Looking for the Best Men

There’s a reason why Ted Cruz has a beard. He’s ready to start his second killing spree as the Zodiac Killer. He’s not going to let some razor tell him he can’t sexually subjugate women and brutalize weaker men. This person knows what I’m talking about:

Damn straight. I want my men made of meat and as violent as possible, please.

For the bearded or those who don’t live their life on Twitter–I’m in the former category–I will catch you up to speed. Gilette ran a commercial today about toxic masculinity and teaching boys to not succumb and, as expected, some people lost their minds. Some people took offense that the various scenarios within the commercial, e.g. men sexually harassing, a man man-splains and a group of boys beat the shit out of boy, were portrayed as negative.

Hey, didn’t you go to prison for accepting a bribe?

I know, I know. You want to be able to raise your son the way you want to raise him so that one day he will be sitting at his Supreme Court nomination hearing crying about a calendar, reminiscing about lifting with Squi and angry bellowing to the high heavens about how much he likes beer.

I’ll admit it’s a little hard to empathize. My experiences with advertising are all about making me my best self if I could just lose some weight; get bigger breasts; age in reverse; bring home the bacon and do all the domestic duties; make my teeth whiter and my face less ugly; lose more weight; febreeze my vagina; and disappear once I turn 35. So I don’t know what I would do if my Bic For Her pen ran some commercial saying the emphasis on a woman’s appearance and the objectification of women is a big pile of fermented shaven beard hair.

Oh, I know!

 

I’m going to write something pretty controversial for an object that has no use in the world.

Misogyny is a real thing. It’s the reason why we have yet to see a woman become president. It’s the reason why when a woman tries to run for president, we get think pieces on whether or not she’s likable enough (she never is).

This is why a country rejected and raged against an accomplished stateswoman who used a private email server and collectively shrugged at a man denigrating entire swaths of people, having close ties to mobsters, and showing a remarkable lack of knowledge and interest in about anything other than fast food hamburgers. This is why we have this:

The only thing this commercial has illuminated is that we have a long way to go in breaking free of engendered stereotypes. This person knows what I’m talking about:

Or maybe not.

Trump Fluff

Nothing has meaning.

Because nothing has meaning, America’s favorite winking Tourettes’ sufferer Sarah Palin interviewed America’s favorite decomposing pumpkin Donald Trump.

It was an interviewing tour de force. Palin used words in an order that somewhat resembled sentences to fluff Trump’s presidential scepter, and Trump continued to resemble an orange-hued blobfish.

As expected, the interview made our inevitable decline more inevitable America great again.

So you don’t have to watch it and shave years off your life like I have, I condensed it to the highlights.

I don’t know about you, but I am suffering from Trump Fatigue™. I would really like to not write anymore about him so America, if you could stop considering him as a real presidential candidate as opposed to a deflated nut sack, I would appreciate it.

This Post is Sponsored by the Letters H, B and O

Some parents are concerned that the acquisition of the beloved children’s television show Sesame Street by HBO, the purveyor of breasts, will continue America’s decline into a giant shithole. Justin knows what I’m saying:

Not so, says Jeffrey D. Dunn, chief executive of Sesame Workshop. Things will invariably stay the same with some tweaks to keep Sesame Street up-to-date with the digital natives we ween from breastfeeding apps.

“It will still be Sesame Street with Big Bird, Elmo and that shitbag who lives in a garbage can,” Dunn said. He did note there were would be some content changes to “spice things up in the way HBO viewers are used to, and to make young children enslaved to HBO for life.”

“What I’m basically saying is tits. Lots of tits.”

For examples, writers will focus more on the relationship between Big Bird and Snuffy. They will be recast as 20-something friends trying to find their way in the big city in the style of Girls but with a giant imaginary monster and a talking bird.

Dunn said more emphasis will be placed on The Count in the sense that he will be given a love interest.

“I mean The Count is kind of a drag,” Dunn said. “Yes he can count. Like bats and whoopie pies, but what if he was involved in an obsessive and dangerous relationship with a southern waitress? Then you’d definitely see your child counting past 20.”

Kid will also be challenged more. Instead of trying to guess what object does not belong in a group, children will be asked to test their talents in solving a mystery.

