Pumpkins, not melons!

So it went a little something like this.

A bright muse named Basegirl says to me, "Can you explain something to me? Maybe this makes me old, but I do not understand when Halloween went from 'semi-holiday where people dress up as superheroes and dead presidents' to 'day which makes it okay for women to wear lingerie in public and act like drunken sluts.' I'm old, aren't I?"

I would editorialize my response but it just reads better on its own, without pulling any punches.

-> It's not an old thing. It's a slutification of America thing.

It started on college campuses at a dozen-thousand Halloween themed frat house parties. Drunk blond linebacker mattresses decided that it would be easier to fill the void in the lives cough(legs)cough by being a "cat" or "little devil" or "pirate wench" or "slutty nurse" or"overbearing father's disappointment and overall regret."

And now that the whole country subsists on a strict diet of violence and white middle-class jail-bait ass, every 30something suburban office girl, who's got Dilbert clippings up on the walls of her cubicle and lives on the Oprah book club, decides that Halloween is her chance to break free from her mundane life of crying herself to sleep, thinking about how lucky Angelina Jolie is to have touched just a hair on brad Pitt, by cutting loose and dressing up in somethingthat's cut two sizes too small for her chunky monkey indiscretions and sticking her tongue in the 23 year-old mail-room clerk's mouth during the company sponsored Halloween happy hour at the local Shenanigans familybar and grill.

<- Of course, that was just a quick gut type reaction to the question. I could be wrong.

Why, Sly, Why?

Has Sylvester Stallone completely lost his mind? Sure sure, we know what you're all thinking, who give a crap about Sylvester Stallone. But let's keep something in mind while we're tearing him a new one, this is a man who created two hugely enduring and iconic film franchises almost completely on his own. He became so big that he literally erased himself and became the figures that he portrayed on screen. So, in that vein The Empire asks this question again; has Sly finally taken the last step over the edge of reason into the everlasting pit of diluted Hollywood obscurity and nutcaseness?

In case anyone didn't know what brought this sudden bought of infuriating rage on, reports have been confirmed that Sly has penned deals to reprise his roles as John J. Rambo and Rocky Balboa in 4th and 6th installments of the two film franchises that allowed him to make movies like "Stop or My Mom Will Shoot," pose nude in Vanity Fair, and market his own line of health supliments and not, as most normal people would, actually DIE of embarrassment.

I know, I know, you're shocked. SHOCKED and APALLED! As my dear cousin might say. Rambo 4? Rocky 6? Maybe Rocky 5 wasn't the terrible plot we all thought it was, maybe it was true. Maybe Stallone has suffered irreparable brain damage from being punched in the head two many times in the first four movies. And word on the street is that he's trying to sign Roy Jones Jr. to play the nemesis fighter in the latter of these soon to be train wrecks. Roy Jones Jr?!?! //derdooinggg//

What? Was "The Matrix Reloaded" not evidence enough that this man has crippling difficulty stringing scripted words together to form a sentence? Sure, we'll take a president who can't say nuclear properly, but this is movie entertainment we're talking about people! Who's going to be the enemy in Rambo 4? A rouge Danish terrorist hell bent on overthrowing the Fox network? Played by Casper Van Dien, even?

The Empire likes Stallone. We're willing to forgive him his latter day disasters because he has, overall, made a positive contribution to movie making at large. Hell, even "Cliffhanger" has some redeeming qualities to it. But this is just going tooooooooo far.

For crying out loud, how can there be a Rambo 4 when no one has bothered to correct the counting error that's already sticking out like a severred thumb in the trilogy? Oh what, you hadn't heard? THERE WASN'T A RAMBO 2! It went like this:

First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo III

Um, WHAT! Anybody else notice the problem? How's about this for a suggestion, Sly? Fix the first three then we can talk about a fourth salute to your biceps. And I think you lost your Rocky priviledges after... well, let's just call a spade a spade- Tommy "Machine Gunn" Morrison.

Man oh man. I need a drink. Is Lethal Weapon on tv tonight?

Is no news really good news?

The Empire had planned to bring you, the adoring public, a new installment of News From Around The Globe. But as it turns out, nothing is going on. Now, this is not to say the all the papers have run blank and the net news blogs have gone unpublished. It just seems that the news is not telling us anything of worth these days. And that got me to thinking, is it not worthy or do we just not care what's doin'.

The proverb goes, "ignorance is bliss." But perhaps the old wise men missed the point. Maybe it's not ignorance that truly makes one happy, maybe it's apathy. The Empire would submit that true and consistent apathy is really the way to keep your world free of sadness and stress. Why argue with the borderline retarded redneck who runs your office's mail room? Just pick up your overdue invoices and comfortably know that he'll probably die of a violent colon infection. Why bother honking at the blonde in the Jeep Grand Cherokee who cut you off while she was gabbing on her cell phone? You can almost envision her perishing in a heap of twisted burning sheet metal when she goes rolling off the highway on-ramp. But that's not really apathy, that's faith in karma. Real apathy is complete emotional discompassion. It's the confidence in yourself to disassociate hate, angst, excitement, and frustration. It's not letting emotional weakness get the better of you. And it's knowing that being stoic is always better than advertising your emotions to the world.

So, in effect, no news is good news. Knowing what's going on but not getting wrapped up in the hysteria is priceless. Ignoring the people you used to hate, taking care of the people you love, being a mystery to all of them, these are the ways to avoid problems. People who live on islands often have to weather out storms because there's no where else to go. Well, we all live on emotional islands and we can't run away from the happenings of our lives. So, why not just not care as much. If you don't make something a big deal, then it isn't. 95% of any news or event is perception. The other 5% is fictitious elaboration.

