Out With the Old, In With the New

(An open letter of gratification/ love note for our newest villain-crush)

With all the Hope and Change floating around in the air these days it's easy to forget that we have recently lost some major players in the Darth Vader sweepstakes for the most dastardly dudes in the galaxy. It's hard to nominate any one member of the former Bush administration, so we'll give the whole lot of them the evil-doing title of, well, The Bush Administration (say it out loud... gives you the willies, doesn't it?) and lump them all in as a single entity on par with the Legion of Doom, Hell's Angels or Satan's Minions (formerly known as the Backstreet Boys, and currently incarnated as the cast of High School Musical). Sayonara, sadists. Enjoy your time guest-hosting for Rush Limbaugh.

It is, however, no secret here in the unread digital dominion that is Bigmouth that your narrator has had a secret bunker of affection in his heart for the one and only Mr. Dick Cheney 

(quite possibly Vader himself, without the "Return of the Jedi" redemption wuss-out), who recently sealed his evil-incarnate role in American history by showing up to Obama's Inauguration in a wheelchair like some James Bond villain about to reveal the contents of his underwater lair (take note, Mr. Biden). So while we bid adieu to Dick and his Penguin-esque profile, we have been privileged to say hello to our newest Gotham gargoyle (hey, there's a reason they shot "The Dark Knight" in Chicago). Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Rod Blagojevich!

Let's review: Rod got himself square in the middle of an FBI investigation when he was caught on tape trying to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. Bold? Certainly! But Rod was just getting warmed up. Not content to merely be one of the more crooked politicians in Chicago ( where they invented the word and served it up with a side of bratwurst and Old Style over 100 years ago), which would be a feat unto itself, Rod decided to crank it up about 1,000 more notches. Some notable excerpts: When the Feds showed up at his door, he thought some one was "Punking" him... he explained that all the cussing on the tapes was fine because he "wasn't talking to a woman"... the thought occurred to him that if he couldn't find someone to pay him for the seat he might just appoint himself, or OPRAH(?!?)... and he did all of this while rocking some kind of Burt Reynolds -meets -Donald Trump -in -a-static- storm hairstyle that would make Don King start wearing a beanie. Somewhere in Wasilla, Sarah Palin is neglecting her grandmotherly duties, taking notes, and repeating the phrase, "Palin/ Blagojevich" to see if it's got a 2012 ring to it.

And just when we started spelling his name right in Google search (is it coincidental that it bears a visual resemblance to Iago, one of Shakespeare's best villains? No? Too literary for ya? Anyone?) he found another notch on the scale, put on some Soulja Boy and yelled "Crank Dat!" once more. Launching a media blitz bizarre enough to make Mike Tyson scratch is tattooed head, while his IMPEACHMENT TRIAL was underway, Rowdy Rod booked himself on every show imaginable, including... wait for it... THE VIEW!!! And once he got his Lego hair onto the couch of that chicken coop he delivered a slew of batshit-crazy sound bites sure to make the collective heads of the "Daily Show" staff simply implode. No jokes neccesary people, just sit back and enjoy the narcisism! References included The Bible, Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and my personal favorite, a mantra containing the phrase "The fix is in." Pure, delicious, evil genius.

And so, Rod was thrown out of the governor's office while in the midst of an interview with Geraldo in some parking lot, and his saga was laid to rest. But what a bright burning star you are, Mr. Blagojevich! Nelson Mandela may be outraged, and Ghandi may be rolling over in his grave, but somewhere Dick and Kim Jong-Il are drinking mai tais, bitching about "Frost/Nixon", and saluting you sir.

If a Blog Posts in the Forrest...

(A rumination, in celebration of the illumination of a cyber-spacial birthday candle)

So, Bigmouth Strikes Again is officially a year old, and no one cares because nobody reads this thing. But before you (and by that, we mean our afore-mentioned fictional audience)  assign us a Kanye-complex, give us a nanosecond to explain our position on the matter:

WE LOVE IT.

