The Day I Lost My Faith in Humanity Part XVII: Quick & Angry

So, I read THIS on CNN this morning:

'Fast & Furious' shatters box office records

In the first truly shocking box office result of the year, "Fast & Furious" sped away from expectations to gross a humongous $72.5 million, according to early estimates from Media by Numbers.

That result is effectively double what most industry observers had predicted for the debut of the fourth feature in Vin Diesel's car franchise, and it left in the dust a number of notable records:

- Best April opening ever, beating "Anger Management's" $42.2 million.

- Best Universal Pictures opening ever (three-day), beating "The Lost World: Jurassic Park's" $72.1 million.

- Best F&F franchise opening ever, beating "2 Fast 2 Furious'" $50.5 million.

- Best opening yet in 2009, easily beating the bows of the more-buzzed-about "Monsters vs. Aliens" ($59.3 million) and "Watchmen" ($55.2 million).

- Best opening ever for stars Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster, as well as for director Justin Lin.

Oh, and let's not forget that it was the best opening ever for a car-themed movie! (Beating "Cars'" $60.1 million.) This outcome is impressive, indeed, something that has caught Hollywood by surprise and has the potential to really change things up -- like when summer-esque blockbusters are released (rarely does one open so early in the year) and like, you know, what everyone thinks of Vin Diesel.

Yeah, I don't know why he's smiling, either.

Goddamn you, America. Goddamn you right to HELL. The fucking umpteenth movie in a franchise that was absolute shit to begin with, a franchise all about dick rice-modders, a flick which, in a rational universe should have gone straight to DVD, instead made more than SEVENTY-TWO GODDAMNED MILLION MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS?!?

You guys obviously don't get it yet. See, if you see shit movies, shit movies make money. And if shit movies make money, the anus of the giant Hollywood machine keeps pumping them out like so much chocolate soft-serve.

We had almost gotten rid of Vin Diesel, people. We were THIS FUCKING CLOSE to consigning him to video game voice-over hell. Up until last week, the best he could hope for would be an offer to play the lead in "The Chris Daughtry Story," but no.

Apparently, NOT Vin Diesel. I'm as shocked as you are.

You all had to elevate the "star" of such hair-pullingly, teeth-gnashingly awful fare as "Chronicles of Riddick" and "The Pacifier," to the status of someone capable of opening an April movie that beat Pixar, Jack Nicholson, and "Watchmen." After taking a pass on the last two ("2 Fast 2 Furious," and um..."Japanese Smudge," or some shit), his career was so obviously in the toilet that he came crawling back to do ONE MORE of those asinine goddamn car-tweaker movies in a move so transparently desperate as to be openly mockable. And instead of being all, "Whatever, 'Transporter' dude," you fucking sheep swallowed it up like it was candy-coated crack. You FOOLS. Do you have any idea what you've DONE?!? Even Steve motherfucking GUTTENBERG had enough options and enough pride to turn down "Police Academy 18: We Give Up," and he's been living on Top Ramen and gutter runoff since Clinton's first term. But, no. You just couldn't let it go.

"I'm dead inside."

CNN again:

Overall, the box office was up a monstrous 68 percent from the same time frame a year ago, when holdover "21" outplayed a number of weak new movies, none of which had Vin Diesel ... whom you're going to start hearing a lot about, once again.

Oh, that is IT, America. You and me? We are fucking DONE professionally.

Come to think of it, Vin Diesel has done exactly ONE THING in his career that didn't make me cry hot tears of shame. And that it because it made me cry hot tears for other reasons:

"I am NOT a gun."

Yeah, I'm man enough to admit it. Makes me weep openly every single time like a Girl Scout who came in dead last in the cookie contest, and I'm not ashamed in the slightest. Shit, I'm getting misty just thinking about it. And if it doesn't have the same effect on you, you don't have a soul, and you can just delete yourself from my buddy list forever. I'm perfectly serious about that.

Friday Funk: Bill Fay/ Esther Phillips

Sure its not necessarily funk, but its funky as shit.



and Esther Phillips amazing rendition of Gil Scott Heron's classic "Home is where the hatred is."

