Diary of Fools Nut-Punch of the Week: May 5-12, 2008

By Merton Sussex, Dean of Student Retention

Holy shit. Is it Monday already? Again?!? You've gotta be kidding me. Really? All right, fine. It's not like the world is any less full of toad-licking retards than it would be tomorrow, so I suppose we'd better get going with this week's sack-smack.


This Week's Worthy Nominees:



Darius Rucker

Darius Rucker has always been sort of a douchebag. His band, Hootie and the Blowfish, makes simpering pussy-pop, which in turn makes millions of dollars. He's unrepentantly Christian, and, like many of them, is hell-bent on demonstrating how much better than you he thinks he is...So he puts plenty of religious references into the lyrics, which sucks (I'm looking at YOU, Scott Stapp). He's an ardent fan of the Miami Dolphins. He GOLFS.

Even so, Darius and I have had something of an understanding over the years, because even though Hootie's hits (like "Hold My Hand", and "Let Her Cry") are as about as middle-of-the-road bland as pop-lite gets, they were good for at least one thing: They got me laid in college. So, I've largely let him slide on his wimpy balladeering. Weak-sauce or not, copping to liking that first album when it came out made you look "sensitive", so it was a reasonably-effective panty-loosener back in the day. Therefore, for some time, Darius Rucker and I have been cool.

But not now, Big Daddy D. The cease-fire is ended.

Some of you might wonder what ol' Hootie's been up to the last few years. Well, the band's still around...Sort of. They've been coasting on their past successes for some time, though. "Cracked Rear View" sold something like eleventy-billion copies, but the subsequent however many releases haven't sold more than 7 or 8 copies apiece.

So, in order to keep the cash flow up, you may recall that Darius recently sold his soul to that creepy, polymer-headed monarch of meat, the Burger King:



...And then when the residuals stopped pouring in from THAT...He took out a second mortgage on his soul, and sold it again, reinventing himself as a country "artist." And why not? That commercial had done such wonders for his credibility. To wit: In the last few months, Rucker has appeared at country "music" awards shows, on other "artists'" country albums, and generally rubbed elbows with their whole sick scene trying to ingratiate himself. Now, he's recorded an entire album that's due to be foisted on an unsuspecting public, and recently released the first single off of it to Country radio. I'll spare you the link. If you want to torture yourself that badly, I'll have no part of it.

Let's get something straight: Country "music" is stupid music for stupid people...Period. Musically, it's formulaic, cookie-cutter and low-skill, sung by nasal rednecks who only know four chords and have limited vocabularies with which to render their lyrics due to never having finished junior high (and if you think I'm being mean-spirited, check out this hilarious headline I just read.)

Thematically, it proudly celebrates that unique brand of aggressive ignorance endemic to southern Americans. You know, that "we'd-rather-be-tough-than-smart" asshole-cowboy bullshit attitude that says that putting a Confederate flag on your truck is somehow different than wearing a swastika armband, that pickup trucks, chewin' tarbacky and Larry the Cable Guy are all cultural icons, and that "perfesser" is a perfectly-acceptable nickname for anyone who still has all their teeth. Country music embraces and nurtures the great, red-state-dwelling collective Jethro that revels in being backwater, racist, and untainted by anything resembling compassion, civilization, or book-learnin' as though it were a birthright. This is a region of the country that thinks "Deliverance" was a documentary. Ever notice that most people who can feed and dress themselves properly often say, "I like all kinds of music...Except country"? This is because admitting being a country fan immediately brands you as a gormless, overall-wearing hick. Of course, the flip side of that are the inbred, buck-toothed, grew-up-in-a-bubble-of-cultural-isolation Hootin' Holler natives who say, "Music? Well, ah lahk BOWTH kahnds! Cuntrah AYUND Western! Gaw-LEE."

Country music is an island unto itself. They have their own awards shows nobody else is invited to, their own rules, and their own celebrities that can't go to tractor pulls or flea markets without getting mobbed, but who could stroll unmolested through any random Nordstrom's. This is because thinking people can't stand it, and everyone who can has a gene pool the size of a teardop, rendering them incapable of comprehending the subtle complexities of, say, Nickelback.

And this is the life Rucker is CHOOSING. Becoming a Country "artist" because your pop career has fizzled is like deciding to become a garbageman after your desk job gets downsized. Sure, it's easy and pays fine, but you have to spend your whole day smelling, touching, and dealing with the rotten, rancid stuff most bright, refined people consider to be disgusting.

