Into the Blue - The best I can say about this movie is that it had the most gratuitous ass-shots I’d ever seen in something rated PG-13.  I have to say I was both surprised and delighted by Jessica Alba’s and Paul Walker’s rear ends in what was an otherwise dull affair. The only other good part was when the gratuity proliferated to crotch shots at the end as Jessica punched and squeezed the testicles of an evil pirate lackey before tossing him in the water. Apparently, a shark smelled the blood and nuts because the pirate was soon eaten.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose - A mostly successful amalgamation of the courtroom drama and satanic horror flick. It was not the first, though, because I had a great idea for one years ago. I wasn’t sure what the plot was about even then but the trailer went something like this: An unscored, uncut scene of Michael Moriarity (reprising his role as the baddest Executive ADA in New York, Ben Stone) grilling some normal, white collar, Republicano looking dude about a horrible crime for about half-a-minute. Then he finishes a question with, “… and isn’t that true… demon?!” There is an awkward pause before the defense attorney screams, “Objection!”. Then Stone reaches under the table because he rigged a gun under there just like Gary Busey did in The Firm except this time it’s a shotgun and he pulls it out and yells, “Overruled!” The defendant hisses and shows his Vampire teeth for about a second before his head completely explodes and we see Stone standing there with a smoking barrel. The screen slowly fades to black and shows the title while we hear the judge timidly say, “I… think it’s my job to rule on objections?” That adds a moment of levity but then everything is serious again when the last shot is of Moriarty and every other great fired Law & Order cast member (Chris Noth, Richard Brooks, Jill Hennessy, Dann Floreck, etc.) standing in a sewer with flashlights and crossbows as Stone says, “Ok, let’s do this.” Granted, this would have to be an internet-only trailer because of its coolness/goriness, but I think it would build good buzz.

Murderball - This is supposed to be an inspirational film but if you are anything like me you will feel like a bad human being after watching it. It made me kind of mad that every murderballer (paraplegic rugby player) had extremely hot girlfriends. Even the Captain Dan character had one. Then I felt even worse after giggling when it showed footage from an old 80’s video about quads having sex.

No One Knows - This is a foreign movie about four young siblings who survive alone in Tokyo in a small apartment because their mom left them.  This was an especially touching story for me because I think the same thing is happening in an apartment near mine inhabited by nine or ten small Mexican children. I’m led to believe this because they are always playing in the parking lot and I once glimpsed inside their doorway - the place was a pig sty and smelled like dog food even though I’ve never seen a pet in there. I’ve also seen four of the little munchkins carrying a laundry basket down to the laundry room, each one struggling to hold up his or her side of the basket. This was actually kind of cute and made me wonder if I should begin to raise them as my own. In my mind I saw a montage of us painting the walls, building some neat bunk beds in the living room, and learning to cook Ramen noodles. We would walk through Target with each of them holding onto a rope tied to my waist while we shopped for clothes. Every now and then, the one named Santiago would come to my apartment and sleep on the couch because of nightmares about the terrible things that could’ve happened to his missing mom. The movie would be called Only Nathan Knows.

Flightplan - It is annoying to me when otherwise reputable critics will sacrifice their opinion in order to include some shrewd play on words in their reviews. I can only imagine this is what happened when Roger Ebert called Flightplan “airtight”. Other recent examples might be “It doesn’t suck!” for Underworld: Evolution or “Set sail for the greatest movie of the year!” for The Island or even “That was really good!” for Crash. Needless to say, there were quite a few holes in Flightplan’s plot. Plus, it spent most of its time casting Sean Bean and Peter Sarsgaard in various amounts of shadowy suspicion in order to keep us guessing who the real villain was. I know Jodie Foster is an Oscar winner, but instead of her name above the title on the DVD, I would have liked to seen “Sarsgaard Versus Bean!” That’s something that I’ve never seen before, which is more than I can say for the movie.

