The Rants of Anaximenes

It's just been a crappy summer, that's all. I'm glad it's almost over. I'm tired of the hot weather, mosquitoes, weeds and the health care "debate." August is a crappy month. It's the only month in the whole year that doesn't have a holiday in it. And no, I don't count Ramadan as a holiday. The stock market is still open, the mail still gets delivered, and Muslims are still killing one another, just like any other day. So, if it's to be considered a holiday, just be advised that it's a crappy holiday.

The only good thing that happened this summer is that a few Hollywood dunderheads finally died. Like, Michael Jackson.

"Oh, but he was so talented...." Yeah? Well, big deal. A lot of people can sing and dance, and most of them can do so without grabbing their crotch on stage. And what did he do with his talent? He turned it into incredible wealth so he could surgically make himself to look like a fucking clown, build a personal amusement park and lure little kids into bed with him.

And what do we do with talented, singing, dancing, pedophiles who die in this country? We give them a nationally televised state funeral and sell tickets to a star-obsessed, intellectually shallow public. He was a bizarre, self-indulgent, morally bankrupt freak, and I'm glad he's fucking dead. It moved the needle in an otherwise crappy summer.

In fact, a lot of dunderhead Hollywood types kicked the bucket this year, which were certainly high points in a crappy summer. David Carradine, for example, finally freed himself of these earthly bonds by tying himself up and having a heart attack undergoing self-induced strangulation while masturbating. Since he was best known for his 1970's TV role as a moralistic Kung Fu monk who shunned earthly pleasures, that's nothing short of ironic.

Seems like there was a bit of irony in several Hollywood deaths this summer:

• Billy Mays gave his last sales pitch after dying of a heart attack subsequent to snorting cocaine. That would explain a lot about the man's exuberance for laundry detergent.
• Ed McMahon died at age 86 of complications from bone cancer. He was destitute and penniless, after making millions as a pitchman for Budweiser and as Johnny Carson's sidekick for over thirty years. And just think of all those millions he gave away for the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. More irony.
  
• Seventies porn star Marlyn Chambers died at age 56 of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was addicted to Vicodin because of chronic back and neck pain. The irony in that is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
• Farrah Fawcett died at 62 of anal cancer. Having been married to Lee Majors, I won't even comment on the irony of that.
• Walter Cronkite died of natural causes at age 92, prompting a barrage of eulogistic drivel from the slobbering media about the demise of the patriarch of evening news. No real irony here, but it was just annoying. What's so great about a guy who can sit in front of a camera reading a teleprompter night after night? Hell, even our President can do that.

Yes, all in all, it's been a crappy summer. There weren't even any summertime blockbuster movies like there usually are; just a parade of tired, warmed-over crappy sequels:

• Yet another X-Man sequel about that guy with steel claws and a wolfman haircut.
• Star Trek. Again! Albeit a quality remake of the entire franchise with some clever casting and an intriguing storyline, I was pissed that Spock and Uhura were getting it on. Everybody knows that it should have been Nurse Chapel. It was always Nurse Chapel.
• Angels & Demons, a manic and confusing sequel to The DaVinci Code. This time you get to see not one, but two Roman Catholic priests immolated, and more importantly, Tom Hanks had gotten a haircut.
• Another Transformers sequel with hot women possessing unlikely academic knowledge, and overweight African-Americans used for comic relief. This isn't even a movie franchise based on a story, for god's sake. It's based on a fucking toy.
• Harry Potter And The Whatever Whatever. It may be the highest grossing movie franchise of all time, but the illusion of now 19 year-old Emma Watson as a prepubescent sorcerer is stretching all credulity mighty thin.
• Hollywood movie moguls figured if Transformers could make a movie franchise out of a toy, they could surely do it again with G.I. Joe. Likely the dumbest movie of the season, it is therefore qualified to be on next summer's sequel list.
  

This summer was so crappy, we didn't even have any good hurricanes to watch. In late August, we've only gotten to the the letter 'B' and as hopeful as I was that it would cause some really good devastation in Barney Frank's home state, Hurricane Bill was downgraded, and all the hurricane warnings along the Massachusetts coast were called off. Crap.

The news generally was pretty boring, and thus pretty crappy this summer. Bill Clinton went to Korea doing what Hillary couldn't, and Hillary went to Africa, then got pissed-off at a question about Bill. Anytime you still have to read in the news about Bill and Hillary's marital angst, you know it's a slow news time adding to the enrichment of a totally crappy summer.

Protests in Iran? Who cares? Riots in China? Does that mean we'll have fewer lead paint toys recalled this fall? And of course during August's congressional recess, all the town hall disruptions by angry conservative protesters has been only mildly amusing in that the liberals are finally getting a taste of their own medicine, with time-honored ACORN tactics.

