Grouchy Wandering Gentile

Okay, this post is a little bit off-message, but there are a few people who deserve a Wandering Gentile Slap Upside The Head, and right quick.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Slap! For throwing Obama under the bus. All the Rev had to say was that his opinions are his own and not representative of the Obama campaign. How many people have a close friend who tends to shoot his mouth off? (Answer, everybody has at least one.) Instead of pulling the heat off his friend's backside, he clams up. What a guy.

Sean Hannity. Slap! He is no more tolerant than Reverend Wright. With any luck, somebody will dig up some of his less tolerant rants from his days at WGST in Atlanta, and blast them across the Internet. Let's see how well he does with GLAAD riding his tail and the NAACP waiting for the remains. If you think Imus was fireworks, this is a nuke.

People who ride solo in too-clean crew-cab pickup trucks. Slap! A too-clean pickup is the biggest alarm-bell that the driver is, well, a chronic masturbator. It's a work vehicle, for God's sake! Meanwhile, there are nine guys who actually work for a living crammed into an '82 Dodge Aries station wagon. There is something fundamentally wrong with this. (Bonus slaps for red Dodge Ram duallies or 4-wheel-drives, not using turn signals, or passing REAL trucks on the right just before a construction zone.)

Honda Civic Automatic Enthusiast Posers! Slap! Nobody who knows a blessed thing about cars puts a coffee-can exhaust on a four-cylinder automatic. It just sounds stupid, and those of us who are enthusiasts can tell what kind of transmission you have, instantly. Fortunately, anyone in a halfway operational minivan will show you his taillights at the next signal...probably without trying.

Satellite Radio Advertisers. Slap! I am not in need of topical male enhancement, erectile dysfunction remedies, incorporating in Nevada or Delaware, or an awning hawked by a henpecked wuss and the shrew who insists, "...tell them about the discount, Haaarrry!" If I were in the market for an awning, I would cheerfully pay extra for an awning that includes a DVD of the manufacturer beating Haaarrry and his rampalian wretch of a companion, soundly, with a very large toaster oven.

The Idiot in Tallahassee responsible for Orlando's Expressways. Slap! Orlando is the perfect storm. You have every minivan from the Northeast, every RV from the Midwest, every transportation terminal for the middle of the fourth most-populous state in the country, two million non-native residents, and any cretin with a driver's license and limit on his credit card from anywhere in the world, all headed to the one free road. Then the sky opens up and the bottom falls out at 1:45 every afternoon. What are you people smoking? It doesn't appear to come from R. J. Reynolds.

NBA Bigwigs. Slap! Every year, some sub-.500 team pops up in the playoffs. While we're at it, would somebody please sell the Clippers to an owner who cares? The NBA has a tradition of plopping teams in cities unable to support a third McDonalds...Burlington, Vermont, welcome to the major leagues! Oh yeah, one last thing...what's nine months long and excruciating at the end? The NBA playoffs! Everybody makes the cut except the Clippers and Chattanooga.

NFL Bigwigs. Slap! Jacksonville, Florida, has an NFL franchise and Los Angeles doesn't? Holy smoke, now that I think of it, Atlanta doesn't have a pro football team, either. How much will we have to pay Los Angeles to take the Falcons? That's what I thought...there isn't enough money on the planet to get another city to take the Falcons.

George Steinbrenner. Slap! With great gusto from Red Sox Nation, on general principles. By the way, George, did A-Rod use any lubricant? How about Torre? No, steroids are not butt grease.

Okay, I was going to do one about Vice-President Cheney here, but, I had no good way to work in the following: Pay no attention to the man with his arm up the President's (behind).

Bless it, your Wandering Gentile is starting to cheer up.