Criticult.Com

Seriously, it was that bad.

Come on, don't look at me like that - if he could come back for five minutes Carlin would make that joke himself.

Vaya con Dios, George.

Labels: Box office bomb, Subversive Genius

Cue Music...

Here's to you, Mr. Driving Around With Your Parking Lights On All Day Guy!

Background Singer: Mr. Driving Around With Your Parking Lights On All Day Guy!

You wanted daytime running lights but they weren’t an option on your cheap import. But you’ve never played by the rules. No, not you. You’re the kind of guy who thinks outside the box.

Background Singer: Outside the boooooooowwwoowoooooooox!

As soon as the clock hits four PM you reach for the switch. Not too hard now, gently…gently…you don’t want to turn it all the way because that would actually turn the headlights on. No, you’re going halfway…you’re going for that sweet orange glow...like a cat’s eyes….

Background female singers: Sweeeeeeet orange glooooowoooooooooowww!!

Look at all those daytime running lights. They’re just as big a traffic hazard but they don’t look nearly as cool as you do. You’re menacing. You’re dangerous. You’re a little timid because you didn’t just turn your fucking lights on but mostly just menacing and dangerous.

You’ve got the cat’s eyes.

Background Singer: Got the cat’s eyes…..roooooowrrrrrr!!!!

And those fools who have their lights off just because the sun is still out, and they’re perfectly visible….they don’t have the guts to ride the lightning, like you and your annoyingly half turned on headlights. They aren't man enough to almost turn on their headlights but not quite do so. You’re a pioneer. You’re King of the Wild Frontier.

Background Singer: Daveeeeeeeey, Daaaaaaaaveeeee Crockett!

Yes, you drive around all in the broad daylight with your lights half on, but not completely on because you’re making a point. Sure, you’re distracting to other drivers. Maybe you could just turn your lights all the way on. And maybe it doesn’t make you any easier to see. But that’s not the point. Your car looks like it’s in one of those commercials where the guy skids through the water, knocks over all those orange cones, offers zero percent financing until January and then gets the girl in the bathing suit.

You’re a Rock Star, my friend. You ARE…

Background Singer: Mr. Driving Around With Your Parking Lights On All Daaaaaaaayyyyaaaaaayyyaaaayyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaay Guyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Labels: Daytime Running Lights, Douchebag, Fucking Annoying, Road Hazard

I was hoping last night that I could finally go out to a restaurant with a group of friends without one of the girls at the table having to bring up the fact that she used to be a waitress. You know what I am talking about? Say, the bill comes and you try to leave a tip and one of the girls snorts at you and says:

What, twenty percent isn't enough for just bringing me my food? I'll go get it myself if that'll make you feel better. My Dad always tries to leave five percent, but you don't have to have physically waited tables before to know that leaving a five percent tip is really poor form.

That's just common fucking sense. Twenty percent is the minimum and while fifteen is a little rude, it's the least you should leave if you want to avoid getting someone's pubic hair added to your food next time you drop in for dinner.

I don't remember the context of the remark last night but as soon as she started: "Blah blah blah blah, as a former waitress I think that..."

I stopped her. "Ok are you really gonna be that girl who whips out the whole 'you know I used to be a waitress' thing at a restaurant? I mean, that's great and all but big deal? You want a cookie or something?"

I know it sounds harsh but the tone of my voice was only gently mocking. She actually got it and had a good laugh over it.

But seriously, what is it with girls who always have to bust that one out? Not to sound misogynistic but it's almost always the girls and it's almost always 'waitress' or 'nurse'. Oh Christ, if I have to hear one more girl whip out the whole 'I used to be a nurse' thing, as if that makes her opinion on your twisted ankle somehow more valid.

There's a girl at my office who was a nurse for one year and as a result thinks she's Trapper Fucking John - every time someone has a headache she's screeching out shrill, unsolicited advice like a life-size Kathy Griffin Pez dispenser.

Being a nurse is a perfectly noble profession and I have plenty of respect for it; I know more than a few people - male and female - who've burned themselves out in it faster than Ryan Leaf burned out on football. However - and I hate to be the one to break this to you - but being a nurse is not the same as being a doctor so I don't really need your opinion on my paper cut any more than I do George Clooney's.

He once pretended to be a doctor too, you know. Just hand me the Neosporin and shut up.

Getting back to the waitress thing, though...

I am fairly certain that as an unscientific statistic that fully eight of ten randomly selected people right off the street have waited tables before, so there's really no need to wear your former food service duty like a red badge of courage. Everyone knows how hard it is to wait tables; big fucking deal? It isn't like you fought at Iwo Jima or walked on the moon, or made the Patriots 18-1 or something.

And why is it always the girls who have to whip it out?

"I used to be a waitress you know, so you really shouldn't split up your order like that."