“We’re talking about taking one of those nondescript muppets like Maggle or Furry and getting real deep into the complexities of the human soul,” Dunn said.

Dunn said it would designed as an anthology. Each season would star different monsters in the detective role. The detectives would all have alcoholism, daddy issues, obsessive needs to pontificate on nonsense that make viewers feel the monsters are deep, and storylines that you believe are good, but in the end suck balls. And there will be many topless muppets used as props because…um…tits?

“But it will be completely for kids because it will take place on different playgrounds across the country,” Dunn said.

And, or course, the Sesame Street cast will pay homage to Game of Thrones.

The Good Ol’ Pricks Debate

I watched the entire GOP debate last night and while my stomach muscles are still strained from all the dry-heaving, I felt compelled to actually write a post to share the highlights.

There were so many good things happening—so, so many. So many fantastic visionaries on one stage, so many enthusiastic audience members cheering the worst things, so many witnesses to the demise of the American democratic system.

It’s really hard to pick a favorite moment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.

It began with a shot of the most popular candidate at the moment, Donald Trump. I believe his face truly represents the face of the Republican Party:

There was that special time when Trump was asked about his penchant for calling woman “fat pigs”, “slobs”, “disgusting animals” and “losers who don’t appreciate megalomaniacs with Easter-grass toupees and micropenises”:

Then there was that beautiful moment when the audience cheered wildly about Trump’s claim of referring to only one woman as a “fat pig”.

I also enjoyed when Trump gave “evidence” about his claim that Mexico only sends the criminals, drug dealers and rapists to this country:

Or the moment Trump said his solution to immigration was to build a wall and that he asked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to do it:

There was the time Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made this face:

And then made this face:

And then opened his mouth and I finally understood the concept of the banality of evil:

Or that time when Sen. Marco Rubio was asked about his support of allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, and looked like a deer in headlights and began voraciously back-pedaling without the assistance of a bottle of water:

Or the moment when the millionaire candidates tried to out-poor each other:

The time Mike Huckabee challenged the claim from the movie Hustle and Flow that “it’s hard out here for a pimp” and blamed pimps and prostitutes for social security’s budget problems:

The moment Ohio Gov. John Kasich used the “I have a gay friend” defense to deflect a question about same sex marriage:

The entire time Jeb Bush looked like an uncomfortable, sad man:

How about the fantastic Facebook questions?!?:

Or when Rand Paul challenged Trump’s “hair” to a fight:

When Trump asked the moderators if he could have one minute to squeeze out a fart:

Or when Ted Cruz broke into song:

Breathtaking, really. And we still have over a year until the general election!

Oh boy…the dry heaves are starting again.

Maximum Rage

Back in 1994, at my first post-collegiate job, I earned a whopping $4.50 an hour. This was a whole quarter above the minimum wage so you could basically say I was living the high life.

I was an “online server” in a coffee house back when online meant actually being on a line and handling a variety of insane customers–kinda of like the Internet with less anonymity.

I fondly remember “scone man.” He would hand me two heavily-stained coffee mugs that likely never touched soap and spent 10 minutes selecting the best scone. One day, he gave me the honor of selecting the scone for him. I felt I had reached the pinnacle of my career. As I rang him up, he took the scone out of the bag, inspected it, placed it back inside the bag, swung the bag around his head and slammed it three times against the counter.

“Yeah, nice and soft,” he said and left.

Nearly 20 years later, the minimum wage is a whole $3 more, and many minimum wage workers are protesting that is not nearly enough to live on.

While a minium wage annual income is a couple of thousands below the poverty line, low-income workers are missing one crucial point:

We have way more choices on TV.

Back in 1968 when the minimum wage was at its peak and would have been the equivalent of $10.60 in today’s dollars, TV was kind of lame.

There was only a couple of channels. Nothing was 24 hours. News was actually news.

Boresville.

But now?

While low-income workers might not earn enough to have three decent daily meals, they can watch a buttload of cooking shows that almost makes you feel like you’ve eaten. There’s Top Chef  and the 4,000 other cooking shows that want to be Top Chef.

