Labor Day Re-run

The editors at CouchParty.com would like to repost this classic article regarding the truth behind Labor Day.

 

I think it’s time that everyone got serious about holidays. People always think that they know what’s up when it comes to American Holidays. I think that people should be serious about being American, and get to know the reason for the days on the calendar that get a number and little writing in the box. Monday, September 6, is the day we know as Labor Day.

Labor: (l b r ) n. : The process by which childbirth occurs, beginning with contractions of the uterus and ending with the expulsion of the fetus or infant and the placenta.

Labor Day is probably one of the most important days of the year. Everyone has to believe in it and practice it because it exists. It is not about Jesus or Santa Claus or anything. Your parents can’t be too lazy to tell you about it because it gives them a good reason to complain about how much of a pain in your ass you were/are to them. Labor Day pretty much started when the first baby was born, but it wasn’t established until after the American Government was formed. This way they could get another day off work.

It’s a universal family holiday because you, your mom, your dad, and your little cousin Skyler were all involved in labor at one time (or even multiple times if someone didn’t pull out soon enough.) Your mom should be given the credit because she is the one who takes on the most in labor. People felt that Mother’s day on Sundays was not enough time to celebrate the triumphant victory over the passage of a human through a very tiny hole located just above the butt.

Scientists prefer to celebrate Labor Day because it makes more sense to them. For the sake of argument scientists disagree with a lot of beliefs and one of them is God. God’s day is Sunday so many scientists don’t observe Sunday. So in short scientists don’t believe in Mother’s Day because of their own atheism. It’s a win-win situation because they can be strict in their beliefs and also get a Monday off from their work to celebrate a woman’s labor of birthing.

Labor was hell in the early days. There were no modern medicines and there was a lot of swearing and feelings getting hurt. Sometimes the husbands got a little restless waiting for their wives to give birth. So it started that a bunch of husbands were waiting for their son/daughter to be born, but it was going to take a while so they all got a plan going. All of the husbands took off for places like the beach or a backyard barbecue put some Miller’s on ice and threw some meat on the grill and pretty much partied until a phone call was placed that their new arrival’s had begun to crown. (When a baby’s head first begins to show through the mother’s vagina.) Since there is statistically quite a bit of babies born daily there was an excessive amount of traffic. With this; two customs were made great parties and insane traffic jams both still celebrated to this day.

As you may or not know the Couch Party tends to nest in Michigan . Our state may have the most important Labor Day tradition. In an attempt to bring them closer to the phenomenon behind the celebration thousands of people flock to the Mackinac Bridge to participate in a symbolic walk across its multi mile span. The walk beginning in the Upper Peninsula and ending in the Lower Peninsula five miles later is an abstract reenactment of the movement of a baby from the lady’s birthing canal to life on earth. This has been a tradition for a while giving Mighty Mac a not so nice nick name. The suspension bridge is referred to as “Old Loosey” in remark to the celebration of Labor on that Monday in September.

Labor Day would seem to be free of all controversy because of its harmless purpose, but sadly it’s not. America is always quick to jump on the bipartisan bandwagon and finally did with Labor Day. Since the early nineties many women have called out other women on the issue of “Labor”. Women who have given birth commonly known as mothers have discredited other mothers who have given birth by C section. C section is a pretty popular way of giving birth. In the early days women did not want C sections and had to get them because of emergency issues when it came to it. It was either getting get cut open or letting the baby turn five in the tummy.

Nowadays modern medicine lets you give birth normally, so C sections are few and far between. Back then nobody expected to get a C section, and there is my point, back then no one ever wanted to get a metal piercing in their face either. The mothers of today are about trying anything extreme. Some do it to get an awesome scar for body modification to accompany other body piercing’s and tattoos. Some women even act like it’s too hard to give birth normally so they can get a C section and prevent their vagina from becoming “blown out”. Well on the other side of the issue conservative mothers who were either A) Resentful for having to go through complete and normal child birth or B) Extremely upset they didn’t think of faking difficult child birth to opt out of a vaginal blowout. In an effort to vent their frustrations they protested against C section mothers claiming that they were “freeloading” off of a “wholesome, clean American holiday”. They argued for years that C section women “skimped out” on complete labor and told them they “half-assed” child birth. There was a Supreme Court case, but it was irrelevant since mothers by C section do experience labor and there is no scale on which credible labor can be measured. A lot of mothers were pissed, but eventually forgot about it when they were expected to have a weekend gathering at their houses the next year.

It’s been brought to my attention that many people believe that Labor Day is a celebration of the “American Worker”. Now I don’t know about you, but I am an “American Worker”. I work at a shopping mall. I live in America ; I pay taxes just like any other American. There is never any guarantee that I will have Labor Day weekend off, or Labor Day itself. How do people believe that Labor Day is about the “American Worker”? It’s clear as day that if this country was celebrating workers no one would work because it is the greatest country around, and only the good ole’ USA could pull off a stunt like that. No. That’s a product of your educators getting lazy and telling you that Labor Day is about the worker because the bank is closed. They don’t want to explain it to you because man, they are lazy.

This Labor Day remember what it’s all about when you are eating those ball park Frank’s and spraying your little cousin with the hose. Thank your mom and dad for having sex without birth control. Then thank your mom for going through labor. And always keep all of those who have kept this torch burning with closed banks and long traffic jams close to your heart.

***Post Script: Thank you Mom for your trials with labor.

Thank you owners of the pictures I used here, and thanks for having a sense of humor. Happy Labor Day!!

 

Spider Man 3 Sneak Peak

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

Anything with Rob Schneider is awesome.

