An Enormous Dick. Head.

Last week was a rough one for Homunculus. His sunburn started to peal, causing his arms to resemble molting snakes, and his raging case of mid-summer hemorrhoids, which he had vanquished and left for dead, returned with a burning vengeance. His job search continued to yield frustratingly fruitless results, as did his lady hunt. (In a sadistic attempt to profit off his misfortune, HJR’s friends -- both of them -- have started a pool based on which will happen first, Homunculus finding employment or Homunculus finding boobies?) Speaking of employment searches and copulatory disasters, John McCain and Bristol -- er, Sarah -- Palin took center stage last week -- and appeared to be a success. The pundits all agreed that McCain accomplished his goal of impressing even Homunculus with his acceptance speech. Not good for America, not good for Homunculus (who, despite growing up pampered in Silicon Valley, is now definitively a member of the working class (and by "working class," I mean lower-middle class, not people who are actually working)). To top things off, my beloved 49ers opened another embarrassing season by losing to a team quarterbacked by a member of Palin’s Christ Squad.

So, bad week.

Fortunately Steve Warshak was there to cushion the blow. "Who is Steve Warshak?" you ask.

I’m glad you did.

Warshak is the founder of a company called Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, best known -- or, more accurately, only known -- for a "natural male enhancement" product called Enzyte, the commercials for which you’ve surely seen if you watch a lot of ESPN Classic at 3:00 a.m. They feature "Smilin' Bob," an average-looking middle-aged man, and a jackass of biblical scale, who can’t stop smiling because of the improvements in his sex life. Here he is in action, sort of:

Now, be honest. How much would you pay to wipe that grin off Bob’s face with a swift kick to his naturally-enhanced male parts? I’d pay $60.00 -- which, coincidentally, is exactly the price I would not pay for a packet of Enzyte. Yet being profoundly retarded is the least of these ads’ transgressions. They prey on the single largest (as it weren’t) insecurity of every man (your humble blogger excepted, of course) and parlay those insecurities into ill-gotten revenue with patently false promises. In short, Warshak is a textbook mountebank.*

Or rather, he was a textbook mountebank. Now he is a textbook case of white-collar crime. In February Warshak was convicted of 93 -- ninety-three! -- counts of conspiracy, fraud, and money laundering. (I still don't know what money laundering is exactly, but I know it has something to do with being a ginormously corrupt piece of shit.) Last week Warshak was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered, along with several other defendants (including his 75-year-old mother!), to forfeit more than $500 million. Tough break there, Steve.

Here is a picture of the dickbreath:

Note the faintly dickish sneer, reminiscent of Maddox's "pedosmile." Good luck with that in the clink, cockbrain.

You might be thinking at this point, "Why does Homunculus seem so worked up about this? I bet he must be one of the millions of mediocrely-endowed men bilked out of hundreds of his hard-earned dollars." Wrong! You couldn't be more wrong. I simply love watching these pricks get caught. The only thing that gives me as much pleasure as when some homophobic senator gets caught tapping his foot under an adjacent men's room stall is when one of these greedy corporate bastards get nailed for fraud and money laundering. Yes, I live a petty, petty existence. But we've got to find joy in the little things, no?

After reading about Warshak and laughing maniacally for several minutes, I checked out his company's website. There's nothing too douchey about the site, though perhaps the "Berkeley in the News" page should have been a red flag for potential customers: every one of the "news" items was written by the company itself. Not too surprising.

What was surprising is that apparently Warhak and his dickolytes are still hiring. Well, lord knows ol' Homunculus could use a job. So, I applied. My cover letter is below. I'll keep you posted.

* I'll admit it. I only included that sentence so I could use the word "mountebank" in a blog entry. Finally.

To: recruiting@bpn.com

From: HomunculusJReilly@WOTE.com

RE: employment opportunities at BPN

Dear Sir or Madam (probably Sir):

After seeing Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals in the news last week, I explored your website. I am responding to the open invitation on your “Job Opportunities” page to apply for a position with BPN.

Idon’t need any of your products myself (particularly Enzyte… if you know what I mean ; ) ), but I have plenty of friends who have tried them, and I have always been fascinated with both biochemistry and creative writing. I recently completed my MFA in fiction at [HJR's grad school]. In addition to a near-perfect grade point average and exemplary written recommendations (available upon request), I served as the editor of [HJR's lit mag], the graduate program’s literary journal.

