I was zip, zip, zipping through Ocean Beach on my little, black and silver, 150-cc Lance Milan putt-putt motor scooter when I pulled alongside a real biker, dressed in full-blown biker-gang-guy regalia, leaning on his Harley waiting for the light to turn green.

We glanced at each other simultaneously. I nodded hello, and he—get this—laughed in my face. He looked at me, looked down at my bike—making a quick assessment about my manhood (which he identified as Level-7 Pussy)—looked back at me and laughed, out loud, real nasty-like. Then he turned away in disgust, as if a glob of bird shit had landed on my head and was dripping down my cheek.

It wasn’t a big deal, really. I know the score. Harley riders deplore scooter riders the way stand-up comedians deplore mimes. And pretty much everyone else older than 12 thinks scooters are a joke, too. Well, everyone older than 12 can suck on my skid marks! My ride is a beast. It goes zero to 60 in—well, actually, it doesn’t ever get to 60. But it can do 35, no problem—only takes a few minutes to get there. Then it’s zip-zip, putt-putt all over the place!

Seriously, though, for me, a scooter makes crazy-good sense: For one, it’s a huge money saver. The gas, insurance, registration— even the cost of the vehicle itself—combined, are only a little more expensive than renting a couple of Pauly Shore impersonators for a party. Second, I work from home, which means no long freeway commutes. Lastly, I live at the beach, where parking is scarce and traffic is fierce, making a scooter ideal because it parks anywhere and splits the lane to get to the front of the line at traffic lights—which is exactly what I was doing when I came upon the biker.

Now, for the record, I didn’t nod to him as though I thought we were badass biker brethren of the road—as if we had something in common the way, say, a Corvette owner would nod at another ’Vette owner, or the way black men in Alpine nod on the oft chance they cross paths. No. I nodded to him because we were standing right next to each other, looking at each other. It was a human-to-human nod for crissake, not biker-to-biker. I would never consider my little putt-putt job to be in his hog’s league. However, I’m also not going to feel inferior because my chosen mode of transportation doesn’t meet the approval of a man who cuts off the arms of a leather jacket with a hacksaw and thinks that’s punk rock.

When the light turned green, he revved up and peeled out, leaving me in a poisonous cloud of noise pollution, hate pollution and pollution pollution. And what I thought as I stared at the back of his motorcycle jacket, with the motorcycle-club iron-on patch was, He thinks I’m the pussy!? The guy who irons decorative patches onto the back of a sawed-off leather jacket because he thinks that’s punk? The guy who replaced the stock tailpipes on his ride with ones that are twice as loud, for no other reason than to be noticed and/or annoying? The guy who belongs to some juvenile social club with handshakes, passwords, parliamentary-style bylaws and arbitrary officer rankings? You know how those first meetings always go: “OK, so I’ll be the President, and Bear will be V.P., and Vulgor is the Road Captain, and Sammy “the Hammer” will be Sergeant at Arms”—and then you have the “prospects,” who are basically college-fraternity pledges, which is really what these biker gangs are, rolling fraternities, the only difference being that biker gangs have goofier names. Here are just a few nuggets of comedy I found on MotorcycleClubIndex.com:

• Organized Kaos (stifling my laughter).

• The Wastelanders (as if they were a gang of rolling marauders, scanning a post-apocalyptic hinterland for scantily clad, mute chicks and gasoline).

• Gospel Riders (who are, their website says, “Motorcycling for Jesus”).

• The Centurions (actually, I wanted to name my first rock band The Centurions—when I was 15!)

• The Star of David Bikers (blood enemies of The Gospel Riders).

• A Few Good Men (which is not what you think; though, you have to wonder how it was possible not to notice the gayness dripping off that name).

Speaking of homosexual bikers, I absolutely had to Google “gay motorcycle clubs” when researching this column. Alas, all that came up were totally inoffensive, non-hilarious monikers like The LGBT Motorcycle Club, The Golden Gate Guards and The Spartan Motorcycle Club. What a disappointment! I was hoping for some totally awesome, totally faggy, gay-biker-gang names, like The Sodomites, or The Truck Stop Cruisers, or the queer chapter of the Mongols Motorcycle Club—The Mangols. Or how about The Fag Hags, for a motorcycle gang composed of meth-addled straight chicks who follow The Mangols. Or, my all-time favorite gay-biker-gang name I just made up: Hell’s Anals.

I swear to God, I am seriously thinking about going gay just so I can wear that patch on the back of my sawed-off leather jacket. At least then, when I encounter one of these holier-than-thou Harley enthusiasts on my little zip-zip, putt-putt motor scooter, he’d have a reason to object to my presence: Because my iron-on biker-gang patch isn’t making fun of gay people; it’s making fun of him and his amusing fraternity, preposterous costume and obnoxiously loud tail pipes that he intentionally modified for no other reason than to be obnoxious and loud.

