Sometimes we work late, and other times — most times — we drink heavily and end up in front of the TV at odd hours, which, without a satellite, means infomercials. Here then is our rundown of a few recent items up for grabs.
First, the Dual-Action Cleanse. Do not mistake the Dual-Action Cleanse for a new electric toothbrush. You wouldn’t want it anywhere near your mouth, particularly not after it’s been in use. The Cleanse is, actually, a do-it-yourself colonic irrigation kit, for those of you who can’t be arsed (pardon the choice of words) to go to some spa and have the exorbitantly expensive and pointless procedure done there. (Word to the wise: you’ll crap out whatever the colonic would have sucked out in three days anyway, so save yourself some cash, and call up Dr. Colonel Sanders). According to its claims, the Dual-Action Cleanse has “literally swept across the nation” (we’d hate to be the guy who has to mop up afterwards). Its creator, the shady fight promoter / golden-showers-porn director lovechild of Steve Buscemi and John Waters [below], has a formula “coveted by rivals”, that aims to rid the world of “undigested toxic waste that weighs you down”, in this, his one-man crusade to replicate the bowel movements of children in adults. Yes, that’s right. And if you haven’t been sick today, then here you go, an early barf before New Year’s Day: “I saw my four year old’s bowel movements, and they seemed so large for her size”, (It must be said that his daughter could well be freakishly large).
Klee Irwin wants to clean your pipes
That creepy Mephistophelian colon plumber though, simply cannot compete with the likes of his early morning pitchman rivals Mr T and Jack LaLanne (whose products are on intake valve side of the ingestion/expulsion divide), even if Dual action cleansing herbal Mojo gets your arse backfiring like a 67 Sting Ray.
If you came of age in the 80s, have prescription-drug related insomnia or basic cable, you’ll know Mr. T — who’ll kick, not cleanse the shit out of you. Mr T, the A-Team mainstay and coiner of “I believe in the golden rule…the guy with all the gold, rules”, is the man behind the Flavor Wave Turbo, which cooks things so thoroughly that, according to user accounts, “garnishments [sic] aren’t needed” (a good thing, as at its price point of 3 payments of $39.53 it’s unlikely that a warning, served on a third party to hold money or property belonging to a debtor who is being sued by a creditor, is required)
The device, which “can be used as a serving dish”, if your dining room can accommodate a full-size snooker table or lunch for the average rugby team, has “tornado-like airflow and virtually cleans itself” [Editor's note: to surmise what is meant by this, compare a virtual world with a real one].
This also answers that age old question, wasn’t he the guy who ruined Wrestlemania? “Forget to defrost again?” and offers T space for choice zingers like “This meat looks like the frozen food section!” and “I pity the fool who tries to get this down!”, comments that luckily for all concerned, are made pre speed-cooking/defrost.
With endorsements from none other than Bobbie Sue Luther, the newscaster from Deuce Bigolow: European Gigolo, leathery fitness peddler Jack LaLanne pushes the “Amazing health benefits of juicing!”, benefits that are so amazing, they make biting into an apple rather than crushing it into liquid form at high speed, seem almost quaint.
With over “15,000 hours of juicing capability” (but not in a row, unless you’re off the power grid or have a forgiving landlord), and 36 RPM of centrifugal force to crush whatever helpless legume/citrus fruit crosses its path, the Juicer also comes with its own recipe book, a candidate for the much-anticipated follow up to our Top 10 Worst Cookbooks of All Time.
“Are you tired, overweight, lacking energy?” If so, you probably aren’t up at 3:45AM watching his infomercial. ‘Do you wish you could look and feel young again? You can, by ‘unlocking the power of natural juice‘. Store bought juices can sit on store shelves per month and be loaded with preservatives but with a Power Juicer, you ‘always know it’s fresh’ (our italics). [Fasting editor's note: comparisons to actual fruit conspicuously absent]
The Power Juicer seems like some unnecessary go-between, when you could simply have LaLanne come by and ram a clementine down your gullet.
Stay tuned as we review the Air Purifier and Rock Hard Abs in 10 Days, on the 11th day (if you aren’t completely satisfied, you get a free ab)
It’s customary when marking the end of another year to take time to reflect on all that’s happened over the past 12 months — the environmental disasters, wars, and celebrity break-ups that kept us patronizing the mainstream media like the self-loathing John who’s found a call girl particularly adept at delivering a verbal dressing down. And of course, there’s the yearly round-up of those who won’t be here next time roll call at the Breathing Society of Earth is taken. Yes, the famous — beloved, despised, and silently tolerated — who left us over the past year.
