Live, From Funkytown, It's YOU ARE DUMB!

Memo to America: DEEP BREATH.

OK. I know the election's got you all squirrely. I know the campaign's been going on forever. That is no reason, however, to take leave of your fucking senses. Get a grip. Of COURSE Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs.

If you give a shit about this, you have a number of mental and emotional problems which I will discuss and dissect in excruciating detail for you, and it's your own damn fault, because if you give a shit about this, you haven't been paying attention since January 1 whan I started this little endeavor.

Here's your first clue that Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs. Her name is spelled A-S-H-L-E-E. A spelling from which it is possible to extrapolate every single useful fact you could possibly need about Ashlee Simpson. She was raised by people who thought A-S-H-L-E-E was the best way to spell that. And felt that way in1985. If you're named "Ashlee" in 1985, it's inevitable that by 2004, you will be caught doing something wrong on national television.

The Simpson parents ought to express their eternal gratitude that it was singing on Saturday Night Live, and not flashing her cooch on Girls Gone Wild, but they can't, because we haven't developed UPLIFT TECHNOLOGY YET. I mean, even assuming that Ashlee is the brains of the family, a little Darwinian backtracking based on available evidence of her and her sister tells us that their parents previous address was most likely 1 Primordial Ooze Lane. Or possibly Tennessee.

Second vital clue that Ashlee Simpson was lip-syncing: ASHLEE SIMPSON'S MUSIC. You know how much Ashlee Simpson music I've heard? The fifteen seconds or so from the lip-syncing clip. And from that, I can determine that even if everything had gone perfectly, there is nothing in her entire repertoire that (a) she wouldn't have lip-synced given the opportunity, or (b) she SHOULDN'T have. Why the hell not? It's shitty pop-rock. If you think this incident exposes the music industry to be a fake, a sham, in which musical acts are assembled out of pretty bits and pieces for broad market appeal, then I say to you, congratulations on your successful revival, and I trust life in the 21st century is more comfortable than the GLACIER you've been frozen in for two centuries.

If, on the other hand, you are an Ashlee Simpson fan, and are traumatized at the news that your idol engaged in a bit of pre-recorded trickery, it's important for you to understand that your eighth-grade biology homework isn't going to finish itself, young lady, so get your ass off that goddamn Internet and hit the books. If you're not a 14-year-old girl, and you're listening to Ashlee Simpson music, you're either a pedophile or the victim of some elaborate, illegal scientific experiment.*

Third major clue that Ashlee Simpson might lip-sync when appearing on Saturday Night Live: She was appearing on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Has nobody else ever watched this show? If so, it would explain the popularity of Chris Kattan, but odds are it would have gotten cancelled at least a couple of years ago if I were the sole, sporadic audience. People lip-sync on SNL all the friggin' time.

If you really think SNL is some musical institution, where great musicians deliver classic performances, you need to stop smoking crack with Lorne Michaels. I know he has the best crack in town, but that doesn't mean you have to hang around and listen to his bullshit. For every brilliant, memorable song like... like... actually, the only SNL performance I can remember is when the lead singer of the Pogues, drunk off his ass, wandered aimlessly behind the drum set during what was suddenly an instrumental.

But what about the hypocrisy angle? After all, she told "Lucky" magazine she'd never lip-sync! FUCK YOU. Stop holding 19-year-old girls to a higher standard than your own fucking president. A higher truth standard, a higher honesty standard, fuck, a higher grammatical standard, even. And stop reading "Lucky" magazine while you're at it, you freak.

Ashlee Simpson lip-syncs. Big fucking whoop. If this is your idea of a big deal, I hope you never find out that Santa Claus isn't real, and that prostitutes aren't anything like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Or, if you do find out, I hope to hell I'm not walking in front of your high-rise when you get the news. I just bought these shoes.

*This sentence ensures that I will get at least one Google hit for "Ashlee Simpson pedophile", but I can live with that.**

**This sentence will make it two to four hits. So I won't type it again.

Kill Da Wabbits, Alweady

Memo to Hugh Hefner: IT'S OVER.

One of the running themes of this column has been Relics That Have Outlived Their Usefulness. Creatures of an earlier era, before the Information Age, back when there were three networks and cigarettes were good for you and if you had a fetish, you damn well kept it to yourself like that nice Bob Crane boy down the street. Political conventions. State fairs. Playboy.

I don't think it's too much to ask for Hugh Hefner to quietly step off-stage and take his magazine and his eight fake girlfriends and his fucking smoking jacket with him. Just quietly fade off into the sunset and let your body turn into oil like the rest of the dinosaurs. People ARE reading Playboy for the articles. It's not a joke anymore.