Yup, it’s true—I’m that guy: Mr. Ask For Fork (AFF) at Asian restaurants.

Now, I know that AFF guys are despised. But I don’t understand why. It just didn’t work out between Chopsticks and me. After years of heartbreak, failure, embarrassment and terrible arguments, we decided to go our separate ways. Now, whenever I run into Chopsticks, I just nod hello and goodbye—then enjoy dinner with my steely companion, Fork.

So, the problem isn’t really with Chopsticks anymore; the problem is my chopstick-snobby friends, and family, and yes, even my wife—the Grand Imperial Wizard of chopstick supremacists—who recoils in horror whenever I ask for a fork, as if my request is somehow insulting to the servers, the establishment and the entire continent of Asia.

The pathetic thing, however, is the servers often are insulted by this. Over the years, I’ve received many nasty reactions to my fork requests, as if I’d just asked a Christian-bookstore clerk where I could find the Barely Legal magazines. But I don’t care. I’m paying good money to enjoy this meal, and eating rice with chopsticks is like drinking beer from a thimble.

What I do care about, though, is my wife’s reaction, which would have been to roll her eyes in a way that said, “You disgust me, and I want a divorce” then team up with the waitress so they could tag-mock me throughout the meal.

So, I grunted my discontent, picked up the sticks and—while my inner AFF-man howled at me with mirth—began futilely poking my salad like a drunken, blind drag-queen in bed with a woman for the first time.

Question: If Chopsticks and Fork were to get into a fight, who would win? It turns out there’s an ongoing debate about this on the web. And it turns out lots of people believe Chopsticks would win, because it’s two against one. However, anybody with a booger for a brain or bigger will know that to be stupiculous. Fork is made of metal and has sharp points. Chopsticks are usually made from flimsy wood or plastic. It may be two against one—if the two are the Olsen twins and the one is Megatron. What’re the Olsen twins gonna do to defeat Megatron, play keep-away with a potsticker? No! One fork would kick a thousand chopsticks’ asses. It is, by far, the superior utensil—especially when it comes to salads.

With chopsticks, you pretty much have to settle for whatever specks are still on the sticks by the time they reach your mouth. But with the fork, you can impale some leaf, some sprout, tomato, onion—whatever combination you prefer. I call it “morsel management,” and it’s what eating salad is all about. I mean, if it’s a salad on the plate, shouldn’t it be a salad in your mouth as well?

Also, the curve and shovel-like nature of the fork make it an excellent instrument for “dressing management.” Dressing tends to gather at the bottom of the salad. After every two or three bites, a good dressing manager will slide the fork underneath the pile of salad and turn the bottom to the top, like tilling soil, which spreads the dressing evenly through the salad. Chopsticks can’t do that, so you end up with a salad that’s dry on the top and soggy on the bottom.

So, after several painstaking minutes of failure, I threw the sticks down in disgust. “This is total crap,” I spat. “How can anyone eat like this?”

“It’s easy, honey,” she said, as giant pieces of lettuce and cucumbers fell off her chopsticks and onto the table. “You just have to practice.”

“Practice chopsticks?” I harrumphed. “What is this, piano lessons?! I’ll practice eating with chopsticks when Chopsticks practice arm-farting Lady Gaga songs.”

My remarks caught the attention of Chopsticks, and they glared at me with derision, as if to say, “Hey AFF-hole, what happened to our arrangement!?” But all those old, hurtful feelings came rushing back and our agreement had all but dissipated. It became about who could hurt whom the deepest, and they were winning, because it was two against one again, only my feelings aren’t metallic. They were taunting, smirking, pointing and laughing at me, and it was painful. That’s when the Cee-Lo Green song started playing in my head:

“I see you dining ’round town with your new girlfriend and I’m like, ‘Fork you’” / I guess the tines and the curve, got on your nerve, and well, uh, fork you, and fork her, too!”

After several minutes of this, I suddenly remembered why Chopsticks and I had an agreement in the first place. I took a deep breath and calmed down. Then I summoned the waitress and requested a fork. She smiled and brought it over, without any guff whatsoever. Chopsticks abruptly stopped laughing, huddled together and quivered with fear. Even my wife kept her egg roll hole shut.

Ed Decker
4/15/11

“Have Charger fans become the bratty kid at the playground that says, ‘If you don’t play my way I’m taking my ball and leaving’?” Andrew asked in his e-mail. “Or am I just a salty Raider fan that should stay home during the playoffs?”

