The DAN ZONE

The latest miserable human being I encountered was at the dog park today. It was a beautiful, spring-like day of nearly 50 degrees, with a warm breeze blowing and the sun shining. The dog park was packed with people milling around watching their dogs having fun. Suddenly, everyone began to notice these big tufts of hair drifting on the wind…and flying right into their faces and mouths! Pretty quickly, all eyes turned to a man who was standing in the MIDDLE of the dog park grooming his super hairy dog with a dog brush and simply allowing the big hair balls to run amok. And this a*hole actually kept LOOKING at the tufts blowing away and ferociously attacking the crowd of pissed off people giving him dirty looks, and yet continued to brush his dog!!! DESPICABLE.

On a much bigger level of despicable, there’s the ABC situation here on the east coast. ABC wants more money from cable (which inevitably means our cable prices will go up), so just in time for the Oscars, ABC decided to play dirty and remove the channel from our service until it gets what it wants. I’m so happy that the Oscars are fricking boring and that I didn’t get invited to one of those super gay Oscar parties. But Oscars aside, I went through my head trying to think of what shows I watch on ABC. The truth is, since ABC sux and canceled Better Off Ted and Eastwick, as well as destroying the legacy of Scrubs, and since I never dedicated myself to Lost, so no love lost there, the ONLY show I watch on the station is Desperate Housewives, which happens not to be on tonight because of the Oscars. And if I don’t have the wives back by next Sunday, I’ll just catch it on the ABC website. Screw ABC. Who needs it?

This morning, the Today Show did one of their TV show reunion segments, and the focus was on the cast of Eight is Enough. And I’ll be damned if Grant Goodeve, who played oldest brother David Bradford, hasn’t become one distinguished daddy! When the show began in 1977 and I was only eight years old, I saw those blue eyes, that thick feathered head of hair, that open collared denim shirt revealing a fuzzy chest, and I was like, “I want HIM to be my big brother….” Now that I get what those thoughts were all about, I still want him to be my big brother…from another mother, of course.  Lord, Grant me one Goodeve with him!

So, we were being warned for days that New York was going to be hit by a brutal blizzard that would shut everything down. It did pretty much shut everything down–because everyone believed the hype. Schools and businesses all decided the night before that they would not be open. My company was even closed , which is a shock, because it pretty much never closes. Yet, by around noon yesterday, I was looking out my front door and thinking, “Man, my company must be kicking itself for closing down today. This snowstorm is laughable.” The roads were completely clear! But well into the night, the news reports continued to totally blow the storm’s intensity out of proportion. No one seems to remember the two feet of snow we got in December! Now THAT was a blizzard. A sadly ignored blizzard. Just look at the clip above. My dogs were practically drowning in the snow. They couldn’t even relieve themselves in the yard because their pee-pees were all pressed up against the cold white drifts! They haven’t had even the slightest problem taking care of business in this storm.

I can see this being an analogy on next year’s SATs: missionaries are to the new millennium as televangelists were to the 80s. First a group of missionaries basically coaxed Uganda into killing all gays, and now another group allegedly tried to kidnap children from Haiti.

When I first heard the story, I was sort of like, well, they shouldn’t try to take them out of the country without permission, especially if their parents are still there, but I can’t totally blame them. I mean, I can’t imagine what it must have been like to see children suffering in all that devastation (I kept flashing back to that news clip of a young boy having a cinderblock thrown at his head before being saved by Anderson Cooper). Hell, I want to kidnap every dog in the shelter when I go there, and they’re simply in cages. I think the natural human instinct SHOULD be to want to get those kids out of that nightmare.

But it’s gotten a lot more complex than a good deed gone wrong. The last I heard, one news crew got to see the ten missionaries in jail, and one of the missionaries slipped the reporter a note signed by most of the missionaries saying that one chick in particular was acting as the spokesperson for all of them (the one who keeps saying on the news that she believes God will get her out of there safely), and that she’s involved in some shady adoption dealings they knew nothing about when they came to Haiti, and that they fear for their lives as a result. WTF???

