Happy new year to you...in jail!!!

Last night, I watched It's A Wonderful Life, which I am not ashamed to admit is one of my favorite movies. For one thing, it's a totally great movie, and I always feel like there's more to it each time I watch. Like last night, I realized that the first person who shows up at George Bailey's house at the end of the movie to bail George out of trouble is the guy who goes to the Building and Loan in the bank panic and demands all $242 of his money. Also, I realized that the movie is really about the danger of going into business with your dad's alcoholic brother. You'd think they would have fired Uncle Billy long before trusting him with $8000 of the B&L's money, right? I mean, he keeps a crow named Jeremy in the office! He ties strings around his fingers to remember things instead of, I don't know, WRITING THEM DOWN!!!

But hey, the movie is awesome. I mean, it's all romantic, and it's basically about how awesome it is to be kind to others, because they will be there for you, and how your friends are really the proof of how rich you are. In the end, Mr. Potter and all his money are still unhappy, unfuckable, and alone except for the creepy guy pushing him around in his wheelchair. Still, personally, I want to be both. Why is it that you can't be like super popular and rich at the same time? Is that a law?

I mean, don't get me wrong, when the revolution comes, I plan to put rich people's backs up against the wall. But I wouldn't mind being rich if I had the chance. It's much better than being poor, I think. I mean, poor might be semi-chic from time to time, but it's really only cool to look poor, as in wearing designer clothes designed by people who live in the gas chamber of a condemned prison and sewn by Cambodian infants to look shabby. That is pretty cool. But I would enjoy being able to boss people around with money. Really, let's face it, that's all that money is. In the olden days, you would be like, "I am the Archbishop of Mainz!" and that would be enough to let people know not to fuck with you, because you command like crazy amounts of knights, and everyone's afraid of you, because without your favor, God will kill them with the Black Plague and other shit. Or you'd be like the Baron of Muchausen's Syndrome, and when people around you are like going to war, you're pretending to be sick to get attention. That's power. Oh wait, that's mental illness. I'm so fucking confused.

No, money is power, not a new point, but let's face it, people with money always do totally boring things with all their power. I like me a crazy billionaire like Richard Branson, a conceited asshole who's dream is to circumnavigate the earth in a balloon. Well, that's not actually his dream, that's just an awesome thing he does with his money. Seriously, if I had Bill Gates kind of money, I'd start my own space program, and I'd build a golf course on the Moon. Then I'd demand like $100 million from my crazy asshole friends to play 18 holes. Since gravity is like 1/6th of Earth's, a par 4 hole would be like a mile, and instead of sand traps, you just have giant craters everywhere. Plus, at the end, I'd have a bar called the 19th Hole that would actually be a time portal to the Cretaceous period, and we'd all go there and fucking hunt dinosaurs, and pretty much kill all the animals we could. Ray Bradbury be damned.

I mean, rich people set up the most boring charities, and honestly, many charities give money to people with money, like when people set up charities to give money to doctors and hospitals to find a cure for some disease, like Spidermonkeyitis, where your left foot turns into a spider monkey during the full moon (my uncle suffers from this), I mean, why not just give the money to some real shit, like people without feet at all, or without a place to sleep or food to eat? No, rich people need to be like, "I gave 100 grand to cure Dandy-Walker syndrom! Yay for me!"

I think I'm going to start my own charity that gives money to rich people with awesome, worthless uses of money and power. Like, you know what would be awesome? A guy who gets around town by having an army of people crowd-surfing him down the street. Get like 500 people, and pay them all like $100, and they've got just one job, not to drop you, and they like run around, and push you down the street, crowd-surfing your way to work. That would be an awesome waste of $50,000, and you would have many 500 people kind of happy, and me very happy. What about taking vicious dogs from every dog pound in America, and instead of euthanizing them, you employ them as the guards at a new Supermax prison!??! Try to escape when Fido the Fido-killer is ripping your leg off. Guess you'll think twice about being in the Aryan Nation now? (Question: are people in the Aryan Nation racist against black dogs? And if not, then they are even stupider than they already are. At least take your prejudice to the illogical extreme.)

What does this have to do with It's A Wonderful Life? Nothing at all, but to say that Mr. Potter sucks balls. By the way, where did he get all his money? Was he just born with it? God was like, "You don't get working legs, but you get a million dollars," and Potter was like, "You once called me a warped, frustrated old man," and God's all, "Um, no, I just said you get a million dollars," and Potter's like, "What if I were to offer you a position making $20,000 a year, starting today?" and at that point, God is like, "I forgot why I don't talk to characters from movies," and Rocky shows up and knocks Mr. Potter out, and is like, "I hate you, Mr. T!" Remember? Like in Rocky V where he has brain damage and beats up crippled people because he's demented?

