new column about Broncos trip to London: http://tinyurl.com/ylbq766

When people Rush Limbaugh cares about need some help, I want you all to lend a hand. I know it will be hard to do. Considering Rush’s obvious and inflammatory comments about the earthquake in Haiti, I still want everyone to show this fat gas bag what it’s like to be a human being.

Rush was really trying to rip into Obama when he claimed the President would use this horrible tragedy to his benefit. Well I’m pretty sure he will – he’s a politician after all– but even if someone can wield his mighty power to help these people, we’ll take it right? Rush ain’t having it. So if he doesn’t like you, stand on the sidelines and do nothing.

Rush also said, “We’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.”  That’s a pretty cynical statement from a pathologically cynical and nasty man. But even if you believe this, keep that one to yourself.

I think the wave of apathy toward the situation in Haiti does stem from the fact that the country is a shit hole. No one goes on vacation there anymore because of the crime and rampant AIDS. In other words, it has nothing to offer the U.S. but a hand held out for more cash we don’t have.  People like Rush hate this kind of country: he’d like to go there and score some illegal pain killers, but he’d get robbed leaving the airport and catch the AIDS from whatever teen age girl he had sent to his room.

Pat Robertson, a mentally ill religious nut claimed Haiti was cursed by a pact it made with the Devil many years ago, thus causing this horrific natural disaster. He claimed that when the Haitians were dominated by the French, the whole country had a sit down with Satan who agreed to kick the French out. Things have been looking up ever since. I don’t know what’s worse about this statement: that the people of Haiti made a deal with the Devil, or that Pat Robertson believes any of this. Regardless, he thinks they shouldn’t have kicked the French out in the first place because the country went in the crapper as soon as the white people left.

Again, even if you think that, keep it to yourself right now.

Why anyone is shocked and dismayed by Limbaugh and Robertson’s comments is the real comedy here. One knows exactly what he’s saying and the other has become so paranoid and delusional because of religion, he has no idea what’s coming out of his mouth. But you expect this from Limbaugh and giving him any extra attention for his “outrageous” comments will just make the next poop nugget to fall from his mouth even more ridiculous.

Still, the best thing you can do is the help Rush out. When the roof of the country club collapses onto scores of rich white people, lend a hand. It may just show him that people are people no matter where they live or what color their skin is. And besides, he’s too fat to actually help anyway.

My latest and almost greatest over at the AV Club Denver:

http://tiny.cc/aTsVw

I just watched my new favorite show, Apocalypse Man on the History Channel. I’m a sucker for anything involving the end of the world and this show, starring ex-Marine Rudy Reyes was Armageddon porn for someone like me.

hopefully he doesn't get too hungry

The show’s premise is that an unnamed catastrophe has presumably wiped out the human race and one man navigates his way through the wreckage, teaching you how to survive. This kind of thing is near and dear to my heart because I have an unfinished novel with the same basic idea. I’m just throwing that out there so if I ever do finish it, no one can accuse me of totally ripping off Apocalypse Man.

But I may have to rip it off a little bit because there really is some cool information presented on the show: how to get gas from gas station holding tanks, how to hot wire a car, how to make bio diesel, and where to find one of those living dolls so you can have sex. Alright, I added the last one, but that’s certainly something I would need to find out.

The show is fascinating and I hope there’s more. But there were a couple of things that bugged me though: Reyes runs around serpentine like there are snipers everywhere. He’s established during his conversations with the camera that he needs to find people. I can understand watching your back, but I kept expecting your garden variety flesh eaters to come chasing after him. They didn’t. Yet he kept running like he was being hunted which made it all too dramatic.

Where was his gun? The first stop after I woke up to find everyone gone would be to the gun store. Then it wouldn’t matter who you met along the road – a survivor, hungry dog, cannibal mutant – you’d be ready for them.

He took an older model diesel SUV and prepared his own fuel for it. Cool. But when he broke in to the vehicle, he busted out the driver side window to gain access. Anyone who’s ever stolen a car knows you don’t bust out that window. Sitting on broken glass, no matter the situation, is not fun.

I know they were going for a certain feel but everywhere they filmed looked like a burned out husk. I don’t know how long Reyes was supposed to have been on his own, but there would at least be some buildings in nice shape still right? Pottery Barn would still be in good shape right?

