Tony Danza

No, this isn't a post about the incredible Italian stallion star of Who's The Boss?. This is about how I love when people screw up song lyrics. The Tony Danza title comes from the fact that someone I know used to think the lyrics to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" were, "hold me closer Tony Daaaannnzzzzaaaa." And I love that! (I've protected her identity. This is the same person who used to think Doogie Howser M.D. was Doogie Howser AND ME!)

There's the classic Hendrix screw up, where people think he was singing "excuse me while I kiss this guy," which was kinda funny. In "Blinded by the Light," my friends and I used to think the chorus, "revved up like a deuce," was "wrecked up like a douche," though we could never actually explain what that meant.

In a similar vein, I have a friend who always thought "a blessing in disguise" was "a blessing in the skies," and when you think about it, it actually works, which is, I'm sure, what enabled it to persist as a part of his vernacular for so long. I think he still says it to this day, even though he knows it's wrong.

You're Definately A Jackass...Supposably

I hate when people can't spell common, simple words. If you can't spell definitely or supposedly, please take a dip in the crocodile-infested Nile. Another one: when people write "expresso" instead of "espresso." Expresso doesn't mean coffee in a hurry, it means you're fucking stupid.

Commercial Douches

I hate commercials when I'm watching TV. Hate. LOATHE! I 've been known to rage about what I deem to be awful television advertisements to the point where people can't stand watching TV with me. DVR is one of the best inventions in the history of inventions because it allows me to skip these brain-matter-sucking devices targeted at the most mentally weak of the most retarded (i.e. - 99.7% of the population).

But some commercials manage to stand out amidst this sea of inanity due to some truly nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating personalities. Now the Verizon guy and Jared Fogle (the Subway sandwich fat fuck) were up there for a while, partially because they were played to death, and partially because they were the same person. Why marketing people thought that the average consumer was craving advice from pudgy nerds with dark-rimmed glasses, I'll never know. Anyway, my two newest champions of TV commercial douchebaggery are . . .

The Six Flags Old Man, played by some insufferable douche in makeup: http://www.cracked.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mister61.jpg
Largely because of the annoying music playing throughout the commercial, but also because of his spastic, over-the-top head gyrations when he talks, and because the people who made the commercial think that an old man dancing is funny.

And, The Progressive Auto Insurance Girl: http://intensities.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/flo.jpg
I don't even know where to begin with this one. She's just not funny in any way, and it's clear that she's trying so hard to be, which makes it exponentially worse. If you've ever seen her commercials, you know what I mean, and also want her to be ravaged by a pack of wild, rabid dogs. If you've seen her commercials and think she's funny, please don't ever approach me in person.

New York's Hairy Taint

So, just as I was actually enjoying my New York City visit, the one consistently positive aspect of this city, the subway system, became tainted. While cycling through the options on the automated Metro Card machine one night, I noticed the 1-Day Unlimited option, or "1-Day Fun Pass," as it's called (because riding the subway is apparently equivalent to being at an amusement park, or something). For $8.25, this option is good for an unlimited number of subway rides during a one-day period . . . or so they lead you to believe.

Turns out, "one day" only means "from whenever you buy the card until 3:00am." Soooo, despite official definitions and scientific calculations as to the average amount of time it takes the Earth to make one rotation on its axis, The New York City Transit Department is okay with REdefining what constitutes "a day" and stealing your money. Somehow, they can get away with claiming that the hour from 2:00am-3:00am counts as a full day. Explain to me how that makes any sense.

Fuck you, MTA! I'm actually going to call to try to get my money back, not because I'm a cheap Jew, but because of principle! Wish me luck . . .

Fuck Your Family

I hate those stickers on the backs of cars that have stick figures of all your family members and the names underneath. Some of the people who put these on their cars are even annoying enough to put their family pet on there too. Ugh.

Congratulations, you were able to breed. Seriously, we don't give a shit about your family, and something tells me there are even members of your own family who feel the same way. In fact, I'm willing to venture a guess that the world would be a marginally (I say "marginally," due to the sheer massive quantity of "things" that make this world so barely bearable) less annoying place without your sticker-happy kinfolk.

