Evel Knievel - spelled "i" before "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

If you are of a certain age, then this weekend is a melancholy one because the original Jackass (as in the Johnny Knoxville-variety Jackass) slipped the surly bonds of earth to pop a wheelie in the face of God. Evel Knievel died Friday at the age of 69 due to complications from being one crazy self-destructive sumbitch.

When you were a kid, the guy was everywhere. The Tonight Show, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, guest spots on Sonny & Cher and even the freakin' Bionic Woman (the original one, not that new slick piece of crap that defiles the name of Jamie Sommers...but that polemic is for another time). He was a pop culture fixture burned into the consciousness of every kid. If someone grabbed you walking home from school and put a knife to you and said "quick, name someone who's broken every bone their body?" you would instantly reply, "Evel Knievel now let me go I just peed myself".

Every single kid of the 70's who ever wrecked on their bike after attempting something life-threatening did it in the name of Evel Knievel. He was the inspiration for mayhem. As well as contributed to the wealth of countless orthopedic surgeons by producing an endless flow of wanna-be 6th grade Kneivels. If life was fair, those doctors would have been laying bags of cash on his doorstep and naming their first born "Evel".

But alas, Evel died a crotchety shell of a man. Riddled with maladies that would've made Job side with the devil. I can only assume he went out somewhat regretful for what he did to himself, probably wishing that he had gone the hooker, steaks and blow route instead of the motorcycle, gravity and row of buses one. Though I do hope Mr. Knievel realized that a generation of Americans will never forget his adventures.

We will never forget his body bouncing at the bottom of that ramp at Caesar's Palace looking like a sock monkey being swung around by a retarded kid. Nor will we forget the Christmas morning we got our Evel Kneivel stunt bike action figure. A toy that consisted of an Evel Knievel action figure attached to a motorcycle that could be propelled by placing it in a device where you would crank it like hell and release with great speed. If there was one toy that pissed off moms it was this one because the tires would actually leave black skid marks on everything it slammed into; and in my case it was the living room wall. But, as with all children's toys it wore out it's welcome. So one day some friends and I soaked the Knievel doll in lighter fluid, placed him on his bike, set him ablaze. cranked it like it had never been cranked before and let him loose to hit the cardboard ramp ahead of him. For a brief moment his jump was glorious and celebratory. Then just as swiftly, it became a smoldering rubbery heap that was going to leave an indelible mark on the driveway. I look back on that day and realize we pretty much summed up Knievel's life.

Dancing With the Stars: Marie Osmond cuts the crazy rug

So what's a 48-year-old mother of eight to do when she's fighting for the crown on Dancing With The Stars after she's already fainted and juiced a bereavement-sympathy vote? Oh, how about Dress up like Baby Jane and do some sad-ass old Shields and Yarnell bit to only make your son want to stay another four weeks in rehab till this latest embarrassment blows over. Bingo.

Black Friday Indeed

Apparently we Americans can't embarrass ourselves enough with an abysmally stupid president and Real Housewives of Orange County that we have to resort to broadcasting our depravity with pre-dawn Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

Who the f&ck are these losers who set their alarm clocks so they can get up and bruise their credit rating some more? According to various research companies, consumers planned to spend in the neighborhood of $800 on Black Friday. You think these people paid cash for their purchases? I think not. Credit cards wilted under the heat from friction endured by being swiped repeatedly; further damaging the economy in a macro sense, but reported as "healthy consumer activity" in the short term.

The term "Black Friday" refers to when retailers went from being unprofitable, or "in the red," to being profitable, or "in the black", at a time when accounting records were kept by hand and red indicated loss and black profit. Clever.

Most of the evening news on Friday night consisted of two major stories: the Black Friday shopping throngs and the tragic Bangladesh cyclone that has so far killed 3200 people. The juxtaposition of these two stories sickens, which leads one to believe that the term "Black Friday" refers not to an anachronistic accounting term but rather to the color of the shopper's souls.

Happy Thanksgiving From Cerebral Itch

A little classic Charlie Brown for the holiday.
What can we say we're softies.
(p.s. with that said, we are greatly disturbed that the black kid is sitting by himself and Woodstock is a cannibal)

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours

Scott McClellan: Stuttering Endomorph and Passive-Aggressive Whistle Blower

The smart money would definitely not have been on former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to grow a set of balls and come back swinging like the fat kid on the playground who was tired of being bullied. But when you examine it in that context, it kind of makes sense.

From day one, McClellan was never taken seriously. He was derided, bludgeoned and ridiculed for being far from photogenic and articulate. Ari Fleischer was a tough act to follow. Fleischer delivered the lies with a stern fluidity and authority the president lacked. Plus, he looked like a guy that knew his shit and could probably hold his own in the parking lot if provoked. McClellan alas, was the spherical rube who always got picked last for recess t-ball. It's no wonder they followed him up with the arrogant water-carrying polished media-whore and WASP, Tony Snow.

So when no one was looking, little Scotty penned a book and apparently he could've saved himself a lot of time if he had skipped the other 379 pages and just written the one with the following passage:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration "were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself." From his book, What Happened, which is to be published next April by Public Affairs.

Paging Patrick Fitzgerald, paging Patrick Fitgerald...

Former White House Counsel, John Dean squealed on Nixon during Watergate confirming a cancer was indeed upon the White House; the parallels are being drawn today with McClellan and his little bombshell. The only variable in all of this is Congress. Could this confused cluster of cowards finally have the cudgel to bring this band of thugs to justice? Hey, if McClellan could grow some, maybe the Congress can too? Yeah, I know. Not where the smart money is.

Marriage of Convenience

Pat Robertson claims his endorsement of Mayor Rudy Giuliani is one of faith and fellowship in a man who understands that the greatest threat to America is Islamic Radicalism. Well Pat, we call bullshit on you and your house of televised crazy over there at CBN. With that said, Pat really couldn't admit that the religious right is in a tailspin and instead of being a muscular and retarded gorilla forcing Republican candidates and red state voters into a bent over position, that they are now a stomped-on ant hill of believers who need to bet on the best GOP horse to win so they can limp into an inaugural ball, stop the bleeding and focus on 2012.

