Weekly Joys

1. Did Tom Danehy run into the room, dribbling a ball, and shout “Stop the full-court presses!”?

2. Sin Twister… hurry…. must save us with your sage words of criticism and your… hurry…

3. Hey Mari! Would you settle for more lame puns?

   At least Danehy didn’t refer to the 73-year-old Lute Olsen’s mouth as “dribbling.” I don’t know what to make of Tom Danehy’s cover story. I will say one thing, though — Tom Danehy can write. I mean, normally when reading any story related to sports, within two paragraphs my eyelids get as heavy as a sack of rice, and moisture coalesces over my irises like a jello shot until finally I have to slap myself and shake my head violently until my lips flop back and forth making a “wubbie” sound.

   But with Tom’s cover story, it took a good solid nine paragraphs before I achieved that state of comic catatonia. Admittedly the periodic references to Mel Brooks quotes helped keep my attention span puttering along. I thought to myself, “Will Tom Danehy drop a reference to my favorite Mel Brooks movie, ‘High Anxiety’?” And I’ll be damned if about 2/3 of the way down, he did! Danehy totally came through, and in the process he reignited my childhood lust for Madeline Kahn! Oh man, if ever a woman were made all the hotter for her wit, it was with Madeline Kahn.

   I am still not sure what Danehy’s cover story was about. I think it might have had something to do with Lute Olsen and some sort of sporting event involving tall guys and squeaking shoe sounds. If there is some connection to Mel Brooks or Freidrich Nietzsche, I didn’t quite pick it up. But that’s okay…..because Tom referenced ‘High Anxiety’!

   Did I mention that I am enamoured of Madeline Kahn? Yes? Okay then.

4. Whoops…. I forgot to close the anchor tag. The whole dang blog post above is a link. Wow. It sure looks….emphasized. (Please fix.)

   So, it would seem Tom Danehy has been busy lately! He wrote the cover story AND his usual column. It’s the “all Danehy, all the time” issue! That would be a good idea, in fact. How about an issue of the Tucson Weekly that is all completely written by Danehy? Book review — Danehy. Arts review — Danehy. Theatre? The D-man. Film review? “Two thumbs up….WAY up….for ‘Beowulf’ in 3-D….from Danehy!”

   Send Margaret Regan on vacation to Vegas or something. And I am talking the WHOLE issue of the Tucson Weekly. That means Tom Danehy writes the sex classified. Tom Danehy pretends to be a Mexican for “Ask a Mexican.” Tom Danehy writes Red Meat and has Milkman Dan quote “Blazing Saddles.” Danehy writes the Editor’s Note, Danehy writes a long Skinny comparing John Kromko to his psychotic ex-girlfriend, Danehy writes all the letters about how nobody in the bike article is wearing their helmets and that’s despicable, Danehy runs for president and Danehy reviews a big pile of Bob Grimm’s giant collection of free swag DVD stuff and expands on Grimm’s use of the “shooting gutter balls” metaphor for any filmmaker who has a string of failures. Hell, Danehy can even doodle Sergio Aragones-style cartoons in the Weekly margins.

   It will be like Rich Little doing an impression of every character in “Ben Hur.” It will be like a one-man band with a guy who has little cymbals attached to the inside of his knees. It will all be completely Danehy!

   This is all by way of saying that I think Danehy is back in his element and doing some good work. Now, that doesn’t mean I think he’s reinventing the column or making Garrison Keillor jealous. Just that Danehy’s smelling the coffee, with the program, stepping up to the plate, and the knives in his drawer, while not the sharpest, still cut cheese very well.

   Danehy’s column this week is about illegal immigration, and you can tell Tom has his gloves laced up tight because he starts off ready to SPAR bigtime with editorialist mastermind E.J. Montini! It’s like Hulk Hogan versus Rocky Balboa, let the underdog smackdown begin!

   Danehy sticks to a general point about how the word “illegal” implies “criminal” and I impressed because, I am pretty sure Tom opened a book. It was Roget’s Thesaurus, but that’s a book, and Tom opened it, and when he looked up the word “illegal” one of the synonyms was … wait for it … “criminal”!

   WHAM! Score a 3-point swoosh, Danehy! E.J. Montini, zero!

   Danehy also informs us that he would “personally love to wear shiny polyester,” and something about shooting his “phaser,” and then something else about not wanting to leave his “back door unlocked.” While some might chalk this up to a Star Trek reference and a metaphor pertaining to national security, part of me is wondering if his next column might be about the fabulousness of the latest season of “Project Runway.”