I love summer blockbusters. Though I am damn near in my mid twenties I still get excited when I see all the marketing. It’s just not as easy to look the McDonald’s employees in the face every week ordering two happy meals on my lunch breaks. Why two? Are you a noob? One toy to play with and one to collect, dumb ass. I have boxes and boxes full of tie-in products from each summer block buster. The collection is deep in substance ranging from my very first memorable fascination – The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (the live action one) – to the well loved Pirates of the Caribbean to the obscure and better forgotten Judge Dredd. One thing that is a lot better now then when I was a kid is my connections. So Sunday night, when I got invited to the press showing of Spider-Man 3, I couldn’t believe it.

Sony Pictures is proud to boast that this is the most expensive movie ever to be made, ever. They are putting it all on red and blue (and black) in the figurative roulette game that is the box office sales. The movie was extremely surprising to me: there are things that are exciting about the film and there are things that are mortifying about it. As a whole, the movie was really good, but sometimes the plot had me scratching my head. Fanboys and franchise purists may disagree, but this is what these asses do, they ruin it for the rest of us.

The beginning of the movie begins with the usual intro and there is some talking over top of it. It is a voice speaking on the importance of events in the world and how they shape the cosmic future; this is cool because it has all these different scenes going at once and though the sound is all meshed together they are scenes from the Marvel movies of the past few years. Then there is an explosion, and the voice changes real low and it is almost a growl. Then the voice talks about how they have been watching for most of time and these next events are going to be some of the biggest in the importance of Cosmic means. Then it zooms in on the world, to the United States and into a swinging montage of Spider-Man.

The first thirty minutes of the movie take place in the middle-east, in a flash back during the first Gulf War at the secret laboratory of Sheikh Farouk Al-Fasaud. In his lair, he is developing a super specimen made from the finest oil. It is a primitive being that has been extracted from the oldest oil pit. His goals are to clone this being as a means to win the war of terror, so that terrorism may exist. Then there is an explosion in their bunker and the USA military comes in shooting the place up, but their platoon is not led by an officer, it is being run by S.H.I.E.L.D members. One of the S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier’s communicators goes off and it is Nick Fury talking about the importance of preserving Fasaud’s work. There was a huge cheer in the seats because Nick Fury is being reprised by David Hasselhoff. The place just gets shot up to hell. These henchmen are getting sprayed with ammunition, and Fasaud is trying to put his work into duffel bag when he is shot in the back. He drops the main specimen which is preserved in a canister, he falls into his equipment and there is an explosion the canister rolls through the fracas and hits the boot of Curt Connors, a young soldier. He picks up the canister and puts it in his satchel and turns around just as a suicide bomber blows up right near him. The scene ends as the soldiers are retreating and pulling their injured men out of the bunker, and one of them is Curt Connors, who now has a bloody stump instead of an arm.

If he got really hot – like a fat woman’s vagina in the Sahara-type hot, would SandMan, the man made of sand, become GlassMan?

The movie flashes forward to present day and Peter catches Dr. Connors looking at the canister that we saw in the opening scene; he is listening to Avenged Sevenfold loudly (now available on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack, sin stores now!). Peter asks Connors, who has been acting weird lately, what is in the canister. Connors tells him to quit asking so many questions and to go get him some more scotch. Peter scurries out then expresses worry through his thoughts about how Dr. Connors has been depressed since Spider-Man killed his long-time friend Otto Octavius.

 

William Baker is shown hard at work at his job. His job is to clean out the giant tanks full of sand that get shot at with high powered radiation. William Baker is pushing his broom when none other then the bumbling security guard cleaning the control room leans on the switch. Baker, caught off guard, screams and is shot with a magnitude of radiation. The good news is he is cured from any cancer he was ever going to get. The bad news is that in the blast some sand flew in his eyes, at first he tried to get the sand out of his eye, but then his eye turns to sand and this is where we are introduced to the Sand Man, William Baker, the man made of sand.

The movie then moves slowly as the story revolves around Parker’s love affair with Mary-Jane Watson. Spider Man has become extremely busy with on- and off-again encounters with the man made of sand, the Sand Man, as he is heisting money from banks to support his family.

 

Everything comes back to Back to the Future.

Harry Osborn is really mad at Spider Man and Peter Parker, for murdering his dad, the Green Goblin, who was an atrocious villain introduced in the first movie. He has control of his father’s company OSCORP and the finances to create weaponry that pushes the effects budget to its record status. Complete with a jumpsuit, a hover board not unlike Biff’s grandson in BTTF2, and pumpkin bombs. While feuding with Spider Man, the battle moves to the Empire State University science building. Harry throws a pumpkin bomb, but Spider Man evades it and it lands in third floor where the faculty labs are. The bomb explodes which blows the shit everywhere and Spider Man swings in. There is fire and smoke everywhere and Spider Man finds an unconscious Dr. Curt Connors, amidst empty scotch bottles. Spider Man picks him up and does not realize it but the canister is broken, and that shit inside is crawling around in the fire, as he is swinging from the building, it grabs hold of his leg, and the rest is history.

Eddie Brock is introduced as Peter Parker’s rival in the movie. He is determined to find out why Peter Parker always gets the scoop on Spider Man. Even more disturbing is that Eddie Brock has developed sort of a crush on Peter Parker. Sort of like the neighbor in American Beauty, he hates Parker even more for making him feel like a natural woman.

The main bad guy in Secret Wars is a guy called Molecule Man. I’d watch 12 hours of it.

As Parker becomes comfortable with his new costume, he also sees noticeable changes to his powers. He can climb higher, he can swing faster, and he can now just let the suit slime off and go to sleep in his pocket. He also now has the powerful Gay Dar and he can sense out shady tutors, and Eddie Brock’s longing attraction. The suit also makes Spider Man a raging homophobe and at night he goes on clandestine outings terrorizing known homosexual hot spots like gay dance clubs and biker bars.

Because people want to see the movie on their own I will not talk about the suggested rape scene involving a familiar Marvel character and Gwen Stacy, or how much blood is involved when Spider Man beheads Harry Osborn with a Samurai Sword. I also know that no one wants to hear how the Sandman is defeated not only by Spider Man but also his CGI animated dog Spider Pup who drives the Spidey-Mobile. There is also a key scene in the end that alludes that there will be an X Men 4, (Patrick Stewart’s hand comes out of his grave) and a 12-part Secret Wars made-for-TV mini-series set to start filming as early as tomorrow.

