Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Thursday, November 08, 2007)

I just want to say happy anniversary to my wife, who I love more than anything. We’re in the movies, baby!

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Tuesday, November 06, 2007)

What You Saw Last Night While You Were On Drugs

–*Pink elephants

–*Morley Safer in a boa doing a sexy lap dance

–*The entire text of the Koran printed on the head of a pin, and yet somehow completely legible to your drug-addled eyes

–*The lava lamp, because you didn’t have the imagination to be looking at anything else

–*Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” because it makes more sense that way

–*”2001: A Space Odyssey,” by Stanley Kubrick, though the last 20 minutes still don’t make any sense, even after drinking morphine straight from the bag

–*Third-quarter tax forms with a large itemized deduction section

–*God, while listening to the drum solo on Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” sped up to 78 rpm

–*Cute little dormice with high voices recreating the rape of the Sabine women

–*Christ giving a mani-pedi to the feet of the apostles

–*Nothing. Drugs, for some unhappy reason, don’t do anything for you.

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Monday, November 05, 2007 )

My wife and I have put up the trailer for our new Web series, called “The Retributioners.”

You can get a sneak peek here.

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Monday, November 05, 2007)

A slew of new biographies and autobiographies from the 2008 presidential candidates will soon be hitting the bookshelves as the campaign continues to heat up. Here are some of the titles you can look forward to:

“A Mere Thimbleful of Faith” by Barack Obama

“The Last Cockfight: The Bill Richardson Story”

“I Abstain: The Mitt Romney Story”

“Shambling For the Lobbyists: The Sexy Lassitude of Fred Dalton Thompson.”

“Chasing an Ambulance and a Dream,” by John Edwards

“If Only I Could Remember My Name,” by Tom Tancredo

“Without Borders. No, I Mean Literally, Let’s Have No Borders: The Ron Paul Story.”

“With Only $38 to My Name,” by Dennis Kucinich

“This Itch Will Grow,” by Christopher Dodd

“I Only Represent Angels and Morons,” by Mike Huckabee

“Winning Unfathomable Power Through the Skillful Duplicity of Your Womanhood,” by Hillary Rodham Clinton

“There Are No Gays On Star Trek,” by Alan Keyes

“A Maverick is Someone Who Chains Himself to a Sinking Ship,” by John McCain

“How To Be The Smartest Guy In the Room (And Yet Mostly Be Known For Your Fuck-Ups)” by Joe Biden

“If They Don’t Like It, They Can Suck On It,” by Rudy Giuliani

“If You People Thought About the Ramifications of My Agenda For Two Seconds, Rather Than Just Voting For Me Because It Seemed Cool, You’d Run From Me Like a Plague of Locusts: The Ralph Nader Story”

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Sunday, November 04, 2007)

Things You Probably Didn’t Need To Be Revealing On Your MySpace Blog

–*The thing about your bladder infection

–*How many bitchez you banged who were supposed to be dating your “friendzzz”

–*”Yeah that new partner in corporate litigation, I wanna hit that nappy dugout TWO times!”

–*How your skin smells like acid and your teeth are rotting, all because of the crystal meth

–*How you took the crystal meth in the first place

–*Your affiliation with the Nazi party

–*How you like to use your position as a U.S. Senator’s aide to run a totally awesome check kiting ring

–*The Warrant Cherry Pie tattoo you put on your six-year old

–*The 18 hours of mind-blowing, transplendent man-boy love you had last night

–*The name of the smoky bar where you were nursing your baby

–*What you did in those pornographic films before you converted to Christianity

–*Where you’re hiding that child support money

–*How you totally plagiarized your essay on Dick Cheney for “The New Republic” and how those arrogant putzes will never find out

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Thursday, November 01, 2007)

Top 11 Things We Think We Just Found On The Floor, Though We’re Not Sure

–*Cat vomit

–*A pile of Alpo

–*The last bits of a half-eaten mouse

–*A miniature scale model of the Taj Mahal

–*Charred remains of Hillary Clinton’s lost Whitewater records

–*What’s left of Jimmy Hoffa

–*What’s left of last night’s mahi-mahi

–*A half-formed golem, the animated being that is created from inanimate matter in Jewish folklore, but only half-formed in this case since it’s not quite walking or talking

–*Tiny Elvis

–*An old nicotine patch

–*The evidence that could get you hanged

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007)

The Federal Reserve Board today cut short-term interest rates by a quarter point to 4.5%, after having already reduced them by half a point less than two months ago. This move, which will make borrowing cheaper, is meant to boost a worrisome economy, and it was cheered by investors, who sent the stock market rallying.

