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You are here: Home / 2012 / Archives for December 2012

Archives for December 2012

Thank God for Florida

December 30, 2012 by

The Miami Spice Bikini Basketball Team.

Before we begin I just want to ask the nice people at the NRA a simple question; Not to say that you’re all racist, self serving, sociopaths who have no regard for humanity, but where was the call to arm all hoody wearing Skittle lovers when Trayvon Martin was shot? I’ll hang up and wait for your response. Moving on. It has to suck to be John Boehner right now. Believe it or not he’s not a moron. He has a narrow point of view, that is true, but he’s not stupid. However his entire political career is built on appeasing people who make the NRA look enlightened. Good for him. But his job title is Speaker of the House of Representatives for the United States of America. And it is Americans who elected President Obama. And those people are in the majority and they disagree with Speaker Boehner’s constituents. Vehemently in many places. Worse, for him, these new Americans are growing in number, voice and strength. Now, how does he keep getting re-elected while not flushing the country he allegedly serves down the drain. I don’t believe he can do both.

But those are minor concerns. It is the end of the year and that means I need to cough up the annual hair ball known as the “end of the year” list. I hate those lists but they are expected, like 3rd date sex. Fortunately for me WTSP (Tampa) published an awesome list of stupid stuff Floridians did in 2012.

Small fact; Floridians make up the largest percentage of guests on the Jerry Springer Show.

Small fact number 2; Jerry Springer released a country album.

Yes, those two small facts are related.

In 2012, Florida was a state where a lifeguard got fired for saving a life, a woman got arrested for riding a manatee and a man repeatedly used 911 as a phone sex service.

Think that’s weird? It gets worse and more tragic.

In one of the state’s most horrifying stories of the year, a man stripped a homeless man naked and attacked him in Miami, chewing off most of his face before police fatally shot him. And it wasn’t the only story of its kind. In Manatee County, deputies used multiple Tasers to subdue a naked man who bit off part of another man’s arm.

Later in the year a man won a roach-eating contest outside a Deerfield Beach pet store and then dropped dead in front of the store when body parts of the dozens of roaches he swallowed blocked his airway.

“We tend to be a magnet from every direction for all kinds of sketchery,” said Billy Corben, a documentary film director whose works include “Cocaine Cowboys” about Miami’s cocaine wars in the 1980s. “It’s very late in the game where we go, `That dude? I guess he seemed kind of weird.'”

Corben, whose “The Billy Pulpit” website compiles weird Florida news, said Floridians tend to show up in high numbers on “The Jerry Springer Show” and “America’s Most Wanted.”

And odd stories elsewhere always seem to have a Florida tie – like former CIA director David Petraeus’s extramarital affair being exposed through a Tampa socialite. And when anti-virus software founder John McAfee ran from Belizean authorities who wanted to question him about the slaying of a neighbor, he wound up in Miami Beach, where he shopped, ate sushi and posed for photos with tourists.

“The state seems to either passively or directly endorse all of this lunacy in some way or another,” Corben said.

Then again, this is the state where Gov. Rick Scott mistakenly gave the media a phone sex number to promote a meningitis hot line. After a broadcaster posted it, at least one caller was greeted with a recording of “Hello boys…” from a lusty sounding lady.

Several gaffes involved hunting Floridians.

There were the two guys in Santa Rosa County who used a bow and arrow to kill a neighbor’s pet turkey, which they planned to eat on Thanksgiving. Then there was a Flagler County man who shot his girlfriend in the legs because he thought she was a wild hog.

A mother and daughter were sentenced to two months in jail for using two dogs to kill a farm-raised pig in their backyard. They posted video of the attack on Facebook, which led to their arrest.

Ah, Facebook! It caused trouble for several other Floridians.

A Sarasota County man was kicked off a jury after a judge learned he sent the defendant a Facebook friend request. The juror further infuriated the judge with a Facebook post bragging about getting dismissed from jury duty. He was given three days in jail.

A Manatee County music teacher was issued a verbal warning for a Facebook conversation in which she described an 8-year-old student as the “evolutionary link between orangutans and humans.” A high school science teacher also had some explaining to do when she put a cone-shaped dog collar on at least eight students and the “cone of shame” photos appeared on Facebook.

Those weren’t the only strange events in Florida schools.

A Plant City teacher was charged with trying to hire a hit man to kill another teacher he suspected was spreading rumors about him.

And a man showed up at his kindergartener’s school to retrieve a bag of marijuana and a scale he left in the boy’s backpack. More evidence that pot affects short-term memory? An 18-year-old Tampa woman wascharged with DUI and marijuana possession three times in less than three weeks, the last two times on back-to-back days.

Bunnell police charged a man with riding a horse while intoxicated after he led officers on a half-hour chase, while a 52-year-old St. Petersburg woman was arrested after police foundphotos of her riding a manatee.

Floridians also showed that they’ll steal just about anything. An Ocala woman told police thieves stole her Thanksgiving turkey from a freezer in her garage; a man was charged in Lakeland after police said he stole two swan eggs from a nest and cooked them; about 150,000 baby clams were reported stolen in Lee County; and a South Florida woman had hundreds of parrots stolen from her home.

