Week of Jan. 25

This week: Finally we can get on with the task of actually making America great again; What do 4-dollar-a-pop video game rentals and a Wall Street collapse have in common?; “That’s an executive order, son!”; A picture on a twenty tells a thousand words; There’s a reason you never see a “Gone Fishin'” sign on the door of a Subway sandwich shop; And, of course, assholes.

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As I posted on Facebook on January 20th at exactly 12:01pm…

Good Morning, America!

And yes, I had a margarita at exactly 12:01pm on a Wednesday.
It’s a free country, dammit!!… unless you own 40 assault rifles and still somehow think you’re being robbed of your “rights.” Then it’s Russia, dammit!

The big news since my last Dump is that Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th President of what I suppose we’re still calling the “United” States of America, though “Adjoining” seems more appropriate at this point. It was a huge sigh of relief for anybody with a soul, but it was still nothing compared to the relief our new First Lady must have felt when they finally let her put down that ridiculous fairy tale book.

Did she have to go through SEAL training to be able to hold that?
It’s not bad enough? He has to stand there pressing down on it?
Is a chiropractor a “Doctor”? Because if so, the doctor’s going to need a doctor.
I don’t know this for sure, but my guess is that if you actually opened that thing, everybody who didn’t shut their eyes and turn away would be melted on the spot.

Honestly, I was just relieved to see that the back of Jill Biden’s coat didn’t say “I Really Don’t Care.”
Good choice.

Oh! And another fun thing that happened since my last Dump is that the House voted to impeach the former president – get this… a second time. There’s no denying it. He’s the best. The absolute best at being impeached. Nobody gets impeached like him.
Here’s the problem. A number of republican senators who, not long ago, were seemingly on board with this extremely valid idea, have now apparently decided, “Mehhhhhhh… maybe not. After all, even a frenzied mob of violent seditionists who probably would have killed me if they had the chance are still likely to vote for me. C’est la vie!”
Ya gotta feel for Republicans. They’re really stuck between a rock and their own depraved immorality.

AND YET…
As unlikely as it seems, this week’s top story is about a brick-and-mortar video game store.
What what?!
You may recognize the name GameStop. It’s that place in the mall next to Annie’s Pretzels that you occasionally see a kid holding a skateboard walk into. Anyway, GameStop was once a massive, worldwide seller of video games having to do mainly with the brother’s Mario, some bloodsporty Mortalized-style Kombat, random zombies, numerous fantasies, amphibious ninjas, and various Zelda-based legends. I know video games are a big deal, but my own interest obviously didn’t get past pinball machines. Specifically, “Spirit of 1776,” which was the best machine at my local bowling alley in Danville, CA, but has clearly since been banished to someone’s laundry room-slash-coat closet…

#SAD

But GameStop is now at the center of a Wall Street trading controversy, though the most “controversial” part of it all is that apparently this time (Plot Twist Alert!!) the uber-greedy fat cats are getting screwed by a ragtag bunch of little guys. And I say “apparently” because the whole thing is a bit hard to understand. But here goes nuthin’…
It seems that a lot of presumably evil hedge fund types and big-money Wall Street traders had decided amongst themselves that GameStop was a shitty business model that was destined for bankruptcy. Understandable. Maybe if they gave a nice foot massage with every four-dollar game rental they’d somehow survive. But they didn’t. So what’s a presumably evil hedge fund type or big-money Wall Street trader to do? Apparently the answer is they should bet all their money (that is actually other people’s money) that the stock price would soon plummet. Then they could take actions that, particularly in bulk, would likely assist in that downfall thereby leading to a big payoff for already way-too-rich people who would then light their cigars with 100-dollar-bills and laugh their way to the bank that immediately replaced the out-of-business GameStop at that depressing-as-hell strip mall. In technical terms it’s called “shorting.”
But what actually happened is that a huge, organized group of risk-thirsty day traders, who themselves are no prize pigs, yelled “BUY! BUY! BUY!” and ended up artificially and wildly inflating the price of GameStop stocks. This forced the “bad guys” to have to sell low and buy high, which, last I checked, rarely pays off.
It’s kind of like at the end of “Trading Places” when Louis and Billy Ray use illegally obtained insider information to screw over the guys who thought they were using illegally obtained insider information.

In other words, some perhaps justifiably shitty people got filthy rich while other demonstrably shitty people lost everything.
Like the kid with a nose full of boogers and mittens on his hands said,

“It’s hard to pick a winner.”