   Nonetheless it’s a good column, very clearly summing up a liberal perspective on illegal immigration that is worth communicating. I have to agree — there really is too much liberal waffling on the illegal-immigration issue, and that weakness does stand to become a problem if Clinton or Obama or, uh, Biden don’t make a firm stand. (As we’ve seen with Hillary’s driver’s-licenses-for-illegal-immigrants confusion).

   So good job, Danehy. Don’t think you’re off the hook, though, because you’re only as good as your most recent column, and next week your readers will be all, like, “What have you done for us lately?”

5. This week Catherine O’Sullivan (why can’t I type that name without imagining it being said by a Lucky Charms leprechaun?) writes a column about Mitt Romney and how sexy she thinks he is. But man, it takes a long time for her to get to the point. In fact, in a column containing roughly 12 paragraphs, O’Sullivan doesn’t even utter the name of Romney until about paragraph 8! That’s pretty good restraint considering the down-low of her piece is a confession that she’d like to do the hokey pokey with him. And that she’s worried his sex appeal will lead to him becoming president.

   I guess she has a point. I mean, what woman didn’t want to get it on with the first black president, Bill Clinton? And remember when George W. Bush first ran, everybody was talking about his “swagger,” and how they’d rather “have a beer” with him than Al Gore (wink wink, you know what happens after too much beer). Then there’s FDR, who got so much pussy he ended up in a wheelchair.

   So that’s cool, Catherine O’Sullivan. You’re obviously Irish, and therefore probably Catholic, so I get your need to confess. You fantasize about Mitt Romney. We all have our weaknesses. I used to watch Elvira waiting for her breasts to come unglued. It never happened, but that didn’t keep me from waiting like a dog poised attentively under the dinner table. You, you like Mormon guys with dye jobs. We all have our turn-ons.

   I watched the GOP debates tonight and Romney was “on” in the way that the star performer of a college debate team is “on.” He might not have what it takes to be president, but the guy is slick! If there is an office of “executive salesman,” I vote Romney! (I also vote Fred Thompson for “America’s uncle.”)

   But man, O’Sullivan, you sure took a long time confessing! I mean, your entire confession was by way of a discussion of classic horror films, starting off with “Frankenstein.” Do you and Danehy discuss your columns in advance the way that teenage girls coordinate their prom dresses? Because one minute Danehy’s quoting Mel Brooks movies (of which one is “Young Frankenstein”), and the next minute you’re talking about Frankenstein’s monster. It’s madness…..MADNESS!

   But I do love the old-skool horror flicks, so I’m glad O’Sullivan brought them up. She mentions that she recalls a “mad scientist whose girlfriend’s head comes off, but she doesn’t die. He keeps it in a pan with a load of wires and tubes attached to it, and resolves to find her another body. He brings home plenty of bodies, but I don’t think any of them ever fit.”

   Hey O’Sullivan, let me help you out! The movie you’re thinking of is called “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die.” It’s from 1962 and is the father of all decapitation movies. It’s referenced by “Frankenhooker” which involves a similar scenario.

   Another good head-that’s-alive movie is “Reanimator,” which contains cinema’s first and only disembodied head/cunnilingus scene. That’s well worth the price of admission! There’s also “Mars Attacks” with the head/body switcheroo between Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker and a chihuahua….and the poignant romance that develops between them before they are blown up by aliens that say, “ack! ack ack!”

   Anyway, did you notice that Mitt Romney’s dye job, which leaves grey on the sides, makes him look like the Bride of Frankenstein? Was that the subconscious root of the connection you were making?

   I’m all for having a Mormon president if it means we have 5 or 6 First Ladies. Think of all the cookies they’ll bake. That’s good voter value if you ask me.

6. I am intrigued by the guest columnist, Gretchen Nielsen. Intrigued because there’s just something about women named Gretchen. It’s so….suspendersy. I’ll bet she wears suspenders and has pigtails and skips around saying “Achtung” seductively. Oh, Gretchen.

   So I clicked on the Gretchen Nielsen link and she’s written for the Tucson Weekly a few times before. Two of her column descriptions had the phrase “save the world” in them. Seriously, click on her name. Gretchen is all about saving the world! Oh, Gretchen! She also writes about war, and war protesters, and war protesters saving the world from war.

   But this time she writes about Santa Claus.

   Gretchen feels that we should not lie to our children about Santa. That is her special message for us. Lying to kids about pretend-stuff will make them feel betrayed and stuff.

   Gretchen sez: “The feeling that somebody I loved, the Easter Bunny, was dying began to crawl around in my chest.”

