May Your First Child Be A Masculine One

Yeah, that's Celine Dion and her son. I believe this was taken before Little Lord Fauntelroy had to be wisked off the ballet practice.

I'll say it again, folks...if you hate children, don't have them.

Filthy Bonnet

Oh, how I loves me some Rasputina!

As they do with almost annual precision, their tour caravan will be treking and traversing the great 48 for a series of summer recitals.

I stumbled upon this trio of cello playing ladies many years ago and was very impressed with their unique sound which "chamber-rock". In the eleven years since, they have had many different second and third chair celloists as they added and lost members, expanded to include a drummer, experimented with electronic sounds, and adapted many a popular song to their style, but all the while kept their Victorian-era charm.

As your protector and champion, it is my duty to make you aware of all that is evil, stupid, and just flat out wrong with this world. But it is also my sworn obligation to inject your lives with vibrancy and excitement. Really, check the contract. I put Rasputina up there with Morphine and Polar Bear in the sure-fire category, and have yet to meet a person who didn't appreciate being exposed to them.

The New Zero


Barracuda


Wicked Dickie


Saline The Salt Lake Queen


Here's where they'll be and when...do yourself a favor and take in a show.

Sat-Jul-07 Detroit, MI — MAGIC STICK
Sun-Jul-08 Chicago, IL — THE ABBEY
Tue-Jul-10 Minneapolis, MN — VARSITY THEATER
Wed-Jul-11 Kansas City, MO — THE RECORD BAR
Thu-Jul-12 Denver, CO — BLUEBIRD THEATRE
Fri-Jul-13 Colorado Springs, CO — THE BLACK SHEEP
Sat-Jul-14 Park City, UT — SUEDE
Mon-Jul-16 Portland, OR — HAWTHORNE THEATER
Tue-Jul-17 Seattle, WA — NEUMO'S
Thu-Jul-19 San Francisco, CA — GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL
Sat-Jul-21 Los Angeles, CA — EL REY THEATRE
Sun-Jul-22 Solana Beach, CA — BELLY UP TAVERN
Mon-Jul-23 Tempe, AZ — THE CLUBHOUSE
Tue-Jul-24 Tucson, AZ — CLUB CONGRESS
Fri-Jul-27 San Antonio, TX — WHITE RABBIT
Sat-Jul-28 Austin, TX — THE PARISH
Sun-Jul-29 New Orleans, LA — HOUSE OF BLUES
Tue-Jul-31 Birmingham, AL — WORKPLAY THEATRE
Wed-Aug-01 Atlanta, GA — VINYL
Thu-Aug-02 Asheville, NC — THE GREY EAGLE
Fri-Aug-03 Knoxville, TN — BLUE CAT'S
Sat-Aug-04 Lexington, KY — THE DAME
Sun-Aug-05 Newport, KY — SOUTHGATE HOUSE
Tue-Aug-07 Cleveland, OH — GROG SHOP
Wed-Aug-08 Baltimore, MD — OTTOBAR

Oh, The Chuckles!

Good news for folks who love "comedy" -- Jon Lovitz for life Wednesday nights at The Laugh Factory!

The 49 year old comedian announced yesterday he signed a contract to appear at the comedy club weekly until his dying breath, or more likely, he dies a few weeks in a row on stage. Although details of the contract were not made public, club owner Jamie Masada called the deal "very lucrative", and noted that Lovitz would also participate in the venerable club's blog. The exclusive deal appears to be the first of it's kind, and there is no word from stalwart competitors The Improv or Comedy Store if they will try and get other SNL alum like A. Whitney Brown or Victoria Jackson for similar contracts.

Now I know where I won't be on Wednesday night. I'm already not looking forward to seeing him on season 5 of NewsRadio, I can't imagine a weekly dose of him...although none of the stories say anything but "appear", not perform. That makes more sense, having him sit in a corner or take tickets. Maybe he'll even sign free autographs if you exceed the two drink minimum.

In fairness, he was in the awesome Happiness, which if your mommy wouldn't let you see because it was black as night, here's the brilliant opening scene...

Hyperjerkism

There’s an alarming new smugness arising from the already obnoxious pit of hybrid owners – hypermilers.

It’s bad enough that Apple owners act like the God’s own technorati, vegetarians bust on the rest of us face eaters, and hybrid owners possess a superiority complex because they’re single-handedly saving the planet from pollution, global warming, and the evil of gasoline consumption, but hypermilers are the cherry on an already annoying sundae.

Straight outta Sauk Rapids, MN the Associated Press found their poster girl for slow driving, and detailed her quest to ring every last drop of gas out of her car with maximum efficiency. Accelerating gently when the light turns green, coasting down hills to save gas, and staying in the right lane on the freeway are all tricks to bump up Laurie With’s mileage. She coasts will below the speed limit on the rural highways and drafts behind cars to decrease her wind resistance.

Aside from the her lack of a real surname, when you take a deeper look you realize the kinks in the story. Nobody knows what this chick does, but ambulance driver is probably out. Going to and from her part time job at the Hallmark store doesn’t really require much hurry. Which leads us to the next part – her location. Anyone living in Bumpkinville U.S.A. can take their sweet time puttering around. And strangely, there was no mention about how many cats she owned or the needlepoint collection she maintained. Because if yarn and kittens are what’s going on for you, then you’ve got the time and mental free space to obsess over finding the highest spot in the parking lot to get momentum and keeping your car on the electric side of the motor.

Common sense and an almost non-existent understanding of cars would tell you that less acceleration and more driving on the electric motor will jack up mileage, but a special group of folks with nowhere to go and no time limit have bonded under their upright and steadfast adherence to being better than you for using less gas. I cordially invite them to spend a week here in Los Angeles and try to run their game. Oh wait, we have lives here, and some importance to our day that prohibits us from cranking along at the pace of a bicycle – which if they really wanted to max their gas, they’d bike about. Kudos to America’s newest self-important heroes, the hypermilers, whose dedication to minutia earns them bragging rights at the upcoming summit for folks who spend disproportionate amounts of time for marginal results.

Trend Strong

A few years ago, you couldn’t walk down the street without being trampled by a crowd of yellow wristbands. Lance Armstrong’s cancerous testicle not only inspired a nation, but won Sheryl Crow over, and created a fad.

I was around the first time rubber bracelets became a big deal, and they had far less pretentiousness. The 80’s were great, not just because I got hair ‘round my junk, but because a guy could wear a silly skinny black bracelet and the only bandwagon you were on was being fashionable. The New Romantic, MTV asexuality ruled, and being trendy was purely for aesthetic, shallow reasons.