What were some of the reasons for the cut?

–*Wall Street people like easy women and easy money.

–*Most people don’t really appreciate the little things in life, like milk. Thus the Fed’s moves will cause the price of things like milk to skyrocket so you will appreciate them more.

–*The Fed’s cut is very responsible, because it’s like the Trump Taj Mahal generously lending you more money after you’ve already burned through $10,000 at the roulette wheel.

–*Many investments reward you for taking more risk. Of course, Americans are babies and also like to be rewarded when things go horribly wrong.

–*With the lower interest rates, merger deals should start flowing again, allowing small groups of savvy takeover artists to raid the cash of the companies you’re putting your money into.

–*The rate cut serves the needs of a growing shareholder class, one separated from the dirty people who run the machines, teach, and help the sick.

–*Easy borrowing means more money flows, and thus the dollar becomes weaker. And that means the Chinese have extra incentive to step up and buy more of our cigarettes, Xboxes and Julia Roberts DVDs.

–*The “Trickle-Down” Theory postulates that nobody can be truly happy until greedy scumbags are happy first.

–*The subprime mortgage crisis, after all, is really the fault of poor people, and so why should investment banks suffer by not being able to sell their horrible suitcases full of shitty debt?

–*Rich people loaning money to each other at a furious pace is what made this country great.

–*Nobody wants to hear that scary Jim Cramer guy throw another temper tantrum on CNBC.

–*The “dollar” is so five minutes ago.

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007)

“The 9” on Yahoo! recently devoted a segment to what celebrities are afraid of, reporting that Oprah Winfrey is afraid of chewing gum and Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns. Here are some other surprising discoveries.

–*German Nobel Prize winning author Gunter Grass is terrified of beef jerky

–*Actress Uma Thurman is afraid of the letter “Q”

–*Winona Ryder is terrified of Delftware

–*French President Nicolas Sarkozy is frightened of blue water in the toilet bowl

–*Paris Hilton is afraid of large men stepping on ducks

–*Ethan Hawke fears vestigial tails

–*Chuck Norris turns pale at the sight of fat men wearing little coats

–*Billy Bob Thornton gets the heebie-jeebies seeing Hasidic Jewish men wearing nothing but towels

–*Angelina Jolie is terrorized by paisley

–*Jade Jagger’s spine tingles at the sight of little people* riding bicycles

–*Christian Bale cowers at beautiful female members of the German Red Army Faction starring in pornographic movies

–*Christina Ricci is afraid of talking margarine bowls

–*Britney Spears fears the runes on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV

–*Carol Channing is horrified by isosceles triangles

–*Nick Nolte is afraid of the words “I love you” written in Japanese kanji script

–*Danny DeVito fears rapidly rising fizz

–*Michael Jackson runs at the sight of afterbirth

–*Courtney Cox’s hair rises at the sight of cartoon fish drawn to look like Don Knotts

–*Ron Howard turns tail at the sight of sponges

–*Omar Epps is horrified by ejaculated blood after a catheterization

–*Rachael Ray fears the Hindenburg disaster

–*And Dame Judi Dench is scared shitless whenever she hears dolphins talking in sonar

*This post originally used a word for little people that is now considered to be offensive.

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Oct. 30, 2007)

Just reminding you, Stephanie is keeping the blog updated at The Retributioners’ site, and we’re adding friends like mad. Go be a friend to “The Retributioners,” and also to ER Salo Deguierre’s page. Because in the end, as Richard Nixon said, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Read Full Post »

(Originally posted Tuesday, October 30, 2007)

“Chad The Dictator,”
A Novella, by Eric R. Rasmussen

My frat brother Chad is a great guy. Has a pool table. Likes snowboarding. He always pays for drinks at Hootenany’s, our favorite off-campus bar. If you were a member, he’d do anything for you-loan you his car, take you to rehab, or give you money for your girlfriend’s abortion. A stand-up guy.

