Category Archive

What is it with these presidential nominees and taxes?

Timothy Geithner, nominee for the Secretary of Treasury…you know, dealing with MONEY…had an issue with unpaid back taxes. Now Tom Daschle, former nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services has had to step aside because of some $146,000.00 in unpaid taxes.

Are these guys criminals or just retarded?

Because I’m such an unabashed Obama apologist I imagine scenes in the Oval Office like this…

President Obama: Oh, hey, Tom…c’mon in.

Daschle: Mr. President. You wanted to see me?

President Obama: Yes, yes I did. It’s about this tax thing, Tom.

Daschle: I know, it was stupid…

President Obama: Yes it was.

Daschle: I’m gonna step aside, turn down the job.

President Obama: Okay, that’s a start.

Daschle: Start?

President Obama: Yes. See, I’m very disappointed, Tom. You’re sullying the image of myself, this administration and the Hall of Justice.

Daschle: Hall of…?

President Obama: I meant “White House”.

Daschle: I’m sorry.

President Obama: So I’m going to have to do this…

President Obama steps from behind his desk and PUNCHES Daschle in the COCK.

Daschle: …

President Obama: And if I find out you took a job with the Legion of Doom, you’re a dead man. Got that?

Daschle: …

President Obama: Good. You may go.

Daschle hobbles out. President Obama sits behind his desk. There is a KNOCK at the door, then it opens.

President Obama (looking up): Oh, hey, Zan, Jayna. Glad you could make it.

Wonder Twins: You wanted to see us, sir?

President Obama: It’s about this “Gleek” thing…

*****

Maybe that’s not how it happened. But it should have.

Also, for your amusement, is the following image from my brain:

Have a good one!

Today is February 2, 2009 and I still do not have the flying car I requested. I believe, in fact, that I was promised a flying car in one of your campaign speeches. I don’t remember which one. It was in one of our states. Anyway.

Also, I note that people are still hungry somewhere. I, myself, would like a sandwich. I am willing to have the price of my sandwich deducted from my tax returns, however I must remind you that if the sandwich does not appear at my desk within thirty minutes of posting this letter, the sandwich is free. As to the other people who are hungry, please fix it as per your campaign promise that I heard about somewhere, maybe NPR, in that speech you gave in some state.

I would also like a plastic rocket and a pony.

I heard on the radio this morning that we are launching missiles into lawless parts of western Pakistan (and if you could hear the way I pronounced “Pakistan” I think you would approve; it was just like yours: “Pah-kee-stahn.”) in an attempt to eradicate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. I must admit I was shocked. Why are we doing this? I was given to understand that you would hover in high earth-orbit and use your super-hearing to pinpoint the location of Taliban and Al-Qaeda bases and then defuse their weaponry with tightly focused bursts of your x-ray and heat vision. I understand that you have a bunch of bills to sign and whatever, but can’t you take those with you into the upper atmosphere? If it’s a problem of the ink in the pen freezing at those altitudes I will gladly purchase you one of those revolutionary “space pens”. You can deduct the price of the pen from my tax return. Seriously, I’m cool with that.

And, while we’re on the subject of global evil, where is Osama bin Laden? I assumed you would immediately scour the four corners of the earth at just under the speed of light and find him. Or check your “Naughty/Nice” list…do they still list delivery addresses on that if they’re “Naughty”? Or, you know, spot him from high earth-orbit as we previously discussed. Though, come to think of it, bin Laden is a wily foe indeed. Like all super-villains he probably has a secret lair somewhere just loaded with anti-Obama technology. It’s probably lead-lined and has sound baffles and stuff. Still, I hope you are working hard to find him before he can lay his hands on some Obamanite, your sole weakness.

I probably shouldn’t have posted that bit of info on the Internet, should I? Dang.

Well, I hope you won’t hold an innocent mistake against me when once again considering my requests. To reiterate: Flying car. Magical flying pony that craps money. Salma Hayek. Oh, and world peace an end to hunger and poverty, etc. etc. The usual.

I understand you’re a busy superman, but if you could get on this post-haste I would greatly appreciate it. After eight years of living under the thumb of a second-rate villain who can’t even pronounce “nuclear” I think I deserve it. I mean, seriously. Captain Boomerang would have been a better president than that yahoo, except for the whole being Australian thing.

I hope this letter finds you in good health.

Sincerely,

–Joe

P.S. Oh, and a B.B. gun. I promise to use it responsibly.

You’ll All Pay #44

(c) Joe Conat 2006

I woke up this morning to the news that police in the UK had thwarted a massive plot to blow up American airplanes using liquid explosives.  Coffee?  No thanks, I’m set.

