Showing posts with label drunk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drunk. Show all posts

Monday, September 15, 2014

All's fair in love and war: LSU edition




You're liable to see just about anything at an LSU home football game.

Which brings us to Saturday's. Call it "crazy s*** white people do" -- everything from taking "falling in love" a little too literally to, well, not that.

What my alma mater needs, clearly, is a little, er . . . balance. And a better class of drunk-ass frat boy.


White folks: You just can't let some of 'em out in public.



HAT TIP: NOLA.com.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

It must have been the 'secret sauce'

Bad things happen when swamp people get not-so-secret sauced on some resort barroom's high-octane "goo-goo juice."

Ask "Trapper Joe," who found out the hard way that while Louisiana alligators might be marginally meaner than Florida cops, they ultimately lack the power to throw your ass in jail.

Which is where your ass is going to end up when your drunk girlfriend tells Orange County lawmen your drunk self assaulted and battered her, says the
TMZ website, which in this case must stand for Too Many Zombies:
Trapper Joe -- real name Noces Joseph LaFont Jr. -- was arrested for assault and battery in Orange County, Florida early Wednesday morning.

According to the arrest report, a witness told police Trapper Joe and his GF were arguing at the Buena Vista Hotel and Spa just after midnight ... and both appeared very drunk.

The witness claims he watched Joe punch the woman in the chest ... and then grab her by the arms and shake her very hard.

The GF told police Joe had received a call on his cell phone ... and she wanted to know who was calling ... but when she reached for his phone, he tried to burn her with a lit cigarette.
I'M SURPRISED they both didn't burst into flames, actually.

Well, at least the Florida cops didn't choot 'em. That's somethin', at least.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Hey, y'all! (Hic!) Watch this!


You're drunk off your ass (allegedly).

You have no driver's license.

Because it was suspended for 10 years after your third DUI.

Your wife also is three sheets to the wind (allegedly). She's in the back of your SUV.

She's cheering on your 7-year-old granddaughter.

Whom you're towing down the street in her plastic kiddie car.

Which is attached to the SUV with a couple of dog leashes.

What the hell could go wrong?

WELL, you could get stopped by the cops, who throw your and your boozy wife's saturated asses in jail. But that's what went right.

Naturally, this occurred in south Florida. And, naturally, it made the
MSNBC news headlines:
Belinda and Paul Berloni were arrested on Sunday after a deputy in a marked patrol car saw the SUV pulling a "small plastic hot wheels car" along an access road, authorities said. The vehicle was going about five to 10 miles per hour, the probable cause affidavit said.

The girl was wearing a bathing suit with no protective gear, authorities said. The toy car was attached to the SUV with two dog leashes tied to the trailer hitch, the affidavit said.

Paul Berloni, 49, smelled of alcohol and his eyes were bloodshot and watery, the affidavit said. When asked for his driver's license, he said it had been revoked for 10 years for a DUI. He also told authorities he had two or three drinks, authorities said. He later said it was more but wasn't specific, the affidavit said.

Belinda Berloni, 47, was in the cargo area with the rear hatch open cheering the little girl on, the affidavit said. She was also intoxicated and said she had a few drinks, authorities said.

She "also stated that she understood that it was dangerous to drag a child behind the vehicle but stated they were just having fun and had been doing it all day," the affidavit said.

Belinda Berloni's son, who is the girl's father, arrived and was upset with his mother. He also said that he believed they had a drinking problem that may have affected their decision making, the affidavit said.
FRANKLY, I'm wondering about Junior's decision making, which he apparently cannot blame on the bottle.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Let's kick up the stupid a notch. BAM!


I love it when brain-dead barbarians take it upon themselves to instruct the rest of us on how to behave in public.

The only difference between Bam Margera, the still-alive Jackass, and Ryan Dunn, the now-dead Jackass, is an immovable tree at the end of a sports car's 40-yard free flight. Yet he and his equally reprobate Jackass Nation somehow think they have moral high ground enough to chastise film critic Roger Ebert for his allegedly insensitive Twitter post about Dunn's death.


THIS IS what the moral high ground looks like to Generation Moron:


SORRY about that. That was what normal, everyday public interaction looks like to Generation Moron. This is what the moral high ground . . . moral outrage . . .righteous indignation . . . whatever . . . looks like to Generation Moron:
@ BAM__MARGERA I just lost my best friend, I have been crying hysterical for a full day and piece of s*** roger ebert has the gall to put in his 2 cents

@ BAM__MARGERA About a jackass drunk driving and his is one, f*** you! Millions of people are crying right now, shut your fat f****** mouth!
I THINK I choked up a little bit reading those poignant sentiments. It reminds me of the moral outrage and palpable grief of a riotous mob when the National Guard moves in.

Margera's tender defense of his late friend was followed by other instances of Generation Moron calling somebody else deviant in a highly ironic fashion:
* Roger Ebert looks like a victim of drunk driving, s*** happens, its a tragedy when anyone dies. He should let his fans and family grief before talking s***.

*
I think this is straight bulls***. those 2 grown men decided to get in the car with him aswell and this "man" keeps wanting to run his mouth. The Jackass crew was family and people need to understand were f****** human beings. The other 2 that died with him were just as liable for getting in that car robert ebert needs to back for the friends and family sake its sad and sickens me. Ryan may you rest in peice. And prayers are sent out to the one hurt from all this. I know I am I enjoyed jackass with my cousin when i have a teen and after he passed a year ago from overdose and when I watch jackass I laigh knowing it was something we shared . ROBERT STOP BEING A F****** DICK LORD AND SHOW THE FAMILY YOU PIECE OF S***.