***

Ya think?!
What gave it away? Was it that you were buying “fish” from a chain restaurant attached to a rest stop gas station?
The women are suing the company for fraud and intentional misrepresentation, arguing they were, quote, “tricked into buying food items that wholly lacked the ingredients they reasonably thought they were purchasing.”
You had me at “tricked” and lost me at “reasonably thought.”

Look… advertising is a shitshow of illusion and deception. Frosted Flakes are not part of a complete breakfast unless you throw away the Frosted Flakes and eat a scrambled egg with brown rice and chopped broccoli. How gullible do you have to be to actually believe otherwise?
I was never actually able to get my Evil Knievel Stunt Cycle to successfully jump over a 4-foot ditch like the commercials said it would, let alone get it to clear the fountain at Caesers…

… but I didn’t sue the Ideal Toy Company over it. I just kept trying until finally I decided to end things by launching the toy into our fireplace and watching it melt on to a log. Then all I could think about was why the hell didn’t they advertise it that way?!

Of course, companies shouldn’t be able to just make wildly false claims about their products and then shrug their shoulders when they get caught…

But even people who don’t realize Latin is a real language know what caveat emptor means. In this specific case, it means “If you want to eat real, healthy, actual food, then don’t buy tuna salad at fucking Subway.”
Like the old saying goes…

Fool me once, shame on you
Get me to think the Tuna at Subway is actually edible, I’m a dumbshit

Or something like that. You get the point.

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And finally…
While I fully realize that Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are basically a trifecta of nut-sucking jackholes who should spend eternity getting shocked in their genitals with a Jewish space laser, I am actively choosing to ignore their insane antics for the time being. Instead, I would like to introduce you to Vancouver’s own Rod and Ekaterina Baker.

They’re assholes.

And not just because he’s a 55-year-old millionaire casino executive who thinks a wisp of hair combed over his obviously vast forehead keeps everyone from knowing he’s definitely going bald and she’s a 32-year-old actress whose otherwise blank and pointless IMDb page describes her as an “up-and-coming Eastern European version of Charlize Theron.” You know, because nothing says “up and coming” in Hollywood like a 32-year-old actress with a blank IMDb page.
But the real reason they’re assholes is because this lovely couple, who it’s safe to say met after he paid to have her flown in from Russia, chartered a private plane to fly them to a small remote town in Canada’s Yukon last week to receive early COVID-19 vaccinations meant for vulnerable Indigenous elders of the White River First Nation.
Yikes!
The only thing that could make it worse is if the Baker’s traded for the vaccination shots using blankets contaminated by the coronavirus.

The couple apparently showed up at a mobile clinic and claimed to work at a local motel, which would not only make them eligible for the vaccine, but also the only employees of that motel to have matching Rolex watches. It didn’t take long for locals to become suspicious, of course, particularly since they were already suspicious when a creepy middle aged dad nobody had ever met suddenly flew into town to take photos with what everybody assumed was his daughter before her prom date showed up.

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Ending, as usual, on a positive note…
This week’s musical guest is Foo Fighters.
On Inauguration Day, MSNBC aired Celebrate America, a surprisingly good “afterparty” that featured Tom Hanks (in his lest animated role) and an extremely impressive line up of music that proved once and for all that actually talented people are predominantly democrats.
#FACT
My favorite band of that night happens to also be my favorite band in general. I was never a huge fan of Nirvana, for whatever reason, but I immediately liked Foo Fighters. Nothing is more super badass to me than a super badass drummer turning into a super badass frontman and recruiting another super badass drummer. Dave Grohl did that when he went and got Taylor Hawkins, who up until then had been playing with Alanis Morissette. For a bit of extra fun, check out Taylor in this clip with Grohl who, it turns out, does a mean Christopher Walden impression.
A personal twist?
Sure.
As part of a mini staycation before our honeymoon in 2008, Ellen and I spent a weekend at the Soho Grand. At one point I headed out to the ice machine in my complimentary bathrobe. (Don’t ask.) I filled up the bucket, turned around, and to my genuinely complete surprise, there was Taylor Hawkins also with an ice bucket in his hand and also wearing the complimentary bathrobe.

Me: You’re Taylor Hawkins.
Taylor Hawkins: Yep.
Me: Right on.

I put out my hand for a fist bump. He obliged. I walked back to my room.
It’s times like these you learn to live again.

Dig it…

Peace, y’all.