First of all, who asked you? Second, I don't give a shit whether or not you waited tables in college; so did everyone else. The difference is that every man I've ever known who's ever waited tables is either still at it or would like to just forget about it, thank you very much. Meanwhile half the former waitresses I've ever known are still trying to make everyone else feel guilty about it.

Sorry but there's nothing particularly exceptional about having held down a menial job that everyone and their dog has done. You're never going to hear me start a sentence with:


Yeah, I've worked at almost every fast food joint in existence south of Colorado Springs and there are only two discernible benefits to it:

• I know that even at eight dollars an hour it's not hard to remember that I asked for pickles on this you little shit, so fix it.
  
• And bring the pickles up here, don't take it back to the grill so you and your friends can spit on it. That's right, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night kid.

So spare me your war stories people, unless they're actual war stories, because then you will have actually done something worth discussing. Otherwise, save it. After all, I once was a paper boy but all I did was deliver the news.

It doesn't make me Tom Freaking Brokaw.

Labels: Burger King, George Clooney, pubic hair, Shrill former wait staff

You've already heard about this, right?


I suppose this makes me a lousy blogger since I am not posting on this ten minutes after the story broke, but you know what? Sue me. I have a life and this ain't it. Unlike a lot of people on the internet, I do see the sun every day.

In any case, I find the entire situation hilarious.

If of course by 'hilarious' we mean yet one more sign that nobody can say 'boo' any more without some hyper-sensitive candy-ass getting whipped up into a frenzy and turning it into some sort of socio-political battle cry.

I don't feel like posting the link to the video because you've no doubt already seen it and heard about it 1000 times by now. But if you're like me when you saw it you said:

"That's it?"

In fact if you're not listening carefully you'll completely miss the word 'faggot', and to be honest with you, I thought the OTHER guy was Shia LaBeouf. It's literally just some sort of house party where a bunch of people are plastered out of their minds and Shia and his pal are having a drunken slap fight.

I don't know about the slapping part but as far as the whole drunken horsing around bit, this is literally nothing that just about every red blooded American male who's ever been to college has done no fewer than about...oh...500 times. I remember being at a party with TylerDFC during Super Bowl XXXIV where after a series of keg stands someone decided it would be a terrific idea to have a WWF match in the living room of a 700 square foot apartment.

I am a little fuzzy on this but I am pretty sure I incorrectly executed the People's Elbow because I couldn't bend my arm for a week. I am also pretty sure since a bunch of guys were drunk, watching football, eating red meat and hitting each other with steel chairs at some point the words 'faggot', 'pussy' and 'bitch' were used.

People, this is what men say to one another when they're drunk and sopping over with beer, testosterone and tryptophan. I just don't see the big deal.

Look, I know that Shia is the 'It' boy in Hollywood right now, as well as Steve Spielberg's little darling (sorry River Phoenix, I guess you shouldn't have...you know...died.) and the heir apparent to the Jimmy Stewart/Tom Hanks/Harrison Ford actor-anyone-can-love mantle. A guy like that can't afford to be heard using the word 'faggot' any more than Miley Cyrus can afford to be photographed in her underwear.

However, it amuses me when a public figure is caught saying something off color on camera and the public goes into an uproar of finger pointing recrimination and self righteous stone throwing. It's disingenuous at best, and utterly hypocritical at worst. It's like someone once said regarding masturbation:

There are two kinds of people, those who do it and those who lie and say they don't.

Yes everyone jumps on celebrities when they get caught in the act but come on! No really, COME ON! You don't think if everything every one of us ever did or said was on You Tube any of us would ever step outside the house again? Much less point an accusing finger at someone like Shia LaBeouf?

Maybe it should be that way. Just like they say, if we all had guns we'd be more polite to each other - well if we all had video of each other picking at zits in high school we would be too. Imagine if you could log on to You Tube at any time, type in anyone's name and see every embarrassing thing they ever did. Such as:

• Bob in Kansas whacking off to that Farah Fawcett poster as a pimple faced 13 year old back in 1980.
• Sarah at a UCLA sorority party in 2002 making out with another girl.
• Your next door neighbor dropping the n-bomb on a black motorist who cut him off in traffic, thinking nobody could hear him?
• Or, yourself taking a shit.

Or why limit it to the anonymous? Suppose at any time you could see:

• George Dubya Bush - standard bearer of Christian propriety and conservative values - picking his nose, calling someone an asshole behind their back or flipping off the camera.
• Pamela Anderson working Tommy Lee's Donkey Kong in a way that makes Jenna Jameson look like an amateur.
• An owl-eyed Ben Affleck literally molesting a reporter during a television interview.
• Shannen Doherty basically cussing like a longshoreman.

