The World according to backward Americans

Like people who think going to Walmart is a black tie occasion.

CLICK HERE
(the image is not readable in 'blog size.)

Sent to me by Joe Marsello, fellow American and happy ex pat.

Creepy

Whomever took this shot SHOULD BE shot:

The Daily Show: Fake news that delivers the truth

Norm Jenson, regularly provides "A million laughs" on his site "onegoodmove: I thought these things might be clues."

(You gotta love Jon Stewart; I realllly hope he doesn't end up like Gary Webb.)

Sometimes it's difficult . . .

. . . to relate to my fellow country(wo)men:

Life B.C. (before computers)

Memory was something you lost with age.
An application was for employment.
A program was a TV show.
A cursor used profanity.

A keyboard was a piano.
A web was a spider's home.
A virus was the flu.
A CD was a bank account.

A hard drive was a long trip on the road.
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.

And if you had a 3 inch floppy . . .

. . . you just hoped nobody ever found out!

Should I rename this blog to "Today in history" ?

Sixty years ago the CIA was created. (Not sure how I feel about this.)
Read more about or work for the Central Intelligence Agency a.k.a "Never have so many done so much that was so bad to so many others for so little discernible benefit to so few."
Note the 'cool and hip" Flash intro!

More timeline stuff

Challenger's sacrifice, 20 years later [today]
'86 shuttle disaster taught much, but lessons were paid for in 7 lives
CLICK HERE

And 14 years ago . . .

One of the first known female serial killers, Aileen Wuornos found guilty after she killed seven "johns", allegedly leaving cum-filled condoms near their bodies. She claimed self defense but is still sentenced to death. Oddly [or not], prosecutors had arranged movie deals before an arrest had even been made.

Charlize Theron won an oscar for portraying Aileen Wournos in the film Monster:
GO HERE (to see how masterfully Charlize impersonated Ms. Wuornos.)

She was never missing

I can't recall at this point what I was initially 'googling' but I came upon a website about a variety of email hoaxes and urban legends (and maybe many of you have already found websites like this - I stand corrected.)
I recall receiving an email message about a young girl named Penny Brown:

and as I read further and found a website that gave me details, I was outraged.

Another example is the rumor about Target's refusal to pay veteran's benefits.

I have always hated chain letters and that hatred has transferred to the electronic variety. So the next time you receive an email that calls you to action go to snopesDOTcom - or another website about urban legends - before you forward a message to 10, 20, 100 other people to gain good luck, help a lost child or complain to an evil corporation.

No comment.

Mr. Fish: one helluva a cartoonist!

Yeah?! So what

Whatever about the commentary that this blog contains a lot of (dead) comedians. We all can't live forever . . .

John was a masterfully comedic genius PERIOD


John Adam Belushi (January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982)

Read more about him HERE

Yet another 'today in freaks history'

It was 1987...

"If this will offend you, please leave the room. Stay away, this thing will hurt someone."

And with those words, Pennsylvania State Treasurer, R. Budd Dwyer stuck a gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Essentially he blew his friggin' brains out on national television to avoid being convicted of accepting bribes.

TV ratings went through the roof as a room full of media cameras filmed brain splattery and blood gushery for three full minutes -- and that's only the footage the public has access to!

14 years later and this footage is still known as the most hardcore video that (shitty) rock bands can play to shock their audiences.

Saturday night pictionary

Random

Always check the back of the money before you buy a coffee at Starbucks. (I hope Jamba is a food!)
* * *

I found THIS on my mac, I don't know who it is but it is very funny.
* * *

And in keeping with my timeline freakishness, David Lynch is 60 years old today!

Today in history (I guess I'm a timeline freak)

And speaking of freaks...

In 1991 Wendy O[rleans] Williams, of the Plasmatics, was arrested for masturbating herself onstage with a sledgehammer. Dubbed "The Queen of Shock Rock," Wendy O was widely considered the most controversial and radical female singer of her day. She sported a trademark Mohawk haircut, the first person to do so on American television.
In 1985 she was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Female Rock Vocal category during the height of her band's popularity. You guessed it right, she didn't win, Tina Turner did with "Better Be Good to Me".


