Cutting Crew – (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight

One of my favorites from the 1987 album.

Popular Culture Fetishisms 101

Furries

Over the holiday, I became aware of a few new practices that have apparently become sufficiently ubiquitous for the producers of the CSI crime dramas to have included them as storylines.

The first proclivity is called “furries,” and, while the Urban Dictionary currently includes several similar definitions, the word used as a noun means fans of anthropomorphic animals. Examples include Jar-Jar Binks, the car insurance lizard, and Sonic the Hedgehog.

The Dictionary then goes on to further describe the word. Used as a verb, “furries” means people who like to dress up as anthropomorphic animals and have sex with each other. That’s a new one on me, but hey, provided the activity occurs between consenting adults, whatever floats yer bobber, I suppose. Who am I to villanize the furverts of the world?

Sloshing

The Dictionary has a few different definitions of sloshing, but essentially it means the act of having sex with your favorite foods. I think we’ve seen an earlier version of this one before back in the 80s.

The act itself was more of a unilateral than bilateral event. After all, the only one we saw being massaged with honey and other miscellaneous sweets was Kim Basinger. We never saw Kim’s character in the movie treat Mickey Rourke to a habanero in any of his orifices. Mickey did all of the doing there was to be done.

I am reminded, specifically, of a particular segment from the film that I have not been able to find on the web, otherwise, would have included for your enjoyment. It was the one scene that basically sold the movie to audiences and involved a scarf, an ice cube, and a naked boob. During the years following the movie, we were treated to various images of the famous ice cube shot in everything from adverts for booze up to and including a mini-segment on The Sopranos between Meadow and her boyfriend Finn. (Season 5, episode 8, for anyone who wants to see it.)

I don’t really have much of an opinion for or against either predilection, but I do, however, think that the latter is a lot more fun than the former. Maybe it’s because when I was growing up, there was a lot less anthropomorphic animal images available than there was for the current crop of twenty-something furries practitioners.

Gen Xers like myself had the old Loony Toons Bugs Bunny cartoons, and, a handful of other notables, however, absolutely none of them were considered, nor meant to be sexy. That meant a lot less animated material available for spanking the monkey. And by the time softcore, animated quasi-porn came along such as the Thunder Cats, I was already in HS and far advanced from the informative years the Echo Boomers were just commencing.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Button Off My Shirt

Backyard cover of Paul Carrack 80’s tune.

Don’t Shed A Tear For Me

Saturday Quickie

Click to enlarge.

Note to Self:

If you get crazy glue all over your hands, then soaking them in acetone won’t remove it from your skin.

Tip No. 3,587 from yer pal, Peyton.

Your Time Is Gonna Come

The Day After

Black Friday. No other concept seems to be more ridiculous or emblematic of contemporary American society. Whether it’s good or bad depends on which side of the sales counter you’re standing. But we’ll get to that in a sec.

Historically, the words, “black Friday” used to mean exclusively the Wall Street Crash of 1929. But during the eighty (80) year stretch that has gone by since, the American economy has experienced numerous crashes and panics to the extent where we don’t even think about it anymore. We just deal as we are dealing now and the bailouts keep onnnnn coming.

Boom and bust cycles have been engineered by design into our economy by the creation of two financial institutions that are neither public nor part of the federal government, but whose names include the word “federal” in order to hoodwink the uninformed American taxpayer into thinking they are.

I’m referring to, of course, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, better known as the Fed and the FDIC. Two privately held entities that our economy lives or dies by. Currently, it’s dying. The economy, that is. For those of us that don’t make a living as an executive officer in either the banking or automotive industries, there will be no million dollar bonus in our Christmas stockings.

GM and the “too big to fail” bankers Goldman Sachs et al. are doing just fine thanks to the great taxpayer sponsored bailout of 2008. This round of corporate welfare currently comes in at $700 billion and counting, but it could end up costing us as much as $2 trillion.

