Dennis the Peasant

Aviation Humor...

Fuck It. I Might As Well Leave The Right As Well...

You know what? I don't get jack squat for being a conservative. Not one fucking thing.

Other than shit, that is.

Nobody in the VRWC links to me. When I do get links, it's from Lefties. Most of whom say something to the effect of "Here's a post by Dennis ragging on [fill in the blank yourself]. He isn't as big an asshole as most wingnuts." Do I get that sort of love and respect from my side of the political blogosphere?

Hell, no.

Nobody buys me stuff on my Amazon Wish List. Nobody asks me why I don't have a PayPal account to donate to. And nobody sends me emails asking me to gather up my badly composed, out-of-focus photos and turn them into a calendar they can buy.

It just sucks, and I'm tired of it.

So I'm done with the Right. Clearly they've moved away from the sort of core values I hold dear. Core values like massaging the ego and fattening the bank account. Let's face it, if you can't look down on those who are different from your own true self and then make a buck off it, what's the point of voting Republican?

With that in mind, here are the reasons I'm leaving the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:

1. I can't support a movement that is full of haters. Let's face it, I'm one delicate flower of a human being. Forgive and forget... That's the motto I live by. And if there's one I hate, it's all those fucking asshole wingnuts out there hating. Assholes.
2. I can't support a movement that is full of religious fanatics. You know what? Christianity is a pain in the patoot. It gets in the way of things. Things like if I decided tomorrow I wanted to leave my wife and shack up with a 16 year-old tart who's double-jointed. Or shack up with some hairy guy name Burt, for that matter. I mean, who has the time to memorize the Ten Commandments when there's nude gay mud wrestling on channel 343?
3. I can't support a movement that is racist. Hey, I know many negroes personally. I understand where they're coming from. I even have an LL Cool J CD to prove it. That alone seperates me from most conservatives. 
4. I can't support a movement that won't raise taxes or cut spending. Like most middle-class white people, I have more money than I know what to do with. And I feel guilty about that when there are so many poor people out there... Many of whom are negroes!
5. I can't support a movement that won't support a robust public option to improve health care for old people and poor people and unemployed people and people who just say "What the fuck, I want a public option". I mean, all you have to do is listen to Nancy Pelosi for five minutes and then ask yourself "What could go wrong?" Right? I rest my case.
6. I can't support a movement that wants more troops and more years to wage an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Er, let's just skip this one for the time being...
7. I can't support a movement that advocates discrimination against persons of the LGBT community by opposing the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Everybody knows gay people are noisy and annoying. It's much easier to give DOMA repeal some lip service and then move on to other things. Let's face it, LGBTers will put up with anything.
8. I can't support a movement that refuses to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell". Ditto.
9. I can't support a movement that embraces torture. Spankings? Absolutely. But that's where I draw the line.
10. I can't support a movement that thinks Sarah Palin should be anything other than barefoot and pregnant (I when I say pregnant, I mean really pregnant. Not fake pregnant.) in Alaska. Oh sure, Sarah throws off that "naughty librarian" vibe that turns a lot of us middle-aged guys on, but the truth of the matter is this: Katie Couric drunk on pink gin is my kind of MILF...
11. I can't support a movement that thinks my smoking an ounce of Arkansas Polio Weed on a daily basis should be a criminal offense. I smoked Arkansas Polio Weed continuously from 1976 to 1982 and it hasn't impaired my ability to be a useful member of society. Of course, I have no idea what I actually did during those six years, but since I didn't wake up in 1983 with a criminal record, it couldn' t have been too bad.
12. I cannot support a movement that doesn't accept evolution as a fact. Science rules, as far as I am concerned.
13. I cannot support a movement that doesn't accept global warming as a fact. What do you mean the science doesn't support global warming? Fuck the science. Are you some sort of asshole denier, or what?
14. I can't support a movement that watches, listens to and/or reads annoying asshole haters on Fox News who do nothing but hate and be assholes. People, quite frankly, who are a lot like me.

Well, that's about it.

I figure my moving from the Right to the Left has raised the I.Q. of both movements, and therefore I should be eligible for large, expensive gifts from liberals and conservatives, as well as Democrats and Republicans for making the switch. Just head to my Amazon Wish List and put together your own Stimulus Package.

You really don't want me putting together a calendar, now do you?

I Am The Victim Here...

OK, the first thing that I need to say here is this:

It wasn't my fault...

The second thing I need to say is I'm probably going to need a legal defense fund. At least that's what Swifty, my lawyer, seems to think. He says he's ready to take this to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Then again, Swifty probably assumes I have more money than I actually do.

