Nothing Sucks Like a Black Hole

Last month I was invited to appear on the Mike and Ike All Star Jamboree (or "ASSJAM") podcast to debate the merits and demerits of Disney's big budget disaster, The Black Hole.  So I figured, since I've just rewatched the movie for the first time since its release, I might as well write up a summary for the sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies now, while the wounds are still fresh.  Because there's no way I'm ever sitting through this thing again.

(By the way, a special shout-out to Ike (Happy Birthday, man) for reminding me of the crucial role that automaton genitalia play in the film.)

The Black Hole (1979)
Directed by Gary Nelson
Written by Jeb Rosebrook and Gerry Day

Tagline: A journey that begins where everything else ends!

Starting with your patience.

The Black Hole gets a lot of crap for being just another Star Wars rip-off, which I consider unfair, since it’s actually a rip-off of Disney’s own 1954 picture, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but with two crucial differences: this version is set in space rather than at sea, and instead of Nemo being a tortured genius using ruthless means to achieve a noble end, he’s just an asshole.

Another criticism of the film is that nearly every performance is lifeless or just plain bad. No surprise with that talking wig-stand, Yvette Mimieux, but even normally fine actors like Anthony Perkins and Robert Forster sound like they’ve been roofied, possibly because they were forced to go back and re-record all their dialogue, something unusual for a studio film shot on a stage.  But in all fairness, if I’d been working on the that movie, I’d have been drinking too.

It’s the Year 2130. NASA has launched the spaceship Palomino (which, as my friend Jeff points out, looks like a butt-plug on a camcorder tripod) and sent it on a mission to boldly go and wander around for a while. It’s a harsh task, because the Palomino is no Enterprise; it’s cramped, filled with fey robots, and has a zero-gravity environment which is tough on the wardrobe. Fortunately, it’s the future, so everybody’s double-knit leisure suits have memory. Also helpful is the fact that the crew is aggressively middle-aged, and prone to simulate weightlessness by standing on an off-camera plank while sweaty Teamsters pump it up and down like a teeter-totter. The exception is Joseph Bottoms, who really throws himself into the zero-g effect, joyfully and repeatedly dangling from wires in his tight jumpsuit with his pert, shapely buttocks aloft, and which has inspired me to invent a drinking game. Every time he does it, yell “Bottom’s up!” and take a shot.

Anyway, we join the Palomino as it executes an unscheduled course correction, which makes the entire crew irritable, because now they’re going to be late for work. They demand an explanation from their GPS device, V.I.N.CENT, a highly sophisticated Coors Party Ball with the voice of Roddy McDowell and the eyes of that Kit-Cat Clock, but less expressive. He explains that the ship has encountered a black hole, “a rip in the very fabric of space and time,” so they’re going to have to take an alternate route.

Anthony Perkins, the ship’s astrophysicist, stares at the black hole (which is depicted as a constant swirl of fluid blue energy that kind of looks like a toilet in mid-flush) and pronounces it, with attempted awe, “the most destructive force in the universe,” although he sounds so bored he might as well be declaring it, “the most disappointing cheesesteak I ever ate in Philadelphia.”

Surprisingly, there’s a ship parked in the Black Hole’s driveway, a massive experimental craft called The Cygnus (the first time I saw this movie I thought they were calling it “the Sickness,” and an hour and 38 minutes later, I realized I should have taken the hint and snuck into an adjoining theater to see one of the many other, better films that came out that year, including H.O.T.S., C.H.O.M.P.S., Roller Boogie, or Caligula).

By an amazing coincidence, Yvette’s father was on The Sickness, which she tells us was sent out some years ago to find “habitable life.” Personally, I’d be satisfied with a habitable planet, but I guess the first step in space exploration is to find aliens big enough that we can live inside them like maggots, or immature marsupials. (Frankly, if this movie had been about the search for an intelligent race of giant space kangaroos, I probably wouldn’t have left in the middle to go buy Junior Mints.)

Newspaper reporter Ernest Borgnine, who’s embedded with the crew, tells them that The Sickness was commanded by mad scientist Maximillian Schell, who “talked the Space Appropriations Committee into the costliest fiasco of all time – and refused to admit failure,” a technique he learned from the cryogenically preserved head of Dick Cheney.

The Palomino trips and plunges headfirst into the Most Destructive Force in the Universe, which causes their muffler to fall off, so Captain Robert Forster orders Joseph Bottoms to land on the Sickness, which Joseph takes as a cue to stick his butt in the air.

Cheers!

The Sickness abruptly turns on the porch light, and we get the full sense of her size and majesty. A mile-long rectangle of glass and steel, it looks as if NASA just decided to launch the West Edmonton Mall into deep space. The crew takes the jetway and emerges into what looks like a Frontier airlines terminal – lots of uncomfortable plastic chairs, but no passengers -- and Robert tells Joseph to stay with the ship. Joseph responds by pouting, then pulling his ray gun and doing a quick series of poses like that silhouette from the opening credits of Charlie’s Angels.