I wish I could take credit for this brilliant insight, but the credit is all due to Virginia Postrel, a writer and supposed human, who wrote a compelling piece for Bloomberg.com titled “Who Needs a Raise When You Have TV?”

Who indeed.

I mean just the other day, I was thinking my 14-year-old car with its 170,000 miles might not last another year and could I really afford a car payment and then I saw a clip of Miley Cyrus twerking on a three-day-old burrito and I thought….well, I forgot.

Because TV is awesome.

Postrel acknowledges that wages have stagnated over the last four decades, but for fuck’s sake poor people, you’ve got Duck Dynasty (slight paraprase). You don’t have to worry about how you’ve been left behind by the Kardashians because you can keep up with them on DVR.

Postrel reports we watch way more television now because what the fuck else are you going to do as you kill time between your first and second job? Or maybe you have the “ample leisure time” to watch hours of Fox News reports insisting a minimum wage increase will break the bank because your hours have been cut just before the holiday season or you were just laid off.

So buck up, poor person. Turn on that TV to that yuletide log burning in the fireplace so you aren’t reminded that you haven’t paid your heating bill and revel in the abundance.

Tips for a Successful Marriage

Today is my wedding anniversary.

Many people ask me, “Speaker7, why is your marriage so successful?”

My marriage has truly been a partnership as we have raised our two boys with great hope and optimism that they would one day become fine young men. Mr. Speaker7 has often said that God put him on this earth to be a wife and a mother. Our family, of which Mr. Speaker7 is the heart, is testimony that he has embraced that calling. Over the last 28 years, we have loved, cried, laughed, despaired and celebrated. I reveled in featuring my giant pumpkin head, grating Southern accent, and condescending shitball personality on Oprah while making loads of dough exploiting other people’s mental illness.

….Wait a second….Oopsies! I just plagiarized the majority of that last paragraph from Dr. Phil McGraw’s book Family First. My bad, everyone.

The truth is no one has ever asked me about my succesful marriage and Dr. Phil is a colossal fuckstick.

My marriage is successful because I have no trouble admitting when I’m wrong.

The other day, I ate what I thought was a plain roasted edamame. Instead it turned out to be coated in wasabi, a substance slightly hotter than the surface of the sun.

It immediately felt like I flicked a bic lighter inside one of my nostrils. I dipped my tongue in cleaning fluid to dull the burning hemorrhoid sensation on my tongue.

I knew I had fucked up.

If you would like to know some other tips to a successful marriage, they are these:

• drink plenty of cranberry juice
• drink plenty of water
• avoid consuming irritants like caffeine except for the six to eight cups one needs to wake up in the morning
• wipe from front to back

Interestingly this will also keep you from getting a urinary tract infection.

The Cyrus-versy™

I am commenting on the Miley Cyrus controversy because I’m very concerned.

About my page views.

They’re low.

By now, you are aware that Miley Cyrus twerked and gene-simmonsed her way through a performance of her hit song “Mediocre Pop Song.”

If you’re not aware, it looked like this:

Like many, I was shocked. Shocked that the Video Music Awards was actually still a thing and that humans actually watched.

And then I saw that the performance became a news story and real-live journalists were talking about it. Even that Mika Brzezezzezzzzzzzzzzazzzzzzskii who famously tried to burn a story about Paris Hilton’s release from jail because she deemed it “trivial.”

Parent bloggers or Ploggers™ were up in arms over the performance and wondered if their children would view their Hannah Montana vibrating toothbrushes in a different way.  And zombies…well the zombies just said “BRAAIINNSSSS.”

Why has this performance gained so much traction? When you break it down, it really is the story of a young commodity trying to break out of her target market into a new synergized market share. A story as old as time.

And yet here I was doing this in Adobe Illustrator:

See, it looks like Miley is on the receiving end of a fart in the face.

What did it all mean?

Later in the performance, Alan Thicke’s semen creation came out to ruin Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Get It Up” whilst Miley poked at his privates with a giant foam finger. If I didn’t know better, I would have pegged the performance a brilliant parody of what passes for “sexXy” in American society. In case you didn’t know, this is sexXy:

I don’t know how this any less foolish than Madonna kissing a female Gremlin birthed out of Lady Gaga’s robotic birth canal or Katy Perry dressed as a skunk spraying whipped cream from her anal cavity.