Bush is still…Bush.  Though, hey, he shrunk a quarter of an inch.  Any chance he’ll shrink a whole lot more and slip down the shower drain or get eaten by a spider?
 There’s just too much going on in the world and this here column languishes unattended, dust gathering in the corners.  Something must be done.  Attention must be paid!
So…we’re going for a change of pace today.  Today I will intrepidly venture into the realm of pop culture and all its stupid stupidity that I stupidly enjoy. Okay, I know the “blogosphere”…all right, irrelevant aside here:  I’m kinda sick of the term “blogosphere”.  I don’t know why.  It’s not like I’m some meteorological nut all offended by the merging of atmospheric terms with the already weirdly shortened “web log” to “blog”.  I’m just tired of it. I think it’s starting to lack punch.  I say we should start referring to the “blogosphere” as the Realm of Blog.  Or possibly the Blog Empire.  I think it makes for better introductions at blogger gatherings, if there are any.  “I am Co-N’at of the Realm of Blog!  I come to ravish, pillage and mock your culture!”  “Hey, I read your stuff.  Good work.”
 

…anyway, the Realm of Blog has been in uproar for months and months over the coming-soon-to-a-theater-near-you late summer blockbuster “Snakes on A Plane”.  I know that bandwagon has been on the road for awhile and I’m a latecomer to the convoy, but I’m-a jumpin’ on, ’cause…funny.
 

It’s brilliant.  Not the movie, I haven’t seen the movie.  The *name*, man!  “What’s your movie about?”  “Snakes on a plane.”  “Cool, I guess.  What’s it called?”  “Snakes On a Plane.”  “Neat.”
I think it’s a trend we should encourage.  It’s honest.  It’s refreshing.  Imagine, if you will, the gravelly stentorian tones of Don LaFontaine growling out at you from a THX Surround Sound system:  “In a world…without honor.  A time…without justice.  A town…without hope.  One man…will stand against the darkness.  One man…will bring hope…to the hopeless.  Coming Summer 2007…Bruce Willis Shoots Everybody!”
 

Who wouldn’t go see that?  I would personally lay down the $9.00 for a ticket plus sign the loan papers necessary to acquire enough funds to buy snacks to see “Bruce Willis Shoots Everybody“.  In IMAX.
 

Here’s a few more that I came up with:
-Stupid Movie About Cheerleading
-Stupid Movie About High School
-Inspirational Story Involving Football
-Inspirational Story About Some Crippled Guy
-Inspirational Story About Baseball Aimed Almost Exclusively At Middle-Aged Men.
-Denzel Washington Gets All Intense
-Chick Flick, or, Two Hours Any Man Will Never Get Back
-Peter Jackson Spends Lots of Money And You *LOVE* It!
-Hugh Grant Stammers A Lot and Gets the Girl
-Sci Fi Movie With Plot Holes Big Enough To Pilot a Star Destroyer Through, But Has a MONSTROUS SFX Budget So You Will Go See It On The Big Screen
-Jay and Silent Bob Make Fart Jokes for Two Hours (with Added Donkey Scene)
-Sex Comedy For the Brain Dead
-A Will Ferrell Movie
-Horror In a Cave, Or Possibly While Camping!  From the Makers of Horror With Carpentry Implements! and Horror In a Hotel!
-Hot Chicks Robbing Banks or Something.  Mmmmm…Hot Chicks…
-Isn’t Sandra Bullock Cute?
-Remember When Meg Ryan Was Cute?
-Some Guy In A Cape You Read About In a Comic Book, The Casting of Whom An Entire Horde of Comic Fanboys Collectively Gnashed Their Teeth Over For, Like, A Year.
-M. Night Shyamalan Blows It Again
 

This would make things alot simpler at the box office, I tell you what.  “Hey, which should we see:  The 7:15 showing of Horror In a Cave, Or Possibly While Camping!  From the Makers of Horror With Carpentry Implements! and Horror In a Hotel! or the 8:05 showing of M. Night Shyamalan Blows It Again?”  “Let’s see what Netflix sent us this week!”  “Okay!”
 

And what about TV?  We could apply the same  principle! 
 -Comedy Starring Washed-Up Has Beens
-Comedy About Fat Guy With Improbably Hot Wife
-Unexpectedly Good SitCom
-Cop Drama
-Cop Drama, But Grittier
-Cop Drama, But In a Different City
-Hospital Show
-Hospital Show With Sexiness!
-A UPN Show.  Change The Channel.
 

Or even books!
-Another Bodice Ripper
-A Bodice Ripper, But With Authentic Historical Detail
-Science Fiction Where The Physics Are Hand-Waved
-Science Fiction You Will Need A Slide Rule and An Engineering Degree To Understand
-Science Fiction You Will Need A Slide Rule and An Engineering Degree Just To Get The *Jokes*
-Crappy Swords & Sorcery Fantasy
-Surprisingly Good Swords & Sorcery Fantasy
-Classics You Will Never Actually Read, But They Look Impressive and Scholarly On Your Bookshelf
-Sure, Stephen King “Retired”.  Whatev.
-John Grisham.  Put It Down.
 

A new age is dawning, children.  Honesty.  Integrity.  Literalism to an annoying degree.  Embrace the future!
 

