8:00 – Five trophy wives are eaten by an unseen, underwater menace. I think it was a shark.

8:02 – Shannon’s dad won’t let her go to spring break because of all the Jello wrestling and sex. We are informed by the opening credits this movie is produced by someone named Peter Sadowski.

8:04 – The first montage of bikinis and lotioning is immediately followed by the first great line of dialogue – “You are pale even for a white girl!”.

8:10 – Guy Hero, who I think used to be on 7th Heaven, is introduced. He is smart and sensitive and depressed about college, but his mom encourages him to “go meet a girl” even though he is wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt.

8:15 – Two creepy dudes with a video camera walk around telling girls they are with “Girls Unleashed”. This reminds me of the time me and my friend went to Lake Havasu for spring break but somehow ended up there a week early. All he had was a still camera, and we only came away with this photo, which we always preface by rubbing our stomachs and saying, “We went to Lake Havasu and all we got was some terrible gas!”

8:19 – Guy Hero and Shannon dance awkwardly to a slow song at a raging kegger. His new flannel shirt has sleeves and I have to admit, I really like his haircut.

8:24 – Two teenagers are eaten by a shark in a marina which somehow produces a geyser of blood shooting out of the water, not to mention the first commercial break. Snuff Toll: 7

8:31 – It turns out Shannon’s pasty-faced brother is a nerdy shark scientist who works near the beach and says things like, “I don’t know what the question is, but the answer is sharks!”. He warns her about a reef he just discovered that could be home to the Tiger Shark which can “smell blood and has no fear”. I will coin this moment as the “The Moment the Second Great Line of Dialogue Occurs”.

8:32 – The first fake attack of the movie occurs when some girl’s boyfriend playfully pulls her under the water, alarming everyone on the beach and every viewer for a few nerve-racking seconds.

8:44 – Shannon gets slipped a roofie by a serial date rapist. I haven’t seen a shark for about twenty minutes and it hits me that more people will see this than Open Water, the good shark flick I saw a few days ago. I am sad.

8:53 – I wake up after falling asleep to find a scene of Shannon getting molested intercut with two teenagers being shark-yanked off a dock by their feet. Subtle. Snuff Toll: 9

8:58 – Dad shows up but it’s too late. Shannon is getting on that tour boat no matter what! As they stop the boat to swim Guy Hero eats apple slices off a knife… roofie rapist jumps in the water… second fake attack happens when he pulls a girl down by her feet… getting nervous… blood appears in the water out of nowhere… Sharks!

9:03 – The commercial immediately after Guy Hero yells, “Sharks!” is a Gap commercial with a jingle that refrains, “Shorts!”. I keep thinking they’re singing, “Sharks!”. Because I’m not looking at the TV, I think the movie is still going on and just became awesome. It’s not and it didn’t.

9:08 – Shannon wins the race back to the boat. Unfortunately, sharks ram the boat until it can only make it to the nearby island of a mad scientist (I’m guessing), where Shannon finds a near-full packet of Rohypnol (or maybe Sudafed) in Rape Guy’s bag. Who is the real enemy? Subtle.

9:15 – I finish downloading the Sex Pistols box set from the Internet. I’m sampling a demo of “God Save the Queen" so I nearly miss the nerdy brother look at a mutilated sea turtle and say something that ends with, “…inescapable conclusion - Sharks!”

9:25 – The dead body of her friend’s boyfriend is found on the shore of Blood Island by Shannon. I assume he was one of the guys killed earlier in the marina. I can’t help but think of the movie Tremors and it’s underground worms. In the sequels, the worms learned to walk and eventually fly. I am starting to hope something similar happens here so the local news can start 30 minutes early.

9:36 – Finally, after years of sharks on film only attacking by themselves or with a few others, they finally get their shit together and storm Spring Break Beach in a herd. Because of the geysers and generally bad camera work, I am left to speculate how many people actually die. Snuff Total: 1,981.

9:40 – Shannon, Hero Guy, and the nerdy brother lure every shark away by tying a cage full of shark food to the back of their boat and speeding away.

9:41 – Bryan Brown, who is apparently in this movie, stands on the beach amid the smoke and triage tents and says, “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s all wrong.” Though never really explained, he was evidently dumping chum in the water to attract sharks and scare tourists back to a beach where he owns resorts. I think he is just having a Vietnam flashback.

9:50 – Shannon’s boat is going down so the nerdy brother pulls out his latest invention – Tiger Shark-repelling electrical balls. Though Hero Guy shoots himself in the shoulder with a spear gun and Shannon has to swim into the shark swarm to fix one of the pods, the sharks are eventually driven away in the direction of what looks to me like Mexico.

9:58 – Hero Guy and Shannon enjoy the sunset and decide to spend next spring break together… in Cancun! Although, Spring Break Shark Attack 2: Cancun would be great I kind of hope they push it into production a little sooner - maybe a Memorial Day Shark Attack. Are you listening Sadowski?

A Simple Twist of Fate is about the making of one of my favorite albums of all time, Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. I could not pass up the opportunity to read an entire book about a much loved record, especially since I don’t foresee even a magazine article dedicated to the making of The Doggfather or Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In being written anytime soon. The first sign of trouble was the excerpt on the back of the book – a showy account of why Dylan decided to re-record a few songs for Blood after laying them down first in New York: “It was a gamble, but one he knew he had to take.” I’ll forgive the fact (for now) author Andy Gill makes it sound like Dylan was making a decision equivalent to Kennedy’s in not invading Cuba (although I think he actually makes that comparison in chapter 6). But the inference, arduously reinforced in the book, is that the resulting tunes were superior. Meanwhile, a legion of self-important Bob Snobs will tell you that the “New York sessions” were the actual masterpiece and should never have been tampered with. Gill is not interested in opinions, though, unless they are his own, which seems to make them facts in his mind. His fawning reaches a peak when he appoints Dylan’s return in the early 70’s as the only emancipating moment of the decade, a decade he describes as a “swelling sea of MOR pablum and prog/glam fantasy.” Even if I fully understood what that meant, I have to point out that “Kung-Fu Fighting” and “Come Sail Away” came out around the same time.

Despite the awful prose, the truth is I never knew I there were so many things I didn’t want to know about this album – the kinds of microphones used, the order of every cue sheet, and the life story of every studio musician present, for example. Skip this book - but if you want a bootleg copy of Blood on the Tracks – The New York Sessions, e-mail me. It’s a much better version, anyway.

On a scale of nasal decongestants, where Drixoral is a 1 and Flonase is a 10, A Simple Twist of Fate rates a straw with a plate of Cayenne Pepper, the painful and numerical equivalent of a 3.8.

Some would say it’s not a surprise something like this happened because of my history. Having long hair for the majority of my life, I had to be prepared to rock (or possibly recite poetry) at the drop of a dime. If someone said, “Rock!” (or possibly, “Keats!”), and I couldn’t respond, I would be labeled a “poseur” and get severely beaten at once. Even with short hair now, I still have that large reservoir of rock stored inside me which acts like adrenaline, so I can overdue it any time.

Again, to understand what a faux pas it really is, you only have to look at the bookend events. After berating my co-workers for not having read Fear & Loathing, I went on to complain that Hunter Thompson’s plan to have his ashes fired from a gun would ruin my own plan to wheel out a surprise cannon at the last second of my funeral to fire my corpse into the ocean. Eight Red Stripes in an hour will apparently make worlds collide that I had succeeded my whole life in keeping apart. One is the world where I keep my head down at work and make sure not to say anything. The other world is the one where I stay up at nights trying to decide if my body should loft into the ocean, bounce off a trampoline into the ocean, or skip like a stone until it hits the side of a boat. Even horrified looks and one stranger who turned around to proclaim me “morbid” could not stop me from talking.

In fact, those looks only encouraged me to continue with the tale of how that same story resulted in college crazy tests. I always knew college was for experimentation, but I thought that meant gay stuff, not being strapped to a chair with electrodes wired to my head and being forced to watch things like the suicide scene from An Officer and a Gentleman. I had “jokingly” wrote about my death cannon in a Psychology 101 paper, and before I knew it, I was fulfilling my lab requirement by being hooked up to a mammoth super computer. After the last battery of trials (which involved distinguishing from a series of pictures which creepy, distorted face looked the happiest), the technician told me I could probably get some free counseling at the University hospital. I met that proposal with a hearty chuckle, and she asked me to sit back down for a talk. At that point, I ran away. Of course, I dropped the class the next day, which if you ask me, is a pretty funny story of why I had to take American Sign Language as an elective the following summer. It was not that funny according to my worried audience.

I like to leave only when things can’t get much worse, and since our boss wasn’t there for me to make a pass at, I finally went to meet some other friends at a dirtbag, townie bar. This is where the over-rocking occurred. It is also where I talked to the band just beforehand. Normally, I don’t talk to famous musicians because I have to assume most of them are human, and my human theory is that if you can afford to be an asshole, you probably will be. Band members can afford it, but the guy we were talking to was pretty cool. He continued to be cool right up until he was deliberating about the different aspects of improvisational song writing and I whispered at my friend Steve to “show him your tits!” much too loudly.

The irony is that the cops did get me for something far worse than public urination off a historical landmark the following weekend, but that is a story for a different time assuming I make it through jail alive. Even if they’d nabbed me that moment, it wouldn’t have been for that most grievous of infractions… which was actually stealing a glass from the bar and throwing it against an office building on the way to the gazebo. But rocking too hard for the opening act – that’s a close second.

This is a new series examining men and women who support American ideals on the home front through decals, red, white & blue bandanas or body art. Though not serving directly in the war effort or donating any time or money to the endeavor, they are American heroes nonetheless. My first subject is Stu Crane.

Patriotic representation: “Freedom isn’t free” ribbon displayed on back of 4 x 2 pickup truck. The implication is that freedom doesn’t occur naturally in this world like say oxygen or Jesus. It exists because of brave men and women who fight in wars or purchase bumper stickers.

Historical context: ‘Nam. Never got there. A double hernia acquired playing jayvee football led to a failed physical and a failure to deploy. Missing out on the reality of war has led him to romanticize it. Has been known to wonder aloud if the outcome of the Vietnam War would have been different had he been allowed to participate.

Self-evident truth: Another car's close proximity to his bumper will not convince him to at least drive the speed limit on freeway.

Gun toter?: Has taken advantage of gun show loophole. Concealed weapons permit. Various hunting licenses.

Teetotaler?: Shit no.