As an aside, please make both happen for next year’s VMAs.

But I think we’ve lost sight of the real issue and that is, both songs really sucked. I mean, what the fuck, America. Get better musical taste and this would not happen. So I blame you.

All of you. Even Donald Trump.

Amusing Ourselves To. . . I Forget

My brain is distracted.

I realized this when I was reading a book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and I would hear the siren call of Facebook. I put the book down and lunged for my computer so I could look at stuff like this:

There, all better. Now what was that book saying?

Something about how distraction has always been around since the advent of electronic media, but:

(N)ever has there been a medium that has been programmed to so widely scatter our attention and to do it so insistently.

I knew it was happening to me. I saw it when trying to read The New York Times online and finding I could only make it through three paragraphs before losing interest and clicking elsewhere–usually on ads for the Chillow pillow

I can read the physical paper in its entirety as long as I can continue to check Facebook every ten minutes.

It’s probably unsurprising, but reading print materials activitates different parts of the brain than reading online. For instance, as you read this, the part of your brain that regulates break dancing has been stimulated. That book readin’ activiates them language, memory and visual processing parts. Now you tell me, which is better?

I’ve experienced the moment when it feels like the whole world recedes as I look at a Buzzfeed list of the craziest bras ever created. That’s what the Internet does. It grabs our attention only to scatter it like a bra made out of birdseed.

In Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death (disclaimer: I tried to read this online and made it three sentences in before giving up. I’m reading a print version now), he brings up the two varying views of the future: George Orwell’s and Aldous Huxley’s. Orwell predicted a totalitarian world where information was scarce. Huxley’s world was one of excess where people willingly gave up their autonomy in exchange for their distractions. Information was everywhere.

I wonder whose view is more spot on?

It would appear that the notion of the U.S. government collecting the phone records and Internet searches of millions of Americans, an act that is in direct violation of the 4th amendment, would be somewhat troubling.

Shouldn’t it be?

I don’t know because while I was looking up the NSA story, I was sidetracked by a video of Justin Bieber pissing in a mop bucket.

My journey ultimately ended here:

There, all better.

Speaker7’s Journey

So it begins again, dear reader. On May 27th, ABC will roll out its stained red carpet and gas up its dirty limo for another installment of The Bachelorette or what I like to call The Loss of Hope.

This season’s “star” is Desiree, a woman tossed aside by Bland The Blandest Bachelor because her brother called Bland “a player.” The correct verbiage is “douchetool.”

I watched a promotion on ABC’s “news” website because all news is entertainment at this point. Another ABC product churned out by Sylvester McMonkey McBean’s Star-Off Machine (re: American Idle) autotunes in the background while we glimpse Desiree’s “journey.” It’s as inspiring as a turd’s journey from bowel to sewage treatment plant. As to be expected, there is this:

I already know what will happen. Men will call each other “bro.” Desiree will profess “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do” while she sends home a man as remarkable as a used tissue. And Chris Harrison will earn substantially more money than cancer researchers for saying things like: “There is one rose left.”

This got me thinking about my own “journey.” In the past, I have watched the rectal sausage produced by the ABC meatprocessing plant, and produced recraps that some find enjoyable and some find lead to acute gastroenteritis. Am I ready to start all over again and accept a mildewed rose?

I guess it comes down to my vision for this blog. It began as a mechanism to force me to write. I would continually say how much I wanted to be a writer, and then plop myself down in front of the TV for hours.

Unlike my other blog, The Official How To Blog, this blog seems rather rudderless. Do I want it to be a recrapping blog? A commentary on current events? A marketing platform for the Shakeweight™?

These are the questions that keep me up at night–or at least until 8:30 p.m. when I crash because I have the constitution of a newborn.

So I leave the question to you, dear reader. I will put forth the effort, but only if you desire it, and I won’t feel hurt if you have reached your limit.

Do you want to read the alcohol-infused ramblings of brainless meat sacks on their “journey” to find “love” and guest appearances  at wet T-shirt contests? Have you grown tired of my recycled jokes where I describe the multitude of objects I will use to bash in my skull? Or is it time we moved on. . . maybe to more serious topics like Tanning Mom’s music video?

