Sitar Barbara Weekend

Sure, this weekend is the great pumpkining, but what I'm really looking forward to is heading back up to Santa Barbara (big ups) and the beautiful Arlington Theater to catch what I'm sure will be an amazing concert - Anoushka Shankar on sitar and some guy named...her dad Ravi Shankar! If you think she shreds (and she does), then her legendary father absolutely kills it. Yes, the same Ravi Shankar that took little Georgie Harrison from some band called The Beatles under his wing. The same Ravi Shankar that is responible for fathering Norah Jones as well as mentoring Anoushka. He's 89 years old and thankfully I have the chance to check him out! This is like seeing Mozart or Farinelli or Gershwin performing - he's not just a giant in his field, he is the field.

Best of the week: Grayson the demon slayer

Controversial freshman representative Alan Grayson, who has become famous for attacking the Republicans’ health care plan, went on the attack again calling former Vice President Dick Cheney a vampire for his recent criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the war in Afghanistan. I hate to say it, but Cheney is something harder to kill and more evil than your typical bloodsucker. Though it doesn't diminish his statements.

“I have trouble listening to what [Cheney] says sometimes because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he’s talking,” the Florida Democrat said . “But my response is this: he’s just angry because the president doesn’t shoot old men in the face. But by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?”

Last Wednesday, Cheney emerged from his fortress or darkness gave a speech that targeted the current administration’s decision-making process on how to proceed in Afghanistan, saying Obama has failed to give troops on the ground a clear mission or defined goals and appeared “afraid to make a decision.”

“The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said. “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”

In responding to Cheney’s attack, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs jabbed back. “What Vice President Cheney calls ‘dithering,’ President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public,” Gibbs said. “I think we’ve all seen what happens when someone doesn’t take that responsibility seriously.”

Grayson, was a successful trial lawyer before becoming a congressman, and shot to national fame and notoriety last month when he took to the floor of the House of Representatives and dramatically described the GOP health care plan as: “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.” He refused to apologize; Republicans say they’ll mount a stiff challenge against him in his conservative-leaning district in 2010, but so far no one has come forward to follow through on the threat. and that is what Republicans do - mostly make noise and threaten.

Also: You're breaking Uncle Joey's heart

Last year, Jodie Sweetin, aka Stephanie Tanner from “Full House”, publicly admitted that she had an awesome addiction to every kind of drug on the planet, then she went on “Good Morning America” and made a tour of college campuses talking about how great it was to beat addiction. But now she’s coming out with a new book in which she admits to doing drugs the entire time she was talking about being clean. Way to be a role model!

Here's some of her highlights:

• Sweetin got so drunk at costar Candace Cameron’s wedding in 1996, she vomited and had to be carried out.

“I probably had two bottles of wine, and I was only 14. That first drink gave me the self confidence I had been searching for my whole life. But that set the pattern of the kind of drinking that I would do.”

I always tell girls that drinking is the only way they'll gain the confidence to have sex with me in order to get the respect they deserve.

• Sweetin graduated to ecstasy in high school and cocaine in college.

"I wanted to prove that I could get more trashed than anyone. There were times I did so much coke, I’d be there laying there, getting sick and thinking ‘I’m going to die.’ But I didn’t care.”

Clearly she didn't go to my high school or college. She would be chastised for her drug use and called"freshman".

• During the premiere for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s 2004 movie New York Minute, she walked the red carpet “high as a kite” and snorted meth in a bathroom stall.

Bumping a few rails of meth is the only thing that could make an Olsen twins movie remotely tolerable.

“I was pulling off the deceit. It was hard for people to believe I was doing that much drugs. I look at photos from that event, and I didn’t even look strung out!”

Pro. For reals.

• When she was 9 months old, Sweetin was adopted. She later learned her biological mom also abused drugs and her dad was killed in a prison riot.

“I would hear stories about my mom leaving me to go off and party. And for years I was like, ‘Fuck her. How could somebody do that to their kid?’ When I started seeing my own addiction getting in the way of being a mom, I finally understood: If you’re not in the right place to get sober, you’re not ready to be a mom.”

Sweet! Being awesome is in your DNA!

• Though she bragged about her sobriety to Good Morning America and People in June 2008, she was secretly still getting high. And she drove drunk with her baby daughter.

“That was the big rock bottom. I had two glasses of wine and drove with her in the car. I not only put myself in danger, but also my daughter, who I loved more than anything. I felt terrible.”

Down to only two glasses of wine? Scarlett is a lightweight and that's not even her daily mimosa intake. the only thing you're putting in danger is your standing as a serious partier.

• She’s still battling with second husband Cody Herpin for shared custody of Zoie.

"I got sober for good on December 7, 2008. I was flying to L.A. and I ended up taking a bunch of Nyquil and drinking a shitload. When I got home, I got a call that there was an emergency custody investigation because of my drinking. From that day forward, I threw myself into going to AA and avoided people who do blow off their coffee tables. We’re working on a custody agreement right now. But life is good. I’m happier than I can remember.”