Playboy is about as relevant to today's society as "Love, American Style", World War I slang, and hair pomade. The airbrushed teat is so fucking precious and quaint, I'm surprised they don't have them stacked on the shelves of Cracker Barrel. Orville Redenbacher should start using Playboy centerfolds in his popcorn commercials. I half-expect to hear Pepperidge Farm remembering nipples, for fucksake. Yet Playboy lumbers on based on its new reputation as Respectable Porn. A nation of grateful wives are glad their husbands are looking at Yet Another Blonde Bimbo's Bare Ass, and not surfing the websites of chicks with dicks. The paragon of daring has become the vanguard of dull.

Of what POSSIBLE use is Playboy in today's world? When it started up, everybody was repressed. Even the people who thought they weren't repressed were still pretty fucking repressed. Now, you almost wish some people were more repressed. Today, if you feel the need to fuck Sonic The Hedgehog, you rent a hotel for a weekend, go on the Internet, and Sonic-fuckers from all over the country will show up with blue fur and hard-ons. You're not gonna get busted or thrown in jail. At most, you're gonna get made fun of by Internet columnists for wanting to get your "inner wolf-soul"'s rocks off.

Playboy opened the door, but all the pervs ran through it and didn't stop running, and Playboy was left standing there with a knob in each hand. Its only option was to move into areas of media culture still incrementally less puritanical than itself in order to seem hip and edgy. There aren't a lot of those left. Pretty much just cartoons and videogames*.

This fall, you'll get your chance to play "Playboy: The Mansion" on PC and consoles. The game is a sort of "Sims With Tits", where you get to run the mansion and the magazine and take nudie pictures of silicon models of silicone models. The target audience appears to be 12-year-old boys, 50-year-olds who've never heard of The Sims, and game reviewers who like to make "hands-on" puns.

And then there's Superbunnies. Having seen the "Land Before Time" movies on many a lazy afternoon in the Mansion, Hef knows that a single dinosaur cannot survive the end-times alone. He must hook up with OTHER dinosaurs in order to last as long as he can. To that purpose, he found Stan Lee. Lee, capitalizing on the phenomenal worldwide success of "Stripperella", is teaming up with Hef to produce a cartoon about Playboy models with superpowers who fight crime.

This is different from Stripperella, in which Pam Anderson plays a stripper who has superpowers and fights crime, in ways that would require me to watch either "Stripperella" or "Superbunnies" to figure out, and that ain't gonna happen. To make up for it, I've had my technicians have worked up a pretty good Dinosaur to English translator, so for the first time, it's ACTUAL BILINGUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Stan and I go back a long ways, and he simply felt it was time for me to reveal my secret identity. You all know me as the editor in chief and publisher of Playboy. But late at night when everyone assumes I'm in the grotto living the good life, I'm out there with the Superbunnies fighting evildoers."- Hugh Hefner

TRANSLATOR ENGAGED

"God, I'm tired. I just want to go home and watch MASH reruns. All the Viagra in the world isn't going to keep this house of cards standing, though, so I better shill this thing like my lifestyle depends on it. Which I hope to God it doesn't." - Hugh Hefner

Stan Lee was not quoted about the show, but through the magic of authorial interpolation, it can be determined that he alliterated a lot, said "True Believer" at least once, made very little sense, and the Dinosaur-English translation software wouldn't have changed a single word.

*I'm aware of both BMX XXX and hentai, but my point still stands.

Comedy Death Blossom

This doesn't even qualify as a Spastic Topic Monkey Friday. It's been a solid week, comedy flowing like sweet sweet wine, but I'm tired and spent. So here's a bunch of crap that's crossed my mind in the last 24 hours.

- I saw Joan Rivers on Graham Norton last night. I've decided, now that Bob Hope has finally passed on that Joan Rivers is the celebrity who should just fucking die already, please. Useless protoplasmic cyborg bitchsack. All she's done for the past two decades is provide surgeons with boats. She's had so much work done that she now looks like the Spitting Image puppet of herself. Wayland Flowers keeps putting his hand up her ass by MISTAKE. Skynet learned to make Terminators from her fucking X-Rays.