One time, I want to read the names under the stickers, pull up alongside one of these cars at a red light, roll down my window, and be like, "Hey, Jane! How are Timmy and Sarah? Ah, they grow up so fast, don't they?" I wonder if anyone stupid enough to adhere these stickers to her rear windshield would even be able to figure out what I'd just done. Another fantasy I had begins much the same way. I pull up alongside one of these cars, roll down my window, and commit a drive-by shooting.

This also brings me to another point about these stickers: don't you think they give a little too much information to strangers? I mean, wouldn't it make sense for a pedophile to hang out near one of these be-stickered cars, hoping the kid gets there first? He already knows the kid's name. That's totally disarming. In my previous scenario, I disarmed the kid's idiot mom by knowing her name, so I would assume the kid is at least as mentally deficient as his mother, no? Just a thought.

(Special thanks to my little cock goblin brother, whom I forgot to thank initially...)

Hi! Welcome to America! Now Tell Me Where to Go.

Why do we always ask for directions at gas stations? Why do we assume these guys are going to be able to tell us how to get where we need to go? I think we expect way too much of gas station employees in this regard.

Think about it. Often, at least in my experience, these employees are foreigners. This isn't even their country, and they could very well be new arrivals, and yet we, Americans, ask them for directions. I mean, put me to work at a Sunoco in Calcutta, and I'm going to be of absolutely zero use to you if you need driving/walking directions.

And even if the employees are American, why do we assume these guys know anything more than how to get back and forth from home to work? How does that qualify them to be omniscient in the way of directions?

My guess is, the assumption stems from the fact that gas station employees tend to deal with a lot of passers-by, but unless these transients are choosing to educate the gas station employees about the local thoroughfares for no clear reason... See what I'm sayin'?...

(Special thanks to the venerable Rabbi D.S.)

Spitters

I hate people who casually and randomly spit in the middle of the street as they're walking. What is that?! I'll tell you what it is; it's disgusting. Now, often it's people with chewing tobacco or smokers (which doesn't make it any less repulsive, but at least provides some sort of explanation), but just as frequently I see regular, non-smoking, non-tobacco-chewing individuals just spit, right there, on the sidewalk, where I have to walk. It's like a mine field out there. How much excess saliva are these people's bodies producing? Knock it off! Or at least carry around some sort of spit receptacle, so normal-amount-of-saliva-producing people don't have to look at/circumnavigate your disgusting globs of spittle.

MJ

Did you know that Michael Jackson's memorial service cost Los Angeles taxpayers almost a million-and-a-half dollars?! California is broke-ass broke, and somehow this was justified! I even overheard one news report yesterday that said, private donations of $17,000 have been contributed to help foot the bill. Really? Seventeen thousand, huh? Thanks for the help. The entire Jackson clan couldn't pool some money together and pay for its own family member's memorial service? Isn't that what any other jackass would have to do?

Seriously, why don't we just line up all the Los Angeleans who are struggling to pay their bills and spit directly into their grease-streaked, sunburnt, leathery, impoverished faces? It would be way cheaper, too, while still conveying the same message, i.e., "we don't give a shit about you."

I wonder if any of the kids he diddled are currently Los Angeles residents. There's gotta be at least one, right? So when you think about it, that kid is paying for the memorial service of the guy who molested him. Nice work, humanity. I'm proud o' ya.

Look, I loved Michael Jackson's music . . . a lot. And, I truly believe that he was a tortured soul, who had little-to-zero sense of what actual reality was. Plus, if we're being technical, he was acquitted. But, I do think we're all glossing over his still-inappropriate behavior with young children a little too much with our gushing, postmortem mania. I'm just sayin' . . .

Ohhh, Movies...

You ever sit around and wonder to yourself, "why is my life nothing like the characters' I see in the movies?" Well, luckily, my little brother and I were recently kibitzing about just that very subject, and we came up with a short list that only scratches the surface of why your life is nothing like movie characters' lives. In short, it's because filmmakers eliminate many of the daily nuisances that we have to endure. Take note:

1. In the movies, no one ever has any trouble finding a parking spot. Even in major cities. Think about how much stress that would relieve in your life.

2. In the movies, people usually don't lock their doors. In fact, often times, they don't even close the door at all. Amazing. Now, sure, many doors lock automatically when you close them, but just for argument's sake, imagine how nice it would be to live in a place where you didn't have to lock, or even close, your door. Pretty comforting, eh.

