Our National Em-Barris-ment Comes to an End

Right now, in the afterlife, Chuck Barris is meeting Chuck Berry.  Oh, if only David Letterman could have introduced them.  “Chuck Barris, Chuck Berry.  Chuck Berry, Chuck Barris.”

Crappy TV show creator, songwriter, novelist and possible CIA assassin, Chuck Barris, died at the spry age of 87.

Barris’ first game show was “The Dating Game” (precursor to the far superior “Love Connection”).

The show was a woman on one side of a wall asking questions to three men on the other side and her picking a date without seeing them.  There were always double entendres and dirty jokes and everyone hoped that she would pick the uggo just to see her expression when he was revealed at the end.

He next show was The Newlywed Game where three sets of Newlyweds were quizzed on how well they knew each other.  There were always double entendres and dirty jokes and someone would win a washer and dryer at the end.

Then there was “The Gong Show.”  Possible the worst TV show this side of Molly Dodd.

The show was basically the early episodes of an “American Idol” season.  You know, where

Yeah, this guy was a national treasure.

you watch to see how awful people are.

Barris hosted the show because the planned host was treating the show as a talent show and not as a parody of one.

A bad act would perform and it was truly awful, someone like Jamie Farr would bang a giant gong to end it all.

They developed running characters in the show.  Like The Unknown Comedian who was a stand-up who told intentionally corny jokes while wearing a paper bag over his head.  And Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, the show’s prop master who would dance to “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” while people off stage threw random props at him.

But mostly, the show was just crap.

Baris wrote an autobiography called Confessions of a Dangerous Mind which was made into a George Clooney movie in 2002.

In the book, Barris claimed that he worked for the CIA as an assassin in the 1960s and the 1970s.

A CIA spokesman at the time said “It sounds like he has been standing too close to the gong all those years.”

Plus, they were too busy bugging the phones of Presidential candidates (as they are known to do).

This hit goes to: Josh!  Josh takes the lead with 120 points!  With seven months left, can he hold onto his lead?

Happy pooling,

SPMI

Current Standings:

Josh: 120 – (Florence Henderson – 20, Grant Tinker – 10, Gordie Tapp – 10, Terry Edwards – 60, Chuck Barris – 20)

Jami: 100 – (Fidel Castro – 10, Bernard Frost – 20, Zsa Zsa Gabor – 10, George Michael – 50)

Wes: 90 – (Holly Dunn – 50, John Glenn – 10, Debbie Reynolds – 20, David Penrose Buckson – 10)

Morrigan’s Mirror: 60 – (William Christopher – 20, Mary Tyler Moore – 20, Moulton “Pete” Marston – 20)

Lee Kwang Soo!: – 50 (Alice Drummond – 20, Dr. Henry Heimlich – 10, Hashemi Rafsanjani – 20 )

Tailgating w/ Jesus: 50 – (Ralph Branca – 10, Craig Sager – 40)

M: 30 – (Sir John Hurt – 30)

Team Sushi: 30 – (Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka – 30)

Gianna: 20 – (Leonard Cohen – 20)

Mary: 10 – (Chuck Berry – 10)

Joanne: 10 – (Judge Joseph Wapner – 10)

Yeah, Definitely Time for Wapner…

…to DIE!

Judge Joseph A. Wapner, “The People’s Judge,” definitely died at the spry age of 93.

He definitely  died a full 5,431 days after his faithful bailiff, Rusty.  Wapner definitely never loved Rusty.  Yeah, definitely.

Wapner definitely presided over the syndicated “The People’s Court” (as opposed to the US courts which are clearly there for corporations and definitely not people) from 1981-1993.

Wapner proved himself to be a firm, reassuring paragon of fairness and efficacy in the application of the law.  And no, I did not write that sentence.  

In high school, Wapner definitely dated Lana Turner.

Wait-  WHAT!?!??!  He dated Lana Turner!?!?  

Boy, if drinking it is a sentence, it’s gotta be good!

The guys in law school probably thought Wapner was full of shit.  “Yeah, suuuuure you dated Lana Turner… and you were probably bangin’ Joan Fontaine on the side.”

Thanks to the success of Wapner and the people’s court, we now have sayings like, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Man, we’ve definitely gone down hill.

Wapner was one of the most trusted people in America.  He parlayed this into selling root beer.

I know, right?

