This blog suddenly has 200 viewers from France. Can someone email me and tell me why?

alex.kaseberg@gmail.com 

You best start pooping me Tiffany cufflinks or I will have you standing tall before the man. Do you read me? Outstanding, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

A study claims dolphins are far closer to humans in intelligence than previously thought. They cited the fact that not one dolphin has ever been reported watching one episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."




Tampa Bay's Jameis Winston has been suspended for three games for grabbing an Uber driver's vagina. "So much for what Trump says we stars can do," said Winston.





Kim Jong Un had an army officer shot after he ordered extra food for his men. "Oh, man, how come he gets to do all the cool stuff?"Asked Donald Trump.







Oregon State beat Arkansas to win the College World Series. Donald Trump is proud of how the Beavers grabbed the win.






In a speech mocking Mark Sanford, Donald Trump referred to the Appalachian Trail as the Tallahassee Trail. When told Trump said, 

"12 to one six dozen to another."









Tampa Bay QB, Jameis Winston, has been suspended three games for sexual assault. And if history shows us anything it is that giving a 24-year-old millionaire three weeks paid vacation corrects poor behavior.






Donald Trump declined to comment to reporters on the shot reporters. They did not use the magic words to get Trump to respond: Jimmy Fallon.







Oregon State beat Arkansas to win the College World Series.  Have not seen this many  happy Beavers since the Kardashians held their family reunion at a Viagra factory.







Since you asked:

Russia Hates The United States

Like I suspect many Americans are, I am fascinated by Russians. 

When I was young, I loved the movie “The Russians Are Coming.” It was a hilarious take on the cold war set in a quaint New England town in 1965. A Russian submarine captain, eager for a glimpse of America, grounds his sub on a sandbar. It starred Alan Arkin and Rob Reiner and was sweet and delivered a great message for peace without being heavy-handed. 

Arkin, as the Russian second-in-command, says to Reiner, after nearly dying in a car crash after Reiner shoots at him with a machine gun,

“Always I am saying goodbye to you and always I am seeing you again.” 

At the same time, my love for the Decathlon was endless. I read about the story of Rafer Johnson battling then-world-record holder Vasili Kuznetsov of the Soviet Union in a US-USSR dual Decathlon meet. Rafer won and set the world record, but the Russian Kuznetsov admired Johnson to no end. The picture of Kuznetsov giving Johnson a kiss on Rafer’s handsome, chiseled cheek made “Time” magazine and helped cause a break in the ice of the cold war. As well as race relations. 

My grandmother went to Russia with my cousin Billy in 1968 and they loved it. Nobody went to Russia in 1968. The Russians assumed they were spies and followed them everywhere. But they were wonderful hosts to them. My grandmother talked about how wonderful the Russian people were until she passed.

Russians seemed so eerily similar to us. Asia and Africa are so wonderfully exotic and contrasting. But Russia looked like it could have been the US if history unfolded differently.

There are two reasons, in my (cough) expert military opinion, that Hitler lost the war. One, he underestimated Russia due to his racism, and two, he underestimated the US because of his racism. (How great is it that the cause of Hitler’s defeat was due to his racism?) 

Here is an amazing statistic: 80% of Russian males born in 1923 died in World War II. 

That should give you a glimpse of the difference between the cost of Hitler to the Russians versus the US. Russia will never forgive the US for entering the war, in their view, and in many Britain’s view, so late. 

The hatred between the US troops and Russian troops in WWII was captured in the movie “Patton.” When the war was just over, Patton pleaded to an aid to Eisenhower to let him attack the Russians while he had the troops to do it.   

The rumors of Russian rapes and other atrocities on their march to Berlin turned out to be true. The crude nickname “Russian Mother-humpers” was born.

Russia was communist. The USA  was the poster child of why communism sucked. The top politicians of communism were rich from ripping off the poor, so they hated Americans for challenging the foundation of their livelihood. They knew their system and their way of life was doomed. 

The Russian communist leaders were just like the Czar and the Russian elite, except they were far more clever in hiding how they were screwing the poor.

So when the inevitable happened and the Iron Curtain crumbled and communism fell in Russia, we in the US thought all was forgiven.

The US hated communism. Once communism fell, we had no hatred for Russians. What we did not understand is Russia’s hatred of the US extended far beyond communism. 

Nothing was forgiven in Russia. 

Russia hates the United States. Russia knows we backed Afghanistan when they invaded like we know they backed the North Vietnamese when we supported the South Vietnamese. (Russia would say we invaded) 

Vladimir Putin was the head of the Russian version of the CIA, the KGB. To say the KGB is like the CIA is to say Turkish prison rapes are like a prom date. 

