Unstable Ego

The Back-Alley Sommelier

I don't know how much malt liquor or hooch you fuckers drink, but whether I'm stumbling home from the bars with kaleidescope vision and naught but change in my pocket, or trying to impress a lady over a nice dinner, I think cheap, high alcohol beverages marketed to impoverished inner-city males are the way to go!

In order to share my love for these delicious and decidedly to-the-point aperitifs, I've decided to put on my sommelier's cap (earned at great expense to pocket, body and mind in the most demanding back-alley Parisian brothels) and present to you the finest examples of this genre: 

 

Mad Dog 20 20

I feel it's only right to start with Mad Dog.  This is the best hooch with which to woo.  It's tropical flavors practically call out for romance.  The preferred hooch of Lord Byron, Mad Dog conjures in the female mind poetry and warm sunsets. Can't afford that trip to Hawaii? Bring the islands to you.  Of course, it's incumbent upon me to mention that only the "Red Grape Wine" flavor has the full 18% alcohol by volume.  Some flavors have as low as 13%. So, when dealing with Mad Dog, DON"T BE A SUCKER! This shit will rip yours and your beloved's stomachs to absolute shreds, but it's totally worth the $3 because she will think you are classy.

Pair With: 7-11 Taquitos, a pineapple, a rose bought from an indigent man wandering throught a bar, a Harry Belafonte album and a big garbage bag because you absolutely will throw up.

Pros: Counts as your RDA of fruit.

Cons: Sadly immortalized in a Teenage Fanclub song, robbing this classic hooch of a good portion of it's balls.

Thunderbird

Self-Proclaimed "The American Classic" by visionary winos Ernest and Julio Gallo, this is the best hooch if you really want it all to yourself.  No one in their right mind would ask for a sip of this shit.  It honestly tastes like gasoline.  Yes, I did the comparison.  It will fuck you up, in every way.  Drinking it is akin to winterizing your pipes with antifreeze.  I've heard it suggested that Thunderbird could make one blind, however I'm not sure this is accurate.  If you drink this foul liquid and cannot see anything, you're not blind.  You're dead.

Pair With: An updated will and possibly a corndog.

Pros: There are none.  The only thing I can think of is that it has the catchiest jingle in all of hoochdom:

What's the word? Thunderbird!

How's it sold? Good and cold.

What's the jive? Bird's alive!

What's the price? Thirty twice.

Cons: Too many to list.  At your own risk, buddy.  

   

Colt 45

Colt 45 is the regional beverage of Cloud City.  Purported by their esteemed leader, Lando Calrissian, to "Work Every Time", this high alcohol brew is the only choice when you're trying to get both laid and wasted, in no particular order.  It's commonly known that Colt 45 is solely responsible for the Millenium Falcon's escape from Cloud City, as the bulk of the stormtroopers inhabiting the city were either passed out or laying bitches down on red velvet couches.  Just ask this guy:

Pair with: Curtis Mayfield or Barry White on the radio, a stripper and your most winning smile.

Pros: Intergalactic. Plus, you will get laid, though you may not enjoy it.

Cons: Billy Dee Williams has already tapped that.

Mickey's

Mickey's, from Miller, affectionately called "The Grenade", is both an awful tasting beer and a font of wisdom, as each cap contains a rebus puzzle telling you the last thing you will remember or understand for the next several hours.  Don't be put off by The Grenade's pint-size, it packs a punch. In the world of malt liquor and hooch, it may be the most drinkable thing you come across, so get six, or 12, and get fucked up with some friends.  This is the malt liquor you bring to parties.  You and your friends can spend hours obeying the puzzling commands of Mickey's caps and pissing your own pants. 

Pair with: Pork rinds and haggis.  Dropkick Murphys' tunes.

Pros: Fuck Budweiser, this shit is drinkable.

Cons: You'll probably piss yourself. Also, you have to read the caps and this may be frustrating as the night wears on.

