The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Beating Oprah to the Punch

Singular ExistenceLeslie Talbot of Singular Existence is celebrating the publication of her book today (and unlike us, hers comes to market via a real publisher).  We’d like to add our heartfelt congratulations, and urge everyone to check out the FAQ on her blog, wallow in the advance praise, and pick up her book at a bookstore or convenient Amazon link near you.

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One Response to “Beating Oprah to the Punch”


You are too sweet for words. Thanks!

Sophie’s Choice of Beer, Wine, or Sangria

Posted by scott on January 2nd, 2007

I’m spending a final, frigid day with my family up in Portland, and as Gerald Ford’s funeral lumbers solemnly by on the big screen behind me, I read this email from longtime Wo’C provocateur David E:
Two things are occurring troubling me on this otherwise festive New Years Eve, that I thought you might be best to reflect upon with.

#1: In all the coverage surrounding President Ford and James Brown’s deaths, we seem to be forgetting that this has happened before — quite recently. Let’s not forget that Ray Charles’ and President Reagan’s deaths also happened within two days of each other as well. And both times, this happened while I was out of town on business — and I don’t travel for work that often. I don’t claim to understand
the workings of the shadowy R&B/ex-president complex, or why their actions are timed to my movements, but like Richard Dreyfuss once said over a plate of mashed potatoes, this means something. I think it also raises a question: are we willing to sacrifice Stevie Wonder if it means my going out of town will take out Bush?

#2: I heard today that George Lucas says he and Spielberg have agreed on a script and they’re going to begin filming the fourth Indiana Jones installment (my title: Indiana Jones and the Search for Geritol). Knowing as we do the richness that George Lucas is able to bring to material he last worked on twenty years ago, I’m really looking forward to this. But here’s my challenge to you, and perhaps to the World O’Crap community: a pre-emptive World O’Crap treatment of Indiana Jones and the Last Case of Depends or whatever it’s going to be called. Given that it’s been 20 years since we last saw him, we can’t really have him fighting Nazis (unless it’s set in Argentina). I’m thinking more Soviet Russia or French Indochina. And since we’ve covered Jewish and Christian mystical objects (and faux Hindu, too, I guess, if you count the stupid second movie), we need a more obscure religion…perhaps he’s searching for Xenu’s mystical tube of Polident in Vietnam? It’s the best I can do on short notice. But you guys and Bill S. and D. Sidhe are all funnier than me, so I’d love to see what you all can cook up.

Happy New Year to all.-David E.
So what’s it to be, people — Stevie Wonder or Bush.  You have five seconds to answer.

As for the fourth Indiana Jones movie — why bother showing our hero trotting the globe and looting some distant land of its cultural heritage, when the P.C police will only insist that any ill-gotten relicts be returned to their country of origin.  And anyway, as we’ve recently learned, academic infighting provides plenty of opportunities for drama, intrigue, and two-fisted, Dr. Mike-style gunplay.  So I suggest the next film be Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Department Chair, and involve a canned hunt on a dude ranch, where our hero is pursued, ala The Most Dangerous Game, by a ruthless coterie of cookie-baking feminists and their native castrati bearers.

But you can probably come up with something better.

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30 Responses to “Sophie’s Choice of Beer, Wine, or Sangria”


