Hollywood Riot

What is with these Disney actors? Why do they all turn out to be so slutty? First there was Britney and Christina Aguilera. Then, following all-too closely in her sister’s footsteps, there was pregnant 16-year old Jamie Lynn Spears.

But Hannah Montana!? Is nothing sacred?

I guess little Miley Cyrus is 15 years old after all - she may already have breasts. I don’t know — I try not to look at the breasts of 15 year old girls. But apparently I’m the only one. Vanity Fair’s website crashed yesterday because of all the celebrity-crazed voyeurs attempting to ogle the 15 year-old’s bare back. To be fair, with all that make-up on, she probably looked at least 16. Ewww. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

What exactly is DISNEY teaching these kids? I thought Disney World and the Disney Channel were family deals. Call me prude, but I think young teenage girls should be wearing shirts. We make Girls Gone Wild stars wait until they’re 18 — why do Disney stars get to take their clothes off at 15?

Some might say a loss of innocence is one of the many costs of teen celebrity. You may think these youngster’s parents should protect them from public humiliation. You might even wonder if Annie Leibovitz has a thing for naked girls. All of these are valid points. But, I’m also starting to wonder what’s happened to Mickey Mouse-management…

Is Mickey really a sleazy street-corner pimp who wanders Main Street U.S.A looking for unassuming virgins to turn multi-media tricks? Does he force young celebrities to “show a little skin” in order to make a few extra bucks? Has his addiction to cheese driven him so mad he’s willing to throw even his youngest stars to the wolves? Was Mickey Mouse the inspiration for ‘Taxi Driver’?

We decided to take a look backstage and see what’s been going on since Walt died. Sorry, Walt, but your “small world” has got some big problems… your main mouse be big pimpin.

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I fear for the day when actual substance creeps into this presidential campaign and replaces the sloganeering and politicking. Watching the two Democratic candidates duke it out has been a heaven and hell experience. Mostly hell. Whoever lands the nomination, one thing’s for certain: we all face months of renewed posturing and name-calling from both Democrat and Republican sides. What’s the truth? Who’s for real? What time is lunch because, man, I am hungry.

Our current system of economics is pretty screwed up. I’m no expert on monetary policy (I went to film school), but even I realize that we’re taking a long walk off a short dock. We had a budget surplus in America before Dubya was elected, correct? A surplus that his own father fought for and, read my lips, lost his re-election because of. Right quick after his first “election win,” George W. Bush put together an unprecedented (and, turns out, ridiculous) $1.6 trillion tax cut. This caused a battle in Congress- mainly because it was such a surprise. George W. Bush hadn’t really discussed dissolving the surplus achieved by both President’s Bill Clinton and Dubya Senior. GOP members defected (Jim Jeffords!), Senators felt threatened and bullied, and Congress buckled and passed almost the entire amount. Ah, and to think… those were the good ol’ pre-September 11th days. Americans didn’t pay much attention, as that was the Summer of the Shark, but it began a disastrous trend: Dubya going against his central campaign promises, and pursuing a shady agenda with confidence knowing that Congress didn’t have the backbone to stop him.

OK, you got us George! You fooled the Supreme Court back in 2000, shame on you. Then, you fooled us all a second time with Iraq. Shame on us. We’re gonna be mad if you fool us a third time! Oh, right, you actually did sanction torture. You’re good at this. Shame on us? I mean, you. Oh hell, I don’t know the exact saying, and neither does George W.  The most important thing is that we not fall for the same bullshit that the Dubya Administration fed us. We’re not sure which candidate is most likely to fall off the Campaign Promise Wagon™ first, but there’s been enough crap thrown around already to ensure that anybody and everybody is a contender.

