[image:78:l]Yes it’s time for another list. As you can surmise from the title, the inclusions on this list are of a dubious nature. It’s not merely stuff or people I don’t like. It would be easy to fill this up with much of the stuff on the illiterati’s previous Hate List. No, this is about those people or things that were formerly of some value to me and have crossed a line that has Fredo-ized them. Yes it comes down to this…this…Sicilian thing.
Ok, so with that explanation obviously ruling out Bush, Rove, Cheney, FOX “News,” Rosi O’Donnel, the Dallas Cowboys, Terrel Owens, Tom Delay, Ray Romano, Brittney Spears, the last American Idol winner, alcohol, drugs, Pat Robertson, the Pope, neo-nazis, the Three Stooges, and so much more, let’s see who was on notice and now has passed over to the other side.
John McCain.
He was one of the few Republicans I could stomach. i even said I could see myself voting for him for President someday. He took stands against the Bush administration and showed a committment to ethics and beliefs that was not afraid to laugh in the face of the religious right. But now, as he prepares to make himself more palatable to the GOP powers that be, he has made moves to garner their support. He talks about how proud he is of the great job the Bush admin is doing. He wants to stay the course in Iraq. He’s saying he’s for Intelligent Design alongside evolution in schools along with other conciliatory gestures to the right’s fundamentalist base. There’s still alot I like about him, and much of what he’s doing now is probably just a line of appeasment to get elected, but though those tactics are normal I want more from people of privelege and power. The bar needs to be raised on our standards and politicians could raise it by putting truth and their beliefs in front of focus groups and spin to woo voting sectors. That’s enough reason there. But he also just might believe some of this stuff too. So John McCain, you who used to be a cool pool on the Republican deserts edge, you were a mere mirage sir, and…YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!!
Oprah’s Book Club.
Never read them to begin with. Even made fun of her little book thing. But I never condemend it. At least she was encouraging people to read. But right or wrong I’ve always perceived it as selecting books that are feel good tales of spiritual hoo-hah meant to help bored housewives escape into places like Madison County to be romanced by guys that don’t exist anymore than princesses do. ok so there may be some closer to that ideal than i and I dont like it, but those women are not going to find them. And now that longing to just feel good leads her group to the uplifting memoirs of former street junkie turned hero James Frey’s Million Little Pieces. Turns out he lied about most of the stuff he passed off as real and now Oprah’s group is booing him when he tries to explain and apologize. Hey he gave you guys what you wanted. A fantasy wrapped in a non-fiction impramatur. You don’t want truth. you can’t handle the truth. Read books from Iraq, or street literature, not melodrama if you want truth. Now I understand this choice was a bit of a departure in some respects for Oprah in its supposed grittiness, but it still revolved around everything turning out ok, appreciation of the power of women, and spiritual redemption. And I do respect alot of stuff Oprah does and works for. I also appreciate that this mini-scandal has made people cry out for truth and get a bit more hardline about it. That’s a very good thing. But I need stuff to kill off on this list and for its usual Maya Angelou type of ingratiating soapy drivel (some of it very well written and great literature, but still…), and for making a lier into a number 1 bestselling author not to expose him and make truth king, but rather to feed their ego’s and expectations, Oprah’s book club YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!
Tom Cruise. [image:81:l]
I used to stick up for his acting skills. Thought he was great in Rain Man and Born On The Fouth Of July. I defended him upon breakup with Nicole to the point of distrusing her. I looked the other way when I heard about his little Scientology affiliation. But in the past year we’ve seen him get rid of his old publicist so he can be free to express the real Tom. This person has jumped all over Oprah’s couch like a retarded man in order to express his singular and special love for his 3rd movie starlet in about a year or two’s time. One that is about 20 years younger. It is a year where this real Tom has castigated Brooke Shields for taking pills to help with depression. Real Tom has said psychology and all medications are useless and part of a giant scam. Apparently the only thing that really exists in our heads are the Scientology aliens that will hatch when we are ready. Or is it when we are bad? Either way he’s based a belief system on the words of the guy who wrote Battlefield Earth. I don’t like real Tom and from here on in, Tom Cruise…YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!!
P.E.T.A.
As a kid I thought these guys were idealists who just loved animals. But now they are involved in more and more acts of violence and hypocrisy that make you wonder if these folks would wipe out humanity if they could. They kill thousands of pets a year and use bullying tactics to recruit people to their cause. Much of their euthanizing comes out of economic utility rather than humane treatment of animals. They are becoming the enemy. You could and should be more, but for using tactics best left to terrorists, and for giving activists a bad name, PETA, YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!!!
[image:75:l] Anna Benson.
She’s the hottie wife of Mets pitcher Kris Benson who is somehow famous despite not having any particular skill. She doesn’t sing badly like Brittney and she doesn’t even act badly like JLo. She has a website and does some spreads here and there I think. But she’s outspoken and silly. I never minded it. She went on Howard Stern often and said things like that if her hubby ever cheat on her she’d sleep with the whole Mets team. This prompted Pedro Martinez to make the joke upon signing with the Mets last year, that he’d have to try and fix Kris up. Pedro is funny like that. Anna wasn’t particularly funny, but I didn’t care that she told everybody about all the places in various ballparks she and Kris had sex in. Fine. I don’t care, but it’s no biggie. Honesty is nice and why should she be repressed like me. But now, upon hearing rumors Kris may be traded out of the city that’s helped her career, she lashed out at the Mets for getting rid of them because of her antics when they bring in a guy like Carlos Delgado who turned his back on the flag and was a traitor to this country.
