Dear Fictional Characters, Don't Come Within 500 Feet Of Me.

Devra Bogangles and I have an extensive history of making lists that have no relevance to daily life, and discussing them for hours on end. During the summer of 2005, we were either watching House, MD or making up lists of Disney characters we would ravage. Last night, we decided to concoct our own lists of characters in movies, TV shows, books, songs, etc. who do not deserve to come anywhere near us, unless we voluntarily dissolve a court order.

Movies.
1. Stanley Kowalski (from A Streetcar Named Desire - movie version)

I want to make this abundantly clear from the get-go - he is sex. At least when Marlon Brando plays him. However, he's a crazy Polish rapist with an intense anger management problem. The court order would probably be irrelevent, because he seems like the kind of guy who was born to violate restraining orders, and would just walk into my apartment and do dirty things. It's a win-win situation.

2. The Bear (from Grizzly Man)

The chances of me actually going to an Alaskan animal refuge to pretend to be a bear among other orsines is just ludicrous, and that's probably the only way I would be in danger. However, if for some reason I DO decide to do something that crazy, I want a useless court document with me. I just realized he's not fictional. Oh well.

3. Gollum (from Lord of the Rings trilogy)

Let's look at the facts. He is a known stalker - he follows the Fellowship throughout most of the first movie and then skulks behind the hobbits at the beginning of the second after the said fellowship dissolves. He has no loyalty to anything, save a piece of jewelry. He eats raw fish. He's legitimately schizophrenic and has at least one death to his name, probably more, and has no moral qualms about doing it again. If Tolkien had had a court system in Middle-earth, this would have been its first priority - you know, after they took care of the intense evil in Mordor and that wizardy guy in Isengard.

4. Cal Hockley (from Titanic)

I would be pissed if a scrawny female-like creature stole Kate Winslet from me. I would also be pissed if Kate Winslet then spit in my face and said she would rather be the said creature's whore than my wife. It's very, very sad. However, Mr. Hockley is frighteningly possessive and likes to shoot his pistol at people while a boat is sinking.

5. Scar (from The Lion King)

Bottom line - cannot be trusted. I have said many times that Mufasa deserved to die in the end because his leadership abilities were not up to par. A great leader would have recognized the threat his brother posed to both himself and his son. Hell, Scar BROADCASTS the fact that he felt he should have been king. He also associated with hyenas and hired them as mercenaries. He's basically the Idi Amin of lions.

TV Shows.
1. Cody (from Step by Step)

I can't really tell if Cody is capable of violence or pure evil, but he's a habitual pot user and doesn't have a conception of boundaries. And although I haven't seen this show since the TGIF golden years, I recall that he was a 20-something unemployed loon who lived in a trailer in the backyard or something. People without money who barge into their wealthier neighbors' kitchens all the time are a COPS episode away from becoming registered sex offenders. How do you think Joey Buttafuoco got started?

2. Ryan O'Reily (from Oz)

This was a really hard decision, because EVERYONE on Oz deserves to be on this list, except for the guy in the wheelchair. However, Ryan O'Reily is the only one who (so far; I'm only on Season 3) has actually developed an unhealthy fixation on someone else. Alright, that's not true. There is more anal penetration on this show than in Andy Dick's house, but I don't get legit stalker vibes from those people - just sexually frustrated inmates letting off some steam. Ryan O'Reily has his retarded brother kill the husband of his doctor crush. Sickness.

3. Oliver Trask (from The O.C.)

I'm not sure this counts, because he may have actually gotten a restraining order on the show for being completely psychotic and pulling a gun on Marissa. But really, who DIDN'T want to aim a pistol at Marissa? What assures Oliver's place on the list is the fact that he's not only mentally unstable, but he KNOWS it, so he makes an extra effort to hide it and manipulate people. He also tried to kill Ryan with a golf cart.

4. Milhouse Van Houten (from The Simpsons)

There may be more dangerous characters in Springfield - Snakes the perpetual robber of the Quickie-Mart comes to mind, as do Mr. Burns, Barney and Maggie. However, Milhouse has some real issues. He clearly has a social disorder derived from intense inadequacy issues, and he's shown a queer obsession in multiple episodes with Lisa Simpson. It's always the little social misfits with thick glasses that end up terrorizing a quiet town later on in life.

