Thursday, May 29, 2008

It's the End of the Bush Administration As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (Even After Using an R.E.M. Quote Despite Railing Against Them So Much)

Please don't even begin to express your shock--outrage and shock!--over the allegations in defrocked doughboy Scott McClellan's bitch-and-tell bestseller. Did you really think Bush wasn't at all the world's biggest fuck-pig liar about his motives for the Iraq war? Were you really in the dark about Cheney's obvious involvement--practically tattooed on his forehead!--with the Valerie Plame leak? Next thing I know, you'll be telling me you weren't expecting the latest album by The Oh Sees to be dripping with reverb and thunderous pounding rhythms. Was there ever a moment when you assumed The Coconut was going to wimp out and fall asleep at the wheel? Could you have hoped for anything but head-split-open urgency from tracks such as Ghost In The Trees? Am I to believe you ever considered for even a nano-second that Poison Finger wasn't going to be your New Favorite Song of 2008?

Despite the former Press Secretary golden boy failing to resign six years ago, washing the blood of over 4000 US soldiers off his hands that much sooner, I can't help but dance the Schadenfreude tango around W and his seething minions. At this point, being tried for war crimes is almost too good for him and his dundering disciples.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

It's a Disco:Very vs. Elisabeth Kübler Ross Smackdown!

The First Song Popping Up on Your iPod Which Makes You Weep During the Long Drive Home from the Funeral:
Don't Bother, They're Here by Stars of the Lid, due to its tender ethereal weight. A vast soundtrack to the cosmos, it makes you reflect on loss and grasping the infinite, asking yourself what the fuck it's really all about.

The Second Song Popping Up on Your iPod Which Makes You Weep During the Long Drive Home from the Funeral:
Song for Bob by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (from the soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford), due to its epic sadness, exposing the massive tragic destiny of life, making you ponder what the fuck is beyond living and dying.

The Third Song Popping Up on Your iPod Which Doesn't Make You Weep During the Long Drive Home from the Funeral, but Instead Just Makes You Ask "What the fuck???:
A Feast for Famished Ravens Part 1 by Xynfonica.

The Kurosawa Flick Which, After Enduring the Death of Your Father, Holds New Resonance and Wisdom, Pointing a Way Towards Understanding and Accepting a Loved One's Illness and Passing:
Red Beard, but only the scenes involving Yuzo Kayama witnessing elderly patients dying alone, not the scene where Toshiro Mifune is violently breaking the arms and legs of his attackers outside the brothel (this only occurred, like, just a few times in my youth, and even then only after I'd finished all my homework).

On Death and Dying, Part 1: It's become more common, when one dies in a driving accident, for your loved ones to mark the sight of your roadside death with flowers and mementos in remembrance of your life. I've decided, if I were to be killed while driving, that I'd rather my loved ones not commemorate the spot of my demise with trinkets. Instead, simply block off the road with massive cement barriers, making sure nobody is allowed to traverse on that particular street ever again.

How I Would Like to Die: The makers of Forrest Gump and The Puffy Chair (two sides of the same overwrought coin) are pitted against each other in a battle to the death, staged in an enormous outdoor stadium, broadcast worldwide. In my glee over the possibility of both sides getting slaughtered, I find myself slipping from atop my perch in the nosebleed section and rolling down the stairs, smack into the middle of the violent melee. My arch nemesis, Sarah Jessica Parker, is watching from the sidelines, cheering on my imminent demise. To her surprise (and to my delight), a swarm of alligators are released onto the field, all of whom quickly chomp onto the neck of Mrs. Matthew Broderick, killing her instantly and diffusing any chances of a sequel to Sex & the City: The Movie. Meanwhile, all the actors from The Puffy Chair--along with anyone who enjoyed this tepid turd of a film--are suddenly gobbled up by a pack mob of flesh-eating microbes, leaving the cast and crew of Gump momentarily victorious. But not for long: a large cache of M-16 missiles are mysteriously thrust into my waiting arms, allowing me to smite everyone remotely connected with this. In my haste to waste these cinematic vermin, I slip on one of Sarah Jessica Parker's Antique Rose Prada boots (a slightly amusing irony) and crack my skull open, dying instantly.

On Death and Dying, Park 2: It's quite natural, when envisioning your own future death, to ponder who precisely will be attending your funeral, and if their presence is because of unconditional love or merely out of a sense of duty. One way to guarantee the sincerity of your mourners would be to erect a Fear Factor-styled obstacle course outside your place of burial. Loved ones must traverse impediments such as acrylic crates of hissing cobras, walking over scalding coals, and so on. Nothing says "you will be missed" more than gulping down a spoonful of juice squeezed from pig intestines.