The sad thing is, Rucker's never been a bad singer. Sure, those old Hootie tracks were a little limp, but they weren't badly performed. The kid's got a reasonably decent set o' pipes. However, these days, he's made the conscious decision to use his powers for EVIL. And that makes him a bad egg as far as I'm concerned.

But, hey, who knows? It might work out for him. It's entirely possible that he may wind up joining the ranks of the country elite alongside such other noted African-American country artists as...um...Charley Pride, and, uh...Charley Pride. But there will always be those of us who remember when he used to be happy to hang out in the middle, rather than shooting desperately for the sub-bottom.



Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson is a lawyer. A conservative, Christian lawyer. Ordinarily, that would be enough to qualify him for an uppercut to the underbelly all by itself. But it's what he chooses to DO with that legal standing that genuinely makes him a contender.

Jack's career highlights:

In 1975, he applied for a job as assistant State's Attorney in Dade County, Florida, but was passed over by then State's Attorney Janet Reno. Yes, THAT Janet Reno. This pissed Jack right the fuck off. So, rather than work harder and try again, he decided to brush up on the use of tactics that would come to form the leitmotif of his career to this day. Namely, obfuscation, accusation, misdirection, overreaction, and smear campaigns. So, in 1988, after nurturing a grudge for more than 13 years, Thompson ran for the position of Prosecutor in Dade, against the incumbent...Janet Reno. He is said to have run for no other reason than to have plenty of public opportunities to dig, harass, and needle her during the campaign. In fact, during a campaign event, Jack apparently passed Reno a note, demanding to know whether she was, quote, "homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual." Reportedly, Reno put her hand on his shoulder and responded, "I'm only interested in virile men. That’s why I'm not attracted to you." Ooh, BURN. Point Reno! And how did Jack react? He filed a police report accusing her of battery for touching him. When the ballots were counted on THAT runoff, Reno was ultimately re-elected with 69% of the vote.

In 1990, Thompson shot to national prominence as the guy who took on 2 Live Crew's frontman Luther "Luke Skyywalker" Campbell, trying to get the rap act's albums banned for "obscenity." Why? Not because the record was THAT objectionable. Largely, it was speculated that he'd done it because Campbell had released a record that expressed support for...Janet Reno. FUCK, this guy can carry a torch! When courts in Florida refused to hear Thompson's obscenity case, he went on a one-man crusade, picketing, distributing flyers, and generally trying to get record stores to stop selling the record...Which proved unsuccessful. In subsequent years, he levied similar campaigns against N.W.A., Ice-T, and Madonna, under the "Who Will Think of the Children" banner that conservatives typically wave around whenever confronted with art that runs counter to their tender, pink little sensibilities. All he ever really succeeded in doing was proving himself a killjoy dick.

However, most people these days know Jackie for his relentless onslaught against the multi-billion dollar behemoth that is the videogame industry. As far as Jack is concerned, If Janet Reno was bad, and rap music was worse, then surely videogames will be the undoing of Western society!

It all started for him in 1997, when he represented the parents of the victims in the Heath High School shootings. He won them $33 million in class-action damages by claiming that the shooters had been corrupted by videogames and pornography. Hooray, Twinkie Defense! Since then, he's had a mad-on for video games like nothing else, railing against them in the press, calling them "murder simulators" to anyone who will listen (and plenty who won't), and generally making an ass of himself trying to win some more, like a smack addict relentlessly chasing the rush of that first high all over again. The upshot is, he's been laughed out of courtroom after courtroom, lost a few counter-suits, and had several disbarment actions levied against him for professional misconduct. They've slowed him down, but he hasn't quit.

Thompson's latest stunt has been to have an apoplectic public seizure over "Grand Theft Auto IV", the latest highly-anticipated installment of the multi-million selling cash-cow franchise for Rockstar Games. Unless your address is "Oblivious Q. McApathy, 1 Under-Rock Lane, OutOfTouchville, USA", chances are you've at least heard of it. For those who haven't, it's an open-world, go-anywhere, do-anything free-roaming hi-res adventure that takes place in a fictionalized New York, and the character you play is asked to do some pretty unsavory things. Things involving crime, drugs, prostitution, and murder. Sure, it's gritty, graphic, and realistic. But when you consider that the lion's share of games these days are bought by people 18-34, and that the sales numbers show an OVERWHELMING preference for games that no longer assume we're all seven-year-olds enthralled by pixels the size of canned hams beeping around on the Atari 2600, it makes sense. We've matured as gamers and as consumers, and we're voting with our wallets when games come out that both reflect and respect that.