*
Most of you dumb motherf****** have zero sense of accountability. Everyone knows the passenger was boozing, too, and he/she chose to get into the car just like Ryan chose to drive the car. I highly doubt the passenger was protesting when Ryan drove at high speeds. It's a f****** accident and sad that 2 people died. Ebert should shut the f*** up. RIP Ryan, your s*** on CKY and Jackass will give people the giggles for years to come.

*
Obesity is a bigger problem in America than Drinking and Driving, Roger needs to take a look in the mirror. Friends don't let friends get obese.

*
Everyone, including Ebert, should stop speculating and SHUT THE F*** UP! The only 2 people who really now the circumstances are no longer with us. And even if true….Show some respect you Mother F****** who prentend you've never had a drink or drove over the speed limit.
WE ALSO have proof that friends let jackasses tweet, too:
* I bet God regrets letting Roger Ebert survive the jaw cancer he had.

* Who is Roger Ebert one to tweet about someone's death. Bitch, you have like no f****** mouth. It was taken from you as a sign to STFU!!!

* Roger Ebert can suck a d***, by the way

*
ROGER EBERT Go kill yourself! You f****** piece of s***!

* One might say that Roger Ebert put his foot in his half-mouth.

* its gonna be hard for
roger ebert to "save face" because he already lost half of it.
BEHOLD the outraged, and outrageous, grief that comes when the barbarians besieging our culture have been caught dead to rights -- literally in this case -- and know their sad fate is nobody's fault but theirs. Not that they won't be making the rest of us pay for their sins, regardless.

Like I said, the only difference between Bam Margera, the rest of Jackass Nation and the late Mr. Dunn is a 40-yard free flight in a fast sports car . . . and an immovable tree at the end.

And, the sensitivity of his comments aside, they hate like hell that Ebert has their number.

Monday, June 20, 2011

It's a mystery why some things happen

NOTE: Coarse language that's not safe for work . . . or kids.

Ryan Dunn of Jackass fame is dead. Who could have seen it coming?

You make a living doing idiotic things, and you're not dead yet . . .
that must mean you're impervious to death, right?

MTV made a mint off of the idiotainment of Dunn and his Camp Kill Yourself cohorts for years. And now that the first CKY luminary has "graduated," I wonder whether the corporate enabler of so many of society's death wishes will at least have the decency to pay for the funeral resulting from the success of this particular one.

According to
The Associated Press account today, the 34-year-old fell victim to a fiery meeting of a sports car flying low and some trees that weren't going anywhere:
Dunn, a daredevil whose most famous skits included diving into a sewage tank and shoving a toy car into his rectum, was driving his 2007 Porsche in suburban Philadelphia when it careered off the road, flipped over a guardrail and crashed into the woods before bursting into flames. A passenger was also killed, and speed may have been a factor in the crash, West Goshen Township police said.

The force of impact shattered the vehicle into several twisted and blackened pieces, leaving the Porsche 911 GT3 unrecognizable except for a door that was thrown from the crash and not incinerated. A 100-foot-long tire skid marked where the car left the roadway.

Both Dunn and his passenger were severely burned. Police said they were able to identify Dunn through his tattoos and hair, but the identity of his passenger was still unknown.

Dunn appeared on MTV shows "Jackass" and "Viva La Bam" and the three "Jackass" big-screen adaptations. He also was the star of his own MTV show, "Homewrecker," and hosted "Proving Ground" on the G4 cable network.

His longtime friend and fellow "Jackass" daredevil Johnny Knoxville tweeted on Monday afternoon, "Today I lost my brother Ryan Dunn. My heart goes out to his family and his beloved Angie. RIP Ryan, I love you buddy."
ACCORDING TO TMZ, it's likely Dunn also fell victim to being behind the wheel with a gut full of liquor:
One of the friends tells TMZ ... Dunn had 3 Miller Lites and 3 "girly shots" between 10:30 PM and 2:10 AM -- nearly a 4 hour span -- but he was "not too drunk to drive."

But according to another person who was inside the bar that night, Dunn was "wasted" -- and "had a lot to drink."
BUT I GUESS we could have seen that one coming, too. Or, as one YouTube commenter rather uncharitably put it, "He died as he lived . . . with car parts in his anus."

Saturday, November 27, 2010

A mighty itch


"No, sir, we don't do that. If you'd like, we can refer you to the TSA."

Or, in Nebraska, to the Texas A&M football team.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Gross misconduct


What does it say about Omaha as the excitement capital of the Midwest when a championship high-school volleyball coach decides she's going to let her freak flag fly in . . . Grand Island?

Talk about not only gross misconduct -- or, in this case, Gross misconduct -- but I think there may be some "get a life" issues in play here as well. Let me be blunt:
Coach (or ex-Coach, as the case may be), you do realize you are (were) the coach here of a high-school girls volleyball team, right?

And that you just won the Nebraska state championship and not the Olympic gold medal, right?

And that, like, you're waaaaaaay past your teen-age years, never served a single ace or made a single kill in the tournament and are supposed to be the adult here, right?


NEVER MIND. The Omaha World-Herald makes it pretty clear she never thought of any of that:
Korrine Schuster apparently is no longer the Omaha Gross volleyball coach, though the reasons for her departure are unclear.