Besides my "official" accomplishments, I (believe it or not!) study microbiology and pharmaceutical biochemistry in my spare time. Finally, I am “intelligent, imaginative, and ambitious” (especially imaginative), the qualities you stated you most desire.

My resume is attached. I hope to talk with you to discuss my additional accomplishments and how I can contribute to your continued success. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Homunculus J. Reilly

P.S. I am willing to relocate to Cincinnati.

P.P.S. You need to update the “In the News” page of your website.

A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising" -- The Follow-Up Response (+ the Response to the Follow-Up Response)

Dear Mr. Reilly,

I have looked into this matter, and here is why you received more brochures (there actually is logic behind it.)

Rather than things happening in real time, we run reports and update systems on a weekly or bi weekly basis. Your initial request to be removed from the mailing list was on August 31. These requests are input into the consumer database every Wednesday, which means it was actually recorded on September 5. The brochures were sent out to you on September 7 because that list of (potential) customers was compiled on August 27, which was before we had even received your initial request. That August 27^th list is the last list you are included on.

I hope this eases your mind a bit, but if Charmin ever goes out of business, you could always start a side company with all your extra Viking brochures.

Please let me know if Murphy has decided you haven’t had enough, and you keep getting them. If that happens, I’ll change your address in the system to our office address here in Woodland Hills. That should correct the problem.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Eve Rowlands

P.S. If you ever decided to become a ‘blogger’ and write a weekly rant about random companies you have issues with (I’d love to hear your grievances with the Men’s Wearhouse) let me know.

Let me reiterate how much I love this woman. Also, for those amongst my loyal readers who occasionally doubt the veracity of my bloggish exploits and/or exploitive blog, let me assert: I did not make up that P.S. (Even ol' Homunculus could not concoct a coda that perfect.) Let me also assert: Fuck you.

And now, my response:

Dear Ms. Rowlands,

Funny you should ask...

winterontheequator.blogspot.com

Enjoy & self-edify.

Sincerely,

Homunculus J. Reilly, "Blogger"

A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising" -- The Follow-Up

Dear Ms. Rowlands,

After receiving your solicitous response to my complaint, I reversed my position re. Viking River Cruises® and immediately recommended you to everyone I knew, including people I had only known for several minutes. Unfortunately, in the two weeks since our correspondence I have received two more pieces of junk mail -- an oversize postcard and a full-color brochure -- from your apparently desperate company (or "sinking ship," if you pardon the pun). It could be, as you stated, that they were sent before "(you) personally (took my) request to (your) Marketing department"; however, the more recent item arrived only two days ago, so this seems doubtful.

I recycled the items, as I always do, but don't let that assuage your conscience: recycling isn't the same as conservation in the first place. (Just ask Leonardo DiCaprio!) Please check on that request you made to the Marketing department, and while you're at it, personally instruct them to shove all mailers with my name on them up their asses.

With further appreciation in advance,

Homunculus J. Reilly
"Customer" #1145086482
Coral Gables, FL

A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising" -- The Response

Mr. Reilly,

I just wanted to thank you for a very entertaining request to be taken off the mailing list. I have personally taken your request to our Marketing department to ensure you do not receive anymore mailers.

I just wanted to let you know that your witty response was handled. Thank you for a great end to the week, and I do sincerely apologize for the superfluous amount of mailers. If after two weeks you still receive something, please contact me directly at the email address or phone number listed below and I will personally take care of it for you.

Eve Rowlands
Specialist, Onboard Sales Program and E-Travel Consultant
Viking River Cruises, Inc.

Well slap me silly and call me Judy. Wow. Not just cordial, but grammatically competent and timely to boot. I hereby retract everything I said to, and about, Viking River Cruises® (especially the part about raping a poodle -- in retrospect, that was sort of wrong). In point of fact, river cruises rule, and Viking River Cruises® in particular especially rule. If you are planning a vacation, and you are a well-dressed upper-middle-class straight white couple (okay, yes, I watched the DVD), let it be known that Homunculus officially endorses Viking River Cruises®, the World Leader in River Cruises... by far.

