Being A Touron

No matter where you live, there is something nearby that warrants your visit.

It could be the world’s biggest snot collection, or something similarly disturbing, but every area has something that they hold out as a “tourist attraction.”

I live near an entire city that is one big tourist attraction, and could qualify as the world’s biggest snot collection.

It’s called Las Vegas.

If you visit or live in such a locale, you have obviously encountered one of the “lost souls” who obtain four-wheel bumper cars (also known as Hertz-mobiles) then proceed to run into other bumper cars, public fixtures, and pedestrians while gazing at the fake ship in front of the Treasure Island casino and uttering the words, “ooh, a boat!”

These visitors are known as “tourons.”

It’s a contraction of two different words that I am sure you can figure out.

I’m not insulting these visitors, because their visits and their money are critical to the survival of Vegas and my own beloved town, and because every human being in the U.S. of A. has been one at some point.

Recently I put on my “touron” hat and visited Nevada’s “Valley of Fire,” a beautiful desert landscape of red-tinted hills and canyons outside Logandale/Overton.

(The residents of this burg insist that Logandale and Overton are two different towns, but I would challenge anyone outside of their zip code to identify which is which.)

The first thing I would like to point out is that there is something inherently wrong with a government collecting money for God’s handiwork.

The state of Nevada hammers visitors $6 a carload to view this particular collection of rocks.

I’m sure their argument would be that they have money invested in the road and the 4,281 signs pointing the way to pristine “natural” locations.

(Like most states, Nevada doesn’t catch the irony in putting up manmade signs to identify natural phenomena).

As a taxpayer and nature liker (I’m not a nature “lover” because I still prefer humans to trees and believe that the Sierra club has elevated whining to an art form), I would be just as happy to see the roads allowed to return to dirt trails and the signs turned into campfire kindling.

Of course, if the state did that, how would our friends from the “Land of the Rising Sun” get their tour buses out to the “beehive” in time to snap three or four hundred pictures before returning to the black jack tables?

For the record, the red vistas are gorgeous and fascinating, well worth the cost of a couple of rolls of film.

But not worth the $6 shakedown by the state.

To add insult to injury, you are expected to “self-pay,” which means you fill out an envelope, put in your money, keep the stub, and insert the envelope into the slot of a locked metal pipe.

No humans are involved in collecting your money.

Instead, they post people on each end of the park to check for your stub (“Your paperz, pleeze!”) in hopes of catching violators and collecting the big jackpot, which is a hefty fine for stealing glimpses of stuff you already own as a taxpayer.

(Only a government could come up with a system like this.)

If you are planning a visit to the greater Las Vegas area (or even the not-so-great Las Vegas area, also known as Pahrump), I highly recommend a visit to this natural wonder.

And feel free to fill out the envelope, keep the stub, and “forget” to include your cash.

