Remember This?

I wonder where Rap Cat is now. Probably in a shoebox in some Checkers employee’s basement.

Grand Theft Auto IV Haiku

It’s so realistic
crime’s up eighty percent, bro
and I just got shot.

Crazy Ass Dreams: Dead Kennedys Reunion w/ Jello

Before I went to bed last night, I watched this Youtube clip of the Dead Kennedys playing “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” at some rowdy punk rock show in the 1980s. Not surprisingly, this lead to a bizarre, DK-related dream when I finally hit the hay.

In my strange vision, Jello and the other DKs had finally put aside their differences and decided to reunite for one final rabble-rousing tour. I went to go see them at some Coachella-type festival, where they refused to play on the main stage. Instead, the Kennedys set up on the ground directly in front of it, insuring no one beyond the front row would see them.

Jello and the boys started playing and the place went pretty nuts. After a couple songs, they whipped out a brand new one, the exact name of which escapes me. I know the joke was the chorus sounded like they were calling for the release of a person who was falsely imprisoned, like, “Free So-and-So!” However, the name they chose was slang for money. As he sang the chorus, Jello pulled wads of cash out of a small sack and threw them into the crowd.

This struck me as kind of weird. Didn’t the Joker do that in the first Batman movie? Somehow I managed to steal the bag of money away from Jello. I ended up going to the nearest mall and throwing the majority of the cash behind the counter of the Sears customer service desk. A nearby clerk looked at me like I was insane.

Immediately following this scenario, I woke up.

Sharky, The Most Popular Dead Dolphin On The Internet

Get ready for a bombshell: JG2Land normally doesn’t get a whole lot of visitors.

According to the WordPress Statistics Machine, on any given day somewhere between six and eighteen people surf on in to see what I’m up to. That’s no big deal. To paraphrase the guy in that old wine commercial, I’m only doing this blog to please one person: me. I am my own biggest fan. If I don’t stop hanging around my own house waiting to catch a glimpse of me, I’m going to have to call the cops on myself.

You can imagine my surprise when I logged in yesterday after the Sharky the Dolphin obituary went up and saw that upwards of ninety people had stopped by JG2Land. The aforementioned WordPress Statistics Machine (hereby referred to as the WSM) confirmed that the majority of these visitors were searching for any news they could get regarding Sharky’s untimely death. Talk about one popular dolphin. Sharky makes Flipper look like a completely obscure asshole!

So far today, the WSM shows 117 people have strode through the virtual gates of my literary amusement park, most of them still on the hunt for Sharky facts, figures, and funeral plans. That’s really something.

I have to question the WSM, though, as I tried Googling “Sharky the Dolphin” myself and the original JG2Land Sharky entry did not come up on the first six pages of search results. Are all these visitors using Dogpile or some other outmoded search engine? I demand a more specific breakdown of who these people are, where they come from, and what the deal is with airplane peanuts.

One Sharky enthusiast named Sally was nice enough to leave a comment informing me that Sharky was a girl. Thanks, Sally, but Shamu’s the one you should be telling. He/She/It’s under the impression Sharky was all man. Oh, and I deleted your comment because you left it in the “About Me” section. That space is reserved solely for comments about how awesome I am.

I guess it’s safe to assume all famous animals are actually female. Lassie, Spuds MacKenzie, Garfield, the Ultimate Warrior, Star Jones – they’re all womenfolk. Show me a famous critter with a wang and I’ll have you arrested for peddling varmint porn.

I’d like to thank the Sharky Nation for stopping by. Unfortunately, I can offer nothing more than my condolences and a few corny jokes. Hopefully your pal Sharky is enjoying his new home in the clouds with Albert Einstein and Jonathan Brandis. Peace be with you, dolphin.

Crazy Ass Dream: Curly Audition

Last night I had a dream in which I learned I was the fifth best Curly Howard impersonator in the country. So renowned was my Curly, apparently, that I was asked by the producers of the forthcoming Three Stooges movie to come audition for the role of everyone’s favorite bald wise-ass. I agreed, and I soon learned the auditions were being held at my old high school.

