Please bear with a nerdy CALLOO CALLAY...WKRP in Cincinnati is out on DVD.
Nearly thirty years after the fact, Cincinnati's favorite radio station is still among the greatest television comedies ever broadcast. Part of the appeal lies in the fact that WKRP wasn't on the air long enough to get stale or become self-parodying. After 100 episodes, it was gone.
For the non-informed, it was the show Newsradio wanted to be, and more often than not approached for quality, despite the malign entity that is Andy Dick. For those who have an appreciation of the series in its original run on CBS, the only loss is the replacement of the original crappy seventies name-brand rock with generic crappy seventies-style instrumental cuts.
And Boooooger lives on in the collection. Somehow, Dr. Johnny Fever losing his gig in California for saying booger on the air seems quaint in the era of Don Imus referring to the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's." Indeed, Fever's second firing in California as a result of uttering a phrase commonly associated with being master of one's domain, in Seinfeld-speak, is absolutely archaic compared with Howard Stern's daily lesbian midget love fest on satellite radio.
Don Imus is no Johnny Fever. Johnny Fever had class, and style, and was not so self-absorbed as to believe himself to be a kingmaker and great wit. The voice of Johnny Fever was passionate about music, and confirmed in the faith that music and radio were an equalizer for the powerless and disenfranchised.
It was a cynicism rooted in a living memory of music pulling a humble trucker from Tupelo into the national spotlight. The trucker's fame came from combining the voices of disenfranchised people with a face that 1950s television could embrace. He empowered acceptance of a movement that no American, nowhere in America, should be deprived of any right, provided that said American lived up to the responsibilities that go with the privilege.
Fast forward thirty years to see Imus strip the dignity from the young ladies from Rutgers, upon a significant achievement in competition, and then go on the air with a bigger cretin, Reverend Al Sharpton, to seek his reconciliation.
On one hand, it was funny. Not funny in the way of WKRP but funny in an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes vein, to wit, an absurd premise with an entirely predictable script. One knew that Sharpton was not going to find pardon for Imus. Sharpton was watching Imus twist in the wind for the sheer diversion of it.
In seventies argot, they were two turkeys and it was Thanksgiving in April.
It seems a shame that no one tried to see if they could fly. Reverend Al Sharpton is not Venus Flytrap, either. He doesn't seem to share Venus' goldenly eloquent mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Venus persevered, where Sharpton requires bogus racism to achieve notoriety and justify his presence.
Suddenly, your Wandering Gentile feels waves of nostalgia for 1978. If pills won't cure it, the memory of how bad the cars were will.
There is a great feeling when reconnecting with art well made. Sometimes the art doesn't measure up- Miami Vice seems horribly stuck in its era when seen today, for example. But somtimes something endures and seems as fresh as the day it was made. Huckleberry Finn works 130 years later; Casablanca is great after 65 years; and happily, the words "as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly," hit just as well 29 years after they came across my black-and-white television in East Point, Georgia, for the first time.
What was an "Imus," anyway?
29 April 2007
06 April 2007
Minuteman Patriot!
Forrest B. Smallwood came to the attention of the Wandering Gentile through his service as a security guard to the Lone Star Candies (Fudge Packing Division) plant in Tarado (tuh-RAY-doe), Texas. An engaging conversationalist, he shared some extremely enlightened opinions regarding American sovereignty and the threat posed by desperate, disposessed people.
I accepted a ride to Tarado's finest, and only, quick service eatery, the Dairy Duchess at exit 3 on I-36. It is possible to see the Dairy Princess from Lone Star Candies, but it is also possible to see Lubbock clearly from Midland. Texas has a lot of flat places.
Smallwood's car was a rusty blue '92 Lumina with a 2005 registration from Big Beaver County, Ohio; a Rick Case Cleveland dealer badge; and a Tancredo for President bumper sticker.
"They're coming over the border and riding straight up this road toward Wichita Falls," Smallwood said. "The Minutemen are the last, best line of defense of American freedom."
I positioned myself in such a way as to avoid a DVD case featuring the images of late '90s boy band, the Backdoor Brothers, and a some sort of foreign substance that prevented the hard plastic cover from sliding on the velour.
"They're bringing diseases, and drugs. Illegal aliens are taking jobs and driving down wages for middle class people like us. The drain they put on our social services comes out of our pockets!
"My tax dollars are paying to support people who are breaking the law!" Smallwood eased the Chevy up to 70 in the 45 zone. He was near tears.
At no point was the idea of the price of vegetables tripling mentioned, but it seemed that Mr. Smallwood, standing five-three and a robust 310 pounds, had little use for food that did not quadruple the recommended yearly allowance for Lard. There was also no room for the idea that we are near full employment with several million undocumented people in the labor stream.
"So what would you propose that we do?" I asked.
"Seal the border and send them all back. Preferably using a slingshot. You know the administration is trying to give up our sovereignty by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico? They're going to change our currency to the Amero."