But don’t take my word for it. If you want a fascinating explanation of the current manufactured fiscal crises and how we got here, then I highly recommend you read Bailout Nation and The Creature from Jekyll Island.

Upon reading these books, you’ll laugh (Like a lunatic in desperate need of thorazine.) You’ll flatulate. Your eyeballs will hemorrhage and pop out of your sockets. Your anal sphincter will pucker. You may even experience simultaneous explosive diarrhea and vomiting. But most of all, you will weep. Uncontrollably. And not even the FDA and CDC approved scam that is known as the swine flu vaccination will help you.

But returning to our topic, Black Friday now simply means this:

And this –

And this.

Personally, I am unable to think of anything more farcical and absurd than standing on a long ass line during the ass crack of dawn in 20°F (-7°C) for a freakin’ X-box or some other item whose availability was deliberately held back so as to create demand and justify jacking up the price tag.

If the average American had a firm grasp of the concept of supply and demand instead of spend and charge it, then those of us who have to work for a living would probably have a hell of a lot better representation in both Houses of Congress. As it currently stands, we’ve got a two party system whose members are indistinguishable from each other on either side and who represent the highest bidder.

It’s ironic. The governments of other developed nations are afraid of pissing off the voters because they fear the people. But instead of holding the “leaders” accountable for their actions, we here in the good, ol’ U.S. of A. go shopping.

I will be spending Black Friday as I usually do. On the couch leaning against my comfy backrest pillow with a good book and/or watching the boys, and, otherwise letting the rest of yooze fight it out amidst the aisles and pallets filled with Chinese manufactured junk at the local crapmart.

Enjoy! I’ll be thinkin’ ’bout ‘cha.

NB: Watch out for the dude who just took a dump in the water fountain.

Sing it, Chrissie.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Have A Good One

Late Night Quickie

Note to Self:

Watching Man vs. Food while eating cereal for dinner because you’re too broke to buy anything else may help you feel less like a loser.

Just another tip from yer pal, Peyton.

Caller ID Blues

Click to enlarge.

Is it just me or does it drive you as batshit crazy when someone rings your line with a blocked number, gets the voicemail, but doesn’t bother to leave a message?

I have a policy – I don’t take live calls from blocked numbers. Period.

The only exemption is if I know in advance that you have a blocked number and that you’ll be ringing the phone. Case in point: I have a friend with a private number and when the caller ID displays “private,” I know it’s usually a legit call. There is the occasional exception, but all these other chuckleheads who call up with “unavailable” displayed on the phone’s L.E.D.? Fahgetaboutit.

The reason I have an unpublished number and caller ID is so that I can avoid the likes of undesirable sales types phoning to waste my time, and, “unavailable” is inevitably what they ring up as. Ironic, isn’t it? They don’t want to reveal their ID, but yet assume their recipients will take the call because why?

Note to all the folks out there with the “unavailable” numbers – I’m probably not the only person on the planet who doesn’t answer blocked numbers, so, no dice, pal. Either unblock your number OR at the very least, if the option exists, then speak your name when the automaton prompts you to ID yourself. If you’re not willing to do either, then I guess what you’re calling about isn’t all that important.

Clueless in Orange County

Click to enlarge.

So I received a response from one of the recipients I sent my discovery request to in my traffic citation case. You remember, the same organization the traffic court told me was in charge of prosecuting the case?

Hold up a sec. I have to settle myself down a bit before I can continue.

Alright. I’m slightly more composed now. I was on the floor laughing uncontrollably because a sheriff’s department clerk called me to ask for…

You know something? I’m not quite sure and neither was the clerk.

Best I can derive upon attempting to pull away from the clerk’s mouth the tangled morass of English language confusion is that the OCSD wants a copy of my citation.

Wait. One of their officers wrote it, and now they want a copy?

So, essentially, I am being asked to bear witness against myself and GIVE THEM the evidence with which to prosecute me. The same evidence that their own agent originally issued and then, apparently, lost.

