Last posting and new blog announcement

This blog has been empty the past few months as I've shifted my lax efforts over to popcorntrickery.com. Thanks for reading, and as Winnie Cooper wrote in Kevin Arnold's yearbook, "Have a neat summer."

Here's a sample of the crap living over there at popcorntrickery.com:

"...while updating my MySpace profile the other day and “tweaking” my date of birth so I wouldn’t freak out any of the 14-year-old girls I was chatting with (That’s a direct challenge, Chris Hanson), I stumbled upon a funny Match.com streaming video banner ad.

The ad encourages you to find someone who makes bedtime fun! Apparently this is done by sharing toothpaste and flirting in front of the medicine cabinet. Why can’t we get an honest ad?

Maybe have the chick dress up as the captain from “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and the dude dress up as Wes Snipes from “Too Wong Foo?” Maybe have inanimate object role playing where one person is an ashtray and the other is a toilet? Or why not just cast a one-person snuff film right there in the bathroom.

Yes, 'bedtime' can be fun. But dental hygiene sucks."

See more at popcorntrickery.com

R.I.P.: Hooterz Lite

I remember a few years back when I first stepped into the West End Bailey’s, a sports bar chain that was the product of urban sprawl and the Hooters down the road only having so many server positions.

The wings were over-priced, the mid-rifts were bare and the beer was cold.

It was always packed back then. All the guys looked like Kia dealership salesmen and all the girls looked like they needed someone to help them pay their rent. It was perfect. And I think it lasted like this for a while.

Last night I returned to Bailey’s for the first time in years. It was Thursday during happy hour and there was nary a patron besides my friends and I, who only stopped there because it was conveniently located between our places of work. And it was sad– without even the crack of a pool cue to break the silence. (I say silent, but Baileys does blast really bad castaway music videos from super groups like the “A-teens.”) It was kind of like seeing that old high school flame that you still had fleeting, drunken’ moments of ribald lust for, only she was working at a car wash and living right above the car wash.

Rest in peace, Baileys. I no doubt you’ll close soon, only to be replaced by a Christian Science Reading Room or battery store. And I hope your lovely ladies find their way down to BW3 or the new and improved Richard’s Restaurant and Gentleman’s Club.

I am Legend: Driving thru NYC on Xmas

I want to throw a shout out to baby Jesus for creating a holiday in which there’s less traffic than downtown Provo on Fat Tuesday. On Christmas Day, my GF, mutt and I managed to travel from Boston to Richmond in less than 10 hours, including lots of potty stops and snack runs. While driving across the GW bridge from the Bronx in no traffic – and the Big Apple looming in the background - I felt like Will Smith in “I Am Legend” driving on the big screen sans humanity. I even had the dog. If I had a time machine and could to it again, I would have blasted “Gettin' Jiggy with it” to complete the experience.

I’m getting to the point… Upon arriving back in the Fan, we were greeted by street cleaning parking prohibitions for Thursday and Friday….DURING THE BIGGEST TRAVEL WEEK OF THE YEAR. These hadn’t been posted when we left the previous Friday. Congrats to the City of Richmond for taking advantage of VCU students and young professionals who left their car curbside in Richmond while they celebrated the holidays hundreds of miles away, only to come back to no car and a steep towing recovery fine. If Will Smith was mayor, this wouldn’t stand.

“Alex, I’ll take Potpourri for $100.”

When you don’t update your blog for a month, you're lazy. You’re also bound to create a mish mash of scrambled observations and takes so random that reading it’s akin to watching a “Family Guy” montage with a hangover. Here we go...

• Thank god for Harry Hagar…..Richmond hasn’t been in “US Weekly” since someone stole Cher’s wig from backstage at the Landmark Theater back in 2003.
  
• The best thing about the writers’ strike? Jay Leno’s lawn finally gets the attention it deserves. The worst thing? Billy Bush is the freshest thing out there…it’s like only being able to choose a mate from the cast of “Golden Girls.”
  
• Most likely place in the River City to inhale asbestos while watching “Fred Claus?” The West Tower movie theater on West Broad Street, of course!
  
• Best place in Richmond to feel like you’re not in Richmond? The new tapas bar Si in the Fan. It makes Europa look and taste like a South Side Applebee’s.

What about Kucinich?

As faux conservative late show host Stephen Colbert starts to attract some ridiculous poll numbers – I’m not saying this is a bad thing – Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich is again hanging out at the back of the pack with a measly 1 percent.

Kucinich admits to having seen a UFO. His wife is a F.L.I.L.F. (coined by the “Daily Show”). And when Kucinich was the mayor of Cleveland back in the ‘70s, the local mob put a hit on him. In other words, the guy is F---ING CRAZY.

It seems we had an Electoral College jester in Kucinich before Colbert came around, and one with some political moxy to boot. But straight-shooting, crazy uncle candidates like Kucinich and Mike Gravel somehow can’t lasso the counter culture momentum despite their viral YouTube viral campaign videos and addictive idiosyncrasies a plenty.

The moral? I dunno. If you’re not gonna vote, you might as well vote for one of these daffy bastards. At least they’re fun to watch.

‘Desperate’ Newsmen

Why was this column written in the Richmond Times-Dispatch? Seriously. Why draw attention to this ridiculous situation… (Damn, that’s what I’m doing right now.)

Didn’t the whole Imus affair teach us that no apology is better than a gutless, insincere one. Actually, the radio jock’s nappy-headed rant and this recent, benign poke at Philippine medical schools shouldn’t even be included in the same lame, poorly read blog entry. (Yes, I’m referring to mine.) One line was uttered by a media savvy professional…the other was uttered by the woman who helped 13-year-old boys get through puberty in “The Cool Surface” – Teri Hatcher. (I won’t even mention “The Adventures of Lois and Clark” – damn it, too late.)

Doesn’t Michael Paul Williams have anything else to write about? What about an essay on the recent rash of violence aimed at the River City’s ice cream servers – is there a vanilla connection? Something slamming hockey as racist? Maybe he should be at the Folk Festival counting how many white dudes are dressed up like John Popper from Blues Traveler.

In the meantime, tune in to “Desperate Housewives” next week, when Eva Longoria disparages drag queen brunches by ordering sausage patties, and not links.

That MySpace hooker has her own show?

You know it’s bad when the most accurate description of someone is a “poor woman’s Cindy Margolis.”

But that’s just exactly who MySpace super-skank Tia Tequila is. Actually, the Web 2.0 diva is much less.

Filthy belly button ring? Check. Ambiguous possibly Asian, possibly South American ethnicity? Check. (She’s from Vietnam.) And oh yeah, bad tattoos? You bet.

And she has a dirty little secret for you and her parents….she’s bi-sexual. Oh snap! With men and women vying for her overflowing flirtations and a chance of a possible mention on “Access Hollywood,” anything can happen….anything that involves a third grade vocabulary and whipped cream. Even Brett Michaels is blushing.

There’s nothing better than scripted reality TV starring social networking whores. Who am I kidding? We’ll all watch it on MTV.