Don't Stall On This Purchase

My computer has been down since my last post earlier this week on Trent Lott. This explains why I haven't written a post about the Christmas season's hottest new toy: The Sen. Larry Craig Action Figure.

More here.

More later.

Trent Lott on the Gays

Sen. Trent Lott reportedly once compared gays to alcoholics and kleptomaniacs.

"It is [a sin]....You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just like alcohol ... or sex addiction ... or kleptomaniacs."

-- U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, Associated Press, June 15, 1998. (Source.)

Takes one to know one?

Maybe Larry Flynt and his website Larryflynt.com might have more information to answer this question a little later this month?

Again, I don't know whether these rumors and accusations are true. But I do know that U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, based on his career in the Senate, has an anti-gay voting record that is at least as good as that of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig.

Proving an Old Adage?

Heavens to murgatroyd: The gay blogosphere today is ON FIRE pointing to rumors of a certain conservative Senator potentially having a gay rent boy on the payroll, and he wasn't exactly doing just light filing, if you know what I mean.

I won't mention the name of the Senator here, and I don't know if it's true or not, but let's just say that if it is true we wish the good Senator from Mississippi lots of great "gay rent-boy sex" in his just-announced retirement.

And if it is true, it just goes to prove: "You are what you hate."

More here and here and here.

One more thing: Although I'm certainly not convinced yet about the truth of all this, I'm not surprised either.

Taking Your Credit Card to the Max

If you've ever shopped at T.J. Maxx or Marshalls, and I'm admitting neither, despite that new shirt I was wearing just the other night that just happened to be a brand name for less purchased at a certain store that I don't want to discuss right now, you'll want to read or watch this Leslie Stahl report on credit card fraud. It aired last night on 60 Minutes.

I wonder if Leslie has ever bought an outfit at TJ Maxx?

Monday Quick Question

Could somebody please upload the recent "The Opal Show" clips from The Simpsons to YouTube?

I wonder what Oprah thinks about the parody. Opal's boyfriend on the show is "Sraightman."

***

My DSL has been out, off and on, for the last week. I'm hoping TCOJ is back to "normal," whatever that is since I'm rarely referred to as normal, early this week.

Mr. Whipple: No Longer Squeezing the Charmin

Ninety-one-year old Dick Wilson, best known as Mr. Whipple, died today. More here.

And below:



"Don't Squeeze the Charmin." ... "Irresistibly soft."

... I wonder how psychoanalysts would deconstruct these iconic ad phrases (and metaphors for sexual repression).

My Five Favorite Gay Fictional Characters

The below post is from March, reposted in light of the death of Mr. Whipple:



1. Snagglepuss.

2. Legolas and Gimli Son of Gloin from Lord of the Rings. They were secret lovers, right?



3. Mr. Whipple, who rumor has it secretly LOVED to squeeze the "Charmin."




4. Schroeder. (Like my guy-pal Wally, he has blonde hair and can really tickle the fingers.)

5. Morris the Cat. (Based on the below video evidence.)

(Just narrowly missing the list: Velma from Scooby Doo.)



PART OF A CONTINUING SERIES (Click FIVE FAVS in the Labels)

For the complete "Mr. Whipple" posts, click Mr. Whipple in the labels.

Thirsty for Ratings

Don't ever say that "I'm dying of thirst" until you've seen this clip from Man Vs. Wild, a show on the Discovery Channel.

The Best Baked Snack Cracker in the World

Recently sighted at my favorite local supermarket: the all-new BIG Cheez-It baked snack cracker.

Branded as the only true "Dip-it! Top-It! Cheez-It" baked snack cracker, this may just be the best baked snack cracker in all the world.

***

In unrelated news, I'd also like to announce a new sponsor for The Cup of Joe: BIG Cheez-IT, America's favorite baked snack cracker.

Just Thanking Just for Men

Twice in the last week, almost two decades after reaching the legal age, I've been carded while buying alcohol, at two different local grocery stores.

Thank you, Just for Men.

***

In unrelated news, I'd like to welcome a new sponsor to The Cup of Joe: Just for Men, America's favorite male hair-coloring agent.

Case Closed

Fred Thompson appeared on This Week With George Stephanopoulos this morning.

I liked him better on Law & Order.

