Hell's Radio

Where do bad folks go when they die? No one knows for sure, but I'll bet they play America's top 40 there. All day, every day. Somewhere in the depths of the sulfuric abyss, the wretched souls of the damned are forced to endure the pre-recorded bleeting Ashlee Simpson for all eternity.

And what cruel fate awaits the worst specimens humanity has to offer? An eternal loop of Move Ya Body by Nina Sky and a guy who calls himself Jabba.

I've heard this song more times in the past few months than any human being deserves to. Sure, they mix it in with a bunch of other terrible songs to ensure that no part of your spirit remains uncrushed, but this song takes that extra step that makes you want to actually go out and buy the CD so you can snap it in half and slit your wrists with the shattered pieces.

The part with the women singing isn't really too bad. It's not great, but it doesn't make me want to kill myself. But then near the end that Jabba guy starts shouting orders.



Dear God is that annoying. He's some kind of dance music drill sergeant. If you don't move your body, it's two hours in the Hole, maggot! I guess I can move my body well enough, but I don't know if I can handle all that alternating-speed winding.

I just hope there's a special place in Hell for everyone associated with this song. Jabba should be forced to slow wind while listening to himself shout "Slow wind" until the end of time. Maybe even longer than that.

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I Fall to Pieces

Quick story: When I was in second grade, I went to at a friend's house. He had this steep hill in his back yard. We started to walk down, but I slipped on a rock. I started to roll down the hill and didn't stop until I hit a tree. When I sat up, I noticed my pants were ripped and my leg was bleeding. I started to freak out.

My leg! My leg!

My mom came and got me and we went to the hospital. The whole time I kept screaming "My leg! My leg!"

The doctor looked me over. It seemed I had a small concussion and my left arm was broken in three places. There was nothing wrong with my leg.


Other than that I had a pretty good track record when it comes to injury. I'm very flexible. People used to call me Gumby. Those people were assholes. The point is, I bend but don't break. Or so I thought.

Thanksgiving a few years ago I was playing football in Nick's backyard. In retrospect, I had no business playing football to begin with. When I was a kid I used to strike out in tee-ball. Tee-ball! Who knew that was even possible? But it wasn't a big deal since none of us were teeming with athletic ability.

We pretty much made up our own rules. There was only five or six people on each team, and we didn't really have anything to mark downs, so every carry was all or nothing.

About an hour into the game, we did a running play, because I can't catch. The ball was snapped and I ran. I ran like hell. Faking left. Dodging right. I was unstoppable. As I drew closer to our makeshift end zone (a shrub) I could smell victory. Except it wasn't victory, it was booze, and it was coming from Nick's dad, TJ. He was on the other team, and even though I could zip by everyone else I was never able to get past him. I was supposed to be covered by this big lumberjack of a guy named Billy, but I sort of ran past him. He would have come in handy, but instead I went over TJ's shoulders and landed on my neck. I heard a loud crack noise, like when you bite into hard candy, and immediately thought I broke my glasses. But they were fine. Everyone ran over to ask if I was alright and I got up and said I was fine, I just felt a little weird. Then someone noticed my shoulder. It didn't look right. I thought maybe it just popped out and asked if someone would put it back in place. It didn't hurt, it just felt...different.

My friends took me to the emergency room. But not before calling my parents. I really didn't want my mom to know about this because just a few weeks before my health insurance was cancelled and I hadn't renewed it. She kept nagging me to get it renewed, but I figured "What could possibly happen?" So she was more pissed than concerned.

After sitting in the emergency room for a few hours, a doctor looked at me. But first I had to fill out a ton of paperwork because I had no insurance. They took x-rays, gave me a sling and said my collarbone was broken and will heal itself in about eight weeks. They didn't even do anything, but I had to pay more money than I care to mention for it. I was still able to have Thanksgiving dinner, except now my shoulder, which hadn't hurt all day because it was numb, started to hurt like crazy.

Maybe I'll play again this year. My collarbone never really healed quite right, so it sticks out a little. So I should break the other one so they look the same. I have insurance now...

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Another Malfunction

This morning on ESPN.com I saw yet another article about the Desperate Housewives promo on Monday Night Football. The FCC is going to decide whether or not to fine ABC for airing it.

If you're like me and you live with your girlfriend and only have one TV, you probably weren't watching football Monday night. But according to the article, the skit went like this:

Nicollette Sheridan is standing in the locker room with Terrell Owens, who I will never refer to as "TO" I just can't. Shorthand bugs me. It sounds like you're trying too hard to be cool. Like "lol." In all my time online, I have never written "lol." Damn, I just did. Twice. Well, except for just now, I never did. Anyway, she's standing there wearing only a towel and asking Owens to skip the game. She drops the towel and jumps into his arms. The article then points out that Owens is black and Sheridan is white.

And that's the thing that I don't get. I mean, some people are complaining that it was too racy. I can understand that. Even though both shows start at 9 PM, odds are there's more younger kids watching football than a nighttime soap, even if it is the must-see runaway hit of the season. It was inappropriate. So that at least makes sense.

But that's not the reason for all the uproar. It's not because people think it's racy, it's because they think it's racist. That's what Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy said after seeing it.

"To me that's the first thing I thought of as an African-American," he said.

"I think it's stereotypical in looking at the players, and on the heels of the Kobe Bryant incident I think it's very insensitive. I don't think that they would have had Bill Parcells or Andy Reid or one of the owners involved in that."

So, he wasn't upset about the naked white woman, but the fact that there was a black guy with the naked white woman.

Let's think about this for a second. ABC wants to promote their show, so they decide to do a segment with an actress from the show and a player from the game they were about to broadcast, the Eagles vs. the Cowboys. I've never seen Desperate Housewives, but I would think that most of the plot revolves around promiscuous women. Who are housewives. And desperate. So you know anything advertising the show would play that up. Now all they need is a player to make the NFL connection. Sure, they could have gone with Vinny Testaverde...