Perhaps the oddest was a Reddick woman who drove home to findsomeone stole her driveway, carting away 300 square feet of brick pavers.

And it’s not as if Florida authorities don’t take theft seriously. A judge in Ocala sentenced a homeless man to 180 days in jail and fined him $500 for stealing $2 worth of candy.

Then there was the guy accused of selling methamphetamine in Polk County who swiped the recorder with his confession and flushed it down a toilet. The suspect told the detective, “Tighten up on your job, homie.”

Even more embarrassing, a Broward County deputy was fired for repeatedly visiting strip clubs while he was on duty and wearing his uniform, sometimes skipping official calls. A West Palm Beach strip-club owner unsuccessfully sued a competing club to block the appearance of Nadya Suleman, claiming the woman best known as “Octomom” agreed to strip at his club first.

Speaking of celebrities and sex, former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan sued a DJ named Bubba the Love Sponge Clem over a secret tape of Hogan having sex with Clem’s wife.

While not quite sex on tape, 911 audio recordings were released of a Tampa man who repeatedly called the emergency line and asked the operator to come over for sex.

A Florida legislator suffered some embarrassment after “selfies” that showed him posing in his underwear made the rounds online. In a statement, he said the pics were only meant to show weight loss and how he was in good health while fighting diabetes.

Florida’s unique wildlife always finds a way into the news. An airboat captain near Everglades City was showing an Indiana family how tofeed alligators when a 9-footer bit his left hand off. Authorities later charged him with illegally feeding an alligator.

A South Florida teen also lost an arm in a gator attack, but managed to battle the animal off using knowledge he learned from watching the TV show “Swamp Men.”

A man strolling along Pompano Beach found a giant blue eyeballand turned it over to authorities. Wildlife officials said it likely came from a swordfish. This story ended up topping National Geographic’s “10 Weirdest stories of the Year.”

A rhesus macaque dubbed “The Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay” was caught after several years on the loose, weeks after the primate attacked a St. Petersburg grandmother.  The monkey now has a new home in Dade City.

On another South Florida beach, a lifeguard was fired for helping save a man from drowning. It turns out the man he saved was just outside the area that Hallandale Beach hired a private company to protect. The company said it was at risk once the lifeguard crossed the boundary.

In miscellaneous Florida weirdness:

– A man who won an auction for the contents of a Pensacola storage unit discovered it contained dozens of preserved human brains, hearts, lungs and other organs that had been collected by a former medical examiner.

– A teenager is recovering after shooting off his penis and testiclewhile cleaning a gun he just bought.

– A Jacksonville man was arrested after he allegedly used enemas and then returned them to pharmacies resealed, claiming they were unused.

– An 18-month-old girl was pulled off a flight in Miami because the airline thought she was on the U.S. no-fly list of suspected terrorists.

– An Orlando couple was caught having sex in public… on a patio table… at a restaurant… in full view of children.

And finally, in what will go down in the first date from hell hall of fame, Boca Raton police say a 35-year-old woman attacked a man with a knife and smashed his windows after he refused to say they were boyfriend and girlfriend at the end of their first date.

The First Date From Hell Hall Of Fame.

I win. Or, at least, I’m a member.

In 1981 I met a nice young lady at a bar (I had a fake ID). We laughed, we joked, we agreed to see each other the next Saturday. She seemed sane. Well, keep in mind that I was 20 years old, horny as any healthy 20 year old male, and she had a rack you could land aircraft on, so my sanity meter might have been off.

A little.

So Saturday arrived. We had dinner, drinks, desert and she asked me back to her place.

I mentally high fived myself and agreed.

Clothing became optional and we ended up in her bedroom. I let her get on top, you would have too, and then she suddenly pulled a .38 from under the mattress, stuck it in my mouth and said “Promise me you love me.”

Long story short, I professed love at a a level not seen since Heathcliff.

Before I could leave she took my ID. So, somewhere, there is a young (then) lady who is waiting for a return call from Mike McConnell, a 23 year old AT&T employee.

Thank God she’s not looking for me.

The answer to your obvious question, “Hell Yeah it was worth it.” She did things that are illegal in many states.

Robotic Wednesdays feat. Lucky Date – 02.16.11 from BALEOUT

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Sexapalooza 2012

December 27, 2012 by

Another happy mom in Florida.
While some of the below stories have graced this blog this year, seeing them all in one place is so impressive that it must be shared. And the beautiful part about it is that they have edited out the naked criminals – like the guy who robbed a 7-11 or the guy who peed on a police car while naked – to keep the list as short as it is. This is a state where it is illegal to molest an alligator or a manatee, and has been for years, but only recently have they outlawed sex with menstruating donkeys and so on, and that is being contested. Because, well, you know, God given rights and all that. But, as you scroll through this list and click each and every link, because you will, think about this; every single incident happened this year and these are only the ones that cops know about. You see only about 10% of the people who do stupid sex stuff actually get arrested. That means the other 90% are walking around free and working at Disney World. Anyway, the nice people over at the Florida Sun Sentinel put this list together just for you and you and you but not you, so I’m sharing.

