IN DEFENSE OF LADY GAGA

First of all, this title is misleading and unnecessary. Lady GaGa needs no defending. Especially not from someone like me: a middle-aged, straight, white guy whose musical taste runs more to garage rock, punk and Inuit throat singing. She is one of the fastest rising artists in the history of modern music. Everyone seems to have an opinion on her. Most of it positive. Until a week ago, I ignored her and her music. Until now.

I must admit I have a crush on Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and a big woodie.

I have a confession to make. I hate most “dance” music with a passion. This is probably due to having my 20-something dating life destroyed by the disco fad of the 1970’s. With the exception of the superb Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder collaborations, disco really and truly sucks. It sucked 35 years ago, it sucks today and it will suck 50 years from now. All the cute girls in the 70’s and 80’s were into disco. Like lemmings off a cliff they streamed into the local plastic nightclubs and met up with phony plastic men with lots of chest hair, tight polyester pants and gold chains. They rutted in the backseats of Ford Torinos, AMC Pacers and Chrysler Cordobas and produced a generation of maroons. Complete Idiocracy. While human beings the world over grow taller, become healthier and more robust with each generation, in America we’ve seen a decline in SAT scores and general intelligence since the late ’70s. And I blame it on disco.

I worked as a bartender in a disco in the mid 2000’s. It was run by a local Mafia wannabe, wiseguy or whatever you call a greasy loser who is a professional Italian and surrounds himself with sleazy, porcine women. This “disco” hadn’t changed in 30 years. I wanted to kill myself the first night after being assaulted by Michael Jackson, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Brittney Spears and other talentless hacks. But I needed the money so I stayed. I learned to tune out all the bullshit music but every once in a while a good song would penetrate my thick skull armor. It was usually Latin salsa.

Professional Italian and douchebag Vinnie

But a week ago I chanced upon a music video that penetrated the thick layer of kevlar that covers my brain. It caught my attention mid song just as the chorus began to build. The video featured a crew of scantily clad, hot, buffed, young people jumping around like poodles who’d just been given caffeine enemas. Just another exercise video masquerading as a dance song the cynic in me thought. But the music was insistent and looking away from the screen didn’t shake it. It sucked me in and forced me to listen. What I discovered was just about the most perfect “dance” song ever recorded. A scintillating rave-up of feel good sentiment, eccentric wacky science fiction and life-affirming vigor driven by a naughty bouncy beat.

In the future, people will look back with nostalgia and remember where they were the moment they first set eyes on Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way” video. It really is that memorable. I can’t remember where I was because of all the short term memory loss and senility but I do know it was special. Very special.

Posted in Hot Babes who give me a woody | 1 Comment

Al-Qaeda: We Should Have Made Backups

External Hard Drive With Al Qaeda Logo

One of the hard drives confiscated after the Pakistan raid

A senior spokesman for Al-Qaeda admitted today that the terrorist organization had no backups for the data seized after the May 1st raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

“I know we should have had backups.”  said Al-Qaeda’s Senior IT manager, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, Omar.

“Hard drives fail, it’s only a matter of time, blah, blah, blah.  But look, it’s been kind of crazy around here.  Also, we have different types of operating systems, Macs, PCs, some Unix.  And the hardware?  Forget about it.  Some of the backups were on external drives, some on DVDs, we even had some old Zip disks, believe it or not.”
“I was always telling Osama to get some kind of automated system, but he wouldn’t hear of it.  I was pushing for something cutting edge like a Cloud system, but, as Osama pointed out, who do we call if we need tech support?”

“Hello, this is Al-Qaeda, can you help us backup our plans to kill people?”  Omar said, miming a telephone call.

“My nephew backed up a lot of people onto a USB drive, but then that crashed.  So were screwed.  The Americans caught us with our thobes down.”

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Michelle Rhee: For Teacher Appreciation Week, Let’s Push for Lower Pay and Benefits

Michelle Rhee, Head of Students First

Michelle Rhee: She Knows Everything About Teaching--She Taught for Three Whole Years!

Hi, I’m Michelle Rhee, former D.C. public school chancellor and founder of the organization Students First.

It was during my long three years of teaching that I came across a great way of dealing with students.  Taping their mouths shut!*

That’s how I’d like to treat the teachers. What I say goes.  My way or the highway.

That’s why I have constantly praised the educational systems of countries like China and Singapore.  I want America to be one of the most rigid authoritarian regimes too!  There’s no room for creativity or mamby-pamby critical thinking skills.

The only thing that matters today is standardized testing!  Using these tests I will select only the children that meet my standards so that I can create a master race, an army of children that will–

(Sorry about that, sometimes I get carried away.)

As I was saying, it’s important to realize how important teachers are.  That’s why I want to fire so many of the most expensive–whoop, I mean, experienced– teachers and bring in young, inexperienced ones.   If they burn out, there’s plenty more where they came from.  And unions? Who needs ’em?

My idea: keep the teachers in chains and the kids with their mouths shut in the basement.  I’ll be upstairs with the fatcats making money out of privatizing the schools!  Could somebody please pass the shrimp?

 

 

[*All humor aside, she actually admits she taped second grade students’ mouths shut as a “lesson!]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcschools/2010/08/michelle_rhee_first-year_teach.html

 

Posted in Political Comedy, Troutboy's Blog | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Instead of Dropping Osama in the Water, Why Not Drop Water on Him?

Why go to all the time and trouble of hunting down Osama Bin Laden only to dump him in the water?

The U.S. gov’t should have brought him back to these shores so people could verify this evil man was really dead.  Then, while we had the chance, why not let the victim’s families, first responders, and heck, everyone pee on his corpse.

Then dump him in the East River so he can be eaten by New York fishes, not some Arabian crappies.

Pissing on Osama

Why bury him at sea when you could have buried him in pee?

Posted in Signs of the Apocalypse, Troutboy's Blog | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

It’s Official! Royal Family, UK Now Subsidiaries of China Mobile Ltd.

China Mobile Limited Models and Royal Couple Kissing

China Mobile Limited Says "Kiss Your Old Cellphone Goodbye"

In a widely expected move, China Mobile Limited announced its takeover of the British Royal Family and the entire UK.

Wang Jianzhou, Executive Director of China Mobile

Wang Jianzhou, Executive Director of China Mobile

“We felt this was a good move for the continuing expansion of the company.”  Mr. Jianzhou said from his office in Hong Kong today.

“Underwriting this elaborate and antiquated pagaent was expensive, but we felt it fit in with our current marketing slogan, “Kiss your old Cellphone Goodbye”

China Mobile Limited is China’s largest mobile telephone company, with more than 600 million subscribers.

“How ironic that Hong Kong, once a colony of England, now becomes its master” Jianzhou chuckled.

“My first order of business is to put up a sign in Hyde Park saying “No Dogs or Englishmen Allowed.”

 

Posted in Misc Funny Stuff, Political Comedy, Signs of the Apocalypse, Troutboy's Blog | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment