Making The Occasional Aesthetic Judgment

Memo to America's blue-nosed Busybody Brigade: YOU ARE DUMB.

Two stories from America's Metaphorical Heartland, the land of the alleged "moral values", the tittyhaters, the gay-bashers, the people who, as others have said, would be called "radical clerics" if their skin were a few shades darker.

The FCC has asked for tapes of, get this, the Olympic opening ceremonies. You know, the ones from five fucking MONTHS ago? Seems they've received unspecified complaints that NBC may have aired "indecent" material, and whenever they get complaints they must investigate. Even if, as has been demonstrated, their complaints are all coming from knee-jerk PTC Internet form-clicks.

The ceremonies included naked people portraying naked statues, but as there was no outcry at the time, and as NBC knew about that ahead of time and was not going to get caught in a Nipplegate for an event with a huge overnight tape delay, nobody has any fucking clue what the FCC is looking for, but they're looking! They have to ferret out the subtle, lingering effects of any indecency from this past summer lest... lest... lest... um, something horrible will happen?

Moving on to the "It's Not Censorship If It's Not The Goverment, But It's Still Fucking Stupid" department, a Maryland couple is suing Wal-Mart. Normally, I would be on the side of Trevin and Melanie Skeens, despite their ridiculous names, because Wal-Mart is, well, Wal-Mart.

But the Skeenses are suing Wal-Mart because they let their thirteen-year-old daughter buy the new Evanescence CD from Wal-Mart, and when they played it in the car and got to track 5, "Thoughtless", they were SHOCKED to hear the F-word TWICE. On an album that had NO warning sticker! Oh, Tipper Gore, why hast thou forsaken us? Our thirteen-year-old, Evanescence-buying daughter has heard the F-word for the first time EVER! And it's Wal-Mart's fault for selling it!

The Skeenses actually sort of have a case there, because the song's available at Walmart's web site, where the offending F-Bomb was disarmed by the classic "silence over the UCK" move. Plus, if Wal-Mart didn't put its huge retail muscle behind CD's without warning stickers, record companies might not be tempted to avoid slapping labels on borderline CD's. But the Skeenses problems run a lot deeper than a bit of big-box retail malfeasance.

First, of course... EVANESCENCE. If they're really concerned about their daughter's development, maybe they should stop her from listening to music she'll beforced to lie about having liked within five to ten years. As someone who went to see Hall and Oates live during middle school, I can tell you a couple of well-placed "fucks" during Maneater would have drastically reduced the subsequent emotional scarring.

Second of all, I looked at all the lyrics to "Thoughtless" to count the F-bombs, and... actually, this is more of "First", isn't it? Forget that "Second" part. Fuckety fuck on fuck-toast with fuck-butter and a light sprinkling of fuck-cinnamon, those are some bad lyrics. They're so bad I can't bring myself to make the obligatory "Thoughtless" joke. They're awful. "I will not be bound by your thoughtless scheming"? That's what I'd worry about your daughter hearing. That "thoughtless" is an appropriate adjective to modify "scheming".

Skeens, of course, isn't trying to scam some money by abusing the courts with his Puritan frivolity. He's merely using the legal system for its intended use, to stop corporations from harming our nation's children. It's ACTUAL LEGAL QUOTE TIME!

"I don't want any other families to get this, expecting it to be clean. It needs to be removed from the shelves to prevent other children from hearing it." - And I certainly empathise with the goal of legally restraining children from ever hearing Evanescence, because, as we have previously established, Evanescence is poo.

But people need to realize that in the Information Age, all the labels and restrictive corporate policies in the world are going to keep their kids from hearing, and using, the Big Eff. Just fire the lawyer and teach the kid not to sing the shitty Evanescence song in front of Grandma, and we'll all be fine. Well, except for the kid listening to Evanescence, they're doomed to a lifetime of regret and shame, but it's too late for that now.