No matter how honest and nice he seems, Barack Obama is stuck with that name. No matter how noble and intelligent we pretend to be, Barack Obama is stuck with that name. I’m not an Obamaniac or a Barackorite, but give me a break. Connecting him with Osama bin Laden because their names share a few vowels is one of the Top Ten most idiotic things I’ve ever heard. I once had a co-worker named Michael Jordan. He could collate like a madman, but he looked like a turnip on the basketball court. Obama is not Osama’s brother. We can’t vouch for his health insurance plan, but Hollywood Riot confidently predicts that Obama will NOT fall of the Promise Wagon and start blowing shit up like low-brow rural Republicans would love for you to believe. Here’s a website decal/bumper sticker to help drive that point home:

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I’m also not a Hillary… person. She fell off the Promise Wagon long ago. Hollywood Riot has already discussed her future plans, and they don’t involve being President. Watch out for sniper fire and click on Clinton’s twitchy eye to read more.

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Grumpy Old Man McCain can live in Iraq for the next hundred years all he wants, but I’d rather my neighbor’s child (or mine for that matter) return home before he’s John’s age. War is hell, McCain, and you should know that better than anyone. But you don’t, which means you are bat-shit insane. Please don’t be President. The following attack ad is very extreme, but also very effective in scaring the shit out of dissuading voters. If this man is elected your next president, Hollywood Riot predicts that his shrapnel-spotted ass will remain firmly entrenched in the front seat of his Campaign Promise Wagon for the rest of the century. Dead or alive.  

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Ron Paul is the one candidate who doesn’t want to be President for the sake of being President, but that also means he won’t be President. Which is a shame, because he’s never fallen off the Promise Wagon and, votes be damned, he never will. Don’t fret, Paulateers! Looks like this young patriot might pick up the Re-Love-ution torch someday…

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The real story behind Friday night’s medicinal marijuana vending machine heist…

… as interpreted by cartoonist J.B.C.

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Remember the recent report about a medicinal marijuana vending machine opening in Los Angeles? If not, read MSNBC’s article here. Well, I live around the block from the cannabis dispensary that was home to that beautiful machine. The HNC is clean, quiet, and everyone who works there is really nice. This evening, as I was taking my Friday night constitutional down to the 7-11 for beer, a horrible sight sprang into view:

Guess who came calling? The DEA. The dispensary’s manager, who was walking around outside when I strolled by, told me that a group of federal thugs agents smashed not only the ten-foot window you see above, but also over twenty glass display cases inside. They then proceeded to steal all the medicine. This isn’t the first raid, either. The HNC was smashed to pieces last year by the DEA, on suspicion of carrying too much medicine, but were quickly cleared of any wrongdoing. The Feds just wanted to rattle them up a bit. However, the first DEA raid led the HNC owner to install that headline-grabbing vending machine in lieu of another break-in. He figured they would just take the machine and leave the interior of the dispensary intact. Nope!

Remember, this is a state certified business. It is legally entitled to operate in every way under California law and was doing absolutely nothing wrong. Don’t think we’re living under the thumb of soft fascism? Even if you don’t use cannabis, or for some reason have a problem with others using it, you should be disturbed by your federal government’s continued abuse of state’s rights.

UPDATE:

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I feel the need to explain the situation a little bit further, so as to clear up any misconceptions. This was a Federal DEA raid. They were not robbers, or robbers dressed up like DEA (that comment made chocolate milk shoot out my nose!). From time to time, the DEA does conduct raids like this in California. They are not polite because they don’t have to be- they’re sending a message, or fulfilling a quota, or whatever the precursor to the raid was. It’s true, marijuana is still a Federally recognized contraband. However, I feel the heavy-handed approach (breaking of glass, destruction of property) is not warranted. If the HNC was truly under suspicion, a simple search of the premises would have sufficed. Don’t miss the big picture because this was a cannabis dispensary. The particular article was not about the pros and cons of cannabis use (although I’ll be glad to extoll the virtues of hemp anytime you want!).

Cheers!
Geoff

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It’s become cliche. Everything gives you cancer is now a justifiable response to any warning over potentially harmful products. When I informed my aunt about the dangers of pesticides in her food, she just shrugged and exclaimed: “They said the same thing about microwaves. Everything gives you cancer!”

The sad truth is that everything does give you cancer. Even oxygen, that sweet life-allowing element, ravages the cells in your body like millions of tiny Mike Tyson’s (and I’m talking “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!” Mike Tyson, not the current “I’m-a-crackhead-rapist-Jimmy-Kimmel-cameo” Mike Tyson.)