And he just happens to be the son of a dictator of a small country in Central Asia called Krazikstan. It’s a family dynasty, and Chad is heir apparent to take over someday. It has been expected of him since age 3 when his older brother died after being blow-up in his covette stingray by a mixed terrorist force of ethnic Pashtuns and militant capitalists. That’s why they sent Chad to the U.S. To be safe and to be educated.

He doesn’t talk about it much. Knucklers (that’s what we call ourselves in our fraternity) are supposed to be able to tell each other anything. But nobody ever asked Chad about his country, and if you did he’d kind of shrug.

“Yeah, I’m going to be president and caliph and Ceasar of Krazikstan. Pretty stupid, huh?”

He does drop strange items into conversation. Like once we were banging these two blow-up dolls, Chad and I, in the game room of The Tomb, as we call the house. When we were finished, he looked bemusedly up at the ceiling, cleaning himself up with a Boston Red Sox snow hat that belonged to one of our frat brothers. He sat there in beautiful Endymion repose and exhaled these words: “Spice exports. My bete noire.”

“What in the hell did you just say?” I asked him, getting up off my blow-up doll. I call her Dot.

“Export/Import problems. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Then he finished wiping his cock and barked out loud, “David’s going to shit bricks when he sees how I spooed in his hat, you think?”

Chad didn’t even really have an accent. He looked only vaguely Slavic-the cobalt blue eyes gave him away, and the high wrinkled forehead. He used to have bad teeth, but he had spent months at the orthodontist and had came out with perfect choppers.

When we were all drunk, sometimes we’d get bold and ask him more.

“So, are you, like, going to wear an armband and military garb,” one of our frat brothers asked.

“Well, naturally for parade dress,” Chad said. “What, you think you can come out in your underwear for something like that? It’s my sovereign nation we’re talking about for Chrissakes.”

“So you wear it all the time?”

“No! Not when I’m in business deals. Sheeesh!”

“What do you wear then?”

“Something Saville Row. You got anymore questions douchebag?”

“Do you got an army?”

“Natch.”

“What do you do with it?”

“Keep order, dude! Shit, these are baby questions.”

Of course, everybody wanted to be Chad’s wing man when we were out looking for honeys. Barney’s was the bar next to our fraternity, where fine-lookin’ debs would come out and sip champagne and pretend they were bad girls. Chad liked them okay. But he’d fuck a townie too. He was just like that. No pretension. What a guy! We went out one night to a sports bar and found these two locals who worked at the bottlecap factory up river.

“So, girls,” I’d ask. “You read any books lately?”

“Like what?”

“You know, like Norman Mailer.”

“What, like a novel?”

“Yeah.”

“Oooo,” said her friend, feigning interest. “They’re talkin’ about litera-chewer!” She made the jerk-off sign.

“You know,” I said, “My friend Chad here’s got his own country.”

He stabbed his thumb hard between my eleventh and twelfth ribs.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

“Which country?” said the “literature” girl. “I’d love to see another country.”

“You ain’t heard of it,” he said. “It’s not even a tit on the map.”

“Well, I’d like to go there.”

“Me, too,” said her friend.

“No, no, no. They don’t have places like Barney’s in my country, because of the dry laws.”

“But if you were, like, president, you could let people drink all damn night.”

“What, and make the mullahs turn against me?”

“Well, you could just kill them.”

He shook his head.

“Then who’s going to keep the god damned charities running? I’d be risking the breakdown of the basic social organizational themes of the country, girl! Don’t you know that? There’d be panic in the streets, and I’d have to get the Republican Guard to come out with hoses and … oh, never mind, you don’t understand.”

“Well, sorr-ee” she said. “Poor guy. Can’t even hose down your own mullahs.”

We were walking home later and he got up my ass.