By The Powell Of Emptyskull

Memo to Michael Powell: YOU ARE STILL DUMB.

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means! It's NEW WORD... wait. No it's not. It's just your regularly scheduled rant about our government being run by a bunch of nimrod prudes with Doric columns where their large intestines should be. Nevermind.

Yes, we're talking about the FCC, bastion of decency, protector of our nations airwaves, and the second-largest concentration of tittyhaters in America. Whether it's Janet Jackson's boob, Nicolette Sheridan's asscrack, and Saving Private Ryan's F-bombs, the FCC, under Michael Powell's not-nepotistic-at-all leadership, has been, first and foremost, a responsive agency, acting only when they receive complaints from a significant portion of the population.

Of course, "significant portion" means something a little bit different to Powell and the Bush administration than it might to you and me. For example, if I were to suddenly decide that our nations airwaves had a massive obscenity problem, I wouldn't base it almost entirely on the automated, one-click testimony of the LARGEST concentration of tittyhaters in America.

Yes, it's the Parents Television Council, who, if they had their way, would fill the airwaves with nothing but Lawrence Welk reruns and a new version of "Seventh Heaven" where all those naughty ankles are covered up. The PTC hates everything, and not in a cheery, daily web columnist kind of way. To them, the common, everyday nipple is Satan's Warhead, delivering pure, evil, Immorality Devil Milk through the corneas of any poor soul who catches a glimpse.

According to MediaWeek, citing internal FCC numbers, in 2000, the FCC received about 350 indecency complaints. In 2001, they received about 350 as well. In 2002, they got about 14,000. In 2003, they got 240,000. Powell, who I cannot stress enough in no way got his job because he is Colin Powell's son, used this increase to justify the FCC's indecency crackdown on fuck, shit, and all the other fun words that enrich the fucking language and keep it from being all shitty.

Completely coincidentally, in 2003, the PTC developed a web-based form by which people could send form-complaints about indecency to the FCC. Completely coincidentally, in 2003, these complaints made up NINETY NINE POINT EIGHT PERCENT of the indecency complaints by the FCC. That means the PTC bitched about 239,500 times, and the rest of America bitched about 500 times. This is what happens when you listen to people on the INTERNET.

The PTC's spokesperson, Lara Mahaney, who I am led to believe is in personal possession of not one, but TWO of the deadly, soul-destroying nipples, offered up the kind of defense that, even for a bunch of fundamentalist, crusading loonies, is just sad. It's NIPPLE FUCK ACTUAL NIPPLE QUOTE ANUS TIME!

"I wish we had that much power. Why does it matter how the complaints come?? Mahaney said. ?If the networks haven?t done anything illegal, if they haven?t done anything indecent, why do they care what we say??

That's lovely. When accused of manipulating public officials to get their narrow viewpoint forced down the deep throats of the viewing public, all Ms. Flanagan and her nipples can muster is "I wish!". Yes, if only they could truly dominate the public discourse on obscenity and make up that last point two percent! Then we could digitally clothe all that filthy naked skin on the Surgery Channel!

As for the rest of her defense, I'm sure Ms. Mahoney knows from her head to her areolas that "indecency" in this country is defined by two things - what gives a judge an erection, and "community standards". Send enough form letters and dominate the complaint system, throw in a complacent, fundie-loving administration, and suddenly, the "community standards" are being redefined by a bunch of maroons who think the biggest problem with the country right now is Howard Stern talking about stripper's cooches during drivetime.

And Powell, willfully or otherwise (the Official Line is that he was "unaware" of the PTC's dominance) went right along with it, taking a much needed break from not making digital TV happen to fight the good fight against the bad tit. Ergo, HE IS DUMB.

Prepare To Say "Ew" At Least Twice

Memo to Congress: STOP LISTENING TO IDIOTS, IDIOTS.