Floridians have been called every name.

Crazy. Crackers. Loco. Too stupid to vote correctly. Blue hairs. Rednecks. Carpetbaggers. Half-baked. In the sun too long.

They say we live in a Banana Republic.

Call us anything you’d like.

However, never ever call us sexually unadventurous.

Even our Governor.

Governor Rick Scott gave out the state’s information hot line for a deadly meningitis outbreak last October.

It turned out to be a hot hot hotline: Scott was one digit off, providing the state’s citizen’s an opportunity to hear the low purr of a woman’s voice offering to talk dirty.

We often go where no man — or woman — goes, sexually speaking.

Don’t believe this?

Well, just consider FloriDUH ‘s Sexapalooza 2012 top picks of sex gone south.

Driving Florida’s highways are never boring, despite the flat landscape and endless billboards. But, if your traveling with kids in the car, better take along a pair of blinders.

Ocala: Woman wearing only pink shirt accused of performing sex and exposing herself to motorists before giving arresting officer “love tap”

Pompano Beach: Woman accused of exposing her entire body at street intersection

Talk about distracted drivers …guess sexting and texting while driving are the least of our worries.

This beats everything. Drummer accused of masturbating while driving on I-95 near Ormond Beach.

Havoc on the highway in Hobe Sound: DUI driver with sex toy in his rump rear-ends another driver.

Jeepers creepers! Naked man allegedly caught masturbating with toy pistol in anus while driving his Jeep in Fort Pierce

Crash in Port Charlotte! Woman pulled gun on man in moving car — while having sex, deputies say

Folks in orgies really got into the swing of things in 2012.

Too bad we don’t have group holding cells just for them.

Zephyrhills: Threesome sex romp ended in gunfire, deputies say

Spring Hill: Naked, jealous swingers duke it out at orgy, deputies say.

Vero Beach: Wife enraged at hubby’s request to ‘use the bed’ — with another woman. This couple was married only 5-months.

Floridians insist the best of everything, including sex.

Or there could be a price to pay.

Bradenton: Woman attacked boyfriend after bad sex, cops say

Some like it hot; but Floridians like it freaky.

Naples: Naked man wanted to get ‘freaky’ with passed out drunken woman

A day at the beach sure isn’t like it used to be.

Bonita Beach Perv alert: Suspected noisy beach masturbator busted.

Sanibel: Two dudes busted for having sex on the beach. Real sex, not the drink.

Ocala: Nude sunbathing sex offender held rubber penis. Somebody get him a rubber ducky and bathing trunks. Fast.

Floridians can be animal lovers….sometimes a little too much.

Clearwater: Here’s a real pervert’s pervert. Man accused of having sex with dog — and having kiddie porn on his ‘puter

Ocala: Donkey-sex suspect wants his “Doodle’ back, officials say Which one’s the real arse?

Fort Lauderdale: Man accused of having sex with a dog named Mimi

Gadsden County:  Neigh way! Man busted for having sex with a horse…twice, deputies say

Some folks even legally fought for their right to love animals.

Clearwater: Man reportedly fought and licked loophole in Florida’s bestiality law

Ocala: Donkey sex suspect’s lawyers wants to void law banning sex with animals

Sometimes our adventursome nature has impaired our better judgment.

Port St. Lucie: Man jailed after apparent inappropriate ‘yanking’

When a neighbor yelled at the man, he kept yanking away, refusing to put on his hand brake – even for the cops

Port Lucie: Nude dude spotted ‘working real hard ‘ at masturbating in his front yard

Niceville, of all places! Teen charged with indecent exposure while at church .

Others just couldn’t resist the lure of sex in a public place.

Orlando: Couple had sex on restaurant’s outside patio table at Paddy Murphy’s. They then got to see another Paddy – a paddy wagon, cops say
sfl-intimately-involved-20120923

Naples: Man, woman busted after spotted ‘intimately involved’ on beach, cops say

But, hey, when your homeless, your privacy options are limited.

Nokomis: Couple caught having sex on picnic table in park

Man allegedly told the deputy that he knew he shouldn’t have had sex in the park but added “she really wanted it,” according to the arrest report.

Some Floridians don’t need a date, they prefer going solo when in public:

Starbucks FLAPpuccino: Woman busted for allegedly masturbating in Bradenton Starbucks

Pace: Man arrested for allegedly masturbating in plain view of neighbors

Bonita Springs: Man caught masturbating in open garage, deputies say | Video

Gainesville: Kiosk watch peddler accused of masturbating on company time

Florida Keys: Yard guy turned out to be a bad weed. Naked man accused of performing lewd act in front of elderly woman

Bonita Springs: Deputies say dude ‘hit on’ cola delivery man while masturbating at 7-Eleven. Guess you can’t beat the real thing.

With so much sex going on, apparently some folks think it’s a service provided by  local law enforcement officers.

911: Tampa man accused of requesting female deputies for sex; he got jail instead.

As usual, some folks got stung in in their pleasure pursuit.