Pat is a miserable little cretin who spouts the antithesis of Christianity festooned in the most sinister of amalgam visages: politico-Christianity. In August of 2006, he obviously felt it was prudent to rub out Hugo Chavez. An equally crazy moron who would be rendered impotent if we stopped buying his oil (the Chinese however would buy oil from the Nazis - see Sudan). Might I cite the sixth commandment as laid out in Exodus 20: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Color me confused, but that appears to be somewhat contradictory. Pat spouted that 9-11 was brought on by America's coddling of abortionists and gays. He also said Ariel Sharon's stroke was the result of his relinquishing portions of Gaza. The hits keep on coming from his tiny intolerant brain; all too many to list here for free.

But back to Rudy: Sleep well whore.

If the gods look the other way and he is elected, was selling out the Supreme Court worth the price for Pat's pat? Or perhaps, promising to give the Israelis an inordinate amount of help to further destabilize the region and bring about end times worth having the pre-primary support of this wrinkled turd?

Does anyone really care? We live in a world that is bigger than Rudy and Pat. One where an Islamic nation with nuclear warheads is about to devolve into anarchy, one where a frighteningly significant portion of the American people see water boarding as an acceptable war-time practice, where super models and rappers are structuring contracts so they're no longer paid in American dollars and where more than two remaining presidential candidates do not believe in evolution.

Simply, it's the world that now powers the grave spinning machine for Orwell, Vonnegut, Wells, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Franklin, Paine, de Tocqueville, Lincoln, et al. It's quite sad really - we had a good run in the 20th Century; one would've thought we might have known how to keep that party going.

remember, remember the 5th of November

waterboarding
Pakistan
warantless wiretapping
Gore v. Bush
Iraq
Telecom complicity
falling dollar
receding ice caps
drought
crude oil $90+ barrel
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera

Bored at work? Trip out on this

That's Mars people. Click on the pic to enlarge, sit back and be blown away. Granted it looks just like an earth desert but that's the rub; a planet died a long time ago and it reminds us of ourselves. The other source of awe with this picture is that it was taken by the NASA rover, Opportunity. A wheeled geology/exobiology lab and camera crew that was supposed to function for around 90 days and has been going strong for almost two years. Perhaps Detroit may want to look into hiring the guys that built it. Hell, let's elect them to Congress.

Now THIS is scary

You don't come by chestnuts like this anymore. Thank god for 70's television.

Happy Halloween!

We're going to be fine - now get the hell out of here, your plane to D.C. is about to leave

The past week has been surreal. One laced with hyperbole outpacing reality. It was a week where those of us whose houses still stood, felt nothing but guilt. Where no amount of giving or grieving would make us feel any better. The air stank of chemicals and the sky was a toxic orange. You stayed inside or got a headache. It was that elementary.

But it must be said, that when the rebuilding is done and the pain subsides, San Diegans will stand proud knowing that their neighbors stepped up, stepped in and made the pain much less. When you watch national news anchors marvel at the scene at Qualcomm Stadium and find it to be nothing more than the stark antithesis to Katrina, you know we had to have done something right. When amongst the grief counselors and insurance representatives there are live bands, day care and free massage for displaced families you know San Diego is a place to be praised.

Back in the 70's it was often joked that California could successfully secede from the Union and do just fine. Hell, the state's own GNP is higher than France. But it was never more apparent that this state could stand on it's own when a mayor and a governor along with their capable staff brought calm and confidence to a shaken populace. That a 90's action hero, a portly ex-cop and volunteers from every walk of life could be held up as an example for citizenry at home and abroad is nothing short of fantastic. Somewhere around Tuesday night with fires still blazing, the vast majority of San Diegans began to feel that we were going to make it and it was going to be okay. And then, the assholes came.

There was something tainted and incongruous seeing the patronizing ghoul/Department of Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff standing next to Mayor Sanders and Governor Schwarzenegger. You had the feeling that there was this collective snort of disgust being expressed all over the county. As if San Diego residents were saying, "thank you but no thank you, we'll take it from here baldy. Get back on your plane and get the f*ck out of here." Then, only to add insult to insult: The next day he arrived.

Swallowing resources and stalling recovery efforts just so he and his parade of minions and morons could get to Rancho Bernardo to appear concerned before whatever camera would click. The President (I capitalize it our of respect for the office and not the man) stood with the people doing the real work trying to look like he understood the gravity of the situation when you knew he really couldn't grasp what the hell was going on outside of the simple connection he had with clearing dry brush in Crawford. Although, being associated with evacuees and smoking husks of populated areas in arid climes is his oeuvre. But all things equal, he and his kind were unnecessary this week. They distracted from the real heroes in our midst and delivered promises that had the weight of the very ash that fell on his silly polished cowboy boots.

In short, families lost homes, farmers lost millions and the months to come will be virtually Sisyphean; but the county will rebuild and San Diego will become that much more of a destination. Not because of the sun and sand but now because of generosity, tenacity and self-sufficiency; making it a true American city.

Yeah, It's as bad as it sounds

It's clear as a bell outside the Cerebral Itch corporate offices, but you take a breath and it smells and tastes like you're standing about two feet downwind from a campfire using treated lumber and PVC piping as fuel. You look to the north and it's a sick brown haze that covers the sky; the same looking to the south. We seem to be in the eye of an unprecedented firestorm. North, South and East County San Diego are burning with no relief promised till Thursday. All we can do in Downtown is just look on and pray.

Follow the latest fire news from the Twitter string our local NPR station has established

We're exposing ourselves...so to speak

In the interest of transparency and cheap web traffic, we have fired up a Twitter account and plan to let every member of the Cerebral Itch staff to twitter their little fingers off on all things happening in the office.