The second grand revival took almost twenty years, but it came around, bigger and badder than the first time. The difference was a massive wave of smug superiority, crass capitalism, and blind conformity. It’s hard not to take up the cause against cancer, unless you’re a tobacco CEO or a complete prick, but there’s a difference between supporting a cause deliberately or trying to keep up with what the buzz is and inadvertently causing support.

Swatch watches, Air Jordans, Stussy, Oakleys, Z Cavaricci. - all trends, all the hot fashion at the time they came out, all indicative of your level of coolness and Q. But all of them lacked a crucial component…a non-fashionable statement. Birkenstocks enjoyed a nice revival over a decade ago and they had both trend and an image based message: “I’m hip, but I’m also environmentally conscious”. What possession of a thing said about you became the fashion and trend, not just the intrinsic look of an object by fashionable standards. Of course, every other cause in the universe soon made their own colored variation of the bands, but the little yellow entity was omnipresent.

I never got on that bandwagon, and I’m happy to say none of my friends did either, because that shit looked stupid. Besides that, the dopiest, dullest dregs of society found a cheap trend that made them included in the same circles as any other person who was not a useless as they. On one hand, that’s a beautiful thing, to see people of different classes and social spheres equalized like that, especially when some Beverly Hills trophy and a La Puente chica both have Louis Vuitton purses that are virtually the same except what was paid for them. But trends of fashion don’t work like that, and the grossly widespread proliferation of a style makes it lose the unique quality that made it special in the first place.

I don’t want to get off subject and turn this into the style police hour, but hopefully you recognize the practical issues of trend-bursting this little rubber gimmick created. And now that you do, factor back in the additional overtones of what the bracelets stand for. The crushing weight of the symbolic adherence to following the crowd is too much for me. The same mentality happened when every other car in LA had a Lakers flag on it during their early decade dynasty, and when pro-soldier yellow ribbon stickers started showing up on bumpers everywhere. And though being anti-trend is novel in itself, the real triumph is in avoiding the group mentality and choosing to migrate away from trends as a principle rather than as a reaction, because hating something for what it is has to be primary to hating something for what it is because it’s widespread.

Example: UGG boots. What has to be the ugliest contraption you could sink your tooties into, they look like fur lined buckets. Hardly every seen on a woman who isn’t wearing sweatpants or tracksuit bottoms that likely say Juicy across the ass, they are nothing more than outdoor slippers. Furthermore, they are a small component of an outfit, nay, uniform that says, “hi, my fashionable side was permanently stunted and never grew beyond what a co-ed wears down to the dorm cafeteria”. Of course, now they’re as widespread as herpes at an ASU sorority house, but disgruntlement at their weed-like propensity to propagate is secondary to loathing their basic existence.

These days, I don’t remember the last time I saw one of those stupid yellow idiot tags. Even adults have taken them off. And it was their absence and retreat into fad obscurity that took a long time to notice, like how some people don’t immediately notice if a man with long standing facial hair shaves it off. One day, I just noticed they were gone. I know they didn’t cure cancer, so what happened? That was rhetorical – I already told you it was not just a fashion trend but was also sparked (and later driven) by conformist behavior. At least many of you now know how to recognize fashion based lemming-like behavior and prepare for whatever socio-significant statement gets loaded into the next hot object. It’s only a matter of time…

The First 100 Blogs

…And they said we’d never reach our 100th post.

Actually, they didn’t say anything, but that’s not going to stop me from triumphantly celebrating the big one-double-oh. For all of one more sentence.

Making 100 posts is like bragging about jerking off to the century mark; it’s an unimpressive feat. Nix the bragging, it’s just plain ol’ jerking off - when you consider it would have taken the same amount of days to reach that number, is highly self indulgent, and was done primarily sitting while in front of the computer. Yet here we are, making praise for my pants around my ankles and you spectating.

But after eight dozen or so thefts of your time in minute increments, I’ve learned a very valuable lesson: blogs are pretty goddamn useless.

Ten years ago I published a ‘zine, and as mein Quarterly graced toilet reservoirs across this great land, it was merely a low tech version of the same bravado and snarky perversion of wit and wisdom that now magically wanders in from the wasteland of the internet almost daily. It’s still a one man operation, still not profitable, and still the organ and outlet for the things I ignore which the voices in my head are yelling. Plus ce change, plus ce la meme chose!

I guess we’re fortunate to be living in a era where not only do we have such vast disposable income that we can own enough different mp3 players to keep the one for the car separate from the one we take to the gym, but that we have an equally abundant narcissism to think that our own thoughts and opinions are important enough that they be posted for any and all to see.

As far as I can tell, there are six different types of blogs out there – and I say six because I just picked an arbitrary number, so now let me see if I can come up with that many. They are diary, gossip, humor, opinion, pornographic, hybrid. There are jokers in their basements cracking wise and posting their stolen nudie pictures, housewives detailing their afternoons and liberals looking for more right wing conspiracies. If it’s not about what type of sandwich some starlet ate at a nightclub, well, then you’re looking at some schmuck like me doing a hybrid of all the others. And again, I ask why it matters.

Like any artist, one has to be critical of what they do, because creation without questioning robs the process of its final validation. Not that any art need be accepted, appreciated, or even exposed to others, but that moment of valuation is the difference between endless labor and completion. I would hardly consider crapping out posts anywhere near even the lowest art, but having wasted many a day pretending to be both musician and liter-auteur, it is that process that defines the drive to do such. In that respect it is very much like a piece of art, to be enjoyed and to have an impact viscerally or emotionally…even though most art is garbage and the value is subjective.

So with 100 down and countless more to go, I guess there’s not much else to say except thanks to anybody who’s felt like goofing off at work and read the site, and to myself for being amazingly generous to help you waste your employer’s money. I wish us both many, many more lost hours of productivity.

You Can't Argue The Truth

Kentucky, long known as the undisputed center of intelligent thought and progressive information trafficking, has added another notch to its already impressive belt.

The privately funded Creation Museum opened to some protests, but for 4,000 lucky inaugural visitors, it was a treat! Explaining how the world was created just a few thousand years ago in a mere seven days, the museum had many exhibits that showcased the amazing, absolutely true stories of the Bible.

The museum features several high-tech exhibits, including animatronic dinosaurs and a wooden ark over two stories tall, plus a special effects theater and planetarium. Aside from the dinosaurs aboard Noah's Ark, the museum also has an exhibit that shows all animals were vegetarians until Adam committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden.