Kearney-based television station NTV reported on its website Monday night that Schuster was removed from the Midtown Holiday Inn where the Cougars were staying after capturing their second consecutive Class B state volleyball championship. Officer Butch Hurst of the Grand Island Police Department was quoted as saying there was a disturbance at the location.

The station reported that no one was arrested, but police said Schuster was removed from the property after police received a call about 2:45 a.m. Sunday.

Hurst said, “At the time officers thought she was intoxicated, and she alleges she was coach of Omaha Gross,” the station's report said. The officer also was quoted as saying that “a female was being referred to the Hall County Attorney's Office for disturbing the peace.”

The television report added it wasn't clear what happened at the hotel, located just blocks from the Heartland Events Center — site of the state tournament. Further, the TV station said the police report made no reference whether any girls were involved.

The parent of a senior player said Tuesday that none were.

Gross president Beckie Cleveland was quoted in the TV report as apologizing for actions out of line with the Catholic school's mission. She also was quoted as saying that Schuster was no longer employed there, but declined to comment further.

KORRINE, all I have to say is that girls like you are why I wanted nothing more, as a 16-year-old, than to be the only male student at St. Joseph's Academy, the Catholic girls school in Baton Rouge.

But you're not a hot-to-trot Catholic schoolgirl. You were part of Catholic-school officialdom. Yet you were pulling crap like that.

Even as a hormone-crazed teen-age male, I would have found that just . . . well,
gross.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Plowed Profile comes to corn country


John Barrymore, star of stage, screen and drinking establishments, blew into Omaha in May of 1939 -- still long on talent but, alas, rather short on cash.

"The Great Profile" was bringing his latest stage vehicle,
My Dear Children, to the Tech High auditorium in a triumphal homecoming for one of his co-stars, Dorothy McGuire. Thing is, that homecoming turned out to be more than a little mortifying for the Nebraska ingenue -- being that the great actor turned out to be an even greater drunk, not to mention a supreme offender of polite Omaha society.

And then somebody let him on the radio, an apparently bibulous session with KOIL where he rambled and snorted through listeners' written questions.




UH . . . YEAH. It's pretty evident the poor man was as plowed as the nearby cornfields that first of May. Reportedly, Omahans were offended.

Not half as much as the local theater guild, however. Even
Time magazine took note:
Soon the Barrymores' acting gave strong hints of their home life. With gusto John shouted at Elaine such stage lines as "You damned selfish brat." In the play he spanked her harder, she fanged his wrist more savagely, than was necessary.

Fortnight ago their quarrel burst like a boil: Elaine quit the show in a spuming huff. A few days later, performing before Omaha's highbusted Drama League, John was royally pickled. Up & down traveled his voice, to a bull-like bellow, to a bird-like whisper. Scandalized were Omaha's great ladies when he ad-libbed such lines as "Albert, you look like a pregnant string bean." Afterwards Barrymore's press-agent offered the excuse that he had been "very tired." Concurred the Drama League's lady president: "He must have been very, very, VERY tired."
THE 'ENCHANTING' Dorothy McGuire -- she who had the hot mom -- wouldn't be taking in the spectacle much longer:

"Mr. Barrymore was a great disappointment to Dorothy," reported a November 1941 profile on the young actress in
Life:
She toured with him for eight months, and was particularly embarrassed on the occasion of a one-night stand in Omaha, where his classic vocabulary and uninhibited stage presence made a shocking impression of old family friends of hers in the audience. By the fall of 1939 she found the Great Profile's shenanigans so taxing that she abandoned the troupe in Chicago, thus missing the New York opening. "I'd come blissful and starry-eyed from Our Town into this roughhouse," she said later. "I really and truly was shocked."
IN THE biography John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor, Michael A. Morrison has this account of the Omaha tour stop:
As the tour progressed through the South and Midwest, however, Barrymore soon came to resent the play and his fourth wife. Again there were much-publicized quarrels with Elaine Barrie; Barrymore showed up in an inebriated state and made unprintable comments at a luncheon in Omaha designed to promote the play. He improvised on the script whenever his memory failed or the impulse arose , and on at least one occasion resorted to four-letter words. After further marital tumult, Elaine Barrie agreed to be replaced and left the tour in St. Louis.
I GUESS you could say a lot of things about my "damned town," Omaha. If you're paying attention, though, you'd know one of them wouldn't be "boring."

And you don't have to be well and properly plowed -- or, for that matter, as high as an elephant's eye -- to know "it's one of the most enchanting places" you've ever been in.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Life in these United States: Shores apart

On the Jersey shore

"I'm the best thing in this town," she arrogantly declared after cops busted her for being a drunk nuisance Friday, according to an insider.


"She was bad-mouthing everyone who walked by her [in the police stationhouse]. She was saying 'I'm a star, you can't do this to me.'"

Snooki unleashed a boozed-up, expletive-filled rant after being arrested for disorderly conduct, and attempted to use her new-found fame as a "get-out-of-jail-free" card.

"You can't tell me what to do - I'm Snooki," she yelled at officers, according to witnesses. "Do you know who I am? I'm f------ Snooki. You can't do this to me. I'm f------ Snooki. You guys are going to be sorry for this. Release me!"

Not surprisingly, her harsh language didn't do the trick.

The pint-sized reality TV star was hauled away from the Jersey shore boardwalk in cuffs Friday as her oversized shades slid down her nose. A photo of her looking dishevelled with mascara running down her face while in custody also surfaced yesterday, as locals took stock of her unruly behavior and lashed out at the reality show cast.