Well, Andrew, asking if a Raiders fan is “salty” is like asking if minnows are skittish. So, yeah, you probably should stay home during The Super Bowl (and the rest of 2011, too), but that’s hardly the point. The real question is, “What’s up with Cabo Lame-tina?” Do they fear and/or loathe Raiders fans that much?

Sure, I’ve run into my fair share of Raiders turds. I once watched in horror as one of them chewed off the ear of a Chargers fan and spit it at my feet. But I’ve seen just as many, if not more New York Jets jerkoffs, not to mention Minnesota Vikings vermin, Broncos bastards and Patriots pricks, and Lord knows you can’t projectile vomit in a bar anymore without splattering the legs of at least a couple of Cowboys cocksuckers.

The point is, there are some in every bunch. You can’t assume that a guy who’s wearing silver and black is going to be a problem customer any more that you can assume a dude wearing powder blue with yellow lightning bolts will have a predilection for playing dress up with Barbie dolls.

Whatever. Cabo has the right to refuse service, and I respect that; but, seriously, Cabo Cantina, when did you become such an elitist pussy? Is this a place to watch football or is it the Oxford Club of Distinguished Gentleman? Because I don’t see no chamber trio in the corner. What I see are lots of television showing football games. Football! Where rivalry is not only welcome—it’s the effin point!

I despise this whole Wrong-Team-Allegiance-Bar-Entry-Refusal thing. I’ve encountered it myself. I can think of three instances when I witnessed someone being denied entry based on Wrong-Team-Allegiance. The first time was when I was hanging with a group of Redskins fans.

Now, as a devotee of the New York Giants, I used to hate the Washington Redskins—until Lawrence Taylor snapped Joe Theismann’s femur on national television and it was the end of the Redskins as we knew them. These days, what I feel is more like pity. They’ve been so bad for so long that the Indian on their logo has a single tear streaming down his face like Iron Eyes Cody on the old anti-litter PSA.

It’s so sad. That’s why I let some of them hang around me—to bring joy into their otherwise miserable lives. And on one particular Sunday about three years ago, shortly after Washington upset New England in a regular-season game, I went bar hopping with a small group of Redskins-Fan-Friends (RFFs). When we arrived at the front door of a now-defunct Boston sports bar, my RFFs were denied entry because of the color of their Skins.

I couldn’t believe what the doorman was saying. I figured he must be a disgruntled rogue and that no bar owner in his right mind would turn away business for such an infantile reason. So I asked for the manager, and as sure as Plaxico Burress got all his guns on safety, he supported the doorman’s ruling.

“Wow,” I declared to the manager. “Are you guys so butt-hurt about that devastating, embarrassing, morale-crushing, vagina-smarting loss to the lowly Redskins that you’re actually going to turn away our business?”

He didn’t respond, just glared. I glanced over his shoulder and inside the bar to see all the pitiful New England fans moaning and wailing and hugging each other in grief, as if they just found out Ted Williams’ head had been cryogenically stored with a Yankee cap on it.

I had my answer.

Now, I know a lot of people will say, well, maybe Lame-o Cantina has this “No Raiders’ Colors” policy in place to protect the Raiders fans from bitter Chargers fans. But I don’t buy it. For one thing, you ever fight a Chargers fan? It’s like fighting a bowl of yogurt. Secondly, the Chargers weren’t even playing that day. It was the second round of the playoffs, during the Steelers-Ravens game, so the Chargers and their fans were probably at home, having afternoon tea with Barbie and friends.

Either way—whether it’s the Cabo management being jerks or their Chargers-loving customers, or if it really is in the Raiders fans’ DNA to spit body parts on the floor like a cannibal’s belligerent baby being spoon fed in a highchair, I have to ask: What the hell is wrong with you people!? You do realize it’s a game right? There’s no need to demonize your rivals. Even the guys who play on your beloved teams have friends on rival teams. If your devotion to a team is more serious than the guys who are actually on said team, well, it might be time to consider pursuing something—I don’t know, something more, something fulfilling, something like a life, perhaps? As in, get one.

Fat chance, though. I know some of you are going to write letters of outrage, or stop me on the street, or accost me on my barstool about how angry you were when I insulted your beloved Redskins, Chargers, Cowboys, Vikings—whichever—for the sake of satire, missing the point of satire, as you missed the point of football: that it is all about the fun. If you don’t get that, you’re doing it wrong.

Ed Decker
02.02.11

Read my column about the ear biting incident

As the date for my yearly holiday flight to New York approaches, I’ve been wondering: By which method will I choose to have my privates persecuted? Will I elect to be fondled by a highly trained genitalia inspector, or allow agents to take a radioactive close-up of all the cysts that have emerged in my rectum since I first got in the security-checkpoint line?