This hit goes to: Joanne!  It’s been a rough year for Joanne so far.  This is her 1st hit!

Happy pooling,

SPMI

Current Standings:

Jami: 100 – (Fidel Castro – 10, Bernard Frost – 20, Zsa Zsa Gabor – 10, George Michael – 50)

Josh: 100 – (Florence Henderson – 20, Grant Tinker – 10, Gordie Tapp – 10, Terry Edwards – 60)

Wes: 90 – (Holly Dunn – 50, John Glenn – 10, Debbie Reynolds – 20, Devid Penrose Buckson – 10)

Morrigan’s Mirror: 60 – (William Christopher – 20, Mary Tyler Moore – 20, Moulton “Pete” Marston – 20)

Lee Kwang Soo!: – 50 (Alice Drummond – 20, Dr. Henry Heimlich – 10, Hashemi Rafsanjani – 20 )

Tailgating w/ Jesus: 50 – (Ralph Branca – 10, Craig Sager – 40)

M: 30 – (Sir John Hurt – 30)

Team Sushi: 30 – (Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka – 30)

Gianna: 20 – (Leonard Cohen – 20)

Joanne: 10 – (Judge Joseph Wapner – 10)

Is He Dead… or Alive?

Singer and poster-child for aging gracefully, Pete Burns died at the spry age of 57.

Burns was the singer/songwriter for the 80s one-hit-wonder Dead or Alive.  He is now the former.

Their hit was “You Spin me Round (Like a Record).”  You remember that song: “You spin me right round, baby / Right round like a record, baby / Right round round round.”

And now the song is totally in your head.

Burns took the money from one-hit-wonder-dom and invested it.  He invested it poorly.  He invested it in over 300 plastic surgery procedures.  

He ended up looking like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon honoring RuPaul… like Steven Tyler had been found floating dead in his pool for a week… like a Spitting Image puppet of Cher from the “Land of Confusion” video… like a failed audition for “White Chicks”…  He looked like shit wrapped in a plastic bag and run in the microwave until the bag was just about to burst.

He didn’t look good.

As any washed-up celebrity worth his salt, Burns went to reality TV.  The last bastion for the untalented.  

He appeared on BBC’s Celebrity Big Brother 2006, eventually reaching fifth on the show’s final episode.  I mean, talk about living the rock-n-Roll dream.  

He was only a reality star in England.  We already have Flava Flav, we don’t need any more of that crap

…like the underside of a trash bag filled with pudding and left in the Arizona sun.

On the show that he claimed that his coat was made out of gorilla fur – causing outrage with animal rights’ activists.  Unlicensed gorilla fur is illegal in the United Kingdom.  If he just took the damn test and got his license, everything would have been just fine.

Police confiscated the coat and tests revealed that it was not gorilla, but the fur of colobus monkeys. Colobus monkeys are also an endangered species whose fur requires a licence, although experts [experts in what, exactly?] believed that the fur had been imported in the 1930s or ’40s, before it became illegal to import colobus fur in 1975.  For more, I refer you to the legal precedences listed in “The Legalease of Wearing Dead Shit in the UK.”

This hit goes to Gianna!  She gets a whopping 50 points which brings her above the 3-digit mark!

Happy pooling,

SPMI

PS: Draft night is 11/5 – a mere 9 days away!

Current Standings:

Jami: 210 – (Scott Weiland  – 60, Pat Harrington, Jr. – 20, Umberto Eco – 20, Rob Ford – 60, Erik Bauersfeld – 10, Edward Albee – 20, Chris Sizemore)

Tailgating w/ Jesus: 140 (Dolph Schayes – 20, Meadowlark Lemon – 20, Monte Irvin – 10, Muhammad Ali – 30, Pat Summitt – 40, Buddy Ryan – 20)

Joanne: 130 (Joey Feek – 60, Joe Garagiola – 10, Julius La Rosa – 20, Buckwheat Zydeco – 40)

Lee Kwang-Soo (Giraffe): 130- (Daniel Fleetwood – 70, Abe Vigoda – 10, Nancy Fucking Reagan! – 10!, George Martin – 10, Elie Wiesel – 20, Mike “Mighty Atom, Jr.” Greenstein – 10)

