TSP WORLDWIDE Presents: "...The BEST MONTH EVER!!"

Pete the mailman
Change is in the air as 2009 has begun and as this marks the return of this blog, I'd like to take a few moments of your time to reflect on the many events that have taken place between Christmas and today. Indeed, it has been a month of exciting things (for most of us, anyway). First of all, I would be foolish not to mention the unfortunate bad timing of my Christmas gift to my mailman, Pete. Pete had been delivering mail for over a decade however, at the end of Summer he started making mistakes on his route. Around Thanksgiving, Pete had vanished completely and was replaced by a part-timer at the post office. I never asked any questions as to what happened to Pete and then a few days before Christmas I noticed he was back at work and delivering mail again. I generally like to give Pete a little something at Christmas to know how much I appreciate him however, this year instead of the usual monetary gift, I gave him a bottle of Scotch and he was delighted. Unfortunately, when Pete was again off his route the following day, I discovered by accident that Pete's first round of being M.I.A. had been caused by his being in rehab. He was good for a month until I gave him his present! With that being said, I wish Pete my apologies and wish him better luck this second time through the program!

Borack Hussein Obama

Borack was anxious all December long to get a "jump start" on his duties as 44th President of these United States. For many of us, we were a bit confused for a few moments as to "WHO?" the President actually was! When the automakers came to Washington to ask for a bailout and Israel and Palastine started stirring up trouble in the Middle East weeks before he was sworn into office, Obama took a backseat approach and let Bush deal with these things on his own reminding all of us that there's only "One President at a time" That's OK. There's still plenty of mess to go around no matter who is in The White House. Obama rolled into Washington on a train to get re-live the same experience as Abe Lincoln did. In a bit of irony, there was never any mention of the "Underground Railroad"... this one was Amtrak!

The Ghost of Honest Abe

Obama was sworn into office (well, sort of), on Tuesday January, 20th 2009. Because of the Hollywood atmosphere with large crowds and high expectations, the ceremony was botched up however, it wasn't Obama's fault. Regardless, the perfectionist that he hopes to become, he did the whole thing over the next night becoming only the third President to repeat the process. Keeping up with Lincoln's legacy was an important attribute for Obama's journey to Pennsylvania Ave. Obama used Lincoln's very own Bible during his oath which was bookmarked with x-rated jokes from the 1800's that Lincoln had handy in case he needed to soften up a crowd before one of his long, boring, and often historic speeches. If those didn't help do the trick, the tin-type photos of Mary Todd Lincoln in her bloomers that fell out on the floor certainly would have! It is said that the Obama often chats with the ghost of Lincoln and will continue to seek his guidence through these troubled times. Before moving out of his home of the past eight years, George Bush took liberty to take a poke at the light side of Obama by leaving a can of Lincoln Logs placed next to his desk that he can use to play with while pretending to be interested when talking to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton during a conference call. Despite the pile of ads left behind for consideration of a new limo, it is rumored that Lincoln advised Obama to ditch any Ford products and go with GM. He ended up with an Escalade for transportation.

Airport: 2009
It was impossible to sit through the 24 hour non-stop cable coverage of the Innauguration without a break. Unfortunately, The View ended up getting pre-empted again, this time because of an airline incident in New York when a U.S. Air jet had to make an emergency landing into an icy Hudson River. By some miracle, all passengers on board had survived thanks to the heroic crew and a determined pilot who went beyond the call of duty to make sure everyone was safe. I learned a valuable lesson here as a result: When tragedy strikes anywhere and end in either a positive or negative outcome, NEVER call the ticket counter at a major airport to prank call the person answering the phone... your call will always be traced no matter what!

Crap becomes more clear when seen in DTV

Getting back to important issues at The White House, President Obama already has quite a "dilly of a pickle" on his hands with the upcoming transition to Digital Television. Despite the fact that it's been publicized over and over and over again for the last few years, there are still roughly 15% of the population who have no idea what the significance of February 17th is. Oh yeah, either this small number of folks have been lying in a coma or, they really are THAT stupid?! The government has put a hold on passing out the discount coupons which resemble a credit card, due to the fact that too many people have made attempts to pay their dinner tab at Red Lobster. For the ones that are sort of "with the program" on DTV but still not too certain (like the elderly), this little black box from outer space is causing quite a stir. Your Grandparents may have gone out and cashed in their coupon at Walmart for the box they brought home, but now what? I've had this situation happen to me already with a relative who keeps asking me why the government is making everyone in the U.S. get HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax and all the other filth on cable TV. You can explain it over and over that it's NOT cable and they still don't get it! I'll tell you what... for take advantage of these folks by telling them not only is the DTV converter box for CATV but, the government is going to take an $89.95 monthly service fee from their Social Security check to pay for the service. In this case you may want to suggest they make the check out to you so you can take care of the mess while pocketing the money. You know, after considering this DTV thing and the rotten economy and Recession and blah, blah, blah... maybe Obama ought to consider looking into this as a possibility to help balance the budget and lend a helping hand to Main Street and Wall Street. There you go Mr. President, one problem already solved!