I won’t tell.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

“Welcome to DBC’s coverage of the annual Spacy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
“First, we’d like to take a moment to offer our thanks for the many blessings we have received, namely the opportunity to show three hours of non-stop commercials under the guise of a parade.
“Now, before we actually get to the parade, we’re going to cut to our on-the-street hosts who are going to banter and pretend they like each other, which is probably the best performance you’re going to see today.”
“Thanks, Hal. I’m Brat Lower and I’m here with Fady Borinc to bring you an event that epitomizes the American spirit, namely lots of commercials.
“If you look over our shoulder, you’ll see a big yellow float.
“Ignore it. We’re going to.
“Instead, we’d like to interview Razz Matazz, who is starring in the upcoming movie ‘Gone With The Wind 2: Rhett Gives A Damn.’
“Razz, it’s great to see you here.”
“Thanks, Brat. Come see my movie. I’d like to say more, but I can’t really carry on a conversation without a teleprompter, so…come see my movie.”
“There you have it folks. Now, we’re going to take you to a pre-recorded song and a stilted dance number by frozen performers to promote a tedious Broadway show nobody in the rest of the country is ever going to see, but it will entice locals to flock to the theatre, so here is the cast of ‘Everyone Should Be Les Miserable.’”
Following a tiresome presentation where the “singer” offers the worst lip-synch job since Ashlee Simpson’s visit to Saturday Night Live, Brat and Fady throw it to an anorexic weatherman, ignoring the irony of a guy with an eating disorder celebrating a holiday built around feasting.
“Thanks, Hal. By the way, you’re really looking good since that surgery to remove your large and small intestines, stomach, spleen, liver, and a kidney. Happy Thanksgiving, my friend.
“Okay, we’re going to take a 15-minute break to show you a real parade, which is the endless cavalcade of commercials lined up to empty your pockets and fill ours. We’ll be back when we run out of sponsors.”
Following 20 minutes of commercials for such holiday products as Depends and Crapital Won, encouraging you to overspend again this holiday season, Brat and Fady return.
“Behind us, you can see a gang of people with instruments from some school, but we have more important stuff to show you, beginning with an excerpt from this Tuesday’s new comedy ‘Bite Me In A Bikini’ right here on DBC.”
After a three minute clip of a girl in a swimsuit explaining all the ways her CEO dad is a moron, Brat and Fady return to the screen.
“Looks like a winner, wouldn’t you say, Brat?”
“It sure does, Fady. Speaking of winners, I love the snow and skiing that comes with every winner season, which leads us to talk about the Winner Olympics, coming up somewhere in Europe.
“Fortunately, you can catch every uninspiring, boring moment of the Ukranian curling team and plenty of folks who aren’t Americans winning the gold right here on DBC.”
“Okay, Brat, we were going to send it back down to Hal, who’s standing by with the stage manager for the Rolling Stones, who we couldn’t get on our show because our producers have a rule against inviting anyone who actually has talent.
“However, Hal’s currently being blocked by some fat guy in a red suit riding a fake sleigh, so we’ll wait until he moves along before sending it back to the street.”
“Right you are, Fady. So, while we have this extra time to fill, let’s continue to ignore the big balloon Underdog floating by and talk about your kids. How’s that rehab coming along?”
The next 10 minutes are filled with inane stories about past holidays that you know are made up by writers from dysfunctional families, which are basically vignettes ripped off from “Miracle on 34th Street” and Ralphie’s “A Christmas Story.”
We hope you enjoyed this year’s broadcast.
Our accountants sure did!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

War Is Bad

Here’s the latest news flash:
People sometimes get injured and, gasp, even killed during war.
I know, a startling revelation that has some do-gooders absolutely apoplectic.
The word comes from a report on last year’s battle in Falluja, that nice Iraqi resort where things were oh-so-rosy before those nasty Americans with their white phosphorus weapons showed up.
The report accuses Americans of having the temerity to actually kill people who were shooting at them with rocket-propelled grenades.
According to the report, which was prepared by someone in the U.S. Army, soldiers used white phosphorus incendiary devices during last year’s battle to close the terrorist convention center that the city had become.
But a number of international groups are claiming foul, insisting that it was somehow improper for Americans to use the devices to clear out spidey-holes and tunnels.
Apparently, the politically-correct method of clearing such places is to march a parade of soldiers into the cave until those hiding inside run out of bullets, or the cave entrance becomes so clogged with dead American bodies that the insurgents become trapped in the cave.
In a touch of irony, those yapping the loudest claim that it violates international law to use such weapons in civilian areas, although there doesn’t seem to be any rule against combatants dressing like civilians, hiding in civilian homes, using civilian vehicles to blow up targets, and using civilian neighborhoods as their base of operations.
So again, the Americans are wrong, and the kindly folks who blow up buses and restaurants filled with women and children are the good guys.
Even though, as one American general pointed out (he’s an American, so how can he be trusted?), white phosphorus weapons have been used in battle by legitimate armies for nearly 100 years.
Part of the outrage comes as the devices are being erroneously touted as “chemical weapons” because phosphorus is a chemical.
If we’re going to use that benchmark for hanging the dreaded “chemical weapons” tag on a munition, then I guess all items of war must be classified as such.
Bullets are propelled by gunpowder, which is a chemical.
Rocket-propelled grenades are powered by chemicals, and use chemicals in the explosion process.
For that matter, it means that the chemical H2O and sodium chloride must be also be banned (water and table salt).
Nobody disputes that getting burned by white phosphorus is not a pleasant experience.
But exactly what part of war can be deemed palatable?
American body parts strewn all over the boulevard after a car packed with cheap explosives goes off in a downtown area?
Bullet holes in boys from Birmingham?
Civilians getting dragged from their vehicles, beaten, shot, burned, and hung from a bridge?
(If I remember correctly, the bodies hanging from the bridge is what spurred the American assault on Falluja).
Personally, I wasn’t in favor of invading Iraq.
But while we’re there, I don’t recommend conducting a “war by the numbers,” particularly using the playbook from countries which regularly wind up on the losing side of such conflicts.
War sucks, from top to bottom.
And as soon as the bastards with the RPGs and roadside bombs stop waging it, we should give it up, too.

