Brand New Key, pair of roller skates

They best not try and bring that weak-ass poop-scoop up in this here humpy-bumpy, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Sequestration continues to be the big topic. Don’t confuse sequestration with a Ryan Seacrestation. A Seacrestation is the inability to give a contestant a straight answer.

A German longevity study claims 72 is the new 30; if that is true, suddenly Jack Nicholson hitting on Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscar party isn’t nearly as creepy.

The Oscars show was so long, during the broadcast, Taylor Swift dated a guy, broke up with him, and then wrote and recorded a song about what a jerk he was before the show was over.

The Oscars show was so long, during the broadcast, retired Ravens linebacker, Ray Lewis, stabbed somebody out of boredom.

You know who turned 50 this month? Michael Jordan. You can tell Michael is getting older. He trash talks his opponents in shuffle board.

Chicago Cubs fans are cautious. They are hoping for a season that at least goes better than the Carnival Triumph Cruise Ship. That is how low the Cubs’ bar is. As long as they don’t drift aimlessly with sewage spilling everywhere, it will be a good season.

Since you asked:

It has come to this. The curse I gave myself has to be lifted. It has gotten seriously bad. What curse? The curse I gave myself when I said one of my super powers is the ability to have some helmet-head oxygen-thieving tool with nothing else to do but stand in front of whatever it is I need to get at the grocery store. Does matter not how obscure the item, how remote the location or how un-crowded the store, there will be a nob-head standing right in front of whatever it is I need. Often while on their cell phone.

“Huh? Wha? Huh? Is there a difference between fat free and non-fat? Huh? Wha?”

SHUT UP AND MOVE, YOU STUPID SON-OF-A-BITCH.

And one more thing.

Because I shop European style and pick up what I want for dinner that night, I don’t ever need a shopping cart, just a hand basket.  But how is it the people who do use carts - especially those mobile-monuments-to-white-trash that are the carts with the plastic car in front for their evil spawn –  how is it possible for them to get the cart sideways and block an entire aisle?

How do they, A, block an entire aisle? B, not know they are blocking an entire aisle? C, not care they are blocking an entire aisle? D, get all huffy and pissed off when they have to move out of the way to let you pass?

See the difference? 

We confess to the mess all up in this hizzy bizzy, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

“Honey Boo Boo” has become a big hit in Europe. Oh, that’s great news, because the Europeans didn’t look down at Americans as fat idiots enough.

Ryan Seacrest interviewed the actresses at the Oscar by asking them who made their gowns. Yeah, that should stop all the gay rumors.

Remember Notre Dame linebacker, Mante Te’o? At the NFL combine, he ran a pedestrianly slow 4.81 40-yard-dash. Apparently he isn’t as fast when he isn’t being timed by his imaginary girlfriend.

Rumors now have it that Kristen Stewart was a little tipsy at the Oscars. She was trying to act sober, but that didn’t work because, well, she can’t act.

The Razzies are out and Kristen Stewart won for worst actress; “Wow, that is so surprising because Kristen is so friendly, upbeat and happy,” said nobody.

Kris Jenner is on the cover of “US Weekly” and the headline is “My Mistakes as a Mom.” Kris really only made four mistakes. They are Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and Bruce Jenner.

 Since you asked:

Lex, why so hard on the young Kristen Stewart?

Why? Because Jennifer Lawrence, that’s why. Jennifer Lawrence is enjoying winning the actor’s lottery, Kristen Stewart is a little spoiled goth brat who looks like she is babysitting against her will.

Jennifer Lawrence knows she is beautiful and talented, she just doesn’t take it – or herself – too seriously. Kristen Stewart looks like she is pissed off about being famous.

There was this fairly pretty, ok, really pretty, girl I knew in college at Long Beach who I was attracted to, like everybody else, until I got to know her.

She was such a megalomaniac, so self-absorbed, so paranoid because she thought everyone else was as absorbed with her too, that she was actually angry about being too good looking. She constantly complained to anyone who would listen about the intense pressure that comes with being so gorgeous.

Somebody needs to sit Kristen Stewart down and force her to see the part of “Notting Hill” where Julia Roberts’s character talks about the day when they figure out she can’t act and then, years from now, she will kind of resemble someone who was famous when they were younger and prettier. (Pathetic excuse to win a brownie) 

For Jennifer Lawrence I hope and believe that time will never come. 

For Kristen Stewart it came last week.

Can we please put an end to the most inane argument of all time?

You cannot compare athletes of different eras to each other. Period. 

Even if you had a time machine and could put a 25-year-old LeBron against a 25-year-old Michael, it wouldn't be fair. 

You cannot compare a 30-year-old Babe Ruth, a whore, whisky and hot dog mongering slob, to a 30-year-old, psycho, 'roided-out Barry Bonds. 