 

Honoring the Fallen

Last year I took a psychology class – Principles of Research and Design – to help fulfill a credit toward my minor. In that class I had the opportunity of meeting some great people. Because it was a class where interaction was necessary to pass, we worked in groups quite often. My group – Aaron, Kevin, Deidre and I – became exceptionally close. By the end of the semester we had adopted the name the “A-Team”. I am not sure how this ever came about. Aaron and I sat in the row of desks furthest from the door to the class room; he sat in front of me. That gave us enough room to say smart-ass remarks to one another. Aaron told me about this project he was working on, sort of like Toyfare’s Twisted Theater , but because his abundance of action figures, he was able to make a multi-episodic comic combining Evil Dead with Star Wars ; he called it Empire of Darkness. I ran my mouth and told him about Couch Party, and maybe we could get it up there.

Oooops. After the class ended, Aaron took it upon himself and found his own outlet, a website called deercrack.com.

Early Tuesday morning, I received an email from Vince, one of Aaron’s friends, regretfully informing me that Aaron had passed away in a car accident.

I want to take this time to salute Aaron Ureel. He was truly a visionary and on many levels a truly great person. As much as I hate using this site to bring about bad news, it would be much worse to miss an opportunity to honor those who deserve the focus.

As far as Couch Party goes, and the make up of its members, Aaron Ureel was one of us. Whether it was his off-beat sense of humor, or his appreciation for pop culture, the ability to resurrect quotes from movies long forgotten, or the ability to blur boundaries and lines with the imagination to make a good story, Aaron Ureel will truly be missed.

 

Please visit his work at http://www.deercrack.com/eod/

A-Team forever.

Special thank you to Vince Cracchiolo and www.deercrack.com

Awwww are You F*cking Kidding Me!

Can you believe it?!? In today’s society, with digital cable-not just boring old coaxial cable, but digital cable-and high speed internet, we have something like this happen. I am lying in bed, getting ready to sleep off a buzz that I had acquired from a trip to the bar where I sang karaoke (an amateur act I put on a couple times a month full of raw unsigned talent only fellow patrons/lowlives could appreciate. Numbers like “One Headlight” by the Wallflowers, “You May Be Right” by Billy Joel, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordy Lightfoot, a duet with another heterosexual which was in the style of “Under Pressure” by David Bowie and Queen (a truly remarkable karaoke song if you got it in you) and my finale which was “Wonder Boy” by Tenacious D. Quite an act if you appreciate songs like those. That of course is not the point), when I turn on some late installment of ABC news with the Hindi Anderson Cooper and some babe with ‘fuck me eyes.’ The two of them are concerned and then they hit me with it.

This respected news source is reporting on ‘guerilla marketing gone wrong’ of course it is really much more simple then that. I am seeing this with my very own eyes. In the city of Boston someone has strategically placed what looks like ‘Lite Brites’ on overpasses resembling the Mooninites from Comedy Central’s cult cartoon show Aqua Teen Hunger Force . Yes, Aqua Teen Hunger Force , the cartoon show set in Jersey with various members of the fast food meal persuasion as main characters and an anti-villain, who’s a fat Ron Jeremy look-alike, getting into “fictitious, always impossible, never enough to cause a school shooting- situations” in each 12 minute episode. Something so ridiculously funny you would either have to be retarded, drunk/stoned, exceptionally creative or a combination of two or more of these to appreciate.

For those of you who have never seen the show, the Mooninites are poorly animated Atari-era blips with a superb vocabulary and a knack for giving the middle finger-or at least the Atari blip version of the middle finger. That was it; and for whatever reason this caused the entire city to erupt in panic.fucking idiots. Here is what really chaps my ass; I am an American who’s of mostly Irish descent. I am proud of this, and, to me, Boston is the true American Irish city. However, earlier today ( 1/31/07 ) it proved to be a city full of fucking morons. Seriously, a few Lite Brites caused what should be one of the toughest cities in America to quiver and piss their pants. Boston you behaved like a bunch of bitches. What is your problem?

Seriously, is this what we have come to? The high-paced, media-centered United States crying and shitting their pants when any twenty-something would’ve recognized the display, laughed to their Irish roommate, and say, “Oh man, did you see that fuckin Mooninite on the overpass? That was wicked awesome!” I am ashamed to say that this is a complete display of pussy behavior. Everyone who stopped and feared for their life thinking that some clever terrorist, or Saddam Hussein’s ghost, had planted those Mooninite Lite Brites should proudly admire their new vaginas; please take the time to familiarize yourself with your new body part.

I hate to use that word “vagina” because I have met vaginas with whom I have slapped in the vagina face, stared down, and lost arm wrestling matches to.badly, all of these vaginas are tougher then the citizens of Boston who were scared of the Playskool toy that displayed images of Inignot and Err.

I would love to be attacked by a terrorist who appreciated the humor of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. If a terrorist was to enjoy a program like that, it would contradict all of the rhetoric that has been hammered into our God-fearing, naïve asses. The media portrays extremists as unforgiving and barbaric; I would love to know that the enemy that we are supposed to fear is really a fan of the “Foreigner Belt” episode, or the fact that they must know the Mooninites have “five thousand dimensions” where they come from, that would be the cat’s pajamas. You couldn’t submit to a greater villain.

America, seriously, quit being pussies.

 

An Optimistic Report for the Wayfaring Career Opportunist (Or the Slightly Weird)

It is true, like the countless others I am an ambitionless twenty-something. As I see friends and others close to me marry (and even more recently propagate the human species), it is starting to make me damn uncomfortable as I take my time happily drifting through life while everyone around me grows up. Soon enough I will become the old beatnik “crazy” friend of someone’s parents who always drinks too much, gets too loud, and always freaks the women out. Enter one defensive husband, a screaming match, and you’ve got summer barbeques for the rest of our lives.

