Oscar Mayer Will Kill Us All

Folks, we all know the horrible truth: the only thing keeping every one of us from sitting at our desks all day eating bacon and jerking off is that you have to cook bacon, which takes two hands. This is ultimately good for us, because bacon is terribly fattening and bad for your heart (though it is a GREAT lubricant). But now Oscar Mayer has gone and done the unthinkable: they've cooked the bacon for us! So now all we have to do is go pick it up at the shop, sit back down with a napkin stuffed in our shirt, and get down to business. This will ruin lives, lower productivity, and kill us all. (And how will Rush Limbaugh survive? The answer is: Obamacare.)

How long has this pre-cooked bacon been on the market? I never knew it existed. Sure, Jimmy does all the grocery shopping for us (he always wanted to be Barbara Billingsly when he grew up), but surely I would have seen commercials all over Fox News for this by now. (Fox News viewers never stop eating bacon.)

I'm hereby calling for a government takeover of all pre-cooked pork products. Come on, Barry/Reid/Pelosi, save us from ourselves.

The Dreaded 'F' Word

Has there ever been a word or phrase that, whenever it is uttered by some careless human somewhere (usually, but not always, by Sarah Palin), makes you want to vomit bloody rockets? Like, I don't know, "you betcha" or "nucular" or "supermajority"? Well, there are few words in the English language that set my teeth on edge more furiously than the word "fierce." This word is worse than cholera ever was. It's worse than dudes who put their hair up in a bun. And it's exponentially worse than the word "fabulous."

This word is beloved not by tedious posable Republican sex dolls, but rather by tedious posable gaywads across this great land of ours (and on the Bravo channel). And if there exists something more irritating than the use of this lisp-tastic verbiage (as Sarah Palin might call it) as a default way of describing something, it is the types of dreary items it is used to describe: a hairstyle; a shade of eye shadow; a belt buckle; a piece of fabric; a bracelet; a (usually stupid) song.

The only way I could hate this word more is if Sarah Palin used it at the teabagging orgy last weekend to describe Rush Limbaugh.

Anyway, I was hoping that this terrible word was gone from our lives, that it had played itself out in the arena of idiotic pop culture and had been mercifully laid to rest. Sure, after a few years maybe it would reemerge once again and be uttered drunkenly with wistful nostalgia at parties, like the lyrics to "I Will Survive" or "Oh Sherry." But I clung to the hope that it was gone from the here and now. Hell, even 30 Rock did a joke a few weeks ago about the word being well and truly 2006.

Alas, it was not to be. You see, I bought an awesome pair of shiny black gym shoes the other day at Shoe Mania in Union Square. (Bear with me.) They were sure sexy. And comfortable! It was an unusually successful purchase for me, and I wore them to the gym the next day well aware that the other boys would be absolutely sick with jealousy, this time not simply over my pecs and smooth, hairless legs, but over those things AND my shoes.

When I got home from shopping, I got out the box they came in to show Jimmy.

"So, you got some fierce shoes," he said, laughing at and judging me.

I promptly gave him the stink eye. (I may even have given him the stank eye.)

"It says right there on the box," he said, pointing to the shoe box I was cradling in my arms.

And that's when my world collapsed. Right there, on the box, printed clearly for all the world to see, was that f**king word.



So it's official. I'm gayer than I ever imagined was possible. I have [cringe, shudder] fierce [little vomit] gym shoes.

I prefer, though, to think of them as ferocious.

Editorial: All Bicyclists Are Not Crusty

Hoo, boy, this Williamsburg Hasidic Jew-Hipster Cyclist turf war is the culture clash of our time, and it has something for everyone (or at least two types of people). Do you hate hipsters who ride bikes? Also, do you kinda hate Hasidic Jews? Congratulations! You now have more reasons to do so.

Further, do you really hate hipsters who ride bikes? Do you like to conjure false and hackneyed equivalencies between the two "religions" represented by this epic struggle? And is your name Tunku Varadarajan? Well, then, you should certainly type up a column and upload it to Tina Brown's online kitchen-sink clearinghouse of cloying claptrap The Daily Beast, because you are obviously a deeply thinking human.

Here's a condensed version of the hot war currently being waged: Williamsburg Hasids recently prevailed on the city of New York to remove the bike lane on Bedford Avenue for safety and religious reasons: not only did the lanes make a narrow street even narrower for cars, but the presence of young ladies on bicycles in various states of undress was rendering some Hasids unable to read their holy book while also driving a minivan because of boobs and such. Then a few Williamsburg bike riders cheekily repainted the lane one night and then got arrested.