   Hmmm… I just had an image of a sickly bunny crawling upon Gretchen’s stout Germanic bosom. I’ll drink lager to that!

   But Gretchen’s column is weird. I mean, there’s gotta be more to it than “lying to kids about Santa is bad,” right?

   I am thinking that Gretchen’s column is secretly intended to be a metaphor for indoctrinating children with religion. When Gretchen says “Santa,” what she really means is “Jesus.”

   Either that or Gretchen really is sweetly naive enough not to realize that the controversy over lying to kids about Santa is a subject best relegated to a Bil Keane cartoon, or possibly KPHO TV-5’s “Nichol’s Worth of News.” (Did you watch that in 1970’s Yuma too, James Reel?)

   If anything, lying to kids about Santa is good for them, because it teaches them that even their parents can be big fat liars. That’s a lesson every kid should learn and the sooner, the better. Then when the kids grow up, they too can lie, which is a great way to get loads of free stuff from your insurance provider. (Everybody does it.)

   I was quite the little Sherlock Holmes when I sniffed around the back of my parents’ closet to discover the same wrapping paper that Santa had used! Then I threw a tantrum in which I repeatedly threw my sister’s chalk-board erasers against the wall, leaving rectangular chalk marks all over the wallpaper patterns.

   I can still smell the stale scent of chalk powder in the air.

7. I tried to read this week’s “Ask a Mexican,” but almost the entire column is in italics. Are italics Mexican? Los italicos?

   You’d think italics would be Italian.

   Anyway, the Ask-a-Mexican guy sure loves to talk about Carlos Mencia. That got me to thinking, is Carlos Mencia’s show in any way affected by the writer’s strike? I mean, does it really take writers to come up with a comedy sketch about a guy in an operating room table with an animal up his butt?

   I like the Onion’s “ask a ____” columns, where people ask questions addressed to very specific people, and the response completely ignores the question, instead ranting about whatever that specific person/thing might ramble about.

   Like “Ask a bee,” where the person asks about her husband having an affair, and the bee responds with complicated numerical directions to the hive.

   That might as well be what the “Ask a Mexican” column consists of, if the whole damn thing’s going to be in italics.

8. Tim Vanderpool’s article about abuse of Border Patrol detainees is sort of nebulous and, sorry to say, failed to raise my hackles. (I have heavy hackles.)

   Not that it isn’t a serious matter. Apparently there are so many reports of abuse that the government can’t keep up with them all, let alone investigate them. It sounds like a clusterfark of frustration, incompetence, resentment, bad training and underfunding. Vanderpool doesn’t really turn it into a compelling story, but he might have been burdened by needing to play fair in a set of scenarios with many conflicting accounts and denials. Also, most of the incidents he discusses date back to 2003 or 2004.

   If there really is abuse, nobody is being held accountable, and detained border-crossers aren’t likely to be considered credible witnesses in court proceedings.

   Vanderpool writes, “Cruz claimed that immigrants–including pregnant women, children and the elderly–sometimes weren’t fed for up to 20 hours.”

   This immediately made me think of the film “Salt of the Earth,” in which a group of imprisoned Mexican mothers join together in protest by chanting, “WE WANT THE FORMULA!” repeatedly.

   Vanderpool continues, “…there was direct physical abuse of detainees, including use of the notorious and painful ‘chair,’ in which people are forced into a chair-like position with their backs pressed against the wall for long periods of time.”

   Ooh, the dreaded “chair”! Call me callous, but it’s hard to get too worked up about people forced to sit in a chair-like position after the past three years of reading about Iraqis and Guantanamo Bay detainees being waterboarded, attacked by dogs and having electrical wires attached to their hands while they’re forced into a “stress position” standing hooded on top of a cinder block. Etc.

   I’m sure it sucks nonetheless. It’s just a smaller scale of suck.

9. There are two stories by Dave Devine and Mari Herreras that I would classify as “boring but important.”

   Basically, the Pima County voting procedures are so Mickey Mouse, they’re Goofy.

   Dave Devine’s piece mentions that a voting official was taking backup tapes home with him for “security reasons.” Like, in case the government building burned to the ground, or something. That created worries that he might tamper with the votes. But then somebody else said that he’s trustworthy so it’s OK.

   It’s sort of like that one episode of “Andy Griffith” where Barney Fife took the wooden box of votes home and Aunt Bea spilled lemonade in the slot and all the votes were smeared, but then Opie used forensics to discern the votes with the help of hair clippings supplied by Floyd the Barber. I love that episode, especially the part at the end where Gomer Pyle sang real low even though he talks real high.