Site Update:DoF now accepting Subprime mortgage applications

Hello kittens,

As you may have noticed, the good ol' Diary had some domain issues this week. We have straightened those issues out (hopefully permanently) and are now back for business.

For those still looking for reasonable real estate queries, as our placeholder page stated, please send all monies to:

Diary of Fools
Attn: Subprime Mortgage Fiasco
P.O. Box 593593
Anytown, PA 12345

Thank you for patience.

Look for original video skits in the coming weeks, as well as the usual deliciousness and daily postings.

We love you,

DiaryofFools

The DoF Friday Funk: Loose Joints

Lee Fields aka "Little JB". One of the many "lost and found" soul singers of the 90s:

This album did not leave my CD player (man, that sounds archaic) for the better part of a year:

James Polk and The Brothers. The title of this track explains it all: Just Plain Funk. Who knew the 11th president of the United States of America could throw down like this?

Hot Sh!t: Adventures in Babysitting

The tagline reads "THE EXCITEMENT IS INFECTIOUS! (LIKE PINKEYE)." Which is funny, because with the amount of fecal matter my eyes have been exposed to while trolling the blogosphere, you'd think I'd be a chronic pinkeye sufferer by now. 

Thankfully, Adventures in Babysitting is 100% excrement-free. Just the finest blend of all-natural humor, rich in essential wit and intelligence. 

Check it out.

Ain't THAT a bitch?

Merton Sussex, Consommé Connoisseur

Essentially, I'm a simple man. I don't really require too much to be truly happy. A nice snifter of some good Cognac, a fine cigar once every few moons...perhaps an enthusiastic hum-job here and there from a middle-tier call girl. Nothing too extravagant.

However, one of my simplest pleasures is my afternoon repast. In anticipation of the next day's mid-day lunch recess, each evening before work, I take great care in preparing the sustenance I'll consume. I gently layer thinly-sliced, cured meats of smoky (yet delicate) flavor upon artisan-crafted, multi-grain breads, taking extra pains to place a healthy slab of any of a number of fine Italian cheeses upon the flesh, before smearing a hearty dollop of a grainy, high-character European dijon mustard over the whole proceedings. The next day, I consume it with relish. Not the condment, mind you, but the ENTHUSIASM. At least, as much as is befitting a gentleman of such refined breeding.

Pull the other one, Heinz.

That's why it's such a big fuckin' hairy downer whenever something goes wrong. Sometimes I forget my lunch in the 'fridge at home, and other times, I stay up too late giggling at the funnymen in the magic box who populate our nation's late-evening broadcast airwaves, and straight-up brainfart on making lunch at ALL. Those days, I consume nothing for lunch apart from my own salty tears; which, as you can well imagine, do little to satiate me.

But I wasn't prepared for the shit I had to stare down yesterday. Bear with me, but the wound is still pretty fresh.

So at yesterday's luncheon, I extracted my victuals from their carrying-tin as I always do, and laid them out before me. Then, just in case the government was watching, I poked my tongue out from between my lips, rubbed my hands together, and said, "Oh boy oh boy oh boy!" Again, nothing out of the ordinary. But still, all just preparation.

The next step is always opening my prepared soup, and placing it into the micro-wave device until it attains a temperature suitable for consumption. Typically, I choose my soup from any of a number of varieties purveyed by the Joseph A. Campbell company of Camden, New Jersey. The quality of these offerings typically pleases me, and the cherubic urchins that adorn their packaging amuse me with their humorously wholesome antics.

Y'know, the more I look at those two, the more I think someone
ought to get them in for some thyroid-disorder testing.

Today's specialty was to be "Chicken with Mini Noodles," a perennial favorite due to its hearty nature and delicate blend of savory flavors. So, you can imagine my alarm when I removed the sippy-cup lid to said soup, only to be confronted with THIS:

OH SWEET, CRISPY JESUS, NO

The HORROR! In case you're trying to figure out what the hell you're looking at, that'd be a nice, happy chunk of fuzzy, grey-green goddamned MOLD. On my mother-licking SOUP. (Also: note my sweet-ass Pac-Man lunch box. And no, it's not for sale.)

