Goin' To War

As the 48 hour deadline crept in on Iraq, Rogan and I were blown out of our nugget on shrooms in the desert. At 5pm - zero hour - we flipped on the local news and laughed for about 8 straight minutes before having to turn it off. Then we went for strip mall sushi, another bad idea. It wasn't until morning that I actually took the time to watch the war and here's my take.

So far, this is the most boring war ever. Sure, it's early yet but they'd better spice this one up quick or not even CNN will keep it on the line-up.

The protesters are the most exciting thing thus far and they aren't anywhere near memorable yet. I kinda wanna go goof on them but I'm allergic to tear gas. I don't have any basis for this but the protesters in general don't seem as knowledged as, say, the anti-globalization cats. Like so many things anymore, they just seem somewhat phony. And another thing that has always bothered me - if you have to protest something, don't block fucking traffic. Fucking assholes. Block City Hall or an Embassy or trash a Mervyn's but get the fuck out of the street. Fucks.

What people refuse to acknowledge is that most people really don't give a fuck about what you're protesting about, incuding this war. Sure, they have an opinion because someone has asked their opinion and they had to make one up but it isn't something that consumes their thoughts otherwise. You ruining their fucking night stopping traffic for two hours when they've humped 9 hours at a death-bed occupation and only want to get home in time for Sex In The City - guess what? Now they have a strong opinion instead of no real opinion and it's the opposite of whatever you are protesting. Because they realize you are a stupid fucking stink-pigeon and anything you hate should be embraced and lightly fingered.

As always, it's like football. People hate the Raiders solely because the Raiders fans are dicks. Even people who don't even like the game hate Raiders fans. That's fine in football. In a protest that's stupid. Stupid fuck.

People assume that I'm anti-war but I'm not, not yet anyway. What I am saying is - there's no draft. They aren't pulling kids out of the inner city and forcing them to fight a ridiculous war. And nobody that is whole-heartedly against war or who would never want to fight a war joins the military.

War!

What is it good for?

Well, it opens up parking spaces, for one. And it let's people who kinda wanna kill other people go out and kill other people who kinda wanna kill people or be killed by other people who kinda wanna kill people.

And those are the people I want to party with the least. No offense, but I tend to get mouthy when I drink.

I say follow your instincts. Go out and kill someone else of a like mind.

If it helps to pretend to be doing it for my freedom, have at it. Heck, you can even say you're doing it to keep my milk from going bad. Whatever it takes. I've had military guys get very chesty with me, reminding me that they are out their to protect my freedom to do what I do and say what I say. Sounds good, but the fact is that the military is there to fight whoever they are told to fight, reasons being none of their business. Should they be told to fight for a cause that is absolute bullshit and they know it, they still have to go fight. In such a case, they are the ones with no freedom of speech and have to hope that people back home are saying and doing something about it. So you need me as much as I need you.

I have yet to feel threatened by Iraq or met anyone who has ever felt threatened by Iraq. I've felt threatened by the police, the IRS, airport security, customs, photo-enforced red lights and John Ashcroft makes me really paranoid. I've felt threatened - even been threatened on several occasions - by the fine men and women of the US Armed Forces. Well, maybe not the women but you get the point.

People who feel threatened by Iraq go to the doctor a lot, too. No, Mrs Brown, it's just a freckle.

I've never so much as suspected Saddam Hussein of prank calling me. Never felt threatened by terrorism, either. Not even after 9/11. Some 3000 people died. More people die choking on meat and I don't worry about that either. That shouldn't stop anyone from starting a war, though. I'm not anti-war because I'm not playing. I'm not pro-war for the same reason. Not in the game, myself. I'd be pro-war if I could bet on it, if there were a Vegas line, being football is out of season and all. I'll still watch a war if it's on tv and it's a good one but this one isn't even a good one. It's a repeat of a mismatch. Try a little showboating. A little razzle-dazzle.

Still, it's hard not to get into the pre-fight hype. It's like a Don King event with dirty fighters. It's not gonna be much of a fight, per se, but you still gotta watch in case any weird shit goes down.