So start saving your change.

Remember: I am the victim here. The victim  of a feminormative society that routinely denies men equal access based solely on their gender. This especially goes for middle-aged men, so this particular incident involves both gender discrimination and age discrimination. And quite frankly, given some of the comments I got from the womyn manning the front desks at those tanning salons, I suspect there's also some weight and/or ugly discrimination going on as well.

That's what's got Swifty all excited: We've got at least a twofer goin' here.

It all started about six or seven years ago... about the time I turned 45. All of sudden hair pretty much stopped growing on the top of my head and started growing just about every place else. Like my on my ears. And in my ears. All of the sudden my eyebrows had a life of their own. I'd go into get my hair cut and the pretty young thing doing the deed would ask me if I'd like 'em trimmed...

But the worst was my back.

All of the sudden there were tuffs of hair in places I couldn't see and couldn't touch. I knew there was hair back there because every now and then Muffy would give it a playful tug after I got out of the shower. It was irritating, but I could live with it. Or, I should say, I could live with it until Muffy asked me if I wanted one of these for Christmas...

And she was serious.

Knowing what I know now, I should have just said, "Yes" and let it at that. But that's the point, I wasn't aware we live in a sexist, agist, weightist, uglyist society. That's why I am the victim here.

I didn't know what you'd have done, but I did what I think just about every red-blooded heterosexually-oriented middle-aged Mid-Western male would have done:

I decided to get a bikini wax... And get rid of it all.

(Hey, with global warming and whatnot, I might just want to mow the lawn in my Speedo this January.)

In retrospect, I can confidently say it was at about this time that things started to go wrong for me. I piled into the car and started hitting tanning salons. I just assumed that there'd be at least one of  'em in this shitty burgh that was staffed by some young guy named Lance or Jason or something. You know the kind of guy I'm talking about: Perfect blow-dried hair, perfect Pepsodent smile, perfect form-fitting white exercise shirt, ever-so-slight lisp...  

Yep. That kind of guy.

The kind of guy womyn wouldn't find threatening and would consider male bikini waxing with an open mind. But nope, that wan't the case. Not in these parts. Around here tanning salons are operated exclusively by bimbos. Relatively young bimbos. Young enough to be my daughter bimbos. The sort that can't stomach the idea of their own dads getting a bikini wax, so they cannot stomach the idea of me getting a bikini wax, either.

I guess.

Anyway, here's a sampling of the responses I received when I politely requested a bikini wax:

"No."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Hell, no."

"Ick."

"Is this a joke?"

"Yuck."

"Never."

"We don't have that much wax."

"Please, I just ate lunch."

"Leave. Now."

And...

"You're scaring my clients."

I don't quite remember - word for word -what transpired at the last tanning salon I visited, but I do remember losing my patience with the bimbo at the front desk. It must have really turned into a fairly self-involved full-fledged rant, because I missed the moment she called the police. By the time they got there, I was testifying to the injustice of it all from the top of the salon's front desk. I don't remember when I climbed up there, but at least one of the cops mentioned that the bimbo was spraying me with tanning foam in an attempt to get me down at the time they arrived. I didn't notice that, either.

Bottom line? One arrest, four misdemeanors and a new mug shot for my collection.

And no bikini wax.

I'll keep you posted on the need for a defense fund.
 

Dear Mr. Mulally...

First watch the four minute Ford video I found on YouTube. Then read my letter to Alan Mulally, the President and C.E.O. of Ford Motor Company.

November 13, 2009

Mr. Alan Mulally President & C.E.O.
Ford Motor Company
P.O. Box 6248
Dearborn, MI 48126

Dear Mr. Mulally;

Well, I just finished watching a Ford produced video on YouTube ("Ford's SmartGauge with EcoGuide"), and thought I'd drop you a line and let you know that you've managed - in three minutes and fifty-nine seconds, no less - to convince me to never, ever, ever consider purchasing a Ford Motor Company vehicle as long as I have money in my wallet and at least one breath of life remaining. Not that buying a Ford was something I'd have been motivated to do anyway... I once owned a 1984 Ford Tempo. But that's neither here nor there.

What is here, and here now, is that shitty video, which contains some of the most insultingly smug and condescending technological flapdoodle I have ever seen attached to a product someone was actually trying to sell to someone else. Now I fully understand that I don't fit the profile of the sort of person you're looking for. For one thing, I don't have my head up my ass. For another, I don't go to seminars in places like Boulder, Colorado to "find my inner child" or read poetry or bang on drums to prove my manhood. Or whatever. In other words, I am not a new-age moron with wads of cash to waste feeding a moral-superiority-through-meaningless-ecological-gestures addiction.