Line in the sand moment: Led the ‘04 French Fry boycott in Montgomery, AL.

Distinguishing Quote: “That war was a draw plain and simple. And since it was a draw, a man like me could have put us over the top.”

My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys. I don’t remember much about the NFL Superbowl this year because I accidentally had my TV turned to the Animal Planet channel as the game was starting. They were running something called Puppy Bowl. It was completely idiotic – just shots of dogs playing in a cage painted to look like a football field. I spent most of the next 3 hours on the phone trying to contact anyone at Animal Planet to pitch them my idea for a little something called Amazing Monkey Bowl. I can’t go into details for obvious reasons, but once I finally get a hold of them, I think next year’s Animal Planet lineup for Super Sunday will be a little more exciting.

I did catch most of the much heralded Superbowl commercials. As usual, some of them featured apes. The one that made me the angriest was the one where a guy is disgruntled because he has to work with a “bunch of monkeys”. Of course, they literally are monkeys. I’m not even sure what the ad was for – I’m assuming cell phones or beer. But if I could boycott both, I would. Most of the animal actors, stump tailed Macaques as far as I could tell, were reduced to whoopee cushion jokes. Meanwhile, it has been proven in a laboratory setting that these chimps are more than capable of stapling, three-hole punching, rearranging boxes to save space, and collating multiple sheets of paper.

I work with a guy who can barely make the coffee the in the morning. He would be easily replaceable by most any species of simian, and I would have much more fun playing Hearts over our computer network with it. Shoot the moon, Mr. Bananas! My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys.

Sometime after graduation but before you attempt to set foot in the workforce, before even typing a resume, you must first ask yourself the most important question: “Do I really need a job?”. If you said yes, you are like most people. If you are like me, then you said, “Probably… I guess… but it would it be a lot more fun to only apply for employment opportunities I will never get... jobs I would be ashamed to have if I ever did.” It was in this spirit that I tried my hardest (i.e., completely made up a resume and several cover letters) to land several “dream” jobs, one of which was reviewing pornographic tapes for the largest chain of adult video shops in my state, the Castle Boutique Megastore. It was a futile effort. Today, I work for a school (that is, at least until a perceptive student discovers this web site and tells his mom). What follows are a series of faxes sent to the Castle Boutique. Note: These are for mature audiences only.

After almost a year of being on and off different anti-depressants at my own discretion, I decided to start taking a box of something called Lexapro which a doctor had given to me from his sample closet some time ago. The only reason being I was annoyed it had taken up room in the back of my clothes closet for so long. And I was bored. And probably depressed. But mostly curious because their logo looks like a Typhoon Genie.

After several weeks of taking the tiny white pills, I was very impressed. It had achieved what Effexor, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Prozac, Zoloft, and peyote had failed to do – make me a happy drunk. I wasn’t the “throw-down” angry drunk I always wanted to be, but I wasn’t sitting in a corner with a bottle of Root Beer Schnapps either, and I think that’s a major improvement. Of course, when I wasn’t drunk, the only effect I noticed is that I was much more inclined to do jumping jacks at one in the morning than fall asleep. I think this means I should just drink more often. Not that I wasn't without my concerns. For instance, I listen to a lot of Nick Cave - sad songs all about the nastiness of human nature. I used to tear up, but with Lexapro I started laughing until my eyes watered. If both end results involve crying, what’s the point?

Still, I figured I might as well take Lexapro on a regular basis and tried to fill a prescription. Turns out, for my insurance company to pay for something that is actually effective I would need to complete a face-to-face interview with a mental health specialist. I told them reading this website would probably clear up any doubts, but they didn’t buy it.

Sitting in the waiting room of a state’s mental health and substance abuse clinic should make anyone depressed who already isn’t. All the patients are extremely fat or extremely skinny, most of them extremely crazy, too. I sat there for two hours watching them come and then go while their nurse or therapist kept yelling the phrase, “Remember, find a group!” until they were out the front door. There was also a huge pile of charity bread in the corner, from sealed bags of hotdog buns to unwrapped loafs lying on the laminate tile floor. About half of them stopped to pick up what I had a feeling was dinner.

In addition to the obvious national social and economic crisis this group represented, it also brought up a more personal theological issue. Many of these individuals are, I’m sure, deserving to go to heaven. However, the time spent with them in the lobby was more than enough for me. How can my eternal paradise include some guy who talks to issues of Cosmopolitan while waiting for his Lithium? This is the central paradox of the Christian afterlife and why I must conclude it does not exist.

Or I am going to hell. I guess that solves the paradox, as well.

By the time I finally met my “intake specialist”, I was very tired and past the point of calculating what I thought the answers to the questions she peppered me with ought to be in order to appear hopeless enough to get my prescription filled yet not despondent enough to be assigned group therapy sessions with the Cosmo guy. After she asked me to count to 30 by three it went a little like this:

Apparently, my answers were good enough to be approved. But I quickly learned that the approval was not for Lexapro, but to be seen my another person in two weeks for another psych evaluation. I was becoming exhausted and not sure the whole process was really worth it for something that was probably a placebo anyway. Now I am waiting for that appointment and, I admit, will probably go. I figure if nothing else, I can stock up on the most important part of a sandwich. And if any future party guest asks why there is an imprint of a shoe on their bread, it will make for a very good story.