We already started this experiment and it seems to have already sparked six fights, five missed deadlines, an exposed office romance and a close call with a DUI. All in all, a typical week. Start following the Cerebral Itch Twitter string and get real-time notices of who is doing what, where and to whom. Plus, we may throw some prizes in the mix at any time to be claimed only by followers of our Twitter string; how's that for getting our knees dirty?

So Veejay, Silvio, Dawn, Big Pete, the new marketing guy and others will be just another set of reality media whores. Except there is really no prize money involved and nobody's really watching; just like the CW.

...and the world is now a little less classy and a little less cool

When you co-starred in movies like From Here to Eternity, The King & I and An Affair to Remember and proved a mighty match for guys like Burt Lancaster, Yul Brenner and Cary Grant, you were a tour de force. But to do it with incalculable class and genteel wit meant that you were Deborah Kerr. A classy lady who never slid into the scandal sheets like her contemporaries (Liz Taylor, et al) but only did her job...unbelievably well.

If you made Sinatra, Martin, Davis laugh their asses off and partied with them as Vegas grew into puberty you deserve a place on the mantle of eternal swank. Joey Bishop did that along with killer stand-up and laying out venerable talk show hosts and audiences alike. Somewhere the Rat Pack is all back together and that is a very cool thought indeed.

Oh, you know we weren't going to let this one go quietly

What newscasters across America should've really said:

"So the affable boy-woman lesbian comedienne and corporate spokesperson, Ellen Degeneres was reduced to tears at the outset of her television show today under the enormous weight of grief she carries daily surrounding the loss of both civilian and military life in Iraq. What? no, that's not it? Then okay, Ellen Degeneres was reduced to tears yesterday by our bellicose and moronic president as well as the impotent congress who is playing political chess to suit their interests for the '08 election. What? wait - okay, I think I got the right copy now; let me try that again. Ellen Degeneres was reduced to tears yesterday by the death of her recently adopted pet dog that...Huh? No?! Then what the f&ck are we reporting on here?! What? You're kidding me? Seriously?!

Ellen Degeneres was reduced to tears yesterday by a dog adoption snafu that resulted in her complete loss of professionalism and using her show as a bully pulpit, scratch that, a place to beg to a national audience so pressure would be applied to a fly-by-night pet adoption service. Sources close to Ellen agree that any respectability and clout she had amassed since coming out as a lesbian went down the crapper. Several lesbians we spoke to feel that if Ellen is going to dress like Gilligan then she shouldn't cry like Mrs. Howell.

Good night."

UPS=Useless Pinhead Sketcher

Last night while the Cerebral Itch editorial department was at the local sports bar watching the Falcons get some jail house love courtesy of Eli Manning, we were repeatedly assaulted by one asinine commercial in particular: UPS and their whiteboard douchebag.

At least two TVs were smashed in by shot glasses and beer bottles when this chestnut came on for the oh, 76th time. Who the hell wants to see a commercial with a spokesperson emulating the one smug Dockers-clad asshole in the office no one likes? We all have one - The "jump up and assault the Expo® dry erase board mulit-colored pen set with giddy aplomb" idiot who then proceeds to draw on the board with great conviction as if he is conveying the AIDS vaccine all while everyone else thinks he's actually less qualified for his job than originally thought.

What is most shocking about this commercial is that it was conceived by the folks over at The Martin Agency. They're the group who are responsible for the classic Geico commercials using celebrity relics (i.e. Burt Bacharach, Peter Graves and the like) telling actual policy holder's stories. Now that stuff actually worked. This dreck was most likely pitched to UPS marketing pinheads who think they're great managers/collaborators all because the secret to team communication lies in the magic that is the dry erase board.

All this makes us happier than ever that Cerebral Itch uses FedEx Ground for all our shipping needs.

Yeah, we know we're a bunch of infants over here, but it's still funny as hell

NBA Reporter Freudian Slip

we're punting

New stories and opinions to be unleashed, but in the interim, a classic - enjoy

Reality TV safety tip: Don't dry hump Danny Bonaduce if you have no dental plan

So for those of us that actually saddle up to the trough of reality TV slop, the above video is about the best piece of Schadenfreude you could ask for.

A little background: The moron speaking to the audience is "Johnny Fairplay". A self-made media whore who struck it rich by parlaying his lack of moral fiber the season of Survivor - Pearl Islands. The beginning of his ascent to full-blown televised assholishness was when he curried the sympathies of the other survivors by lying about his grandmother dying (she's still alive by the way). Ever since he's been showing up anywhere there's a camera. With swaggering aplomb, Danny Bonaduce, who should be dead, decides to exact some drunken justice on the asshat. Enjoy

This is where we've been - so get off our ass

So many people have been asking "where the hell have you jagoffs been the past week?" And to that inquiry I really have no defense. We have been dodging our responsibilities as well as the law and we're finally back to pay the bill of life we cannot afford. If that all seems a bit maudlin, allow us to give you a daily breakdown of our exploits and then perhaps we can gain back the loyalty some of you were dumb enough to give us in the first place.

Monday, September 24th
San Diego, CA - We knew we had to cover Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University. The only problem is that we put our new intern Silvio in charge of making travel arrangements. Instead of getting us tickets to New York, he got us tickets to Colombia and reservations at a hotel in Bogota that was reviewed by some guy from New York on TripAdvisor. Suitably marinated from an extended stay in the Airport lounge, we didn't realize this error until we landed.

Tuesday. September 25th
Bogota, Colombia - Veejay, Silvio and I got to our hotel in Bogota only to find that the place was shot up the week before in a minor skirmish between families over shall we say an "agricultural" issue. The bell captain's arm was in a sling and his head was wrapped in dirty gauze; but jaunty and polite as anyone could ask for in a one-armed indigenous citizen tasked to carry my bags. Once in my room, (I made the two idiots sleep in a free room that had been given to us by the management because the toilet was plugged up by ziploc bags full of "flour" and it's windows were blown out in the previous week's firefight - I found this hilarious considering the rainy season was upon us) I frantically dialed every ex-girlfriend with either State Department or travel industry connections, left messages and then decided to make the most of Silvio's error by soaking up some local color.

