Happy Birthday Sheri!

It's a big day here at Wo'c, because we're celebrating the natal anniversary of our founder, s.z., without whom none of us would be here today, looking at the nauseating food I'm about to show you.

Noted Supermodel/Astronaut/Spy. Artist's conception.

Sheri is, as I've said before, that most rara of avis, a saint with a sense of humor. She spends her time and energies looking after the widows and orphans in their distress, yet still manages to keep herself from being polluted by the world. Which is obvious when you read her stuff, because no matter how vile and deserving her targets may be, she never stoops to their level, instead rinsing their dirty laundry and mixed metaphors in gentle but thorough snark, so they come out -- not fresh and clean, exactly, but so entertainingly tie-died that Jonah Goldberg has to go into work on Monday and explain why his Grateful Deadish Dockers make him look like an Arby's manager trying to sneak into Woodstock.

And as a rara avis, her writing is sui generis -- devastatingly witty but never mean-spirited, deeply moral but never moralizing. And always, always funny. In fact, Thers of Whiskey Fire once said, "SZ in particular doesn't get anywhere near the credit she deserves. SZ invented left internet snark in a lot of ways."

For that alone she deserves some sort of monument (I understand the Church of Satan is practically giving those Baphomet statues away, and it should be a simple thing to swap out the heads like Barbie dolls), but the reason we don't see her around here as much as we'd like is because she helps run an animal rescue operation (but not, I hasten to add, Operation Rescue) in a town which not only lacks a shelter, but also apparently believes in preserving the lives of animals only long enough for them to become delicious. So Sheri spends most of her time and nearly all of her money fostering strays, nursing sick and injured animals, and adopting them out to their "furever homes", if you'll pardon my jargon.

And now, without further ado, let's start the festivities!

Sheri said she wanted a prune party for her birthday, just like preznit got back in July, but apparently that was a short-lived fad (you know how the kids are these days, with their phat pants, their hula hoops, their desiccated plums). But meat loaf, well...meat loaf is eternal. And glorious, once you add the magic ingredient -- no, I don't mean "love," or some such crap, I mean rubbery snap beans that savor faintly of the Bolivian tin can in which they were entombed by Del Monte.

So belly up to the buffet, birthday revelers, and tease your taste buds with Meat Loaf Glorified by Green Beans.

Try pizza-style seasonings on meat loaf and DEL MONTE Blue Lake Green Beans!

I dispute your right to an exclamation point.

Firm yet tender, these beans have the rich yet delicate garden flavor you need to do it right.

Do what right?  If you find yourself making a meat bundt cake and interring it beneath a neolithic burial mound of green beans, you need to question whether you've ever been right about anything in your life, and if the answer is no, you need to do a further personal inventory to figure out if you're actually Bill Kristol.

I won't bore you with the entire recipe, since there's really only one crucial direction, which comes at the end, and I predict that this single sentence, once seen, will haunt you for the rest of your natural lifespan:

Serve piping-hot in the meat ring.

Words to live by. Especially if you live in West Hollywood.

You know, over the course of twelve years and three separate domains, World O' Crap has served over three million unique visitors, and that's entirely due to Sheri's all-too-rare belief that goodness should be a thing one lives every day, and evil should be a thing one pokes gentle fun at.

Speaking of goodness, I've been trying to think of something nice to do for Sheri's birthday, some token of appreciation for the years and years of gratis snark (plus all the free refills), and it occurs to me that maybe today (adoption day, as it happens, which she spends trying to find families for homeless dogs and cats) we could make her life and the lives of those she saves a little bit easier by contributing to Four Paws, her animal rescue organization. And as it just so happens, they're having a fund raiser right now, the 15th Annual Moondog Ball...

What?!

Anyway, if you click on that link, you'll see a Pay Yer Pal button on the right side of the page. Or you can send a cash, check, cheque or czech to:

Four Paws Rescue
P.O. Box 422
Millville, UT 84326
435.752.3534

As Sheri has noted previously, "[W]e are an all-volunteer, no-kill rescue group, [so] 100% of your donations are used to feed, house, or provide vet care for the cats and dogs we are caring for and hoping to find homes for."

And now, let us close in the traditional manner, with a:

Sexy Birthday Lizard!

Happy birthday, Sheri.

How To Put Ketchup On a Fishhook

She telephoned him with enticing promises. You'll never believe what happened next!
----------------------------------
They had eggs with ketchup together. So, I guess you would believe it. But maybe something shocking and titillating happened after that. Who can say? This message brought to you by all those click-bait sites, who wish to remind you that all the good stuff happens on another page.