You should try to remember that when you get around to redesigning your "SmartGauge with EcoGuide". At some point, you're going to have to expand your targeted demographic beyond insufferably smug ecoweenies with room temperature I.Q.s, and I can guarantee you that many outside the Al Gore Fan Club are going to react to Asshole Factor that oozes from "SmartGauge" and "EcoGuide" in exactly the same manner I have.

Now the details...

First, the fact that you feel the need to provide a tutorial in the dash of your cars tells me one thing: Your ergonomics suck. Driving a car isn't rocket science. If you've designed the features and controls of your automobile correctly, I wouldn't need a tutorial. I have owned exactly one automobile that presumed the need of a tutorial. It was a 2001 Mercedes-Benz ML430, and it was the worst piece of vehicular shit I've ever owned. I don't want to have to refer to a tutorial in order to properly execute a completely counterintuitive seventeen step process to set the clock in my car... I want a clock I can set in one easy step.

Even worse is the manner in which your tutorial is presented: Four choices labeled "Inform", "Enlighten", "Engage" and "Empower". Have your engineers been spending all their free time in group therapy? Or what? I mean, Enlighten? Empower? Are you fucking kidding me? You aren't unlocking the secret to inner peace for us, you know. That sort of wet-eyed, head-tilted, hand-wringing, let's-all-hug pseudo-concern is enough to gag a maggot. And believe me, I should know: I spent years in therapy - mostly for anger management - and went through more than a few therapists on that particular journey of self-discovery.

Anyway...

Second, the next-to-last thing I want to see while I'm driving from Columbus to Pittsburgh with two cups of coffee in my bladder is a fuel gauge that uses a digital picture of an amber liquid to represent gasoline. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. You're a middle-aged guy, right? Your muscles aren't quite as toned as they once were, right? You have a prostate gland... right? Pick another color. Please. Any color other than amber - or a shade of yellow - will do. Better yet, cut all the fancy shit and just give me a standard old "F" to "E" gauge. That's the sort of thing I can figure out without being either enlightened or empowered.

Third, the last - and I do mean last - thing I want to see on the dashboard is the sort of graphic representation that is guaranteed to undo all those years of anger management therapy. I swear the minute I saw Ford's little "efficiency leaves" growing on that dashboard, all I wanted out of life was an aluminum baseball bat and five minutes with your crappy Mercury Milan hybrid. That's it: Your car, my bat, and five fucking minutes.

It is bad enough that I have to endure harangues about climate change from certified morons like Al Gore and Jennifer Anniston. It's even worse that we have a President so detached from reality that he's happily contemplating ways to destroy the manufacturing base of this country in the name of an environmental threat that doesn't exist. Now I have businessmen like yourself - the sort of folks who are supposed to be sane and sober and deliberate in all matters - tripping all over themselves to play "Who's the biggest enviroweenie?"

You're a businessman. At least in theory. You're the one who should be standing around saying - loudly - "What the fuck is wrong with you people? This shit isn't going to save Gaia. It's not that simple." And if you had any balls, you would be saying that. Instead, you building cars that grow happy little leaves on their dashboards. All in an attempt to flatter the sort of people who think purchasing a pee-recycling toilet gives them the right to tell me how to live my life.

Do you really think, after fleecing those idiots with cute little digital leaves, you're going to get me to hand you thirty thousand dollars using the same sort of brainless, feel-good bullshit? Seriously?

The simple truth is well known to both of us: Manufacturing automobiles is not "Earth-friendly". Nor is driving them. And building or driving a hybrid doesn't alter those two facts one whit. So cut the shit. If you're willing to lie to me about just how "Earth-friendly" your shitty little hybrid is, then you're probably not above lying to me about the build quality and reliability of your cars either. Got that? The only thing you need to provide anyone in the way of an "ecoguide" is a readout of miles per gallon. I can get that out of my 2006 Volvo S40i with two taps of a button... and can get it without using a fucking tutorial.

In sum, if you actually want to get Ford Motor Company back to selling enough cars in the United States to consistently make money for your shareholders, I suggest you drop the smarmy, patronizing eco-shit. All you're doing is (a) irritating the adults in the room, and (b) making a horse's ass out of yourself.

Sincerely,

Dennis

My Newest Client...

Peasant & Associates has expanded into the Paramas, New Jersey area.

Here's why... Our newest client, Nick:

Nick is a conglomerate, by the way:

You know, if he does cut down a whole fucking rain forest again this year, I'll have all I want from Santa...

I'm A TV Luddite...