Saddam is prepared to use chemical weapons against ground troops, they tell us with indignation. Ground troops are prepared to kill Saddam Hussein, but he's the asshole for fighting dirty? It's a war, faggot. And he sucks at it. If you were prepared to kill me, I'd use whatever weapon I could find - chemical weapon, nuclear weapon, broken broomstick, nut punch, dog shit in a wrist-rocket, girlie eye-gouge, fake seizure, Lysol can and a Bic lighter - whatever it takes.

They talk shit about terrorism being dirty pool but I think it's just as fucked up or more that we have rules for war. You can hit him in the face with the garden rake, no problem, but whip out the mace - that's against the Geneva Convention and we get a penalty kick. If it has rules then it's a game. If it's a game, you should be able to put money on it. Gimme a Vegas line. No straight wagers - not on this one - but some proposition bets. An over/under. Something to keep it interesting.

I'd love to be truely anti-war or pro-war or have any strong opinion, for that matter, that I can't find the downside. You say that these people will now be free of an evil dictator and I think that's wonderful but at the same time I think that most of those people want a dictator and will always be yanked off that you took theirs away. Most people are happy as pigs in dumpsters being told what to do and will defend the person telling them what to do, no matter how much of a shithead that person may be.

In North Korea people don't even have toilet paper but they started out with no toilet paper while being told by their leaders how wonderful it was to live in a country unspoiled by western evils such as toilet paper. They believe it whole-heartedly because they don't have any comparison. They didn't go from SUVs and endless bowls of AppleJacks to wiping their ass on their shirtsleeves. That's just how it is and they go along with it.

I'd love to swell with hometown pride or love of humanity but most everyone I know is an asshole. Assholes don't have borders. So I battle between realism and idealism and either side can prevail depending on my blood/alcohol content and mood in general and, in the meantime, watch what looks like a really boring war. Our own dumb-downed Vietnam without the draft or camera man right in the thick of it. Protesters being drug off by police in riot gear but no overt drug use and rampant fucking in the streets. All the ingedients of our generation's defining moment with all the good parts sucked out.

stanhope

Welcome Home, Lizzie

After two days of watching Ed Smart on the news, I am now convinced that Elizabeth disappeared willingly in order to avoid the inevitable day that she came home to find her father being savagely raped by a man he paid to dress up like a Hell's Angel.

In fact, I now believe that's what all of these handymen were doing at the Smart house. They sure seemed to hire a lot of drifters with pocket money to do odd jobs. It was said in the LA Times that Mrs Smart had met this Brian Mitchell on the street, given him 5 dollars and hired him to work on their roof. Sure, you meet a guy dressed in a robe and a bakers hat, looking like a Jewish Bigfoot(find a pic and put it up here if you have time), slap a fin and your home address in his hand and tell him to bring his own shingles.

Fat chance.

I think Mom Smart was procuring street riff-raff to come home and take septic dumps on her husband and kick him around in his diaper in the garage until the kids came home.

"Who's that, Daddy?"

"Uh... that was the roofer." he'd say, rushing in wearing a blanket and a disposable shower cap, wiping sweat from his brow.

"What's that smell?"

Uh... there was a skunk in the garage?" he'd answer, using his body to sheild the doorway where Mom furiously scrubbed excrement from the cement floor.

Now you wonder when Elizabeth says she could hear people searching for her but couldn't respond.

When I first heard that she was alive, bitterness actually left me for a moment. I found myself having feelings that could almost be described as positive. But thanks to CNN, I can always find bitterness, day or night, just a click of a button away.

Right there in front of 1,000 cameras and obvious questions, Ed Smart was railing on the powers that be in Washington to pass Amber Alert legislation. Fuck the war, says Ed, a handful of children go missing every year! And Jesus doesn't love them as much as he loves our family so we need the governments help, too!

Amber Alert. Good idea, I'm sure. So pay for it. You cunt. Spend your time in front of the cameras drumming up private funding, you cunt. I'm sure there's enough parents out there equally concerned and finacially endowed as yourself. Then there are the rest of us who don't have kids and don't really want to cough up more dough to protect yours.

I don't neccessarily see where she's better off in that home than in a homeless guys teepee, except that she's obviously going to be hot and we all know how girls that get force-fed religion turn out - especially that low-competency Mormon shit. Keep pounding that into her head, Ed, and I'll be looking for her mouthing Snoop Dogg's garbage bag on "Girls Gone Wild" in about three years.