Improvements in diet, training, technique, technology, equipment, psychology, renders this point moot, moot, moot. (Yes, I like to say the word Moot)  

You can't take away from a Walter Payton, or a Jerry Rice or a Roger Craig the advantage they had because they broke through due to being the first to train hard all year round. Now everybody does it. Does that mean Jerry Rice wouldn't be as great now? 

Nobody knows.

In the Decathlon, Bill Toomey went from a skinny 400 runner to a world record Decathlete by taking steroids. Yet, somehow, his treachery does not seem nearly as bad as Bruce Jenner who did the same thing, but eight years later. By1976 we knew steroids was cheating, and so did Jenner. 1968's Toomey not as much. 

You can only compare athletes to the athletes of their era. Using that measurement, Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, Pele, Joe Montana, Jim Brown, Dick Butkus, Gail Sayers, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Hobey Baker (Google/Wikipedia his preppy ass) Mickey Mantle, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Ted Williams all stick out as men among boys. 

Another factor you have to consider is how chummy is the sport an athlete is sticking out? I'm sure some guy named Lars from Austria was an amazing-ass ski jumper. How many ski jumpers are there at one time? How would he do in a wildly competitive sport - in terms of participants - like soccer?  

Edwin Moses falls into that category. He simply owned the 400 meter hurdles practically his whole life. He owned it so much, you had to wonder how many people decided not to participate in that event. The result? Watered-down competition.

Has Tiger Woods fallen far back, or has training and diet he pioneered in golf, caused the field to catch up to him? We'll never know. Both, probably. 

One thing I do think: Drew Brees is underrated as an amazing athlete. At just-under six feet tall, he can dunk. Great golfer. Amazingly accurate thrower. The fact that Brees is merely considered a really good quarterback just shows how insanely difficult it is to play quarterback in the NFL. 

The other inane debate I wish was out of the equation is what connotes a real sport with real athletes? If you can drink alcohol while doing it, it is not a sport, it is a game. 

Sorry Curling. Sorry fishing. Sorry Chess. 

Tiger Woods is an amazing athlete. The guy at the country club isn't. The winner of the PBA is an athlete. The folks in the bowling league-night are not. Jimmy Johnson is a great athlete. A guy driving his car too fast isn't. 

We gots the hots for a tater tot or two, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

A New York woman was arrested for hiring two strippers for her son’s 16^th birthday party. Or as Charlie Sheen calls her: Mother of the year.

Allegheny College in Pennsylvania brought in two sex counselors to teach the students masturbation. It’s bad enough we can’t keep up with the Chinese in math, now our students can’t even turn Japanese.

This explains why Allegheny’s teams are the Fighting Choking Chickens.

Maurice Taylor, a CEO of an American tire company blasted French workers as lazy, apathetic and unproductive. To which the French workers said; “Who cares? I am going to take zee nap, no?”

Now they believer the European horse meat scandal has spread to the US; this is upsetting to the horse meat neigh sayers.

 “Watching the Daytona 500 was great, but now I have to get ready for my Oscar costume party,” said no male in the US ever.

The government of Iceland is attempting to ban Internet pornography; Iceland would have better luck banning ice from their land.

“Argo” won best picture and Ben Affleck wasn’t even nominated for best director; that is the worst thing I have ever heard that has ever happened to a rich, famous movie star married to the gorgeous Jennifer Garner.

Since you asked:

Got to achieve a culinary dream last night.

Back story.

When we were young-ish, wild, single stockbrokers in La Jolla in the 80’s, our chief haunt was Jose’s Courtroom. They had a great juke box and made killer margaritas and it had a great crowd.

On Fridays – and Fridays only – they served Carnitas. Slow cooked pork shoulder, crispy and soft in fresh flour tortillas with refried beans, rice and an amazing cabbage salad.

After the market closed at 1:00 PM, we would storm the joint to get a table by the window to people watch, oh, who am I kidding? Scope babes and swill Maggies. These lunches frequently had to be called due to darkness. And beyond.

Made Carnitas last night and it was everything I remembered. And so easy.

Essentially cut pork shoulder into one-inch cubes, salt and pepper sprinkle with garlic powder and a half of a Habanero pepper, pour in one quart of beer and one quart of water. Bring to a boil then simmer/boil it down until the liquid is almost gone. (About 45 minutes, longer is better)

When the liquid is almost gone, pour in half a cup of milk with half a cup of orange juice. Simmer down until the liquid is gone. About 8 minutes. Then stir regularly for another three minutes to get it brown and crispy in it’s own rendered fat.

Serve on a grilled flour tortilla with refried beans, cheese, avocado and salsa. Add chopped green onions and cilantro.

Safety note. The seeds are the hottest part of the Habanero pepper, so I picked them out with my finger. Then I scratched my nose – on the inside – with that finger and spent the next hour with an amazing burning sensation in my nostril. Thank heaven I didn’t rub my eye. 

Or something else. 

It turns out some feminists have decided to get their jockstraps in a twist over Seth McFarland's Oscar performance labeling it sexist, specifically his dance number, "We Saw Your Boobs."

