Charlie Don't Surf

Wow. Sheen's-Korner is so powerful, so awe-inspiring... it's not logical to even begin a discussion.  I'm half staring-at-the-light in Close Encounters and half staring-into-the-Ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It's a brave new world, or maybe an eternity damned.

Sippin' On Some Syrup, verse 1 (Pimp C)

According to Google Analytics (whoever that is!), my "Swervin'" song translation is the most popular blog post on Lee's Steez. Literacy is alive!

If Three 6 Mafia is indeed the Chaucer of the Dirty South, then "Sippin' On Some Syrup" is its Canterbury Tales. The task of translating such a masterpiece is both arduous and exhilarating. As ol' G.C. used to say:
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage
Now po' it up, nigga...


Three 6 Mafia f/U.G.K. - "Sippin' On Some Syrup"

Chorus:Sippin' on some sizz-urp, sip, sippin' on some, sip...
Sippin' on some sizz-urp, sip, sippin' on some, sip... (repeat 8x)
Drinking a mixture of Tussionex, soda, and/or liquor...
Drinking a mixture of Tussionex, soda, and/or liquor... (repeat 8x)

Pimp C:
I'm trill workin' the wheel, a pimp not a simp
Keep the dope fiends higher than the Goodyear Blimp.
I'm a genuinely masculine human being and completely in control of all relationships I hold with the opposite sex, especially while operating a motor vehicle. The narcotics  sold by my syndicate of drug dealers are of such high potency that they often cause sensations of disassociation and vertigo, similar to those experienced by passengers of dirigibles, zeppelins, etc.

We eat so many shrimp, I got iodine poisoning
Fuckin' niggas make me sick with all that pinchin' and bargaining.
Our extravagant lifestyle affords us excessive arrays of appetizers, including raw shrimp and other shellfish-- occasionally our shrimp consumption leads to unnaturally high (but hardly fatal!) levels of iodine in our bloodstream. We have neither the time nor patience to deal with customers that steal from or attempt to haggle with the merchants of our drug syndicate.

You say that you a boss, I ain't believing that shit
You got the funny Geneva watch, with the Ferrari kit.
You claim to hold a position of prominence in your organization, but I haven't seen any evidence to support this. In fact, you've been spotted on numerous occasions wearing gaudy, tasteless Italian watches.

Take that monkey shit off, you embarassing us
I got tha red promethazine, tha orange and yella tuss.
Please remove the aforementioned accessories... you're misrepresenting members of your own crew and your profession as a whole! I'm currently in possession of Codiclear, Tussionex, and other hydrocodone compounds.

Hydroco-done on tha hands-free phone
Tha 84's roam on them blades, 20-inch chrome.
I'm operating a "hands-free" cellular phone, in full compliance with the Tennessee criminal code pertaining to motor vehicles. However, ingestion of the opioid hydrocodone has rendered me unable to operate my car legally. Regardless of my inebriation, my car is outfitted with 20-inch chrome Cadillac wire rims.

If you got 16, you can get a bizzerd
I'm chokin' on that doja sweet and sippin' on that sizzurp.
One can purchase a kilogram of pure, uncut cocaine for $16,000. I'm smoking marijuana and drinking a mixture of Tussionex, soda, and/or liquor.

Foot, this is Mouth.

Some of my favorite "misspoken" gems from this summer:

Tim McCarver on Yankees' treatment of Joe Torre.

Dwyane Wade on Miami Heat hype.

Dr. Laura on, umm, race.

Hey, at least they're all sorry.

GallStones

My recent energy surge reminds me of those nutty college days of old. Writing late night charts, saxophone transcriptions, you name it!

I was the inventor of the "GallStones" breakfast, which was quite the fad in our little Massapequa hamlet. You fill a large plastic bowl with Jolt cola (a can, generally), and then cover the soda surface with Sugar Corn Pops. It's crucial to do the cereal last, so it actually floats for a little while. Then grab the biggest spoon you can find, and chow down! I actually knew a crazy violinist that poured his GallStones into a metal pan and ate 'em with a scoop!

