Sunday, December 31, 2006



Today’s bang of the week is actress Diane Lane -- a member of the “Brat Pack”. There is a caveat, though: She is pretty long in the tooth right now, so I will say that she is bangable minus 10 years (i.e. I would have banged her if she were at least 10 years younger than she is now). It’s quite possible that she is no longer capable of breeding. That’s a big minus. And her boobs are smaller than I would prefer. But she has a kickass body and an absolutely gorgeous face and how!



Have any of you dumbasses seen the movie “Unfaithful”? I just saw that movie last night on TNT of all channels. Actually, it was on at the same time as “The Exorcist”, so I was switching channels constantly in between commercials. Needless to say, the T.V. version of “Unfaithful” is much tamer than the theatrical version, which is tragic. Nevertheless, it inspired me to write this post. I find that movie interesting in that it is essentially glorified softcore porn. Director, Adrienne Lyne, is know for making that sort of thing. He became infamous for directing “9 1/2 Weeks” and the newer version of “Lolita”.



What amazes me most is that these movies (with the possible exception of “Lolita”) appeal more to women more than to men. The recipe for these movies is similar: Bored, masochistic, hot, woman meets hot, “bad boy”, player (with a pseudo-sensitive side). Bored, hot, woman, gets toyed with by hot, sadistic, player. At some point the affair between these two innately fucked up individuals becomes too intense, thus leading up to a near-rape. In the end, the bored, hot, woman takes control over the relationship by ending it. I suppose that this is the cliched (yet potent) ultimate fantasy of many women, thus the popular appeal. Reality is a different story, of course.

Or not?



Requisite near-rape scene



Life, as they say, imitates art. Lane seems to have a weakness for bad boys. She is currently married to Josh Brolin (whose father is married to an anteater), who was arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery. Diane later declined to press charges. As is usually the case, their publicist lied and denied for them. Apparently, according to the publicist, it was a “misunderstanding”. Uh-huh.


Diane's uber-busty mom



Anyway, I suppose that it comes as no surprise that Diane’s mother is the uber-busty Playboy Playmate of October 1957, Colleen Farrington (38”DD - 25” - 35”). If she and her daughter were all closer in age, I would be willing to let them have a menage-et-trois with me.

Saturday, December 23, 2006



Today’s bang of the week brings back old memories. “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (directed by Robert Zemeckis of “Forrest Gump” and “Back to the Future” fame) came out in 1989, when I was 10 years old. At the time I didn’t even know what an orgasm was, let alone sex. I just knew that I was VERY attracted to Jessica Rabbit and that I would have killed to see her topless.



Looking back, I’m surprised that that movie was even made. It was a children’s movie made by Disney for Christ’s sake. It couldn’t have been very good for flat-chested little girls’ self-image. I guess that it was a sort of marketing ploy. It would appeal to pubescent, male teens, the fathers of said little girls, and just plain, dirty, old men, thus maximizing profits. There was something for everyone. I think that I saw it at least twice in the theaters.



I’m in the midst of winter break which can be both good and bad. It is good in the sense that I don’t have to stress about turning in some essay at the last minute and it is bad in that I have more free time on my hands than I’d care for. I have to say: it’s better to be too busy than too unbusy.



My Christmas shopping was easy this year because I only had to shop for my parents and my full-sister. I don’t have a ton of money so I just got my parents some biscotti and my sister a subscription to MAD magazine. 14 issues for $16. Not bad.



The interesting thing about MAD magazine is that it isn’t just stupid pictures with lame jokes. It actually provides biting commentary on pop-culture. It is amazing in that it works on two levels: the comics are simple enough for seven year olds to understand but are also complex enough for aging intellectuals who are capable of picking up the subtleties and reading between the lines. Actually, it is kind of like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” in this way. Genius. They’ve come a long way since the banal “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Bambi”. I can’t be paid to watch those movies.



Anyway, the big minus about MAD is that about six or seven years ago they started putting ads in the magazines. This happened when they were bought up by AOL/Time Warner. Sell outs.