5. Byron Sully (from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman)

Those hands have seen blood.
Sully was never portrayed in a negative light during the five years this show was on the air. However, there are a lot of extenuating circumstances that point to the potential for murder, stalking, indecent exposure, and animal mutilation. Number one, he was raised by a wild tribe of Indians in the Colorado wilderness - he doesn't live in civilization until he starts boning Dr. Quinn. He also has a weird bond with wild animals, one suggests because he himself is one. There is absolutely no reason for Sully to develop a legitimate loyalty to any non-dog on the show, and if Dr. Quinn had been on longer, he most assuredly would have butchered the entire family. Did I mention he knows how to throw a tomahawk?

Books.
1. Roger (from Lord of the Flies)

Before claiming that it was inevitable, that a group of boys living on an island without adults HAD to become a horde of barbarian murderers, let's remember who started that shit. Philip and Piggy got "it." They understand the importance of civilization and a structural system of governmentation - Roger understood that too, but only to the point where it benefited him and thrust him into power. I hold him personally responsible for the death of Piggy, the greatest character literature has ever known.

2. James Gatz/Jay Gatsby (from The Great Gatsby)

I think people tend to forget that, behind those amazing parties and debonair Roaring Twenties vibe, Gatsby was hardcore messed up. He had a sole fixation for years, accumulating massive amounts of wealth (illegally, I might add) to attract the attention of a girl he had been dating before being shipped off to war. So you've got a guy who FOLLOWED a girl to Long Island, who changed his name, who tries to break up a marriage, and has absolutely no conception of reality. Creepy.

3. Napoleon (from Animal Farm)

This book scared the living shizzle out of me. Evil people, I can deal with, but evil animals? Not so much. Maybe it's just that image at the end of the book where the piggies are dressed in human clothing and walking around on their hind legs that sends chills down my spine. If a pig dressed in breeches was chasing after me, I would literally die. I considered including Snowball in this entry, but Snowball was overthrown by Napoleon after teaching the other animals how to read and proposing the idea of building a windmill to ease the workload on the farm. I heart literate animals.

4. Boo Radley (from To Kill A Mockingbird)

I was really torn between Boo and Bob Ewell, who spits in Atticus' face and tries to kill Jem in the woods on Halloween. Mr. Ewell is an obvious physical threat, but it's such a blatant violence embedded in stupidity - as long as you didn't join the NAACP, he wasn't going to do anything to you. However, Boo is legitimately crazy. There's a reason why he never leaves his house, except to give creepy gifts to Scout in the tree. Lest we forget that he has a history of stabbing family members with scissors, and there's no evidence in any part of the book that they've fixed whatever's wrong with him, even if he does peacefully hold hands with Scout on the porch swing. For Christ sake, he was HIDING behind Jem's door when she found him.

5. Cathy/Kate (from East of Eden)

In the book, she's 10 times more evil. Steinbeck even insinuates that she's legitimately (I'm not sure how legitimate you can be about something like this) the Devil's spawn. She totally might be. I don't want the offspring of Satan anywhere near me. Among her many items of accomplishment, she drugs Adam Trask so she can sleep with his brother, shoots Adam Trask and leaves him to raise their children, bites Samuel like a rabid animal, and kills a madam, takes over her whore house and starts a business involving a razer and nethers.

Since I found this subject incredibly interesting, I polled the world about it and received some fascinating responses.

Morgan Grod: Lord Voldemort (from Harry Potter)
Ricky Raccoon: Oedipus (from Oedipus Rex)
Anthony Salazar: Hannibal Lecter (from Hannibal)
Maulik Sharma: He-Man
Inna Rudman: the guy who killed Patrick Swayze in Ghost (we do not know if she meant the actual guy or the one who orchestrated the murder so he could bonk Demi)
Nicole Thomas: the Mad Hatter (from Alice in Wonderland) and Sting (from "Every Breath You Take")
Ingrid Stenquist: Archie Andrews (from Archie comics)
Charlie Quiroz: Miss Jai Alexander (from America's Next Top Model)
Emily "Swooodog" Sworen: Pee-Wee Herman (from Pee-Wee's Playhouse)
Katie Coleman: an Oompa Loompa (from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
Laine Whitcomb: Uriah Heep (from David Copperfield)

Alana Gans, who found this question a little TOO fun, literally submitted a pile of Post-Its for her response. That's the sort of thing that makes me want to include her as an entry above, but she is not fictional. Besides, I actually think her choices are pretty good. They include:
Donnie Darko (from Donnie Darko)
The Shark (from Jaws)
Alex (from A Clockwork Orange)

If you feel the need to express your opinion on the matter, comment away.

