What I Have Learned Over Spring Break in Iowa . . .

. There is a country song with the refrain of "Jesus Loves You, But I Don't." I just love that because as mad as she is at him, she just wants to remind him that we're all God's children. I think it would be kind of rock star if she sang "I Hate You, and Jesus Hates You Even More." It may go against her core beliefs, but I guarantee she would have sold more records.

. Some Irish Wolfhounds can be the ugliest dogs you ever saw. Notice that I say some because I found some rather cute ones online. The two that wander the block of Gancey Girlfriend's parents' house look like 150 pound mutant wolfs with hunchbacks and ugly, ugly faces. I petted them, and as an animal lover, I grew to like them. However, that theory of so ugly they are cute, just didn't ring true in this case. They seriously looked mangy, deadly, evil, not of this world, and ten times uglier than the ones you see pictured.

. I like saying the phrase "like it's going out of style," but so rarely does it make any sense. For example, I had a gyro, and then went on a jog through the surprisingly high hills of Iowa. Panting and grunting my way up a particularly nasty hill, I thought to myself, "Man, I'm burping up gyros like it's going out of style." Could that really have ever been in style, and if so, were there people out there hurrying up to get out a few last belches before it was no longer in vogue?

Any thoughts on any of these topics? Anyone else want to share something they have learned with my seven readers?

Because He Loved Bender

I'm still working on this play, and while reading a book largely about John Hughes (I know, three straight posts about him), he said that he was approached numerous times about doing a sequel to The Breakfast Club, to which he said he could not because he cared to much about those characters. It got me thinking about my current project, and to be honest, all four of my principal characters could get run over by a bus or an Asian tour group on Segways, and I wouldn't give a crack. Meanwhile, this legendary writer cares for his characters as if they were his own children.

It made me think that I need to figure out just who my characters are, what they want, and I want to care about them like John cared about John Bender. Sure, Bender was a bully, an instigator, and a criminal, but also, despite being physically and emotionally abused by his cruel father, he was smarter than any of the kids in the honors classes (even though the hardest class he took was shop), and in just 7 hours time, he could woo the prom queen into a make out and an apparent girlfriend status. You see, I care about Bender, but I don't care for my guys just yet. Well, not all of them. I just did an exercise where I answered questions as if I were Jackson Bosley, the frustrated novelist in my story, and I think I'm beginning to like him. He's a self-absorbed prick, but he's just so darned witty and fun . . .

UPDATEs

If you look at my previous post, you will see something I wrote about John Hughes movies having no people of color in them, and when they do, they're largely stereotypes. I came to this realization when I was reading a book about the Brat Pack, and then tonight I read a part near the end where they discuss the whiteness of the films. Darn, someone else already made my point!

They also look to Long Duk Dong as an Asian stereotype, and one Asian writer stated that before Sixteen Candles he was compared to Bruce Lee (cool!), and afterward, he was destined to be tied to "The Donger" (uncool).

The book did not point out like I did the Latino and Black guys working the garage who steal Cameron's father's car, but they did point out how the Black guys in Vacation (written by Hughes) rob the rims off the Family Truckster.

You guys know any other movies guilty of stereotyping?

I'm reading a fantastic book that I think you all should check out called You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation. I have always loved John Hughes movies, and as a kid, without realizing it, The Breakfast Club was the film that made me start really appreciating good dialog, and it would make me want to see a better class of films at a young age, eventually making me want to become a writer: I was reciting long passages from The Breakfast Club while other kids were only getting off one liners like, "He slimed me."


However, as well as Mr. Hughes seemed to understand and portray the high school experience, the truth is, all he really showed us was the white high school experience. There were nothing but Caucasians in detention that day in The Breakfast Club. The only Black people in Weird Science* were the stereotypically Black guys in the all black bar, who were meant to be scary. The only person of any ethnicity other than white from Sixteen Candles I can remember was Long Duck Dong, the extremely stereotypical Asian kid who was complete with a gong banged every time he was on screen. The worst of all was Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which the only people of color were the ones dancing at the parade and the Black and Latino guys working in the garage, who take the Ferrari for a joy ride. I don't recall any homosexuals in his films. Ducky from Pretty in Pink was close, but we were meant to think he was straight.