Well, we're to the point where Muffy has decided she'd really like a new television. What that translates to is that we are getting a new television sooner rather than later. And by sooner rather than later, I'm talking about Christmas.

Personally, I don't see the need. We have a 19 year-old 24" Sony in the family room that is doing just fine. Oh sure, it takes a moment or two (or three) to warm up, and it sometimes really, really, really doesn't want to turn off, but I find it meets my viewing needs in all respects. We even have a 10 year-old 26" Sharp in Muffy's sewing room for backup. I watch hockey, football and SpongeBob on the tube, and cartoons and old movies on DVD. That doesn't require HDTV with TIVO.

At least not in my world.

But since this isn't my world, I have now been tasked with coming up with a couple of televisions to choose from. The problem is, the technology involved in televisions passed me by quite a while ago, and I really, really, really don't want to spend a whole lot of time fucking around trying to figure out what to buy. I suppose I should care enough to actually want to know the difference between plasma, LED and LCD, but truth be told, I'm just a fat, burned-out middle-aged guy who wants to win the lottery and be done with it.

The ol' apathy meter's a bit on the high side on this one...

So, that's where you folks come in. Most of my commenters sound (surprisingly) like they have some education and are gainfully employed, so I'm assuming the rest of you fit that mold. Given that, I'm sure a few of you actually know facts 'n stuff about what televisions technologies and brands are the best to buy. Tell me about them. Not in detail, mind you. Just give me enough that I can bullshit my way through a purchase with my wife watching over my shoulder. And please, do not recommend things that cost thousands of dollars.

It's Like A Death In The Family...

Death, be not proud...

You know in times like these, with the death of Teddy Kennedy and the passing of a dynasty, it's hard not to think about Jerry Lewis. And for me, when I think of Jerry Lewis - the single most annoying, unfunny comic this side of Jerry Seinfeld - I think of Jerry's wonderful cut-rate impersonator, Sammy Petrillo.

Sadly, Sammy has left the building:

Sammy Petrillo, a nightclub comic who built his career mostly on his striking resemblance to Jerry Lewis and a spot-on impression of him — much to Mr. Lewis’s ire — died on Saturday in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 74 and lived in Tuckahoe, N.Y.

Let me tell you one thing about Sammy before grief overcomes me...

He made Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, the finest Martin and Lewis comedy they never made. In fact, it is a better film than anything Jerry Lewis ever made... With or without Dino. 

Find a copy of this film. Watch it. Then you'll know why Sammy Petrillo should be lying in state.

Woodstock My Ass.

I hate hippies! I mean, the way they always talk about "protectin' the earth" and then drive around in cars that get poor gas mileage and wear those stupid bracelets - I hate 'em! I wanna kick 'em in the nuts!

Eric Cartman, South Park

Well, tomorrow marks the end of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Thank God. The Lamest Generation can go back to the primping, preening, play-acting and navel-gazing that are the hallmarks of all things Baby Boomer. Maybe it's in bad taste to say so, but the fact of the matter is this:

Woodstock must have really sucked. I mean, really sucked.

Have you ever looked at who actually played at Woodstock? Who in their right mind would sit in the mud for three days to listen to:

1. Swami Satchidananda
2. Sweetwater
3. Incredible String Band
4. Bert Sommer
5. Tim Hardin
6. Ravi Shankar
7. Melanie

And those clowns are all from Day One. If they didn't put you in a coma, it should be noted that Day One ended with...

1. Arlo Guthrie, and
2. Joan Baez

That's as good as things got. Arlo Guthrie and Joaz Baez.

Who wouldn't resort to drugs?

Beyond that, half the bands that were name bands sucked:

1. Grateful Dead
2. Jefferson Airplane
3. Sha-Na-Na
4. Country Joe McDonald
5. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
6. Mountain
7. Blood, Sweat and Tears

(OK, I know some of you are going to go, "Hey, those bands don't suck!" Really? How many CDs of each do you own? When was the last time you played them? I rest my case.)

If you don't believe me when I say Woodstock must have sucked, get a few of the Woodstock CDs that are out there and listen to them. Bottom line? Most of the bands stunk. The ones that weren't tripping were drunk, the ones that weren't either were only thinking of one thing: Getting the fuck out of Woodstock as fast as possible.

There is only one thing that come out of Woodstock that can be regarded as positive, that being the fact that Pete Townshend of The Who gave Yippie asswipe Abbie Hoffman a good whomp upside his head.

On The Advise Of The Surgeon General...

Dennis decides to take up an excercise program...

 

"Hey, I can see Burger King's headquarters from up here!"

Whereupon Dennis Fearlessly Makes His Birth Certificate Public...