Sadly, No!

Now that S.Z.’s wrapped up her contest to name Mary Cheney’s memoir, I’ve decided that Sadly, No! needs an exciting contest of its own.

Your mission: pick up a copy of your city’s “alternative” weekly arts and entertainment newspaper and scour the personals section for the most depraved, bizarre (and funny) ad. To give you an idea what I’m talking about (and to set the bar really high), here’s my entry from a recent edition of The Boston Phoenix:

Now admittedly, that’s a tough one to beat. But I’m sure if you look hard enough, you’ll find something that at least comes close (and Seb lives in Germany, so he’ll probably find something that involves eating “die Scheisse,” if you know what I mean).

First prize will be Seb’s second penis which he’s desperately trying to keep away from Meghan Cox Gurdon.

An esteemed colleague, in comments, turned us on to this:

Yikes!

And also this:
Holy disco-dancing HTML blink-tags!

This is Messr. Mark Crutcher, whom we might get to know quite a bit better in coming days, and here’s the homepage of his outreach-ministry and traveling snake-oil show, Life Dynamics Inc., which educates fearful red-state crowds on the sex abuses and murders committed by Planned Parenthood, among other things. Not plain old ordinary fetus murders but, apparently, the bang-you’re-dead kind.

We’re scouring the old brain to come up with a term that is to ‘wingnut’ as ‘mountain’ is to ‘molehill.’ Until then — why do all these guys look like penises molded out of veal?

[Update: Nice catch from HemlockEcho:]

But what if I WANT to make babies for the Aryan race? The pill’s good? It’s bad? — WHAT!?

The year was 2001. Those were the days:

Are you ready to laugh?

Save Social Security Surplus: The entire Social Security surplus will be saved and set aside for Social Security and debt reduction. […]

By using cautious estimating assumptions, reserving the Social Security surplus for debt retirement and Social Security reform, and preserving an additional large reserve beyond the Social Security surplus, the Administration has made it easier to adjust the budget in the future to meet new requirements as they arise.

Now that’s comedy!

Not content to sift only through the inert, unpopped kernels at the bottom of the vast right-wing popcorn bag, we also occasionally check in on James Lileks, silently marking the days until he finally breaks, howling from a high ledge on a stately ’20s-era former grain exchange building in downtown Minneapolis, throwing handfuls of sepia postcards and matchbooks to the assembled firemen and news crews, naked except for an iPod.

Why is a ?legendary? game designer advertising on Hugh Hewitt?s site? I noticed an ad on his site touting the return of ?Virgil Tatum,? like I should know who he is. Uh ? who? I?ve been playing games since the days when Leather Goddesses ruled Phobos, and I?ve never heard of this guy.

If thoughts had wings, J.L.’s would be flocking like this:

Hm. Must buy toothpaste. Why doesn’t Hugh ever call me first? Everyone respects Richards a lot, but most of the really hot solos were by Mick Taylor. Hm. Virgil Tatum? So angry all the time!…no, calm. Calm and cool. Happy life! One more column and two site updates, then TV and Playstation tonight. Not angry. So-called ‘legendary game designer?’

It’s a hoax, by the way — a viral marketing whatsis of some sort (as Lileks suspects later in the column), but also a fairly transparent one: The site mentioned below has been advertising at the Museum of Hoaxes. Harmless indeed, but with Lileks edging ever-closer to the crackup we’ve all seen coming, even his once-estimable prose is going all Salinger:

I browsed through the site: it?s BS. Never heard of any of his games. They don?t look right, either. WHOIS shows the site was created on Feb. 28 2005, but the ?blog? entries go back to last year. He said he spoke at ?the Conceptual Kitchen? in New York ? Google is silent. The new game is about ?art theft.? It uses the real-life expertise of the folks at www.lastresortretrieval.com, a company that recovers stolen masterpieces. Their website was registered seven days before Virgil Tatum.

(A guy gets so happy sometimes. Then some jerk knocks him down. Phonies. I knew this girl once. She really killed me. I wrote her a postcard. Then it rained and the card got wet. How do you like that!)

As with Holden Caulfield, there’s promise of renewal for James. Sometimes though, honestly, all you can do is let a friend hit bottom. We’re here if you want to talk, J.L.

Economic Experts, let’s get ready to rumble!

Council of Economic Advisors, February 2005:

Likewise, Social Security will begin to incur annual operating “losses” in 2018, when its outlays first exceed its tax revenues. To cover the shortfall and to “stay open,” Social Security will use up its Trust Fund (or draw down its bank account) from 2018 to 2042. [Emphasis added, existence of the trust fund in the original.]

But does the CEA have the economic expertise of, say, Scooby McClellan, who offered the following this morning:

In terms of the tour today, that’s one of the things that the President is going to highlight in his remarks at West Virginia University. He’s going to talk about the Social Security trust fund and how there really is not a trust fund.

