From the AP:

Windsor, Ontario - Hair stylist Waddah Mustapha was awarded $270,000 by a court in April after he testified that he became racked with depression upon seeing a fly inside a commercial bottle of water at his salon. Presumably, damages would have been more if Mustapha had actually drunk from the bottle (or even opened it). As it was, he and his wife vomited, and he required extensive psychotherapy for nightmares, loss of sense of humor, increased argumentativeness, lack of desire to shower regularly, and constipation.

Give me a break. Just suck it up and deal with it already.

I mean seriously, we’ve all had bad days, but this is almost comically pathetic. He sees a fly inside a sealed bottle of water - a strange, gross, puzzling occurance, I grant you - and this causes both he and his wife to puke? What a pansy! I personally have seen a live black rat sealed inside a SuperMom’s Sandwich at SA and it merited not much more than a shrug and a passing chuckle.

This guy, however, sees a tiny insect in an inappropriate location and this causes mass vomiting, nightmares, argumentativeness, and - my personal favorite - loss of humor.

Just a guess, but maybe Mr. Mustafa didn’t have the best sense of humor to begin with. In fact, I pretty much guarantee you he was an asshole.

The article also notes that after he saw the dead fly, he lost all desire to shower regularly. Excuse me? What the hell does one thing have to do with another?! I’m sure that his stinky, humorless, argumentative, constipated self was a real pleasure to have around at the ol’ salon after that.

Really though, congratuations on the $270,000. You’ve completely earned it.

So what’s the deal, am I the only Eagle Eye Cherry fan left?

7 years ago, during that sweet summer of ‘98, America fell in love the the smooth vibes of Eagle Eye Cherry’s debut smash, “Save Tonight”. I became an obsessive fan, and I would have bet anything that he was going to become a massive cultural impact and make Bob Dylan look like a babbling ape with birth defects.

Eagle Eye’s follow up single, “Falling in Love Again” failed, and then his second album fizzled. What’s the deal? I love that second album! I was sure that America was ready to embrace Eagle Eye Cherry as its new pop cultural messiah and send Paris Hilton and Bono back to Russia where they belong. What sort of insane radio conspiracy has kept his subsequent work off the charts? Did he wrong somebody? He certainly hasn’t wronged the listening public who bothered to notice that he is the single most important human being at least since Richard the Lionhearted in 1189 AD.

All I can say is that it’s a crazy, upside-down world we’re living in when people like Coldplay are allowed to make music while Eagle Eye Cherry is currently employed at a Radio Shack in Culver City, CA.

Recently I finished reading Groucho, a biography of Groucho Marx by Stefan Kanfer, and a pretty remarkable look at this funny man’s rather tragic life.

A few noteworthy tidbits from the book:

-Together with his brothers Harpo and Chico, the Marx Brothers created a brand of irreverent, anarchical comedy that has influenced comedians of every era, and that remains fresh even in the 21st century.

-He was forced into showbusiness as a child by his domineering mother, singing showtunes on the vaudeville circuit in the early 1900’s.

-He once performed unnecessary oral surgery on a homeless man.

-His distinctive fake mustache and eyebrows can be attributed to an incident from the early days of the Marx Brothers, when they were performing in theaters. Groucho arrived very late to a matinee performance, and without enough time to apply his proper stage mustache, he quickly smudged greasepaint over his upper lip and eyebrows. The audience seemed to like it so much that he quickly adopted it as a part of his stage persona.

-He colonized Manitoba.

-He lost his virginity to a prostitute and contracted an STD, thus beginning a long life of inept and unhealthy relationships with women.

-He once bet $200 that he could survive a 150-foot fall from a hot air balloon and won, though both his legs were shattered horribly and he vomited blood for weeks afterward.

-His quick wit led to him being quoted widely. Among my favorites: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others”, and “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

-On December 12, 1954, Groucho passed for 315 yards and two touchdowns against the Detroit Lions.

-After the Marx Brothers movie career wound down, he found renewed fame as host of the 1950’s television game show, “You Bet Your Life”.

-When asked for an endorsement of a friend’s new comedic novel, Groucho offered up, “From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it.”

-He taught the Ojibwe tribe how to collect sap from trees and turn it into maple syrup. The Ojibwe later scalped him.

-In his later life, it was assumed that he was a robot, against all logic and evidence to the contrary.

-In his will, he stated that he would like to be buried on top of Marilyn Monroe.

-Groucho was born with a special pouch on his abdomen, in which he later carried his young.

-In his final years, his controviersial girlfriend Erin Fleming won guardianship, against the wishes of his family who believed that she physically and emotionally abused Groucho. After his death, his family won a lawsuit against her and she was forced to pay back much of the money she received from his estate.

-Groucho liked to wrestle sea lions for pleasure.

Huzzah!

After more than a year of eye-punishing orange, yellow, and blue color schemes, the John Larroquette Project has a brand-new design! All glory and laud goes to designer Matt Terry, who with his brilliant depiction of Ben Franklin as a modern day rural demi-god has somehow perfectly encapsulated the essance of the JLP.

Gaze upon the other elements of the new artwork. Crying little Jeffy, crushed beneath nature’s random cruelty, an exploded bird, a dead cat, John Adams celebrating his birthday. It’s all there people, and for me, it’s disturbingly akin to looking into my mind’s mirror.

Thanks, Matt!

I’ve been taking my showers in the evenings lately.

It’s kinda nice actually. I’m not in such a rush, and it feels like I’m washing all the day’s inequities and mistakes and dead skin away. In the past, I would wake up and trudge immediately to the shower, oftentimes feeling (quite literally) like I actually didn’t wake up until midway through the experience. I would scrub and rinse rotely, often muttering inhocerently to myself, with little regard for what should be the pleasure of bathing. It’s a different story now, however.

Now that I’m showering at night, it isn’t unusual for me to spend a few hours under the love-nozzle. Last night I actually set up a TV in the tub and watched Godfather Part II in its entireity while showering. I ended up shampooing my hair probably 15 times before the really bad scalpburn set in and I had to rub some aloe in again, but by then Fredo was already dead and the movie was about over. At that point my fingers and toes looked like raisins that a cat had tried to eat but spit out after chewing them up for a while. I didn’t let it bother me though. I just ignored it, like the rest of the problems in my life.

Well, enough typing. It’s 9pm, which means that it’s about time to hit the ol’ shower again! This time I’m going to stay in there a long enough to see how high I can count!

See you when I’m done!

I love Al Pacino.

When everything is clicking with him, there are few pleasures than I enjoy more than watching him do his thing. Think about his credits: “The Godfather”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “Donnie Brasco”, “Insomnia”, “Carlito’s Way”, “The Insider”, “Heat”, “Scent of a Woman”, “Scarface”, “Glengarry Glen Ross”, the list goes on and on. Okay, so maybe “Simone” and “Dick Tracy” weren’t quite up to par, but I’m willing to cut the man a little slack - he was probably on meth anyway.

I love Al Pacino so much that I would be willing to pay full admission to watch a 90 minute film of him sitting silently eating breakfast cereal and absentmindedly leafing through a Pottery Barn catalogue. Seriously, the man is that good. In fact, I would gladly give the man a wad of cash if he would be so kind as to scream at me so fiercely that hot spittle would fly from his lips.

I mean it, Al. If you’re out there, I’ll pay you right now. I will pay you so hard.