Sex sting at beach park nets 4 arrests, including an 80-year-old | Mugs

Punta Gorda sex sting: Woman arrived at hotel with 2 men from Happy Drive for protection. One of the men was 85.

Bradenton: Stinky situation for man, who didn’t want any nookie, snared in sex sting

Brooksville: Sex text rendezvous ended with mugging, beatdown

Woman’s cousins rushed inside the bedroom, beat up the man and stole his money when they heard the magic signal — “Oh that feels so good.”

Fort Myers: Man, 83, busted in boat ramp sex sting. Guess what else sucks, senior citizen? Jail

Multiple lovers can lead to confusion.

Port St. Lucie: Olive oil during sex rubbed woman the wrong

Girlfriend asked her lover to get the olive oil from the kitchen to use as a “sexual lubricant” — and then also asked him if he had brought the PAM.

Bad karma: Pam happened to be the name of his secret lover.

Sick of all the sex in the Sunshine State?

Calm down, but please don’t follow this dude’s lead.

Port St. Lucie: Ouch! Teen shoots off his penis, testicle, cops say

It is amazing the number of men who were caught with firearm-like dildos in their butts. I do believe we have found the core constituents of the NRA. Or, maybe, it’s just a Florida thing.

Sexapalooza Video from Julie on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Getting Around

December 26, 2012 by

Yet another reason cities love tourists.
People used to love to travel. You would go to the airport, have a smoke and a drink while you waited for your flight. Then you’d get on the plane and be treated like a god. Personal service, a smoking section and food that rivaled stuff served in better restaurants. The same held true for cross country train travel. To a lesser degree bus travel as well. The one thing all three had in common was that happiness of the traveler was sacrosanct. The transportation companies wanted to get you from point A to point B as quickly and as comfortably as possible. A friend of mine is a professional in the tourism industry. She claims, loudly after a couple of vodka gimlets, that the worst thing to happen to humanity is Southwest Airlines. She claims that they have single-handedly destroyed the tourism industry. By allowing people who have no real spare spending money to get from city to city, to show up in foreign lands (big cities tend to be foreign to them) and purchase nothing but $5 T-shirts, she claims they are creating a nation of Wal Mart patrons. They want the cheapest and easiest everything without regard to anything else. Having flown on Southwest a couple of times I can see her point. It’s like riding a train in Calcutta but without the customer service.

However, cheap flights have nothing to do with these travel nightmares. John Flin tells us all about people who did not have a good day when they got to point B.

We’re not saying the apocalypse is upon us. Yet. But the signs are ominous: This was the year sunbathers began bursting into flames on the beach. It was the year mighty Carnival Cruise Lines capitulated to outraged drag queens. And it was the year that Richard Branson found yet another way to haunt our nightmares.

Here are some of the strangest stories in travel from 2012. Apocalypse? You be the judge.

So that flaming dude in the aloha shirt wasn’t a tiki torch?

Protecting yourself from the sun’s harmful rays seems like a prudent thing to do – until you burst into flames.

The maker of Banana Boat sunscreen was forced to recall some of its products in October after six users in North America semi-spontaneously combusted.

The aerosol spray takes longer than a lotion to dry, according to the company, and until it does, a cigarette, lit match or other ignition source can spark a personal conflagration.

One more unbelievable yarn from the Yukon

Extreme knitters in Whitehorse, Canada, this summer created what they believe is the world’s first full-size airplane cozy.

Using donations of yarn and knitted swaths from throughout North America, the knitters covered the old DC-3 plane that has stood on a pedestal outside the airport as a weathervane since the 1970s, CBC News reported in July.

There’s a name for this activity: It’s called “yarn bombing.”

Worst part was walking by Cinnabon 27 times a day

Think your layover was an ordeal? A Japanese tourist this fall was stranded in the Taipei International Airport – for six weeks.

Masaaki Tanaka, who had run out of money, managed to subsist on soy sauce and wasabi packets from a sushi restaurant and whatever he could buy with the loose change he found on the airport floor, CNN reported in October.

Tanaka, 42, might still be there had he not blogged about his ordeal and drawn enough donated cash from well-wishers to buy a ticket home and pay his fine for overstaying his visa.

You sure that rat-infested lot isn’t Strawberry Fields?

Befuddled Beatles fans have been wandering around a gritty industrial neighborhood in east London on a mystery tour that is anything but magical.

They’re searching in vain for the famous crosswalk where the Fab Four posed for the “Abbey Road” album cover outside the studio of the same name. Unfortunately, the tourists are off by almost 10 miles, the Associated Press reported in November.

The trouble began when London opened a new station on its DLR line for the recent Olympics and decided to name it “Abbey Road.” There are at least 11 Abbey Roads scattered around London – the name recalls the locations of medieval priories – and transit officials apparently didn’t think this would confuse anybody looking for the more famous one.

A transit spokesman said there were no plans to change the name, and that it was up to visitors to do their homework.

For the record, the stop for the Beatles’ Abbey Road is the St. John’s Wood station on the Jubilee Line.

I’ll toss in five bucks, but I call shotgun for the whole ride

Flight attendants aboard an Air France flight walked up and down the aisle asking for gas money after the plane ran low on fuel during an unplanned stop in Damascus, Syria.