After I'd managed to bounce back from forcibly recoiling in revulsion, I got a better look at it. Evidently, the foil-sealed, pull-tab thing-a-ma-shit had separated from the edge of the cup just enough to allow a few drops of rich broth to seep between the seal and the lid, where it seems to have festered and grown into a thriving culture of potential penicillin.

As you can well imagine, my disappointment was palpable.

However, my disappointment soon turned to irritation. The size of the nasty little fungus-booger seemed to indicate that it had been trundling along undisturbed for a good while. And being as I just bought the soup during a routine supermarket jaunt last week, I'm gonna guess "a good while" translates as, "LONG before the dead-eyed graveyard-shift StockBot at the grocery store even put the sonovabitch on the shelf to begin with."

"Hello. Please kill me."

Therefore, because I am an American with notions of entitlement so prodigious and demanding that they require their own bedroom in my home, THIS AFFRONT WOULD NOT STAND. Naturally, I felt the need to alert the fine people at Campbell's of this regrettable predicament IMMEDIATELY. At once, I dialed the customer-care telephone number on the side of the cup (right next to the 'expiration date' of 11/12/09 - a likely story), which had been provided for that exact purpose, and spoke to a representative.

Long story short, Brenda was a delight. Professional, contrite, accommodating, and possessed of the exact sort of honeyed, dulcet tones you NEED to hear soothing your bruised sense of Western privilege when things go so horribly wrong in such deeply insignificant ways. I'm told that I can expect my coupons to arrive in 7-10 business days.

If I'm really being candid, I don't blame the fine folks at Campbell's. I've enjoyed their products for years, and always without incident. I know their quality control is well beyond reproach. And as such, I genuinely regret that Campbell's is the entity that has taken it upon themselves to rectify this injustice, being as the breach of the soup-containment vessel likely as not didn't occur on their watch at all. Once they release their products into the wild to seek their fortunes, any number of things can go wrong that are well beyond the auspices of their influence. My compromised soup was much more probably damaged by some apathetic teamster who shoved one too many boxes onto his truck in an attempt to trim time. Or, possibly even the aforementioned grocery-shelf-filler, who may have even dropped the cup, and didn't even stop to THINK "fuggit" before putting it out anyway.

"Sure, blame me. See what happens."

Even so, Campbell's has my replacement product en route, and for this, I am grateful. Because, regardless of whose fault my inedible soup ultimately was, Campbell's is nonetheless a fine corporate citizen, and stands behind their product unconditionally. I think there's probably a lesson for all of us in there somewhere.

So, Goodnight, Brenda...wherever you are.

Free Band Names!

Every 7 seconds a new band is created. [citation needed]

Aside from learning your instruments, writing songs, finding regular gigs and deciding what supermodel you're going to domestically abuse, the toughest part about starting a band is choosing a name.

And because your BFFs at the DoF know thinking can be hard, we've compiled a totally complimentary cock-rockin' list of band names along with the type of music best-suited for that suggested band name.

Band Name/Best suited for:

EarPunchClimax/Finnish Speed Metal
Suffocated by Cool/UB40 cover band
The Didgeri-don'ts/Australian Lesbian Rock* 
Post-Coital Tears/A tribute to Morrissey
Bag of Crushed Child/Black Metal
Tumor Circus/Christian Pop
The Great Muppet Raper/Acoustic Folk Duo
Territorial Tennis Partner/Ska fusion
I Like Gravy/Songs inspired by and about gravy
Voluptuous Toddler/String Quartet
Absconded Erections/Playing the best of Phil Collins
They Stole Jazz/Black Bluegrass String Band
Manatee's Closet/Plus-sized fashion pop

Post-emo Colonial Marching Bands: So hot right now.

*The Didgeri-don'ts name comes free with the Barry Metropolis-penned, soon-to-be-smash-hit, "Get That Thing Away From My Mouth"

Hot Sh!t: Stephen Strasburg

In this age of steroid use in baseball, rarely do you see the kind of stunning natural talent and ability that Mr. Strasburg displays. Hey batters: instead of wetting your pants when that nasty curve comes around, take a ball! Oh, wait... It's not going to matter once he throws that 101 mph heat. Take a look at highlights from this complete-game, 23-strikeout shutout performance:

Click here for the video.

