I have never read a Harry Potter book. I have seen three of the movies. I don't read about them, or care about them I am sure they are fine and lovely books, blah blah blah. But (e:Jim) just finished the last book and I totally called the ending.

You see, Harry and I have an odd relationship. I worked at a book store for three Harry Potter releases. I have had to deal with the most insufferable people. Mothers who don't want their kids reading the devil worshiping wiccan Potter books but love the Christian CS Lewis books (guh, what?). Kids pestering me about were they are in the store... um... do you see the GIANT mother fucking HARRY POTTER POSTER. Ya, the one right next to the big sign denoting the Harry Potter section. Yes, that unwieldy leviathan constitutes a whole damn section, and that was when there were only four books.

So annoyed with people obsessing over these books was I that I refused to call him by name. He was referred to as Henry Porter. After a time this parody ripe name eventually followed the echo back to the greatest parody engine of all time: pornography. Yes, every movie to be released has an adult film to correspond to it.

Henry Porter and the Sorcerer's Cock
Henry Porter and the chamberbed of secrets
Henry Porter and the Prison Gang-bang in Alcaban
Henry Porter and the Goblet of Fredericho
Henry Porter and the Master Pheonix's Orders
Henry Porter and the Horse-Hung Highness
Henry Porter and the Deathly holy shit this is coming to and end bukkaki Hollow

Well, I don't work in books anymore. So I now find these things amusing rather than irksome and no longer need to inject levity into a dry carcass' cavity.

In other super sexy young adult fiction news. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is being made into a movie scheduled for release this December. Think Paradise Lost, but anti-deist and with armored bears. It makes me shiver with antici...............pation.

good night.

Sorry about the title, I was on such a roll it just came out.

No, I want to talk about more serious matters: lunch.

I am the only employee of my bosses business. I work in her basement, which isn't as weird as it sounds. But lunch is always interesting.

So I got hungry early because I didn't eat breakfast and I go scouring for lunch stuff. In her basement pantry (which is a shelf placed in the doorway of a bathroom that doesn't work) and I find a can of organic salad beans. The smell coming from this moist, broken bathroom is enough to turn anyone off food for the rest of their whithered days, but I am determined!

I open the sucker up, rinse them off, cut up a little red onion and pour some balsamic on it. But I am feeling a little more haute than that. I look in the fridge and, bingo, capers. I love capers. Salty delicious sacks, yum. So I liberally pile them on, mix it up, and go back to my dungeon to work and eat.

Did you know that they sell green peppercorns bottled in vinegar? Did you know that they look just like capers. Did you know that eating enough peppercorns to buy a dozen slaves (in 1600 money) can make your stomach protest?

I feel like a waiter. After depositing your bibb salad I would offer some fresh ground pepper. With a smile and a nod in the affirmative I would bend over and vomit on that salad. Ah! So savory!

that is all.

Sweet Teets of god!

In the last week the Catholic Church they will be paying $600 million in settlements to over 500 victims of priests who can't keep their hands to themselves in the Los Angeles diocese. Awesome! I like it when they take responsibility for acts committed by members of their organization. Bravo RCC.

and then we heard from the vatican this morning.

Yes, they feel aggrieved for the victims and their families for an unforgivable act (their wording was not as harsh). But they want to remind everyone that mamma church is suffering too!

Yes, to raise the $600 million they had to sell off local property including the headquarters of the diocese....

Oh how they must be suffering! When little billy can't get an erection because of the psychological scars left by monseigneurs slimy, spotted hands he will surly be glad that at least he didn't have to sell some rich boys club/headquarters. I am sure, when she wakes up from another nightmare she will weep thanking god she isn't in the bishop's shoes.

wait, it gets better.

The vatican also cautioned that, while the church is working to snuff out pedophelia, other institutions need to work on it as well. How fucking condescending is that? Pedo-priests have been pulled out of a diocese when things got a little hot and moved to other diocese, or given prominent positions in the vatican. And they have the nerve to tell other organizations to follow their lead just because they paid out a ton of cash to little kids they fucked?

I wonder if Jesus would even recognize this church.

• Edit*****

I was checking out some other videos, and this one is just so fantastic I had to include it. If you could watch only one, make it this one.

"He didn't come like the wise men, bringing gifts of gold, frankensense, and myrh; he came with his dick, his nuts, and himself."

The lady preaches about evil men and anal sex. You know you want to watch.

