ginandtacos.com - shut up and drink the gin

THREE TOTALLY UNRELATED NEWS ITEMS

Item #1: Burger King now offers a sandwich called the Stacker which proudly proclaims "No Veggies Allowed." The sandwich features 4 beef patties, 4 slices of cheese, 8 strips of bacon, and something called "Stackers Sauce." The nutritional payload? 1000 calories, 68g of fat, 240mg cholesterol, and 1800mg of sodium. Combined with a large fries, this "meal" more than doubles the RDA of every dangerous dietary component known to man.

Note the "Make it Beef" logo. Catchy slogan, guys. Catchy.

Item #2: Hardee's now offers the Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger - essentially a giant cheeseburger with a pile of sliced beef, cheese, and sauces on top of the beef patty. The damage? 930 calories, 63g fat, 135mg cholesterol, and 1750mg sodium. Fortunately for Hardee's patrons, this new sandwich is practically diet food compared to the nearly-incomprehensible Monster Thickburger (1410 calories, 107g fat (!!!), 229mg cholesterol, 2740mg sodium).

Yeah, that looks tasty

Item #3: Massachusetts surgeons and medical researchers announce that an increasing number of Americans are far too fat to fit in MRI tubes or yield adequate x-rays and ultrasounds. GE and other manufacturers are set to reap windfall profits by selling new multi-million dollar MRI machines to hospitals under the guise that the new machines are better for claustrophobes. If, of course, by "claustrophobes" you mean morbidly obese people.

Remember, these three news items are of interest individually but in no way related to one another.

REASONS TO LIVE, VOL. 1

I've been waiting four years, but on August 21 the world finally gets a new Giddy Motors album. Posthumously, of course. We all know that no British band can possibly stay together for more than two albums.

Listen to the single "Early Morning Pipe" (choose "new & forthcoming" on the pull-down audio menu, top right). Might want to have a change of underwear handy.

Camp.

Slate on Thursday had a special summer camp issue, with several articles on the camping experience. Two things of note:

1) Their excellent cultural editor, Meghan O'Rouke, writes about going to (her phrase) "nerd camp", a camp for only the top 3% of academic students in the country:

But the fundamental enterprise remained a shared one, and the weekly dances were, as a friend recently put it, wondrous displays of group awkwardness. In our day, each concluded with either "Sympathy for the Devil," "Ana Ng," or "American Pie,"

If the thought of a group of honors-honors kids dancing around to They Might Be Giants at a forced social doesn't make your secret (or not so secret) inner 13 year old nerd happy, I don't know what will. (re-watch the video for Ana Ng if you've forgotten how much fun tmbg are at times - the desk pounding and the weird hop walk at 2m18s are so wonderful).

2) Summer camp stories, especially about nerd camps, give me an opportunity to dust off my favorite thing I've done for this page, from back in 2000, the time I encouraged the kids in my Computer Summer Camp section to write essays I promised would not get censored or reviewed by parents. Here's what they wrote. They certainly had their finger on the pulse of the immigration debate.

Sending messages.

I'm sure you all have reasons for supporting the Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage. Here is one you probably haven't thought of: The recent fighting in the Middle East. Quote Rep. Gingrey:

The Democrats accused Republicans of raising the issue even as they ignored what the Democrats said were more pressing problems, including the war in Iraq, an expanding conflict in the Middle East, high gasoline prices and North Korean missile tests.

But Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, said the marriage issue was “just as important and a top-tier issue as any of those.”

Another Georgia Republican, Representative Phil Gingrey, said support for traditional marriage “is perhaps the best message we can give to the Middle East and all the trouble they’re having over there right now.”

I also think that repealing the Death Tax and opening up ANWR for drilling will help with the situation in Darfur personally. It's the second best message we could send.

THE WORLD SPORT - THE UNEVOLVED WORLD, THAT IS

I have already made it perfectly clear that I don't "get" soccer. Much is made of how it is the world sport and apparently we Americans are the odd ones for not getting it. Uncivilized boors like us can only watch sports with violence, constant scoring, or steroidal freaks hitting a ball 700 feet. Blah, blah, blah.

