The Pits Diet

Want to lose weight? I wish you would, if you’re who I think you are, reading this. Look, it’s your health I’m concerned about, not the way you look in those Facebook pictures.

I’ve got this iPhone app that removes 10 to 100 pounds from the photograph of a person, depending upon how you set it, so I can tell you in advance, even before you lose the weight, that that two-piece you like to put on at the lake? Keep the top half and convert the bottom half into three.

“It’s the pits.” No. Pits are good. Do not be concerned by the fact that a fruit with a pit is classified as a “drupe.”

Follow these diet tips for success:

– Do not eat the meat of a pit bull.

– Thoroughly remove the peach or plum or whatever fruit before eating the pit. Haha just kidding.

– If you’re one of my four usual readers, you’re going to need help with the actual eating of food with pits. That help can be found here.

– What to do with the pit? (If you inadvertently swallow it, you will not grow a baby in your stomach. This is also true of semen pardon my French.) Do not flick it, throw it, toss it, hide it, put it in your pocket, or put it on you plate where others will have to look at it. Hide it under a lettuce leaf. Since you’re eating only food with pits, you won’t be forking up that leaf in any case.

– Weight loss: large pits vs small pits. Look, if I tell you to eat three items in the morning and you choose avocados instead of cherries, then just give up. And don’t forget to plant those avocado pits in a sawed-off milk carton.

– You’re probably wondering why pits are like round stones, whereas your armpits are hollows (barring some alarming growth or enlarged node, in which case the pit diet is about to become nugatory for you). There is a truly bizarre diet involving armpits, but it falls outside the scope of this post.

– Train someone in the house, other than yourself, in the Heimlich maneuver. Don’t eat in bed when drowsy.

– It’s OK to grind up the apricot pits and snort or smoke the powder.

Remember, it’s all about health. In 86.5% of cases, losing weight doesn’t improve your appearance. 13% of the time, it actually makes you look worse.

The Classics Diet

Do you secretly want to lose weight, but you’d never admit it because you’re above all that? Diets are anti-intellectual? No diet includes quiche and Birkenstocks? Your spouse, the professor, would never use words like “fat,” “old,” “cow”?

Do you eat with your finger raised? Your pinkie, I mean? Your pinkie finger, I mean?

The Classics Diet is not a diet. It is a way of life. You read the classics, right? Not like those other slobs on your block, who watch TV and drink and go on diets? The Classics Diet is simply another name for what we call “Method Reading.”

Being so smart like you are, you undoubtedly know all about “method acting.” How De Niro gained all that weight? How Brando hung out on the docks? Well, you can do the same thing, Mr. or Ms Smartypants, while you’re sitting there in your beanbag chair reading, yes, wait for it, one of your goddamned precious classics. While you read, you live like the protagonist does. You eat what the protagonist eats. How hard is that to understand?

Monday – You are reading: Ulysses   You are eating: the inner organs of beasts and fowls.

Tuesday – You are reading: Galway Bay   You are eating: not potatoes, that’s for sure.

Wednesday – You are reading: Oliver Twist   You are eating: gruel.

Thursday – You are reading: Dracula   You are eating: bloodsickles.

Friday – You are reading: Black Beauty   You are eating: hay.

You’re not done yet, not if you’re one of those brainiacs with a reading list of great books that you’re working your way through. Keep up the method. You’re no quitter. All the way, to the end of the list. Alternatively, you can eat the books.

Guaranteed Weight Loss: The Straw Diet

We lock a leather mask over your mouth, with a built-in straw. Thus, you can drink, but you can’t eat.

Monday: Already you’re hungry, so you go for some Boost. Drink enough of this stuff and you’ll gain weight, not lose. Fortunately, the straw is designed to block liquids as thick as Boost. You must go for carrot water.

Tuesday: Too hungry. You dip your straw into any liquid that you can find. My God, anything to combat that awful hunger. Don’t worry. The added fifteen pounds of bloat will flush out later.

Wednesday: You discover alcohol. The straw won’t allow bubbles, so beer is out. The good thing about booze is, unless you’re an alcoholic, you’ll pass out before you drink enough to get fat.

Thursday: Hangover! Remember, if you vomit, you’ll suffocate. Worrying about imminent death while fighting your rising gorge is a great way to lose weight.