Feel free to comment, people. It is getting kind of lonely out here ... Also, if you leave a comment, try to make that comment somewhat intelligent. This site isn’t just about women with big tits. It also provides biting commentary on pop-culture.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006



Today’s bang of the week isn’t really someone I’d like to bang. Actually, I probably wouldn’t even be able to get it up if I were given the opportunity. The reason that she is my subject is because (except for her big, hook-like beak) I think she is drop-dead gorgeous. Honestly, I have never seen somebody smile as much as she does. It is both nice and annoying at the same time.



Her name is Giada De Laurentis (sp.?) (an Italian-American with a last name that doesn’t end in a vowel) and she is a host on the Food Network. I’m absolutely nuts about that channel because they produce the show, “Iron Chef”. I don’t know why I find that show fascinating, but I do. I also like “Top Chef”, which is on Bravo. “Top Chef” is a culinary version of “Survivor”. Whenever I watch those shows, I get to see all these cool, amazing delights that I would love to eat but could never afford. I watch them and afterward I console myself with bland, high-protein, low-calorie chicken sandwich, spinach salad with “Paul Newman’s Caesar Salad Dressing”, rice or corn Chex, or a blueberry bagel. Or a combination of these concoctions. It sucks to be me.



Most of you have probably already heard of this inane website called “hotornot.com”. On it, you post a picture of yourself to get rated by users of the site who rate you between 1 and 10 (10 being the highest rating and 1 being the lowest rating). So far, after 35 votes, I’ve got a 7.1 rating and dropping. Draw your own conclusions. It is pretty retarded and shallow but mildly addictive at the same time.



I find it interesting because the best looking guys and girls are found in the gay sections, while the ugliest and fattest ones are found in the straight sections. I have no idea as to why this is. There are other commonalities too: the vast majority of users are dumb as fuck, superficial, and are Greeks (i.e. in frats or sororities). Under the self-description section, they invariably like “fast cars” or “souped up cars”, “big trucks”, “Abercrombie and Fitch”, “drinking”, “420”, and, more than anything, “sex” (not that that particular keyword is such a bad thing). You also have the option of communicating with people who want to meet you but you have to cough up money to do so. If you have the balls to put yourself up on the site, knock yourself out.

Saturday, December 16, 2006



I often look back on the dot com boom with disappointment but I have taken it in stride. I sometimes like to play things fast and loose and this can be both a positive and a negative. I started investing my money when I was twelve years old. This was around 1991. I lived for it. The thought of making money thrilled me. And it played to my strengths. Research and analysis is my strong point.



Back then money meant everything to me. I had dreams of becoming a billionaire. At that time I had saved up a few thousand dollars and was just putting it in various stocks via Charles Schwab. I had no idea what I was doing but it was fun as hell. And I was making a profit too (albeit a small one). Over time I became more and more confident. Hubris finally took over. I told my parents that I wanted to take my college fund (which was about $45,000 at the time) and invest it in stocks of my choosing. I think that this was around 1996 -- around the time of the inception of the dot com boom. I would take all of this money and put it in a single stock. It became a compulsive thing. I would change stocks a week later. And the following week I would choose a different stock. As so on and so forth. Of course, I would always chose technology stocks and so I did remarkably well. I managed to do this over and over again and my profits on paper multiplied. I was a high roller and I had free reign. I can’t remember all the stocks that I chose because there were so many. At my height, I had about $555,000 dollars in stock. But I wanted much more. I was greedy as hell.



Then came the bust. In the Fall of 2001, I was hit hard. Over a period of two or three months, my earnings fell to approximately $100,000. You would think that I would have developed a gambling problem by then and have lost it all. But I didn’t develop one because I don’t have a addictive personality. So I just quit cold turkey. Fortunately, I still managed to make a profit. Not a great one ... just a good one.



Ever since then, my style of investing has been conservative, to put it lightly. I was so stung by the whole thing that I didn’t even consider investing until about a year ago. Most of the money by that time had been used up for college, living expenses, and therapy. I had destroyed my car and had to buy a new one, which also hit my savings. This left me with a paltry $16,000. I told my dad that I might as well invest it at this point. I guess you could consider it my commission.



But my approach was much different this time around. I decided to take the approach that uber-investor extraordinaire, Warren Buffet, takes: pick a good stock of good value and stick to it for dear life, through thick and thin, for the very, very, long-term. That’s the way that it needs to be done.