What else am I to derive from a clerk who calls me asking for a copy of the citation?

As much as I would like to help out, I’m gonna pass. Because if the sheriff’s department lost THEIR copy of the citation that THEIR OWN officer wrote, then I don’t know how else to put this except:

Too bad, so sad. Not my problem. This is a discovery request, not a discovery call me up and ask me for your evidence because your officer lost his copy.

I’m not an officer of the court, but I distinctly remember a coupla, maybe three Criminal and Con Law classes mentioning something about not being compelled to testify against oneself.

Yes, I’m quite certain I read that somewhere.

Right. Here it is. It’s part of that thing we call the Bill of Rights. Some moldy, old document full of legalese that nobody but lawyers read anymore.

Specifically, the Fifth Amendment states in pertinent part:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Food For Thought

Can we infer that the officer in question, since he may not have kept his copy of the citation that he issued perhaps may also not even have -in his wildest imagination- EVER had to appear in traffic court to testify against a defendant because the citizen fought the ticket and forced the D.A. to prove each and every element of their case?

Naw, couldn’t be. These are Official People we’re talking about here, not the Keystone Kops. And a law enforcement agency tasked with keeping our streets and byways safe from traffic scofflaws such as myself would surely make it a point to keep their official records handy in the event that one of the scofflaws would maybe submit a discovery request for copies of all of their evidence they have against the defendant in which to prosecute the case.

Wouldn’t they?

I’ll let you decide for yourselves as to how on-the-ball these folks are. I’m still pondering that one. May take me awhile…

I think I’ve decided.

Tale of a Temp

Temp agencies have their place in the employment food chain. If you are a fresh graduate, re-entering the work force, or between jobs, then a temp agency may help to find something to tide you over until you gain some experience, or just need a quick infusion of cash. But I should add the caveat:

…provided that you are willing to jump through hoops and put up with BS.

First off, allow me to preface this by telling you that most account executives are usually personable and helpful. They genuinely want to help you find work. Of course, this interest is not entirely based on altruism. You see, an AE base salary isn’t very high. In fact, from what I’ve seen, it is little better than California State Minimum Wage. Therefore, most AEs have an abiding pecuniary interest in finding the most qualified candidate for any vacancy that crosses their desk because whether they receive their commission is contingent upon whether or not they find a body. Hence, no body, then no commission.

Bottom line: Most AEs are mindful of their commission and will put in the effort to find a body for the job.

But during these days of 12.5% Statewide unemployment and climbing, temp jobs are few and far between because employers are unwilling and/or unable to fork over any of the usual fees a temp agency collects on top of having to pay for the labor.

**Note: 12.5% is the BLSs ” seasonally adjusted,” happy, shiny, so as not to cause riots estimate.**

Having said that, should you happen to live in an area of the country where you know that temp agencies are doing well because they’re being used, and are staffed by competent AEs, then congratulations are in order. It ain’t easy finding a job or working for a temp agency lately because there ain’t no jobs and there ain’t no money for those jobs.

But hey, whaddya gonna do. You hit the pavement and pound it every single day trying to track down a job. These days, however, it’s more like trying to track down the scent of a job, but I digress. And when you receive an email from your AE informing you of a possible Temp-To-Perm gig, you forward on your latest resume and then wait for the reply as to whether the temp agency’s client is sufficiently interested to interview you.

Note here also that some temp jobs you just make an appearance on site to perform the work, while others, usually the TTP kind as referenced above, want to interview.

If the latter, then that’s where the BS enters because employers are well aware of the UI numbers. They know that since the line for their job snakes around a NYC block twice, they can pay slave wages and otherwise have their pick of the crop. But you’re only standing on that line provided that your background includes precisely what the client, Dewey, Skrewem & Howe, LLP^ specified to the temp agency.