- A commercial claims that Joel Siegel claims that nobody watching the Manchurian Candidate will be able to exhale during the last 30 minutes of the film. I assume that's some sort of compliment. The movie is so good it turns your lungs into Bags Of Holding. You can inhale all you want, but you can't exhale. It's like Hotel California with oxygen molecules replacing Don Henley. Normally, I would be 100% behind any circumstance in which Don Henley is replaced by free-floating molecules of oxygen, but come on. Better pray for immortality, Siegel, because Pauline Kael is waiting in the afterlife with a spiked club and a long memory.

- Your Compassionate Conservatism Moment: "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy, or go on Prozac?" Bush campaign assistant Susan Sheybani. Sheybani made the comment while transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about poor-quality jobs. The bad news is, she didn't think the reporter could hear her, and he could. The GOOD news is, he works for USA Today, and they needed someone to replace Ann Coulter with anyway. Thank you. I've been here all week. Try the veal. Next week on Leno, Ben Affleck.

I mean, come ON. How many times does the veil need to slip off before we realize under the flimsy fabric of "compassionate conservativism" are a whole bunch of greedy assholes who've gotten theirs and only pretend to give a shit about other people because it's good P.R.? The Democrats care about people's suffering*. All they pretend is that they can do something about it. It's part of their broader plan of pretending, in general, that they can do something.

- "Revenge Of The Sith". Yay. Here's my prediction. Over the next however many months before Episode III comes out, I will occasionally mention to my geek friends, nerd aquaintances, and probably within earshot of creepy stinky guys in comic shops, that I will not be bothering to see Episode III. I base this decision on Episode I being shit and Episode II being shittier. Dungfests. Craporama. Even discounting Jar-Jar. Even discounting Jimmy Smits infamous-only-to-me-and-people-around-me-a-couple-of-years-ago crocheted neck doily. I ain't going. And every single one of those people are going to tell me "But you GOTTA."

Why? Am I somehow not going to hear what happens in it? Will I be bereft entirely of Star Wars, at least in non-toy, non-videogame, non-three-minute-not-sucking-animated-shorts, non-napkin, non-shitty-Kevin-J-Anderson-novel form? Why do I gotta? No, screw that. I know why I don't gotta. Why do YOU gotta? Look within, young retardawan. Find that within yourself which blinds you to history and reason. Find it, and stab it in the gut with your mechanical pencil and leave it bleeding in the gutter. And then we'll go see Serenity again. You'll be happier. I'll be happier. We can hear about how that whiny pudpuller gets his black suit on the Internet in three minutes if you're that desperate to know.

- Fuck "bounce". For the rest of the campaign, if you hear anyone using the word "bounce" in regards to the election or polling, they are to be considered a fuckhead and not worthy of your attention or trust. Especially if they're predicting a bounce. Especially especially if they're comparing actual bounce to their prediction. Especially especially ESPECIALLY if they're comparing actual bounce to someone ELSE's predictions. It's bad enough that we have reports of meaningless, barely accurate polls every single day. Now, suddenly, it's a story when the numbers in these meaningless, barely accurate polls do not match up with politically-motivated predictions pulled out of the major-party asses?

Does nobody in the media evaluate ANYTHING? It's not as if the motivations behind "bounce prediction" are even remotely opaque. Political parties low-balling their own or high-balling their opponent's expectations is just noise. Everybody knows this. Five-year-olds can figure this out. Yet, seemingly, nobody is actually willing to make the decision that yes, this whole thing is bullshit, and we have an obligation, as journalists, to NOT SPREAD BULLSHIT.

Oh, wait, I'm hearing from Fox News that, counter to Karl Rove's predictions, John Kerry was not immediately carried off into Heaven to replace God Almighty Himself on his throne following his acceptance speech last night. That has to be a major blow for the Kerry campaign. Coming up next, Bush and a puppy!

* OK, Lieberman doesn't. But he's an ass.

Actual Quote Day 2: Berry, Berry Dumb

Memo to Halle Berry, Part II: HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE DUMB.

I actually ran out of room in yesterday's column before getting to the end of a single Halle Berry interview. So today we pick up where we left off, with more choice wisdom from everyone's favorite Oscar-winning amnesiac dominatrix.

"I defy anyone to see me as Catwoman. I'm balls to the wall."

What does that even MEAN? Is she challenging people to NOT go see the movie? Is she daring us to risk seizures by going? Halle, you're on the cover of dozens of magazines in the costume. We've already seen you as Catwoman. You can't defy us that now, whatever the fuck that particular verb means in that particular context. But at least you're "balls to the wall". Whose balls, and whose wall, is anybody's guess at this point. Whatever brand of glue they used to attach that costume to you needs to be recalled, because the fumes do ugly things to brain chemistry.