He seemed to be referring to a Bush administration proposal to work with Canada and Mexico to find common ground in law to get some consistency and reciprocity between jurisdictions.
"You don't seem to have a Texas accent," I said.
"Those big corporations who want amnesty for illegal aliens packed up all of the jobs back in Cleveland and sent them to Mexico for cheap labor."
Somehow, if all of these jobs were in Mexico, it would seem that there would be no motivation to leave, at least to me. I did not share this opinion. Having visited Cleveland, I also supposed that the undesirable climate and high taxation and state regulation in Ohio might have had a little something to do with the situation as well.
Of course, I come from Atlanta, where a lot of operations moved from heavily regulated, highly taxed states with cruddy climates, so I might share some complicity as well.
"I'm going to duck into my house for just a second. I got to make a little withdrawal from the bank of Maxwell House."
His house was a Champion singlewide manufactured home. In fact, a tax sticker from Terco County, Texas, was issued in 1973, thus it was old enough to still be called a trailer. Inside was mediterranean style furniture, harvest gold appliances, and orange cut-pile carpeting. There was another boy band video with a strange substance on the cover.
"Where's your daughter?" I asked.
Smallwood pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the Maxwell House can in the freezer. Icily, he replied "I don't have a daughter."
"Oh." I had an idea what the substance on the boy band video covers might be, but the logical answer was too disgusting to be contemplated. One wall featured eight-by-ten glossies of Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, and Congressman Brian Bilbray. They seemed to be autographed by the same pen, in the same handwriting, with the same spelling errors.
"So, you went to school in Cleveland?" I asked.
"The schools in Cleveland were filled with the same liberal agenda. Algebra, chemistry, term papers. But they won't teach Illegal Mexican Aliens to talk English! So I left them to live in the cesspool they created."
"Were there many illegals in Cleveland?"
Smallwood became vehement. "You bet! They were from Fajardo and Guayama and Aguadilla."
I smiled. Not only were the places not even in Mexico, the people he was describing were United States Citizens from Puerto Rico. "Let's get over to the Dairy Duchess and get ourselves some chili dogs. And a Moderate Snow Shower frozen dessert!"
The conversation ends there, as there was a minor electrical system meltdown in the Lumina, and he chose to wait for a friend from the Terco County, Texas, Minuteman Militia intead of returning to the plant with a moonlighting electrical engineer from Tegucigalpa.
EPILOGUE
Forrest B. Smallwood died on September 6, 2006. He had been working on a fence to prevent migrants from New Mexico from entering Texas when he encountered a trucker evading the scale in Mulehead City, and immediately accused him of being an Illegal Mexican Alien.
The driver, Raymond "Moose" Thunder Cloud, of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, took high offense to the idea that he was in some fashion less entitled to be in the United States than Mr. Smallwood.
Mr. Thunder Cloud, in a sworn statement released by Terco County Constable Diego Velasquez, defended himself from what he believed to be grave and imminent danger from what he presumed to be a highjacker on FM 13490, three miles west of Tarado. The Texas DPS Crime Scene investigator found the shards of a blue exchange pallet consistent with the severe pummelling of Mr. Smallwood, and a sudden storm washed Mr. Smallwood's remains into a nearby culvert.
There was no funeral, no body, nor were there any survivors.
I accepted a ride to Tarado's finest, and only, quick service eatery, the Dairy Duchess at exit 3 on I-36. It is possible to see the Dairy Princess from Lone Star Candies, but it is also possible to see Lubbock clearly from Midland. Texas has a lot of flat places.
Smallwood's car was a rusty blue '92 Lumina with a 2005 registration from Big Beaver County, Ohio; a Rick Case Cleveland dealer badge; and a Tancredo for President bumper sticker.
"They're coming over the border and riding straight up this road toward Wichita Falls," Smallwood said. "The Minutemen are the last, best line of defense of American freedom."
I positioned myself in such a way as to avoid a DVD case featuring the images of late '90s boy band, the Backdoor Brothers, and a some sort of foreign substance that prevented the hard plastic cover from sliding on the velour.
"They're bringing diseases, and drugs. Illegal aliens are taking jobs and driving down wages for middle class people like us. The drain they put on our social services comes out of our pockets!
"My tax dollars are paying to support people who are breaking the law!" Smallwood eased the Chevy up to 70 in the 45 zone. He was near tears.
At no point was the idea of the price of vegetables tripling mentioned, but it seemed that Mr. Smallwood, standing five-three and a robust 310 pounds, had little use for food that did not quadruple the recommended yearly allowance for Lard. There was also no room for the idea that we are near full employment with several million undocumented people in the labor stream.
"So what would you propose that we do?" I asked.
"Seal the border and send them all back. Preferably using a slingshot. You know the administration is trying to give up our sovereignty by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico? They're going to change our currency to the Amero."
He seemed to be referring to a Bush administration proposal to work with Canada and Mexico to find common ground in law to get some consistency and reciprocity between jurisdictions.
"You don't seem to have a Texas accent," I said.