"While You Were Away..."

So, you didn't have time to catch the news the past week? Sure. It was Christmas and perhaps, a time for peace and quiet however, the news marched on and here's a few things you may have missed.

• Purrrrrfect Ironic ending - Comic book nerds and fans of campy nostolgia were left speechless on Christmas Day as the lady who portrayed Catwoman in the 1960's serial Batman passed away. She was in her 80's. Her death was somewhat ironic considering her other claim to fame was her rendition of, "Santa Baby" which was a top ten single in the 60's. Perhaps the Good Lord above chuckled to himself when choosing Christmas as a time to call her back home?! In any case, because of it being a rather slow week in the Entertainment Biz, another bit of irony surfaced in recent days when news tickers printed the same obituary on a daily basis as recently as today. That brings the total "deaths" of Eartha Kitt to five. Indeed, if the cliche is really true, this cat lady DOES have nine lives... which of course means, four more obits to go! Irony #3? Nope. This is kinda pushing a conspiracy theory not yet looked into. Though it is odd and almost exactly a year past his death, Heath Ledger and Eartha Kitt never crossed paths.
• If you hold his ear up close next to yours, you can hear the Pacific Ocean! Just don't take his picture, PLEASE! Although not yet officially, he's been our President since November. Borack Obama. He's held daily Press Conferences, selected a whole list of his favorites to fill the Democratic Party's empty shoes. All this while George W. Bush is still kinda technically our President although missing as of late. While Obama finishes his walk on the sandy beaches of Hawaii before being sworn in as Commander-in-Chief, publications such as Time Magazine are already pointing out Obama's biggest beef: Being followed by camera crews. A recent article discussed his being annoyed by "gawkers" preying on him and his family and same magazine showed a timeline of how the job ages a person at the end of his term. According to this photo at left, Obama will resemble Morgan Freeman almost as he appeared as President in Deep Impact. Hey, Obama's already aging rapidly due to Paparazzi? This photo may be somewhat conservative. Four years from now, he may look like Grady Wilson.
• From the "Gee, maybe I should've said something sooner" files... There's nothing funny about the L.A. fella who dressed up in a Santa suit and went berzerk on his ex wife and family on Christmas Eve. It was a tragic story that ended with his own suicide. As is often the case in tragedies such as this, days later people/witnesses/those who seek attention start speaking to reporters to spin their own stories on events leading up to what happened. A woman (who chose not to be identified for fear of God knows what) had a chat with the tabloid talk outlet known as, Inside Edition. It was this lady who makes a living as a seamstress, that said she felt something suspicious about the guy who came into her shop last month to get custom fitted for a Santa Suit and stressed that she make it "XXL with plenty of deep pockets on the inside". Of course, we know what happened next. Hours later, same woman appeared on CNN telling the same story. Thanks for nothing lady! It's too late for "would've, should've, could'ves". I'm sure the survivors are grateful for your suspicions about the bad Santa. It's a shame you didn't talk BEFORE the events took place!
• "A beautiful breeze in Greece" or in this case, "GREASE". Now your Pops/husband/boyfriend/significant other with bad taste can have the smell to go with it as Burger King rolled out it's latest menu item in the form of "Le toilet water". It's true. You or someone special can stink like the creepy pedophile King mascot who's always on the run from something or someone in commercials. Let's face it, you can smell like his meat... the meat that BK is so famous for "flame broiling" (although it's been decades since I actually spotted an actual fire going in the joint). Initially, the small bottle was to be sold via their website however, a few select stores sell the $7.99 bottle of BK right off the menu. Described as a cross between "Old Spice" and "fresh cut pine trees", this is the perfect follow up to last years "Play-Doh" cologne (which yes, actually existed). Save the eight bucks, wait for a warm day and throw Grandpa's Fruit of the Looms on the Bar-B in between the corn-on-the-cob and Oscar Mayer weiners and you get the same thing.
  
