Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Le Photoshoppe
My dorm was never this much fun
At the University of Western Ontario, the now notorious Saugeen Stripper hosted a lap dance for several of her male dormie friends.
By the way — that link? Not work-safe.
Tickle me, Elmo. You know how I like it.
I lived in a co-ed dorm at Berkeley, and I’m telling you, no one got laid, except maybe my roommate, and from the way his girl whimpered afterwards, I’m not sure anything really happened. There may have been a wee bit too much alcohol involved. (Oh — how do I know this? They thought I was asleep. Riiiight.)
But no one got laid at the University of Western Ontario strip tease, as far as we know, so perhaps I’m asking too much from my college memories. Then again . . . damn. We didn’t even play strip poker. We played Spades and Bridge, that’s how boring we were. The deliciously zaftig Andrea gave out hugs to any guy who looked pathetic enough to need one; that’s the closest we ever came to a strip tease.
Oh, wait. I’m remembering something else. Once, when some drunk-off-his-ass jerk set off the fire alarm in the middle of the night and we all rushed downstairs in the cold of winter, J., the girl I lost to Mr. Blue-Eyed Jesus, had wrapped herself in a bathrobe — too hastily, it seems, since my friend Stan got an eyeful of her booty and told me about it in the morning. That was my second-biggest dorm thrill, next to free hugs from Andrea.
Poor “I Wuv Punk” Russell, he desperately wanted to get laid, but his was a hopeless case. Remember Peter Billingsley, the kid who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story? Picture a six-foot-tall Ralphie. Yes, every bit as geeky-looking as Ralphie, and with a voice that cracked on every other word. Russell got nowhere. Not even Andrea would hug him. I think they based The 40 Year Old Virgin on Russell.
So, high school seniors, don’t get fooled into thinking co-ed dorms are an E-ticket to hot strip tease shows and unlimited mind-blowing sex. They’re not.
Or maybe that was just Berkeley’s problem.
D.
Mu Mu’s secret message
Yesterday, the New York times featured a story on Mu Mu, self-described “party-girl” and author of China’s most popular blog. The 25-year-old goes on to say,
“I don’t know if I can be counted as a successful Web cam dance girl,” that early post continued. “But I’m sure that looking around the world, if I am not the one with the highest diploma, I am definitely the dance babe who reads the most and thinks the deepest, and I’m most likely the only party member among them.”
Go Mu Mu — that’s what the blogosphere is saying. Given China’s notorious reputation vis a vis human rights, Mu Mu seems like a breath of fresh air.
. . . Or is she? (more…)
*sob* Not one of you has mentioned my award!
You’d think winning People’s Sexiest Man Alive award would do something for my prospects, wouldn’t you? But bam‘s only taking calls from Scott Speedman, and I overheard Miss Snark hollering, “If it ain’t Clooney, I’m not here!” Or maybe that was Sheila . . . the women are all blurring together right about now.
No. What do I get? A bunch of teeny-boppers screaming at me while I’m trying to shop for groceries. (Overheard in Produce: “Doug, what do you think of these musk melons?”) All the attention baffled me until I saw the cover of People. Then I was like, “Girls, girls, I’m a happily married man, although if you truly value my opinion of fruit, I am willing to check for ripeness.”
Fame has its downside, as I am rapidly discovering. Rufus in Hardware pounded my face a few times, saying, “I’m gonna do something about the alive part.” Seems he came in second place and was none too happy about it. William from Home and Garden came to my rescue, but as he helped me to my feet he used a most unusual handhold.
Now that I am safely home, I find myself waxing philosophical about my award. How can any one man be THE sexiest man alive? Don’t we each embody the masculine ideal in our own peculiar ways? And is it really fair for People to subject me to such intense public attention, just so they can sell a few more magazines?
I’m also wondering whether this will alter my personal life. Karen seems to be treating me no different than usual; maybe she doesn’t know yet. I left a copy on her pillow, just in case.
D.
