DagYo! Presents: DogYo!
“It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.” “Hit it.”
-The Blues Brothers
It’s been about a month since my last post, so many people naturally assumed that I was assassinated by guerillas from the Susan G. Komen foundation or that I had been arrested for organizing an Occupy Notre Dame tailgate party/protest against people not partying. As is often the case, the truth is actually stranger than both of these fictions.
My arm is still sore from high fiving so many people
Although I love writing for DagYo! the job doesn’t pay very well (YET) so I am forced to look for other sources of income. My latest cash cow was selling oregano to middle school kids and telling them it was marijuana, but the judge disagreed with my assessment that what I was doing was a “community service that kept kids from doing drugs.” Accordingly, I decided to check out some freelance boards and look for a gig that would keep the Feds off my back.
As I scrolled through the openings on one site I came across a post which listed the following requirements for applicants:
-Creative Writer -Go-getting -Witty -Outgoing
-Social media savvy - Comfortable speaking on-camera -Pet has a good temperament
If you did the math, then you realized that I am 1/7qualified for the job – my dog, Mr. Eko, has a great temperament. As for the other 6/7 of the qualifications, I was confident that I could fake those attributes well enough. And what occupation could possibly be relevant to the listed skillset?
“Petcentric.com is looking for a freelance writer/dog owner to hit the road for three months, explore the best pet-friendly destinations and events in the country and write about the experience on a blog.”
As soon as I realized Petcentric was looking for someone to go on an awesome adventure with their dog, I did the first thing anyone should do when something seems too good to be true – I made sure no one was trying to pull an inception on me. After I checked my totem to be certain I was awake, I sent in the requested résumé, photos and bio. I am pretty sure it was my brutal honesty that got me a callback:
“Mr. Eko is the smarter, better looking and more talented half of our duo, so I think it makes sense to tell you about him first. Once, when watching the show LOST with my friends, I made a solemn promise that I would name my first child after my favorite character – Mr. Eko. Luckily for my future wife, I got impatient and instead gave the name to my first puppy”.
Mr. Eko before/after using P90x
After progressing further into the application process I learned that only two obstacles – a writing sample and an interview – stood between me and the promised land. Unless Indiana Jones, the Dog Whisperer and the Discovery Channel had a baby together, I was confident that I was the perfect person for the job. But to get to the interview I had to knock the writing sample out of the park. My writing sample was a review of a local dog park, and once again, I think my brutal honesty won the day:
“For once I was glad Eko couldn’t talk because I am certain what he would have said was, ‘Listen pal, no amount of beauty sleep is going to help that face of yours, so why don’t we get this day started.’”
A few days after I submitted my writing sample, I got a call to set up an interview. The Petcentric team was in a few different locations, so I was informed the interview would be done over Skype. One of my major downfalls in interviews is that I forget to wear pants, so I was relieved to hear that I wouldn’t have to worry about that in this case. With the pants issue addressed, the interview itself was a breeze. The Petcentric people were great and my vision for the trip closely aligned with theirs. I savored the interview because there are not a ton of other business settings where I can get points for saying things like, “I want to make an 80’s pump up montage video with my dog.” I recieved some nice feedback at the end of the call when one of my interviewers thought I had already hung up; the last thing I heard was the interviewer say to her colleague, “He’s perfect!!”
The signs never say anything about pants but then everyone acts like I’m the bad guy
Two days later, I calmly accepted the offer from Petcentric. Next, I discreetly turned off my phone just to be sure the call had ended. Finally, I blasted This Is How We Do It on repeat and chased Mr. Eko around my room while knocking over everything that wasn’t nailed down. Since then, it has been a whirlwind of preparation to get ready for the blog’s launch next week. Part of that preparation involved flying out to St. Louis to meet the Petcentric team in person and work through a lot of logistical and creative details. As it turns out, one of those details happened to be narrating a commercial which is airing Thanksgiving Day on national television to promote the blog. I have often been told I have a face for radio, so the voiceover work was right up my alley.
There is still plenty of work left to do before Eko and I hit the road, but I promise plenty of shameless self-promotion will be forthcoming. Next week I will let you know exactly where you can find the blog, where you can find us on Facebook/Twitter and where you can see our commercial. Also, be sure to hit me up if you see your city on our itinerary. I know there will be plenty of DagYo! moments on our journey, so I will of course keep you guys updated on those as well.
Clooney, Damon and Smith – consider yourselves warned
In sum: my dog got me a job, a national TV commercial and a three month adventure to find the coolest pet-friendly places in America. Like I said, the truth is much stranger than fiction.
The Business of Breast Cancer
“My mother died of breast cancer. I wouldn’t want anyone else to ever have to go through that. But they have really got to stop with all this PINK shit.”
-Sheila AKA She-Unit AKA She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named AKA Mom
Breast cancer is a unique term because it combines one of my favorite things (breasts) with one of my least favorite things (cancer). Tomorrow marks the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I am confident that scientists will one day find a way to eradicate this cancer which has killed so many women (and men). Once that Herculean effort is complete, it is my dream that we can all celebrate Breast Awareness Month. And what a glorious month it will be! I also humbly nominate myself to be worldwide chairman of this future event.
However, a long road lies ahead before we can enjoy B.A.M!(perfect acronym). The key to traversing that road as quickly as possible is to fund scientific research. To that end, there are a multitude of breast cancer non-profits who will be heavily soliciting donations this month. The largest of these organizations is the well-known Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. The Komen Foundation’s passion for healthy breasts seems to mirror my own, so in the past I happily made donations and attended a number of their fundraisers. However, last year I saw something which made me reconsider my support:
These are not the types of breasts Komen should be concerned about.
When I die, Colonel Sanders is easily among the top ten war heroes I would love to be memorialized alongside. Lt. Dan from Forest Gump,Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars and General Tso from the Chinese menu are a few of the others. But aside from KFC’s outstanding health benefits I’m not sure why a healthcare organization like the Komen Foundation would decide to have a similar partnership. After doing some more research, I’m confused as to how buying a pink KitchenAid or HP printer ink will help cure breast cancer. Somewhere along the way someone working at Komen also realized, “HEY, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO END BREAST CANCER WHEN WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A BOBSLED TEAM!?!?” So they got that taken care of too.
Why does Komen have hundreds of disparate corporate partners? For the corporations it’s simple – the partnership is a money scheme (investment opportunities still available!). The companies pledge a baseline donation plus a small percentage of sales to Komen and in turn receive the right to sell Komen branded merchandise. It is essentially a licensing deal. The reason so many corporations are eager to jump on board is because not only are the donations tax deductible but the companies also get to keep the profits from selling Komen branded products – minus a small kickback to the foundation. It is also a great implicit marketing tool:
“You can buy the official New Balance shoe and support the cure, or you can buy some Adidas and let every woman you have ever loved die of breast cancer.”
Breast cancer is a business, and as Lt. Aldo Raine would say, “Cousin, business is a-boomin.” Partnering with corporate sponsors is advantageous for the Komen foundation because each sponsor donates a large sum of money which Komen can then redistribute as it sees fit. To see if the ends justified the means, I decided to check out exactly what Komen does with all of the corporate and private donations it receives.
According to its most recent tax filing (yes, I am just as shocked as you that I figured out how to read a tax return), the Komen Foundation had over $170 million in total revenue in 2009-2010. Out of that $170 million, $75 million went to grants, $23 million went to employee salary and $80 million went to “other expenses.” A foundation which spends nearly half of its revenue on “other expenses” is like a parent who spends half of their child’s college fund on “not strippers.” So where did the bulk of the $80 million go? My guess was Jell-O sculptures and day trips to Vegas. As it turns out, $25 million went to direct marketing efforts, $18 million went to outside legal and professional consultants and $11 million went to office expenses/improvements. I don’t know if they are handing out kilos of Columbian cocaine at the office Christmas party, but somehow it’s costing them $11 million to run an office. And I know that employee’s need to get paid, but does the Komen Foundation really need twenty five executives making an average of $250,000 each?