The Palomino crew arrives at CNN Center in Atlanta, where they discover the ship is being operated by “robots” dressed in Mylar hockey masks and roomy space muumuus. Suddenly, the mad-eyed Maximilian Schell, whose shaggy beard and unbelievable bouffant makes Lon Chaney’s Wolfman look like Pluto from The Hills Have Eyes, pops up to announce that Yvette’s dad is dead and to backfill the back-story. Like every spacecraft in virtually every space movie ever made, The Sickness had the crap kicked out of it by a meteor shower, so Max ordered the crew to abandoned ship. Meanwhile, he stayed behind, and has spent the last twenty years alone, building robot companions and making fun of bad movies.

For some reason, the incredibly secretive and paranoid Max lets the Away Team wander freely around his ship, collecting spare parts to repair their butt-plug. They snoop in closets, admire the matte paintings, and desperately try to avoid stunts or action. At one point, Ernest Borgnine’s suspicions are aroused by a robot with a bad limp, and he gives chase, but he’s on a slightly raised platform that looks a little slippery, and he runs so gingerly, with his arms flailing to maintain his footing, that you can almost hear him chanting, “Don’t break a hip, don’t break a hip…!”

Mad Max and Anthony Perkins get flirty, and Max invites them to dinner in his wood paneled formal dining room, lavishly appointed with chandeliers and candelabras, making The Sickness the only faster-than-light, interstellar space craft to be decorated by Liberace.

Meanwhile, VINCENT makes friends with B.O.B., a levitating beer keg with the voice of Slim Pickens, and we get to watch the robots play a video arcade game. It’s a slow sequence, and sadly, putting your quarter on the machine doesn’t speed things up any.

Let’s cut back to the dinner party, because what action-packed space adventure is complete without a leisurely soup course? Max announces that he’ll be flying The Sickness straight into the Black Hole, confident he can open a portal to another universe, one which is sorely in need of a Camp Snoopy and a Wet Seal.

After dinner, the crew is served mints and exposition, when B.O.B. reveals that all the robots are really the former crew of The Sickness, whom Max lobotomized, using a special automated lobotomizing assembly line. It seems unlikely NASA included this feature as factory standard equipment, so Max would have had to get the crew to build and install it for him, and frankly I would’ve loved to have been at the staff meeting where he assigned Action Items to Team Automatic Lobotomizer.

Captain Robert snaps into action and decides to take over The Sickness! Or maybe just leave. It’s kind of unclear. Then he reads ahead in the script and sees that he’ll be spending the last twenty-two minutes of the film running from blue screens and matte paintings, so he decides he’d better conserve his energy and just do nothing. Maybe have a Gatorade and a Power Bar.  Anthony Perkins, however, announces that he has decided to stay aboard The Sickness with Max, because he finds that he really enjoys being only the second most creepy person in a movie.

Unfortunately, Max’s senior robot, Maximilian, a recycled Cylon that somebody painted the color of Gallo Hearty Burgundy, gets jealous or something and uses his juicing attachment on Anthony’s lower intestines. Then Mad Max decides to lobotomize Yvette, because it’s not like anyone would notice.

Meanwhile, Robert and the Party Balls sneak around the mall some more. Since the movie was released in December, I can only assume they’re looking for Santa. Instead, they find Yvette, who has been stuffed into a quilted, full-body oven mitt and had her head covered with aluminum foil. Seriously, her scalp is wrapped up like a rump roast; apparently, this is the exact point where the Special Effects department said, “Fuck it,” and cracked open the Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

Anyway, Max’s man-bots are using Lasik surgery to burn their initials into Yvette’s pre-frontal lobe, but Robert shoots the machine with his plastic laser horseshoe. Was he in time to save her from being lobotomized? There’s no way to tell from her performance, so we’re just going to have to wait and see if her insurance company sends her a bill.

You know what? We could really use a big action sequence right about now. What we get are repetitive shots of our heroes as they squat behind those big pastel colored pipes that kids crawl around in at Chuck E. Cheese, and take pot shots at a row of immobile robots who appear to have all malfunctioned in mid Conga Line.

Robert, Yvette, and the Party Balls are pinned down by hostile fire. Joseph, who’s been sitting in the butt-plug the whole movie, runs to save them. Ernest tags along, then decides, “aw, screw it,” and fakes a leg injury like an Italian soccer player. Then he steals the Palomino and blasts off, leaving the others behind. Immediately, however, he loses control of the ship when he starts sweating, grimacing, and needlessly crouching; in other words – and I’m just going by his performance here – he has a suddenly attack of diarrhea, and crashes into The Sickness, taking out the Fashion Bug and a Cinnabon.

Our heroes decide to escape in “the probe ship.” Yeah, whatever. Meanwhile, as promised, the next 22 minutes consist of B-list actors jogging in front of cheap sets and back projection, interspersed with SFX shots as The Sickness is slowly – let me rephrase that: SLOWLY! – pulled into the Black Hole. On the bright side, we learn that V.I.N.CENT ’s large, telescoping testicles can be used as offensive weapons (try that, Jackie Chan!), when the Party Ball deploys his party balls to coldcock Mad Max’s garage sale Cylon.