UPDATE AFTER TWO WEEKS: When I arrived, the bread was still there on the floor - though thankfully not the same bread. The psychiatrist who interviewed me this time had a shorter list of questions, although it was clear the most important ones were "Do you see or hear things others don't?" and "Do you find the television or radio is saying things directed solely at you?". Though I answered each negatively, anyone with even the slightest familiarity of David Hume (or any epistemological philosopher, really) would know the answer to the former question is, "How the fuck would I know?" And I firmly believe the correct reply to the latter is, "Yes, they're called commercials."

After all was said done, she gave me some meds - but not Lexapro! Because they don't carry it, I get to try something else called Celexa. After some research, I found that their logo is an equally appealing Whirlwind Genie. But I also discovered "47% of patients who did not respond to the older, dated drug Celexa responded to treatment with Lexapro." That is not the even funniest part. The doctor was actually the second in my life to open my chart up for the first time and proclaim, "Wow! Your'e still alive!?" Maybe the fact I couldn't stop giggling for 5 minutes after she said that was the real reason I got my pills.

UPDATE AFTER FOUR WEEKS: For some reason, Celexa made my arms numb for days after drinking heavily. So, I decided to stop taking it.

I must preface this by saying that I never remember my dreams. Never is a strong word – maybe hardly. So last night, strangely enough, I did remember a dream I had and when I realized what day it was I about freaked! In honor of the MLK holiday I’d like to share it…

My dream, I’m certain, was brought on by a visit to Target. (Most people pronounce the store the way it sounds tar-get. Some people are cool and pronounce it in French, tar-zhay, which is played out. I pronounce it tar-gay, which amuses me each time I think about it. Incidentally, my friend’s 3-year-old calls the store Circles). When browsing the toy aisle I happened to stumble upon some WWF Legend action figures. These were big time names like the Ultimate Warrior, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Tito Santana (I question his inclusion in the Legend series, but that’s for another day), and “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. Well, after seeing them in the store, I had a dream that night about them involving a game of every-man-for-himself dodgeball – and I was playing too! I don’t remember who got hurt or anything, but upon waking up I quickly wrote it down in my dream journal and – guess what? – I’m pitching the idea to SpikeTV on Tuesday!

My dream took a turn for the strange when I entered a restroom and peered over the stall door to see Ted DiBiase cradling his million dollar belt like a baby. This was probably because my friend Nathan had told me a story earlier about how he was drunk at a bar once and looked over a bathroom stall to see two girls taking a picture of a guy standing there with his pants around his ankles.

Yes, I had a dream. I probably have many dreams, but I remembered this one, which makes it special to me in the same sentimental way that people first remember tasting Clamato. I have nothing else to add, so why not give the last words to the Doctor himself: “Get my drink on / and my smoke on / and go home with something to poke on.” Let freedom ring!

Though most credit Donkey Kong as the first video game star to be an ape, they are quite mistaken. A game created in 1961 entitled Spacewars featured an enemy spaceship piloted by an evil chimp named Megator. Many apes have been featured in video games since. One of my favorites may be George from the 80’s hit Rampage. However, I think the most important has to be Dixie Kong.

She was, I believe, the first true embodiment of female equality in a video game. Before her, Ms. Pac-Man was too docile, while later heroines like Lara Croft too objectified. Dixie Kong, first appearing in an early Nintendo 64 title, was the perfect combination of grace and action. She was also the first to make it socially acceptable for a monkey to be looked upon as a sexual symbol. And let’s face it, every game she’s been in, including the new Donkey Konga, has been one hell of a ride. My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys.

I wrote this story several years ago- just out of high school and very paranoid. It first appeared in the paper-based forerunner to this web site, Little Cube Journals.

I ate the cookies because they were hot, drinking the punch because it was cold. But I didn’t enjoy a minute of either. It was like swallowing a load of treason. Treason is sour and I hate sour things…

Through high school, I was most always enrolled in a study period or two. This altogether defeated “homework” and “taking advantage of free education”. With all the extra time I had, I was invariably left to carve things into tables and chairs. One day as I was talking with my friend Robby (he was just as educationally inclined as me) I chipped an odd elliptical shape into a library desk. Although Robby had been balancing on the back legs of his chair for a new Tuesday record of 2 minutes, he took a moment to remark the carving kind of looked like a hot dog. I switched to an easier medium, recreated the original shape with a pencil and paper, then added wheels, a cockpit, and a huge face on its side. My creation was soon christened as “The Markley: One Big Ass Hot Dog Monster Truck” .

Since I’m sure that makes no sense to most everyone, let me explain. The greatest English teacher I ever had was a man who called himself Mr. Markley. He taught me the ins and outs of creative writing and, more importantly, never told me to rewrite my Shakespeare final just because it was called “Green Eggs and Hamlet” and didn’t have any critical merit. Perhaps it was reasons like this he actually taught Driver’s Ed. most of the day. Who knows? I still respected him. When I overheard him, however, tell someone that I was “one of the greatest writers Red Mountain High School had ever produced,” I realized I’d fooled a gentle, innocent man and was ashamed. I figured there was no better way to atone than allow his face the privilege of being mounted on a big ass monster truck shaped like a hot dog.