* * *

In 1995, the eternally horrendous (and skanky) Singaporan porn star Annabel Chong had sex with 80 men a total of 251 times, in a single day. There's was nearly a 252nd man, a Scot named Charles Longfellow (what a pun, poor guy). When asked how he felt about not "making the team" (those are my words) he replied, "Not good." Annabel was paid $12,000 - which roughly comes to 50 bucks a pop - for this appearance in World's Biggest Gang Bang I.


* * *

Does anyone else see the difference between a real artist and a celebrity seeker?

Lazy and lugubrious

Amidst a severe case of SAD - which in January is a normal condition for people living in the gray, drizzly, northwestern corner of Europe - and feeling freakishly melancholic about some news* that I received yesterday, here's today's post:

Headlines from 1981:
1. Prince Charles got married.
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe.
3. Australia lost the Ashes tournament.
4. Pope died.

Headlines from 2005:
1. Prince Charles got married.
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe.
3. Australia lost the Ashes tournament.
4. Pope died.

In the future, if Prince Charles decides to remarry, somebody
should warn the pope.



(img src'd from: forret.be)


* that permanently closes the door on a chapter in my life that I naively thought would remain open for much longer.
(I thought you kind, dedicated readers of my blog might be curious, but please no questions, this is all I am willing to reveal.)

Andy/Tony would be 47 years old today

January 17, 1949 - Born in New York City, the first son of Stanley and Janice Kaufman. Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman is raised in the affluent Long Island suburb of Great Neck and gravitates towards show business at an early age. Before he is even a year old, Andy reaches from his crib to work the controls of a nearby phonograph. "He'd stand up in his crib and keep it on all the time, just putting the needle back," Janice remembers, "whenever it was on, he was content."

"While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world."
~Andy Kaufman



It was clear (to me) that he was a major talent when he appeared on SNL - and to my delight I watched a man lip-synch to music to the Mighty Mouse cartoon on live television. My friends and I became instant fans - also taking up the art of lowbrow karaoke-ing to music as obscure as what blared from the multicolored records provided with a Fisher-Price record player.

Very soon Andy was a hot commodity, a favorite among his peers and had a new film in the can. The fantasy of performing, combined with his dangerous mixtures of provocation, superseded everything else in his professional life.

It was around the same period when Andy sabotaged the SNL knockoff, FRIDAYS. Again, and thanks to my excessive TV viewing, I witnessed a man wreck a live-audience, late-night comedy show. It was clear to the trained eye that the other actors in the sketch went apeshit but Andy's creation of what he called "pure entertainment" became legendary right then and there. His ability to challenge the established standards of performance changed many perceptions about the entertainer/audience relationship, and perhaps will be Andy Kaufman's true lasting legacy.

Then reports started coming in about his bus boy job in a Manhattan diner - he really had a day job WHILE he was playing Latka Gravas on the popular tv sitcom Taxi. That is also when the link between the horrendous nightclub performances of Tony Clifton - Andy's grotesque lounge lizard alter ego - became obvious that Andy Kaufman's lust for guerilla theater was insatiable.

Shortly after his death it was reported that Tony Clifton was still performing in clubs, insulting people and running amok. Some thought it was Bob Zmuda, Andy's best friend, writer and fellow provocateur.

We shall never know for sure.

First snow on my terrace

The trend for the new word 'bion' is catching on!

American actor John P. Flanders (no relation to Ned of Springfield - I don't think) has made a short film using the new word.

Flight 93

They are releasing a movie about it this April, the flight that fought back and went down in Pennsylvania.

The trailer, only random images of radar tracking scored with a few sound bytes caused me to choke back tears within the first 10-seconds. Obviously a film cannot ever substitute a human life but still I am pleased that the story of these brave victims will be told.

I hope the message doesn’t turn out to be xenophobic and only epitomizes the courage of these passengers as they endure the mental anquish of realizing their tragic fate.

VIEW THE TRAILER HERE...

Uh-oh, NYC didn't make the cut.

(Neither did Chicago.)

King's Cake

On this day in Belgium and probably across Europe (I'll let others verify), people eat this:



It's dry and flaky crust envelopes the cake that is both lumpy and flattened, indicating that the cakes were made en masse, in haste and tossed onto a truck, in time for "king's day."

The cake is filled with a gelatinous-yellow custard that is, in this case special: the tiny pig swimming in it somewhere.

If you are the lucky dessertee to be served a slab of this cake, which has the pig suspended in its filling, YOU WIN; you get to wear the gold-covered, cardboard crown.