“I have been wasting all these years buying stupid railroads! I need to start a breast cancer charity.”
As for the $75 million in grant money, only $32 million was used for research grants. That means when it’s all said and done, the Foundation “for the cure” spends only around 20% of their funds actually looking for one. Imagine if you donated $20 to the beer fund but only $4 was used to buy beer – you would be kind of upset. Actually, most people I know would be violently upset about a misallocation of beer money. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the Komen Foundation spends around a million dollars of donor money annually to aggressively threaten litigation against any other organizations which uses “for the cure” in the title of an event.
Komen Foundation office bathroom.
The Komen Foundation has unquestionably been instrumental in raising awareness about breast cancer and it has undoubtedly helped countless women, but that doesn’t mean the organization shouldn’t be scrutinized. We all love breasts and so we blindly throw money at breast cancer charities and their corporate partners. But a lack of money isn’t the real issue when it comes to breast cancer research. Breast cancer research gets so much money that it would make Lil Wayne blush. Between government and private efforts, six billion dollars a year is put towards breast cancer initiatives – a number that is significantly more than double the funds any other cancer receives. Heart disease kills ten times as many women as breast cancer, but it doesn’t get nearly the same amount of funding because it’s much easier to market breasts than hearts.
Real tough to guess who will sell more shirts.
Breast cancer makes a lot of businesses and a lot people (including some who work at charities) a lot of money. I’m not trying to trivialize a deadly disease, I just want people to be wary of opening your pockets for pink products or donating to any charity without doing your homework first. There will come a time when I can preside over Breast Awareness Month, but until that glorious day is upon us, let’s hold charities accountable for making the absolute breast use of all the generous donations which they receive.
Money, Money Schemes.
I have some ideas that are going to make me so much money that I am going to be able to pay Bill Gates to mow my lawn. But before I tell you about these ideas, it’s important that I give credit where credit is due and explain how I came to develop these revolutionary business opportunities. If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants. One giant defensive end in particular.
Back when Facebook was still called The Facebook, the site was exclusively for college students. So unlike the Facebook of today, your aunt couldn’t post blurry photos of her cat every five minutes. Actually, no one could post photos because the service had very limited features. Sure everyone has thousands of photos tagged now, but back then you had to decide if you were going to ask a girl out based on one profile picture with about twelve girls in it, all of them wearing Halloween costumes. If you were on a tight deadline to get a date for your dance you would just have to hope that your target was one of the three cuter girls in the photo. Times were tough.
God, please don’t let me be calling the girl on the left.
One of the few aspects of your Facebook profile that you could change at the time was the “Interests” field. Girls generally would fill the section with truly riveting interests like “yoga, my girlfriends, good music, earrings, sunflowers, purple, yogurt and smiles.” Guys further ratcheted up the intelligence level by listing interests like, “beer, ninjas, Boondock Saints, sports and awesome parties that rule and are sweet.” Essentially there was nothing of value to be found in anyone’s interest section.
Enter Ronald Talley. Talley, now a DE on the Arizona Cardinals, was a red shirt freshman at Notre Dame in 2005. Talley became legendary at ND not because of his football career, but because of what he listed as his interests on Facebook. While the rest of the world had redundant and pointless litanies of interests, Mr. Talley simply had three words, all written in caps – “Interests: MONEY, MONEY SCHEMES.”
Ronald Talley - The Adam Smith of our generation
Since the day I read those three beautiful words I have worked tirelessly to money scheme. Some of my schemes were successful – my friends and I sold thousands of t-shirts on campus in college, but some of my schemes were not so successful – my friends and I were taken down by a joint taskforce sting operation for illegally selling thousands of t-shirts on campus. Nonetheless, I never stopped scheming.
Cops to me ratio – 10:1. Mom would be proud. was pissed.
Recently, I had the opportunity to revisit some of my more compelling money schemes and I realized that there has never been a better time to get these companies off the ground. There are a number of high caliber venture capitalists eager to support my projects. Unfortunately, my previous sentence is actually not true at all, so I’m looking for some DagYo! Visionaries to partner with. If you have a lot of money and would be cool to go to meetings with, then here is just a taste of some of the sure fire winners you can invest in*:
*Note: If you try to take any of these ideas I won’t kill you. But what I will do is hire the most annoying member of the Backstreet Boys to follow you around for the rest of your life and flamboyantly karate chop you in the face anytime you say a word with the letter E in it.
Choosing which Backstreet Boy is most annoying is like trying to choose which Ninja Turtle is most green.
1. Butt Face Towels™:
One of the major problems that Americans face every day occurs right in our own bathrooms – and no, it has nothing to do with Taco Bell’s new Doritos flavored taco shells. You hop out of the shower in the morning, start to dry yourself off and absent mindedly fantasize about pushing your boss down the stairs. But then, as you go to dry your face, you wake up and realize that you might be about to use the same part of the towel to dry your face that you just used to dry your butt.
Most people either tepidly cope with the likelihood that they are wiping their butt onto their face, or they convince themselves that surely they must be using a different part of the towel (they aren’t). This is where the Butt Face Towel™ comes to the rescue.
The secret to the Butt Face Towel is in its texture and color. One side of the towel will be like a regular towel (butt side), and one side of the towel will be a completely different color and a much softer fabric (face side). And if for some reason you prefer a coarser face and a smoother butt, you can just reverse which side of the towel you use. I haven’t technically spoken to any engineers about this design, but I have imagined the conversation in my head and they all say my idea is the biggest technological breakthrough in the linen industry since Eleanor Roosevelt’s invention of the linen closet.
I would be shocked if you don’t see Butt Face Towels™ in the main display cases at Bed Bath and Beyond in time for the holiday season.
“Butt Face Towels™ - Because even if your face looks like a butt, you shouldn’t treat it like one.”
2. Cereal Milk
I know more about cereal than you do – it’s a fact. I used to live in the corner of my brother’s one room apartment and eat cereal at least twice a day. Since we didn’t have any money, I frequently had to share my meals with my brother’s dog, so I can also tell you a lot about what cereals dogs like.
Now, the often over looked factor in cereal consumption is the importance of milk. As someone who is used to having a negative sign in the front of his bank account, I can tell you from experience that cereal with any other liquid is not the same. I’ve tried water, every type of juice and even seltzer (rough time in my life), but nothing comes close to the magic that happens when milk is added to cereal.
As all cereal killers know, at the bottom of every bowl is the Holy Grail. If you have poured the ideal combination of cereal and milk, you are left with a deliciously tasty aperitif to finish your meal. You had Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Hello cinnamon milk! Golden Grahams? Golden milk! Cereal milk is a pedestrian delicacy which deserves better than just wallowing at the bottom of a bowl. It’s past time we bottle the goodness so we can all enjoy it on the go.
“Cereal Milk – We Take Milk Cerealiosly.”
3. American Gladiator Gym
Studies show that people with gym memberships only hit the gym 30% as often as they intended to when they signed up. People want to get in shape, but it’s tough to stay motivated when all you have to look forward to is getting sweat on by the strangers next to you on the treadmill, listening to meat heads talk about how much weight they can lift, and wondering how it is physically possible for the dude next to you in the locker room to have that much back hair.
But imagine a gym that replaced dumbbells and Stairmasters with jousting sticks and Atlaspheres. Members could race up The Wall and try to survive Hang Tough. And after a round of Powerball, members of American Gladiator Gym can relax by manning the turret on the Assault course and blasting people with tennis balls. Everyone would want to go to the gym every day.
Upon signup, all members must relinquish their legal names within the boundary of the gym and only go by one word Gladiator names like, Tazer, Wombat or Pentagon. Give me a large warehouse and all the equipment, and I’ll have this whole country looking like the people on P90X commercials in no time.
“The American Gladitor Gym - Eat your heart out Michelle Obama.”