Here's how Master Sensei Tunku lays out the case against bikers:

Cyclists . . . pursue a form of zealotry of their own. They have quasi-religious garments (Day-Glo jackets), they follow austere codes of discipline (exercise and low fat), they think they know the one and true way (cycling), and they demand special treatment for the Church of Lycra (bike lanes). Also, they trail a frightful whiff of sweat in their wake. (But the same can be observed, sometimes, on a sweltering summer’s day, of those who dress as if for a winter in Vilna.) More broadly, is it entirely surprising that respect for a religious community is often a challenge to hipsters who have been raised outside any religious tradition?

Ugh, has there ever been a more tortured effort at equating two sides in a debate? Yeah, and he also says that many cyclists "are eco-bombastic crusaders with an ungovernable contempt for non-cycling scum." (Mr. Varadarajan, I do indeed have contempt for you, but not because you don't ride a bicycle.)

As airtight as Tunku's logic is, I must point out the tiniest of gaping holes in it: some people who ride bikes actually aren't hipsters—even in crusty, crunchy, skinny-jeaned Williamsburg and its best gay friend Greenpoint (where I live)! I know this goes against Tunku's science, but it's true. And many people ride bikes simply because they prefer to commute that way, not because they are smug, dirty hippies who calculate their carbon footprint every evening before alphabetizing their Kashi cereal boxes.

Let's get something straight: bicyclists are often assholes. I say this as a bicyclist. At least once a day I see a fellow cyclist do something really irritating and dangerous. I myself have no doubt done things that are irritating and dangerous. One reason bicyclists are assholes is because people are constantly trying to kill them, even when they aren't doing things that are irritating and dangerous. If you've ever biked in this city you are familiar with the intense and naked hatred many drivers around you feel toward you. But whatever, I'm perfectly fine being called an asshole. But don't you dare call me a hippy.

I don't bike to save the Earth. I don't bike to feel superior to others. I sure as hell don't bike to show off my body's way with lycra or day-glo jackets, neither of which I've ever worn.

Here's why I bike: so I don't have to pay for a monthly MTA card, so I don't have to ride the terrible L train, and so I can start my day by having a good 45-minute workout before sitting down at a computer for 8-9 goddamn hours.

I don't give a crap if you drive a Prius, a BMW, or a freaking Hummer. As long as you don't hit me with it.

Editorial: Speedos and Our Precious Freedoms

People, the killjoy lefty media is at it again, attacking our freedoms for their own ideological satisfaction. The Daily Beast's Sean Macaulay has written the most ridiculous opinion piece in the history of Internet jernalizm and it must be called out for its lies, damn lies, distortions, falsities, misrepresentations, deceit, untruths, and fabrications.

In his hit piece on the world's greatest ever invention, the Speedo, Macauley argues that the time has come for a ban on "offensively small bathing suits". I....I can't even relate to that statement. Is this Macauley character even human? What language is he typing? Where is his birth certificate?

Certainly Macauley has a point about the frightening and dangerous possibilities inherent in allowing someone like Rod Stewart or Carson Kressley access to the mighty weanie-bender, beloved by everyone with a pulse. That is because Speedos are not made for men such as Rod and Carson. They are made for men such as David Beckam, Ricky Martin, and some guy named Justin Gaston that I just found out about by reading this awful article.

If you just ban the Speedo outright, you may be saving yourself from having your eyeballs melt to your face at the sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Giorgio Armani or George Hamilton or Jack Nicholson in a sagging pair of colored underwear; but you also face the real, and much more chilling, possibility of never being able to witness this guy, this guy, or these guys in the blissful state of undress God intended them to maintain all day, every day, for eternity. This is not only a loss for us as individuals. It is a loss for us as Americans. A tragic compromising of our very humanity that I, for one, cannot countenance.




If we have to live in a world without the Speedo, the terrorists have already won.

Opposite Frog Marriage Under Attack?: Gay Frog Marriage Now Legal in India

This is a great day for gay amphibians everywhere. But whither the so-called "opposite" marriages of straight caeciliae, newts, and chameleons South African ghost frogs across the world? Aren't they now completely undermined?

