat! My God, the poor thing is suffering horribly! Hmm? New Prince album? Oh, never mind. This pretentious, pompous, diminutive poser is quite possibly the most over-blown Eighties superstar in music herstory. For the younger folk reading this, you may not realize that at one time Prince was being hailed as the next Jimmi Hendryx. I know! PRINCE!!! That’s like hailing Justin Timberlake as the next John Lennon! All Prince had was an uncanny ability to tap into the l psyche and a talent for musical composition that established a fuller sound than much of the music coming out at that time. Perhaps he was poised on the precipice of genius at one point in the mid-Eighties, but he fell like a pair of cement overshoes dropped over a bridge.

2) NIRVANA- Hello, hello, hello, HELLLOOOooooo? I’ll take this call. Hi, Nirvana, how’s it goin’? Good to hear, good to hear. Listen, I’ve been meaning to tell you this so you might wanna cop a squat and refill that mocha latte and loosen the buttons on that flannel nightie you like to sport. This could take a while. Grunge was quite possibly the biggest blight on the arse of popular music ever devised. Not only was it a warbling, tuneless mess. Not only was it pretentious garbage. Not only was is the self-indulgent whining of over-privileged little b_arse snots. Not only was its undeserved popularity a long-reaching destructive force that quelled any other forms of music. Not only was Kurt Cobain a mere pretender to the throne whose weaknesses as a human being served as bitter reminder of how f_ up the Nineties truly were. Not only…Oh, I guess I said everything I wanted to say. Enjoy the coffee. Nice shirt.

Poser.

1) LED ZEPPELIN- I saved my least favorite “legendary band” for last. I can already hear the grumbling and gasping in reaction to this choice but please bear with me a moment. Or don’t! I really don’t care! To hell with you all! No, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. O-o-o-o-o, you don’t have to go LOL!!! This is a band whose popularity both mystifies and amuses me. To me, they always sounded like the tragic collision of two completely different planets. Page’s guitar work, while impressive, does nothing to compliment Plant’s high-pitched screeching and vice versa. It’s almost like watching children pick up musical instruments and start banging on them in the hopes that it all works cohesively. Taken apart, either one of these guys is talented and interesting. Together, I’ve heard cats fuckwith more harmony!

Well, there ya have it. My list. Feel free to eviscerate me now…

Especially you, Rudy, ya sexy summitch, ya!!!

I stand by my list. The only thing that could change it is the arrival of a sideways, shirtless Biblical literalist putting me in my place. Thank Zeus I don’t know any.

THE HEIST- part2

She keeps trying to get my attention and tell me something and I keep telling her to stop. Her lack of street sense is often frightening, and in a case like this it could be dangerous.

What she’s trying to tell me is something I already know. Only a fool wouldn’t have noticed the startling coincidence of the van happening by just as the truck was being stolen. It’s like something out of a Jerry Bruckheimer film complete with poorly acted bad guys pretending to be in shock over the whole thing. And very time we move closer to Daryl to find out what happened, the two guys seem to move closer to us.

That’s when I decide to go get Charlotte. Moments later I re-emerge from the house with my dog and rejoin she and Daryl and the two “unfortunate victims.” After a moment of my again telling her to be quiet about her suspicions, Daryl tells us all to go into his house to warm up. No sense in staying out in the middle of a snowstorm as if the truck will magically reappear.

Daryl’s wife Pam meets us at the door and tells us all to come inside and get warm. I mention the fact that I have Charlotte with me and she says no problem. So we go inside, all five of us, shivering and most likely in shock. Pam and Daryl are an interesting looking couple. He is a skinny white guy, nice-looking with what one might refer to as delicate features, while Pam is a stocky, hard-featured woman of Mexican descent whose build makes her perfect for her chosen line of work: Landscaping. The stolen plow was a significant chunk or her livelihood.

They are the kind of people sentimentalists write about when they are extolling the virtues of Middle Americans. They have been nothing but kind and considerate to all those around, including us. Naturally, that means they must suffer.

