New Year, Schmoo Year

I am not a big fan of New Year's Eve. I think it's a conspiracy on the part of the alcoholic beverage industry working in collusion with the diet and exercise industry. Honestly, there's no more point in celebrating the end of a calendar year than there is in celebrating the beginning and end of daylight savings time (which I'm sure there will be cards and candy for by next year, if the economy doesn't improve). There is, however, a "leap second" at the end of this year, which makes it...no, makes it no more interesting to me.

I actually make my resolutions and set goals and such at my birthday. My preference is to celebrate the Year of Me rather than the calendar year. Of course, my whole life has fallen apart since my last birthday, so perhaps I need to rethink my perspective.

Needless to say, I'm not going out tonight, or having anyone in, and will probably be asleep by midnight. I did, however, go out yesterday to the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago. They have the standard collections of things that pretentious people look at in awe and say, "Oh, how perfect a metaphor," and even more pretentious people look at and say, "Oh, of course, but is it art?" There's a major installation called "Protect Protect," which is made up of a series of blown up declassified documents pertaining to the war in Iraq and a room full of different displays of crawling LCD screens which are meant to both show our culture's transfixion with information overload as well as simulate "white noise" torture being used by the U.S. military against Iraqi POWs. (I believe I just invented the word "transfixion;" please use it and spread it around.)

The display I was interested in, though, was a work by South African artist William Kentridge called "The Main Complaint." It's a series of chalk drawings and an accompanying animated short film (animating the drawings) depicting a fat white businessman in a coma having visions of violence, X-ray film prints and ultra-sound images. It's meant to be a comment on the continuing human rights violations in post-Apartheid South Africa, the overbearing nature of the white-led reconstruction efforts, and the culture of forgetfulness the end of Apartheid ushered in.

What was really interesting, though, was the way the drawings of the X-rays and ultra-sounds masked the bodily injuries by articles of bureaucracy, such as typewriters, telephones and rubber stamps. The other element that I think was crucial to understanding the message of the piece was in the film. Dozens of doctors (white doctors) try to help the comatose man, who is writhing and groaning with the pain of his visions, their stethoscopes are being shown as penetrating the man, running through his internal organs and creating a tangled mess...that is, doing more harm than good. When you additionally take into consideration that Kentridge himself is white, the whole display is so heavy with guilt that I'm surprised it wasn't sticky. (In my head, guilt is sticky and oozy, and a navy blue color.)

I don't know. I'm very interested in the delicate and contentious structure of post-Apartheid South Africa, and the richness of art and literature that emerges from it. One of my favorite films is In My Country (based on the book In the Country of My Skull), in which the heinous crimes black South Africans commited against one another are being formally forgiven (and in which Samuel L. Jackson plays an angry black (man) American reporter who is absolutely put in his place by Juliette Binoche). I also really like the book Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, which discusses the racial tensions in rural South Africa. Kentridge presents yet another facet of the situation, trying to give a voice to the unsayable/inexpressible problems of race and domination.

Following this I took a cab home because it was quite late and dark outside, and the cab driver gave me a Jesus. Okay, it's a prayer card from The Chaplet of the Divine Mercy with a picture of Jesus on it, but it really surprised me when I got a good look at it. I had thought he was giving me a receipt.

And then this woman set her head on fire...

I rented I'm Not There, the film about Bob Dylan that came out last summer. I was really looking forward to seeing it; I'm not the biggest Dylan fan, but I thought a story about him would be worth seeing. I watched the whole film, and I still have no idea what I saw.

First of all, the film is not really about Bob Dylan. It's a pastiche of representations of different personas Dylan is mythologized to have inhabited at various points in his personal and artistic evolution. Yep. Apparently, he was an African American child riding in boxcars with hobos and playing old blues songs, a folk singer, an actor who played that folk singer in a movie while his marriage fell apart, a crazy drug addict and Billy the Kid.

The film tells all these different stories that are clearly not all the same person, and none of whom have the same name. There are narrative portions, there's a kind of surrealist piece with a circus theme, and a mockumentary. The film has no real purpose, is excruciating to follow and, apart from the part with Cate Blanchett playing Jude Quinn, nothing is really all that recognizable as Bob Dylan. It's awful (except for Cate).

