We're Back! The Cerebral Itch Scratch Pad Staff has been reunited!

I suppose apologies are in order.

Just like all stories of infidelity, they must begin with a chance meeting that accelerates into a torrid pleasure-fest where both parties ego's are being fed by paper-thin affections and co-dependence. And that was essentially us with the whole "Viva Chuck Todd" and "Viva Rachel Maddow" thing. If you have no idea what we're talking about, consider yourself lucky. For the lucky ones, we'll recap: Last year during the heat of the historic and wacky election season we thought it would be funny to start up a fansite for the doughy and intellectually alluring NBC Political Director, Chuck Todd. Well, somewhere around Memorial Day weekend 2008, MSNBC's morning show, Morning Joe picked us up and plastered the damn site all over the TV = massive traffic. Then Tim Russert died and because Chuck Todd was his Padawan, we got shit-hammered again on the traffic. Anyway, to make a long story short, we thought we'd hit a gravy train and could ride this sucker for all it was worth through election day and come out the other end lightin' cigars with $100 bills. We even went to Denver for the Democratic National Convention to meet these peeps and started a goddamn Chuck Todd fan club on our own dime.

Boy, is my ass sore.

Nothing came of our efforts (blogs, merchandise, e-cards, etc.) and at the end of the day we were maintaining three blogs while trying to get Cerebral Itch to turn a profit. Talk about taking your eye off the ball.

So here's the deal: No more Chuck Todd, no more Rachel Maddow, No more MSNBC. We're all about Cerebral Itch, riffing on pop culture and trying to get Veejay laid.

So with that said, we're sorry and we're back.

Oh, it's like nothing happened while we were gone

First off, I would like to thank all of the regular readers of this blog for not calling bullshit on us for promoting the fact that this blog is updated daily. We know it's not true and you know it's not true; so apparently we've come to some kind of arrangement that is similar to the "only gay once in college while drunk so let's not talk about it" kind of arrangement good friends make. With that said, let's get on with the mea culpa and related explanation.

Right before the editorial offices of Cerebral Itch went black, things were progressing rather nicely. We had a full staff of writers who could stay sober during the day or at least fake it really well when the investors dropped by. We all knew we were cruising into a robust period of renewed political jousting and at the very least, American Idol was gearing up. Heady times ahead indeed; but then…the mold appeared.

Right over Veejay's head for about three days prior, a bubble in the ceiling grew until the moron decided to lance the two-foot wide office boil with an x-acto knife resulting in drenching himself with three gallons of putrid stagnant water. We all laughed our asses off until we saw mushrooms through the gash in the drywall. You read that right, mushrooms. An actual fungal colony had taken residence in our office above the head of the one employee that it could probably take in a debate. Those of us that had seen enough 20/20 and Dateline scare pieces on the deadly black mold grabbed our car keys and got the hell out of there never to return until today. Apparently the air testing is now complete and the offices got a clean bill of health. The insurance covered it even though an investigation found that is was all the result of an abandoned mini marijuana hydroponics lab left by the previous tenants. Our lawyer's frequent recommendation to the authorities to ignore the fact that there were no previous tenants before us was successful and the check got pushed through.

So what did we all do for the three weeks you saw nothing from us? Well, Veejay healed up nicely from the abrasions he received during his mold killing Silkwood shower the health department gave him (supposedly nursed back to health by none other than Ugly Betty herself, America Ferrera – see our debate coverage). Silvio the intern just disappeared, but pulled into the office parking lot this morning driving a Mercedes CLS 550 coupe with nothing but a smile on his face. We’ll be getting to the bottom of that one later. Our HR person who has contacts over at Monster.com was notified that seven of our people posted fresh resumes and also the local Kinko's informant we keep plied with donuts and Wii games let us know he ran off resumes for three of our employees. Since we had nothing really to do, we rented office space, whipped up a cool ambiguous website with a lot of Flash animation and marketing buzzwords for a bogus competitive start-up and then called them all for an interview. We hired a stand-up comic we know who’ll open for a flower blooming and had him play the hiring manager. Each interview consisted of wonderfully inappropriate sexual questions and promises of ridiculous salaries leading each one of the ship-jumping rats to take the bait. Our saucy Latina receptionist answered, some would say correctly, the question concerning office orgies and discretion. The hunky marketing guy apparently thinks he’s qualified for my job, four of our writers were thrilled to learn that there would be a medicinal marijuana vending machine in the lounge and all candidates were on board with "chaps and pasties Fridays". All of this was captured on video and will be shown at the annual office Christmas party. Aside from all that we received our third plaque from the city recycling department for again putting the most beer and wine bottles in a single dumpster in a two-week period. Drunks we may be, but we’re environmentally responsible drunks.

