 |
|
The High Price of Being a Humanitarian
Enemies List favorite The Los Angeles chapter of The NAACP, which was on the verge of giving Los Angeles Clipper owner Donald Sterling its Humanitarian Award before audio tapes made by the 80 year-old billionaire's über-hot, 31 year-old girlfriend of him spewing racist rants came to light which were so offensive that he was banned for life from the NBA and issued a $2.5 million fine. It's nice that the NBA is ridding its house of that kind of hate-mongering but Mr. Sterling's racism has been going on for years: he was forced to pay a record $2.7 million fine to the Justice Department for denying housing to blacks, Hispanics, and families with children in the slums that made his fortune, and has been the defendant in numerous lawsuits concerning his racist real estate practices including one by the U.S. Department of Justice for housing discrimination against blacks to which Mr. Sterling supposedly responded that African Americans "smell, and attract vermin." So while it's terrific that the NAACP caved into public pressure and rescinded the award after the press had a field day with the tapes, a bigger question is what were they doing giving the guy an award for being a humanitarian in the first place? Actually, in the second place, because the group bestowed the same honor on him in 2008. The answer is, of course, that the award was payoff for multiple grants the organization received from the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation, presumably given as a P.R. move to take some of the racist taint off of Mr. Sterling's reputation. I worked in the nonprofit organization industry for a brief period and when I did, I rapidly came to the conclusion that how much of a humanitarian you are is calculated by how much money you've given to the nonprofit organization doing the calculating. Nonprofit groups like the NAACP see no inconsistency in honoring someone for charitable work writing checks made out to them despite the fact that the honoree has spent a lifetime as an asshole who holds in contempt everything the group in question supposedly represents. I guess that it's a good thing Martin Luther King isn't around to work for civil rights today. It saves the NAACP the embarrassment of snubbing him for recognition because that kind of thing isn't in his budget.
Speaking of conveyances, my longtime associate Ja'Son Fogelson. Mr. Fogelson is an automobile critic who gets a free car to putz around in on a regular basis so that he can give his opinion of it to the four desperate shut-ins who read his blog. He usually has no issue with dropping off the jalopy he's reviewed in order to pick up the latest Geo Metro or Kia Pride that he needs to cast judgment upon next, but this month's car was harder for him to part with: a 2014 Jaguar F-Type Convertible. "I'm thinking of driving off into the sunset instead," Mr. Fogelson admitted to me in a rare moment of candor. "How far will I get before they catch me?" I was surprised at the sentiment until I realized that I'm a fan of fancy sports car convertibles myself, mainly because they compensate for my tragically misshapen genitalia. I never gave much thought to what Mr. Fogelson was carrying around below the belt line, so I looked up 2014 Jaguar F-Type Convertible on an online Genital Size Calculator and found that devotees of that particular make and model usually weigh in at about the size of a medium baby carrot. I can't vow for the accuracy of the calculator but having a tiny wang could only help Mr. Fogelson in his mad dash into the sunset with his dream car to avoid John Law. When you're shifting into fourth gear at 150 mph, a premium beefsteak obstructing your thighs could prove fatal. That's why well-hung car thieves prefer the Geo Metro or Kia Pride. They can putt-putt out of town at a leisurely pace, leaving their lower extremities unencumbered for other activities. Chicks dig that.
Enemies List favorite Mara Marini. I made another of my delightful Facebook cover illustrations inserting the flotsam and jetsam I associate with into the scenes of classic movies this week; this time showing Jesse Merlin as the possessed little girl and Ms. Marini, my beloved pug Winston and myself as the titular Satan expungers in The Exorcist. Ms. Marini's depiction of a nun caused her to admit to me that she briefly considered a career as a Bride of Christ but she was unable to deny herself the allure of hunky boys and opted for a career as an actress in such Bible-related entertainments as Gothic Vampires from Hell and For the Love of Jesus (two actual titles from her filmography) instead. The church did their best to keep Ms. Marini on the straight and narrow, and she disclosed that "in grade three, I told Sister Pat I was a hunkoholic and she rocked me on her lap, telling me boys are bad...I quickly dismissed the idea." I immediately realized the church's mistake in having a wholesome and unthreatening person like Sister Pat break the news about the terrors of the Y chromosome to Little Mara. If the One True Faith had consigned me to plop her between my thighs and reveal all the perversions that the male sex had in store for her, she would have bolted towards a life of chastity in a nunnery faster than you can say "Deuteronomy." But it's not too late for Ms. Marini to have me turn things around for her by admitting all the foul things I would do to her if given half the chance. To get the full effect, she'll need to get into her old Catholic schoolgirl uniform and slide onto my lap just like should would have when she was eight, but there are perks to waiting until now to get the hot and juicy from an older man willing to instruct her in the ways of life. What I have to say to her will be no less revolting, but I'll bring wine to loosen her up to hear it. And the roofies I slip into her glass will just be assurance that my disturbing utterances are the God's truth. You can't accept everything on faith alone. |
 |
Becky Epstein Roberts, who disclosed that "I have acute bronchitis. I want to ride an ostrich. These things are not related but they are both true. I've always wanted to ride an ostrich." I personally have never ridden an ostrich but I have eaten one (I'm saving myself for marriage). But enough jocularity about such a serious subject. I've never felt the need to ride an ostrich myself since I own a car and find that does a more efficient job of getting me from Point A to Point B. But maybe Ms. Epstein Roberts is onto something since my Humvee pumps out enough noxious emissions into the atmosphere to melt the polar ice caps; so if she has her heart set on tooling around town astride an ostrich, I will not dissuade her. I would insist that she rid herself of her acute bronchitis before she comes in contact with the bird, since one look at the thing's neck makes it obvious that the sore throat which inevitably accompanies bronchitis would make the ostrich useless in the dense traffic of the 405 freeway. What's more, the coughing and hacking that accompanies it would infect other riding ostriches with bronchitis, resulting in a traffic jam of historic proportions. Upon reflection, I think I'll stick to driving my Humvee. It may cost us the polar icecaps, but at least the poison that comes out of its exhaust pipe won't inflame the bronchial tube lining of the Hyundai in the lane next to me.
My compadré Tony Potter, who reached out to me to to play the role of a "dad type" in a student film that his chum's daughter is making. I have known Mr. Potter for decades so I assumed that he knew me and of my long legal battle to keep the state of California from chemically castrating me because I am about as far from being a "dad type" as it is possible to be and the good people in the state legislature want to make sure I don't discharge an errant sperm that would result in a disastrous life for the fetus that would develop into being my progeny. I understand that beggars can't be choosers and when a student filmmaker is casting a "dad type," she's often forced to resort to using any actor who looks old enough to be able to have had sex during the Clinton administration. But the joke's on all of them because my repellent personality prevented me from having sex during the Clinton administration, so the results would have been the same if I was chemically castrated or not. But I suppose if the young filmmaker is desperate enough, I guess that I can pose as a "dad" type. After all, even Charles Manson had a family.