If it's all the same to you, I'll drive that tanker.

Montgomery here, reporting live from Phoenix, aka The Devil's Armpit™. My drive was safe and successful, and it even included a stop at everybody's favorite home of modular Swedish furniture, Ikea. I figured I should stop by during their big sale, just to check it out. I didn't buy anything, but a few items sparked my interest.

Anyway, during my Tucson to Phoenix transit I started thinking about how happy I am. Things are so good right now, I'm borderline ecstatic. I know saying something like that in a movie would get me hit by a train or attacked by pirates, but I just need to lay it out there. Off the top of my head, reasons I'm happy:

• My beautiful, brilliant, terrific girlfriend
• My wonderful family
• Medical school, beginning July 19
• My New York trip, starting tomorrow
• Zombie movies
• The gold I stole from those pirates, who will never find me...
  

I started wondering why I'm so happy and grateful at the moment, then it hit me. We are around the time of Thanksgiving in June! The summer holiday often overshadowed by Christmas in July. So, this time of giving thanks has me thankful for quite a bit. Which will make my eventual fall from grace all that much more painful...

By the way, I apologize to anybody who got their house egged by me during my celebration of Halloween in May. Unless you forgot Colan's Birthday in March...jerks.

Start Spreading the News

I'm leaving today.

Passion of the Zombies

So I went and saw Land of the Dead, and let me first say that it did not disappoint. Excellent zombie movie all around - George A. Romero does it again. With that out of the way, I'd like to provide my analysis of the film. If you haven't seen it and don't like spoilers, stop reading. Entirely. Never look at words again.

The thing that stood out most was how the movie paralleled the Bush Administration and our current situation in world politics. It was like a giant, partially decomposed allegory. Let me explain.

The city of Fiddler's Green was representative of the United States (of America). The most basic comparison can be drawn from the stratification of the residents into upper and lower classes, with the upper class exploiting the lower for its own gain (specifically, using the lower class to fight their war). Further, the rich residents of the city wanted to remain totally insulated from the rest of the world while still being able to take whatever they want from said world. This greed has its victims, and when those victims fight back, the rich residents are incredulous, saying that the zombies have "no right" to fight back. ¿Does any of this sound familiar?

With that said, Dennis Hopper's character of Kaufman was obviously representing our resident redneck, President Bush. As the man in charge of Fiddler's Green, his role mirrors that of the president of the United States. And much like our president, Kaufman felt that defending the country was his responsibility alone - not acknowledging the efforts of the lower classes. And his line, "We don't negotiate with terrorists" was a blatant statement of Shrub's idealogy.

The terrorists he was referring to were led by John Lequizombie's character, Cholo. These terrorists very closely matched the Islamic terrorists we are fighting today. Cholo threatened to "go Jihad" on Fiddler's Green if he didn't get what he wanted. Why else would Romero use the Islamic term "Jihad" if not to invite the comparison? And a less obvious similarity, pointed out by my genius girlfriend, is that the terrorists used weapons supplied by Fiddler's Green (Dead Reckoning) against Fiddler's Green. ¿Didn't the same thing happen with both Hussein and bin Laden?

So with all these similarities, what is George A. Romero trying to say? What kind of warning is this movie meant to offer? To me, it seems quite obvious. The US is distracted by terrorists around the world. Terrorists are spending their time attacking the US and other countries. With each side focusing their attention on the other, both factions are ignoring the real menace. A menace which threatens the world and the future of humanity as a whole. That menace: zombies.

¡UConn Do it!

Apparently, the University of Connecticut is offering a master's degree in Homeland Security:

CNN Article

I imagine that it's mostly yoga classes, since you need to be pretty flexible to stick your head up your ass.

This post brought to you by Duck Tape. Fixing the world and preventing chemical weapons attacks since World War II.

Today's terror alert level: yellow with a 35% chance of mauve.

¡They're G.R.R.R.E.A.T.!