So in closing, no one is more sorry about our absence than us. We cry nightly that we were not able to cover the Spitzer hooker scandal. Because seriously, if you're going to hold a hotness contest with high-profile Jezebels, Ashley Alexandra Dupre wins by a landslide when you stack her up against the likes of Monica Lewinsky and Jessica Hahn. We sob in the shower when we think about the missed opportunities to comment on hideous old feminist relics spewing bile in a crass attempt at frank political discourse when in fact it's deep-seated resentment finally bubbling up from the 80's for being used as a novelty running mate in a failed presidential bid. But you know what gets us through the night (besides the obvious)? It's that tomorrow, Barack will still be black and scary to a frighteningly large segment of the population and Hillary will still be a crazed selfish shrew fixated on the presidency like a crow in a parking lot with a shiny piece of glass. McCain also just gets older and less able to deal with the nuances of let's say, oh, reality. Also the fact that the US economy will continue to cruise into a sort of 1970's Argentinian wheelbarrows full of cash like scenario gives us all hope we will have plenty of stuff to write about in the future as we attempt to make up with our readers.

Regards,

Client Number Eleven

The CNN Democratic Debates with Me, Veejay and Ugly Betty

Only an idiot would not realize that last night's Democratic debate was going to be the hottest ticket in Hollywood. I say only an idiot, because our intern Silvio once again screwed the pooch and forgot to get us on the list. This led to me having to call in some marks with an old girlfriend over at CNN (and let me tell you, that blond kitten can hold a grudge). After my crow-eating, Veejay and I were soon northbound on the 5 fwy to see the Brutha and the Mutha smack each other around east of Hollywood Blvd.

Well, you know how it all went down: "kiss, kiss, punch you flat for friends, hee-hee, Republicans suck and are evil, kiss, kiss some more". Don't get me wrong, there were some choice one-liners from Barack, but the whole thing looked like they both got the email from Dean to get off the pissy train before Super Tuesday, suck up to Edwards, go after the Republicans and put Bill in the same suspended acrylic cage they put Magneto in from X-Men 2.

But the real news was whose asses were filling the seats watching the debate and how those asses were kissed afterwards. Sure, we went to cover it for the blog but mostly we went to unload most of our inventory of Dick Cheney/Do Not Resuscitate t-shirts. We felt that we couldn't be throwing redder meat into the den of Hollywood liberals than having those t-shirts sold out of the back of my Porsche for $150 a pop. Apparently word got out what we were selling, because within 20 minutes of the debate ending we were flush with about five grand cash and had a special order from Rob Reiner for 32 more shirts all in XXL. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The pre-debate reception was surreal. You will not find another time in Hollywood where there has been such a clash of A-list and D-list. Some schlock actor's stock went up just by breathing the same air as Spielberg, Diane Keaton, Warren Beatty. And then there were some people who pretty much changed their political affiliation because they got to see who else was on their team. Case in point, when you belong to the same political party as Fisher Stevens (Michelle Pfeiffer's dating mistake) and Topher Grace (that 70's Show residual check recipient and friend of Brad Pitt) you have got some serious soul searching to do to see whether you want to vote the same ticket. Stevie Wonder was downright pissed off when someone told him he was in the same room with out-of-work homophobe, Isaiah Washington. I had an Obama staffer tell me security was going to be dispatched immediately to get Jason Alexander the hell out of the place because everyone knows that any project he's touched post-Seinfeld has taken up residence in the shitter; they didn't want to take any chances. It was just sad though to see L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and S.F. mayor Gavin Newsom trying to get Chelsea Clinton to do jell-o shots with them. She politely declined and resumed chatting with the Spielbergs.

As I tried to work the room, Veejay had already charmed America Ferrera by commenting that he too was a supporter of Hillary (when in fact he's a Ron Paul nutjob). After Cameron Diaz, Ugly Betty comes in a close second who Veejay would like to shower with. Although, I can tell he was crushed to learn the she really doesn't wear braces and top out near 250 lbs (Veejay likes his girls to be of some size and slightly less aesthetically appealing than him so he can feel good about himself) he still soldiered on hoping for a love connection. Apparently he was successful or broke several laws because I still haven't heard from him and her agent just called me looking for her - ah, young love (I gotta call my lawyer again).

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.

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

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.

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.