If Sean Penn Hadn't Decided To Save Katrina Refugees By Piling Them All Into His Dinky Rowboat, I Would Vote For Him in a Lousiana Gubernatorial Race.

2.5 stars.
Oscar bait is a funny thing. At some point in the movie-making process, between the time when the idea of the movie is conceived and when it's actually released in theaters, someone decides that the material they're dealing with deserves recognition. It's a very presumptious action - the movie hasn't even been seen by anyone unconnected to the production. Often though, they get it right. They have a great idea, a great script, a great cast, and every element clicks and they release it in the late fall and get their accolades. However, sometimes it doesn't work out. Maybe what seemed to click on paper didn't click on film. Maybe the heralded actor didn't bring it this time. Whatever the reason, every year, you have a movie that screams, "I want an Oscar!" and it doesn't get it. Maybe it gets a nomination or two, but it's not the colossal Academy Award juggarnaut it thought it was.

Such is the case with "All the King's Men." They had an idea - remake a movie that won Best Picture over 50 years ago. It's material that has proven to be successful once before, so why not go for it again? The problem was that they got greedy. They were handed an award-winning concept on a silver platter, and they suddenly found themselves with a plethora of proven, capable actors and lost their way.

I have never seen the original movie or read the book. I'm sure they're both very good. The only thing that I had some idea about going into this movie was that it was based on the life of Huey Long, the corrupt Louisiana governor from earlier in the last century. Idealistic populists who slowly but surely sink into the pits of political corruption are fascinating characters, and the fictionalized version of Long in the guise of Willy Stark is no exception.

Why doesn't the movie want to focus on me?

I heart Sean Penn. I think he just secured himself another nomination and possible win with this. The only review I've read of this was a scathing, nasty critique by the New York Post, but I have no doubt that they won't be the last publication to claim Penn was "hamming it." Bull. It's an absolutely unfair dig to make, especially since the entire character is over the top and practically combusting with energy - hell, it's the qualities that get the guy elected in the first place. I have a not-so-sneaking suspicion that Sean Penn is a LOT like Willy Stark when he gets his own personally molded pulpit to preach from, but so what? Even in scenes where Stark is quietly fuming at the world, glaring at potential detracters and becoming increasingly eccentric and paranoid, it's the same energy he's delivering the stump speeches with all over again. However, Sean Penn is the only good thing in this movie. There really is nothing else to go see this for. The fatal flaw in this movie (and I could probably point to several) is that they decided to tell this story from the point of view of Jude Law's character, a wholly unimpressive beat reporter with a one-dimensional personality.

Tell me about it.

As an aside, and I know this is the definition of beating a dead horse, but when did everyone decide Jude Law was a legitimate actor? He's the male version of Jessica Alba, but for some reason, everyone wants to pretend that he's not or that he'll somehow develop an as-yet unseen acting ability if you keep giving him juicy parts. No. That's not how this works. If you had cast Jessica Alba as the lead in Titanic, the ship would have gone down days before it went near an iceberg. There isn't an ounce of talent in that girl, but the differentiator is that EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. She's not cast in movies because she's going to strengthen the acting - she's eye candy and nothing more, and I can't imagine that even she doesn't know that. And because of that universal knowledge, she gets handed roles in shit movies that don't rely on acting to make money, i.e., Sin City or Fantastic Four. In this way, Jessica Alba's inability to pretend to be someone not named Jessica Alba doesn't even have the CHANCE of infecting a potential Oscar-caliber movie. Not so with Jude, and that's what makes him so dangerous.

Insert joke about the dog being the better actor.

Jude Law's character gets entangled with Willie Stark while he's covering the story of his political ascent for the local newspaper. Through his eyes, we watch Stark rise from a complete unknown in a small town to a corrupt governor on the take. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to have Jude Law's character in this movie. None. You don't need him to tell this story. Stark's sheer presence automatically eliminates the need to have his rise and fall dictated by another character that's not as strong. To make matters worse, there's a ridiculous, needless subplot with Kate Winslet. Now, I love Kate. I can't think of anyone with a better fake American accent on the planet besides Hugh Laurie. But this is (or at least SHOULD) be a story about Willy Stark, not some ridiculous love interest that Jude Law had years before that does nothing but divert attention away from the plot at hand.

Eat your heart out, Jessica Alba.