Well,

I told (e:Joshua) that I would be just as giddy when a democrat got caught in a super awesome homoerotic sex scandal. Of course, I didn't find this one to be as hilarious as the last one, but just sad. Here it goes

Roger Fisher is on the Parke County Council in Indiana and has a decade long career in local politics there. Well, the creepy bastard was caught in a seedy motel room with hydrocordone for which he had no prescription. And what could be hiding in the bathroom as police knocked on his door? Why a naked, sobbing, 15-year old!

How would your 15 year old self like to wake up tied up next to this?




So, take that democrats!

I wonder if he too likes water sports?

From the "You Can't Make This Shit Up" file

Yet another congressman from Florida was caught in a homoerotic sex scandal that will make your eyes water. Granted, it is just a state representative, not a US representative, but still, it is hilarious. It is rep. Bob Allen (R-Merret Island) of Florida... Florida, what do they put in the water down there?

Apparently rep. Allen was in a public bathroom and solicited an undercover cop, offering to give him a blow job for $20. Yup, you folks in Merret Island have rep. who moonlights as a $20 hooker. He is being arraigned sometime tonight.


Allen is married and has a kid and says the whole thing is a big misunderstanding. Hm, he must be refering to his marriage.

Marvelous, couldn't possibly get better than a Republican politician offering a $20 blow job to an undercover cop behind the backs of his wife and kid, right?

Oh, it gets so much better.

Check out his MySpace-esq profile on the Florida House of Representatives page.

Look at his recreational Interests at the bottom of the page. And if you are too lazy to click that link then I wont give you the punch line. It is just too funny of a treasure to give, but to simply point the way.

Good night, and save those pennies for you congressman.

Who is this crazy man?

I was raised a Catholic in as much as a wining, pretentious, sophomoric gasbag of a child can be. But, somewhere in this deeply secular heart (anatomically correct, for science) beats a little boy love for that church. I mean, the pomp, the robes, the half naked savior dangling from the walls; it is a drag queens apartment writ large. There is a bit of comfort in repeating the occult rituals, much like the pleasures of waking up, brushing your teeth, and urinating.

But who the hell is the Ratzinger cat?

I suppose there is something to be said for the workings of the worlds oldest, uninterrupted monarchy. But, being a winning, pretentious, sophomoric gasbag of an adult, I feel damn responsible to do so. So here it goes.

Pope Ratzy has issued a decree on July 7th allowing for much broader use of the traditional Tridentine mass. This isn't just a mass in Latin, it is so much more. You might not be aware of it if, like most sensible people in the world, you are not fluent in Latin. But you and your buddies pray that the Jews may 'crawl out of darkness' and presumably into the incandescent light of the one true momma church.

Why do this? To bring a smattering of super conservative Bishops who reject the Vatican Council II (that council in the early 20th century that gave the church a much needed updating thanks to the complaints of the Protestant Reformation just a few years prior beginning in 1517). Wonderful, nothing like a little anti-semitism to crash through the gates of 21st century ideals (enlightenment ideas more specifically, 1600's-1804).

Ya, but picking on those darkness dwelling Jews is an old routine, a song and dance we are tired of. Can we get back to some more of that hot Christian on Christian violence?

oh yes we can!

In another decree the pope has declared that all Christians who are not catholics are not fully christian. That their Eucharistic celebration is false, and that their church is a fatally flawed and wounded church. I am paraphrasing, but it was pretty strongly worded.

So much for religious toleration. Wait.. this is worse than that, so much for inter-faith dialogue. How do you work with someone who claims such superiority over you? All in a ploy to bring back the middle ages loving Catholics.

I can't wait for a reconstruction religion like Druidism to go back to wicker man burnings. If only we could be so keenly focused on the distant past.

as per (e:libertad)

Transformers: The movie: The review: The RIDE!

    Let me preface this by saying that I am not a transformers fan. The toys were cool but I had Go-bots instead and preferred the Thundercats cartoon.

    Transformers the movie is the most enjoyable shitty movie in theaters. It is devoid of plot, dialogue, anything that remotely resembles a movie. It is a 2 ½ hour special effects circle jerk. But, you at least get to participate in the circle, so it isn't all that bad.

Spoilers ahoi.

1)    Los Angeles is not 30 minutes from the Hoover Damn by car. Even by transforming alien car. Las Vegas is. But you didn't show Las Vegas.

2)    No, you did not backwards engineer all that technology from Megatron. The car predates the 1930's. Megatron (for some reason) is some alien jet, not a car. The jet engine was developed by the Germans in the 1940's, not America.

3)    You are telling me that you had the technology in the 30's to transport a cagillion ton robot from Antartica to the Nevada/Arizona border all the while keeping him frozen? No.