"I grew up watching the 'Batman' TV series in the '60s. My favorite episodes were the ones where Catwoman was on. I couldn't resist mimicking Eartha Kitt because her kind of woman is just in my psyche."

Now, for the proper context of this quote, it's important to remember the bit from yesterday, where Berry claims that they desperately wanted to do something different from all the previous Catwoman, and didn't want to be compared to them. Remember that? Odd, then, that you would set about not being compared to previous Catwomen by MIMICKING ONE OF THEM. That's tactically iffy at BEST. But wait, there's more!

"The good thing about the movie is that we acknowledge all of the Catwomen of the past. We believe there are nine Catwomen, and I'm just one of them. So, I'm my own version who is a little more urban."

Again, what better way to avoid comparisons with previous Catwomen than to acknowledge all of them! Brilliant! At least this one's more urban. I'm so sick and tired of all those Catwoman stories set on fucking farms and in jungles. We've had Amish Catwoman for far too long! It's time for a change!

And how, exactly, did Halle Berry, who came into this world in August of 1966, manage to grow up watching the Batman TV series in the 60's? The show itself ran between '66 and '68. I suppose Halle could have been an incredibly precocious one-and-a-half-year-old when the series ended its run, but if so, there's no sign of her astonishing prodigy status now. Or she could have meant she watched reruns during the 70's, in which case she just can't get her goddamn prepositions straight. And speaking of not getting things straight, let us turn to the Curious Case of the Confusing Cat Conundrum.

"I didn't have a cat when we started this process, but I have one now. He was my little muse on this movie and I call him Fig Newton. We had 60 cats that worked on the movie. He was supposed to work as an actor, but I took him away from that life. Now he's retired. He didn't even work a day!

That quote isn't particularly dumb by itself. However...

"For the moment, Berry has only one guy in her life - Playdough, the homeless cat she adopted after "Catwoman" wrapped. Playdough was one of 43 cats used in the making of the film, and he warmed his way into Berry's heart." - The New York Post.

"'I have watched my cat and I listen to how he purrs and plays and walks and when he gets angry. And there's a sound that he makes that I've tried to use, too.' Her cat is one of the 60 homeless cats used in a scene in her last film, "Gothika," with Robert Downey Jr." - Zap2It.com

So, let me get this straight. Halle Berry was able to use the mannerisms of the cat, one of between 43 and 60 cats used on either "Gothika" or "Catwoman", to help her in the role, even though she may have adopted the cat after the movie wrapped, and the cat is alternately named "Playdough" or "Fig Newton". And he either worked on the movie or he didn't. Got it. Still, they are very touching stories about the bonds between cat and woman, and I'm sure all of them are true in their own unique way. What the hell. They still aren't bothering to fact-check the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, so there's really no particular impetus for Halle to spend any part of her limited mental capacity on keeping track of when she acquired her cat or what its name is. That's why stars have personal assistants.

As we learned yesterday, Catwoman is about female no really we mean it empowerment. And sure, perhaps yesterday she used a bad example to describe how, exactly, a skimpy leather outfit and face-licking is pro-womyn, but let's give her another shot. I mean, I bet she's taken the amazing womanpower given to her by starring in this movie and applied it in her everyday life.

"There was a sales clerk in there being extremely rude to a woman that I was standing next to, and I stood there and I thought, 'Wow! If I were Catwoman right now I could pounce on her and scratch her eyes out!"

That's so empowering. That's so incredibly empowering that I wish I were part of Halle's Great Sisterhood of Power and Womanitude, but alas, I am not. I can only watch from afar as they jump all over each other and scratch each other's eyes out. You've come a long way, baby.

"I will not marry again. I'll never get married again -- that's a fact. The man for me is now the cherry on the pie, but I'm the pie and my pie is good all by itself, even if I don't have a cherry. That's the way I'm looking at it -- my pie is good all by itself and that sometimes means being alone, but I'm OK with that these days."

It's taken two days and a dozen quotes, but Halle, you've finally made me completely superfluous. I salute you.

Actual Quote Day!

Memo to Halle Berry: YOU ARE DUMB.

I decided to issue myself a challenge. Could I take the already smash-hit concept of ACTUAL QUOTE TIME and create an entire column out of it? I would need a subject near to the black depths of my heart-hate, and someone associated with that topic known for saying utterly ridiculous things. If Halle Berry did not exist, I may have had to invent her. But she does exist, and, in existing, speaks.

"We didn't want to do what had been done before. We so desperately didn't want to be compared to the Catwomen of the past."