"I'll never forget the first time..."

If you watch as much lousy TV at weird hours as I do, you're probably familiar with Klee Irwin and his Dual Action Cleanse.

Dual Action Cleanse might be the most horrifying infomercial of all time. The product claims to improve the quality, frequency and comfort of your bowel movements. The host, Klee Irwin, doesn't skimp on details.

Here's Klee's memoir of his daughter's doo-doo:

"I'll never forget the first time I saw my four-year-old daughter's bowel movement in the toilet. It literally scared me. She wasn't more than 45 pounds, but her bowel movement was about as thick as my wrist and about as long as her arm. And I thought, 'Oh my God.' I got scared. I was going to call my wife. I thought, 'How could something that big come of something—a little child—that small. And I thought, I'm six feet tall and I weigh 190 pounds and by proportion to my size compared to hers my bowel movements were very inadequate to say the least."

Yeah, we're all literally scared over here, too. It's literally twice as scary to watch Klee himself talk about this... shit. He looks like Eric Roberts after his "I was burnt in my lab while I spliced my own genes with those of an insect" incident. He makes an uncomfortable subject exponentially more uncomfortable, like a revolting 7th grade health teacher (I really had one of those!).

The testimonials are the best part. Aside from the infamous "John Wayne had 44 pounds of fecal matter in his colon after he died" crock of shit, there are a few spooky stories for sure. One guy in an older incarnation of the program talked about removing a 12-foot worm from his intestine (was it swimming around in his toilet? was it dangerous? can i use it as big fish bait?) after feeling the benefits of the product. Another woman assures us with a smirk that "you wouldn't want to see" the 10 or 15 pounds of fecal load she shed after using DAC.

Even worse is the building caseload against Irwin & Co.-- literally hundreds of complaints have been filed for overcharges, failure to deliver product, and various unauthorized charges to customers' credit cards. And this is assuming that the stuff even works!

Watch the show. I guarantee you'll have no problem eliminating some sort of waste-like substance from your body when it's over.

Republican National Convention

Sorry, but I can't watch this any longer without writing something.

The Republican National Convention is, um, weird. It has the feel of an overblown school board meeting, or maybe even a Christian phone-a-thon. Hmmm.

The "Country First" signs being waved around look exactly like the "Country Kitchen" logo. Bizarre new-country pitch-corrected songs fill up the interludes, while white people awkwardly clap their hands. Most of the speakers spurt and sputter, making painful bids for applause (pregnant pauses?). Eerie "Sa-rah, Sa-rah" chants creep in and out of earshot. Carrie meets Children of the Corn?

Linda Lingle (!), the Guv of Hawaii (pronounced Ha-vah-eh), is a lunatic. She just made the absurd point that you can fit 250 Delawares in the state of Alaska. I was hoping she'd try for a paradoxical brain-twister about how many Americas you can fit in the state of Alaska. I ended up simply hoping she'd fall into a volcano.

Rudy is absolutely pathetic. At least he used to have some kind of stubborn style back here in New York. Now he's a sad, sad puppet. I can't believe I used to pretend I voted for this asshole at parties.

A "Drill, baby, drill!" chant just drowned out Rudy for a little while there. I honestly thought they were saying "Kill, baby, kill!" at first. Then Rudy parries with, "Who are we offending when we say Islamic terrorists?"

Is there really such a thing as an American "hockey mom" outside of Minnesota?

Rudy's really confusing the crowd now-- they're booing stuff they're supposed to cheer for. Wait, he just got a great, authentic cheer for "We are all Georgians!!!" I don't think anyone has any idea what Rudy's talking about.

OK, here she comes now. Jeez, it looks like half the people are carrying rubber infants. Anyway, Sarah Palin just took the podium. She sounds like a valedictorian accepting her high school diploma.

I dunno, there's something funny about her. I can't quite put my finger on it-- something unsettling... oh Jesus, she's a dead ringer for my ex-wife!

Swervin'

Today's rap artists just don't get enough credit... as writers. Maybe people just don't understand what the hell they're saying?