Now let’s rip off the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with five minutes of half-assed psychedelic effects as the probe ship penetrates the Black Hole, played at this performance by five gallons of strawberry Jell-O flushed down a john.

But what about Max? Well, he’s just floating in the vacuum of space without a pressure suit, apparently none the worse for wear, although his hair is extremely staticky and tangled from the event horizon, and in need of a good cream rinse. He bumps into his burgundy Cylon which – spoiler alert – is filled with the brain and guts of Yvette’s lobotomized Dad. They do a touching Bro Hug, then suddenly Max is inside the robot himself! Because, irony! He looks confused, a feeling we immediately share when the camera pulls out and we see that he’s standing atop the Matterhorn ride in Disneyland.

Wait. No. Pull out a little farther, and…Oh! Hey. We’re in Hell. Flames, demons, and dozens of skull-faced penitents in black hooded robes. Okay, thanks, Disney.

Cut back to our heroes as they pass through the Black Hole and emerge in another universe, ready to begin life anew, like the story of Genesis. Except it’s Robert Forster, Yvette Mimeaux, and the dewy, fresh-faced Joseph Bottoms, so it’s like Adam and Eve and the twink hustler they picked up for a threesome, making the whole ending less the Garden of Eden and more the Garden of Allah on Sunset Boulevard.

Meet The Press in Hell

Sorry to be late with today's post.  Yesterday I was helping Mary (over her very sensible protests) pull some of her heavier boxes of teaching materials out of the closet, when I felt a sensation for which there is no non-obscene sound effect, as a disc popped out of my lumbar region and flew across the room like a watch spring.  So I haz a pain, and am having to work in brief spurts of scowling, profanity-muttering productivity, but I expect to have something new up first thing tomorrow.

In the meantime: as I wandered around TBogg's place this weekend, reading about how Sweepstakes-winning former spermatozoon Luke Russert has managed to give nepotism a bad name even without the benefit of hemophilia or rickets, I was actually feeling slightly nostalgic for his dad.  Then I looked up this piece in the Archive and realized that -- No.  No, I'm really not.

So here's a flashback to June 7, 2006, when Tim Russert jokes weren't in poor taste:

Imagine if you will a network news program where the host believes that his obligation as a journalist is to place evil on the same footing as good (so that evil will stop complaining about how the media always favors good). Tonight on Media Twilight Zone, we will visit just such a program.

Yes, inspired by Ann Coulter’s recent appearance on NBC News (and many similar occurrences), we came up with this little eschatological drama, which is submitted for your approval.

Tim Russert: Thank you for joining us. Today on our panel we’re proud to have bestselling author and Constitutional expert Ann Coulter, and author and internet sensation Michelle Malkin. Our guest in studio this morning is Jesus Christ, leader of the Heavenly Host. Joining us by satellite is his opponent, Bob Satan, Chairman of the National Republican Committee for a New World Order, and author of the bestselling guide to conservative parenting, Fatherhood: of All Lies. He joins us from the Green Zone in Megiddo. Mr. Satan, thank you for being here.

Satan: Always a pleasure, Tim.

Russert: Mr. Satan, let’s start with you. Yesterday the New York Times reported that your forces burned a village to the ground, killing every man, woman and child, then made sausage from the victims' blood and threw a pancake breakfast. This has caused some on Capitol Hill to question whether we have a clear strategy for victory. How would you respond?

Satan: Tim, this is just the Left’s way of saying, fine, let’s just cut and run. We shouldn’t even be in Armageddon, we shouldn’t even be fighting a battle to bring about the end of the world.

Russert: So you think this story is mostly partisan.

Satan: Absolutely! Look, this is war. We’re fighting an enemy that is determined to utterly destroy us and rule for a thousand years. If these allegations turn out to be true, then we may have a few bad apples in the barrel. But 66.6% of our troops are doing a great job day after day, under incredibly difficult circumstances. And sometimes, in the stress of the moment, some of them may manufacture bloodwurst out of children. Can any of us honestly say that, given the same circumstances, we wouldn’t do the same thing?

Jesus: Yes! There are clear --

Satan: Well, look who’s casting the first stone.

Jesus: ...clear rules of engagement designed to prevent this kind of --

Russert: Mr. Christ, let him finish.

Satan: Look, the point is that there are lots of people who may have sincerely held beliefs about whether it’s appropriate to grind noncombatants into sausage, but I hardly think that Mr. Christ’s record entitles him to get holier than thou on the topic of children.

Jesus: That’s the most outrageous -–

Russert: I’m sorry, we’ve got to take a break, but we’ll let you finish that thought when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK. FADE BACK UP ON MTP STUDIO, WHERE TIM RUSSERT IS STRIPPED TO THE WAIST AND SCOURGING HIMSELF WITH A NAIL-STUDDED LEATHER PLAIT).