At the same time, however, I also rented Hamlet 2. I truly expected this to be the worst drivel ever. I mean, the film's trailers featured a song called "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus." But, I normally like films from Focus, and I think Steve Coogan is really funny. Surprisingly, however, the movie is actually really smart and funny.

The film is not so much about putting on a musical sequel to Hamlet, but is actually a parody of all those awful inspirational teacher films, like Dangerous Minds, where a white teacher goes into the ghetto and turns his or her gangbanger students into model citizens by sheer force of will and an emerging street cred.

Steve Coogan is a failed actor who becomes a high school drama teacher. He's broke, his wife, who recently gave up her job dealing pot, wants to have a baby despite his low sperm count, and they've taken in a boarder to help make ends meet. His drama class, which usually consists of 2 students and puts on stage adaptations of Hollywood films, is filled with Hispanic students whose electives of choice (shop, computers and ceramics) have been cut out of the budget.

The movie is totally pointless, but it's really funny. Coogan is just so clueless about his own patheticness, and David Arquette is just sort of randomly in the film. "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" is annoyingly infectious, and there's a very unsettling tune called "Raped in the Face" that completely exposes the film as being by the makers of South Park.

In short, if you like to watch a movie where you know what's going on, skip I'm Not There. If, however, you enjoyed Cannibal, The Musical, see Hamlet 2.

Also, the film The House Bunny is surprisingly smart and funny.

Not the Right Holiday Fire

No holiday is complete without a little fire. Of course, I managed to bust out a fire that wasn't exactly the snuggle up with cocoa kind.

I made a little Christmas dinner this year, and Christmas dinner is not Christmas dinner without a pie. I went with apple, because I know it's one of J's favorites, in case anyone is interested. So I got the crust all ready, sliced up the super-crispy Granny Smith apples, mixed them up with some cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg, and put the whole thing into the oven. It was a little overstuffed, so I put a cookie sheet on the rack underneath it, just in case it leaked.

So the pie was happily cooking away in the oven, but, when it should have been nearly done, I checked on it, and it wasn't getting very brown. I pulled out emergency drip pan to stop it from blocking the heat, and left the pie for the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Seven minutes later, smoke was pouring out of the oven. There's this vent at the back of the oven that allows steam and heat to escape from the cooking part. So I run to the stove and pull it open, and discover that my pie has gotten a nice golden brown. Unfortunately, the floor of the oven had sparkly little flames all over it.

While the drip pan had actually been blocking the heat and keeping the pie from browning properly, as soon as it did brown, the juicy sugars leaked out onto the floor of the oven and burst into flame. And when I put my hand in the oven to pull the pie out, I burned the life out of it. And the more it heals, the more it looks infected, and like I might have gotten a sassy little scar for Christmas.

Luckily, the little flames burned themselves out, leaving my house filled with the scent of smoke and burnt sugar. Somewhat less luckily, the smoke alarm didn't go off, which leaves me slightly concerned. But, ten minutes with the windows open and all the smoke was gone.

The pie, by the way, was perfect!

List

In honor of television advertising, here's a list of things being advertised during daytime programming. Let's see if we can establish who the average Daytime TV viewer is.

Things Daytime Television Watchers (DTVWs) Want

1. Better abs. Whether it be by the Bender Ball or the Crunchless Abs method, daytime television viewers have had it with their flabby abs and ineffective floor crunches (especially women with lower ab pooches) and are willing to throw down someone's hard earned money for better abs. After all, the Bender ball is 408% more effective, and according to the Journal of Research, floor crunches only work 2 of our 12 abdominal muscles.

1a. As an addendum to 1, DTVWs would also like diet pills, especially those hawked on greenscreen sets that look like the deck of a sci-fi starship, diet foods delivered straight to their door, and weight loss surgery.

2. Blankets with sleeves. DTVWs are sick of those difficult to use blankets, and I don't blame them. I mean, a square of cloth you cover your body with to stay warm is so confusing to operate. Thank God for the people who make Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves. This hybrid blanket/sweater/choir robe/hospital gown is the perfect solution for those of us who just cannot figure out how to keep our arms warm with a traditional blanket. As a bonus, it also solves the problem of having to match your cardigan to your afghan.