For some reason, I brought a giant backpack, the kind you might take on a camping trip or an expedition to the top of Mount Everest. I arrived at my old high school to find it had become not unlike the alternate 1985 Marty accidentally creates in Back to the Future 2. It was super scuzzy with lots of sketchy characters hanging around. The audition room was number 985 or 986. I had no idea where that was.

After a few minutes of aimless wandering, I came upon an information desk helmed by three teenagers who were absolutely no help at all. They became irate when I walked away, but not irate enough to chase me down or throw anything. I found an escalator nearby and it took me up to the 900 block of rooms. Talk about luck. I located the Curly audition room, which I could see had a great number of bald men inside hoping for their shot at fame.

Joe Pesci greeted me at the door as if he knew me. I asked him if Moe would be female in this new movie. He confirmed that fact. I went inside and immediately woke up.

Sharky the Dolphin: 1978-2008

Sharky, a thirty year old dolphin best known for entertaining hordes of tourists at Sea World Orlando, died Saturday after colliding with another dolphin during an aerial stunt. Sea World spokeswoman Becca Bides was quoted as saying, “This is an unfortunate, random incident.”

Tyler, the other dolphin involved in this tragic accident, was visibly shaken upon learning the news of his partner’s death. He canceled the rest of his performances for Saturday and retreated to his dressing room, where loud rock music could be heard just barely covering up uncontrollable dolphin sobs.

Shamu, Sea World’s star killer whale, remarked to reporters this morning, “You know, I may be like the fifteenth Shamu, but this is just fucked up. You never want anyone to die here. Well, except maybe that new guy they’ve got playing Sir Winston Walrus. That guy’s a straight-up prick. Anyway, Sharky was my boy. I’ll miss him.”

No one had Sharky in the death pool. Scores remain unchanged.

P.S. – To sum up the lengthy rant I originally posted here, just how “random” is it that two dolphins at Sea World accidentally collided? The tanks they perform in aren’t very big, and they swim and jump around in them all damn day. It seems like inadvertent dolphin collisions should happen a lot more often. Kudos to all the dolphins at Sea World who manage not to slam into each other.

P.P.S. – It just dawned on me that this deceased dolphin’s name was Sharky. That’s like having a cat named Puppy.

Kenneth Keith Kallenbach: 1967-2008

Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, the long-haired weirdo “comedian” best known for being a member of Howard Stern’s Wack Pack, has died after a bout with pneumonia. He was 39.

Kallenbach contracted his deadly ailment while in custody on an attempted child abduction charge in Pennsylvania. His mother, Fay, is blaming Delaware County jail officials for not properly taking care of her son, who suffered from cystic fibrosis. Prison officials have responded by saying they’re “shocked” by Fay Kallenbach’s accusations, claiming she had previously thanked them for the care they were providing for Kenneth.

Kenneth Keith, whose signature bit was attempting to blow cigarette smoke out of his eyeballs, never achieved the fame and prestige other Stern Wack Packers saw. That’s most likely due to the fact he was a fairly normal dude. He wasn’t an alcoholic dwarf or an alcoholic giant or an alcoholic clown; Ken was just a regular, run-of-the-mill loser who thought he had some great talent.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we ever actually saw smoke come out of his eye sockets. We most assuredly did see him vomit during one failed attempt, though.

You know, I have a roommate named Ken, and lately I have been referring to him as Kenneth Keith Kallenbach (and I’m pretty sure he has no idea what I’m talking about). That’s a little weird. Do you think if I start calling someone else I live with Angry Black, Angry Black will die? I hope not. That’s a power and responsibility I don’t want to have.

Oh, I almost forgot: no one had Kenneth Keith in the death pool. The score remains unchanged.

Kings Of Rock

My complimentary copy of Kings Of Rock, the Gluecifer best of/rarities collection, finally arrived the other day. It was delivered by Odin himself, who took the form of my perpetually hungover, homosexual Mexican landlord. I thanked the powerful Norse God by promising a blót in his honor, but he just rolled his eyes and walked away muttering something in Spanish.