Pregnant Men

Scientists in California have discovered some fish off the coast of SoCal.
Not a big deal unless you’re a fisherman with a seaworthy boat.
But these fish are unique.
They are male fish that can produce eggs.
They have labeled the creatures as “intersex” fish.
Of course, like most eco-whackos, they couldn’t resist blaming it on pollution or treated sewage water.
I’m certain that, before the week is out, they’ll find a way to blame it on global warming.
But the guys in white coats are missing the point.
Males that can produce eggs.
If Darwin was right, and you extrapolate the theory that all life began in the sea, that means we will eventually have land mammals capable of carrying a fetus.
That’s right, pregnant men.
(Okay, we’ll wait while you women finish applauding, whooping, and cheering.)
This has been a dream of women for years who have tired of hearing husbands invoke the politically correct and mentally deficient remark “we’re pregnant!” at parties when telling friends of an impending birth of a future middle linebacker.
While “we’re” pregnant, only the woman is saddled with an extra 40 pounds, daily nausea, cravings for food groups that were never meant to be combined, and of course the “joy” of childbirth that basically involves passing a watermelon through a garden hose.
Don’t get me wrong, men go through three out of four of those things, but it’s usually referred to as “being single.”
Pregnant men would be Mother Nature’s little payback for centuries of female suffering.
Imagine bloated and lactating CEOs in maternity business suits trying to conduct a board meeting.
Or the guy in the hardhat pouring cement and trying to hold down this morning’s oatmeal.
Then there are the social considerations.
If men were able to conceive, which is a feminine trait, would they face discrimination?
Would a whole new line of bigotry arise, with derisive slurs like “Look at that preg over there!”?
Would pregnant men get paid less than non-pregnant men?
And of course the most important question, would football uniforms have to be redesigned?
Obviously, it will take a few eons for these questions to become valid.
But just the notion of millions of men insisting on “safe sex” to avoid a pregnancy that would interfere with his bowling commitments is worth a few laughs.
Like a female comedian once said, if men got pregnant, not only would the “morning after” pill be legal, it would be free!

Gender Equity Still MIA

Back in the seventies (back when you could advertise cigarettes on television, a time fondly referred to as “the good old days” by tobacco companies), there was a brand of smokes aimed at female smokers.
The jingle’s tagline was “You’ve got your own cigarette now, baby, you’ve come a long, long way.”
First, for our younger readers, a jingle was a catchy song that extolled the virtues of a particular product, like “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.”
Advertisers don’t use jingles anymore, instead opting for old Led Zeppelin tunes behind ads for Cadillacs.
Obviously, we weren’t particularly hip or sophisticated back in those dark ages, since most of us didn’t get the irony of a line that heralded the arrival of the fairer sex as a legitimate part of the political landscape, while still referring to women as “baby.”
Anyway, the point is that, in spite of this cancer-causing proclamation, women really haven’t come that far in the world of sports.
This is evidenced by the continuing examples of bad behavior by athletes of both sexes, but the vast disparity in the way they are treated.
For men, you can be involved in the murder of two human beings and still find a place in the Baltimore Ravens defense.
For that matter, coke dealers are welcome on the other side of the ball in Baltimore.
And don’t get me started on the Terrell Owens saga.
Baseball players can take illegal steroids like kids eat Fruity Pebbles and still be voted the league batting champion.
In fact, you can tell Congress that you’ve NEVER used steroids, then just grin and wink when you get a quickie ten-day suspension for having steroids in your system.
You can beat your wife, get caught driving drunk, assault fans, slap around camera guys, and smoke every flavor and variety of marijuana known to man and still get nothing more than a temporary forced vacation.
But let a cheerleader have just one alleged sexual encounter with another cheerleader in a bathroom stall, and they’re off the team for good.
This doesn’t sound fair.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that the cheerleaders in question should lose their job for embarrassing the team (even though they were off-duty at the time).
But I think the same standard should apply for every other member of the team.
If you get popped for a drunken orgy on a Minnesota lake, you should be on the unemployment line before that boat reaches the dock.
If you choke a basketball coach, the only court you should ever see again is the kind featuring a guy in robes.
To be fair, the Carolina Panthers organization is a little better than many of their NFL brethren, since their most famous transgressor no longer plays for the team.
However, Rae Carruth’s absence from the Panther lineup has more to do with the North Carolina penal system than the team’s standards.
The true test will come when Carruth comes up for parole.
If the team is waiting outside the prison walls with a contract laden with incentives for the number of non-pregnant guys with helmets he can take out the next time the Panthers play the Giants, you’ll know that the double standard lives even in a place named Charlotte.