3. In the movies, no one says goodbye when they get off the phone. People just hang up mid-conversation all the time! Imagine how much better life would be if you just got to say or ask what you wanted, and then you got to hang up the phone without having the awkward, drawn-out, much-longer-than-necessary goodbye portion of the conversation. What a relief that would be! If I call my father, we have a three minute conversation, and then he spends 15 minutes saying goodbye. Ridiculous!

4. In the movies, people have sex in offices. Now, that's great in and of itself, but the part about that that's amazingly impractical is, they always, in a torrid fit of uncontrollable sexual desire, sweep everything off the desk. But they never deal with the fact that someone has to clean that up afterwards! That guy who just bent his secretary over his mahogany work station, will later have to sort through all those scattered papers, struggling to find yesterday's memo about some stupid, sure-to-be-unproductive-and-unfulfilling meeting, and the piece of paper where he wrote down what time his wife told him to pick up the kids from soccer practice, and the Post-It note with the phone number for the new dentist he wants to try out, etc... But we never see the fallout. Life would be much cooler if we could trash our desks, and not have to deal with the aftermath.

5. And finally, in the movies, there is NO clean-up after sex. Zero! Think about it. In every movie, after two people have sex (unprotected, of course--another great message), they just lay there in their own sweat and jizz. No one ever reaches for a tissue, or a towel, or runs to the bathroom. They just blissfully curl up in each other's arms, and proceed to have whatever serious conversation is needed to move the story forward. Seriously, in movies, there is no post-coital clean-up, and I feel like the film industry is perpetrating a grave injustice against the public, especially the youth, by not accurately portraying the shame, awkwardness, regret, or any other of those wonderful emotions that immediately follow god's gift to (wo)mankind. Any kid who grew up a movie fan knows how ill-prepared he was the first time he realized what a hassle condoms were, or that girls are "messy" too. Movies should be rated-R for strong language, nudity, drug use, and now, inaccurate and unrealistic portrayals of sexual activity.

(Exhale)

Life is so fucking exhausting, is it not? I mean, just living is such a drain. It never ends. Well, it does end, but sometimes I really feel, not soon enough. You have to be so vigilant about so many things. Think about all the crap you have to keep track of: you have to pay your bills. Your car insurance bill, your health insurance bill, you credit card bills, your phone bills, your electric bill, your cable bill, your rent, your doctor bills (because the health insurance bill you consistently pay doesn't actually cover any of your medical expenses).

Then there's all the other stuff: you try to exercise, you try to eat healthy, you have to go grocery shopping, do laundry, keep up with your favorite TV shows and see the movies you never got around to seeing in the theaters because you were too busy keeping up with other shit, keep up with emails, work (ugh), shave, shower, clean your room, clean your bathroom, clean your kitchen, wash your dishes, cut your nails, call your parents, get your oil changed, sleep, get your hair cut, make your bed, put gas in your car, occasionally try to go out and maintain your friendships with people who try to make you feel guilty about not coming out enough (where the fuck do they find the time?!)...

And that was the relatively benign stuff! Then there are the bad things, like getting sick and puking your guts out, or having a throat so sore you can't even talk. You get a fever so bad that you can't sleep all night because you're incessantly alternating between freezing your ass off despite being buried under a dozen blankets and being drenched in buckets of sweat, and you say to yourself (after you've finished praying to a God you don't believe in), "I hope I never have to endure anything like this ever again. I can't!" But you will!!! You will get really sick again. And knowing that sucks so bad, and is so daunting! Same goes for any time you break an ankle, or pull a muscle, or strain your back. It sucks! And when you finally get better you think, "never again!" But you know it will happen again! You fall in love and then you fall out. And that sucks. And you go through a whole range of emotions that are so real at the time that you're experiencing them, until you come out of that haze, and you say to yourself, "I'll never go through that again." But you probably will. I mean, even something as mundane as getting an eyelash stuck in your eye. It's so fucking annoying, and irritating, and uncomfortable, and you can't get it out no matter how many times you flush your now-raw eyeball with water. And that won't be the last time!

Does this not exhaust anyone else? How do people have the time or energy to argue about stupid shit like using taxpayers' money to put a Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse of a country that supposedly separates Church and State? Why do people occupy themselves with inanity like John and Kate, or the Octamom, or Lindsay Lohan's repugnant fire crotch? I'm exhausted just thinking about it...