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SQUEEE! New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys to Tour Together!

12 Nov

November 12, 2010

OMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD! IT! IS! HAPPENING! The New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys are going to tour together! SQUEEEE!

This goes in my glitter-covered scrapbook!

Jeez. This is like the coming together of some kind of pop-culture nexus that is going to attract a lot of divorced 30-40 year old housewives, and that can’t be good. Thank God N-SYNC isn’t a part of this or the world might collapse into a bad music black hole.

OK, look, these “kids” and “boys” are all older than 30 and three of them are over 40. To put that in perspective, the Simpsons has been on the air for 22 years, and Gunsmoke, the former longest running show, was on the air for 20 years, so Marshall Matt Dillon (James Arness, who died in 1994) and Monty Burns have more right to be called “kids” and “boys” than these geriatric adolescents.

To tell the truth, I always thought these bands were all just the same guys over and over anyway. It seems like they just cloned some random kid with goofy a hair style and funny facial hair to fill out all those boy bands. Now they all have thinning hair and worry about their prostates.

If you are like me, this news doesn’t come as a shock. In fact, it doesn’t come as anything at all since I didn’t care back when they were big and I don’t care now that some of them are working in a car wash. Were Led Zeppelin touring with AC/DC I’d care. I’d care so much that, the Hell with writing this blog, I’m standing on line for tickets three weeks early.

I was however, curious about Kevin Richardson, whom the article pointedly says won’t be part of the tour. I looked him up on Wikipedia (their motto- “Sometimes we get one right.”) and found this in the entry:

In June 2006, Richardson left the Backstreet Boys to pursue other interests and “move on with the next chapter of [his] life.”

The group has not ruled out a return for the singer.

I’m guessing it has now been ruled out.

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Thanksgiving, the Forgotten Holiday

6 Nov

November 6, 2010

Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is almost here, although you may be more familiar with it by its more common name- Christmas.

Thanksgiving is a forgotten holiday. Oh, it isn’t forgotten in the sense that you wake up on Friday morning, wonder why you have the day off, and hey, shouldn’t there be leftover turkey in the fridge? Trust me- if you get two days off out of your work week you don’t forget Thanksgiving. The thing is that it has been forgotten by the stores. They skipped Thanksgiving, blew past Halloween like poor Charlie Brown and his holey ghost costume weren’t even there, and started Christmas sales right after Jerry Lewis heaved himself home to a big dinner of gravy and pork fat right after his Labor Day begathon. It was quite a sight on September 2nd, seeing a  whole host of fat, sweaty guys in red fur suits dying in the late summer heat. Macy’s had to call in the paramedics the first time a kid sat on Santa’s lap and slipped off due to all the sweat.

Thanksgiving is the forgotten holiday, but what is being forgotten? Bear with me, I am a product of the New York City educational system.

Four score and seven years ago (the score was 3-2 Red Sox) the Pilgrims arrived in America after being booted out of England. They were an odd group of people. They wore black clothes with buckles on their shoes and pointy hats. Sorry, I think those are the Puritans. Those are the guys on the butter tubs, right? Oh, those are the Quakers. So who is on the oatmeal can? Amish? They don’t believe in mirrors, so how did Robert Alden shave?

Anyway, the Pilgrims had some problems with King George. All the Pilgrims wanted to do was worship as they saw fit. King George said “We’ll have no goat marriage in my country!” and threw their goat-loving asses out of his kingdom. You see, America was founded by people who only wanted to worship as they saw fit, and they saw goat marriage as fit. Way to start, USA.

For his part, King George was the Ike Turner of his time. Aside from being a side man in a blues quartet, He smacked around the Pilgrims like Ike smacked Tina and did it all out of love. “Take that Pilgrims!” SMACK! Tea Tax. “Take that Pilgrims!” SMACK! Stamp Act. “I’m only doing it because I love you, colonial baby!” It wasn’t until Tina, I mean the Pilgrims, stood up to him did he turn into a quivering mass of abusive jelly. All the time the Pilgrims were sailing to America he kept sending them love letters and promising to change.

Anyway, the Pilgrims came to America, accompanied by a kick-ass theme song by Neil Diamond, (“They’re coooooming to America, today!”)  on three Cunard Line cruise ships- The Nina, The Pinta, and The Titanic. All but The Titanic made it to America. The Pilgrims were believed to have landed on Plymouth Rock, but new scientific evidence suggests that they actually ran aground on a rusted out ‘58 Chevy.

They were appalled by the lack of working toilets. The local Indians had put “out of order” signs on all the restrooms just out of spite. To get revenge on them, a young George Steinbrenner traded Ron Hassey to the Indians for a player to be named later.

And thus was the first Thanksgiving set up. The Pilgrims first played four college football games against the Indians, and the Pilgrims won all but one, the Detroit game.

To celebrate their victory, they invited the Indians over for a big dinner. This meal included “maize,” which the Indians claim means corn but is actually Ute Indian for “look at how stupid white man eats this horse dung.” They also had roast beef, carrots, imported caviar, something the nearby Dutch settlers called “blunts” and lots and lots of sirloin steak. The myth that they ate turkey was invented by the Turkey Industry Ad Council in 1958, when a young ad executive needed a way to boost slumping turkey sales.

Today Thanksgiving is little more than a bump in the road to Christmas, which, according to my calendar, starts on February 21st next year. 

Disgruntled turkeys have tough meat. Use extra gravy.

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