Wednesday, September 26th
Bogota, Colombia - If I had a nickel for everytime I woke up face down in a town square at dawn unable to name the city, I'd have $5.80. Make that $5.85, because Bogota can now be added to the list. Veejay and Silvio are nowhere to be found and my hangover is made less by the possibility I may have finally shaken those bozos without the cost of COBRA.

Thursday, September 27th - A.M.
Bogota, Colombia - I get a call from the U.S. Embassy. Silvio and Veejay have turned up courtesy of the Colombian Police who got them from the Colombian Army in a sweep of a FARC rebel compound in the city. Guess who sincerely thought they were at a suspiciously well-armed youth hostel? Yep, the boys. The authorities didn't even question them. They just knew by looking at these two rubes that their terrorism threat level was pink.

Thursday, September 27th - P.M.
C-130 Transport plane - Apparently one of my old flames had some pull with the state department and once they de-liced the boys we were on a C-130 transport plane headed home with a busted up Humvee, 16 palettes of sugar and a USO troop that included Alan Thicke and Gloria Estefan. Miami was our next stop.

Friday, September 28th
Miami, Florida - Wearing the same clothes we started all of this in, we got off a bus our G.I. buddies packed us on in Miami and walked straight into a PETA International Hug a Vegetarian Day rally. I had some fierce jet lag and was bitch cranky but I'll still swear on a stack of bibles that the banner over the stage said "Hit a Vegetarian Day". I thought it was too good to be true, but I went with my first instinct and took out three vegans with two haymakers; you read that right. Two punches - three hits. They're vegans for crissake. I knocked one into another and they both went down like you'd expect malnourished soy-lovin scarecrows to do. Next thing I know I'm pushed to the ground by three cops with one of them whispering in me ear, "you have no idea how many of us have been wanting to do that all day - you're our hero. Play nice and we'll get you out of here." I struggled a bit to look tough in front of the ladies, but otherwise took my cues from the constabulary. Two hours later I was sippin' mojitos at a South Beach bar with Gloria's backup singers.

Friday, September 28th, Saturday, September 29th and Sunday, September 30th
drunken hedonistic haze with memories best chance to be recovered through hypnosis.

Monday, October 1st
San Diego, CA - I woke up in my condo not knowing how or when I got there. Only to find "the rhythm is gonna get you {smiley face}" written on my ass and 47 missed calls from Veejay.

And that my friends is how you lose a week

What can you say about a mime?

...and, that about covers it.

And now a word from our sponsor...

Buy this shirt - because if you read this blog, you feel as we do that this man should be shoveling embers in hell.

Cerebral Itch Handy Hints #214: There is a wrong way and a right way to get tasered

First Amendment rights aside, if you plan to be a loudmouth schmuck for the benefit of your Webpage and scoring chicks at the next WarCraft convention, don't beg and scream like a sissy-boy having a tickle fit when you discover as a result of your tomfoolery, you're about to meet the business end of a taser. We've all seen it, but damn it it's still funny to see jumpy campus cops jackboot this doughy attention-whore - roll-it!


So that's not how you want to be seen when you get defibrillated against your will. Simply, screaming several octaves higher than Lisa Simpson will not get you laid or coalesce the sympathies of civil libertarians. With that said we would like to compare and contrast the following on how one should instigate and receive a Taser shot - roll-it!


Case in point, if you're going to be belligerent and piss off cops, you do so with bravado and hyperbolic threats. Requesting that the officers let loose the police dog so you can "box him" is a master stroke. Refusing to unclench your fists and standing your ground when you hear the officer request that a junior officer come over and release the taser from their holster is another balls of steel move. Despite this gentleman's immediate attitude reversal as a result of being lit-up like a Tesla coil, he still gets high marks for taking more than two jolts which will most assuredly get you the respect of your drunk tank mates.

BOOBAH as a weapon of mass irritation

We all know about the Teletubbies and their vice-grip on the minds of children and their quasi-magical powers in creating homosexuals. But a new threat has emerged picking up where the Teletubbies left off. They have a name and that name is Boohbah.

The Boohbah creature is eerily familiar to the creature known as "grimace" from the Ronald McDonald pantheon. So much so, I'm guessing legal proceedings are already underway. They are equally as functionally illiterate and lack the necessary anatomy to annunciate spoken language. They appear to use high pitched sound blurts to communicate. They scoff at the laws of physics by easily defying gravity which has obviously led to the advanced atrophy of the lower legs and feet.

If there are any redeeming facets to the Boohbah it is that recorded audio of their musings can be used as a weapon for both interrogation as a result of rendition and seriously pissing off roommates and/or cubicle neighbors.

Follow these simple instructions to inflict maximum annoyance:

1. Wait for targeted cubicle occupant to leave their cubicle
2. enter said cubicle, access the Boohbah website - click on the Boohbah masthead
   
3. Click on the gaggle of Boobahs (see below screenshot)
   
4. click on all of the musical circles above their heads
5. turn the computer volume to maximum
6. run!

Tony Snow: mouthpiece for Satan

We know we haven't posted in a few and to that we say: "get off our ass!". It's been another drunken blur thanks to the hijinks we kicked off last week celebrating the last day of work for Tony Snow.

And because most of us are still lit, I'm going to go out on a limb here and state something quite provocative: Tony Snow is, was and will forever be an asshole. I had to either shoot out the TV like Elvis or leave the room every time a news anchor or correspondent began to sniffle and wax melancholy over Tony. Fine. we know the man is dealing with cancer and we had to watch him slowly getting ravaged by chemo, but lest we forget the man was a sanctimonious shill who served as the first line of defense for the Bush Administration.

