I saw a billboard with this message:
Need help?
Call Jesus.
1-800-555-3787
So I did and a Mexican showed up with a tow truck!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
The 'Sex and the City' Billboard
Okay Losers, I have a question to pose for you in the dying days of what is a truly sucky year. This letter appeared in the local paper. It is presented here for your enlightenment, amusement, or whatever reactions you may have. (More than one is allowed.)
"To the editor:
I am writing in regards to a billboard on U.S. 72 advertising the show "Sex in the City." I have tried unsuccessfully to contact Fox 54 about this billboard.
I am a mother of five children, four of whom are teenagers. I was disappointed and shocked to see this billboard in our town. Every day, my kids and husband are exposed to this larger than life replica of Sarah Jessica Parker lying in a sultry manner with her thighs bare and her breasts exposed. Not only is this visual image ingrained in their minds on a daily basis, they become desensitized to these things that are sacred.
With the very large words sex and city seen every day, they come to see sex as normal as getting hungry and seeing an ad for a hamburger. Casual sex is more damaging than hamburgers and should be seen as such.
I cannot take my family to the mall because we have to pass by Victoria's Secret, where soft porn is illuminated in their display windows. I can protect my family in my home by not exposing them to these things, by turning off the TV and teaching them about keeping themselves pure, but when I go out in public, they are bombarded by messages that say "have casual sex, you'll feel good." "Dress seductively, your worth depends on it." It makes parenting hard when our society bombards my kids and my husband with these temptations daily.
We moved from a big city in the hopes that we could raise a family in a place where these things would not inundate our family. I would like to see the innocence of [city unnamed] stay that way. Some may say these things are a progression for our city, but in reality, they are a digression.
Desensitizing our families to the sacredness of sex and purity can only lead to destruction of families in our society. It leads to teen premarital sex, sexual crimes and teen pregnancies and disease. This does not sound like progression to me.
As a mother hen protects her chicks, so will I cover my family with my wings and I would call on my city to help me.
[Name withheld]
[City]
I am writing in regards to a billboard on U.S. 72 advertising the show "Sex in the City." I have tried unsuccessfully to contact Fox 54 about this billboard.
I am a mother of five children, four of whom are teenagers. I was disappointed and shocked to see this billboard in our town. Every day, my kids and husband are exposed to this larger than life replica of Sarah Jessica Parker lying in a sultry manner with her thighs bare and her breasts exposed. Not only is this visual image ingrained in their minds on a daily basis, they become desensitized to these things that are sacred.
With the very large words sex and city seen every day, they come to see sex as normal as getting hungry and seeing an ad for a hamburger. Casual sex is more damaging than hamburgers and should be seen as such.
I cannot take my family to the mall because we have to pass by Victoria's Secret, where soft porn is illuminated in their display windows. I can protect my family in my home by not exposing them to these things, by turning off the TV and teaching them about keeping themselves pure, but when I go out in public, they are bombarded by messages that say "have casual sex, you'll feel good." "Dress seductively, your worth depends on it." It makes parenting hard when our society bombards my kids and my husband with these temptations daily.
We moved from a big city in the hopes that we could raise a family in a place where these things would not inundate our family. I would like to see the innocence of [city unnamed] stay that way. Some may say these things are a progression for our city, but in reality, they are a digression.
Desensitizing our families to the sacredness of sex and purity can only lead to destruction of families in our society. It leads to teen premarital sex, sexual crimes and teen pregnancies and disease. This does not sound like progression to me.
As a mother hen protects her chicks, so will I cover my family with my wings and I would call on my city to help me.
[Name withheld]
[City]
My first reaction was that I was remiss in not feeling sufficient reverence for Sarah Jessica Parker's ta-tas, monumental though they might be. I have been accused of insufficient reverence for convention in other forums, so this is not new. Or maybe it's simply lésé majeste to the horsy set, I don't know. And I always regarded Vicky's Secret as a local cultural landmark on the order of the football stadium, Rosie's Cantina, or the library. Perhaps I need to appear before the City Council to request that said Sarah Jessica Parker billboard be declared a cultural landmark. After all, we do pay attention to history in the South.