"Those big corporations who want amnesty for illegal aliens packed up all of the jobs back in Cleveland and sent them to Mexico for cheap labor."
Somehow, if all of these jobs were in Mexico, it would seem that there would be no motivation to leave, at least to me. I did not share this opinion. Having visited Cleveland, I also supposed that the undesirable climate and high taxation and state regulation in Ohio might have had a little something to do with the situation as well.
Of course, I come from Atlanta, where a lot of operations moved from heavily regulated, highly taxed states with cruddy climates, so I might share some complicity as well.
"I'm going to duck into my house for just a second. I got to make a little withdrawal from the bank of Maxwell House."
His house was a Champion singlewide manufactured home. In fact, a tax sticker from Terco County, Texas, was issued in 1973, thus it was old enough to still be called a trailer. Inside was mediterranean style furniture, harvest gold appliances, and orange cut-pile carpeting. There was another boy band video with a strange substance on the cover.
"Where's your daughter?" I asked.
Smallwood pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the Maxwell House can in the freezer. Icily, he replied "I don't have a daughter."
"Oh." I had an idea what the substance on the boy band video covers might be, but the logical answer was too disgusting to be contemplated. One wall featured eight-by-ten glossies of Lou Dobbs, Michael Savage, and Congressman Brian Bilbray. They seemed to be autographed by the same pen, in the same handwriting, with the same spelling errors.
"So, you went to school in Cleveland?" I asked.
"The schools in Cleveland were filled with the same liberal agenda. Algebra, chemistry, term papers. But they won't teach Illegal Mexican Aliens to talk English! So I left them to live in the cesspool they created."
"Were there many illegals in Cleveland?"
Smallwood became vehement. "You bet! They were from Fajardo and Guayama and Aguadilla."
I smiled. Not only were the places not even in Mexico, the people he was describing were United States Citizens from Puerto Rico. "Let's get over to the Dairy Duchess and get ourselves some chili dogs. And a Moderate Snow Shower frozen dessert!"
The conversation ends there, as there was a minor electrical system meltdown in the Lumina, and he chose to wait for a friend from the Terco County, Texas, Minuteman Militia intead of returning to the plant with a moonlighting electrical engineer from Tegucigalpa.
EPILOGUE
Forrest B. Smallwood died on September 6, 2006. He had been working on a fence to prevent migrants from New Mexico from entering Texas when he encountered a trucker evading the scale in Mulehead City, and immediately accused him of being an Illegal Mexican Alien.
The driver, Raymond "Moose" Thunder Cloud, of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, took high offense to the idea that he was in some fashion less entitled to be in the United States than Mr. Smallwood.
Mr. Thunder Cloud, in a sworn statement released by Terco County Constable Diego Velasquez, defended himself from what he believed to be grave and imminent danger from what he presumed to be a highjacker on FM 13490, three miles west of Tarado. The Texas DPS Crime Scene investigator found the shards of a blue exchange pallet consistent with the severe pummelling of Mr. Smallwood, and a sudden storm washed Mr. Smallwood's remains into a nearby culvert.
There was no funeral, no body, nor were there any survivors.
22 March 2007
Road Report: Ford Pornstar Minivan
It is our pleasure to report that the last rear-drive Ford Childstar minivan was removed from service last week in the Savannah suburb of Douche Bag, Georgia, when the 3.0l engine seized on a trip to Flash Foods for Twinkies, Doritos, USA Gold Cigarettes, Red Dog Beer, and Lotto tickets. The 300-pound foodservice worker who drove it suggested that her ex-husband may have removed the plug from the oil pan in retaliation for her reaction to finding him in a compromising position with the french fry girl from the Hardees on Stinky Marsh Road.
The good news is that Ford has brought a replacement for the Childstar, the Pornstar. The front-drive Pornstar is every bit of the driving experience that a Childstar driver would expect without any challenges to long ingrained concepts of vehicle behavior.
The good thing has to be moved out of the way first. The engine is better than the overtaxed Vulcan 3.0 in the Childstar. The Essex 3.8 is more suited for moving the 4400-pound van. While specific power and torque figures are not available, driving the van will tell one instantly: This is a LOT of motor. It's enough motor to encourage the driver to hunt down eighties model Muscle Cars at stop lights.
But don't get put into the turns. The steering may actually be Rack and Peanut. The power steering pump justifies the van's name by moaning and groaning at temperatures under 45 degrees. The feedback through the wheel may suggest that the driver insulted the steering's personal hygiene. It does not communicate. Indeed, the steering could not be less numb were the steering wheel connected by radio.
The Pornstar is just like the Childstar, which shared its steering box with the '77 Granada, itself no paragon of control dynamics.
Forget trying to stop, either. The brakes may as well be connected by dial-up Internet. The hardware itself seems to be sound, but the point where the driver interfaces with the brakes starts off as a heavy push through six inches of mashed potatoes, thirty seconds of panic, followed by anti-lock judder, and finally, a relatively short, straight stop.