I recently read that two-thirds of the population favors the new full-body scanners. Even I will admit that the caveman cowering in the subterrain of my brain feels an iota safer about flying now that we have them. So, I don’t begrudge the public’s support of the new measures. I do, however, begrudge some of the ignorant, reactionary arguments used to justify that support—such as the oft-repeated position that it’s better to tolerate a little indignity than be killed by terrorists.

“If you don’t want to die on the plane,” remarked a caller on Sean Hannity’s radio show recently, “you should be saying, ‘Scan, baby, scan!’”

And BusinessInsider.com blogger Henry Blodget titled his article about the subject, “Sorry, Folks, We’d Rather Be Body-Scanned than Blown Up In Mid-Air.”

What horseshit. The choice is not between getting scanned and being “blown up in mid air.” It’s a choice between scanning and the minute possibility of being blown up. Actually, since no security scheme is foolproof, the choice is between the minute possibility of dying in the air by terrorism and a slightly higher possibility of dying in the air by terrorism.

So, the questions are: How much higher is that possibility? Is it mitigated by the new security measures? And is the difference sizeable enough to justify the myriad physical, emotional, financial, chronological and libertarian costs of it?

“The people who are making a big deal about the airport security just need to grow up because it’s there for their own good,” wrote a commenter to SignOnSanDiego.com.

Oh yeah, commenter to SignOnSanDiego.com? Well, suck my cyst! This is a big deal. I am grownup! In fact, this is what grownups do—we weigh our options and consider consequences.

“If these new machines prevent one plane from being blown up over the next decade, they’ll have been worth it,” wrote our boy Blodget.

Really? One plane in 10 years—about 300 people—is worth all that time, money, energy, restrictions on movement and invasion of the privacies and personal spaces of—well, let’s see, at least 1.5 domestic million flyers a day, multiplied by 365 days per year, multiplied by 10 years is, approximately 5.5 billion passengers. Sorry, but 300 casualties are perfectly acceptable when weighed against the impact on 5.5 billion people.

What’s that you say? I wouldn’t be calling the casualties “acceptable” if it were my wife or child. Well of course not. But it doesn’t change the fact that “acceptable casualties” are a necessary configuration of society. Take the speed limit. In 1987, there was a debate over whether to increase the national maximum from 55 to 65 mph. Everyone knew that the increase would cause between five to 15 percent more traffic fatalities, but we raised it anyway.

Same is true with air travel. Forget terrorism, if we really wanted to save more lives, we’d demand the airlines retire their planes five years sooner. We’d make them triple the pilot’s salary, quadruple inspections and double the landing gear. We’d make them put a parachute under every seat and seat cushions that inflate to fully stocked life rafts.

So, spare me your ignorant hostility and blind allegiance to the illusion of safety. How about we have a non-reactionary, well-considered, grownup debate about the pros and cons of employing full-body scanners at the airport? I’ll start.

PROS

1. Better odds: The odds of being blown up in plane during a terrorist attack will be reduced from a one in 10.40894 billion chance, to a one in 10.40895 (or so) billion chance. Yay!

2. Job creation: The full-body-scanner industry is booming!

3. Social advantages: Can catch up on all your texting responsibilities while waiting to be frisked or scanned.

CONS

1. If it ain’t broke…: There have been no successful, airborne terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. Why the sudden need to increase security?

2. Radiation: Experts are conflicted as to whether body scanners emit safe levels of radiation for some people. Until we have an extensive, independent report on the subject, it’s not right to implement them.

3. Slippery slope to Orwellian apocalypse: People think you’re nuts for suggesting such a thing, but do the math. Body scanners are peering under our clothing. Optical scanners are becoming more prevalent. Parents have begun embedding microchips in their children. Cameras track your offenses at intersections. And the GPS in your cell phones can track you everywhere else. Isn’t it obvious where this is all headed?

4. Drug transportation: You know, all this terrorism terror has really made flying extra stressful and difficult for us drug users. Oh, how I long for the day when flying with narcotics was as easy as stuffing a baggy in your ass and walking funny for a bit. Now I have to find an unsuspecting mule in the food court, slip the baggie in his or her food, then fish it out of his or her caca on the other side. Thanks, full body scanners!

5. Costs (time and money): At $150,000 per scanner, per gate, per airport, the impact should be obvious. And since time is money, you have to consider the millions of lost man-hours of all those people who’ll be standing in line longer instead of inventing gizmos, curing cancer or developing new porn sites.