Though the drawing of a truck is a surprisingly insignificant part of this story, it did promptly inspire a poem, which me and Robby called, “Ode to Markley.” It is excerpted here:

Keep in mind Mr. Markley was a vegetarian for all we knew. Still, we were quite pleased with ourselves and treated each other to some ice cream at lunch.

One month later, the flyers for Mind’s Eye 1994 began popping up around campus. The student body became very atwitter about a new “journal showcasing the best writing, art, and photography of our high school.” This seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to submit out poem. We would finally be popular! “Wait,” Robby said, “We might finally be popular, but isn’t this a sell out? What about what we believe in?”

I was confused. He was responding in the past to a statement I just made in the present, four lines ago! Plus he wasn’t the kind to complain about things like artistic integrity or morality. It turned out he just didn’t want to take part in something so closely involved with school. I understood but convinced him otherwise – poems were our ticket to a “sweet senior rep’”. He eventually agreed, then suggested we actually author several more in an attempt to increase our odds of getting accepted. I concurred. If only I knew then what I think I know now.

We stayed up late one Friday night and composed over twenty sonnets. Among the subjects tackled: the decomposition of the American dream, bigotry, hatred, the environment, and this kid we liked to make fun of named Fred DiSano. We were sure they were all shoe-ins for a coveted Mind’s Eye slot. Here is one of my favorites:

A hard rain fell the day our rejections came. All but one of our pieces received a little pink slip saying, “Try again next year.” This made perfect sense seeing as how I’d be wasting my time somewhere other than high school by then. The worst thing was that the one poem they did accept was titled “Man Trapped In Closet”. The implication of the entire school reading a poem with that title written by two males was, for some reason, lost on both of us at the time. Years later we realized our naive verse about a guy locked in a closet by a clown might have been the reason we had such a hard time finding girlfriends.

Anyway, I let the whole thing slide for awhile. Perhaps the accepted entries to Mind’s Eye were just exemplary instances of creative genius. You can imagine my surprise when it was published and revealed itself to be a complete load. Let’s just say there was a poem that ended with the author thanking Queensryche for “teaching me how to rage.” Our poems included no reference to any heavy metal bands, plus were better than most of the other stuff included. I smelled a rat.

After thinking about it even more, I was convinced the whole thing was a conspiracy, a concentrated effort by the administration to suppress free thought and individuality. I had no proof, of course, but the theory appealed to the part of me that also listened to Rage Against the Machine. I started an investigation. It turned out the woman behind Mind’s Eye 1994, the grand majestrix, was none other than Mrs. Baach – aGerman!

With this in hand, I went to see the principal. This was unthinkable. I was being censored! What always happened to the other guy (i.e., 2 Live Crew) was happening to me! I was sure that this sort of thing was not what was supposed to be taught in school. By the time I finally got to see him I was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore – unless I had to.

“Principal,” I said, “Do you know what’s going on here? Are you keeping tabs on your staff? Are you aware that your student body is being violated?” He remained calm and did so as I continued with my story. When I was finished he asked my what my names was. I told him it was Fred DiSano to avoid any disciplinary actions down the line. He proceeded with a lecture the theme of which seemed to center around my ignorance. I barely heard him because the phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” was recoiling in my head. The name plate on his desk read Mr. Kohl… another German!

That night I stared up at the stars reflecting. If I could be silenced in the confines of my own school, what would the real world be like? What business does the word censorship have in a “free” country? Would pornography ever be banned? If so, where would I have to go to get it? How much would it cost? I was really scared for the first time in my life.

The next week, Mind’s Eye was throwing a party for all those lucky enough to be part of the collaboration. Technically, Robby and I could have attended because of the “Closet” poem. The only logical course of action , however, was for us to hold a protest rally outside their fascist celebration. The pickets signs we made, or at least thought about making, were very incendiary. “Join the Propaganda Machine? Never!” and “Mind’s Eye? Blind Lie!”

When we got there and prepared to make those signs for some circle marching, I was already very hungry. The refreshments inside looked even more appetizing than usual…

Eventually, I gave up, went inside, and ate. Perhaps I was a traitor to the cause, but my stomach thanked me later.

Once I saw The Day After Tomorrow over two months ago, my first order of business was to forget everything about it, and with any luck, that I had ever even seen it. This happens a lot when a movie’s credits begin to roll and I realize that videotaping myself banging my head in a toilet seat for an hour and a half would have been more productive, as it would leave me with video footage more interesting than the film. (This always happens when the credits begin “Directed by Roland Emmerich”. He was, of course, partially responsible for Matthew Broderick’s Godzilla among other things.)

Yet, reviewing a film now I barely remember is probably one of the least desirable positions to be in as a columnist. The only one worse is not having seen the movie at all, but that hasn’t stopped me before. The two things I do recall from Tomorrow are the storms that freeze people instantaneously and the devil wolves (pictured left). Hey, that actually sounds pretty good. Combine those with the fact the video game based on the movie apparently requires the player to shimmy through a sewer to avoid floating mushrooms (pictured right), and you have, what I believe, a fantastic combination that should prevent any movie from totally sucking: immobilizing ice storms, hell hounds, and magical toadstools. In fact, I had to wonder if my initial negative impressions were completely off base and I should rent the movie again. Instead, I just read some other reviews so I could kind of justufy writing my own.