A prayer for Pat Robertson
LORD,
Given that one of thy most precious qualities is MERCY;
And that thou hast forgiven Pat Robertson for saying 9/11 was YOUR punishment for gays, abortion, and anal bleachings;
And that thou hast forgiven him for calling for the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez;
And that thou hast forgiven him for calling all feminists “child killers”;
And that thou hast forgiven him for a lifetime of hubris, in claiming to know YOUR will;
Respectfully, LORD, I request THOU DROPPEST THE MERCY CRAP and remember one of thy other divine qualities, namely, JUSTICE,
And when thou, in thy divine wisdom, weighest the merits of Robertson’s recent call for a natural disaster to plague all of the men, women, and children of Pennsylvania, sinners and innocents alike, thou shouldest remember the Pharoah of Egypt: for you hardened your heart (sorry, LORD, but those thous and thys have become quite taxing of my puny mortal patience) and punished Pharoah for his sins, oh, how you punished Pharoah — that was truly righteous, LORD, good one! — but can we please, oh please, oh please, have some of that JUSTICE now?
When an ass clown calls for death and hardship for thousands of your faithful, and claims to do it in YOUR NAME, does that get your attention, LORD?
I’m sure you will choose a worthy and just punishment for PAT ROBERTSON (common name, LORD, so I gave you a photo above to help you find the right PAT ROBERTSON), but in case you’re busy and need some help, might I suggest you revive an old favorite — the ten plagues of Egypt? For extra zest, you might add “in his ass” to each of these plagues:
BLOOD in his ass.
FROGS in his ass. Come to think of it, hold off on that one. I like frogs too much.
LICE in his ass.
FLIES in his ass.
A HERD OF DISEASED CATTLE in his ass.
BOILS in his ass. LORD, you could do that one in your sleep.
A HAILSTORM in his ass.
LOCUSTS in his ass.
DARKNESS in his ass. Huh?
DEATH OF THE FIRSTBORN — no, you can stop there, LORD. I always thought you went a wee bit too far on that one. Instead, might I suggest
A GOOD-SIZED, YET NON-LETHAL EXPLOSION in his ass.
Amen.
D.
Technorati tags (thanks to Rob for doing the work for me):
Politics
Religion
Stupidity
Conservatives
Religious Right
Liars
Hypocrisy
Pat Robertson
At least you girls have Fabio
I’m feeling a bit wiped out from my editing work, so I decided to hand today’s blog off to Bare Rump. In case you don’t know her, Bare Rump is a ten-foot-long, eight-legged research scientist from the Tromatopelman planet M833-G1a. Like the rest of her kind, she has a rather odd take on romance which I’m sure you will appreciate. Actually, Bare Rump is an atypical Tromatopelman female; she’s had her share of lovers, but presently enjoys a long term relationship with a Grith Lyssome intelligence officer whom she calls Lord Valor.
As for why Bare Rump is here on Earth, you can read more about that here.
Oof. That’s it for me. Be nice to my favorite girl.
Bare Rump here, y’all. (Ooh, my Texas time is showing!) Doug wanted to take a bit of time off from the blog, and since I have been ever so negligent updating mine, I volunteered. Lord Valor offered, but what could he write about? Poop and software, that’s all my lover knows. Well, he also understands how to show a girl a good time. Dear me yes. If only you could see the way he rolls me onto my dorsum and sets me a-quiver with that magical proboscis of his — but, heck! This isn’t the Epigynum Monologues, for gosh sakes.
Doug has left it up to me to introduce you to my planet’s top-selling Romance novelist, Bronwyn Webweaver. A bit of background: Bronwyn was born the only daughter in an egg sac of eight. She excelled at her schoolwork and rapidly grew big and strong. As an only daughter, she had to skip college and take work as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell. I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now.
She took a mate who survived their first encounter only to get too zealous on the second. Now fat and pregnant, Bronwyn took a job as a botanist’s assistant at the University of South Underland. Her work forced her aboveground on a daily basis, collecting moss and lichen samples for her bosses. The now famous mugwasp storm of 4079 forced her to stick to her tunnels, and out of boredom, she took up a pencil and notepad and wrote out the rough draft for her first novel, Silk Bondage (4080).
Silk Bondage suffers from first novel syndrome, sadly. Way too much angst and not enough sex. For my money, Web of Desire (4081) was her first true hit.
