Lemon Party

For those that don’t know, lemonparty.org is a disturbing single image website with a shot of three guys in their seventies having a gay orgy.  Similar to the now defunct goatse & tubgirl (check the wikipedia, but don’t Google Image Search unless you want to be visually disturbed and/or aroused), it’s a “shock site” that unscrupulous people try to dupe their friends into seeing.  Which is why it was so awesomely subversive to see it referenced on this week’s 30 Rock, far & away the funniest show on TV these days.  The main character, Tina Fey’s “Liz Lemon” has visiting parents, and her dad Richard at one point says “it wouldn’t be a Lemon party without Old Dick!” 

The best thing about the reference wasn’t just seeing an internet meme mentioned on TV, which is far from original, or even just the fact that a prime time major network show made reference to a gay orgy website, but the degree to which it was worked in.  For those in the know, it was a really risque joke, and yet for those who didn’t, it flew right by without even seeming awkward or out of place with the other dialogue.  30 Rock has a bit of a tradition of rewarding niche/nerd audiences with Tivo-esque single frame jokes, etc, but this was really subversive & funny.  What’s perhaps best of all is that a quick check of the YouTube reveals that this is second Lemon Party reference on 30 Rock.  One of their writers is having a great time, or rather was, until they all went on Strike.

Beforehand thanks also save you God!

This spam email didn’t come to me, but was forwarded by a friend who knows my love of mangled English.  Too many highlights to choose just one, but “we build houses of babies, hospitals?” is pretty damn great:

 Good afternoon. I am a representative of big international chraitable company ” NADEZHDA “. We search for the person in your country for the help to people which in it require: children of the orphan, people patients with a cancer, to invalids, veterans of war. We translate money in hospitals and church, we build houses of babies, hospitals? Houses for aged. I hope our letter will not leave you indifferent and you will respond to our request for the help. Remember a trouble can touch you and your relatives. Beforehand thanks also save you God!
! Ours e-mail: [ADDRESS REMOVED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY] we Look forward to hearing! Successful day!

Successful day indeed, my friends.

This story is tragically sexy & disgusting

I’m going to violate two jonsonblog rules in this post - I usually stay away from stories about kooky news items, because there’s plenty of room for that on the internet, and I usually stay away from stories about women I would have sex with, because my wife reads this blog & she has easy access to pointy objects for stabbing me.

But when I read the story of Jaileen Soliman (yes, you read that right; Jaileen), I was moved to comment.  If you’re unfamiliar, Jaileen is a 25 year old Floridian woman who was arrested in mid November while living in utter squalor with her 3 children, all home schooled, 8 cats, a pit bull, a pot bellied pig(!), a bird and a constantly rising tide of filth including human & animal waste. 

But the real issue here is the dichotomy between my brain & my penis on how we analyzed this story.  My brain feels sorry for the kids, and for the woman, who is clearly not right in the head, although not so much for the pot bellied pig, who was probably more in his element than any pig in America, and is now very angry at Social Services for fucking up a good situation.  My penis, on the other hand, is trying very hard to convince the rest of me that having sex in a living room filled with human waste would not be that high of a price to pay.  See, Jaileen is super hot.  Like, at the very least stripper hot, certainly “pedophile Junior High Teacher” hot, and possibly even legitimately hot.  Add in a flounder index that would unquestionably be off the charts, and my penis makes some interesting points.

Sadly Jaileen, it will never work out between us.  You are currently in Jail (oh the irony!), you have a 10 year old even though you are only 25, and your cooter is quite possibly a petri dish full of biological weapons that even the worst tyrants would be too shamed to loose upon an ususpecting public.  Meanwhile, I live on the other side of the country, and I’m married to a woman who may stab me in my sleep tonight after she reads this.

I like to daydream about the life we could have had, Jaileen.  You and I walking hand in hand along a beach somewhere, pausing only to poop in public and then make out right near that poop.  I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.

New Pornographers Fans Are Clever

So, the Greatest Canadian Band of All Time (Category: More Than 3 Members*), Vancouver’s New Pornographers recently goofed around on YouTube with their fans, issuing a series of “Challenges,” which the fans could participate in, film themselves & post their responses.  My favorite response so far was this winner of Challenge # 2, “sing a New Pornographers song as though you were Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers.” 

The winner actually pretends that his song “It’s Only Divine Right” was a 1979 single by McDonald, and rewrote it entirely in cheesy 70’s lite-rock style.  It’s quality work and it made me appreciate the original all the more.  Damn clever people, how do they do it, with the talent and the energy & the cleverness.  Anyone who wants to compare with the original, you can hear 30 seconds of it here.

*That’s right, I’m thinking of Rush

The Heartbreak of Restless Leg Syndrome

According to the Wikipedia, Restless Leg Syndrome “is a condition that is characterised by an irresistible urge to move one’s legs” which sounds like something I’d normally make fun of if it weren’t for the fact that I’m busy making fun of the cure for Restless Leg Syndrome. 