Putin, when the head of the KGB, is credited for ending terrorist attacks in Russia. How? Once he captured the culprit in a terrorist attack, he would deliver the body to the sleeper-cell headquarters with his testicles sewn in his mouth. 

Everyone who is alive in Russia over the age of 40 was hammered with the propaganda that the US was the epitome of evil. While we thought all sins between the US and communism fell down with that ugly wall, nothing changed for East Germans and Russians.  

We were and still are Russia's enemy.



Let Them Eat the Darkest Chocolate Cake You've Ever Seen. 


Something in my gut tells me that Donald Trump's impressive Mr. Magoo act of blindly avoiding catastrophe is about to run out. 

And it will come in the form of a Billy Bush-like bus video. 

Whether a covert video by a staffer on an iPhone or an outtake on "The Apprentice," there is something out there that will show, once and for all, how much Donald Trump holds everyone else besides himself in complete and utter contempt.

Is Trump a racist? Sure, but he hates poor white people almost just as much as minorities. Is Trump a sexist? No doubt. But he also sees anyone with a penis as his sworn enemy. 

Trump can barely pretend to be nice to his wife, Melania, his son, Eric or his daughter Tiffany. Trump hates everyone, but he particularly does not like the great unwashed, which, in his mind, is anyone who is not rich. 

And when Trump's die-hard, blue-collar supporters find out just how much Trump despises them, they will turn on him in such a manner that will make Mussolini hanging from a meat hook look like a celebrity roast on "Comedy Central."  

Hell hath no fury like the gloriously unpretentious, hard-working and down-to-earth folks discovering a lazy, fat, effete, gold-toilet snob looks down on them.

History has shown us that in two words: Marie Antoinette. 




Ten Reasons why American sports fans will never fully become soccer fans.


1-5 Flopping. Jack Youngblood once played through the entire playoffs and a Super Bowl with a broken leg. How these clowns have to be put on a stretcher and then sprint back on the field is nothing less than embarrassing as a man.


6. The name. We cannot agree on what the sport is called. That is a fundamental problem. It will never be football in the US and it will never be soccer anywhere else.


7. While the World Cup is pretty straightforward, the rest of soccer is utterly confusing to Americans. England alone has three championships. Teams are demoted and other teams come up. Some teams are named for clubs, others for cities. All of the teams have sponsors on the front of their jerseys, not their name. Players are borrowed. They have “Friendlies.”  

8. Offsides. This is a rule that is not possible to comprehend, unfortunately, that includes the refs. All refs have their own version of offsides and a handball. We get you don’t want players hanging out in front of the net, but why penalize a player for out-running the defense?

9. The refs. The refs truly suck. And they are control freak egomaniacs who all interpret the rules independently. What one considers a handball another considers an accident. 



10. Soccer is just too Europeanie. Which rhymes with weenie. Too many ques instead of lines. Funky outlets. Kissing on the cheek. Using U in color. Keeping the fork in the left hand. Wine at each meal. (OK, that part is fine) Red slashes for stop signs. Ambulances that make that two-note horn-honking noise. You got the idea.

12 Signs Being Ladylike Is Not Your Forte

  

For some reason, I am fascinated by “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.” A 2016 remake of a ‘70’s TV children science fiction show. It stars YouTube stars, Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart. 

Because of a hilarious “BuzzFeed” video of Grace Helbig “12 Signs Being Ladylike Is Not Your Forte” I became a fan of the Grace Helbig. 

She had a show filmed from her home on “E” for a season. And I became a fan of the Hannah Hart who had a drunk cooking show on YouTube and has been a judge on the Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star.”

“Electra Woman and Dyna Girl” was filmed in Vancouver with an entire movie crew over two months. With trailers, craft service and everything. It started out as eight episodes of a TV series but it was eventually edited down into a movie. 

And, as hard as I tried, it seemed that “EWDG” could not be seen anywhere. Believe me, I wanted to see it. This could be a me-being-an-older-dude-unsavvy-tech-guy thing, but I don't think so. 

It did not have a studio, it was not released in theaters, it was not on a network, it was not available On Demand or on DVD. It was not on YouTube, Netflix or the Internet. 

It is as if they took "Seinfeld" premise about a show about nothing and took it to the next level: a movie that cannot be watched. 

It could not even agree on a genre. It was a science fiction children’s comedy with two women action superheroes. 

