Friday, January 30, 2015

The Total Bozo Magazine Super Bowl XLIX Preview?

By: Total Bozo



The Super Bowl is happening on Sunday. We have a website. Therefore, we might end up talking about the Super Bowl.

BEN: Would you have any interest in doing a Total Bozo Super Bowl Preview? (This is how the Total Bozo Super Bowl Preview begins. It is currently happening.)

KELLY: I don't know if I even have interest enough to fake it. hahaha. But maybe Lindsey would wanna take a crack at this one? Or Andrea? I've got them copied here. 

BEN: Look guys, we don't have to do this. We could all just agree not to do this.

KELLY: I think "someone" should do this, and I'd very much like to read it. I'd do it if I wasn't cry pooping over workish things. 

LINDSEY: I wish I had time this weekend:(

BEN: I think it should be a good game, since both teams are good at football. Does anybody have an opinion about any of this?

KELLY: I always start thinking "oh, I think this Sunday is the Superbowl" starting basically the first Sunday after Christmas until I know full well that it has come and gone. I also think about going to a bar where there's some sort of Superbowl event just to eat their nachos, etc. 

I literally have no idea who's playing the Superbowl this year. The LA Kings?

ANDREA: just saw these was there an attachment? i'm in Mexico but might have downtime tonight

BEN: The LA Kings are a hockey team, so no, they will not be participating unless something very unusual happens. The teams that are playing are the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, FYI. This preview is going well. I think non football fans should have some Super Bowl traditions of their own, like how Jews go to the movies and eat Chinese food on Christmas, and thieving nachos is a great idea. Maybe you could all dress up like the Hamburglar and go "ROBLE ROBLE!"

Also, I'm going to open this up to Ben Seeder and Pete "My Brother" Johnson, in case that helps. Guys? Super Bowl Preview?

KELLY: I wonder if there would ever be an extreme situation where a hockey team (baseball, basketball, etc) had to fill in during the Superbowl. Like how there's Airforce 1 and Airforce 2. 

I'm just not even gonna flesh that out. I'm just leaving it there. 

ANDREA: so the thing is i don't know enough about football to even know what writing a super bowl preview means so could you spell it out for me i'm interested. full disclosure i didn't read all the emails.

LINDSEY: We could interview Ben about "how to get 'cool' girls to watch the football with you."

KELLY: This is unraveling in the best way. It's like pouring a bag of marbles onto the empty hardwood floors of an apartment and then videotaping it. 

BEN: I could definitely see some sort of Super Bowl Emergency Plan coming into play where it's 2035 and a majority of the country has been incinerated by cosmic rays but whatever jabbering meathead is the current President insists that the Super Bowl still needs to happen as a show of American resiliency, and it turns out the Minnesota Twins are available since most of them were hiding in Minnesotan bunkers for the winter anyway. The Super Bowl has been slowly but inexorably becoming about things that aren't actually football for years and years now. Maybe by then it'll just be a thing where you turn on your TV to watch an American Flag wave for three hours while U.S. Air Force drones drop hot pizza poppers into your mouth.

Any thoughts on Katy Perry? I feel like the entire appeal of Katy Perry is just "America really wants to motorboat Katy Perry, but can't, but we feel we should keep her around just in case."

ANDREA: i still don't understand what is happening but i like it



KELLY: I definitely feel like the Super Bowl is mostly about snacks and controversial commercials. I would buy season passes to an event that included a flag waving for hours and pizza poppers being DRONE DROPPED (I just invented that) into my mouth.

I feel like Katy Perry makes near constant fart face and is basically a walking used condom. 

I'm tempted to just start copying everyone I know on this email. And I'll do that now. Tess, April ... any thoughts on the Super Bowl? 

BEN: THE SUPER BOWL MUST BE PREVIEWED.

I HAVE NOW CC'ED MY ENTIRE FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUE. I FEEL LIKE NOBODY IS PREVIEWING THE SUPER BOWL.

Like what about Richard Sherman? What about Gronk? What about those deflated footballs, and, like matchups? What role will Doritos, or even Doritos LOCOS play in all of this? HOW AM I THE ONLY PERSON WITH SUPER BOWL PREVIEW FEVER, OR "PREVER" FOR SHORT?

KELLY: It's this Sunday, right? I should live tweet it. My Hungarian/sex offender following NEEDS my input. 

APRIL: I try to quit the Super Bowl every year, and I can't quit the Super Bowl, but the closest I came was the time I took a bong rip before the game and only remembered the Black Eyed Peas making me uncomfortable while I was eating black eyed peas.

Sent from my iPhone

BEN: But what about like "matchups to watch" and "wacky prop bets" and Richard Sherman and Gronk? How does Andrea not know about Gronk erotica? What role will Doritos, or more importantly Doritos LOCOS play in all of this? I'm out here trying to PREVIEW the SUPER BOWL and you people are like "it's this Sunday, right?" YES IT'S THIS SUNDAY. AAAAHHHHHH.

I EVEN WROTE ALL OF THAT ALREADY. I AM LOSING IT.



JIM CRAGO: Alright, Edwards, I just printed out the Rush tickets for June 12. Let's reconnect in a...

Whoops. Wrong email thread.

Uhhhhh...I've got the over on Idina Menzel's rendition of the National Anthem.

KELLY: My cousin Karri who lives in Los Angeles always Instagrams pictures of herself at LA Kings games and I always see them and wonder if she's doing social media for them. It makes more sense to me that she now has a random job with the LA Kings marketing department than to think that she goes to sports games to see sports happen.

BEN: I am heartbroken. I have failed to preview the Super Bowl. And to make matters worse, I am friends with a Rush fan.