On the Louisiana shore

"My world's been turned upside down," says Chris Wilson, a charter boat captain in Venice, La. "Our life as fishing guides and marina owners — and everybody down here. We used to fish every day. Now we ride around and look for oil, or ride people around, you know. They say we're working, they say they're paying us, but nobody's got paid yet ... I guess it's coming."

This quotation comes from photographer David Zimmerman's latest series, "Gulf Coast." A fine-art photographer based in New York and Taos, N.M., Zimmerman relocated to Louisiana just after BP's April oil spill and, for the past few months, has been using a large-format view camera to put faces to the oil spill. "For all the devastation I saw offshore," Zimmerman writes in his artist statement, "the worst of what I saw was onshore; in the faces and voices of the people who call this place home."


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The binge of the nerd?


They don't call it the Republican Party for nothing.

I mean, take this tasty tidbit about our -- at least we thought -- mild-mannered congressman in this morning's edition of the
Omaha World-Herald.

LEE TERRY, it would seem we hardly knew ye:
Republican Rep. Lee Terry is at the center of a storm over questions involving the relationships between lobbyists and members of Congress.

House Minority Leader John Boehner has warned several GOP congressmen to quit socializing with female lobbyists, according to Roll Call and the New York Post.
Terry became a focal point of the warning after a New York Post journalist reported witnessing Terry in conversation with a “comely lobbyist” at the Capitol Hill Club, a Washington hangout for Republicans.

“Why did you get me so drunk?” Terry asked the woman, according to the Post.

Terry, in a written statement last week, said the Post story was “completely false.”

Since then, an unnamed member of the Capitol Hill Club — where Terry reportedly talked to the lobbyist — said he, too, heard Terry make the remark. However, the anonymous source said there appeared to be nothing flirtatious about Terry’s conversation, according to Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill.

Terry continued to deny the incident Monday, saying in a second statement he doesn’t “socialize” with female lobbyists.

In the statement, Terry said: “The repulsive innuendo of the New York Post characterizing me as someone who socializes with female lobbyists is absolutely, unequivocally, 100 percent false.”
OH . . . this GOP smear ad against Terry's 2008 Democratic opponent might be worth recalling, considering:

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Best. Music. Video. Ever. (Today)


A high-school classmate of mine passes along The Best Music Video Ever (Today). I'm sure there will be one just as good tomorrow, but you never know.

Friday, March 12, 2010

You may have a drinking problem if. . . .

An Omaha man may have made a slight strategic mistake when he showed up for sentencing on second-offense aggravated drunken-driving charges.

HE HAD a few -- OK, a lot of -- pre-sentencing drinks before showing up at the courthouse in Papillion, Neb.. The Sarpy County authorities didn't take it so well, according to KETV television:
Authorities said a drunken driver showed up for his sentencing hearing drunk again.

Jason Botos, 30, was driven to court by his father and investigators said he was so drunk that he had to be helped inside and wasn't able to make his court appearance.

"He was unable to get himself out of the vehicle, he was so intoxicated," said deputy Sarpy County attorney Ben Perlman.

Investigators said Botos' father asked deputies to help carry his son inside the courthouse.

Botos was scheduled to be sentenced for a drunken driving offense in September 2009. He was driving near Highway 75 and Cornhusker Road when his car jumped a curb and smashed into five other vehicles, critically injuring three people.

"Because he failed to appear for his court appearance, a warrant was issued," said Perlman.

Deputies arrested Botos in the parking lot.
TO GET this story in all it's bizarre glory, make sure you watch the video at KETV.

I'm no chemical-dependency counselor, bu I think it's possible Botos has a drinking problem. I could be wrong . . . but probably not.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The devil has a crew cut


It's no secret that Glenn Beck is a cynical buffoon whose stock-in-trade is scaring the crap out of people even more ignorant and crazy than himself.

It also is no secret that Beck's boss at the Fox News Channel, Roger Ailes -- as well as his bosses at
Premiere Radio Networks -- just might be the most cynical people in America. That's saying something.

But cynically ginning up outrage and paranoia among ignorant (and perhaps unstable) people is nothing new in American politics and public discourse. Dangerous, yes. Destructive of the commonweal, yes.

But, alas, nothing new. This is the tired and hoary work of minor demons inhabiting middling rings of the inferno.

CONVINCING GULLIBLE and paranoid Yankee Doodle whack jobs that "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land" is pure, uncut communism -- evil incarnate under the guise of "social justice" . . . collectivist subversion of freedom and democracy -- that, on the other hand, is the work of Lucifer himself.

The devil is on Fox News weekday afternoons at 5 -- 4 Central. His stage name is Glenn Beck.

And the devil -- er, "Beck" -- is a master at getting mere mortals to mistake good for evil and evil for a public-policy prescription.

"Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied"? Socialist redistribution of wealth!

"Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied"? Commie-libs are out to destroy individual initiative . . . by confiscating your income!

"Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation"? Implicit threat of violence against hard-working American achievers from totalitarian agitators in the highest ranks!

Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep? If you remember your history, this sounds awfully like what Stalin did when he collectivized agriculture in the Ukraine! Communists want you to starve while they redistribute your food!

CALL IT biblical exegesis, as seen on Glenn Beck's TV. And heard on his radio.

Glenn Beck thinks that if you go to a church that believes that Jesus Christ meant what he said in the Beatitudes, you are in deep borscht, Comrade.