The Girl on Fire: 120 (Wayne Rogers – 20, René Angélil – 30, George Gaynes – 10, James Noble – 10, Doris Roberts – 10, Marni Nixon – 20, Fyvush Finkel – 10, Steven Hill – 10)

Gianna: 110 (Robert Stigwood – 20, Lois Duncan – 20, Herschell Gordon Lewis – 20, Pete Burns – 50)

Harmony: 100 (Harper Lee – 20, George Kennedy – 10, Frank Sinatra, Jr. – 30, Gene Wilder – 20, Arnold Palmer – 20)

Occupy the Casket: 100 – (Natalie Cole – 40, Vanity – 50, Boutros Boutros-Ghali – 10)

Team Sushi: 80 (Chyna, aka Joanie Laurer – 60, Morley Safer – 20)

Mostly Mike: 60 (Marvin Minsky – 20, Mihaly “Michu” Meszaros – 30, Janet Waldo – 10)

Age of Aquarius: 60 (William Guest – 30, Merle Haggard – 30)

Nathaniel: 50 (Alan Young – 10, Kenny Baker – 20, Glenn Yarbrough – 20)

Mortician’s Daughter: 50 – (Justice Antonin Scalia – 30, Bud Collins – 20)

Imaginary Steve: 20 – (King Bhumibol Adulyadej – 20)

Chyna Syndrome

Or: All the Tea in Her

Professional wrestler, “actress,” plastic surgery partron and sometimes porn star, Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, died at the spry age of 45.

Chachie is crushed.

In 1996, Chyna joined the World Wrestling Federation [now World Wrestling Entertainment because of some stupid fucking pandas] where she terrified teenage boys who were not familiar with the concept of strong women.  

Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWF, initially did not want her to join the company because he did not believe the audience would find a woman beating up men believable.  But to be fair, Vince McMahon is a dick.

Wrestling fans watched in awe as her masculine looks were chiseled away over the years to make her look more and more womanly.  Because there’s no room in this world for manly-looking women.

In the aughts, when Chyna needed the dough, she cashed in by doing porn.  She starred in such award-winning classics as the cleverly named “1 Night in China,”(which made Roger Ebert’s top ten movies of 2004) and the clever sequel “Another Night in China” (Which Ebert was sorely disappointed in… but Roper loved it).

The evolution of Chyna.  I wonder if her breasts are real?

So the takeaway here is that there are actual porn awards.  I’d really hate to see the statuettes that they give out.

She also starred as She-Hulk in “Avengers: XXX.”  Imagine Stan lee’s cameo in that.  There’s a mental picture for you.  (Spoiler alert: he’s the plumber.)

When Matt Lauer was asked for comment he said, “I don’t know why you think I am related to her because our names are spelled and pronounced differently.”

This hit puts Team Sushi on the board in a big way with 60 points!  They are a mere 110 points behind the leader… sounds depressing, don’t it…

Happy pooling,

SPMI

Current Standings:

Jami: 170 – (Scott Weiland  – 60, Pat Harrington, Jr. – 20, Umberto Eco – 20, Rob Ford – 60, Erik Bauersfeld – 10)

Lee Kwang-Soo (Giraffe): 100 – (Daniel Fleetwood – 70, Abe Vigoda – 10, Nancy Fucking Reagan! – 10!, George Martin – 10)

Occupy the Casket: 100 – (Natalie Cole – 40, Vanity – 50, Boutros Boutros-Ghali – 10)

The Girl on Fire: 80 (Wayne Rogers – 20, René Angélil – 30, George Gaynes – 10, James Noble – 10, Doris Roberts – 10)

Joanne: 70 (Joey Feek – 60, Joe Garagiola – 10)

Team Sushi: 60 (Chyna, aka Joanie Laurer – 60)

Age of Aquarius: 60 (William Guest – 30, Merle Haggard – 30)

Harmony: 60 (Harper Lee – 20, George Kennedy – 10, Frank Sinatra, Jr. – 30)

Mortician’s Daughter: 50 – (Justice Antonin Scalia – 30, Bud Collins)

Tailgating w/ Jesus: 50 (Dolph Schayes – 20, Meadowlark Lemon – 20, Monte Irvin – 10)

Mostly Mike: 20 (Marvin Minsky – 20)

Gianna: 20 (Robert Stigwood – 20)

She’s a Super Feek

Country “singer” (read: killer of all things musical), Joey Feek died at the spry age of 40.