Here's to hoping he doesn't end up substitute teaching at his old middle school, hitting on his high-school sweetheart in front of her dweeby fiance, and launching partially nude, herpe-ish crack whores off the back of his jet-ski.



Click here for the video.

Apartment Ephemera

Posted on the back door of my building

I am supposed to do so how?

The Intellectual Scrapheap: Not-So-Deep Thoughts from the Mind of Blaine Fridley

I've never met Don Henley. But I think I'd like to break a bottle over his head.

Introducing "Ask a Canadian with Sully Sullivan"

Canada. O, Canada. Our glorious and free neighbor to the north.

And though we share the longest common border in the world (5,525 miles or 8,892 kilometers as it's known everywhere else on fucking Earth), we hardly know one another. Well, except for the lazy stereotypes. You know the ones - maple syrup, hockey, gravy on french fries, asexual reproduction… but the truth of the matter is, Canada is so much more. Sure, viewed through our jingoistic-colored glasses, it may, like the rest of the world, appear to us as inferior to the U.S. of fuckin' A. It's an attitude most likely adopted as a result of our top-notch healthcare unparalleled financial system fair labor practices tasty snack chips.

But as Toronto's-own Sully Sullivan (of the hilarity-filled blog Yeah... totally, right?) shares with us in his new regular column Ask a Canadian, when compared to America, The People's Republic of Canuckistan is the tops. Both in a literal, geographic sense and in a euphemistic prison rape kind of a way.

So now, with no further turdification, allow me to present the inaugural edition of Ask a Canadian with DoF resident Canadian, Sully Sullivan.

Enjoy,

Blaine

Before a 2004 visit to Canada, the U.S. Office of the Chief of Protocol compiled an extensive list of Canadian quirks and customs for then-president George W. Bush to review in order to avoid any international embarrassment. This list included things such as "In Quebec, the thumbs down sign is considered offensive." What would you have included on this list?

(Muffy from Lincoln, NE)

Being American is offensive to Canadians. That fact right there must have put Bush at an immediate disadvantage.

George, a few quick tips for next time you're elected president, engage in a ridiculous war, piss all over the global economy and have to visit Canada:

1) Don't smoke while you eat: Canadians are disgusted by someone smoking while eating. I have seen Americans do this and I can say, beyond any doubt, that I'd rather watch Willem Defoe do nude hot yoga before seeing another American smoke while they eat food.

2) Please don't middle-finger us: In the US, the middle finger is a stop gap cure-all for a wide variety of social ailments, but here in Canada we haven't degraded the potency of "the bird" near as far. It still stings a little when we're faced with it.

3) We are serious about poutine regardless of whether or not we are French Canadian: I know what you were probably thinking while reading the CoP's notes, "Hey I'll just go up there and tell a bunch of slightly jabbing, but overall playful poutine jokes and everyone will have a good time about it." NO! That's hurtful. That's hurtful and it's wrong.

4) Remember, Hockey is Baseball without the "pussy": Don't bother acting like you can bask in our love of hockey because you share a similar passion for the sport of baseball. Comparing baseball to hockey is like comparing your fat uncle to me. I'm stronger and faster with a better mullet.

5) There are no Bob Evans restaurant chains here: Asking where you can find the nearest Bob Evans only alerts us to the fact that you are American, which as I said above, is greatly offensive to us.

Hope I helped.

Is it true that prime minister Stephen Harper's power originates from his impeccable side-part, and as a precautionary measure his feathery coif is protected at tax payer's expense by an invisible bullet-proof laminate developed by the CSIS?

(Larry from Seattle, WA)

Harper's hair was actually born in rural Massachusetts to a military family. A gun prodigy, the young coif, attended West Point and was eventually trained by the CIA. Now an old do', decorated in the purplest of all American war medals, the hair has retired in Canada atop the Prime Minister's magnificent melon where it is regarded as the finest of eyebrow umbrellas.

See? Now you know that our Prime Minister is actually 3.5% American. We're learning!

Canadian-born Conrad Bain won me over with his unforgettable portrayal of wealthy housing developer Phillip Drummond in the early 80s American sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes. If the USA approached Canada regarding a trade for Conrad Bain in exchange for Wilford Brimley, Patrick Duffy and a Jonas Brother to be named later, would you be in favor? Why or why not?