Today I was driving behind a car with a bumper sticker which read, "Proud Parent of a D.A.R.E. Graduate." For those of you not "in the know" like myself, D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. First off, that's not much to be proud of. Graduating D.A.R.E. only requires signing a piece of paper; much like graduating UA with a communications degree. But I'm not a fan of bumper stickers, so I might be biased. Second, if I remember correctly D.A.R.E. didn't really teach me anything. [insert communications joke here]

As I recall, the majority of D.A.R.E. was teaching kids how to say no to drugs. I wasn't offered drugs until a few years, and at that point there were two kinds of people who offered me drugs: friends and random people at parties. In either case, all you have to do to refuse drugs is say "No, thanks." Which might have been one of the D.A.R.E. methods. All the other methods were pointless. My friends never tried to force me into using drugs - when I would say no, it just meant more for them.

I've never used the Cold Shoulder to refuse drugs from my friends. Then you just look like an ass. The only time I've ever used Strength in Numbers is to muscle money from shopkeepers. Walking Away or Changing the Subject just makes you look weird.

If they really want to keep kids off drugs, they just need to tell them what they do. Show a real pre- and post-MDMA brain. Man, opportunities for comm. major jokes just keep popping up. Bring in a heroin addict, track lines and all. Or show a cocaine using Hollywood star. Okay, maybe not that last one.

Or better yet, use my patent pending method known as "Don't be like _____."Pick one kid in the class - the goofiest, biggest loser. Let's say his name is...Timmy. Start off by picking on Timmy constantly and crushing his will to live, right in front of the class. Then say things like, "Look how big a loser Timmy is. If you smoke weed, you'll end up like him." Or "I bet Timmy will do Heroin. You don't want to be like Timmy, do you?" Then, nobody will do drugs because they don't want to be like Timmy. And if they all gang up on Timmy, there will be Strength in Numbers. Of course, Timmy will probably turn to drugs to forget his pain, but one out of thirty isn't bad.

If D.A.R.E. is the All Star Quarterback Son in the Children's Education family, G.R.E.A.T. is the borderline retarded younger brother nobody talks about. I never hear about G.R.E.A.T., so I don't know if anybody else took it. G.R.E.A.T. stands for Gang Resistance Education and Training. They taught mostly the same methods as D.A.R.E, except applied to gangs. And it was much more likely to get you an ass-beating if you tried to use it.

Of course, G.R.E.A.T. was pretty pointless for me. Teaching the ackward, chubby, spectacle wearing white kid in the advanced class to not join a gang is like teaching a dog to not run red lights while driving - totally pointless. Unless one of those gangs was looking for a CPA or an engineer. Then I'd totally be in.

And that's the end of my D.A.R.E./G.R.E.A.T. incoherent, stream of consciousness rambling. Now it's time for me to go see Land of the Dead, a film twenty years in the making. George A. Romero's film career is coming back to life like the zombies he creates. And I couldn't be happier.

You're a rabid Anti-Dentite!

When our congressmen take a break from important issues such as "do baseball players use steroids?", "is the sky blue?" and "our asses from a hole in the ground" they discuss slightly less important issues such as, I don't know, say The War in Iraq aka Operation Iraqi Freedom™. One of the big little issues recently has been prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, or "Gitmo" - which is what President Cletus calls it because he isn't smart enough to say words with more than two syllables (sometimes three if he feels like a "big boy"). People are debating whether our methods are humane, and some say it is straight-up torture. Despite receiving "two kinds of fruit" with every meal, the detainees are said to be the victims of all kinds of nastiness that the rest of the world doesn't appreciate.

I'm not going to say whether I support or oppose what we are doing in Guantanamo. My opinion is no more important than that of UN General Assembly President Jean Ping. I will say that I've come up with a new interrogation method that is sure to make everybody happy. It allows for the physical and psychological torture desired by the right, while still embracing lollipops and rainbows as requested by the left. My solution can be summed up in two words: Dental Hygienist.

