The God's Honest Truth

Belief in God leads to murder, promiscuity, abortion and suicide according to a new study. Which is why I will continue to worship my shrine of Don Knotts made from shell fish and Sacagawea dollars.

Shining

Check out this trailer from a heartwarming new Jack Nicholson family film set in a majestic mountain retreat. All work and no play makes Jack a something something.

Say it ain't so. No really. Please say it ain't. I'm feeling light-headed.

Irish Fighting Death

I hate Notre Dame, but I love Charlie Weis. Break out the tissues.

By the way, the Jets season ended yesterday with them losing two quarterbacks to injuries on their throwing shoulders. Apparently, the team is courting Tim "I've Been Sitting Comfortably For Months On My" Couch. Rick Mirer must have been unavailable.

Ugh.

I Walk (The Yellow) Line

Ever wonder how that yellow first down line works on NFL broadcasts? Well, wonder no longer. Now if only they could come up with some new technology to help the Jets reach it occasionally.

Losing My Religion Syllabus

The Lama is in town, doing his Lama thing. And religion classes are on the rise across the country and at Rutgers. Check it out, yo.

New Orleans

One last tribute to New Orleans before Rita drowns the place again. Here is the song "New Orleans" from The Springfield Playhouse production of "Streetcar!":

Clancy Wiggam:
Long before the SuperDome,
Where the Saints of football play,
Lived a city that the damned called home,
Hear their hellish roundelay...

Cast:
New Orleeeans...
Home of pirates, drunks, and whores!
New Orleeeans...
Tacky, overpriced, souvenir stores!
If you want to go to Hell, you should make that trip
to the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississipp'!
New Orleeeans...
Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile!
New Orleaaans...
Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul!
New Orleeeans...
Crummy, lousy, rancid, and rank!
New Orleeeans!

Fuck

A list of films ranked by the use of the word "fuck." Congrats to The Devil's Rejects for its 560 fucks in 100 minutes.

Essay Essay

Paul Graham's great essay about essay writing and why we were stuck writing about Beowulf in high school.

Oral Exam

According to a national survey, slightly more than half of American teenagers between 15 and 19 have had oral sex. The obvious question: what's wrong with the other half?

Australians Get Charge Out of Man's Jacket

A man in a woolen shirt and synthetic nylon jacket generated a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity that left a trail of fire behind him, causing the evacuation of a building. Can't think of anything funny to say here that tops the images in your head.

Old People and Buses

Because I know you've been clamoring to hear an update on the New Brunswick busing fiasco.

And because I know you want to know how the New Brunswick high school 65-year reunion went yesterday at O'Connor's Beef & Chowder House in Somerset. Don't be coy. You're dying to hear about it. Even if I was watching the Jets win ugly in East Rutherford yesterday instead.

All of TV Inside an Autistic Child's Mind

Now for something completely obsessive and weird. But entertaining for all you TV nerds out there.

All of Reality Like an Autistic Child Inside Bush's Mind

Newsweek's story about the president's hands-over-ears-and-eyes reaction to Katrina and any bad news should sicken and disgrace even the most staunch Republican.

The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round

New Brunswick's new busing system could use some crossing guards. And bus drivers. Anyone out there wanna make 17 bucks an hour?

When You Gotta Go...

President Bush writes a note to Condoleeza Rice during the during the world summit at the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.

16 Sundays

Football season kicks off in less than two hours. Are you ready for some cliches?

Or, as T-Perl so expertly pointed out, are you ready for some porno double entendres?

Your Domain is Soooo Eminent

Redevelopment stories in New Brunswick and Highland Park. The fun never stops.

Gilligan Finally Voted Off Island

Bob Denver, TV's Gilligan, died Friday of cancer. He was 70.

His Russian spy twin is still at large, armed with a pocket knife that has over 200 functions, including a death ray.

Before cancer did him in, Gilligan previously survived a direct lightning strike that rendered him invisible, a run-in with headhunters, a haunting, becoming an allergen to his fellow castaways, a giant spider, a lion, a British mod rock band, a boat crash and countless blows to the head from a large man wielding a skipper's hat.

He is survived by a movie star and Mary-Anne. They'll have to make the best of things. It's an uphill climb.

Friday night I watched Geraldo Rivera on FoxNews grab a random baby (here! gimme a baby!) and hold him up to the camera and incoherently blubber about the face of the tragedy and why can't the national guard just let these people walk away from all this filth and death and stench and just look at this baby! and he almost broke up crying twice and I just couldn't keep from laughing at him. (Photo by Stephen Elliott)

Gerry Rivers to the Rescue!

I just had to swipe this snippet from Stephen Elliot's story on Salon.com (subscription required). Can you believe this guy? (BTW: Geraldo Rivera did not change his name from Jerry Rivers to appeal to a Latino demographic as per the urban legend. But sometimes legends are better than the truth.) This is true:

Geraldo Rivera arrives in a Fox News truck. An elderly woman with blond hair grips his elbow. She's wearing thick dark glasses and a pink shirt. He carries her small white dog in his arms. He's wearing thigh-high waders unzipped to below his knees.

We shake hands. "Her relative called one of our stations," Geraldo tells me, explaining how that call went to another station, and then another, and finally to him.

The woman had been stranded in her home for six days. Geraldo picked up the woman and her dog and brought them here. The woman looks frail on his arm, though not as bad perhaps as a lady collapsed on a chair nearby, unable to move. Or a woman in a wheelchair being lifted from the truck, carrying her prosthetic leg on her lap.

"That's the second time he brought her here," one of the doctors tells me, nodding toward Geraldo.

"What?"

"They did two takes. Geraldo made that poor woman walk from the Fox News van to the heliport twice. Both times carrying her dog."

"Are you serious?" I ask.

He says he is.

Top Five Songs About Floods

Here's hoping American music soon returns to its birthplace...

5. Lost in the Flood, Bruce Springsteen
4. Five Feet High and Rising, Johnny Cash
3. When the Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin
2. Backwater Blues, Bessie Smith
1. Louisiana 1927, Randy Newman

Hurricanes, Fires, Heroes and Women

New Brunswick deputy fire chief James D'heron died one year ago Saturday. The city remembers, laughs and cries.

A pastor calls for hurricane aid for local residents: help families here to help their families there.

Douglass College students rally to save the only women's college on a public research university's campus. Some of them were a lot cuter than I thought they might be.

Burmese exiles march from Washington DC to the United Nations in New York to spread awareness about human rights abuses back home. I really do love Southeast Asians. And Burma is one fucked-up place.

Is This Wrong?