First, I have to say love is grand. Love is the greatest feeling in the world, especially if it is true love and the other person is the one you intend to spend your forever with. I will preach that day and night. I am indeed in love with the man I intend to spend forever with and I cherish him very much.

However, in a relationship (and my fiancee agrees) two people can still maintain relationships and friendships that were in place prior to the meeting of said significant other. Individual identity is what attracted you to that other person and that other person to you to begin with.

What is the point here? Well, the point is that just because I have found someone that I love, cherish and want to spend forever with, doesn’t mean I wish to cut the friends I had in my life before him out of it.
If nothing else, I wish for us to remain close. Yes, there will be less time out for me. No, I won’t attend every Wednesday night gathering. But IT IS NOT because my man doesn’t encourage it and IT IS NOT because I love my friends any less.

It is simply because I have a teenage daughter who really needs me to be home. It is because I sometimes get to steal a weekday with my fella and his kids.

Just because I’m not there all the time doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear the stories about who did what, or in our case, see the photographic evidence.

Just because I’m not always there, doesn’t mean that I am turning my back on my friends. Just because I’m not always there doesn’t mean that any one of them can’t call me in the middle of the night to cry on my shoulder if they need to.

I am dedicated to spending my forever with HIM. I am very much in love. But my friends were the ones who cried with me when I was sad. They laughed with me when I was tickled about something. They are there through thick and thin. I love them and I will always want to hear the sappy dating drama (tales) and I won’t just be smiling a fake freaking smile and shaking my nappy freaking head acting like I care. I will be listening intently, most likely holding my gut from laughing so hard and truly caring about what words are passing from my friends’ mouth to my ears.

Ok, now specifically to you, the one who pretended to be our friends. Who the hell do you think you are? Seriously? Do you think you’re high, mighty and perfect?

These girls all befriended you when you had nothing but extra belly fat.
No, girl, see this one loud and clear…. YOU ARE NOTHING LIKE ANY OF US.

At least I’ve heard that’s what you said….

YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT!!!!!!

1. Friends don’t molest someone else’s man. There were plenty of occassions that you blatently stuck your tongue down the throat of a taken man. Granted, Ron was not mine… but the other man in question was a claimed man. You had no respect for boundaries and no respect for your girlfriends.

WHICH SHOWS YOU ARE NOTHING LIKE ANY OF US because there is not a single one of us who would look twice let alone deep throat one of the other girl’s boyfriend.

Just not kosher… not acceptable….

2. Friends don’t just quit talking to friends. If nothing else, when a happy event such as an impending wedding or pregnancy is on deck, I would think a girl would want her friends close by.

WHICH SHOWS YOU ARE NOTHING LIKE ANY OF US because I would be honored for all of my friends and family to be there when I say I do.

Either you didn’t want us getting close to your man because you know that paybacks are a bitch… or you were horrified that if you let him speak to us, that he would find out about your legendary exploits on the skank side.

Hmmmm….. go figure. Everybody pulls a drunk now and then… get over it. Hey, Dorothy…….

     It’s time to bid a fond farewell to a favorite, formerly famous, front-yard fowl.  Alas, the Pink Flamingo is no more, dead at a mere forty-nine years of age.
     Union Products, of Leominster, Mass., has finally given up production of these unsightly eyesores due to financial problems.

     According to the original article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, paid tribute to the infamous bird that has been immortalized everywhere — from the John Waters’ movie Pink Flamingos, to bachelor parties and lawns across America.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “As iconic emblems of kitsch, there are two pillars of cheesy, campyness in the American pantheon. One is the velvet Elvis. The other is the pink flamingo.”

The birth of the plastic pink flamingo in 1957 coincided with the booming interest in Florida, Thompson said, making it possible for those in other parts of the country to have a little piece of the Sunshine State’s mystique in their yard.

By the late ’70s, according to Thompson, the pink flamingo became a symbol of bad taste. It was considered trash culture and embraced by folks with a wise-guy attitude. They knew better (wink, wink) but embraced the iconic symbol anyway.

By the late ’80s and early ’90s, he said we learned to make fun of pop culture items such as the pink flamingo as well as appreciate them.

“The pink flamingo has gone from a piece of the Florida boom and Florida exotica to being a symbol of trash culture to now becoming a combination of all we know — kitsch, history, simplicity and elegance,” Thompson said.

Until recently, Mike Smollon was one of the folks who put the pink flamingo in the kitsch category.

But during a recent trip to Massachusetts, the Boynton Beach firefighter and battalion chief had an epiphany.

After reading a story in the Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Mass.) about the closing of the factory, he bought 12 pairs of flamingos.

“I never owned a pink flamingo before,” Smollon said. “To be honest, I used to think this was the kind of a thing only a girl would put in her yard. But when I found out the factory was closing, I thought this is something historical happening.”

Smollon went to the factory and bought 11 sets of pink flamingos and one set of the commemorative gold flamingos that were made for 2007, which would have been the bird’s 50th birthday. He plans to keep a few and give the rest to flamingo-loving friends.