And Glenn Beck says red-blooded, market-oriented American lovers of freedom had better get out of any church that believes in that "social justice" crapola.
No, really:
I recently received word through a new friend that The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good captured audio of Fox News’ Glenn Beck encouraging listeners to leave their church if it proclaims a concern for social justice on his March 2nd radio broadcast. Here’s the quote from Beck:

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"
NO, PEOPLE, this is no everyday, happens-every-couple-or-three-decades, run of the mill American political and cultural crackpottery.

What we have here is a crew-cut, whackadoodle Mormon-convert antichrist who has been given free reign by his radio and cable-TV masters to preach apostasy to millions of lost sheep. This isn't Christopher Hitchens going on TV to tell a bemused reporter that there is no God, and believers are full of beans.

Instead, this is one of the most popular hosts on the most popular cable-"news" channel, telling his viewers that Jesus preached evil, historical Christianity is a bunch of socialist agitprop and they should flee any church that believes in such things, because that church is a clear and present danger to the republic.

It's kind of like Lenin through the looking glass, actually.

A pretty neat trick, if you can pull it off. And we know just the malevolent entity for the job, don't we?

Thursday, October 22, 2009

The jihadists may have a point


When a country has its knickers in such a twist as Britain -- literally -- that's when sharia starts to look not half bad by comparison.

By the time it's a common thing for college students and other "drunken yobs," as the Daily Mail put it, to shuffle down city streets with their drawers around their feet -- at least when they're not pissing on war memorials -- you're either musing about sharia (or something close enough), or you're looking for a good monastery to hide out in as the Dark Ages descend and civilization disappears.

I MEAN, for God's sake:

The image of a drunk student urinating on a war memorial has provoked a furious backlash from relatives who had laid wreaths of poppies in tribute to their loved ones.

John Ievers, the grandson of a World War I soldier who died in 1917, branded student Philip Laing, 19, a 'drunken idiot' for desecrating the memorial in Baker's Pool, Sheffield.

The 49-year-old software sales consultant said: 'I am annoyed - he's a drunken idiot.

'He should be made to clean the streets of Sheffield or do some kind of community service.'

Mr Ievers placed the tribute - a solitary wooden cross with poppy decoration - to his grandfather on the memorial on Remembrance Day last November. Edwin Ievers was 32 when he was killed in France in October 1917.

The youth was one of 2,000 university students taking part in an organised seven-hour pub crawl in Sheffield, during which many familiar scenes of debauchery were seen.

Half-naked women collapsed on the street while young men ran among passing traffic.

But by far the worst moment came when Laing, a sports technology student at Sheffield Hallam University, staggered to the World War I memorial and urinated on it. Other revellers seemed oblivious, but the incident was reported to security staff who washed down the memorial with water.

'He should be made to clean the memorial at the very least,' Mr Ievers added. 'He must have been paralytic.

'I don't think he should be flogged in the streets or anything but there should be some reparation.

'But this sort of thing goes on all the time in Sheffield with freshers week
[Freshmen week -- R21]. They had to take the fountain out because someone was killed. They would do a pyjama jump but too many of them came down with hypothermia.'

ACTUALLY, after looking at that picture, I think flogging in the streets might not be such a bad idea. Flog one, teach 1,000?

What I see in these pictures -- and in stories such as this and this -- is a culture at the end of its
days of wine and roses. A culture living for its distractions, because distractions are the only reasons it has anymore.

The distractions, meantime, are having the last laugh.

Getting "stewed" in your own juices not only is a bitch, it's also fraught with irony.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Beck


Glenn Beck is the kind of deep thinker appreciated by the sort who call it "guts" when DJs play Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." when we're bombing the crap out of crazy Arab potentates.

Hold the phone. Glenn Beck was the "morning zoo" host in Louisville who was "proud to be an American" on April 15, 1986 -- and "emotionally exhausted" from listeners phoning in to say yay or nay about his playing "Khadafy Sucks" the morning after American warplanes blowed the Libyan dictator's compound up good.

It must have been the caller who wanted to send Libyans down a razor blade slide into a pool of alcohol.

THEN AGAIN, it might have just been the alcohol. And the pot. And the cocaine.
Whether Beck was tired or stoned that day, he was almost certainly depressed. Despite his creative freedom, local star status and high salary, Beck's mental state was on a slide. By his own telling, he was drinking heavily, snorting coke and entertaining thoughts of suicide. "There was a bridge abutment in Louisville, Kentucky, that had my name on it," Beck later wrote. "Every day I prayed for the strength to be able to drive my car at 70 mph into that bridge abutment. I'm only alive today because (a) I'm too cowardly to kill myself ... and (b) I'm too stupid."
AS SALON.COM tells us in a three-part series on Beck's life as one of radio's "morning zoo" bad boys, Fox News Channel's newest sensation and the de-facto leader of the Great American Freak Out has had a little experience in the "freak" department. From "Glenn Beck becomes damaged goods," Part 2 of Alexander Zaitchik's Beckian trilogy:
Beck's real broadcasting innovation during his stay in Kentucky came in the realm of vicious personal assaults on fellow radio hosts. A frequent target of Beck's in Louisville was Liz Curtis, obese host of an afternoon advice show on WHAS, a local AM news-talk station. It was no secret in Louisville that Curtis, whom Beck had never met and with whom he did not compete for ratings, was overweight. And Beck never let anyone forget it. For two years, he used "the big blonde" as fodder for drive-time fat jokes, often employing Godzilla sound effects to simulate Curtis walking across the city or crushing a rocking chair. Days before Curtis' marriage, Beck penned a skit featuring a stolen menu card for the wedding reception. "The caterer says that instead of throwing rice after the ceremony, they are going to throw hot, buttered popcorn," explains Beck's fictional spy.