A novice driver invited to try this van suggested that Ford's demise could not come soon enough for her after using the brakes. Her concise reaction was, "Damn, your brakes suck."
The Pornstar is equipped with removable seats. It should be phrased that the seats are removable in theory only, being as the seats are heavy enough to have their own gravitational field and may affect tides if the van is driven in coastal areas. The seats do have a wide range of adjustment, and are quite comfortable, even for a catnap in the parking lot of a Stuckey's.
The sound system is a Philco Stereophonic 8-track player. It requires two different adapters to play Hip Hop, but people will give you Disco all day long, and no adapter is needed.
Ford has equipped the Pornstar SE with an onboard computer, which offers instantaneous calculation of range, economy, oil life, NASDAQ quotes, airline schedules and whether or not the light in your fridge is on, providing that you set it up correctly. The computer is also multilingual, offering responses in English, Farsi and Mongolian.
The rear-view mirror has an interesting feature, a little green LED which seems to perform no actual function and blinks on and off at random. There are lots of little plastic areas everwhere for little fiddly things that would normally hit the driver in the head during a panic stop. It has a primo selection of cupholders which feature sticky remnants of Capri Sun juice pouches from the factory.
The safety features include air bags, for those who feel that a collision is not complete without a smelly explosion in the driver's face. There are lots of seat belts and really stout bumpers that produce extremely satisfying fragments in an encounter with a tumbleweed on I-20 in Texas. The van weighs the same thing as a '55 Cadillac, so it ought to do fine in a crash with anything smaller than a Hummer H1.
Body hardware and solidity may leave a little bit to be desired. Imperfect pavement starts the larger body panels on a frantic drumming that matches Green Day's Tre Cool for velocity if not technical mastery. The suspension has a boingy feel that comes up through the seat and evokes the experience of thunking a tub of GoJo hand cleaner. Everything seems to be solidly attached, but the racket makes one wonder for how long.
The power door is a neat little convenience, allowing miscellaneous crap to be thrown into the passenger compartment directly, avoiding the secondary process of allowing it to migrate under a seat first. The vastness of the passenger area allows accumulation of at least two Hefty bags worth of Taco Bell and Burger King wrappers before the Department of Transportation requires the van to pass through a Weigh Station.
Economy is good, with the caveat found below. If everything is set as it should be, the Pornstar gets about 17 miles per gallon in town, and 24 on the road.
The automatic transmission is usually smooth and strong, except when going between 55 and 60 when it feels like it's going blubba-blubba-blubba. Shift it out of Overdrive, a cute little button on the end of the column lever that frequently gets mashed inadvertently when parking and the steering wheel blocks the light and you wonder how the hell you only got 14 miles per gallon at three blessed dollars a gallon, and the blubba-blubba-blubba effect goes away. That's also the only real ergonomic complaint.
The Pornstar is equipped with a dual HVAC system, allowing mischevous children in the back to select a fundamentally opposite temperature from the front of the van, thus fogging up the driver's glasses. Such an event precedes a loud, graphic hypothesis related to the destinies of Disney Channel "Tween" performers.
Many of the Pornstar's guts come from the second-generation Taurus, a car that withered in the market for lack of research funds for an actual engine. That car steered and stopped fine, so apparently those parts didn't get approved to cross the border into Canada, where the Pornstar's factory is located. This is another argument for open borders.
So, is the Ford Pornstar a future classic? No. Is it inspiring? No. Is it going to make a lot of trips to convenience stores for Twinkies, Doritos, USA Gold cigarettes, Red Dog Beer, and Lotto tickets? Oh, hell, yes.
300-pound foodservice workers of America, your ride is here.
The good news is that Ford has brought a replacement for the Childstar, the Pornstar. The front-drive Pornstar is every bit of the driving experience that a Childstar driver would expect without any challenges to long ingrained concepts of vehicle behavior.
The good thing has to be moved out of the way first. The engine is better than the overtaxed Vulcan 3.0 in the Childstar. The Essex 3.8 is more suited for moving the 4400-pound van. While specific power and torque figures are not available, driving the van will tell one instantly: This is a LOT of motor. It's enough motor to encourage the driver to hunt down eighties model Muscle Cars at stop lights.
But don't get put into the turns. The steering may actually be Rack and Peanut. The power steering pump justifies the van's name by moaning and groaning at temperatures under 45 degrees. The feedback through the wheel may suggest that the driver insulted the steering's personal hygiene. It does not communicate. Indeed, the steering could not be less numb were the steering wheel connected by radio.
The Pornstar is just like the Childstar, which shared its steering box with the '77 Granada, itself no paragon of control dynamics.
Forget trying to stop, either. The brakes may as well be connected by dial-up Internet. The hardware itself seems to be sound, but the point where the driver interfaces with the brakes starts off as a heavy push through six inches of mashed potatoes, thirty seconds of panic, followed by anti-lock judder, and finally, a relatively short, straight stop.
A novice driver invited to try this van suggested that Ford's demise could not come soon enough for her after using the brakes. Her concise reaction was, "Damn, your brakes suck."