“What’d you have to bring up my country for?”

“I thought it’d impress them.”

“You’re all wet, Hunsacker. A couple of Cosmos would have gotten that girl in bed. You don’t light the whole magazine on fire for two lousy townies. Don’t you know that? What a fucko!”

We went to another bar, got drunk and put each other in headlocks, then knocked into people and got called “shit heads,” then twisted each other’s nipples until we puked into a bowl of Funyans, first him, then me. Then Chad bought drinks for everybody, went to the bathroom, and came out with his underwear on his head. He drank a Martini like that.

“So, what are you going to do? You’re going to go back and run Sowhackistan?”

“Krazikstan. Yeah, so the fuck what?”

“Well it must be hard is all I can say.”

“I know. Guy’s got to rule with an iron hand.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Water cannons. Tear gas. Rubber bullets. The whole schmear.”

I sat thinking about this.

“You got torture rooms, too?”

“What’s the big deal? Sometimes you gotta wet bag somebody. Kick a little ass. But you know, it’s only like for, sedition or something.”

“You got sedition there?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I don’t know, Chad. Seems not cool.”

“Hey, you go over there and be a Sultan and Eternal President and “Dear Father,” Lord of Men and All the Fish in the Sea and tell me how easy you think it is.”

“But fascist dictatorship. That’s old school. Why’s it got to be that?”

“Because it’s small!” he erupted. “And because we got mountains, and thus 40 different languages, and separatists and slanderous publishers and state-owned oil and molybdenum that people want to invade us for. So there you have it, a recipe for insurrection.”

He was nodding out, slumped over with the underwear still covering his head, breathing the jock part of it into his mouth sometimes. But he had an iron gut with liquor, and shook himself out of it, clear headed as ever, so he could go on ranting like that.

“If you’re talking about turning it into a democracy, you douche, then you’re talking about needing scale. You’re talking about capital. You’re talking about high tech. You’re talking about building a consumer base for a stable market economy with faith in the judicial system. But with the manpower I got, and the weapons I got, I got to use a little intimidation, that’s all there is to it. Fear is your friend. That and a national anthem. You don’t understand the dynamics, not living here in your bubble. You all got it easy over here, cause there’s money and technology, and everybody speaks English. And you’ve got MTV and Xbox. But not in the fucking country I inherited, where most of us pray to Mecca in mud huts and store chick peas in bags and our idea of Xbox is shooting at other people’s sheep.”

He took another drink of his martini, and then the bartender looked over, and a then this tall foxy brunette with sad, understanding eyes and a Brooks Brothers camel hair jacket. She slid over, and the sympathy was oozing out of her. Fuck, I knew he was going to score.

“When there’s civil unrest, everybody turns to you. You gotta tell them their houses won’t get burned down, that their currency is not shit–that the schools are running and the trains leaving on time.”

She nodded, almost teary-eyed, and he went on.

“Everybody’s always asking a dictator, “What have you done for me lately? “Help me, El Presidente. Help me!” Well fuck you bub. I’m the one keepin’ it all together and promoting civil security, so don’t you say shit to me about extending the power grid outside of the capital.”

“Gosh, Chad.”

“Yeah, your blues ain’t like mine. Sing it sister.”

“It sounds just so hard,” said the foxy brunette, and she ran her hand over her hair. Shit. I rolled my eyes. Fucker. He was going to do it with her. Oh, yeah, he liked to milk it-having a country and all.

“You know,” I piped up, “My dad was an alkie and never home.”

The Brunette turned to me.

“Huh?”

“I just said that my dad…”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Tortured prep school kid.”

Then she turned back to Chad.

“You’re right. People don’t know what it means to be a leader. They project everything on to you. All their fears and hopes, and it’s all on your shoulders. You poor guy.”

“Yeah, you seem to really get it.”

He had taken the underwear off his head then, and lit a cigarette, which he let dangle from his bud-like lips. She bummed one, and they sat smoking. Then they left together, and as they were going out the front door, he turned to me, and winked.

“In the bag.”

Fucker.
To be continued….or not….

Read Full Post »