Despite the constant goading, Curtis never responded. But being ignored only seemed to fuel Beck's hunger for a response. As his attacks escalated and grew more unhinged, a WHAS colleague of Curtis' named Terry Meiners decided to intervene. He appeared one morning unannounced at Beck's small office, which was filled with plaques, letters and news clippings -- "a shrine to all that is Glenn Beck," remembers Meiners. He told Beck to lay off Curtis, suggesting he instead attack a morning DJ like himself, who could return fire. "Beck told me, 'Sorry, all's fair in love and war,'" remembers Meiners. "He continued with the fat jokes, which were exceedingly cruel, pointless, and aimed at one of the nicest people in radio. Glenn Beck was over-the-top childish from Day One, a punk who tried to make a name for himself by being disruptive and vengeful."
NICE GUY. But not as "nice" as he'd get in Phoenix, where he took the "morning zoo" shtick after getting canned in the Bluegrass State:
Beck and Hattrick began their show far behind Kelly's market-leading show on KZZP. As they continued to get clobbered, Beck grew obsessed with getting his name on the leading station. His first attempt to get Kelly to mention him on the air came shortly after his arrival. "I walked out to get the paper one Saturday morning," remembers Kelly. "When I turned around, I saw that my entire house was covered in Y95 bumper stickers. The windows, the garage doors, the locks -- everything. But I refused to mention Beck's name on the air, which drove him nuts."

Beck kept trying. When KZZP's music director held his marriage at a Phoenix church, Beck loaded up Y95's two Jeeps with boxes of bumper stickers and drove to the ceremony. As the service was coming to a close, Beck and his team ran crouching from car to car, slapping bumper stickers on anything with a fender. The service ended while Beck was running amok, and the KZZP morning team appeared just in time to see Beck jump into his getaway car. "Beck saw me standing in the way of the exit and gunned right for me. I threw a landscaping rock on his windshield and blocked him," says Kelly. When his old friend demanded he roll down the window, Beck reluctantly obliged. Kelly then unloaded a mouthful of spit in his face.

"Glenn Beck was the king of dirty tricks," says Guy Zapoleon, KZZP's program director. "It may seem mild in retrospect, but at the time that wedding prank was nasty and over the line. Beck was always desperate for ratings and attention."

The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" for Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. "A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby."

"It was low class," says Miller, now president of Open Stream Broadcasting. "There are certain places you just don't go."

"Beck turned Y95 into a guerrilla station," says Kelly. "It was an example of the zoo thing getting out of control. It became just about pissing people off, part of the culture shift that gave us 'Jackass.'" Among those who were appalled by Beck's prank call was Beck's own wife, Claire, who had been friends with Kelly's wife since the two worked together at WPGC.

Their friendship soured, Beck continued with the stunts, some of which won the competition's begrudging admiration. The most elaborate and successful of these neatly throws a double-spotlight on both the juvenile nature of morning radio competition and the culture of pop cheese in which Beck marinated for 20 years.

Toward the end of Beck's time in Phoenix, KZZP sponsored a free Richard Marx concert at the Tempe El Diablo stadium in downtown Phoenix. Marx was at the time riding high on a triple-platinum album, and the show was a monster publicity coup for Beck's rival. But Beck was in no mood to let KZZP bask in the concert's glow without a fight. He and Hattrick arrived at the stadium early on the night of the show and gave the sound technician $500 to play a prerecorded Y95 promo moments before KZZP's Bruce Kelly was scheduled to announce the show. As an audience of nearly 10,000 waited for the show to begin, the KZZP mics were cut and Beck's voice suddenly boomed out of the stadium's sound system: "The Y95 Zoo team is proud to present … Richard Marx!" As soon as he heard his name, an oblivious Marx walked onto the stage and began to play. As the KZZP crew stood stunned offstage, scattered Y95 agents popped up and began throwing "Y95 Zoo" T-shirts in every direction to a cheering crowd.

"It was brilliant," remembers Kelly, who gave Beck his first lessons in the art of publicity. "Totally brilliant. He nailed us."
BECK THEN LEFT for Houston, where complete failure awaited. And then he drifted to Baltimore, where the drink and drugs tightened their hold . . . and more rating failure was in the cards.

One former colleague painted him, in those Baltimore days,
as a drugged-out Marquis de Sade:
Beck was known at B104 as a pro's pro in the studio but was becoming increasingly unraveled when not working. "Beck used to get hammered after every show at this little bar-café down the street," remembers a music programmer who worked with Beck. "At first we thought he was going to get lunch." The extent to which Beck was struggling to keep it together is highlighted by Beck's arrest one afternoon just outside Baltimore. He was speeding in his DeLorean with one of the car's gull-wing doors wide open when the cops pulled him over. According to a former colleague, Beck was "completely out of it" when a B104 manager went down to the station to bail him out. In his 2003 book, "Real America," Beck refers to himself as a borderline schizophrenic. Whether that statement is matter-of-fact or intended for effect, he has spoken more than once about taking drugs for ADHD, and when he was at B104, Beck's coworkers believed him to be taking prescription medication for some kind of mental or psychological ills. "He used to complain that his medication made him feel like he was 'under wet blankets,'" remembers the former music programmer.