3. Technical education. Whether it's ITT, DeVry, Le Cordon Blue or UTI (not actually urinary tract infection, as I originally thought), there's something out there for everyone.

4. Life insurance. Are you between the ages of 65 and 130? Do you have a child? Does your child have a child? If so, daytime TV will eventually have an ad that will present you with the perfect life insurance plan for your needs.

5. Debt counseling and/or bankruptcy representation. Clearly, if you're at home in the middle of the day, you're unemployed, which means you probably have cash flow problems. Daytime TV is more than happy to put you in touch with the lawyer/crook that can help with that.

5a. As an addendum to 5, you can also get cash for gold, payday loans and cash advances via folks who advertise to DTVWs.

As a sidebar, has anyone else noticed that in the Premium M-n-Ms commercial for their raspberry almond flavor, Green M-n-M EATS one of the premium M-n-Ms? Eats it!!! Doesn't that give anyone else the creeps?!?!

Random Musings

Here are some random thoughts to share with you:

I learned yesterday that "nog" (as in eggnog, for any of you who have consumed a little much of it and are kind of slow on the uptake today) means "with rum." Thank God for Fidel Castro, as Coke-nog is not nearly so appealing sounding a drink as Cuba Libre.

Grey suits and brown shoes do not match. Grey is a blue-toned color and brown is a yellow-toned color. Grey and brown look awful together, and yet I see otherwise stylish and intelligent people pairing their grey suits or grey pants with brown shoes. Knock it off.

Things to avoid in foods: fats and sugars. Things that make food taste good: fats and sugars.

Billy Mays, the OxyClean guy who is so loud, actually has "Million Dollar Man" written on his business card because he guarantees any product he promotes will make at least one million dollars in profits. And in real life, he's very soft-spoken.

Adults who wear flannel pajamas with a matching top and bottom look silly.

Any noise is louder at 6 a.m.

The most difficult thing for the human brain to do is decide what toppings to put on a pizza.

Charlie vs. Charlie

In the past week I've had a lot of time to watch TV while I'm searching for jobs (excellent multitasker), and both the original Gene Wilder version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the more recent Johnny Depp/Tim Burton version have both been on. I've watched them both, and in my carefully considered opinion, I stand against conventional wisdom and announce that the Depp/Burton version is vastly superior to its original version. Below are the reasons:

1. The Depp/Burton Effect
With the exception of Ed Wood, whenever Tim Burton casts Johnny Depp in something, it's incredible. Burton also has an incredible sense of the aesthetic that makes the visual elements of the film simply incredible. Okay, so, when the original came out in 1971 (in Technicolor, no less) there wasn't quite as much you could do with visual effects, but the original set looks like it's made with inflatable beach balls and styrofoam.

2. Who's really creepy?
I cannot accept the argument that Johnny Depp is creepier simply because he channeled a little of that Michael Jackson "I forgot to grow up and now I'm kind of a molester" thing. Yes, the character is developmentally deficient in terms of maturity. But, I think Depp captures the childlike petulance of Willy Wonka far better than Gene Wilder was able to.


The other thing I think Depp does better is capture the kind of sinister "something more is going on here" that the book conveys and the original version of the film doesn't. This is also reflected in the visual aspects of the film, but I think there's always a bit of an "I know something you don't know" flashing in Depp's eyes.

3. Better Charlie
Freddie Highmore versus Peter Ostrum? Freddie, hands down. Freddie's portrayal is more meek and beaten-down by life, but with still that childlike hope and innocence. Peter Ostrum's Scandinavian face is a little too filled out for me to believe he's been living on cabbage soup for months.

4. Better Oompa Loompas

Just look at them with their green hair, tan-in-a-can orange skin and their white eyebrows. That is the stuff that nightmares are made of. The only possible element that might make the scary little orange men better is that there are more actors playing them, so they all look a little different from one another.

However, I do prefer that the Burton Oompas get costume changes, depending upon what scene they are in and what they are doing.

5. Less Singing

I like a musical as much as the next person, but there's way, way, way too much singing in the Gene Wilder version of Charlie. In the book, only the Oompa Loompas sing, but Wilder gets a couple of numbers of his own. I don't care for it, and actually, I change the channel when anyone but the Oompa Loompas are singing. The other musical drawback to the original version is that all the Oompa Loompa's songs sound the same: same music, same tune, same rhythm. I prefer a little variety.

