Now Really, “Inside Man” Wasn’t All That Horrible; “Deja Vu” on the other hand … .

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

For obvious reasons, I need to keep my identity a secret.  Still, I find that I am in need of your sage advice and professional direction.

I’m one of the most successful African American actors working in Hollywood today: I’m an Oscar winner, enormously talented (even if I have to say so myself), and damned smart.  Oh yeah, I’m a handsome sonofb**ch, too.  I’ve got everything Sidney Poitier had and a bag of chips.

I am …

bad

ass.

In the best way possible.

Still, although I’ve got an uber-successful career going and am dropping bombshell box-office hits faster than Lady Gaga drops platinum records, I’m saddled with one truly annoying problem.  Hollywood — in all its infinite, bombastic stupidity — feels compelled to saddle me in everything I do with the ‘white actor’ flavor-of-the-day.  If it’s not Clive Owen then it’s Russell Crowe.  For chrissakes, they only pity-f**ked me with an Academy Award after doing a movie with Ethan Hawke.  Ethan – ‘Skinny-A**, No-Talent, I Pout A Lot & Try To Put On The “Tough Whiteboy Thing” Far Too Often For My Own Good’ – Hawke!  I mean, how low does a brother have to sink?

(Although, I have to admit, working with that crazy-a** whiteboy Christopher Walken was some funny s**t.  Motherf**ker can DANCE, too!)

So, I turn to you Ms. Bad Advice.  What do I have to do to get a starring vehicle that features me as a lead AND DOESN’T come with the prerequisite fey honky thespian that can’t hold a candle to my mad skills?  I’ll even settle for sharing top-billing with a white ACTRESS to get out of this rut.  I just did a flick with John Travolta, for [g]OD™’s sake!  Yeah … we both went to the bank with that one.  But still … John Travolta?!!!  I had to share a marquee with ‘Vinny Barbarino’ and I’m a billion times a better actor than him.  ([g]OD™ — I don’t even think what he … does … actually qualifies as ‘acting’.)

Help a brother out here, Ms. Bad Advice.

Helpless In Hollywood,

Wenzel Dashington

Not The Author of This Letter.  Really.  We swear.  Sincerely.  YOU’VE GOT TO BELIEVE US!!!

 

Dearest, dearest, DEAREST Helpless,

It took Ms. Bad Advice nearly a week to get over the titanic case of the vapors that followed directly from her receiving your e-missive.  So — apologies for the late reply.

That said, you have turned to me for advice (while I, on the other hand, might have turned to you for something … more tangible [wink-wink, nudge-nudge!]) and a girl’s got a job to do.  In this case, she feels especially compelled to the best job possible.

While Ms. Bad Advice will admit to noticing a certain melanin deficiency prevalent in the coterie of colleagues you’ve shared the screen with of late, she has to admit that that has not kept her lascivious and lustful eyes from taking in a cerebrum full of you manly wonderfulness.  And, yes, the Aussie bruiser can be something of a bastard … but Ms. Bad Advice has to add (in the interest of full disclosure) to enjoying some rather colorful, Jungian dream-time romps with him as well.

And now you’ve got another Hollywood blockbuster set to release with yet another whiteboy ‘flavor-of-the-day’ Chris Pine (or, as younger readers of this blog might know him as, the dishy new ‘re-booted’ version of Captain James Tiberius Kirk from “Star Trek”).  Seems much like they did with another ‘should’ve been A-List solo leading man’ Morgan Freeman, the great minds in La-La Land are hedging their bets with your magnificently magnificent magnificence.

In short, they’re making sure that there’s salt on the table when they serve up your pepper.

Let’s be honest here, “The Great Debaters” and “Antwone Fisher” were solid pieces of cinema.  And also notable for the almost complete absence of significant white-meat co-stars.  Don’t know if you saw the box office receipts on those two, but Ms. Bad Advice has it on good authority that they weren’t exactly what ‘you people’ (tee-hee!) ’round da way’ might call, “making mad money.”  Lots of Hollywood ‘members of the tribe’ (Ms. Bad Advice simply calls it as she sees it!) lost their shirts on those two.  Having gone down that road with Ving Rhames, they aren’t about to make the same mistake twice.

Ergo, enormously-budgeted Hollywood vehicles starring you and [fill-in-the-blank] white guy.