Friday: Cocaine or heroin through a straw? Of course! Ride the white horse to thin-land. Suck the powder into your mouth and then blow it out through your nose, instead of the other way around.

Wow. How did that week fly by so fast? Look at how your clothes are practically hanging off you. You’re welcome to as many of these Krispy Kremes as you want, once we get the mask off. It takes about an hour.

Dinocroc Vs. Supergator (2010)

“Dino” and “Super.” Do they have sex? They’re different species. You don’t see crocs and gators hooking up that much, but you know why? Because in the animal documentaries, they’re living in different neighborhoods and in the zoo, they’re kept apart – rather cruelly, I think.

But down in the sewers, where all those flushed-down crocs and gators and turtles and goldfish live, gators and crocs are liable to hook up all the time. So why not in this movie? Because we don’t want to lose the kid demo with an R rating? I saw one of those flicks make over in the Valley, where the guy was dressed up in a gator suit with a hole cut in it, if you know what I mean, and the girl wore a Little Mermaid costume. Perverse. But fun, because they had a SpongeBob stud running around in the background chasing his starfish buddy and then they… but that’s a different movie. Here, the scientists tell us that gators and crocs are mortal enemies. Hey, men and women are mortal enemies. Ask my wife ha ha. But you confront a red-blooded dude croc with a hot female gator and watch the fireworks. “Mommy, Daddy, are you fighting? Daddy, are you hurting Mommy? What’s all that moanin?”

But are this supergator and this dinocroc the same sex? What the heck difference does that make? Let’s move on.

Oops! Hold on! Wait a minute! What am I thinking? We’re not talking gator/croc love, that thing is a dinogator. It walks on its two hind legs, like a T-Rex. This guy is not going to toss some mud-lovin croc babe who crawls around on all fours! Fergeddaboutit. Plus, up on those two legs, Dinogator does seem to mince.

Roger Corman’s name is slathered all over the DVD box. It’s like he’s become a sort of Betty Crocker of B movies. The man is 86 but his money is still good. He produced, or was involved in the production of, Dinocroc (2004),  Supergator (2007),  Sharktopus (2010), Dinoshark (2010),  and the upcoming, wait for it, Piranhaconda (2011). Make sure that you catch the earlier flicks for the full backstory on our protagonists. As for Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009) and Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus (2010), Corman wasn’t involved in those embarrassing knock-offs.

Jim Wynorski (“Jay Andrews”), the director of myriad exploitation movies, actually shows up in this one. As far as I know, it’s his only appearance on film. He was set to shoot a scene and the Hawaiian local he had for the job simply couldn’t say his lines. Wynorski had to step around the camera into the shot and do it for him. You probably know Wynorski from his hits, such as Busty Coeds vs. Lusty Cheerleaders (2011) and The Hills Have Thighs (2010). He made this film for Corman on spec; they sold it to the SyFy Channel with no deal in advance. Corman didn’t get to the top of the mountain without guessing right most the time, as he did here.

And a moment of silence for David Carradine, who had quite a few unreleased movies in the can when he accidentally killed himself. I’m assuming that he’s still alive in these posthumous movies. Decrepit but alive. Kids, if you like to strangle yourself while masturbating, be sure to do your homework in advance.

The movie was shot in exotic Kaua’i and the Pasadena arboretum. There is one reason to watch it: turn on the Corman/Wynorski commentary and listen to them respond to questions from Perry Martin. Learn something about location shooting, casting, funding, and other aspects of low-budget movie-making, while in the background a gaggle of actors make a paycheck and the two stars eat a lot more than is good for them, without much chewing.

Guest Post: Representative John Jakobs

Greetings, voters of the 51st District. Today I want to respond to the most frequent question that I hear: “Which is more important to you, serving the United States or getting reelected?”

All professions are faced with variations of this question, including my profession of politics.

For example:

Doctors are asked whether the life of a patient or the timely payment of that patient’s bill is more important to them. This is apples and oranges. Some patients live, some die.  Nothing you can do about that. Likewise, some pay, and some you’ve got to go after with Collections and sue them for every damn cent that they’ve got.

Lawyers are asked whether justice or “getting the rat off” is more important to them. This question doesn’t make much sense, because any lawyer doing his job right will end up screwing his client no matter what the jury decides.