Somewhere in this crazy world, a man’s got to find some work. There are plenty of jobs out there; most of them are horrible and will drive someone insane rather then bring some comfort in life. As I slowly drag through college hoping to find that right career, I have found something interesting. During a visit with my brother (a newer father), I was looking pretty shaggy and enjoying some brews when something awful caught my eye. There on his countertop was a can of Enfamil© baby formula.

It was nothing too out of the ordinary- that is unless you are not considering their straight to the point label. On the side of the can, the proud makers of Enfamil© baby formula claim that their concoction is the “closest formula to breast milk”. What the hell? Baby formula companies cannot just go around claiming things like that. This is a day and age where people are looking to sue the pants off anyone so they don’t have to work anymore (believe me, I’ve tried). Guess what? These are claims backed up by relentless product design and research and development teams.

If you are young and ambitious, you need to submit your resume to Enfamil© to help with the development of their product. You don’t need to be a scientist, all you have to do is love breast milk; it also helps if you are connoisseur. I got to chat with a representative for the company on how they stay on the cutting edge of breast milk similarity.

This is David Boone, assistant public relations manager. He has been with the company for eight years. He is a PR hotshot, who rarely talks about the Enfamil© inner workings.

“We definitely have an upper-hand on the market. There is something extremely intriguing about a can of Enfamil©. When you see it in the supermarket, you are strangely drawn to it. We put a lot of work in the packaging design… it has an unmistakable attitude. It seems to say “Hey Sally Shopper, mix me with water, put me in a baby bottle, and shove it in your baby’s fat face." In the early eighties, we didn’t have the respect that other companies had, The Similac©’s and the Nestle©’s and the Carnation©’s were all household names. Older Brother was drinking Nestle Quik©, Mom was using Carnation© creamers and back then Similac© used to make a bottom shelf liquor line…no one really remembers that much anymore.

"Enfamil© has always had a killer instinct about our product, and we were just waiting to capitalize on the right demographic. You are probably too young to remember, but in 1987 with the incorporation of several media outlets, there was what came to be known as the “formula wars”, Time Magazine even gave the issue a cover, which was a huge deal… It was a vicious time for the industry, but in the end, Enfamil© came out the frontrunner because of our new strategy… Thanks to a generous grant from the pediatric studies of Stanford University, we were able to staff a state-of-the-art “research” and “development” team.”

Boone, in fact, highlighted the intensity one would experience if they followed this career. He boldly states, just as the Enfamil© label does, that it is in fact the closest thing to breast milk. You may be laughing at an image of a laboratory where people sit around sucking on boobs and drinking breast milk. Well, you couldn’t be more right. Well, partially right; some of the testers prefer their milk from a glass.

Inside the two story laboratory, you are greeted by white walls, white lab coats, and a cheery disposition. There are Bunsen burners, flasks, and test tubes neatly organized about the work areas. The laboratory is very spacious with a very linear design. On any given day you will meet Mindy Fulcrum, a sunny, attractive woman, who just happens to be an elite product designer for the company.

Fulcrum, 31, is just one in a slew of women who lend their bodies for the good of the baby formula market. She is very modest about her occupation:”Sure,” she says looking at the lab and her busy surroundings, “I know my job is a challenge. I mean, who wants to be pregnant all of the time? I just look at it as a great opportunity that most will never see. If it wasn’t for my college degree and my ability to interview, I would probably be searching the ‘help wanted’ section everyday”. Because of the steep competition in their market, the workers–like Mindy Fulcrum–are always pushing for greater achievement.

“Because I am a career woman, I haven’t had time to start a family.” Mindy pauses and laughs, and corrects herself, “I should say ‘find a husband’, dating isn’t easy when you’re always knocked up”. Her laugh is bubbly and contagious. Mindy Fulcrum is on her ninth pregnancy, all of which are from donated life. My emotions must be showing at the thought of nine pregnancies because she quickly responds, “I have some real workaholics to compete with here; some of the girls here are on their twentieth and beyond. They’ve been at this a lot longer, many of them are inspirations… people I can really look up to." I am afraid to ask where all these pregnancies wind up.

I am not sure how I feel about the idea of drinking breast milk for eight hours a day. I was offered a taste, but cordially declined. A job like this really isn’t for everyone; for me, I will keep looking. Being around a can of formula is stifling enough to me, let alone sitting in a lab all day guzzling the real stuff and running tests. For those interested please contact the company. http://www.enfamil.com

 

Only one man could create something so preposterous! Abe Alguire is one sick bastard, his name will live on in infamy scoundrels and derelicts etched in the ethos of eternity.for hot pics check out his myspace profile.

http://www.myspace.com/23989158

 

Detroit Hockey Time

Michigan . April. The grass is green. A man with a pink polo walks down the road. Last year this same thing happened. Except for the man with the pink polo; last year his polo was navy because he just didn’t feel comfortable enough with his pink polo. He felt too awkward and self conscious. He thought pink was too much of a vagina color.

2006 is not 2005, this year we have the NHL back. The cordial gentleman in the south say “Big deal to all that hockey mumbo-jumbo, that’ll never catch on” as they sip their Mint Julep’s and wait for their horse races. This isn’t the south man, this is Michigan ; hockey is alive and well up here. Some haters still want to act like they do not care about hockey anymore. Secretly they track stats and cry because their team loses. Up here we still have hockey, and dammit all, we still have our Red Wings. A team so bad-ass they play right across a river from Canada so they can show them how a real team plays. This makes Canada so mad. “But we are the ones who have the hockey players on our moneys, eh? Why do they get Hockey Town ?” Quit your crying Canada or your tears will freeze.