Ms. Bad Advice wishes it were a different world — a place where an actor of your talent and charisma could simply carry a film on his own.  But, let’s face it: Sidney Poitier had to deal with it and that man could eat your lunch when it came to both talent and charisma.  Being a male African-American millionaire admired by whites, blacks and Latinos alike beats the hell out of being a plain old male African American.  Those guys usually end up co-starring with Mexican Mafia or Aryan Brotherhood types in super-max penitentiaries more often than not.  ”People” magazine does not give a hoot about their marital difficulties or how hot they look in the latest Armani blazer.

Eat the crow they keep serving you and laugh all the way to the bank, young sir.

I have a dream:

One of these days Hollywood may make a “Shawshank Redemption” with a reversed color balance.

But I doubt that dream is going to come soon in our life times.

 

Getting down with her bad self,

 

Ms. Bad Advice

 

 

 

Yet Another Hanging Curveball

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

Where’s the meaning in it all?

Existentially challenged,

Fuzzy Dunlop

Baltimore, MD

If it was up your a** you’d know where it was!

Dearest EC,

Congratulations!  You have the distinction of being the first angst-ridden cartoon character to have turned to this blog for advice.

It’s probably no coincidence that the very same day our crack team of personal advisers here at GBA is  joined by a … rapping corpse, your woe-laden missive comes to us over the Inter-Tubez.  When it rains, it pours — especially when it’s raining human fecal matter and you picked that day to leave the house without an umbrella.

But I digress … .

It’s hard not to be glib and answer with something along the lines of, “The ‘meaning’ of it all is in the dictionary, silly!”  Or, “It’s all about the Benjamins.”  Or, “Meaning, shmeaning.  Go find yourself a good woman/man/shemale and settle down already.”  You see where I’m going with this, I’m sure.  With a name like ‘Fuzzy’ you’ve probably spent the entirety of your existence being taken somewhat less than seriously — if not altogether regarded as a complete waste of genetic (never mind spiritual) material.

Ms. Bad Advice knows your pain.  Ms. Bad Advice has sought the elusive answers to the impenetrable questions.  Ms. Bad Advice has walked the long, lonely road without destination, without purpose.  Ms. Bad Advice is here for you.  She is here to gently suggest to you, “Grow a pair, nimrod.”

As John Stuart Mill (yet another in a long line of Victorian Era British “greatest good” mongers) is rumored to have said to Søren Kierkegaard (wildly masochistic Danish Christ fetishist) upon a chance meeting of the two outside the Vatican: “Put a bloody cork in it with all this ‘faith’ and ‘meaning’ nonsense already, you effete Saxon!”

Indeed.

It is a cold, hard, unforgiving world where compassion and searching will either get you buggered or a spot on Oprah’s “Reading List”.  There is no happy medium, and the VAST majority of those stuck with the ‘compassion and searching’ hang-up can’t stop getting buggered long enough to write something down, get it published, and then somehow draw the fat/thin/fat African American lady oligarch’s attention.  There’s only one Eckhart Tolle in this world — and thank [g]OD™ for that infinitely small favor.  Don’t even get me started on that Deepak Chopra pipsqueak or the small army of “The Secret”-peddling baboons.

These are not people who have found “meaning” and are just desperate to clue you in on it all, bringing solace and ease to your fragile heart.  They are hucksters looking to sell you something AND bugger you.  Repeatedly.

Because that, my poor, lost little lamb, trumps ‘meaning’ any damned day of the week.  And by “that” I mean: Money, Sex, Continued Attention and Adoration.  You think Jesus died on the cross for your sins?  The man/Son of Man has been making bank for more than 2,000 years.  He took Judaism and made it a genuinely marketable commodity (i.e., a billion and half adherents worldwide beats a measly few hundred million sons and daughters of Moses in my book any day).  Even if you don’t believe in him, don’t give a rat’s a** for his teachings, aren’t aligned with any of the thousands of denominations based in the Christian doctrine, or are any flavor of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, or a damned Zoroastrian — you STILL have to deal with the guy’s inescapable presence in every day life.  Jesus is the original (and still champion) when it comes to ‘brand marketing’, my friend.

Too bad he just couldn’t figure out how to take it all with him when he was resurrected body and soul into heaven.  (I know, I know … seven seals, four horsemen, three sixes, raptures, wars, plague, all-around nastiness just around the corner when he comes back to cash the check he wrote two millennia ago.)

