Saturday, August 23, 2003

Mars Invades!!! Mars is getting up-close and personal with the Earth, invading our personal space.  By Wednesday, the Red Planet will come as near to our planet as it has been in 60,000 years.  For the next several days, Astronomers and planetary peeping-toms will be focusing their telescopes on Mars, which will be a mere 34.6 million miles away.  But we (Scott, my friend and the co-author of Subliminal Cinema: Life Lessons from Lousy Movies, and me, the well-known super model/astronaut) recommend that you use this time to prepare for the inevitable Martian invasion.  Besides stocking up on bottled water, duct tape, and cold germs, we suggest that you watch Hollywood movies, which offer a wealth of information about Mars, its invasion tactics, and its need for women.  In our book (Subliminal Cinema: Life Lessons from Lousy Movies; now with retsyn!) we cover three Mars movies: 1.  Mission to Mars, a film about how ancient astronauts made the human race from M&Ms. "It's the year 2020, and Man is still alive, and Woman has apparently survived.  It's the night before the first of two staggered flights to Mars are about to blast off, and judging by the beer-swilling barbecue that's in progress, NASA has recruited its astronauts from some of the finest trailer parks in America.  Don Cheadle with be leading the first mission, Tim Robbins will be leading the second, while veteran astronaut Gary Sinise will be doing pretty much what he did in Apollo 13-staying on Earth and sulking." 2.  Red Planet; another film about cretinous clodhoppers who travel to Mars and lower property values.  It's also an instructional video demonstrating how you can make movies out of those worthless Val Kilmers and generic sci-fi cliches you have lying about the house. "Meanwhile, the filmmakers borrow a plot twist from Marooned, as Carrie informs Val that there's an old Russian probe they can jump start to get back to the ship, but only two of them will fit inside.  So, predictably, we spend the next half an hour thinning out the cast.                Sensing that our interest is flagging, Carrie skins out of her space suit and sits around in a thin tanktop, letting her painfully erect nipples carry the plot for a while.  Finally, one of the cracker astronauts catches a bad case of subcutaneous moths, which sizzle and burst out of his carcass like so much Jolly Time Popcorn.  (Actually, if the bugs weren't so obviously computer generated, this would have been a horrifying scene.  As it is, it's sort of like watching a grown man devoured alive by the little dancing mushrooms from Fantasia)."        But perhaps the one most apropos to our current situation (Mars invading Earth) is 3.  1967's Mars Needs Woman, a movie about how Mars needs women:  "A girl is playing tennis with a dork--when she vanishes!  A pudgy, middle-aged guy goes to get some cigarettes--and his date disappears!  A blonde is taking a shower--then suddenly, she's gone! Either aliens have discovered the secret of stop-motion photography or else women have learned how to ditch annoying men and avoid showering on camera. Meanwhile, an Air Force colonel races to NASA's secret decoding and U-Store-it site, where he is briefed on the message from space they have been receiving for the past three days. 'It's just three words,' advises the lab-coated extra, in what sounds frighteningly like a song cue.  In fact, the message reads: 'Mars needs women.'  The Colonel looks rather dubious about this being our first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, but the movie title confirms it: yes, Mars Needs Women.  And Mars apparently felt that NASA would be in a position to understand their situation, seeing as it's staffed mainly by former members of the AV Club."        Want to know more?  Sure, we all do!  But to find out exactly what Mars needs you'll have to read the book.  And since it's as-yet unpublished, I guess you'll die never knowing the truth about Mars and its needs.  (Note to publishers: only YOU can get this vital information to the citizens of Earth!) But I can tell you that Mars Needs Women is the tender tale of teen idol and friend-of-Dorothy Tommy Kirk ("Fellow One") and his four fellow Fellows, who come to Earth, looking for dates.  And who can't empathize with the Martians' predicament? Alone in the darkness, just looking for a little love, a little warmth.  Reaching out to Earth for help, only to be rebuffed.  But NASA scientists were hardly the right people to contact if Mars needed women.  No, the Martians should have approached the community with a history of helping the unfortunates of this world, men with big hearts, big bucks, and plenty of chicks to spare: Hollywood celebrities!  We like to think that stars like Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise would have immediately donated their slightly used women (Tom's would have been just like new) to aid the cause of intergalactic horniness.  Probably the philanthropists of Tinsel Town would have also volunteered their services for a big "Mars Needs Women" telethon, inviting viewers to contribute any spare women they might have lying about the house.  Remember, the donations are not only for a good cause, they're also sex deductible! Or how about Mars Needs Women: The Musical!  It could help revitalize Broadway while also generating enough box office and cross-promotional merchandising to just buy each of the Martians a hooker.  We have already started the libretto-see what you think: Here's the number sung by the Martians as they leave the space ship and head out to grab some girls: All:   We're young Martians, out on the town!           We're young Martians--nothing gets us down!          We'll each find the best girl that Earth has to offer          We'll surprise her, hypnotize her, and then we'll boff her! All:  We're young Martians, ready to breed.         We're young Martians, you can guess what we need. F3:   I want a girl who's smart enough to serve coffee in space.           We can join the mile-high club as we found a new race.   All:  We're young Martians, studly and brave.          We're young Martians, and it's women we crave. F4:   A beauty queen of some sort will be my sweet honey. F5:   I just want an average girl who can draw Bugs Bunny. All:    We're young Martians, needin' to score,            And without Earth babes our chances are poor. Tom:  I'm seeking a woman who is sweet, kind, and sane            And if she looks like Tom Cruise, I won't complain. All:  We're young Martians, do you like what you see?          We're young Martians, we're HIV-free!          We're young Martians, here to have sex          Either that or good Tex-Mex! Anyway, when Mars invades next week (its penciled in for Wednesday, but could be pre-empted for basketball or a news conference by Ming the Merciless), remember to lock up your daughters (and sons) and to buy our book.  Lives may depend on it. 10:23:01 PM