Nobody named Herpin is fit to parent. You can keep drinking. “This time, I’m not lying! Give me a second chance to drive drunk with my daughter!”

Best picture of the week:

Don't mess with the Governator.

Best bonus links:
• Madoff associate had heart attack, drowned in pool - I hope it was agonizing, you theiving bastard
• Teen girls arrested in break-ins at homes of Lohan, Hilton and other young celebrities - Criminals or modern day Robin Hoods that kept it for themselves? Here's another version of the story, with 1000% more nudity.
• Elizabeth Smart on her abduction: 'I never let it hold me back' - Except for that time you were abducted for 7 years
•Triple tubby: Too fat to parent? / Nightclubs for the plus-size begin to weigh in / Too fat to kill? Fla. man uses weight as a defense - I know it's an epidemic in our country, but for fuck's sake, you fat fucks!

Worst of the week: New yes, Mexico no

Larry Whitten arrived in Taos to resurrect a failing hotel, he had a simple plan - alienate the staff by forcing them to be Anglicized Americans!

He immediately laid down some new rules among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers from speaking Spanish in his presence and ordered some to Anglicize their names. Adios Marcos, hello Mark! Whitten's management style had "worked" for him in more than 20 other distressed hotels bought in recent years across the country, but his rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered employees and many in town. "I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I'm just doing what I've always done," he says. Maybe a change in strategy would be wise, instead of dropping more bombs.

Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile and insubordinate. He says they called him "a white (N-word)." That's nigger, by the way. Former workers, their relatives and some town residents picketed across the street from the hotel. After the firings, the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (who?), a national civil rights group, sent Whitten a letter, raising concerns about treatment of Hispanic workers. Whitten says he sent them a letter and posted messages on the hotel marquee, alleging that the group referred to him with a racial slur. Adding fuel to the fire were messages and comments he made in interviews with local media, including referring to townsfolk as "mountain people" and "potheads who escaped society," further enflamed tensions. Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal. But it is pretty stupid to not use common sense and not blatantly piss off the people who work for you.

Also: Suck n' blow

Film Drunk keeps us safe from scary horribly stupid sex toys:

It’s not something I like to brag about, but at a previous job I was once asked to do a review of the Fleshlight. Though most of you are probably already familiar with it, the Fleshlight is a Maglight-sized tube filled with fake rubber vagina (or butt, or mouth) that sort of looks like a flashlight, hence the name. The short version of the review is that it’s like trying to jerk off with a three-pound dumbbell in your hand. Kind of a hassle, unless you make a hole in a bed or a sex doll for it, and if you’re going to that much trouble to jerk off… well, let’s not even go there. Not to mention, your own hand is already a pretty efficient fake vagina. Let’s face it, God gave us two fake vaginas at birth and you can even control their kegel muscles. My, this has been cathartic, hasn’t it.

Long story short, this is the vampire-themed Fleshlight called the Succu Dry.

It’s perfect for the thousand-year-old sparkling vampire who can’t bone his girlfriend and has to spend all day listening to her melodramatic 16-year-old bullshit. I mean talk about sparkling blue balls. It only costs $5 more than the regular Fleshlight, but if you’ve got eternal youth and this is how you plan on spending your alone time, you might as well save up for a wooden stake to drive through your own heart.

Use it while listing to Adam Lambert.

And: Super Downsize Me

McDonald's is closing down business operations in Iceland because the country's financial crisis has made it too expensive to operate its franchise. So much for us ever getting McReindeer here...

The fast food giant said its three outlets in the country would shut - and that it had no plans to return. Besides the economy, McDonald's blamed the "unique operational complexity" of doing business in an isolated nation with a population of just 300,000. Also, Iceland's banks collapsed at the height of the global credit crisis - wrecking the country's economy and forcing it to rely on an $10 billion international aid package. The nation's first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1993, and the franchises are run by a firm called Lyst. Restaurants imported their goods from Germany, but costs have almost doubled, and the falling krona made imports prohibitively expensive. Since the announcement, the restaurants had "never been this busy before... but at the same time profits have never been lower". Lyst plans to run the restaurants under another name so that they are able to buy cheaper Icelandic products.

Worst picture of the week:

Miley Cyrus’ little sister Noah as “coccinellid cocksucker” or “child prostitute with progeria” for Halloween.

Worst bonus links:
• Coyotes kill woman on hike in Canadian park - Experts can continue to tell us certain animals are not prone to attack people like this, but during a recession, everybody is suffering - desperate times call for desperate measures.
• Griese suspended 1 game for Montoya remark - Stupid racist honky.
• Octo-Mom: How I Lost 145 Pounds! - I hear it involves surgically removing 8 babies from you.
World's largest cruise ship sets sail from Finland - Anybody remember the last titanic vessel that sailed the seas? If you have an onboard ice rink, God wants you to sink.