I love this book, but Miss Webweaver, puh-lease, what is up with your cover artist? Start with those silk sheets. Girl, it looks like your red-kneed hobag of a heroine has just worked her way through the entire South Underland Males’ Varsity Yabbaball Team on those very sheets. My advice? Find a good dry cleaner.
And those little black balls. Are those . . . no, please don’t tell me those are thought bubbles. Your heroine apparently fantasizes about beady-eyed males with Fu Manchu pedipalps. And where are the rest of his legs? Good God, girl, have you been snacking?
I have only one word to say about the male on the cover of Bronwyn’s next book:
HAWT.
Take me, take me now, you great savage wonderful hairy bastard you. Burn me with those Palps of Fire. I promise I won’t even snark on that weird-ass floral arrangement you have on the left margin — what is that, Baby’s Breath? — okay, I said I wouldn’t snark. But gaaawd look at those stout glorious pedipalps. You know they don’t make pedipalps that big in nature, so what is this, some sort of cruel photoshopping stunt? Cover artists are mean bitches, I tell ya.
Only one problem. He’s a little too perfect. He’s like, “Look at me, God’s gift to females. You’d be lucky to come within a mile of my sperm web,” and I’d be like, “Dude, if you don’t get over yourself, I’m going to fix those two buttonholes on your thorax,” and he’ll be all, “I don’t have two buttonholes,” and then WHAM! I’d be all, “You do now, dude.”
Um, Doug? Don’t let Lord Valor read those last two paragraphs. He can be awfully possessive.
And now, on to my favorite Bronwyn Webweaver novel:
“I salivated for days!” says Emma Longfang of the Silken Times. Yeah, you would, Emma. You haven’t tasted male-meat in decades, you desiccated skank hobag. (That’ll teach you to snark on my abdominal hair condition on network TV, bitch.)
Damn, she pisses me off. Such a perfect cover, and Emma “Drool Problem” Longass has to ruin it with her stupid witticisms — not. Grrrr.
Okay. Take a deep breath, clear head, concentrate on Sex at Seven, Dinner at Eight. Aaah.
Everything about this book is perfect. Start with the title: why not treat copulatory arachnicide with honesty and a sense of fun? Girls, be honest: who among you hasn’t sucked dry your share of males? The one who says no, she’s an anorexic. You humans aren’t so different than us.
Then there’s that dude on the table. Man, they don’t get more dashing than that. Yeah, he looks like he’s about ready to dash clean off the table before I get my chance to pounce. And the way he’s holding his forelegs, he almost looks intelligent, don’t ya think? Sure, it’s not realistic, since most of our males can’t be trusted to dig a tunnel without burying themselves alive. But a girl can dream.
He sure is one handsome bad-ass brute. Only thing I don’t like about it is the wine glass. If I have to listen to one more “I don’t drink . . . wine” joke, I’m going to barf. And you wouldn’t like me when I barf.
As for the story, here’s the deal. Bawb is a handsome young home-spinner who gets drunk one night with his buddies. One of them, Dood, bets Bawb that he can’t survive six matings in a row with the ladies from the Girls Who Don’t Suck dating service. Bawb takes the bet, figuring he won’t mind too much if he loses since he’ll be dead. Little does he know that Dood has lined up his sister Scythee as Bawb’s last date. Scythee is legendary in their community; no male has ever survived her embrace. Will she be his last date, literally?
WARNING! SPOILERS!
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Bawb’s sister warns Bawb of Dood’s trickery and tells him to tell Scythee that he (Bawb) has a rare blood disease, making him unpalatable. The first five girls learn about Bawb’s supposed blood disease and they are righteously pissed that he didn’t warn them. Comical hijinks follow. Meanwhile, Scythee has little else to do but admire Bawb’s good looks, and, lo and behold, she falls in love with him. She saves Bawb from the other girls’ attacks.
Bawb desperately wants to inseminate Scythee, but Scythee is leery of the blood disease. Bawb gets his sister to explain everything. Scythee falls in love with Bawb’s sister. Together, they eat Bawb and then take a long vacation in the Crystal Caverns.