What this means in practical terms is that if the firm’s pointy-headed Admin/HR person specified a leasing agent, then you better have those exact same words on your resume, otherwise, and with blinders firmly affixed, they don’t want to talk to you or be made aware of your existence. Period.

Neither Dewey nor your AE cares one whit that you have performed in one capacity or another the exact same functions as that of a leasing agent. Nope. Negative. Because when you were performing those functions, you weren’t called a leasing agent. You were called a Paralegal. And oh dear. (shock! gasp!) How could a Paralegal possibly know what the functions of a leasing agent are?!

The word itself is polysyllabic and smells suspciously like it could involve a lawyer’s salary, and Hallelujah! Heavens no! We most assuredly do not want THAT here at Dewey. We said leasing agent and we MEAN leasing agent, NOT Paralegal. Now we must readjust our blinders and reeducate our AE.

Damn you, Paralegal! How dare you presume to match your skill sets to those of the job we need a body to fill. Your arrogance, sir, is galling.

Consequently, the door you thought your AE just opened for you – The one you thought might represent at least temporary employment? Was just slammed in your face.

The mind fairly boggles.

Or is it just me?

^My facetious name for a fictional employer.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

What’s That Smell?

Brimstone was one of those shows that was, for all intents and purposes, here one day and gone the next. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. Debuting in 1998, the series originally aired on the Fox Network on Friday night and immediately preceeded Millennium. It was dark and gritty, but not enough to scare the kiddies unless they were home schooled.

John Glover, who is known for playing twisted villains, starred as the devil and Peter Horton was deceased NYPD detective, Zeke Stone. Stone was serving his time in Hell for murdering his wife’s rapist fifteen years before when he was recruited to be Satan’s hunting dog. Horton, as viewers may recall, previously starred in the 1987 series, Thirty Something, but as much as I despised that particular show, I won’t hold it against him.

The storyline featured the devil having made a deal with Stone to hunt down and bring back 113 demons that had escaped from Hell because, as he explained, he was “powerless” on Earth to bring them back himself. This limitation did not, however, seem to restrict The Dark One from teleporting to and from Hell, and, otherwise generally working to hamstring Stone at every opportunity.

Once Stone located an escapee, he then had to put out the demon’s eyes in order to send him back to Hell. I always thought that had the writers devised new and innovative ways for Stone to blind the demons in each episode that this would have worked as a kind of gimmick. But then that’s what Stone’s tats were for, I’m guessing. Cool idea, but needed more follow through.

Bottom line, I really liked the show and found the content refreshing, but alas, the show was not to be because the network canceled after the first season. At least the series was around long enough for audiences to enjoy thirteen episodes. Although it appears in rerun occasionally on SyFy and Chiller, that still doesn’t make me any less embittered. But as Shakespeare counsels, all good things must come to an end.

Tell it to the Marines, Wills.

Six years later, Constantine, however, did help to satisfy my craving for netherworld content; Not by much, but better than nothing, I suppose. Given these uncertain times and impending doom, I’m surprised television networks aren’t capitalizing on the 2012 phenomenon the way they did on the so called “end of days” preceeding the year 2000. Instead, television programming remains as banal and inane as ever, and Hollywood plans to crank out a million and one ways to bore us on the big screen with apocalyptic visions of John Cusack driving his car over gridlocked freeway overpasses that are falling away.

Ha. Those of us who live in California can get that any day of the week just driving to work.

Yawn. Pass. I’d prefer a second season of Brimstone, instead. At this point, even Millennium would work. Or how about a third season of Dead Like Me, the series that was canceled at its peak popularity by the corporate wizards at Showtime. How’s Nurse Jackie been workin’ out for ya – Carmela Soprano now has a job as an ER nurse and the show is billed as a “dark” comedy with a “flawed” protagonist? Gimme a break. We’ve seen this one before. It’s called House and we can tune in every Monday night without having to pay the premium channel price tag.