6. The terrorists win: As much as I detest using that phrase, it’s never been more relevant. By definition, terrorists seek to keep us in a persistent state of fear, which stresses our quality of life, depresses the economy and causes us to make irrational decisions about our security—such as over-focusing on air travel and under-focusing on just about everything else.

Originally published in San Diego CityBeat

Ed Decker
12.08.10

In the days after Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional, I futilely scoured the Internet, print, TV and radio to locate just one anti-gay-marriage argument that did not, at some point, display colossal ignorance of our laws and government.

I’m not just talking about those random, dumbass-on-the-street interviewees, but also government leaders, journalists and spokespersons of powerful, national organizations—such as Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America (CWA), who said Judge Walker has “declared his opinion to be supreme and ‘We the People’ are no longer free to govern ourselves”; such as Mascara Palin telling Sean Inanity of Fox News that it was “frustrating to see the third branch of government undoing the will of the people”; such as the dumbass-on-the-street CNN interviewee who claimed that, by ignoring California voters, Walker had turned America into a “dictatorship.”

Frustrating? I’ll tell you what’s frustrating. It’s frickin’ frustrating that so many people—including a frickin’ former vice presidential candidate and potential 2012 Republican nominee—doesn’t understand the most elementary principles of our system.

The third branch Palin mentioned is the judicial branch. The reason it “undid the will of the people” is because that’s its frickin’ job! When the will of the people is unconstitutional, it is the role of the judicial branch to frickin’ undo it. And I hate to break it to the Concerned Witches of America (CWA), but “we the people” have never been “free to govern ourselves.”

It’s called checks and balances, my little dumbasses-on-the-street; checks and balances is the opposite of dictatorship.

Another recurring fallacy in the responses to Walker’s ruling is that he can, and should, be removed from the bench. Take the Family Research Council (FRC), which—after hitting all the buzzwords about a “tyrannical” federal judge “single-handedly” overturning the “will of the people”—instructed its members to urge Congress to impeach him.

Now, one has to wonder why the folks at Family Research Council don’t do any, you know, research. Had they performed one simple Google crawl, they would have learned that there’s no frickin’ way Walker can, or should, be impeached, that the Constitution protects federal judges from retaliation for unpopular rulings and that they can only be impeached for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (such as going commando under the robe).

Also on the list of oft-repeated simpletonianisms is the mantra that Walker defied the rule of law. Redstate.com said the judge “disregarded” it. David Limbaugh wrote that he “thwarted” it. And Robert Knight (of Coral Ridge Ministries) said Walker has “contempt” for it, which is such a neurologically crippled position that it makes you wonder if it wasn’t the same doctor who botched all their lobotomies.

“Rule of law” means the government must obey its own laws. Rule of law protects citizens from abuses of power such as, hmm— let me think now; I wonder if I can come up with an example here, something relevant to the discussion, oh yeah—such as stripping a minority class of its equal frickin’ protections.

And Newt Gingrich, what a piece of work.

He’s been pounding the same twaddle about “judicial tyranny” and “overruling the will of the people” since gay marriage began picking up steam around 2000. Gingrich wrote that Walker’s ruling was “an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution.”

Oh, Newt, if hypocrisy was a donkey, you’d be its asshole. It was you who wanted to amend the Constitution (or should I say, “mangle it with a pry bar”?) to deprive a minority class of its inalienable rights. Accusing Walker of offending the Constitution is almost as amusing as when you say homosexuality offends family values, given that you’ve had three wives, two divorces and a six-year extramarital affair, which you begged your wife to “tolerate” so it wouldn’t derail your crusade to impeach Bill Clinton for being one-tenth the scalawag you are.

Anyway, the list goes on and on. They just keep making the same erroneous allegations over and over, unable to formulate their own ideas—like a giant, singular, lobotomized brain, swollen with inaccuracies and too concussed to look anything up.

“Never in the history of America,” said Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage “has a federal judge ruled that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

Yeah, OK, Mr. Loboto, that’s probably true.

Of course, never in the history of America has a federal judge ruled that there is a constitutional right to eat bananas. Never in our history has a federal judge ruled we have a Constitutional right to breathe air, walk fast, sing show tunes or, for that matter, have heterosexual marriage. The Constitution is not a list of every specific thing we have a right to do. Rather, the Constitution grants the intentionally vague, all-encompassing right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,” unless it can be proved that there is a valid, legal reason to restrict it.

But, ah, you frickin’ fricks—you always have your shit backward. You’re always thinking that individual rights must be earned, that the will of the majority is sacrosanct and that judges should be punished when they don’t rule to your liking. You eat, regurgitate and re-eat each other’s fallacies until they are unrecognizable as bullshit, then try to feed it to the rest of us, and all I’m saying is, do a little frickin’ research before you open your swine-holes next time.