Well as a public service, we are going to save you from having to wait for that somber moment during the Oscars when they play Beethoven over footage from the life and times of Gregoire, Africa’s oldest chimpanzee, and offer you our 2008 Death round-up. First, those we will miss without tongue in cheek, but with bottle in hand (click on name for Shark Guys obit).
George MacDonald Fraser: The year got off to a miserable start — even worse than it normally does following a New Year’s hangover — with the news that George MacDonald Fraser had died. His ballsy, skillful and hilarious writing will be missed. These days book series tend to be for children, but Fraser’s signature character Flashman spent more time in brothels than he did castles and the series of books based on his exploits during Victoria-era Britain make for damn entertaining reads.
George Carlin: The groundbreaking comedian who went to war with the gormless unquestioning couch potato, we’ll miss Carlin’s riffing on the absurdities of life, particularly unquestioning faith. (He also added a nice layer of irony to parents stuck watching the Thomas The Tank Engine series when he hosted that program for a season).
Paul Newman was among those who died this year who we didn’t blog about. He gave the movies its coolest pool hustler in Fast Eddie Felson and played the role of hardened washed-up hockey tough in Slap Shot so well that he brought the locker room lingo home with him. “Ever since Slap Shot, I’ve been swearing more,” he said. “I knew I had a problem one day when I turned to my daughter and said, ‘Would you please pass the fucking salt?”
Far more unexpected than any of these, of course, was the death of the talented actor Heath Ledger.
But we’re starting to get a bit smashed and sentimental from all the toasts we’re raising to these people whose absence diminishes our world. What about all those whose deaths nobody but their immediate relatives — barring a trust fund — would mourn? This past year also saw a good number of right tossers get flushed out into that great sewer system in the sky. These are folks not worth dirtying hankies over. They say it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but we disagree as they are far less likely than the living to sue you or kick your ass. Put on some comfortable shoes, because we have a bit of grave-dancing to do:
THOSE WHO WON’T BE MISSED
So much to dislike in this photo.
Jesse Helms: Bidding Helms farewell, Christopher Hitchens called him both “a senile racist buffoon” and a “venomous hick”, and that seems about right. He campaigned against the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and in the early 1970s took a Senate seat that he would use for the next 30 years to attempt to quash any piece of legislation deemed progressive that passed in front of him — he went on a 16-day filibuster in an attempt to block the bill establishing Martin Luther Day — and spread his bigotry over to homosexuals for good measure. Oh, did we mention that 2008 also saw the election of Barack Obama to the presidency? So long, Jesse.
Yves St. Laurent: Alright, we’re not really sure that this guy merits inclusion on this list. He seems to have been a respectable enough sort according to Wiki, but certainly a guy who popularized handbags as expensive as Volkswagens deserves some subterranean stick?
Bobby Fischer: In 1993, a movie was released called “Searching For Bobby Fischer“, well chances are they would have called off the hunt if they knew what kind of a screw-loose tinfoil-hat-wearing nutter was at the end of it. Bobby Fischer was America’s greatest chess player, but in later life he was also a kook. He rejoiced in the 9/11 attacks and became the sort of intensely paranoid nutter who would blame abundant nose hair on a Zionist conspiracy.
Adi Da: Shortly after we published our list of the Top 10 Horniest Cult Leaders, #3 on that list — Adi Da, Da Free John, or any other of the innumerable names that Franklin Albert Jones used to get laid — went to that big snake-oil salesman convention in the sky. We’re sure though that others will pick up where he left off and carry on in his proud tradition of spinning mystical gibberish in the hopes of liberating the earthly clothes of the gullible.
Suharto: In 2004, former Indonesian dictactor Suharto topped Transparency International’s ALL-TIME list of corrupt world leaders. This is not as surprising when you consider that he had 32 years at the golden teat, ruling Indonesia with an iron fist and wreaking a hell in East Timor from which it is still recovering. He was credited with modernizing Indonesia, and indeed, reports are that the nightlife in Jakarta is great, but when you think that the coup that brought him to power cost nearly half-a-million lives in an anti-communist pogrom, well we can’t say we hope to see his likes again.
As we noted in our Top 10 Bar Songs of All Time, many musicians have adopted the ‘write what you know’ credo, and given that they spend a considerable part of their waking hours in taverns (this isn’t nearly as much as it might seem as they sleep in until well into the afternoon), they looked around, put pen to paper and gave us the decomposed remnants of organic matter from which our Top 10 List could grow.