The Pornstar is equipped with removable seats. It should be phrased that the seats are removable in theory only, being as the seats are heavy enough to have their own gravitational field and may affect tides if the van is driven in coastal areas. The seats do have a wide range of adjustment, and are quite comfortable, even for a catnap in the parking lot of a Stuckey's.
The sound system is a Philco Stereophonic 8-track player. It requires two different adapters to play Hip Hop, but people will give you Disco all day long, and no adapter is needed.
Ford has equipped the Pornstar SE with an onboard computer, which offers instantaneous calculation of range, economy, oil life, NASDAQ quotes, airline schedules and whether or not the light in your fridge is on, providing that you set it up correctly. The computer is also multilingual, offering responses in English, Farsi and Mongolian.
The rear-view mirror has an interesting feature, a little green LED which seems to perform no actual function and blinks on and off at random. There are lots of little plastic areas everwhere for little fiddly things that would normally hit the driver in the head during a panic stop. It has a primo selection of cupholders which feature sticky remnants of Capri Sun juice pouches from the factory.
The safety features include air bags, for those who feel that a collision is not complete without a smelly explosion in the driver's face. There are lots of seat belts and really stout bumpers that produce extremely satisfying fragments in an encounter with a tumbleweed on I-20 in Texas. The van weighs the same thing as a '55 Cadillac, so it ought to do fine in a crash with anything smaller than a Hummer H1.
Body hardware and solidity may leave a little bit to be desired. Imperfect pavement starts the larger body panels on a frantic drumming that matches Green Day's Tre Cool for velocity if not technical mastery. The suspension has a boingy feel that comes up through the seat and evokes the experience of thunking a tub of GoJo hand cleaner. Everything seems to be solidly attached, but the racket makes one wonder for how long.
The power door is a neat little convenience, allowing miscellaneous crap to be thrown into the passenger compartment directly, avoiding the secondary process of allowing it to migrate under a seat first. The vastness of the passenger area allows accumulation of at least two Hefty bags worth of Taco Bell and Burger King wrappers before the Department of Transportation requires the van to pass through a Weigh Station.
Economy is good, with the caveat found below. If everything is set as it should be, the Pornstar gets about 17 miles per gallon in town, and 24 on the road.
The automatic transmission is usually smooth and strong, except when going between 55 and 60 when it feels like it's going blubba-blubba-blubba. Shift it out of Overdrive, a cute little button on the end of the column lever that frequently gets mashed inadvertently when parking and the steering wheel blocks the light and you wonder how the hell you only got 14 miles per gallon at three blessed dollars a gallon, and the blubba-blubba-blubba effect goes away. That's also the only real ergonomic complaint.
The Pornstar is equipped with a dual HVAC system, allowing mischevous children in the back to select a fundamentally opposite temperature from the front of the van, thus fogging up the driver's glasses. Such an event precedes a loud, graphic hypothesis related to the destinies of Disney Channel "Tween" performers.
Many of the Pornstar's guts come from the second-generation Taurus, a car that withered in the market for lack of research funds for an actual engine. That car steered and stopped fine, so apparently those parts didn't get approved to cross the border into Canada, where the Pornstar's factory is located. This is another argument for open borders.
So, is the Ford Pornstar a future classic? No. Is it inspiring? No. Is it going to make a lot of trips to convenience stores for Twinkies, Doritos, USA Gold cigarettes, Red Dog Beer, and Lotto tickets? Oh, hell, yes.
300-pound foodservice workers of America, your ride is here.
15 February 2007
Any Idiot Can Go Straight
Just a few thoughts about concepts of beauty. Being as your Wandering Gentile lives in a household filled with females ranging in age from seven to none of your damn business, sometimes questions exist about what men find attractive.
An unscientific survey of the Wandering Gentile's friends revealed that no man fantasizes about a nervous six-foot-tall witch with an eating disorder and a cocaine/heroin habit. Please understand that this survey was conducted among heterosexual men between 30 and dead, the majority of whom have well-paying jobs and/or long committed relationships.
So the fashion designers are apparently not appealing to women in the real world, or are longing for a universe of women who could be compared to an even higher-toned version of Cher. There's a happy thought!
What were the men most in favor of?
Curves! Because any idiot can go straight. The vast majority specified their own wives physiques, and even if they did not, your Wandering Gentile ain't telling. When it came to the most desirable female celebrity, an anonymous ballot came up thusly.
Salma Hayek...51% If 40 looks like this, 40 really is the new 20. Unfortunately, 40 also looks like the Wandering Gentile who was born in the same week in 1966. Draw your own conclusion.
Penelope Cruz...14% Salma's "Bandidas" co-star has lept several points on our survey.
Jessica Alba...14% Would have ranked higher, but several respondents went into fibrillation upon seeing her picture.
America Ferrera...7% Ugly Betty really is the new beautiful.
Rosario Dawson...6% We expected better, but she's still quite young.
Madeline Stowe...3% Outstanding showing for a woman who turns 49 this year!