Originally Published in San Diego CityBeat
08.19.2010

At first, things are going smoothly, and it actually seems as though we’re going to discuss it without ruining any friendships or appetites—until, I make the mistake of revealing my position on the issue.

“I’m on the fence about abortion rights” I say, and as fast as you can blurt, “He’s a witch! Burn, burn, buuurn him!” they’re dragging me outside, tying me to a stake and setting me ablaze.

Naturally, I try to explain where I’m coming from—that most of my life I have been vehemently pro-choice, until about five years ago, when I began to suspect that the complexities of the issue were too massive for my one small brain to comprehend: Indeed, the origin and meaning of our existence lies at the core of the abortion debate, and the answer to such an epic question as “When does life begin?” is unknowable. My friends, however, are not having any of it.

“Only cowards sit on the fence,” snipped friend A.

“It’s the chicken’s way out,” accused B.

“You can’t have it both ways,” insisted C. “You gotta make a choice.”

They’re not alone in this worldview. Just Google the phrase “on the fence” and you’ll discover an ocean of anti-fence-sitting comments, such as this quote from motivational speaker Jim Rohn: “It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions”, which is exactly the sort of myopic, feel-good gobbledygook you’d expect from one of these motivational dorks. Let’s analyze:

1. “You cannot make progress without making decisions”: Well, thank you for that keen bit of insight, Dr. Obvious McObvenstein. The problem is, progress ain’t the goal, because not all progress is good progress. For example, progress on a bank heist is not good progress. Progress on a terrorist plot to blow up an orphanage is not good progress. Progress on another sequel to Blue Lagoon—starring Whoopi Goldberg and Gilbert Gottfried as the stranded lovers, now older, flabbier and bickering over whose turn it is to catch and cook the termites—is not good progress.

2. “What matters most is getting off [the fence]”: Well, no, actually, what matters most is coming down on the correct side of the fence. For example, let’s pretend I’m undecided about the moral dilemma of, say, puppy raping, but, because my favorite motivational speaker told me the most important thing is to get off the fence, I rushed to judgment, came down in favor of puppy raping and, consequently, embarked on a puppy-raping activist’s tour—lecturing about the social advantages of puppy raping, passing out pro-puppy-raping brochures, visiting schools and telling kids they should start puppy raping at an early age—thus making good “progress” for the pro-puppy-raping agenda. I think even Dr. McObvenstein would have to agree that it would have been better for everyone (especially puppies) if I had remained undecided.

So, yeah, I’m a proud fence-sitter. The list of fences upon which my prolific white buttocks sit is righteous and long: I’m on the fence about leaving Iraq. We never should have invaded it in the first place, but who knows what kind of mess our departure would leave behind.

I’m on the fence about immigration. While I tend to be in favor of amnesty and an easier path to citizenship, I understand why people want more control over who comes in.

I’m on the fence about extraterrestrials. The notion that little gray men are zipping around in flying saucers is as unbelievable to me as the idea that we are the only intelligent life in the vastness of these cosmos.

Ditto God. The concept that the universe manifested by chance is as incredible as the concept of it being designed by an omniscient, white-bearded overseer who lives in floating silver city in the clouds and makes public appearances on tortillas.

I’m on the fence about Avatar, as it was the most visually stunning movie of all time but had a screenplay written by a team of lobotomized monkeys who flung their excrement against a wall and used whichever blotches resembled words and sentences.

I’m on the fence about Nancy Grace. Would it be better to shoot her in the back of the head with a shotgun or lock her in a dungeon to endure a life of torture and degradation?

And, I’m on the fence about abortion, which is the reason my lunchmates have been berating me as a coward for the past 20 minutes, causing me to lash back, in a totally lunch-inappropriate volume, “You’ve got a lot of nerve saying I’m the coward when you gang up on me three against one!”

I tell them, “Being on the fence means having no allies, no sanctuary, no protection from the sticks and stones being hurled back and forth.”

I tell them, “The world needs more people who are brave enough to admit when they don’t know something. There are just too many people running around thinking they have all the answers, and you know what? Maybe you ladies do have the answers. Maybe you’re smarter than I am. Well, better that I recognize my stupidity and sit quietly on the fence than think I know what’s what and come down swinging on the wrong side.

Ed Decker
07.21.10

I have to admit, I enjoy surfing all those kooky fan pages and groups on Facebook. Some are hokey, like the “Powerful Blood of Jesus Christ” group (which displays a picture of a dove whose wings have been dipped in Christ’s blood). Some are hokie, like the “Happy Muslim Husband and Wife” fan page . And some are just plain stupid, like “Can This Goat Get More Fans than Barack Obama?”