In fact, the most exciting news stories this summer didn't even happen this summer. All the news channels were awash in historical recounts of the 1969 lunar landing and the Woodstock concert. The fact that both were considered equivalent events deserving the same media attention is a testament to the idiocy of the national press corps. One was an enormous scientific achievement of incredible human endeavor and ingenuity arguably unparalleled to this day; the other was a disorganized, poorly planned, over-crowded rock concert and drug fest.

Oh, there was one exciting news bit this summer. It only took our Commander-in-Chief just seven months to pull the race card after taking the oath of office, beating all Las Vegas odds. It was about time that the President of the United States reminded us white folks why we need to feel guilty about how black folks continue to suffer at the hands of racial-profiling white cops, even ones with impeccable credentials who teach cultural sensitivity classes to fellow white cops. But alas, a few beers on the White House lawn, and now everyone's happy again.

Television, too, was its usual crappy self this summer. In an effort to get past the customary re-run syndrome of typical summertime television, studio producers tried a few new shows this season:

• More to Love: Yet another bachelor/bachelorette TV reality show, but this one is with size 14+ women who piss and moan because they're fat and unmarried. Go figure.
• The Next Food Network Star: Remember when the Food Network used real chefs who had been vetted in the real world of the culinary arts and created trendy restaurants with exciting new concepts? Well, now all they have to do is win a TV game show.
• Secret Life of the American Teenager: Someone dies, someone gets pregnant and someone loses their virginity. Notice this isn't the secret life of an American teenager, it's billed as the secret life of the American teenager, like this is some normal shit for most kids.
• Dating in the Dark: Three single men and three single women move in together but are sequestered from the opposite sex. Boys and girls can only meet and date one another in the dark. Presumably, boys and boys, and girls and girls could meet and date in the light of day, the way God intended.
• HGTV Design Star: A knock off of The Next Food Network Star, except fewer people in a smaller viewing audience giving less of a damn.
• The Great American Road Trip: It follows seven families in RVs, pitting them in simplistic challenges as they have the daunting task of driving down Route 66. File this under "F" for fucking forgettable.

The only good thing that happened on television this summer is that Katherine Zeta Jones returned to T-Mobile advertisements as their celebrity spokesperson. Where the hell has she been, anyway?

Naturally, the crappy state of affairs in the world generally remained unchanged this summer. Some items that would qualify for the Crappy Summertime Awards would be:

• Michael Vick gets out of jail for unspeakable cruelty to animals and is promptly reinstated to the NFL. Someone tell me why Don Imus hasn't gotten his job back at ABC for calling a bunch of basketball players "nappy headed hos."
• A man responsible for bombing a Pan-Am jet and killing 270 people is let out of prison to return to a hero's welcome in his native Libya. Everyone is understandably pissed off about that, but I think we should thank the Scottish taxpayers for harboring this motherfucker all these years and sending him on his way with a terminal illness. By the way, his cancer is probably only terminal because of the shitty state of medical technology in the UK, a healthcare condition to which we all seemingly aspire.
  
• Standing on a chair with his arms raised as if he were being crucified, ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich opened the Second City comedy show recently in Chicago lampooning the rise and fall of his own political career. The show is a takeoff of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar and portrays Blagojevich as greedy, tactless and hair-obsessed politician, which he pretty much was, so I'm not sure I understand the parody. Whatever happened to the notion of disgraced, impeached politicians contritely going on the David Frost show and asking for forgiveness?
• South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford ran an op-ed apology in several newspapers. Sanford said God would change him so he "emerges a more humble and effective leader." I just love how politicians, once they're caught with their hand in the cookie jar, or on another woman's ass as the case may be, always evoke God to help them reestablish their public hubris via feigned humility.
  
• Last year John Edwards ran for President and denied having an affair with a campaign worker. So, he goes on television and tells ABC that he lied while running for office, and that yes, he did have an affair with a campaign worker, but didn't father her child or pay her any "hush money." Of course, ABC News didn't challenge him or do any investigative reporting of their own. They dutifully broadcast it all at face value. This summer, it took the good ol' National Enquirer to ferret out the story that, golly gee, the child is his after all, and, [in the voice of Charles Laughton from Witness for the Prosecution]: "The question is, Herr Edwards, were you lying then, or are you lying now, or are you not, in fact, a chronic and habitual LIAR?"

Yes, indeed. It was a truly crappy summer. I can't wait for the Congressional recess to be over, school to be back in session and President Obama to return from Martha's Vineyard so we can all see what he brings next in the way of hope and change. I'll look forward to seeing a criminal investigation of the very people who kept us from a second or even a third terrorist attack because the media is more obsessed with the rights of terrorists than it is about how bad Congress is fucking over the American people with a nine-trillion dollar debt, and continuing to blame it all on Bush.

Maybe we'll all have a crappy Fall, too.