It is an intense feeling. It’s the upcoming release of that summer blockbuster when you were a kid. They had the action figures out, the trading cards, the collectable cups from McDonalds, the soundtrack, the preview that played at the beginning of the super shitty movie that you made your parents drive you to just so you could piss yourself in excitement, and now oh my God it’s almost here. Do you remember where you were for the last playoffs?

 

Hey Kids: Detroit is the only city to have their teams finish with the best record in the NHL and the NBA in the same season!

It was a cliff hanger ending. With the over looming lockout buzz near, it would be a memorable one. The Red Wings were brutally assaulted by the villainous Calgary Flames. In a blockbuster finish to the Red Wings season, they were defeated, all playoff hopes dashed. Adding insult to injury the beloved Captain, Steve Yzerman was critically injured when a slap shot decimated his face. With blood and tears in the rink, the Wings crept back into seclusion leaving a million questions unanswered. No one knew when they would see the Red Wings again. It was just like when Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off at the end of the Empire Strikes Back, except there was less whining and snot bubbles.

As the playoffs continued there was a bigger battle developing. With the possibility of a lockout, the despicable Canadians were aggressively pursuing the coveted hockey relic, the Stanley Cup. With Detroit brutally injured and defeated they knew it was a matter of time before they got their greasy little beaver paws on it. Canada be damned! We all shit our pants, knowing that if the Canadians got their hands back on the trophy they would probably do something stupid like stick it in a cave as a sacrifice to the Windigo, or try to make a twice deep fried custard snack out of it.

Neat Fact: In 1984, after a 5-2 win against the Islanders, the Edmonton Oilers won their first Stanley Cup At the beginning of the playoffs Canada had 5 teams and Colorado thought they were Canadian too, so technically 6, and in the second round they were down to 3 plus one Colorado, who if they were to win would give the cup to the Canadians to make sure they were still buds and to convince themselves not every one hated them. The American teams knew exactly what those dirty bastards were up to and laid it on the line, sacrificing, knees, skulls, and souls to defeat all but one team. The super villain Calgary Flames had cheated their way to the top. The referees were hockey purists, believing that if the NHL were to die (the lockout) the Stanley Cup must remain on the soil where it was forged. Turning a blind eye to the Flames and their barbarian game the referees ushered them to the Stanley Cup Finals. Tampa Bay Lightning. A cakewalk. That’s all it was to the Calgary Flames as they marched into the arena for game 1, giving each other backwards Canadian bear and Lumberjack beard tickles. The trophy was already won. The Tampa Bay Lightning was expected to roll over. It didn’t happen. The cup was won by Americans, and the Canadians slithered back to their cave, devastated to wait for the season to begin again so they may have another opportunity.

Hey Kids: The Red Wings have had the same captain since the 1986-1987 series, his name is Steve Yzerman and he gets all the free Little Ceaser’s pizza he wants!

Well it’s back, and the drama has already unfolded. Detroit is down in their series to the Edmonton Oilers, 2-1. Edmonton , a Canadian city famous for their maple syrup and Cubic Zirconia mines, are absolutely thrilled to be playing in league-recognized playoffs for the second time in three years. In their dry spell (1993-1996, 2002) they participated in non-league sanctioned playoff games. Usually facing off against teams like Alta Dena Middle School and the Canadian National Junior Hockey representatives The Manitoba Lumberkings (the team made famous in Walt Disney’s The Mighty Ducks . Plot summary: on their way to beating the team that destroyed their lives and took their manhood, the Mighty Ducks prove themselves by beating the piss out of the Manitoba Lumberkings then torching their locker room and killing their mascot Little Wood, a mutt breed puppy. All of this happens while Emilio Estevez’ character Gordon Bombay makes it with the coaches wife, who is distracted while he tries to put the locker room out). Of course nobody came to these games and the Oilers lost every single one of them. Well, here they are folks they are back!

Neat Fact: Edmonton Oilers Coach was the last pro player to not wear his helmet while playing! What a maniac! Always taking safety for granted, Mactavish got in a lot of trouble after he killed someone while drunk driving! This is something that surely haunts him today.

So next time you like to tell your buddies that you hate hockey now and that NASCAR is the new sport, quit your lying asshole. You know you are sore that hockey left you hanging so long and that you are too proud to say how you really feel. Everyone knows you have a Chris Pronger jersey in your closet and when no one is around you bury your nose into it and cry. Meanwhile me and my buddies will be making it with all of the girls in Canada , including Debbie Mactavish.

 

Abe Alguire has been on an indefinite hiatus from writing articles for the website. This article marks a historic comeback for the championed satirist. He can be reached for comment or criticism at the following address: abe@couchparty.com

The Urban Sportsman

Having the pleasure of being up before sunrise, I get to experience things people who sleep in past the call of morning duties do not. One of these things is the morning news, courtesy of my local network affiliate. What a time we live in, where people are beaten and blown up while on their way to work. Not in America though; no way, this country is far too civilized to stoop to such nincompoop antics. When something does happen you can bet your sweet ass that our news vans are there on the spot ready to roll camera and deliver the scoop. Well there have been a couple of interesting stories that have developed in the last two days. I will try to recant from memory:

Newscaster: Police are looking for clues in the slaying of a young local man who was found dead near the intersection of (names two inner city streets in Flint , Michigan , our anchoring acropolis). The victim died from gunshot wounds and was found early Tuesday morning. If you have any leads or information pertaining to this incident please contact the Flint Police department, your name does not have to be given.

The caster then proceeds to give a couple other reports and then segues into this report:

Newscaster: Well mid-Michigan has had their first deer hunting death. So and So Such and Such, 45 of (rural county town) was found dead in Shiawassee County Wednesday afternoon. The incident happened when a local man fired his weapon into the distance unaware he was aimed at anything or anyone. The deceased was found eight hours later by a search party formed when the man did not return home. Officials are ruling the death an accident…

Another day of eventful production at one of Flint , Michigan ‘s booming automobile plants.