Thonk-thunk.

Notes on D.H. and T.L.J.

When I see a certain actor act -- and I really don't want to give his full name, but let's just say his initials are D.H., his first name is Dustin, and his last name is Hoffman -- I more often than not don't see the character, and I usually don't buy it for a minute.

I see an actor playing a character. In fact, I get a nervous facial tick just thinking about the movie trailer for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Hoffman's new movie. Somewhere in his career, Hoffman just totally lost me, and I always sense that he is all too totally aware of just what an awesome actor he is, and I suspect he might just be his own biggest fan. His cloying appearances at awards shows doesn't help.

It's an easy trap, especially for Oscar-winning actors who have been told for a long time just how good they are.

I suppose it's possible for me to have similar cynicism for Tommy Lee Jones, currently starring in No Country for Old Men, the new Coen brothers film that is every bit as good, and maybe better, than their Oscar winning Fargo. Jones has won an Oscar, and we've seen him play law enforcement officers in everything from The Fugitive to Men in Black. He has police and FBI and sheriff and law enforcement roles down to a science. Ho-hum and So what you might say, when you consider his new role as a sheriff in No Country.

You'd be wrong.

His performance as a small-town sheriff confronting a world that is changing in ways he can't understand or control may just be the best of his career, and I totally bought it from the first second he enters the screen.

No Country for Old Men may be the best movie of the year so far. The trailer is below.

Speaking of magnetic performances, the film also stars Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. I wonder who decided that Bardem, in his role as the enigmatic and amoral Chigurh, should have a haircut that's a cross between Moe Howard and the Beetles? It's absolutely perfect, and this character is a sociopath that ranks with Hannibal Lecter, right up to the chilling final coin toss.

Oh, so good.

The Quiz That Could Save You From Watching the Debates

Whom are you supporting for president? Or, I should ask, whom do you think you are supporting for president?

Wally and I recently took a quiz at this link to find out which candidate we match up best with in terms of our values and opinions about everything from the War in Iraq to gay marriage.

Wally's computer-generated top pick, based purely on his answers to the issues, was Mike Gravel, the former Alaska Senator who wasn't even invited to recent MSNBC and CNN debates. Wally had a 93 percent match with Gravel, who says what everybody really thinks and then gets criticized for it and is characterized as a loon.

And my pick, based on the data and with an 87.69 percent match, was Dennis Kucinich, the same man who wrote the following sentence in his book "A Prayer for America":

Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends, to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: one with the universe; whole and holy; from one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental; we -- the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling.

I couldn't agree more!

For both of us, our top computer-picked candidate in terms of the Top 3 -- Clinton, Edwards and Obama -- was Obama.

What I can say is that though I haven't made up my mind about who I'm voting for, it won't be Mr. Kucinich, even though I seem to agree with him the most.

I'm leaning toward a certain Senator from Illinois, but I need to think about it further.

***

Other fun facts:

* Of the Republicans, I matched up most closely with Iraq war opponent and Libertarian Ron Paul (40 percent)
* My four least-compatible Republicans were Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson (6.15 percent) and Mitt Romney and the no-longer-running Sam Brownback (12.31 percent).

I'm betting the 12 percent match is for Mitt's current stand on the issues, as opposed to his stand when he needed to get elected in Massachusetts, a time in his life when he didn't have to beat up on gay people to garner voter-interest in his candidacy.

Scratching the Seven-Year Itch

Last night was the season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO. The plot revolved around a bar mitzvah, a gerbil and anal itching.

I won't reveal anything about the shocking final 30 seconds, other than to say it's been building to this point all season long, and it's an absolute howl.

Fake-Tit-Wearing Principal Arrested

Image you're still in high school. Catholic High School. And you find out that your principal was just arrested for prostitution. While dressed as a woman. A woman in leather. Wearing plastic titties. And fishnet stockings.

And there's video of it.

Oh my.

***

In fairness to the principal. the arrest was made on Oct. 30, so it could have been a Halloween costume, right? And he could have been in the part of town known for drugs and prostitution because he got lost, right?

Right?

It's possible.

My Future

Years from now, when I'm in a home somewhere, or when I'm on the news because I've wandered away from a home somewhere, people will ask me a question or tell me a story and I will return this attention with only a blank stare.