So, EC, “the meaning” is where you left it: In the irrational decision to hold on to a name like ‘Fuzzy Dunlop’.  Get thee to an attorney forthwith and begin proceedings on legally changing that handle of yours.  Try something like, “Stone Coxon” or “Flint Tuvguyavich” or even “Popeye T. Sailorman”.  Just don’t go with “Carrot-Top”; unlike ‘Eckhart Tolle’, one ‘Carrot-Top’ in the world is one too many.

And should someone even hint to you that he or she has ‘found the meaning’ in it all, beat the crap out of that person and take it from him or her.

Then feel free to bugger away.

What a wonderful world that would be.

Toodles,

Ms. Bad Advice

Sexual Deviance And The State of The National Economy

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I’m a divorced woman in her mid- to late-thirties with an MBA from a respectable state school and more than 10 years of experience in executive-level management.  Coming out of grad school I made the mistake of signing on with Bear Stearns and complicated that mistake by staying with them.  To the end.  The very ugly, messy, fiscally disastrous …  end.

After being unemployed and near complete financial ruin for close to two years, I had an old boyfriend from my grad school days call me and offer to ‘lend a hand’ with my employment difficulties.  Long story short: he got me a job as his “Executive Assistant” (to be read: secretary) at a salary reasonable enough to get me out of hock and promises of ‘moving up at the firm’.  He was lucky enough to be a fund manager at a smaller firm that made millions from the larger financial collapse and subsequent government bail-out.  He’s up to his ears in cash and now has a federal insurance policy that keeps him employed.

As if all that weren’t humiliating enough (I graduated top of my class at grad school while this imbecile was polishing his skills at the local bar playing ‘Space Invaders’), this ‘good samaritan’, ‘helping hand’ ex-boyfriend has been taking every opportunity to indulge in the most flagrant sexual harassment.  He gropes me while I’m reaching to get a ream of copy paper.  He sends urgent pages to my Blackberry in the middle of the night and when I call him back, he drunkenly breathes into the phone, “What are you wearing?”  When the members of the office went out for drinks on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving this year, he suggested checking into a nearby motel and having a threesome with one of the younger receptionists.  When I indignantly slapped him in the face in reply, he followed with, “Okay.  How about one of the guys from the mailroom?  Just no gay stuff.”

Oh yeah: The HR Department at this firm is staffed by all of one person: my new boss’s sister.

I’m starting to impress some of the other partners at the firm (who aren’t completely simian in nature) and I know that I can get back to a place of career respectability if I’m put on the right account with the right partner.  I’ve been told by a partner at the firm that he knows I’m the one keeping my ex-boyfriend/boss’s funds solvent and that he’d dump my you-know-who in a second … if you-know-who’s dad wasn’t the Chairman Emeritus.

Is butt-pinching, obscene phone-calling, overt brushes up against my breasts, and invitations to motel debauchery worth another shot at climbing the corporate ladder?

Between a rock & (proudly advertised) hard place,

Liz

Chicago, IL

Buddy, can you spare an inappropriate sexual advance?

Dear Rock,

Though Old Bob does love him his You-Nighted States Marine Corps, he nevertheless has underlying issues with authority.  He has violently ended the lives of hundreds (if not thousands) of this country’s enemies and laid waste to more fertile acreage in his time than anyone this side of Ghengis Khan — all while under direct orders — he has also, nevertheless, been known to beat into paralysis s**t-breathed officers, the odd ‘journalist’, and back-stabbing CIA operatives.  Because of his rather unique ‘skill-set’ (i.e., unrestrained mayhem), leaders of several administrations have seen fit to keep Bob among the civilian population rather than locked away in some Eastern Bloc dungeon.

For that, I am grateful.  When something that is impeding the way of American progress in a foreign territory needs to explode and claim the lives of some mouthy protesting civilians, Bob is happy to re-pay his debt.

It pays the rent & keeps him neck deep in Old Grand Dad and oxycontin.

Now, just what the hell is a leprechaun doing in my ice tray?  I will twist your ethnic stereotype head off, you midget bastard!  And then I will reach down, take hold of and eat your heart you Lucky Charms looking … .

Ummm … .  Sorry about that.  Bob gets more than his share of unexpected visitors these days.  What the hell were we talking about again?

Oh yeah, your ex-boyfriend / dips**t new boss.