As we stand around in their tiny living room, I realize what is happening here. We are either all warming up following a random crime courtesy of the good thugs of Detroit who occasionally venture across 8 Mile or we are standing next to a couple co-conspirators in a car theft that went horribly wrong. Judging by the facial expression of she who is normally known as EFB, I’m not the only one who has reached this open-ended conclusion.

Pam tells us how she called 911 to report the incident and how she was repeatedly told to calm down. This served to enrage her further as she informed the 911 operator there was no reason for her to remain calm while her husband was in danger and they already knew where they lived. This is the first time we’ve ever heard her use the “F” word, and she nearly has a nervous breakdown when she utters it.

This serves to throw the other woman in the room into a fit of righteous indignation over the fact that we haven’t seen a cop yet. She asks for my phone and redials 911 and complains about the apparent lack of response and the fact that we haven’t seen any patrol cars on our street in over a year. The operator asks her which issue she wants to address first and she says, “They’re the same issue.” Conceding her point, the operator gets the local police department on the line.
The officer who answers advises her that the cars that were dispatched were in pursuit of the thief and apologizes that no one came by the house yet. She assures him she is a huge fan of law enforcement and ”the man in blue,” because that’s the kinda chick she is. The cops do show up a few minutes later in SUV’s. Two giants emerge from the vehicles, looking more like Gestapo than local police officers. Jack-booted and militaristic looking, they enter the house and start filling us in on what occurred behind the scenes.

Apparently the cops had the thief surrounded on all sides; the cops respond quickly in my city and they had cordoned off the area within minutes. Unfortunately, even the mighty SUV’s were no match for a gigantic 4x4 pickup truck in the middle of a blizzard. Just as they were closing in on him, the thief punched through a giant pile of snow and made it across 8 Mile and into Detroit. They were unable to pursue due to Detroit's unwillingness to allow other cities to chase criminals across the border.

While the bigger of the two massive cops takes our information and gives us claim number for our mailboxes, EFB decides to start asking him if they were able to shoot at the thief. The cop tells us no, and suddenly their results an intense and long conversation about how they should be able to shoot anyone who is resisting arrest or committing a crime. The talker of the two guys from the van throws his two cents in by agreeing a bit too passionately. The cop informs us he is going to get off his soapbox, then starts talking about how there are too many "liberals" preventing them from opening fire on fleeing suspects. EFB decries the current state of America and goes on about how her dad always taught her that if a cop stops you, drop to the ground and present your genitalia for whatever purpose he deems necessary.

OK, I made the genitalia part up but that's all I could picture while she was spouting off.

The two guys from the van call Triple-A to send a tow truck that can hopefully pull them out of the ditch. Pam and Daryl thank us profusely and tell us we might as well go home. As we exit their house, Charlotte starts barking up a storm and is answered by a German shepherd. The cops sent a K-9 unit. You can't say they didn't try.

As we head back down the street and home, neither of us feels comfortable leaving Pam and Daryl alone with two guys who might have been in on the theft. But what else can we do? It's 11:oo at night and Triple-A is in no hurry to show up on blizzardous nights. We spend the next hour calling them to make sure they are OK and to share our suspicions. Eventually, the two truck arrives and the two guys are free to drive home.

Two weeks later I still don't know if they were part of it or not. Pam and Daryl never got their truck back. Ironically, they'd been discussing getting rid of it because of the slipping transmission mere days before the theft. The insurance settlement was enough to invest in a new truck, but Pam's "Ex-brother-in-law" sold her one of his before that happened. When I spoke to them recently, they said they didn't think the two guys were in on it. One of them was an engineering student who gave them his phone number and said to call him if they needed someone to help out with the landscaping business. The other one that we'd noted had shifty eyes turned out to have Sickle Cell Anemia and couldn't tolerate the cold.

But there are moment, just moments, when I could swear I saw the thief get dropped off by the van. Unfortunately, I can't trust my memory well enough to say for sure.