The name is Sheila. That was me in the center of that picture you put up two posts ago. Yeah, I’m overweight. What of it? I’m remembered by the group as Sheila X. The name comes from my conversion to Islam, but it ain’t too cool to be a Muslim right now and I don’t need all that in my life. I was what you’d call a third degree Guardian. What that means is I had mastered three different fighting styles - Karate, Jujitsu and Tai fighting. I’m also lethal in bitch, but that’s a separate chapter. I started off working domestic violence cases. Some girls are afraid to call the cops. Thinking their man gonna go off or something so they’d call us. I’m not gonna lie. I’d show up looking all good and they’d be wanting me. I’d pull them in and turn them out. Not in a sexual way, but in a violent way. Teach them a lesson or two. I met my second husband that way and it’s not something I’m really proud of. And, no, we are not together today. I’m single. Know anybody?

The Angels aren’t getting back to together. At least not officially. We can’t and that’s something you didn’t mention in your little letter. The police chief told us to back off. After that cop broke his arm, and his two legs and his back. We were assisting him, but he didn’t want no help. Said he had it all under control. But, that’s our job. I knew I shouldn’t have tried to handcuff that perp. Knew the cop had it. When I did, the perp smacked me and ran off. How was I supposed to know that the cop would get hit by a car chasing after that dude.

Don’t even think about us coming back. Don’t even ask. Or if you do have to ask, don’t ask us. Ask the chief. Let me know what he says. My brass knuckles are getting a bit antsy.

The world has gone to shit after the Guardian Angels were disbanded. Can we all admit that now? You know what, though? For once I’m not going to do a thing about it.

My name is Nance Ramirez. I am a private citizen, just like you. I used to be a senior member of the Angels. Notice the past tense on that. People didn’t appreciate us when they had us. Maybe now they’ll give us some respect, but I ain’t coming back. I’ll never forget some eighty year old dude calling me a fag after I offered to help him cross the street. Never. Those scars don’t heal.
Meanwhile, the police are overworked. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math. Too few cops. Too many creeps. That’s where we would come in.

People thought we were getting paid for doing what we did. It was volunteer. People didn’t get that. I did this for nothing, except the small change I’d rip off from some of the perps.

I saw a guy spray painting a wall and walked right on by. He was writing an obscenity on there too. Guy stared at me funny when I walked by. So I stop and watch him for a second. He keeps on going and I see that he’s writing “Fuck the Angels.” Like I said I kept going, but it gets to me. I double back through an alley. A minute later I’m on top of wall he’s spray painting. Tip-toeing across it. I knew I shouldn’t, but I jumped the guy. Sprang down from the wall and he’s down.

“Fuck the Angels?” I ask him. “You’re the one who’s gonna be fucked.”

“Get off me,” he says to me. Then he starts talking crazy. He starts yelling, “Help. This guy’s got a big boner and he’s trying to hump on me.” Talking all nuts like that. I ain’t gay. I ain’t.

You’re not going to believe this, but people come around trying to help him. I tried to tell them I was a Guardian Angel, but when I said that it seemed like they started hitting me harder. The whole world has gone nuts.

So in response to your letter, forget you. I can’t speak for the rest of them, but a man gets tired of getting beat down. Beat down for trying to do what’s right.

I was listening to an oldies station the other day when I heard this song. I don’t know the name of it, but I do know that it was by a band named Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. It went something like, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” At first I thought he was lost or something, but then I took it as a metaphor. Joe DiMaggio stood for something that once was, something lost, something that is needed again. I immediately thought of you, Angels! I don’t have to remind you of your previous exploits, your triumphs, your victories over evil-doers, but I will. You kicked the shit out of purse snatching. Pick pocketing was erased, and no longer were old women robbed of their groceries. You did that. That was all you.

We know have Iraq and what was New Orleans. I wonder where you are. I often think of you at night. My sleep, once predicated upon knowing that men in red berets and windbreakers patrolled my neighbor, half drunk, looking for high school kids to rough up, has been taken from me. Why not dust off your brass knuckles? Our nation turns their lonely eyes to you.

We all have our reasons why we drink. I drink so I can sleep. If not, I’d lay awake wondering about when a ninja home invasion would befall me. Granted that’s a stupid reason; my fears are pretty much unfounded because it’s only happened to me twice. There’s a man, Mason Reed, who’ll tell you why he drinks and it doesn’t have much to do about ninjas. His new album “Witches and Whiskey” is coming out. This is someone you should know. Find him at www.GoneGypsy.com.