TESS: I'm very into this entire thread and wish I had any opinion whatsoever on the Super Bowl. I only knew it was happening because I asked a dude to go out Sunday night and he was all, UM THE SUPER BOWL THO and I was like, lol k. I just want someone to rate/review Katy Perry's performance based on which Cheetos flavor(s) it most closely resembles. 

JIM CRAGO: Well, technically two. That is if you're friends with Todd.

Anyway, sorry to "deflate" your attempt at a Super Bowl preview. I hope it doesn't leave you "deflated."

#deflate #deflategate #Rush

BEN: This is the worst day of my life.

TODD SCHANBACHER: That's Todd Edwards BTW. Fuck Rush, but Skynyrd rules.

PETE JOHNSON: Hey Ben, how are those tips on how to get cool guys to watch the Super Bowl with you coming?

BEN: NOT WELL.

COREY RITTMASTER: I'm with you, Ben. Why isn't there a Super Bowl preview on par with the red carpet at the Oscars? People shouting at Russell Wilson and Vince Wilfork, asking them who they're wearing, that sort of thing. 

KELLY: Tess, I think we should go to a bar where Superbowl things are happening, steal all their snacks, and then start crying when Katy Perry comes on, and then leave. We could bring smoke bombs. 

TESS: Yes. Can we just bar-hop for snacks, then rank the snacks?

BEN: Alright, you know what? I'm calling it. We did it. Thank you for reading the Total Bozo Magazine Super Bowl Preview! Stay tuned for Crying Super Bowl Bar Snack Ranks and Possible Hungarian/Sex Offender Live Tweet of Sunday's action!

KELLY: KILLED IT!



Thursday, January 29, 2015

The ONLY Ghostbusters 3 Thinkpiece You’ll NEVER NOT Read

By: Ben Johnson

busting this makes me feel good

Fuck. It’s this now?

[long sigh]

Okay, so they’re filming a third Ghostbusters movie with an all female cast and they just sent out a press release about who is in the all female cast, and people are going apeshit about it.

The important thing to keep in mind about this is…

Goddammit. I mean…

I guess I could throw together something about Ghostbusters 3. I kind of don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole, because "movies are just things, people, why do we have to act like babies about them" and "it's probably a good thing that the culture nerds whose babylike whims have decided that the rest of us are going to be stuck watching Thor 2 for the rest of eternity are now being confronted with their own misogyny this directly" are difficult things to articulate at the same time. 

But also...

Can this please just be it? Like can this please be the last thing we ever talk about?

No? Why? Because J.J. Abrams Star Wars, and there’s a Marvel Comics 75 Year Plan to Destroy America which they are referring to, extremely ominously, as “Phase 3,” and more importantly because I, a “creative class urban white male” who tries his best to honestly, completely not give a shit about any of these things, nonetheless knows about these things, and understands that these things are implicitly for me, and therefore feels entitled to an opinion about all of these things?

Well fuck. That is… that is awful. What a predicament. What a goddamn conundrum we’re in right now, us poor poor fucking totally fine white guys. All OF CULTURE is TROLLING us right now. We’re being whipped up into a frenzy, and feeling pressured into defending our positions, which we never even had to think about as being positions before, and that was easier because that way we didn’t realize how indefensible our positions were, and also what the fuck, these are just movies we’re talking about, how come everything is crazy like this every single time anything happens, boo hoo hoo :(

You can’t even turn on your phone without being bombarded by cool shit that might be cool but might also not be cool, but might actually be less cool than the previous cool shit, and might instead be the “I don’t know, I still kind of liked it, it’s still pretty cool” shit instead of the actual cool shit, and might also be, oh my god worst case scenario, not cool shit at all, just regular uncool shit. It’s like, what’s a guy to do? You can’t just ignore it. SOME OF THE SHIT IS COOL. Like with cool robots and things blowing up in space and, like, wisecracking alien babes. Sometimes they even say the “S” word.

Remember when you were twelve years old? Just kidding. Of course you do. You are still twelve years old. You are reading something about Ghostbusters 3 right now. You might as well be sleeping on a twin bed with Power Rangers sheets. You fucking idiot.

I call you a “fucking idiot” with the utmost sympathy, by the way. Because I’m a fucking idiot too. I’m here just like you are. I, like, “thought” about this stuff.

I’m glad they cast four women in Ghostbusters 3. The women they cast are funny as hell. Kate McKinnon might secretly be the world’s current funniest human. Here’s my impression of Kate McKinnon on SNL right now: “oh, cool premise, you guys, really good job crafting a funny ‘what if’ type scenario for people to chuckle at for six minutes, really, great, thanks for letting me participate, now if you don’t mind I’m going to go ahead and BURN THIS FUCKER DOWN (huge wall of flame).” Ghostbusters 3 should be a pretty funny movie. Kate McKinnon will be in it. And Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones too. And they’re going to, like, bust ghosts and make wisecracks. They’re going to be wisecracking ghostbuster women, which is like ideal for me because I like all of those things a lot because inside of my grown man exterior I am actually a baby inside, and you know what babies do: they cry until they get what they want.

I liked the Ghostbusters movie a lot, and then I also liked Ghostbusters 2 movie a fair amount, and I’m sure I’ll also like this one. Good. I like liking movies. Me liking movies is not important. At all. But: I think I’ll probably like this one more than I don’t. For what it’s worth. Hint: it’s worth nothing. But: to the people with the money who decide what entertainments exist for the rest of us, it’s worth everything. So we’re stuck, culturally, with indulging actual twelve year olds and inner twelve year old babies inside of the grown up humans that those twelve year olds become. For the forseeable future.

Which makes a ton of financial sense, because if you’ve ever seen an actual businessman behave in the world, like watch how they move their bodies and where they put their hands, and how they react to minor obstacles when they drive, you know that the entire world is run by latent twelve year olds. It’s a little twelve year old rich prick white boy world, and everything in it is either for them or against them (which can be just as profitable if you do it right, like how these Ghostbuster people appear to be doing with the all female casting).