Wait; rewind the tape there seems to be a bit of redundancy in the reports here. This is exactly why we cannot trust the news. The claims here are damaging, fallacious and not to mention presumptuous. You are telling me that this death in Flint is not a hunting accident. I mean come on, just because this happened in an urban neighborhood does not mean it was a criminal act. This is what happens when hate mongers report news with racial bias. They are trying to defecate all over the walls of an honest city like Flint , home of the booming auto industry.

The people ought to know that at the very least, and I mean the very least the white man killed in the woods was the second deer hunting death or the first murder of deer season. To sort of blow the cover on this whole “inner city murder mystery” we need to look at the facts. Deer hunting in the city cannot be denied any longer…

A mother and her fawns…	About to get Shot!
Deer Hunterz!	A Beecher Buc bags a Beecher Buck!

The city provides a real challenge to hunters because even the avid urban sportsman must mind his aim. The people who hunt in the forest are clumsy and lazy and shoot each other every year, even after they are certified through hunter safety. The experienced inner city hunter minds his obstacles by hunting after everyone has gone to bed. This way he only hits a person with a bullet once in a while. That is real responsibility.

May the truth be known!!!

 

Awww come on, he was only kidding! Reach abe@couchparty.com and let him know how damn insensitive he is!

 

Here’s to the Season

Well the midnight hour is approaching on Halloween and that means one of my favorite holidays is coming to a close. I’d like to reflect on how I pondered the season of chills and fear, but as November 1 st approaches all I can think of now is Christmas. Christmas! Christmas! Why I am not out decorating the roof and putting up the Christmas tree is beyond me, to think how much of an idiot I am wasting valuable time writing this. Working retail really puts the spirit in your socks, which gives you an unrivaled high that carries you all the way to November 2 nd . Don’t let me scare you with my talk of emotional castration and desensitized cheer.

Though there is no hesitation to push the upcoming holiday in the retail world there is a real stinger waiting out there for me. Casually shopping in my local K Mart I came across the very thing that I have been missing my whole life marketed about 18 years too late. It wasn’t a drill this time, I was pissed off and this was real. I grabbed Megan by the arm and made her look as what I was clutching.

No joke! I was furious! The anger flushed to my face as I read the box. This was the toy that no one born after the eighties would appreciate. My memory served me all the Christmases that I longed for the perfect toy to be under the wrapping paper. There were always the cool gifts of the season, and there were the generic gifts that mocked the original and persuaded parents to save money. There was never anything like this.

Why on earth would Star Wars toys become so well crafted and sleek for a generation who were nowhere near the original release of the last three episodes and the phenomenon that came with it? Here’s what I do remember about the original toy line. The toys, though plentiful and representative, were hardly poseable and boring. When your Luke Skywalker can’t swing a lightsaber, but rather wave in an up and down motion you are shit out of luck. I remember there was a star destroyer playset which was a piece of plastic that opened down the middle which I think was more or less intended to be a carrying case. I remember there wasn’t a light saber that was officially licensed. The idiots at Kenner should have fired the guy in charge of research and design. And so the theme was set for my childhood toy experience, a sad catharsis which has affected me dearly.

By the time I was old enough to enjoy imagination and action figures, the original Transformers run had already been shelved and sold, Voltron had run its course and He-Man was getting harder and harder to find. I was stuck with He-Man, Moss Man, some dude who looked like a bat (I think he was She-Ra’s enemy.) There was also some dude with two arms and two heads (Two-Bad). Now for the majority of these characters they had detachable pieces, among them chest pieces. When these chest pieces became lost or broken your battle for universal supremacy soon became a homoerotic opera. If anyone caught you playing with a bare chested He-Man or that bat guy I was talking about, it meant knuckle sandwiches for sure.

He-Man also had no compatibility with other toys, compared to GI Joe, he was a big blonde gay giant.

In middle school I discovered the beautiful world of toy collecting, or in my case toy collecting magazines. I subscribed to a pretty impressive magazine called none other then Collecting Toys. Though it exposed some awful toys of yesteryear, it clued me in on the evolution of the modern toy synchronized with American affairs in World War II and the cold war. This is also when I learned that my dad had cooler toys then I did growing up. There was the OM spy toys, which were basically transforming weapons and such. For example there was a what looked like a pocketknife (complete with plastic blade) that when triggered turned into a cap gun that looked like a German pistol. The thing was made of metal and from what I understood was just a small portion of this line of toys. How fricking cool is that? I got to see the toy gun market go from semi-fun to shitty as the guns went from halfway realistic to a red tipped barrel of color crap. By the time I was to the age of conceiving the idea of climbing on my roof and playing clock tower sniper, some ungrateful snot nosed kid had been gunned down by local authorities for practically the same thing a few years earlier.

My dad also saw one of the most impressive innovations in toy history when the fully articulate 12 inch GI Joes hit shelves. Not being suckers for cheapness, Mattel threw in clothes and multiple weapons blurring the line that toys were just for kids. War buffs everywhere snatched these detailed toys up as well as imaginative kids. This was the golden age for action figures, it almost seems like the industry has devolved since this. There was no Cobra Commander to chase countless times and watch escape. No this was the real deal, the enemy were German Nazis. My dad’s stories about his GI Joe collection are just as entertaining as any of his other stories about his life. Somehow after the attacks and massacres concerning fireworks and magnifying glasses a portion of his collection was salvaged and rests safely in an undisclosed location.

