Those who used to read this weekly rant back in the old totalnonstop.com days should remember my absolute disdain for movie theaters.  For those who don’t, the bottom line is that I hate going to theaters due to a number of reasons – concession stand lines, crowds, people talking and laughing during movies thereby causing me to miss dialogue, grubby kids causing a ruckus, and other various behaviors that people exhibit which can annoy me to no end.  For instance, about a year and a half ago I took a sick day and went to see two movies – “Minority Report” and “The Sum Of All Fears”.  I prefer to see movies during a weekday and preferably when school is in because that means the least amount of patrons possible.  When I was watching “Minority Report”, there were maybe two other people in the theater…but as luck would have it there was some dude with a ponytail who had his flowing locks over his shoulder and he proceeded to stroke it the ENTIRE movie.  It was so friggin annoying I wanted to scream.  “The Sum Of All Fears” was worse.  In the front row there was some married couple, and as soon as the movie starts the dude starts hacking on coughing on a continuous basis.  Literally about every 2 seconds he would clear his throat and/or cough.  The worst was when loud parts of the movie would hit….man he would REALLY let it out then.  It was so bad I almost left.  Now these are just two examples, but events like this are quite common when I go to the theater.  Yesterday I took a day off and decided to go catch “Shaun Of The Dead” seeing how I have such a fascination for all things zombie.  My thinking was “let’s see…it’s a weekday and it’s past opening weekend…maybe there won’t be anyone in there”.  Big mistake.  Now it’s not that the movie was crowded, but about halfway through this film I was ready to cave the heads in of everyone in there.  First, there were probably only about 15 people in there, so common sense would tell me there is plenty of seating and no need to sit right behind, next to, or in front of someone.  As soon as the movie starts, this couple comes in and sits right behind me…and the chick had the most hideous perfume on I do believe I have ever smelled.  It was so strong that it overpowered my taste buds and made my popcorn taste like this crappy perfume.  I could have moved…but something happened that made me forget about the perfume…something happened to where it wouldn’t have mattered where I was sitting because there was no way to escape it.  Yes, “Johnny Date Guy Trying To Impress His Chick” was in attendance and never in my life was mental comfort achieved the way it was yesterday when I pictured cramming a bag of popcorn down his throat while screaming “SHUT UP!”.  The movie had some funny parts…not hilarious, not side-splitting…but funny.  So anytime anything REMOTELY amusing takes place, Johnny has to proceed to let everyone know how it ranks on his laugh-o-meter with a boisterous “BWA HAHAHAHAHA!....OH MAN!...BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!....WORD!”.  This would usually elicit some muffled laughter coming from the chick who was obviously impressed with her outgoing new squeeze seeing how he is so confident in himself that he can burst out into laughter not caring what others might think….in reality we have jackass who thinks this is his own private screening and can be an obnoxious idiot.  Here’s how I see it…like I said there were some amusing parts…and the other people in there saw fit to quietly chuckle some…but NO ONE except for Johnny felt that what was taking place was soooo funny it required obnoxious laughter.  I hate theaters…I really do.  Hence the reason I got a big screen TV and surround sound…that way as long as I can hold out for a few months, I can watch everything in the comfort of my own home where NO ONE can ruin it.  I'm all for someone enjoying themselves, I have no problem with that, just don't be obnoxious about it, okay?  However, there was one really cool thing before the movie started….have you seen the previews for this new movie called “Saw”?  Man, salivation big time.  All the write-ups I’ve read on it call it truly disturbing…man…I will brave the theater for this one.

This past Saturday we played to a packed house at The Boro…if you consider a packed house like 6 people and a bartender…hahaha.  Eh, it happens sometimes.  It is a little more difficult to get jazzed up about a show like that, but you just go out and have a good time and say screw it….plus in 2 weeks we’ll be playing a pretty big show in Dickson – “Helloween Havoc” which last year supposedly drew a very good crowd.  The t-shirts are in, the DVD mix is done, and we’re almost finished with the CD.  Remember kiddies…that’s www.noisecult.com where you can learn all about us!