Here's an example of such quality prose, along with a humble "translation":

DJ Paul, "Swervin'"

I got them 28's on the Chevy sittin' so high.

The plastic cup's in the cup holder gettin' dry.

My Chevrolet is outfitted with 28-inch chrome rims, and is unusually elevated above the ground. I have a plastic cup containing a mixture of Tussionex/Promethazine, soda and/or liquor in the car's accessory holder; my cup is nearly empty.

And before I see the bottom I'm a holla at L.L.,
'cause that means I need a R.E.F.I.L.L..
Before my drink is completely finished, I plan to contact "L.L." about pouring another full cup of the Tussionex mixture.

From the bottom to top, nothin' but that pink.
I got a thick bitch playin' with my dick.
My cup is now completely full again. A woman with large, muscular hindquarters and buttocks is digitally and orally stimulating my penis.

And she done got lit, now she curious...
She's looking at my dollop wantin' to take a hit.
The woman arousing me also seems intoxicated, and is staring at my full cup of Tussionex mixture. She may want to taste the mixture.

You know I'm passin' it, long as she acting right.
If she get gonzo, I'm a smack the daylight clean up out the ho...
I have no problem with sharing my drink with the woman, on the condition that she doesn't appear overly intoxicated. If she reaches a dangerous state of inebriation, I may need to use physical force in order to restrain her. It is also becoming apparent that the woman may be a prostitute.

Kick her out the door, call up "Get High" Chris,
go and get some mo'.
After I remove the prostitute from the vehicle, I'll need to contact "Get High" Chris, the local merchant and supplier of illegal bottles of Tussionex/Promethazine. From there, I'll repeat the above process.

The Greatest Show on Earth

I'll try to explain what I just saw: Chinese dancer/acrobats performing on a giant digital canvas as it unfurls across the stadium... dancer/acrobats then "paint" on canvas digitally with their hands... the beautiful result is then displayed to the crowd. Welcome to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

I think Yanni is performing at this point. Thousands of identically dressed and featured men just burst out of a series of undulating boxes in the center of the stadium. The announcer just explained what we're seeing, and I still don't understand it at all. This is gonna be a long night.

Looks like it's Bob Costas, Matt Lauer, and some guy named Joshua Cooper Ramo. "Josh" is an expert on Chinese culture, and is explaining the signifigance of everything we're seeing.

Cool, we're back to the giant digital canvas. An impossibly beautiful dancer is twirling stuff to and fro, while about a hundred guys (slaves?) carry the giant canvas around.

BC: Who are these guys? At least a thousand blue soldiers just "invaded" the stadium. They're armed with either giant oars or giant feathers. Either way, I think we're all safe.

Now there's an impossibly weird guy in the middle of the show, carrying an enormous wooden bowl and spoon. I'm not sure where he went. Cut to commercial.

JCR: Oh by the way, this culture invented printing and paper.

Now I understand... the guy who did House of Flying Daggers designed the show. That's either really cool or sort of disappointing. Now the Chinese Elton John is playing a piano duet with a small child. This is making Super Bowl halftime look like a high school talent show.

I'm not sure who these girls are on the right, but they're certainly capturing the Olympic spirit.

2008 Chinese guys in white outfits are arranged in perfect concentric circles across the stadium floor. Now they're sprinting across the floor in alternating rows. BC: One false move and we're talking about some smashed craniums here!

OK, I'm turning this off-- the performers are walking sideways and upside-down around a giant globe-lamp. I'll let you know when the sports start.

Me and My Wine

I know absolutely nothing about wine. I don't really like it and almost never drink it.

Not completely sure why I made one of my summer projects the purchase and consumption of a box of wine (that's a lie-- I did it so I could modify and reuse the box for a project at work this September). My other summer project is to get rid of our cable, which I haven't done yet. I might let it ride through the Sox series this weekend...

Anyhow, I went our local liquor store to buy some wine. I'd been fantasizing about the box for days-- a virtually bottomless supply of wine-cooleresque fruity refreshment for the summer. I marched directly to the back corner of the store, and the boxes of wine were exactly where I thought they should be.

