My So-Called Beliefs

Since I never seem to have too little to say, I find it strange that many people who condescend and criticize my willingness to be verbose seem to be among those people who seemingly meander through life, wet blankets that stick to the sidelines and never get the opportunity, let alone take said opportunity, to come out and state their beliefs. And since they're out there reading, they can take this collection of opinions, suggestions, thoughts and beliefs, print it out and wipe their collective tuchases with it.

I think that any time someone is convicted of drunk driving, they should go to jail for five years and for an additional 20 years, minimum, if they kill anyone while driving while intoxicated. If they are arrested a second time for drunk driving, they should be imprisoned for life, whether or not they kill anyone. Incidentally, drunk driving, in my book, is being significantly over the legal blood-alcohol level; being one tenth of a point over after having a glass and a half of Shiraz doesn't quite count. We're talking about people who have been in a bar or their home getting hammered and then somehow opted to take a nice, leisurely drive down a sidewalk somewhere.

Men convicted of rape should get a minimum 10-year sentence with a chance to cut that sentence in half if they are willing to be castrated prior to imprisonment. For repeat offenders, a minimum of 20 years and automatic castration by rottweiller. And not in that order.

While we're in the "penal" phase, I think anyone convicted of murder and sentenced to death who wastes countless hours of court time in the appelate stages should be relieved of the burden of lethal injection and should instead be sentenced to an hour (if they can last that long) in a shark cage wearing a chum necklace and a chum butt-plug. Too many hardened criminals waste too much of our courts' time, so allowing them to spend a number of years on death row, petitioning and appealing and costing the government millions of dollars annually, should come with a risk. So for any of you contemplating multiple capital murder: if you get convicted and you know you've got next to no chance of being acquitted, go the easy route, plead guilty -- no shark cage.

I think the speed limit should vary not only from road to road but depending on when and how crowded the roadway is; doing 65 mph at certain times in heavy traffic is far more dangerous than driving 85mph at others, say, at 2AM along Route 80 East or the West Side Highway. The speed limit isn't about saving lives or preventing accidents, it's about revenue, pure and simple; and as cars are better- and more efficiently-designed, there's no way that 55mph is a reasonable speed limit to anyone but grandmothers who live five minutes away from the market and the Tuesday Night Bingo Club. And any truly incompetent drivers should have their licenses rescinded and their cars painted hot pink so everyone knows to keep far away from them, on the road and off.

I think women who have breast implants should have a tell-tale tattoo of some sort inked onto their ears so there's no debate about which are real and which aren't. I also think that men with small penises should be sporting a similar tattoo on their ears. Fair is fair: just because we're wearing clothes doesn't mean we shouldn't be a free and open society.

Anyone who farts in a crowded elevator should be forced to walk around his or her office without pants for one full workday, including his/her commute, and also be required to wear a brown headband featuring the word "Flatulator" in bright yellow.

I think that if a movie genuinely sucks, you should be able to get back half the money it cost you. That means the creme de la crap, like Ishtar, Titanic and Bed of Roses, could, conceivably, lose money after one weekend of showings. I really don't care that it costs $40 for two people to see a movie with a bag of popcorn and a Diet Coke in NYC; but I pay for my groceries after I've had a chance to pick them out and inspect them, and I pay after the meal at a restaurant, not before. So if I'm forced to dole out the dollars for a shitty movie prior to watching it, I'm coming out of the theater looking for some payback -- literally.

Speaking of theaters, anyone who doesn't disable the ringer on their cellphone and actually spends time during the movie talking to someone via a cellphone should have the phone confiscated and their cellular company notified they are irresponsible and should be prevented from obtaining another cell phone for a period of not less than one year. Further, anyone who brings a child under ten to a scary or disturbing movie -- say, Nightmare on Elm Street or 28 Days Later -- should be forced to volunteer for five hours a week at a local psychiatric ward. There are lots of freaky people in the world, and many are born that way, ie genetically. Parents should have the brains to not try and speed this process along by letting six-year-old Jimmy watch a killer mutant wipe out the human race -- one bloody stain at a time.