[Cross-posted from s.z.'s Facebook page]

S.Z. Sunday (Special Friday Edition!)

Remember America's Worst Mother™, Meghan Cox Gurdon? While rooting around for blog fodder (because tomorrow is the birthday of someone very special and important and particularly beloved in the World O' Crapverse...) I discovered that Meghan Cox Gurdon (who was giving her kids lavishly stupid monickers years before anybody outside of certain Wasilla meth labs had even heard of Sarah Palin) is now reviewing children's books for the Wall Street Journal (I can't wait for her boffo critique of Julius Streicher's Der Giftpilz). Naturally, this made me nostalgic for s.z.'s indispensable DVD commentary tracks to Meghan's columns, so I thought I'd dip into the archives and repost one of my favorites:

[Originally published March 19, 2004]

"The hormonal tide that leads, ultimately, to coffee"

Yes, there's lots of hard-boiled action on the means streets of America's Worst Mother® (registered trademark of TBOGG, P.I.) today, as Meghan out-Chandlers Chandler with the Fever Swamp column entitled The Big Sleeps.  But it's a great day to be alive, for from this noir for numbskulls, Tbogg has created I, The Mummy, the definitive story of a treacherous dame with gams that just won't stop until they kick somebody.  You should just savor it for a while.  But when you're done, here's . .. the REST of the story.

Page 1

The cowardly appeasement of the Spanish, and rain, cause Meghan to wonder What Sort of World the children are growing up in, and if it might not be better to just kill young TiVo, Larva, Oceania, and Euthanasia for the insurance money.

Larva happens to catch a glimpse of the front page of the Washington Post while in the outhouse, and immediately assumes that a bundle of clothes in a photo is a dead baby.  You know, based on his experience ... 

But Meghan assures him that it's not a baby, because the man has a cell phone.

Paris' face clears instantly. "Phew. Can I have porridge and toast for breakfast?"

"You may have anything you like," I say. There's nothing like a terrorist bombing to make a mother feel indulgent.

And so, in honor of terrorism, the lucky Gurdon children get both gruel AND bread crusts for breakfast.  Well, not just because train bombings always make Meghan feel the love, but also because she's relieved that Larva is so gullible that he'll believe that people who own cell phones never have dead children.  Meghan figures that since he knows SHE has a cell phone, he won't suspect a thing when Double Indemnity time arrives.

Eldest daughter TiVo comes downstairs, much the worse for wear after an all-night bender.  She doesn't want any gruel and bread crusts, which delights Larva, because it means there's all the more for him.  The two youngest girls creepily speak in unison, a new trick they picked up from the Children of the Damned, their friends from down the block.

TiVo's extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, sudden unsociability, and lack of attention to personal hygiene don't worry Meghan at all.  So what if TiVo is a junkie -- the kids are all going to be killed by terrorists anyway, thanks to the cowardly Spaniards, so the child might as well have some fun first.

Page 2

Meghan, still bitter after having spent literally HOURS of her precious time putting together place cards for a party that teachers were allowed to attend (even though they're just the hired help), rails at educators for making strung-out kids get up in the morning.  And since kids have to get up in the morning, it means that hung-over mothers also have to get up in the morning and fix gruel, and it's just not fair!  Damn it all, if school started at 11:00 or so, then the lazy teachers could sleep in and still get off work before all the people with real jobs. Meghan thinks about making Hugo do an editorial to that effect for The Hill, then remembers that he hasn't been speaking to her ever since she packed his briefcase not with cheese sandwiches and clean underwear like he'd asked her for, but with plutonium (as recounted in Meghan's column from a couple week's back, "Kiss Me, DoodyHead"). 

But Meghan is still cheesed at the school for forcing her to get up before noon.  And also because teachers have boyfriends who love them and go to Gala Dinners with them to request "Lady in Red," while she has to raise three or four children all alone.  So, she reasons, they probably wouldn't appreciate her brilliant idea for running schools on Meghan time -- the bastards!

But perhaps I am wrong about the amiability of educators, for as a bunch they seem to get flintier and more tough-lovey by the year. First they came for the arts and music programs, and I said nothing. Then they came or recess, and I said nothing. Now they are coming for afternoon naps, and a least the Washington Post has something to say about it.