One of my goals when I decided to get into this writing thing for real was to someday pen the liner notes for some really awesome band’s greatest hits CD. That I achieved this goal so early in my career is sort of mind-boggling. I mean, this kind of thing is usually reserved for established “names,” right? Who am I? I’m not David Fricke or Kurt Loder or anybody. I’m the complete yutz who couldn’t even get a book about Star Wars published.*

I feared Kings Of Rock would completely fall through somehow, like the CD would get canceled or the members of Gluecifer wouldn’t like what I wrote and go with another scribe. I’d be the Pete Best of Norwegian rock band liner notes. That sad fact would drive me to become the hopeless alcoholic I always knew I could be. I’d die penniless, alone, and reeking of the cheapest liquors on the market. They’d toss my body into the East River and call it an art installation. It would be a sickening end to a sad life.

But lo, Kings Of Rock came to pass. There’s what I wrote four or five months ago, splashed across a few small glossy pages with a handful of photos for accent. They (Gluecifer & Epic/Sony) did an awesome job putting this set together. The black and gold color scheme is classy as hell. Truly regal.

The song selection? Ace. The twenty tunes on the first disc are without question the best twenty in the Gluecifer catalog. Not a damn clunker among them. The rarities disc is unfortunately a little bit shorter and omits a few true lost classics (no “Lard Ass Hagen?” WTF!!), but goddamn if the boys didn’t pull out some incredible shit I didn’t even know existed. “Plastic Hand” makes me want to wrestle an alligator while skydiving over Fort Knox with no parachute and a vial of nitroglycerin in my pocket. It’s just…that…good.

Yeah, I gotta say I’m flattered, honored, and extremely proud to be involved with Gluecifer’s Kings Of Rock. This is going to be the big brag until I get a book published or film some talking head crap for a goofy basic cable retrospective show. It sucks that this CD won’t be available outside Norway until the middle of Summer, but that should give you all the more reason to finally book that trip to Oslo you’ve been thinking about taking for some time now.

No? Oh, alright. I’ll just remind you when Kings Of Rock finally does land on the shores of all the countries not currently governed by Jens Stoltenberg. If you can’t wait that long, if you absolutely must have the Gluecifer greatest hits CD as soon as possible and you don’t have three grand to drop on a plane ticket, learn Norwegian and order it here.

Endless thanks to the guys in Gluecifer – Poon, Biff, Stu, Raldo, & Danny – for asking/allowing me to do this. You’ve saved me from decades of self-loathing and a Peppermint Schnapps-related death.

* I shall expand upon that hilarious and heartbreaking story another time.

Other Ridiculous Crap Wookieepedia Taught Me Today

- The Jawa who shot R2-D2 was named Datcha and was apparently well-known throughout the galaxy for “taunting a krayt dragon and living to tell the tale”

- C-3PO once lead a droid rebellion against Boonda the Hutt

- The guy who played Wedge in that once scene gets pissy if you call him “Fake Wedge” even though he willingly admits it was his own fault he got fired

- R2-D2 can breakdance

- Later in life, Zuckuss (the squid-looking mamajama from Empire Strikes Back) was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder

- R5-D4, the droid from the first movie with the bad motivator (who may or may not have been intentionally sabotaged by R2-D2), sometimes went by the name Skippy and may have possessed Jedi powers

- Admiral Ackbar eventually had a Star Destroyer named after him

- I don’t know as much about Star Wars as I thought I did

- I need a new job

A Real Conversation I Just Had

JP = John Piacquadio; ME = Me.

ME: Do you know how Chewbacca died?
JP: Nooooo, Chewbacca didn’t die!
ME: Yeah, in the Expanded Universe. Do you know how? Guess. What do you think killed Chewbacca?
JP: Ah…was it something he ate?
ME: [Laughing] No, it wasn’t something he ate.
JP: How’d he die?
ME: He was crushed to death by a moon.
JP: Ha! It took an entire dwarf planet to take him down!
ME: Yeah! He was rounding up Han Solo’s kids on some planet -
JP: [Laughing] Because he has so many of them!
ME: Well, two, at least. Anyway, Chewbacca’s trying to get them off the planet before this moon crashes into it, only he didn’t make it off the planet in time.
JP: Damn.
ME: Yeah.
JP: Did you hear about that bear from the Will Ferrell movie?
ME: …

For more on Chewbacca’s incredibly awesome death, read this.