I myself am thinking of encouraging this trend.  From here on in You’ll All Pay will be known as “Who’s This Guy Who Keeps Filling My Inbox With Annoying F@#$ing Rants?  How Do I ‘Unsubscribe’?“ 
 

…
 

Maybe not.
 

“Who’s This Guy Who Keeps Filling My Inbox With Annoying F@#$ing Rants?  How Do I ‘Unsubscribe’?” is written by Joe  Conat.  You can send him An Electronic Message Through the Internet here.
 

Like what you read?  Click here for updates!

You’ll All Pay #14

© Joe Conat 2004

It doesn’t seem like it. I wouldn’t be the first to point out that, on paper, “Wonderfalls” (Fridays at 9 on Fox) sounds awfully close to “Joan of Arcadia” or even “Tru Calling”. Cute girl called upon by inscrutable mystic forces to right wrongs blah dee blah.

Boyo…that’s about where the similarities end.

Get ready for TV that doesn’t assume you’re dumber than a box of hair. TV that recognizes that you can handle a better-than-eighth-grade vocabulary and intricate plots that take their sweet time getting where they’re going and leave you guessing until they get there.

Be prepared for a show that assumes you’re tough enough to take a heroine that’s barely sympathetic…in fact, it could be argued that Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas) is so unsympathetic that she comes back around to sympathetic. Snarky to the point of being self-destructive, so brooding and narcissistic she threatens to become a black hole of self-centeredness, Jaye, as portrayed by Dhavernas, is still somehow completely endearing. Something Jaye would probably snarl at, should it be brought to her attention. Self-described as “over-educated and unemployable”, Jaye works at Wonderfalls, a crappy tourist trap souvenir shop in Niagara Falls. So deep and uncontainable is her loathing for all humanity, and especially the patrons of her store, she is passed over for promotion in favor of a zit-encrusted vacant-eyed “mouth breather” because she cannot work and play well with others.

Jaye makes one of the unlikeliest of heroines. She is not drawn to acts of charity. She is not an innate do-gooder. It takes the urgings of a talking wax lion and brass monkey bookend…such urgings being mainly singing at the tops of their lungs through the night…to force Jaye into clumsily helping both a cast-iron bitch of a customer whose purse was stolen and a hapless recently divorced delivery man with the nickname “Poor Bitch”.

“Poor Bitch”. Hee hee hee. I cannot get over that.

Wackiness does indeed ensue, but it’s such a bizarre series of events (including an emergency tracheotomy and a fistfight with the cast-iron bitch) that you find yourself completely engrossed and giggling along at Jaye’s discomfiture. On top of the cosmic hijinks forced on her by talking tourist crap, Jaye has to contend with her force of nature of a mother (Karen, played by Diana Scarwid), a father completely at home with blurting out such inappropriate queries of his daughter as “When was the last time you had an orgasm?” (Darrin, played by William Sadler), a brother who advocates euthanizing poor Jaye (Aaron, played by Lee Pace) and a sister who is so hurt by Jaye’s attitude over the years that her reciprocation of Jaye’s bile is reflexive and just as harsh as Jaye’s own attacks (Sharon, played by Katie Finneran).

All that I have described is about half the show. I haven’t touched on the potential love interest (Eric, played by Tyron Leitso), or the best friend/drinking buddy (Mahandra, played by Tracie Thomas).

It’s smart writing, kids, and it’s not ashamed of it. It’s smart writing that doesn’t have to trumpet it’s sparkle and erudition ala “The West Wing”. The writers assume you have the brains God gave a chimp and run with their story full of assurance that you can keep up.

And that is soooo refreshing. In a TV wasteland where “The Littlest Groom” will probably be a stunning hit and “Friends” has to hammer a joke so hard and so often because they’re desperately afraid you won’t get it, it’s nice to have a team that gives you a show that doesn’t treat you like a lobotomized prawn. It doesn’t dare you…it invites you with arms wide open to join the fun, secure in the knowledge that you’re perfectly capable of doing so.

I know, I know…I’m repeating myself. Look, I often lament the state of television. So locked into the need for advertiser dollars, the networks pander to the absolute lowest common denominator they can find. (I imagine network board meetings go something like this: “We need to find the most common life-form on the planet, people! We need those commercial numbers!” “Bacteria and fungi are pretty common, sir.” “Excellent. Program for pond scum! Call Budweiser!”) Anything above that level is considered “niche” and the norm is that shows like that have the plug pulled on them faster than a vegetative billionaire with a DNR once the will is found.

“Wonderfalls” is not high drama and doesn’t pretend to be. It’s not low comedy, either. It’s good storytelling for the sake of good storytelling and it deserves recognition for that. Excellence in the practice of a craft is rare. And like most things rare, it’s a joy to find.

And these days, it’s also completely different.

“Wonderfalls”, children. “Wonderfalls”. Fridays at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on Fox. Check your local listings. Check them right now. Plus, the first show is being re-aired Thursday. Check for that. TiVo it, tape it, watch it.

Surrender to Destiny.