Not Stevie–B.B. King. Think of the poignancy…B.B. King and King of the B.B. Brains.
I think all this started when Sammy Davis, Jr. and Kermit the Frog both died on the very same day: May 16, 1990. Kermit after all, was the leader of the Free Muppets, far more important than the leader of the Free World.
If y’all don’t know about this, it is a vital resource:
http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/pages-nf/main
“Indiana Jones Goes To Washington.”
Screw you, Billy Jack. Indy’s got a whip and a gun–they’ll love him.
I was thinking “Indiana Jones and the Bingo Hall of Doom” or perhaps “Indiana Jones and the Temple Beth Sholom”.
“Indiana Jones and a Secure Tenure in an Ivory Tower”
“BACK FROM YET ANOTHER GLOBETROTTING ADVENTURE, INDIANA JONES CHECKS HIS MAIL AND DISCOVERS THAT HIS BID FOR TENURE HAS BEEN DENIED.”
http://mcsweeneys.net/2006/10/10bryan.html
I was going with the tenure joke, featuring Mary Grabar.
I’m sorry, Assistant Professor Dr. Mary Grabar. But I was beaten to the proverbial tenure punch.
So I’ll go with “Indiana Jones and the Sequel With No Point”.
I know, weak. It’s all I got tonight.
I kind of like the Indiana Jones and the Argentina Nazis idea. Indi is prowling ancient South American cities looking for…um…how they got gigantic boulders over mountain ranges without wheels or even horses/donkeys… he finds a hidden underground under-mountain river… yea, Indiana Jones and the River of…something. And there are Nazis of course.
David E.
Please be careful about your travel plans, there are 3 living ex presidents and I still like two of them.
“River Nazis…I hate these guys.”
So long, Stevie! It’s been good to know you. And we have your best stuff on CD, anyway…
I wonder if the R&B/ex-president thing only works for 93-year-olds….
As for Indian Jones, maybe Buddhism is next on the agenda. A Great Wall of China thing with a bit of Mulan (cute young Asian babe for Harrison, despite the walker and incontinence) tossed in? We can call it “Indian Jones and the Moo Goo Gai Pan.”
I say, go full-bore politically correct, just to make the wingnuts’ blood boil (more). Maybe have Indiana Jones repatriate Assyrian antiquities for a museum in Baghdad. Or have him writing an Anthro 101 textbook that emphasizes diversity and intercultural understanding, thereby making him the culprit for putting what’s liberal into the liberal arts.
“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Apocalypto”
Indy goes back in time to face off against Mel Gibson as the Mayan god Xristona Xrutch (or “Masochistic Jaguar”). Xristona succumbs to Indy’s whip for 97 minutes of graphic gratuitious bloodletting, then Indy absconds with the magical cubic zirconia Jaguar’s Paw, which he hopes to give as an engagement ring to his sweetheart (Kate Capshaw) who he doesn’t realize has already been married for fifteen years.
Mirth and mayhem ensue.
Sample dialog:
XRISTONA XRUTCH. Jews have started all the wars in the world!
INDIANA JONES. Jews. Why’d it have to be Jews?!
BTW, I can spell “gratuitous” but I can’t type it worth a damn…
Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth?
Knockoffs of the Lost Art: Quatermain’s Revenge
B.B. King & Dick “dick” Cheney.
Indiana Jones is confronted by his two teenaged daughters, the spunky, tough, clever brunette and the big breasted blonde (who can’t act, sing, or dance but has an amazing talent for landing parts anyway) in…
Indiana Jones and the Pimple of Doom!
Indy removes a mysterious eight-track from its player; his hair is blown out, his safari clothes become a white leisure suit, and two comely assistants magically appear:
“Indiana Jones and the Orlando of Dawn.”
Stevie Wonder? No way. I’d not sacrifice him for a division of Deciders. Nor B.B. King.
How’s David Ruffin’s health lately?
I don’t know what the outcome would be, but I’m laying odds that Bush waves to Wonder’s passing caisson.
It’s surely going to be Indiana Jones and the Cult of Reagan. The intrepid and slightly decrepit archeologist will once again have to rescue his father, Sean Connery, from the clutches of evil Nazis who hope to regain power by making shit up about how great Ronald Reagan was. I.J. and S.C. will embark on a quest through Barnes and Noble trying to find a copy of “Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime” with which they can debunk the Nazis’ mythology and free blue collar Americans to vote for Democrats.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Mattlock?
Indiana Jones and the Quest for an Ancient Artifact with the Power to Make Harrison Ford Cut Out the Mumbly Moe Crap and Take Joy in Performing Again, and Maybe Said Artifact Also has the Power to Overcome the Antipathy of the Moviegoing Public, and Frankly You’d Need a Magical Talisman, Considering how Ill-Advised this Return to the Franchise is, Never Mind All the Good Will George Lucas Squandered with the Star Wars Prequels
Some of that should be in subtitles.
Just because this would drive the wingnuts insane, Indiana has to return the stolen Kaaba to its rightful place in Mecca before the world ends in earthquakes in: “Indiana Jones and the Keystone of the World”.
Hmm.. 20 years should put it in the 1960s.
How about Indiana Jones and the Quest for Albert Hoffman’s Bicycle?
It can star Indiana Jones fighting dirty, rotten, drug-crazed hippies.
20 years puts it in the 1960s. Medicare was enacted in the mid-60s. So:
Indiana Jones and the Search for Eldercare
The old movies were set in the 30s, not the 40s — so 20 years only takes us to the 50s. Indiana Jones and the Beaver?
Indiana Jones and the Frantic Search for his Safari Hat and Barbara Billingsley’s Wet Panties, as a Very Suspicious Ward Cleaver Makes His Way Up the Stairs with a 2-Iron and His WWII Mauser, So That Indy Can Escape Out the Window and Shimmy Down the Elm Tree, Where He Will Be Confronted, Humiliated and Blackmailed by Evil Eddie Haskell With a Sack-full of Snakes, Only to be Saved by at the Last Minute by Steven Spielberg Singing God Bless America – as Mel Gibson Whips the Sleazy Jew Haskell with Razors and Barbs – Whereupon Lucas Appears in a Cameo Role Bearing a Fresh Pair of Diapers for His Elderly Hero and Then Zooms Off Again in a Brinks’ Truck Loaded with Millions of Freshly Minted Frogskins…and the colored girls go “doo-da-doo, da-doo…”