This “EWDG” was even nominated for three “Streamy” awards. But it was not, as I said, on a network, it was not On Demand, it was not on Netflix. If you look on Amazon today, they have 12 DVDs. 12. For those scoring at home, that is two more than ten.    

This was like someone had played a huge Internet, digital, streaming, cable, video, movie, TV show joke about falling between the cracks. 

There is a TV show with almost comically low ratings that claims its popularity with young viewers on YouTube, the Internet and with video game players is huge. That BS dodge is falling apart rapidly as the smoke and mirrors con game to fool older people it is.  

Someone came up with a production budget that filmed an entire movie in Vancouver for two months, and as near as I can tell, nobody can prove more than 100 people ever saw "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl." And most of that was the crew.  

Movies get made all the time that don’t make it to theaters and are released on DVD. As far as I could tell, this was a fairly big-time movie that was never released to anything. Eventually, it ended up as 12 DVDs on Amazon. 

A dozen DVDs. 
  

The host country's team, Russia, is playing extremely well in the World Cup. Here is an interesting World Cup fact: it turns out soccer players do not like the idea of getting poisoned to death. 

A Star is Bored

Ahead of the remake with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, I saw “A Star is Born,” 1976 version with Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand. 

Like Dan Jenkin’s great football book made into an awful movie, “Semi-Tough,” this movie is screaming for a remake. And both have Kris Kristofferson in them. (KK’s acting isn’t awful. He just plays himself and himself is genuinely cool) 

Full disclosure, I had a girlfriend early in college who adored this movie, so I sort of had a soft spot for it. And, while I have never been a fan of Barbra Streisand, way too over-the-top corny for me, Kris Kristofferson is legit cool. (Cannot tell you how many times she laughed at Babs's black backup singers being called the Oreos)

Truth be told, I am sort of disappointed in our gay brothers who worship Babs. The gay fellas have always been the harbingers of style for us cloddish straight men, and, unless they like Babs ironically, she seems to me to be so plastic, overwrought and phony. Like Cher, but, from what I hear, at least Cher is nice to people. 

This was the first movie where I read about how the stars hated each other. You can see it in the movie. One review put it well when they said you can see the fingerprints of Barbra Streisand’s and her hairdresser, Jon Peter’s megalomania all over this movie. Kris Kristofferson looks bored. (Get it? A star is bored? Oh, that is clever)

There are scenes when Kristofferson is so coked-up, his mouth moves independently like a goldfish looking for food. This guy, KK, is a smart dude. He was a Rhodes scholar in English. Went on to fly helicopters in the Army. KK proves that he is brilliant by the fact that he had an amazing singing career despite one little tiny glitch: he cannot sing.

In the vein of one of his coke buddies, Jack Nicholson, KK is good at playing himself. He is charming and charismatic and good looking and fit. 

Here is a brilliant insight: Barbra Streisand is a great singer. But, like Cher, I cannot stand her singing. So corny. It does not help that everyone describes her as a world-class feckless C. Even the great comedy writer, Bruce Vilanche, who, like many gay men, worship Babs, described in detail what a difficult, cheap tight-ass she is. 

In interviews, both Robert Redford and KK were forthcoming in their dislike of Barbra Streisand's diva behavior. She has probably fired more people than anyone in Hollywood. 

A casino in Las Vegas will not let Babs through their doors because she threw such a fit at a $2,000 minimum table when she bet $5 and thought they were supposed to pay her $2,000. 

Babs’ concert scenes are so disco/’70’s/ polyester/Vegas/bad-perm/cocaine-ridden awful they are comical. One cannot keep one’s eyes off of Babs’ bad perm. You have to wonder if the perm was to deflect attention from her Santa Monica Pier-sized nose. If I brought my Goldendoodle, Wally, to his groomer, Meg, with his fur in that condition without brushing him out, Meg would never speak to me again.

Believe me, I remember that this was the era of the fern bar and driftwood sculptures and Farah-dos and rayon and plush synthetic fabrics. And avocado green shag carpets. And popcorn ceilings. And Gremlins. Pet rocks. Bell-bottoms. 

In short, everything awful. 

Now to the worst part of the movie. 

Kris Kristofferson cannot sing. And I do not mean he is a bad singer. What I mean is he cannot sing. Like Stevie Wonder cannot drive.

Kris Kristofferson wrote some great songs. “Me & Bobby McGee” immortalized by the great Janis Joplin is one of them.  



Nobody loves the singers who would never make it on “American Idol” more than me.  Tom Waits’s cigarette-charred mumble, Bob Dylan’s nasal whine. Neil Young’s off-pitch stoned high warble. Bruce Springsteen’s scratchy yell. Rod Stewart’s raspy bark. Joe Cocker’s drunken laryngitis shout. 