Olde English 800

Olde Englsh 800...look, I'm not going to beat around the bush: This is the only malt liquor/hooch to go with if you 100%, absolutely, no questions asked have to shit.  The damage you will do to the bathroom the morning after a date with the 8-ball is the true fury of nature. It'll get you high, but you'll never smell the same.

Pair with: Toilet Paper, disinfectant and a plunger.

Pros: It will fuck you up and you'll definitely get in a fight, which even if you lose, you won't feel. 

Cons: You'll have to actually burn down your bathroom and maybe your entire home.

Alright boys and girls, there are my selections for todays back-alley sommelier lesson.  See, you don't have to spend a fortune to have a good time, impress your friends or woo a woman.  I know there will be complaints about the lovely swill that I left out of my list (Cisco, Ripple, St. Ides, etc.) - and I understand.  Those are all wonderful in their own right, but I don't have infinite time and the critic's job is to make the hard choices.  

And to those overly concerned I say: Go fuck yourself! My blog, bitches!

Every Night Has Its Dawn: A Tribute to an American Hero

As both my adoring fans and prolific writers of hatemail will undoubtedly already be aware, great american hero Bret Michaels is currently in the hospital recovering from a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage.  It's hard to downplay the importance of Bret's oeuvre as frontman of the seminal hair metal rock band Poison in my life. As far as life influences go, there are my parents, and then there is Bret (and Prince...and Vince Neil...and Axl Rose...and The Count from Sesame Street).  If I ever get married, I fully intend to have a guitar playing friend kick in the doors of the church as the wedding vows are being exhanged and rip into "Talk Dirty to Me". 

Anyway, in order to give strength to the man who personified the spirt of sex, drugs and rock and roll, as well as being one of the lucky hundreds to make a sex tape with Pamela Anderson, I thought I would tell you a few reasons why Bret is better than you or me:

1) He's probably had more STDs than most people have had sexual partners. 

2) He's from Pennsylvania but he wears a cowboy hat and bandana better than anyone besides Luke Perry in 8 seconds.

3) I think he boned your mom.  And mine.  And your sister. And my dog.  And your dog. 

4) His blood is four parts Jack Daniels and extremely flammable.

5) In the late 80's he underwent an experimental new procedure replacing all his skin with leather. 

6) When Chuck Norris visits his mom, she's in bed with Bret Michaels.

7) He cured his type-1 diabetes with heroin.

8) He once had a film production company with Charlie Sheen which must have just been fucking insane and was responsible for a massive spike in strip club, cocaine and handgun revenue in the mid to late 90s.

 9) This picture:

10) And finally, because of this song, which is probably the best 8th grade dance song of all time:

"Every Rose Has Its Thorn"

We both lie silently still
In the dead of the night
Although we both lie close together
We feel miles apart inside

Was it something I said or something I did
Did my words not come out right
Though I tried not to hurt you
Though I tried
But I guess that's why they say

Every rose has it's thorn
Just like every night has it's dawn
Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song
Every rose has it's thorn

Yeah it does

I listen to our favorite song
Playing on the radio
Hear the DJ say love's a game of easy come and
Easy go
But I wonder does he know
Has he ever felt like this
And I know that you'd be here right now
If I could have let you know somehow
I guess

Every rose has it's thorn
Just like every night has it's dawn
Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song
Every rose has it's thorn

Though it's been a while now
I can still feel so much pain
Like a knife that cuts you the wound heals
But the scar, that scar remains

Solo

I know I could have saved a love that night
If I'd known what to say
Instead of makin' love
We both made our separate ways

But now I hear you found somebody new
And that I never meant that much to you
To hear that tears me up inside
And to see you cuts me like a knife
I guess

Every rose has it's thorn
Just like every night has it's dawn
Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song
Every rose has it's thorn

The man is a national treasure. Pray he lives to ravage the dubiously lovely ladies of VH1's Rock of Love until the sun sets on America itself.

Ride on, Cowboy.