Back in the ‘Nam we had this thing called ‘fragging’ that kept the s**tbirds in line or on the KIA list when feathers got ruffled.  Here in the world, things are a little more complicated.  Still, it’s nothing a box of rat poison, a good bone saw, and several items I will detail below won’t make go away.

Liz, honey (and my intentions in addressing you in that matter are nothing but honorable), this is what we in the business like to call a ‘subject in need of immediate redress’.  Over the holidays, ‘threesome’ boy and you need to check into that motel he was so eager to get to before digging into the Thanksgiving turkey.  While you need to leave refreshed, invigorated, and prepared with a few vacation days, he needs to leave in several tightly packed, easily managed (30 lb.’s or less), industrial-grade plastic-wrapped segments — the kind that will fit into no more than three athletic bags (don’t want to attract any undue attention) and lay in perfect vertical lines along the space of your standard hatchback.

Prior to his making the reservation at the motel (and make sure it’s him that makes the reservation & his credit card that pays), you will make a reservation to do some ice fishing a day or two later up in the Great Lakes area.  You’ll have a guide saw you a hole in the ice, show a neophyte like yourself how it’s done, then you will present him with a fifth of Wild Turkey laced with no less than 200 mg. of Valium as a show of your appreciation.

While your guide is fast asleep, you will then relieve yourself of your ‘luggage’ into the freshly made ice-hole, drive into town and purchase someone else’s fresh catch, return to the already closing ice-hole, and awaken your guide.  In the event that your guide does not readily come to consciousness, don’t worry.  Ice fishing guides are not widely known for their emotional stability.  Dropping him off at the nearest emergency room will hardly raise an eyebrow.

While the local police may have some questions for you if you happened to have been spotted with ‘threesome’ boy at that motel before he mysteriously went missing, I’d just shrug my shoulders and blame it all on one too many Mai Thai’s at the Christmas party.  ”Wish I could remember, officers,” you can tell them in your most embarrassed, feminine hush.  ”He said he couldn’t get his soldier to stand at attention, and then it’s all a blur of him cussing and me trying to get some sleep.”

If ‘threesome’ boy is hitting on you this hard, chances are the list of his other motel-mates is a long one.

Before you know it, you’ll be tripling the return on those funds and tossing Old Bob his requisite ten percent interest.

Don’t worry about finding me; I’ll find you.

Hold still, you leprechaun sumbitch!!!

Happy days are here again,

Vietnam Bob

Good Parenting And Petty Larceny

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I recently had the misfortune of confirming the suspicion that my new step-son has been stealing money from my wallet.  I put a small red dot in the corner of a twenty before tossing my wallet on the night stand one night before turning in with the missus.  Come morning, while I was in the shower, junior left for school.  Needless to say, I checked my wallet while drying off and found the bill gone … along with a few unmarked others.

The kid’s just into his teens and maybe up to some run-of-the-mill bad-boy stuff or just plain ‘acting out’ as they say on those television shows.  My new wife and I have only been married six months and we couldn’t be happier.  So far, I’ve kept her in the dark about this.

I think it’s important for me to put a stop to this behavior.  But I don’t want to torpedo my already shaky relationship with the kid and I don’t want my wife feeling uneasy or hurt.

How do you suggest I handle this?

Sensitive In Seattle,

Mel Tegman

Alan Alda, eat your misogynistic heart out.

Dear Sensitive,

Well, aren’t you just a darling?  A little too fey for Ms. Bad Advice’s lascivious taste-buds, but a genuine sweetheart nevertheless.

If you’ll pardon moi’s frankness, Sensitive, you may be in need of re-awakening your inner Islamo-Fascist … or Old Testament literalist.  (‘Tow-May-Toe, Tah-Mah-Tah’ as the Gershwin brothers put it.)  While Ms. Bad Advice’s hand is forced by the lily-livered nature of today’s politically correct climate (not to mention state and federal laws against child abuse, torture, and assault) to not actually advise you to heed the letter of the Q’uran (“As to the thief, Male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime: and Allah is Exalted in power.”) or the Old Testament (“If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.”) in this matter, neither can she prevent you from looking to those sources for … suggestions.