But Jack wants them gone. GONE. All of them! Fuck personal responsibility, parental monitoring, ESRB ratings and the fact that well-adjusted adult gamers have a BLAST with these superbly-crafted works of playable art. JACK hates them, so they have to GO. He's just the latest in a long line of asshole self-appointed morality cops who won't rest until he's managed to bend the rest of the world into conforming to what HE decides is acceptable.

The reason he's getting singled out this week is because of his most recent salvo: Writing a personal letter to the mother of Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two software, publishers of the "Grand Theft Auto" series. You can read it in its entirety at this link (opens in a new window), but in the interest of summarizing, Thompson's letter to Mrs. Zelnick compares her son to "the Hitler Youth," quotes the bible several times, implies that she was a shitty mom for raising him to produce "filth", says that most video gamers of any skill end up on death row, and attributes the deaths of three Alabama policemen and "a recent plethora of cop killings" to prior entries in the GTA series.

Sweet, merciful tap-dancing JESUS. He's haranguing an old lady, now. In case anyone was wondering just how low he'd stoop, there ya go.

Thompson and assholes like him really like to absolve people of personal responsibility. Sure, games are the culprit, brainwashing impressionable kids into doing things they wouldn't otherwise. That's why every single kid who's ever picked up a controller inevitably turns into a liquor-store-robbing mind-puppet without fail. Anyone who's ever played "Tetris" is obsessed with squeezing every last molecule of air out from in between the boxes at their warehouse-stocking job. Hell, to this DAY, I can't even pass a construction site without having to fight an uncontrollable urge to scale the girders, looking for the gorilla who stole my girlfriend. Fact is, you probably CAN find an X-Box 360 in the bedroom of the kid who shot his teacher. But you'll also find them in the rooms of millions of kids who DON'T. If a kid's so messed up in the head that he thinks this sort of thing is just dandy to do, then the video game is incidental. It's not even a catalyst. HE WAS PROBABLY GONNA DO IT ANYWAY. Escapism is escapism. I kill zombies on my TV so I don't HAVE to climb up on top of the clock tower with a high-powered rifle and start picking off coeds.

Jack Thompson is a racist, homophobic, Republican jagoff. And if he ever succeeds in actually getting rid of videogames, I think he'll truly and personally understand just how many people who used to be placated by SIMULATED violence might just start looking for him in order to open their now-frustrated steam valves and deliver a little of the real thing.



Dana Perino

White House Spokesperson and Presidential Press Secretary Dana Perino might just be the dumbest person to have an office in that entire building. And if you think about that for a second, you'll realize what a strong statement it is.

George W. Bush is, hands-down, the worst president we've ever had, or are ever likely to have. If he were any dumber, he'd have to be watered twice a day. But. If there's one thing I can say for the guy, it's that he's largely surrounded himself with intelligent people. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove...None are the mental midgets he is. Are they evil, devious, short-sighted, greedy people who will stop at nothing to advance their narrow world-views and personal agendas? Yes. But they're not stupid. They pay attention. They couldn't so totally manipulate the system otherwise.

Even down to the position of Press Secretary, the appointees have usually been quick with spin, sharp as a tack when it came to making shit up on the spot, and possessed of enough grey matter to toe the party line and largely at least appear up to the task of pulling the wool over the eyes of the press pool. Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, and even Tony Snow were glib, silver-tongued, and could lie with a straight face and a square jaw. They were full of shit, but at least they were able to convince us that THEY believed what they were saying. Even so, lying for a shameless administration takes its toll after awhile, and each of these guys has lasted an average of two years before bailing on the post, ostensibly to "spend more time with their families." Which I'm really starting to believe is code for "attempt to live down the shame of the horrible things I've done."

Which brings us to Dana Perino, the last-gasp mouthpiece of a blighted, tarnished, corrupted lame-duck administration, shoved into the post simply because someone has to fucking do it. Problem is, it's patently obvious that nobody in the White House gives much of a shit anymore, because she's about as good at her job as Stephen Hawking would be at breakdancing.

In 2006 (after the mid-term elections that put the Democrats in control of Congress again), the press pool seemed to pull off the gloves, and use the new-found dexterity that maneuver provided to once again locate their testicles. They stopped lobbing softball questions at administration officials, and started demanding some accountability, because they knew they had some bench strength and didn't have to be nice anymore. Snow handled this with the usual bullshit aplomb before exiting, stage right even. But rather than spin elaborate webs of deceitful rhetoric, his replacement Perino hems, haws and stalls when she comes up against something she can't effectively process. "I don't know", "That information is not available", and "We're still gathering the facts" have become her stock fall-back lines. Granted, this sort of "I don't recall" smoke-screening isn't exactly new to the GOP. A direct through-line of exactly this sort of crap runs from Ronald Reagan and Ollie North directly down to Alberto Gonzales and Gen. David Petraeus. But maybe I just expect more out of the position of the Press Secretary. After all, these other officials have whole other jobs to do. Titles and offices. Not as though they get a pass on the bullshit, but their usual duties have little or nothing to do with addressing the public, and their responses come when they're put on the spot in venues they're unfamiliar with. Her whole fucking JOB is to answer questions, be direct, thorough, and succinct, and not crack under pressure. To know enough about policy, current events and history that she can at least SOUND like she knows what the fuck she's talking about.