Which is why they named the movie "Catwoman", then? Which is why you've taken your vocal cues from Eartha Kitt? I think we all know why you don't really want to be compared to the Catwomen of the past: because it's the fastest, easiest way to portray just how much your Catwoman sucks. And since when, exactly, have the makers of a summer action movie really not wanted to do what had been done before? They all SAY that, but they never mean it.

"Catwoman was supposed to have scratched the leather away. It was an attempt to update it and make it more reflective of the 21st century"

This, of course, is referring to her costume, and not some scene where Sharon Stone squirts Berry with a water bottle after Halle ruins the couch. Come to think of it, I think that one sentence contains a better scene than will actually appear in the entire Catwoman movie. But that's beside the point. We're supposed to believe that in some sort of feral rage, Catwoman decided to claw away, in neat, clean lines, the shoulders, chest, back, and belly (barring a few straps and metal links) of her outfit? Still, it is more reflective of the 21st century. The clearance rack of Hot Topic in the 21st century.

"With Catwoman, you don't know if she's gonna kiss 'em or kill 'em. She's like the good girl who loves to be naughty. I think that symbolizes female empowerment."

No, you stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid fucking idiot. The good girl who loves to be naughty is not female empowerment. It's a goddamn conservative male fantasy. Have you not seen the "Hot For Teacher" video? Are you trying to tell me David Lee Roth is the new Gloria Steinem? Do you believe what you're saying? Do you even HEAR it? Stop trying to pawn off your 1953-vintage Penthouse letter as if you're furthering the goddamn cause.

"Every time I put that suit on I walked differently, I felt differently. People would keep their distance from me. I didn't feel like a dominatrix when I had [the costume] on, but I guess I don't even know what that would feel like."

I don't even know where to start. It's like some kind of verbal Whack-A-Mole. You walked differently because it was RIDING UP YOUR ASS. You felt differently because it was RIDING UP YOUR ASS. People kept their distance from you because you were in Hollywood, and everybody in Hollywood is deathly terrified of SHITTY MOVIE COOTIES. And what do you mean, "you guess"? You either know what it feels like to be a dominatrix, or you don't. There's no gray area here. Unless you're prone to frequent blackouts, that is. Maybe you really don't know whether or not you've ever tied a guy up and peed in his mouth. It's possible. It's something I personally would want to keep TRACK OF if I were you, though. Maybe use Post-It notes.

"I never want to be one of these actors where people say, 'Oh, that's a Halle Berry role.' I don't want that to be my tag."

Finally, something we can agree on. I, too, would like Hollywood to never again look at a part and say "Oh, that's a Halle Berry role." Seems to keep happening, though, doesn't it.

"One of the reasons I've decided to get involved in commercial movies in Hollywood is that in order to have a long career, you have to be a part of the commerce of the industry - a part of making money for the studios,"

ATTENTION, EVERYONE. Ms. Berry would like it to be known that her participation in the shitty Cat movie, the shitty Bond movie, the tiny part in the X-Men movies, the shitty Gothika movie, the shitty Travolta spy movie, fucking "B*A*P*S*", the Flintstones movie, etc... that was all just a personal business decision so that she could pursue her ART and her CRAFT in, um, Monster's Ball and the Dorothy Dandridge TV-movie. No, really. She's got an Oscar, you know. But then, so does Akiva Goldsman.

And now, four words that have never before been uttered together in the history of You Are Dumb Dot Net: TO BE CONTINUED, TOMORROW.

Today's Proctological Roundup

It's Monday, and it's time for the Asshole Roundup! Get out your lassos and your cowboy hats... wait. That would make you an asshole. So let's just have the roundup without the trappings. Git along, little dipshits!

We should start with the 6,500,000 assholes, because they'll take a while to round up. That's how many assholes who, assuming an average $8 ticket price, went to see "I, Robot" this weekend. They need to be rounded up for their own good, frankly, because "Well, we saw I, Robot last week; Catwoman can't be that much worse, can it?" is an awfully compelling argument... if you're an asshole.

Of course, when it comes to assholery, you can't get much bigger than Arnie. Arnie made it into the news this weekend because, in a speech in California, he called Democrats opposing his budget plans... "girlie-men". GIRLIE-MEN. He's such an asshole. Not for openly mocking his opposition in a childish way. I think he should do that more often. That's why you Californians elected him, right? So that he could make one-liners like that at press conferences. You apparently wanted a dimwitted, combative, barely-comprehensible thick fuck ruling you like some kind of retarded clown, so obviously the system works.