Eva Mendes...2% Only a couple of the guys recognized her name,but most ballots had the page with her picture stuck to the ad for the new Asahi Divine Wind SUV.
Eva Longoria...2% Most guys are a little afraid of her character on Desperate Housewives.
Roselyn Sanchez...1% Another one from the nobody recognized her name file, but all of the respondents had seen Boat Trip repeatedly, and none of them mentioned Cuba Gooding, Junior's acting.
Doris Roberts...1%...this seems to have been Woody's ballot, but he ain't all there in the first place.
Several fads regarding appearance were also mentioned as needing to go away.
Fake Boobies...42% Robin Williams referred to them as "Nazi" boobies; they don't dance, they don't smile, they just stand there all day at attention. Heil happy, but real, A-cups!
The Landing Strip...28% It's like basic training for pedophilia, according to one respondent.
Small Hair...14% Many respondents were nostalgic for the eighties styles. Several were willing to begin wearing parachute pants if women would have big hair again. One offered to regrow his mullet, but due to advanced male pattern baldness would have been required to regrow it on his naughty bits.
Muffin Tops...8% There seemed to be a universal disdain for women who weigh 150 pounds plus wearing pants designed for a woman who weighs 110. One respondent suggested that if his wife puts on her Muffin Top pants again, he's going to show up at her family reunion in a Speedo and nothing else. Respondent weighs 348 pounds.
Camel Toes...6% The issue derived from not being able to readily examine the Camel Toe to ascertain it's true nature on women outside of an intimate relationship. Several respondents were concerned that the Camel Toe may be a pharmaceutically un-endowed man, particularly in parts of California, New York, and Miami.
Eyebrow Reconfiguration...2% These twisted individuals own copies of Frida for all of the wrong reasons. One respondent stated "What the hell was wrong with Anne Hathaway's eyebrows in The Princess Diaries?" Respondent is resting comfortably at a mental health facility in Colorado Springs, operated by Rev. Ted Hagerty's megachurch.
So what are we to understand from this survey?
1. Tall women do not engender as much desire as women who are, in the best Orwellian Politically Correct Doublespeak, not tall.
2. Women who are considered to be too thin are circumspect for drug habits and poor social interaction.
3. Real is better, and sexier.
Gee, one might think that men might judge more about what's inside a woman before putting anything of theirs in there as well...
An unscientific survey of the Wandering Gentile's friends revealed that no man fantasizes about a nervous six-foot-tall witch with an eating disorder and a cocaine/heroin habit. Please understand that this survey was conducted among heterosexual men between 30 and dead, the majority of whom have well-paying jobs and/or long committed relationships.
So the fashion designers are apparently not appealing to women in the real world, or are longing for a universe of women who could be compared to an even higher-toned version of Cher. There's a happy thought!
What were the men most in favor of?
Curves! Because any idiot can go straight. The vast majority specified their own wives physiques, and even if they did not, your Wandering Gentile ain't telling. When it came to the most desirable female celebrity, an anonymous ballot came up thusly.
Salma Hayek...51% If 40 looks like this, 40 really is the new 20. Unfortunately, 40 also looks like the Wandering Gentile who was born in the same week in 1966. Draw your own conclusion.
Penelope Cruz...14% Salma's "Bandidas" co-star has lept several points on our survey.
Jessica Alba...14% Would have ranked higher, but several respondents went into fibrillation upon seeing her picture.
America Ferrera...7% Ugly Betty really is the new beautiful.
Rosario Dawson...6% We expected better, but she's still quite young.
Madeline Stowe...3% Outstanding showing for a woman who turns 49 this year!
Eva Mendes...2% Only a couple of the guys recognized her name,but most ballots had the page with her picture stuck to the ad for the new Asahi Divine Wind SUV.
Eva Longoria...2% Most guys are a little afraid of her character on Desperate Housewives.
Roselyn Sanchez...1% Another one from the nobody recognized her name file, but all of the respondents had seen Boat Trip repeatedly, and none of them mentioned Cuba Gooding, Junior's acting.
Doris Roberts...1%...this seems to have been Woody's ballot, but he ain't all there in the first place.
Several fads regarding appearance were also mentioned as needing to go away.
Fake Boobies...42% Robin Williams referred to them as "Nazi" boobies; they don't dance, they don't smile, they just stand there all day at attention. Heil happy, but real, A-cups!
The Landing Strip...28% It's like basic training for pedophilia, according to one respondent.
Small Hair...14% Many respondents were nostalgic for the eighties styles. Several were willing to begin wearing parachute pants if women would have big hair again. One offered to regrow his mullet, but due to advanced male pattern baldness would have been required to regrow it on his naughty bits.
Muffin Tops...8% There seemed to be a universal disdain for women who weigh 150 pounds plus wearing pants designed for a woman who weighs 110. One respondent suggested that if his wife puts on her Muffin Top pants again, he's going to show up at her family reunion in a Speedo and nothing else. Respondent weighs 348 pounds.