No word yet on expansion plans for the new facility, but speculation is high that the next areas to open will be the 9 Circles Of Hell food court and Sinner’s Playground gift shop.

Also, Wednesdays are free for fundamentalists.

Eye Of The Beholder

In case you haven’t been near a calendar recently, the year is 2007, and yet there are still beauty pageants. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a stage full of comely women in bathing suits or evening gowns posed and smiling, but it’s a mildly titillating experience that really has no positive purpose overall.

Master showman P.T. Barnum was credited as the first modern presenter of the pageant in the 1850’s, although the idea of putting women on display for town and country as personification of their virtues has existed for centuries. Newspapers held photo beauty contests for decades, and locales would often publicize events by holding annual contests to crown a figurehead. It was only in the last 90 years that pageants grew to the popularity and scope they are today (and I use both sparingly).

Like many other awards shows and presentations, public interest has declined over the years, and while Nielsens are hardly the paradigm of accuracy, it does paint a picture with some truth. The irony is that we as a nation and world are more obsessed with beauty than ever before, yet the business of pageants is losing it’s luster (and dollars). Sex and drugs scandals have tarnished the tiara as well, although I think it gives the contests and participants a well needed edginess.

Women will tell you they fight objectification daily, but paradoxically give value to media that encourages them to buy clothing and make up or tells them what shape to be. And still, the thought of contestants preening for objectified judgment is obscene to most women. Beauty pageants, while actually striving to give depth and character to women, end up getting relegated to a place far below modeling, a thriving industry where aspirations, goal, and civic accomplishments are not part of the criteria for success.

In a less shallow society, the pageant had significance, and it certainly was the primary entrance to fame and fortune before Hollywood criteria demanded less of it’s starlets. Being Miss Backwoods County was a stepping stone to getting out of the dirt road place you lived in, but with pavement in abundance these days and the world much smaller, getting a webcam will yield better results than charm school.

Much of the backlash towards beauty contests also comes from the vision of too young girls tarted up like teen prostitutes, being forced into performing and parent pleasing by lesser stage mothers. Looking at a room full of little JonBenet robots, it seems a far cry from the regal and wholesome identity that the competitions had in their heyday. And while the intent is to groom girls into ideal young women, the process is so unspeakably dirty that it corrupts the purity they argue is the redeeming factor in parading women around.

Whenever I see one of these shows, I feel bad for the girls in them. Granted, they’re not doing it in lieu of something more practical, but in their bright eyed, smiley, uplifting happiness, I feel like they’re either too dumb to know they’re not regarded highly, or worse, aware and soldiering through because of their desire to win. I don’t doubt for a minute that they honestly intend to save the planet, spread peace and love, and rescue baby kittens from trees, but it just smacks of stupidity when there’s no trace of anything less than absolute positivism in their nature.

Ultimately, they are a group of homogenized zombies, interchangeable and indoctrinated with the same rhetoric. And in spite of the attempt to shine a glitzier light on it, the notion of the beauty pageant becomes more antiquated each year.

pre-natal pretties!

While We Were Out

Boy, 11, bags hog bigger than 'Hogzilla'
And the truth comes out about Rosie’s departure from The View.

New limbless lizard species discovered
Yeah, it’s called a snake.

Romney to donate salary if elected
Scandals, lying, corruption still planned for presidential candidate.

Website to sell nonexistent real estate
Real life morons will soon own fake property, but with a good re-fi rate.

Calif. prisons trying to reduce suicides
They finally solve overcrowding and they want to stop this?

Michelle Obama likes to razz her husband
Pornographers prepare to produce ‘razzing’ videos.

Japan official hangs self amid scandal
He could have ended up in a California prison and still be alive.

Army adds lifesaving to basic training
Shooting, killing still at the top of training procedures.

Broadway actor Nelson Reilly dies
The nation mourns, then asks “Who’s Charles Nelson Reilly?”

Young Jeezy arrested at Ga. strip club
Old Jeezy was very displeased.

The Weekend Memorial

Three days to celebrate not being at work!

Art Imitates Life

...as well it should.

Three Decades Of Family Dysfunction

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars.

While guru George Lucas proved his counting skills are a little off, he did give us a hell of a trilogy, and three other full length special effects demos. As a child of the Star Wars era, I'm happy to have grown up during the renaissance of science fiction films. Mainly attributed to the 40's / 50's serials and the occasional art film (2001 and the original Solaris), science fiction became a marketable, viable genre as a result of the vision of George Lucas. One of the other major impacts was the flood of licensing and product tie-ins, which were hugely profitable and set a standard that still applies today.

I could tell you about how Adam Schindler stole my R2-D2 action figure in preschool, or that my sister and I dressed up as C3-PO and Princess Leia for Halloween. There are stories of seeing The Empire Strikes Back in Westwood and going to Burger King afterwards to get a Lando Calrissian glass, and sitting in the front left row to see the opening night Return Of The Jedi at the UA Warner Center 6. There was the time a dozen of us, including Famous Mom, all played hooky and saw the first morning showing of The Phantom Menace. And most recently my molestation of the dark side being Darth Vegas last Halloween. There are many stories to tell, and lots of others with similar experiences.

While some of the movies were amazing and others were almost unwatchable, there is still something special about the Star Wars universe, and after 30 years that's worth noting.

Money Well Spent

Hidden inside a $14 billion package for rebuilding and relief in New Orleans is a paltry $3.5 million proposition to build a monument to those who lost their life to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Although no specific design, method of choosing one, or location has been proposed, planners are "urging" completion by 2018. Also, no money has been secured for the project, and the costs of upkeep were estimated at $70,000 a year.

Is your head reeling in confusion too?

I wish somebody would give me that chunk of money to do something, somehow, somewhere, 11 years from now. Trust me, it will be good -- that's how I figured my undetermined "thing" costs 70K annually to maintain. Don't worry, it's tucked into a way more extreme amount of spending for legitimate reasons -- nobody will question it.

Praise The Lord (Stanley)

To co-opt a popular fan saying, my two favorite hockey teams are the L.A. Kings and whoever is playing the Anaheim Ducks.

Classically, when two teams share the same territory there's bound to be rivalry. And while the LA sprawl and Orange County are large enough, the Southern California megalopolis is really just one big neighborhood. And I hate the neighbors.

