Some Monday Ends and Odds

Note: the following are random snippits, bits and pieces and other effluvia and errata that I had thought might make decent, column-length blog posting material, but due to either a lack of time or quick disinterest, never worked themselves up into the 600-word all-stars the might’ve been.

1. Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet, I'm Hunting Wepubwicans...
People now have had a good week to take pot-shots at Dick Cheney, so rather than recycle too many of their jokes, I’ll speculate the reason why Cheney still gets “picked on”.

It’s simple really.

Cheney: never smiles.

As a result, the best possible adjective you could ever hope to pass off in a description of him would be: "avuncular"—but even that carries too many "moderately jolly old man" connotations to really cut descriptive lexical mustard. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a picture of the man with even something resembling a smile. It’s like he’s suffering from reverse botox, or he’s an antithetical Toys R’ Us ad. Seriously, a smile on Dick Cheney (well, a grimace, because I think that’s as close as he could get) is about as likely as Al-Jazera running “Mohammed and Friends: the Animated Series.”

What really happened on that hunting trip? I think Cheney bagged a bird: Wild Turkey. Enough gulps of that bird and an old white man and a game fowl will probably look a lot alike. And if this is true, let’s be glad the Cheney camp sat on the story and kept this factoid hidden; otherwise the Moral Majority and James Dobson and co. would be out to ban Wild Turkey just like they snatched Golden Grain and Everclear from us. (Note on this: I was told that grain alcohol isn’t available in GA by a non-journalistic source on Saturday. Related note: this setting also included bits of certainly-not-suitable-for-The-McLaughlin-Group dialogue e.g. “women should have testicles.” For what it’s worth. Final note: should I beam with joy that neither I nor anyone else rushed out to the nearest liquor store to check the validity of this rumor? Or does it just mean that our days of drinking “screwdrivers from hell”—Everclear, some water, and Tang—are long behind us and we don’t miss that part of them? Just so long as I don’t have to feel old, I can take any answer you give.)

2. Thru' the Wiretapping...
Anyone—politicians especially—trying to defend Bush’s wiretapping snafu as within the boundaries of the law has the power to instantly piss me off. Just once I want to see someone—reporter, congressman, that old, possibly senile white house press room reporter lady, Jessica Alba—ask one of these jackanapes this:

“so, if your whole defense of the president’s rather dubious actions is based on the legal precedent of presidential war powers, can you enlighten us as to just when Congress passed an official Declaration of War, thereby imbiggening the President with said war powers; and without said Declaration, whereupon no President hitherto has ever and the contempt for the American public and, I will grant, huge balls to claim?”

(And seriously, picture Jessica Alba saying this: in some variation of the “hot corporate dress”—one of those ¾ sleeve sweaters with a white or periwinkle blue dress shirt underneath and skirt that shows some wicked serious legs, but not too much. In addition to the randomness and out-of-character-ness of it, you’d have the added bonus of the media frenzy created by Jessica Alba asking questions to a congressman or white house press secretary that the poor sap would have to form some sort of answer. Later I’ll expound on why explaining some jokes can make them less funny, so keep reading.)

3. Please Goucho, Don't Hurt 'Em...
I think, but haven’t had a way to empirically prove this, that every 5 years or so, maybe less, a trend in women’s fashion comes along solely to piss men off.

Years back it was Capri pants. Almost no woman looked good in them, but for a while, they ALL wore them. Now they back. And worse, they’re baggy. The Marx brother that wasn’t, the Hammer Pants for the gals, the worst thing about the 70s outside of the general acceptance/love of hirsute ladies, the gaucho is back.

And as far as Athens goes, this shit seemingly happened over night.

I don’t remember seeing the damn things outside of Micha Barton on the OC…until last Friday night downtown. I’m sitting out on the patio at Tasty World, waiting for Entropy to go on, and this is clearly the corner almost all the freshmen girls pass on their way to 2006’s answer to Uptown Lounge, Bourbon Street (which for you non-Athenians, has almost no real NOLA theme going; the one time I went there on Fat Tuesday it was crowded but fairly lame, being basically the same as it ever was, but with some extra beads; and also has a design that sort of scares me—the second floor area has a large open space and creaks, so I alternately have vague fears of either being hit with spewtum from the second floor or being on the second floor and having it collapse. But the girls are hot) and the girls are walking past from probably the North Campus Deck, but also coming past on Broad St., so from both directions—enough to give a really good sample size—and those damn gaucho pants were everywhere. I don’t have hard numbers to crunch (that’d be too nerdy, even for me), but it seemed like one in at least 7, maybe even one in 5 of these girls was sporting those hideous not-pants. My hope is once it warms up we’ll be back to the comfort of ruffly Paris Hilton skirts (which ironically other women have said is a trend they hate), but for now I offer a few tips for you gals:

If you have great legs, don’t hide them behind hammer pants. I don’t care if you paid $550 or even two grand for them. I don’t care if they’re from Target, or Prada. They’re hammer pants, and you’re hiding your amazing legs behind them.

Or, if you don’t have great legs, it’s still cold out: wear pants. If you have cankles, don’t even think of sporting this look unless you’re also some sort of masochist. And finally, if you’re wearing them and trying to flirt with me: I will not give you my number, nor will I ask for yours, and I will say inane things like “please Hammer don’t hurt me” and “too legit 2 quit” until you either leave, or realize, yes, you are wearing Hammer pants. If you, however, then do the MC Hammer dance (at least one of them), you may win me forever (note: “forever” for legal reasons can mean as little as “the next 10 minutes”).