It seems that the plot revolves around a global eco-disaster that kills half the world’s population, yet solely focuses on the journey of one workaholic dad to rescue his son. Judging by the narrative contrivances frequently mentioned by near every critic, concentrating the story on several of the stupidest and oblivious humans alive at the expense of the billions who deserved to live but were killed by monster tornados was not a smart choice. Other phrases repeatedly thrown about by professional critics were “monumentally inept”, “thick and stupid”, “dumb and flat”, and “exceptionally stupid." I could find no mention at all of magical toadstools, leaving me to conclude the video game makers took some artistic license in the big screen-to-gameboy adaptation.

On a scale of environmental tragedy, where hurricanes are a 1 and melted polar caps are a 10, I would probably give The Day After Tomorrow the rating of an oil spill if I really remembered it, the numerical equivalent of a 2.

It is December, the season to be jolly or at least get merry and dance along to terrible Christmas tunes under the influence of another glass of bubbly. And yet ghastlier things await us at this time of year than the prospect of dancing to Wham's “Last Christmas” with the person in the office that you have tried to avoid all year. As everyone knows, the season of glad tidings is really a euphemism for the season of getting hammered with greater frequency than usual. And where there is happy drunkenness, there inevitably follows the Great Hangover.

You have, I'm sure, woken up after a holiday evening of excess and wondered if you haven't been transplanted to a more sinister version of what you used to call reality - weird shadows in places that are fully lit; voices pitching and yawing in terrifying fashion; nothing on television but scary cartoons - even on Men And Motors! (ed. note – author resides in Europe, hence this reference to the European satellite channel, the stateside equivalent of which would probably be Spike TV). Your body meanwhile, is in open revolt. It wants you up against the wall, a bayonet to your gullet and a cold fish down your trousers.

But there is a timely invention that suggests a Divine Presence who for reasons, frankly less than rational, is especially keen on you - a British brewer has patented a veritable Philosopher's Stone for boozers: a beer that helps keep you sober. The brew, which contains the same amount of caffeine as a cappuccino, has been launched as a lunchtime pick-me-up as well as “a sophisticated evening accompaniment to chocolate and desserts.” You are warned by the London brewery not to drink too much, as the caffeine could have a hyperactive effect. The danger is that, after several helpings, you are likely to embark on another bender without quite meaning to and wake up to find your heart imitating a jackhammer in the manner of a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Funny for us, less so for you.

Another answer is RU-21, a hangover prevention tablet developed by the Soviet Union in the 1950’s to prevent its agents from becoming sozzled while attempting to win the confidence of informants over a crate (or ten) of vodka. Eyewitness testimony, however, indicates that, far from its intended purpose, RU-21 reduces users to a state of gibbering incoherence. You might as well lock yourself in the broom cupboard with a flagon of Ouzo for all the difference it makes. The Ouzo, at least, will ward off the flies. (ed. note – Ouzo is a powerful alcoholic drink popular in Greece).

A less violent Slavic solution is salt. Russian men have been curing their hangovers by drinking the salty brine from pickled vegetables for years. A Moscow brewery has gone so far as to produce a bestselling briny cabbage water hangover drink (delicious with pasta I'd imagine). Should treated cabbage water not strike you as the foundation of a thrilling lunchtime - my, what nonces we've turned into - consider a dip in the sea, which is well known for its salty disposition (tip - it helps if you are able to swim!).

The Irish fry-up, of course, is alleged as the pre-eminent hangover cure. This is kind of like the rumor George Bush is the world's most powerful politician – I am unable to completely believe it’s kosher. The truth is predictably less straightforward. Sure, the fats and amino acids contained in the sausage, eggs, and floaty bits that might be black pudding boost energy levels depleted during your face-to-face with oblivion the previous night. On the other hand, gorging on lardy delights just as your stomach is getting around to recovering is tantamount to wagging a mocking finger towards your own loyal belly. You will pay, my child. Oh you will.

There's also the delightfully named Nux Vomica tablets for just €6.95 (ed.note – this is the symbol for pounds, the English form of currency roughly equivalent to American dollars). They promise a homeopathic remedy for digestive disorders associated with excessive eating and drinking (read: hangover).

Or there's the more aptly named Lifeline for €2.99, which has calcium, activated carbon, and vitamins - you are supposed to take two capsules before or with your first alcoholic drink to avoid having a hangover. Frankly, if you're that organized it is unlikely you are the type to drink too much anyway.

Finally, a British firm has pioneered a cure called Zetox, which is made from volcanic ash. The product uses a volcanic mineral to soak up alcohol's toxins and prevent hangovers from happening. Yum! Zetox is due on the market in the New Year - in the meanwhile you could opt for the next best solution of shoving your head in a bucket of cold water until the pounding abates. Because in the throes of any hangover, the first casualty - lunch excluded - is always dignity.

And what is going on with Bono and those kicks? It was cool when Mick Jagger did it decades ago. He was saying, “We’re kicking out your square establishment, you squares.” It is cool when modern bands perform the karate kick in homage, but with Bono I get the feeling that he is kicking to prove he can still kick and that’s never cool. That’s like you’re grandfather joining a Polar Bear Club. And what is with that dread-locked dancer leaping into the air and falling down right on his knees? I wasn’t really impressed by it. Certainly not enough to counter-balance the thought of the arthritic pain he’ll eventually encounter.