Ever since the NHL started a massive growth spurt in the early 90's, Los Angeles has had a Disney shaped scourge lurking in the shadows. The only major sports team in history to come into existence on the heels of a promotional tie-in, the Mighty Ducks were a cartoon version of what a sports franchise should be. Yet somehow over 15 years, they not only shed their lame mascot and stupid name, but managed to put together some scrappy, talented players and forged a competitory team. So good in fact they're in the Stanley Cup finals for the second time in four years - even being called a favorite. And the only thing standing between them and glory (and my disappointment) is a team from Ottawa.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Godspeed you Ottawa Senators. Smite our common foe and keep the Cup out of California...unless its hoisted by kingly hands.

CNNema

When I’m doing my evening routine at the gym, I punish my body, but with the handful of satellite TVs, I punish my mind. Other than the loop of SportsCenter on one monitor and whatever crap dramedy CBS is running, CNN is usually playing. I have to drown out the totally discouraging and distracting music they pump through the speakers with my own tasty blend of jams, but unless there’s a she-devil’s cute little ass bouncing around in front of me, I’ve got nowhere to look but up. Since there’s usually 30 seconds of hockey info per hour in ESPN, I tend to catch my headlines and political discourse – if and when they choose to serve it up.

Sadly, there’s not enough news to keep a 24 hour news network afloat. Well, if you pulled stories from around the world, or focused even the slightest bit and looked deeper at the day’s events you might, but nobody wants that. The great Reverend Perry Farrell nailed it when he said the news is just another show with sex and violence, so what do think a 24 hour long show is going to cover?

So, the timing happened to be right that instead of reminding us that we’re in an unpopular war that has no clear victory or exit, drag out the slow burn of blame in the Attorney General’s office, or talk to every lunatic who thinks they have presidential muster, CNN was showing Larry King’s on-air back rub. I never figured King to be Murrow, but his interview skill is so weak that, well, I haven’t seen such lobs since the neighborhood retarded kids went to the park to play softball.

Tonight though, I experienced a new level of shocking schlock. Rather than cooing over whatever celebutant he has doing a promotion or trying to make like Montel chatting up the sister of some victimizing event, King was pushing the journalistic envelope covering…the on-air bickering between Rosie O’Donell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck from The View. I wish I was kidding. His panel of talking heads, er, experts was, from the internet tabloid site TMZ.com, managing editor Harvey Levin, and the perky yet almost aged to her expiration date Dana Devon, she of Extra fame. And for at least 15 minutes they talked about a shitty program that is nothing but a bunch of slags sitting around a table adding their pointless opinions on banal minutia. It made as much sense as an in-depth report on morality and the meaning of life as portrayed by One Live To Live.

Daytime television is a wasteland of unwatchable filler. It’s not as cool as you thought it was when you were in 9th grade and home sick from school. Amidst the F-Troop reruns and infomercials, the networks rot the brains of stay-at-home mothers and the unemployed with morning talk shows, which inexplicably make not only cable news channel highlights, but are a headline segment on their prime time show.

Who in their right fucking mind cares?

If the pig and the princess don’t like each other, let them have a slap fight behind the studio, but for God’s sake don’t propagate such useless stupidity.

And still, it continues.

The second course was the apparent reconciliation and romance of Joey Buttafuco and Amy Fisher. Yes, the underage girl who shot Joey’s wife in the face in an attempt to clear the way for their ongoing affair. Fifteen years later this Sopranos reject and his little chippie hooking up gets a spotlight on it. And to top it off, King trots out the ex-Mrs. Buttafuco to see how she feels about it.

Jesus, that’s not deliberate and heavy handed. And what kind of starved-for-attention media whore is she to bother coming on to relay what would only, obviously be resentment, scorn, and disgust at the situation?

I didn’t read the captioning, but it my fantasy it would have gone something like this:

KING: It’s the top of the hour, on Larry King Live, and with us in studio is Mary Jo Connery, ex-wife of Joey Buttafuco, who years ago was the innocent victim of a love triangle involving the then underage Amy Fisher. Thank you for joining me…

CONNERY: Uh, thanks Larry.

KING: You were shot in the face, lost hearing in one ear, and were partially paralyzed as a result of the attack. How does that make you feel.

CONNERY: Well, it’s been difficult but I’ve done my best to cope and move on with my life.

KING: Weeks ago, your ex-husband Joey had a very public outing with Amy Fisher, your assailant, and the rumors are now swirling they may be a couple. What’s your take on this?

CONNERY: Well, er, I wasn’t aware of this…

KING: And there’s talk they may be thinking about marriage.

CONNERY: Uh…I don’t really, um…why are you telling me this?

KING: Well, isn’t it something that after all these years Joey and Amy could be getting back together?

CONNERY: Ah, I thought you had me come in to discuss my physical rehabilitation and the work I’m involved with with my church to help disabled and paralyzed people--

KING: But now they’re in public together. Your ex-husband and the woman who shot you…

CONNERY: Look Larry, I don’t care he does, or what she does…I’m trying to move on with my life and people like you don’t let anyone forget the horrible things that happened to them--

KING: Yes, these horrible things…and now they may--

CONNERY: Listen, you demented scumbag, it’s parasites like you who prey on people and only care about spreading misery to get your ratings up. Frankly you’re no better than them because you have zero decency and no shame about what you’re doing.

KING: But--

CONNERY: This interview is over, you sick, sad old man.
(undoes her clip mike and leaves the studio)


I tell you, I could possibly watch Larry King get schooled once a week.

Halp Pleez K Thx

Dear America,

Who is Jordin Sparks and why do I care?

thanks,
Famous M

Where Is Richard Tyson?

While waiting for a new pair of tires for my ride this morning, I enjoyed breakfast at the Broadway Deli, and I'm pretty sure Richard Tyson was there.

Yes, the nemisis of Kindergarden Cop, and the short lived but impression making series Hardball from 1989. And while I'm dropping old programs, does anybody remember Sam "Flash Gordon" Jones and Jacko in the equally brief Highwayman? They had that boss semi with a ton of tech gizmos and tricks.

Anyway, if someone out there knows him, ask him if he was at breakfast. I'm curious.

Steve Martin Is The Great Flydini

I've always thought Steve Martin was a genius...for anybody who doesn't, this proves it.

Musical Neuter II: Return Of The Puss

Bad music is like a weed, it sprouts up everywhere. Good music is like weed, it gets you high. These bands are so awful that you’d have to be high to like them. High like angel dust high.