Anthony Hopkins also made his way into this movie. The entire production is teaming with British actors playing Southerners. Unlike Kate and Jude, who has a sucky American accent but at least puts forth some semblance of effort, Hopkins apparently decided that he's such a Welsh badass that he doesn't even NEED the Southern accent. I suppose in the long run, accents in a movie aren't as important as the other elements, but come ON. You're playing the former governor of Louisiana. He doesn't have an English accent, regardless of whether you live in a stately mansion along the bayou.

I'm too important of an actor to ACT.

The only other character besides Willy Stark that was mildly interesting was Mark Ruffalo's character, the son of the former governor who's brought into some pseudo, for-the-public-good hospital operation so that Willy Stark can be associated with his famous father. It would have been yet another pointless extension of an already long movie, but at least with this guy, you can see a) a direct contrast to what Willy has become and that idealism that he left behind and b) an actual, personal victim of what Stark inflicts on the state. Do they follow up on that? Not really. He's barely in the movie, submerged by the needlessness that is Jude Law and a slew of actors who didn't need to be in this.

The bottom line is that this movie suffers when it doesn't have Sean Penn. Because of the infinite number of subplots that have no real bearing on his character, the audience doesn't get a real sense of HOW Willy Stark morphed into the cynical, influential bureaucrat. We see a few scenes of him as the idealistic, naive country hick who's taken advantage of by more experienced politicos, but then it just shoots ahead a few years and doesn't show us what happened. One suspects that Stark actually tried to accomplish something positive and noble when he first came into office, but we never see that. We never see what happens when Stark's first efforts as governor are stifled and he has to turn to nefarious schemes to get what he wants accomplished - we just hear second-person accounts by Jude Law, who almost literally was taking a fork and knife, cutting the scenery into little pieces and chewing on it. The world would benefit greatly if they ignored everything in this movie except what it should have been about.

The New Weenie Enema Mission.

About a year ago, Weenie Enema embarked on a largely successful sociological experiment involving adulterers. It was enormously popular, and though it's hard to deduce whether any legitimate conclusions were made based on our findings, a good time was had by all, except by the adulterer who Inna was assigned, who got scared when she started sending him emails about a rectal fetish. In the tradition of making Weenie Enema social experimentations an annual event, I am embarking on my most perilous mission to date - infiltrating the crazy liberal blogosphere.

As most loyalists are aware, I am a moderate Democrat with conservative sympathies. However, the only blogs I read are conservative because I can't stand how immature and vile most of the left-wing blogs are. Part of this, I suspect, is because liberals have had a reputation for decades of being more openminded than conservatives - history teaches us that Democratic administrations have orchestrated more changes involving free speech and minority rights. That's not necessarily inaccurate, but as a result, PC-eschewing conservatives have an automatic reputation for being, if not racists, at least people who aren't interested in helping the downtrodden. The world is free to disagree with my conclusion. At any rate, the majority of the conservative blogs that I have encountered (I'm not saying all of them abide by this unwritten rule) appear to make an extra effort at presenting civilized political discussions in an attempt to debunk those conceptions.

What I have observed is that if there is an issue of contention among either liberals or conservatives, the way it's presented in each respective blogosphere is very different. If Michelle Malkin devoted a post to, say, Hillary Clinton, a woman she clearly doesn't like in the least, she wouldn't ramble for paragraph after paragraph about what a giant cunt Hillary was - she would certainly make some negative comments about her, but would more than likely present, at the very least, a rational, coherent case that wasn't submerged with Emma-like vitriol. However, if someone at the Daily Kos wrote a post about a prominent Republican like Bill Frist, it would be an automatic excuse for a rampaging hoard of leftist commenters to start saying mouthdroppingly nasty things that would make me look downright respectful of other people.

Today's mission is simple. If I told an acquiantance that lefty commentators were much meaner and more disrespectful than conservative ones, no one would believe me. They would either automatically dismiss it, or would defend the attackers by saying that the Republican leadership is so horrible, it's warranted. This experiment is not about making a case for Bush being a noble leader of the free world, the next Hitler, or something in between. It's simply to show what happens when you make anti-Bush comments on a Website that not only doesn't agree with his policies, but thinks the man himself is pure evil. I have signed up for the discussion boards on the Democratic Underground blog with the screenname "hatenazibush," which was readily accepted as my handle, even though the terms and conditions upon signing up emphasized the kind of constructive, polite dialogue I'm talking about. But I guess calling Bush a Nazi is still within the limits of civilized debate.