(Rupert from El Paso, TX)

We should have named this column "Ask a Young Canadian". It would have been more appropriate and also pre-warned the editors of this blog that "Diff'rent Strokes" is something my father probably watched. I've quickly Google image searched him, and my stars, is he ever a handsome man. It would take a lot to pry him away from us. Based strictly on looks, Brimley's moustachio is incomparable and every time he pronounces diabetes like "diabeeetus", I piss my pants laughing. But look, I'm not rich and have a very limited supply of clean pants so this is actually a strike against him. Patrick Duffy is a wash, he's all smiley and charming and "old guy good looking" I guess, but I can't remember which 90s bullshit family sitcom he starred on, so he can stuff himself.

Was it "Step by Step"? It was...wasn't it?

What the fuck is a Jonas brother? Is that like a sex move? "Man, I gave that broad the dirtiest fucking Jonas Brother I've ever laid out, bro. SICK!" A "Jonas Brother" of course being when you wedge yourself into someone's life and then alternate fist fucking their ears and eyes.

Overall decision: Diabeeeeeeeeeeeetus. I simply cannot turn Wilfred Brimley away. He comes with a shitload of instant oatmeal right?

Questions for Sully? Email 'em to diaryoffools@hotmail.com

This Day in History

1806: Having reached the Pacific Coast, explorers Lewis and Clark began their journey back east. 4 expedition members would die on a return trip that ended up taking 3 times longer than originally expected, thanks to Clark's insistence on seeing the world's largest ball of twine.

1868: Governor Haight of California signs into law a provision that establishes the University of California, which persists to this day as a refuge for draft-dodging hippies, simpering dicks who smoke twice their weight in pot per year, and major-changing slugs who'd rather take surfing classes than emerge from the cozy, beer-filled, amniotic sac of academia into even the topsy-turvy bizarro-land that passes for the "real world" on the West Coast.

1775: Patrick Henry delivers his well-known pro-revolution speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. His passionate words and delivery are usually credited with having convinced the Virginia House to pass a resolution committing troops to the Revolutionary War. Tragically, however, upon Henry's closer of, "Give me liberty, or give me death!", Rep. Clancy Q. Whiskerbottom of Felcher's Grove, a noted obstructionist, promptly stood up from his chair and shot him.

"For chrissakes, you assholes! It was a metaphor!"

The Undead Menace

Merton Sussex, Dual-Wielder

So, the other day, I realized I was fresh out of vinegar, light bulbs and Vienna Sausage, and had to leave the house. And, while I was at my neighborhood supply depot, I saw that they had a new item on the shelves. It was an "Emergency Kit." Inside was a flashlight, a radio, basic first aid kit...the usual suspects. The outside of the box indicated that it's good for situations like tornadoes, floods, storms, earthquakes, and the like.

And, I'm sure it is.

But I'm sorry...These days, I'm of the strong opinion that no "emergency kit" is really complete unless it includes at least SOME provision for helping the purchaser survive the sudden, unexpected appearance of hordes of the shambling undead.

Here's the thing: All American men of a certain demographic have been conditioned to understand that the Necropalypse is inevitable. Whether it's a secret government experiment gone awry, a horrible super-virus that arises due to evolution over a shorter microbe life-cycle, or even an extraterrestrial infection, we know in our hearts that it's a matter of "when," and not "if." However, the upshot of that is, along with this conditioning comes at least some modicum of preparation. Thanks to comics, movies, video games and the Internet, we've been set up by our entertainment to deal with World War Z as best we can when it comes.

As for me, I have a zombie-emergency plan in place. I've already set up an escape route, and I've got the perfect place to go. And no, I'm not sharing. There's only enough room for me, and a carefully-selected group of friends and loved ones carefully and specifically chosen for their cunning, reflexes, and complimentary team-based survival skills.

But.

Because I have a vested interest in ensuring the survival of humans as a species, I worry about people like Edith T. Greenhorn of Buttocks, Arkansas. She's 56. She's never bought a copy of "Fangoria." She has no idea who George Romero or Sam Raimi are. She couldn't possibly understand that aiming your shotgun properly and at extremely close range can disable multiple zombies at once, and is essential to conserving your shells. And she thinks a chainsaw is really only for cutting trees down. That's pitiable! These people need a fighting chance! If humans are going to survive, we've got to get the word out to everyone!