Russert: Thanks again for joining us on Meet the Press. Now, I want to get back to Jesus Christ...

Jesus: Thank you, Tim. As I was --

Russert: What do you say to those people who claim you’re a pedophile?

Jesus: What?!

Russert: I’d like to play a soundbite from — Jimmy, do we have that? I think it’s at Mark 10:14?

(JESUS ON MONITOR: “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.”)

Russert: Are those your words?

Jesus: Yes, but -–

Russert: Now there are some who say you were clearly defending the North American Man-Boy Love Association with that statement.

Satan: Tim -–

Jesus: No! Look, that was taken completely out of context!

Satan: Tim, the point is, liberals like Mr. Christ and the New York Times think we shouldn’t even be in Armageddon because we’re just there to defend Israel. That is a completely anti-Semitic attitude.

Russert: Mr. Christ, what do you say to accusations that you’re opposed to fighting a battle to bring about the end of all life on Earth because you’re an Anti-Semite?

Jesus: Well, first of all, I’d like to point out that I myself am Jewish...

Ann Coulter: Yeah! Just like George Soros. Another Jew who somehow figured out a way to avoid crucifixion.

Jesus: I was crucified! (DISPLAYS WOUNDS IN HANDS)

Michelle Malkin: Why don’t people ask him more specific questions about the nails in his hands and feet? There are legitimate questions about whether or not they were self-inflicted wounds.

Russert: What do you mean self-inflicted? Are you suggesting Mr. Christ crucified himself on purpose?

Michelle Malkin: Did you read the book by Barabbas and the Golgotha Veterans for Truth? Some of the thieves who were actually crucified have made allegations that these were self-inflicted wounds.

Jesus: I did not NAIL MYSELF to the cross!

Michelle Malkin: These are men who were there, and they were just tied to their crosses–

Russert: So you’re saying he maybe used a nail gun? That he did this for sympathy, or publicity -–?

Michelle Malkin: So there are doubts about whether or not it was nails or not. And I wish you would ask these questions of Jesus Christ instead of me.

Jesus: I would like a chance to respond -–

Russert: We’ve got to go to a break, but we’ll come right back to you, I promise. When we return on Meet the Press.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK. FADE BACK UP ON STUDIO. TIM IS DRINKING A CHALICE OF GOAT’S BLOOD AND LIGHTING A BLACK CANDLE).

Russert: We’re back with our guests, Bob Satan and Jesus Christ, and our panel Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter. Ann, I’d like to read you a statement by the Virgin Mary, Chairwoman of Mothers Against Armageddon...

Ann Coulter: Oh please. This broad is a millionaire, lionized on frescoes and in scripture about her, reveling in her status as a saint, and stalked by Madonna-parazzies. I have never seen a woman enjoying her son’s death so much.

Russert: Well, her statement — Jimmy, do we have --?

Ann Coulter: This is the left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about Armageddon, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to? No-No-No. We always have to respond to someone who lost her husband in the Apocalypse. Or some child of a soldier who died at Megiddo. Or some mother whose son died for our sins. God, I hate these bitches!

Jesus: I’d just like to -–

Satan:  Tim, I’m an old-fashioned guy. I believe in mothers, and family, and I think marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman for the begetting and raising of Anti-Christs. But my opponent seems to have a more casual view of it, since he married a prostitute.

Jesus: I did not!

Satan: Have you read the book?

Jesus: That was a novel!

Satan: Do you deny this story was widely printed?

Jesus: It was fiction!

Satan: Oh, I see. So 50 million people who read that book are all wrong, and you’re right. Tim, you see, this is why the people in this country don’t trust the media. This is a perfect example of the insulated, inside-the-beltway attitude of establishment liberals who are out of touch with everyday Americans.

Jesus: It was a NOVEL!

Russert: Yes, but he raises a good point about credibility. You position yourself as the Prince of Peace — I’d just like to play a soundbite for you –

(JESUS ON MONITOR: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man?s enemies will be the members of his household.”)

Russert: Now there are some people who say that’s a very anti-family attitude.

Jesus: Look, you can’t just take Bible verses out of context and expect to -–

Russet: I’m afraid we’re out of time. Satan, I’ll give you the last word.

Satan: Well, Tim, you and your kind will perish, flayed alive then boiled in a cauldron of blood and urine until the meat falls from your bones, and your decayed and maggot-ridden flesh will be consumed by the Beast, and you will languish in torment in his belly for seven years, screaming all the while though you have no mouth –

Russert: Ha, ha! I’m afraid we’re going to have to end it there, just when things were getting good. Satan, always fun to have you on.

The Return of Top 10 Google Searches

First of all, Mary and I want to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who's contributed to the Automobile Reanimation fund.  (Explanation here if you're tuning in late.)  A couple of my Thank You notes have summoned a Mailer Daemon (who I found kind of lame for a soul-devouring Hellspawn; I mean, yeah, he's got that scary Exorcist voice and the cloven feet and the eyes that glow red like coals, but he's also wearing a pith helmet and those gray polyester shorts); so if you haven't heard back from me and have an alternate email I could reach you at, please let me know.