Hopefully the truth will come out and justice–if it’s needed–will be served, but damn! Give God a break! Missionaries have been doing more good than any of us could probably imagine for longer than we can imagine. All it takes is a handful of despicable products of modern society to permanently tarnish the long-standing reputation of the missionary movement.

I’ve posted this clip of my dogs looking rather tame because I needed it after our peaceful walk in the snowy park today was ruined by two people, walking four Pit Bulls, who quickly warned me to keep my dogs on a short leash because none of their dogs were friendly.  Hm…not even the puppy that was about 4 months old???

You know, I occasionally come across people with ONE dog that isn’t friendly, but if you have FOUR dogs, including a puppy, that you have to aggressively warn people about, then either you don’t know how to raise a dog, you need lessons on socializing your pets, or you’ve chosen to PURPOSELY have violent dogs, either because you think it’s bad ass or because you intend to place them in some vile animal boxing ring.  And considering these types of people are aggressive in their warnings, I can pretty much guess where their dogs get their mean streak from.

Oh, and one more thing. If you’re going to raise violent dogs, then keep them locked up like the wild animals you’ve made them instead of bringing them out into tranquil places where people come to relax.

Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie have decided to pull an Elton John—and by that, I mean that they are recycling an old benefit single just as Elton John pulls out “Candle in the Wind” every time someone dies and simply rewrites the words. Yawn. The bottom line is, it just won’t be the same.

The number one best benefit single ever, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has been subjected to the remake treatment at least twice that I know of, and the remakes just couldn’t compare (I know, because I have them in my collection). And the fact is, “We Are the World” is a pale imitation of the Band-Aid holiday classic. Let’s face it. England thought of it first, and we tried to steal the concept as if we thought of it. The only reason our single did so much better on the charts in the U.S. is because most people didn’t know most of the bevy of new wave and new romantic artists who sang on the Band-Aid track. I mean, to this day, Bob Geldof gets all the credit for the song when it was actually written by the brilliant Midge Ure, lead vocalist of Ultravox. If you’re saying, “Midge who? Ultra-what?” then you’ve just proven my point.

Here in the U.S. we simply sold our single with ‘brand’ names: Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie. These artists were HUGE at the time the song was recorded. And that’s great and smart, because, hey, the bottom line is, we were trying to raise money for a really good cause. But at this point, we need something fresh and new, not that same old sappy song from 25 years ago.

Even so, from what I’ve heard of the lineup of artists on this new version, the selection is top notch. Can’t wait to hear Josh Groban sing the Kenny Rogers line, and who better to handle the Cyndi Lauper part than Celine Dion? Hey, she already covered the Cyndi classic “I Drove All Night,” so why not fill those shoes once more? Since I’m going to have to add this new version to my music collection (because that’s just how I am), my only real hope is that they get at least some of the artists from the original recording to sing in the all-star chorus as a sort of homage.

Remember when the 80s seemed so fresh, so new, so cutting edge? Video games (a yellow blob eating lines of white pixels), movies (Matthew Broderick conversing with a computer!), television (K.I.T.T. the talking car) and the music scene (icy synthesizers, a drum machine, and cold, robotic vocals). Somehow, what was once so futuristic has become ‘retro’ and ‘old skool’! So how can those of us who loved the unique experiences and technologies waiting around every corner in the 80s get that virginal feeling back again? Because there’s no denying that “Don’t You Want Me” by the Human League just doesn’t pack the electronic punch it once did now that you can hear it on lite radio about ten times a day.