And when the Child Welfare people came for Oceania and Euthanasia, Meghan said nothing either, because frankly, she needed a nap, and it was much more peaceful without the little brats.  But then the state gave them back, and they've never been the same since, always whining for milk and meat and stuff.  Where was the Washington Post then???

Meghan then muses about the sad life of a preschool student who isn't allowed to nap.

Denied a snooze, the poor little wretches will spend an extra 45 minutes a day yawning and drooping at their tiny tables, coloring shapes, connecting dots, and navigating mazes.

And the whole thing reminds Meghan so much of her experience of having to make place cards under the watchful eyes of the stern, Germanic PTA Capable Moms while nursing the mother of all hangovers, that it brings a tear to her eye; she decides to drive the kids to school so she can punch out the principal.

Page 3

Meghan has four kids strapped into the car when TiVo asks about Twitchy.  Meghan is back in the house before she remembers that Twitchy is a rabbit, and doesn't have to attend school.  She decides to check on the thing anyway -- besides, she recalls have left an emergency bottle of gin in the utility room where the rabbit is stored.

"Bunny...?" I draw closer and pull a bit of hanging twine that clicks on the light. In the cruel glare of a bare bulb, Twitchy is motionless. Perhaps it's only because there's been so much death in the news, but I seem to be seeing the Reaper everywhere I look.

Yes, the terrorist attack in Spain (and the fact that she hasn't fed Twitchy for a week) causes Meghan think that Twitchy might be dead.  Damn the news for making Meghan worry about the living creatures in her care!

She guiltily murmurs, "Oh, poor bunny," opens the cage to retrieve his carcass (lapin avec gruel being one of Meghan's special dishes), and then --

Scuffle-pow!

Twitchy springs up like a man who hit the snooze button an hour ago and just realized he missed his plane.

And then, his possum act having lured her in, the vicious rabbit goes for Meghan's carotid artery, his thirst for blood only intensified by his long, vampiric coma. 

"Bunny, you're alive!" I cry, my eyes prickling with tears of relief.

Relief over the fact that the Goth cross Meghan had been sporting for a couple of days (she can't recall quite where she got it -- maybe at that rave she attended with Gunther) worked to deflect the rabbit's sharp, yellowed teeth.  She knocks the bunny back into his cage, loops a silver chain she stole from one of the PTA mothers around the lock, and finds that bottle of gin, the children strapped into the car now completely forgotten. 

There's been something very odd about the last week.

Um, yeah.  TiVo is addicted to heroin, Larva is in fear for his life, and Oceana and Euthanasia are talking like the creepy twins in The Shining.  But that's not the odd stuff Meghan is talking about.  She is referring to the Islamofacists again.  After all, it's all THEIR fault that school starts so early in the morning. 

We just want to get a little rest. Our enemies want us to drop off into the Big Sleep.

Hey, it's ChinaTownHall, Meghan.

Spam as a Second Language

The "Too Long for Twitter" Edition:

"GREETINGS IN THE NAME OF GOD!"

Any god in particular?

YES! BELET-SERI, THE MESOPOTAMIAN RECORDER OF THE DEAD ENTERING THE UNDERWORLD!

Huh...Is that a powerful god--?

VERY!

--because it sounds kind of like a clerical position.

IT'S MOSTLY DATA ENTRY!

Okay...

TO BE HONEST, WE USUALLY FILL THE POSITION WITH TEMP GODS.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, D.Sidhe!

Okay, I'm still one day behind, and there's no time to catch up, because the birthdays are rolling relentlessly toward me like a tsunami of amniotic fluid! But perhaps today (meaning yesterday) will provide some respite, since D.Sidhe declined the traditional accoutrements (sexy people, sucky food) in favor of Moondoggie pics. And maybe a lizard.

Can do!

"I'm the meat in my own sandwich..."

"My dreams are a Kama Sutra of tiger-on-tiger action...!"

"I could be the new Maru. There's no reason I can't.  This is America -- I could be President if I wanted to. For all I know, I am."

"I'm...I'm having a moment of pure epiphany! I'm afraid this may be impossible for your tiny, unenlightened minds to grasp, but let's just say...it involves chicken skin."

"Oh, oh...I'm stuck between a duvet and a soft place. Did you guys see 127 Hours? Totally like that. I guess you're just gonna have to bring me my food..."

"Yeah, I know you're into your fancy camera angles an' all, but this forced perspective makes me look like I have one giant Stone Crab claw for a paw, and now I can't sleep because I'm afraid someone's gonna harvest it and suck out all my meat."