Having access to these toys made the burden of having shitty toys made my childhood remember. I fondly remember my cousin bringing her Barbie collection over where she and her brother along with my older brother and me would create outstanding scenarios that went somewhere along the lines of what c should have been Platoon 2. The plot follows Sgt. Barnes (Tom Beringer) as he returns stateside and wins the heart of a beautiful blonde socialite who falls in love with him and sympathetically takes him into her posh penthouse (usually the couch). Barnes, overcome with guilt and despair takes to the bottle and a steady drug binge, after many a night of cocaine addled fury, shell shock and gripping flashbacks ending in domestic abuse. Finally, the timid Barbie seeks help from a nearby friend (another Barbie or the kinky haired Skipper) where she falls in love with a dapper young playboy named Ken. Meanwhile, Barnes who is paranoid from weeks of not sleeping and all the drugs he has ingested learns of the betrayal and seeks revenge. Now for whatever reasons Barnes still has possession of his military issued arsenal. The scenes, which were alarmingly well planned out by pre-teens, always ended in murder. It always a delight to see the rich, pretentious and too faggy Ken finally got what was coming to him. Unable to defend himself because he didn’t have articulation in his elbows or wrists he was pretty much a sitting duck.

Of course there were always the toys nobody ever wanted to admit in having. I fondly remember this kid who had a lot of stuff for a kid. One of the most excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sets I think anyone could ever have. It was complete with the mechanical robot turtle, and the party wagon. Well, I was always begging him to bring it over because I had so many ideas. One of the few times I went to his house I got to see how disgracefully wasteful he was of his resources. He had such an extensive supply of Ninja Turtles toys, which were the only toy that should have existed in some people’s opinions, but didn’t appreciate the possibilities. Instead the toys that you saw were important to him spread all over his bedroom floor in various “bases” and “hideouts” were Captain Planet toys. My expression must have been insulting because he rarely ever talked to me after that. Captain Planet, are you serious?

Ah, the anguish of pursuing the perfect toy.

 

Abe Alguire can be reached at abe@couchparty.com , get on Santa’s “nice” list by showing Couch Party love.

 

The Web site Isn’t Dead and Other Shocking Revelations: Part One

Remove your black veils and quit telling everyone one of “your best friends died” for attention. Couch Party is not dead and it’s not even PC to call it that either. Deep dead simulated catatonic sleep induced by spooky ice blankets (see Works of Schumaker, Joel, 1990) is more like it.

And one more thing, by saying that my fellow contributors and I are lazy is an injury to insult. Sure, we were riding the crest of the tidal wave of one of the most successful “entertainment web sites” in history, and each of us self destructive in our own “cute, f-u generation” way; nothing good was to come of any of this. Ask Motley Crue and C.S. Lewis, ask them what hard partying and venereal disease does to one’s character. There was only one thing that could happen….

We had to wake up…

So I admit none of it was true. There was no tidal wave and no crest to ride, and our self-destructive nature was more hype then anything. Sadly we were all composed and well disciplined and any taste of fame may have been because we liked watching ‘celebreality’ on VH1. We looked like we were coasting through this whole project by the seat of our dungarees (See vocabulary of Dave, Uncle). We finished our first year with much more then we put in, and no sign of the well drying the articles suddenly slowed and then as if a valve was shut they went from a steady flow to a persistent drip. I imagine it went something like this:

Alone in his quarters, deep in meditation the Pope feels a deep shiver in his bones.

A husband and wife stop mid quarrel, look around the room, at each other and embrace in tears minds totally blank of their argument.

Somewhere in war torn Iraq the artillery stops, the bombs don’t whistle and both sides cease for a moment leaving the echo and the call of a lonely Iraqi bird.

That’s what I pictured it as. Everybody else didn’t notice until the articles stopped coming. It was quite the phenomenon, I don’t know about the other guys but when you are clinically dead you see some weird shit. So Kiefer Sutherland took it one way, I took it another. It was almost prophetic, but as equally disturbing as seeing the little retarded boy you tormented in your childhood reappear to you in present day.

I saw the face of the enemy.

“But it’s alright
Why don’t you tell me again
How you’ll still be there
When the heartache ends
It’s alright
Why don’t you tell me my friend
How you’ll still be there
When the heartache ends”

- The Bringer of the End

 

I’m glad I can trust all of you. You are all my friends, and you will be stunned to learn what I have seen. He’s planning to kill FM radio and soon everything else. Rob Thomas is the biggest arch villain in our Universe, I’m convinced he cannot be beaten or destroyed. Take warning, the 1990′s gave birth to the worst case of sucky since the 1980′s gave birth to the 1990′s. We were supposed to put faith in people that were to select the best artists and somehow we ended up with 3 rd Eye Blind and Matchbox 20. What the hell were these people thinking? God I am embarrassed for all of us. Stephan Jenkins has been fooling us to thinking that he is done musically but he has been flying under the radar as a parasite on pop star Vanessa Carlton where he will soon suck the life force from her and resume his career as a more powerful shitty Stephan Jenkins. Any way you want to look at it we are screwed. You are especially screwed and susceptible to brainwash with little or no effort by anyone including baby sparrows and color posters if you find his music “catchy” and “good”. Rob Thomas faked us all out by forming Matchbox 20, either a group containing the most ordinary, unmemorable members or the most real life animatronic puppets ever. Then he decided to go on his own and start a solo project called “Rob Thomas”. God the originality leaks from this God of a man. No one was ready for what Rob Thomas was going to do to save modern soft rock, but he didn’t care unleashing his album “…Something to Be” and bringing haters and critics alike to their knees. It was the most unexpected highly confidential album in the history of man…

Stephan Jenkins shows us he takes “being shitty” serious.

It sounded like Matchbox 20 with keyboards and synthesizers.

Here are my theories:

Rob Thomas is the head of a secret network that controls not only all of the major labels in music, but he also controls the United States and the weather.

Rob Thomas is an age old mythological beast that is nearly impossible to kill or ignore.

Rob Thomas can be killed by a pure blooded warrior with a genealogy that traces back to Winston Churchill, Constantine, Mighty Mouse and Jesus. The weapon to kill Rob Thomas is located in the Himalayas encrusted in a catacomb of ice and stone. It is an indestructible long sword with jewels on its hilt, and an ethereal shimmer to it.

Rob Thomas has really pushed my personal tolerance way too far.