While Ms. Bad Advice knows that those texts are largely full of poppycock, they are remarkable shorthand for getting one’s ‘devoutness’ to the Law of God across to those unruly, undisciplined kids of today (and ‘Pro-Choice’ types).  Leaving your wallet overnight resting on a Bible opened to the passage quoted above (the wonderfully light-hearted book of Leviticus, 20:9 … in case you were a little rusty) underlined in red ink or highlighted in neon yellow may get the young man to think twice about tempting step-dad’s ire.  Slaughtering and offering up a lamb or two in sacrifice in junior’s presence will certainly convince him of the firmness of your belief.  Just be sure to leave the choicest cuts for the family dinner and the wife may even look the other way when it comes to reconciling your newfound ‘faith’.

But if you insist on indulging your inner girly-man, then Ms. Bad Advice offers up the following: Take the cash out of your wallet before retiring each evening, stash it away someplace safe (e.g., taped into a plastic baggie and submerged in the toilet reservoir), and then re-fill your wallet with counterfeit bills.  Underworld types among local Asian communities are excellent places to find purveyors of funny money in exchange for virtually pennies on the dollar — depending on how big an investment you’re willing to make.  (As to how Ms. Bad Advice has gotten this information, she respectfully pleads the fifth.)

Junior’s probably too set in his delinquent ways to stop now and almost certainly too unrefined to notice the difference between real and counterfeit bills.  (The Chinese are such natural artisans … and sticklers for detail!)  It won’t be long before he’s passing those bills off in a very conspicuous way and drawing the attentions of federal authorities.  Fingering you as the source for the counterfeit bills won’t make all that convincing a defense in family court.

It’s a win-win for all parties concerned!  You and the new missus get at least six months of ‘alone time’ — rekindling the spark that brought the two of you together in the first place; Junior gets to learn his lesson the hard way (or learns how to be a more discerning criminal) in some juvenile detention boot camp; and you’ve got that extra spending money for the weekend.

Enjoy the savings!

Ms. Bad Advice

The First Step Is Admitting That You Have A Problem.

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I was an active alcoholic for more than 30 years.  Drinking took me to places that I’m ashamed to even talk about with someone as distinguished and refined as you — Mexican prisons, all kinds of hospitals and nut-houses, and even a few weeks in San Francisco back in the ’70s when I was … well, let’s just say I was unsure about my sexuality and the booze wasn’t helping any.

Any way, about a month ago I joined this ‘program’.  I ain’t had a drink since and, let me tell you, that is a miraclel!  But here’s the problem: At the first couple of meetings I went to, these people told me that I needed a ‘higher power’ so I could stop drinking.  They told me that I didn’t have to believe in God (I don’t know if I believed in anything at the time) but I HAD to have a ‘higher power’.  They told me that my ‘higher power’ could be anything I wanted it to be — even a doorknob.

So, that night I went home and made the knob on my apartment door my ‘higher power’.  Wouldn’t you know that by morning my door knob is talking to me, telling me what to do (like, actually clean the apartment for the first time in 20 years), and running off a list of commandments like it was God talking to Moses.  One of those commandments is that I can’t desecrate it.  I can’t open the damned door to get out of my apartment … to get a drink, to get something to eat, to do any damned thing at all!  I’m really in a pinch and the ‘fridge is empty except for some ice cubes & soy sauce packets from the Chinese joint.  What do I do, here?

Thirsty,

Benny from Brooklyn

It’s ‘spiritual’ not ridiculous … I mean, religious.

Dear Thirsty,

Having given herself wholesale over to a number of religious and ‘spiritual’ pursuits (see the “Welcome to ‘Ask Ms. Bad Advice’” page for the details), Ms. Bad Advice knows one thing for sure: Whether in the form of a free-wheeling hippie Jesus, a blissed-out blue Vishnu with his multiple arms, a crackpot Yahweh visiting all sorts of nastiness on poor, hapless Job, or your run of the mill door knob — God is a pain in the ass who invariably mucks things up.

Gravity is a “higher power”.  Inanimate objects that talk to you and demand worship are either gods or very compelling delusions.  Neither are terribly helpful in getting you through this often very painful and confusing material existence.

You probably lost more than a few teeth in drunken bar brawls during your career as a souse.  Funny how the Tooth Fairy never paid you a visit while you were sleeping it off under a park bench or in a holding cell.  God’s modus operandi is pretty much the same.  A comforting thought when you’re young; a maddening mirage when you’re an adult.