If you’ve taken this ‘write what you know’ phrase to heart (even though it’s more worn than a yogic flier’s drawers), and find you’re still staring at a blank screen, you may in fact, not know anything. Luckily, there are plenty of people who can write what they know and who are more than capable of picking up your slack, you lazy, untalented hack.
Some of these people, though not nearly as many as those who’ve found inspiration at the bottom of a beer/wine/whiskey glass, have chosen Mother’s Ruin, as their muse.
Why is that, you ask? Well, gin, simply put, has a lousy reputation and the phrase ‘bathtub gin’ likely came about it’s the first thing that would spring to mind if you had to clean a ring around yours. The juniper berry spirit has its origins in 17th century Holland, where it was believed to alleviate gout and its popularity, not surprisingly, spread quickly, as abandoning a diet rich in fat and booze was beyond comprehension, especially when the antidote could be guzzled cheaply and plentifully from the comfort of one’s armchair.
The potable soon spread to England, and from there, to mask the flavor of quinine so that English soldiers could spear colonials, unfettered by malarial concerns, while domestically, like reality television or the internet these days, it was blamed for every prevailing social ill. [Editor’s note, a strong case can be made for blaming every prevailing social ill these days, on the internet, please see our Top 10 Drinking and Driving Songs of All Time and Battling the Red Menace: Happy Kick a Ginger Day]
On these shores, and we’d like to think everywhere else, gin forms the basis of the only martini a man should be seen drinking (if you have one with cranberry juice or chocolate, you might consider arranging a fitting for a dress) and as a result, has seen its reputation improve, though you’d never really know it from some of the songs we’ve compiled here. So here, because to the best of our knowledge, it hasn’t been done (and if it has, carpal tunnel has prevented successfully Googling it) is our Top 10 Songs about Gin.
10. Gin & Milk Dirty Pretty Things
Choice Gin Lyrics: I’m in to myself, On uncertain terms, I put gin in my milk, To kill all the germs
Muddy: Well I been drinkin’ gin like never before, I’m feelin’ so good… honey that’s for sure, One more drink… honey I wish you would, Take a whole lotta lovin’ to make me feel good
8. The Night I Stole Old Sammy Morgan’s Gin, Hank Snow
Choice Gin Lyrics:
Listen folks and I will tell a funny story
You may think it sad but I was in my glory
Twas a cellar I crept in cobwebs brushing by my chin
On the night I stole old Sammy Morgan’s gin.
7. Love is Like a Bottle of Gin Magnetic Fields / Gin Soaked Boy Divine Comedy (tie)
Choice Gin Lyrics:
Love is like a bottle of gin
but a bottle of gin is not like love
Choice Gin Lyrics:
I’m the ruby in the dust
I’m the trust in the mistrust
I’m the Trojan horse in troy
I’m the gin in the gin-soaked boy
6. Gin & Juice Snoop Dogg
Choice Gin Lyrics:
Rollin down the street, smokin’ Indo, sippin’ on gin and juice
Laid back (with my mind on my money and my money on my mind)
And I’m gonna get tough
you been lying to me
How could you crawl so low
with some gin-soaked boy?
2. That Woman Got Me Drinkin’ Shane McGowan and the Popes
Choice Gin Lyrics:
That woman’s got me drinking, look at the state I’m in/Give me 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 bottles of gin”
1. Misery and Gin Merle Haggard
Choice Gin Lyrics:
But here I am again, mixin’ misery and gin.
Sittin’ with all my friends and talkin’ to myself.
I look like I’m havin’ a good time but any fool can tell,
That this Honky Tonk Heaven really makes ya’ feel like hell.
Almost Made the Cut
Somebody Put Something In My Drink The Ramones Tanqueray and tonic’s my favorite drink/I don’t like anything colored pink
Supersonic Oasis I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else, I’m feeling supersonic, Give me gin and tonic,You can have it all but how much do you want it?
It’s Like That Handsome Boy Modelling School ‘Cause I can flow like Donovan bro sound supersonic
Pouring gin and tonic with some chronic to blow
I Believe in You Frank Loesser (as performed by Frank Sinatra) I take heart to see the cool clear eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth,
Yet there’s that slam, bang, tang, reminiscent of gin and Vermouth
Tangueray Johnnie Johnson Hey bartender, there’s one thing I gotta say.
Hey bartender, it’s tryin’ to rain on my parade.
Gonna have another drink, another drink of Tangueray.
With endorsements from none other than Bobbie Sue Luther, the newscaster from Deuce Bigolow: European Gigolo, leathery fitness peddler Jack LaLanne pushes the “Amazing health benefits of juicing!”, benefits that are so amazing, they make biting into an apple rather than crushing it into liquid form at high speed, seem almost quaint.