Today, when Beck wants to illustrate the jerk he used to be, he tells the story of the time he fired an employee for bringing him the wrong pen during a promotional event. According to former colleagues in Baltimore, Beck didn't just fire people in fits of rage -- he fired them slowly and publicly. "He used to take people to a bar and sit them down and just humiliate them in public. He was a sadist, the kind of guy who rips wings off of flies," remembers a colleague.
EVENTUALLY, Beck sobered up after his marriage fell apart. Eventually, he shopped around for a worldview, became a Mormon and married anew. And he discovered talk radio in New Haven, Conn.:
By 1998, Beck realized he'd never be able to do what he wanted to do on FM radio, limited to talking fluff in between Britney Spears songs. Out of this failed experiment with Penn was born Beck's idea of "fusing" morning radio wackiness and political debate.

His talk radio identity still larval, Beck was already displaying the skills that would make him a talk-radio lightning rod. "He always knew how to work people and situations for attention," says Penn. "He could pick the most pointless story in the news that day and find a way to approach it to get phones lit up. That was his strong point -- pissing people off. He was very shrewd on both the business and entertainment sides of radio. He's built his empire on very calculated button pushing."

Not that this empire was imaginable back then. Mostly people noticed the button-pushing and wanted nothing to do with it.

"Anyone in Connecticut who says they knew Beck was destined to run an entertainment empire is full of s***," says one of Beck's former coworkers in New Haven. "The guy had dozens of enemies. People thought he was an annoying, washed-up has-been. When I see people today bragging that they knew him back then, I'm like, 'But you f****** hated him!'"
TODAY, WE FIND that Beck has pushed buttons all the way to the head of an "army" of the gullible disaffected. He has national radio and cable-news shows, and his devotees sing his praises at Washington rallies and use his words as brickbats against the dastardly "progressives."

Only in America. Or maybe Munich.

Of course, no one wants to discount the idea of redemption. No one wants to dismiss the power of God, and the power of the human spirit, to turn around a life.

No one wants to seriously believe that people cannot change -- sometimes quite fundamentally. I'd like to believe that of Glenn Beck.

It's hard, though, when the man refuses to give others the same benefit of the doubt that he demands of us. He vilifies Van Jones for a colorful political past, yet we are expected to give a former sadistic, washed-up and drugged-out disc jockey not only a pass, but also the keys to a populist uprising.

We're supposed to take his TV and radio shows seriously, and we're not supposed to think those who do are imbeciles with a tenuous grip on reality.

That's a tall order. Especially when Beck takes to the national airwaves to point out communist symbology at Rockefeller Center and the United Nations . . . all allegedly courtesy of the Rockefellers.

It's just as crazy as Beck stating that the entire concept of social justice is somehow inextricably intertwined with communist ideology. Talk like that shouldn't be taken seriously, unless the subject at hand centers on whether America's hottest talker is as abstemious as his church demands.

Glenn Beck the rich and popular talk-show host may no longer be the same monster as "Captain" Beck, the morning-zoo DJ. But that monster still lurks somewhere within (as, to be fair, it does for all of us).

And the more Mr. Hyde can manage to emerge from Beck's new, respectable Dr. Jekyll persona -- the one with the audience of millions -- the safer it becomes for all our nation's darkest demons to seek the spotlight once again.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

How do you think John Daly got his start?


Carrie Nation and Billy Billie Sunday took their campaign against demon rum -- and demon whiskey . . . and demon beer -- to Nebraska's demon-regulating panel today, seeking to save unsuspecting Omaha children from possession by evil spirits somewhere between the water(ing hole) hazard and the big windmill.

AFTER ALL, it's a proven fact that kids can develop lifelong addiction from watching Mom and Dad have a cold one on the miniature-golf course. And, remember, today's plastered Putt-Putters are tomorrow's drunken golf-cart drivers.

As a matter of fact, the siren song of the liquor-soaked road to perdition is so strong that I had the overwhelming urge to climb into a bottle just reading this story in the Omaha World-Herald:
Officials with two groups opposed to teen-age drinking told the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission that while similar family-oriented businesses already have liquor licenses, giving one to the Boulder Creek Amusement Park would further risk mixing underage customers with grown-up alcohol.

"We need to send the message to our children that alcohol is not the center of all social life, and that we don't need alcohol to have a good time," said Susie Dugan of PRIDE Omaha Inc., a group that seeks to keep kids from using drugs and alcohol.

Dennis Schuett, a partner in the Boulder Creek mini-golf/batting cage complex near 142nd and S Streets in the Millard area, said he has been forced to seek a liquor license because competitors for corporate outings already have them.
UNFORTUNATELY, Miss Nation had the fairness under the law argument going against her here. So it was left to Rev. Sunday and her Plan B argument:
Schuett and his attorney, Mike Kelley of Omaha, cited the Pizza Machine, the Fun Plex, Skate Daze and Dave & Busters as similar, family-oriented amusement facilities that sell liquor in the Omaha area.

A representative of another group opposed to teen drinking, Diane Riibe of Project Extra Mile, told commissioners that while that was true, the bigger issue was the wisdom of allowing liquor licenses "on every corner of this state."
BECAUSE we all know that if we can only try Prohibition -- or at least some half-assed local imitation of it -- one more time, crime will vanish, men will quit beating their wives, teen sex will give way to Wednesday-night church, rehab centers can close their doors and no one will ever wreck a car again. Just like the nirvana we experienced from 1920 through 1933.