I’ve heard that U2 for H2DAB is working once again with producer Steve Lillywhite. I know Lillywhite and I get the feeling that once again he said something like, “You give me enough ‘yeah, yeah, yeahs’ and I’ll turn it into a hit.” In the end, this album and commercial is not as shocking as when I saw Bono in those nerd glasses a few years ago. Still, I know I will be confused or offended or simply dismayed all over again when I see the Pepsi ad any day now. Until then… uno, dos, tres, viva!

Truth be told, I can’t stand the taste of beer. It is an emasculating thing to say, but when I hear friends say “I would love cold beer right now” I fight the urge to slap them across the face. Not only because it is unusual for one man to slap another, but also because the taste of beer repulses me. I followed a traditional college education of taking my core classes during my freshman year (Keystone, PBR and the Beast). I was able to add some variety to my coursework as a sophomore (Keystone Ice, PBR, and Beast Ice). By my junior year I was really moving up in the world and was able to tackle some even more challenging material (Bud Light, Miller Light). Finally, during my senior year, my finances even allowed me to travel around the world (Heinken, Becks, Amstel).

Despite all of my adventures with my good friend beer, I also gave that small grimace/wince of disgust with each swallow. My friends found this very amusing and made numerous efforts to catch the moment on camera, and once they even enjoyed asking other patrons in a bar to come over and “Wait for it….” as I brought the beer to my lips.

Additionally, you can come up with witty slogans as my friends and I do like “Stella is the only girl for me”, or “I don’t have a girlfriend, but there is always Stella.” My personal favorite, which in retrospect I should have said to my wife before downing seven pints of this ambrosia is, “My dream threesome is you and I and a few pints of Stella.“ After those pints, it ended up being something about Anna Kournikova and Halle Berry and earned me a nice slap in the face and a trip to see “Mona Lisa Smile” the following night….but I digress. Go out and have a Stella and tell them that Trevor Penick sent you. Also, when you awaken catatonically hungover and praying for death, please do not complain to me, simply scroll down the page and read my first column. Cheerio until next time, mates!

Unfortunately, the corporate takeover of holidays are like a lot of other things out of our control: rainy days, rush hour traffic, and the complete destruction of Earth’s environment – you just have to go with the flow. So I’ve tried to maintain my enthusiasm as long as possible for dressing up and getting drunk by simply creating some of the best costumes ever.

Wearing the same costume two years in a row is frowned upon by many, but recycling half of a costume is both inspired and frugal. The next year, I wore the same blue uniform but replaced the buccaneer’s trimmings with a baseball glove… I was a Spaceball Player. I also cooked up another speech dealing with my league record 585 homeruns, “there’s not much gravity in spaceball after all”. By the end of the night, though, I was wishing I had someone to play catch with, and I had learned a valuable lesson.

One year later, I paired up again to fulfill a long-standing dream of going to a bar with my pants around my ankles. We went as Pumpkin Fuckers. The entire night is documented in pictures here. The general reaction to the prosthetics and pumpkins strapped to our waist was one we were actually used to- women laughing at us from a distance. The few who were brave enough to laugh at us in close proximity while handling our fake cocks seemed amused though, and they continued to laugh while walking away after we asked them to come home with us and make pumpkin pie.

A year After that, I took the easy way out and went as Bronco Jesus. Since I had long hair at the time and resembled our Holy Christ anyway, I just wore a Denver Broncos cap and drew a cross on a white t-shirt with the letters "WWBJD?" written underneath. What Would Bronco Jesus Do?

This year, I have to admit, my belief in Halloween was waning more than ever. Even the “costume and beer” version of Halloween was losing it’s charm – I thought about forgetting about the first part of that equation all together. One night, my costume was hoping someone else showed up with a costume I could share. This actually worked – a complete stranger arrived with a painting of two "beach bods" with holes where the heads should have been. I told the woman I would be "using one of those holes" (she luckily didn't misunderstand me), and she was too polite to say no. Another night, I dressed as Luke from the Gilmore Girls. This is the triple threat of costumes- equal parts gayness (an admission to watching Gilmore Girls), laziness (just a backwards hat and flannel shirt), and lameness (Luke’s a chef on a poorly rated TV show).

As fate would have it, my faith in the holiday was somewhat restored when I went to a haunted house later that evening. Outside, there was a boy in the dirt, absolutely bawling. His mother grabbed his arm and began pulling him in despite his shrieks that he was scared. “You’re going in there if I have to drag you the whole way!” she announced. For many people in line, I imagine this was the scariest thing they had seen the entire night- borderline child abuse! To me, it was one lady making a courageous stand against all that is wrong with Halloween. This was one lady still holding onto the belief this is a holiday that, if you’re under 25 and haven’t wet your pets by midnight, really isn’t much of a holiday at all.

My friends call me “Eurocentric”, which is a politically correct way of explaining that I cannot stand the United States. This, in fact, could not be further from the truth. Never have I found a place with so many freedoms and choices as the good old U S of A. However, while most Americans celebrate that day in July when a ragtag group of colonials threw off the yoke of the mighty British army, I feel a wistful yearning for some of the fine things that we have consequently missed out on. While we have caught on to some sublime exports from England including Coldplay’s Chris Martin and soccer metrosexual David Beckham, we have truly been deprived of some others. In a series of pieces, I hope to investigate some of the wonderful hidden gems that the tiny kingdom of Great Britain has to offer us here in America.