Okay, number four isn’t a theory it is a personal statement.

We are so doomed and there is nothing we can do until this guy shuts up. Please I am begging all of you to stop encouraging Rob Thomas to sing and perform.

That’s Right Rob Thomas… I don’t Like You…

 

In a desperate attempt to be sued by anyone and everyone Abe Alguire continues to offend all people including major recording artists, if you feel you are owed an apology or royalty check for the use of your name contact abe@couchparty.com .

 

Is it Okay to be Scared?

I guess with all these crazy little incidents happening lately the religious zealots are having a blast yelling at people from busy street corners about the end times. I mean can you blame them? Tsunamis, hurricanes, Red Sox pennants all point to grave omens for human kind. It doesn’t stop there people are seriously out to put the fear of God into you. Even the people you would least expect it from.

I remember sitting in seventh grade science class watching movies about plate tectonics and giant volcanoes, I knew stuff was rough for animals and cavemen who wanted to chill out and just survive but I had no idea that we were in danger. Then my teacher popped in a movie called “You are Living on a Giant Volcano that Doesn’t Discriminate When it Comes to Killing You and the Entire World”. Although the soundtrack was catchy, the content was rather raw and left me with an empty feeling in my stomach.

Soon enough Scientists got bored with looking for a cancer cure and unsatisfied with telling us that God was fake, so they started something new which I hate them for. They started studying and relaying all of the theories on global destruction, hurricanes, and tsunamis, ice ages, meteors, volcanoes, lightning, fire, starvation, and they let us all know exactly how bad it could be, or will be. And all I can say is thanks a lot dickheads.

The idea of a child killing clown in the sewer is unsettling and burying your dead toddler in an ancient Indian burial ground only to have him come back and murder everything is creepy. What scares me is the idea that I may be sound asleep when an asteroid hits Flint (big deal right) and vaporizes North America . You can bet that it won’t be any better if you are awake to see something like that. Hey, there is my loved one; hey there is a pile of ashes. Hey I don’t exist anymore, damn. Thanks scientists for giving me this constant looming sense of doom.

What a bunch of asses man, I mean who really wants to know what it’s going to be like when the world ends? “Oh look honey there is a huge cloud of volcanic ash covering everything, I remember this from the Discovery channel, what are the steps again? Giant volcano explodes, covers everything, eclipses sun, now what were we supposed to do? Oh yeah die, hahaha; how simple, how did I forget that?” Thanks for the warning you heartless pricks, just let me be unknowing man; ignorance is bliss.

You hate your job, you can’t get along with your significant other, and now you have armageddon in the back of your mind. With the insanity ensuing in the washed out city of New Orleans , it almost reminds me of what Revelations would be like if anyone could understand what the hell they were talking about. It’s so vague that maybe “the beast that is supposed to rise from the water with the crowns on its serpent heads” really means “crazy Cajuns in pickup trucks wielding AK-47′s looting strip malls”. I don’t know. You do have to give the people credit who are claiming the end is near, these last few years have been pretty messed up. Forget messed up, let’s say ludicrous and preposterous.

I need to ask this much though. Is it okay that I cry myself to sleep because I am worried that an asteroid is going to land on Megan? I don’t see any scientists or preachers or sea captains or anybody saying “Look don’t be scared, this shit will buff out.” Nobody’s said anything reassuring lately and I’m scared to high heaven. I guess there was a period of time when things weren’t always so pessimistic, like a sunny day you could go out and have fun, but now it’s like “Great I need an early start on melanoma.” Or “Might as well enjoy it while you can because it’s going to burn out soon and we are all going to starve or worse.”

I can hear the critics now: Abe Alguire is so neurotic, Abe Alguire has the bravery of a kitten, Abe Alguire cannot come to terms with dying in a horrible matter; therefore, he is a woman. Well, my fear of disaster didn’t blow in from the gulf in some hurricane man, no way. I’ve been scared since the 1980′s. Oh you want to play on the swing set and look at Mad magazine? Oh, too bad, because Russia hates you and they will probably drop a nuke on the elementary school. My dad scared me straight talking to me about the desk drills when he was in school; they weren’t making us do that sort of thing in school so I figured times were better. Then my dad tells me, “Son, the only reason they don’t make you get under your desk is because they think it may as well be a surprise to you guys.”

“A surprise, why dad?”

“A desk isn’t going to do anything to help you, so instead of getting everyone all prepared and having to deal with a bunch of crying second graders, they just want to let it happen; less tension that way.”

The wisdom and knowledge that was passed unto me was incredible. Soon all the kids in school were scared (because I told them what my dad said.)

“My dad said that he could arm wrestle anyone and win.”

“My dad said that we are going to be nothing but pieces of dust and shadows when that nuke hits, and if your parents aren’t in the general radius they are good and gone from exposure to radiation, which is going to give them cancer and kill them slowly.”

I was always begrudged against the opposing force that was going to nuke my neighborhood, I felt like if I could just talk to them and let them know that maybe they would see that they really didn’t have to destroy the world. “Hey dad, you don’t think that they would hit Michigan do you? I mean we are so far away from Washington DC and everything.”

“Well maybe son, but if they know that the auto plants convert into military vehicle production in wartime, they might drop one there, which is going to get to you eventually.”

“Damn it.”

So my fear has deep-seeded roots into childhood. Yeah I know this makes me sound like a coward, so what? I’m sure everyone’s scared of something. Little girls and grown men alike are scared to death of spiders; Americans are scared of getting kidnapped by extremists in the Middle East . I want to be a coward when it comes to horrible death by disaster, at least I’m not going out like a chump. So next time you are surfing the channels or checking the internet, weather and you happen to see that the northern hemisphere is subject to asteroids, or mega volcanoes, please give me a buzz.

Yours in paranoia and sweaty panic,

 

Abe

 

PS I was serious about giving me a heads up write me at abe@couchparty.com