If someone were to - and I genuinely hope this never happens - inject air from a bike pump into my aforementioned Goldendoodle Wally’s butt, the resultant fart would sound better than Kris Kristofferson singing. My word, how much cocaine were people doing in the ’70’s that allowed this guy to have a singing career? 

You cannot say Kristofferson is off-key because he can only sing in one note. That is his range. One note. And that note is the sound of a chainsaw cutting through aluminum siding.   

How did this guy go on to have an amazing music career? He has a mansion in Malibu and one in Maui. He is worth $160 million. Yes, he did help start the outlaw movement in country rock. 

Kris Kristofferson was a human argument that if you were straight, fairly good looking and liked to snort a lot of cocaine, you could have a legendary music and movie career in the 70's. Sam Peckinpah and Jon Peters put him in movie after movie because they liked partying with the guy.  

There is an homage to Waylon Jennings in the concert scene with Kris Kristofferson. When I was at UCSB in 1980, I got hired to be security at the Santa Barbara County Bowl for a Waylon Jennings concert. Waylon Jennings gave backstage passes to Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang in exchange for the vast amount of pharmaceutical cocaine they supplied him. 

The Hell’s Angels came roaring up the hill to the venue in single file line of about 20 bikes was one of the most terrifying and impressive displays I have ever seen. In the “ASIB” movie, a biker kisses Kristofferson hard on the mouth. That also rings true. Here is a wild and crazy secret of Hell’s Angels:  Many of them were gay. Gay in a macho, S&M, tattoo way. 

My overall impression was the Hell’s Angels like to zig when everyone else zagged, but they were good guys. Unless you crossed them, and then their gay sado-masochism kicked in and they loved beating the crap out of guys. 

But, as fascinating as the Hell's Angels are, I digress.

“A Star is Born” is a great story that desperately needs a remake, like “Semi-Tough.”  Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper will hit it out of the park. 

Watch it for me and tell me if I am wrong about Kris Kristofferson’s singing. 

The Biggest A-Hole

Without any question, the five biggest assholes I have ever known all had one major thing in common: a combover. 

This is not bald-bashing, there is nothing wrong with going bald. No, this is when a guy grows out his hair on one side to sweep it over his bald spot and then says to himself, 

“That should fool them.” 

When that happens, something dies in their soul.

Now before you think this is all Trump bashing, the fifth combover asshole I know is a die-hard liberal. 

People bash Trump lovers as intolerant and judgmental. They have nothing on this arrogant douchebag. If you do not agree with all of his views, he considers you mentally deficient. 

One time we discussed Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine.” Now I happen to be all-in on gun control. But I hate Michael Moore because he is a bully and liar. (Much like someone else we could name) But because Moore is liberal and I hate Moore, this ass-wipe has me labeled as a far right-wing tea-bagger. 

He also happens to be the world’s worst bass player. Now, I might have forgiven his incredible political intolerance and insufferable arrogance. 

But there is no forgiving a horrible, horrible bass player. 

Somebody who simply does not know how to play the bass would be vastly better than him because they could slap around at it and occasionally hit the right notes at the right rhythm.

No, this guy thinks he knows how to play, so he always plays the worst notes at the exact worst times. He once admitted, afterward, he played an entire other song than the song we had just played.

How is that possible? 

Instead of listening to the song, he just robotically plays the notes he memorizes. And the result is soulless, metallic, stilted and awful.

And his wife is even more annoying.    

  
  

  
  

63-year-old golfer, Greg Norman, is naked in the "ESPN Magazine" body-issue. The caption under the photo is,

"This should get those punks off my lawn." 





When a Spirit Airlines flight was diverted for a medical emergency, a woman unleashed a screaming, obscene threat to passengers. She was then named "The Most Spirit Airlines-Like Passenger Ever."  

Pretty Tired- Forrest Gump Quote

Stop, drop, pop and top, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers 




63-year-old golfer, Greg Norman, is featured naked in the "ESPN Magazine" body-issue. Greg is featured on page 32. His testicles are on page 33.




Donald Trump insulted Jimmy Fallon on Twitter after Fallon said he regretted humanizing Trump when he messed up his hair. In addition, Trump thinks James Corden’s emotions were over-the-top in his Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney.


Donald Trump insulted Jimmy Fallon on Twitter after Fallon said he regretted humanizing Trump when he messed up his hair. Just in case you were worried Trump wasn’t using his time wisely.