So, what's the real key to enjoying life? The Empire recommends German beer and ocean.

Two servings for Monday night

As though The Empire wasn't nervous enough...

Monday, October 10th, 2005, for the time being we'll call it stress city. By Tuesday it may have a more explicit or exciting title. The Stillers will be in San Diego for MNF battling to come back from a stultifying loss to the New England PrettyBoys and the Janks will be at Angels stadium in Anaheim fighting to advance to yet another ALCS. The Empire may, in fact, have a total schizo breakdown.

And this is what professional sports is all about. Sure all those cleverly written and scored commercials for Gatorade and the NFL Network may talk about glory or bringing "it" but sports, for the fan at least isn't about any of that. It's about complete and utter channel flipping madness. The fan is tense. The fan is loud. The fan is emotional, irrational, impulsive, and most of all greedy. We want it all! But what happens when we get it all. Four teams, two sports, two HUGE games (at least from the fans' perspective.) There are times when picture-in-picture cannot be given a price tag. The Empire sure wishes it's Toshiba had it. Sheesh!

Frankly, we're out of ideas on how to handle this situation. We're more than open to suggestions. Which channel do we start on? Which color scheme do we wear to work? Who are we tomorrow, Black and Gold or Pinstripes? It's completely insane. But we'll get through it. We'll survive because, let's be honest, we've seen worse situations.

All we can truly hope for are two wins and a modicum, the sheer resemblance, of acumen.

Target practice

Today on The Empire:

People Who Should be Shot with a Tennis Ball Cannon.......... (watch out, it stings!)

First off: There are no words. A couple of rounds for that right there.

Moving on. The Empire is zeroing the cannon westward towards ye-old Tom Cruise. Let's get something straight here, Tom. You're old! Sure, you're still constitute enough hunkitude to fuel the wet dreams of millions of chicks (and some dudes) out there, but Katie Holmes is young and awesome and NOT FOR YOU. Give her back to the youthful men who grew up watching you steal the previous generation of hotties. You suck ass, Tom! Damn, why do so many of your movies have to rock the house down?

Oil! Oil, sure the tennis balls would just flop into you and sink (or maybe float, probably float) but smacking you with a few dozen zippy rounds would make The Empire feel better about being ostensibly anally raped at the Mobil pump.

Karl Rove, you need to chill the hell out. You were all "the total man" last November but now you're pissing people off. Well, you were pissing half the country off last year but at least the other half thought you were kool. Now, everyone thinks you're a sketchball. A Penn 9 at 90mph for you, sir.

Microsoft, do you need a set of shots to the chest to be confirmed dead or alive? Where are you? Still cowering in the corner under the shadow of iPodness.

And we'd call for a few balls in Cameron Diaz's face but her mouth is just too big and we wouldn't have enough to go around to the other dumb kids.

Al Pacino, stop making crap. You used to be the greatest ever.

And 300 lighting fast tennis-ball-sock-in-the-faces for the Red Sox. I haven't forgotten to hate you. There will be balls for the Ravens later, once we've restocked.

Peace out suckas!

Because I'm Loved In My Workplace

nuf. said.

Catastrophe and the Network News

Let us accept that complaining about Katrina coverage will certainly ruffle a few feathers. A whole lotta people were killed, injured, displaced, distressed, and generally screwed by nature's irritable bowel syndrome, the hurricane, and that righteously sucks, fo sho. But for the rest of the country we need to know that things are moving on.

No one is suggesting that we, as a nation of watchers and consumers, simply forget about the damage and suffering in the Gulf Coast region, but we do need to be able to turn on the news and see something other than an over made-up, rolled up pressed shirted, pretty boy in a network news hat standing in front of a level strip mall telling us how Bubba Winfield is still picking up the pieces of his civil war gun replica store.

Message to CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FoxNews, and whoever else is broadcasting these days: "We Get It! Lot's of stuff got knocked over. How about giving us some timely news about how the country is dealing with it. Ooh, and maybe what's going on in the rest of the world. We'd read the New York Times for our news, but we're tired of being told how crappy America is and how much it needs Big Government to straighten everything out."

The Times sucks like the Ravens and television news isn't far behind. Are people really comfortable getting their news from headlines? A question that merits some exploration. But not today. Today we will just have to be satisfied with complaining.

The Empire is giving up on television news sources. From now on it's Google News and The Onion. And, of course, the Internet Movie Database.

The Floppy Stitch

We think the title says it all. So, rather than writing the second installment of "The Empire Bitches About The Holes In Its Mouth," we thought it might be a refreshing alternative to just present you with some comedy. Check out this fun family-friendly drama.

The Newest Big Thing!

The Empire Takes One In The Mouth

"Cut me, Mick, cut me."

Never have more bold and foolish words been said. But knowing no better, I marched my easily convincable ass into a doctor's office this week and let a man who's sworn duty it is to improve health and well-being drill four giant vacuous holes into my jaw and lower sinus region.

So, what now? You ask. Well, now there is no booze, no peanuts, no red pepper flakes, and definitely no steak, and we all know how The Empire feels about steak.

Basically it's a huge downer. The haziness, the swelling, the queasy feeling when I try to do complicated things like say STAND UP. And that's not all. Because I'm a major schmuck, I dragged myself through the streets of Boston (in a Yankee hat to cover up my scarily matted hair) and up into the Prudential tower to work, where I can now enjoy the vertigo of my window seat and the learing eyes of the chippy pink interns. It's almost like they're seeing facial hair for the first time.

And here I sit. Grouchy, stinky, achey, woozy. Wishing all of you a happy Monday. The Empire's not snarking anyone until it can at least bite down on a microwavable noodle.