I’m assuming that you’ve tried escaping through the windows but they’ve probably attained some position of authority within the pantheon of sacred talking household objects that are keeping you holed up in that newly pristine apartment of yours.  Ms. Bad Advice can only hope that your bathroom sink is crucified and rises from the dead some time soon so that you might be absolved of your inherent state of sinfulness as a mortal.  Perhaps then that pesky, vengeful door knob might go all New Testament-like loving & forgiving deity on you.  It might even invite a good grasp and clockwise turn from its creation, setting you free to buy all the vodka in big plastic bottles that your Social Security check can afford you.

Not that Ms. Bad Advice is suggesting a return to your debauched, alcoholic ways … though you were probably a lot more entertaining for the neighbor kids during that period.

Look, a door knob issuing sacred edicts is more symptomatic of delirium tremens than a ‘spiritual experience’.  You’ve spent the entirety of your adult life pickling your liver and probably a sizable portion of your frontal lobes.  Where once there may have been a human mind, there’s a field of crab grass growing.  You’re susceptible to believe just about anything at this point.  Make Ms. Bad Advice your ‘higher power’ and do exactly as she tells you … immediately!

Get up and get the hell out of that apartment of yours’ right now.  Pay no heed to your doorknob’s satanic intonations (or verbal input from any other bits of furniture or household appliances).  Just get out and get yourself checked into the nearest hospital.  I’d suggest getting something to eat first, but it sounds to me that you’re more in need of thorazine than anything with nutritional content.  Should you feel that you need a pop to steady yourself before signing in, try to resist.  Still, if you’re about to come apart from the shakes then I certainly wouldn’t try to dissuade you from inhaling a 40-ounce bottle of St. Ides before lurching through the doors of the emergency room.

When you’re released  from the hospital (and Ms. Bad Advice is wagering that’s a day somewhere far in the future) you’ll know to turn to moi for all guidance.  No prayers necessary — just your undying devotion.

Bottoms up!

Ms. Bad Advice

All The World’s Indeed A Stage.

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I have a rather embarassing secret: I am mortally afraid of clowns. Whenever I see a clown, even a photograph of one, I go into a cold sweat and absolutely turn to stone – I can do nothing until the clown is out of sight. This is usually not a problem – after all, how many times a day does the average person run into a clown? However, my daughter and I have been invited to a party for my best friend’s five year old son and I just found out that she has hired not one but two clowns as the entertainment! My daughter is very excited and can’t wait for the party so I can’t back out but I am freaking out. What am I going to do, Ms. Bad Advice?

Mary Breen

Valley Stream, NY

Would you trust this man with your children?

Dear Mary,

As the photograph above should remind you and everyone else, clowns are anything but benign purveyors of slapstick, pre-pubescent comedy.  The man in makeup above is none another than John Wayne Gacy — mass-murderer (convicted of 33 counts but suspected in many, many more) and just all-around foul person.  Gacy’s ‘Pogo The Clown’ was a regular at children’s parties in suburban Chicago.

You came here for advice, and I’m obliged to offer it.

Your daughter’s excitement about the party notwithstanding, Ms. Bad Advice suggests you avoid the party at all costs.  If your daughter complains, lock her in her room and tell her it’s all for her own good.  Then blast loud Scandinavian Black Metal at her bedroom door to drown out her furious and furtive cries of disappointment.  If you find yourself short on Black Metal in your iTunes library, then a purchase of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” in its entirety should do.

Further, Ms. Bad Advice suggests you call the federal authorities and put them on to these ‘clowns’ who are going to be performing at this party.  Undoubtedly they’ve got criminal records and undoubtedly their arrests and/or convictions are for the most heinous variety of offenses imaginable  … even here in America.  (Think “Two Girls And A Cup” as directed by Charles Manson.)

Mary, you did the right thing by coming to Ms. Bad Advice for instruction and you’re absolutely right to live in absolute and unrelenting fear.  Everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — is out to get you, your daughter, your family pet, and just about everyone you know. Outside of me and you, it’s a world full of sociopathic lunatics bent on torturing then snuffing out the lives of you and all those you hold dear.

Especially the guys in the funny make-up.

Call the FBI hotline, Mary.  Do it.  NOW!

Adamantly,

Ms. Bad Advice

All You Need Is Love!