A Birthday Wish List: Part 1
Whenever my birthday draws near, I get contemplative. I like to think about what I’ve done with my life and what I still want to do. At the risk of being a downer, what if this next year is my last? What can I do in the next few months that will make my life more complete — or, for that matter, make a difference in the lives of the folks around me?
In some respects, this comes down to a list of wishes and unfulfilled dreams. While I believe we should all strive to fulfill our dreams, I’m also a realist. Sometimes our dreams are self-destructive or hurtful to the ones we love. Sometimes they’re damned expensive. Thus, we must temper our dreams with a dose of good old-fashioned common sense and practicality.
It is in this spirit that I tender for your consideration the first installment of my 44th Birthday Wish List.
#10: A Good Massage.
I hope you’re paying attention, Michelle, cuz I bet you give a damned good massage. And, no, I am not talking about ‘sensual massage.’ Once, when we were visiting Karen’s parents in Los Altos, I went to a local masseuse whose name I pulled from a phone book. I’m a shiatsu fan, so I picked a Japanese name out of The Book and crossed my fingers.
So, what do I get? Some old gal whose idea of massage is running her fingernails up and down the insides of my thighs. I wanted to tell her, Lady, if you’re trying to give me wood, get your granddaughter in here to take over, ‘kay? Instead, I suffered in silence and payed my $$, because I’m still self-hating enough to figure a woman deserves that kind of money just for touching my naked body.
As for my wife, any day now I expect her to kill me for the insurance money. And you know? She’ll deserve it, too.
What I dream of: a half hour in a hot tub followed by a skillful two hour massage.
What I’ll be satisfied with: if I rub my back with chicken fat, our cats will walk all over me and give me a good licking.
#9: Dinner at Hoppe’s.
Picture this: it’s 1996. Jake is eight months old and he has already hit the terrible twos. I’ve just finished my remedial year *cough cough* my year as faculty at USC, and I have some down time before San Antonio expects me to show up and, um, be a doctor or something.
Karen and I decide to have one last fling on the California Coast (thank heavens we were wrong about that!) so we drive up north with our screaming, why can’t you understand I am the alpha and the omega, eight-month-old son. We have clams and lobster at a superb seafood joint on the Ventura Pier — which, sadly, has since washed away — and great grub at The Palace Cafe in Santa Barbara. Onward up the coast, until at last we come to Cambria, Morro Bay, and Cayucos.
We have a price fixe dinner at Hoppe’s in Morro Bay. Jake is in fine form; the only thing that will quiet him is constant stroller-strolling. Karen and I take turns eating and pram-pushing, and we both manage to eat a dinner that’s not quite hot and not quite cold.
Guess what? Even given those less than ideal circumstances, we agree to this day that our dinner at Hoppe’s was the best eats we’ve ever had, ever. Perfect food, from the salad to the vegetable garnish.
What I dream of: a quiet, romantic dinner with Karen at Hoppe’s. Jake can eat a burrito.
What I’ll be satisfied with: we had not-half-bad sushi tonight at the NWTEC Internet Cafe.
#8: The best birthday cake in the whole, wide world.
Which requires, natch, a Tahitian virgin.
What I’ll be satisfied with: a forkful of Bailey’s Irish Cream cheesecake from the NWTEC Internet Cafe.
D.
Sex Ed, self-taught
I was never what you would call slow. Dense, maybe, but not slow. I chased girls at two, stole kisses at five, and copped feels at eight. Despite my forwardness, I didn’t understand what it was all about until high school.
At three, I asked my mother where I came from. “Ask your father,” she said.
My father has never been one to lie, but he’s never been a talkative cuss, either. When I asked him, he pointed to my mother’s middle and said, “From there.”
Huh? From her belly?
Back to my early misconceptions in a moment. My Dad never sat me down for the Big Talk. Instead, when I was eight, he took me to the library and pointed me in the right direction. I checked out David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* with my father’s blessing.