"Yeah, still trapped, and you guys haven't even brought my appetizer yet. Don't make me borrow your phone while you're in the shower and leave you a scathing Yelp review."

"Okay, wait, wait!...I'm just gonna come right out and admit that when you suggested we play "Whack-A-Mole," I didn't totally understand what I was getting into..."

And finally...

Moondoggie: First Known Photograph (2007)

And thus, by combining a Birthday post with Post-Friday Beast Blogging, I think I'm back on schedule, all thanks to the birthday girl!  So please join me in wishing our D.Sidhe the very happiest of all possible birthdays, in this, the best of all possible cat-themed birthday posts!

Bonus SBL! Hat tip to Doc Logan for today's suggested Sexy Birthday Lizard, the Cuban Knight Anole:

"Yeah? What're you lookin' at?"

Happy (Belated) Birthday, AnnPW!

Sorry guys, but yesterday was a bear, and not the fun, Pendleton-wearing kind that'll take you to a Lady Gaga concert at LA Live, then buy you a round of artisanal mojitos in West Hollywood and let you groom him for nits. No, it was more the driving-to-the-Valley-for-meetings type, and when it was all over I just didn't have enough surplus vim to throw a birthday bash, so I missed the natal anniversary of charter Crapper AnnPW. Sorry, Ann! (Or as the guy who played Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables used to say it, "Sore-ry, Anne").

But one day late, that's not so bad, is it? There must be some grace period, I mean they give you a whole year to send someone a wedding gift, right? (They do, right? Otherwise I'm in kind of a lot of trouble...)

So let's just pretend that instead of a surprise party last night, we brought Ann breakfast in bed this morning!

"What's that sizzling sound I hear?" the husband asks.  Any rational person would assume the answer is "Bacon!", and wonder why he even bothered to ask. But Hubby clearly knows his wife, and I suspect the question is posed more in a tone of dread than anticipation. The best possible reply he can hope for is, "A grease fire. RUN!"  But no, she says eight little words which, if they must be spoken, should never be shouted out with glee:  "Get up! It's SPAM and eggs, my dear!"

Sensibly, they choose not to show us Hubby's response (I can only imagine he rolled over with a muttered, "I thought I left a wake-up call for half past divorce," but by this point the odor of unfertilized poultry ova and fried swine jowls must be impregnating the knotty pine paneling, so he might as well get up and try to dull his olfactory sense by igniting the first of many Old Golds.

But enough of his problems! What about the known side effects of SPAM, such as homicide, and involuntary rhyming? Look at that woman in the middle left box. She asks a leading, but reasonable question, "How can I cook without much fuss?" To which her husband screams the atypical rejoinder, "SPAM bake would tickle all of us!" At first, you might just assume her husband was insane, and move on with your life. But if you have no life, you might do one of those "enlarge and enhance" things they do on TV procedurals, and reveal that the mouths of Hubby and the children are all frozen in mirthless grins, like Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs. The son appears to be screaming in terror, but his dead eyes, gazing listlessly into the void, suggests that he accepted the inevitability of death a millisecond before the cleaver struck him down. Sister's eyes, popped wide and rolled to the side, suggest Mother was listening to Eddie Cantor on the radio as she taxidermied her daughter, while Father's fixed look of agonized servility is perfect for a corpse whose killer imagines him so eager to ingratiate himself that he seconds her menu-related musings in rhyme.  But a crappy rhyme, of course, because he's no better as a dead poet than he was as a husband and provider, which is why Mother keeps her cutlery collection buried in his back. Oh, a bit of sawdust trickles out when she withdraws the butcher knife, but at least the bastard is finally helping around the kitchen.

The ladies in the middle right box appear to be alive at least, but not only are they also speaking in rhyme, they're speaking in code as well. Lady #1 says, "Here's a lunch that's good and quick..." to which Lady #2 replies, "Hot cheese SPAMwich does the trick!" Which clearly it does not. But despite their effort to throw gossips off the trail by randomly inserting nonsense words like "cheese SPAMwich," it's obvious from the context, i.e., the words "lunch", "quick", and "trick", that one of these ladies had a nooner at the Mayflower Hotel with Roger Sterling.

Finally, we're left with the main message of the ad: "Look at all the fun you can have with SPAM, the Hormel meat of many uses." Just imagine if Joseph, instead of his storied coat of many colors, had sported outerwear fashioned from reprocessed pork remnants. While it probably wouldn't have hindered his ability to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, I bet he would have spent a lot more of his time getting treed by jackals.

