Category: Humor

Put your lighters in the air, dudes and dudettes: The inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were announced yesterday. Sabbath, the Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Blondie and Miles Davis (?) will soon be enshrined in that stately assemblage. Wouldn’t it be a treat if all of their plaques were lined up next to each other, so the punks and the metal heads and the Skynyrd fans could mix it up every day?

I’ve been to that museum twice, but still have a hard time swallowing the whole concept. Comprehensive historical expositions on the psychedelic era just seem like such make-work efforts, like pursuing a degree in American studies.

Maybe the problem is the glass pyramid on the Cleveland lakefront, designed by bigtime muckymuck I.M. Pei. What the hell does a glass pyramid have to do with rocknroll, except for Todd Rundgren and maybe Madonna’s boobs (weren’t they a geometric shape at one point?) ? Too egg-headed. A much more apt setting would be a barge floating next to the back end of a gigantic pink 56 Chevy, stuck nose down in the mud of Lake Erie with flames coming out of the wreckage. This would announce to the world both, “Live fast, die young” and “Yeah, our river caught fire once—wanna make something of it?”

So shout “FREEEE BIRRRRRRD!” at everyone you meet this week. Or just randomly, as you’re standing in the street.

So Christmas is coming barreling down the road, a full 18-wheeler of fun and frolic and rich food that’s only sort of tasty. Before you put on your hockey pads and go out to the mall, you should check the list of this year’s most dangerous toys. You can find this list, published every year by the group Parents Who’ve Already Turned Their Kids Into Whiny, Fearful Pansies and Now Have the Time to Do It to Yours, and pictures of the toys at CNN. This grouping is a staple of the news at this time of year, along with announcements of January plant closings and designated driver reminders.

First off, anyone who has to point out that the “Lord of the Rings – Return of the King Uruk-Hai Crossbow” set might cause eye injuries should get a job on the local weekend TV newscasts. It’s the only place I can think of where such “No, duh” thinking can be turned into a paying job. If a kid takes an Uruk-Hai as his role model, good luck getting him or her to put on eye protection.

Secondly, if everyone is so worried about youngsters choking on small parts of all these toys, my best suggestion is to cover the toys in Tabasco sauce or Chinese mustard. If we teach the little bips to quit putting things in their mouths, maybe they’ll spread fewer cold germs.

Another solution to the small, swallowable parts problem is to only give kids very large, heavy presents, like 6X6 posts or sandbags. This would have the double benefit of strengthening their upper bodies.

Lastly, I really can’t find fault with the makers of the 38″ Air Kicks Kickaroos Anti-Gravity Boots, even apart from the cool name. The boots are sort of spring-like things that kids slip over their boots. The Toy Nazis are whining that the box only warns children to “always remain in control of your motions”. I think that’s just good advice for everybody, not just kids.

Come back, Irwin Mainway! Make playtime fun again!

The other day, President Bush outlined his plan for fighting the avian flu, or bird flu (not to be confused with the Evian flu, which is commonly known as bottled water flu, or the Elian flu, known as the underage Cuban political pawn flu, or the EvaGabor flu, known as the “Olivah, your hotscakes are retty” flu).

With all modesty, I must confess I have a better plan:

First, isolate the chicken farms of China and southeast Asia and treat every bird there with a strong strain of the Ebola virus. Then, among the birds still standing, expose them to SARS and feed them a steady diet of aspartame. For any infected waterfowl that migrate to North America, determine the most effective way to spread the flesh-eating bacteria identified in Toronto some years back and apply that. At the same time, set up feeding stations for the ducks and geese in the countryside to keep them away from cities and suburbs. These feeding centers would be stocked with grain laced with alar, anthrax, Legionnaire’s disease, the swine flu virus, and the human papilloma virus, just to be safe.

And any birds that emerge alive after all of that, we bow down and worship with tribute and sacrifice as if they were King Kong.

Now, my brother heard that Bush’s avian bird flu plan in large part relies on lifting restrictions for developing wetlands that harbor these “duck-billed pterrorists”, especially those areas that may contain oil. “Less birds, less flu,” the thinking goes. This can’t be true, can it?

Here’s a link just for Branden and his pals at Grand Valley State, a compilation of Celebrity Butt Cracks.

Enjoy, guys.