Picture this: Imagine YOU'RE the one who's escorting them to higher ground, trying to keep them alive long enough for them to give you the password/antidote/government secrets, and/or slapping them in their hopelessly clueless, blubbering faces as the swarm stumbles nearer, arms outstretched and moaning? It's going to be an uglier-than-necessary day for everyone involved.

They never teach the really useful life skills in school, do they?

Look, you can prepare for the standard, garden-variety crises all you want. Fire, whatever. Floods, sure. But if you're REALLY serious, you also need to come up with a C.R.A.P. - A Corpse-Reanimation Action Plan.

Think I'm kidding? Then THIS will be a wake-up call. As is true in so many areas in life, THE JAPANESE ARE WAY AHEAD OF US. They are already training their children in zombie-repelling tactics. Witness THIS:



Sure, the audience is laughing. BUT THE KIDS AREN'T. This is a DRILL. They know the score, because Japan has always taken the threat of the zombie menace more seriously. And yes, maybe a bucket of sponges and a roll of Saran Wrap wouldn't be AS effective as, say, an AR-15 and a machete, but at least they're DOING something. And that sort of peace-of-mind is important.

So, because I care, here's a little something to get you started. With help from Knarf, I've put together a top-ten list of crucial zombie-swarm survival tips:

1) Pack light, and keep moving.
2) Cut your hair short.
3) Wear tight-fitting clothes.
4) Own at least a .38 revolver, and keep it handy. (If possible, also own a reliable carbine rifle, a shotgun, and one of those small ice-climbing picks. An axe or large hatchet is also essential for destroying the stairs leading to the second floor of your hideaway.) In addition, always keep ONE bullet apart from the others in a safe place on your person.
5) Be as quiet as possible.
6) No place is safe; only safer.
7) Retreating to cold climates seems like a good idea, but winter is just as hampering to your survival as it is to the ghoul's mobility. Mountainous regions are your best bet. Avoid cities, swamplands, hillbillies, and large bodies of water.
8) Don't be afraid to loot. Hardware stores are your friend, but MALLS are a deathtrap.
9) DO NOT GET BITTEN. If you are bitten, it is your duty to use the single bullet from item 4 in the most honorable way possible.
10) Most important of all: ALWAYS AIM FOR THE HEAD.

This guy: Fucked, sure. But not quite as fucked as he seems to the untrained eye.

No matter what, it is your responsibility to persevere. Your delicious brains are both the only thing that will save you, and the one thing the enemy wants more than anything else.

In other words: Keep your head figuratively, and you stand a better chance of keeping it literally.

The DoF Friday Funk: Fuck It All and Feel Good Edition

That's the theme today.

No job?

Fuck it.

No money?

Fuck it.

No clue what tomorrow holds?

Fuck it.

Fuck it all and feel good.

Trust me, it's not as hard as you think. Here, I'll ease you into the shallow end with a sweet, sweet classic from Bobbi Humprhey -- Harlem River Drive


Right? Feels good, don't it? Well then, why stop there? The Blackbyrds keep it going with Do it Fluid


Awwwwww yeaaahh... now you got it. Glide in your stride? Check. Dip in your hip? Check. Well now it's time to lay back and let Fred Wesley and the JBs take care of the rest with Damn Right I Am Somebody


Damn.

You know what? Fuck it. Let's play one more from Fred Wesley and the JBs. Seriously, with Breakin' Bread, it's like looking at a sonogram image of lil' baby hip-hop in the womb. Oh, and enjoy the rhythm-synched lightshow too.

Prepare for the illness served up on a warm, crackling wax plate:

DoF Classic: Great Moments in Fat History, Vol. 1

Originally Published: 9/8/08

By Merton Sussex, Regional Vice President of Snark Allocation

Beginning today, the Diary of Fools will be running periodic salutes to the hallmarks of fat acceptance in America. Great Moments in Fat History will take regular looks at the great lengths we go to in order to rationalize the growing obesity epidemic; and to make things easier for the morbidly obese to feel normal and streamlined in a society that is repulsed by them. We'll examine in depth the incredible attitudes that enable persons of great girth to keep on shoving Twinkie after Twinkie after Twinkie down their gaping, grease-slicked gullets in a pathetic, empty attempt to fill the voids in their souls where normal people are able to put love.