I’ve managed to relive the spirit of the past in a handful of ways. Let’s start with the video games. Naturally, if you still have an old Atari or Colecovision collecting dust somewhere in your house, blow off the cobwebs, plug it into a TV (you know, one of the HDMI-less clunkers that accepts a videogame switchbox), and start playing. If those classic gaming systems were sold in a garage sale years ago when you’d decided you were too ‘adult’ for them, then you have another option. Most gaming systems from the past decade have numerous compilations of classic home system and arcade video games. There are awesome Atari, Intellivision and Activision console game collections, plus arcade compilations from video game companies like Namco, Sega, Konami, Data East, and Midway. You can also download many Nintendo Entertainment System games onto your Wii. There are even a variety of joystick controllers you can buy for some of the game systems to get a more genuine arcade experience. Your best bet is to tell your friends to forget the kids, forget work, forget all adult obligations, and to just come over for a night of classic gaming—Galaxian, Pac Man, Frogger, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Ms. Pac Man, Defender, Mario Bros. Then crank up a good mix of 80s music, preferably on that old boom box you still have that most likely has a wire hanger jammed into the place where an antenna used to be, and remember the past.

Next, we have the movies. You could go for the obvious, like E.T., The Breakfast Club, Fast Times, Better Off Dead, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller, Flashdance, Footloose, or Back to the Future. These films definitely capture the music and fashion of the decade, but they can also tend to be as ineffective at bringing memories flooding back as some of those overplayed tracks you hear on the radio every weekend on “Saturday at the 80s.” You need to go for the real cheesy movies you saw on cable a million times that are so 80s in style that they actually look like they are mocking the 80s rather than being genuine artifacts. I’ve got a great collection of them, including movies such as Breakin’, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Real Genius, The Last Dragon, Just One of the Guys, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, The Pirate Movie, The Last American Virgin and Looker. You also can’t go wrong with any slasher movies that aren’t Halloween, Friday the 13^th, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. I’m talking about the kinds of slashers that feature actors who never made a second film, and elongated high school gym dance scenes focusing on some new wave/power pop band that never got signed to a label despite the blatant attempt at exposure. Some good 80s slasher titles include Graduation Day, Sleepaway Camp, The Prowler, Blood Song, The Initiation, and The Intruder. And just for an added dose of authenticity, most of these films, even on DVD, have that warm and fuzzy (aka: grainy) look that you thought only a VHS tape could offer.

And of course, there’s the television outlet. There are great television shows you should watch on DVD in a major marathon for hours and hours. Personally, the obvious, like The A-Team, Cheers, or The Cosby Show, don’t totally do it for me because they fail to focus on the true teen experience in the 80s. You need to get the lone season of the totally awesome Square Pegs and Fame Seasons 1 and 2 for the ultimate in capturing 80s fashions, trends, music, and hopes and fears of the Gen-X set. Also you might want to DVR the “Totally 80s” segments on VH-1 Classics, because watching cheesy 4 minute music clips seriously brings back the vibe of the 80s mind. Every time I watch them, I expect the rockin’ MTV guitar theme to start with the graphics of the man landing on the moon. Sadly, that beautiful clip was taken away from us forever in the mid-80s after the space shuttle exploded.

Finally, there’s the music. Listening to one of those compilations of the most obvious 80s songs that never went away doesn’t work much (Come on Eileen, Too Shy, She Blinded Me with Science, Who Can It Be now, Roseanna, etc.). But there is a way to revive your listening experience to totally bring you back while reawakening the emotions those songs evoked in you in the first place. As a huge music collector, I have the necessary resources at my disposal, which helps. I have a massive 80s folder on my iPod, and the playlist does indeed start with the hits. But here’s the trick. All the hits are placed in the order that they entered the Billboard charts. So, when you listen to the songs, you are hearing songs that all hit the airwaves at around the same time, which leads to some wicked drug-free trips down memory lane. You will literally be catapulted back to that particular summer, fall, winter or spring that you were hearing all these songs back to back on the radio and on MTV.