When they came for the gays and bisexuals, I said nothing, because I'm straight. When they came for the smokers, I said nothing, because I don't smoke. When they came for the fast food, I said nothing, because, well, I really should stop eating that shit anyway. But when they came for the porn, nobody was left to speak for me except all the other skinny straight folks with good lungs, but none of them would say anything 'cause they were too busy spanking it.

In case you thought that perhaps the replacing of John Ashcroft with Alberto "I Heart Torture" Gonzalez might see the drapes covering Blind Justice's titty removed and replaced with a bit of leather bondage gear or a black hood, you will be sorely disappointed. Ashcroft's career's corpse (which he also lost an election to - funny story) was barely cold when, two Thursdays ago, Congress was learning that porn was worse than crack.

When I heard this, at first, I wanted to think this was the result of confusion. Perhaps they meant that porn contained a lot of crack, ass and otherwise, and also contained other, non-crack stuff. But no, the crazy people advising YOUR lawmakers meant that porn caused an addiction far worse than crack cocaine.

Who were these medical geniuses, bringing their carefully researched findings to our contemplative legislative body? Well, we do have Mary Anne Layden, from the University of Pennsylvania sexual trauma and psychopathology program. That sounds reasonably legitimate, plus, her name has "lay" in it, allowing for puerile comedy opportunities. But then it gets, as the kids say, freaky-deaky.

There's Jeffery Satinover, who works to CURE HOMOSEXUALITY. Much like creationists and people who use the word "islamofascist" seriously, anyone who claims to work in the field of curing our friends from Team Selfish Hedonism immediately forfeits their right to be taken seriously about anything ever. All they do is create a bunch more frustrated, pissed-off, closeted faux-straights, which we have a generous surpus of already, thanks.

And then there's Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association, a group that's long been at odds with the California Just Leave The Little Bastards In The Car Foundation. Actually, the CPPA's agenda is preventing incest and rape, which is tough to argue with, but anyone who uses the word "erototoxins" to describe porn does not strike me as the kind of reasoned, sane face you want to use to represent your organization. "Erototoxins"? It sounds like the kind of thing you'd see in a Trek slashfic where Kirk fucks some kind of plant-woman. And then Spock has to suck the erototoxins out of Kirk to save his life.

Reisman also suggested that pornography be countered by advertisements on buses that say fucking children is wrong. Great idea, but if the bus ads we have NOW worked at all, I'd be so busy trying to listen to every different radio station in the Twin Cities metro that I wouldn't have the TIME to fuck children.

But it's Satinover who really takes the cake. We're all healthy, rational adults here, so without revealing any personal information, quietly compare your own personal experience with the following quote, and see how close they match up. It's ACTUAL WANKER QUOTE TIME!

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance. That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect.

First of all, he said "most perfect", which is stupid, and is a construction that drives me up the fucking wall semantically, but besides that - masturbation releases the PERFECT addictive substance? Please. Most people hooked on heroin can't hold down steady jobs, and slowly decline into Requiem for a Dream territory. I guarantee there are a LOT more masturbators out there than there are heroin addicts, and if masturbation were that addictive, we wouldn't have the energy to produce the porn that would be entirely superfluous ANYWAY. We'd have died out as a species centuries ago, either from starvation or mass drowning.

But fear not! Your government is hard at work attempting to wipe the scourge of porn out with the hand towel of justice. Those pesky 9/11 recommendations can wait, there's MASTURBATING to stop!

Spastic Topic Monkey Goes To Washington Friday

The Topic Monkey got into the Halloween candy last night, which wouldn't have been so bad, but the Halloween Candy was chocolate-covered espresso beans sprinkled with a fairy-dusting of crystal meth. Gets the little bastards to the next house really fast.

Memo to everyone, what with Halloween actually upon us. DON'T DRESS UP YOUR PETS. They're ANIMALS. They don't know shit about Halloween. They want to be fed, they want to have a place to take a whizz, they want their heads petted, maybe chase something. They don't know what a fairy princess is, or why they look like one, or what that crap is on their head, or why you're laughing.