Check out this collection of his greatest hits:

Tony Snow on Iraqi Occupation
Tony Snow on Scooter Libby
Tony Snow on the Attorney Scandal
Tony Snow on Al Qaeda
Tony Snow just plain lying

Do you honestly think when he sits down with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates he's going to get a fast-pass through to heaven? I imagine it would go something like this:

St. Peter: So Anthony, it says here that you defended an illegal war, a corrupt administration and lied to people daily claiming it was in the best interest of their nation. And before that you worked for FoxNews - don't even get me started on that one...

Tony Snow: Now wait a minute St. Peter, I did my job to the best of my ability and had the respect and admiration of my colleagues. I also was a good father...

St. Peter: I'm going to cut you off right there Anthony. Do you have any concept as to how many borderline cases I get coming through here claiming they did their best? I'm still getting letters daily from Nixon and Harding begging me to let them in. You're going to have to sit there for 1000 years and reflect on the life you led and then maybe, and I mean maybe, I'll start processing your paperwork.

POOF! Big cloud of red smoke, the temperature shoots up about 35 degrees and cherubs start dropping from the sky

Minion of Satan: Hey Tony, name's Moloch, glad I was able to catch you. Say listen, my boss would like to extend an offer of employment to you. He's been looking for a person with your skill set for quite some time.

Tony Snow: Really? What's it pay? I don't know if you knew, but I saddled my family with a lot of debt just so I could juice my resume by becoming press secretary. I take it you can help me there?

Minion of Satan: Oh Tony please, bestowing obscene wealth is our specialty - we invented gambling for Christ sake, ooh did I say that? Sorry Peter. Anyway, you want the job it's yours. First class accommodations, restore you to your physical prime and we'll cater to whatever vice you got a jones for.

Tony Snow: I'm in, let me grab my flute.

Minion of Satan: Uh no. That's pretty much our only condition is that you no longer play any music. I mean for Christ sake, oops, sorry Pete my bad again; we invented Rock and Roll, Jazz and Hip Hop - We bring it white boy. We've seen you play and frankly, you make John Tesh look like Prince. We have standards Tony and you suck.

Tony Snow: Alright fine - you've got a deal.

Minion of Satan: All good here Pete? We can have this one?

St. Peter: Sure take him. I'm too busy as it is. Plus, I'll be sending you Cheney and Kissinger any day now. Just get out of here, you're scaring the new arrivals and stinking up the joint.

POOF!

Perhaps this young man/woman has a point

Who knew Cojo was able to have a child, much less one with such passion for the things that matter in this world.

Better than caffeine, because the following will keep you awake at night

Not that we're looking to bum you out more than usual these days, but the recent Petraeus Report and all the talk of extending troop levels exhumes the old question as to why we're over there. The staff of Cerebral Itch recently viewed Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash. It is extremely well done, authoritative and the most frightening thing you've seen on film since you wet you pants when you were 12 watching the Exorcist on VHS. And to entice our friends across the aisle to view this documentary, one doesn't have to worry about being smacked in the face by unnecessary partisan crap included in some other high-profile award-winning end of the world documentary.

And be sure to dip your toe back into reality and watch this clip from C-Span’s Washington Journal yesterday. Where Rep. Christopher Shays has a rare Republican moment of non-talking point candor. He was asked by a caller why we are still in Iraq, Shays admits it’s because we just can’t let any other country control all that oil.
source: Crooks and Liars

In Memoriam

How I spent my time at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards with Veejay in tow

So apparently $3000 cash (twenties and fives) and a Ziploc quart bag of seriously dank Maui Chronic stuffed in an green Adidas duffle bag deposited in an east facing trash bin outside the Riviera Hotel parking structure (as instructed) will get you two all access passes to the MTV Video Music Awards - Veejay and I were in.

One may ask why we went to this kind of trouble to get into last night's televised mind screw of America's 15-25 year olds. Well, our old friend Britney Spears was opening the show and that little witch owes us quite a bit of money for breaking the terms of her contract when she was the Cerebral Itch spokesperson (click here for the background story).

Veejay and I flew into Las Vegas yesterday morning armed with subpoenas and a six-pack of whoop-ass for anyone who stood in our way in getting to Ms. Spears. I had misgivings about bringing Veejay considering the pooch-screw he wrought in New York at the Live Earth concert when he literally threw himself on, not at, but on Cameron Diaz. My rationale for this trip was Veejay had never been to Vegas so there was a little altruism, but mostly it was because he would make good bouncer-bait if shit went south.

Our plan was to soak up all the glamour and schwag at the pre-show party, grab a seat in the backstage lounge and spring like the panthers that we are on Britney as soon as she finished her opening number. Well, best laid plans. No sooner did we arrive at the Palms that Veejay spotted 50 Cent and his crew playing craps in the high roller lounge. Veejay, always the cool customer in the face of manufactured fame, fancies himself a bit of a hip-hop aficionado and proceeded to rush 50 Cent and his boys. Arms swaying side to side grabbing his nuts trying to look urban, intermittently throwing gang signs that made him look like he had the palsy. I swear to god, it sounded like a sound effects recording session for a John Woo movie when 50 Cent's chums simultaneously drew and cocked their glocks all aiming for Veejay's forehead. Rushing in to avert the bloodshed, 50 Cent notices my platinum Cerebral Itch lapel pin. Much to my surprise, 50 Cent is a huge Cerebral Itch fan - loves our cards and reads the blog. He couldn't get over the fact that it was really Veejay who stormed him and was somewhat flattered. He asked if we would do his Christmas cards to which I agreed, clearing up the brouhaha. We politely excused ourselves (I made Veejay kiss his ring and apologize) and made our way upstairs to the Playboy Club to take the edge off before we executed our mission.