Singing Mice

I recently read an article where researchers claim certain breeds of male mice can sing.
This immediately led my fractured brain to two questions.
First, which government agency paid for such a study?
And second, what kind of music do they sing?
I suspect it will take more of the first to answer the second.
If I had to lay five dollars at the parlay window, I’d bet they sing heavy metal.
Initially, I considered the idea that rap music would be their favored genre, but equating rap with vermin is just musical prejudice on my part.
Besides, the researchers actually used the word “sing,” which means it couldn’t have been rap.
Country music would be appropriate, but then I realized that the researchers indicated it was the male mouse that did the singing, and everyone knows that country music has become the province of female singers like Shania and Faith and that little girl who plays Dorothy in her Wizard of Oz video.
The idea that the little cheese-snatchers were into show tunes crossed my mind, but researchers put the kibosh on that notion.
The guys in the white coats claim the mice sing to woo female mice.
If testing showed that the male mice were singing to woo other male mice, it would be show tunes.
(To my gay friends, take your politically-correct outrage bonnet off your head and sit back down. This topic was addressed on “Will and Grace,” which is my arbiter of all things that are permissible to be stereotyped as gay. After all, “Just Jack!” wasn’t a blues review.)
An argument could be made that they sing pop music, but researchers didn’t mention anything about the mice lip-syncing, and not one of them danced a jig off the stage after being caught with “backing tracks.”
Some of the darker, more alienated mice might turn to singing alternative and grunge music, a fact which will be confirmed as soon as tests come back indicating the presence of heroin, or when one of the mice manages to shoot itself in the head with a shotgun.
My apologies to any of you Kurt Cobain fans who take exception to this image.
I guess a case could be made for opera, but none of the mice they studied wore tuxedos or Viking armor.
No, I suspect the little varmints sing heavy metal.
The scientists mentioned that the sounds are rhythmic and vary in pitch, but aren’t intelligible.
That kind of defines heavy metal music.
(Ever listen to old Ozzy Osbourne records? I enjoy the Prince of Darkness’s music, but after 30 years, I still don’t have a clue what he’s saying. Of course, I’ve watched nearly two dozen episodes of the TV show “The Osbournes,” and I still have the same problem.)
And for all their noisy bluster, heavy metal artists always manage to land the gorgeous babes.
I mean, Tommy Lee is one ugly head banger, and he took Pamela Anderson on a honeymoon boat ride.
It has to be the music.
My theory will be confirmed once the scientists discover tiny little mouse tattoos on their subjects that say things like “Born to tease cats” and “Mouse Traps Suck!”