When Elves Go Too Far Now what's all this I hear about elves torching SUVs?  Sure, SUVs use a lot of gas and emit a lot of pollution and are really hard to see around when you're driving to the grocery store to buy some buttermilk, but that's no reason for the little people to be setting fire to them.  Unless maybe a Ford Explorer ran over their queen, that girl with the big lips whose father sings with that rock band.  But still, elves should be mending shoes, not writing nasty slogans on tank-cars and burning them up.  And I hear that  the FBI is investigating the elves for domestic terrorism!  I imagine it's because J. Edgar Hoover didn't get invited to the fairy ball, but when the Feds start searching that hollow tree it's bound to affect cookie production--and there'll be shortages of those nice pecan sandies and E. L. Fudge sandwiches.  I guess the wee folk felt that the SUVs were made in Mordor and were tools of the Dark Lord, and so they had to do SOMETHING.  But still, Santa is going to be pissed and he'll probably blame it all on that Herbie, who's already labeled a misfit. What, you say that it wasn't elves who torched those SUVs, it was Earth Liberation Front, or E.L.F.?  Oh.  In that case, never mind. ***********  SUV Owners of America Statement in Response to Earth Liberation Front's (ELF) Torching of SUVs, Dealership in Southern California Along with Miss Litella, Jason Vines, President of "SUV Owners of America" (SUVOA), also issued a statement.  He asserted that the E.L.F vandalism wouldn't "shake the tremendous consumer confidence in the vehicles," then "demanded" that "other anti-SUV extremists," like Arianna Huffington and Robert Kennedy, Jr., "cease and desist their activities"--or presumably SUVOA would run over them.  Vines added that these SUV-haters are "doing nothing more than encouraging the dangerous and criminal antics of out-of-control zealots, like the Earth Liberation Front."  We imagine that disparaging these fine vehicles also supports international terrorism and aids and abets our nation's enemies. SUVOA generously added that they don't believe that Huffington's Detroit Project and Kennedy's Natural Resources Defense Council actually  condone arson and destruction of property, but warned that "those who have generated the greatest amount of media coverage are creating an atmosphere where it is open season on SUV owners and their vehicles. It must stop."  Or else SUVOA will run over Arianna and emit exhaust fumes on Robert Jr. An ominous threat.  We can only hope that it doesn't cause an already tense Rivendale to declare war and to withhold shipments of club crackers and Fudge Stick cookies.     11:23:55 AM

Update: "Moses" Moore Suspended,  Followers Revolting Yes, Roy "Moses" Moore was suspended yesterday by a judicial ethics panel for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building rotunda.  He has 30 days to respond to the charges. Earlier Friday, in an interview with CNN, Moore pretty much declared himself a Christian martyr. "When a court order departs from the law and tells you what you can think and who you can believe in," he said, the judge issuing that order is "telling you to violate your oath. And he can't do that. Judges simply don't have that power."  Yes, a federal judge ordering you to get your religious artifacts out of a public building is "telling you what to think and who you can believe in."  And when your mom tells you to clean up your room, she is violating your freedom to think and to believe in God, and mothers simply don't have that power  (Hey, it's worth a try.)   Anyway, when CNN asked Moore if he would support an Islamic monument to the Koran in the federal building, Moore replied, "This nation was founded upon the laws of God, not upon the Koran. That's clear in the Declaration (of Independence), so it wouldn't fit history and it wouldn't fit law." So, when the Declaration of Independence mentions the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" which justify the American colonies becoming their own soverign nation, it's really saying "We're setting up a theocracy based on the Ten Commandments as interpreted by Fundamentalist Christianity, and anybody who doesn't like it can move back to Iraq." Got it. Predictably, Moore's supporters are not taking their leader's suspension well.  Per The Birmingham News they called the federal judge a sinner and a lawbreaker and asked Christians to start a "second American Revolution."  I guess this Revolution's Declaration of Independence will say: When in the Course of human events, you won't let Roy 'Moses' Moore keep his Ten Commandments Rock in the rotunda of the court house, it becomes necessary for one people (the wackos) to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another (the Unites States of America), and to assume the separate and equal station demanded by our God (an angry, vengeful God who hates sinners and gay marriage and anybody who picks on Roy, and who wants the women to stay in the kitchen and make pies). We hold these truths to be self-evident: that non-Christians and foreigners and liberals are not equal to us, and they have no rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  And we further hold that the federal courts have sinned against God and Roy, and will burn in hell forever.  Amen. Next up: Roy "Moses" Moore elected President of Mooresylvania, a country founded on a belief in large rocks. 5:15:20 AM

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