Random Thoughts With No Meaning

                In a bit of carry over from my last post, let's start with Red Foxes. I watched a movie yesterday - wait, let's back up. Yesterday was just a marvelous day from stem to stern. There's no real reason, except that it wasn't a crappy day, so it counts as a good'un. Maggio had to take a drive to go shop and meet with a friend (girls will be girls) so I sat on the couch for a few hours and caught up on a few movies in my Netflix Instant queue (guys will be guys). I watched the silent film, "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (yes ladies, I'm both handsome and cultured) and then put on, "The Plague Dogs" while I baked a pizza. The book, "The Plague Dogs" is by Richard Adams, who famously wrote, "Watership Down." I watched that movie as a kid and it's famous for (at least) two very creepy scenes. A) When the schizophrenic psychic rabbit Fiver has a vision of the fields around the warren being covered in blood, and, B) when some other rabbit (Bigwig, perhaps) gets caught in a noose and flies are congregating around his bloody garroted neck. "The Plague Dogs" is desperate to recreate this sort of success by being a child's movie that is not in the least bit appropriate for children. The plot follows two dogs who escape from a lab in Great Britain and try to survive in the countryside as they are hunted down by practically everyone, as it is feared that they have been infected with the Bubonic Plague. Or, as I described it to Margaret when she got home and asked what I was watching, "A cartoon movie about dogs where they draw their penises, balls, and buttholes." (both sentences are equally accurate, and appealing, descriptions).

Yes, this is a kid's movie.

            The Truth: In this movie, a dog shoots a man in the face with a rifle. In this movie, two dogs and a (RED) fox, chase a sheep off of a cliff to its death. In this movie, a (RED) fox chases a man off a cliff to his death. In this movie, men in gas masks repeatedly jab white rats with giant needles. In this movie, two dogs sleep in an incinerator full of the bones of dead animals, and only awake when a dead diseased terrier gets thrown on top of them. This movie ends with the two dogs swimming across the ocean, escaping from soldiers with guns who are waiting on shore, heading toward what can only be death by drowning. I used to think that I would force my son to love my favorite kid movies - The Iron Giant and The Rescuers Down Under. I've changed my mind though, I think I'll make him watch The Plague Dogs and Watership Down on a loop, to ensure that he'll become a sociopath.

             So, there's this commercial on the radio. I listen to the radio a lot, as I love all dying forms of art, and I pay special attention to commercials. There was this one on AM radio a few months ago for a local gun shop (yes, this is Georgia, we have those) that began by comparing President Obama to Hitler, and ended with another reference to Obama and the slogan, "Let's Shoot For Something Better." I briefly considered recording it and sending it to some news organization so they could be outraged against it, but soon realized that doing so would only make the local wildlife flock to the afore(slightly)mentioned gun shop like wildebeasts to a watering hole. Anyway, there's this commercial on the radio lately that I just have to record (the only problem is that I don't know the commercial is coming until it starts, and by then it's too late to record). It's about penile enhancement, or a viagra substitute or something, and it's amazing. I'll describe it to you from memory, as best I can. The first line is, "If you're a man, please listen to me." Now, this line may seem simple, but it's actually the best piece of acting since Daniel Day-Lewis in, "There Will Be Blood." Imagine an alien who has recently learned English and can speak only in monotone. The director (of this commercial) tells him, "Say the word, "please" with desperation. Just imagine what a supremely desperate person would sound like and pour all of that emotion into the word, "please." You can use your regular monotone for the rest of the sentence." Basically you'd have to be there to understand. The commercial continues and the listener slowly realizes that it's an ad for some new fangled boner pill ("If Viagra and Cialis have let you down, try us" is a great selling point). The real money shot comes at the end of the commercial, however, when Doctor Hornsby (okay, pause. His name is what makes me think that this commercial is a joke. Really, a penile erection doctor whose names is two tiny letters away from, "horny?") says, "If you don't have a positive reaction right now, right in my office..." (this isn't 100% accurate but way closer than you might assume). Wait a gol durn mutha lickin moment - this guy, a doctor, in a commercial, on the radio, is telling you that you should come to his office, take his pills, and get sprung right there, right now, with Doc a'watching. These are the reasons I love radio. Not only that, but if the pills don't work you get them for free. Why someone would want pills that don't work, I don't really know, but that's the reward offered.

               So I was in Wal-mart yesterday doing a little grocery shopping and noticed a man I see in there on a regular basis. He's disgustingly obese and rides around on one of those electric grocery carts buying his groceries. In my mind, electric grocery carts are what is wrong with America. They started out as a way to help the elderly, infirm, and crippled, get around stores. This seems nice enough but has two fatal flaws as a premise - 1) People who are too crippled to walk don't go places where they are forced to walk without bring along a wheelchair or walker. 2) Grocery stores shouldn't be giant warehouses that take ages to walk around. Anyway, once these mini-go-karts were made available people began using them. What did these people do before? Never go grocery shopping? Of course they went grocery shopping and they managed to survive without these karts. Now, however, people who used to push their karts around see an unused electric kart and think, "Hell, why not?" I see people on these things all the time and most are afflicted with the same ailment - obesity. This whole kart thing is some sort of metaphor for welfare queens or something - it's meant with the best of intentions but certain people take advantage of the commodity, forcing stores to add more and more karts, which means more and more people who don't need them will use them. In another fifty years we'll all be riding karts around the stores.

              So this fat guy (who may be reading this now for all I know) who rides the kart around is fat, southern, and white, which means he must be at least two more things - patriotic and religious. He swaddles himself in a giant American flag shirt (or perhaps an actual American flag) and some sort of tent like sweat pants that must have more elasticity than a trampoline. Yesterday he was talking to someone he knew about religion and said, "I'm not ordained by my church though, I'm ordained by Jesus." Jesus and the Hamburglar both. Now let's be clear here - I am definitely judging this guy. They say you can't judge a book by it's cover (something I find to be patently untrue - I can almost always tell what kind of book I'm looking at based on the cover. A cover is designed to represent the contents of the book) but I'm not judging the contents of the man - I'm judging the cover. He may be (and there's no reason he can't be) the nicest and sweetest and most generous fellow (I know he's generous when it comes to loading his plate) in the entire town, but that doesn't mean he's not disgustingly fat. I realize our society is becoming fatter as a whole, especially among the poor, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a stigma attached to it. Here is a picture of a sideshow freak from the year 1900. People used to pay money to see this guy because he was so fat. I see at least a dozen people fatter than this every single day. God help us all.