Ms. B.A.,

I am desparate [sic]! I have been looking for love in all the wrong places for years but recently I met Tonya. I knew immediately that we were soulmates and meant to be together for the rest of our lives despite our age difference (I am 47 and Tonya is 15). Her parents have threatened to have me arrested if they find me at night in their shrubbery again. I am aching to see my beloved but I fear they may be serious. What should I do?

Elgin Lopes

Oak Pines, Tennessee

True Love Knows No Statutory Age Limitations …

Dear Elgin,

Let me begin by saying that you are one of the sweetest pederasts Ms. Bad Advice has had the good fortune to communicate with!  In the last week or so, that is.

Still, the white hot glow of the romantic flame which clearly burns in your heart has moved Ms. Bad Advice to respond.  As one of Shakespeare’s great and beset lovers puts it:

“… Then must you speak

Of one who loved not wisely, but too well”

(Othello — Act 5; Scene 2; Lines 339-340)

Like many who come to yours truly for advice, you’re closer to Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel than The Moor of Venice.

But in-breds have hearts just like us human beings!  It would just be bad manners for me to deny you my wisdom simply because you lack a chromosome or two.

So let’s get started.  First, Ms. Bad Advice thinks medical/psychiatric attention is definitely the first avenue of pursuit for you.  While a frontal lobotomy would certainly save you, your beloved, your beloved’s immediate family, and the world at large no small amount of grief, most surgeons turn their noses up at this procedure these days.  (Goodness knows why!  It certainly kept Ms. Bad Advice’s ‘uncle’ Stosh from habitually “revealing himself” in public when he underwent the procedure in 1952.)  Repeated bouts of electro-convulsive-therapy (in your case, roughly 100-to-150 sessions should do) and large daily dosages of psycho-active medications may have you singing a very different love song pretty quickly.  Anti-psychotic medications are famous for helping reign in even the most raging libido.

Second, should you decide to forgo my first suggestion then a significant investment in body armor (and, no, I don’t mean the kind that King Arthur’s knights wore you tiny-brained hillbilly!) would certainly be in order.  While having you reduced to a relatively immobile, slobbering hulk of flesh quietly mumbling gibberish to himself is really in everyone’s better interests (see the “frontal lobotomy” section of the suggestion above), not even Ms. Bad Advice wants to see you gunned down while doing the most unimaginable things to yourself in the shrubbery lining your beloved’s home.  While the U.S. Armed forces and police agencies the world over swear by the effectiveness of kevlar, moi would have you try to find out if the father of your beloved has armor-piercing bullets stashed away in the house before maxing out your Visa card.  I would hate to see you invest thousands in the latest in body-protective fashion only to end up with a still fatal round in the chest, then rolled up into some old carpet and left at the county dump.

Donning kevlar, arming yourself and launching a full-scale siege on the house is something Ms. Bad Advice would never advise … but would still love to watch on one of those reality TV shows like “Wildest Police Videos” or something along those lines.  Violence and under-age romance sure afforded Joey Buttafuoco more than his 15 minutes worth of media fame way back when, am I right?

Third, barring all else Ms. Bad Advice knows the one thing guaranteed to lure a lady of Tonya’s age group out of the house in your neck of the woods.  And, no, it isn’t yowling off-key versions of Kenny Chesney songs outside her bedroom window.  Two words: ‘crystal’ & ‘meth’.  It’s cheaper than wrapping yourself head-to-toe in kevlar and the kids today just seem to go nuts over it!  Of course, you may be in for some significant expenses when it comes to drug rehabilitation and various legal fees sometime in the not-too-distant future … but true love doesn’t come without a price!

Wishing you lovebirds nothing but the best,

Ms. Bad Advice

P.S. – Be sure to leave me off the guest list for the wedding.

This Modern World

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I recently purchased a toaster and on top of it — beside one of the two bread slots — are printed the words, “One Slice”.  I specifically bought the toaster with the intention of using it to make two slices of toast simultaneously and this has me really over a barrel.  Does this mean I can only toast one slice of bread at a time or is it that only one slot is functional?  What if I accidentally use the unmarked slot for a second slice of toast?

Confused,

Bobby Lee Caruthers

Omaha, NE

Ah, simplicity!

Dear Confused,

It’s always something, isn’t it?

If it isn’t the vagaries of ‘M Theory’ and its multiverse concept then it’s those darned modern gizmos that were supposed to make our lives easier!  In the immortal words  of Charlton Heston from the closing frames of Planet of The Apes: “Damn you!  Damn you all to hell!”

