This Week In My Head

One day this week, I was driving to work and listening to the local all news station on the radio.  One of the "news" items was that Joe Piscopo was visiting Chicago with plans of organizing an all new comedy troupe, but with a twist.  None of the comedians in his new group would do dirty material.  They played a sound bite of Joe, exclaiming breathlessly how much he loved Chicago, and that Jerry Seinfeld had proved that you could do comedy without being "blue" and blah, blah, blah ...

I dislike Joe Piscopo.  Intently.  I can't say that I hate him, because several years ago, I made a pact with myself that I would not say I hated anyone unless I knew them personally.  Therefore, I cannot state that I hate Joe Stalin, Idi Amin, or even Bob Hope.  I just dislike them all.  Intently.

For those of you unfamiliar with Joe Piscopo, he was a cast member of Saturday Night Live in the early 1980's. His main job on that show was to do poor impersonations of Frank Sinatra.  In fact, Joe had personally contacted "Mr. Sinatra" to see if it was okie dokie for Joe to do impersonations of him in the show.  What a fucking brown nose kiss-ass.

For those of you who want to find out more about the life and times of Joe Piscopo, you can visit his website, where you can learn what a truly fantastic comedian, performer, philanthropist, father, singer and all-around saint Joe is, plus you can plan an evening with him in concert at the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation convention in Los Angeles on January 16th.  Get your tickets now before they are sold out!  However, what you will not find on his website are all the details leading to Joe divorcing his wife and marrying his babysitter, who has just recently divorced him.  Small oversight on the webmaster's part.

You will also not see anything about Joe's plastic surgery, which resulted in this:

AAAAHHHHHHHHH!

Apparently, Joe likes that she-man look.  In fact, I believe he and his pal, former Olympian and Wheaties box resident Bruce Jenner, went to the same plastic surgeon, maybe on the same day:

AAAAHHHHHHHHH!

Well, good luck with that guys.  Joe (and maybe Bruce) is from New Jersey, which is unfortunate enough for that state, but alas, there are other reasons to feel sorry for New Jersey.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Great State of New Jersey, as I was, here is it's latest official photograph:

The Garden State

Kind of looks like a squashed, crumpled up California, doesn't it?  I'm sure, back in the 1600's, that the founders of New Jersey had great hopes and dreams for their land.  But, just like your Uncle Melvin, things didn't turn out too well.  New Jersey is a wreck financially.  It is the only state in the union that pays more to the federal government every year than it gets in return, it's taxes are one of the highest in the nation; and to top it off, it's one of only two states where you can't pump your own gas at a filling station.  How fucked up is that?  It seems that New Jersey's main claim to fame is the Jersey Turnpike, where you can zoom from Philadelphia to New York City and back again at lightning speed.  Very sad.

Speaking of sad, ponder, if you will, the condition of the long time newspaper comic strip Dick Tracy...

Dick then.

Dick now.

Dick Tracy was one of my favorite newspaper strips when I was a boy.  Although I was too late to thrill in the crimes of Flattop, Mumbles, The Brow and 88 Keys, I enjoyed Dick's adventures with other grotesque villains, which invariably ended with Dick shooting the bad guy square between his beady eyes.  And then in the late 60's and early 70's the strips creator, Chester Gould, apparently discovered LSD and began a bizarre series of strips involving magnetic space coupes, the Governor of Moon Valley, Moon Maid and other crazy-assed shit.  I quickly lost interest.  When Gould had decided he'd had enough acid trips in the late 70's, he retired and left the strips steering wheel to a series of heroin addicts, who promptly killed every one and started over.  But things have not improved and today we are  subjected to a pussy-whipped Dick who is currently stumbling around in a plot revolving around a fucking violin theft with characters named Strad E. Various, Phil Harmonic and Chris Chendo.  It's time to put this strip on permanent leave.

Those were the main topics running through my mind this week.  But now, I'm going to load up a favorite DVD and spend a couple of hours enjoying "Reservoir Dogs" I'll have to do it privately though, as Jan hates (not dislikes ... hates) Quentin Tarantino movies.  In fact, I think most women hate Quentin Tarantino movies. That's unfortunate, because no one but this guy could take a standard "killer/bank robber/kidnappers" plot, and surprise you three-quarters of the way through the movie and turn it into a awesome kick-ass Vampire flick like he did in "From Dusk 'Til Dawn".

I'll leave you with the classic opening to Reservoir Dogs ... enjoy.