Maroon 5

I had originally planned to include these ladies in with the last batch, but I got distracted by the awesome mega-wattage of weakness form the other bands that I forgot. Before they softened up, they used to be called Kara’s Flowers (any hint there where they’re headed musically?) and did a watered down version of grunge. Years later they reformed, renamed, removed their testicles, and put out Songs About Jane. Naming your album for the ex-girlfriend who just broke up with you is cool…if you’re in junior high. What an amazing narcissist the singer was to suggest it, and what a sackless bunch of lemming the band was to go along with it. It should have been called “I’m A Whiny Bitch-Boy Who Cries A Lot” – that says exactly the same thing and cuts right to it.

And how their drummer had to quit because the excessive touring because he "deteriorated to such a degree that both [of my] arms were pretty much useless" is a new level of laughable. I know that listening to that music is crippling, but I figure you’d be immune playing it. That’s the most spineless way to back out of playing such bad music I ever heard.

Typical Female Fan: virgins, girls who wear crucifixes (not for fashion), single white women who work in bookstores

Typical Male Fan: guys who watch American Idol, heartbroken lovesick guys who write poetry to ex-girlfriends

Musical Opposite: Nashville Pussy – southern fried rock out of Georgia whose core songwriting subjects are sex, drugs, drinking, and fighting

Matchbox 20

The patron saints of pop-tinted sucking, they too were spawned from an earlier, equally lame band (Tabitha’s Secret – wow, now every girl named Tabitha is ashamed and they haven’t even heard your crappy music) before finding their formulaic brand of low dosage “rock”. When I was a younger man, I had hoped to come across these dorks and challenge them, band to band, to a fight, the winner getting their recording contract. Lucky for them we never crossed paths, but unfortunately for everyone else, they established Adult Contemporary music in the mainstream. If you play guitar, it should be taken away if you play AC music, just to be sure that no rock accidentally gets in there.

Eventually, their pompousness led them to change their name from Matchbox 20 to Matchbox Twenty…y’know, to be more adult…and contemporary. Their music is a nothing more than a sped up ballad at best, with no teeth or bite to it, and strangely the two places you’re most likely to hear it is in an office or a strip bar (don’t ask, but it’s a fact). And with singer Rob Thomas getting “Smooth” with Santana, now there’s no limit to the bland.

Typical Female Fan: strippers, women who drink beer (watery American swill like Bud and MGD), girls who wear cowboy hats

Typical Male Fan: guys who shop at J. Crew, college student at schools without football or basketball programs

Musical Opposite: Rollins Band – 100% pure rock and roll intensity, complete with a buff, shirtless guy screaming his lungs out

Nickelback

Canada gave us Rush, but they also gave us Nickelback, and goddamn, it’s still hard to say if that’s a fair trade. Rumor has it that Kurt Cobain could see the future, and that he went down on a shotgun because he saw the rise of Nickelback. If Canada is the friendlier, polite version of the United States, then Nickelback are the weaker, cheesier version of rock music.

Truly, in the post-grunge era, their faux-anthems passed for hard rock music because pop music had become so widespread. It was, though, hardly hard or rockin’, merely plodding along until Indie music got more raw and heavier (hybrids of metal) music made a return. Much the same way the purse-holders in Good Charlotte are a paint-by-numbers goth-punk band with their designer eyeliner and still-wet tattoos, Nickelback are the bastard offspring of a past era with their stale goatees, downtrodden looks, and dull edge. Their music is the equivalent of cardboard – boring as hell.

Typical Female Fan: girls who work in sports bars, your fat cousin

Typical Male Fan: Canadians, NASCAR fans, guys who think Staind are a heavy metal band

Musical Opposite: Faith No More – this defunct quintet did a bizarre yet palpable combination of funk, metal, rock, and alternative and was as unpredictable live as they were from song to song

Creed

We can’t mention how much Nickelback sucks without also bringing up the mighty Creed. Looking like they came from a sale at Hot Topic, these poseurs took terrible music into un-ventured territory – Jesus. They were not the first Christian rock band, but certainly the biggest. The fact they existed and garnered any kind of success or fame is proof enough that God is dead. Same goes for Allah, Buddha, and Vishnu. And if Jesus had anything to do with them, other than play the role of Creed masturbation material, he better think twice before deciding to come back…

The most annoying, nay, indigestible part of Creed was their asinine front man Scott Stapp. When Bono acts like the messiah, he does it with cool charm. When Stapp does his holy prancing, it reeks of falseness, showmanship and manufactured piousness. Being the dickbag leader of a former Pearl Jam cover band from Florida does not give you credibility or any shred of talent to use to blow your ego unholy proportions. Everything bad that happens to you is the result of your amazingly out of control self-importance…what does Jesus say about karma?

Typical Female Fan: Christians, virgins, Christian virgins, deaf girls

Typical Male Fan: guys with mullets, Camero owners, Christians

Musical Opposite: Marilyn Manson – the Anti-Christ Superstar also hailed from the panhandle state, but took a decidedly more artistic, and devilishly creative turn as a musician

3 Doors Down

Baby brother to Creed and Nickelback, these nancies are pretty much unremarkable in everything they do. So why are they able to make a career out of lazy, southern alterna-pop? Beats the hell out of me. If the band that won your high school talent show were actually as good as they thought they were, they would still be light years ahead of this shitty band. Composers and musicians say that music is not about how many notes you can play, but the space in-between the notes, and that sort-of holds true for 3 Doors Down – the enjoyable part is not the songs, but the silent spaces in-between them.

Typical Female Fan: women missing teeth, single moms under 24

Typical Male Fan: high school students who fear bullies, albinos, anyone who lives in a town with more dirt roads than post offices

Musical Opposite: Deftones – sometimes ambient, sometimes aggressive, but always intensely melodic and unique

Does That Mean I Don't Need To Clean My Apartment Now?

A joint Irish-U.S study has revealed that female sharks have the capability to reproduce asexually.

Having the ability to fertilize their own eggs and give birth without male sperm is the result drawn from a 2001 case where a baby hammerhead shark was born in a tank to one of three potential mothers -- and none had been in contact with a male hammerhead for three years. Analysis of its DNA found no trace of any chromosomal contribution from a male partner leading experts to tout the first confirmed case in a shark of parthenogenesis -- the fancy Greek world for "virgin birth".