The plumber is asked, is it better to do quick and shoddy work in order to maximize profit and spend more time at home, or to “do a good job”? Answer: quality trumps everything. Quality family time at home, I mean.

With respect to politics, the answer is simple: to serve the country, I’ve got to get reelected first, right?

Busking 15

Busking at the Transit Station.

My sign: AMUSING IMPERSONATIONS

$1  My mom

$2  My dad

$3  My uncle Louie

$4  Our mailperson Celeste

$5  That funny guy down the block

Busking 14

Busking at 6th and 72nd.

My sign: WILL IMITATE PRESIDENTS FOR CASH

$1  Buchanan – Bachelor twerp who didn’t stop the Civil War.

$2  Arthur – NY Customs House grifter who slid in when war-hero Garfield got shot.

$3  Cleveland – A fat guy. Grover, so you know how I’m going to handle that.

$4  Taft – Another fat guy. Sort of like Oliver Hardy.

$5  T. Roosevelt – Googly-eyed, toothy hyper dude.

Busking 13

I got rousted from 7th and 62nd so I moved over to 8th and 64th. Officer O’Reilly’s beat stops at 63rd.

My sign:  NAME A SONG AND I’LL PERFORM IT.  25 CENTS.

Drop your money in the hat and name the song.

If I don’t know the song, I’ll improvise the music and lyrics.

1. If you don’t like that, I will give your quarter to Anne and ask her to try.

2. If you don’t like her version, Anne will give your quarter to James and ask him to try.

3. If you don’t like his version, James will give your quarter to Judith and ask her to try.

4. If you don’t like her version, Judith will give your quarter to Arnie and ask him to try.

5. If you don’t like his version, Anne, James, Judith, Arnie, and I will take off our hats, stand in a line, and with our hands over our hearts, sing the National Anthem. Then please move along.

President Jones

As the head of our family, I’m often referred to as “President Jones” by the other family members, in tones that vary from ironic to disdainful (not distainful).

I’m the man. I’m the boss. That’s the way things work around here in Spreadtoe, Iowa. The wife and children might not like it, but this is a democracy. How many women and children signed the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution, or any of the other important historical documents that I’m probably forgetting? How many women were on the Supreme Court before the nuts in California and New York took over?

Politically, socially, and in every other way, I’m middle-of-the-road. I did not seek the presidency of this family; it was thrust upon me by tradition.

My wife is black, Jewish, liberal, and liberated. She married me during a period of severe mental illness and has never been able to sunder the union. She remains with me for the sake of the children, whom we adopted in the period before she recovered her senses.

Our son is independent of mind, neither liberal nor conservative. He is open to persuasion when called upon to vote in the family on some issue. He was born in China and as a second son to his parents, was dragging them down. We adopted him at the age of twelve.

Our daughter is a raving tea-bagger. We adopted her in Liceoff, Mississippi at the age of seventeen. Twice we’ve had to pull her off her brother before she could seriously injure him for voting with his mother on something or other. She carries a razor and considers any rules or chores imposed upon her as “taxes.”

Our most recent family vote centered around the issue of whether our dog could marry our cat. My wife thought that it was a wonderful idea, seeing as how they’re already living together. My daughter pointed out verses in the Bible forbidding this. My wife, being a Jew, pointed out that the verses were in the New Testament and thus bogus.  That got the two of them into the whole thing about mom having murdered Christ and so on.

My son and I were open to persuasion on the subject of the proposed Boots/Barky nuptials. My wife explained to us that there would be no little half-dog/half-cat babies running around. I didn’t exactly get it, but I took her word for it. My daughter explained that the next thing we knew, the boy next door would be marrying my motorcycle and taking it away from me. Persuasive argument for a No vote!

In the case of a tie, with our son voting with his mom and me voting with our daughter, we’d be calling the grandparents for a ruling. Before we got to this, however, sadly, Barky was out chasing cars, in spite of a thousand warnings from Boots not to, and got run over.

Busking 12

You’ll find me at 7th and 62nd.

My sign: I’LL SING YOUR SONG. 25 CENTS.

Put your money in the hat and name your song.

1. I’ll tell you that I don’t know it. Do you know the words?

2. You tell me the words, or move on.

3. Do you know the music?

4. You hum the tune, or move on.

5. Can you sing the song, with those words and that tune?

If you perform the song, I’ll return your quarter. Otherwise, move on.