Guess what? Women do show their boobs in movies. All the time. Joking about it is not sexist. 

With gay partners producing the show and an endless number of song and dance routines, about the only thing this show could not be is sexist. If anything, with Streisand and the rest, it pandered to a huge gay stereotype. 

Wally's default expression seems to be a college history professor giving a lecture who suddenly realizes his fly is unzipped.

Louis CK explains historical context to Jay Leno

Angel/Princess at the Winnetka Children's Fair. That fair is such a treasured childhood memory. 

Neil Young - Sugar Mountain

It's so noisy at the fair, but all your friends are there, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers.

It happened again, this time in New Jersey where a high school teacher slept with her male student who was an honor student. Yeah, an honor student. He was honor, off her, honor, off her, honor, off her.

Maurice Taylor, a CEO of an American tire company, blasted French workers as lazy, inept and unproductive. The French were furious and threatened Taylor that if he didn’t apologize, they would hold their breath until they turned bleu.

The French were furious at this stereotyping accusing Taylor of being loud, obnoxious, crude and tasteless like all of you boorish Americans.

The plains are getting hammered by a snowstorm; we Southern Californians have our weather issues too. Presidents Day weekend marks the time we switch from flip-flop sandals to hiking boots.

A study claims to have identified the chemical that causes women to talk more than men; yeah, it’s called: oxygen.

Since you asked:

They say the Oscars is high school with money.

Yes and no.

In my high school, the really cool kids were a blend of jocks and partiers who would have died before they hung out with the theater side. Now, I say partier because stoner is too harsh. Jocks were, well jocks. Partiers were cool kids who went to all the cool parties. And stoners had real long hair and lived in their skunk-smelling Army jackets.

And the jocks and the partiers did not avoid the theater geeks because of the gay thing, although, truthfully, in the Seventies, that was part of it.

The theater side seemed to go way out of their way to distinguish themselves from everyone else.  The jocks/partiers didn’t throw slushies in their face, ala “Glee” they/we utterly ignored them. Maybe this was a Midwestern thing, but it is embarrassing to watch someone dancing and singing down the hall all the time.

That was what was to annoying. They were "on" all the time. 

So the theater types just pushed that much harder for attention. And on and on the cycle went. Our high school had an amazingly successful alumni of actors: Ann Margaret, Hugh O'Brien, Rock Hudson, Charlton Heston, Bruce Dern, more recently Virginia Madson, Adam Baldwin, John and Joan Cusak. (Bill Murray and Chris O'Donnell would have gone to New Trier, but opted for the local Catholic private school, Loyola) 

Hollywood is much more of a revenge of the theater geeks with money. There are notable exceptions, Ben Affleck I am sure was one of the cool guys in high school. Probably so was Russell Crowe. Positive Vince Vaughn was just as sure as I am positive Jon Favreau was not. 

But then take Hollywood’s coolest of the cool, Jack Nicholson. In high school, he was the basketball team equipment manager. That was a job our teams gave to lovable mentally challenged kids.

To be blunt, it never really sat well with me that Alex Karris and Dick Butkus became actors. These were two of the toughest guys in the world. (Same with Jim Brown, but I don’t think you can call Brown an actor because he was so bad at it)

 One spring, when I was about ten, they were doing a play about Fort Dearborn at the Winnetka Children’s Fair. As I was still a nut-job about forts via Daniel Boone, I wanted to try out. My dad was not happy. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell.

Went to the tryout intentionally not wanting to get a speaking part. We did a play in fourth grade,  I got the lead as the dad in “Lyle the Crocodile.” It was cool, got my picture on the front of the “Winnetka Talk” and everything. Then came the night of the play. I was so nervous I went completely blank.

So much for speaking parts.

No, for Fort Dearborn I told them I wanted to play a pioneer and they said yes. Got to act out the big Indian battle and everything. I got shot with an arrow I had hidden, held it to my chest and flopped, writhing on the ground. (Remember the “director” was very impressed with this special effect)

What I remember most is getting to know and really like a whole new group of kids. Older kids made me nervous because they bullied my four-year-older brother, John, brutally, so I thought they were all mean.

But these older kids in the play were not mean, they were really nice. Had a huge crush on the lead actress.  And she liked me, but in the puppy-way a 15-year-old girl likes a 10-year-old boy.

Yes these people liked to sing and some of the guys liked to sing and dance. And that made me nervous, but it was harmless. It got so I could hardly wait to go to rehearsals after school. It was like we were this really close team, and then, a month later, it was over. After the last play of three, I cried, I was so sad it was over.

Dad was really not happy about that. But my Dad was an amazing singer, he sang in the church choir, so there was a small performer side of him that I think was OK about my new project.

But by high school there was a clear line that was drawn between jocks and the theater department, and, as much fun as I had in that play, it never occurred to me to cross the line.

That is how I see Hollywood and the Oscars. Good for them for picking their side of the line and going with it. And winning.

But its not the Olympics, is it?