Some mysteries might just be better off unsolved~

THE HEIST part 1

The dogs start going nuts at around 9:45 p.m. Thinking she must be home, I follow the larger of the two to the front picture window and gaze out into the whiteness in time to notice someone in a black coat walking toward the house next door as a van drives past him…or does it drop him off? If so, the driver is a bit of a prick The weather is terrible out there.

Thinking nothing else of it, I walk back into my family room and resume my viewing of Star Trek VI. A few minutes later, the dogs again start barking like crazed jackals and this time she is home. I let Gizmo outside since he is doing a bizarre tap-dance on the hardwood floor. As I open the door, I hear my cell phone ringtone going off from 2 rooms away. Since I’m already in the doorway, I lean out and ask her what she wants.

That’s when the white pickup truck with the plow lands in our ditch next to the mailboxes. I am wearing slippers and a T-shirt because I was cleaning and am unable to run outside. She starts gesturing toward the truck, eyes wide. From the doorway I can only see the truck and not its occupant.

Suddenly the sound of yelling comes from the street as the van I’d seen earlier drives toward the scene of the accident. She yells, “What are you doing!?”

I yell, “What the hell’s going on?”

Suddenly she starts yelling at me to call 911 and yelling for the dog to get out of the car. She wastes only another second on the former as she comes running into the house. The truck starts moving in the ditch. The 911 operator comes on as it breaks free of the snow and rams the plow directly into our mailboxes. I describe what’s happening to the operator and she interrupts to inform me that it is a stolen vehicle and there are officers in the area.

She runs back outside as I start looking for boots and my winter coat. I lean out the side door again to make sure the crazy m_r is really gone and hear her saying, “Are you guys OK?”

Suddenly, she yells, “WHAT!? Scribe, that was Daryl’s truck! Somebody just stole it!”

I throw on my coat and boots and run out into a frozen wasteland with no socks on & nothing over my T-shirt. As I make it to the end of my driveway, I see four people instead of the two I was expecting to see.

The two occupants of the large bluish-green van I saw earlier stand next to their vehicle that somehow wound up in the ditch across the street. I look past her to my neighbor Daryl who is brandishing an aluminum baseball bat. The sound of police sirens can be heard coming from all directions at once.

Daryl looks like a person coming down form an adrenaline rush, his nostrils widened, eyes bulging from their sockets and breaths coming in short, raspy exhalations. At the time I thought this was because he’d decided to chase the thief, but there was more to the story.

Apparently the thief panicked because Daryl did the “Walking Tall” routine on his arse. While the thief was hotwiring the truck, Daryl grabbed his bat and ran out the back door and around the vehicle, at which point he bashed in the driver’s side window and tried to do the same to the piece of shit stealing his property. This caused the thief to panic and veer away from the bat-wielding super-hero, taking out their light post with the plow on his way out of the driveway. Flash-forward a few seconds and the dumb-fuck has lost control and wound up in the next-door neighbor’s ditch, which is connected to mine.

The two guys in the van just happened to be heading down the street at that exact moment. Still panicking like the lil’ bitch ass scumbag he was, the thief jumped out of the truck and tried to jack them! Unsure of what he might be carrying, they got out of their vehicle and ran to the front of it. There was some yelling and obligatory profanity, then the thief ran back to the plow and threw it in reverse. By this time the two guys were back in their van. When the thief backed up to get out of the ditch, he forced them off the road and into the ditch across the street, front end first. At least, that’s what they told us.

More to the story...

TE BE CONTINUED~

MEA CULPA

That means "I apologize" for y'all one-toof havin' muhfukas.

I had fully intended to have the full story hinted at in my Sneak Preview two posts back by today, but the stupid post didn't make it into my email! Thus it will have to wait one more day. For those of you contemplating suicide because of the absence of my post, might as well just go ahead and do it. There's no tellin' if I can keep my promise.

The rest of you let me know where the funerals are taking place & stay tuned for "tomorrow."