We (or I, or your Narrator... what are you a private eye or something?) absolutely adore the fact that no one reads this blog. There is something quite satisfying in the idea of being a digital bullhorn barking at nothing more than a crowd of 0's and 1's. Because if a tree that falls unheard in the forrest makes no sound, then a blog that has no readership is perhaps not really even a blog. Which is fantastic.

It is in fact, a blog birthday wish come true, and we have no one to thank but the millions (okay, realistically probably hundreds... allow us a little hyperbole, it's our birthday!) of intrepid inter-webbers who simply don't show up here. 

Blogs are ubiquitous now, and everyone from neo-narcissists like Kanye West and Ryan Adams to super-serious-ists like Anderson Cooper feels the need to chime in or post about everything. In fact, most blogs now are just re-treads of posts from OTHER blogs, which are themselves re-writes from ACTUAL news outlets, most of whom have cribbed their stories from OTHER news outlets. It's re-diculous. Posting a picture of the new Nike Air Whatzit from Hypebeast and then adding the word, "Wow!!!!" or some txt variant with no vowels does not a great post make, people. Nor does adding all the same photos you have on your Facebook, Myspace (that still exists, right? Myspace?) or Flickr pages make you some kind of breakthrough presence on the web. Odds are you're not even a breakthrough presence in your own photos.

Which brings us back to Bigmouth (note the, ahem, no photo policy at work here). We are none of these things, and will continue our anti-existence here in our little rant-filled cyber-vacuum as long as we can hack it ( and we stress the hack part of that). So until next time, dear non-existent readers, stay frosty out there in cyberspace, and keep on keeping on ignoring us.

Celebcenter Part 3: (Long Overdue) Morning Edition

(A Revelation Regarding the Sporting World's Relation to the World in Actuality)

Dear Bigmouth Readers ( supposing you A) actually exist, and B) still exist, given our recent unintentional hiatus),

Turns out a lot can happen in 2 months, eh? We could review the litany of catastrophic events cascading down the newswire into the digital puddle that is your idiot box, but it gets awfully depressing incredibly fast. So let's try the shorthand edition: The sky was falling, and fast, until last Tuesday, when we woke up out of our 8-year coma and elected a smart guy with big ears and a funny name. Now most of the world likes us again (European Vacation, anyone?) and the planet may actually continue existing long enough for us to amend the Constitution and elect Schwarzenegger president in 2016 (laugh now, girlie men, but you know it's gonna happen).

So pardon your nascent narrator for abandoning his previous post-a-thon concerning the over-publicized and underwhelming Mr. Favre, but sports have looked about as small as Ralph Nader's chances last Tuesday in the grand scheme of things.

Which, if you think about it, is about right. Reflecting on how my habitual consumption and tracking of daily scores and highlights was quickly replaced by poll numbers and political punditry, I realized something quite profound. It's something that is quite frankly, fairly sacrilegious for a life-long sports fan to admit, but is true nevertheless: Sports and athletes are for men what tabloids and celebrities are for women. It's a nice distraction, a vicarious involvement, a guilty pleasure amidst the gruel and the grind of your daily dullness. And that's all.

So with that admission in the can, I think I speak for all of fan-dom, couch-dom and any other-dom that applies when I ask for a simple favor. Please don't treat our sports news and favorite players like they're bisexual b-list actresses out on an SUV-wrecking coke binge. Yes, it serves the same purpose at the end of the day, but lie to us, would you please? If we wanted to see athletes vamping around with celebrities, we would watch "Dancing with the Stars" willingly instead of pretending that our wives or girlfriends make us do it.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Celebcenter Part 2: Evening Edition

(A Casual Look Into a Personal Hell of the Sporting Variety)

"ESPN has just learned that Brett Favre's feelings, according to Brett Favre, are extremely hurt." "Yahoo Sports has now confirmed that not only are Brett Favre's feelings hurt, but that the hurting of those feelings has caused a slight rift in the space time continuum that may not be conveniently repaired anytime soon." "If you've got a conspiracy theory about Favre leaving the Packers, a poorly-worded and ill-thought out comment about how professional athletes are different from losers who call sports talk radio shows, or simply a homoerotic and unhealthy affinity for Brett Favre in general, we'll be taking your telephone calls for the next nine hours."