We're going to keep the Beg-A-Thon going for a few more days, so if you can spare a little bit, please click on the button at the top left.  Or, if you are non-Pals with Mr. Pay, email me at scott.clevenger - at - gmail.com and I'll send you our snail mail address.

Now, as most of you probably know, this blog is a sort of Superfund site for search engines.  In other words, a not insignificant amount of people who wind up here do so because they typed a desperate, creatively spelled query, which caused Google or Bing to say "Ew!" and drop them, like a flaming bag of dog doo, onto our doorstep.

"I wanna know about Hitler Pee!"

As a result, checking our referrer logs for plaintive questions and attempting to address them on air used to be a regular Saturday feature around here, and I thought it was about time to revive it.  But I freely confess that I'm no Shell Answer Man, so as usual, I'll need your help, because some of these are real puzzlers.

1. Peter scolari erection crème: Although Scolari's career didn't follow the same meteoric path as his Bosom Buddies co-star, he's worked steadily in TV since; more to the point, his lower profile in the entertainment industry has allowed him to devote increased time and resources to the burgeoning field of celebrity-endorsed erection ointments.  Now, I'm the first to admit, Tom Hanks makes a quality boner cream, but I personally believe it's overpriced for what you get, and Peter Scolari's product is far more luxurious, as one can easily tell from the fancy accent grave over the e.

2. cows doing pupu:  After the decline of the "Polynesian" craze of the 50s and 60s, the classic "pupu platter" fell into disfavor with most American diners.  But recently, several head of entrepreneurial cattle have opened restaurants in the style of Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's which feature this venerable appetizer tray.  Most of the cows claim they are simply job creating small business bovines looking to take advantage of a renewed interest in so-called "Tiki culture," while others will admit they'd like to help steer national eating habits toward healthier fare like poultry and seafood in order to reduce the incidence of Type II Diabetes, and the chance that they'll get hit in the head with a poleaxe.

3. Real Witches Ball Drew: Well, Drew's a nice enough-looking guy, but I still think the Coven should consider diversifying its initiation ritual. I mean, this is the exact same one the Masons use.

4. "how do I become a lesbian":  The same way you get to Carnegie Hall, honey.  Practice, practice, practice.

5. kiss on balcony replaces bloody sheets:  And it was precisely this change in housekeeping procedures that made me rethink my policy about never staying at a Courtyard By Marriott.

6. can you swim with the removable instant brows:  Let's ask the man who owns one!

"I've discovered a more active lifestyle!  Yes, now I can jog, play tennis, and even go swimming...all with my new brows!"

7. fanfiction diaper:  I've come across some unexpected and ill-considered fan-fic in my time, most of it not very erotic (except for the Holmes and Yo-Yo slash.  That stuff is so hot you've gotta read it with oven mitts).  But even I'm surprised to learn that people are writing adult fan fiction about Senator David Vitter.

8.  traps turning perfectly straight guys into homosexuals:  This is a very real problem, Googler, and I hope you haven't fallen into one yourself, because homosexuals are extremely organized and energetic, and lay these traps everywhere.  For instance, on Friday it was discovered that Gays had managed to sneak into a factory in Georgia and contaminate Chick-fil-A Sauce with chemicals that fill one with an unholy passion for the same sex.  Fortunately, most of the tainted packages were immediately removed from franchise shelves, so if you didn't eat at a Chick-fil-A any time this week, you should be fine. 

9. World worse porn country:  Experts agree that the worst porn in the world comes from Marlborough Country, because the actors constantly pause during oral sex to cough up a lung oyster.

10. cat my brain aches:  To which cat can only respond...

 "I know what you mean!  Is Riley doing that Scanners thing to your brain too?"

Phew!  My brain also aches, but there are still a few burning bonus questions in the referrer logs, so I was wondering if I could pass the Talking Stick and ask you guys to field them in comments?

11. Most wonderful gun in the world

12. Battlefield earth crotch

13. Why did dennis prager divorce

14. braless 70's films

15. hand symbolism homosexual

And Now For Something Completely Different

I should like to be in a Barber Shop Quartet...

You know what's fun? Coming up with your own captions for this pic!

So, if designing a Sanitary Napkin is not up your aisle, "Caption This" picture. 

I dare you.

Ramblin' Man

UPDATES BELOW (NOW WITH EXTRA UPDATES!)

[Note:  We're having a Beg-A-Thon this week (details here), in an effort to raise sufficient funds so we can hire George Zucco to use his influence with Ramboona to reanimate our dead car.)

"I've called this all-staff meeting because -- as much as I hate to point fingers -- some of you people are abusing Casual Friday...!"