The types of groups and pages are wide-ranging, but one thing they all have in common is that they crack me the hell up, usually unintentionally. Take the hilarious, “Dear Lord, Kill Obama” page. The real title is much longer and more laughable, but, yes, there actually is a Facebook page that prays for God to kill President Obama, and it has 1,185,299 fans—my sister being one of them! Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. During the campaign, she totally bought into all that “Obama the America-hating, Muslim, socialist, grandmother-murdering, turban-wearing Kenyan” business. Ah, don’t sweat it, Sis. It’s not your fault Mom accidentally put you in the microwave when you were a baby.

I imagine a lot of those fans are also fans of the “People Who Believe In The Power Of Prayer” page (407,854 fans), which means, since those people believe in the power of prayer, they are literally subcontracting God as their own personal presidential assassin.

Of course, the “Dear Lord, Kill Obama” page doesn’t make me guffaw nearly as much as the response group that wants the “Kill Obama” page deleted. That group is called “Petition to Remove Facebook Group Praying for President Obama’s Death” (875,365 members) and wants you to sign the petition to “make Facebook accountable for what they implicitly endorse.”

Yeah, dammit! We’re going to hold Facebook accountable by, um, asking them to remove a page they aren’t affiliated with. That’ll show Facebook!

Oh, you kooky Anti-”Kill Obama” Page members, just because someone has a fan page doesn’t mean Facebook endorses it. If the mere act of allowing a page to exist constitutes endorsement, then, by that logic, Facebook endorses your group as well, which means they are endorsing the Kill Obama page and the Anti-Kill Obama page—a paradox so blatant, so powerful, it would cause the Facebook universe to collapse on itself and vanish, leaving behind only a tiny little “Like” button.

Another page I find utterly amusing is “Take Off Your Damn Hat During the National Anthem” (181,981 fans).  “The United States is the greatest country on Earth!” writes the moderator. “I’m tired of people not… taking off their hat for our National Anthem!”

Then there’s this bit of perfect comedy from fan Ellen Odom: “All of us born of this soil should show complete respect, all others can get the hell off of it.”

Question: If I don’t respect the National Anthem, what’s it to you? Isn’t it enough that you respect it? Because, guess what? Some people might not think this country is all that great. Take homosexuals. What has this country ever done for them except marginalize, dehumanize and criminalize their lifestyle? If I were queer and attending a ballgame, not only would I not remove my lid during “The Star Spangled Banner”—I’d make sure the hat I wore had a giant, foam donkey dick on top, which I would stroke with both hands during the entire anthem, as if to say, “Got your ‘land of the free’ right here, bitches!”

Then there’s the “Ban the R Word” group (3,422 members), which is described as, “a group for everyone who is tired of constantly hearing the word ‘retard’ used as a derogatory term and would like to do something about it.”

OK, fine, do something about it. In the meantime, I’m going to start a response group called “Ban the ‘B’ Word”—a group for everyone who is tired of constantly hearing the word “ban” whenever somebody says something somebody else doesn’t like. Sign my petition to ban the “Ban the ‘R’ Word” group on the grounds that it’s not anyone’s business what words I use!

Here’s one that makes no sense. It’s the “Check American” page. The mission statement reads, “Check American is a national campaign to encourage citizens to write in ‘American’ as their race on the 2010 U.S. Census Form.”

I guess this group is for people who are agitated by words like “African-American” or “Mexican American.”

“Stand against hyphenated Americanism,” writes the moderator.

Yeah man, take a stand against those low-down dirty hyphenators. Write in American as your race on the census form. Only one problem. “America” is not a race, dipshit.

Then there is the hilariously bigoted protest group against the stated plans to build a Mosque near the former World Trade Center. It’s called “People Who Disapprove of Building a Mosque at Ground Zero!” (59,566 members).

“This mosque is a symbol of conquering America,” says the mission statement, after which it has the deliciously comic ’nads to add, “This group is NOT about attacking Islam or Muslims.”

No, no—of course it’s not about attacking Muslims. It’s about attacking their places of worship, sillies.

A quick scan of the page reveals that the members are all retarded.

“If we let them build a mosque then we have the right to wipe out their country,” writes Michelle Feldbauer, who apparently thinks the Nation of Islam is a country.

“This is the land of the free,” explains Marie Montalto, adding, “A mosque at ground zero? Never!”

Ah, Marie, spoken like a true radical racist Facebook fan-page fan. Forget that not all Muslims are terrorists; forget that Muslims also died on 9/11—what’s funny about your post is that the exact same sentence in which you mention a free America, you tell a minority religious group that they have the freedom to take a hike.