The answer is no. Just because a homosexual tree frog, toad, or salamander is genetically predisposed to falling in love with another tree frog, toad, or salamander of the same gender doesn't mean that the ultimate expression of that love--marriage (and hot tree frog, toad, or salamander sex)-- should have any impact whatsoever on his straight brethren. Sometimes, you know, a butterfly flaps its wings in India and nothing else happens as a result in another part of the world! (Interesting aside: gay butterfly marriage has always been legal, everywhere, because there actually are no straight butterflies.) So in this case, two gay frogs in West Bengal get married. And somehow--somehow--the marriages of all the Appalachian trail's straight newts are still as strong as ever (unless, you know, one of them ends up in Argentina).

This would also be true of gay human marriage if it weren't for Leviticus.

Triplet Jaguar Cubs So Depressed by the Torture Debate

Is there a more depressing conversation happening in the country than the one about whether or not torture works? These three cubs don't think so, and I'm inclined to agree with them.

So, the Republican position these days is: torture works, so we should do it. To which any thinking person might reply, "rape probably works, shall we do that too?" Or "please define works, if you would." To back up their argument, they always turn to the "ticking time bomb" scenario, which happens every week on 24, one of those Hollywood teevee productions that Republicans usually love to dismiss, but in this case they use to bolster their argument. Never mind that we took these torture tactics from the Chinese and the Soviets, which they used to elicit false confessions for political purposes. If there is a ticking time bomb, what is a false confession going to do for us, hmmm? Oh, I know: it will provide that smoking gun of a tie between Iraq and al Qaeda. More stress positions and nude pyramids, please! Ticking time what?

So the Republicans are now happily embracing the acts of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, yay! In the name of freedom. And liberty. And Nobama. And Jesus! Tea bags!

And now we get the entire Cheney family on every talk show on every station in every time zone, forever, saying "torture works" and "we are safer" and Obama is "siding with the terrorists." I think it's time for a Liz Cheney/Jesse Ventura cage match.

In Liz Cheney's defense, she was waterboarded every Christmas morning growing up, so she probably just can't understand what the big deal is and is wondering why everyone hates Christmas so much.

Editorial: When A**holes Collide

This whole Miss California/Perez Hilton kerfuffle is just another piece of positive proof that, just like with the celebrated death matches of, say, Rosie O’Donnell vs. Barbara Walters, or Glenn Close vs. Michael Douglas, or Rush Limbaugh vs. Megalon, sometimes both sides of a spat are being total a**holes.

As you all know, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, recently lost the Miss USA pageant for being an awful Christian bigot. Here’s what happened: during the question-and-answer segment of the competition, during which all finalists must prove that they can offer meaningless platitudes in reasonably clear English-type language, Miss California was asked by one of the judges—in this case, the sometimes-not-odious Perez Hilton, Professional Gay—whether she would support gay marriage. Prejean responded that she thinks its great that we live in a country where people can choose same-sex marriage or “opposite marriage” but that “I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. . . That’s how I was raised.” At which point she surrendered all hope of winning the contest, duh. (Because who wants a beauty queen who doesn’t like the gays? I mean, really, who does she think did her makeup?)

Since this brouhaha, Prejean has appeared in a promotional video for the National Organization for Marriage to promote “opposite marriage” and has basically become the new spokes-Barbie for the traditional marriage movement. Which means it’s about time for some racy photos of her to surface, which did a few days ago. Now she’s crying foul, saying she’s being targeted by the gay mafia for her religious beliefs. Which, um, yes, and yes.

Here’s the thing: Perez Hilton was being a dumb a**hole when he posed the question at the pageant. Why? Because she’s not running for office, she will wield no power if she wins, and IT’S THE MISS USA F**KING PAGEANT. That’s why. Ask her about world peace. Or melting pots. Or famine. Or literacy. Or maps. But don’t ask her about gay marriage. That brings politics into a place where no one wants it; they just want to look at pretty girls and their boobs.

Here’s the other thing: Prejean is also an a**hole, obviously, because she’s a brainless hypocrite. She believes in traditional marriage, but her brand of moralistic Christianity also obviously allows her to sex it up in photo shoots, just like in traditional marriage. (Is that how she was raised?) Also: why didn’t she just answer the question as if she wanted to win the contest? Did she come this far to stand (in heels) on principle? Again, it’s Miss USA, not Miss UN. It’s a souped-up hooker competition. Why didn't she just say "I believe in love" or something like that? You want to stand on principle and be taken seriously, princess, why don’t you put some clothes on and learn some debating skills?

In conclusion, Vanessa Williams was the best Miss America ever.