Originally, I wanted to get a financial advisor. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough to have that option. So I used my dad’s subscription to Morningstar (a website that helps small-time investors help themselves) and picked a high-risk mutual fund. You would think that I would pick a more conservative stock, right? Well, since I had so little and because I intend to keep it there for 30 years or more (i.e. retirement), I’m not so worried. Since I am a bleeding-heart liberal, I picked an SRI (socially responsible investment). This type of fund only invests in stocks of companies that aren’t harmful to the environment and humanity in general (i.e. not the casino industry, tabacco and alcohol industries, defense industry, oil industries, etc.). And that’s that.

Thursday, December 7, 2006



I was listening to a song earlier. It went a little something like this: “Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody wang chung tonight.” ... That’s it ... Oooh, oooh! I was lucky! I went to Safeway and I found that they had one bag of Thomas’ Blueberry Bagels left and I took it and I was beside myself! Those little fuckers sell like hotcakes ... ummm ... yeah ...



Anyway! What to write about? What to write about? I’ve been feeling pretty cynical lately. Everytime I turn on the T.V. I feel disgusted. The amount of conspicuous consumption out there is pretty disgusting -- especially now because its that time of year again.



I really don’t need much for myself. Whatever extra money I get from my grandmother or other family members or anywhere else, I give to charity. However, this year, I will be shopping for some cool shirts because I need them very much. Luckily, I live near San Francisco, which has some of the coolest second-hand stores in existence. I love shopping at these stores, not so much because the clothes TEND (emphasis on “tend”) to be cheaper, rather, they have the coolest, most offbeat clothes out there -- things you can’t find anywhere else. So I’m pretty excited about that. What are you guys getting for Christmas?



One thing that has been on my mind lately is the type of career I’m going to end up getting. I’m pretty frustrated because school is coming to a close and I am still not totally sure what I want to do. And I’m almost 28. This means that I might end up getting a job just to earn money. And the options aren’t great because I’m an English major. I went to see a career counselor recently for some guidance in this arena. He’s like: “Well, you can be a teacher or a technical writer.” When I heard the words “technical writer”, my skin crawled. I told him: “Look, pardon the expression, but I don’t want to be a corporate bitch.” I didn’t get much guidance.



As you have probably guessed by now, I think that people who work in the corporate sector -- just to make a lot of money and to buy SUVs -- are the scum of the earth. My brother-in-law is a case in point. He will be worth at least $100 million when all is said and done. What does he need all that money for? How many bottles of wine could he possibly drink? How much stuff does he need to own? I mean, he is thrilled to make a lot of money because ... well, he is thrilled to make a lot of money. Period. It’s so trite and petty to live that way. And so many people are like him -- especially in the U.S.



There is this national obsession with money, fast and flashy cars, jewelry, fancy clothes, and everything else. And my sister is even worse than he is because she married him for his money ... mostly because of his money, anyway. She wouldn’t give a garbage man the time of day. I can’t believe I’m related to her. And people want to do away with the estate tax because they even want to control their money from beyond the grave. And this just fucks their kids up for life because it gives them an overwhelming false sense of entitlement. Feliz fucking Navidad.

Friday, December 1, 2006

These are interesting times in Latin America. Populist movements are gaining an iron grip in South America and are slowly creeping their way up north. It’s something that the aging cold warriors like to call the “Domino Effect” in their “back yard”. Except now they can’t play the “communist” card, much less anything else. More about this later.

For the past 500 years, Latin America has been at the mercy of various European, then U.S. (notice I say “U.S.”, not “America” because, afterall, what is “America”? “North America”? “South America”? “Central America”? “Latin America”?) colonists. The cold war was a particularly brutal time. Amazingly, in spite of such adversities, populism kept regenerating itself. Such is the human condition.

Augusto Pinochet and his cohorts of Chile

Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco of Brazil

Joaquin Balague of the Dominican Republic

As you can see, I have included some pictures of various brutal, later-20th century Latin American rightist dictators who were installed in their respective countries via CIA-backed military Coup d'états. They are real lookers, aren’t they?