Named after a baby kangaroo, Feek was half of the country duo Joey + Rory (obviously a wink to Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo + Juliet”).    She sang lead vocals, he wore overalls.

Seriously.

The man wants to be taken seriously while wearing Osh Kosh B’gosh.  

Fuckin’ country music…

The husband and wife duo made it big after winning “Can You Duet” on CMT.  Think “American Idol,” which is awful enough, but for hayseeds.  In other words: if I go to hell, it will be me watching this show forever.  And basketball.  A loop of “Can You Duet” and March Madness.  Holy shitsnacks, I gotta stop sinning so much.

Oh, wait.  They didn’t win.  They came in third.  They were that shitty.  They couldn’t even

Overalls.

be the best of the worst.

The duo’s debut album, “The Life of a Song,” was released on October 28, 2008 on Sugar Hill Records, the label that said “a hip hop, the hippie to the hippie the hip hip a hop, and you don’t stop.”

They followed that up with “Album Number Two” because, you know, they’re cheeky.

In 2014, Joey was diagnosed with cervical cancer (because God is a music fan) and it soon spread all over like so much nutella.  

Her husband kept a blog of their experiences which will soon be turned into a Lifetime movie.  It will be the inspirational kind, not the victim genre.  More “Christmas Shoes” and less “Burning Bed.”

In a blog post Friday announcing her death, Rory Feek wrote, “My wife’s greatest dream came true today. She is in Heaven.”  Sure, as far as he knows.  He’s assuming that God is not a music fan.  (See above.)

This hit puts Joanne on the board in a BIG way!  she has 60 points and is poised to jump in front of me!  And she’s a mere 40 points behind the leader!

Nancy Reagan, somehow, still continues to live.  

Happy pooling,

SPMI

Current Standings:

Jami: 100 – (Scott Weiland  – 60, Pat Harrington, Jr. – 20, Umberto Eco – 20)

Occupy the Casket: 100 – (Natalie Cole – 40, Vanity – 50, Boutros Boutros-Ghali – 10)

Lee Kwang-Soo (Giraffe): 80- (Daniel Fleetwood – 70, Abe Vigoda – 10)

Joanne: 60 (Joey Feek – 60)

The Girl on Fire: 60 (Wayne Rogers – 20, René Angélil – 30, George Gaynes – 10)

Tailgating w/ Jesus: 50 (Dolph Schayes – 20, Meadowlark Lemon – 20, Monte Irvin – 10)

Harmony: 30 (Harper Lee – 20, George Kennedy – 10)

Mortician’s Daughter: 30 – (Justice Antonin Scalia – 30)

Age of Aquarius: 30 (William Guest – 30)

Mostly Mike: 20 (Marvin Minsky – 20)

Gianna: 20 (Robert Stigwood – 20)

The Greatest Hit of All

I believe this child has no future

She was not taught well.  She did not lead the way.

An autopsy showed all the beauty that she possessed inside.

In a sense, she died.  Which was easier

than staying in a hospice, not remembering how she used to be.

She decided long ago, she would walk in her mother’s shadow

And she failed, … yet succeeded.

At least she did the bathtub-OD.

The one thing that she took from Whitney

Bobbi Kristina, shown here getting ready for a bath.

And it took away her dignity.

And now the greatest hit of all

Is happening to Mary.

She drafted the greatest hit of all

In round 16.

The greatest hit of all

Was not easy to achieve

After ODing in a tub, being put into a medically induced coma for months, transferring to hospice care before finally dying, and giving you a whopping 80 points to shoot out into the lead…

It is, truly, the greatest hit of all.

When contacted for a statement, her father Bobby Brown noted that his daughter was fine and was coming over for a pool party later in the day.  It is noted that denial is his prerogative.  It’s the way that he wants to live.

Bobbi Kristina Brown gives Mary a 160 point total to make The Girl on Fire the new leader!

Nancy Reagan, somehow, continues to live.