More to that point, he had to salvage an old battery from the weeds to power a vehicle. If the world ended and no one was around, wouldn’t you just walk over to Sears and grab a new battery off the rack? I would. And I’d grab a box of those auto air fresheners to clear up any corpse smell I came in contact with.

Small gripes to be sure, but the overall appeal of the show more than made up for it. I don’t know if it’s just the 12 year old in me lovingly dreaming of surviving the zombie apocalypse, but Apocalypse Man was the best thing I’ve seen in awhile. Now if I can just finish my story before the world does end, I’ll be happy.

My latest column over at AV Club Denver.

If you live and die by Fox News you are either A) old and it’s just easier this way, B) dumb as a fucking stump, or C) you’re cashing in on the first two.

I’m no fan of any politician and I certainly understand that the news media is essentially Entertainment Tonight with Iraq coverage, but Fox News is just one of many things that is seriously wrong with this country.

And once again, Jon Stewart and crew point out just how shameful and reckless these Nazis really are:

From the Daily Show

A tip of the cap to the dearly departed Barrel Man.

LINK

Here’s the latest and…ahem…greatest from my column over at AV Club Denver.

Where will Mike Shanahan end up next?

Enjoy.

LINK!

I just watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past last night and I’m alright about it.

It’s not a very good movie. Big surprise there. But it’s really some of the better work star Matthew McConaughey has done in a long while. That’s saying a lot and mainly because I haven’t seen anything he’s done since How to lose a guy in 10 days. Jesus, what am I admitting here? O.k., I did see Tropic Thunder but he was only in it as a bit part and I think that was because Owen Wilson dropped out after trying to kill himself.

I guess the point is that McConaughey used to be a charming go-to guy in a free spirited comedy (hence why I think I saw How to lose a guy) but after churning out shit-fest after shit-fest (Failure to Launch, Fool’s Gold) even the really dumb ticket buying public started to tune out. My guess is most people who sat through Fool’s Gold might have actually enjoyed Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It sucks, but it couldn’t have been any worse than Failure to Launch right?

The story is an absurd re-telling of the Christmas Carol in which McConaughey’s character, an unrepentant lady killer (and kind of a sociopath) is visited by girlfriends past, present and future. You know how it ends if you’ve experienced a Christmas and you’re over the age of 10. McConaughey learns a valuable lesson and rekindles a fairly implausible relationship with Jennifer Garner.

Here’s some big issues with this movie aside from it being unoriginal and kind of crappy: Who in the hell was Jennifer Garner’s character? She was a friend of the family but it was never explained who she was and why she was at the brother’s wedding. Also, McConaughey drinks at least seven double shots of whiskey in the time it takes him to deliver a completely out of character diatribe about love. It takes him five minutes and seems to only be mildly buzzed. Then he drinks some more. I don’t care who you are, if you drink that much in that short amount of time, the hilarious hijinks of this movie would be put on hold while the main character waited out his coma.

Anyway, I watched this in Blu-Ray and McConaughey is really starting to look sunblasted. He’s still a good looking guy but I’m starting to find it hard to believe he’s so desirable when he looks like he could be panhandling for change on any intersection in America. I’ve already written way too much about Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, but maybe if I can help one person not make the same mistake, it was worth it.

Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to swing it. I wrote the 50K words last year for National Novel Writing Month with no problem and figured I could cruise to yet another victory. Take that as a lesson kids: Just because you do something once doesn’t mean you can mail it in the next time.

Writing 50K words is tough. Especially when it’s all complete and utter crap. There were so many times this month where I was writing and just couldn’t bear to continue because it was so bad. I guess that’s what the editing process is for, but when you’re trying to crank out that much material, you don’t have any time to stop and change things for the better.

The sting of failure is real though and the only way to remove it is to finish what I’ve started. I had done 40K words on basically the same story before but stopped because it sucked. So I started it again, changed some stuff around and used the other draft I wrote as a way to fill in some of the gaps. I actually stopped at one point and started something entirely different that I liked a lot. It’s short, so I’m sure that will see the light of day before the novel I was working on. So I will finish them both to relieve this horrid feeling of failure hanging over me. That is, as soon I finish the story I actually completed Nanowrimo with last year.