These are just some of the drool educing holes that a simple trip to wikipedia could solve. (For example, I just verified the local of the Hoover Dam.) Some other things that made no sense.

    The thing with these giant sentient robots is that they are "Robots in Disguise" It is the most memorable thing about them. They pick an object and learn to transform into that object and back into a giant robot. Deception, stealth, they are like three story tall ninja robots. So why is it that we had 15 minutes of five robots fumbling around in the act of sneakery? Did you just miss the sneaking around part of your nature?

    The coolest character is Starscream. He is sniveling. He is a would be usurper. (My first name means 'usurper' so I feel a kinship) And he had one line in the whole movie. That is less than the main characters stupid best friend who played a comical role for all of three minutes on screen.

    This is the biggest problem. There are no characters in this movie. There are CGI sequences and explosions, and dull pedestrians who continue to walk across the street with their shopping bags as Las Vegas/Los Angeles gets blown up around them. Each of the autobots get about one line in the movie: they introduce themselves. Even Optimus Prime can't seem to remember their names either. He is moved to pronouns as his thousands of years old friend's dead body is in his arms. Who are these creatures? I have no idea, and the many, many interesting dynamics that have been fleshed out in the 20 odd years of Transformers could have made a compelling film but instead... shit just blew up for 2 ½ hours.

    2 ½ hours? Ya. That is a long film. There is 20 minutes worth of footage about computer hackers that could be cut out. The films one black character, though not guilty of any crime, tells police officers to stay off the carpet, his grandma doesn't like anyone on the carpet, especially police. Yup, the obese black family is constantly having police over because... you know, they are black and all. I wont get into the sexism either.

Transformers is a great big fat advertisement for GM cars, Sprite, the Xbox. The bad guys are jets and tanks and junk because they are brandless. The good guys are GM because... well, because we are xenophobes.

And for the love of Christ Michael Bay, shaking a camera around like you have Parkinson's does not make the scene more action packed; it makes us unable to see the colossi battling, which is the only redeeming part of the film.

No story, no characters, plot holes and still enjoyable some how. I recommend a drinking game to ease your way through it. Otherwise you better be a fanboy.

Howdy,

The Francis Bacon exhibit opened at the Albright Knox in early May and I was so ridiculously excited to see it. But the heavy burden of careless weekend possibilities would keep my Fridays sacrosanct. Monday would come along and I would drive to work past the gallery and slap myself on the forehead for missing it yet again. But today I got lucky.

If you doubt the relevance or power of painting, waltz on over to the gallery and take a look. My stomach turned, I felt incredible anxiety, I laughed out loud. It was one of the most emotional experiences at an exhibit I had felt in a long time. Even if you don't like art, check it out, you may be a convert.

Another treat though was I got to see my first Albert Ryder. I have been to the gallery a dozen times in my scant three years here and if it is in their collection I have never seen it. The man was insane. He would fire off a painting and be off onto the next thing, never finishing his paintings with a sealant (or whatever it is they use). He was a very prolific man but very few of his paintings remain. The ones that do are all cracked and chipped, having been posthumously finished. Even through cells of paint could be smushed together to form a seamless painting, the quality it lends his work is outstanding. You can see Winslow Homer in his dark, sparse seascapes with waves like overturned storm clouds. Marsden Heartly's landscapes are almost derivative of Ryder.

Please, stop by and see Bacon and the Ryder. You will be glad you did.

What to do, what to do.

The owners of most of the homes on my block live on those homes. They aren't sleazy slum lords who live on Long Island and rent until the house burns down in a bong-bloomed blaze. There are just a couple of houses filled with obnoxious college students.

Now, I may not be a spring chicken (I am an human worm android infact) but I remember those college days of carefree parties and a foolhardy sense of immortality. Loud parties with Jock-Jams soundtracks are understandable. They are the very stuff of youthful indiscretions we laugh at when older and wiser.

But for the love of dog anus, must you break beer bottles all over the place?

I don't know? Who cleans up broken glass infront of your house. Well, it is close to the curb so the garbage men must pick it up, right? Maybe our slumlords who last visited Buffalo when steel plants were open and 'talkies' were the wonder of motion pictures.

I mean, do you notice that your frat paradise is right next door to a home full of children? Too bad little billy fell off his skateboard and shredded his face on your sidewalk.

Well, accidents happen. They do. But clean it up.


Soon, very soon. There will come a time when I will pick up glass and beer bottles. And it will go to a place you never knew you loved so dearly.