The flight from Paris had been unable to land in its intended destination, Beirut, because of a demonstration at the airport, so the flight was diverted to Damascus, Online Travel Review reported in August.

Because international sanctions against Syria made it difficult to pay for gas with credit, the crew began asking passengers to chip in some cash. Eventually Air France found another way to buy fuel, and the donations were returned.

Just be grateful it wasn’t the theme from ‘Bruno’

Gold medalist Maria Dmitrienko of Kazakhstan managed to keep a straight face – well, mostly – on the podium as her national anthem was playing at the Arab Shooting Championship in Kuwait in March.

The problem was that it wasn’t the actual Kazakhstan anthem; it was the spoof from the movie “Borat,” CBS News reported.

Instead of such lyrics as “sky of golden sun” and “legend of courage,” the Borat version praises the country for its potassium exports and for having the cleanest prostitutes in the region.

Kazakhstan demanded, and very quickly received, an official apology.

Now we know why the Brits prefer their drinks lukewarm

Passengers on some Virgin Atlantic flights in May were subjected to – er, we mean treated to – the sight of the airline’s owner, Sir Richard Branson, grinning back at them from their gins and tonic.

According to the Telegraph (UK), a team of four designers spent six weeks using “detailed photographic techniques and laser scanning technology” to create an exact, scaled-down replica of Branson’s head in ice cube form, goatee and all.

“Now,” said a Virgin spokesman, “all passengers will be able to enjoy some chill-out time with Mr. Branson.”

And while you’re at it, knock off those nil-nil football scores

The manager of a tourist attraction in Devon, England, is threatening to sue the local weather service because it forecasts rain more frequently than he’d like.

“I just want some accountability, because when they make these pessimistic forecasts people start canceling their holidays,” Rick Turner, manager of an animal-themed family attraction, told the Daily Telegraph in October.

The local weather office noted that its “pessimistic” forecasts are right 87 percent of the time. “Devon,” a spokesman said, “is one of the wettest counties in England, and (we) cannot stop it raining.”

Disturbingly, the ice looked just like Richard Branson

When the wings of an SAS plane iced up during a colder-than-usual stop in Alicante, Spain, a fast-thinking pilot de-iced them by dousing them with whiskey.

The airport lacked the usual de-icing equipment, reported Online Travel Review in November, because temperatures there rarely dip below freezing.

The resourceful pilot opened three bottles of whiskey (presumably the full-size kind from the duty-free shop, not the little plastic ones they charge you six bucks for) and sprayed them over the wings, quickly dissolving the ice.

The plane returned to Stavanger, Norway, just an hour late, smelling like a dive bar at closing time.

We’re guessing it was the Pamela Anderson model

As beachgoers at a popular Black Sea resort pointed to a woman apparently drowning in the water, Turkish lifeguards sprung into action.

What they found thrashing and sputtering in the water was a blow-up sex doll. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported in September, the lifeguards hauled the doll back to shore, deflated it and tossed it into the trash.

Even worse, the X-ray showed he had a cracked molar

A Norwegian tourist who fell asleep on a baggage conveyor belt took a 15-minute ride through the bowels of Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport, including a pass through an X-ray machine, before being discovered by security.

The 36-year-old man, who appeared to have had a cocktail or two under his belt, according to an August report in La Repubblica, had arrived for a flight home to Oslo. He dumped his backpack on the conveyor belt behind an unoccupied check-in desk and decided it wouldn’t be a bad place to catch 15 winks.

After he was discovered amid the Samsonites and American Touristers, police said his unauthorized journey presented no security risks.

A giant Snoopy balloon could shut down the entire country

The Chinese are credited with inventing the kite 2,800 years ago. Unfortunately, no one appears to have told the country’s air traffic controllers.

A China Southern Airlines flight was ordered to circle the airport in Dalian, in northeast China, for more than an hour and was ultimately diverted to Quingdao after a child’s kite was spotted flying over the airport. According to a report on the website Travel Blackboard, 22 more flights were diverted to other airports before the all-clear was sounded nearly five hours later.

Keeping America safe, 140 characters at a time

Alert Homeland Security officers intercepted two British tourists at Los Angeles International Airport, handcuffed them, locked them up for 12 hours with Mexican drug dealers and finally denied them entrance to the United States.

Their crime: One of them had sent his pals a poorly phrased tweet.

“Free this week for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?” tweeted Leigh Van Bryan, a bar manager from Coventry, England, to his friends before his vacation in January.

After being held overnight, Bryan and his traveling companion/accomplice Emily Bunting were put on a plane back to London, the Daily Mail reported.

There goes all the work I put into my Kathy Lee Gifford look

Carnival Cruise Lines reversed course and decided to allow passengers aboard its Dec. 2 sailing of Carnival Glory to dress in drag.

Which would sort of make sense, since what they had signed up for was the “Drag Stars at Sea” themed cruise.

As the website Gawker reported in November, the Caribbean cruise was billed as “the largest gathering of drag stars in history.”