If you want to make your pet look ridiculous, that's why God made Photoshop.

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And speaking of shitty costumes... "Azzam The American"? AZZAM THE AMERICAN? If you don't know, ABC and FOX have been running an as-yet unauthenticated tape that appears to be the Star Wars Kid from the Internet with a Pizza Hut tablecloth on his head, saying he's an American Al Qaeda operative, that we're all gonna die, and mentioning, among other things, Bill Maher, the Massachussets gay marriage ruling, the 9/11 commission, and the "defiling of our lovely falafel by that O'Reilly infidel". I may have made that last one up.

The CIA, while not authenticating the tape, said it bore "all the hallmarks" of an Al Qaeda production, including "being on videotape", "Arabic letters on the screen", and "guy in a headdress threatening America and saying he was from Al Qaeda". Come on, people. Pretty soon, Azzam The American will be what parents use to scare their kids. "If you're not good, Azzam the American will come to your bedroom and your sheets will run red with blood!"

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And speaking of our favorite falafel fetishist, O'Reilly The Superfreak settled out of court with Andrea Mackris. I'm both pleased and disappointed. Disappointed because, under the terms of the settlement, we'll never get to hear the tapes we all know she had, plus the settlement includes both parties agreeing that "no wrongdoing" took place, so O'Reilly can fall back on that for the rest of his life. But I'm pleased, because the man who said "I'm going to take a stand. I'm a big mouth on the air and I'm a big mouth off the air." a few weeks ago is now saying "I will never speak of it again." Which, when translated into English, means "I did it, she had tapes, I paid her off."

By avoiding a messy court battle, O'Reilly knows that his story will soon be forgotten. He should know, he's on the front lines of determining which stories stick and which ones get forgotten. In the interests of comedy, however, I urge all my readers to mention the whole falafel thing any time Bill O'Reily comes up in conversation from now on. It's the least we can do for a man who's given us so much.

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And speaking of "the least one can do", George W. Bush has now described John Kerry as "the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time". It's meant to be a play on Kerry's Iraq war statements, but the more I look at it, the less I'm able to parse it. Is Bush saying the Presidency is the "wrong job"? And how can he say it's the "wrong time"? November is when we have these things, George. Every four years.

It's a triple negative, which means it's still negative, but if you discount the "wrong job" part for making no fucking sense, then it's a DOUBLE negative, which makes it a positive, but then you have to discount the "wrong time" part for not making a lot of fucking sense, and then it's a single negative, but then you have to discount Bush entirely for being El Fucktardo Primero, so you're back to square one. The grammar of the politics of the rhetoric of politics can be oh so very confusing.

Allegedly

Fuck politics.

At least for one more day. Sure, there's stuff I'd like to touch on, like all the things you didn't hear from Kerry-Edwards in the debates, or how ludicrous it is that The Bulge is getting more traction than, say, war crimes... but for this week, at least, fuck politics. And speaking of fuck-politics...

Memo to Bill O'Reilly: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ALLEGEDLY HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ALLEGEDLY HA.

Oh please, oh please, oh please, let it all be true. Let this be the Bill O'Reilly legacy. Let him be the new Marv Albert, the new punchline, for the next decade. It would be a thing of such beauty in a cold, cruel world. So please, let it be true.

Because for a guy who purports to spend so much of his time in a "no-spin zone", Bill O'Reilly sure is allegedly one twisted little fuckmonkey.

In case you haven't heard the story, O'Reilly is being sued by Andrea Mackris, a producer on his show. Her lawsuit alleges that O'Reilly is allegedly a vibrator-obsessed, phone-sex-obsessed, philandering ape who allegedly forces all kinds of nasty, creepy, unwanted advances on his female subordinates, and allegedly called this particular producer on the phone three separate times while "tapping his microphone", as it were. Allegedly.