First of all, this is not what happened. Delgado didn’t like standing and singing during God Bless America because it had become a political statement after 9-11 and he wasn’t fond of our policy regarding Iraq or in test bombing an island near his home in Puerto Rico. Delgado actually thinks for himself, is educated, an arts lover, and activist back home where he still lives in the offseason and he made a simple choice to do something I myself would have done. I applaud him and welcome him to NY. It’s good to have a ballplayer on the team who I can respect off of it. Plus he said he would comply with any team policy regarding anthems. The guy is class. Always has been. And this nobody with a hot bod plays Bush’s patriotic card? Uh-uh. Anna Benson, YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!!
p.s. since writing Benson was traded as expected as photo and caption suggest.
Hillary Clinton.
Never her biggest fan but i thought she might be in the mold of her husband and take us back to those halcyion days of the 90′s when Bill was selling us out to the corporate culture of globalization, bombing aspirin factories, and moving the Dem’s to the right. But now she’s part of the pro war group calling for more troops rather than a reduction and doing right of center things like sponsoring anti flag burning laws. She probably doesn’t believe in any of this stuff, but is rather positioning herself to appeal to conservatives in 08, but when you live by the lie you die by the lie and its all I can judge her by. So from this point on, Hillary, who never really had a chance to be President in this country anyway no matter how her Hollywood cronies try to pave the way with badly written shows like the Gina Davis as President thing that’s out there now, whatever hope she had of winning my heart is gone…AND…YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!! [image:82:l]
Rudy Guliani.
He helped clean up N.Y., had mob ties, and did his duty on 9-11 as our President ran the other way. So he got more credit than he deserved for the crime thing, but he had me at, “More than we can bear.” But now he takes lip service about the good to come out of the 3000+ deaths that day and becomes a hack for his party and President. He went out of his way at the pre election convention to try and forge the non-existent link between Iraq and that horrible day, which to me is spitting on the bodies of all those people who were crushed in those buildings or jumped to their deaths. He yelled about how the barbarians who attacked us had now heard from us thanks to Bush, knowing as well as everyone else that they had not. He most probably lied about Bush’s words at ground zero as well. There’s alot of cool Republican stuff about Rudy but for this betrayal of those who died on that day, and in fully throwing himself behind the forces of evil who have turned that attack and its aftermath from a source of pride and international sympathy into one of shame and international hatred, Rudy G, YOU…ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!!!
Joe Lieberman.
Nuff said.
[image:76:l]
Celebrity Couples.
Never cared all that much about who was dating who, but I think somewhere along the time the media started combining the celebs names they took this pop cultural contrivance and hooked it up to life support. From Beniffer to Bradjolina, the media and the egos of the pretty people have created these montrous hybrids that threaten to consume us with attention corrupting jaws that have no sharpness. Instead they just slowly naw at us until we become numb and desensitized to what matters and what doesn’t. And slowly we get to feel more inadequate, our relationships so not beautiful and perfectly sculpted in comparison. And if they can’t make it why should the rest of us less than perfect specimens have any hope? I don’t want to know any more about a celebrity except that Harrison Ford was a carpenter. That remains the only salient and worthwhile inside info on an actor’s personal life I’ve ever heard or care to hear. Well that and Jennifer Conelly’s upstate origins and the state of her marriage to actor Paul Betteny. Excuse my while I go google them and see how it’s working out. And if it doesn’t work out between Jen and me she, and irregardless, all celebrity couples and those that report on their mutant atrocity relationships ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!
Public Figures Who Use The Words Freedom And Democracy.
These words are too easily exploited to suit nefarious purposes so loaded with easy escape hatches for thought are they and thusly used by evil people to create a reality that is the opposite of what they mean. This is the kind of thing Orwell predicted and what the Bush administration excells at. Soon I may advocate for us calling them Frenchocracy and Frenchdom. Bush used the word freedom 17 times in his SOTU. It’s calculated to lull the masses. It’s using baby talk words to go along with the baby talk manner in which politicians of both parties talk to people. So in the context of the public forum these two words and the people who use them ARE…DEAD…TO…ME!
On notice: The NY Times, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, books on tape/cd, Omar Minaya (the Mets G.M. for non Baseball people), Democrats in general, weekends, non Baseball people, holidays, hurricanes, half my coworkers, my penis, rock n roll, non England living humans, Winona Ryder, Christopher Hitchens, Fox t.v. (non-news), anyone who didn’t watch Arrested Development, soccer moms, yellow cars,
and Metallica.
Off notice: Bears, Hockey, and whoever read this whole post.
Props to Steven Colbert for the On and off notice ideas for this type of list though Dead To Me has been that very sincerely Italian affectation I’ve used on my own for quite some time.
Recent Comments