Camel Toes...6% The issue derived from not being able to readily examine the Camel Toe to ascertain it's true nature on women outside of an intimate relationship. Several respondents were concerned that the Camel Toe may be a pharmaceutically un-endowed man, particularly in parts of California, New York, and Miami.
Eyebrow Reconfiguration...2% These twisted individuals own copies of Frida for all of the wrong reasons. One respondent stated "What the hell was wrong with Anne Hathaway's eyebrows in The Princess Diaries?" Respondent is resting comfortably at a mental health facility in Colorado Springs, operated by Rev. Ted Hagerty's megachurch.
So what are we to understand from this survey?
1. Tall women do not engender as much desire as women who are, in the best Orwellian Politically Correct Doublespeak, not tall.
2. Women who are considered to be too thin are circumspect for drug habits and poor social interaction.
3. Real is better, and sexier.
Gee, one might think that men might judge more about what's inside a woman before putting anything of theirs in there as well...
13 February 2007
FIRST 2008 ELECTION PREDICTIONS!!!
A short postcard based on what I see behind the cheesy plastic Wandering Gentile Keyboard.
Barring any major scandals, the Democrats will keep both houses of Congress. America has a bad case of Republican Fatigue, and it's getting worse.
The Republican presidential contenders are McCain and Giuliani. McCain has been too much of a hawk on the Iraq war from too far away in Arizona. He has great credibility on matters of war, but he's also going to be 72 by the time the election comes around. Giuliani, on the other hand, is a few years younger and has the credibility of having been the Mayor of 9/11.
Look for McCain to repeat his experiences from 2000, i.e., strong early then fading. Romney is the guy who will pull the conservative base, and he's a mortal lock for Veep.
The Democrats have some issues. Hillary can screw the whole thing up if she stays too long. Just because America has Republican Fatigue, doesn't mean we aren't just as tired of her. The Senator from New York has all of her husband's baggage, and none of his charm. She is about as likable as a scorpion in your underwear, and her voice is more painful.
There are some other Democrats out there, but there are only two worth mentioning. Barack Obama and Bill Richardson matter.
Dennis Kucinich seems to be sincere, and probably a decent guy. He also used to be the Mayor of Cleveland, a city which the rest of the country would be unlikely to miss if it fell into Lake Erie. In fact, his stewardship of Cleveland may have hastened the day when Lake Erie reclaims Cleveland, completely, thank goodness. Kucinich doesn't matter.
Tom Vilsack is or was the Governor of Iowa. You don't see a lot of people clamoring for a vacation in Des Moines, the Whitest city in North America. I get it. Vilsack wants us to remember that Iowa is still there and has many good things, none of which come to mind. What Iowa has is corn, rolling hills, Radar O' Reilly, and the place where Buddy Holly died.
Vilsack doesn't matter, and frankly, when one's state is best known for who died there, there is an image problem that must be dealt with. He's gone after the caucuses.
John Edwards is thinking about trying again. It's not the smartest thing he could do. He's the Democrats' Dan Quayle. Again, John Edwards appears to be a nice guy but he has the gravitas of The Cookie Monster. All Edwards is going to do is make people think of John Kerry, a man who looks like he's getting a digital prostate exam while he's doing windsurfing.
Go home, John Edwards, and watch the Bobcats. Set up some speaking engagements. Your 15 minutes are up, and 1982 called asking for their haircut back.
Al Gore? Yeah. Get an endorsement from Frank Zappa and then we'll talk.
Now we get to the ones who matter. Barack Obama is the perfect candidate. We'll shy away from Bidenesque adjectives, and go toward some stuff that Matters.
Obama is as charismatic as Reagan and Bill Clinton. That counts toward landslide and mandate. It is not an issue of his backstory or his politics. Senator Obama connects on a gut level that makes people feel as if they have known him forever. He's exciting to watch, and thoroughly in tune with a broad segment of the voting population.
Stated briefly, Senator Obama is a mainstream candidate who happens to qualify as black.
That separates him from a legion of African-American candidates who focused their campaigns solely on appeal to voters in the ghettoes of major cities. Barack Obama knows where the mainstream is, and does not maginalize himself by focusing on the South Side of Chicago and East St. Louis while turning his back on Rantoul, Evanston, and Carbondale.
Barring a cataclysmic event of some description, Senator Obama is the likely Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton has a lot of fight in her, but something inside of anyone who has watched her knows that one way or another, she will put herself out of contention.
Even odds on Senator Clinton having an early season meltdown a la Howard Dean. Howard Dean had the illusion that all of America is like Vermont; Senator Clinton is under the illusion that New York is close to the mainstream of America. Both illusions are false. The bravado that serves Senator Clinton in New York is just going to enfuriate everything between the coasts.
Bill Richardson matters, and (amusingly) on a Dave Chappelle level. Governor Richardson is Hispanic. Dave Chappelle once said that if he were to be the first Black President, he would appoint a Hispanic Vice-President. On a higher level, the Dems need candidates from Flyover country, and New Mexico is about as flyover as it gets without being Iowa. Richardson brings executive experience from a purple state to questions about Obama's lack of past executive position on the ticket.