Bullshit. We hate soccer because we have thumbs. Opposable thumbs. We realize this and we take advantage of it by doing things like "picking up," "throwing," or otherwise manually manipulating objects. And yes, we're guilty of demanding more action out of our sports. For some reason we just don't find 120 minutes of 0-0 action followed by penalty kicks to be exciting. Yeah, and we're messed up? Who the hell finds that entertaining? But I digress.

Every time I find myself watching soccer I can't help but wonder how in God's name a fan can possibly take it seriously with the amount of diving, method-acting, and exaggeration the players do. It's a small step away from pro wrestling - a very small step.

I don't think I saw one World Cup game (and living among soccer fanatics, I saw about 75% of them) that didn't feature:

1. Player One slide-tackles Player Two, making minor leg-to-leg contact

2. Player Two goes limp and crumples to the turf in a near-perfect (and no doubt well-rehearsed) re-enactment of Frame 323 of the Zapruder film

3. Player Two grabs his calf/shin/ankle and makes a grimacing face as though he is attempting to defecate a shattered beer bottle

4. Player One throws up his arms, gesturing a combination of "I'm innocent" and "This man is an enormous vagina" to the crowd, followed by "Surely you aren't buying this horseshit" to the ref (who is always from a neutral yet vaguely dislikeable country, usually Argentina)

5. A team of doctors rush over to Player Two with a stretcher, neck brace, donor kidney, gas cromatograph, and the Jaws of Life.

6. After carrying Player Two off the field on said stretcher, he waits until the crowd's attention is diverted back to the game before getting up, walking it off for about 10 feet, and then "heroically" re-joining the action moments after his near-crippling injury.

Charlatanism - and not even very good charlatanism (click for a wonderful video example). I hate to go all neocon on the rest of the world, but I think America should continue to act unilaterally against the global community on this one. Soccer is retarded.

OUR SONG (TM)

Finally, Ginandtacos.com has its own theme song. Actually it's had this song for about 20 years but didn't know it until recently.

We set high standards that heretofore precluded any possible theme song from meeting our approval. We asked all contenders,

1. Is this song gin or taco related?
2. Is the song really, really gay?
3. Is the performer of indeterminate gender?
4. Are a cape and glowing cane involved?

Finally someone was able to answer "yes" to all four questions. Thank you, Taco Ockerse.

Wow. Need I even point out that s/he also has a tsekkitukka?

MONEY MONEY MONEY

(Warning: Contains cute photographs intended to cause sympathy)

I am an uncle. Those who know me well are aware of the fact that I can't go more than 15 minutes without talking about my sister's kids. Like me and many others in my family, one of them (John, currently 4 years old and about to start classes at a magnet preschool for baby geniuses) has multiple food allergies. Unlike the rest of us, John's are wide-ranging and quite severe. He is highly allergic to soy, wheat, gluten, peanuts, dairy, eggs, beef, strawberries, and other (more obscure) foods. It might be quicker to list what he can eat (hint: rice) than what he can't.

John, Ed, and a rather large lizard

Even with a very carefully controlled diet eliminating any trace of these foods, John still has a lot of allergic reactions to what he eats. They manifest themselves in the form of skin problems. Despite daily full-body medical cream applications, most of his skin, at any given moment, is covered in hives, rashes, and hard, scaly skin. It has not been easy for him to gain weight (given the dairy and gluten allergies) or to deal with the skin irritation, but he hardly ever complains. A trooper, he is.

"Hi. I am cute."

All of us - family, friends, etc - are participating in the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) Walk for Food Allergies in Chicago on September 13. Our team is named "The Power Gloves" in reference to the socks that must be duct-taped to John's hands every night to prevent him from scratching himself into a bloody mess as he sleeps. Power Gloves give him super powers in the fight against allergies.

I told you he was smart for his age

Please consider making a small donation to sponsor Team Power Gloves. FAAN is a great organization, responsible for a lot of important legislation aimed at those with food allergies (like those warnings on food labels like 'May contain traces of peanuts' or 'Prepared on equipment that also processes nuts'). I understand that many of you readers are as broke as this site's principals, but even $5 helps.

"What? No donations?"

While I feel a bit like Sally Struthers in one of those "For the cost of a cup of coffee...." commercials, I have faith in Ginandtacos Nation. The call is from heroism: won't you please accept the charges?