Great Moments in Fat History Vol. 1: The Obesity Scooter

There comes a certain benchmark in the life of every unbelievable train-wreck tub of shit; a crossroads, if you will. A point of no return of sorts where the revolting fatty has a choice to make. Maybe it's after the third or fourth heart attack, or after the doctor's visit that informs them that even their Diabetes has Diabetes...Whatever the impetus, the fork in the road is the same: The corpulent sod must choose either the path of "Wake-Up Call", or the road of "Fuck It, It's Too Late."

If it's the former, Tons 'o Fun may chose to hop on the treadmill, and not get off until he can see his shoes again. Maybe he'll try all sorts of fad crash diets, or even opt for invasive Bariatric surgical procedures. Of course, these measures enjoy varying degrees of success dependent upon everything from genetics to tenacity, but at least Tubby is taking an active role, and may squeeze a few more years out of his portly meat-shell.

But if it's the latter, Two-Ton Tessie really only has one choice: Self-Delusion. "I'm just fine the way I am," she'll tell herself. "I'm perfectly comfortable and happy at 578 pounds. Sure, I can't reach my genitals anymore, I smell like warm brie, and and when I die they'll have to cut a hole in my house and forklift me out, then dump me in a shipping crate, the previous tenant of which was a Steinway Baby Grand, before shoving me into a hole they had to spend two days excavating with a backhoe...But there's nothing wrong with ME. It's the REST of the world that has a problem!" At which point she'll nod her porcine melon, the TEMPLES of which are even slick with flop-sweat at the effort, and when the undulating from her seven chins stops perpetuating itself like those chrome balls on strings that your boss has on his desk, she'll pick up her second large, stuffed-crust two-layer pizza of the last ten minutes, and proceed to sink even further into sideshow territory as she gulps it down without hardly chewing.

It is post THAT stage of the great chub charade that one must seek further rationalization for one's decision. "Hey," thinks the bloated sack of protoplasm. "If the world didn't want me to look like Bibendum's glandular-disorder-affected older sibling, there wouldn't be size 9X sweatshirts, all-you-can-eat buffets, and that most ridiculously enabling of all pachy-person accoutrements: The Obesity Scooter."

For the uninitiated, the Obesity Scooter is a most marvelous invention, to be sure. It allows even the chunkiest of Hutt-proportioned piles of lard to still enjoy something approaching independence in the days and months leading up to the inevitable bedridden, rag-on-stick sponge-baths and impromptu drop-ins from Dick Gregory. The Scooter provides even people whose legs have negative-integer muscle tone to experience a reasonable facsimile equivalent of ambulatory motion; allowing them to perform some version of the tasks that those of us whose flatulence does NOT register on the Richter Scale are able to do. Everything from shopping, to attending social events, to...well, going to restaurants.

The Genius of the Scooter resides in its (if you'll pardon the expression) "elephant in the room" status. See...Whenever we notice a person with an assistant medical device...e.g. a colostomy bag, insulin pump, iron lung, crutches, prosthetic limb, glass eye, wheelchair, neck brace, trachea ring, CPAP, pacemaker, or even giant, scrap-metal-looking dental headgear...We're obligated not to mention it under any circumstances. To do so is a faux pas of the highest order. When you go to shake someone's hand, and grab a cold steel hook instead, it's considered terribly bad form to recoil in horror, shrieking like a Girl Scout who's just been told that her St. Bernard got into the Thin Mints. Nope, it's incumbent upon us to shake away, and act like we simply didn't notice. Most normal thing in the world, that. Wouldn't even have seen it if you hadn't mentioned it! Reason being, it's polite to not call attention to the glaring differences of others that may make them feel alienated from other people.

And somewhere along the line, the Obesity Scooter got lumped in with the rest of those things, as though it were a legitimate medical device. Out of a shared sort of mob-mentality social decorum, the American populace was hoodwinked virtually overnight into politely regarding the Obesity Scooter as just another meaty leg up for the disabled, like an eyepatch or a Dr. Stephen Hawking Speak-and-Spell thingy. We were bamboozled into thinking, "These people aren't human Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. They're not Ripley's Believe it or Not footnotes. Why, heavens, no. They're handicapped."