So there you have it. Johnny Depp wins, Gene Wilder loses. I welcome arguments to the contrary.

Not Actually a Bad Ass

***This posting contains spoilers for a movie that was released over the summer. So, if you read this and learn things you didn't want to know, well, it's your own fault.***

I rented Wanted the other day. I'm sure we are all very much aware of my stance on Angelina Jolie's complete and total lack of acting ability. Fortunately, she doesn't do much more than stand around for most of the film, and even she can't mess that up.

The plot is this: A secret society of assassins called The Fraternity recruits Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) to avenge the death of his father. Or did they?

Wesley is trained by Fox (Angelina Jolie) and an assorted gang of assassins led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). The Fraternity is descended from a society of weavers who discovered secret binary code in the cloth they wove that spelled out the names of people who should be assassinated. It doesn't tell them why, just that they need to be assassinated.

Wesley's father was supposedly killed by another assassin went rogue and killed a bunch of agents. Except, what really happened is that his father discovered Sloan's own name had come up on the cloth, Wesley's father had discovered it, and they brought Wesley in to hunt and kill his father. This is all pretty obvious.

The movie is filled with things that couldn't possibly happen in real life: bullets that curve, bullets that not only curve but also shoot all the way around a circle through like 8 skulls, Angelina Jolie does the right thing. But, the most unbelievable part of the film, Morgan Freeman says the F-word. Twice.


I love Morgan Freeman dearly. I had my first crush on him when I was 3. But there's something about him trying to come off as a bad-ass that just doesn't translate into realistic filmmaking. I know he's done action films, and he's played a tough guy or two, and he has a little earring, but Morgan Freeman is not a man who drops F-bombs. It's like seeing Mr. Rogers kick a puppy.

Anyhow, the film would be really great, if it didn't take itself so seriously. I expected it to be more like Shoot 'Em Up, which features a lactating prostitute and death-by-carrot. But, the film doesn't really know that it's ridiculous. And the gratuitous scene with Angelina's naked back is so unsexy you just want to cover her up and give her a sandwich. All in all, good film.

Why, People?

I've been known to sport a piercing or two from time to time. I like tattoos, but mostly on other people because it's just more of a commitment than I want to make to any one picture or design. So, when I followed a link from Mental Floss to a list of body modifications the writer had found particularly disturbing, I expected to see some pretty out-there practices on there. Most of them, however, were pretty vanilla--earlobe stretching, tongue forking, subdermal implants (like fake horns), branding, jewelry implanted into the first layer of the eye, corneal tattooing (but not, oddly enough, the ridiculous practice of getting a tat on the inside of your mouth).

And then I saw pearling. A little known fact about me: a true New England girl, I love pearls, and would probably be the happiest girl alive to receive a single strand of black pearls or a single black pearl on a silver chain as a gift (say, for an upcoming holiday). Pearling, however, has very little to do with jewelry.

As it turns out, "pearling" refers to the practice of implanting small round surgical steel or titanium balls under the skin of the penis. It is also less commonly done to the skin surrounding the vagina or anus. I did a little research into this, and discovered that it is not cosmetically attractive. In fact, in low lighting the pearls could easily be mistaken for warts or other signs of infection (O, how I wish what has been seen could be unseen!), and its only purpose is to enhance the non-pearled partner's sexual pleasure. Apparently, the pearled one may experience some elevation of pleasure at first, but it doesn't last, and it may actually cause the act of achieving an erection excruciatingly painful. The process is extremely painful, has a very, very long healing process (we're talking months of celibacy here readers), and, more often than not, results in an extremely unpleasant infection (which can lead to impotence, infertility and urinary, kidney and prostate damage).

Now, I consider myself fairly enlightened. I've seen Pink Flamingos. But what I cannot for the life of me figure out is why you would go through such a seemingly risky process for someone else's orgasm. Particularly when you can purchase "intimacy aids" made of molded plastic that feature pearled surfaces (and, sometimes, multi-speed motors), that you can use without months of waiting. Especially when it gives you the appearance of a nasty infection!

So Inappropriate!