Ghouls come out at night.

I'll leave it for you to judge:   Is this too horrible to turn away from?  Too endearing not to be moved by?   Too interesting to not stop reading?   My Death Space, a complete directory of people who have died on myspace and now have memorial webpages (you can see the list of recent updates too).

I've been told by avid watchers that you can try and predict deaths over time - following the 4th holiday there's been a death due to firework injuries.   Evidently a lot of teenagers are dying from auto accidents, and people who commit suicide (or die from suicidal-ish drug overdoses) have extensive web presences.  Hmm...please help reset my moral compass to Absolute North by leaving a comment as to whether or not this is awful and ghoulish.

AMERICA - FUCK YEAH

As a small percentage of you may be aware, I was on vacation for the previous two weeks. I drove (using a not-even-close-to-direct route with as many side-trips and diversions as possible) to Glacier National Park in Montana. In 14 days, I:

Killed at least one animal from every phylum, including about 30% of the nation's insect population. To wit:

That bird had to go. Yeah, that bird died. I killed that bird.

Took several hundred pictures. The essence of some natural features can't be captured with a camera. Others can.

Not pictured: humanity

MAKING UP SO MUCH LOONY SHIT MUST BE REALLY HARD

Ann Coulter's job might seem easy - wake up, dress like a cocktail waitress at a Reno truck stop, and say the most inflammatory and ridiculous things that come to mind. Liberals hate America! Gays are evil! You're gay! Boom - check falls in her lap.

Well apparently it isn't quite as easy as it seems. It's so hard to come up with fresh lunacy that Ms. Coulter has had to glean some of it from those who have gone before her. Which is a polite way of saying she plagiarizes. A lot.

According to noted liberal bastion the New York Post, new plagiarism-detection software has been used to analyze Coulter's latest book and years of her syndicated columns. The searches turned up numerous examples of direct word-for-word plagiarism (often from newspaper editorials by other authors who are not attributed) in many of her writings.

Whoops.

As an instructor at the University level, I have long since been aware of the wonders and glories of plagiarism tools such as Turn it In and the like. We don't even need to submit anything - the threat that we might do so is more than enough to dissuade 99.8% of the students from plagiarising. The idea that such tools - invented to bust stupid, lazy college freshmen - are being turned against stupid, lazy right-wing media whores and war profiteers is really quite heart-warming. God Bless America, and here's hoping that Ann's plagiarism lawsuits turn out very poorly for her.

GET THAT CORN OUT OF MY FACE

Nacho Libre is hilarious. I'm sorry, but it is. I know many of you are likely to be skeptical (when I first heard about this film getting green-lighted last year, I declared it to be the worst idea since Battlefield:Earth) but unless you hate Jack Black, I can't see this failing to amuse you.

If fart jokes, pratfalls, physical comedy, ludicrous Wes Anderson-style costuming, and absurd dialogue ("Luchadores have it all - beautiful women, fancy clothes......various...creams and lotions") make you giggle, you will enjoy this film. It contains all those things in abundance.

You also get to see a preview for Clerks II. It didn't make me start swearing in the theater. Really.

Not tolerating BS

Hi all. I'm in graduate school all of a sudden, and up to my neck with statistical curves. I've meant to post this for a while, and since I have little to say that isn't going to be on a midterm next week, I feel better about just posting someone else's writings.

Earlier this year the New Yorker did a profile of Bill O'Reilly, which was one of the funnier and snarkier things I've read this year (certainly from them). They refer to The Factor as being in a baroque period, and drop this one-liner: "Once, when Howard Stern was asked to explain his success, he said that he owed it to lesbians. O’Reilly owes his to child molesters."

They explain a bit about O'Reilly's lesser known fiction from the late 90s. This was written right around the time that a lot of conservative's bizarre paperback fiction was coming to light, most notably Scooter Libby's novel that featured this line: "At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls..."

Please read on about O'Reilly's novel Those Who Trespass.