Sorry everybody, you’re stuck with a bunch of stupid, juvenile shit. And it won’t even matter all that much that Kate McKinnon will be involved. Even though, yeah, that might matter a lot in some ways such as how much I’m gonna bust my gut after forking over twelve dollars, one for every year my inner child has not aged past.

Based on the preferences of inner twelve year olds, here are some things you might expect to happen in the next ten years:

A “Funny” He-Man Movie Where Ha Ha Ha It Is Implied That Skeletor Is Gay And Teela Farts

A Remake Of Drop Dead Fred That Leads To Several Arguments Between Married Couples About Do We Really Have To See This, I Don’t Get It, Yes We Do Because I Want To And There’s Nothing To Get

A Doctor Who Movie That Nobody Likes

The Last Starfighter Remake Where It Turns Out That The Last Last Starfighter Was The Second To Last Starfighter

The Last Dragon Remake Where It Turns Out That The Last Last Dragon Was The Second To Last Dragon

The Last Airbender Remake Where It Turns Out That M. Night Shyalaman’s Career Is Finally Over

Big Trouble In Little China Remake, Just Kidding, They Would Never Remake That Given All The Money We Owe To Actual China

The Neverending Story Remake That Follows The Detective In Charge Of Bastian’s Missing Persons Case Who Ends Up Getting So Fucking Pissed That He Was Just Up In The Attic Of The School Reading A Goddamned Book For Eight Hours Before Being Kidnapped By A Sex Cult While Walking Home At Midnight, And The Resulting Civil Suit Where The School Is Charged With Criminal Negligence For Not Even Checking Up There Even Once Just Because The Janitor Was Too Afraid Of The Skeleton, But They Finally Found Him Using DNA From The Second Half Of The Sandwich And He Was Pretty Messed Up And Kept Crying And Asking For Falcor And Screaming When The Therapist Insisted There’s No Such Thing As Falcor, Falcor Is Just The Plot Device Of A Deus Ex Machina Come To Life, And You Need To Face Your Actual Problems Sometimes Without The Benefit Of A Luck Dragon

At Least Four Terminator Movies, And Maybe The Robot Is A Black Person

Some Kind Of A Superman Situation That Takes Itself 100% Seriously And Says Some Random Dumb Shit About Heroes And How Being A Real Hero Means Being A Dad Or Whatever

A Princess Bride Remake That Still Has Billy Crystal In It As If Fans Demanded More Billy Crystal, And We All Just Have To Sit Through The Billy Crystal Part And Let Him Do Whatever He Wants And Then Give Him Whatever Praise He Sadly Still Seems To Need, And We’ve All Agreed To Do This Basic Amount Of Billy Crystal Maintenance Because This Is Somehow The Price We All Have To Pay For Making Billy Crystal Famous In The First Place And Boy Was When Harry Met Sally Ever Not Worth It

Well.

That turned out relatively fun. I’m sorry if this thinkpiece was not sufficiently about Ghostbusters 3 for your taste, but in all fairness, if that is true, it’s time for night night, you fucking twelve year old baby. Go brush your teeth and put on your jammies.


Monday, January 26, 2015

A Pretty Good (Or Good and Pretty) Examination of Sexualizing Female Artists

By: Kelly McClure


I've been watching a lot of America's Next Top Model. Hulu has a ton of seasons streaming for free, and when there's literally nothing else I can think of to watch while having my rum and hot tea evening experience (a new thing I've been enjoying) I'll watch it. They have guys on it now. It's not just girls. And each episode centers around who's a drunk, who's a slut, and who has trouble walking or smiling/sexing with their eyes. 

Sometimes the show's host, Tyra Banks, will join forces with a particular episode's guest photographer to single out one of the models and tell them that their forehead is weird, or that they'd be better at modeling if they jogged more to shrink themselves and lose muscle mass. It's a show, and this is what this show is about. I was just about to say "I take nothing away from it," but I do, which is the purpose of me writing this thing right now. I take away from shows like America's Next Top Model, and for the most part, every single thing that my eyes and ears experience on any given day, that people who choose to be in the public eye (especially women) sign an unspoken contract to spend the rest of their lives laid out on a silver slab, poked, prodded, and sliced thin like deli meat while we walk down the line of them, deciding which to consume. And when nothing catches our eye, we turn and chomp on the lesser grade flesh of each other. No contract needed, just every person's right. Famous or common, no one goes to their grave bite mark free.

My wife recently recorded an album and to support it she's been playing small shows around New York. So far all of the performers who go on stage before her have been men. Men with guitars who play pretty well, or well enough to be on a stage to give people with beers in their hands something to look at other than their phones, which they do anyway. They're loud, even when they're quiet. Meaning, even if it's just one guy on a stool, playing an acoustic guitar, his noise will come out full-bodied, and fill the room from floor to ceiling, all the way back to the bathrooms, out the doors, and down the street. A manly noise will be made. A musical manly noise. And while this is happening, my wife and I will stand there politely watching, sipping our beers, and shooting each other little smiles, nervous over the fact that soon she'll be taking that stage. And every time she leaves my side to do so, I feel like my whole brain is one of those scenes in movies where bad guys are about to rape a mom and a daughter and the mom is like "Please no. Spare my Daughter. Just rape me and let her go." That is literally how I feel. Because I know that the minute she gets on stage, alone, under those lights, she'll be as naked and "on sale" as she's ever been.  

And now take a minute and think how sad, how nasty a state of affairs, could make that true. And if you're a guy reading this, can you ever in your wildest dreams imagine feeling that way upon seeing anther guy you care about take the stage to play some songs?