In the meantime, I pray to the same God I use in roulette that you don't get John Walsh Syndrome, where you get such an unquenchable thirst for media attention that you milk a personal ordeal flat just to feed your newborn ego. Remember, people have watched you cry for the last nine months, not because they value your opinion but because your tragedy - and now your incredible good fortune - are really entertaining. And while you thought you were touching America's heart strings, most of us were wondering how long before you dump the family man act, put on a girdle and go suck a dick.

Welcome home, Lizzie.

Extreme Elvis

Still haven't started work on The Man Show and with the wife out in Colorado to see her folks, I had no choice but go to Vegas to see Extreme Elvis at The Beach. I never need an excuse to go to Vegas but I've been to The Beach and I couldn't imagine any place I'd rather see get pissed on by a fat naked man.

The Beach is like any shithole, ant trap nightclub full of dense, spring-break, Girls-Gone-Wild, tanning bed Hitler-Youth that you can find in any city in our proud country. They have hot chicks in string bikinis standing over huge aluminum tubs of beer and mondo thick-neck bouncers that surely could have gone pro if they hadn't blown out their knee in their senior year. Add an over-powering run-un dance song and an exorbanent cover charge and mules will stand in line for hours to get in.

The only band I'd rather see playing there would be Great White.

Elvis was scheduled to be there with The Extra Action Marching Band, a 30-some piece band of musicians and exotic dancers but their bus had broken down in Flagstaff and it looked doubtful they'd make the gig. The promoter who'd booked the show had been fired - big surprise - and the management just wanted to get the show over with. They told Elvis that there was to be no nudity, although that hadn't been the original agreement. Then they made the mistake of paying him up front.

Live and learn.

Having stalled for the Marching Band as long as he could and no longer being able to tolerate the bad dance music, Elvis started the show a little after 11pm. Penn and Teller were there for the show and Penn introduced the band. The Beach is a barn of a place, full of the usual flashing lights and smoke machines and feels as much like a beach as an airplane hanger with a cardboard plam tree slapped on the wall. To look at the dance floor you'd think that every episode of Elimidate was being filmed at once. The dancefloor cleared and fled to the corners when Elvis came on stage while the Elvis fans in the corners ran to the front.

Now the only question was how long he'd last before they pulled the plug. Uber-security stood at either side of the stage with ear-pieces hanging from their shave-shined heads, waiting for orders to kill.

They looked at each other like down-syndrome children while Elvis emptied beer bottles on the crowd. They shrugged when he stripped down to a tiger-print unitard and then down to a g-string. By the time he was naked and pissing into a fake potted palm tree beside the stage, I didn't see them anywhere.

Amazingly, the show went on, at least for another two songs. In the middle of the finale, as EE lumbered across the length of the dance floor, the meat-staff finally got the order to put the hammer down. Elvis tried to give em the slip but was grabbed and told "Show's Over".

We all went back to the dressing room under heavy guard and were told to get the fuck out as soon as possible. I tried to drink as much of the free beer backstage as I could while Elvis attmepted to quell the roid-rage of the Beach boys. Then the angriest and evidently lowest on the totem pole of the doormen flew into the room in a fury and started screaming at EE. He had just been taken off hand-stamp and jeering duty and been given the task of removing EE's palm tree urinal and he was very angry with no one to hit.

Just go clean up the piss pot, Sharon, and pine for the day you were first string.

The show moved on to the Double Down Saloon, the only bar I know of in Vegas that is EE-friendly, where the people have piercings and tattoos, not because they are trendy, but because they hurt. Elvis did a free show there and blew the place up with a black-caped, screaming rendition of some Black Sabbath song that I was too drunk to remember.

I tried to hang out for the Extra Action Marching Band who had finally made it to town, but now it was almost 3 am and right when I decided I couldn't last another minute I saw a panic in the middle of the bar with a guy down on the floor. It was the marching band's drummer, or one of them, having an epileptic seizure. That was show enough for me. As good as I've heard they are, you'll never see people run away from a good seizure to go watch a band.

If you haven't seen EE yet, it's the best show you'll see if you love chaos. Check his schedule or better yet, find a bar with balls in your town and book him ~ www.extremeelvis.com