Flamingo fever hit and he searched the Internet for Don Featherstone, the kitchy bird’s creator. When he learned that Featherstone lived only about five minutes from his hotel, he called him and asked if he could come over and get his photograph taken with him.

Not only did Featherstone and his wife, Nancy, come out of the house wearing matching pink shirts adored with green flamingos, the artist autographed two sets of flamingos. Smollon also bought a copy of Featherstone’s book, The Original Pink Flamingos: Splendor on the Grass (Schiffer Publishing, 1999), which he autographed for an extra $5.

After Smollon returned home, he bought a set of pink flamingos from the 1950s for $39 on eBay.

“Now I have one of the first sets made and one of the last sets made,” he said. “I have my own private collection.”

     Of course, it’s lived a full life at only 49, growing from an Annoying Adornment to the King of Kitsch.

     Don’t forget to check out the Mockumentary, “The Pink Flamingo: Ambassador of the American Lawn.”

     I sincerely hope that YouTube’s content doesn’t suffer in the wake of the Google buyout.  Where else am I gonna find such gems?

     The Family Guy is a freakin’ brilliant show. That kind of stupid, slapstick comedy interspersed with hilarious, anti-politically-correct social commentary — along with its impeccably timed infusions of pop-culture — really strike a chord with me.
     Here’s a perfect for-instance: their spoof Aha’s “Take on Me” is one of my favorites.

     Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, idiots all over the world can record themselves and post it on the Internet for free. This, of course, means that Spoofs beget Spoofs.

    Of course, the college version is somewhat better quality…

     But the Anime version is definitely the best…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5lxERFf_T4

     All that aside … Another great Family Guy spoof was Peter Griffin’s spoof of M.C. Hammer’s “You Can’t Touch This.”  The implication “You Can’t Touch Peter” was amusing in itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr7ZpXq5aiY

     This one sparked a multitude of spoofs, mostly Anime.  This one — mixing Disney, Tron and the Kingdom Hearts 2 video game — hit a few funny nerves.

     Anyone else remember Bernhard “Subway Vigilante” Goetz?

     Back in 1984, he was accosted on a New York subway train by at least three in a group of four black men who intended to rob him (suppose I should give Darrell Cabey the benefit of the doubt, even though he made no attempt to alert Goetz).  Goetz produced a .38 Smith & Wesson and shot all four of them — non-fatally, which wasn’t his intent.
     The subsequent case against Goetz was a huge media event, which quickly engrained itself into American pop culture.  Goetz was eventually acquitted of the crime under New York’s self-defense statutes, although he did serve a few months for having an illegal weapon.
     Some twelve years later in 1996, Darrell Cabey was awarded $43 Million dollars in a successful Civil Suit against Goetz.  Goetz, of course, filed for bankruptcy.

     Even though there are many people who feel Goetz was a racist in using excessive force against his assailants (let’s be honest — that’s what they were), it is widely speculated that this single, highly publicized incident was responsible for the sharp drop in robbery and muggings in 1980’s New York City.

     And why on Earth would I be thinking of Goetz today?

     Blame Captain Ed…

     Two Pratt Institute students were arrested for planting “fake bombs” around the New York City subway, to rage against the machine, to show of the “farce” that is Subway security … just to prove that they could.
     Apparently, umm, they couldn’t.

     What they did prove, however, was that a couple of snivelling, priveledged, caucasian children can stuff newpapers into duffel bags and still be arrested.

     I’ll bet ol’ Bernie Goetz would have made quick work of these asshats.  😉

     In the amazing race to hold onto a fleeting fifteen minutes of fame, many celebrities realize one simple truth: Publicity is Publicity, even if it’s bad. 

     It’s always been my contention that Rush Limbaugh was an entertainer, a bad comedian.  I’ve seen Ann Coulter the same way.  And to be fair, Al Franken, too.
     They stand up, tell a bunch of jokes, get people pissed off, and an angry mob of people who hate them go out and buy their books.  It’s freakin’ brilliant, really!
     However, being balanced, there are just as many people who hang on their every word, treating each outrageous statement as the Gospel Truth (of course, I think there are more people following Al Franken, but that’s beside the point).

     I can’t help but wonder — how would people have reacted if Ann Coulter had first been presented on Saturday Night Live, and Al Franken had been a speaker and author?  Or if Rush Limbaugh had been a character in many popular comedies (including the Simpsons) and Harry Shearer had been a radio talk show host?

     In checking out one of Sam’s finds from a while back (last December’s “Ned Flanders Roasts Ann Coulter“), I ran across yet another great article on Eat the Press (thus the Harry Shearer reference).
     Entitled “The Stephen Colbert-Ann Coulter Challenge,” the article (excerpted from New York magazine) draws some interesting parallels between the two entertainers.  It also brings up the question of why Liberals will bash Coulter so fervently, when the fact is that she and Colbert may be very much the same sort “character.”
     Of course I completely agree with that, having held the opinion that she’s nothing more than a bad comedian for several years.  And the same goes for Rish Limbaugh.  And Al Franken.

     But those Dixie Chicks — they’re just damn Communists!