But I swear there are some things that I believe will always get a response from me, no matter what the state of my central nervous system, things and ideas and memories and stimuli that will hearken back to a time when memory still lived.

For example, Wally's cologne. Or his poodle's breath. Our blue monkey.

The plaintive wales of a Siamese.

And also: This clip.

This clip, which I share again on this site because it is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life, because I've seen it dozens of times and it still makes me laugh, and I believe it still will make me laugh years after my memory (and most of my brain) has perished.

I also post it today in light of the luke-warm to bad reviews that Young Frankestein is getting on Broadway, having just officially opened.

I'd see it in a heartbreak.

Worst Kids Product Since Happy Fun Ball

A children's toy called Aqua Dots was recalled yesterday. One site describes the product as "date rape drug-filled toy beads."

I can't make stuff like this up.

It appears kids have been ingesting the GHP that is created during Aqua Dots Fun-Time. Watch the commercial for Aqua Dots here:



This may be the worst product since the Happy Fun Ball:



Don't doubt the power of Aqua Dots. Even though it is date-rape-drug-filled, kids love it.

Culture Warrior Fights Cute Teenage Lesbians

Memo to Bill O'Reilly: Teenagers (even gay ones) are Americans, too.

You might not know this if you watched his show last night, where he expressed his outrage over a "cutest couple" contest that selected two females at an Illinois high school as the winners.

Ugh.

I'll post the video later today if it hits YouTube.

Bravo!

Wally and I recently attended a Kathy Griffin comedy show. She talked for close to two hours straight through, and Wally pointed out that she didn't say uh once.

Uh, that's absolutely brilliant. I can't go half a sentence, uh, without saying uh. Do you, uh, know what I mean?

***

Her latest stand-up special, using new material from her most recent tour, will air later this month on Bravo. "Kathy Griffin: Straight to Hell," a one-hour stand-up special, is set to air on Nov. 29. It was taped at a sold-out performance at The Chicago Theatre.

The show can be described in one word: hilariotous.

That is a word, isn't it?

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the 12 apostles: I sure hope so.

Video Chering

A heterosexual reader of The Cup of Joe sent me this Cher video. Serious.

Don't you just love You Tube?



(Thanks for sending!)

Memo to the New York Times: Enough Already

John Kerry was unfairly labeled a flip-flopper during the 2004 presidential campaign, and it stuck. Americans seemed to believe this to be true, and subsequently the worst president in the history of the United States was re-elected, with a little help from the media along the way.

This photo at right appeared last Sunday in the New York Times. It ridicules John Kerry as being a flip-flopper.

Isn't this just awful, running this in 2007?

Isn't this just awful, dredging up this old photo, and reinforcing the bullshit stereotype of Sen. Kerry that Rove and the chicken hawks created?

***

George Bush said he'd be a "compassionate conservative." George Bush also said he'd be a "uniter, not a divider." And Bush said he was a fiscal conservative yet has spent tens of billions of dollars on a war we didn't need to fight.

These aren't merely flip-flops: They turned out to be outright deceptions.

Bush is the quintessential flip-flopper. Where's the photo of him in a dolphin suit, and why isn't it on the front page of the New York Times "Week in Review" section?

George Bush -- worst president in the history of the United States. Yeah, that's the ticket.

***

Veteran's Day is next Monday. I salute all veterans.

I salute John Kerry, and I salute John McCain, and I salute Max Cleland, and Al Gore, and George McGovern , and George Herbert Walker Bush.

But I can't salute service-dodgers like George W. Bush, chicken hawks like Dick Cheney and Tommy Flanagans like Karl Rove.

The News Out of Pakistan Unfortunately Isn't Fake

With all the worrisome news coming out of Pakistan -- a suspended constitution, a chief justice removed from his responsibilities, the likelihood of suspended elections -- I can't help but think of the lame, softball interview that the Pakastani President (Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who basically seized power in a coup years ago) received from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show in the early fall of 2006 when Musharraf was on a book tour.

I expected so much more of fake news.

Amazing Race: How Sweet the Sound

On this fall's Amazing Race, I'm rooting for the two ministers, Kate and Pat. They're pictured at right.

They just happen to be lesbians, too.