Being unemployed means I have tons of time to do super fun things, like watch daytime television. Today I tuned in to watch Tyra, and boy, oh boy was it a nightmare!

Her guests were Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner from the movie Twilight, and I think it was the most uncomfortable interview I have ever seen. I'm pretty sure there's a guy being interrogated at Guantanamo Bay thinking, "Wow, I'm getting off easy compared to those two!" (Okay, probably not, but you get the idea.)

First, Tyra came at them with way too much energy. She was bouncing around in her seat and putting on an awful British accent (much to Robert's embarrassment). Her first question to Robert was that she heard that, since he plays a vampire, that his fans have asked him to bite them. With embarrassment, he admitted that this was true, and then Tyra insisted that he bite her. He really didn't want to, but she basically refused to move the interview forward until he bit her--and then she freaked out about how good it felt to have him bite her. Then she complimented Taylor's teeth, but declined to have him bite her.

She next said that their fans are forming Team Robert and Team Taylor fan groups--and proved it by giving them G-strings printed with Team Robert and Team Taylor, which the boys obviously didn't want. Poor Taylor didn't even want to touch his!

Then Tyra proved that the people around her lie to her. She says, "And I hear one of you is a big fan of the show." Robert and Taylor just looked at each other. After a brief awkward silence, she says, "Robert, I hear you watch the show." He looked completely baffled and said, "Oh, I just wasn't sure if Taylor had said it too." So then she asked him what episode of her show had been his favorite, and he tried to politely extract himself by saying he couldn't pick just one. My guess is what really happened was that Robert's people told Tyra's people he had seen the show before, and Tyra's people told her he watched it all the time.

She finished the show by noting once again that Robert Pattinson bit her and mentioning how hot these boys are (Taylor, by the way, confessed to being underage). It was just creepy and pervy, and I've never seen two boys more uncomfortable or a grown woman more oblivious to how inappropriate her behavior was.

Oh, Bureaucracy

Lots of people are unemployed...including soon-to-be former Governor Blagojevich. So it's understandable that the people who work for various unemployment offices are really busy. My local office usually has a line around the block before the office opens in the morning.

At this point I've been unemployed for almost five weeks, but I had yet to receive a single payment. I started trying to call them last week. Usually, they're so busy that I have to call at least half a dozen times before I am able to get through to an operator, who is only able to transfer me to an account representative. And the representatives are always busy, so it goes to their voicemails. By noon yesterday, I had left 13 voicemails.

Then I got a letter yesterday telling me that my claim had been denied because I had not worked during the eligibility period. WHAT??? I had worked at the same job without so much as taking a vacation for 18 months.

So I called and they told me that the best thing for me to do was to go to the office. So at 1:30 yesterday afternoon, I turned up at the office in a blind panic. When I checked in, they pulled up my file and the woman says, "Well here's your problem: You didn't have a job. This says the employer you claimed to have worked for denies you ever worked there." So I show her my final pay stub, my dismissal letter and my business card (you never know) and she says, "Well, you'll have to file an appeal," and then calls for the next person in line.

Okay, I am not about to simply be dismissed. I've never been on unemployment before, so I have no idea what's going on and I want to talk to someone. Obviously, no one is returning my calls, so I'm not going anywhere until I speak to someone. So I stand my ground and ask if there's someone I can speak with. The woman rolls her eyes and puts my name on the list.

At 4:45, they call my name (the office closes at 5). They take me and several other people and put us in a smaller room, where we wait to be called one by one to speak with a representative. Finally, they call my name.

The woman pulls up my file, then says, "Okay, this says your claim has been denied. Let's see why." I give her all my paperwork, she takes my dismissal letter, and then looks at the page in my file that applies to my job. "Well, here's the problem. Someone checked the wrong box. This says that your employer didn't even dispute your claim, and someone accidentally marked that they denied you worked there. I'll just uncheck it and you'll get all your money by Monday."

This has been so stressful and frustrating, that I burst into tears right there in the office. Apparently, this happens a lot, so she just hands me a tissue and says, "Okay, everything's fine now. Off you go."

Then today I was temping, and when it was done and I turned my phone back on, three people from unemployment had called me to let me know that there had been a problem with my claim, but it had been resolved.