No, he's an asshole for continuing to fucking appropriate the Hanz and Franz material. Hello? Arnold? You never said "girlie-man". It's a lot like "pump [clap] you up", which you used during the campaign. I know it's difficult for you to understand, but it wasn't you who said these things.

That was someone making fun of you for being a thick fuck retardoclown. Did you accidentally eat some of Reagan's brain? Did you do it on purpose? Stick to stealing from your own repertoire of "snappy" one-liners. You didn't write any of those either, but at least you said them, albeit after flubbing 40 takes and making two interns cry.

Hey! Politics! Today's Obvious Segue Moment brings us to political convention time. That's like Asshole Roundup without any of the actual work. All the assholes just round themselves up. Following some strange, innate herding instinct, all the Democrat assholes are striding across the plains to Boston, and the Republican assholes to New York. Zell Miller's going to New York too, but that's OK. When he gets there, the Republicans will gather around, sniff his butt, and realize he's one of their own.

Still, there is one group I'd like to split off from the herd for special attention: Protest Warriors. Like "Ushers of the Eucharist", calling your group "Protest Warriors" automatically makes you an asshole. No further exposition necessary. It's like driving an H2. You see a "Protest Warrior", you've got an asshole. That's not to say that further exposition won't be FUN, of course.

The Protest Warriors are Republicans. Add another 62% to the asshole quotient. They protest... other protests. They plan to be at the Republican National Convention to protest people who are protesting Republicans. That goes beyond "asshole". That's like some kind of prolapsed rectum, right there. Rectum The Edmund Fitzgerald, even. And while that horrific pun seeps into your skull, I will, because I am a gracious host, provide your brain with the sweet comedy balm that is ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"We are the right-wing freedom fighters - we are out there and are just as animated as the protesters can be." - Jason Sager, Protest Warrior. It's actually reassuring to know that if there are "right-wing freedom fighters" in this country, they're a bunch of assholes with signs in New York, and not 400 white guys in Montana with camo pants and assault rifles. America is safer.

"Conservatives by nature are not protesters... they curse at the evening news but that voice is never heard. We are rookies in the protest world, so yes, we are uneducated in how protests work." - Sager again, who is either lying out of his ass or is ignorant on the kind of level that Jessica Simpson only dreams of achieving some day. Either way, I'd love to see him locked in a room with a dozen or so Planned Parenthood employees who could educate him, between repeated boots to the gut, just how much protesting conservatives actually do. Asshole.

Spastic Topic Monkey Friday II: The Spastening

In a new "I, Robot" TV spot I saw yesterday, Will Smith says, in character: "Robots building other robots? That's just stupid." I think that sums up the movie in a nutshell right there. The one part of the script that's likely to make any sort of sense, and Our Hero thinks it's dumb. What does he think, that when we start making robots, they're going to be artisinally hand-crafted by the Amish?

I know some of you, reading this, are gonna go anyway. You can't help it. I'll have the same problem when Alien Vs. Predator comes out. It's going to suck, but it still attaches to some kind of geek receptor in my nervous system. But try to fight the urge anyway. This is Akiva Goldsman we're talking about here. This isn't Ordinary Summer Bad. This is the man that wrote "Lost In Space". Just let go.

When you think about it, "I, Robot" isn't really an adaptation of Asimov's classic stories. It's actually an adaptation of the 80's video game, "Berzerk". You've got a lone human running through hallways shooting at robots who are trying to kill him for two hours. It's a pity Brando died, frankly. He'd be perfect for Evil Otto. Stop the humanoid. Stop the intruder.

I'm not even going to get into the whole Whoopi Goldberg, "Hollywood Hatefest" thing. It's only mid-July. There's going to be almost four full months more of this bullshit before we get to vote, anyway. I gotta pace myself. If I blew an arterial gasket every single time the right went on one of its hypocritical tirades at the left for being a smidge harsh, I'd be forced to drink Fix-A-Flat every morning instead of Vanilla Coke.

I do think it's a pity that a comedy pioneer like Whoopi gets slammed just because she happened to be the first person in the country to finally realize a possible sexual connotation to Bush's last name. I just hope nobody finds a way to "crude up" the name of our beloved vice president, Mr. Richard Cheney.

OK, maybe I'll get into it a little. Whoopi Goldberg making Bush jokes and John Cougar Mellencamp calling the President a "cheap thug" is not a HATEFEST. You know how I know this? Because I've been presiding over a fucking hatefest myself since the start of this year, I've never used the words "cheap thug", and I only made the obvious Bush joke once. And it was filler. But "Hollywood Mild Attack Of Sporadic Grumpiness" doesn't roll trippingly off the tongues of your Fox News anchors, so I guess all us real hatefests have to deal with a wimpy, half-assed poseur who just crashed our annual convention.