Am I wrong about this, seven readers? Anyone have any other examples?

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*Weird Science was snubbed by this book with the author saying the following: Weird Science, though written and directed by John Hughes and starring Anthony Michael Hall, doesn't get much attention herein because, though it's still a late-night cable TV fixture, it has virtually no cultural resonance." I couldn't disagree with this more. The story is about two dorks in high school who are resolved to just live their lives in obscurity and misery until one day when a woman they create on their computers helps them learn who they really are. As a guy who desperately wanted to get laid and be cool in high school, this is a story that "resonated" like a motherfucker to me, plus it's underrated in how funny it really is. Perhaps it's just a guy movie, but that being said, if there's no Weird Science because it's a guy movie, then there should be no Some Kind of Wonderful, which is included in the book, because that is a straight-up chick flick.

Buffalo Fries: How Bad Could They Be For You?

I was watching the NCAA games at a bar the other night, and I was hell bent on not getting fries with my wrap. This place had a lot of healthier options, but then I saw "buffalo fries," I just had to know what they were. I asked, and they're just fries smothered in buffalo sauce. I could tell by the look on the face of the waitress that they were killer.

So, I broke my no fried foods rule, ordered the buffalo fries, and yes, they were incredible. Oh, and then I washed it down with a deep fried snickers.

I have to go.

My Ab Roller wants to pick a fight . . .

Here is a snippet from pop singer Rihanna's new song:

Come here, rude boy, boy
Can you get it up
Come here, rude boy, boy
Is you big enough

I can't believe this is on the radio. What kind of message is she sending to today's little girls out there? What a horrible example she is setting! After all, it should be "are you big enough," not "is you big enough."

For Old Time's Sake

If you look back at some of my posts a few years back, you will likely come across a blog about me going out drinking, talking loud and drawing a crowd because I did that a lot in those days. Now that I have a serious girlfriend and have grown up a bit, I don't often do that anymore, nor do I write about it.

But, last night was a celebration for St. Patrick's Day and Gancey Girlfriend's birhday, and as a result, it was a throwback to my latent frat boy period. You have to understand, St. Patty's Saturday in Chicago is just insane. People fill up the bars at 9AM. We were slackers, starting our boozing around 1:30PM. My plan was to drink one whiskey on the rocks an hour, and just sip it slowly, so that I could pace myself for the long haul. At around 4PM, Gancey Girlfriend pulled me aside to let me know that it wasn't working out because I was already kind of lit. I made the switch to beer, and I'm not going to tell you that it slowed me down any.

Whenever you go out in big groups, there are always bar changes where folks get split up. We did this a few times, and one time, just as we got to a bar, we got a text that the girls had already gone to a different one so that they could dance. Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP)* said, "Jeez, this is like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego!

It was the dancing bar where things got a little hazy and crazy.** For whatever reason, this bar which shall remain nameless seems to lead the nation in asshole guys hitting on other guys' girlfriends because it was going down left-and-right. I had to intervene with one guy who apparently, I didn't see this, balled up his fist like he was threatening to punch Gancey Girlfriend. What astounded me is that when I said, "Yeah, that's my girlfriend, so you can go away now," he didn't. He kept saying stuff to me that I either can't remember or couldn't hear, and I kept saying increasingly louder and more frustrated, "Just go away!" He eventually did, and he was thrown out.

What seemed like moments later, but it could have been hours later, another butthole was chatting up my lady while she was clear to him that she didn't want him around. I saw his arm go around her wais, and I just lost it. I talked to him, and basically had the same conversation I had with the last guy, only this one was worse compounded by these 2 simple facts:
1. I had just had this conversation with another a-hole, so I was really frustrated
2. This guy was twice the doucher that the last guy was.