Move to return Edie Falco the to Carmela character, and, a seventh installment of The Sopranos. All those in favor, say “aye.”

I would actually even consider paying for a premium channel again if the show was returned to its former glory days on HBO.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Remember that show…

Northern Exposure was an hour long sitcom that aired Mondays at 10p.m. for approximately six seasons. I missed the first two because I was an incredibly busy undergraduate at the time, but have since been able to watch them elsewhere online.

The character of Dr. Joel Fleishman, played by Rob Morrow, was a NYC native freshly graduated from Cornell School of Medicine. In return for paying for his tuition, Fleishman signed a contract with the State of Alaska agreeing to work for the State for a period of four years following graduation. Fleishman was originally told that he would be living in Anchorage, but at the last minute, was pulled to a small town located in the middle of nowhere by the name of Cicely.

I really enjoyed the Fleishman character because I could relate to being surrounded by a bunch of rubes. Lovable, understand, but rubes, nonetheless.

Speaking of turnips, I did not like the Kupfer character at all. Walt Kupfer was an aggravating, brain dead, busybody who had worked as a broker on Wall Street, but who then came to Cicely to escape from the stress of his life. Or so he said. Then again, maybe he left NYC because he thought he could spit a Yellow Cab over a campfire and eat it for dinner.

Maybe he wasn’t a broker at all, but an escaped mental patient. Oh wait. NE already had that storyline in the final season. A professional violinist was instantly transformed into a raving nutjob having become obsessed with Maurice’s antique violin upon playing it for the first time for Maurice and his date, Officer Semansky.

Kupfer made a living as a trapper and otherwise functioned as filler – a character in the show that didn’t rate a spot in any of the group shots for the show. I found him to be mildly annoying initially, but as his was only a bit part, and, as long as he stayed on the periphery, he was tolerable. That changed, however, during the episode when Fleishman discovered a fully intact mammoth in a melted glacier, and, before he could get an anthropologist out to see it, Kupfer found it.

Unbeknownst to Fleishman, he then dragged it home where he could slaughter the body and eat the steaks. When Fleishman found out, he was apoplectic. But my opinion of the Kupfer character as the village idiot was permanently solidified thereafter.

After Joel Fleishman, Ed Chigliak was my other favorite. Ed was employed by both Ruth Ann Miller who owned the town’s general store, and, by Maurice Minnifield, Cicely’s wealthiest resident. But his true love was filming home documentaries with his 16mm camera. While Fleishman’s claim to fame was his ability to sound off and get under the skin of anyone within earshot, Ed’s endearing quality was that he related all of his life experiences to the VHS movies he obsessively watched.

Ed also frequently suffered from bouts of low self esteem, which was personified by a little green man who followed him around wearing a tiny sized version of Ed’s black leather jacket.

Seasons three through five were the best, in my opinion, but by the sixth, it was clear that Dr. Fleishman had big screen aspirations. Although Morrow starred in Quiz Show in 1994, his movie career never quite attained the heights that he banked on, I suspect. Regardless, he continued playing Fleishman up til midpoint in season six, but the quality of the show was never quite the same.

Season six was the finale, and was, by my standards at least, an annoying series of WTF. With each passing week, the writers gradually wrote off the Joel character, and, my interest in the show waned in a big way.

The Joel Fleishman that was so obnoxiously amusing at the start of the series became increasingly unkempt, hirsute, erratic and just plain “out there.” I’m sure these were all intended consequences since they jibed with phasing Morrow out of the show, but it was still quite annoying just the same.

Additionally, what you could see of his face through the grizzly Adams facial hair and 80s hair band ‘do, Morrow seemed to have a perpetual shit eating grin on his face whenever the cameras were rolling no matter the scene. But he wasn’t funny, witty or obnoxious anymore. He wasn’t anything. He was just an actor collecting a big cha-ching payday and otherwise going through the motions of fulfilling his contractual obligations. Probably a lot of other fans felt the same way. Or maybe it was just that the show had run its course and it was time to call it quits.