And the next day, Dennis Miller, whose resume for the past three years has at least eight different entries for "redefining pathetic", spoke at a Bush fundraiser, said Kerry and Edwards should "get a room", and called James Carville a "Satanic Chihuahua".

I'm actually not particularly concerned with the controversy. I'm just enjoying Miller's slide into oblivion. You look at his material now, and it's almost impossible not to imagine his writing process. I picture a dark hotel room, a bottle of vodka, a thick stack of Bushie talking points, and a laptop. And on the laptop there's two windows open. One to Google, and one to an elaborate Excel spreadsheet that tells him the last time he made a "Beverly Hillbillies" reference.

Gulp of vodka. Talking point: Flipflopper. Hm. Did Buddy Ebsen ever flipflop? What else flips? What else flops? Gulp of vodka. Google "flop". Flophouse. Megaflops. Those sandal things. Gulp of vodka. Stare out window. Remember being funny on Weekend Update. Stare at joke in progress. "This guy..." Need a verb. What was that talking point again? "This guy flipflops... " I'm supposed to say he does this a lot, right? Vodka. "This guy flipflops more than..." OK, cultural reference time. You can still do it, cha-cha. You've sold books. You've done movies. You were in "Bordello of Blood", for fuck's sake, so you can damn well think of something he flipflops more than.

Shit. Nothing. Back up. What about a Match Game thing? "This guy flipflops so much that..." and then the audience yells "HOW MUCH DOES HE FLIPFLOP!". Wonder if I can count on that. We'll be in Wisconsin. More vodka. Screw the audience. I don't need an audience for my CNBC show, dammit. "This guy flipflops so much he needs..." what's that thing? That thing in the car? Google it. A GPS navigation system! That's hip new technology. I'll seem cutting edge. "This guy flipflops so much he needs a GPS navigation system to know which way he's gonna vote." There you go. You still got it, man. You still got it.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Tour De Dumb

It's always important to remember that the DUMB can take many forms. I think today would be an excellent day to take a bunch of small bits that aren't worthy of their own full-day column and shabbily dress them up as a Tour De Dumb, to remind us all that there's more than politics and religion to inspire idiocy, although not MUCH more.

For example, there's BOOBIES AND WEINERS. And TEXAS. Pretty much any time you get boobs and Texas together, you get a primo example of Funny Dumb.

Funny Dumb is when a barge tips over in Texas. Because all the passengers were on one side of the barge. Because the barge was tied up near a nude beach. A nude beach named "Hippie Hollow". When there's only one nude beach in your entire state, and it's named "Hippie Hollow", you really don't get to bitch when people call you backwards.

Apparently, there is no Internet in Texas. Or premium cable. Or 7-11's. Because only in a world without these things is seeing naked people such an event that it could get EVERYONE on a barge to come out and stare. PLUS, the beach was being used for a semi-annual gay and lesbian event, so I can just imagine what must have gone through the minds of the 60 Texans on the barge, from "Hey, naked people!" to "What are they DOING!" to "Why are my feet wet?" to "Glub". Funny, funny dumb.

And then there's Creeeeeeepy Dumb, which may be the nigh-exclusive domain of Michael Jackson. Attentive readers may have noticed me not making much fun of MJ, because the as-yet-untold Michael Jackson joke is an elusive beast indeed. But yesterday, the contents of some confiscated stuff were revealed, amongst them a note. And in the note, MJ refers to his young guests at Neverland Ranch as "rubbers". GAH! Creepy dumb!

If they ever find a note where MJ calls himself "glue", he's going to jail, as "bounce off" and "stick" are not verbs you want associated with your underage sleepover guests.

And, of course, there's Wuss Dumb, which is always my favorite kind of dumb. Wuss Dumb occurs whenever someone important is caught on tape saying something that is... inconvenient later. And so they either pretend they always meant something else ("weapons of mass destruction related program activities"), claim youthful indiscretion ""I think the word [atrocities] is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word.", or, when these aren't an option, just completely wuss out. My PDA just beeped, which means one thing. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'" - Paul Bremer, February 2001 

"Criticism of the new administration, however, was unfair. President Bush had just been sworn into office and could not reasonably be held responsible for the Federal Government's inaction over the preceding 7 months.'' - Paul Bremer, WUSSING OUT yesterday.