And how's THAT working out?

On a recent appearance on National Public Radio, Perino was being asked about her policy experience, and the rigors of her much-maligned position. Apropos of not much, she dropped her guard and let THIS nugget slip:

“I was panicked a bit because I really don’t know about the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.” So she consulted her best source. “I came home and I asked my husband,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Wasn’t that like the Bay of Pigs thing?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’”

This. Is. A. Vetted. Administration. Official. And she doesn't even know what the goddamned Cuban Missile Crisis was. Fuck, it's just dawning on me that she apparently isn't aware of something called "Google" either, if she waited until she got home to ask her husband about it. I simply don't have the words.

Then, not long after, she was asked during a press conference what, if anything, the administration planned to do about the economy, being as under its ever-so-able tutelage, gas prices have risen 500% after remaining static for decades, and the dollar is at its least-valuable EVER, even adjusted for constant values. People want and deserve answers.

The exchange went thusly:

Q: I’d like to follow up on their refusal to talk about the dollar, if I could. I mean, we’re in a kind of a bad situation here, when OPEC says the reason for $105 or $106 a barrel of oil is the falling value of the dollar — and you won’t address that issue. Where do we go to find out who is right?

MS. PERINO: Well, as he just said, the Treasury Secretary is where you go to talk about the dollar. It’s a longstanding policy that predates this administration, and I’m not going to change it today. But Treasury can talk about it.

Q: I don’t expect you to change it, but I do expect you to be able to say whether OPEC is completely wrong about this, or whether there is at least something to their claim that the dollar is responsible for the high price of oil right now.

MS. PERINO: Wendell, I’m under strict instructions, and have been from the beginning, to not talk about the dollar, and I’m not going to get fired to satisfy your question.

So, let me get this straight: Your whole job is to be the spokesperson for the administration. To answer questions about policy for the press so that they can then disseminate it to our newspapers and television channels and magazines in order that we might stay informed of the affairs affecting our country and the world at large. In essence, to boil down any piece of policy anyone might need to know about to a concise, easy-to-understand sound-bite so we can all get an iceberg-tip-view of just what in the bloody hell is going so wrong. We live in an environment where foreclosures are rampant, people are selling off family heirlooms to feed their kids even as they let the bills go, unemployment is staring down the barrel of a double-digit climb, our money isn't worth the paper its printed on and the best you can do is refer us to the motherfucking TREASURY SECRETARY?!?

I'm sorry...But fuck you. People want and deserve answers, and whoever has your job is the person that's supposed to deliver them, based on the whole of administration policy. But you're going to stand there with your naked face hanging out and pass the literal buck to a person that nobody outside the building (and likely as not, many INSIDE of it) couldn't reliably name at gunpoint? Is ANYBODY in this administration capable of accepting responsibility for ANYTHING?!?

However, administration winding down or not, she's still trudging dumbly along, freaking out and fucking up every chance she gets, and acting like a spoiled infant in the process. Watch this question, asked by a guy who she reportedly didn't mean to call on because he's not one of the few loyal toadies left that still go easy on them, and check out her response. Make sure you turn up your speakers for her petulant little exit pout as she steps off the podium, totally defeated:



"What the hell," indeed. Dana Perino: Mature, collected, and responsible. Just like the rest of her friends in the West Wing.

And the winner is:



Jack Fucking Thompson.

Jack Thompson is everything that's wrong with America. He's narrow-minded, pushy, intolerant, bigoted, sanctimonious, and stupid. We're adults. We've grown up. Our games had to, too. And just because YOU don't like it, that doesn't mean I don't get to play it. So shove your "I-know-what's-best-for-you" attitude sideways up your tight, dry little shit-chute, you fucking prig. Games are fun. You're just a dick. Lighten up, or the next guy to get run over, then get beaten with a tire iron and have his wallet taken just might be you.

And I hope when your head clears and the blood drains from your eyes, you look up to see that the hand holding the iron belongs to Janet Reno.