The details of the alleged allegations, as seen on The Smoking Gun, paint an allegedly horrifying picture of a middle-aged, rich asshole who allegedly acted like a non-stop horn-monster around the producer and her friends while, at the same time, exhibiting alleged behavior that really makes you question Bill's alleged sanity. Not to mention his alleged intelligence. The classic, choice bit that will go down in alleged history is excerpted here from the complaint in a new segment I like to call ALLEGED QUOTE TIME!

"You would basically be in the shower and then I would come in and I'd join you...and I would take that little loofa thing... it's one of those mitts those loofa mitts you know, so I got my hands in it ... and I would put it around front, kinda' rub your tummy a little bit with it... and then I would take the other hand with the falafel (sic) thing and I'd put it on your pussy..."- Alleged Bill O' Reilly *

First of all, "falafel"? FALAFEL? Second of all, I have it on very good authority that the only thing that happens when you use EITHER a loofa OR falafel on a human clitoris is that you get your fucking arm snapped off at the wrist. What next? Does O'Reilly have a dildo made out of pumice? Or, perhaps, hummus? Never trust a man who confuses exfoliants, chickpeas, and sexual aids. It'll only hurt you in the end.

You know who's gotta be having the time of his life right now? Al Franken. How must it feel to have pissed someone off SO much that he allegedly drops your name right in the middle of a series of allegedly creepy, sexual-harassing dinner conversations? That when Bill O'Reilly allegedly needs an alleged analogy for any woman who crosses him, he allegedly goes immediately to "Look at Al Franken, one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me." That's gotta feel fucking incredible, to know that you've gotten so far under Bill O'Reilly's skin that even while he's trying to allegedly get into a subordinate's pants, he still has time for an elaborate power-trip revenge fantasy** about you. Al, you are the MAN.

There's even a bit that, if the allegations are true, may actually qualify Bill O'Reilly as the most allegedly selfish human being on the planet. Because, you know, it takes a certain kind of selfishness to allegedly call up your subordinate and allegedly whack off while you're on the phone with her. It takes an extra special kind of selfishness to allegedly do it AGAIN. It takes a rare kind of selfishness indeed to allegedly do it a THIRD time, allegedly using a vibrator on yourself. But only the most selfish man in the universe would, after allegedly masturbating for the third time, with a vibrator, allegedly on the phone with your subordinate (who's not allegedly cooperating in any way), to allegedly then brag about your recent performance on the "Tonight Show". Because first, when it comes to "pillow talk", that's just allegedly deeply fucking tacky and egotistical. And second, who gives an alleged shit if Jay Leno allegedly thinks your so damn funny?

This whole thing, of course, will get ugly before it's over. O'Reilly's already countersued, calling Mackris an extortionist and a politically-motivated career saboteur. He has plenty of media outlets with which to make his case. And these things never go smoothly. But I'm inclined to believe Mackris for two main reasons. First, some of the details, like the loofa, and the falafel, and the Franken, are just too completely off-the-wall and insane to be the products of a fabricated scheme. And second, I want it to be true so bad it almost hurts. Let's all keep our alleged fingers crossed.

*There's a lot more to this bit, but I've snipped it down to the comedically relevant parts. You really should check out the full complaint online, though. Even if it turns out not to be true, it's a great read.

**Allegedly.

Even A Stopped Fanboy Is Right Twice A Day

Memo to J. Michael Straczynski: YOU ARE DUMB.

I hate saying that, because I can explain B5 season 5 as the result of overwork and lack of sleep, I can blame Crusade on network interference and studio heads, and I can blame Legend of the Rangers on... on... well, I'm sure I can think of something.

But JMS has now committed an unforgivable sin: he has incurred the wrath of Comic Fanboydom, and more importantly, he has come damn close to EARNING it.