Sunday I’m watching football as always….and I gotta tell you….I had NO idea how many references to gayness take place by football announcers.  For instance, you know how the announce crew is usually two guys, well one said after a play “boy, there’s a lot of penetration going on down there” and his partner follows up with “oh yeah, there’s a lot of banging going on”.  What the….?  Another thing that always cracks me up is when an announcer says “he’s a good looking player” or “he’s a good looking rookie”…quite comical.  Now you follow this up with the UPS commercial they always show where this dude starts off saying “I plugged into the big brown machine” (which to me sounds like some prison sex scene) and the recipe for gayness is complete.   I hate commercials big time, so I always try to make up something funny about them.  For example, Sunday they kept showing this commercial where little miss free and independent is packing her car and taking off on a whole new life…whatever.  Anyway, it starts with her hugging two chicks good-bye while crying, she drives through all these various wide open spaces, and ends up in Los Angeles.  I think it’s a car commercial…but I digress.  So me and my bud Jason figure this chick is a lesbian, is saying good-bye to her previous lesbian lovers because she is going to LA to get involved in the porn industry.  See, she has this new car with some belongings packed into it….makes no sense.  She has the money for a new car yet doesn’t have any furniture?  Ahh…the mystery unfolds…she started prostituting herself in some Midwest town at various truck-stops to raise the money for the car…then will do some favors in the porn industry to pay for her new furniture…see how it all works out?

And finally, here we are just a few weeks away from the election.  I’m thinking about an election eve column outlining a bunch of stuff…thinking about it….we’ll see.  I do know that I’ll be glad when it’s over.  I’m sick of all the politics…completely sick of it.  See…here’s a prime example.  I think it’s safe to say that mainstream media is a tinge biased towards the liberal side…for instance when the book “Unfit For Command” hit the shelves which told of John Kerry’s behavior during and after the Vietnam War, the only places that really covered it was talk radio and Fox News…and it STILL spent three weeks at number one…but major networks wouldn’t touch it.  Now Sinclair, which owns a bunch of stations in different markets, is going to cut into prime time TV one night very soon to show a documentary called “Stolen Valor” which chronicles Kerry’s activities after the Vietnam War and the direct effect it had on POW’s and other troops still overseas.  Democrats are up in arms to halt it…but they have no basis to do so.  See it’s ok to talk about movies like “Fahrenheit 911” or have Dan Rather pimping fake documents about President Bush’s Air National Guard service…but heaven forbid you come out showing Kerry in a bad light at all…especially behavior that is borderline traitorous.  In accordance with the rules, Sinclair has offered equal time to Senator Kerry and has invited him to come on and answer these allegations….he declined…gee, you don’t say.  Yep, this documentary will be in a lot of states on major networks…should be interesting to see what happens as a result of it.

Now for this week’s award.  First off, the name has been changed of the award…from now on it will be known as “Jackass of the Week”…I think that sums it up a lot nicer.  This week there are two winners….originally I was just going to give it to the moron who laughed the whole time in the theater….and he still gets one…but sadly I don’t have a picture to put up.  So there’s one winner.  The next winner got squeezed in because I truly believe I heard one of the dumbest and tackiest things I have ever heard a politician say the other day.  I think we all heard about the death of Christopher Reeve the other day…hard to believe Superman ever got injured anyway…and I had a feeling his name would be brought up in a speech when I heard about him dying.  Why?  Because last Friday, John Kerry mentioned his name in the debate.  When I heard that he died, I wondered how long it would take for his name to appear in a speech…and I wasn’t disappointed at all….I think it only took about 8 hours.  Because of the reasons outlined here in a moment, this week's winner is

 VP candidate John Edwards made a speech and was bringing up the ol’ taboo topic of stem cell research…something I believe a lot of people are clueless about, it’s just a good sounding buzzword.  Because public perception is that President Bush wants to ban all stem cell research (which is not true), Edwards jumped on it and invoked the name of Christopher Reeve saying that if Kerry is elected, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of those chairs and walk one day because of stem cell research.  Ummmm…what?!?!?!  Christopher Reeve himself said that stem cell research would not cure a chronic problem like he had.  Every election on any level you hear a lot of BS and empty promises…always happens…but to make claims that cripple people will walk is one of the most ridiculous and irresponsible things I have ever heard in my life.  I mean talk about a false hope…man….what, are Edwards and Kerry like some tag team second coming of Jesus Christ?  Give me a break.  Next thing you know, Edwards will be at the grave of Reeve claiming he and Kerry will raise him from the dead so Reeve can be the first to benefit from stem cell research.  And to think…this guy wants to be the VP of this country????  What a jackass.  Seriously, taking all politics out of this, trying to play on the false hopes of a paraplegic or quadriplegic walking because of one bit of scientific study and making it sound like it could happen if someone would let it is just BEYOND tacky and low.  John Edwards, you my friend have no tact or respect for anyone else.