Now, I understand that these people are overworked and underpaid and probably have a lot of people, like several of the people I was waiting with yesterday, who refuse to deal with them rationally and humanly but prefer to scream at them about "messin' with my money." But give me a break. I've been panicking for a week, leaving several messages per day, and only AFTER I turn up in person does anyone return my messages? Maybe they should solve part of the unemployment problem by hiring us as caseworkers.

A Double Shot is Twice as Ikki (and Icky)

It seems that Tila Tequila didn't want to come back for a third shot at love, so MTV had to replace her. But who could they get that would be adequately skanky? Well, in order to achieve that level of skeeztasticity, you need not one but TWO bisexual bachelorettes. Enter the Ikki twins, new hosts of the renamed A Double Shot at Love on MTV.

That's right, the Ikki (pronounced Icky) twins, Vikki and Rikki, claim to be bisexuals working together to each find one person they can love until the camera stops rolling. They have 12 lesbians (minus the one girl who got kicked off last night who said she was straight) and 12 straight men who will be moving into a house somewhere deep within the herpes hot zone and will be picked off one by one until only one partner remains for each twin.

The twist? The contestants don't know that the Ikkis are twins! And boy are they excited when they find out!

Frankly, when it was Tila Tequila it was a sad, disgusting publicity stunt for a nobody trying to build her brand by being "shocking." Now it's even sadder and more disgusting, because these are just nameless models trying to up the shock factor. Is there anyone left in America who's still shocked by bisexuals? Or at least by girls who claim to be bisexual?

Here's my shocking prediction for how the show will end: one Ikki will pick a girl and the other will pick a boy. And both relationships will be over by the reunion show.

I didn't want to be popular anyway

Well, it's the end of the year, and it's getting close to Oscar time, and the buzz is all Heath Ledger, all the time. I might be alone here, but, while it's awful that he's died, his performance in Dark Knight doesn't warrant an award.

In my opinion, an award-winning performance shows audiences something new, something they haven't seen before. What Heath Ledger gave us in his depiction of The Joker was derivative. Basically, the Ledger Joker was the love child of Jack Nicholson's performance of Jack Torrance in The Shining and Brad Pitt's Jeffery Goines from 12 Monkeys. The hunched shoulders, rambling gait, the gravelly voice: it was all Jack Torrance, all Jack Nicholson. Go ahead and compare the two images; part Heath's hair on the other side and he even looks like Jack in face paint, right down to the receding hairline. Yes, it was a new spin on The Joker, but more than anything, that new spin is thanks to the hair and makeup design that took it from being a campy comic book depiction Tim Burton gave us (and I love Tim Burton's version of the film) to being a seedy, dirty, gritty, realistic character. Can we really give Heath Ledger credit for wearing the makeup and costume well, or interacting with the lights and the city?

Let's be honest: if Heath Ledger wins this award, it will be for two reasons. First, it will be because he died young and tragically. Second, it will be because the academy feels guilty for passing him over for the Best Actor award he deserved for Brokeback Mountain. Now, I don't think Brokeback Mountain was all that great a film, but Ledger's performance as a man who falls in love with another man and is tormented to the point of self-loathing by his uncertain sexuality was the most compelling part of that film.

So let the hate pour in, but I honestly don't think Heath Ledger was the best actor of 2008.

On the Fourth of December, I Don't Want to Hear...

So, you should sing the title of this post to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas, which is just one of the songs I don't want to hear anymore--and, not only is it just December 4, but I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet! Please find below 10 more holiday favorites I don't want to hear again.



1. So This is Christmas, John Lennon
I feel like this song should just plain be banned, because it's been used on so many starving orphan commercials that it always makes me cry. Christmas is not about crying, unless you get crappy gifts.

2. The Christmas Song, Alvin and the Chipmunks
Even when I was a kid, this song bugged the poop out of me. There's something inherently creepy about it.

3. All I Want for Christmas is You, Mariah Carey
Despite its association with the film Love, Actually, where it is sung by an adorable little American girl (a great Christmas film, by the way), the Mariah version makes me want to tear off my skin and run screaming up and down my street.

4. Jingle Bell Rock, Brenda Lee
Although this is probably the best performance of the song, thanks to the look on Ana Gasteyer's face, Lizzie Caplan's comment says it all: "Everyone in the English speaking world knows that song." And there is no escaping it.



5. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, Dr. Elmo
Oh, good lord. This song is a necessity at any redneck holiday bash, like the kinds they have in Buckner, Missouri (big ups to my peeps in B-ner!!). However, the novelty of the song wore off for me somewhere around the third grade. This song, by the way, was first released in 1979, which is also known as the greatest year in history, as it is the year in which I was born--no math, please!

6. Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Okay, I don't have much time to type this before the transport to Guantanamo Bay arrives to pick me up, but I hate Bruce Springsteen. I don't like this song to begin with, but Bruce & Co. doesn't add a damn thing to it. This video, however, appears to show Bruce having a stroke before he starts playing, so please, go ahead and enjoy it, as long as you're out of earshot for me.



7. Oh Holy Night, Cher
This song is apparently mandatory for all female vocalists (I love you, Kelly Clarkson!!), but frankly, Cher's the one who ruined it for the rest of the gang. Actually, it's not Cher so much as the slew of weirdos and drag queens who try to imitate Cher's rendition.

8. Wonderful Christmastime, Paul McCartney
Kudos, Paul, for discovering the synthesizer, but this song is just too much. I am fully convinced that I can have a wonderful Christmastime without it.

9. The Twelve Days of Christmas
FIIIIVE GOOOL-DEN RIIIINNNNGGSSSS! What else is there to say?

10. Last Christmas, Wham
This is easily the worst of the worst when it comes to Christmas songs I don't ever want to hear again, and whenever I walk into Target or Dominick's, it starts playing. Without fail. It's almost like they've replaced the anti-theft sensors with something to detect me which communicates with the muzak to turn on Last Christmas. Nope, not paranoid. And, I don't know what's worse, the song, or that George Michael is pretending to sing it to a woman.

Tonight, the Role of Jesus Will Be Played By ...

Jack Black? Hey, if it helps!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

And the biggest tool is...

Last night on The Pickup Artist 2 Mystery (whose real name is "Erik") announced that Simeon was the big winner! That's Simeon, whose name is pronounced Simian, as in ape-like. I was actually cheering for this guy to lose because he seemed the most like someone who had the potential to be a worthwhile human being, but, unfortunately, he's now been named the best at convincing a girl at a bar that he has some interest in them as a human being when, really, he's just trying to get someone to make out with him. And he gets to train other losers to dress up like idiots and go out and do the same thing. Congratulations, Simeon, you're a big tool.

I was actually watching the show Criminal Minds last week, and they featured a character that was obviously based on Mystery, whose predatory messages about being a pickup artist encouraged a serial killer to move from killing prostitutes to girls he picked up in bars. This made me really think about The Pickup Artist and the things Mystery teaches them. At the end of the day, all he really teaches people is common sense: be presentable and pay attention to the signals other people are giving you.

Honestly, he gives all these guys makeovers at the beginning of the show. When Simeon came in, he had shaggy hair, long sideburns and a mustache. Okay, mustaches are horrifying, and he did need some cleaning up. But, what Mystery did to him, was pierce his eyebrow, paint his nails, buy him a bunch of rings and necklaces and encourage him to wear hats. I like piercings, but only on guys who look like they ought to have them. Nail polish on men, take it or leave it. Jewelry, with the exception of a watch and a wedding band, should always, always, always be a no-no for men. And a hat? Um, if I meet you and you're wearing a hat and it's not cold out, I am going to guess that you're balding.

What Mystery teaches his students, in terms of paying attention to the cues people are giving him, is probably right on the money. However, those ridiculous games and magic tricks he uses to have an excuse to touch girls are way, way out of line. Any guy who grabs for my hands and says, "I want to do a trust test," the answer is, "Don't touch me, you creepy loser." I still don't understand what has to be wrong with a girl to get her to fall for that.

Here's a no-brainer: the best advice all season came from Tara, the traitor to her gender who has been enlisted to help train future pickup artists. She said, over and over and over, "Just treat them like they're a person." I still don't understand why people have to learn that.

So, congratulations to Simeon. And ladies, if some guy comes up to you in a club and says, "Hey, what's this from: Nobody puts Baby in a corner," walk away, because Simeon is about to try to pick you up.