I Was Tagged. In A Non-Childhood Trauma on the Playground Way. *UPDATED WITH OTHER ENTRIES*

Karol tagged me. This is incredibly exciting because it is mad reminiscent of when Looby used to forward those email surveys to me in high school. But Looby and I are arch enemies now, so this is the first time I've gotten to really blatantly stoke my narcissistic twitch in quite a while. That said, I have hardcore strong opinions about books. And I just gave this list a cursory glance, but I can already tell that I'm not going to be able to narrow such a thing down to one book each.

1. One book that changed your life?
The first "adult" book I ever read was Insomnia by Stephen King. If you've ever read it, it talks a lot about auras. I had no idea what an aura was and I refused to look it up in the behemoth dictionary downstairs because I figured they would just GIVE me the definition later in the book. They did not. It didn't really change my life as much as it made me realize how fun it was to read a gigantic book, and to this day, it is extremely rare to find me reading something shorter than 500 pages. The first book that I intrinsically identified myself with was probably I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier or This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I'm very into intellectual disillusionment.

2. One book you have read more than once?
I have read every single Babysitters Club books about 20 times. I've read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead three times each, and if you've ever heard me babbling about how amazing a book is, I've probably read it more than once or twice.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
I would want every book Steinbeck wrote between 1936 and 1961. If those were somehow unavailable, I would bring the Dark Elf Trilogy. Stories about drows and fantasy creatures underground are best not experienced in non-desert island-like conditions.

4. One book that made you cry?
Every book in the world has made my cry. I suspect my ex-roommate still tells people about the day she saw me sobbing on the futon from the end of A Prayer for Owen Meany. But that book seriously ruined me. Other books that have made me cry: The Fountainhead, A Day No Pigs Would Die, Tropic of Cancer.
5. One book that made you laugh?
Books RARELY make me laugh. One sentence in A Prayer for Owen Meany did, and one sentence in The Nanny Diaries did. That's it.

6. One book you wish had been written?
You can bet I've carefully compiled the list and I'm just waiting for some extra money so I can begin research on them. I think I've made my desire to revamp the hypothetical historic genre pretty clear to the populace.
Look for "Put Your Coat On, William Henry Harrison, Or You Will Get Sick and Die After 30 Days in Office" in bookstores, Spring of 2015.

7. One book you wish had never been written?
Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer. There's three hours I'm not getting back.

8. One book you are currently reading?
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis

10. Now tag five people…
I don't think I know five people personally with blogs...
I will humbly tag Morgan, Rachel...and I'll find others to submit their own.

UPDATE:
I convinced my friend Mikey to complete the survey during an AIM conversation.
sanock42: 1. One book that changed your life? -Walden, by Thoreau, because it was then that I realized how incredibly stupid people are to think that such drivel is actually literally intelligent.
sanock42: 2. One book you have read more than once? Lord of the Rings trilogy. Because it's entertaining.
sanock42: 3. One book you would want on a desert island? "Getting off a desert island for dummies."
sanock42: 4. One book that made you cry? The encyclopedia. It's heavy and hurts when it lands on your toe.
sanock42: 5. One book that made you laugh? "The Elenium Trilogy by David Eddings... or any of his books, since they are all exactly the same."
sanock42: 6. One book you wish had been written? "How to not be a dummy for dummies."
sanock42: 7. One book you wish had never been written? "Mrs. Dalloway."
sanock42: 8. One book you are currently reading? "Reader's Digest Guide to Home Improvement." That's right, I'm a homo---wner.
sanock42: 9. One book you have been meaning to read? "I can't think of a book that I wanted to read and haven't yet."
sanock42: and I'm not doing #10.

We thank Mikey for his participation.

We also convinced Maulik to answer some questions. Maulik's screenname has bovine in it, which made me think we were soulmates in the distant past. Alas, it was not to be.

MyDadIsAWeenie: one book that changed your life
Drbovineluve: Maybe shogun by james clavell
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you have read more than once
Drbovineluve: great gatsby
Drbovineluve: stupid teacher made reading that thing a chore
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you would want on a desert island
Drbovineluve: Dummies guide to how to get off a deserted island
MyDadIsAWeenie: whoa
MyDadIsAWeenie: you're the second person to say that
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book that made you cry
Drbovineluve: nothing pops into my head
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book that made you laugh
Drbovineluve: Anything by terry pratchett and some by dave barry
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you wish had been written
Drbovineluve: A book about jesus impersonators that flooded the middle east in days of yore
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you wish hadn't been written
Drbovineluve: Cum mardy
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you're currently reading
Drbovineluve: Lots of law books? Last one i read was insomnia by stephen king
MyDadIsAWeenie: we're soulmates.
MyDadIsAWeenie: book you have been meaning to read
Drbovineluve: anything by hemingway

I don't think is how you actually "tag" someone in the blogosphere, i.e., randomly assaulting people on an instant messaging service and making them answer your questions. No matter - we just need three more.