The trouble with this book: it assumes its reader has a decent fund of sexual knowledge to begin with. In those days, you couldn’t find words like cunnilingus and fellatio in the dictionary (not our dictionary back home, anyway!) Masturbation sounded like a worthwhile avocation, but damned if I could figure out how I was supposed to do it. As for cunnilingus, I only knew about one hole Down There, and it baffled me why anyone would want to get his tongue anywhere near it. (In my ignorance of the vagina, I had discovered the rim job.)
Some time in junior high, I learned about vaginas. No pictures, mind you. I gleaned additional useful information from Xaviera Hollander‘s book Xaviera! (sequel to The Happy Hooker). My sexual education would have been complete if Xaviera! had had pictures.
Somewhere along the way, I acquired some very romantic notions about sex. Intercourse would have to be with a girl I loved. We would spend all night together and wake up in each other’s arms. I also vowed that I would not see my first vagina in a nudie magazine (we’re not talking bush, by the way — I’d seen that in the movies when I was five). Rather, I would see my first vagina in the, erm, flesh.
Stubborn as I was (I made good on those promises), I refused all opportunities to examine hard core smut magazines. Still, I was curious as hell. This led to some uniquely twisted dreams.
You women, you don’t know how lucky you are. You’re surrounded by phallic images. You probably learned to recognize a penis before you ever examined your own package with a mirror. I’ll bet you never had a nightmare wherein you pulled down a man’s pants and discovered . . . fill in the blank.
Among other things, I dreamed of broken lightbulbs, sliced watermelon, pigeons. A baseball. Or maybe it was a softball.
Back to three-year-old me. My Dad has just pointed to my Mom’s belly. “From there.”
“From there? From where?”
“Down there.”
“From her belly?”
“Yeah,” he said. “From her belly.”
“But there’s no hole there.”
“Sure there is.”
So I racked my teensy brains. What hole? The only hole I knew about was the belly button hole. I’d discovered it not long before, and found out I could seriously tweak my parents by coloring in my belly button hole with a ballpoint pen. My father even tried to spank me for it, and stopped because I kept laughing. He dubbed me “Iron Ass” after that.
The belly button hole? I had to protest my disbelief.
“But it’s too small!”
“It gets bigger,” he said, and left it at that.
At last, I knew where babies came from.
*But your father wouldn’t tell you.
Intelligent design meets the Hanukkah lobster
Poor Mrs. Heimburger. What do you do when the smallest first grader in your class has the biggest mouth? She couldn’t get it through my skull that she had twenty-three other kids to watch over (yeah, class sizes were that small back then). God bless her, she tried her best to let me be me: the constant center of attention.
Come Christmas time, my big mouth got me into trouble. I told Mrs. Heimburger I was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas. She invited me to the front of the class to tell everyone the story of Hanukkah.
Uh-oh. I didn’t know jack about Judaism, but she didn’t know that.
Like Odysseus, I was a man (well — kid) who was never at a loss. I took the front of the classroom and for the next several minutes held forth on the miracle of the Hanukkah lobster. (That’s not a mound of spinach on his head; it’s a yarmulkeh.)
When those kids eventually learned the story of Hanukkah, they must have realized I was talking out of my ass. I like to think I helped foster a healthy degree of skepticism in each and every one of them.
That’s why we should be teaching “intelligent design” in our schools. If we only teach the truth, how will kids ever recognize the lies? Worse still, they’ll never perceive the lies which are commonly taught in the American classroom, such as: the Californian Missions helped Native Americans; Manifest Destiny was a good thing; the Civil War was fought to free the slaves.
Here’s an idea: let’s teach critical thinking skills to our kids. And let’s begin by teaching them the difference between tenets of faith and scientific hypotheses. Let’s give them the tools they need to see “intelligent design” for what it is: a flabby attempt to dress up religious belief in scientific clothing.
Class motto: Doubt Everything.
Class mascot: the Hanukkah lobster.
D.
PS: I’m not the only person who wants his crazed beliefs taught in the classroom. Thanks to Kate Rothwell’s blog for pointing to the Flying Spaghetti Monster website. And this bloke is way ahead of me in marketing: check out his Cafe Press line of products, too.
The Dream Team
Hellraiser: The Meaning of Fear
Cast, from left to right: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld.
Not pictured: Karl Rove
D.