If you follow me on Twitter, then that would explain why the hairs at the back of my neck are standing on end and why I have the eerie sensation of being watched, even though when I spin around suddenly everyone is bending down to tie their shoe, or reading the newspaper, or gazing in department store display windows, looking all super-casual.  Not falling for it!  You've also probably noticed that I don't twat a lot (as TBogg would say), except for a more or less daily series called "Spam as a Second Language."  Basically, this involves picking the subject line from a random piece of unsolicited email and attempting to start a dialogue which I hope will evolve into a frank and informative exchange of views, although usually it just turns into me heckling a basement-dwelling Belorussian's efforts to spoof eHarmony.

Here a few recent examples of Spam as a 2nd Language:

"BLADDER CANCER ATTORNEY AT LAW"  Erle Stanley Gardner's follow-up to PERRY MASON proved surprisingly unpopular.

"FIND A GOD'S MATCH FOR YOU"  Sadly, it was a trickster god, and our first date was ruined by a dribble glass.

"Do you know of new BED BUG SPREAD??" I haven't tried it, but it's got to be better than Miracle Whip.

"Get Rid Of Those JIGGLY ARMS Forever!"  I'm Venus de Milo, and I approve this message.

"scott you need emergency clash??" Yes! Excuse me while I nip into the Panic Room and blast some Sandinista!

"Fuller Hair Man"  Oh, I get it -- a very clever scam. First you buy the Fuller Hair, find it's all tangly, then the Fuller Brush Man just happens to show up.

The thing is, I get a lot of spam, so waste not, want not.   I think this is probably because I still have three or four separate America Online accounts, and even though I never send anything from them (I'm not comfortable using an AOL email address unless Bill Clinton is President), I'm cc'd on every single memo the Nigerian Oil Ministry has ever issued.  I also get invited to take part in surveys, and offer my opinion on new products and packaging, in exchange for points that I can later redeem from the Wizard of Oz for a brain.

Yesterday, "Red Dot Pre-Paid Visa Card for Teens," came calling, begging me to help them choose from one of several prospective logos, all of which looked like an adolescent skin condition or a communicable disease.  Since I wasn't really wowed by the graphics, I instead filled the comment box with suggestions for a more appropriate product name.  My top three were:

Measles Money!

PimplePay!

Unsightly Rash Cash!

They're not all scams, of course; some of these communications do offer a more legitimate quid pro quo, such as discounts on items I would never buy.  This morning I was emailed a coupon for Axe Body Spray, and it struck me, not for the first time, what an odd name that is for a personal grooming product.  Is it supposed to be applied with an axe?  I mean, I get that they're trying to make the concept of "body spray" sound masculine, but frankly "axe" just makes me think about the "Lumberjack Song" and I think that's probably going off in a different direction than they intended.

What about Belt Sander Body Spray?  Or Socket Set Shampoo and Conditioner.  Garden Weasel Eau de Cologne?  Chainsaw Toilet Water?

Not that I'm so confident in my masculinity that I'm completely immune to the appeal of brawny nomenclature.  When Mary returned from CVS one day and presented me with a baby blue bath puff, I admit, I was a little put off by the name.

"Oh, just call it a shower scrub," she scoffed, but I realized that would fool no one.  So I named it "Scab Fleshreaper" until I could think of something butch.  It was apt, as things turned out, because a short time later Scab Fleshreaper ripped open a bug bite on my leg -- cause that's just the kind of hardcore asshole he was -- before eventually dying a warrior's death by sort of unraveling.

Mary then upped the ante by bestowing me with a hot pink replacement scrubby, which I dubbed Lady Bloodskin, the Exfoliatrix.

I should hasten to point out that I'm not at all insecure about body care and grooming, especially since I replaced the hot pink bath puff with 60-grit sandpaper.  Because it's not only manly, it cleans, invigorates, and traumatizes the skin, while doing a pretty good job of removing unwanted hair in the bikini area.

Speaking of the bikini area, don't forget to send us a screen shot of your custom, pimped out sanitary napkin.  Uglucks Flea was the first to take up the challenge, emailing us the following design.  What was his inspiration?  "Dolphins are really just frat boys of the sea."

And since dolphins are trained assassins -- Flipper was basically just Jason Bourne with a catchier theme song -- you'd be wise to take the napkin's advice.

Next up is my entry, which I've entitled, "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light Days."

 

Click here to design your own.

UPDATE:   Uglucks Flea brings up a good point in comments:  "I think yours might have an unwanted effect - while likely still warding off any sharks and/or curious cetaceans, it contains such gibbering horror that it would likely call Cthulhu to rise from the briny deep."

Oops...

And here's a lovely entry from Chris Vosburg, entitled "The Abyss Screams"

Next, Doc Logan weighs in two entries. Take it away, Doc!

"First, taking Mary's example of TOM = time of the month, heavy days would be Major TOMs."

"Second, menstruation needn't be such a dreary experience. A picture of a beloved comedian should lighten everyone's spirits a bit. "

Project Feminine Protection!

[Note:  We're holding a Beg-A-Thon to help restore our car to life, like Im-Ho-Tep in The Mummy (no, the good one, with Boris Karloff), so I can get to my new job at my new school, which I'm very excited about!  Full explanation here).]