New Orleans: I Fell In Love with a Stripper...Again

I'm a romantic, so when a hot looking girl takes her clothes off and puts her crotch in my face, I fall immediately in love.  Especially if she's got a pretty sweet Batman tattoo and dances to "Terrible Lie" by Nine Inch Nails.  Bingo! That shit is star-crossed.

But not to start in medias res. 

New Orleans.  The Big Easy.  City of Voodoo curses and sybaritic debauchery.  Humid and full of naked women.  A sticky, sordid, gambler's paradise.   Home to the best food in the country - If it's fried or if it's sausage, you can't go wrong. I was down there over the weekend to fete a soon to be married man, and I left my heart in a puddle of puke and nameless sludge on Bourbon street outside the Barely Legal Club. 

Things accomplished by myself and my fellow miscreants:

1) Gambling (I pwned Harrah's fuckers!)

2) Mooing at random girls ("It was feeding time!")

3) Eating incredible, fried food

4) Vomiting same, and rallying with aplomb

5) Insulting pretty girls on their fashion sense

6) Getting slapped by strippers

7) Getting chased down Bourbon street by strippers

Things Learned:

1) "Wear thin pants to strip clubs. Corduroys are just useless."

2) "If a girl touches your dick, take her immediately to the back room. Immediately." (These first two items come from a true jedi master of the strip club.  A man who dropped strip club knowledge like no other I've ever met.)

3) Rotating Bars are not an especially good place to drink Vodka Tonics at 10 in the morning. 

4) Immodium isn't all it's cracked up to be.

5) Ric's has surprising delicious wings for a strip club.  As the bachelor noted, "Usually, you get what you deserve for opening your mouth in a strip club". But at Rics, the wings are crispier and more delicious than most of the girls. 

6) If you throw up on yourself in New Orleans, no one notices at all.

And then we come to my Lady.  My dancing princess...I met her at Rics and she stole the show. She was named "Trixie" at that point and was so, so hot. Some of my friends thought she looked like she was on crystal meth, but I guess that's my type and they are all cretins anyway. This girl was my dream! I knew it immediately. A tattoo of the Batman symbol with the Gotham skyline filling it in and cool taste in music, awesome hair, wicked smile - and she smelled GREAT - even underneath the thick, rasberry scent of stripper perfume.  And when I ran into her again the next night at Barely Legal, where she was known as "Bunny Love" and was dressed EVEN HOTTER, I was wholey twitterpated! She shared her watermelon with me and we critiqued the other strippers' techniques together.  She even had me hold her purse while she danced with other guys and then we became facebook friends.  SWOON! I'm going to miss her. She may be the best dancer of all time. I think she meant more to me than the stripper I fell in love with in Vegas...or the one in Niagara Falls...or that one at Camelot in DC...

Goddamn I've got expensive habits. But I'm awesome.

I love New Orleans...I should move down there to pursue my dream of selling stripper perfume scented incense on Bourbon Street. 

Come on.  You know that's a winning idea.

Not Fat Enough to Fight

I read a disturbing article on CNN.com yesterday.  According to a report etitled "Too Fat to Fight", released by a cadre of retired top-ranking military commanders, there is a real national security concern to be found in the alarming obesity trend in this country.  This group of admirals and generals, calling themselves Mission: Readiness, feel that the poor quality of school lunches is turning our nation's future warriors into a disastrous, immobile ocean of fatties. They worry our once proud youth will now be good only for the buffet and not for national defense.  These fat kids, they argue, will soon not be able to replenish the nation's aging armed forces. 

My concern about this line of reasoning is that these generals are missing the point entirely.  This state of affairs is a good thing.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go off on some hippie diatribe about disbanding the military or how lethargic, overfed peace on earth might be a desirable thing. Please.  No, I'm saying that our new generation of oompa loompas is uniquely suited to modern warfare.  It's not school lunch that needs to change (and frankly, who would want to? The words "Chicken Patty Day" still send chills of excitement rushing down my spine.), but our concept of warfare. 