I once asked him who his musical influences were, thinking he’d say something like Neil Young or Dylan. He looked me straight in the eye and said Pan, the mythical he-goat lute player. I, for one, after hearing the album, understood. This album must be listened to on a barstool. No exceptions. After a round or two of drinks, Reed’s music reveals itself as something strangely poetic. Rest your head upon the bar if you want. Thats probably the same position Reed was in when the songs were written. He writes for you.

Nine times out of ten I’d be upset if my identity was stolen, but being over ten thousand dollars in debt eased any ill feelings. This happened at the airport in Houston on the way to Austria. By the time the plane had landed in Paris, I had stolen someone else’s identity (i.e., wallet). I checked in an internet café and found I had over forty dollars in the bank and my credit score was in the 600’s. It’s funny how things work out like that sometimes.

With the London bombings and everything else, the airport had become a hostile and suspicious place. I’d look at everyone, trying to gauge whether or not they may bomb me. I quickly found a seat on the aisle in my next plane until a man wearing a tank top said to me, “You better let me have that seat. If anything happens, I’m ready.” I let him have it and looked down the aisle. There were at least five other guys wearing either florescent tank tops or muscle shirts, too. If it wouldn’t have been a life or death situation for me personally I would have liked some attempted terror to have gone down because I think it probably would have been a good battle.

I hate to be known as a tourist so I tried to speak the language in Austria. I didn’t know much and found myself saying, “Ja,” a lot, which means yes. I soon found myself at a cock fight. I also found that cock fighting in Austria does not involve chickens. It’s more of a carnal experience. One that involves amateur athletes physically at the top of their game. I lost my first match, but the second was deemed a draw by reason of a technicality.

After Austria, I headed south to Italy. The big scandal there was a just released sex tape featuring Frankie Muniz.

Italy is a shit hole and no one should ever visit there. The places in Europe that are popular – like Venice or Paris - get so many tourists regardless of what they do that they don’t even have to try. The worst pizza I ever tasted was in Venice. The best? At the moment, I’d have to say Papa John’s, but I go back and forth between that and Hungry Howie’s a lot.

After looking around my new apartment complex (see story below), it seemed quite obvious to me that many people have no idea what patio space is meant for. And while there are plenty of sources for critical analysis of movies, digital cameras, or even interior decorating, there are not a lot of paid professionals ridiculing people who put a bench press on their porch. This is too bad – maybe it would happen less if there were. So I’ve decided to try. The first part of this effort involved taking pictures with my camera often pointed into someone’s apartment. Only one person stopped me so I told him I was writing a college paper on “The Application and Consequence of the Modern Patio.” He seemed confused just long enough for me to turn the corner and start walking faster. News flash buddy: I’m making fun of your shit on the internet!

*live tours available upon request

All four years in college I lived with roommates. After college, I spent a lot of time at my parents’ house. Here and there, I located myself in South Carolina, Seattle, and Cambodia, but mostly I stayed home because I had a nice room on the other side of the house with free cable and a weird girlfriend who didn’t seem to mind. Now, I am faced with all sorts of problems like bills and rent with only my name on them. Then there is laundry – I imagine it will be much harder to sneak a load in with someone else than it used to be. You see, I now share the laundry room with roughly 30 other strangers, 8 Mexican children, and two rodents. Most of the adults look like they wouldn’t take kindly to finding someone else’s workout socks in their washer, and one looks like he might take a little too kindly.

Another problem is that I have no roommates to complain to about the "little quirks" of my living space. I have to broadcast them over the internet instead. For instance, the cooling system has one lone dead spot in the entire apartment where it doesn’t reach – the area where my head hits the pillow in my bedroom. This means I wake up in the morning with my head sweating from the heat and my body sweating from the night chills. I hate mixing types of sweat.

And even though the apartment is quite spacious by lower-class standards, I still feel like it’s crowded. After all, I even have wrestling space, but for some reason, I feel like I will soon be overwhelmed by crap. I always fancied myself the kind of person to simplify (excluding CD’s and DVD’s, of course). Yet the life work of Walden or Thoreau or any of those naturalists (if I'm even getting their philosophy straight) never seems applicable in real life. What am I supposed to do with all my Xena action figures, collection of universal power adapters, and box of 49 envelopes? Throw them away?! I don’t think so. At least in this solitary crowded existence, I can make my computer wallpaper a pornographic picture without the fear of getting grounded at age 28. That makes up for a lot.