A week or so ago my wife played a show in Manhattan in a hot, basement like little room split in half by a bar. The two bands who went on before her were large bands with drums and plugged in instruments, the whole bit. We were worried about her set because it's much quieter in comparison, being that it's just her and a guitar, but when she went on she quickly won the audience over. For the first minute or so, everyone was talking and distracted, but then the room got quieter and quieter while attentions focused on my wife singing her songs. At the room's quietest moment a guy standing by me leaned over to his friend and said, in a normal speaking volume, not a whisper, "She's kinda pretty." To which his friend responded, "She's really pretty."

I wanted to cry when this happened because it reminded me of the time a male co-worker, and one time close friend, of mine complimented my wife (girlfriend at the time) by sending a link to THIS SITE in an email to me at work containing only the sentence "you should recommend Lindsey to this site." And in both instances, I reacted the same way. Instead of crying I just made light of it, joked it away, because, as most women know full well, it's easier to do than being fucking mad every fucking five minutes every single fucking goddamn day because a guy chose to compliment a woman by turning her into some kind of prostitute hooker doll-baby. Purely there for the lick of his eye. 

As a woman, I've sexualized artists of both genders myself. I've done it a lot. I've done it in print. Just the other day I was (and please excuse me for this) masturbating while listening to Sufjan Stevens. I was listening through my best headphones, so the sound of his voice was close and warm in my ear. I like to hear a song immediately after I come, and on this particular day it was Sufjan, and at the moment of me coming I thought "there's no more beautiful boy in the world than Sufjan Stevens." My mind filled with an image of his cow-like eyelashes, and the Clark Kent wave of his hair. And then we were done. 

I've mind fucked Sufjan Stevens, rowed Ryan Gosling like a boat, ridden the curve of Beyonce like a horse, hate fucked Carrie Brownstein to "teach her a lesson" for not liking me when I interviewed her once. I've done the worst of it. And part of me tells me to feel bad. But most of me knows that's it's different. It's just different. And I'm sorry that it is. But it is. The difference between a woman's experience sexualizing an artist and a man's is the difference between the stinky poop paws of a trash kitten swiping at your cheek, and the dank, bloody paws of a mountain lion - swiping at you  not because it wants you particularly, but because you're little and you're just there for the swiping.

For me, when I love an artist, or am in love with their music, I want to crumple it all up, them and their songs, and put the whole thing in my mouth. I understand that urge to consume what's presented to us by the world for entertainment, and nothing is more delicious than a woman. But I just put it in my mouth. I put it in my mouth and hold it there, warm and safe. I don't bite down. I don't gobble it up. 


Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Pork Chop Express, Next Stop: Tranqulity

By: Joshua Hutcheson


I was sitting at home a couple of weeks ago, watching Big Trouble in Little China for the eight trillionth time, (For this viewing I learned Chinese, so I could make sure the film makers got the details correct. John Carpenter is known to be as precise and exact as Stanley Kubrick when it comes to what appears on screen.) when it hit me: this Jack Burton guy has his shit together more than it appears at first glance. He’s a guy who really knows where his towel is. 

Upon further reflection, I realized that Jack Burton (the main character in this flawless masterpiece) approaches life from a very well-defined point of view. He’s a man who has spent years in his truck, traversing the highways and byways of this great country (America?) hauling the sundries that we all so desperately need. Were you able to drink coffee this morning? You can thank Jack Burton for that. Is your lawn well-manicured? It’s people like Jack Burton who smuggled the immigrants into your neighborhood for that very purpose. Did your life-sized John Holmes “Xtra Veiny” black dildo made from Space Age polymers (and Bluetooth enabled) arrive on your doorstep this week? That’s right, Jack Burton once again. 

It was during his time on the road that a well-worn and time-tested philosophy formed for Jack. And he loves to share this philosophy with others. He spends the majority of his time in his truck giving advice and life lessons to his fellow truckers. All of it from knowledge and experiences gleaned from years of being a rig jockey. Nobody asks him to, but you can be damn sure everybody within earshot of a CB radio sits in rapt attention whenever Jack Burton’s pitchy voice comes over the speaker. 

And his words! The things he says can really open your mind. From the existence of life on other planets:

“Well, ya see, I’m not saying that I’ve been everywhere and I’ve done everything. But I do know it’s a pretty amazing planet we live on here, and a man would have to be some kind of fool to think we’re alone in this universe.”

To dealing with adverse weather:

“Just remember what Ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right in the eye and says: ‘Give me your best shot. I can take it.’”

To methods of placating obstinate bill collectors:

“When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye, and asks you if you paid your dues; you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye and you remember what Ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like that: ‘Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yessir. The check is in the mail.’”

To proper driving safety:

“Like I told my last wife, I said ‘Honey, I never drive faster than I can see. Besides that, it’s all in the reflexes.’”

And sometimes he says stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with eyes or vision. But not too often. Any thoughts involving eyeballs or sight are squarely in his wheelhouse. 


His attitude on life is so refreshing and unique. His method of coping with setbacks, from his truck being stolen to having to fight demons from the underworld, is to shut up and just get it over with. Sometimes without shutting up and usually without actually getting it over with either. But it never really matters in the end, because things work out for Jack anyway. 

Thus inspired, I decided to apply Jack Burton’s lifestyle to my very own, to see how a day in his vaguely racist tank top, unnecessarily tight jeans, and stylish boots would suit me. But without having to wear any of that stuff, because come on. 

The next day I drove in to work. I don’t actually have a CB radio in my car, but that didn’t stop me from monologuing into thin air about whatever random shit popped into my head, (how the hell did Norm manage to be a regular at the Bull & Finch if he never paid his tab?) This exercise helped to prepare me for the day to come. 