We don't need soldiers that run and jump, frolic, push and pull.  No, we need our smooshy, roly-poly children, mouths stuffed full with cheese doodles, veins pumping Mountain Dew: Code Red, whose earliest memories are of this:

Are you kidding me generals??? Our husky American youth will have the globe's fastest thumbs, and deadly instincts honed in the brutal killing fields of massively multiplayer online gaming.  Who is going to be better than a fat kid at conducting battlefield operations from the comfort of a recliner? There's nobody flying those fighter planes anymore guys! The M-16 is no longer the miltary's best weapon.  It's this:

In fact, if anything (and if possible) school lunch should be FATTIER! Cook those chicken patties in Crisco! Replace the peas and carrots with bacon and mayonnaise! And no more recess outside.  Just hours and hours of Socom 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. 

Just think of how much the army could save on an MRE that consists of six packets of Fun Dip, a bag of pork rinds and a stick of butter.  Fuckin'-A!  

Let's pork our children up! For the good of the nation and because freedom isn't free, nor is it thin. After all, this ain't Sparta...it's America. 

Hookers Rule

I've decided to start getting hookers.  I'm thinking of starting with two a month and then we'll see how it goes. 

I know, I know.  You'll undoubtedly ask why someone as sexually attractive and potent as myself would want to pay for sex when any number of women would love to give it to me for free?

First of all, it's good for the economy.  Didn't you hear? There's a recession on and it's been hard on hookers most of all.  Not only is there an insane amount of umemployment, but with bankers strapped for cash and politicians under a fiscal microscope, demand for hookers has plummeted. Even the RNC has had to recently stop using their campaign money for whoring.  So, it's a patriotic duty for me to engage in the flesh trade.  Spend, spend, spend!

Secondly, I'm going to be extremely productive now that I don't have to worry about getting laid anymore.  I won't have to go out to bars or talk to women at all.  I can focus all my energy on videogames, monster trucks and trying to contract scurvy instead of cruising for tail.  In my new world order, tail cruises for me!

Third, I'll actually save money.  No more buying dinner and drinks for me! No taking anyone to the theater.  No shopping.  I only have to buy one movie ticket and I get all the popcorn to myself! With all the money I save I can afford a really hot hooker instead of a toothless, crack addicted one! I'm going to start with that one Eliot Spitzer threw away his career to cavort with.  She was hot:

This is going to be great!

Someone might say I'm going to miss out on all the intimacy and support and strength that a committed, loving relationship brings.  And to that someone I would say:

 
Hookers rule and so do I. 

Kick-Ass Kicks Ass

Kick-Ass: How do I get a hold of you?

Hit Girl: [sarcastically] You just contact the mayor's office.  He has a special signal he shines in the sky; it's in the shape of a giant cock!

I don't really bother doing movie reviews as a general rule.  Frankly, most movies are such pieces of shit that it's not worth my time.  However, every once in a while there comes a movie that demands my attention. 

Kick-Ass is such a movie.  And it's not just because it features a foul-mouthed, impossibly capable killing machine who wields the word "cunt" like a catchphrase and who also happens to be an 11 year old girl.  Though that is really, really endearing. 

This movie is hands down the most thrilling, best paced and best written flick I've seen this year and quite possibly much longer.  And it's the best superhero/comic adaptation I've ever seen as well.  I loved it so much I had to share it with you, my loyal readers.  I'm not going to talk a lot of shit or spoil the film for you - GO SEE IT YOURSELF!!! But I do want to broadly explain why it kicks so much fucking ass.

The eponymous Kick-Ass is a goofy kid named Dave who, inspired by a lifetime spent reading comics and getting bullied, decides to become a superhero.  Not because of any motive of revenge or honor, but mostly because he wants to bone the delicious Katie (played by Lyndsy Fonseca whose picture I include below because she's really hot):

Who could blame him, right? I'd get brutally beaten and tortured to run my tongue over those curves, no problem.

Dave is as average as they come but he'd like to be extraordinary. Of course, when our fantasies meet reality things never turn out the way you expect and being a superhero isn't as easy as Dave thinks.  And the world is a deadly, violent, amoral place.  He gets beaten, tortured and nearly executed as things spin wildly out of control after Kick-Ass gets mixed up with the decidedly more badass Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and their quest for vengeance on a gangster kingpin (Mark Strong).