Unlike some conservative talk-show hosts, O’Reilly hasn’t had a career in politics or government; he has never been based in Washington. Long Island notwithstanding, he really comes from a place called television news. After college, he taught high school in Florida, then got a degree in broadcast journalism and worked his way around the country’s media markets, starting as a consumer reporter in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In the early eighties, he landed at CBS News, as a correspondent for the “Evening News.” It should have been his big break, but it didn’t work out. Although he had a happier time at another network, ABC, before joining the syndicated show “Inside Edition,” in 1989, and then Fox, the CBS episode has stayed with him. It hurt—it still hurts. No matter how big a star he becomes, he’s eternally the guy who was banished from the charmed circle.

O’Reilly’s account of what went wrong at CBS has him, as always, pissing off powerful people because he won’t play their phony games. The key moment seems to have come when, during the Falkland Islands War, O’Reilly and his crew got some exclusive footage of a riot in the streets of Buenos Aires and it wound up being incorporated into a report from the veteran correspondent Bob Schieffer, which failed to mention O’Reilly’s contribution. O’Reilly was furious, and after that, by his account, he was in career Siberia at CBS. During this period of forced inaction, he later wrote, “on a visit to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I stumbled upon an amazing story. The tiny fishing village of Provincetown had become a gay mecca!” O’Reilly took a cameraman there and did a piece on the dangers this posed to local kids, but the network wouldn’t air it. Not long after that, he left.

In 1998, after the launch of “The O’Reilly Factor,” but before superstardom, he published a thriller called “Those Who Trespass,” which is his most ambitious and deeply felt piece of writing. “Those Who Trespass” is a revenge fantasy, and it displays extraordinarily violent impulses. A tall, b.s.-intolerant television journalist named Shannon Michaels, the “product of two Celtic parents,” is pushed out by Global News Network after an incident during the Falkland Islands War, and then by a local station, and he systematically murders the people who ruined his career. He starts with Ron Costello, the veteran correspondent who stole his Falkland story:

"The assailant’s right hand, now holding the oval base of the spoon, rocketed upward, jamming the stainless stem through the roof of Ron Costello’s mouth. The soft tissue gave way quickly and the steel penetrated the correspondent’s brain stem. Ron Costello was clinically dead in four seconds. "

Michaels stalks the woman who forced his resignation from the network and throws her off a balcony. He next murders a television research consultant who had advised the local station to dismiss him: he buries the guy in beach sand up to his neck and lets him slowly drown. Finally, during a break in the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention, he slits the throat of the station manager. O’Reilly describes each of these killings—the careful planning, the suffering of the victim, the act itself—in loving detail.

In the novel, O’Reilly splits his alter ego in two, by creating a second tall, b.s.-intolerant Irish-American, a New York City homicide detective named Tommy O’Malley. O’Malley is charged with solving the murders that Michaels has committed, while competing with Michaels for the heart of Ashley Van Buren, a blond, busty aristocrat turned b.s.-intolerant crime columnist. Michaels, a possibly once good man driven mad by broadcast journalism, tells Ashley, “Journalism, as you know, is a profession that requires its participants to be aggressive, skeptical, and persistent in pursuit of the truth. Yet, the moment you enter your own newsroom, you’ve got to drop all that. The managers want total conformity. They want you to play the game, to do what you’re told to do.” And, later, “It’s a self-obsessed business. ‘How are things going to impact on me? Is this person my friend or my enemy? I’ll get him before he gets me.’ That kind of thing. It’s a brutal way to live.” Again and again, O’Reilly’s characters remind us that on-air broadcasters are among the most powerful and glamorous people in America, and so the stakes in television newsroom politics could not be higher.

Tommy O’Malley, too, has a lot of ambition and rage, but he channels it into bringing bad guys (not just Michaels but a collection of urban ethnic street punks out of the old “Dirty Harry” or “Death Wish” movies) to justice. Michaels, though rejected by the suits, the swells, and the phonies, is not entirely immune to their values. He lives in a mansion, eats filet mignon, dresses stylishly, and can’t dismiss the A-listers from his consciousness. He is drawn to places like Malibu, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Upper West Side, partly to carry out his murders and partly because a kind of psychological undertow pulls him there. O’Malley seems not to know that they exist; he is broke and not stylish. He is morally redeemed by the police mission, just as Michaels is morally damned by television.