It was a conversation about like this:

Dr. Ken: Sir, that's my lady, so this would be an excellent time for you to fuck off.
Doucher: (something rude with a mean, rude face)
Dr. Ken: Just go away.
Doucher: (Still being rude despite the fact that he's in the wrong.
Dr. Ken: What is it with these people? GO AWAY!!
Doucher: (Still being a turd, saying something assholish, despite the fact that, again, this guy doesn't have a leg to stand on)
Dr. Ken: Just go away
Doucher: Turd, turd, turd. I'm a turd.
Dr. Ken: Just go away
Doucher: Call me Turd Furgusen***
Dr. Ken: Let's step outside
Doucher: Sure.

Now, let me remind you that Dr. Ken's fighting record is 0-0-0. I have never been in a fight, nor do I have any idea how to fight. If I got in a scrap, I'd probably try some mixed martial arts moves that I saw on Spike the night before, and I'd undoubtably take an ass whipping that would likely lead to drinking through a straw and some reconstructive surgery on my big Swedish face. The second I said the words "let's step outside," I thought to myself, "Why the hell did I just say that? I don't know thing one about fighting," but I wouldn't have to fight on this night. A security guy came and grabbed Doucher, just Doucher, and walked him to the door. No one even laid a hand on me, so someone must have tipped off security, like someone had to remove the last jerk.

The life of a man dating a woman most people would agree is out of his league looks-wise is not an easy one, so it's good to know another place I need to stay out of, and this is one such place - so full of unbelievable uncompromising assholes. I was glad I was able to share with you this tale of drunken bafoonery, and I hope you were entertained. However, I need to grow up a little and leave the hazy and crazy (love that line!) posts to the college kids like Jerseyjov. She's a good writer, especially for how young she is. Check her out. Me, I'm going to go back to a mild mannered life and post boring stuff about the grocery store.
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*HLP, if you're reading this, it would be a great time to click the link and check out all the blog posts in which you come up!
**Just made that up. I rather like it.
***I have no idea what he was actually saying because I was lit, it was loud, and I was cutting him off and telling him to go away from us. If he had really said the Turd Furgusen thing, I would have probably had a laugh and bought Doucher a drink.

Also, click anywhere in this sentence for a link to the published version of my article about Rupaul's Drag Race.

Drag Race Preview

I'm going to publish this over at Starpulse, but I wanted to give you, my Seven Readers, a sneak preview of a write up I did on the show, Rupaul's Drag Race. Sorry, there are no pictures. I let Starpulse do that because they actually get permission for all their photos. I'll be sure to let you know when it goes live so that you can see what they do with it, as they usually do a pretty good job. If you catch any typos or grammar issues, go ahead and email me at thegancer@yahoo.com if you like. Here it is . . .

Have you seen this thing? This is the second season of this show, but it’s new to me, so I’m going to break it down for you, as I was surprisingly sucked into it. It’s just what you would expect, unless you expected drag queens physically racing: a number of transvestites compete in various competitions until one diva with caked on makeup, lofty ambitions, and a pronounced Adam’s Apple is left standing.

The theme of this show, or at least the third of the episode I caught, was a drag wedding, and as the “ladies” were putting together their gowns, things got heated. Apparently everyone hates one named Tyra, who was pasting on dress accents onto her bare skin with a hot glue gun and screaming like a girl. Well, I guess she is supposed to scream like a girl if she’s trying to be one, but this was really annoying. Besides, as one other drag queen pointed out, who uses hot glue on their own skin? The same guy/gal that pointed this out went on to say something like, “That’s right, bitch. Burn yourself.” This drag race was dangerously close to turning into a drag fight!

The contestants all came out in their dresses and pranced around, and it was about what you would expect, but then they showed wedding photos of them posing with the male versions of themselves in tuxedo’s, and that was just creepy. You have to really love yourself to want to put on outfits of both sexes to take a picture of you marrying yourself. What we really learned from this from seeing them as men next to the women versions of themselves is that it takes a really, really skinny man to be a somewhat convincing drag queen. So, as a woman they usually have manly bone structured faces and big “man hands,” and as men they are emaciated skinny. Either way, not ideal, but these drag queens seem to be loving life either way . . .