As I stepped into the office, a coworker ran up to me in a panic. It seemed that over the evening hours, our systems may have crashed, costing us many important files and potentially erasing the payments of several of our customers. Were this true, it could be a disaster for the firm. I had to act fast. I had to calm this guy down and set his mind at ease. So I grabbed his shoulders as they shook from his crying fit and looked him dead in the eyes. 

“The check is in the mail,” I said. And walked away. The company filed for Chapter 11 two days later. 

Continuing my Jack Burton experience, I headed to a nearby food truck for lunch. Unfortunately, the line for “Hot Mess” the ironically-named gazpacho food truck, was far too long for me to stand in for a bag of soup (they sell soup in a bag, what can I say?) I just didn’t have the patience for waiting.  And why should I? I’m Jack Burton now goddamn it! I’m a VIP! So I pushed my way to the front of the line. 

Whenever I passed grumbling nobodies I would favor them with a smile and say “Ol’ Jack says…what the hell?” This did nothing to help clear up my behavior and actually made a few people more irate. Which, in turn, led to my involuntary gazpacho shower as patrons pelted me with bags of soup. I barely made it away safely. 

So far, my experiment had failed me. Jack Burton made it look so easy. He was able to simultaneously quip, smooch the ladies and fight people who shoot lightening from their fingers. Why was I having such trouble? 

That evening I went to my favorite watering hole, The Hill, to enjoy some adult beverages and try to piece together where I went wrong. I couldn’t understand it. As far as I could tell, Jack Burton had it all figured out. He was but a few short steps away from Nirvana and complete universal harmony. Meanwhile, here I was, probably out of a job and covered in tomatoes and pureed veggies. 

After sipping on my fourth gin and tonic, I realized what I was missing. See it’s not enough to try and just follow Jack’s advice. If one wants to truly know enlightenment, one must commit to walking the same path as that great man. I would have to go out and buy a truck. I’d have to get married and divorced a few times, probably have a bastard child or two out there somewhere. I’d need to get into gambling and playing Mah Jong (probably) at grimy city docks in the wee morning hours. I would need to become stupider and more obtuse. And most importantly I would need the experience and hemorrhoids that only come with untold hours of sitting in a truck. I understood that all of these things were too much for me to attempt as a simple social experiment. I would have commit to a complete life overhaul. And since Love it or List it was going to be on in a few minutes, I just didn’t have the time. 

I had to abandon my experiment there. But not all is lost, for I know that someone, somewhere out there, must be replicating what I did. But going further. Trying harder. Somebody out there is close to tasting spiritual oneness with Jack Burton and the cosmos. And to that person, whoever they may be, I can only say: 

“Sit tight, hold the fort, keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn…call the president.”

Or something like that. Whatever. It’s not an exact science. 

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

DNA Sponge

By: Patrick Strong



Whether you have been out on a typical family vacation or trucking from gig to gig, chances are you have been driving for hours and hours and stewing in a pool of caffeine, nicotine and your own body funk; on a good summer day, your crotch by itself could be a scummy, slime pit warranting a rating from the EPA as a potential Superfund site. What you need is a shower and a nap to feel clean and refreshed. You finally pull into the big parking lot in front of the classic, two story Stalinist rectangle of a building(s), and quick as your nearly paralyzed legs can haul your carcass, you head to the front desk of whatever discount motel/hotel/motor lodge you’ve given into staying at. You can’t wait to pay for the room, get your key and head to a little peace, quiet and a hot shower. After entering the nondescript beige walls, two beds and imitation wood grain furniture that have been cloned millions of times all over the world, the door closes behind you like a cheap vault. Dropping your bags, you immediately fall back onto the bed . . . just like in the commercials. Congratulations, you just made your first mistake, and no amount of bathing can wash away the taint and stain of lying down on one of the vilest textiles on the planet, the motel duvet.

Aside from a homeless man’s raggedy, fart sack of a bed-roll, that thick comforter (duvet) you just did the Nestea plunge into is in fact one of the most rancid and disgusting pieces of cloth on the planet. With a homeless dude’s bedding, there’s only one scumbag that’s wrapped up in his scumbag on a nightly basis. You can’t say the same thing about motel room beds. Come on, it’s a hotel room, and you know what happens in hotel rooms, right? It’s possible you may have even participated in a few evenings at a Motel 666 that not only flaunted the laws of the state but also the laws of God, nature, good taste and decency. And, what happens in hotel rooms, like Vegas, stays in hotel rooms and more importantly on motel room duvets . . . especially pecker tracks, pussy goo, lice, crabs, scabies and santorum.

Maybe in the past you’ve heard horror stories about the seedier aspects of life like the old Pussycat porn theaters or the jack booths in the back of sex-shops, held your nose up and scoffed at the wizened, creepy perverts and their desperate, public sex antics amidst the multitudes of spent shots of feral man-chowder all over the floors, walls and seats. Holding your head high, you proudly think, “Thank God, I’ve never sunk so low as to put myself into such heinous and potentially disease ridden environments.” Unfortunately, you did right when you laid back onto that multi-colored spunk and STD sponge covering the motel bed. At least the jack booths at the sex-shop get mopped out a couple times a day; that can’t be said about the comforters at not only the budget motels, but even some of the fancier joints.

Even though the illusion is crafted by the armies of housekeeping staff that the room you just rented for the night has set idle and clean just waiting for you and you alone, chances are that some fairly twisted shit has gone down in those four walls and probably in the very recent past. If you have ever gotten a 3AM phone call from some spastic space monkey so tuned up on gack that he sounds like the light speed legal warnings at the ends of car and bank commercials, and he’s looking for someone named “Speedy,” you’re guaranteed that major crimes and debauchery were close enough on the clock to smell – if it wasn’t for the chemical based air fresheners deployed that morning that are also used in crime scene clean up. Partial crime scene cleaning is almost part and parcel to the job of those mostly immigrant domestics who are “stealing your jobs,” but the hotel chains try to make that aspect a bit easier to cover up by the choice of patterns on the bedding.