Somehow I came home with Burgundy, which is about as refreshing as chilled blood. It's the reason I don't drink wine. But dammit, I plan to drink it all. Who knows, maybe I'll develop a taste for it.

Miss Universe 2008

You can't make this stuff up...

Jerry Springer hosts Miss Universe 2008 live from Ho Chi Minh City. The stage is-- whoa!! They're already announcing the winner!!! No big surprises here... the 70-pound waif with big knockers from Venezuela and the one from D.R. wearing the outfit from Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days" video are finalists. Yep, Miss Venezuela won.

I didn't even have a chance to give you the highlights. Miss USA fell right on her ass during what looked like the most important part of the show. Miss Russia was terrifying, and every one of the contestants was at least 2M in height.

Here's a direct quote from Miss Italy's Q & A portion:
What is something unique that has happened to you; some interesting thing about you?
"I love all pets and I have always desired to have one of them in my house but unfortunately I'm allergic to their hair."

Venezuela (the winning "delegate") came up with something a bit better for the same question:
"I was once kidnapped, in what in my country is known as an express kidnapping. It was a very hard experience. I learned to remain calm in a very stressful situation and to try to reach to the human part of our abductors."

Mizz Albania had the best response, even if she didn't win:

"I am delighted to admit that this is my very first amazing and unique experience."

JERK OF THE WEEK: The Cutter

It was already a lousy trip home: a “gag-me-with-a-spoon” smelly homeless guy on the A train, a 1 train taken out of service at 96th, and then all uptown 1’s running non-stop from 96th to 145th. That just doesn’t work for me.

I opted for the uptown M104 – a dicey move at best. At least twenty people beat me to it, but a reasonable line was forming on the curb. Not too many things in this world as humbling as waiting on a long line for a fucking bus (waiting at the DMV and sitting in the back of a police car come to mind…). It’s so pathetic, in fact, that it can almost feel like a bonding experience.

Maybe this is why my comrades and I almost blew a collective gasket when a short old lady scurried past our well-formed line and up into the bus. The b*#@$ cut us all!!! Not only that, but she took the last damn seat on a packed 104. The driver almost had to lower the hydraulics on the bus so I could pick my jaw up off the street and get into the vehicle. Here she is, smug as a bug in a tugboat. Notice how she pretends to gaze deeply out the window (she’s trying to avoid eye contact with the angry mob of jilted upright riders).

Not even two minutes after I crowned my Jerk of the Week, another fiasco starts up. A lady sitting in the very first seat (the “don’t sit here unless…” seat) has an enormous pile of shopping bags spilling out into the aisle of the bus. People are stepping/tripping over her stuff as they try to board – she does absolutely nothing. Finally, the bus driver shuts everything down, and tells the lady to please move her bags out of the aisle. She refuses. He asks her again. She refuses again.

An old Asian guy stands up and starts yelling at the lady. “You not special!! You not special!!” he screams, waving a bony finger in her face.

She yells right back, “Then get off the bus!!! Then get off the bus!!! I paid my two dollars!!!”

So on and so forth. Two women behind me provide a hushed commentary: “I can’t believe her… She’s in the handicapped seat, too… Well, how do we know she’s not disabled…”

I’m busy putting together an attack on her “I paid my $2” angle; maybe something along the lines of “Yeah, well I paid my freaking $81 this month! My fare went up and yours didn’t! Now move your damn bags”… I tried to capture the sleaze-bag-lady on film, but this is all I got.

The Canyon of Drunks

A funny thing happened on my way to the voting booth this morning. I had to be one of the first suckers in there at 6:05 am. The usual assortment of marginally functional morons were manning the station-- it just doesn't seem like the tightest of ships.

