As March Madness gets under way, I noticed a lot of madness in the headlines this week, unrelated to college hoops.
How about this story about a guy who, on a dare, went up to an undercover cop posing as a hooker and joked about getting busy? The Peoria, P.D. put his face on a website of arrested hookers and johns and refuses to take it off, even though he was tried and acquitted on solicitation charges. The police chief's explanation: it is for his benefit that his face remains on the site with a reference to his acquittal. If such a thing ever happens to me, please, chief, do me no favors. This story hit home for me because in high school, while on the March For Hunger (a 26 mile walk-a-thon that passes through East L.A. and Hollywood), I did the same thing, and we laughed our asses off when the woman turned out to not be a hooker. It wouldn't have been so damn funny if that non-hooker had been a cop I "solicited."
I loved this story about the 10 sexiest movie scenes of all time. No. 1 comes from the 2002 film Secretary, in which Maggie Gyllenhaal's character gets spanked by her boss, played by James Spader. The runner-up was Brokeback Mountain's kiss between Jack and Ennis. I'm biased, of course, in that gay men doing stuff together grosses me out, but if I was going to give a vote to the non-heterosexual scenes, the top of my list would be the pool scene in Wild Things. But like the Oscars and in real life, I guess we just have to accept the fact that gay cowboys always come in number two.
I was more than a bit amused by the announcement that Lindsay Lohan would consider going topless in a film if it meant getting an Oscar-caliber role. I mean, who wouldn't do that, especially since you already like to go practically topless while clubbing or attending car shows?
It's both sad and ironic that the game show host whose catch phrase was "No Whammies," died in a plane crash off the beach in Malibu this week. Plane v. surface of the ocean is about as big a whammy as you can get.
Suppose you were mayor of a city that had suffered though Tropical Storm Gabrielle, 175 sewer leaks in one year, a notorious unsolved murder from the 1920s, a burning of a cross on a mayor's front lawn and, oh, let's not forget that Mohamed Atta and his posse trained as pilots at the local municipal airport. And then someone published a web site that was critical of local officials when they did something stupid. What would you consider the worst thing to ever happen to your city: the murder, the burning cross, the sewer system, the 9/11 training? Not this guy. Venice, Florida's Mayor Dean Calamaras says "the worst thing that ever happened to the city of Venice" is John Patten's website, venfl.com. I've seen it. I'd worry more about
Isaac Hayes deserves an asshat of the year award for sticking with South Park through all the Christian bashing and anti-Jesus blasphemy, but putting his foot down when the show calls Scientology a big scam? Do you ever wonder whether, hundreds of years from now, there will be billions of Scientologists trying to convert the remaining billion or two non-believers? I do. I wish there was a way to preserve myself for 1,000 years so I could be reanimated and tell my descendents first hand that I was alive when L.Ron Hubbard bragged that the best way to get rich was to start a religion, and then went out and did it.
And this one was the dumbest story of the week: A lonely killer whale is believed to have died in Canada after being hit by a tugboat. The orca, which locals dubbed "Luna," became separated from his pod five years ago and developed an interest in boats. Scientists tried to coax Luna into returning to his family, but local Indians resisted those efforts, believing that the orca was the reincarnation of their dead chief. On his deathbed, the chief promised to return in the form of a whale. Three days after he chief died, Luna (then a two-year-old orca) first appeared in the harbor. It would be a great story, except orcas are not actually whales. One would think that a person who has sufficient command of the afterlife would know that and, you know, come back as an actual whale. But no, this guy got confused and entered the body of a two-year-old sea mammal. Or maybe it was just an orca that found boats of people interesting. I'm going with the latter.
And, proving that not all crazy Muslims live in the Middle East, here is the explanation Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar gave for running over nine people at the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina:
"Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Koran's 114 chapters..." "The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead."
Let's see, it begins, of course, with "Allah" and ends with, to paraphrase, I do not try to kill innocent people because I hate them, but because I love Allah. I guess in some religions, nothing says "I love my God" like murdering innocent bystanders.
And you know that expression "No matter how hot she is, someone out there, some guy is already tired of sleeping with her." Well, that expression does not apply to the hottest model in the history of mankind. Nobody is tired of sleeping with Adriana Lima, folks, because Adriana Lima is a virgin.
The madness has, indeed, begun.
nice cowboy pun
Posted by: john | March 17, 2006 at 04:26