4. Gay Cards
At some point in the (hopefully near) future, same sex marriages will be legally recognized across the United States. I would like to imagine that it will come down to a big Supreme Court case, and the lawyer for the sane people will step up to the microphone and say, “You guys know that we let Britney Spears get married, right? Twice. I don’t think we are really in any sort of position to say who can marry who.” Once that long overdue day comes, I am going to be ready – with cards.
New York State is ahead of the curve, and this past weekend I was lucky enough to see my Uncle Paul and his longtime partner married. In an unlikely turn of events, I was planning my life more than thirty seconds in advance and went to CVS the day before the wedding to buy a card. As it turned out, every single wedding card had a bride and a groom on it. I asked a disinterested 16 year old employee if the store carried any gay cards and he kindly informed me, “Yeah, they’re all pretty gay.” Despite the miscommunication, I did eventually find the one card which did not have the ubiquitous bride/groom stamp. So that got me thinking – and normally that makes my head hurt –but this time it didn’t so I knew I had a winning idea. I want to start a greeting card business specifically designed with same sex couples in mind.
Gay cards, or gards as I like to call them (lesbian cards = lards, so I ditched that one), are the wave of the future. We’ll have cards for weddings, engagements, birthdays, Chinese New Year, and anything else you can think of. We will of course have partnerships with Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres – not gay partnerships, but partnerships where we can make funny cards with them. I’ll get distribution deals with all the major national retailers and before you know it I’ll have George Michael playing at my birthday party. ON MY YACHT.
“Gay Cards –Elton is crazy about them.”
5. Welcome To Last Night! App
Sometimes people drink alcohol. Sometimes people drink too much alcohol. And if you are a fan of Notre Dame football, you pretty much know you’re going to need an IV of grain alcohol just to get through the first quarter. Whatever the cause, there are some mornings where you wake up facedown on your front porch next to a bloody sheet from the board game Twister, a handgun that’s missing bullets and a note in a strange handwriting that reads, “You warned him what would happen if he spun Right Hand on Green.”
Currently, the only solution for people who wake up on floors with weird injuries and no memories is to go about their lives and hope the police don’t show up. But now, my Welcome To Last Night! App is going to change the way people experience hangover regret and shame.
After you download the app for your phone, you set up a personalized account which links data from your phone, your credit/debit cards and your web browser. Then, before you head out for an ND game/bachelor party/first communion, all you need to do is enter in a specific time that you want the WTLN! app to activate itself.
Here’s how the magic works. As soon as the app launches, it immediately begins to track your location via the GPS in your phone. The app also records all credit/debit/ATM transactions, listing the location and the amount of each charge. The app will aggregate your call/text/browsing history into one easy (yet painful) to read place. Additionally, any time you unlock your phone and use it while WTLN! is running, the app will automatically activate the video camera on your phone and record until the phone is locked again. To top it all off, your phone will voice record any calls your make.
Now when you wake up on your lawn covered in blood and tater tots, a quick check of the WTLN! app will inform you that you:
1. Broke into the zoo, unlocked every gate in the primate exhibit while yelling “FREEDOM”!
2. Took a $300 cab sixty miles to get to the nearest Sonic and texted your friend, “Mustt gets tAtER TOTZ from COMMERCIAL ..HHHS*8”
3. Spent $73.50 at Sonic, then called your ex-girlfriend and left a message which consisted of crying mixed with you chanting the chorus to “This is Why I’m hot.”
4. Got home and began to text your friend “TotALLY WURTH i…” but video evidence shows a group of hungry Peruvian night monkeys (recently escaped from the zoo) beat you up and took your tots.
WTLN! is going to solve more mysteries than Scooby Doo and CSI combined. And now is your chance to join the team before Google buys us for billions.
“Welcome To Last Night! – After waking up in a ditch covered with Taco Bell wrappers, you said you were never drinking again. But let’s be serious, the Notre Dame game starts at 3:30.”
So there you have it, folks – six of the most cutting edge ideas on the market. If you want to invest and start down the road to luxury yacht parties, please email me at dag.yo.inc@gmail .com. If you don’t have the money to invest, just remember the wisdom of Ronald Talley and keep money scheming.
Where Are They Now? – DagYo! All-Star Edition
At least once in our lives, we’ve all had an experience where you’re out at the bar having a great time, your friend buys three rounds of shots and the next thing you know you are in the kitchen of a Jamaican restaurant at four in the morning breakdance battling a midget. The bottom line is that we often end up places where we never could have imagined we would be.
What’s true for us peons is doubly true for celebrities. Lindsay Lohan went from starring in The Parent Trap to being the spokeswoman for cocaine and MC Hammer went from millions of dollars and closets full of awesome pants to starring in Cash4Gold commercials. The good people at TMZ and US Weekly are doing God’s work by keeping the world up to date about what the first girl kicked off of Season 12 of The Bachelor had for breakfast, but for some reason they lack coverage of all the celebrities I want to know about. I find this especially true when it comes to the “Where Are They Now?” coverage of stars who are no longer in the headlines.
Unless the Baha Men have discovered a cure for cancer (or returned all those dogs they let out to their proper owners), I don’t care what they’re doing. If the men of I Love New York went sky diving together and their chutes didn’t open, let me know - otherwise, giving these sub-human life forms additional coverage is entirely unwarranted. Dissatisfied with the lack of coverage for the people I want to see, I have taken it upon myself to put together a Where-Are-They-Now post comprised of DagYo! Celebrity All-Stars. To qualify for this exclusive list, you need to have been a once-in-a-generation talent who in some profound way influenced the course of humanity.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the All-Stars*:
(*Note: If you are over thirty or under sixteen, the rest of this post will likely make no sense.):
1. Sisqó
I can’t be the only one just finding out that his name has an accent in it.
There was a time when the only thing that shone brighter than Sisqó’s career was Sisqó’s hair. The man was so famous that no one dared question him about why his name has an accent which in no way is phonetically relevant. Most people remember Thong Song, a ballad of bouncing butts, as the apex of Sisqo’s career, but Thong Song actuallyonly reached #3 on the charts. Music historians agree that Thong Song would have risen to #1 had America been able appreciate Sisqó’s lyrical ingenuity in rhyming “truck, truck, truck,” with “what, what, what” and “butt, butt, butt.” However, it was Sisqó’s next song, Incomplete, which hit #1. Incomplete’s success can in large part be traced to the fact that the music video features Sisqó bottle feeding a white tiger. As far as I can tell, that white tiger must have eaten Sisqó because no one has heard from him since.
So where is Sisqó now?
Yes, that is Sisqó in a Borat thong. Yes, that is Stephen Baldwin looking at Sisqó’s unit.
It turns out that much like the New York Mets, Sisqó made a lot of pretty terrible decisions which ended any hope of a successful future. Sisqó decided that since he knew how to act like a fool he was qualified to be a real actor. The zenith of Sisqó’s short-lived acting career was when he played a vampire in one episode of Sabrina The Teenage Witch. To complete career suicide, Sisqó then took on a role alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. in Snow Dogs. I can confidently say that not even Cuba’s mom saw that movie.
For those of you who might hope for the resurrection of Sisqó’s career, you should know that the most recent highlight on Sisqó’s resume is that he was the fifth person evicted from the house on Celebrity Big Brother in the U.K. Sorry Sisqó, but there is no coming back once you have been kicked off a British game show at the same time as Stephen Baldwin.
2. Casey Jones
“The class is Pain 101. Your instructor is Casey Jones.”
The vast majority of my childhood was spent pretending I was Michelangelo – the cowabunga one, not that other guy. Not surprisingly, I was incredulous when I discovered that a number of Renaissance artists stole their names from the Ninja Turtles. It took a long time (twenty years), but eventually I matured and realized that my dream of being a trained reptilian assassin was impossible. A much more reasonable career dream was being a bat-wielding vigilante sociopath, like the Turtles’ best pal, Casey Jones.