The US’s relationship with Canada has never been worse. Today Melania was seen wearing a green jacket with the words “Canadian Bacon Sucks” on the back. 



63-year-old golfer, Greg Norman, is featured naked in the "ESPN Magazine" body-issue. This is the perfect magazine for guys who just don’t get to see enough naked old dudes at their gym.



Heather Locklear was arrested for attacking a cop and an EMT one week after a psyche evaluation. At this point, there is serious concern Heather might even be crazy by Hollywood standards. 



Heather Locklear was arrested after kicking first responders called to her house. On the scale of Hollywood mental health, Heather has been downgraded from "Olsen Twins Odd" to "Amanda Bynes Nuts."


Donald Trump insulted Jimmy Fallon on Twitter. Honestly, which one is harder to do, alienate Canada or insult Jimmy Fallon? It’s like getting in a fist-fight with a Walmart greeter.


Donald Trump insulted Jimmy Fallon on Twitter. It was just a question of time until these two crossed one another. Fallon is a particularly nasty character who once described a guest as, "Someone we love," instead of, "Someone we really, really love." 





Since you asked: 




Twice I have known people in the same narcissist/ megalomaniac stratosphere as Donald Trump, and there are striking similarities. A man and a woman.

The man was nicknamed “But enough about me, what do you think of me?” The man could not physically pass a mirror without admiring himself. If people were talking about something other than him, he would visibly pout. Witness how fast  Donald Trump can take any topic and make it about himself.

The other aspect of this kind of narcissism is that it is impossible to imagine the paranoia that comes from thinking everything in the world revolves around you. Let’s face it, we’re all self-centered, but the woman and man I knew took things into a psychotic realm.

As a result of that hard-to-imagine selfishness, to these narcissists, all other people break into two categories: one, those wonderful, insightful geniuses who rightfully worship them and, two, those evil, sinister sadists out to destroy their lives. 

When someone crosses over from one to two, as Jimmy Fallon just did for Trump, it is not pretty. Trump sees anyone who opposes him as an evil enemy. And any insult or transgression to get back at them is fair game. 

Astute ass-kissers can spot in Trump an opportunity to advance due to Trump’s intense love of getting his ass kissed. 

The great thing about the professional opportunist ass-kissers who surround Trump, like Anthony Scaramucci, Corey Lewendowski, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Hope Solo, Stephen Miller, Kellyanne Conway and Rudy Giuliani, is Trump will turn on them. 

And when that happens, it is wonderful. Nothing is better than seeing an ass-kisser get what they deserve.

Right, Chris Christie? 

Baja Bust 

Right around the time Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President -  and I, as a comedy writer, could not have been giddier with excitement - I met a retired Tijuana policeman at a party. (How he was able to retire at 45 with a horse ranch in San Diego I don’t think I want to know)

He told me he was a potential investor in Trump Baja condominium towers of 2006. Construction began right when the world economy was going south and Mexican violence was skyrocketing, so investors were bailing out.

Ivanka Trump arranged a series of cocktail parties all over San Diego to assure existing investors and to lure more. The retired Tijuana policeman said, at one of the parties at the San Diego Convention Center, Donald Trump assured everyone he was the project’s builder and would ensure the tower’s security with a private airport and a wall with machine gun turrets and a crack security force.

When investors still wavered, the retired Mexican cop told me Donald Trump personally assured that each investor’s money would be guaranteed by his, Donald Trump’s, own personal finances “to the penny.” He said Trump shook their hands on this promise.

This was a key time for Trump as his casino empire had just declared bankruptcy. His reputation was on the line for future projects with this Baja project. 

My party friend was still skeptical and pulled out. Almost nobody else did. 

Needless to say, Trump never built the airport or the wall. By 2009, the project was bankrupt and Trump pulled out saying he had only leased the use of his name to the project, he was not the builder and had no financial responsibility. 

Not one penny.

Trump said the Mexican government promised to build the wall and the airfield. The Mexican government said they never said that. 

Trump was sued by a majority of the investors and settled out of court. 

(My party friend speculated, given the background of some of the investors, had they not won the lawsuit, Trump would have likely been looking at a mob hit)

To be candid, this retired Tijuana cop guy seemed like sort of a slick con-artist, and I doubted the validity of Trump going from person to person lying to their faces and shaking their hands about backing their money with his own money.

I do not doubt it anymore. 

Even with the lawsuit, individual investors still lost hundreds of thousands and some even millions and Trump fought it with his lawyers the whole way. 

Many feel that is why Trump hates Mexico so much.