Kid Rock and Tommy Lee were already going at it in the lounge area which made it easy for me to spot Kanye West hanging back with the ladies. My other purpose on this trip was to see Kanye and personally deliver our new Dick Cheney/DNR shirt. The man beamed, hugged me and proceeded to introduce us to his harem all while offering us lukewarm overpriced alcohol served off of Playboy bunny asses. Kanye knew why we were really there and gave me his support, "that bitch needs to be put down - if that was a black girl doing all that shit there'd be jail time." To which I thought bringing up mother-of-the-year Whitney Houston wasn't such a good idea.

We finally made it to the theater, where we settled in with our free Boost mobile phones, spa certificates and watched the show start. We soon stood up amazed at what we were watching. It looked like a talent show at a Rotary Club in bumf*ck Alabama where the big number was some guy's daughter doing a Britney Spears impersonation, except we were looking at Britney Spears doing the shittiest impersonation EVER of Britney Spears?! The best part was looking around at the faces of other people backstage. There was head shaking, laughing and even crying. Christina Aguilera was punching her fist in the air hissing "I win, I win!". I looked at Veejay and posed the question "can I really serve her with $15 million dollar lawsuit considering she's fat, devoid of talent and just hit rock bottom on international television?" No sooner did I finish my sentence then Veejay grabbed the subpoena, jumped into a passing crowd which turned out to be Britney leaving the stage and jammed it in her cleavage like a freakin' Jedi Knight. He coolly looked her in the eye and said "courtesy of your former employer". After that was tackled, pummeled and zip-tied. As he was being dragged away to I still don't know where, he flashed me a bloody smile and winked knowing he had done good.

Veejay is my new best friend.

Paul Anka will probably not be buying our t-shirts anytime soon

The above sound clip is a 144 karat audio gem. It is Paul Anka busting the balls of his crew for their dull intellect and slovenly tendencies. The man is a perfectionist and a poet; in it you will hear perhaps the greatest threat metaphor of all time: slices like a hammer. genius.

Yes, but the muzzle of a .45 caliber doesn't taste as good. Plus, you might survive the gunshot

So once again some numb nuts broke the channel knob off of the Zenith console TV in the lunchroom and this time the channel that Ellen Degeneres' show is on was the one that was going to stay until someone found the goddamn needle-nose pliers. After lunch most of us were still loitering in the lunchroom because let's face it, we're on freakin' easy street with our t-shirts sellin' like hotcakes. So Ellen comes on and one of the guests is that old Paula Deen broad who has the cooking show that makes shit so fattening and disgusting she should be waking up every morning to piles of cash on her veranda secretly and gratefully delivered by cardiologists from all over the country. Case in point, today's recipe:

Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce

2 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)
2 (4.5-ounce) cans fruit cocktail (undrained)
2 eggs, beaten
1 (9-ounce) box raisins
1 pinch salt
1 or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Butter Rum Sauce, recipe follows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cube donuts into a large bowl. Pour other ingredients on top of donuts and let soak for a few minutes. Mix all ingredients together until donuts have soaked up the liquid as much as possible.
Bake for about 1 hour until center has jelled. Top with Butter Rum Sauce.

Butter Rum Sauce:
1 stick butter
1 pound box confectioners' sugar
Rum, to taste
Melt butter and slowly stir in confectioners' sugar. Add rum and heat until bubbly. Pour over each serving of Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding.

This woman cooks like a five-year-old given carte blanche by it's mother to throw anything they want into a bowl and bake it just to entertain the little shit on a rainy day. Most of us were stunned to the bejeezus that she was even being allowed to broadcast this trailer trash plaque factory in Pyrex. Veejay had to go puke when he saw the old lady tongue a stream of condensed milk Ellen poured into a mixing bowl. We convinced him that this was how lesbian porn starts and he better leave the room if he didn't want to have to wash his eyes out with bleach.

The funniest part was when Silvio our new intern said if he knew the end of the world was coming he'd make this concoction, wash it down with a 64oz tumbler of sour mash on ice and chain smoke a pack of Lucky Strikes all while being serviced by a midget platinum blonde hermaphroditic prostitute. This was funny for two reasons actually: one, we didn't even know Silvio could speak English and two, it made Veejay puke again.

CEREBRAL ITCH CONSUMER ALERT: VONAGE sucks!

The Cerebral Itch offices were recently faced with a technical dilemma that we thought an established brand in the IP telephony space could solve. We tripped on over to the Vonage website and found that we could try them out for a month free and no one would get hurt.

Well, is my ass sore. Vonage turns out to be a den of duplicitous pricks who have nothing better to do than piss people off with fine print. Here's how they get you:

$99.99 VTech IP8100-1
($80.00) VTech IP8100-1
$29.99 Activation Fee
$14.99 Residential Basic 500 Plan
$0.99 Regulatory Recovery Fee
$0.99 Emergency 911 Cost Recovery
------------------------------------
$1.01 Federal Universal Service Fee:
$9.95 Shipping
------------------------------------
Total:$77.91

Okay, fine. give me a phone for twenty bucks after your $80 rebate. No skin off your nose Vonage considering the sweet OEM deal you probably have with VTech that let's you buy the things for $5 a piece. I guess I'll let you stick me with the always nebulous "Activation Fee"; which you'd think in this day and age it wouldn't cost $30 to assign me a number and flip a goddamn switch. So, $77.81 all total ain't free, but I know nothing in this world is except advice from father-in-laws and pain in the ass CPA's who think they know your business better than you, but I digress.

Now pay attention, this is where they light the candles, cue the smooth R&B and get ready to violate you.

We found the service marginal, customer support "occidental" and not "continental" if you get my drift. And after a month we realized we could do better with more reliable technology (if you're curious, that would be a 6.0 Ghz DECT landline phone - the new no-interference standard for cordless phones). So one phone call later to Kamal (I swear that is his real name) at Vonage Customer support allows me to discover that it's going to cost me more to kill my service than to sign up for it. The classic bait and switch that apparently has the blessing of the FCC. This is how the weasels get you on the way out:

$80 to rescind their rebate - because now you own the phone. That's right, they will not take their equipment back. Circuit City? They'll take back a phone you bought from them. Best Buy? Them too. Vonage? No dice. So now you're stuck with a piece of shit phone that wont work with conventional phone lines. Then there's the final slap on the ass as they push you out of the car half naked and weeping: a $40 DE-activation fee. 40 f*cking dollars to flip the switch the other way. Apparently $10 more labor is required to type "off" than "on".