Asexual reproduction is common with insect species, but rarer in reptiles and fish, and has never been documented in mammals -- except, of course, for that one little time it happened to a kid named Jesus. With more animals being raised in captivity, the number of documented cases of the feat has grown. Before the study, shark experts had presumed that the Nebraska birth involved a female shark's well-documented ability to store sperm for months, much like teenage girls who grow up in trailer parks, but the absence of any paternal DNA in the baby shark ruled out this possibility.

The baby shark was killed a few hours after birth by a stingray. It's motives were unchallenged and no connection has been made to link it with the one that x'ed Steve Irwin, but we have to wonder...

Meanwhile, some scientists fear that, lacking a suitable male mate, other females of various species will do the same. But not this scientist.

I guess that would be a good thing for all the Sex In The City loving, and more importantly, living ladies out there who want it all but end up turning into desperate hags who have squandered their youth as they over-empower themselves to emulate men sexually and socially. That ticking uterine clock is a real killer, as women get more and more irrational as they race to mate before they lose out to younger, less damaged models. But if evolution veers in that direction, I'll be in my cave, watching my stories and eating takeout in my underwear...right now it's just for practice.

But Will Greens Fees Go Up?

Golf is a colossal waste of time.

It is not, nor should it ever be considered a sport. It is an activity, and for most a leisurely one. Except for some poor sap who failed to drive his cart as straight as his tee shots.

His golf cart plunged 75 feet off a cliff, crashing onto a road below.

That was after it went off the concrete parkway and went down a 25 foot embankment. Unlike the incompetent story-jockeys covering the Attorney General proceedings, there's no lack of detailed information on this story. Like how he was ejected from the cart before impact. And how he surprisingly died on impact. Or that they were on the second hole. While drugs and alcohol are not being treated as factors, the cart will be checked for mechanical failures, although the primary one will be that it did not sprout wings and fly him to safety.

It's been a while since I've been in a golf cart to show the guys from Jackass how to do stunts, but last I remember they're no longer enclosed like Sherman tanks. Of course jumping out of a golf cart going 15 mph is a near impossible task. Especially if it would save your life. But hey, now there's less of a wait for that par 4!

House Party

Slowly, you are finding out my voracious appetite for TV dramas. Three seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Nip / Tuck season four – plus there was season five of The Shield in-between them until it finished yesterday, Heroes on a weekly basis…and now, House, M.D. Watching the first two seasons should get me through until I can get my hands on the final season of Deadwood June 5th, but I sure as hell will try and get the current season under my belt by then.

For those who don’t know, Dr, Greg House is a prick. The most brilliant doctor on staff, he guides his trio of young specialists though mysterious and rare ailments, while he himself attempts to avoid having to actually deal with patients or work in the clinic wing with walk-in charges. His sarcasm, contempt, and cynicism are equal to his genius, as he hobbles around on a bum leg, popping painkillers like candy. Five minutes of House, M.D. is more interesting than a whole season of Grey’s Anatomy.

Naturally, having seen the show a few times now I’ve picked up on it beats. Homer does something stupid and gets in trouble on The Simpsons. Jerry dates a beautiful girl who ends up having a fatal flaw on Seinfeld. Nobody says or does anything remotely funny on Two And A Half Men. So, knowing the beats, I turned the already enjoyable experience of watching into a charming drinking game to enjoy with friends and family (especially children).

The rules are simple - first person to call the action gets to drink or assign.

Take one drink whenever:
House takes a Vicodin

House consults and subsequently insults a patient on general rounds

a patient gets a MRI

Cuddy and House exchange insults

House gets in or out of an elevator

House watches General Hospital

Foreman and House are talking alone

any character but House mentions his cane or disability

Assign a drink:
House has a lollipop

Cameron gets insulted by something House says

aerial shot of Princeton Hospital or grounds

camera goes inside someone to how a virus, bacteria, cell, or organ

a patient get defibrillated

Cuddy busts House watching the clock to avoid seeing patients

House makes a reference to his cane or disability

any doctor brings up legions in the brain

Audible: first person to yell the phrase gets to assign one drink
"differential diagnosis" - before House says it when he first sits with his team to determine the problem

"nerd" - when Chase is looking under a microscope or doing lab work

"sniff ‘em and get high" - the first time the white board and markers are pulled out

"O' captain, my captain" - when Wilson is talking alone with House

"old school" - whenever Foreman makes a reference to his days as a criminal delinquent

"get dressed" - when Cameron is plain clothed and not wearing any hospital wardrobe (lab coat, scrubs)

"mutiny" - when Chase, Foreman, and Cameron talk amongst themselves about House being wrong

“Avon calling” - when any members of the team break into a patient’s home looking for clues

“Billy Joel” – when House plays something on his piano

12 CC's Of Rock

In two weeks, the one of the last golden throats of the modern era puts out a new album, and it will likely make or break him. Chris Cornell, the rugged, often shirtless icon of the 90’s has had a disappointing streak as of late, and it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to pull out a another win. He has been part of some brilliant music and also made some turds. Here’s how they stack up:

Legendary
Temple Of The Dog
It took mutual friend Andrew Wood’s overdose to pull together members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam into the studio to lament and honor his passing. The result was a supergroup that made a perfect album, not one song a throwaway or filler. Matt Cameron would later join Pearl Jam, who now don’t come close to what they once were, but you can see the moment that was both their and Cornell’s ascent to greatness.

“Hunger Strike”

Also listen to: “All Night Thing”, the romantic closing track, and “Reach Down”, their crowning 11 minute opus.

Superunknown
The album that made Soundgarden superstars, Superunknown was a watershed moment for both grunge and Cornell. His voice had never been stronger or more intense. And as was customary during his stint with the band, Cornell was a major contributor to music and lyrics of many songs.

“Black Hole Sun”

Also listen to: "The Day I Tried To Live”, a melancholy and eerie tune, and the grinding doom of “Fourth Of July”

Down On The Upside
The swan song from the survivors of the Seattle scene, their last album was also one of their strongest. With Nirvana gone, Alice In Chains fragmented, and Pearl Jam busy fighting Ticketmaster, Soundgarden self-produced an eclectic masterpiece that was a fitting coda to years of innovation. While not reaching the acclaim of Superunknown, Down On The Upside was just as important a step artistically and creatively.

“Blow Up The Outside World”

Also listen to: the stagger-step groove of “Dusty” , and “Overfloater”, with its slow building psychadelia

“Seasons”
From the Singles soundtrack, Cornell added this ditty after already contributing “Birth Ritual” with Soundgarden. The album was a who’s who of grunge superstars. With just his voice and guitar, the tune has all the bombast and character of a full band.