I next approached Ricky Raccoon, my Facebook friend that I obviously contacted because I thought he was an animal. He turned out to be human, but a literate one, so we have no opposition to him participating in our study.

MyDadIsAWeenie: one book that changed your life
quagmire02: catch-22
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you have read more than once
quagmire02: ender's game
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you would want on a desert island
quagmire02: the bible
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book that made your cry
quagmire02: the worthing saga
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book that made you laugh
quagmire02: 1984
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you wish had been written
quagmire02: the top 100 ways to make god cry
MyDadIsAWeenie: one book you wish had never been written
quagmire02: brave new world

That was insanely fun, even if I don't know how to tag people, which harkens back to 1992, when I was always it for freeze tag and couldn't catch up with anyone. Sigh.

The Weenie Enema Guide to November Politics.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year, second only to my thematic parties and badminton tournaments - Pseudo-Election Day. New York is one of the nine states holding their Primary on this delightfully nippy Tuesday, and I of course voted for Hill and other assorted Democratic figures that didn't give off mad Commie vibes. I suspect Hillary didn't lose too much sleep last night, seeing as how the last time someone even playfully considered the possibility of her losing her Senate seat was when that nutjob plastic surgery reject Jeanine Pirro decided it would be fun to run against her, even though her husband makes Bill look like morality defined. At any rate, I thought it would be helpful to my non-political readers to provide pictures of the hunkified slash badass people to keep your eye out for in November.
Harold Ford, Jr.

With a name that I keep getting confused with Harold Lloyd, the silent film star and a mug that I keep getting confused with Wentworth Miller, Harold Ford is easily the hottest piece of meat vying for higher public office this November. Bill Frist decided to step down from his Senate seat in Tennessee, leaving a huge gaping hole for a sex kitten Democrat to fill. Enter Harold Ford. He's running against some guy whose name is Bob Corker. I am morally against having people in the Senate with names that rhyme with Porker. <3 Harold

Lincoln Chafee.

Lincoln Chafee is not hot. And I have a lot of trouble believing that he's not wearing a hairpiece. However, he's a lot of fun and I like his name. He's also one of those squirrely Republicans that his own party can't control. Those always slay me. It may be a bit premature to even include him in this post, since he may not make it through the primary today. No matter. Weenie Enema endorses him just the same.

Ben Cardin.

I'm sorry, does this guy not look like that commander guy on Malcolm in the Middle?

Boy, did I call that.
Ben Cardin is running for a Senate seat in Maryland, and while Weenie Enema can't think of a single reason to be invested in this race, we are endorsing him because the other candidates look creepy.

Gabrielle Giffords.

Gabrielle is running for a Congressional seat in Arizona, so the chances of you ever hearing her name again are pretty slim. But she's way hardcore. She's dating an astronaut. However, the fact that her Wikipedia entry sees fit to note that she likes U2 really creeps me out. Therefore, Weenie Enema is not endorsing her. We do not like Bono. Bono can eat it.

Bob Casey, Jr.

Although we are very anti-unibrow, Bob Casey deserves limitless support for at least attempting to dethrone Rick Santorum, who is obviously batshit. DB Bogangles still has her PA voter registration intact, and we feel she should put it to good use. Knowing DB Bogangles, she'll write in an old minstrel show performer or something, though we sincerely hope that is not the case.

Richard Tarrant.

Look at this nifty little dresser.
Richard is running as a Republican for a Senate seat in Vermont. Weenie Enema has carefully examined this political race and does not believe Mr. Tarrant has a chance of winning, but before he goes off into the magical world of political obscurity with Rick Lazio and company, we wanted to acknowledge him today. Love that blazer and carefully crafted tan.

Aaron Dixon.

It's a Black Panther!
Aaron is running for the Senate seat in Washington state on the Green Party ticket, which means that he also will not win. This is not 1912. Please. Bullmoose.com. But it's so rare that we get to talk about Black Panthers (the last time I personally got to talk about them was when Inna was in England and some drunk guy took over her computer and told me he was going to start up a new Black Panther chapter), and besides, it's not like Maria Cantwell's going to lose this race. Heh. Black Panthers.