The judges picked the ones who faired the worst in the wedding bit, and, for those two, it was time to: “Lip sync for your life!” The winner would stay, and the loser would be cast off with Rupaul’s not-so-great catch phrase: “Sashay away?” They both did a good, enthusiastic job getting the judges’ attention, but ultimately the one who did a jump off the stage into a split was the winner. That really should have disqualified him or at least warranted an immediate genital check because how could he do that if he truly had a set of . . .

Anyway, this show is worth taking a look at because it’s doubtful you have seen anything like it. As for Rupaul, he/she is still prettier than around 70 or 80% of the contestants, but he/she is showing his/her age a little. After all, it was the early 1990’s that he/she had a hit. However, in his/her day, he/she would have been far, far more convincing than any of these contestants. Okay, that was a long way to go for that point, especially with all of those his/hers and he/she’s. Exhausting.

My only regret is that I didn’t see the episode just prior to this one, which was in a game show format: The Snatch Game. Biologically speaking, that just can’t be what it sounds like. It just can’t be . . .

Chris De Burgh Wants To Touch Your Boo-Boos

I was watching a show on VH1 highlighting the Top 100 One-Hit-Wonders of the 1980's, and when they spoke of Chris De Burgh, singer of the super wussy rock 1986 "classic," Lady in Red, they showed a video of him claiming that he has the power to heal people with his hands. He claims to have touched people's legs who could not walk on them, and, behold! - They could walk!

I cannot for the life of me find any video footage of the De Burgher talking about this phenomenon, so if you find a link, please leave it in the comments so that I can embed it on here.



This got me thinking about an old roommate I had and his quasi-girlfriend. The three of us used to drink too much and sing karaoke on the on demand cable, using a mini flashlight as a microphone. My roomy would always do Lady in Red. I would usually do The Rain by Oran Juice Jones, dropping the microphone like the end of a Chris Rock show after the spoken word part at the end of the song, and then I would go straight to bed. Keep them wanting more is what I always say. One night, however, I decided to throw down Lady in Red. Roomy was pissed. He said, "Don't you go trying to out-De Burgh me!"

Give Lady in Red another listen now, and let me know if you think this man can have some super-human powers. What power does this song have over you? The power to induce vomiting? The power to induce slow dancing? Let me know, oh Seven Readers. Let me know so that Chris and I may heal your soul. As always, be sure to turn off my music player on the left panel if you decide to listen to the video, unless, that is, you want to revisit The Rain by Oran Juice Jones.

Have Any of You, My Seven Readers, Seen . . .

Sea of Love (1989) starring Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin? Al plays a detective who goes undercover answering dating ads to catch a woman killing men, which is when he meets the incredibly sexy Ellin Barkin. I love this movie, but hardly anyone I have ever known has seen it.

Oh yeah, it also stars John Goodman, who a friend of mine met once, and apparently he has a head of gigantic proportions. I was at a barbeque when he told me this, and to illustrate the immensity of Mr. Goodman's skull, he said, in his St. Louis accent that was somehow almost Canadian, "It was the size of that propane tank over 'der."

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is not to tell about a portly actor's head but to say that that this film was the performance of a lifetime for Ellin Barkin because, as I said, she's sexy as all get out, but if you look really, really closely, she is not all that attractive. Yet, that doesn't at all stop her from being undeniably hot. So, without the benefit of natural good looks, like so many other leading ladies, she manages to exude nonstop sex appeal in every one of her scenes, and to be fair, her acting is quite good here too.

Can you think of any other actors or actresses who are hot despite not being all that good looking? I'll spot you Benicio Del Toro.