Anyway, I decided that a statistical study was going to be necessary today. Title: "THE EFFECT OF TUESDAY'S GIANTS VICTORY PARADE ON THE TRI-STATE PRIMARY ELECTIONS." Doesn't it seem plausible that drinking, hollering and traveling for 6-plus hours today might create some erratic voting patterns amongst the NY/NJ voting public? I imagined bombed Republicans mistakenly voting for Ron Paul, passing out in the machine, or just plain fucking up the procedure.

Turned out that most of the parade-goers were way too drunk to even think about voting. A bunch of terrifying blue cretins boarded my uptown 2 train at about 4:30 this afternoon, and nearly caused a mini-riot. They were alternating between shouting "I like to fuck assholes! I'm fucking Paulie in the asshole!" and randomly accusing other riders of being Patriots fans. I wasn't sure which was more offensive.

At least they couldn't vote for Giuliani.

“Millions of Young Abusing Cough Medicine”…

[this entry is by request]

... reads the shocking headline in the New York Times this week. Channel 7 also had a piece on the nightly news about it. Could it be true? Can you really get high off cough syrup?

People often ask me why I'm so wise to the world of over-the-counter DXM highs. Truth is, I never really had a choice or a chance.There are three clear and definitive indicators for high risk of cough medicine abuse:

1) the subject is a white male, age 15-35, and lives on Long Island.
2) the subject is in the <$15,000 annual income bracket. 3) the subject owns at least 75% of the E'G Records catalog. Why are people doing it? Well, there's something kinda nice about strolling into a CVS, Rite-Aid, etc. and doing a little shopping. Sorta like walking around a liquor store, but at about a sixth of the price. It's a classic suburban scene-- aisle after aisle looks the same, red carpeting, really bright lights, guys walking around in blue aprons with vacuum cleaners, Pringles potato chips, Fruit Stripe gum, a 79-cent Sprite, and a receipt. There's no worry about getting shit that doesn't work, arrested, beat up, none of that. Every bottle of cough syrup is exactly the same. If you're curious, Delsym ("agent orange") is totally the way to go. I innocently drank what seemed like 2 or 3 ounces when I was sick about two years ago (I'm NEVER sick), and got completely looped for at least two hours. No shit.

Finger Lakes

Had an amazing vacation this past weekend in beautiful Geneva, NY. The self-proclaimed "Gem of the Finger Lakes" doesn't have a whole lot of competition up there, but so what...

First let me say that traffic was unbelievably light for Thanksgiving weekend. I drove from Long Island to Geneva by way of Manhattan (had to pick up my date)-- BOTH WAYS-- and hardly had to slow down. The only congestion was (as always) at the Delaware Water Gap on Rte.80. Probably people trying to figure out why they call it a "water gap" and not just a valley or bridge or something like that.

We stayed in a huge mansion from the early 1900's. We were in the "Dining Room" technically, but you wouldn't know it from the strict diet of chips, pretzels and wine we were on. Fireplace, jacuzzi, free toothbrushes-- we had it all. Not to mention a DVD player, which we kept running with about 15 hours worth of "The World at War" and season one of "The Wire" episodes. Things blended together a bit-- at one point I wondered aloud why Stringer Bell didn't just pop a cap in Himmler's ass after he intercepted the re-up.

Only one scary moment (aside from my spending Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother's assisted-living facility with two stuck-together contact lenses in my left eye, making my eye look and feel like a microwaved onion) for the whole weekend: a more-or-less blacked out late night trip to the local supermarket (Wegman's) in our Chevy Cobalt. Inspection of our receipt the next morning confirmed our strange purchases: two packages of ball point pens, a pint of "Chubby Hubby" ice cream, 4 wine coolers and a cat toy. Don't ask.

AMERICA'S DRUNKEST CITIES

[from Forbes.com]

1. Milwaukee
2. Minneapolis-St.Paul
3. Columbus
4. Boston
5. Austin
6. Chicago
7. Cleveland
8. Pittsburgh
9. Philadelphia(tie) Providence

My personal performances in these cities:

1. Providence
2. Austin
3. Chicago
4. Philadelphia
5. Boston
6. Cleveland
7. Pittsburgh
8. Minneapolis
9. Columbus
10. Milwaukee