  

"How the Grinch Stole Walmart" and "Singin' the Airport Blues"

"...And along came a mighty wind that
blew in the nastiest blizzard these parts had ever seen. A steady cascade of Walmart gift cards fell at the feet of local townspeople as a Christmas gift from the heavens above...and then the guy behind the faux "snow machine" was arrested by the cops!" That's how it went down at a Philly area Walmart this past weekend when a "Secret Santa" was arrested for disrupting the steady flow of Christmas shoppers filing in for last minute purchases. The generous guy who seemingly defied the odds as being the only person in a billion to actually make money on Wall Street this year, had decided to spread his wealth with the locals. In doing what he thought was a good deed, he legally purchased the entire inventory of Walmart gift cards a day earlier and had them activated each for $20. He would return the next day and stand at the store's main entrance as a "gift" to shoppers. A true testament of holiday cheer that was perfectly legal. In an ironic twist, Walmart management called the cops to have the man removed from the property (even though by the time word spread and police arrived, store traffic had doubled) because he was disrupting business by handing out their own cards! It didn't make sense to anyone involved either. After consideration, Walmart dropped the charges however, asked the guy to hand out the gift cards so long as he did it off their property, go figure.


If you're like me and get rattled just stepping foot into an airport in this post 9/11 era of travel and get stuck in security lines forced to take your shoes and socks off and get the once over with electronic hand held devices held inches away from your private parts, the last thing you want to have to deal with are panhandlers tugging at your heartstrings by playing Christmas songs on their saxaphones for your loose pocket change. The struggling airlines used to hire people to entertain the long lines and people stuck for hours on end due to bad weather conditions. Like everything else they once gave us as gratis, they have cut the paid holiday entertainment and passed the torch to traveller himself. Many airline terminals are simply placing microphones in the waiting area and encouraging people to entertain one another with their gift of karaoke. I thought this import from China was only a fad confined to hole in the wall bars and taverns. No thanks to some major software companies and video games such as "Rock Star" and others, Karaoke is enjoying it's second life. The whole idea of an airport is to get someone from point "A" to point "B". If you're looking for a Las Vegas style show, see it in Vegas. If you want to make an ass of yourself by pretending you know the words to an old Journey song from the 1980's and sing off key, you can even do it in the privacy of your own home while pretending to be Eddie Van Halen with a fake guitar too. An airport is one of those places I simply choose to pass through. I make it a point to walk through the front door, find where my flight boards, and stare at my watch until takeoff. Karaoke is a bad thing, ESPECIALLY in a place as confined as an airport. The last time I flew Southwest Airlines out of Chicago Midway and first encountered a trio of Peter, Paul and Mary wannabees, I returned to the ticket agent to inquire how much it would cost for a one way ticket from Midway Airport to the bottom of Lake Michigan. Enough said. Ho! Ho! Ho!

VH-1 Presents...

Phillip The Pickled Christmas Pig
With Special Guest: Dr. Drew Pinsky




“I found myself in the State of California lying flat on the steps of a medical building as a creaking door opened just above my fractured skull. “Hello old chum” the man at the door greeted me. “I see you’ve made it. My name is Dr. Drew Pinsky and I want to help you!” “He lifted me up and brushed me off as he inquired, “Now what’s this business about an apple and pineapple trying to get you?!” I started to respond however, was quickly cut off by the Doctor… “Wait!” he screamed. “Don’t say a word until you sign these release forms. The first one is to allow your footage to air on the MTV/Viacom Networks and the second one, that one takes all the liability off me personally and professionally should something go wrong.” I took hold of the paperwork and signed away not knowing what I may be getting myself into. "

I walked down a hallway and what did I see?
A room full of addicts and Gary Busey.
“I’m not a patient here but can I get you a drink?”
Dr. Drew rolled his eyes and said “that’s what you think!”

“There’s no drinking or drugging, you must follow the rules…”
then I felt someone’s cane poke and prod at my jewels...
It was Jeff Conway from Taxi, his voice gave me chills,
as he cursed me and swore I had taken his pills.
“My meds are all hidden and I want to go home!”
Then rolled away yelling “Please leave me alone!”

I thought I saw Tawny Kittaen sitting there from afar
She once rolled half naked on the hood of a car!
“It was Whitesnake!” I said and she turned with a glee
“David Coverdale’s an ass” and one guy agreed.
It was the booted out drummer from the band Guns and Roses
Whose millions of dollars were snorted up noses.

He stood up and staggered and pointed at me,
“F### Axl Rose and his Chinese Democracy”
Everyone was so angry and bitter to end,
Then it suddenly hit me, I’m rhyming again!

Drew gave me a slap and yelled “wake up you swine!”
“Doc, I don’t have a problem, it was only bad wine”
I had learned my lesson and ran towards the gate

When I woke up again I was on someone’s plate.
I was sprinkled with spices and someone yelled “BAM” It was Emeril Lagassee and I was his ham.
I looked to my left and then to my right
It was the apple and pineapple telling me “Bon Appettite”

The Moral of the story: Too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing. Take life in moderation and have a safe holiday.

Gary Busey’s final thought: “What the F@&k was this crap??!!