Later on in the season, I became even more irritated with the show when Fleishman was completely disappeared in the fifteenth episode entitled, “The Quest.” But, such is the life of a television actor who outgrows his television screen, I suppose. More than one TV show has bitten the dust because the main character assumed he would have equal or greater success in Hollywood.

In an attempt to infuse new blood into the show, new characters Dr. Capra & wife were trotted out in hopes, no doubt, of filling the Joel void, but I found the Capras to be flat and uninspiring. There was nothing they could say that was as amusing or witty as the Fleishman v. O’Connell wars had been. Perhaps their biggest fault was that in a town populated by eccentrics, the Capras were quite normal. They weren’t sufficiently odd or dysfunctional to really make an impact, and, the balance between the Capras versus the flakes that the writers may have imagined remained to be seen.

The only thing noteworthy about the Capras was that the wife, Michelle, was played by Teri Polo, who, a few years later, had a few cameos in Brimstone as Detective Ash, and, ultimately ended up playing opposite Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents.

Not long after Fleishman disappeared into the wilderness, the neurotic, but infectiously adorable O’Connell character, played by Janine Turner, was eventually paired up with Chris Stevens, which was bound to happen sooner or later since it was evident that the writers couldn’t seem to devote enough segments to Cicely’s only DJ.

I disliked the Stevens character almost as much as I did Kupfer. And for all the many layers of what must have been imagined was “character” that was attributed in an attempt to toughen up his image, Chris Stevens was nothing but an overbearing pompous ass, in my opinion. If there were only a single radio station on my dial and the choice was either “Chris in the morning” or silence, I’d choose the latter.

You can find the series online if you’re interested in buying the boxed set, however, I would not recommend it. NE is apparently yet another victim of the music industry’s insane licensing fees shake down, and, so none of the music that was featured in the original episodes is included in the DVD collection. As far as I’m concerned, this is tantamount to trying to pass off The Silver Surfer without his board or Spiderman minus his ability to spin webs and climb up the side of a building.

Despite the disclusion of the soundtrack, you won’t find a discount in the price tag. Not even the nifty, faux buckskin carrying case makes up for the absence of the music. Pass on this one. Put the tunes back into the show and then get back to me.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Strike a Blow for Civil Liberties

Civil liberties would disappear entirely but for everyday people like Steve Bierfeldt whose unconstitutional search and seizure experience helped bring to heel dubious “security” practices exercised by airport security.

The TSA is responsible for providing security for commercial air travel and is mandated by statute to screen passengers and property for weapons and explosives that may be carried aboard passenger aircraft operated by domestic or foreign carriers in the United States. That being said, Bierfeldt was detained in March for flying with too much cash.

While the TSA operates under the umbrella of the DHS, it has absolutely no authority under the Constitution either to conduct open-ended searches and seizures, or to practice detention and interrogation, both of which exceeds the TSAs statutory authority to protect civil aviation.

As a result of Mr. Bierfeldt’s complaint, the TSA has since modified its search policy, however it took the threat of litigation for it to bring its practices under control for the moment. (Read the Bierfeldt v. Napolitano complaint.)

Upon the announcement of the new search policy, Mr. Bierfeldt dropped his complaint. While I applaud Bierfeldt’s efforts, I’m not at all sure as to whether the change in policy will be permanent. Given that the TSA is part and parcel of security theater, it is questionable that this will be the last time we hear about it having exceeded its authority. The TSA can just as easily reverse policy at a future date since there won’t be any case law on the books preventing it from doing so.

I encourage you to listen to Mr. Bierfeldt’s recording of the manner in which he was treated by TSA employees. A single word comes to my mind: Thug.

Among others.

©2009 Peyton Farquhar™ and Prattle On, Boyo™. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Peyton Farquhar and Prattle On, Boyo with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.