Classic
Badmotorfinger
The first album after bassist Ben Shepard joined Soundgarden was a huge turning point musically for the group. While still hammering out the Sabbath heavy riffs, the band also started experimenting with more progressive sounds and songwriting. This was the most popular and longest running incarnation of Soundgarden, and the magic is apparent from listening to the album.

“Jesus Christ Pose”

Also listen to: “Outshined”, one of the opening salvos from the emerging grunge soundscape, and “Rusty Cage”, which was impressive enough to get the Man In Black to try his hand at a version.

Euphoria Morning
After Soundgarden split, Cornell spent time with Alain Johannes and Natasha Schneider of alterna-pop group Eleven. The results of their collaboration and assistance were more Beatle-esque than his previous work, but still well-crafted and a positive step as he headed into a different direction than grunge deity.

“Can’t Change Me”

Also listen to: "Sweet Euphoria", a beautiful ballad, and the bouncy, George Harrison flavored "Fluttergirl"

Good
Louder Than Love
Getting into the earlier years of Soundgarden, the band was know for it's nearly brutal, relentless riffs and Cornell's Zeppelin-on-steroids yelping. This album was as much a transition into the Badmotorfinger era as it was a bridge from the Ultramega OK and earlier albums in that it refined the hard edge Soundgarden had developed but tempered it with melody and a sense of style that other heavy bands at the time were devoid of.

"Loud Love"

Also listen to: "Hands All Over" , a political and cautionary tune, and the overly-macho and mocking "Big Dumb Sex"

“Sunshowers”
This was a contribution to the Great Expectations soundtrack, which in and of itself was not remarkable. But as a songwriter working in a solo setting, he penned this ditty which, while not A-grade material, beat out the B-side bin and lived out it's days on that compilation.



For Fans
Ultramega OK and Screaming Life/Fopp
From their days on Sup Pop and SST, Soundgarden was a raw juggernaut. Again, all the hints of greatness are there, but musically and creatively, this is the most direct and straight forward version of the band. It is a good indicator of their talent, but really more the genesis than a true representation of the sound they would be identified with.

“Flower”


Garbage
The idea of parts of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine was almost too good to be true...and it was. Pearl Jam put out Yield, their literal declaration of giving up on being inventive, challenging musicians, and while the name is not as revealing, Audioslave is the same. Some of you will remember my previous post commenting on the underwheliming result of their time together. I hate to end on a bad note, considering how much good music preceded this, so I'll give you a few examples and spare you the rest -- go back to the top to reboot your ears. What's as bad as the generic, unmemorable quality of these songs is that they all ape riffs and melodies from other songs. You'll hear "The Ocean" in "Cochese" , "Material Girl" in "Original Fire" and "Paint It Black" and "Secret Agent Man" in "You Know My Name". Ugh.

Audioslave, Out Of Exile, Revelations, Casino Royale Soundtrack

“Cochise”


“Original Fire”


“You Know My Name”

The Green Mile

The buzz out of NYC is that the yellow cab fleet will be completely hybrid by 2012. With over 13,000 taxis who average a 3-5 year lifespan, Mayor Bloomberg feels the task is not impossible.

"There's an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City," Bloomberg said.

No shit? Thanks, Mayor McObvious.

Shifting the taxi fleet to hybrids is part of Bloomberg's wider sustainability plan for the city, which includes a goal of a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. Over 400 fuel-efficient hybrids have been tested in the city's taxi fleet over the past 18 months leading up to the announcement, and with their success the mayor plans to increase the hybrid size of the taxi fleet by 20% a year until complete.

No word yet on the mayor's plan to remove the pervasive smell of urine and sewage from the streets.

Jump / Shark?

Over the weekend I watched Season 4 of Nip / Tuck.

The entire season.

I’m not going to say that I was disappointed by the soapy exploits of Miami’s most drama prone plastic surgeons, but I realize I may have reached the limit of my ability to roll my eyes with each new peak of silliness. If you’re not familiar with the series, let me bring you up to speed – but be warned, I am spilling four years worth of cliffhangers and plot threads.

The McNamara / Troy plastic surgery clinic is lead by long time friends Sean McNamara, a family man, and Christian Troy, a womanizing playboy, who despite their surface differences are both hopelessly bad maintaining healthy relationships with the women in their life. Sean and his wife Julia alternate between happiness and despair as being true and truthful with each other hardly ever happens for both at the same time. Christian, while not banging everything within arm’s reach seems to keep coming back to Kimber, a blonde bombshell model. Sean and Julia have two children, Matt and Annie, who suffer along for the ride. In addition, there are numerous recurring characters who add fuel to the fire.

Season One highlights
The main storyline involves a mobster named Escobar who blackmails the doctors into doing his dirty work after they take his money to reconstruct a criminal’s face. When Escobar kills the criminal and forces Sean and Christian to dump the body in the swamp, he holds their secret in check, using them to remove drug filled implants from mules, and eventually to help him leave the country with a new face. Cleverly, they alter Escobar to match one of the FBI’s most wanted and he is captured and sent to prison.

Christian plays doctor with many ladies, both in his official capacity (with the staff psychologist and several patients) and outside the office. After things fizzle with Kimber, a fling with sexoholic Gina with leads to her pregnancy, and after he reluctantly assumes responsibility the revelation comes out that the child is another man’s. Sean can’t keep his dick in his pants either as his strained marriage leads him to have an affair with a patient who soon dies from cancer. And Matt is involved in the accidental hit-and-run of a fellow student, and hides his involvement.

Season Two highlights
The turmoil surrounding Matt takes center stage as it is discovered that he was the result of a premarital affair between Julia and Christian. After managing the fiasco around his involvement with the injured student, Matt gets an adult life coach, Ava, who takes him as a lover. As his parents try to break them up, they discover she was once a man, but scramble to hide it from him.

While Christian and Gina try to raise their child, her contraction of HIV and the birth father eventually lead to the boy being taken away. Christian has a relationship with a blind woman while Sean ends up with Kimber as he and his wife separate. And the first victims of the disfiguring Carver start coming to McNamara / Troy.

Season Three highlights
The Carver is the driving force, as both Sean and Christian are attacked while trying to undo the damage on his series of victims. Another doctor, Quentin, is brought in as Sean’s divorce looms and he plans to leave the practice. Christian, who temporarily becomes a suspect in the Carver case also nails the kinky lead investigator Kit, but ends up looking to a serious relationship with Kimber, who becomes a Carver victim. Quentin is revealed to be the Carver, but his death is faked and he leaves the country with Kit, who turns out to be his sister.