   Anyway, everybody should read the above articles, though they are pretty dry so you might want to get out your pink or yellow highliter pen to go over the most important facts.

   There will be a test later.

10. Jim Nintzel’s “Skinny” is totally phat.

    (1) He talks about new city council members. Nintzel also talks about departing city council members. He calls one of them a “wunderkind,” but that wunderkind had a bad temper. The foot he used to have in the door ended up in his mouth, and he looked legislative gift horses in the mouth, often putting the cart before those horses, turning over the apple cart, and discovering that he didn’t like them apples, which failed to keep doctors away, and not only had worms, but sometimes, half a worm. Which the early bird got.

    (2) Nintzel talks about border patrol stuff, like the fact that they can’t keep up with all the detainees caught as they all rush into the United States in hopes of earning enough money to buy big TVs on which to watch Lou Dobbs. It’s sort of a tie-in with the Tim Vanderpool article.

    (3) Nintzel tries to get people to participate in the Run for President thing, which should be fun and get a lot of participants. But so far only one guy, a comedian named Robert Mac, has submitted anything worthy of mention. I like Mac’s “Vote for me: I kill birds!” slogan. He seems funny enough. I just hope other people will contribute so it doesn’t turn into the Robert Mac Show. Come on, people…..run for president, already! I mean, look at some of the losers who are really running for president. For that matter, look at who got elected president: A guy who met his wife after stumbling into a library carrying a paper sack with whiskey in it. “Y’all wanna go to the tailgate party with me?” She was a librarian who had killed her high-school boyfriend at age 16 while drunkenly running a stop sign in a small East Texas town. They were made for each other.

    Then there’s Barack “I smoked pot, and I inhaled, deeply and frequently” Obama. Or as I call him, Barack O-BONG-a.

    If they can do it, you can do it.

11. John Schuster’s “Media Watch” column wins this week’s “WTF?” award.

    Schuster tells us the hard-hitting story of how newscaster Jenny Rose was barred from doing any more Pet of the Week segments.

    We don’t know why she was barred. There is no speculation. There are no quotes from Rose. There is no information from the station. There is no…..anything.

    Schuster just gives us the facts: Jenny Rose will NOT be hawking kittens no more.

    It is a sad day for puppy slingers and parakeet peddlers.

    But seriously…..WTF is up with this article?

12. Just a couple of quick comments about the Q&A piece by Karyn Zoldan:

    Please inform Zoldan that “amok,” as in “run amok,” is spelled A-M-O-K, not “amuck.” I’m glad that Hooked on Phonics worked for you, Zoldan, but not all words are spelled how they sound.

    What’s with the woman’s T-shirt? It looks like it was designed on a TRS-80! It also looks like the big dog is about to annihilate the little dog.

    The woman being volunteered really cares about dog-park etiquette! She says, “People should pay attention and not go into a huddle or talk on their cell phones. If dogs start humping or tormenting other dogs, people need to stop those negative behaviors.” … Go into a huddle? I have this hilarious image of a bunch of people in a football-style huddle, talking on cell phones, while their dogs are humping and “tormenting” (flicking each other’s ears?) each other. It’s the dog park from hell! Awesome.

13. As usual, Anna Mirocha’s “Police Dispatch” is, for sheer entertainment value, far and away the best article in the paper!

    I mean, you really can’t get a better sentence than the following:

    “As this co-worker was telling a joke involving a scrotum sack, he allegedly proceeded to show them his own scrotum–not by removing his pants or even unzipping them, but simply by pulling his testicles out of the top of his jeans.”

    But Mirocha is such a great reporter, she gets both sides of the story: “In a discussion of the situation, the suspect denied exposing his scrotum sack.”

    Mirocha can be forgiven for not being an expert on scrotums, but isn’t “scrotum sack” redundant? A scrotum IS a sack. Check Webster’s Dictionary of Genitalia, Third Edition, if you don’t believe me.

    The 2nd story sounds like some sort of Olde English parable: “Photographs of the chicken pot pie were not taken due to the fact that the evidence had been cleaned up by the dogs.”

    Also: “Due to the fact that no physical violence had occurred, police decided it would be best for everyone to go to bed so that emotions could be calmed.”

    Did the police give them a warm glass of milk?

14. In 2 articles about “a lawsuit regarding election procedures”, we are never informed what the basis of the lawsuit is. Is it a trial over a public records request (my guess), a lawsuit asking for damages due to the county doing something wrong to a Democratic candidate, one asking that the results of a specific election be overturned, or something else? The “What” part of the 5 W’s is missing big time in not one, but 2 articles covering the same topic.