Before you decide à la poll, I present you with this:

Ready for Cancellation

It’s taken me awhile to put together a recrap of the third episode of the live-doll reality show Ready for Love. 

Rumors swirled that the show had been cancelled, but then executive producer Eva Longoria took to Twitter, saying it is moving to a new time, new night. Tim-something of The Plain White T’s joined the fray saying “Please download my song from iTunes.”

And then I had to deal with my own feelings of despair over the knowledge that I actually wasted moments of my life reading inane tweets and articles on E!

But here we are again, ready-for-lovers!

We begin our “journey” with Tim’s “journey.” Tim is referred to as “rock star” ad nauseum. That’s like calling Snooki, author of the turdpile Confessions of a Guidette, a literary giant.

Bret Michaels, another dude looking for televised love by examining multiple vaginas, is a rock star. Yes, he wears a bandana hairpiece and plays amusement park gigs, but he was a legitimate rock star 25 years ago in that shit band Poison. Tim’s band The Plain White T’s had one hit song. The Fruit of the Loom guys are more recognizable. I don’t know why I’m getting all worked up about this. The important thing is that I have wasted so much of my life and will die with regrets.

Tim plans an unannounced visit to his poon palace at 6 a.m. He jumps on the women’s beds and surprisingly is not kneed in the nuts. He wants them to leave the house sans make up (the horror!!!!). They do, and society comes crashing to a halt. They arrive at a spa, and it’s filled with all things the girlies love like make-up, shoes and transvaginal ultrasounds.

Taonayanayanaya is bummed because she has not engaged in any one-on-one time with Tim. When she gets her chance, she tells Tim he is like a book with all the pages stuck together, which sounds kinda gross. Tim’s expression indicates he feels the same. Awkward silence after his reply: “That’s interesting.” She clumsily moves onto “What’s your sign?” Tim dismisses with “I don’t believe in any of that.”

Taonynayanaya breaks down sobbing in the bathroom, wailing “I’ve been through so much!” That’s an Aquarius for you.

She ends up getting the boot at the rose garden ceremony. Lots of nonsense about “journeys” and “connections” and “this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do™” blather.

Next up is Ernesto’s journey. One of the women, Olivia, keeps crying and saying she wants to leave. Another gets brownie points from the producers by saying “She is not ready for love.”

Olivia meets with Tracy the matchmaker, and talks about her disdain of drama and negative energy even though she has been the main cause of drama and negative energy. Tracy mentions how this show is a process. I thought it was a journey. I’m so fucking confused.

Before she leaves, Olivia engages in crying fit in the living room.

She goes, and it would mean so much more if there weren’t 5,000 other people on this show so I will just leave it at “smell you later.”

Ernesto is having the women get dolled up for a fashion show because this show is trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most gender stereotypes in one television episode. The producers fly his sister in from Milan to go undercover as a style assistant to see what the women have to say about her brother. Erica treats Ernesto’s sister like something on the bottom of her shoe.

Erica tries to say she did not know why she acted like that because she normally has sunshine streaming out of her ass. At the slave auction garden ceremony, Erica is saved and some woman whose name escapes me is tearfully sent home. Cheer up, nameless person, you’ve actually won.

Ben is third, but wins first place in douchery. The show continues its dress-up theme because that’s all the ladies want, right? We want to be pinched into 14-inch heels, stuffed into sausage casings, covered in greasepaint and judged by Us Weekly. Ben salsas and presses his groin and lips against the women. His ex-girlfriend Kari is getting pissed and asks him to refrain from being a “lip slut.”

Matt asks Beth, whom he refers to as “mature” (translation: old), why she is still single. She counters: “Why are you?”

Ben answers: “Because I was in the middle east for four years, duh.” (translation: “I ain’t marrying no middle-eastern person because my brain is full-on douche.”)

Ben lip-sluts it up all over town. The matchmakers send the other women to their pods–one actually refers to it as such–while they grill Kari about her intentions. This is as exciting as the time I did laundry.

Ben decides to send home the single mother with this chestnut:

I don’t know about you, but I am ready for cancellation.