Well, I feel like I pretty much didn't talk at all about what I really love about It's A Wonderful Life. That's OK. At some point, I promise, I will.

Here's some letters I've been meaning to write

Dear The Lead Singer of Incubus:

I was driving today, and I heard your song "I Wish You Were Here" on the radio, and I wanted to offer a minor critique of one line in particular in the second verse: you mention that you were like on the beach, and looking up at the sky which resembled a back-lit canopy, with holes punched in it. And you are counting UFOs, and then you say "I signal them with my lighter". Here is where I think a little lesson in physics and mathematics may help you out, and I wouldn't do this to, say, the lead singer of Creed, but you did use the word megalomaniac in a song, and that doesn't go unnoticed. What I'm trying to say is, respect.


OK: so, a lighter is actually not a good UFO signaling device. Your average lighter might be visible in a big concert hall, when it's dark, but then it only has to go a few hundred feet, instead of being viewed against, um, a GIANT FUCKING PLANET.

I don't know if you looked up in the sky tonight (December 1st, 2008), but there was a planetary conjunction. (Conjunction junction, what's my function? What the---the Electric Company? Next I'll be quoting shit from the Polka Dot Door. Can I get a childhood PBS-octemy? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot I was writing a letter to you, the lead singer of Incubus.) In this conjunction, the planets Venus and Jupiter were close to each other, and the Moon to boot. Venus, by the way, is the third brightest object in the sky, after the Sun and the Moon. And it's like the same size and shape as Earth, approximately. Now, it's pretty close to Earth, but if you were to signal to it with YOUR FUCKING LIGHTER, I don't think people would see it. I'm just saying. They would be far more likely to hear your ear poison playing on their radios. If you wanted to signal aliens, why didn't you talk about like rocking the fuck out of their saucers or something? Your songs are dumb.

Sincerely, Cheetah X


Dear The Aliens from the Incubus Song:

Sorry about all that craziness about you being signaled by lighters and shit. I mean, the guy is clearly off his rocker, no pun intended. Even if you were in the sky above the beach, looking down, with like a 1000x telescope, what are the odds you are going to see him? I mean, he clearly has no conception of scale, and must think that he's like super fucking important if you're going to notice his goddamn lighter from space.

That would be like being a random number between one and a fucking trillion, and if you threw a dart at the number line, being like, "It hits me every time!" Um, no it does, Einstein. It will probably hit you one in a TRILLION FUCKING TIMES. I mean, come on, the aliens, you know math, right? I was afraid to write this in my letter to the lead singer of Incubus, because he's like not really that smart (see: his tattoos, lyrics, and books--yes, books, can you believe that? what a jerkoff), but the circumference of the Earth is like 24,000 miles, and that means that we're talking like 80,000 square miles a hemisphere (pi times circumference, keep up, the aliens) to look at and see this dipshit with his lighter. If I say that you COULD see the lighter if you were looking at, I don't know, 100 square feet of land at a time, the odds are 1 in 4 million that you would spot him. So, can you tell Mr. Lottery Winning Alien Communicator that he needs to learn some science before he starts talking to you guys? I would greatly appreciate that. And by the way, his music is shitty, and I would appreciate if you would send a gift to Creed for not recording anything else. Thanks, the aliens.

Sincerely, Cheetah X


Dear Milton Bradley:

While taking a piss earlier, I wondered why you have waited so long to update the board game clue with new awesome characters, locations, and murder weapons. I am waiting for the day when I can say, "It was Professor Crackpipe, in the Meth Lab, with the Lynch Mob!" And someone is like, "No, I'm sorry, it was Clubbins McDeathdealer, in the Cider House, with the Cancer Baby." Also, I've got an idea for a new thriller board game for adults only called Date Rape Dorm Room (D.R.D.R.) where you try to avoid roofies and date rape, and in the process, become like head cheerleader. Actually, cancel that idea. I am suddenly concerned that you will take my suggestions about Clue less seriously. If that is the case, please use the self-addressed stamped envelope to express any concerns you have with my plans to create an empire based solely on board games, and won through board games. I have recently defeated the Mogul Emperor in a game of Stratego. That is all.

Sincerely, Cheetah X


Dear The Lead Singer of Creed:

I will try to keep this short, and all the words small. Your band is shitty. I hate your music. Thank you for not making it any longer. I hope your family has a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Sincerely, Cheetah X