First, the required precis for those of you who, quite wisely, don't follow this kind of thing. In addition to whatever TV stuff he's doing these days, Straczynski is writing comic books. Like Supreme Power, which is a very good series marred only by about two full issues worth of embarassingly gratuitous nakedchick over the course of a dozen actual issues. And for a while now, he's been writing Spider-Man.

For those of you who have only seen the movies, there is one character involved in this precis who you don't know. Gwen Stacy, the blond, innocent, girl-next-door*, other love interest during the Spider-Formative-Years. Gwen Stacy was killed by the Green Goblin, Norman Osborne Version, in the 70's. And for the most part, occasional clone aside, she's stayed dead.

Anyway, in the last few issues of Spidey, JMS had the great idea of having two super-powered twins attack Spider-Man, and then revealed that these twins are actually Gwen Stacy's kids, and that back in the day, sweet, innocent Gwen got pregnant due to a pity fuck with Norman "The Green Goblin Who Would Eventually Throw Her Off A Bridge" Osborne, a creepy middle-aged businessman. This, of course, has the fans in an uproar. And normally, this is the point at which I would argue with them.

Because most of the fan outrage is about how it "ruins" the "character" of Gwen Stacy forever, as if this were something new, that mattered, in the world of comic characters with histories between 20 and 70 years in length. Pretty much everything has been done to, or changed about, pretty much everybody, ever since there were comics. Don't like it? Wait a few months. It'll be undone. And on the off chance it's not, there's still all that stuff beforehand you can read over and over again.

But in this case, I empathize with the fans, for two main reasons. The first is that even by modern comic standards, the whole thing is pretty fucking stupid, and obviously comes from the atrophied conjoined-twin brain in JMS skull that also came up with Byron and the VR Kung Fu Weapons System.

But the most important reason, by far, is that JMS must have put into the comic script words to this effect: "NEXT PANEL: NORMAN OSBORNE HAS ORGASM." And the artist, Mike Deodato, graciously obliged, giving us a full-on shot of a middle-aged, improbably-stripey-haired businessman slash supervillain experiencing le petit mort. And then the inker (Jose Pimentel, for purposes of future Google searches) lovingly darkened the lines that make up ol' Norm's spurt-grimace. And then colorist Matt Milla gave a greyish-pink pallor to the whole sordid mess. And then the other people in the credits, Warren Simone, Axel Alonzo, Joe Quesada, and Dan Buckley, all to varying degrees, said, "Yeah, let's go with that", and as a result, the following image made it into the cultural pictolexicon:

And nobody, and I mean NOBODY, ever really needed to see THIS. I don't care what dramatic resonance you think it creates in the Spider-history, Straczynski. If you must show middle-aged men engaged in coitus (and you really don't), ask for some shadow or something. Do not give us THIS. Do not force me to share the misery of the Green GAH-blin blowing his pumpkin bomb with my vast and growing audience. Their suffering, and subsequent therapy bills, are on your hands.

And if, as a result of this, you are forced into a position of fanboy anathema over sullying the shorts of their beloved Gwen Stacy, well, I'm sorry, but it's nobody's fault but your own. Between this and Thirdspace, you're going to have a lot to answer for in the final judging, boyo.

*As opposed to the red-head who ACTUALLY lived next door to him, and the blonde who lived across the hall from him in the second movie.

Pants, The Final Frontier

Memo to Richard Branson: YOU GO, CRAZY RICH MAN.

No sarcasm there. There really isn't a traditional "target" for today's column. For those who miss the excessively political tone of the last three weeks, allow me to point out that George W. Bush is a doodyhead. But on the subject of space tourism, there is no DUMB, except that I'm convinced that only two people have really seen the true potential for Richard Branson's new venture - Richard Branson, and me.

Here's the way it's officially going to work, on paper. Dick Rutan, who's currently trying to win the X-Prize with Spaceship One, is going to provide Richard Branson of the Virgin empire with a half-dozen ships based on the SS1 design. Branson would then offer, for about two hundred grand, a 90 minute suborbital trip into near-space, including four-minutes of microgravity, and a stunning view of the curved horizon of Earth.