But the top hits of the 80s are just the beginning of my folder. What I’ve done is gone through all the albums I have from the 80s (which, I kid you not, consists of most albums released by most artists during that decade), and pulled songs that, even if they weren’t hits, just absolutely reek of 80s production, in all genres: mainstream pop, new wave, synthpop, arena rock, goth, hi-nrg dance, club, power pop, hip hop. And of course, there are a massive numbers of soundtracks that saturated the market back then, which really serve as the soundtrack to life in the 80s. Put it all together in a little piece of 21^st century technology (iPod killed the CD star), and you basically have my personal greatest hits of the decade and beyond. After I finish listening to the charted ‘best’ of the 80s in chronological order, I let the rest of the 80s takeover, and relish what feels like an all new 80s experience—hearing songs that I’ve rarely ever or never listened to, but which are the epitome of 80s sounds. It’s like I’m back in the 80s, sitting in front of the radio waiting for the debut of some great new single. As a result, when I start listening to my 80s folder on my iPod, I find myself constantly reaching for it because I simply have to know who is singing the amazing track I’m hearing—and unlike DJs on the radio, my iPod tells me the song title and artist every time.

Now this is the kind of heartwarming story that the Today Show should be covering every morning to brighten up my day. It’s the tale of prestigious Colorado evangelic preacher Ted Haggard, married with children, whose dirty secret was exposed a few years ago when one of his male escorts ratted him out in order to expose the hypocrisy (and make some cold hard cash with his story I’m sure, although, since his day job consists of meaningless sex, isn’t all the money he makes as an escort cold, hard cash?). Sure, the powerful preacher hooked up with an escort who supplied him with drugs, but I think under the circumstances, he should be considered a hero. He actually slept with a beefy and hunky man instead of releasing his agonizing oppression by screwing little boys like some other trusting ‘father’ figures we know. But, he preaches to a tough crowd, so they didn’t see the bright side of things. He crash landed from grace, was booted from his church, and apparently was even kicked out of Colorado. Tough state. Guess they didn’t get the memo about the church/state separation deal.

Anyway, now his loving wife, who has stuck by his side, has written her tell-all from her perspective with the sole purpose of helping her former flock who have gone through the same thing. She claims her husband has struggled for years with these ‘unwanted compulsions’, repeatedly promised that he would never act on them again, and now, thanks to therapy, is cured and 100% heterosexual! And with that great news in mind, I shall pray for this woman’s naïve and ignorant soul and pray that I can get married some day soon so I can hire that hot male escort to dance at my bachelor party! And as for the preacher? Well, I guess I’ll see this fallen ‘angel’ in hell…

I want to applaud Cindy McCain for posing for a no-on-hate-of-Prop8 photo. I really do. But the most I can muster is a, dare I say, ‘conservative’ polite-society fingers-to-palm sign of appreciation you’d see old ladies doing at the opera. Because, let’s face it, where was Cindy on the day her husband was losing the presidential election while the people of California were voting for ‘change’ (you know, change like taking the right to marry back from gay people)? McCain’s daughter, Meghan, on the other hand, posed for an anti-Prop8 ad last summer—despite how it might affect her father’s campaign. His daughter’s stance shouldn’t affect how people feel about him, but of course it would (how dare McCain raise a daughter who has integrity and stands up for what she believes in), so the two distanced themselves from each other. Therefore, Cindy did what she believed was ‘right’ for her husband, following the Ronald Reagan rule of silence (Reagan did not even utter the term AIDS until 1987 when it was beyond being a major health epidemic in this country).

Even so, despite voicing her stance only now when it really doesn’t pose much threat to her husband’s goals, Cindy is still much more my hero than most democraps (Oops! Typo!). Because democraps suck. They are so scared to be labeled liberal by people who wouldn’t vote for them anyway that they refuse to stand up for, well, the very issues they get voted into office for, like, oh, I don’t know, LIBERATION.

Well, actually, I shouldn’t say that. Democraps are proud sponsors of baby aborting. It’s gay marriage where they draw the line: the kind of union with a built-in contraception that creates homes ripe for alleviating the epidemic of parentless children that egocentric couples planning for parenthood don’t want, because a child that doesn’t look like them is just too damn unlovable (it’s an inner conflict I struggle with every day because my adopted dogs are so much cuter than me!). But I ain’t ever gonna be no baby daddy, so who am I to have any opinion on abortion? Besides, who wants to take sides in a debate on rights that guarantees that one side is going to come out a loser at the other’s expense (just as the gay marriage debate could negatively impact the rights of gays or…um…nobody)? Opinion-free or not, I can’t help wonder, what chance do people have of protecting the rights of unborn children in this country when they can’t even, you know, find it in their hearts to give full rights to the people who already ARE born? Sure, we’ll give the unborn child the right to life, but once born, if that child is gay, well, there are a whole bunch of rights under that right to life umbrella that we’re sure as hell going to take back a.s.a.p.!!! And the democraps sure as shit ain’t gonna stop us because they don’t want to be the poster children of equality for all!