AND WHY DOES NO ONE VISIT THIS SITE!?

http://www.scribe-green-big-screen.blogspot.com/

CALL OF THE WEEK RETURNS- limited engagement

SCRIBE: How can I help you today?

CUSTOMER: I need to cancel my account and pay all the termination fees.

SCRIBE: Sorry to hear you want to cancel but I’ll be happy to assist you. May I ask the reason for the cancellation?

CUSTOMER: My wife left me with 3 kids and I…can’t…afford to… (Sobbing)

SCRIBE: Oh! OK. I’m sorry to hear that. Was there any way you might want to hold onto at least one of them for emergencies just to avoid the fees?

CUSTOMER: No..I…just…I’m too busy trying to keep my house, man. (More sobbing) I have to cut all my expenses and just pay you guys what I owe you.

SCRIBE: We can suspend the lines without billing for 90 days if that helps…It doesn’t really sound like it will, though.

CUSTOMER: No. She left me for another guy. Sh-she’s not coming back! (Even more sobbing)

SCRIBE: Oh, wow. OK. Well, I will definitely go ahead and start setting up that account to terminate. Are you aware of the per line charge for early termination?

CUSTOMER: I know it’s, like, 200 bucks but I can’t… (Sobbing yet again)

SCRIBE: Well, it’s not quite that much! Do you mind if I take a look and see what the total in termination charges will be?

CUSTOMER: No (sniff, sniff)

SCRIBE: Thank you.

(I look at the account. Holy crap! This guy just renewed all his lines, meaning the early termination fees reset! 2 lines will be 165.00 each, and the other two will be 170.00 each! 670 bucks in fees not including his current balance of 150.00!)

CUSTOMER: OK, that’s fine.

SCRIBE: Just so you know, if you change your mind within 90 days and reactivate the account, you can get all those fees credited back to you.

CUSTOMER: She's not coming back.

What choice did I have but to terminate his account? I know I tried everything possible to keep him from going further into massive debt, but he was coming from a place of pure emotion. There's no reasoning with someone in that state. I know I made every attempt possible, but this one has stuck with me ever since~

SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW

Life became a heist film the other night. It all started innocently enough. I took my new dog, a rescued Irish Setter named “Charlotte” (I didn’t name her) for a walk to see if we could get those mighty bowels movin’ Unfortunately, I chose the exact time that a horrible snowstorm had been predicted and wound up in the middle of a newly emerging tundra.

Still, Charlotte didn’t disappoint and in no time I was headed back to my house. Charlotte and I walked past a small car that was parked in front of the house where the kindly lezbos with the tiny yip-yap dog live. I’d seen the car going back and forth down the street ever so slowly for the better part of 30 minutes but now it was empty, implying that its occupant(s) had gone inside the house.

By the time we made it to my driveway, we were coated in snow and slush. Thinking nothing else about the car, I ushered her inside and closed and locked the door.

A few hours later, as the snow fell in giant wite sheets, my other “dog” Gizmo the Chihuahua started barking up his own storn. He and Charlotte apprarently alert each other to strange goings-on because she jumped up and went to investiage, at which point the two canines took turns barking at…something. I swore I saw a guy walking past a moving van and headed toward the now occupied house next door to me.



By the time I looked again he was gone. All I could think was, "Did that van just drop him off in the middle of the street to go home? That's pretty fucked up."



The dogs and I thought no more of it. I should have paid more attention. Within the next 90 minutes, what I had dismissed would turn into something out of a suspense film complete with violence, near misses, stuntwork and a harrowing police car chase involving a K-9 unit!

Stay tuned, vultures. This one's gonna take a few days to get right~

3 wishes for Scribey:

Watch me pull a Fox News tactic, it’ll be great!!!

Ahem!

SOMEBODY said to me the other day that I should write a post featuring my secret desires and I just have to wonder how long I’ ve been aching to write that post!

See how I did that? Who needs sources & facts when you can just claim some phantom said something to somebody about something at some point? And here I wasted all this time despising Bill O’Reilley when I could’ve been using his insane tactics for my own good!