Plus while I'm trying to break it off with Vonage, Kamal is politely and robotically going through his 4-inch 3-ring binder executing all stages of his customer service training attempting to retain my business; which is pissing me off even more. The real kicker came when I finally convinced Kamal that I wanted nothing more to do with him or his American corporate overlords. Within 10 seconds my email pinged with a deactivation notice from Vonage. I laughed and commended him on such speed in saying goodbye. Apparently $40 buys you that kind of efficiency.

(Vonage side note: doing a search on Google for the phrase "Vonage Sucks" gets you about 15,400 returns - I kid you not)

Happy Labor Day - now shut the hell up, we're trying to nap here

We got a day off and we intend to juice it to the fullest. Especially now that we have our swanky pillow wigs. See you tomorrow.

Send Larry a card - he's having a rough day

Because we care here at Cerebral Itch, we have discounted the price on both the HOMO and FRAUD intervention cards in honor of today's announcement that the senior Republican senator from Idaho, Larry Craig will be retiring. We can only assume that this is a tough time for Senator Craig and he needs all of our support in helping him recognize what he'll be remembered for in the anals, I mean annals of history. So for only $1.00 each you can reach out, under or around and send Senator Craig the very best.

(Former) US Senator Larry Craig
225 North 9th Street, Suite 530
Boise, Idaho 83702

We can also send the card for you anonymously for $6.95 plus shipping and handling. Click here for more details.

We have just done you a favor...

The boys over at i-mockery.com are proving that until the Chinese start putting out hilarity genius on the level of a Flash Ivan Drago (Rocky IV villain) side-scrolling 8-bit video game, America still firmly kicks everyone else's ass.

More Press for Cerebral Itch

"Their selection of "greeting" cards, penned in such wonderfully wicked prose that you can't help but laugh out loud, are blasted with biting messages of remorse, lust and general dislike."

read the whole article here

A completetly unsubstantiated salacious rumor from the fellatio capital of the world: Washington D.C.

Here at the offices of Cerebral Itch, we get a lot of letters. Most of them are manifestos describing the end of days or real nutcases asking us to send them used manwhore shirts worn by one our hot interns. But every once and a while, a letter comes in that blows us away. The below letter is an unsolicited email the we received from a "reliable" source talking about an experience with the embattled Idaho Republican senator, Larry Craig.

Dear Cerebral Itch Scratch Pad,

I'm a long-time reader and first-time writer. I love your blog, it's fabulous!

So I realized there's a time in one's life where you walk in from the kitchen while the television's on and realize that you have an intimate connection to the news story that's being broadcast. The last time this happened was in 2001 when Ricky Martin was performing at Bush's inauguration and I realized he was wearing my bespoke charcoal cashmere winter coat he obviously stole after the sordid one-night-stand we shared at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton. When I saw that sexy son of a bitch in my coat dancing with that election-stealing moron I knew that it would be another cold day in January before I'd let his ass in my bed.

Well it happened again yesterday when I see that "Lip-Smacking" Larry (as most of us referred to the senior Republican senator from Idaho) was outed for his reckless public bathroom cruising. This withered old queen had been nothing more than a nuisance for more than 30 years in old foggy bottom. He made Mark Foley look like a twink with stage fright in comparison. And when he would start railing on the senate floor about the collapse of American culture thanks to the liberals and most especially the gays, we all knew he was setting himself up for a serious news cycle that was going to give his wife carte blanche at the first meeting of their respective divorce lawyers.

He used to hit on me when I was a page for of all people, Barney Frank. He would give me the old saw about not getting the kind of loving he deserved from his wife and that he just needed some masculine companionship that would in turn serve me quite well in furthering my career. I told him that I was dating a woman at the time (in fact, I was just being a beard for a young lady that turned out later to be Donna Shalala's girlfriend during the Clinton years). He wouldn't take "no" for an answer. He kept pressing the issue and telling me that he and some boys from the Department of the Interior (I loved that double entendre) were getting a leather party together and he thought I would have fun. I was getting really angry at this point and told the old queen to piss off. He in turn became upset, especially when I said he reminded me of James Dobson's gay twin brother.

One summer night at the Capitol, the old hippocrate followed me into the men's restroom where I felt the only way I could get away from him was to take refuge in a stall. He proceeded to get in the stall next to me and do this little toe tap thing apparently indicating that he was in heat; to which I replied " for Christ sake you old queen why don't you just ask for a blow job and be done with it?" He then hurriedly scurried from the stall never to torment me again.

Signed,

dogearedpageboy12@redacted.com

You tell us if that isn't some good dirt?! We plan to sell this story exclusively to BRAVO who is cutting us in to co-produce a weekly show dedicated to Republican gay sex scandals - sweet!

Dick, Dick and oooh - yum! Dick!

Today was a big day for contrition. Alberto Gonzales said "adios" and reminisced on his humble beginnings and his blessed ascent to presidential shill and high-profile forgetful retard. Michael Vick announced he has found Christ as a result of his helping dogs meet God via his Krakow kennels. And late in the day, Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) tried to clear up the misunderstanding surrounding his intentions in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport where a police report states he was looking for some companionship in the form of a, well, a penis.

A rough day all around for the rest of us who look for reasons to go on. We were pretty much reminded before dinner time how fucked-up we as a society truly are. Gonzales oversaw 49 justice and law enforcement agencies with moral vapidity and the intellectual acumen of a Kinko's employees (apologies to Kinko's employees, but you know it's true). Vick has been paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million since 2000 and used a portion of that to house, torture and kill dogs while laughing and sipping Cristal with his buddies. The Senior Senator from Idaho has been a fierce supporter of President Bush on immigration and energy issues and felt that parts of New Orleans should be condemned after Katrina. He also holds his moral beliefs close as he voted against cloture on a bill in 2002, which would have extended the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation even though he cruises airport bathrooms for something other than fragrant foaming hand soap.