A (now) open letter to "The World Leader in River Cruising"

Here is a message I sent today to Viking River Cruises®. In the pull-down menu, I categorized the missive as "Other":


Dear Viking River Cruises® -- "Exploring the World in Comfort"®,

Over the past eleven months, you have sent me 24 postcards, 19 full-size, full-color brochures, and, yesterday, an informational DVD extolling the sine qua non virtues and (year-round) limited-time-only savings of "the world’s leading river cruise line... by far." I don’t know what I did to deserve such treatment -- perhaps I raped a poodle in a previous life -- but I can assure you it had nothing to do with ever signing up for your mailing list.

I am thus writing to say: Please stop. First of all, I’m a grad student with a household income of approximately negative $25,000 a year; I cannot afford a Russian hooker in Far Rockaway, Queens, much less a Russian river cruise. Secondly, the 19^th full-size-full-color brochure was no more convincing than the 18^th. Besides wasting your time and money, you have, with the junk mail you’ve sent to me alone, laid waste to enough trees to (ironically enough) build a riverboat. (That you are based in Woodland Hills, CA only makes such ecological irresponsibility more egregious.)

In summary, you are the most annoying company in the world... by far. (The Men’s Wearhouse is a distant second.) I have already told everyone I know to never take a Viking River Cruise®. If you do not want me to start also telling people I don’t know, cease with the junk-mail carpet-bombing operation at once.

Much appreciation in advance,

Homunculus J. Reilly
"Customer" #1145086482

P.S. River cruises suck.

Harry Potter and the Predicament that Revealed Him to be a Selfish Little Prick

For those of us who believe that chess, and not Harry Potter worship, is the only acceptable “geek pursuit” for people who still want to be regarded as essentially normal (I’m sorry, but standing in line for seventeen hours dressed as a Hogwart automatically disqualifies you, even if you’re nine), the first installment in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, stuck a thorn in our collective side. In the book (which my girlfriend at the time forced me to read), and again in the movie (which my sister forced me to see), Harry and his dweeby friends match wits, in a climactic battle, with some sort of magical force that, if memory serves, can telekinetically transport enormous chess pieces with the skill of a Grandmaster but cannot think of a simpler way to vanquish three 11-year-olds. (The scene is reminiscent of the famous match between a knight and Death in the (recently)-late, great Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal, except that Harry et al.’s duel is not a metaphor representing life’s profoundest mysteries, and also it was directed by the guy who made Bicentennial Man.)

When the chess studs of the world saw that scene, they nearly punched holes through their computer monitors (and they would have, too, if those monitors did not serve as their sole conduits to the outside world). In merging what some still perceive as a pastime for “nerds,” “dweebs,” “geeks,” “losers,” “antisocial misanthropes,” “bald hairy fatties,” and “28-year-old virgins” with the youngest member of the Holy Triad of Obsessive Geekdom (Lord of the Rings, or “LOTR,” and Star Wars being the founding members), J.K. Rowling set us board-game heroes back two or three decades, maybe more. How many handsome, charismatic pawn-pushers will it now take to return the King’s Game to the badass status it enjoyed pre-Potter? No muggle knows.

What all those Harry Potter geeks who are not also chess geeks (and I pity the adolescent who is both) do not know is that a close examination of the climactic game in The Sorcerer’s Stone exposes their hero as a pusillanimous little wanker. In last Sunday’s New York Times’s chess column, Dylan Loeb McClain analyzes the game from the crucial point (the “Sorcerer’s Stone Position”) at which Harry and his fellow whelps have to nerdily strategize their way out of what appears to be certain defeat. Those who remember the film will recall that Harry comes up with the solution, ordering Ron (as a Black knight -- a subconscious homage to Bergman, perhaps?) to sacrifice himself for the good of all wizardkind. As McClain reveals, however, there was a faster way to win: Harry (as a Black bishop -- a subconscious nod to the kid-friendly Catholic Church, perhaps?) could have sacrificed himself instead! McClain seems blasé about the decision (“2…Bc5 wins faster, but Harry gets axed”), probably because he cannot use the phrase “self-serving bastard” in a family newspaper, but the rest of us know better. Harry had a choice: a) martyr himself in the name of Wizardly Honor and endgame expediency, not to mention the cutting of a decidedly mediocre movie by several seconds, b) or sacrifice his best friend. He chose (b), the poltroonish prick. If that cowardice had come to light earlier, you can bet I wouldn’t have been the only muggle rooting for Voldemort in the final installment.