Karloff:  Look upon thy countenance!
Zita Johann:  It's true...It's true!  I don't feel fresh!

Remember when my box of feminine sanitary napkins asked, "Do sharks know if you're on your period"?

Well, the dumb box never does give us the answer, and rather than leaving everyone who was as curious as I was about sharks and that "Time Of the Month" (TOM) hanging, I decided to go straight to the source:  ubykotex.com.  Turns out they didn't have the answer either. So, I'm guessing it was a rhetorical question.

But I found something even better!

 

That's right! You can design your own Sanitary Napkin!  Judging by the image above, it helps if you're Peter Max, but that's not strictly required, so here's mine:

 

I figured if you wore it while on TOM in the ocean, it might confuse the local sharks by convincing them you're already being attacked by one, thank you very much.  So they'd back off, out of professional courtesy.

Now, it's your turn! Click on this link:  Design Your Own SP!

After that, choose your product, use their tools or upload some photos and design away!  Email us your designs, and we'll post them here.

Gaffe-ny

[Programming Note: We're having an Automobile Reanimation Beg-a-Thon, in an effort to rouse our car from its two year-long coma in time for Mary to start her new job -- which, unlike her last one, is not on the bus line.  Details here.  We now join our post already in progress...]

Somebody hand me the phone.  Frank Gaffney's erection has persisted longer than four hours, and I'm starting to get worried...

 "Look at this thing!  It's like a front porch flag pole!...By the way, any of you troopers feel like coming over here and blowing reveille?"

GAFFNEY: America’s ‘Iron Lady’
Michele Bachmann is fearless in challenging Islamist influence

Movie theaters across America have recently showed a film depicting former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a woman whose visionary leadership and fortitude — particularly in the fight against Soviet communism — earned her the sobriquet “the Iron Lady.”

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann's hallucinatory leadership and ineptitude earned her various nicknames, including "the Flycatcher," "Bat Boy," and "Overjoyed Contestant Selected for The Price Is Right."

Lady Thatcher’s partner in dispatching that toxic ideology to the “ash heap of history,” Ronald Reagan

Gaffney's description makes the two world leaders sound like the "sanitation engineers" played by Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen in the rollicking 1991 action-comedy, Men at Work.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan meet to discuss the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, 1982 (artist's conception).

Today, it is threatened by another totalitarian ideology that some have aptly described as “communism with a god”: the supremacist Islamic doctrine known as Shariah.

Which was a poor choice for a supremacist Islamic doctrine name, because they already call the wind Mariah, so they're continually getting each other's mail.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!  Do not drink or eat anything for the duration of the next sentence, especially hot or carbonated beverages, or foods which could pose a choking hazard, such as pretzels, peanuts, or pimento-stuffed olives.

Fortunately, it turns out that as we confront our time’s most imminent threat to freedom, we have found America’s Iron Lady: Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. 

Okay, if you've just drenched your keyboard, or are presently doubled over, wheezing and gagging and looking desperately around the room for someone who knows the Heimlich Maneuver, don't say the Robot from Lost in Space didn't warn you.

Her Thatcheresque qualities are evident in the fearless and visionary leadership she is providing in opposing Shariah’s most formidable champions, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Yeah, yeah, Michael Buffer.  Can you hurry up with the "...in this corner" introductions and just get to the "Let's get ready to ruuuuuumble!" part?

In particular, Mrs. Bachmann’s training as a tax attorney has prepared her well for the painstaking business of studying and mastering arcane organizational, financial and other relationships that are at the core of the stealthy subversion the Muslim Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad.” 

Maybe it's because Bruce Willis is a well known Hollywood conservative, but I consider it no coincidence that in the fifth installment of the venerable Die Hard series, John McClain retires from the police department and becomes a tax attorney who just happens to find himself trapped in an H & R Block office attacked by terrorists in Die Hard With a Penalty Abatement Under Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Rules.

Her experience raising 28 kids

Marcus's teats must be really sore.

counting her own and foster children, has steeled her against the name-calling and worse that have met her efforts to bring those skills to bear to expose and defeat the jihadists, wherever they may be.

So her kids called her names and worse?  What'd they do, pull a scimitar and declare a fatwa against Michele whenever she failed to trim the crust off their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

It’s a good thing.

Thanks, Martha Stewart.

 At the moment, Mrs. Bachmann is not facing mere name-calling but outright character assassination.

I would advise her character to steer clear of Ford's Theater and Dealey Plaza, but it's a pretty small target.

She has been singled out for special treatment despite the fact that she was one of five members of Congress (the others were Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Trent Franks of Arizona, Lynn A. Westmoreland of Georgia and Thomas J. Rooney of Florida) who had the temerity to send to the federal inspector general formal requests for investigations into Muslim Brotherhood influence operations inside our government. That’s a threat every bit as dangerous as the communist subversion of a generation ago.

A generation ago would have been roughly 1982.  Was communist subversion really a big thing at the time?  I think if you polled the American people that year, they would have agreed that our biggest problems were Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide, the continuing popularity of Knight Rider, a brutal recession, and the release of Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's Ebony and Ivory.