Sometimes There Are Just Too Many Bad Omens to Ignore

Have you ever seen the Omen (1976)? It is the story of a little boy, Damien, who unbeknownst to his parents, is the son of the Devil. His father, played by the always stoic, and in this case stupidly so, Gregory Peck, who despite seeing numerous insanely scary events, refuses to believe that his boy is the spawn of Satan. Now, I know that this is not something that is easily accepted. I admit that I'm one of the biggest skeptics ever: I'm not sure I believe in anything, be they Gods, aliens, ghosts, or anything else not proven by science without some hard evidence. That being said, I think if I saw some of the crap this guy saw go down, I think I'd change my tune sooner than 3/4 of the way through the film. Here are some of the things he was able to look past:

Damien's Nanny, at his birthday party, hung herself in front of everyone, saying, "I did it all for you, Damien," or something like that.

Damien intentionally ran his big wheel into his mom while she was fiddling with a hanging plant, knocking her off the balcony, killing her unborn child, the very child some priest told the father Damien would try to kill, and oh yeah, that priest knew she was pregnant before anyone else did.

That same priest also had a metal rod go right through his body during an electrical storm, killing him and skewering him while he was still standing, which is how the father saw him on front page news. Would a paper really publish something so gruesome?

They took Damien to one of those drive-through zoos, and after delivering just one creepy smile at them, all of the chimps went bananas and started screeching and jumping all over the car.

Another day, they tried to take him to a church, and Damien started panicking as they were pulling up. They said, "It's just a church, Damien." When they stopped the car in front, and it was clear to him that he would be going there, Damien started punching and clawing at his mother, bruising her badly with no apparent punishment.

Here's the one I really don't like: After their last nanny hung herself, a new one showed up before they even started looking for a replacement. She is obviously an unnerving woman and a Satan worshipper, and she brought a giant scary Rottweiler to protect Damien. Gregory Peck is all nonchalant about it, like, "Hey, I thought I told you to get rid of that dog." This woman is clearly a nut job. Fire the bitch!

In any event, I had to take a sick day today, and I was just lying on the couch this afternoon getting pissed about this guy looking past all of these things. Is there a movie you can think of where a character is a skeptic for far too long into the film, and don't say George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life because that movie is perfect.

Gay First Grader

As much as people on the Nurture end of the debate would like to convince you otherwise, sometimes you can already tell a kid is gay when he's in the first grade. I know some gay first-graders, and some of them wear sweater vests, some are into Hannah Montana, and some of them the only word you would use to describe them is "sassy."

Now, if you're going to try to tell me that there is something you could do as a parent to keep your kid from "going gay," then how do you explain gay first graders?

Parents, if your kid is playing Double Dutch at recess and he wants an Easy Bake Oven, don't go into panic mode and try to send him to some sort of Christian camp where they try to pray the gay out of him. Just consider this a time to start preparing yourself for the idea. Sure, his life might be difficult for a while with the teasing and fear of coming out, so why make it worse on him by putting added pressure of shunning parents on him?

Gay first graders are a reality people, and they're kind of cute, so it's time you accept it.

Are You Old?

Do you know what the hell Lady Gaga is saying in the gibberish part of "Bad Romance?"

I've decided that if you don't, then you're old. I'm officially old because I really tried to learn it by concentrating hard when I heard that part on the radio. I actually like the song. It sounds like the soundtrack at the happ-happiest gay bar of all time. Despite liking the song, and trying my hardest to commit it to memory, I can't do it. I have decided this means I'm old because if I were at a club (which I don't really go to anymore), and this song were playing, I just know that I would be faking it, and look around to find that all the 20-somethings know it by heart.

For the record, the "words" are:

Ra Ra-ah-ah-ah
Roma Roma-ma

GaGa
Oh la-la
Want your bad romance

Vajazzled

When you look up Vajazzling on Wikipedia, this is what you find: To Vajazzle is when a person decorates the outer labia of the vagina with adhesived backed crystals or faux gems. The term came to the fore front in pop-culture when Jennifer Love Hewitt explained it on "Lopez Tonight",[1][2][3] She has an entire chapter in her book dedicated to vajazzling.[4]

To me, any time I'm face-to-face with a vagina, it's a good day. Does Dr. Ken need sparkling gems or Swarovski crystals to enhance the experience? No, but how about you, readers? Here's a real pic, so you can judge for yourself.

If you ask me, these celebrities need to find better things to do with their money, but what do you think?