Batman Begins tells the story how the man became the bat! It reveals to us one of the ways Bruce Wayne trained in his early life was to visit remote countries and beat the hell out of prisoners in snowy slave camps. This immediately reminded me of a scenario I imagined myself doing when I pretended to go to Europe a few years ago. I told everyone I was taking a flight there and backpacking around something I read about in National Geographic called “Italy”. Every Thursday, I would go to the Starbucks down the street and write a mass e-mail detailing my adventures which ended in the country’s capital known as The City of Light…

That was my first e-mail home. As you can see, I opted to forego fantastic tales of beating up slaves and stuck with what I believe what would’ve really happened. All in all, it would have been a great trip, though not as cool as the new Batmobile – that thing is one angry-looking metal head away from being a Go-Bot! I give Batman Begins 4 stars.

THE MAGICAL PANTS OF NARNIA
by Nathan Fuller - 07.11.05

Other than the fact it was being called a “breezy-fun and profound… take on girls growing into women,” I had no idea what is was about. After trailers for both the Chronicles of Narnia and the new Harry Potter before the movie, I figured they were targeting the same demographic as this film, and it would be a lighthearted fantasy epic. At the very least, I expected the “Sisterhood” to be a teenage group of sanitized new-age Wiccans casting spells on the lame jocks at their high school. I was wrong - there was no witchery at all. And while the movie did have a pair of “magic” pants, they were probably the worst pair of “magic” pants in the history of super-powered clothing. All they did was fit anybody who put them on. I actually own a pair of pants like this – they’re called spandex shorts and they feel great on a summer day!

With no actual enchantment bestowed upon them from their pants, the four main characters, who all went on separate summer vacations, were left to progress in their individual storylines with no supernatural ability – one tried to do anything to sleep with her soccer coach, one tried to do anything to sleep with a Meditteranean lothario, and another one tried to do anything to sleep with some random dude playing video games at the Amco, but in the end she was too distracted by a dying little girl. The remaining Sister was too busy (read: too fat) to be into boys; so she tried to do anything to convince her adopted Aryan family that she was more than a stereotypical Chicano, mostly by launching into typical angry-Hispanic-female rants about how white everyone acted.

I was kind of bothered by the fact that a family movie was geared towards having so much sex with strangers. I was even more bothered by the fact I did not ignore the previous fact and enjoy the X-tina clone running around in Puma shorts on the beach more than I did, which was hardly at all. My favorite part was actually when the senior citizen next to me, up way past his bed time, blew his nose at the end of the movie. I don’t know why – it just was. On a scale of super-clothing, where Green Lantern’s ring is a 1 and Iron Man’s suit is a 10, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants rates a pair of extremely comfortable boxer briefs I bought at The Gap, the numerical equivalent of a 1.9.

As a freshman in college, one of my roommates, Kevin, and I would often play a game as we lay in our beds falling asleep at night. The game had a simple premise - one of us would ask which would be scarier between two things if they were spotted right outside our bedroom window. The purpose was to eventually find that one thing which we both found so incredibly frightening that we had no choice but to seek comfort in each other’s warm embrace… errr… I mean, just to figure out what the scariest thing ever is. An example of this was, “Which would be scarier: if you looked up and saw the Predator right outside the window or Darth Vader?” Although we both feigned fear at this one I think we both realized that the Predator posed us no threat since their alien culture prevents them from killing unarmed non-threats. As for Lord Vader, I think both of us imagined Vader sensing the Force was so strong within us that he would have no choice but to take us on as his pad wan learners and try to lure us to the Dark Side only to eventually realize the folly of his ways and himself rejoin the forces of good in order to protect us, his prize pupils, from the fury of an angry Emperor.