And so it went. On, and on, and further on... and interminably on for hours, days and weeks. On the radio. On Sportscenter. And the intra-nets. Nothing but minute-by-minute, feeling-by-feeling reports and speculation about whether or not a guy who played for 17 years and then retired was actually (COLLECTIVE AUDIBLE GASP!), possibly, going to come back (VISIBLE SHOCK AND PALPABLE AWE!) to play an 18th season. BUT WAIT! There's more. Since he retired his old team got a new quarterback (THE AUDACITY!) and then informed him that he may not be welcome back (WHAT HORROR!). Oh, and did we mention that this had happened at the end of every one of the last four seasons before (SURELY YOU JEST!)?

It is often said that the definition of mental illness is performing the same task over and over but expecting different results every time. If that theory is as true as it sounds, then trying to go about my business as a normal sports enthusiast seeking scores, highlights and analysis while this debacle hijacked all of the normal outlets for such information has been like watching your best friend turn into Hannibal Lector over the course of a week and some change. How do you go from grilling a steak on Monday to pairing brains and chianti by Sunday brunch? 

How is it news that a narcissistic gazillionaire athlete thought that the world still revolved around the whims and wishes of the brain inside his battered helmet? Who cares that a bunch of middle-aged and overweight Lost Boy fans still pathetically live their lives through the aforementioned player, who interestingly enough, doesn't give two shovel passes about them because, well, they're not him? And where the hell is the Dodger score?!?! The answer, my friends, was blowing in the multi-medium wind: Sports, however near and dear to our hearts they might be, have become just another limb in the eight-tentacled shock-topus we call entertainment.

Celebcenter

(A Bigmouth Special Report/ Scinitllating Sociological Discussion in Three Parts)

One would think that these last dog days of summer would be spent in a kind of carefree, heat- induced haze; Youtubing the rapids of boredom at work, lethargically lamping at a bro-tastic bbq, or simply stone cold chillin' like a polar bear in a popsicle factory. Oh, what a glorious existence that would be, were it indeed the truth.

Instead, I have spent the last two and half weeks in a constant state of perpetual paranoia and fear, incessantly stalked by a man I have never met, but who nevertheless haunts my dreams and frequents the very institutions I hold so dear.

This man has, in all reasonable respects of reality, absolutely no idea that the shadowy world I now call home is the result of his recent actions. And to be fair, it's really not his fault that I now cower under the eerie glare of my flatscreen and shiver at the sound of every audible radio frequency. But that man's existence is responsible for my now fractured one, and he and the minions that follow him must be stopped, at all costs.

The man's name? Brett Favre. His crime? Retiring prematurely and then coming back. The result of this seemingly pedestrian change of mind? An all out Great White Media Feeding Frenzy that has hijacked all sports news outlets in a kind of twisted convergence of football, celebrity, and the insanity of a collective consciousness that thinks noise is a synonym for news.
The impact on the perpetually ponderous persona that is your dear narrator? A catastrophe worthy of a three part post-a-palooza, with sociological scintillation to spare.

The Things That Hate Us: Airports!

(Oh, Snap... It's Another Fresh New Feature)

As evidenced by a past post in which I declared my twisted yet oh-so-logical (by my, ahem, "standards" anyway) love for our President of Vices Dick Cheney, I'm a bit of a contrarian when it comes to those special places, people and events that bring a smile to my scruffy face. To get very vague and unspecific, the general principles of grand institutions like chaos, bullshit, and anything in the absurd category get me pretty geeked. And if I get to be geeked while other people are doing the exact opposite, i.e. freaking out, melting down or just plain losing it, then I'm more juiced than Barry Bonds at a smoothie stand. So in the interest of saluting the strange proclivities that staple together your narrator's psyche AND serving up a spanking new entree for Bigmouth Enterprises, we proudly present the first edition of The Things That Hate Us (Or, The Strange Happiness Provided By Supposedly Detestable Entities). First on the list (and in list form, no less): Airports!

1. People Say: "There's so much traffic at the airport."
I Say: "I hope I get to see an altercation between an SUV driver and a traffic cop in a neon
vest."