15. Retrorv: I encourage you to go back and read paragraph two of Devine’s piece, where it clearly states: “Risner … hopes to secure outside oversight of vote-counting procedures, and is asking Judge Michael Miller to order the county to provide copies of its election databases to all major political parties.”

16. I just wanted to say:

    Whoa, color! On the forums!

    Wait, wait, wait, I’m all excited about this.

    Do we also have blue?: Blue should appear here, afterward delete this inane post

17. No, I guess not. Now I understand — Sin Twister’s comments on Zoldan’s T Q & A uses some trick that creates the color red when there is a mouseover action.

    Nevermind, delete this and the above post. Sorry about that.

18. Re: John Schuster’s Media Watch this week — I just assumed KGUN9 did not want former reporter Jenny Rose on so soon after she left under the interest of not confusing the readers. Pure speculation, this, but I figured as such.

    I only halfway understood O’Sullivan’s semi-rambling column. But then, I think that’s a week-to-week thing.

    Highlights this week for me: Police Dispatch, Devine’s article on voting machines, the legacy look taken by The Skinny. Also, thumbs up to Jessica Wofford’s reporting on Living with HIV”, the Pick of the Week.

    I also liked reading about CEDO, because I had classmates who went there yearly. Ah the stories from those trips.

    And lastly… I missed Iron & Wine when they came to town?? Damn it!! Next time, Mr. Beam, next time.

19. Gotta agree, Jessica Wofford’s piece about the guy with AIDS was good. Imagine taking 33 pills a day. (Maybe it’s not so bad if you take 3 pills once for 11 hours.)

    Anyway, you should read the latest Bob Grimm DVD wrapup. I don’t know whether to feel jealous of Bob as he sits merrily atop his mountain of swag, or feel sorry for him, since he actually has to watch some of this stuff to justify receiving it.

    That includes the DVD for “Caligula,” which Grimm gives the following grade: “F, F, F, F, F!!!”

    It would seem that at least one of those F’s is short for “fisting.”

    Here are some of my favorite sentences from Grimm’s review:

    • “Oh, lord God, am I sorry I watched this.”

    • “The movie contains necrophilia, fisting, rape, dogs eating dicks and, yes, hard-core pornography.”

    • “…the uncensored cut … showcas[es] intercourse, blowjobs, wanking into pans, and beautiful women urinating on corpses.”

    • “Don’t show this one at your big year-end toga party, unless you want someone to punch you in the face.”

    Ha ha. The thought of poor Grimm sitting down with his tub of popcorn, then having to sit through the above with his mouth agape, and probably a single piece of popcorn left poised motionless on his bottom lip, is hilarious.

20. Hey check it out, our own Jimmy Boegle has reviewed a BBQ joint, BrushFire BBQ. The review is titled “Masters of Meat.” That is way too easy to make fun of, so I’ll decline.

    Jimmy describes the painstaking process by which the meat is masterfully made. He also describes the decor (lots of flames painted on the walls), and he describes the staff as “super-friendly,” which must mean that people come across like characters in the cartoon Super Friends.

    I like BBQ and I’m sure it’s a good place to eat. But I won’t be eating BBQ for a long time thanks to recently attending a Hindu funeral. (Hint: The ceremony ends with a cremation.)

21. Masters of Meat? I don’t get the joke unless you’re talking about pee pee parts. Which, incidentally if we’re going this route… http://tucson.craigslist.org/rnr/493552521.html

22. There is nothing funny about “masters of meat.” Mistress of Moist, however, has a whimsical ring to it.

23. Jimmy-I understand that Risner is asking for certain kinds of relief, but based on what? What is the basis for his suit? What law is he saying the county violated? If Risner “hopes to secure outside oversight of vote-counting procedures”, from what law violation does this remedy address? And since he “is asking Judge Michael Miller to order the county to provide copies of its election databases to all major political parties.”, is this a public records request that the county denied? Telling us what remedy Risner is asking for does not tell us the legal basis or theory of the suit. But thanks, as always, for the response.

24. Anyway, did you notice that Mitt Romney’s dye job, which leaves grey on the sides, makes him look like the Bride of Frankenstein? Was that the subconscious root of the connection you were making?

    I think they’re going for a Reed Richards look.

    While some might chalk this up to a Star Trek reference and a metaphor pertaining to national security, part of me is wondering if his next column might be about the fabulousness of the latest season of “Project Runway.”

    Speaking of which, isn’t this the most fabulous season of PR yet?

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