I made my realization while staring at one of the jagged metal hooks my hygienist uses to clean my teeth. Mind you, I was examining the hook up close as she jabbed my gums with the metal spike on the opposite end of the tool. Imagine if you will, leading a detainee down a long dark hallway, into a blindingly bright room with a single chair in the middle. Then, strapping the inmate down and beginning a thorough dental cleaning.

If you didn't tell that person they were receiving something millions of Americans wish they could get, they would assume it was torture. Horrible metallic weapons being pressed into the teeth and gums. The bright light right in your face. The rancid chemicals they force you to rinse your mouth with. I'd rather rat out all my friends than be subject to that. And they are trapped in the desert for most of their lives with no cleaning supplies at all. Any poking and prodding would be a million times worse than what I feel with my pearly whites.

And on top of the physical assault is the psychological abuse. I'd rather hunt down and kill Osama myself than answer the dreaded "Have you been flossing?" question. And lesser men have cracked under the pressure of trying to hold a conversation with your mouth open and somebody else's hands obstructing any means of vocalization. Truly, an uninformed visit to the hygienist can destroy even the strongest of men.

Eventually, some reporter would catch wind of it and tell the world (before disappearing during a visit to an army base). Then the hippies would be swarming to those human rights violations like...hippies to human rights violations. Kind of drew a blank there, but it works. Then, the folks in charge would just need to say "Sorry hippies, we were just providing them with the care and comfort they need. It's not our fault they started confessing the locations of all their spider holes while being cleaned." Case closed. Go back to Burning Man, hippies.

So as you can see, I've got it all worked out. I expect a letter from the government requesting permission to use my unique methods any day now. And don't get me wrong, my dental hygienist is awesome. But I can't help but feel a little abused when she stick a spike in my gums then tells me they're bleeding because I don't floss.

Damn it, I should have used moths to a flame...

I'm with Busey

So, I was driving back and forth between Phoenix and Tucson as I've been known to do from time to time. It was pretty uneventful. However, I did see a Highway Patrol officer standing outside a person's car writing them a ticket. This would fall into the realm of uneventful except for one thing. I swear to you, it was Gary Busey writing the ticket.

You read correctly. I think Gary Busey, star of such films as Predator 2 and Rookie of the Year, is posing as a Highway Patrolman on the I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson. Now if it was any other celebrity, I would just assume that the two pounds of mushrooms in my stomach were starting to kick in. But Gary Busey is just crazy enough to track DPS officers until he finds one who wears his size uniform, lure the officer into the desert, tie him up, steal his uniform and car, then drive around pretending to be a member of the Highway Patrol.

My initial reaction was fear. What if Highway Patrol Busey pulls me over? What would I do? The fear quickly melted away, however. The Busey is crazy, but not dangerous crazy. My next reaction was hope. If Highway Patrol Busey pulls me over, I can ask for an autograph. And this would be a big event for me, since Gary Busey is a member of the Hollywood Pentaveret known as The Society of Exalted Actors.

If you've never heard of the group, I'm not surprised. Not only are they highly secretive, I just made them up. This is the group of actors who not only improve any movie they're in, but they also seem like cool people. And each one might be a little crazy. The members of the group are as follows:

1. Oscar Winner Sir Michael Caine
2. Christopher Walken
3. Crispin Glover
4. Steve Buscemi
5. Gary Busey

Oscar Winner Sir Michael Caine (that's his full legal name) is at the top of the list because he is the closest to being sane. I defy anybody out there to tell me these aren't Hollywood's coolest gentlemen. If you ran into any of these guys at a party, you'd be telling the story for the rest of your life. Your closest friends would get sick of hearing it and eventually stop hanging out with you, but who cares about them - they never shook hands with George McFly. And any movie these guys are in is instantly good. Or at the very least, a cult classic (I'm looking at you, Ed and His Dead Mother). If you can get all five in one movie, it would be pure Hollywood Gold. Especially if you got fellow crazy person Tim Burton to direct.

And thus begins my blog. Created for no other purpose than to give me something do (and to warn people of the Busey Menace™), I hope to occasionally write something stupid enough to elicit a chuckle from anybody reading it. I'll probably get bored with it soon enough.