Just like raising the drinking age to 21 has eliminated binge drinking on college campuses everywhere. And the last high-school keg party took place when . . . 1985?

Fortunately, the commission voted to give Boulder Creek that liquor license. And frankly, I really could use that drink about now.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

San Francisco is just different


It's 4 a.m. Someone you do not know walks into your home and into the can.

What do you do?

Well, if you're a techie guru like Dave Prager and you live in San Francisco, that could be the subject of much debate and hand-wringing. All of it online, naturellement.

NO, REALLY. It must be true, it's in the Telegraph over yonder in London:
Mr. Prager, an online technology writer and web video star for internet television station Revision3, immediately posted the event onto social website Twitter.

“Maybe I should lock my door - I swear a random dude just walked into my bathroom and I can't believe I haven't freaked out.” He continued to post updates as he wondered how to react.

“I can't believe I'm tweeting about it while he is still in there.”

Mr Prager then took advice from online followers on what to do about the man in his bathroom, who he described as a combination of “hobo and drunk and sleepwalking dude.”

“Should I call the cops like you guys have recommended? Find a blunt object before opening the door? My gut tells me he's harmless."
UNBELIEVABLE. Considering that San Francisco is, well, San Francisco, you wonder whether folks there have gotten too "progressive, hip, happening, open-minded and now" to retain the instinct for self-preservation.

I wonder if the Romans had this debate when Attila the Hun was on the march? Luckily for Prager, the guy did turn out to be a more-or-less harmless, passed-out drunk. Blessedly unarmed, as Mr. Tech showed him the door.

Live on the web cam. Of course.

NOW, I WONDER how this might have played out, say, in Tejas?
Billy Bob Eustis, an oil-refinery pipefitter and deacon at the First Baptist Church of Sabine Pass, immediately interrupted his Twitter updates to sping into action.

“DAMN!" he wrote before leaving the computer. "Left the damn door unlocked. Some sumbitch done walked into the crapper. Hang on.”

The microphone in his computer's webcam streamed the sounds of gunshots to startled Internet viewers.

Mr. Eustis, back at the keyboard after a few minutes, assured his Twitter followers all was well.

"That ol' boy ain't gonna do no more home invading," he tweeted, to use the lingo of the American microblogging service. "Called T-John over at the sheriff's department. They coming right over. I'll never get that damn bathroom cleaned up. Gotta go."

Jefferson County authorities ruled the incident justifiable homicide, citing Texas' "shoot the burglar" law. Mr. Eustis, after taking a couple of days off from the refinery to clean up his damn bathroom, will receive Port Arthur's first-annual Don't Mess With Texas award in a city hall ceremony.
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: In which community is sanity closer to holding sway?

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Fat, drunk and dentally-challenged . . .

. . . is no way for a country to go through life.

Who knew that the Brits' famed stiff upper lip got that way from trying to make it to the 'loo before blowing chunks?


FROM THE DAILY MAIL in London, we get this depressing account of the Big Night in the U.K.:
Binge-drinking revellers fuelled a chaotic start to 2008 as over-stretched ambulance workers battled to cope with emergency calls flooding in at a peak of one every eight seconds.

In the capital alone the London Ambulance Service had to deal with its highest number of emergency calls since the Millennium - the majority related to excess alcohol.

As midnight came and went there was mayhem as scores of drunken partygoers around the country tumbled into the streets, some wearing little more than their underwear.

Fights erupted and a string of dishevelled young men and women collapsed on benches and in doorways, too inebriated to remember or care that the night was supposed to be a celebration.

There to mop up the mess were thousands of emergency workers drafted in to provide cover on the busiest night of the year.

In the first four hours of 2008, London Ambulance Service (LAS) dealt with an astonishing 1,825 calls alone, peaking at over 500 calls an hour between 2am and 4am. The volume of 999 calls was up 17 per cent on last year' and four times worse than a normal night.

Meanwhile in the West Midlands the ambulance service fielded 1,400 calls in just five hours - a rate of one every 12 seconds. It was mirrored by the North East Ambulance Service which received 1,860 calls between 11pm and 5am.

Last night the astonishing number of calls to deal with booze-fuelled illness of injury prompted accusations that lives of those in real emergencies were being put at risk and demands for partygoers to wake up the costs of binge-drinking.

LAS spokeswoman Gemma Gidley said: "These calls put the Service under increased pressure to manage demand when we have to ensure we respond quickly to other patients with potentially life-threatening emergencies.

"People need to think about the real consequences of drinking so much that they require treatment."

In the south, the South Central Ambulance Service dealt with three times more incidents that normal.

OR, IN THE WORDS of that English prophet, Johnny Rotten:
God save the queen,
The fascist regime,
They made you a moron,
Potential H-bomb.

God save the queen,
She ain't no human being.
There is no future,
In England's dreaming.

Don't be told what you want,
Don't be told what you need,
There's no future no future,
No future for you!

God save the queen,
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves.

God save the queen,
'Cos tourists are money
Our figure's head
Is not what she seems.

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh lord god have mercy
All claims are paid

When there's no future
How can there be sin?
We're the flowers in the dustbin,
We're the poison in your human machine,
We're the future; your future.

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves.

God save the queen
We mean it man
And there is no future
In England's dreaming.

No future no future
No future for you
No future no future
No future for me.

No future no future
No future for you
No future no future
No future for you
No future no future for you.