There’s a good reason that the duvets in these rooms look like some darker Disney smeared nightmare; that way you can drunkenly spill a pizza, seed and/or a hooker corpse on them without being able to notice the stains as easy, and it makes it so they don’t have to continually launder them. Matter-of-fact, unless it’s stated as a selling point, some chains only launder their comforters once or twice a year, you know so they can be “eco-friendly” which is a nice way of saying “cheap bastards.” If a whole year, or even six months, of crack head, hotel based abuse between cleanings doesn’t make you want to boil yourself after touching one of these things, then you’re made of tougher stuff.

The unsavory nature of this infamous bedding was first brought to my attention several years ago while touring with my dirt-rock band Genghis Con Job. Whenever we hit our hotel room (four of us giant bastards would stay in one room), the first thing Frank Drank would do was rip the duvets off the beds and throw them into the corner of the room with a look of disgust on his face like he had just shook hands with a leper. Considering the heinous shit I’ve watched and sometimes participated in with him and the other band members, I found it kind of amusing that he suddenly looked like a giant, bald headed and bearded girl who had just seen a rat in the corner. I should have taken this as a clue. Frank has toured with major professional bands as a road manager and picked up this tip from none other than Ice-T himself, and it’s not like T is staying in the fucking Motel 6. At the time, I just chalked this up as a conspiracy theory, but I was wrong. Conspiracy theories need outrageous premises of multiple hidden shooters or radio remote controlled planes piloted by faceless cabals of black hats and the money men that issue their marching orders. Fucked up bedding just needs party people and cheap, corporate bastards trying to save a few bucks on soap and hot water.

At this age, I should know by now that common sense and wisdom are learned experiences garnered through years of collected knowledge. Unfortunately, I have to see something written down or shown on TV by “experts in their fields” for me to believe it. A few days ago, while watching some crime investigation show on one of the “info” channels, I learned these horrible truths about motel duvets from none other than a forensic criminologist. While working a rape and murder at a motel, they tried to find DNA from the rape on the motel room’s bedding, specifically the duvet on the bed where the rape had occurred (the murder occurred elsewhere). Yes, they found male DNA, 38 different types of male DNA along with a couple of dozen different female DNA specimens. When they ran the florescent light over the comforter in question, it lit up like black light Jackson Pollock painting.

At the time, this was one of the first cases of a hotel murder that the criminologist in question had worked, and he was shocked to find out that these duvets are cleaned sometimes only once a year. Now, he knows better both for his profession, and, he said with a knowing smile, for when he has to travel to completely remove the duvets and throw them off to the side, wearing gloves if possible. I’ve stayed in my fair share of hotel rooms, and this knowledge gives me a slight case of the heebie jeebies at the thought of how many of these vile bed covers I slept in or napped on. A coffin full of wormy dirt from Dracula’s homeland now seems cleaner to me. As they are so unclean and wretched, had motel duvets been around in Biblical times, without a doubt, there would have been some protestations in the Good Book against them, probably sandwiched into Leviticus between all of the saber rattling for slavery, prohibitions against pork and homosexual hating. As far as these woven DNA receptacles are concerned today, I’m reticent to even touch one to remove it from the bed without wearing a Level Four Hazmat Suit, but if you decide to lay down on one, why don’t you just you go in the bathroom and tongue the toilet seat while you’re at it because you obviously have some Klingon genes and are a firm believer of that which doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger.

To read more from Patrick, visit HERE

Friday, January 9, 2015

The Total Bozo Sexuality Summit

By Kelly McClure and Ben Johnson


For no reason whatsoever, we are co-interviewing each other about aspects of each others' sexuality this week.

BEN: I’m 35 years old and at the point in my life where I’m no longer even particularly interested in my own sexuality, not to mention somebody else’s. As far as its actual role in my life, sexuality is just various feelings and various human skin parts slapping around all willy nilly, either a distraction from or a part of all the things I care most about in my life, which at this point mostly boils down to “I hope today is nice.” So I really have no fucking clue what to ask a lesbian about. I’m not really curious about any particular lesbian thing. Kelly, you’re a lesbian. Are there more cat lesbians or dog lesbians?

KELLY: First of all, I'm super pleased with myself that I was able to instantly recall your email and password to get into this draft. I have a Total Recall memory when it comes to potentially snoopy things, and it's for that reason that I myself, at 37 years of age, am extremely interested in both my own sexuality, and that of others. I guess it's kind of funny when you think about it because although I don't care about people per se, as like, people, I definitely care about their sex weirdness, and what the penis or vag of the last person they slept with looked like. I will text people I barely know to ask them very personal questions about their sex things, and to be polite, I'll usually kick it off with "I know this is weird, but ..."

I think it's super fun, and sometimes funny to be a lesbo, so I'm happy to answer your questions. When approaching this particular question of whether or not there are more cat or dog lesbians, I think you have to start with figuring out which has the more lesbo characteristics. Not to pigeon hole, which is a very non-lesbo thing to do, even though the word "hole" is right there, which is a pretty lesbo word, cats are the more girly of the two in that they will always just do whatever they want, unless they think that doing something not only for themselves will result in a reward of some sort, for themselves. Dogs are more like, "Oh, I'm just over here thinking about nothing, doing some manual labor, and then maybe also wanting to hump this coffee table." Which is pretty dude like, from my perspective. So based on those facts, I'd say that there are more cat lesbians. Oh, and the alternate word for "cat" is "pussy" which is the most lesbo word of all. So there you go. 

Okay, so here's my first question for you: Since you have a penis, which is basically like a flesh tube, would you say that when you "you know" it feels kind of like a sneeze? 