Let us all raise a glass in celebrating the fall of these morons who believe they can operate above us. Then again, a reminder to all of those "above us"; keep doing what you're doing because watching you fall is spectacular.

Her career counselor had no choice but to recommend she go into porn

Kudos must be given to her parents for supporting her in reaching for her dream despite being so ridiculously developmentally disabled.

High School Musicals - then and now

Not that we're a bunch of old men standing on a porch yelling at kids to get off our goddamn lawn, but for crissake the kids today are frankly a bunch of pussies. Case in point, High School Musical 2; this corporate concoction of acne-less saccharin talent is a phenomenon of disturbing proportions. Tweens are losing their shit over this swill. If you haven't wasted minutes of your life watching this thing check out the below clip (and please follow with an insulin chaser).

Fine. Wholesome clean entertainment for a generation of youngsters who love their church, are team players and consider their parents to be their best friends. Pardon me while I heave. They're also a generation that has more of a sense of entitlement than a kid of an OPEC member and couldn't be less concerned with the world around them unless it has a hip hop riff and blatant consumerism associated with it. Many a publication and comedian ask "where are the pissed-off youth of the 60's and 70's?", I'll tell you where: watching crap like High School Musical and Hannah Montana in between text messages, soccer practices and virginity commitment signing ceremonies.

29 years ago another high school musical hit the pop culture collective: Grease. It was a brillaint little musical with some fairly well-known names produced by a cadre of coke-snorting, high-living reprobates who knew how to make entertainment not based on demographics and merchandising. A testament to it's longevity is the fact that the damn thing still lives with us till this day in the form of knock-offs and shitty reality shows. If High School Musical enjoys that kind of success, I'll be hooking up to a morphine drip in 2036 and checking out.

Now that you've seen the High School Musical clip, check out the below clip from Grease; specifically the Greased Lightning number. Saccharin it is not; listen closely and you will hear some of the filthiest lines you would've thought you'd only hear in a Prince song.

Thanks to corporate-driven political correctness and mega-church judeo-christian jingoism the days of a family musicals containing lines like those in a Grease tune are long gone. It's an interesting experience to look back and see things a little rougher around the edges and nastier.

Then again, I could just be smacked on cheap Shiraz and making less sense then the guy in the center-divider asking for spare change.

Fantasy Obit: Ted Nugent

As if this crazy-ass right-wing extremist hillbilly was ever worth the calories necessary to remember his name, he did make the collective radar recently with an amazingly vulgar and dangerous on-stage first amendment bludgeoning rant aimed at the two top democratic presidential candidates as seen here:

Frightening Ted Nugent/George Bush Fun Fact:
"Nugent lives near President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, and said he caught Bush's attention at his private inauguration party in 2000. "When he noticed me, he was surrounded by these huge bankrollers from his campaign. He literally swept past all of them and said, 'Laura! Look who's here! It's Ted!' Then he hugged me and took me by the shoulders. He said, 'Just keep doing what you're doing. Don't think that we don't know what you're up to out here. Stay on course." - "Ted Nugent: Off his rocker?", The Independent, 28 May 2006

SuperBad is the funniest movie of the Summer...period

See there's a joke in that headline and once you see the movie, oh how you will get it.

Our movie reviewer, Big Pete tried to come up with our patented 3-second movie review for this movie but just couldn't - it's that original. The poor guy cried like a little girl and I had to send him home to reflect on his failure. With that said, we heartily endorse this wonderfully acted potty-mouth screwball comedy.

The portly kid Seth, played by Jonah Hill is on the fast track to become his generation's Belushi hopefully without checking out of the Chateau Marmont in 10 years. Take a look at this deleted scene from that other side-splitter shown earlier this summer, Knocked Up. The Kid's a free-associating panicking genius. Micheal Cera, who plays his buddy is always a sure bet as fans of the too-smart-for-network-TV cancelled gem, Arrested Development know from his deadpan hilarity as Justin Bateman's son, George Michael.

Go see it, it's worth the money you usually spend on booze.

Who are you and what the hell have you done with poor old Dick Cheney?

It is fascinating and simultaneously frightening to try to imagine what switch flipped in this man's head. To think 13 years ago he called it, all of it! To the last bloody detail. Amazing.

Most stunning line of the clip: ..."how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got that right."

He has obviously cracked and needs to be pulled like a rotted tooth.

Ah, the magic that is LinkedIn

You got your YouTube, porn, breaking news, sports scores while on the can, chat and the like. The Web today kicks ass; that is until the pox known as LinkedIn got pooped on the collective floor of the Internet. For those of you that don't know what LinkedIn is, it essentially is a glorified web-based rolodex that reduces anyone with an account into a 7-year old socially retarded stamp collector.

Here's how it works: You build your account, put in where you've worked, and their database begins to notify you of work associates - past and present, you then can send them all a mass invitation to join your personal network, possibly enabling you to be a better networked individual who now has an easy communication channel with your peers. Slick, huh? Well, it seems that this service has metastasized into a game of dick swords where people are judged (even in job interviews) by the number of contacts in their network. So now you got jagoffs you barely knew in that company you worked at years ago, "inviting" you to join their network just to beef up their number. And when I say "inviting" I equate it to Jehovah Witnesses knocking on your door on a Saturday morning; just as annoying and just as helpful to your career.

Granted, it's a silent email that you don't have to respond to from someone you haven't laid eyes on since the Clinton Administration, but come on, what makes someone think I'm going to vouch for them or be a part of their "network" when they can't even pick up the phone or send me a real goddamn email?

So think twice people before you fire off an invitation to that person you saw walk past your cubicle twice in 1999. They might have an angry little blog and an overly developed penchant for social graces.