Two-Part Disappointment

I have an important message I want to impart.
I believe it to be timely, topical, cogent, and worthwhile.
It will probably be funny, highly entertaining, socially meaningful and politically incorrect.
And I’m going to share this message with you.
Next week.
Frustrated?
This is the way I always feel after investing my valuable couch-potato time on some piece of network television tripe, only to discover just before the plane crashes or the killer is unmasked that the show is the front end of a two-parter.
I hate these “To Be Continued” offerings.
I’m particularly outraged when the networks hide the fact that the show will be a two-parter the way an Amway fanatic hides the fact that the “get together” he or she wants you to attend will actually be a recruiting pitch.
(To my Amway friends out there, I’m sorry to insult you by comparing you to a lowly network television executive. You have my apologies, and I need two gallons of that special biodegradable toenail soap on page 482 of your monthly catalog.)
On Sunday, I got sucker-punched on two different networks.
I was actually torn between two shows that were scheduled for 9 p.m.
The first was “The Crusades” on The History Channel.
I had been looking forward to that show for nearly a week, hoping that by watching, I might finally understand why the Muslims hate me and my country so badly.
It turns out that 20 minutes into the show, (which, to be honest, was even more dull and boring than my ninth grade history class, where I should have paid attention when my teacher was going over this topic nearly 30 years ago), the History Channel made the mistake of running a promo for part two.
I immediately switched over to the other 9 p.m. offering that had caught my interest, a CBS catastrophe-of-the-week made-for-television movie called “Category 7: The End of the World.”
I waited through two hours of REALLY bad acting, terrible casting (Randy Quaid and Shannon Doherty hooking up? I haven’t seen chemistry that bad since I dropped my Mr. Professor Chemistry Set on a concrete floor when I was 12), insipid story lines where people were more broken up about old flames and jealousy over past relationships than they were about the tornadoes that had killed thousands and threatened to wipe out D.C., and INCREDIBLY bad writing.
At the end, with the hurricane heading for our nation’s capital, where terrorists had just kidnapped the first born children of wealthy socialites fleeing the hurricane’s path while the torch from the Statue of Liberty was about to crush Randy Quaid while hugging Shannon Doherty (see what I mean about the writing?), the piece of crap ends with “To Be Continued.”
I feel so betrayed.
It’s particularly frustrating when you realize that the director could have eliminated the inane threads about old relationships, worn out pilots flying worn out airplanes, gorgeous eye-candy Gina Gershon as the head of FEMA and her bizarre relationship with her teenage “son” who looks old enough to be her uncle (right…all of those federal bureaucrats are gorgeous, like Janet Reno), and a televangelist played badly by James Brolin, and reduced the two-parter to a digestible two-hour flick.
In fact, he could have taken out most of the cheesy special effects about tornadoes hitting the great pyramids, and the devastation in the city of Buffalo (that’s right, the storms hit all of Earth’s important population centers…Cairo, Hong Kong, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Miami…and Buffalo) and whittled it down to about a half hour, which would still be too much for such a lousy movie, but at least the audience wouldn’t want to commit hari-kari because they had wasted two hours of their lives on this drivel.
I hate two-part movies.
All of them.
I’m not fond of sequels either.
But to foist this bad TV fare on a nation for two consecutive weekends is a sure sign of the Apocalypse.
And I hope there’s a special chamber of Hell for the TV executives who have lured innocent people into their lair without warning of an impending two-parter.
I have a lot more acid and hate for CBS and their ilk, but I’ll save it for the second half of this diatribe, to be continued next week.