Who is that guy? Is he on the show?

I think it's Vinny Testaverde.

My God, I thought he was dead!

No, as much as it pains José, the Eagles owned a 7-1 record going into the game and were clearly the hotter team. So ABC went with Philly. Philadelphia's quarterback, Donovan McNabb, is black. Terrell Owens, their "look at me!" star player, is black. So they went with Owens. Big deal. Now, if it had shown him celebrating afterwards by taking a Sharpie out of his sock and signing her naughty bits, then I could see where that would be in poor taste. But making a stink because the guy is black is just stupid.

The Patriots are playing this Monday. If they had waited a week and did the promo with Nicollette and whitebread Tom Brady, I guarantee no one would have complained. Except maybe Bridget Moynahan.

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Killer Hobos!

Last night I didn't get out of work until 7:30. And since the sun sets a little after noon these days, it was pretty dark when I started walking to the station. Along the way I was stopped by a guy who smelled like he was basted in Jack Daniels. He stood in front of me so I couldn't move.

"Hi. How are you doin'? I'm Nate. And first of all, I'm Nate." He said, grabbing my hand giving it an au pair shake. He actually told me his last name too, but I forgot it. Which is kind of pathetic, since he told me twice. At this point I had my hands in my pockets searching for change to make the smelly road block go away.

"I need you to do something for me. I just got out of Walpole prison and I...blah blah balh" Prison? Great. There was a bunch of people around, so at least I was fairly certain he wasn't going to shank me. I don't know if he mentioned that he was in prison looking for sympathy or intimidation, and I didn't really care. I just wanted him to make his point so I could be on my way. At some point during all this, he hugged me. After that I checked to see if my wallet was still there. He also probably told me he was Nate a few more times.

He said he needed ten dollars. I gave him fifty cents and said that's all I had. He said "Come on, man. I need ten dollars."

Are you kidding me? Who asks for ten dollars? Most people wouldn't even give the guy fifty cents and he wants ten bucks! I'd think it's a safe assumtion that he had ten bucks an hour ago when he got hammered. I gave him two quarters, patted him on the shoulder, said "good luck" and walked away. I was half expecting him to whip out a gun and blow a hole throw my chest. So much so that I was shaking from when I turned the corner all the way to the subway platform. He didn't, right? I started to wonder if I was like Bruce Willis walking around oblivious while my bullet-riddled body lay twitching on Stuart Street in front of Seven Eleven. I called Michele just to be sure I was still alive. As you may have guessed, I was.

Then I started wondering what would have happened if I had implemented my "In Case of Mugging" plan. Basically, I pretend I'm mentally-challanged and talk really loud.

Hi Nate! My name's Billy!

No Nate! You can't have my money! My daddy gave me this money, Nate!

Hey, it could work.

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Yessir, Arafat

The headline on my internet browser is "Arafat's Condition Deteriorates Rapidly." Well, an hour ago it said he was dead, so I'd say his condition is improving. Unless he's so dead that he's actually starting to decompose, like when that guy drank from the wrong grail. He chose...poorly.



Now it says he's dead again.

Hold on, no...it's back to deteriorating.

Geez, what's going on over there? All I can picture is a bunch of people huddled over this guy's bed, and he keeps sitting up, then falling back down. Then they start to walk away and he sits back up again. "Rrrrr! Must...kill...Jews!" Then drops dead again. Like Jason or Freddy.

Speaking of things that have nothing to do with that, I've been listening to this group the Secret Machines ever since I simultaneously discovered them and that I had MTV2. They're from Texas, but they started in New York and they sound like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, even Radiohead. Good stuff.

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Same as the Old Boss

Last week, Johnny Damon and a group of self-professed "idiots" won the World Series. Tuesday, the trend of idiots winning continued with the re-election of George W. Bush. For a while now I had wondered who could have lived in this country for the past four years and said, "Hey, let's do that again!" Well, apparently the answer is: Just over half the country.

Today, people all across America are cheering, "Hooray! Now things will change, because Bush is president again! Wait. Fuck, we're idiots."

I'm still trying to figure out the hypnotic grip this guy has on people. On the plus side, he did get Saddam Hussein, but...we were after Osama Bin Laden. Remember that guy? It's like asking for a puppy for Christmas and getting a goldfish. I'm not saying capturing Saddam Hussein wasn't a good thing, but I think it could have waited until the guy that actually attacked us was dead or in jail. At least that was my understanding after Bush's "evil-doers" speech. I thought one by one, we'd systematically route out terrorists, and I was cool with that. But that's not what happened at all, and as the election results show, nobody cares.

Imagine the war on terror is a final exam with four essay questions. The first question is about Afganistan, the second on Iraq, the third on Iran and the fourth on North Korea. Bush starts off strong, grabbing his pencil and proclaiming "I'm gonna ace this thing!" But halfway into the first question, he gets stuck, so he moves to the second one. He zips through the first few sentances before getting stuck again, and ends up spending the remainder of the time allotted on answering question 2. By the time the teacher says "Pencils down!" he's left with a paper with two half-finished essays and two that he never even started. That's an F. There's no way around it.

I don't feel safe right now. I just don't. The guys on talk radio sure as hell do, they were playing "Ode to Joy" and gloating like they just found out they were the biggest guys in the locker room. But I'm not exactly comfortable right now. If the United States is attacked again, the most likely targets are the Northeast, Washington DC and the West Coast. All of those places voted for Kerry, while the middle of the country, which has about the same chance of getting attacked as a fat kid has at getting picked first for dodgeball, voted for Bush. Thanks, guys.

Oh well. You know what they say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again."

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