And speaking of months of inaction, BONUS QUOTE! - "In November I talked to Mr. Bremer about human rights violations in general and in jails in particular. He listened but there was no answer. At the first meeting, I asked to be allowed to visit the security prisoners, but I failed." - Abdel Basset Turki, former Iraqi human rights minister. This makes Paul Bremer the official poster boy for Wussy Dumb. Asshole.

And finally, there's Whiny Dumb. Once a month, like clockwork, I have to experience Whiny Dumb. No, not that, you misogynists. I'm talking about the kind of whiny dumb that happens when little children don't get what they want the instant they want it. See, there's a version of Dance Dance Revolution for XBox. And every month, Konami puts up five new songs to download. And every month, Microsoft is less than completely diligent in getting the song pack up on the servers. And despite this happening five times now, people still WHINE on the big DDRFreak.com message board. Like this guy, who uses the handle "wesdives":

I wouldn't be concerned except we were never given a date, and it takes me a grand total of ten to fifteen minutes to shut down my computer, unplug eth. cable from modem and replace it with one that goes down to the xbox, then turn the modem back on and wait for it to warm up, go downstairs, disc swap, wait for ultramix to load, wait for live to load, and wait for the songpack screen to load, by which point I know I must either A.) download the freggin' songpack which'll take twenty minutes or B.) repeat all of the above steps in reverse order so I can complain as I'm doing now. Not very keen on the idea of doing that 10 times a day.

Man, what a hassle. If only there were some large group of DDR fanatics. DDR Freaks, even. And if only there were some way for this large community to talk to each other, some kind of... FORUM, that's it! And on this forum, whoever noticed that the song pack had been posted could, and I know this is radical and revolutionary, but they could MENTION IT. And then all the other people reading the board could go check for the songpack. Oh, sure, this would require some kind of national computer network for sharing data, some kind of... Internal Network or something, but maybe there's some military technology we can adapt. All to save poor wesdives the trouble of checking TEN TIMES A DAY for a song pack that nobody will ever play online anyway because they're busy setting up Castles In The Sky Light games non-fucking-stop.

That last bit was just for me. If you laughed at it, you should send me your gamertag.

The Media And The General Public

Memo to the media and the general public: YOU ARE DUMB.

Now I know it's a bit early in the life of the site to be passing out generalized proclamations like that, but I'm afraid it's true. Luckily, there are a series of exceptions which I will detail.

1. If, as a member of the media, you did not concern yourself with Britney Spears' wedding and annulment (henceforth BSWAA), you are granted an exception.
2. If, as a member of the media, you were forced to write about BSWAA, but did so under protest and refused to link the piece in any way with the song title "Oops, I Did It Again", you are granted an exception.
3. If you are, specifically, a member of the media known as "Morning Radio Disc Jockey", and did not mention BSWAA in any way, shape or form, you are granted both an exception and a Special Commendation. Special Commendation not available to employees of classical music stations.
4. If, as a member of the general public, you winced when listening to other members of the general public discuss BSWAA, you are granted an exception and the sympathies of youaredumb.net.
5. If, as a member of the general public, you only engaged in workplace discussion of BSWAA in order to inform your co-workers that BSWAA was a non-event of epic proportions, you are granted an exception.

The rest of y'all are fuckin' dumb.

I mean, even by the devalued, prostituted, left-for-dead-by-the-side-of-the-road standard that separates "news" from "not news" these days, this is NOT NEWS. Not important. Not relevant in any single way, shape, or form to the daily lives of all but about half a dozen people on the planet, and even to most of them, who either participated in the incident or the aftermath, it ain't that huge.

It's not as if Ms. Spears nee Mrs. Alexander nee Ms. Spears actually did anything beyond the pale or particularly egregious. She killed no puppies, ate no dolphins, vomited on no Japanese officials, and does not receive a million bucks a year from Halliburton.

This is a non-event even by the standards of normal folk, much less pop stars. I mean, do we really need to devote an entire week-plus of the news cycle to someone who lived through a bad sitcom plot?

And you know what the topper is? We're going to be hearing about this for the rest of the Spears Spawn's lifespan. No major life event reportage will be complete without one paragraph memorializing her Vegas escapade. That paragraph will be there, I guarantee, when she gets married for real, when/if she breeds, and in her obituary. It'll be in 94.2% of the reviews of her next album. It is, from this point forward, an inescapable chunk of our cultural milieu, our psychic flotsam and jetsam.

And why? Why did this happen? Because, with the exception of those enumerated above, YOU ARE DUMB.