BEN: You're asking me if jazzing feels like my penis is sneezing? That is an incredible question. That is a strange and difficult and wonderful question. The answer to it is no. Ejaculating does not feel like your penis is sneezing, per se. The most sneeze-like aspect of it is "oh shit, my body is about to spray something gross, I better figure out where to do that," but you're also experiencing an orgasm at the time, so your brain is just like "Not where babies grow! Not where babies grow! Ahhh! Ahhh!" and then that's about as far as you really think about it. I mean obviously you're not gonna jazz on like a FabergĂ© egg or recently varnished table, but you know what I mean. There's a little less consideration involved, because you're like naked and orgasming and you're presumably in some kind of a privacy situation. Also there is some concern about "what kind of noise am I going to make?" but not really all that much. Wait. Maybe it is basically like sneezing. Out of your penis. Behind closed doors, naked, unselfconsciously, while orgasming, with only you or a close friend nearby.

Maybe it is LIKE sneezing, but it doesn't FEEL like sneezing. It feels like having an orgasm, popping a rad zit ("yeahhh"), and spilling something when you're shitfaced drunk ("oops but whatever"), all at the same time. Physically, I guess the part where stuff comes out of your penis feels like a small but not disagreeable urgent shit coming out of your pee hole, but it's so wrapped up in just what it feels like to have an orgasm that you don't think "oh weird, I'm shitting out of my pee hole!" Like women shit during child birth, but it's not like "it felt like I was shitting while having a baby." There's just a lot going on down there at once, it's hard to separate things in a way that's explainable to a person who doesn't have those parts, especially since you don't really have to.

In retrospect, cat or dog lesbians was an extremely lame question.


As a gay person, do you feel social pressure to, say, watch musicals, or other things you actually fucking hate but must nevertheless tolerate simply because of your gayness? I mean, I'm sure the answer is yes because the answer is yes for everybody who ever wants to get laid in their lives regardless of gayness, but like what specific gay-type things have you found yourself forced to participate in and/or have an opinion on? 

KELLY: I think that's probably the best description of a male jizz jazz that I've ever had to process. I can't really imagine what it would be like to have a goo shoot out of my body as the end punctuation of every sex act. What kind of face are you supposed to make when that happens? I'm picturing like a "TA DA!" type face/arm movements combo. To be fair, once in a blue moon a goo will shoot out of a vag at the moment of climax but it's usually quickly followed by some sort of "Oh my god. That just happened. Are we okay with how that just happened?" exchange.

A lot of stuff goes along with being a homo, and musicals, thank god, land more on the male homo plate. Gay men are supposed to love musicals, hair products, decorating, and scarves. Gay women are supposed to love flannel, crafts, cats, and being cheap. The cheap stereotype is something I personally resent and fight against. I tip 50% on most drinks when I go out, so don't lay that garbage on me. I definitely find myself doing a lot of stereotypical lesbian things like wearing chunky shoes and putting my fingers in vaginas, but I feel like a lot of lesbians would think I was a bad lesbian because I don't really recycle, I don't shop at co-ops, I don't own an acoustic guitar, etc. Living in Olympia for six months basically taught me that I'm doing it all wrong. So I give up.

So here's an important question. On a scale of 1-10 how afraid are you on a daily basis of catching your junk in your zipper? If I had a penis I would only wear pull up pants or sweatpants for fear of that happening. Sometimes a pube will catch in the fabric of my underwear and I'll get tears in my eyes. So I can't even imagine the horror that lurks behind every zip of your jeans.

BEN: I don't make a TA DA face. I make a "thank you for letting me do this disgusting thing to you which I nonetheless enjoy" face.

It's so weird that there's such a thing as being a "bad lesbian" for reasons other than being a "bad human being." Nobody's going to call me a "bad straight guy." I guess that's because language itself is tilted in my favor and therefore that's what the word "asshole" means.

Your questions are very anatomical. Dick in the zipper is a fear, but not like a wake up at night fear. It's also functionally dependent on nuances of unseen variables like subtle engineering of zipper position and underwear shape, so that a majority of situations are not even applicable to dick in the zipper. Like do you ever worry about getting your tits caught in your jacket zipper? Only if you were not wearing a bra or a shirt and you had a weird jacket with big sharp zipper teeth that zipped more to the side in the tits-in-a-zipper zone. And even then you'd be like "I'll be fine if I just go slow and, you know, be conscious of not zipping this jacket where my tits are."



The following situations are alert-worthy: another person has control of your dick and/or your dick-access zipper, which is probably a net positive even if it's a little spooky and there ends up being a little actual penis-on-zipper scraping (men, as a general rule, will agree to temporarily endure all nature of things while having their penises touched); I used to have a pair of boxers that I only wore in emergency laundry situations where the boxers fly was creased open so I was dealing with constant male wedgies (where under your pants your dick is out but nobody knows because you're wearing pants), and those were some very careful zips; you are shit-assed drunk and getting your dick caught in your zipper is just something that happens to you instead of breaking your arm falling off a statue.

I'll try to ask an anatomical question, I guess. Are there some lesbos who get a sexual reputation like "look out for Deb, she's especially rough on your vag" and other lesbos who are like "oh good, that's a good match for me?" Because I routinely feel guilty for doing anything more aggressive to a vagina than gently sing it lullabies.

KELLY: While reading your zipper stories I thought about one of many times my mom managed to zip my neck flesh into my snowsuit when I was little. I think maybe she did it on purpose, it happened that frequently. Maybe this is bringing out some just beneath the surface zipper hangups I have. Like I want to warn all of my friends and loved ones to watch out for their zippers.