Now! The two tickets as seen from 21 months out!
Republican Presidential Nominee: Rudy Giuliani (NY).
Republican Vice Presidential Nominee: Mitt Romney (MA).
Democratic Presidential Nominee: Barack Obama (IL).
Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee: Bill Richardson (NM).
And a quick thought: Giuliani could squeak one out over Hillary. Obama is a landslide, the question is when it's going to happen.
Barring any major scandals, the Democrats will keep both houses of Congress. America has a bad case of Republican Fatigue, and it's getting worse.
The Republican presidential contenders are McCain and Giuliani. McCain has been too much of a hawk on the Iraq war from too far away in Arizona. He has great credibility on matters of war, but he's also going to be 72 by the time the election comes around. Giuliani, on the other hand, is a few years younger and has the credibility of having been the Mayor of 9/11.
Look for McCain to repeat his experiences from 2000, i.e., strong early then fading. Romney is the guy who will pull the conservative base, and he's a mortal lock for Veep.
The Democrats have some issues. Hillary can screw the whole thing up if she stays too long. Just because America has Republican Fatigue, doesn't mean we aren't just as tired of her. The Senator from New York has all of her husband's baggage, and none of his charm. She is about as likable as a scorpion in your underwear, and her voice is more painful.
There are some other Democrats out there, but there are only two worth mentioning. Barack Obama and Bill Richardson matter.
Dennis Kucinich seems to be sincere, and probably a decent guy. He also used to be the Mayor of Cleveland, a city which the rest of the country would be unlikely to miss if it fell into Lake Erie. In fact, his stewardship of Cleveland may have hastened the day when Lake Erie reclaims Cleveland, completely, thank goodness. Kucinich doesn't matter.
Tom Vilsack is or was the Governor of Iowa. You don't see a lot of people clamoring for a vacation in Des Moines, the Whitest city in North America. I get it. Vilsack wants us to remember that Iowa is still there and has many good things, none of which come to mind. What Iowa has is corn, rolling hills, Radar O' Reilly, and the place where Buddy Holly died.
Vilsack doesn't matter, and frankly, when one's state is best known for who died there, there is an image problem that must be dealt with. He's gone after the caucuses.
John Edwards is thinking about trying again. It's not the smartest thing he could do. He's the Democrats' Dan Quayle. Again, John Edwards appears to be a nice guy but he has the gravitas of The Cookie Monster. All Edwards is going to do is make people think of John Kerry, a man who looks like he's getting a digital prostate exam while he's doing windsurfing.
Go home, John Edwards, and watch the Bobcats. Set up some speaking engagements. Your 15 minutes are up, and 1982 called asking for their haircut back.
Al Gore? Yeah. Get an endorsement from Frank Zappa and then we'll talk.
Now we get to the ones who matter. Barack Obama is the perfect candidate. We'll shy away from Bidenesque adjectives, and go toward some stuff that Matters.
Obama is as charismatic as Reagan and Bill Clinton. That counts toward landslide and mandate. It is not an issue of his backstory or his politics. Senator Obama connects on a gut level that makes people feel as if they have known him forever. He's exciting to watch, and thoroughly in tune with a broad segment of the voting population.
Stated briefly, Senator Obama is a mainstream candidate who happens to qualify as black.
That separates him from a legion of African-American candidates who focused their campaigns solely on appeal to voters in the ghettoes of major cities. Barack Obama knows where the mainstream is, and does not maginalize himself by focusing on the South Side of Chicago and East St. Louis while turning his back on Rantoul, Evanston, and Carbondale.
Barring a cataclysmic event of some description, Senator Obama is the likely Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton has a lot of fight in her, but something inside of anyone who has watched her knows that one way or another, she will put herself out of contention.
Even odds on Senator Clinton having an early season meltdown a la Howard Dean. Howard Dean had the illusion that all of America is like Vermont; Senator Clinton is under the illusion that New York is close to the mainstream of America. Both illusions are false. The bravado that serves Senator Clinton in New York is just going to enfuriate everything between the coasts.
Bill Richardson matters, and (amusingly) on a Dave Chappelle level. Governor Richardson is Hispanic. Dave Chappelle once said that if he were to be the first Black President, he would appoint a Hispanic Vice-President. On a higher level, the Dems need candidates from Flyover country, and New Mexico is about as flyover as it gets without being Iowa. Richardson brings executive experience from a purple state to questions about Obama's lack of past executive position on the ticket.
Now! The two tickets as seen from 21 months out!
Republican Presidential Nominee: Rudy Giuliani (NY).
Republican Vice Presidential Nominee: Mitt Romney (MA).
Democratic Presidential Nominee: Barack Obama (IL).
Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee: Bill Richardson (NM).
And a quick thought: Giuliani could squeak one out over Hillary. Obama is a landslide, the question is when it's going to happen.
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