Jon Tester.

I am PRETTY sure that's the same barn Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt run into at the end of Twister...but if memory serves me, that barn blew away, leaving the two star-crossed lovers clinging to a bunch of water pipes. Hmmm.

Jon's running for the Senate in Montana against Conrad Burns. Conrad is kind of a douche, but I always enjoyed hearing his speeches on CSPAN...because I am a huge nerd and used to spend the rare weekday mornings I was at home watching Congressional speeches rather than Star Jones publicly imploding.
I'm not sure if I just endorsed someone or not.

I apologize if this was unhelpful in the least. I plan on spending the next few days at various dog runs, doing intense research on the prevalence of puggies with fall apparel on.

This one is naked.

Lying Blog Parties Are The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off. But It's Better If You Do.

In what's fast becoming an annual tradition in the mold of the Winona parties and the Emma Grimshaw Letter Writing Contest, I dragged two non-bloggers to a blogger party last night in Midtown at Mica Bar. If last year's K Lounge was an Indian bordello, this was a subtle bordello mixed with an Aztec tomb. According to one of the bloggers, there's a Japanese brothel down the street somewhere, which I did kind of want to take a look at, but common decency and blogger dedication.com kept me in my place.

Now picture 50 people at least 10 years older than me, Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" blasting in the background, and a douchy waitress who was very VERY anti-Emma. I think she heard my vitriol against the Mica Burger. (Which tasted like the cow had been poisoned and soaked in Clinique Happy. SO within my rights to gripe.)

To set the scene properly, I biked over to this lovely Aztec establishment at 8:30, when the party was supposed to get going. I walk in and the place is DESERTED, save for Drunk Erin, ever the prompt alcoholic, nursing a Miller Light and glancing nervously around, as if the blogger community was suddenly going to appear in hazy hologram form like those weird ghost things under the mountain in Return of the King. After a failed attempt to get me to order an alcoholic beverage (besides generally just not liking the taste, this did not seem to be the appropriate time to not have all of my sensory perceptions intact), Drunk Erin and I speculated about where the primo defensive positioning in the bar was, as we wanted to be in a corner somewhere like a caged animal, gazing at the incoming bloggers suspiciously and not getting caught unawares by a crazy fan of Weenie Enema. As three people read this, that was not an immediate concern.

At any rate, Ingrid showed up soon afterward, and the entire blogger party was constituted of a noble contingent from Weenie Enema for a good 15 minutes. Being a blogger party veteran at this point, I knew from experience that bloggers don't start filing into a party for a good half an hour or so after the appropriated starting time. I guess they figure with the social stigma already attached to them, it's best to have the semblance of fashionability (Did I make that word up?) and arrive late. I don't give into social constructions like that. When your entire personality is based on smelling aniquated books at yard sales and deliberating about what random historical figure to be for Halloween, being cool is no longer a legitimate consideration. Digression.net

The first actual blogger to show up was Julia Gorin, who makes me look...non-hardcore. She's a conservative comedian who has a comedy showcase thingy on Wednesday in Chelsea. Totally going. Considering that no one else was there and she was kind of forced to converse with us, she was very gracious. She didn't seem to completely swallow my "Winona was shafted by society" theory, but few do, so I didn't take it personally. She was pop culturally aware enough to realize that there are some interesting connections between Winona and Kiera Knightley, which I will be taking up in a future blog entry. Julia also likes cake. I hear that. Big thumbs up. She gave off a Kathy Najimy vibe, which is beyond badass. Sister Act is nothing without her.

I'm not saying they're twins, but you'd think they were related. Fo rizzle.

By the time Julia Gorin had been forced to hear every celebrity-related conspiracy theory in my head, the place was really filling up. We met Eric, who has to be the biggest sweetie bojangles in the world. After the first hour, when we decided we didn't want to be social and escaped downstairs to sup on the diseased bovine, Eric came down and shot the shizzle with us for a while. He refused to eat the remnants of my cow because he had made probably the most egregious error one can make in the city - getting a taco from one of those mad shady Korean-run stands. It's like getting Filipino pizza - why on earth would you bother when another nationality has completely schooled the art of za?

