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Leg Show
An anonymous Star Trek fan who took issue with my response to a fan poll on StarTrek.com asking "Which is your favorite Starfleet uniform?" For me, it is a no-brainer since the original series uniforms insured that any unfortunate wearing a red shirt would be chum for alien before the end of the episode, bestowing the characters a poetically doomed pall which gave the show a gravitas that it would have otherwise lacked. But the best feature of those original series uniforms were the rockin' awesome miniskirts issued to all female crew people, each one of whom was obviously recruited with the goal of making sure that they filled out the uniform correctly. My unnamed nemesis on the site countered "Are you really going to make a decision based on skimpiness as opposed to actual practicality on a starship?" which got her a predictable number of "likes" from the politically correct cyber-geeks who were following the post. But I won't be intimidated to change my choice because it's how I roll. Until I get some hands-on experience traveling on a starship to determine exactly what's practical and what isn't, I'm going with what turns me on. Anyway, look at it from the point of view of the poor Red Shirts who are about to meet their doom on some godforsaken planet. Would the last thing they want to lay eyes on be original series' Nichelle Nichols' glorious chocolate-colored gams descending seductively from a red thin flaming red piece of fabric that leaves little to the imagination, or Deep Space Nine's Avery Brooks' expanding ass bulging its way through a black unisex jumpsuit? When you know you're about to have your face ripped off by a Borg, you want your final memories to be happy ones.
* That was a witty reference to Macbeth for you Shakespeare nuts out there. |
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Stephanie Fredricks, who mused "I'd love to pay-it-forward, but doesn't it have to be paid to me first? I mean, there has to be something that leads to the something else, right?" It's a interesting conundrum because most people begin having the momentum of good karma being leveled on them at about the age of two or three so that by the time they've reached their early teens (at the latest), they've accumulated enough positive vibes that they can start giving them away to passerby in the hopes that they'll bloom even more gloriously under someone else's watch. Ms. Fredricks, a woman I would guess is in her late middle age, has apparently has had so few acts of kindness bestowed on her during her lifetime that she needs to hoard them like Ebenezer Scrooge so as not to lose a single one. So Ms. Fredricks' attitude towards "Paying It Forward" has therefore been to pass along all the negative things that have been bulldozed on her over the years. When someone screams at her that she's an irritating yenta, you can bet that she'll "pay it forward" by howling at some poor little girl walking home from school that her life will never amount to anything. When the floor manager at the seedy casino in Vegas that she dances in from time to time to pick up extra cash tells her that her body isn't what it was five years ago, she'll "pay it forward"by going to the burn ward of a local hospital and telling the new patients that it's just as well that their eyeballs are now useless cinders because if they could see how their face looked now, they'd lose the will to live altogether. When a group of thugs descend on her with baseball bats in retribution for all the annoyances she inflicted on the world, she'll "pay it forward" by giving me a call. It's all about taking what the world gives you and passing it along to everyone you encounter so that they can share the bounty. Unfortunately in Ms. Fredricks' case, the Bounty she's offering to the cosmos is a brand of toilet paper. And most of the time it's already been used. 
Deborah Resnik Levin, who got a brush with greatness when she announced "Jon Voight is right behind me. Everybody's talkin at me..." I actually had the experience of meeting Mr. Voight long ago when, for some inexplicable reason, he attended a party thrown by my friend's roommate and I somehow made my way onto the guest list. I interacted with Mr. Voight only briefly (he seemed self-conscious but gracious) and I sensed he would have preferred to be somewhere else, especially after Glenn "Piece of Shit" Simon accidentally stomped on the Oscar winner's foot while retrieving a can of beer from the refrigerator. At first, Mr. Voight seemed put out by the assault but he mellowed after realizing that it had only occurred because he had made the mistake of getting between Mr. Simon and his buzz, which usually results in the loss of several fingers if not an entire hand. What was unclear was what transpired for Mr. Voight to be standing behind Ms. Resnik Levin but being actors, I assume that they're both standing on the unemployment line waiting for their handout from the government teat. National Treasure: Book of Secrets was a long time ago and Mr. Voight is going to need cash on hand in the event that he has to replace another beer he's gotten in the way of. He was able to buy off Simon with a handful of white scarves to wear at awards show but not everybody is going to be so willing to compromise. 
Christine Ashworth, current wife of my longtime enemy Tom Ashworth. Mrs. Ashworth posted a Facebook article revealing that most writers don't make more than $1000 a year and since she is the author of such best sellers as Demon Soul, Demon Hunt and Demon Dreams, I assume she passed the median by at least a sawbuck or two. Mrs. Ashworth is reticent to explain why she is so obsessed with the Demon World that has made her literary reputation but it is hoped that all questions will be answered in her upcoming autobiography 30 Years of Being Married to a Demon in which she finally relates the disturbing details of her unexpectedly lasting marriage to actor/musician/generically bizarre dude Tom Ashworth. There is so much public curiosity about what goes on between their walls that I'm guessing Mrs. Ashworth is going to make a fortune. The problem is that after everybody who buys the book actually reads about the weirdness that is Tom Ashworth, Mrs. Ashworth will be inundated with so many lawsuits demanding retribution for carpets that need to be cleaned after being saturated with projectile vomit that she'll soon be broke again. That's exactly what happened to George Bush when he wrote A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House. 
Jonny Award winner Jesse Merlin who was misidentified on these pages