You get to be the king, even if you are a queen.

Sweet.

It's important to recognize and register those random moments you can't predict, orchestrate; moments that can make you feel connected to the world and the people around us.

Today I had two of them.

Walking down my street from point A to point B (details immaterial) a young woman stepped into my path and managed a garbled "Bonjour!" I could see immediately in her eyes and from her body language that she was someone special -- very special. Someone who can probably see so much more of life, more than most of ever bother to notice. The exchange filled me with joy. And I don't care if that sounds tree-hugger-y.

Later, at the gym, a very young and quite bubbly girl at who I occasionally nod "hi" to after an aerobics class or in the spinnig room trotted up to me while I was chatting with one of the trainers. Quite unexpectedly she planted a kiss on my cheek -- which is normal for Europe when you KNOW the person -- followed by a gushing, "Je te souhaite UN TRÉS BON année!" It's pure conjecture but because we have never spoken, it impressed upon me that I remind her of someone -- maybe even someone that she admires. I know that sounds arrogant. Ironically or not, her mannerisms, body language, constant smiling and even her physicality REMIND me of myself when I was her age. And I admire her, if only for her youthful, light-filled vim. Regardless, it made me feel great.

Ah, les petites imprévues of life. (Sweet.)

Addendum (January 17, 2006)
Excerpt from a friend who reads my blog occasionally:
[start]

"read your blog the other day while down with the flu and the entry on
thursday 5 called "sweet" - very nice post - and just want to give
some comment on it; it may slightly take away some of the "amélie"
magic of that day but on the other hand it will give extra insight and
bring some other "amélie" magic :)

last thursday was the official day "to give people you do not know an
unexpected compliment or attention""
[end]

Either way it was still sweet.

7-year Trish

Seven years ago today, at just about this hour I was embarking on a new life that I hadn't imagined. The past seven years have been a gamut of self discovery. I have written a semi-fictitious piece about my first day here: http://ablondabroad.blogspot.com

If I could score the past seven years, this would be the "7-year Trish" OST:
1. Native New Yorker, ODYSSEY
2. Love is in the air, JOHN PAUL YOUNG
3. Kids in America, KIM WILDE
4. The promise, WHEN IN ROME
5. Mama said, LENNY KRAVITZ
6. Let's call the whole thing off, ELLA FITZGERALD & LOUIS ARMSTRONG
7. American Woman, JIMI HENDRIX
8. Move out, YAZ
9. Calling you, PHOEBE SNOW
10. Drink to get drunk, SIA
11. I made it through the rain, BARRY MANILOW
12. Riding the metro, BERLIN
13. Smile, NAT KING COLE
14. She's always a woman, BILLY JOEL
15. If you want to sing out, CAT STEVENS (YUSUF ISLAM)


Some of you film educated folks may recall this famous image from (one of) Billy Wilder's masterpieces, THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH:


And this one:

Hijacked haiku

How I talk to you
is with this haiku:
my AIM has lost its
...
perspective.

New for 2006!

I have invented a new word. In so doing French as a second- or third- (fourth-, ... ) language for many of you will become easier.

You see people, the French language has a plethora of terms to express essentially the same idea. While each word has a slightly more exact usage, it impedes the flow of today's culture of "Cut to the chase, already!"

For example:
A. If you have eaten a good meal, you can say that is was bon.
B. If you have had a "nice time" with someone you can say that it was bien.

Syntactically, using bien in the first case (A) is grammatically incorrect as food is bon as in bon appétit! In the second case (B), to use bon is both incorrect and impolite unless you want to imply a derogative (and gossippy™) sentiment about that someone - with whom you just had a "nice time" - and generally speaking people are not food. I am aware there are exceptions to this based on culture and situation but I digress.

Now as a native Ameriçais™ speaker and subsequently a self-appointed etymologist, it is my duty to be a part of the solution: clarity of discourse; recounting one's weekend for example. To that end, I proudly introduce the new word for 2006: Bion™.

Bion™
SYLLABICATION: bi·on
PRONUNCIATION: bee-awn
DEFINITION: Adjective; 1. something or someone that is good, pleasurable, memorable.
VARIATIONS: bionly (adv.); bionish (adj.); bionesque (adj.); bionment (n.)

Now go forth people and speak French with one less error; only a kazillion more to go!

Happy New Year!