During the course of my socializing (using the term as liberally as i possibly can), a woman recognized me from my blog and asked if the 10 people around me were my posse. Easily the second coolest moment of the night. I didn't get a chance to talk to her until later, but Judith was very nice and apparently a huge fan of my critically acclaimed masterpiece about the Magnificant Seven gymnastics squad. Who knew? She also had the most amazing nametag ever - I raped one less woman than the UN. It blew my "I'll put out if you link to me" tag out of the water.

"That's not funny, Judith!"
Sorry, Kofi. It was.

By now, you're probably wondering, "Emma, if Judith thinking you had a posse was the second coolest moment, what was the first?" Ah, an excellent question indeed. Mica Bar is situated next to the most random slash incredible place ever - the UN Mission to the Kingdom of Tonga. Ingrid and I tried to get in, but the Tongan representatives had the audacity to lock their front door. Pfft. By peering into the front office and gazing at the travel brochures, Tonga is apparently a Polynesian paradise. If I ever find myself with $2000 and a week of time on my hands, I may attempt to verify this for myself. At any rate, when Drunk Erin went outside to smoke a little while after our discovery, she claimed she saw a six-year-old girl in the Tonga mission front office without her shirt on. Bizarre, but color me skeptical. I can think of much better places to wander around shirtless. Unless that's a Tonga thing.

Tonga: the Polynesian paradise with shirtless young girls.

The other two noteworthy lads that I had the pleasure of meeting were Ivan Lenin and Dorian Davis. I briefly met Dorian at the last blogger party, where I confused him with the younger brother from Bring It On. He has the most amazing hair in the universe, bar none.

And I have the sneaking suspicion he is going to look like he's 19 for the next 60 years. He's a gay Republican, which is as intriguing a species as the sand cat or the mongoose and is at the helm of a new online magazine dealing with said species. He said he might do a blog interview. As loyal readers are well aware of, we have never in the history of Weenie Enema had a legitimate blog interviewee subject. This could change.

Ivan is my favorite of all things. He looks like a cross between Lenin, a Newsie and Moby, which I did not think was a possible combination to have, but I talked to him for a good chunk of time and am hereby verifying that such a hybrid can exist. Based on his blog and the bits and pieces I derived from our discussion, he's a Belarussian Communist Lenin impersonator. If we can get an interview with him as well, I think we can pretty much bank on becoming an international blog sensation. Ivan is a total darling and somehow put up with the three of us voluntarily during our Cow-Eating Reclusive Period. We thank him for that.

It would be a sin not to mention Karol at some point, since she essentially hosted the party and possesses my copy of "The Outsiders." She was not pleased when she discovered we had stolen the Belarussian Communist from the party and brought him to our web of intrigue downstairs. Since she joined Facebook this week just to prove to me that Facebook sucks, I'd say we're even.

Although Drunk Erin and Ingrid basically spent the entire evening in stunned silence, watching the conveyor belt of people pass us by, I feel it was worth risking the love/support of the roommates to venture into the frozen tundra of where the Internet and random social encounters meet. I just REALLY really wish the Tonga mission had been open.

A Friend for the Marcia Gay Harden Dog.

I'm planning on penning a lengthy dissertation entitled "How Dawson's Creek Failed Us" later, but first...doesn't that look like Louie Anderson?

My Life Centers On One Day Every Year.

I'm very much aware that it's insanely premature, but the 5th Annual We Still Believe You, Winona! Movie Marathon is only a month and a half away, and I've already created a stupendous Facebook invite for it, accompanied by a hardcore picture of Wino in overalls.
We have two tentative keynote speakers lined up, though they are given tremendous free range in their speeches, so we may not even get to hear about Winona during the speech intermission period. Although Winona has had more emo penis in her than a Dashboard Confessional groupie, I think it's very important to remember that she became a household name for other reasons. Thank you.

I've never thought hoodie-clad, cigarette-smoking anorexics were hot, but I have heard reports of X-Game participants procreating, so there are clearly people who disagree with the aforementioned viewpoint.

Moving right along, Karol's blogger party is on Saturday, and I feel the world should come because bloggers contribute more to society than pretty much any other kind of human being, as a general rule.

There is no structure to this post in the least.



Suri Cruise looks like she's from Kyrgyzstan. That is a country in Central Asia that witnessed their government's disintegration in early 2005, when the Terri Schiavo case was in full swing. I didn't like Terri, so I was very much aware of the plight of the Kyrgyz. Suri also has a wig on, which most people are ignoring, pretending that she somehow managed to develop a full head of hair in about 30 days.