But a few weeks before the sailing, Carnival sent ticket holders an email warning that only performers in private events would be permitted to don the wig and heels. “Guests,” the letter said, “are not allowed to dress in drag for the performances or in public areas at any time during the cruise.”

After being bombarded by negative comments on its website, Carnival blamed the mix-up on the event promoter and relented, as long as the passengers carried – and resembled the picture on – a government-issued ID.

In that case, good luck with your makeup, guys.

I am friends with a couple of professional drag queens who had tickets for that cruise. One of them is a lawyer. Not to wish ill on any of my friends but I really really really wanted this to go to court. The pretrial motions alone would have been the stuff of legends.

Anyway, as to the rest, regular readers already know that I think Homeland Security and the TSA are run by petulant 10 year olds, so there’s nothing they do that shocks me anymore. All they accomplish is to make me think that staying home is the best call.

Places in Time: Chicago from Chris Pritchard

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Merry Christmas Ya’ll (The Movie Edition)

December 25, 2012 by

Santa’s little helpers are wonderful.
By now you’ve opened the gifts, had your Christmas breakfast and settled in for another year of holiday entertainment. At least until the NBA takes over your TV. This is truly a magical time. The toys haven’t been broken yet. Uncle Ned is still mostly sober. Aunt Edna, still aglow from the kisses from the kids, has yet to begin her annual screed about what a failure you are. Cousin Tony seems to have taken his meds today so that’s one less thing to worry about. As I said, it’s a magical time. But you and I know that if you have to watch A Christmas Story or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer one more time it is quite possible that you will react badly. Not to worry, it is exactly moments like this that the World News Center was designed to address. Well, these and stripper bsaed funerals. Below you will find an alphabetical list of 11 movies, because top 10 lists are for amateurs, that will brighten up your day.

Babes in Toyland
All you need to know about this super-happy film, beyond the songs, toy soldiers and dancing puppets, is the super-happy story line. “On the eve of their wedding, evil miser Barnaby hires two henchmen to drown Tom and steal Mary’s sheep, cared for by Little Bo Peep, thus depriving Mary and the children she lives with of their livelihood, forcing her to marry Barnaby.” Kind of makes you misty, doesn’t it? Your kids will be in therapy for decades.

Christmas that Almost Wasn’t (The)
“It is the week before Christmas, and Santa Claus visits attorney Sam Whipple, asking for his help. It turns out that the evil businessman Phineas T. Prune holds the lease on the North Pole, and is about to kick Santa out for nonpayment of rent! As such, there will be no more Christmas!” It is never explained why Santa needed the cash and took a mortgage on the North Pole and Phineas T. Prune is so over the top evil, right down to his mustache, you’ll forget to worry about it. The film has every Christmas cliche, including the bad guy who falls in love with a toy, so it may be the only Christmas movie you’ll ever need to see.

Ernest Saves Christmas
Oh, this is a joyful mess. Santa goes to jail because this guy (a children’s show host) thinks his name is Santos, no racism there, and Ernest loses his job for giving a free ride to Santa and Santa seems to suffer from Alzheimer’s. Nothing like creeping dementia to make your holiday joyous. Plot points include this heart warming gem; “Ernest and Harmony (whose real name is later revealed by Santa to be Pamela Trenton) discover the magic power of Santa’s sack, and immediately Pamela starts to abuse it. She steals the sack, and attempts to run away yet again.” Santa’s magical sack is clearly different than mine.

Eight Crazy Nights
Yeah, it’s a Hanukkah movie, so what? A plate of latkes warm the tummy no matter your religion. And it’s Adam Sandler, that master of subtlety and gentle wit. Doesn’t this plot just scream ‘group hug’? “Davey Stone, an alcoholic with a criminal record, is sentenced to community service under the supervision of an elderly referee. Davey is then faced with trying to reform and abandon his bad habits.” The special part are the songs, all of which sound like they were written by an inmate with anger issues.

Fitzwilly
This movie has everything you could possibly want in a holiday movie. Dick Van Dyke had yet to join A.A. and he is clearly drunk in this film. Add in a soundtrack that was obviously mailed in after a month-long bender by John Williams, who would later redeem himself with that whole Star Wars thing, and you have oodles of family fun. But wait! There’s More. There’s a plot too; “Claude Fitzwilliam, leads the household staff to rob from various businesses by charging goods to various wealthy people and misdirecting the shipments, all to keep Miss Vicki’s standard of living.” Gosh, it’s like every role model you want for your kids in one film.

Fred Claus
“A garrulous hustler running from the emotional fallout of the ultimate sibling rivalry, poor Fred keeps trying to find happiness through one failed scheme after another, pushing away the people who care about him most.” This movie is so grandly contrived that you can pick out what will happen next in every single scene. It even has Santa’s boss. You might be forgiven for thinking that Santa doesn’t have a boss, but Kevin Spacey exists to prove you wrong. Not for anything else that I can see, but there you are.

Great Rupert (The)
Forget the plot on this one I’ll tell you all you need to know. This film has a magic squirrel, Jimmy Durante doing barroom versions of Christmas carols and lots of plucky poor people. Oh, and it has a dude who talks to the magic squirrel and plays a concertina too. Did I mention that the magic squirrel steals money from their landlord so the family can eat and pay rent to the landlord the squirrel just stole from? No? I probably should have. Lots of feel good stuff here.