Ever since the cavemen left their crushed apples lying around too long, mankind has been plagued with the a most serious dilemma. What can be done to escape that miserable reminder of the previous night’s excess, the hangover? Potential solutions range from the ridiculous (going to work), to the obvious (more alcohol ), to the temporary (sexual encounters), and even the moderately successful (another 4 hours of sleep.) The truth is, of course, that none of these things will cure a hangover. In reality, hangovers are a fortunate deterrent, and without them, I fear there would be many more alcoholics in the world, myself included.

What, do you ask, does this have to do with Great Britain? There is a sport in England called cricket. It is a sport that could be best described as a bastard offspring of baseball, golf, and croquet, most significantly the latter. I do not presume to know any history of the sport, in fact I will not even bore you by describing the rules and regulations of the sport itself. The glory of the game of cricket comes from the act of watching it on television. I find that when I am caught in the drunken limbo, unable to sleep but too sick to do anything else, cricket is a lifesaver. Visual stimulation must be kept at a minimum while hungover, therefore eliminating 95% of all televised programming. Nothing with overt sex or violence, nothing displaying food or any sort of liquid, particularly alcohol - these stipulations tend to limit your options….that is until you discover a cricket match. I think saying cricket is boring does not truly do it justice. A reality show that followed a three toed sloth around for a week would be pulse pounding compared to a cricket match.

Left: By the fourth day of a seven day test match, Sri Lankan players are scanning the crowd for hot chicks. Right: Sri Lankan players attach a “Kick me” sign to the back of an opposing player. By the sixth day of the match,this is what they have been reduced to.

To give you an idea, a cricket match can take up to a week to complete and the same batter could face the same pitchers for multiple days. So you lie on the couch as these players slowly go through the routine of playing their match, and you are able to achieve a trancelike state without truly being asleep or awake. Sleep through two hours of a good football game and you are cursing the name of your maker. Sleep through two hours of a good cricket match and there is a probability that absolutely nothing has happened. In fact, the score may not have changed at all with the same batter still plodding away as the afternoon rolls on. There is very little crowd noise for the people in the stands have achieved the same stupor as you have. After a nice Saturday of “watching” cricket, I usually feel well rested and energized, ready for another night of binge drinking and another morning of woe and regret…..until I turn on the TV to watch the cricket match continuing from the day before. I hope that you will all find this information helpful, and I have no doubt that you have gained a wonderful new insight and appreciation for this “sport of kings.” By the way, cricket is never televised in the United States, so you may have to disregard this entire article and just find the Britney Spears “Live in Orlando” concert special, hit the mute button, down some V-8 juice, and dream a happy dream.

I recently stayed at your establishment, the Moore Hotel, for three nights. I chose it because it was right next to the Moore Theatre, and I was going to see a couple of concerts there- Gillian Welch and Jim James. Maybe you’ve heard of them? I doubt it, since their fans tend to wear cool shirts, and that was not in evidence where any of your desk clerks were concerned.

Regardless, I don’t really care what kind of music you guys like, even if it includes that new album by Ben Folds and William Shatner (yikes!). But I really wish you would have told me when I made reservations that you didn’t have any heat. Even this oversight wouldn’t have been so bad if my bathroom window wasn’t broken. Every time I had to use the restroom in the middle of the night, it felt like I was stepping outside. In Arizona (where I’m from), I actually do this regularly and enjoy the stars. But in Seattle (where I was visiting), it felt like my feet, hands, and genitals were going to freeze immediately.

Another complaint - I requested a wake up call at 6 am on my last morning there. I was awakened at 9 am by my friend frantically knocking at my door screaming, “You’re going to miss your flight!”. All I could think was, “But I have to keep my genitals warm!” before I completely woke and realized she was right. In explaining the lack of a phone call, the desk clerk informed me that “my phone must not be working”. No shit?

I fully expected to miss my flight since my driver’s license has a faded picture and I’m usually forced to go through the full security screening with all the Koreans and people with a European name. Fortunately, the person who checked my boarding pass and ID was fairly incompetent and waved me through with less than 5 minutes to spare. I don't think the woman sitting next to me on the flight appreciated it, though. By her facial expression, she was either extremely displeased with her complimentary scone or could tell I didn't have time to shower.

Because of your convenient location, affordable prices, and the fact I could see the TV while taking a shower, I will definitely stay with you again if I ever return to Seattle. Still, I just had to share with you my negative experience in hopes that you will fix the goddamn window in room 600.

Sincerely,

Nathan Fuller

Hello Nathan,

I am very sorry for the experience you had at The Moore. It was & never is our intention for our guests to have an unpleasant stay. We did experience our heating system going down on Monday Oct 4th. I apologize for not having mentioned that fact when you checked in.

As far as the window is concerned.... you are right... you paid for a room that should have had unbroken windows.

I would need to look into the telephone problem but as long as it was programed it always rings the room. So either the clerk did not program it or it ran but did not get ansewered. Either way there was an issue.

So.... to make the situation "right" I can credit your acct the amount you paid for the room, or I can comp your next
stay up to 2 days (not room 600) plus I will throw in 2 tics (row H....dead center)..(provided it is a reserved show)
to any up coming Moore Theatre show. (with the exception of anything Disney produces).

Sincerely,

Mike