Later on, the President will talk about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction and how there really are not any.

Justin Darr, who recently graced us with his stories about eating hemp icecream while licking dust off Seb’s television screen, is back with another super-wacky tale about his efforts to quit smoking:

Justin, they’re still sneering and glaring at you, and it’s because you don’t bathe.
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That was the question Brad “Q” R. asked last week. The answer, we humbly suggest, should be: Sadly, No!

This week, Mr. Smith suggests we do the following:

Read the real Constitution. Nowhere in there is there a single reference to ANY branch of the United States government having any rights at all.

Alrighty then:

Article. I.
Section 1.

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States[.]

Women don’t know about shrinkage, and Mr. Smith obviously doesn’t know about Article I, Section 8:

Section. 8.

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

And the beat goes on…

Fact: The government can’t giver permission to anyone at all to walk through your front door and deny you the right to defend yourself or your property.

Fact: Scott Koss has a micro-penis.

The American majority is sick and tired of being disparaged, disenfranchised and disempowered by judges, filibusters and fakery.

Well, we can’t offer anything better than what Jon Stewart said:

Last night, the Republican faithful were angry. After four years of being in charge of the House, Senate, Supreme Court and Executive branch, they were not gonna take it anymore. Yeah! Down with the people who are already down!

Are there any women here today?

Original taken from this page.

(Thanks to Greg.)

A few days ago, we ran across Cody and Chad Janicek, the wingnut Doublemint twins behind the college-bound, career-prep start-up venture, JanicekOnline (The Conservative Corner) — a right-wing punditry vehicle apparently set up by their parents in much the same spirit as one’s own dad, a former car designer, totally helped one cheat like a murderous, screaming cheating-banshee in a massively ruined-for-all-the-other-kids Pinewood Derby, one year in Cub Scouts.

And of course that’s bad — and a belated ‘sorry’ to kids like Doug F., whose crappy, honorable-mention car was definitely built by himself alone, and not in a professional model shop by union labor, after which one merely stuck the wheels on and glued some trim together.

But this is America, Doug F. And Cub Scouts taught us some American lessons — such as, for instance, that flagrant system-gaming by adults, backed up if necessary by a wide-eyed ‘who, me?’ face on the part of their minor children can, in the end, put one in the position of having once (ha-you, Doug!) been at the very pinnacle, the very thin-aired apex, of one’s Cub Scout pack.

But then, you also learn other things, as life unfolds and widens into adult panorama. Oh yes one tends to.

Los Janiceks: Check out their promotional videos and super-extensive CafePress merch selection. These boys are up and rolling, and on their way!

Cody is the one who looks like Father Mulcahey from M*A*S*H. He’s a little bit country.

Chad is the wild one, the heartbreaker. He’s a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.

[Update: The PR contact (!?) for JanicekOnline tells us that Cody and Chad are actually ‘grown men’ who find it quite amusing to be mistaken for teenagers.

This is welcome news in a way, because picking on high-school students is lower than even S,N! usually sinks (Amber Pawlik is at least in college). It would be nothing to brag about among decent people, if any ever came here.

And yet, our puzzlement is vast. What’s this article in the September 24th, 2004 edition of Leander High School’s newspaper, ‘The Roar?’

We hope to get to the bottom of this in an upcoming blue-ribbon special report.]
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Focus on the Family has an illuminating article about the best way to teach sex to your kids:

“Tell your teen, ‘this is what I put on mommy’s head before doing the nasty.'”

Then, speak slowly and clearly. Ah, don’t you wish talking to your teens about sex was an easy task? It’s not, and there’s no use pretending it is. However, it’s critical that you do it. Don’t believe the fallacies.

And if there’s one thing we all hate, it’s phallus fallacies.

If you don’t talk to your kids, the only information they get will be from their uneducated friends, or the distorted media.

Hey, I can relate: I don’t want my kids learning about sex from Andy Rooney either.

Let’s see what their recommendations are:

–WHERE: Not at a restaurant. You’ll already feel a bit self-conscious talking to your teen without having any other potential eavesdroppers.

“Yeah, I’ll have the double bacon cheddar wrap, and Junior here will have a foot-long hot dog… ooooh that reminds me, son, we need to talk to you about your cock at some point.”

Most teens seem to be more receptive to talking about difficult things at night. Take advantage of this by “tucking” them into bed. Sit on the edge of the bed and begin. The dark room helps you as well.

So, you should take advantage of your teen in a dark room. It’s easy: just sit on the edge of the bed and begin.

Y’know, something tells me God would not approve of this…

“But don’t forget to slip ’em that li’l blue tic-tac! Otherwise, things could get ugly real fast…”

OK, this seriously sounds like the instructions Michael Jackson gives his butler at Neverland Ranch… and that’s not a good thing.