Polar Express
“On Christmas Eve, a doubting boy boards a magical train that’s headed to the North Pole and Santa Claus’s home.” Oh, that only scratches the surface. This movie has Tom Hanks in full on schizophrenic mode. All of the adult male characters are played by Hanks. So we get him as a condescending prick who doubles as a train conductor and as a drunken hobo. The kids in the film are subjected to horror after horror, all needlessly, until they succumb and believe in Santa again. The films modernized version of rotoscoping gives the film a nightmare feel. It is a must see film in my home.

Santa Claus (1959)
What can I say about this masterpiece? Shot in Mexico and dubbed into English it takes the myth of Santa to logical, if unusual, conclusions. Santa knows if you’ve been bad or good because he has a telescope in his space station (what do you mean you never heard of Santa’s space station?) and he peeps into bedrooms. This classic features Santa versus Satan for control of the holiday. Satan, the bad guy in the red suit, tries to turn kids against the holiday by giving them stark nightmares where they are attacked, and possibly eaten, by their dolls. The plot line doesn’t do this work of art justice, “With the aid of Merlin, Santa Claus must defeat the evil machinations of the devil Pitch to ruin Xmas.” The whole Merlin thing is never explained and, by the end, you just won’t care.

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians
This incredible film used to be an annual staple on WGN until someone sobered up. There’s just not enough space to capture everything worth seeing but here’s a start; the Martians come to Earth to kidnap Santa so their kids, who are suffering from planetary depression, can learn to laugh and play like earth kids. The Martians have technology that could lay our planet to waste but they keep forgetting to use it. So, they are immediately discovered by the U.S. Department of Defense and are forced to land and hide. On an on it goes. Add in the fact that Santa smokes and his wife is a controlling bitch and you have holiday magic. The opening theme song is so bad as to sound as if it were imported from a Jap/Pop satire. The fact that this was Pia Zadora’s big screen debut is only a minor bonus. And, no, she couldn’t act then either.

Year Without Santa Claus
“Mrs. Claus tells us about the time Santa had a bad cold and decided to take a vacation from Christmas. Two of his elves, Jingle Bells and Jangle Bells decided to go out (with Vixen) to find children to convince Santa that the Christmas spirit is still important to everybody else. But they have to get past Heat Miser and Snow Miser, first, before they land in Southtown, USA, where it never snows for Christmas. But the Miser Brothers can’t agree to let it snow in Southtown. But Mrs. Santa knows their mom–Mother Nature.” The songs by the Miser brothers alone make this a must see but the Santa themed jail break in Southtown make this must see TV on an epic scale. Also it is the first clearly feminist Christmas film. Mrs. Claus and Mama Nature don’t take no guff, no sirree bub I tell you what. A friend of mine claims this movie was written by a bitter lesbian, but I don’t think so. It has a weird sweetness that permeates throughout. Maybe a bitter lesbian who got a second date then.

So there you have it, 11 films to fill your holiday with heretofore unimagined joy. You can thank me later.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
contact Bill McCormick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Tradition!

December 24, 2012 by

You have your holiday traditions, I have mine.
Merry Christmas everyone. It’s time, once again, for us to take a look at the glorious traditions that surround this odd holiday. We have already discussed the Krampus, that lovely little fellow who either casts your children into hell or eats them, depending on what part of Austria you hang out in. But, we neglected his female cousin Perchta The Belly Slitter. Because nothing says HAPPY HOLIDAYS like eviscerated children. Have I mentioned that Austria was the home for the beginning of two world wars? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. When people tell you that they think the Japanese are insane for making Colonel Sanders the symbol of Christmas, feel free to point out Austria. At least in Japan they use the holiday to get laid. That’s an acceptable use of any holiday as far as I’m concerned. In fact I think it should be the point of almost every holiday, but that may just be me.

Another holiday tradition I seem to have missed happens in Spain, the home of great Christian traditions such as the footprint of Jesus, the tour of Mary Magdalene and her servant Veronica and, of course, the Caganer. The caganer represents a lovely tradition of displaying the Nativity scene, the usual array of farm animals, the Star of Bethlehem and a random peasant taking a dump. Yes, you read that right. And it’s not just implied. All statues come with a steaming pile so you can make no mistake as to what the caganer is doing. Granted, seen from a strictly logical viewpoint it makes sense. Someone had to be taking a dump when Christ was born. We all have bowels and those bowels need to move from time to time.

Still, it seems a touch odd, even by Spanish standards.

But all of the above pales when compared to the article my friend Suzy Solar sent to me. According to Live Science, we may owe a big debt of holiday gratitude to magic mushrooms.

This Christmas, like many before it and many yet to come, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer will be told, including how the “jolly old elf” flies on his sleigh throughout the entire world in one night, giving gifts to all the good children.

But according to one theory, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to an unlikely source: hallucinogenic or “magic” mushrooms.

“Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world,” said John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

According to the theory, the legend of Santa derives from shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions who dropped into locals’ teepeelike homes with a bag full of hallucinatory mushrooms as presents in late December, Rush said.

“As the story goes, up until a few hundred years ago these practicing shamans or priests connected to the older traditions would collect Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom), dry them, and then give them as gifts on the winter solstice,” Rush told LiveScience. “Because snow is usually blocking doors, there was an opening in the roof through which people entered and exited, thus the chimney story.”

But that’s just the beginning of the symbolic connections between the Amanita muscaria mushroom and the iconography of Christmas, according to several historians and ethnomycologists, or people who study the influence fungi has had on human societies. Of course, not all scientists agree that the Santa story is tied to a hallucinogen.

Presents under the tree

In his book “Mushrooms and Mankind” (The Book Tree, 2003) the late author James Arthur points out that Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere under conifers and birch trees, with which the fungi —which is deep red with white flecks — has a symbiotic relationship. This partially explains the practice of the Christmas tree, and the placement of bright red-and-white presents underneath, which look like Amanita mushrooms, he wrote.

“Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other … ?” he wrote. “It is because, underneath the pine bough is the exact location where one would find this ‘Most Sacred’ substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild.”

Reindeer are common in Siberia, and seek out these hallucinogenic fungi, as the area’s human inhabitants have been known to do. Donald Pfister, a biologist who studies fungi at Harvard University, suggests that Siberian tribesmen who ingested fly agaric may have hallucinated into thinking that reindeer were flying.

“Flying” reindeer

“At first glance, one thinks it’s ridiculous, but it’s not,” said Carl Ruck, a professor of classics at Boston University. “Whoever heard of reindeer flying? I think it’s becoming general knowledge that Santa is taking a ‘trip’ with his reindeer,” Ruck said.

“Amongst the Siberian shamans, you have an animal spirit you can journey with in your vision quest,” Ruck continued. ” And reindeer are common and familiar to people in eastern Siberia. They also have a tradition of dressing up like the [mushroom] … they dress up in red suits with white spots.”

Ornaments shaped like Amanita mushrooms and other depictions of the fungi are also prevalent in Christmas decorations throughout the world, particularly in Scandinavia and northern Europe, Pfister points out. That said, Pfister made it clear that the connection between modern-day Christmas and the ancestral practice of eating mushrooms is a coincidence, and he doesn’t know about any direct link.

Many of these traditions were merged or projected upon Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century saint who was known for his generosity, as the story goes.

The Santa connection

There is little debate about the consumption of mushrooms by Arctic and Siberian tribes’ people and shamans, but the connection to Christmas traditions is more tenuous, or “mysterious,” as Ruck put it.

Many of the modern details of the modern-day American Santa Claus come from “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (which later became famous as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”), an 1823 poem credited to Clement Clarke Moore, an aristocratic academic who lived in New York City.

The origins of Moore’s vision are unclear, although Arthur, Rush and Ruck all think he probably drew from northern Europe motifs that derive from Siberian or Arctic shamanic traditions. At the very least, Arthur wrote, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer are references back to various related Northern European mythology. For example, the Norse god Thor (known in German as “Donner”) flew in a chariot drawn by two goats, which have been replaced in the modern retelling by Santa’s reindeer, Arthur wrote.

Ruck points to Rudolf as another example of the mushroom imagery resurfacing: his nose looks exactly like a red mushroom, he said. “It’s amazing that a reindeer with a red-mushroom nose is at the head, leading the others.”

Some doubt

Other historians were unaware of a connection between Santa and shamans or magic mushrooms, including Stephen Nissenbaum, who wrote a book about the origins of Christmas traditions, and Penne Restad, at the University of Texas.

One historian, Ronald Hutton, told NPR that the theory of a mushroom-Santa connection is off-base. “If you look at the evidence of Siberian shamanism, which I’ve done,” Hutton said, “you find that shamans didn’t travel by sleigh, didn’t usually deal with reindeer spirits, very rarely took the mushrooms to get trances, didn’t have red-and-white clothes.” But Rush and Ruck say these statements are incorrect; shamans did deal with reindeer spirits, and the depiction of their clothes’ coloring has more to do with the colors of the mushroom than the shamans’ actual garb. As for sleighs, the point isn’t the exact mode of travel, but that the “trip” involves transportation to a different, celestial realm, Rush said.

“People who know about shamanism accept this story,” Ruck said. “Is there any other reason that Santa lives in the North Pole? It is a tradition that can be traced back to Siberia.”

I have already noted how Clement Clark Moore didn’t want his poem published. He was a serious author and thought that children’s literature was beneath him. His friends and family disagreed and we have a little epic that gets read every year.

As to Santa, trying to pin one origin story on him has proved impossible. And that is because the story has evolved so much over the centuries. From the skinny and dour Sinterklaas to the jolly elf we all know today, Santa’s taken many forms.

But they all have one thing in common, they love you and want you to be your best.

That’s not such a bad thing.

From all of us here at the World News Center to all of you where ever you are, have a very merry and safe Christmas.

Suzy Solar – Ocean of Love from Bill McCormick on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
contact Bill McCormick

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