And THIS was perhaps the fat acceptance movement's greatest coup of them all, worth a thousand Mo'Nique-hosted chubby-girl beauty pageants, or a few dozen Emmies for Camryn Manheim. Getting the rest of the world to see these rotund rollabouts not as unrestrained hedonists reaping the consequences of their chosen lifestyles of excess and apathy...But as legitimate victims, plagued by a world that made them the way they are, only to staunchly refuse to accept them that way once they were. There are no notions of entitlement at play, here! When you get right down to it, they're really no different than sufferers of Multiple Sclerosis or Muscular Dystrophy. After all, those, too, are progressive conditions that render their victims increasingly unable to care for themselves, and ever less mobile as the ravages of the disease take their toll.

Except that there are no telethons for the man- and woman-atees who are eating themselves into an early grave. No foundations created to help those who started eating seven meals a day in 1982 and eventually worked up to 12. No fund- and awareness-raising marches designed to assist those who find themselves stricken by the condition. Though, to be fair, you can't cure MD by hanging out with Tony Little or Richard Simmons for a few months, either. In fact, you might CATCH some shit from that. But, I digress.

The point is, when we see someone buzzing around on a scooter, rolls and folds spilling so far over the edges of the seat that we can't even really be sure that there IS one, we're just supposed to let it go. To ignore it. To pretend that the situation somehow DOESN'T embody most of what's wrong with Western culture and it's overindulgent me-first-ism, and treat the plump passenger as if they're just like anyone else. Like they DIDN'T just take the "Fuck It, It's Too Late" path of least resistance when faced with their own crossroads, and use the last thousand dollars they didn't spend on Ho-Ho's to buy electric leg replacements instead of a fucking Bowflex.

So, in the interest of preserving inter-personal propriety, we DO let it go. Rather than look at these planet-proportioned pudge-piles and cluck our tongues, wondering what exactly went so horribly awry in their psyches that things could have gotten to that point, we smile. We treat them like we would anyone else. We ignore the room-elephant.

We shake the hook.

Maybe this is for the best. Because we KNOW if we simply got fed up, and adopted a tone of sneering sanctimony concerning their corpulence, we'd just come off like bigger assholes than they are. Sure, the be-scootered blobs are essentially foisting themselves on the unsuspecting public, forcing us to flatten against the shelving and squeeze our butts into the pickle jars as they hum by at Wal-Mart, parting the people in every aisle right down the center like a goddamned freight-liner trundling down the Panama Canal as they fill their carts with Doritos and Cheez-Wiz, daring someone to say something to them. But the second you decide to drop a pithy bon mot concerning their sheer monolithic mass within their earshot, you can almost guarantee that you've picked on the one person in a few dozen who genuinely has a thyroid that thinks it's in a narwhal, rather than the rest of them who just use that as an excuse.

So, as ever, it's best to keep your mouth shut. Sure, if they'd do the same once in awhile, they wouldn't be in the barge they're in, but that's really not for you to be concerned about. Natural selection will eventually weed these guys out. Or, the other possibility is we'll all wind up like the beefy butter-tubs onboard the Axiom in Pixar/Disney's delightfully thin-veiled attack on consumer culture "Wall-E": Little more than barely-sentient giant amoeba, who live only to ingest and excrete, blissfully bouncing through life without even the merest worry, floating around on the future's version of the Obesity Scooter, the hover-chair. We'll loll about in our own reeking perspiration, never quite cleaning between the folds well enough to completely excise the funk, but not really caring because, after all, that's the norm. We'll eat and shit and eat and shit and then eat some more, eventually winking fatly out, barely noticed by the other slow-witted cattle as they continue to soak up more resources than any organism needs to perpetuate its own useless life-cycle. Evolution does, after all, favor dominant traits that are well-suited to the overall environment of the alpha organism. Which is why I sort of wonder if we WON'T wind up going that route. Because as long as our environment keeps allowing for shit like THIS:



...We're pretty much fucked.

Way to shake the hook, America.