2. People Say: "The security lines are so long."
I Say: "I can't wait for the speech about the proper techniques for removing your shoes,
followed by the poster that demonstrates that time bombs are not allowed."

3. People Say: "It's such a pain to remove your shoes."
I Say: "Have you ever seen a businessman undress and then re-dress in front of
100 strangers and a sassy black lady with rubber gloves on? Hilarious!"
Or: "Ooh, they're searching one of those elderly terrorists in a wheelchair again."

4. People Say: "My flight's always delayed."
I Say: "There's a bar!"

5. People Say: "There's never any seats at the gate."
I Say: "There's a bar!"

6. People Say: "Everything is so expensive."
I Say: "$15 dollars for a McGriddle? Hooray for capitalism!"

7. Guys Say: "What's with all the gay flight attendants now?"
I Say: "Why yes, I'd love some extra peanuts."

8. Girls Say: "Airplane food is gross."
I Say: "I'm pretty full... I just ate 13 bags of peanuts."

9. Kids Say: "My ears get plugged on the plane."
I Say: "I don't have to listen to the salesman next to me OR the pilot's garbled geography
lesson, cuz I can't hear a damn thing."

10. People Say: "It takes forever for my bags to show up."
I Say: "Dammit, why'd I eat all those peanuts! At least I've got time to buy a
$27 bottle of Immodium before my bags show up."

The Quote Jumble: Iowa Edition

(The Triumphant Return of a Now Possibly Recurring Feature)

Nothing causes a stir more than a weekend spent out of town at a wedding. Co-workers and friends cannot wait to pump you for information; uninvited family members clamor for every last matrimonial detail. Throw a little geographical curveball into the mix (like say, a recently flooded destination located in a very rural, very middle part of the country), and now you've got iPhone- style lines around your block eagerly awaiting your strange tales of cultural clashes and outsider observations. Well have no fear, ferocious Bigmouth enthusiasts, for the occasion of said wedding is also the second edition of our celebration of de-textualized source quotes. Who's ready to jumble?

"Has anyone seen my garment bag?" "It's bloody mary time." "He's never been on a flight that didn't end in a tropical destination." "I'd like another glass, just ice please." "How did you know it was Puddle of Mudd?" "Some guy's in there, with his shirt off." "Gimme a break, I've got a head full of cold medicine!" "Looks like I've got some catching up to do." "I don't see why not, I had four back there last night." "You got your corn on the left, beans on the right." "And that's pretty much when I lost the will to live." "He's probably grillin on my Weber right now." "We gotta go Old Style." "I don't like needles, so I got up into my fightin stance." "Well Woody's and the Lumberyard are back there by the airport." "I ordered a scotch and she gave me Jim Beam." "We don't have a taxi service." "Sir, you can't just sleep in the hallway." "Same clothes as last night... nice!" "Is this the entertainment we ordered?" "By the way, I wouldn't order the orange juice." "Which one of you has the filthy mouth?" "Is that the treehouse you used?" "Dude, we're in Iowa... pick a cornfield and go for it." "We couldn't be farther away if we'd been dropped from Sputnik." "I have six more in the back who've come here looking for wives." "I love Target!" "I think the wine is starting to take hold." "I don't think so... your mom's kind of a deal breaker." "Oh so YOU'RE the corrections officer." "I'd give it a 6.5." "I'm gonna need you to do that at least two more times." "If you're gonna be drinking back there, I'm probably not gonna stop ya." "Hey, cool it alright?" "The only word better than cousin is co-worker." "How dare you question Larry!" "Nothing's gonna happen! We're in Iowa!" "I'm pretty sure there's an ax-wielding psycho out there somewhere." "This is a lot more Children of the Corn than Field of Dreams." "He's gonna orbit her like a satellite." "Oh, so he raised her as his own?" "Thanks for setting the bar so low this trip." "This is the wrong gate."

And there you have it. All of the story, and yet none of the bug bites. A more compelling picture couldn't be painted, unless you slugged some Absinthe and took a knife to the ear. Thanks again, jumble.