I Do... Hate You

I get the Sunday Times. When news of Iraq, Iran, Darfur, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Russia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Tibet, Kashmir, Congo, Chechnya, and Israel becomes too much for me -- not to mention the health care, economic, energy, environmental, and cultural crises that make up the “National Report” -- I turn to the marriage announcements in the Sunday Styles section. Then I get more depressed.

In theory, the three or four pages of vows -- with their anecdotes of courtship and romance and photos of smiling couples, their happy faces touching -- provide the only regular dose of cheer in the paper. In actuality, these theoretically happy announcements just make you feel worse about your own life. I promise you. The anecdotes of courtship and romance make you bitter that you don’t have an anecdote like that yourself, and the happy couples smiling at you are invariably better looking than you and your hypothetical-future spouse will ever be, even if you did have an anecdote like theirs to begin with.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of letting these theoretically happy people share their happiness with you, here is what a typical New York Times marriage announcement looks like:

Hannah Alexandra Shapiro, the daughter of Dr. Larry R. Shapiro and Melinda S. Shapiro of Great Neck, N.Y., was married yesterday to Dr. Tucker Harrison DeWitt IV, the son of Tucker Harrison DeWitt III and Cindy Janet DeWitt of Greenwich, Conn., at the Gables Yacht Club in Coral Gables, Fla. Rabbi David G. Axelrod officiated.

The bride and bridegroom met at Princeton, from which they graduated, she summa cum laude and he magna cum laude.

Mrs. DeWitt, 26, is an associate at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York. She received a law degree from Yale and was previously a clerk for Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court. The bride’s father is the chief of anesthesiology at the Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream, N.Y. Her mother is the vice president of news broadcasting at CBS.

Mr. DeWitt, 27, is a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He received a Ph.D.-M.D. combined degree from Harvard. The bridegroom’s father was president and CEO of Morgan-Stanley. His mother co-directs the DeWitt Foundation, which was founded by the bridegroom’s father, who also serves as a co-director.

There’s good reason to hate these announcements, to use them as the protective layer between the litter box and the floor, as I do. With the exception of a few that include anecdotes about how the couple fell in love or how the guy proposed, which are even more nauseating than the boring ones (yes, I’m talking to you, Matthew Lance Slonim, who left an envelope entitled “The Quest for Yes” in your woman’s cell phone, a quest that ultimately took her on a flight across five states and ended in her grandfather’s nursing-home room, where Mr. Slonim was waiting, ring in hand -- cue index finger, open mouth, & gagging sound), every announcement lists the same prosaic details in the same prosaic prose. Do you think we care that Richard Primus went to Harvard? The dude’s 37. He graduated when the first Bush was president. Telling us where he went to college is akin to what they do at NBA games when they announce the starting lineups, and they say, “…out of Duke, Luol Deng!” Luol Deng is not “out of Duke.” He played one year at Duke. He is out of Sudan. Tell us something interesting about Richard Primus instead. Something unique, something criminal. Tell us how he received that eight-inch-long scar on his leg on an African hunting safari. Tell us why he made eight trips to Bangkok in a three-year span during the mid-‘90s. Tell us how many chicks (and guys) he banged before scoring with the lucky bride. Tell us anything other than the fact that his mother is a retired allergist and clinical immunologist who practiced in Groton, Conn.

Then there are the ones that make you wonder why they’re in the Times at all. Oftentimes the couple’s connection to the Tri-State Area is tenuous at best. The groom can be from California and the bride from Texas, the wedding was on Key West, and the couple will be settling in Chicago… and they post in the Times because the bride’s stepfather lives in Poughkeepsie. Cut us a break, will ya. Just invite the stepfather and leave it at that.

There. Now you hate them too. And so far I’ve only offered you small potatoes as fodder. Here are the big potatoes, my friend, potatoes big enough to be used for the au gratin served at a 250-guest reception at the Waldorf:

Mostly, you hate these people for the same reasons you hate Derek Jeter or Scarlett Johansson: for being young and rich and successful and talented, and for being far more attractive than someone who is young and rich and successful and talented deserves to be. You hate them for going to Princeton, like approximately one-third of the people getting married in the New York metropolitan area did. (The other two-thirds went to Harvard or Dartmouth. And once, there was a chick from USC.) You hate them for having their whole perfect lives perfectly planned out by the time they’re 27. And yes, admit it: you hate these newlyweds for announcing their newlyweddedness to the world in the first place.