To be Batman you need a trust fund, a butler named Alfred and your own multi-national corporation, but to be Casey Jones all you need is about $13, some witty jokes and a general carelessness about your own safety. I have gone through my entire life with about $13 net worth, some witty jokes and an unhealthy disregard for my own well-being, so Casey Jones was one of my most important role models. Like many of you, I always assumed that after collecting his Academy Award for Best Actor, Casey Jones realized his career could only go down from there and so he retired.
So where is Casey Jones now?
Apparently, he never left.
So, a couple things right off the bat. It turns out that the guy’s name is not Casey Jones. I thought Casey Jones was a real crazy guy who jumped in the middle of filming, started hitting people with hockey sticks/baseball bats and then the director decided to keep the footage. As it turns out, Casey Jones is actually actor Elias Koteas. As Koteas’ Wikipedia page informed me, he has been in close to fifty movies since Ninja Turtles, including The Thin Red Line, Zodiac, Shooter, Benjamin Button and Shutter Island. Granted, none of those movies are anywhere near the caliber Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but it’s still a pretty impressive lineup.
In sum: Keep up the good work Casey Jones! Sorry for thinking you were dead. You’re still my idol.
3. He Hate Me
“For example, I was on the squad in Vegas and coach was putting other guys in. I felt I’m better than them, you know. Hey, ‘he hate me…’ I feel as if everyone hates me, from my mom to my dad and even my brothers and sisters. Everyone.”
Here is a transcript of what happened on the evening of February 3, 2001 when the XFL played its inaugural game:
Friend: This is horrible, let’s watch something else.
Me: It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but we absolutely cannot change the channel.
Friend: Why?
Me: There is a guy named HE HATE ME playing.
Not changing the channel that fateful night forever changed the course of my life. He Hate Me (aka Rod Smart) was a cultural phenomenon, and as it turned out, a pretty good football player. Also, just to be clear, my definition of “cultural phenomenon” is anything that I consider to be awesome. After dominating the XFL and getting a Spike Lee joint named after him, Rod Smart went on to a fairly successful career in the NFL.
The story of a man who pursued his passion and climbed from the XFL, to CFL and finally on to the NFL is inspiring, but that story pales in comparison to the story of a genius who transcended a sport by writing a grammatically incorrect phrase on his jersey. Smart became my muse and to this day when I come upon a difficult problem in my life, I ask myself what He Hate Me would do. Unfortunately, my WWHHMD bracelet idea never really took off. Smart was such an influence on my life that I ordered a custom made HE HATE ME shirt which I wore at least twice a week in college, and continue to wear at least once a week now.
I hope my children will one day experience the joy of wearing a HE HATE ME shirt, drinking a Mad Dog 40/40 and crowd surfing at an afternoon house party.
He Hate Me made it to the Super Bowl with the Carolina Panthers, a dream come true for any football player, but last I heard, He was out of the league.
So where is He Hate Me now?
You won’t believe this, but as it turns out, Rod Smart is in Charlotte, North Carolina and works as a high school counselor. This is amazing. I can only hope that they call him Mr. He Hate Me. Children of Charlotte, North Carolina: treasure your gift. He may not be a Superbowl MVP, but He sure is a life MVP.
After reading the run down, I’m sure you agree that the pedigree of celebrities I chose to follow up with is unparalleled. I know many of you have lost sleep wondering where fate had led these DagYo! All-Stars, so I hope you can all rest easy now. The fact is, you just never know where you will end up. Actually, sometimes you do – I’m going to a wedding in Louisville this weekend, and somehow I know I am going to end up in jail. Stars come and go, but I will always be here to make reckless decisions that make you feel better about your own life.
And so readers, I bid you adieu. I’m off to the land of beautiful horses and fast women.
Beware of Sharks
The anticipation building up for this week has been incredible. I have waited with bated breath to see some of the world’s most dangerous predators in action. We catch glimpses of these predators year round, but this week in particular is a testimony to the ferocity and blood thirstiness which make these creatures such a danger to the human population. These predators are so often misunderstood that I feel like it is my duty to explain to you the habits and inner workings of the members of the United States Congress – or loan sharks as they are commonly called – in light of the debt crisis.
It was remarkably easy to turn my outline for a Shark Week post into a post about Congress.
Loan sharks are people who offer you money when you most need it but then blackmail you or take out your kneecap if you refuse to repay the astronomical interest on the loan. Metaphorically, the definition of a loan shark also fits quite nicely as the job description for a member of Congress. The recently “solved” debt crisis has been a fantastic example of how these sharks work.
Much like the demise of Sisqo’s career, the debt ceiling crisis is a mystery to most people. People on the right (Tea partiers, idiots, I repeat myself) were outraged that the President wanted to increase the debt and attempted to draft a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a balanced budget. Geniuses on the left with a comparable IQ demanded the debt ceiling be raised to accommodate increased government spending. Normal people demanded to know what the hell a debt ceiling is.
Unfortunately, Obama’s initial attempt to explain the debt ceiling via the “Raise the Roof” dance was unsuccessful.
To put the issue in context, the debt ceiling has about as much to do with financing the government as midgets have to do with the NBA dunk contest. Government financing is determined by the annual budget passed by Congress – raising the debt ceiling is simply a vote to reaffirm that the US will continue to pay its creditors according to the already passed budget. To be clear: THE DEBT CEILING HAS ZERO IMPACT ON THE BUDGET DEFICIT. So why then was there a crisis now when without issue Bill Clinton had raised the ceiling eight times, George W. Bush seven times and Barack Obama three times? British politician Alan Clark described it best; “[Politicians] are all sharks, circling and waiting for traces of blood to appear in the water.” Republicans, Tea Party scientists in particular, smelled blood and so went after the president on this vote.
You’re going to need a bigger debt ceiling.
Yes, the Republicans foolishly undermined the President for what should have been a standard procedural vote, but anyone who tries to play the victim card for Obama or the Democrats doesn’t know their history. In 2006, then Senator Obama voted against increasing the debt ceiling, citing “a failure in leadership” as his reason. Karma’s a bitch, eh Mr. President? Not surprisingly, President Obama tried to pull a classic Fresh Prince “see what had happened at first was…” to explain his vote, but later admitted his vote was strictly a political move. Like Clark said, they’re all sharks, and partisanship for the sake of scoring political points is to blame for the current mess.
Catastrophic debt default was avoided through the new legislation, but you may be wondering exactly what was in the bill the Great White Loan Sharks in the Senate passed yesterday. (Note: There are no Great Black Loan Sharks in the Senate.) If you guessed that Congress decided they didn’t really want to make any tough decisions and so invented an entirely imaginary (and possibly illegal) thing called a Super Congress to deal with the real problems, you’d be right! The debt ceiling was raised, but no one wanted to deal with the difficult job of budget cuts and tax reforms so the sharks invented a 12-person, non-elected, Super Congress to make those decisions for them by the end of the year.
If only it were that much fun.
I won’t bore you with more minutia about the Super Congress because one, your brains are probably melting already and two, I have to catch a flight for a bachelor party where I will melt what is left of my own brain. All you need to know is that thanks to political blackmail the future of our country during these precarious times is now in the hands of twelve non-elected officials. I have often said that we should do away with Democracy, but I had DagYo! despotism in mind, not a bunch of loan sharks deciding that another bunch of loan sharks are in charge.
I hope this little tutorial gave you some insight into the debt ceiling crises and reaffirmed your visceral dislike for all politicians. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do short of taking to the streets – but if you guys are down for that I will definitely bring snacks. Until then, you may now return to your regularly scheduled Shark Week programming.
I’m not really pumped for Shark Week you say? Tell that to the little kids I pushed out of the way to get this photo.