Oxygen facilitates the aging process. Listen up! Want to stay young forever? Stop breathing! Drink some tap water for a little OTF Ambien and pass out. Proceed to have nightmares involving Trans-Fat Phantoms and evil Vaccination Vixens turning the children autistic. Welcome to the Dreamland of Misinformation, the place where Chinese Lead rules supreme and Chicken McNuggets are good for you.

Which brings me back to the headline of this post. I’m done believing anybody, about anything, ever again. My trust in the system of safeguards I had always assumed existed has been destroyed. There is no system of safeguards. Nobody is testing your cheeseburger for germs. When I was a kid, styrofoam cups were destroying the world. Don’t use styrofoam, it’s cutting a hole out of the ozone layer! So, like everybody else not wanting to make a hole in any of our layers, I switched to plastic. Well, turns out plastic is terrible for the planet, too. And, according to many recent studies… wait for it… the shit gives you cancer! Chemicals leeching freely from Nalgene bottles has the hiking and camping crowd in an uproar (those people would live in their Nalgene bottles if they could.)

Scientific Fun Fact of the Day: Neither plastic nor styrofoam grow on trees or in the wilds anywhere on Earth. We had to invent and manufacture these products… which turn out to have harmful side effects. Sure, you could easily blame all of that on the pressures of primitive manufacturing techniques or an unforeseen chain reaction. That would be understandable, because humans make mistakes. After all, we’re only talking about a couple material items here. Nothing we actually consume. Wrong! You know those multi-vitamins you’ve been scarfing down with your oatmeal every morning? Not only haven’t they been protecting your body, but according to the BBC they might be hurting you. Keep swallowing those killer capsules and you could die sooner than your co-worker who inhales his Vitamin N (as in Nicotine) supplements. That’s right, health nut- you’ve been had.

Don’t feel bad. We all have. Our whole lives. About everything. Misinformation is a plague and it is spreading. Hollywood Riot’s very own expert has determined that the only celebrity spokesman we can trust at all is Wilford Brimley. That’s it. Diabetes is a hellofathing, for sure, and that man isn’t throwing around any misconceptions about the disease. Just the facts. That’s all we want, but that’s (almost) never what we get.

- Are we supposed to drink 8 glasses of water per day? No, but the people who bottle tap water and sell it for $3 sure want you to believe that.
- Does marijuana really make you a homicidal maniac? Not unless you get zoned in while playing Grand Theft Auto, but tell that to the propagandists behind Reefer Madness or our current Drug Czar.
- Do French Fries even come from France? NO! They come from fucking Belgium.
- Is it true that we only use 10 percent of our brains? Sure seems like it, but this one is also bullshit. No matter what your self-help guru says, you have no potential left to unlock. Sorry. There are people out there working very hard to make sure you muddle through life in a constant state of unease and doubt.
- Should I want to buy the kitchen cleanser with or without bleach? A difficult decision, and I bet the company which makes a cleanser featuring the “safe bleach alternative” is doing quite well. Of course, after a few years of using the “safe” product you’ll learn that the “alternative” chemical they replaced bleach with causes brain tumors. Hey, there is money to be made in misinformation.
-How do you “cure” a split end? Duh, the commercial said to buy their Split End Remedy Formula shampoo and conditioner. Ouch, $20 right down the drain. There is no cure for a split end… save for a hair cut. Care to comment, Wilford?

The corruption of thoughts and ideas is easier and faster now than ever before. Ask any traveling salesman (if you can find one)- it’s much harder to lie while looking into someone’s eyes than over the telephone (or email). Consumer confidence is at an all-time low for a reason. The endless barrage of scams, product recalls and 5 O’Clock News alerts we endure haven’t always been a reality. There are nearly 7 billion of us, going strong, and for most of our time we didn’t have to question the validity of every single claim. Nobody’s friggin’ spear ever bounced off the mastodon. We didn’t get this big by making bows that would sling an arrow backwards.

The bottom line? Stop living life through PSA’s. The “experts” were paid. Just quit following anyone’s advice, ever, and your life will turn out great. When faced with a decision, go with your gut. It appears common sense is the one thing that doesn’t give you cancer.

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