Julia, meanwhile starts a day spa business with Gina of all people. In a chance encounter with Sean, she gets pregnant, and when they decide to keep the baby they reconcile. Matt learns Ava’s secret and thinks he is attracted to trans-sexuals, leading him to assault one. He ends up dating neo-Nazi Ariel, who turns him against his family, but Matt breaks free, literally, of Ariel’s father who tortures him after Matt defends a tranny.

And these were just the major story arcs.

There’s also plots involving a surgery addicted patient, their lesbian anesthesiologist who wants Christian to be a sperm donor, a jealous and delusional surgeon competitor, Kimber’s rise as a porn director, and Julia’s struggle to be free of her overbearing mother. And every episode a new patient comes to McNamara / Troy for work, which conveniently is completed by episode’s end, along with their plotline, even if the psychic and social scars still require work.

Season Four starts with the tenacious duo celebrating their 5,000th surgery together, but the joy is short lived. Julia’s pregnancy is not without complications – their boy is going to be born with deformed, fused hands, setting up one of the two main story arcs. Sean reveals he had a hairlip growing up and is very much for the surgery, while Julia, after conversing with a dwarf night nurse, Marlowe, has difficulties with putting the child through the procedures. In the turmoil, Sean sleeps with another candidate for the night nurse position, Monica, who refuses to stay away but is conveniently dispatched by a bus. Really.

As the strain builds, Julia begins an affair with Marlowe. Yes, the dwarf night nurse. Sean discovers the affair and it seems that the marriage is over. Rather than leave with Annie and newborn Conor, Julia decides to call off the relationship and goes to New York to be with her mother. His relationship with Matt fares no better, as Matt runs into Kimber, who is now a Scientologist. He becomes one too, and soon after is involved romantically, leading to pregnancy and a quick marriage. Despondent and feeling like there’s nothing left, Sean again plans to leave the practice…

…which is part of the other main story. Burt Landau, an elderly patient, and his young wife, Michelle make an offer to purchase the majority stake in the practice, making Christian and Sean more employee than owner. Eventually, Christian manages to bed new boss Michelle, but she has a sordid past and secret to keep. He finds out she was once a call girl for the devious James, but does not know that James is part of an organ stealing cabal and that Michelle helps with the surgeries.

Things seem to look up for Christian as Burt passes away and he and Michelle look to buy Sean out and change the practice into Troy / Landau. His surrogate child even comes back into the picture as the birth father dies suddenly. But visions of a happy family are further shaken when Escobar pressures the doctors into repairing his burns damage from a prison attack. James’ suicide reveals that Escobar was and still controlled the organ trafficking ring, and as he escapes custody he has one final task for the surgeons – to reconstruct his wife’s breasts after she was attacked by rivals. Recovered, she kills her husband and takes over his operation.

The season ends with Sean taking a job in Los Angeles, and he is surprised when Christian shows up to tell him his relationship did not work with Michelle, and that he sold his part of the practice to her. The two decide to start a practice in LA, setting up the basis for the upcoming season.

Now, if it seemed ridiculous reading all that, well…it is pretty damn silly. This season really made some crazy stretches and some huge changes, and the fifth season will have to not only have to build on them, but be careful not to make things absolutely absurd. Not that they’re far from it anyhow, but it’s so campy and overblown that the dysfunction and narcissism can’t possibly be questioned as they get into extremes. Julia and Sean, even with their best intentions, are some of the worst television parents ever. Christian, who ends up being surprisingly more righteous in his decisions than his partner, would have realistically been patient zero for some new strain of STD. And Matt would have sucked on the business end of a 12 gauge with all the insanity he’s been through. But that’s the joy of a trashy soap opera…pretty people getting into bad situations and sexing up the entire cast, but somehow making it through in the end. As serials move from season to season, they have to outdo themselves, but it’s a dangerous precedent, and Nip / Tuck is straining perilously near that point.

Season Five begins this fall…

His Own Prison

All around douchebag and talentless hack Scott Stapp was arrested on suspicion of domestic assult over the weekend.

Cool.

I don't advocate the beating of women or violence towards them, no matter how much they may derserve it, but I have little pity for any women who hooks up with a drunken, self rightious lout. Of all the dudes with some money and fading fame, you had to pick this tool. Don't women have any shame or standards anymore (ex-girlfriends, silence!)?

While I expect to rail further on Stapp and his crap music later, it is the perfect opportunity to add an extra pile of manure on this jackass. I do wonder why it's called "suspicion" though...they obviously suspected him, otherwise they wouldn't have arrested him. Like the "suspicion" that I could win an ice cream eating sandwich contest. Suspect my ass...

1,146 In The Oven

The Guinness Book of Worthless Records got one larger when over one thousand expectant mothers convened in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday.

Some where in the budding stages of pregnancy, while others were days away from labor, but all were indeed pregnant. There's no word on what was used to lure the pregnant women there for the publicity stunt, and without reports of free chocolate, pickles, or paternity testing, the mystery deepens.

In related news, the record for most women about to be impregnated still stands from the 1998 National Collegiate Greek Council Conference in Tampa, FL.

Hope Your Weekend Includes Big Things

Hence the Term "Apeshit"

Just last week there was a conversation between Rybot and myself about the ferocity and ass-kicking power of nature's beasts. He's got a soft spot for baboons and I am a big fan of the ursa genus...bears, especially polar bears. While it was unresolved as to what animal was the baddest of them all, there was agreement over the insane power and danger that apes pose.

In Amsterdam today, a 400 lb silverback gorilla escaped it's enclosure and put a hurt on folks at the zoo. The 11-year-old gorilla, named Bokito, injured four, including a woman he bit and dragged around as he made his way down the visitor's path. In order to do so, he had to scale the high stone wall enclosure, but not before crossing a moat, which is amazing due to gorillas inability to swim.

Eventually, he was captured in a nearby restaurant and subdued with a tranquilizer dart, but the scene leading up to it was sheer chaos. "Everyone was in panic, running away, screaming, wailing, screaming kids running around, I don't know what all, kids without parents — it was a total drama," said a witness.

And as it turns out, a friend of Rybot added her tale of a neighbor who got mauled by chimps two years ago, which I remember when it happened. Brutal. The lesson here: that's why they're called animals.

UPDATE: See, don't mess with monkeys.

UPDATE II: See, don't mess with bears.