I think the President should be forced to give speeches while hooked up to a lie-detector machine, and a split-screen display be implemented so we can tell when he's bullshitting, when he's not, and when he really has to take a nasty leak. Politicians lie with regularity -- so until such time as we are able to figure out when they are and when they aren't, let technology do the work for us.

I think Madonna writing a children's book is akin to Charles Manson writing a book on how to make friends and influence people. I also believe that freaks like Marilyn Manson, White Zombie and Korn should be required to tour with acts like Air Supply, Barry Manilow and Pat Boone.

I think pornstars should be required to also function as census-takers, so that they can mingle with "Mr. and Mrs. America" and be forced to meet their fans up close and personal.

I think sex is best by candlelight, unless there's no matches lying around the airplane bathroom. I also think stewardesses -- the term "flight attendants" is ridiculous -- should at least be relatively friendly. Hiring non "people persons" to deal with airplane passengers with regularity is shitty, but what's shittier is having to find out a particular stewardess is having a really bad day because her PMS is raging, her ex-husband is nailing his secretary and her son is sleeping with the cleaning woman -- at 30,000 feet. No one is happy 24-7, but aside from opening cans of soda and pouring them and passing out plastic trays of barely-edible food, is it really that tough being a stewardess? It's like being a waitress for a limited number of hours at a time, only without tips and better dental coverage. If you are a stewardess and you find that you hate passengers, here's a safety tip: find another career track.

The sports world is an insular, elitist circle of athletes and those who fawn over, preen or otherwise assist them. But while athletes themselves are largely (and understandably) regarded as idiots, their coaches and managers should be held to a higher standard. So any coach that berates or otherwise treats badly a member of the media or a fan without reasonable cause should be forced to wear a Boston Red Sox cap -- and nothing else -- during a September Red Sox-Yankees game in the Bronx while sitting in the bleachers.

Anyone other than college students who gets so inebbriated that they wind up vomiting in public should be forced to endure a 30-minute session of striptease performed by their oldest living grandparent. If no grandparent is alive, then the strip-tease should be performed by Jerry Falwell or Rush Limbaugh, whoever is least preferable by the offender.

Any child -- and by child I refer to anyone under the age of 18 -- who is convicted of possessing and/or selling hard drugs (anything beyond marijuana and medication) and/or guns should be flown and air-dropped into Sesketchawan, Canada, with only the clothes on their back and one penny. And anyone guilty of fleeing the scene of an accident where someone is legitimately injured (ie where anyone needs to go to the hospital via ambulance) should be forced to endure an hour as a hood ornament at the annual Mudpie Demolition Derby held in Chatanooga, Tennessee.

People who regularly use cliches in their everyday language should be forced to spend a week in a foreign country, preferably France or Somalia, provided they can't speak the language of their host country and they have no family or friends therein. Each time they use a cliche while being hosted by said foreign country, they forfeit a tooth -- immediately (without novocaine). And if they use really inane, bizarre cliches, like "two in the hand is better than one in the bush," they either get kicked in the testicles or receive a nipple-tweak, depending on the gender of the offender.

A guest who replaces the toilet paper in someone else's home with the paper rolling upward rather than downward should be sentenced to only using unlit gas station bathrooms for one week, without toilet paper or stall doors therein.

People who actively find themselves enjoying the existence of Pauly Shore, Joan Rivers and/or The Clapper need to be tied to a chair, have their eyelids sewn open, and forced to watch 24 straight hours of infomercials -- in Portuguese. And each hour, on the hour, they should get fish-slapped (either trout or striped bass), as a rule.

Finally, anyone who cuts you off in the fast lane and then proceeds to keep their speed ten miles slower than the speed you were going prior to them cutting you off should be pulled over and be given a crushed-ice enema -- roadside -- and then locked in their car for an hour before being allowed to return to the road (I always like to include at least one item that all people can appreciate).