So say it with me! Sing it from the altar of your 400-square-foot studio where you live -- alone:

Fuck you, Daniel Yaron Maman -- sorry, Dr. Daniel Yaron Maman -- for being a 28-year-old plastic surgeon with an MBA from Oxford, and for marrying an absolute hottie like Stacey Robin Harris despite obviously being a giant nerd yourself. And fuck you, Victoria Kathryn Potterton, who, after finishing at Dartmouth, are now graduating from Yale, at 26, with a combined medical and MBA degree. And fuck you, also, for holding the wedding at the Yale Club, whatever that is.

Fuck you, Yus -- yeah, you, Helena Yu and Anthony Yu -- who begin your medical residencies next month at Penn, and who coordinated your life together so expertly that you married partners with the same last name. And fuck you, Andy Bellin, the author of Poker Nation, whose mother was a model with Wilhelmina Models in the 1960s, and whose maternal grandmother, Countess Alicia Spaulding Paolozzi (I am not making this up, I swear), helped Gian Carlo Menotti found the Spoleto Festival USA and also drove for the winning women’s team in the 1958 automotive Tour de France (automotive Tour de France?).

Fuck you, John Marter Timken Jr., for being a descendant of John Adams and J.P. Morgan. Fuck you, Boji Wong and Benjamin Berkman, for having David Dinkins officiate your wedding even though he couldn’t even handle the duties himself (a rabbi/cantor also took part, presumably because Dinkins needed brushing up on his Hebrew chanting). And fuck you, Minor Myers III, for being named Minor Myers III, and also for getting married at Anderson House, the home of the Society of the Cincinnati, "an association of the descendants of officers in the American Revolutionary War, of which you are a member."

I hope you all get divorced.

The Bumper Sticker Project

I attend grad school at a mostly-undergraduate, formerly-all-female, formerly-countercultural-but now-"alternative"(-because-"countercultural"-is-more-of-a-'60s-term), small East Coast liberal arts college. There are a lot of fundraisers for Underserved Bhutanian Transsexual Day Laborers Held Unjustly Hostage by Tsunamis. There are also a lot of bumper stickers on the cars in the parking lots.

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the bumper sticker he has on his car. (They say you can tell a lot about a person by a lot of things, but so what -- stick with me, here. (Stick with me -- heh heh...)) It follows that you can tell a lot about a community by the bumper stickers they sport collectively, or even, I would argue, the fact that they sport them at all. What follows is a compilation of the bumper stickers I saw at my school. Note that this is not a selected list; I have no agenda here. (Okay, maybe I do have an agenda here. But I want to be objective in establishing support for my agenda.) The following were all the bumper stickers on cars in one parking lot (one rather small parking lot) on one day:

Committed to the Core

*Vote the Environment*

This car is on a low-carbon diet.

CoolDriver.org

WTF {picture of smiling Bush here}

{a 'W' with a line through it}

Let's not elect him in 2004 either

ear X-tacy

[I don't know what this means either. -- HJR]

{picture of mushroom cloud}

War is the real enemy

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Attack Iraq?

NO!

[Bush must not have seen this car when he made his decision.]

BE KIND In Memory of Louise & Buddy

Honor the Dead

Respond With Peace

{a number of symbols -- the Islamic crest, the peace sign, the male/female Roman symbols, the Star of David, the yin-yang circle, and the cross -- spelling the word
'COEXIST'}

Howard Dean for America

A Man of Quality Is Not Threatened By A Woman Seeking Equality

Make Art

Not War

Support Our Troops
Bring 'Em Home Alive

'COEXIST' [again]

THE LABOR MOVEMENT

"The folks who brought you the weekend"

CIVIL LIBERTIES
Don't Leave Home Without Them

Visualize Whirled Peas

And the following were all on one car (and check out the car below -- and note the type of car it is! Hullo, Prius??):

radiowoodstock.com

Creek Freak

{surrealist portrait of Janice Joplin}

{Grateful Dead icon}

2001 Support Your State Troopers

American Assoc. of State Troopers

As you know, I prefer to keep my bloggy identity anonymous, but I will reveal that I do not attend BYU.

Some days, though, I wish I did. I have to see those same damn stuckers every fuckin' day. It's almost enough to turn one Republican for a minute. Almost.