Not only did Somebody not mention this to me at all, but neither did anybody! Nobody did either!

Wait…Was I supposed to admit that? I don’t think that’s how it works! Man, those weasels at Fox are cleverer than I thought!

Well, too late to back out now. May I present for your excremental pleasure,

SCRIBE’S THREE WISHES:

Sadly, Eminem already wished for a big enough arse for the whole to kiss, so I guess I gotta come up with something else. Oh, I know!

1. A BIG ENOUGH DONG TO CHOKE THOSE WHO OPPOSE ME!!!

Yes, those of you who have been lucky enough to enjoy intimate aspects of the Scribester know firsthand that I am not far off from this goal by natural selection. However, like I told a female friend the other day, I wanna give 14 inches of love, but my friend won’t loan me his six. Do you know how galling it is to not quite reach double digits??? I feel so emasculated, so alone, so thirsty…if only someone would get me a lovely beverage. Nobody cares. They never have. That’s why I want the gargantuan dong! So I can make everybody love and respect me, like the neighborhood shakedown artist or, as Borat would say, the neighborhood “prust-ee-tewt.”

As readers of my now defunct original Organized Chaos blog know, I was recently fortunate enough to interview my tallywacker and found out some very interesting things that I summarily forgot as soon as I started writing this. So never mind that! My point is with the massive dong I’d be able to thrust it downward into the throats of my enemies and those who opposed me, thereby halting their platitudinous yapping and providing pleasure for myself at the same time. Here’s an example:

Officer- Do you know how fast you were going, sir?
Scribe- Yep.
Officer- Oh, you do?
Scribe- Damn right.
Officer- So why don’t you tell me how fast?
Scribe- Fast enough to snake your drain!
PLOP!!! Down goes the dong into the officer’s esophagus!!!
YEAH!!! Choke on it! Choke on itttttttttttttttt
Officer down! Officer down, biiiiiiaaaaattttcccchhhhhh!!!

Whew!!! That was fun...stupid cop!

2. CHURCHES WITH MANDATORY NAKED TWISTER NIGHTS!!!

Let's face it, what religion is missing is overt casual sex. The only reason there are sex scandals is because those committing them pretend to be virtuous and upstanding. But if my wish comes true, that will no longer be a factor as open sexuality becomes the spiritual norm. Think about it, people! No longer will we be made to feel bad about the various wet spots and unseemly bulges in our pantaloons. From now on, our very own religious "leaders" would be out there displaying raw asshole for all the parishioners, congregants and wilful suicide bombers to behold. How could anyone decry nudity as "sinful" when the person holding the Bible is balancing it on the edge of his John Thomas??? Not only that, everybody would truly be equal in God's eyes because they would all be bent over in bizarre positions displaying the nuts, berries and frosted flakes for all to see! O, it would be glorious, I tellz ya! Just one big Church-in!!!

3. WORLD PEACE!!!

That's right, I am not insensitive to the Utopian dream of no more war and strife. Nothing pleases me more than imaging a world where everyone gets along and there are no more weapons. A world where people hold hands and sing songs about Coca Cola, working together for a common goal of human development and growth. It brings a tear to my eyes to imagine little black boys and white girls and transgendered Asians walking side-by-side in a world that is safe and secure and the only thing "nuclear" is a stable family...

Yep, it sounds so nice. Especially because I would wait a few years until everybody thought everything was cool to walk about with my uncle's gun collection and start fuckin' people up! "Gimme that muthfukin' solar power plant, bitch!" POW-POW!!! Sure, some people would try to fight back with sticks and rocks and shit, but my specially trained army of genetically enhanced cyborg kangaroos would make quick of their punk-asses.

Then I would rule!!!

FINALLY TO RULE!!!

MUAAA HAAAA HAAAA HAAAAA!!!

And my flag would be a perfect replica of my massive throat-closing dong as I commanded the masses to pleasure me with worldwide Naked Twister festivals every Saturday!!!

Ah, the dreams of a a young impressionable boy...