Happy pooling,

SPMI

Current Standings:

The Girl on Fire: 160 – (Mario Cuomo – 20, Richard Dysart – 20, Anne Meara – 20, Denise McCluggage – 20, Bobbi Kristina Brown – 80)

Occupy the Casket: 150 – (Sir Terry Pratchett – 66, Lauren Hill – 90)

Jami: 140 – (Diem Brown – 70, Sam Simon – 50, Dick Van Patten – 20)

Tailgating with Jesus: 120 – (Jean Béliveau – 20, Ernie Banks – 20, Jerry Tarkanian – 20, Minnie Minoso -10, Al Rosen – 10, Chuck Bednarik – 20)

Gianna: 90 – (Ahmad “Real” Givens – 70, Vincent Bugliosi – 10)

I-Steve (a.k.a: The Arch-Bishop!): 80 – (Fiorenzo Angelini – 10, Jorge María Mejía – 10, Cardinal Karl Josef Becker – 20, Roberto Tucci – 10, Giovanni Canestri – 10, Giacomo Biffi “the Vampire Slayer” – 20)

Nikki: 80 – (Stuart Scott – 60, BB King – 20)

Anne: 70 – (Lesley Gore – 40, Joe Cocker – 30)

Fearless Ghoul Pool Administrator: 60 – (King Abdullah – 10, Joe Franklin – 20, Alex Rocco – 30)

Team Sushi: 50 – (Marion Barry – 30, Omar Sharif – 20)

Nora the Explorer: 50 – (James Best – 20, Ben E. King – 30)

Babysitter: 50 – (Leonard Nimoy – 20, Gary Gahl – 30)

Anne: 30 – (oops, I forgot who Anne had – 30)

Mostly Mike: 20 – (Ralph H Baer – 10, Edward W. Brooke III – 10)

Nathaniel: – 10 – (Christopher Lee – 10)

Erika: 10 – (Jayne Meadows – 10)

The Mortician’s Daughter:  10 – (“Little” Jimmy Dickens – 10)

A Real Big Hit

Ahmad Givens, aka: “Real,” aka: that douchebag who keeps trying to get his friends to call him “Real,” and pathetic Rick-James-wannabe, died at the spry age of 33.

Real typified the awfulness of America because he was a reality star.  He starred on VH1 (“Hey, if MTV doesn’t have to play music, neither do we!”) in the cultural touchstone known as “Real Chance of Love.”

The show was thinly veiled prostitution where a gaggle of hollow, vapid women vie for the affections of Real or his brother Chance (aka that douchebag who keeps trying to get his friends to call him “Chance”).  It ran for two seasons.

To mourn his brother, Chance posted a selfie of him crying on Instagram… ‘cuz, you know, it’s all about him.

Young Ahmad’s life was changed forever when he saw his first Milli Vanilli video.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: when I die, if ANYONE takes a mourning-selfie, I will haunt your ass!  And I don’t mean a Geena Davis/Alec Baldwin kind of haunting where we dance around and sing calypso music.  No, I will full-on Poltergeist your ass!  You can take a fucking selfie after I make you scratch you fucking face off!  Hear me now and listen to me later.

Real had a line of haircare products called “Real Silk”  that embroiled him with numerous lawsuits because the product contained 0% silk.

Real contracted colon cancer a few years ago.  And since he was such an asshole, you can pretty much just call it cancer.  Maybe Real cancer… or cancer of the Real…

And Gianna kept her ear to the ground on the douche-bag with cancer front (I think she has a Google alert set up).

This means that both Fregosi sisters have one hit and both are tied for second with 70 points.  That’s pretty damn impressive.

Nancy Reagan, somehow, continues to live.

Happy pooling,

SPMI

Current Standings:

Tailgating with Jesus: 80 – (Jean Béliveau – 20, Ernie Banks – 20, Jerry Tarkanian – 20)

Gianna: 70 – (Ahmad “Real” Givens – 70)

Jami: 70 – (Diem Brown)

Nikki: 60 – (Stuart Scott – 60)

Anne: 40 – (Lesley Gore – 40)

I-Steve (a.k.a: The Arch-Bishop!): 40 – (Fiorenzo Angelini – 10, Jorge María Mejía – 10, Cardinal Karl Josef Becker – 20)

Fearless Ghoul Pool Administrator: 30 – (King Abdullah – 10, Joe Franklin – 20)

Anne: 30 – (Joe Cocker – 30)

Team Sushi: 30 – (Marion Barry – 30)

Mostly Mike: 20 – (Ralph H Baer – 10, Edward W. Brooke III – 10)

The Girl on Fire: 20 – (Mario Cuomo – 20)

The Mortician’s Daughter:  10 – (“Little” Jimmy Dickens – 10)