Space tourism. It brings to mind the noble pursuit of flight, the pioneering spirit, the astonishing futures promised to us since the fifties by science fiction writers. The common man being able to go into space has been a lifelong dream of science nerds and space geeks for decades. But as far as I'm concerned, Richard Branson's "Virgin Galactic" is a bold new step forward in the arena of space-fucking.

The zero-G hump. Subject of late night horny nerd-speculation at SF conventions since the first horny nerds stayed up late at SF conventions. There's no way it hasn't already happened, of course. With 40 years of space travel, 20 of them including women, under our belts (as it were), plus the neutral buoyancy simulator at NASA, you gotta figure folks have made the alien with two backs more than once. But Richard Branson is poised to put the knocking of the moon-boots within the reach of the rest of us. Well, OK, the rest of us who happen to be wealthy bastards.

And I think he knows it, too. The clues are all there. First of all, he named his company "Virgin" in a bit of classic misdirection. I really don't think an insanely wealthy mogul who spends most of his time trying to cross oceans in balloons is an uptight prude, so it must be called "Virgin" to create a false sense of wholesomeness and purity for the eventual day when he'd be able to make the Mile High Club look like two middle-aged fundamentalists in their monthly go at the missionary position.

Look at the proposed flight plan. Ninety minute flight, four minutes of weightlessness. That means 43 minutes on the way up for Space Foreplay and Jumpsuit Removal, four minutes for the Three-Axis Mambo, and 43 minutes for drinks, smokes, apologies, wiping down the bulkheads, and regaining your composure for when you walk down the exit ramp and have to lie to everyone about the exhilaration of flight and the beauty of the Earth from space.

I know what you're all thinking. Four minutes doesn't exactly sound like a sexual marathon. But first of all, you're doin' it IN SPACE. If people get all kinds of bonus jollies from cars, elevators, or park bushes, I think having sex in SPACE ought to speed things along enough that four minutes for the actual act will be plenty.

Second of all, you're doin' it IN SPACE. Which means it's like fugu. It doesn't HAVE to be great, because it's IN SPACE. And from that point on, you can tell people you did it IN SPACE. Fugu is, from what I've heard, some seriously bland fish. But it can get away with it, because you RISKED DEATH by eating it. Once you've risked death for a meal, that meal tastes fabulous, no matter what it's actual flavor is. Same with the space-fuck.

And third, and most importantly, four minutes isn't anywhere NEAR enough time to exhaust the potential of the Tropospheric Tango. Which means plenty of incentive to scrape up another two hundred grand and try again.

That's the other thing. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. Sure, it's like the early CD players, which cost a thousand bucks and had just the two buttons. You spend that much on a trip into space, you're going to want to get more out of it than you could manage with a harness, an HDTV, and a DVD from the local science museum. For two hundred grand, you're gonna want to get yourself a piece of asteroid.

But for the clincher, we're going to have to turn to Mr. Branson himself. ACTUAL SPACEFUCKING QUOTE TIME!

"We hope to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above, the stars in all their glory and the amazing sensation of weightlessness." - Richard Branson.

He's gonna "create" thousands of astronauts? Yeah, by conceiving them in orbit! And let's face it, the "stars in all their glory"? The "amazing sensation of weightlessness"? The only reason he can get away with these euphemisms is that the AP reporter at the press conference didn't hear the Official Porn Guitar playing behind the curtain.

And on the off chance you're STILL unconvinced... he's naming the first one the V.S.S. Enterprise. Come ON! Do I have to draw you a map? Enterprise? Kirk? Spacefucking? If there isn't a video on the Internet within seven days of the maiden voyage, then what tiny faith I have in human nature I'll have left at that point will vanish forever.

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.