In a world where only Dr. Phil, Rush Limbaugh, and Pat Robertson are sure of anything, it all seems to boil down to one great big existential crapshoot.  Even breakfast.  The rush of technological change leaves us mere humans gasping for air.  The simple fact that you had the wherewithal to even power up a personal computer, execute a mail program, compose this e-mail, and then send it to moi across the vast digital abyss called ‘The Internet’ (in the words of Senator Ted Stevens, “It’s not a big truck.  It’s a series of tubes.” wikipedia.org) is testament to your own flesh and blood tenacity and gumption.

Because you certainly aren’t exercising much of that mushy stuff in your skull.

While the ‘One Slice’ instruction could very well be an ethereal instruction from the pagan god that you’ve been worshipping while running around in the woods at night naked and smeared in blue clay, Ms. Bad Advice is guessing that it’s simply a wary South Korean manufacturer tired of settling lawsuits initiated by peckerwoods like yourself who jam two slices of bread into one slot … resulting in a raging fire that consumes that entirety of the trailer-park where you undoubtedly live.

Oh, the humanity … and such.

If you’re feeling daring, though, you could actually experiment by placing a slice of bread in each separate slot, depressing the toast switch, and waiting for either: A) Armageddon, or; B) two golden brown crispy slices of toast.  Ms. Bad Advice is betting the farm on option ‘B’ but not giving up her bookie’s number.

And in the event that the trailer park is reduced to a pile of cinders or you end up with one slice of toast and one slice of lukewarm Wonder Bread, remember that the operative word in the advice so graciously given above is “experiment”.

A balanced diet is the key to success in life!

Hugs & kisses,

Ms. Bad Advice

That Darned Cat!

Dear Ms. Bad Advice:

My husband has recently purchased a small fishing boat, which needs a lot of TLC. Since he is using our garage as an ad hoc dry dock until the repairs on the boat are completed, I have been parking my car in the driveway. Unfortunately, our neighbor’s cat has taken a liking to sleeping up under the hood of my car, presumably for the warmth the engine gives off after I have been running errand. My fear is that one day I will accidentally start my car up while the cat is napping on my engine and something terrible will happen. What should I do?

Sincerely,

Pet-friendly in Peoria

Ack!

Dearest PFIP,

Having spent one of the most calamitous weeks of my life there, I can tell you that EVERYTHING in Peoria needs a lot of TLC.  I know I certainly did!

Which makes me more than a little suspicious of your husband’s amorous attachment to a fishing boat … and your [ahem] ‘concern’ for the neighbor’s cat.  Can you say, “erotic transference”?  There … I knew you could.

Seems to Ms. Bad Advice that the thing that needs “warmth” and “a lot of TLC” in that household of yours’ certainly isn’t a fishing boat or the neighbor’s cat.  Still, if your husband’s turning to small marine vessels to fulfill some twisted Freudian hitch in his psyche then you may have lost some of that high school luster that bonded the two of you in the first place.  Ease up a bit on the Snack-Wells intake and sign up at the nearest kick-boxing gym.  With the right sensei, Ms. Bad Advice guarantees you’ll have that girlish figure back in no time.  And if hubby-kins still wants to get his ya-ya’s out working on a boat then a few straight kicks to the groin and a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus ought have him re-thinking his priorities.

As for the cat … well, Ms. Bad Advice is as “pet-friendly” as Pamela Anderson.  But if I haven’t had my morning coffee then I’m lucky to remember to check the rearview mirror before backing out of the driveway — never mind popping the hood to check for stray felines!  I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve accidentally taken the lives of two cats, one raccoon and an entire family of chipmunks while I was living in rural Canada.  I was driving a Ford F-150 at the time and it was one hearty piece of machinery!  The mess can be a little tough on engine performance in the short run and may tug at the heart strings for a wee bit longer, but getting the engine steam cleaned will have you tearing up the road with a clear conscience in no time!

It’s a little tough on the pocket book but it’s good for the soul.  In the event of cat-puree, give yourself a month.  If you’re still feeling those pesky pangs of guilt, send a check out to PETA or the local SPCA post-haste!  Then get back to the gym and get hubby-kins working on what really needs that TLC he’s been cheating you out of.

Happy motoring!

Ms. Bad Advice