Oh, wait. You CAN, because all of these things actually happened! Yes, I hate to burst your bubble but celebrities are not only just like you, you're just like them! Maybe you can't act, sing, catch a football or dance without breaking your ankles but there are at least a few things 99 percent of us have in common, famous or not:

1. We have all used dirty language at one point or another.
2. We've all been drunk and then done or said stupid things.
3. We've all expressed prejudice toward something or someone.
4. Lying, cheating and stealing: If you can read this you're guilty of at least two of them at some point in your life.

Yes, I know, there's the one person in ten million who really has never taken a drink or had anything harder than morning breath come out of their mouth all their lives, but you know as well as I do these people are about as rare as a three dollar bill so yeah, just save it.

Before you point the finger at your favorite celebrity for using dirty language, expressing a social stereotype, drinking too much and making an ass of themselves or looking like shit on a Sunday morning remember something:

Whatever it is, you've probably done it too, to one degree or another. It may not make the papers but if it did, I'll bet you wouldn't be so quick to pile on every time someone else got caught with their pants down.

Besides - does any of it really matter? So Shia got drunk in private and called someone a 'faggot'. What are you going to do, eat your copy of Disturbia? So, Tom Cruise is a nut-bar. Top Gun still rules. Mel Gibson clearly has some issues but I am still down with Mad Max and Lethal Weapon. So Russel Crowe likes to make like Nolan Ryan with hotel telephones.

The quality of Gladiator is not affected by this.

Rumor has it Walt Disney had a problem with Jews. So, are you going to tell your kids 'no' on behalf of all six million Holocaust victims when they pee themselves begging you to take them to High School Musical 3?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

And don't give me all that crap about how celebrities are supposed to be role models. I agree that you should watch what you do and say in public but that really goes for any of us. At the end of the day, what you do on your own time is your business. It isn't against the law to be a heavy drinker, an alien, a bigot or a hot tempered prick.

If we all worried primarily about how we conduct ourselves and left others to do the same the world would be a lot better place. Besides, your parents should be your role models, not some total stranger you saw on television who lives two thousand miles away. And if your parents suck then be your own role model - the dimmest man in America still knows right from wrong. Just because he doesn't have someone around to slap him on the wrist when he fucks up doesn't let him off the hook.

Get over yourselves, people. Your shit stinks too, you bunch of lousy faggots.

Ah, shit. There goes my shot at the White House.

I just felt the need to record my thoughts about an incident today where someone saw me writing TylerDFC over my shoulder at work about how although I was listening to Radiohead at that moment, I am not really a fan.

I have one of those music subscription services (see my post below for a little insight on that) and one of the great things about it is it allows me to have access to countless artists whose albums I'd never dream of buying but I can at least expose myself to the material and appreciate it.

Oh, I appreciate Radiohead and respect them as artists, I just can't stand that genre of music. You know, that navel gazing emo piffle with all the jangling guitars and gobs of reverb. Radiohead fans hate it when people call them an emo band but look me in the eye and tell me the following equation is not accurate:

Isn't it funny how emo fans love emo but hate it when you use the term? Everyone's favorite emo band is never an emo band. Oh no, My Chemical Romance is not an emo band, their black eyeliner-wearing fans will tell you.

But back to Radiohead. The person who excoriated me for my point of view was one of those people who owns six thousand albums and can tell you what the band was having for breakfast when each one was recorded, but has never actually picked up a musical instrument in his life.

He just thinks that owning a shitload of albums and having opinions on them all is the same as actually being a musician. These are the sorts of people who like Radiohead, much the way half the people who listen to Jethro Tull are tone deaf English majors who have every J.R.R. Tolkein novel committed to memory and insist they don't own a television.

Hey it's nothing personal. They're just not my cup of tea. No, seriously. No, I don't need to hear you tell me about how they're one of the most influential bands ever. Please tell me who they influence other than music critics (meaning people who always wanted to be musicians but can't play so they write stories about people who can) and beatniks sitting around in college coffee shops arguing about the pros and cons of ethanol, the meaning of Donnie Darko and whether it's still ok to like Dave Matthews Band after the Toilet Incident.

Good thing I didn't tell him I don't like The Beatles, either. I'd have had to call up my CPR training. Let's see, is that 15 compressions to two breaths or two compressions to 15 breaths?

Never mind, you don't deserve to live you pretentious snob.

Ok, I am being harsh. I'm just sick of music snobs and social lemmings telling me what I am supposed to like and treating me like a pariah if I don't agree. No, I never liked Nirvana. The only good Nirvana ever did was give the world Dave Grohl and made the planet safe for real bands like Soundgarden.

So no, I don't like Radiohead. I am not against them, and I don't mind if you love them. Just stop looking at me like that. Can we at least agree that the whole emo thing is just a weak kneed, watered down ripoff of the whole Goth thing?

No? Okay, okay...just finish up your soy latte and go have a good cry, emo-boy.

Labels: Dave Matthews, Pain, Souxie Souse, Suffering, Suicide