We Need NASA
As we all know, NASA was launched in 1958 by President Eisenhower with the primary objective of discovering Transformers on the moon. Once Louis Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear* successfully completed this mission in 1969, the guys at NASA needed a new project to work on and thus the space shuttle was born. For thirty years the shuttle has been the backbone of NASA, but this week the shuttle Atlantis returned from the program’s final mission. What’s next for the agency best known for the second most famous moonwalk of all time? No one really knows. And that means, as the good people of Houston say, we have a problem.
*Astronaut names are guaranteed to be at least 50% accurate
While NASA’s $19 billion 2011 budget may seem massive, consider that we spend $20 billion annually on air conditioning for soldiers abroad and that Lindsay Lohan spends at least twice that amount on cocaine. Unfortunately, NASA’s budget, which represents just 0.5% of federal spending, may be headed for the chopping block in the new appropriations bill. Given the current economic pressures facing our country, many argue that we should deal with our problems on the ground before we spend more money looking at the stars – but this opinion is as misguided as that blind kid was when I gave whiskey to his seeing eye dog. (Note to any blind people reading this: relax, it was just a joke. And the dog sobered up eventually.) To secure America’s future as a global leader, it is important now more than ever that we reinvest in NASA. Why? Because NASA is much more than a space agency; it is an unparalleled contributor to new technology, a center for national/global safety and an incubator for innovation. As if that wasn’t enough, NASA also employs Young Jeezy.
John Glenn called Mr. Jeezy, “One of NASA’s greatest assets. A real Go Getta.”
In terms of NASA contributions to technological innovation, I had always assumed Tang was the agency’s crowning achievement. Unfortunately, that’s not the case because NASA didn’t invent that powdery goodness (thank you General Foods for that one). Nonetheless, NASA has made some other contributions to society which are almost as important as Tang. In no particular order, and just to name a few, NASA is responsible for developing: GPS satellites, implantable heart devices, aviation control systems, arthroscopic surgery, advanced robotics, and that awesome memory foam where your wife can jump on her side of the bed and not spill the glass of wine that you drunkenly put on your side.
NASA’s average of 1,600 new inventions per year is also quite close to my annual tally of how many times I wish I was a Ninja Turtle. The vast majority of NASA’s technological advancements aren’t used in the public, but those which are used are of vital importance to us. In pushing the boundaries of space travel, NASA is simultaneously pushed the boundaries of what technology can do for us down here. The more money we give NASA for research and development, the closer we will all be to cruising down the street on hover boards and erasing pencil without smudging the paper.
Every. Damn. Time.
And just because you’re not a chimpanzee in a spacesuit doesn’t mean that NASA isn’t looking out for you. In addition to making contact with Transformers, NASA’s creation was due to a fear that the Russians were developing advanced technology that could be used in a war against America. To this day NASA remains heavily involved in defense projects – NASA rockets power a large array of long rang defensive missiles and NASA satellites make sure that Chinese satellites don’t spy on you while you shower. Unfortunately, NASA cannot also monitor the activity of your creepy neighbor.
In addition to its role in national defense, NASA also shoulders the burden of global defense by keeping an eye out for any asteroids that might collide with earth. That may sound ridiculous, but dinosaurs didn’t have a program to identify and stop asteroids, and look how things turned out for them. NASA’s Near Earth Orbit project keeps an eye out for potentially dangerous asteroids (like this one) and develops preliminary plans for redirecting the trajectory of the object. Although none of the ideas are as awesome as sending Bruce Willis and his gang of rough necks to blow up the asteroid, the Don Quixote project is a pretty close second.
Unfortunately for dinosaurs, Bruce Willis wouldn’t be born for another 70 million years.
Necessity is the mother of invention, but smart people are the fathers (and Snuggies are the bastard child). NASA is where our countries smartest and most innovative people can explore the boundaries of space and technology. Even the NASA interns are real masterminds; intern Thad Roberts’ brilliant idea was to steal invaluable moon rock from a NASA safe and try to sell it on the open market. Sure Roberts might be a thief, but he also is able to lay claim to the title of first person to have sex on the moon. That’s right, he had sex on the moon rocks before he tried to sell them. Innovation at its finest.
Lunar sexcapades aside, NASA is also home to the famed rocket scientists whom the rest of us reference in order to make fun of our stupid friends. These scientists are the people who figured out how to save Apollo 13 using slide rulers and duct tape –in other words, NASA scientists get paid to be MacGyver on steroids. Our country has a surplus of incubators for idiots (Congress, Twilight movies, etc.) but we suffer from a dearth of places where brilliant people have the funding they need to conduct cutting edge research and develop amazing new technology. To be successful in the future, America needs to reinvest in NASA, but between the end of the shuttle program and looming budget cuts NASA runs the risk of losing its best people and best ideas.
“Interesting point, but I HAVE HAD SEX ON THE MOON.” – Thad Robert’s response to everything
Money is tight and NASA’s not perfect (ALWAYS picking days it rains for shuttle launches comes to mind) but it is by far one of the best government programs we have. Only half a penny from every dollar of federal spending goes to NASA, but unfortunately those funds are at serious risk of being cut in the new appropriations bill. And while I would love for China to take over NJ Transit, I would prefer that the Chinese do not completely take over space and continue to innovate while NASA falls apart.
You don’t have to be an astronaut like Kanye West in order to care about NASA. You should care about NASA because they do amazing work and we get to reap the benefits. It’s basically like every one of my group projects in college – all you need to do is make sure the smart kid in the group has what he needs and then you get to hitch a free ride to A+ Land. It’s inexcusable for NASA to be underfunded by Congress, especially when innovation is key to jumpstarting our economy.
Unfortunately, there is not a lot we can do to support NASA right now aside from hoping that Congress gives the agency the funding it needs. Sure, you could write to your senator, but those letters don’t do jack. Instead, you should email the people at NASA - public-inquiries@hq.nasa.gov – to let them know you are thankful for their work. It’s not much, but I’m sure they will appreciate the support.
A copy of the email I sent in case you want to use it as a guide.
Unbelievable
Our country teeters on the precipice of a potentially catastrophic debt default, the economic recovery has come to a near halt, and trillions of American dollars continue to funnel into the black hole that is the Middle East. But I don’t have time to talk about any of those things because THE NEW HARRY POTTER COMES OUT TODAY! Bum-dum-dee-dee-dum-dee-dee-dum!! In terms of age, the debt crisis, the recession, and even our wars in the Middle East are youngins compared to Potter’s epic journey. Today marks the culmination of a story that has been going on even longer than the war in Afghanistan.
The story has gone on much longer, but to be fair, it actually only took the magical community seven years to kill its greatest enemy.
For fourteen years, J.K. Rowling asked us to suspend our disbelief and follow her into a world where magic makes everything possible – from potent polyjuice potions to convincing the audience that Hermione would ever actually date Ron. Like everyone else, I was happy to dive into Rowling’s fantasy world and my appreciation for the story has grown as rapidly as our country’s debt. Harry Potter also holds the unique distinction of being one of my favorite childhood books AND being one of my favorite movies which I have snuck booze into. Also, without Harry Potter, my college roommate would never have been nicknamed Dobby and we would have lost out on all the enjoyment of making him live in the attic of our house.
Not pictured – Movies I wish I brought booze into: 27 Dresses, Everything by M. Night Shyamalan
I have enjoyed the Harry Potter stories for so long and in so many different ways (all non-sexual, though if you Google “harry potter sex” you can see that’s not the case for everyone) that I have never really looked at them with a critical eye. Over the course of the past few weeks I have read some excerpts from the books and revisited a few of the movies to brush up on the story. Though it wasn’t my intention, I began to notice a number of parts of the Harry Potter story which are simply impossible to believe by any stretch of the imagination – no matter how much magic is involved. I’m not talking about plot holes like how Harry had a time travel device but for some reason didn’t use it to go back in time and smash the Dark Lord’s face in when Voldemort was just a kid. I’m talking about some fundamental and disturbing problems which shake the very foundation of the Harry Potter Universe. If J.K. Rowling is to restore full credibility to the world she created, then it is absolutely vital she answer my questions.
On second thought, maybe Harry did smash Voldemort’s nose in. That would explain why the guy is so pissed.
1. Why does Harry wear glasses?
While I have no trouble understanding that Harry suffered from childhood myopia, I do have trouble understanding why the problem wasn’t fixed as soon as he got to Hogwarts. You’re telling me that muggles can get Lasik surgery but the magic community has to stick with bifocals? Similarly, Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard of all time, can do anything he wants…except read the newspaper. Why does he need glasses? Why would any of them? My only thought is that maybe wizards/witches use glasses as a fashion accessory and Voldemort wants to kill them all because he has no nose and is therefore unable to wear glasses. This prevents the Dark Lord from being a fashionable wizard and he is understandably upset about it.
2. How is it physically possible Hagrid exists?
Hagrid’s mom was a giant. Hagrid’s dad was a human. Let the biology of that sink in for a second. Rowling doesn’t offer any other insight here, but it’s safe to say that an enlargement charm must have been used. Also, does this mean that it would be possible for a male giant to impregnate a hu… you know what, let’s just skip this question. I’ll give Rowling a pass.
3. How could Harry only smooch two chicks in seven years?
There are few immutable truths that hold across all lines of reality and fiction. One such truth is that famous guys always have a ton of chicks trying to date them. Especially if the guys are awesome at magic. And in the cases of David Copperfield and Criss Angel, apparently chicks will date you if you are famous and terrible at magic.
Getting girls to date them is the best trick either of them ever pulled.
The point is that Rowling can’t tell me that a kid who came to Hogwarts as the most famous child wizard of all time walks out of school seven years later and has only ever kissed two girls – the second of whom ends up being his wife. Nice try, but I ain’t buying it – Harry Potter had to have hit more than two singles in his entire Hogwarts career. At least half of the bitc…I mean witches at Hogwarts had to have been trying to get themselves a piece of Potter. Rowling does mention that one girl tries to date rape Harry by sending him a love potion, but there must have been so many more girls trying to cast smooching charms on the world famous boy-wonder. The Boy Who Lived has to have been The Boy Who Lived It Up With The Ladies. Sure Voldemort was trying to kill him, but as we all know the threat of imminent death has not once deterred a man from trying to get some.
4. Why is there no mention of American wizards/witches?
Hogwarts is in England, so I can understand why there are no American students in the school. What I can’t understand is why there are no Americans ever mentioned fighting against Voldemort the first or second time he came to power. In the real world it is impossible to have a war without Americans involved and I don’t think there exists magic strong enough to change that in any fantasy world. The American wizards no doubt had enchanted tanks and predator drones, so why did Dumbledore never give them a call? Were the Americans busy invading countries rich with Mandrake root? In her heart of hearts, I think Rowling knew that any American wizard would beat up Harry Potter, date Hermione and kill Voldemort all within ten pages of his introduction. My explanation is that the British wizards saw how their muggle counterparts got toasted in the American Revolution and realized that if a bunch of farmers could fight like that, it wasn’t worth getting tangled up with the American wizards under any circumstances.
How American wizards roll.
5. Why doesn’t anyone use the internet?
Owls for mail, a Floo Network for conversation and flying paper for interdepartmental memos – the magical world sure has a lot of cool ways to communicate with each other. If only there were some way for these magical people of infinite power to communicate without nocturnal birds, fire places or paper airplanes… some sort of magical network which could store and transfer an infinite amount of information all over the world. Hmm, now why does that sound familiar… oh yeah, because the great wizard Al Gore already invented that network. It’s called the internet.
I can’t even begin to list how many of Harry’s problems would have been solved if he had an email account and access to a search engine. It takes a lot of fun out of it when you realize that if only one character had access to the internet, he or she would have been the most powerful wizard/witch in the world. I don’t understand why Rowling wouldn’t have included a Google incantation in Potter’s arsenal of spells – as far as I’m concerned, Google is basically magic anyway.
The real magic happens when you Google “Banana Stand Lady.”
Yes, the very fabric of American society may be torn asunder, but there are a ton of unanswered questions about the Potter Universe and I have to prioritize here. Once Rowling resolves my questions, I’ll get back to resolving the rest of the world’s problems. In the meantime, I need to figure out the best ways to stash some butter beers in my wizard hat before I leave for the movie – catch you mudbloods on the flipside.
Lend a hand. Or whatever else you got.
One of the often overlooked upsides of being dead is that you don’t really have a ton to worry about. If you’re an atheist, then death is it – lights out. If you’re religious, then you are going to bask in heaven, burn in hell, chill with the Vikings in Valhalla, or do some weird stuff with Tom Cruise. On the off chance you become a ghost, scaring people in the middle of the night and making them poop their pants is a pretty carefree existence as well.
My favorite paranormal-induced-pants-pooping-moment.
Those of us who have not yet kicked the bucket are the ones who have all the problems. We are the ones left with the tough questions: What am I doing with my life? Am I making the right choices? Where the hell is Carmen Sandiego? In addition to geolocating criminal masterminds, one of the chief problems amongst the living is figuring out how to stay alive. Sure, heaven might be great, but none of the religious figures I asked were able to tell me with 100% certainty that heaven serves Frosted Mini- Wheats at the breakfast buffet. I for one am not prepared to embrace eternal bliss if it does not come with Mini-Wheats. And so, unwilling to hazard the chance that I might not get to savor lightly sweetened whole grain goodness in the next life, I choose to fight for more time in this one. I’m sure there are other reasons aside from Frosted Mini-Wheats which compel people to live, but I just can’t think of any right now.
Heaven can wait.
In any event, people generally prefer to be alive. To support this ubiquitous desire for a long and healthy life, modern medicine has come through with some pretty incredible technology and procedures, like operating on a dude’s brain while he is awake and having a casual conversation. Of all the advancements in medicine, I am most impressed by organ transplants. I can’t transplant eggs from the carton to the fridge without breaking half of them, so I can’t even begin to fathom how doctors can literally take body parts from one dude and put them in another dude. Unfortunately, there are over 100,000 people waiting for transplants because we suffer from an appalling lack of donors in this country. The problem is twofold – one, people are wildly misinformed about organ donation and two, there is no standardized national system in place. I got a couple minutes to kill before lunch, so allow me to solve both of those problems for you America.
How I think heart transplant surgery must work.
I often sip quite liberally from a cocktail mixed with ignorance, delusion and self-importance, but I am continually astounded by the number of people who seem to sustain themselves on nothing but those three ingredients. The absurd myths about organ donation are so pervasive that the Mayo Clinic had to put together a specific mythbuster page where they respond to statements like “If I agree to donate my organs, the hospital staff won’t work as hard to save my life,” and “Maybe I won’t really be dead when they sign my death certificate.” In my book, the geniuses who ask these types of questions are probably not worth being saved, but that’s why I am not a doctor. That, and because I spent most of my time in college whooping ass in Mario Kart 64. People who actually are doctors work as hard as possible to save the lives of every critically injured patient, even the exceptionally self-involved ones. No one is taking your organs until you are as dead as my childhood dreams of getting a Power Wheels for Christmas.
WHY NOT ME!?!?
The litany of paltry excuses for why people choose not to be organ donors is extensive, so to answer them all as quickly as possible let me just say, “Shut up, you will be dead.” What possible reason can you give me that would prevent you from doing something which costs you nothing and could potentially give life to multiple people? It’s against your religion? Nice try; almost every religion encourages donation, unless you are Gypsy or Shinto. (I was going to make a gypsy joke here, but gypsies and their gypsy magic could make life quite difficult for me.) You say you’re too old, too young or too sick? It doesn’t matter; there are almost no conditions aside from your own selfishness which preclude you from becoming a donor.
The only man brave enough to cross gypsies.
While there is no excuse for not being an organ donor, the process of becoming a donor is not as easy as it should be. There is no federal standard, so states are left to their own devices to sign donors up by whatever means they choose. Currently, the most successful registration method involves a disgruntled DMV employee mumbling something to you about your organs while you try to renew your license. I’m pretty sure the people who work at the DMV were the inspiration for the soul-sucking Dementors in Harry Potter, so I can’t say I’m shocked so many people say no to them. In an attempt to remedy the issue, I went to a nearby DMV and yelled EXPECTO PATRONUM, but that didn’t work out too great (charges pending) so I came up with a better idea.
The simple solution is to make organ donation a nationalized opt-out system. If you are an American citizen, you are an organ donor unless you specifically opt-out of the program. However, if you opt-out of the program, you are no longer eligible to receive a transplant yourself. It’s important that everyone has some skin (and other body parts) in the game if they want to play. Once the system is in place all you would need is a DagYo! public service announcement to tell people that they are a bunch of jagoffs if they opt out. With this system we would have ten times the number of donors we need instead of having the situation we do now where only one-tenth of those in need receive a transplant.
It will be the most effective PSA of all time.
The reason the government won’t implement my plan immediately is because it is too simple and because it would work. You on the other hand have no excuse. When you’re dead, you are going to get to hang out with Macho Man Randy Savage and do tons of other exciting after-life activities you don’t need your body for. Making the decision to become an organ donor is easy, and you will never regret it…mostly because you will be dead when it’s time to pay up, but don’t sweat that part of the deal. Become a donor, enjoy life, and if you find yourself alone in a ring with Macho Man about to land a flying elbow on you, do not be afraid, for you are already dead.
Organ Donation? OHHHH YEAHHHH!
The only way heaven is better than Frosted Mini-Wheats
Click here to register as an organ donor. Nike, baby. Just do it.
I loves me some Freedom! Except when I don’t.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It’s been a month since my last post, which means you’ve had to go an entire month without having somewhere to go to make you feel better about yourself. Cut me some slack, I’m a single father trying to raise my four month old son.
My son being raised.
But guess what? This is America so I can update when I want and do what I want. This holiday weekend we’ll all be about celebrating that freedom we have as Americans, whether it be the freedom for a person to make up an imaginary story about Paul Revere or the Supreme Court-guaranteed freedom for a child to buy a graphically violent video game. Note to children: if you ever beat me in any video game, things will get graphically violent in real life. Believe that.
Personally, I will be celebrating the freedom for people to be awesome. I will do so by drinking Whiskey Sours made in a gas powered blender that my Dad’s cousin built out of a weed whacker engine. To answer the obvious question, no, I have no idea why he hasn’t been awarded the Nobel Prize in every category.
Nothing better than the sweet taste of gas-powered freedom.
Unfortunately, describing freedom is a lot like a prescription drug commercial: freedom is awesome, it lets people run on the beach and do other activities, but there are a ton of really unfortunate side effects. Just like Propecia is great for hair loss but can MAKE YOU GROW BOOBS, freedom is great for America but may result in you having to deal with the lady in front of you in line at the mall who can’t get it together to pay for her merchandise because she’s on the phone arguing with her husband about which psychiatrist they should send their dog to. Pull a stunt like that in China and your ass would be in a reeducation facility faster than Lindsay Lohan can make a bag of cocaine disappear.
Say what you will about China, but they are great at arresting people. They even arrest famous people like artist Ai WeiWei who have done nothing wrong. Which makes me wonder, how the hell is Lindsay Lohan not in jail in this country? Can’t I just pull a citizen’s arrest on that little cokehead?
Baller name. Baller shirt.
Chinese people with hilarious names and former babe-status actresses aside, the real issue at hand is that freedom isn’t always the best prescription. That’s where laws, regulations and licenses come in handy. For example, it is a good thing that we are not free to murder people because otherwise there would be a ton of dead middle-schoolers. Everybody hates those punkasses. Similarly, it’s a good thing we don’t have the freedom to call ourselves doctors if we feel like it. You need to be a licensed physician (or a legendary rapper) to use that title.
Not considered an in-network physician on most health insurance policies
While there are plenty of sectors which are overregulated (Do we really need government patent protection for a surgical procedure to turn goats into unicorns? – you can’t make this stuff up), there are other areas of our daily lives which suffer from a disturbing lack of oversight. The two most noticeable areas are voicemail usage and parenting. And unlike Propecia, I have a solution which won’t require you to run the risk of NIPPLE DISCHARGE!
…now that the bout of heavy vomiting the phrase “nipple discharge” induced has passed, I can tell you my solution: you should need a license to leave a voicemail or become a parent. No exceptions. Hopefully you won’t need much convincing, but allow me to break it down for you.
VOICEMAILS
“….did it start?….oh, hey! It’s me, it’s around ummmmm 3 o’clock and I was just calling to ask you ab…OH YOU KNOW WHAT? It’s actually 4 o’clock! I forgot to fix the clock on this stove from daylight savings time, they just make it so hard to change! Haha anyways, it’s me and it’s actually 4 o’clock and I’m….what’s that? Oh yeah, I’m leaving him a message right now. I don’t know, just order me a turkey sandwich…sorry, Sarah was just asking me what I was doing and I told her I was leaving you a message and then told her she should order me a turkey sandwich for lunch. Anyways, I was calling to see if you wanted to go to the movie tonight. I can’t find my computer so I’m not sure what the movie is or what time it’s playing, but just give me a call back. My phone is about to die so call me on Sarah’s phone, her number isss…HEY SARAH, WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER? Oh, her phone is about to die too. So when you get this, just wait a little while before you call me back and I will charge my phone. Unless it’s been a little while since I left this message, and then you can just call me back now. Now meaning now for you in the future not now meaning now now. Ok…..bye…. Sarah, did you order the sandwiches yet!?”
I have no idea why, but for some reason a large percentage of the population is under the impression that the voicemail beep is the starting gun for a stream of consciousness soliloquy. Smartphones, iPads and the Magic Bullet Blender have all been seamlessly integrated into our society, but for some reason the antiquated and lowly voicemail remains problematic. The purpose of a voicemail is to leave a specific set information/instructions for the receiver to act on. That’s it, folks. However, most people leaving voicemails like to include the following:
1. A description of their surroundings.
2. Questions which they ask you, but then answer themselves.
3. Unrelated side conversations with other people.
4. The phrase “now I can’t remember why I was calling.”
5. An indecipherable number they want you to call them back at.
6. Nothing of value.
And God help you if you leave a message saying, “Hey, it’s me, just trying to get a hold of you. Call me back.” There is a special place in hell for people who do that. The nineties are over, so not just Zach Morris has a cell phone and caller ID. EVERYONE DOES. A missed call is the same thing as a message to call you back, you really don’t need to leave me a message, especially when 90% of the message is you saying “ummmm.”
Time out. You left me a voicemail!?
If you are going to make me call my voicemail and listen to monotone lady, you had better have some lifesaving information to share with me, especially since the telecom companies basically use voicemail as a way to drain your minutes. The exam to become a licensed voicemailer would be quite simple; the written component would require you to identify under which scenarios it is acceptable to leave a voicemail, and the practical component would require the applicant to leave a series of test voicemails. If you answer that any non-life threatening situations are an acceptable use of voicemail or if any of your test voicemails are over 20 seconds, you fail. But everyone else will rejoice. It’s for the best. You can just call, text or email people like you should be doing 99.9% of the time anyway.
PARENTING
“Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.” ~ Ed Asner
… And most parents are woefully unprepared to deal with the insurgents. You need a license to go fishing. You need a license to sell people your junk at a yard sale. However, there are zero requirements if you would like to create entirely new humans and rule over them for eighteen years. This is mind blowing on two accounts. First, and completely unrelated to this post, it is insane that humans grow inside other humans. Second, and much more on topic, a simple survey of the parents I see on a daily basis makes it blindingly obvious that a lot of people are as qualified to be parents as I am qualified to be an Asian woman. The simplest definition of a qualified parent is someone who is willing to make every effort to raise a kid who will in some way positive impact on the world. There is plenty of room for debate about the best way to parent and what a “positive impact” means, but there is a large contingent of people who clearly fall well short of the mark. Members of this contingent include but are not limited to:
1. 95% of people whose age ends in teen
2. People who don’t like the movie Mighty Ducks
3. Britney Spears
4. Terrorists
5. People who like Bud Light Lime. (This group could also be considered a sub-section of terrorists)
6. This guy:
Dad of the year.
My plan to require a parenting license may seem like a form of eugenics, but I want to be eligible to have kids myself, and I’m and idiot, so clearly the bar can’t be set too high. To acquire a parenting license, an individual would have to undergo a battery of simple caregiving tests throughout the course of a week while being deprived of sleep. If the person survives the week, they are given a license. It’s not a perfect form of screening, but it’s a whole lot better than what we’ve got. For the hotshots who try to parent without a license, your children will be put on a prune smoothie diet for a week so that you can really show off your skills.
Speaking of the effects of prune smoothies, my son surreptitiously ate a trove of wild berries last night and is currently in the midst of an all-day-poop-fest. I must prematurely draw this post to a close before he decides to refinish the floors in a darker stain. Just imagine I said a bunch of funny stuff here. So, basically do what you always do when you read DagYo!
Hope you all sip on some sweet freedom this weekend, but just remember to enjoy it in moderation. As voicemails, parenting and plenty of other examples (which I would have included if I had more time/was funnier) demonstrate, there is such a thing as too much freedom. Feel free to do a lot of things, but please don’t leave any voicemails, be a part of any pregnancies or eat any wild berries. If you can only choose one, don’t leave any voicemails.
The DagYo! Forecast
One of the most ubiquitous (non-sexual) activities worldwide is people speaking authoritatively about matters of which they have little understanding (Note: this rule clearly does not apply to the knowledge dropped on DagYo. Trust me, I’m an expert). In fact, plenty of people make a good living by talking quite loudly from their asses. Many sports writers, bankers and politicians have wildly successful careers based on bold predictions which turn out to be as accurate as I am when peeing in the middle of the night.
Only SEAL Team 6 could hit that target.
The rise of the incorrigible Professional Predictor class has led to the point where my default assumption is that “expert” predictions will be wrong. I expected every ESPN analyst to make terrible predictions for the 2010 NFL season; if these guys actually knew how to handicap, they would be working on Wall Street. I also expected every Wall Street executive to testify that they had no idea the mortgage market would collapse; if these guys actually knew how to manage an economy, they would be in the White House. And I certainly expected the President’s prediction that Guantanamo Bay would be closed in a year to be entirely wrong; if the President knew how to run the country, he would be the author of Dagyo.com.
May 22 is going to be pretty awkward for the guys who made this prediction.
But despite the evidence that we are inundated with a myriad of false prophets, there is one prophecy that people continue to believe in every day: the weather forecast. Every morning, blue screen prophets preach from the Book of Meteorology to a rapt audience –an audience that for some reason takes the word of these meteorologists as gospel (unless you are Borat). My fellow Nobel-laureates-in-waiting over at Freakonimics have already showcased the wild inaccuracy of extended local forecasts. The stations in the study correctly predicted if there would be precipitation 85% of the time – pretty good except that if over that same time period the stations never looked at the weather and just said it would never rain, they would have been right 86.3% of the time. I’m not a complete idiot (some parts are missing), but when experts’ predictions are worse than a thoughtless prediction, you probably shouldn’t trust the experts. So why do people continue to act surprised when the weather forecast is wrong?
This forecast was wrong on a lot of levels.
People trust meteorology because forecasts are based on scientific principles. Moreover, people will believe in just about anything if you add an –ology to it, (see: Scientology, Astrology). Meteorology, like pretty much everything else, began with Aristotle. Unfortunately, Aristotle, like Voldemort, did not make enough horcruxes and so eventually died. This meant the development of Meteorology was left to the rest of the world. Not surprisingly, the rest of the world did dick for the next 2,000 years and weather forecasting remained largely based on dudes looking at the sky. People did invent jousting during that time though, so I will definitely give them props for that. As for meteorology, progress in the field picked up again in the 18th century, and nowadays meteorology is a combination of climatology, barometry atmospheric physics, atmospheric chemistry and hydrology. Even for Bill Nye, that’s a lot of science! Let’s take a look at one of the foremost scientists in the field:
Or let’s not. This photo is kryptonite for your vision.
Ok, so taking cheap shots at Al Roker isn’t really fair. One bumbling guy can’t possibly represent an entire group. I’m sure such a portrayal would upset serious weather scientists and forecasters. To be fair, now let’s take a panoramic shot of weather reports from around the country.
You expect the mamacita on the Spanish channel to be a complete smoke show (that’s just how the Spanish channel rolls) but an incredibly large number of on-air meteorologists are total babes. If you are going to report the wrong information on a near-daily basis, I guess it makes sense to have a hot chick do it. Meteorologists might not know the weather, but they clearly know that studies show men have reduced brain function when listening to attractive women. By the time these babes finish dancing and sashaying across the blue screen, men clearly don’t care if the prediction is right – they just care that they get to see the same babe during tomorrow’s forecast. If you need any further anecdotal evidence, a number of weather girls have been featured in Playboy (relax, it’s a Google search).
But again, maybe I’m cherry-picking here. Surely there must be other meteorologists who have reached the top of their field based on stronger credentials. I’m talking about meteorologists like Ray Ban, Dallas Raines, Larry Sprinkle and Storm Field. In case you just blacked out, the previous sentence was a list of meteorologists, not porn stars. So we are left with two major questions. One, are you shitting me with these names? And two, what exactly are the qualifications for an on-air meteorologist?
Based on the above information, I was not surprised to find out that news stations are primarily concerned with the personality and presentation of their meteorologists, and there is no consideration given to accuracy. Even a career site for aspiring meteorologists admits that getting on TV requires the candidate to be telegenic, and have an engaging on-air personality. The site also recommends some “basic training” in meteorology. By the looks of it, “basic training” in meteorology means you need to know how to do a Vanna White impression. Glad everyone’s priorities are in order.
I’m starting to think they just stand in front of their screen savers to mess with us.
While their weather forecasts are often useless, I feel we should at least thank meteorologists for discovering the global warming phenomenon and bringing it to the attention of the public. SIKE! It was actually climatologists who first discovered the trend. An easy way to remember the difference between the two is that climatologists deal with the world’s impact on weather and meteorologists deal with the weather’s impact on your world! are generally complete morons. Climatologists (i.e. the real scientists) almost universally agree that the temperature of the earth is rising and pollution is a massive factor in that increase. Only 50% of meteorologists concur with the assessment from the actual scientists. I’m assuming those who disagree with the climatologists use their extensive experience of “doing good smiling” and “making shitty weather puns” to back up their skepticism. Here’s a fun experiment to determine who the real scientists are: Google “hot meteorologists” and “hot climatologists” and you decide whose science you trust.
First image results for the above searches. (Note: The climatologist has wood, but in this case it is not because of the meteorologist.)
Next time you see the forecast on the news, please try to remember that meteorologists can only really tell you is what the weather is like today and maybe what it will be like tomorrow, but even that is no guarantee. So stop telling me stories about how you can’t believe it’s raining because it wasn’t in the five day forecast. If you want to talk to me about weather, you better be talking about how companies can force rain to fall on farmland through Cloud Seeding.
Cloud Seeding brings a new and literal meaning to “I make it rain on them hoes.”
Personally, I only like to get my weather from two places:
1. Ollie William’s Black-u-weather forecast
2. Jim Kosek’s (drug fueled?) forecast
Why trust my advice? Sir Charles said it best, “I may be wrong, but I doubt it.”
To book me for commencement speeches or children's birthday parties, contact me at dag.yo.inc at gmail.com