I think it's good for the American people to see that so-called "spirituality" and "values" are by no means traits monopolized by right-wingers who pass constitutional amendments banning loving same-sex couples from legalized committment.

Buzz Off

Before a single vote is cast, the media like to tell us who the presidential party nominees will be. They focus on the top two or three in each party and then pretty much ignore the rest, or treat them as curiosities by granting them an occassional Sunday morning interview while saving the real discussion and debate for other candidates. So this means that Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are the only candidates the media really take seriously. On the Republican side, the "they're going to win" buzz has been limited basically to either Rudolph Giuliani or Mitt Romney as the nominees-elect. It's kind of annoying.

I can't imagine that Harry "I didn't go to college" Truman would ever excite much buzz among the media.

***

In its most recent issue, Entertainment Weekly devotes two pages to the Oscar contenders this year, before many of these films are even released and before any widespread viewing of these supposedly Oscar-worthy performances. How do they arrive at these conclusions? I can only surmise that they do it based on publicist hype and cocktail party buzz. Silly. Maybe this is why less-well-known actors who deliver sterling performances in smaller movies (and who have "lesser" publicists) often fail to gain recognition or nomination?

How is this for an idea: Let's save the media Oscar buzz for after people actually see the films and the performances.

An American Master

I can't put it any better. From today's Boston Globe:

By the end of "Carol Burnett: A Woman of Character," you'll want to give the actress a big fat hug. Not a pity hug, just a well-earned warm embrace. The newest installment of PBS's "American Masters" portrays both a hugely likable and versatile performer and a heroic lady whose personal life has thrown her some nasty punches. The Burnett you'll meet in this 90-minute documentary is an American master, for sure - of comedy, and also of survival.

Tonight on PBS.



Here's some more observations from the New York Times:

Pardon the imitation of the thoroughly unlikable Andy Rooney, but why aren’t our joke tellers likable anymore? Margaret Cho or Sarah Silverman might make you laugh, but would you want either of them at Thanksgiving dinner with Grandma and the kids?

Of course not. Ellen DeGeneres? Maybe. But the comedian you’d really want at the table, still, after all these years, is Carol Burnett, subject of tonight’s “American Masters” installment on PBS, subtitled “A Woman of Character.”

Hands-On Police Officer Cops A Feel

At least it wasn't a "needle" stick.

Democratic Candidates Open Saturday Night Live

... Including someone wearing a Barack Obama mask.



Speaking of SNL, Brian Williams did a nice job as host.

World's Best Boyfriend

My lover Wally is a cog in corporate America middle management.

Because of this, he prefers to be communicated with (90 percent of the time) using only Powerpoint presentations.

He's a lot like my friend Timmy in this regard, who never communicates anything without the aid of a Powerpoint. This includes all facets of Timmy's life, including proposing marriage and wishing his wife a Happy Valentine's Day. Timmy even uses Powerpoint presentations when communicating his "I love you" talking points to his little girl.

"It's the best way I can communicate a consistent I Love You branding message for my little lady," Timmy tells me.

When Wally got home from work on Friday, of course I had dinner and his nightly Powerpoint ready for him the moment he arrived. The slide is below. I think my presentation went very well.

My Five Favorite Words to Add to The Dictionary

Each year, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary adds in new words that have entered the cultural landscape.

Earlier this year the dictionary announced the latest additions, which included “ginormous,” “smackdown,” “snowboardcross” and “speed-dating.”

Last year's new words included "google," "spyware," "unibrow," "drama queen," "soul patch," "ringtone," "biodiesel" and "gastric bypass."

I applaud all these choices, especially unibrow.

What are my five favorite words to add to the lexicon? Here goes:

1. Fuckwad. Usage in a sentence: "Man that guy in the unibrow is a complete fuckwad!"

2. Fuckface. Pointing: "Fuckwad over there is a complete drama queen!"

3. Shit-for-brains. "If you were to look up shit-for-brains in the dictionary, you'd see a picture of that fuckwad with a unibrow."

4. Honey-bunches-of-oats. No explanation or sentence example necessary.

5. Vajayjay: "I love it when Oprah talks about, or points to, her vajayjay."

Hey, if vajayjay is worth a lengthy article in the Sunday New York Times, and I believe it is, then it is worth an entry in the dictionary.