Hell In A Handbasket

Originally published in The Spectrum in November, 2002

A news flash for you: The World Is Going To Hell In A Handbasket.
I remember my first encounter with that statement.
At 8 years old, I overheard my paternal grandfather punctuating a long-winded diatribe with “the world is going to Hell in a handbasket”.
I don’t remember the topic which inspired the statement, but I do recall the imagery.
In 1969, I had grown up with supermarkets, which involved wheeled shopping carts.
I didn’t understand what a “handbasket” was, but since it was apparently the vehicle in which we were traveling to Hell, I figured it couldn’t be a good thing.
My grandfather got out of the “Hell In A Handbasket” industry when they planted him in 1972.
He won 2nd place in game that was popular back then, called “I’ll Bet I Can Smoke 3 Packs Of Cigarettes A Day Without Dying of Cancer”.
(Unfortunately, the only people I ever met who won that game were those who got hit by buses.)
My dad inherited the “Hell In A Handbasket” franchise, and business was booming.
According to him, the Democrats and the Commies (which is redundant, because he believed the terms to be synonymous) were responsible for Nixon’s implosion.
We had lost the war in Vietnam.
And Hippies were ruining everything.
Being children of the 1960’s and 70’s, most of my friends disagreed with my dad’s philosophy.
They thought he was just too old fashioned, and that the world was really a wonderful place full of new ideas and opportunities.
We alI tried to maintain that optimism through the 1980’s, when “greed was good”.Now I’m in my 40’s.
Most of the things I read in the news confirm that my grandfather and father were right.
I’ve adopted their philosophy, although I’ve updated the vernacular.
“Hell In A Handbasket” has been replaced with “That Sucks!”, but the sentiment remains unchanged.Kids today have taken my former place in the heirarchy, convinced that I’m just old fashioned and out of touch.
They see nothing wrong with the fact that “Ozzie and Harriet” have been supplanted with Ozzie and the Osbournes.
(It’s ironic. Back then, I insisted to a parent that Ozzie qualified as “music”. Today, kids insist Ozzie qualifies as a parent.)
Schools without armed policemen have become as foreign to them as the old one room schoolhouses were to me.
And Constitutional Rights are as relevant today as the Magna Carta was in the days of disco.
Every generation has “H.I.A.H.B.” as a rite of passage.
It is usually bestowed with the confluence of the first gray hair and puberty-bound offspring.
Of course, in my humble opinion, I believe the handbasket now has shuttle rockets attached.
Everything in society is moving at warp speed, including our impending demise as a species. I am not crotchety, nor a fuddy-duddy.
In today’s words, I am simply “politically incorrect”.
Typical.
Even my status as a *@&!%$# has become a kinder and gentler insult.

Early Christmas Beef

It seems that every entity with a cash register and a tax ID number is currently offering their Christmas wares.
For those of you who are calendar challenged, let me give you a hint: It’s barely November.
Every year, it seems that stores trot out their Christmas merchandise earlier and earlier.
Next year, I’m expecting to see dancing Santa Claus figures next to the fireworks display at Wal Mart.
I understand that stores want to hurry their biggest selling season, but I’m tired of wading through shelf after shelf of Christmas wrapping paper and fuzzy red stockings while looking for the suntan lotion.
By the time of Santa’s annual arrival, I am nearly sick of the entire holiday.
Christmas carols over shopping mall sound systems have become equivalent to nails raked across a holly-tree-green chalk board.
The guy with the fake beard and jolly belly has become like a member of the family, since I’ve seen him more often than my Uncle Harvey.
For Christmas, I may buy my kids an electric stomach pump to save them from that overdose of red and white striped candy that they’ve been munching for the last 75 days.
And I’m going to apply for a hunting license so that I can legally shoot Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer every time that annoying Rankin Bass special comes on my TV.
(I don’t know what the bag limit is for Rudolph, but I figure I can easily use up a carton of 25 shotgun shells in one Christmas season.)
Since there are no signs that the retailing industry can rein themselves in, and our legislators are once again asleep at the switch and completely useless, I guess we’ll have to rely on that favored American pastime to get some control over this insanity.
Somebody is going to have to sue somebody.
I suspect the turkey people may be first in line at their favorite neighborhood bar (and I don’t mean the place where you can get rum-laced eggnog).
It’s reaching the point where people don’t have any money for their Thanksgiving Day bill of fare, since they already blew it on Playstation 16 and Ashlee Simpson’s latest sing-along production.
Or maybe the ACLU can file discrimination papers, since the Christian holiday of Christmas is obviously infringing on the rights of ghosts, goblins, and Freddy Kruger wannabes.
Personally, my money is on the Sierra Club lunatics.
Once they find out how many artificial trees have been cut down from the artificial rain forest, leading to artificial erosion and loss of artificial habitat for stuffed rabbits and teddy bears, it’s likely that an injunction will hit the Christmas industry so fast that it will make their ornaments spin.
Really, I’m not a Scrooge, and “Bah Humbug” is not part of my daily vernacular.
However, I’m getting tired of being forced to pass out frankincense and myrhh to trick or treaters because the Halloween candy, which was put on shelves in August, was pulled out of the store in mid October to make room for that adorable little zucchini nativity scene.
A movement has started aimed at putting “Christ” back into “Christmas.”
I’d be happy if they could just get Christmas back into December where it belongs.