Everybody full? Nobody wants seconds? Okay then, let's bring on dessert!

Today's birthday beefcake features Cary Grant and Randolph Scott (in living color!, posing outside the Spanish-style home they shared in Santa Monica), mostly because -- if memory serves -- the whole SBL tradition first came about as a consolation prize when Ann balked at Cary's chin divot.

And speaking of Sexy Birthday Lizards!...

...we have a lovely Tokay Gecko which appears to be tasting its own eyeball, because it's gotta be better than SPAM.

Please join me in wishing AnnPW a very happy (belated) birthday!

P.S.  As a resident of Hollywood, I'm naturally concerned about any threatened SPAM-related program activities going on around here, so I'm hoping Ivan will drop by and explain just what the hell Hormel's new idea in radio entertainment was, and how I can kill it.

Happy Birthday, Ivan!

This is an unusually busy week for me, involving a lot of non-blog writin' an' thinkin' and wishin' and hopin'. But it's also a week with an unusually high Birthday Index (as longtime Crappers know, the first week of September signals the beginning of Peak Nativity Season around here, because something about wingnuts and bad movies attracts the kind of people whose parents liked to get randy in the bleak midwinter), so I hope you'll forgive me if the celebrations aren't quite so elaborate as they've been in years past. Rest assured, we still have the saucy mammals, the sexy reptiles, and the disgusting food, because apparently that's now a thing (don't ask me how these traditions get started, I just work here, and my manager's already making me stay late and help with inventory, so I can't even...).

Today's celebrant is both a classic movie maven par excellence and a historian of Golden Age television nonpareil, an eminence grise of noir et blanc, an authority on Old Time Radio (and the kind benefactor who made it possible for me to know more than I ever hoped, expected, or believed possible about Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons), the sort of vacuum-tubed human ENIAC who will respond to a Facebook friend's querulous queries about what the hell's the deal with "Rio Grande 'Cracked' Gasoline" by calmly explaining that Rio Grande was the sponsor for Calling All Cars, a 1933-39 police drama that aired on the West Coast over the Columbia Broadcasting System. It doesn't help, but you feel smarter for knowing it.

And by now you've probably guessed (from the title, if not the above description) that today is the natal anniversary of Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., proprietor of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. So let's get this party started!

See what delicious things happen when A.1. Sauce lends its flavor blessing to cold dishes!

Bless me A.1. for I have sinned...against flavor!

You can keep cool while you're making this attractive tuna mold--and you're sure to collect compliments when you serve it. 

When they taste it, however, you're sure to collect knife and shrimp fork wounds, so serve it quick, and maybe leave the motor running...

In fact, A.1. Sauce is about the easiest possible way to add a flavor flourish anytime . . . both when it's used as a table pour-on sauce and when it's an ingredient in cooking.

I agree, pouring A.1. sauce on the table would probably be tastier. Nevertheless, we're in no position to be choosy about our sponsors, so let's just swallow our gorge and gather around the Philco, because the show's about to begin!

The A-1 Tuna Mold Hour brings you the exciting adventures of Ivan Shreve, Master Blogger!

(Cue Dramatic Theme Music: The Yodeling Chinaman, played in a minor key on the Hammond organ)

Oops! Sorry guys, we won't have time for this week's episode. Sadly, while Ivan stars in a taut, weekly suspense drama, I'm in one of those daily 15-minute sitcoms like The Goldbergs, and as usually happens, my wacky neighbor Seymour Fingerhood just walked in. And seeing as he's played by Arnold Stang, I really need to concentrate on getting him back out as quickly as possible.

Also, and I hate to say this, but I liked the early episodes of the show better, when it was Ivan and his Doc Savage-like companions, "the 'rents", solving crimes in the gritty big city of Athens, GA. Once they moved the action to Winterville ("the City of Marigolds"), the pace suffered, and it began to feel like The Doris Day Show, but in reverse.

So let's just get straight to the cheesecake, shall we? Here's a rare photo of TDOY goddess Jane Greer actually smiling, because it's a beautiful sunny day and she's just finished burying the sap she double-crossed, and smothering his body in quicklime.

And of course, no birthday would be complete without a...

Sexy Birthday Lizard!

(I believe this is a Green Carolina Anole, which can supposedly be found in Georgia, but I make no guarantees because this is the Internet, and the Internet means never having to say "I fact checked.")

So please join me in wishing Ivan the very happiest of birthdays! Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go see if I can foist Arnold off on the cast of That Brewster Boy, or The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour.