Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

"A Democratic victory would not change the world, but it would at least slow the berserk white-trash momentum of the bombs-and-Jesus crowd. Those people have had their way long enough. Not even the Book of Revelation threatens a plague of vengeful yahoos." -Dr. Hunter S. Thompson The above passage is a prime example of just why I miss Hunter S. Thompson...it was written in reference to the Senate elections in 1986, and yet is every bit as relevant today, and is exactly the sort of sentiment on the minds of millions of us across the country right up to the moment one Barack Obama was elected to serve the United States as its Commander in Chief. And frankly, I wish he were alive to see it today. As a staunch Democrat and vehement opponent of George W. Bush, Thompson was a vocal supporter of John Kerry's efforts to win the presidency in 2004, and the continued reign of the GOP clearly caused him some discontent (I learned all of this from reading the archives of his co...

The more astute among you may know that I hold a Bachelor's Degree in English Language Literature from the prestigious UC Santa Cruz, where, Wikipedia tells me, Ego Trip's The White Rapper Show runner-up John Brown attended. The numerous minutes of work that led to my acquisition of said degree has instilled in me a furious passion for the English language, which will likely eventually become a mild fondness for the English language, and will no doubt end up a grudging, resentful acceptance of the English language. Amidst this passion has grown a resentment for renowned poet E.E. Cummings. Some amongst you may believe that said resentment comes from the fact that my porn moniker, P.P. Cummings, was met with universal ridicule, but this is an erroneous belief. The fact is, Cummings and his avant-garde poetry make a mockery of the syntax, punctuation, and proper capitalization I hold so dear, and I simply cannot sit idly by while his bizarrely-phrased musings metaphorically te...

A few weeks ago, my roommate was watching the film John Q on cable and, in between staring at my reflection longingly, I watched most of it too. It was a decent movie; Denzel Washington was great as usual, and the plot was pretty interesting. However, there was one glaring flaw about the film: the script. It was so heavy-handed, the screenwriter must have been wearing gauntlets. I'm all for using major motion pictures to spread useful information, but several parts of John Q were like listening to people reciting from a textbook. I went to IMDB to find some quotes, since you can't honestly expect me to remember this stuff, but they didn't have many relevant to what I'm talking about. The closest one was this: Mitch : This country man, can't go anywhere without getting' mugged, or murdered or stabbed. Kids killin' their classmates, drivebys, ya know, I won't even go into a post office any more. Steve Maguire : Shut up, Mitch. Dr. Turner : No, you ...

I realize that this post is nothing particularly new; the video I'm about to show you is fairly infamous and has been viewed nearly a million times on YouTube as of this writing. However, since at least 10% of those views are just from me, I figure there's a decent chance that many of you have never seen it, and I simply must do what I can to spread it to the masses. Without further ado, the Iron Mic Challenge: Honestly, there is very little I can say about this that hasn't already been said better. For example, here is a pretty good breakdown of it, and the comments section here has some classic material. All I can suggest is to watch this video a few times. Appreciate the nuances. See Marv-O act mad Hom-o as he rubs on J-Dub like he was Eva Mendes. Ponder how judge A-14 "Action" Jackson resembles a poor man's Jamie Foxx as he once and for all settles the debate regarding the difference between "good" and "great." Notice how Marv-O is so...

Good afternoon, everyone. Everyone being most likely just me at this point. Anyway, hi. I'm Joey, and what I'm about to do here is introduce what amounts to my third...ugh, I hate this word...blog. Online journal, if you prefer. I know I do. Anyway, as of today I have registered my own name as a domain name, so the dreams of literally dozens, possibly less, have reached their long delayed fulfillment as joeymarsilio.com has officially gone live. And yes, it is every bit as shitty as you might expect. My only web design experience was as a part of a class at UC Santa Cruz taught by a man named Guy Cox (I'm not joking). The website does not exist anymore, unfortunately...if it did, I would have shared it with you in all its hot pink glory. The bottom line is, I don't know HTML from KKK (probably not the best example of an acronym), so whatever I churn out will likely have the visual appeal of a decaying fox corpse. Please bear with me as I figuratively attempt to tel...