It is, of course, no accident that Mrs. Bachmann is being subjected to such vilification by the Islamists

Now, is this the original Islamists, or is it one of those pick-up groups that just tours under the name, like the Coasters, or the Drifters?

their allies on the left and in the establishment media’s amen chorus.

Say what you will about the establishment media's amen chorus, Frank, but I firmly believe this is the year that they're going all the way to Regionals!

As a principled, articulate and wildly popular Tea Party leader and conservative, she is a prime target for electoral defeat by her political foes.

Maybe I failed to pay sufficient attention to Schoolhouse Rock, but as I understand our system of electoral politics, if you're a member of Congress, and someone else is running for your seat, shouldn't you pretty much assume they're trying to defeat you?

 These include her fellow Minnesotan, Rep. Keith Ellison, the “first Muslim congressman,” who launched the initial attack on our Iron Lady. More on him in a moment.

But first, a message from Secretly Halal Campbell's Soup.

Regrettably, the Minnesota congresswoman has also been criticized by figures in her own party.

And this time they didn't even have the decency to wait until Edward R. Murrow aired a damning expose on See It Now.

 Some defended one of the individuals identified in the five legislators’ letter to the State Department’s inspector general: Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It's pretty suspicious that that she was singled out by name by her defenders just because she was singled out by name by her attackers.  That kind of thing unfairly levels the playing field, and subjects libel to the same standards of "equality" that has always defined socialism this week.

 Others seem determined to deflect or at least deny the problem of which she appears to be but one example and a symptom:

There are several ways to view John McCain in light of his speech defending Huma Abedin.  1)  as a conservative politician alarmed by the rising neo-McCarthyism in his party, 2.) as a chivalrous old gentlemen gallantly defending a woman's honor, or 3.) as a blister preventing Dr. Bachmann from draining the symptomatic pus from the body politic.

There are individuals with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood inside or at least influencing the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security, as well as Foggy Bottom.

If the Muslim Brotherhood has actually managed to infiltrate all those institutions and departments -- and not just Frank Gaffney's pajama-pissing nightmares -- perhaps we should learn from their example, and see if we could use their methods to get a few Democrats in there.

With respect to Ms. Abedin, long-time federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted in a brilliant expose posted at National Review Online on July 21, the question is not whether she has committed a crime but if she should have a security clearance. 

Because accusations of a crime would require, you know, proof of some kind.  Anyway, try as I might, I just can't stay mad at Frank, when he goes and does something like this -- rebutting claims of McCarthyism by citing a guy named McCarthy.  And one who believes, as s.z. discovered here, that the government doesn't need no stinking warrants to search and seize Muslims, because "the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches, not warrantless searches."

The State Department’s own guidelines would appear to deny access to classified information to a person who has, as she does through living and deceased family members, “foreign associations that could create a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion.”

Apparently Frank is privy to inside information concerning the imminent outbreak of the Zombie Apocalypse.  On the bright side, it seems the plague of undead will be less concerned with brain-eating, and more focused on subverting U.S. State Department diplomatic overtures in the Middle East and North Africa.

"Come on, Zombie Apocalypse, come onnn...!  Mama needs a date for CPAC!"

Until the critics — on Capitol Hill, in the media and elsewhere — perform the sort of due diligence that has characterized the approach taken by Mrs. Bachmann and her colleagues, their authority on the matter must be questioned.

The kind of due diligence which unearths hard and unexpected truths, such as the fact that -- contrary to popular misconception -- the 1969 Academy Award for Best Actor did not go to John Wayne Gacy  for his tough but tender portrayal of hard-drinking U.S. Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn in True Grit. 

That applies particularly to Mr. Ellison who claims not to know much about the Muslim Brotherhood, let alone have ties to it.

I like to claim that I have absolutely no connections to SPECTRE, but even I admit that my eye twitches a little when I say it.

Mrs. Bachmann’s response to her critics is vintage Lady Thatcher: “I will not be silenced.” 

You know, I don't even like Margaret Thatcher, and I still think it's sad that she's lived to see this comparison being made.  (Wait...Has she lived to see this comparison?  I better look her up on Wikipedia...Be right back...

Yep, she lived to see it.  Sad.)

We cannot allow America’s Iron Lady or her courageous colleagues to be silenced or otherwise punished for their needed leadership in countering the Muslim Brotherhood.

Well, the right bloggers and neo-cons seem filled with contempt toward the Significant Other in our Special Relationship, ever since the Brits dubbed Romney "Mitt the Twit," but just to be fair, let's flip over all the cards...This is their Iron Lady...

...and this is ours.

Finally...the X chromosome of Margaret Thatcher combined with the brain of Ronald Reagan.  It's like David Cronenberg's The Fly, but with kind of a downer ending.

Riley:  I can't believe it...Frank Gaffney actually makes you look smart!
Moondoggie:  I know, and I'm barely out-thinking this sock.