Apparently you can bring much needed rest to your lower appendages through a steady diet of Requip, a drug whose side effects are as bizarre as the Syndrome they cure.  From the Requip site:  Also tell your doctor if you experience new or increased gambling, sexual, or other intense urges while taking Requip. WTF?  The cure for the jimmylegs makes you want to fuck & gamble?  I’m worried someone has been putting Requip in my Diet Pepsi, cause I spend 92% of my waking thoughts on sex and gambling, and most of my dreams are sexy gambling dreams. 

I may be on to something here.  I wonder if my body naturally manufactures the Requip endorphins, which is why my legs are naturally so non-jittery and also why I sexy gamble* so much.

*sexy gambling is a new term I have made up, covering a broad spectrum of activities that I cannot go into on a public forum.

Concert Setlists At Flickr

Maybe I’m alone in this, but whenever I go see a band, I wonder what songs they’ll play, hoping it’s the ones I like, etc, and I usually end up Googling around to see if anyone has posted a setlist online.  Recently I realized that the best place to find these setlists is actually on Flickr.  Every concert I’ve been to over the the last few months (five so far, with The Hold Steady at the Wiltern closing things out next month) had a setlist posted on Flickr.  Just search for the name of the band, sort the results by ”Most Recent” and you’ll find a fan who took a shot of the printed/hand scribbled setlist on the stage & posted it on their Flickr account.  God Bless a critical mass of users.

Southern California TV Commercials from the 1970’s & 80’s

Santa’s Village 

Fred Rated 

Cal Worthington 

Colton Piano

Pete Ellis Dodge

TSA to American Public: Fuck You

Sometimes, when things get a little weirder & then a little weirder still, in tiny increments, you can end up in a very weird situation & take it for granted.  If we could have seen in early 2001 that some day there would be a whole new bureacracy dedicated to the safety of our transportation, and this government division would have signs up all over our airports telling us that we can take the small toothpaste on the trip with us but not the large toothpaste (because the large toothpaste could be lethal!!!*), and that if we wanted to take a travel size shampoo with us on the plane it had to be in a separate clear pastic ziploc (maybe they just didn’t want it to spill on our clothes?), if we could have seen all this, a scant 6 years later, we absolutely would not have believed it.  Islamic terrorists flying planes into buildings is MUCH more plausible than a government organization dedicated to monitoring the size of my shampoo as I go through the airport.

That said, nothing to do with the absurdity that is the TSA can compete with their new program, Clear, and its bizarre, American Express looking website.  Clear is a government issued license to be less hassled by the government division dedicated to hassling you sold to you at a cost of $99 a year (verbatim quote: “Lock in these prices by purchasing a two-year membership for $199.90 or a three-year membership for $299.85″).  The division that sells you the revokable privilege to travel with less hassle is the same division dedicated to hassling you, of course, and this service that you are lucky enough to be able to purchase is only applicable at the handful of airports that participate in the TSA’s Orwellianly named “Registered Traveller Program.”  The features/benefits list of the FAQ states that “fewer missed flights” is a chief benefit of the program, which is linguistically so very close to a mobster selling you “protection” against anything unfortunate that might happen to your shop as to be laughable. 

Who knew, as Lindsay Marshall said, that all that hassle was in fact just a business plan?

*but apparently not lethal enough that they have ever stopped me from just carrying the toothpaste through the metal detector by tucking it up a shirtsleeve - hah, up yours TSA!  Advantage, my dentist!!

What Not To Pour Up Your Nose

When I was in fifth grade, I had a cold & my sinuses were all stuffed up.  My parents had some nasal spray medicine & I got it & tried using it, but I think my nostrils were all blocked or whatever, and so it was not effective.  I decided that it would be better if I lay on my bed on my back & hung my head over the edge so that my nostrils were facing straight up, and then I inverted the medicine squeezy bottle & squeezed some of the medicine in one nostril.  It was enough.  Apparently the simple addition of gravity turns nasals sprays from “misters” into “streaming hoses of firewater.”  I am amazed I didn’t just start bleeding copiously from my nose.  The liquid jetted into my skull & mapped out my entire sinus cavity; for a moment it was like having a mental blueprint of the inside of my skull. 

So I can only imagine how much this video of Drew from Toothpaste For Dinner pouring whiskey into his nose via a Neti Pot (hippy!) must have hurt.  He starts with salinated water, which is the correct use of the product, and is frankly kooky enough, then progresses to coffee, and finally whiskey, which goes poorly.

Delicious Tragedy

A couple co-workers & I were discussing the Flavor Shot shotgun ammunition that’s made from seasoning (instead of lead) so you can kill your prey & begin the marinating process in one step.  As a new parent (and a fan of delicious seasoned meats), it occurred to me that while it’s always sad when a gun owner’s child finds daddy’s gun & accidentally kills themself with it thinking that it’s a toy, it must be TWICE as sad if the gun is loaded with Flavor Shot. Because then not only do you have the whole dead offspring thanks to your own negligence, but you probably develop a pavlovian association between seasonings & tragedy such that you couldn’t enjoy Indian or Thai food anymore.