But I have a second thought. The writer really wrote a clever parody, and she has gulled the complacent coffee-requiring reader into thinking that this is serious. After all, this is a community in which ties its economic fortunes to a golf course and in which some regard swallowing goldfish as a way of witnessing for the Lord.
So what's your take, real or parody?
[I wrote this in 2006.]
[I wrote this in 2006.]
Monday, September 20, 2010
To Hell With CNN
Arrrgh! Okay, okay, everyone's entitled to his own opinion, I concede that. And I'm okay with news being essential in a democracy or whatever our government passes for nowadays. But give me a break, already!
Why must wherever I go I have to have the background noise of CNN? I cannot go into the hall of some academic buildings, or into the Student Union without there being numerous televisions all set to CNN. Not that FOX or MSNBC is any better. It's the same twaddle, just with cuter packaging in the case of Fox or that inevitable douchebag Olbermann in the case of MSNBC! And if I'm unfortunate enough to get sick, why must there be the television monitor in the doctor's waiting room set on CNN? Isn't it bad enough to be sick? They treat sick horses better than this. If I must have television, give me QVC or Sailor Moon or even 24 hours of Sonic Drive-in commercials!
Are we so afraid of our own thoughts that we need the cheap fix of that candyass Anderson Cooper or that schmuck Lou Dobbs, not to mention the unspeakable Nancy Grace to infuse our thoughts with their strident voices? If that's the case, we are collosally screwed!
Why must wherever I go I have to have the background noise of CNN? I cannot go into the hall of some academic buildings, or into the Student Union without there being numerous televisions all set to CNN. Not that FOX or MSNBC is any better. It's the same twaddle, just with cuter packaging in the case of Fox or that inevitable douchebag Olbermann in the case of MSNBC! And if I'm unfortunate enough to get sick, why must there be the television monitor in the doctor's waiting room set on CNN? Isn't it bad enough to be sick? They treat sick horses better than this. If I must have television, give me QVC or Sailor Moon or even 24 hours of Sonic Drive-in commercials!
Are we so afraid of our own thoughts that we need the cheap fix of that candyass Anderson Cooper or that schmuck Lou Dobbs, not to mention the unspeakable Nancy Grace to infuse our thoughts with their strident voices? If that's the case, we are collosally screwed!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The First Dirty Joke I Heard
It's not often that a person can fix the exact date of some early memory, even to the approximate time, but I can. And even better, the first pun I ever heard.
It was approximately 7:30 P.M. on October 31, 1952. The reason why I can do this is because we had just returned from the west coast, Dad having been off for the Korean War previously, and it was the first time I went out trick-or-treating with my brother Phil, who was preschool at that time (lucky guy!).
We met a little girl, name unremembered. She was pleasant, and asked me if I wanted to hear a joke. I said, sure. Here it is, approximately:
"There was this French woman who had just bought a big jar of aspirins, and she was riding on a city bus. Unfortunately, her jar of aspirins spilled, and they splattered all over the dirty floor of the bus.
The unfortunate French woman said, (mimicking French accent) 'My ass-per-ins!'
The bus driver then said, 'Stick it out the window, lady.'"
I was always grateful to her for that pleasant joke, even though I knew instinctively not to tell it to Mom or in Catholic school. In one fell swoop, she exposed me to a dirty joke, an attempt to mimic an accent, and a horrendous pun. Many of us accomplished far less at that early age.
It was approximately 7:30 P.M. on October 31, 1952. The reason why I can do this is because we had just returned from the west coast, Dad having been off for the Korean War previously, and it was the first time I went out trick-or-treating with my brother Phil, who was preschool at that time (lucky guy!).
We met a little girl, name unremembered. She was pleasant, and asked me if I wanted to hear a joke. I said, sure. Here it is, approximately:
"There was this French woman who had just bought a big jar of aspirins, and she was riding on a city bus. Unfortunately, her jar of aspirins spilled, and they splattered all over the dirty floor of the bus.
The unfortunate French woman said, (mimicking French accent) 'My ass-per-ins!'
The bus driver then said, 'Stick it out the window, lady.'"
I was always grateful to her for that pleasant joke, even though I knew instinctively not to tell it to Mom or in Catholic school. In one fell swoop, she exposed me to a dirty joke, an attempt to mimic an accent, and a horrendous pun. Many of us accomplished far less at that early age.
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