Think Kill Bill plus The Boondock Saints plus comics. The pleasure of the superhero genre is that opportunity for immediate, two-fisted justice.  It's the appeal of the wild west, the vigilante.  It's dark and fascistic but damn doesn't it feel good!! And the makers of Kick-Ass understand this and run with it.

From Kick-Ass himself to Big Daddy and Hit Girl who alternately seem a loving father and daughter and complete homicidal psychotics...often within the same scene, all the characters are lively and engaging and the writing smart and effective. There is humor here and there is real, palpable dread.

Kick-Ass is insanely violent, fetishistic, and morally reprehensible, but it's so much fun you hardly notice how nicely it gets to the heart of what people who spend their nights dressing up in costume and beating the shit out of criminals might be like.  It's an utterly fearless movie, which is the only way they could have made it work: balls to the wall. 

When Hit Girl slaughters an entire room full of gangsters with guns and blades while Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" blares, I dare you to resist the urge to stand up and cheer.

And I was encouraged to see that so many parents decided to bring their young children to this nihilistic orgy of blood, revenge and violence.  Yay parents! Good job! Kids have to learn how to break bones and sever limbs with a song in their hearts sooner or later.  But, if you're the kind of square parent that doesn't think this sort of thing is appropriate for kids, well then I suggest that, since this is 2010 you get online and READ A FUCKING REVIEW BEFORE BRINGING YOUR BRATS TO THIS R RATED FILM!

The Lion, The Witch and My Trash

I've been thinking a lot about trash lately.  Mostly because there is so much of it strewn randomly about my man cave.  As I walk around my humble abode, I often find myself saying things like, "Holy crap! I ate that SO long ago!" and "I think I can see an image of Mary in that mold."

The fact is, though, that no matter how clean you pretend to be (and I know you are all really filthy pigs!), we humans make an awful lot of garbage and it's going to be a problem sometime soon. There's going to be 10 billion of us sooner than you'd believe.  That's a fucking ton of garbage. What the hell are we going to do with it? Eventually, once we fill in all the deepest ocean trenches with garbage and radioactive waste, and once we cover all of the poorest nations with our landfills, we'll have to look for an solid alternative.  It's frankly too expensive just to shoot the crap out into space, which would otherwise be a flawless plan.  So, I put my thinking cap on and realized there is a great solution right here on Earth!

The only thing we need to find is the right closet.  Yeah, you know the one I mean.  This one:

The one that leads to Narnia.  Narnia is fucking huge and there is no reason we can't fill it with our trash, nuclear waste and excrement.  This is perfect! Who cares about what a bunch of pompous, christian lions, fauns and centaurs think? Frankly, not me.  And probably not you either. 

Currently, my best sources tell me Narnia looks something like this:

But, with just a little, good, old-fashioned effort, like that which built this great nation, it could soon look like this:

 
Problem solved. Awesome.  I love it. Take that Prince Caspian!

Fuck Narnia.

The Way to a Man's Heart Is Through His Stomach Indeed

For some time now, I've been privy to one of the favorite pastimes of the most fashionable ladies of Washington, DC.  Secreted away in dark corners at the Willard Intercontinental, they engage in whispered conversations over Gin Rickeys and Sidecars.  Tete-a-tete, they mull over in torrid, lurid detail exactly what kind of underwear would most entice me into their boudoirs. 

Wonder no more oh women who come and go, talking of Michelangelo, here is your answer!

Those, in case you can't tell, are panties made from beef jerky.

BEEF JERKY PANTIES!!

I don't really think I need to say anything else. 

Ladies, run don't walk.  Get them and please me. 

The Catholic Church Can Burn in Hell

Fuck the Catholic Church.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the propensity for little boy diddling in the church and the subsequent shameful cover-ups by various bishops, cardinals and popes.  It's becoming almost commonplace to refer to the church as a festering open sore and den of iniquity. 