So, yeah. Cindy McCain puts democraps to shame, because I don’t exactly see liberal politicians or even their spouses standing up for equality. Personally, if it were my political career at stake, I might be swayed to stand up for the rights of many of my constituents simply because my trailblazing would guarantee me a pretty strong entry in the history books until the end of time…which would be 2012.

Should I invest in a trailer home now? The game is on again, the people being pandered to with promises that are nothing more than pawns as both major political parties prevent change to prove who has the bigger penis. The votes have been counted, sexy Scott has declared victory, and zapping away gay marriage in Massachusetts will be the least of his goals. The decline of civilization is the utmost priority! It will begin with making sure there is NO healthcare reform so already struggling people will remain uncovered, which will succeed in killing many of them off (the ones who are ALREADY on a death panel), leaving the rest to go into foreclosure to pay their bills, which will further build the poor class and help obliterate the middle class. At the same time, it will ensure that healthcare companies continue to filter their money to the rich to keep them in power so they can further crush the middle class.

The crusade to abolish funding for public schools and increase college tuition will move full steam ahead, keeping the rich educated while the middle class get even dumber on their journey to poverty. This will further strengthen the slave labor work force we now have, with fewer and fewer people doing more and more mindless work for less and less money while paying growing and growing costs for their own healthcare, all for the sake of keeping big corporations thriving and the handful of people at the top of these corporations perversely wealthy. The rich and powerful will participate in helping corporations maintain this level of success by pretending that protecting our boarders from illegal immigrants is a number one priority while putting these tired, hungry, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, in degrading jobs for no money with no healthcare.

Fostering desperation for jobs is ideal for further weakening the integrity and team spirit of the working force. Big corporations will continue to offer false promises of advancement and opportunity. This practice guarantees that employees will more aggressively continue trying to prove their worth to the ‘big guys’ by turning against and sabotaging fellow employees, buying into the philosophy that everyone loves a rat. The morale-boosting slogan for each and every corporation shall remain “be happy you have a job.”

The rich and powerful will further help to motivate and give hope to the peons by dropping the God-bomb, using faith and religion as mantras for the common folk to cling to and live by. The notion that family values are crucial to strengthening society will continue to be forcefully instilled. While the rich are spending taxpayers’ dollars on exotic trips to see their mistresses and cruising men’s bathrooms for pleasure, they will endorse marriage and sex as solely for the purpose of procreation, thereby convincing couples to bring into the world excessive numbers of children they can’t afford to provide with food, shelter and education.

Divisive issues like religion, race, gender and sexual orientation shall continue to be pushed to the forefront of political campaigns to distract the minions from focusing on the real issues (the plans to abolish their existence). The powerful tool called bigotry will do what it does best: turn common folk against one another to prevent any possibility of a united front. This is the ideal moment to empower the weak, sick, hungry, jobless, poverty stricken folk by making sure they are all armed with guns they are proud to know they have the right to own. Pushed to the brink of survival of the fittest, they can use these guns to dispatch of groups they’ve been told are lesser human beings than themselves, right out on the street (aw crap…my people are sure to go first!).

But hey, if this cool apocalyptic path is the one the rich and powerful want to take, it isn’t such a bad thing that the world is scheduled to end in 2012 thanks to the latest pushing back of the infamous prophecy. It will spare me the trouble of having to vote, because there are really no persons or parties worth voting for anymore because none of them truly cares about society or the fate of this country.

On the bright side, if there was going to be one savior responsible for setting off the chain of events leading to Armageddon, it’s appropriate it is a God-like figure like the one in the pornographic photo spread above. Watch out for that staple!