Needless to say, these unsavory characters had a job to do and they did it efficiently and ruthlessly. Namely, they would silence the free press, conduct various “disappearances”, dissolve the existing democratic apparatus and create a farcical “two-party system” not unlike the one in the U.S. In addition, they would create a relatively small, complacent, primarily white, Spanish-descended, middle and upper-class hierarchy in order to perpetuate this situation. Afterall, if everybody was poor, how would they be able to prop up their neo-liberal system? At the end of the day, this token class would be subservient to the white upper-class in the U.S. Trickle-up economics. Throughout history, Latin America looked a lot like what Europe would have looked like if Hitler had won.

Now! Because the U.S. has both hands tied behind their balls due to their escapades in the middle-east, they haven’t been able to continue their escapades in Latin America. This is extraordinary because South America was only briefly independent and united for one time in its post-colonial history, thanks in part to visionary military leader Simón Bolívar. Unfortunately, due to greed, short-sightedness, and ego, this fledgling movement towards independence and self-sufficiency was smashed to smithereens. Interestingly, this is exactly what would have happened to the U.S. if our "founding fathers" had not been able to come to an agreement and establish the U.S. Constitution. Even more interestingly, if the U.S. Constitution were not established and if Simón Bolívar had realized his dream, North America might look like Latin America today and vice versa. Makes you think, huh?

Simon Bolivar

Anyway, a new round of populist governments are sprouting up. Some are more potent than others. The most extreme case would be in Venezuela and the least extreme would be in Chile. Various other neo-liberal governments in Latin America are on their last legs (i.e. Mexico and Peru) and have only been able to get elected through outright fraud. I don’t expect them to last -- nor should they.

It’s not to say that these populist movements are perfect. Actually, quite the opposite:

Daniel Ortega

Daniel Ortega, the recently re-elected leader of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and a long-time Washington foe, has become hopelessly corrupt and is only a shadow of his former self. Being constantly treated like a messiah while also being in power too long breeds this kind of character deterioration.

Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a total demagogic, narcissistic diva and this has gotten in the way of his better judgment, in part allowing corruption to reign supreme. He is without a doubt the most controversial current Latin American leader. On his weekly national television show, "Aló Presidente", he has called George Bush a "donkey", "Hitler", "The Devil", a "pendejo", a "drunkard", and "Mr. Danger", among other things. He fancies himself as being a modern-day Simón Bolívar. Strangely enough (thanks to all the oil that Venezuela possesses), he isn’t far off. I guess that you could say that he is similar to Huey Long of Louisiana during the U.S. depression. The only difference is that Chavez miraculously entered the highest echelon of power -- something Long couldn't achieve.

Ugly Nestor Kirchner and his smoking hot wife who I'd definitely bang, Christina

Nestor Kirchner of Argentina is still beholden to the same two-party system that has existed since the end of the Argentinean military dictatorship in 1983, thus, he is unable to establish a truly independent populist movement. What's more, if a strong, independent populist movement does develop in Argentina, he will likely co-opt it. He is kind of like Franklin Roosevelt in that he is saving capitalism from itself.

Lula Da Silva

Michelle Bachelet

Lula Da Silva in Brazil is wielding power (if you can call it that) over an enormous, ungainly system fraught with corruption and rightist legacies. The same can be said about Michelle Bachelet of Chile.

Evo Morales

Evo Morales of Bolivia is only getting started and it is not entirely clear how things will play out. So far, so good. I will say this, though: If he doesn't pay heed to the people of the poorest country in South America, his head will be placed on a pike by an angry mob of Aymaran and Quechan Indians. Anyway, to his credit, he seems like a humble guy which is necessary to keep his ego in check.

Rafael Correa

The young, dapper, blue-eyed, and handsome Rafael Correa of Ecuador was just elected and so I don’t know how things will play out with him, either. He could easily become another Chavez.

In truth, most of these movements are what I like to call “fascist populism”: So much of the impoverished public supports these leaders within a democratic system that such leaders have become de facto dictatorships -- an ironic twist between the antithesis and carbon copy of the brutal rightist Latin American regimes of the past. It’s a classic case of the chickens coming home to roost.

P.S. Here are some recent fallen populist heros who weren't able to escape Uncle Sam's sticky fingers.

Ollanta Humala of Peru

Twice-overthrown Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti (a tragedy of epic proportions)