Anyway, over the course of the year we imagined many scenarios, from Dave Foley (News Radio, Celebrity Poker Showdown) sipping at his ever-present cup of coffee to the simple notion of our other roommate, Nathan. Although neither of those reeks of impending danger, one must realize that we lived on the second story, so any creature directly outside our window held a certain innate sense of scariness about it. Seriously, imagine Dave Foley hovering outside your window, just sipping coffee and starring that Dave Foley stare with those eyes… always with those eyes. Nathan on the other hand, proved to be a tough challenger to beat, if for no other reason than the thought of him floating out there with his own crazy eyes… an eerie X-Files-like glow emanating from behind him... and the great possibility he would be unleashing one of his patented verbal tirades at any moment. For anyone unfamiliar with one of Nathan’s verbal tirades, imagine a long-haired, frustrated 18 year old male with an IQ and a vocabulary both roughly three times greater than average, yet who spends all day on campus silently hating on his mundane 100 level courses, the poseur pseudo-intellectuals or frat-boys that populate them, and pretty much every thing else collegiate. He then spends an hour waiting for and riding the city bus home in 100 degree heat, arriving at our apartment hoping to catch the last half hour of Brian Krakow’s antic’s on My So Called Life, only to find Kevin and myself watching an episode Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now imagine Nathan unloading all that rage in a nonstop three minute stream of multi-syllabic words (of which only the swear words seem familiar) with references to authors, poets, musicians, and the like so obscure that Dennis Miller would be like , “Damn, this kid makes ‘Mien Kampf’ look like a flyer for Tiny Tot’s Day Care. Also, I find his references obscure, babe.”

Luckily for him he had a computer for us to play games on and write our term papers; otherwise we might have beaten him with soap-stuffed socks as he slept. This is where I got my first taste of Doom, a game so scary that Kevin and I often played in tandem; partially so I’d have a shoulder to bury my eyes in during the scarier parts of the game, but mainly so one of us could keep an eye out for Nathan as he came home. Hell (and Doom) hath no fury like Nathan if he came home to find that we had progressed further in the game than he did.

Those who know me best know two big things about me. Actually, they probably know several small things about me, too, like that I enjoy professional wrestling a little too much, but that is not relevant. What is relevant is that I don’t like to watch scary movies and that I have ulcerative colitis. Typically, I don’t watch scary movies because, well, I get scared, not just during the movie, but for years afterward. During that time of night when people lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, thinking of the day’s events and how they should have punched that guy and how maybe they’ll do it tomorrow, I think about how scary it would be to look over to the window and see the alien from Signs standing there, clutching my cat. That’s part of the reason I make my fiancé sleep between me and the window. As for the ulcerative colitis, I’ll get to that soon.

Between late December and early April, there weren’t a lot of video games released that I felt compelled to buy. That was until a few weeks ago when both Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Doom III were released for the Xbox. After a twenty minute phone call with my old game buddy Kevin, I realized he didn’t really care which of the two I bought. I also discovered that Kevin firmly believed that the upcoming Conquer the Squirrel game was going to be the best game ever because “it has a squirrel [insert girlish giggle] that swears!” If it was a game about a monkey that swears, he probably would have shit his pants mid-sentence, which brings me back to the second fact about me- the ulcerative colitis. Medically speaking, it means I’m prone to frequent shitting, and during the severe flare ups, it comes without warning. Apparently, I forgot the two big things about myself because I went with Doom III. As everyone knows, the true level of scariness in any medium is measured not by the amount of screams or gasps caused but rather the amount of pant shitting.

I can’t say for certain how long it took to beat the game as I was often forced to play in ten minute increments separated by panicked phone calls like this one to my friends: “Oh Jesus, I walked into the bathroom and there was blood everywhere, then when I caught my reflection in the mirror… oh my god… the screams… the screams…” While Kevin tried to soothe and calm me, Nathan usually responded by saying, “Don’t tell me, fucker, I haven’t gotten that far yet!” Well Nathan, I no longer fear your verbal tirades, for I have played Doom III, the scariest thing ever, and I’m going to tell you how it ends. That’s right, you want to know? Huh? I’ll tell you. I shit my pants! That’s how it ends.

Blade II was awesome! It had just the right combination of ass-kicking and Wesley Snipes’ teeth-baring to go down as one of the best vampire movies of all time. Of course, I first experienced it in Thailand last summer on my honeymoon (no, I did not try and surf the waves of the tsunami- that happened after we left). Evidently, Thailand gets “new release” movies a little bit later than we do. Anyway, while other vacationers were enjoying the beaches, I was sweating out my hangover in a bungalow watching Blade II somewhere around a thousand times. No doubt this led to my increased, even rabid appreciation, for this cinematic masterpiece. Well, I am about 150 words into this review and I have not yet mentioned the words, “Blade Trinity.” Let’s just say that the only trinities that I am down with are the leather clad biker bitch from the Matrix and the Holy Trinity (thanks again for postponing the tsunami.)

As an aside, I blame the Rock for meatheads like this even being allowed near the script of a major motion picture… but that is another article for another time. Even the beatings in Blade II were much better, especially when the reavers (bastard offspring of the Predator and Dr. Evil) were slicing and dicing the members of Blade’s vampire posse. The final indignity is that Whistler, an older gentleman actor who apparently sang “Dust in the Wind” or something like that, gets smoked in Blade: Trinity. This would not be such a big deal if they had not spent two awesome movies developing his character. So in Blade II Whistler kicks some serious ass only to be punked out by some incompetent cops in the first 15 minutes of Trinity?! I would have sent Van back to college before giving Whistler a dirt nap. Besides that, “Dust in the Wind” is a great song. It should have been played over the end credits at the very least.

Evidently Van and hot-ass Biel are being groomed as franchise successors because Wesley Snipes is sick of getting paid 10 million to snarl and slaughter mass quantities of the undead. Unless Biel decides to go undercover to hunt vampires in a strip club, you can count me out for Blade: Quadrinity. My final recommendation is that you go out and immediately purchase Blade II. From viewing number 1 to viewing number 1,000, I think you will agree that it rules! As for Blade: Trinity….it just suc….it was unsatisfactory.

…and if I had to do it all over again, there’s a couple things I would still do and recommend to everyone. Take a new picture. Don’t use the same picture you had taken for your license in high school, especially if you are a long-hair and pissed at the world. This combination is overly conspicuous and it is fairly easy to cut your hair. Also, for your fake name, pick an unfamiliar lead singer for a well-known rock band. I chose Chris Barron (who?) of the Spin Doctors (yes!). This is always amusing.

There’s a few things I would not recommend. Don’t use a 1995-era computer that you don’t really know how to work. Make sure your photograph has been cut so it has 90-degree angles. Don’t use a magic marker to fake the hologram. Don’t use your 1993-era dot-matrix printer to print it. Even after you’ve successfully used the ID in Chili’s and Red Robin despite doing all the aforementioned things, don’t try and use it at a bar. If you’re lucky, like me, the bartender will laugh and give you free diet cokes. But you could also go to jail.

Don’t be fooled, though, Vick didn’t just create an alias. Vick crafted Mexico into a persona. He’s a blue collar guy. He’s done time but not in this millennium. He’s worked plenty of odd jobs over the years and currently is a mason. He loves beef jerky. Vick quickly found that ladies love Mexico and would have changed the name legally if not for his impending sponsorship deal with Rolaids.

As soon as this story became internet-prevalent fans began to purchase Vick’s number seven Atlanta Falcons jersey custom made with the name Mexico on the back. The NFL has currently suspended that practice, which has broken the heart of little Jorge J. Mexico, a nine year old Vick fan from Dade County, Florida.

One good thing that has come out of this story is that it’s given us regular guys insight into developing aliases for when our own genital herpes or warts break out. The equation: pick any monosyllabic first name that no normal parent would name their kid anymore. Like, say, Fred, George, or Rick. Then attach it to the name of any third-world country, preferably from Central or South America. My alias? Stan Argentina. It worked like a charm last Friday if you know what I mean.