I've worn zip up hoodies over my naked boobs a few times. Usually in instances like "Oh shit, I'm not fully dressed and the UPS guy just rang the bell." It's not a very comfortable feeling. I can't think of an instance where I'd catch a nip in the zip. Maybe if I accidentally died mid-zip. Or if someone ran from another room and knocked me down mid zip. Velcro scares me too now that I think of it. I guess I'm afraid of clothes. This is taking me to a weird place in my brain.

I have an immediate mental story that came to mind upon reading your question that I can't fully go into, but yes. I had casual relations with a girl for a brief period of time in Chicago who more or less would just punch my vagina. I've never encountered anyone else who came at a vag in such a violent, but well intended way. I have to say that I did enjoy it to a certain extent, and if I knew of someone who was in the market for a vag pummeling, I'd refer this girl for sure. There are definitely ways to determine whether or not you're gonna be getting a single scoop vanilla cone, or a hot fudge sundae with all the toppings type sex situation from a person, and these will get tossed around in conversation in "the community." Slapping gets brought up a lot. I've heard multiple stories about how someone was weirded out by the idea of slapping/getting slapped, and this was used as an indicator for how bland or not bland their sex was. In an alternate universe where I wasn't married and was looking to date someone, if I heard that a particular someone was completely 100% opposed to slapping a face in a sexy way, I'd probably be less inclined to pursue a sex thing with them because it just negates so many things. I like a "can do" attitude, and I think most other women do as well.

Okay, here's a non anatomical question. This is purely a straight white male question. Do you find yourself, in general, being nicer to women who you find attractive, as opposed to those you don't? Even just subconsciously?



BEN: A certain portion of lesbians are out there slapping each other during sex. I had no idea. That is the freshest information in this whole thing from my standpoint.

I've been noticing and paying careful attention to the whole thing about who I'm nice to recently. My gut reaction is that no I am not nicer to women I find attractive, but of course that's bullshit. I tend to get a very "fuck you" attitude to women who I perceive as acting like I'm supposed to feel more attracted to them than I actually am, but that's not the same thing as what you asked. I also tend to have a "oh shit, no, no I don't need this" attitude towards women who I actually am attracted to who are not my girlfriend, because I am just not at all interested in doing the emotional paperwork which is necessary when you find yourself really enjoying a conversation with a woman you're attracted to who is not your girlfriend. Basically, if I think you're a drop dead stunner, you're going to have to physically stop me on the street and ask me what time it is before I'll start talking to you on purpose. That's got nothing to do with the other person's merits as a human, it's just based on self-awareness of my own juvenile emotional state.

But on a regular, way-that-strangers-interact level, I do try to make a conscious effort not to ignore women who I do not find attractive. Like I try to hold doors open equal opportunity instead of "you can go, you can go, you're on your own, uggo," and get out of people's way equal opportunity so that I'm never like "oops sorry, I didn't even realize you exist because no thanks on sex." And this is because I have definitely noticed that women just out in public who are older or overweight or (for example) black or just kind of not especially done up tend to be treated like invisible people by non-cretinous street hassler-type but just regular oblivious human white men. Like I've noticed my own self do it, and I've noticed other white dudes do it, and it burns me up with white hot shame every single time. So yeah, I've noticed that not only myself and other straight white guys do it, I've noticed that the whole world, essentially, does it, and I hate that about myself, other white dudes, and the world as a whole. It sucks.

Anyhow, I might be a weird guy to ask because I am most attracted to women who have their hair in buns and are wearing tennis shoes and jeans and like an old Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. Like minimal effort-level unselfconscious grocery store outfits where you're just there to buy guacamole ingredients while being at least one step of decorum above sweatpants and/or crying. If I see you in a grocery store wearing that outfit, I'm going to physically turn my body until you are no longer in my field of vision while making polite chit chat with a diseased albino schizophrenic woman. That's just how I like to promote justice.

Also I hate that I am a total boob-looker. I try to reign it in but it's compulsive. It's not even sexual. Like I probably peeked at my dead grandmother's chest during the viewing a couple of years ago. I don't know the fuck why I would do such a thing, and I don't even remember having done it, I just know that I probaebly did. If you you think this is something about myself that makes me happy, you are quite wrong. The only thing I can say in my defense is that breasts are perfectly located at the exact area where a neurotic person with bad posture is most likely to look while habitually avoiding eye contact.

Any final thoughts? FYI, balls are boring. They're just a couple lumps sitting around in a sweaty sack of hairy skin. We don't need to talk about them.

KELLY: I think we about covered it. I mean, I'm definitely curious about balls, and have many  more anatomical questions I could ask (ever sit on your penner? Does it hit the toilet water when you're pooping? Where exactly *is it* when you have pants on. Like, Under your belt, or??) But I think it's good to leave some things a mystery.

You? Final thoughts?

BEN: My penis (and maybe any penis) is not long enough to sit on or touch toilet water unless you were like problem solving for "how can I accomplish this" and contorted yourself specifically to do those two bad idea things, but a sittable/toiletwater-sized penis sounds like an okay problem to have. Dicks are usually to the side of and lower than the bottom of a fly, unless erect, in which case they do a slow "raise your arm over your head for this mammogram" motion until they are sticking straight up with the tip at or under the belt buckle area. You are more interested in penises than any straight woman I have ever met. Penises, like men, are mostly boring and rude.

Final thought: the comforting thing about lesbians, to me, is that they are women who I don't feel a primal need to impress. It's nice to have women in the world with whom men can just talk and hang out, and it's okay for everybody to like boobs, and nobody's trying to get laid. What I am trying to say is while I get that not everything is supposed to be "for" me, thanks for being lesbians anyway, lesbians. Ride majestically into the sunset of your lesbian lives. We'll be right here, just a-whittlin' on the porch, if you ever want to stop by and talk about our dicks and balls.

FYI, you can follow us at @totalbozo if you want