I think that's great.  It's about time that this woman-hating, life-denying boy's club got exposed as the giant, recidivist fraud that it is. I mean, let's leave aside the fact that the whole Jesus thing is patently absurd.  Who ever heard of a guy killed on Friday and then reborn out of a giant, brightly colored bunny egg on Sunday? Could never happen. And forget the fact that their utopian heaven fantasy is just a way to confuse people into accepting a shitty, subordinate half-life on earth.  And also leave aside the fact that these guys hate women, gays and the basic concept of critical thinking. 

They hate life.  I mean, am I supposed to take these priests seriously? Are they really supposed to be some sort of font of wisdom? What the fuck do these dorks know? I had a friend get married and they had to do pre-marriage counseling with a priest.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? What kind of advice would they give? Make sure you have a little boy so that you'll have someone to fuck? They don't know anything because they sit around learning latin.  Latin.  LATIN? WHY???

How about these ideas for the Catholic Church:

1) Allow priests to marry and have families so they can be normal fucking people.

2) Allow female priests into their funny-hatted boy's club.  I'm pretty sure Jesus had a bunch of women in his little commune and they seemed to be on equal footing.  I think one was even a hooker, which would certainly liven things up a bit. I once saw this on someone's fridge and I can't but agree:

3) Stop pretending that wine is blood.  I know the difference!

4) Become Episcopalians.

Seriously, enough with the incense and the obfuscation.  It's time to step out of the middle ages and realize that the world has moved on and that people don't want to be slaves to a false promise anymore.  I tried to call the Pope with my ideas, but he's stopped taking my calls since I inquired as to how I could hook up with a 10 year old deaf boy.  Apparently, he doesn't like to share. 

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

Happy news today! I've decided to become an artist.  Or, rather, I've decided to start calling myself an artist.  I have decided this is the perfect vocation for a rogue like myself.  Not because I want to create art or beauty or anything really.  Far from it.  I want to live a debased and profligate lifestyle that barely resembles human existence and have people refer to me as "brilliant and tortured" rather than "alcoholic, wretched, unemployed, friendless and sad". 

It's a brilliant coup.  Now that I'm an artist, I can excuse any manner of terrible behavior.  So now, when you're wondering why I'm drinking absinthe at 9:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, you'll know! I'm an artist! Duh.  That's why I'm dressed in black and wearing eyeliner too. 

Other cool things I can do now that I'm an artist:

1) Sex with inappropriately aged partners of all genders and species. I can't control my urges anymore. I'm an artist. Going to the zoo is now a whole new experience.

2) Selling all worldly possesions to purchase crack, heroin, opium and paint thinner. Now I get to lie around all day getting high and watching pornography! Art is great.

3) Long term unemployment coupled with long-winded harangues about my refusal to "become part of the machine", all delivered via webcam from my parents' couch.

4) Duels. Lots and lots of duels. I will now be dueling over anything and everything. Of course I'll be dueling over women, but now that I'm an artist, I've really got to push the envelope. Dare to look me in the eyes in the morning, Starbuck's barista? That's a duel. Miscount my change at CVS? That's a duel. Domino's takes longer than 30 minutes to bring my shitty pizza? Oh, man. That's a duel. That's extra awesome because in that scenario, I'll be dueling this guy:

5) Knife fights. Lots of knife fights.

6) Get to spend afternoons sighing loudly and drinking coffee while listening to The Smiths and reading Sartre. Bliss!

The life of an artist isn't all fun and drugs, though.  There is work to be done.  Art to be produced.  Fortunately, I've found a way around this.  I've decided that my life from this point onward shall be performance art.  So, my self-consciously self-destructive behavior is forthwith a commentary on life and the meaning of art itself! Fuckin-A! It's so self-reflexive that it's GOT to be art!That's having your cake and snorting it too!

This is going to be great.  Supposedly Lady Caroline Lamb described Lord Byron as "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know".  I've got to get that kind of press.

Yours in art,

The Artist