Oh, you kooky “People Who Disapprove of Building a Mosque at Ground Zero,” I have to ask. If the 9/11 terrorists had been, say, a gang of disgruntled barbers, would you prohibit hair salons from opening near ground zero?

And last but not least is a fan page that intentionally cracks me the hell up. It’s called “Stupid Fucking Facebook Fan Pages . . . Fuck Off.” All it does is mock fan pages. At the time of this writing it has 970 fans. Actually, make that 971.

Originally published in San Diego CityBeat

Ed Decker
05.21.10

I was very excited. The minute I got home, inserted the Get Born disc into the player, turned up the volume, was all ready to rock out with my socks out . . .  only to be slammed in the face with the Pickaxe of Mediocrity.

Ditto Stereolab. Ditto Iggy.

You know what irks me most about being an audiophile? Music CD’s are the only product I know of which you can’t return when they’re broken. Now, by “broken” I don’t mean if it skips or something. Of course they let you return CD’s for that.  I mean the other definition of broken.

If you’re like me, you buy new music CDs because you’re looking for that certain, special feeling when you listen to them. An internal response that is greater than the sum of its musical parts. Such as the first time you heard Zach De La Rocha blaring, “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!” and you felt like you just got whacked in the head with a bat so hard that blood ran under your fingernails and every cell, every vein, every single pore in your body shut down causing you to fall on your back and gasp and convulse on the living room floor as foam spewed from your maw. That’s what a new music CD is supposed to do and if it doesn’t, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s broken.

55 bucks and not one of these CD’s worked properly. Not the Stereolab (which was stale as a Bill Clinton zipper joke). Not the Stooges (which was obviously mixed and mastered by a team of lobotomized baboons). And certainly not the Jet album (which was just brutally average rock music). Nothing against Jet I suppose. Being average is what most of us are anyway; but then – I’m not paying 20 bucks for averageness. Nor am I paying 20 bucks for cover art, or liner notes, or shrink wrap, or crappy plastic jewel cases.

I’m paying 20 bucks to be stabbed in the stomach and left for dead.

So I decided it was time to fight the power. The next day I went back to the music store, walked right up to the cashier, set the disc and receipt on the counter, and said, “I’d like to return this CD please.”

“What’s wrong with it,” asked the clerk

“It’s broken,” I said.

“You mean it skips?”

“No, I mean, it doesn’t work.”

“It doesn’t work how?” he asked.

“Ok, well, you know when you first play a new rock and roll CD, and this guitar thing starts grinding out your speakers, and the bass thunders in, and the drummer goes slam bang boom-bang, then out of nowhere some ghoul from the bowels of hell starts shrieking — and the whole thing is rocking so hard you have no choice but to carve the heart right out of your chest and swing it by the aorta over your head grunting like an aboriginal in a sacrificial ritual? Well this CD doesn’t do that.”

“You mean you don’t like it?” he snipped.

“No, I like it just fine,” I said. “But I didn’t pay 20 bucks to like it.”

“I can’t help you sir,” he said.

You know how the rest goes: Harsh words were exchanged, and once again my dignified insurgence against the powers that be was mistaken for a psychosis of some sort and was escorted off the premises by the manager’s gentle hand on my elbow, saying in his contemptible, patronizing, shitty-little-record-store-manager’s tone, “Yes sir, we understand your frustration, but this is an issue you have to take up with the record company,” and me snapping back, “But you lie in the same grub-infested bed as them!” as he gently closed door in my face and waved goodbye through the plate glass windows which, too my shame, I considered putting a bench through.

Where are you Chuck D. when I need you most!?

You know, I don’t think the record companies take into account the buyer’s risk when they price music CD’s. If they are selling their product “as is” then the price needs to drop considerably. Maybe, if the record companies hadn’t sold out their customer’s interests for the bottomless bottom line, they might not be losing their asses right now. Because not only did they not nurture us as customers — we who paid for their palaces and Hummers — but they blatantly gouged us, and short-changed us, and when things weren’t going so well for them, they even sued our broke asses.

Anyway, I came home and placed my 3 new discs into The Stack. The Stack is a pile of unlistenable CD’s that I have set aside to resell. When The Stack is big enough, say twenty CD’s or so, I’ll bring them to Cow Records on Newport Ave. The clerk will thumb through to see which ones he wants to purchase and, if I’m lucky, I’ll make enough money to buy this pack of gum I’ve had my eyes on for awhile. Or maybe, I’ll buy a handkerchief for all the tears I’m about to shed for the poor, ravaged record industry.