Faced with the prospect of spending 24 hours in Tent City, Arizona’s jail for severe traffic violators and the semi-violent, I asked around for advice. Many told me to bring a book because it’s boring and hot. One guy I met in a bar told me he spent 30 days in Tent City for beating up his best friend and I needed to punch the first Mexican who makes eye contact and say, “There’ll be none of that.” I’m hoping my stay involves more of the “boring and hot” stuff than any race riots in the yard. So I have to decide what book to bring. I have a whole pile of unread ones because I love the idea of books more than actually opening one up late at night when Seinfeld reruns are on. If you have an opinion or suggestions, please e-mail me. These are my current options, provisionally ranked from least likely to most likely:

Bone – An unfortunate title, as I don’t want anyone to think it is what I am searching for in jail (or any derivatives made from adding a suffix; -er, -ing, etc.). It is also a graphic novel, which is just code for a comic book that certain adults fool themselves into thinking is OK to read past the age of 13. If geeks are treated the same way in penitentiary as they are in high school, I think I’ll pass.

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale – This autobiography of Jenna Jameson includes pictures. The negative consequences of this are many. Even if it is not taken away from me as contraband I imagine many inmates would want me to “share” it. I don’t even want to “share” it with my friends because I’ve seen what they can do to a magazine when they work together.

Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind – This is a comprehensive history of large cats and their cultural impact through time. I don’t know why I bought this since I’m sure it is probably required reading for a college course out there. I don’t read books that could easily be found in a classroom (unless maybe the classroom is used to teach a course on Jenna Jameson).

Among the Thugs – This book about English soccer fans certainly has the most ironic title of the bunch. I don’t think irony fairs well when pitted against a shiv fashioned from the springs of a bunk bed, though. Plus, the guy on the cover looks like someone who I have been seeing enough of in my pre-incarceration nightmares.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – This book has the second most ironic title of the bunch (especially if I die from heat exhaustion in tent #3A). But I also have to imagine that my “prison mood” would not be enhanced by anecdotes of medical cannibalism.

Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith – This is a book about Mormons. I do not expect to find and offend any members of this particular faith behind bars, plus it is a hardback, which means it would make a better weapon.

Moneyball – This is a highly acclaimed book about the quest for success in baseball. I figure the subject of sports will signify me as a “normal dude” who is at least behind the “fish that smells like fear" as a candidate for the lifers to make their wife. I should say a “lifer” is equivalent in Tent City to doing the 10-30 day stint.

The Best American Short Stories 2004 – As you can probably tell, I don’t read a lot of fiction. On the other hand, if I don’t like one story I can quickly move on to the next, which may be the most important thing when your stuck with only one book. The decision by a friend in the same situation as me to bring “Ghost Ships” was a big mistake. He thought it was a sequel to the classic horror movie Ghost Ship starring Julianna Margulies, when it was really an epic love story involving figures of the surrealist movement. The day after getting out he had a weird look in his eyes and couldn’t stop talking about Salvador Dali. Well… that and the shower raping.

I learned much more about a college roommate of mine without ever looking that closely into his eyes. I was using Google one day to find a website dedicated to one of my favorite television shows named Perfect Strangers. As soon as I typed in the first letter a list of previous searches beginning with “P” arose, the first being penile enlargement. He was the only other person to use my computer and so I put two and two together. I mean, it could possibly have been me on there drunk and I erased it from my memory, but really, I have no need for penile enlargement. I’ve heard that the average erect male penis is three inches long and let me tell you I am definitely slightly above average.

Our friendship improved thereafter. I became much more sympathetic to his usual depressed demeanor and I never had to look deep into his eyes. Oh yeah, I’m sure you’re wondering what became of my Perfect Strangers Google search: I found a ton of fansites dedicated to Bronson Pinchot, who played Balki on the show but not one dedicated to Mark Linn Baker, Balki’s long-suffering cousin, Larry. That’s not cool.

Yes, ok, Studdard’s new album is fictional as of now, but a fan can dream, right? Fans write fake scripts or “fan-fiction” of their favorite TV Shows and movies all the time. In fact, several years ago, I wrote several treatments for an entire mock series called “Our Three Dads” a new-millennium morph of “My Three Sons” and “My Two Dads.” The twist in that idea is that one of the dads is black. Also, one of the sons is an adopted Chicano who only speaks in Spanish catch phrases like, “¡Qué tiempo tan malo!” Anyway, I don’t see why creepy celebrity worship can’t be extended from television to music. Studdard’s real album may be in the pre-stages of development, but I know that when it hits it will be the bomb.