Can O' Whup-Ass

A Letter-o to Our Hetero Friends

Here at COWA, from time to time we like to mix things up a tad. We bombard you with IEDs of hilarity on an almost-daily basis, but sometimes we choose to "bring the room down" (that's showbiz talk). In hetero terms, it's like when Barry Manilow, without skipping a beat, goes right into "Mandy" after singing "Copacabana." We endeavor, Manilow-like, to take you on a rollercoaster of emotions. Again, in hetero terms, COWA is like "Friends" that way (and in that way ONLY, we might add).

So here's the deal: against our will, whilst enjoying an idyllic weekend in the Poconos (swimming, waterskiing, drinking ourselves into a stupor; sometimes simultaneously), we found ourselves embedded in a political conversation with a certain honkey hetero (honkero?) who, in spite of his rabid opposition to Obama, mentioned that if he was elected at least he'd "teach the blacks to speak better." Wow.

While trying to teach a pig to sing is futile and it annoys the pig, we nevertheless presented the following argument: both candidates are basically centrist. Besides which, the ideological split on Capitol Hill will stand sentry against any radical idea (i.e., healthcare reform, saving the planet) that threatens to rock the boat or endanger anyone's re-election. The differences between the candidates (and the parties they represent) contrast most acutely in the area of civil rights. We went on to say that given the glasses through which yours truly gazes at life, civil (read: gay) rights has to be the trump card. My racist (though affable in his way...aren't they all?) sparring partner nodded...not in agreement, but understanding. "If I were you I'd feel the same way," he said. Sigh.

So this is for you, caucasian heteros. We have to ask; why are civil rights always off your radar screens? Are you not patriots? Isn't the reason to be patriotic embodied in a constitution which guarantees our equality? Isn't that the essence of freedom, and what made America such a grand experiment? Or has patriotism been dumbed down and distilled into Toby Keith and Bill O'Reilly and Flag Lapel Pins and NASCAR? The thought, no lie, depresses us to tears.

Our freedom, I promise, will not come under fire in Fallujah or Kabul. Our boys might, but not our freedom. It's strengthened and weakened by the laws we pass (or don't), the rights we safeguard (or not), and the extent to which we realize our founding fathers' vision by putting a seat at the American table for every law abiding citizen. Or whether, Bible in-hand, we shoo those we dislike from the feast while wearing those insincere "love the sinner, hate the sin" smiles that haunt our nightmares.

What a tiresome argument it's become. Okay, so the Bible green-lights homophobia. The Bible also instructs us to put purveyors of shellfish to death. But our last jaunt to Red Lobster (don't ask) revealed it to be banal and bourgeois, hardly the bloodbath demanded by scripture. We no longer require a rape victim to marry her attacker if she neglects scream loud enough, as mandated in Deuteronomy. We've let a few things slide. Why not this?

Is it just about safety in numbers and following the herd? As when, lemming-like, you all hailed Seinfeld as sheer genius, made Michael Bolton a millionaire and outfitted your families in Crocs? Why do you rush out to vacuum your Volvos every time yet another rapture-right douche is caught with his pants down at a rest stop (a daily occurrence of late)? Is it easier to close your eyes and hope we go away because we make you visualize sexual situations that make you pee your pants a little bit? It confuses us.

Let's be real. The economy blows; that has to be priority number one. Our international cred, national security and ongoing military conflicts all place, collectively, a photo-finish second. For us, basic human rights pick up the rear, but only by a nose (vague anal inference totally intentional).

Okay, McCain's not beelzebub. We don't smell burning sulfur when we see him on television (as with Romney or Cheney). Sure, he might yet pull some economic/domestic/national security policies out of his ass that actually do us no harm. But in the long run, so what? We can think of a few powerful men in history who did good things for their countries along those lines, yet rather neglected the whole human rights thing. They are not remembered fondly outside of an Aryan Nation rally.

On the other hand, Obama is officially against gay marriage. He has to be in order to get elected. While that's akin to an abolitionist defending Jim Crow laws, we suppose we'll take what we can get. Truth is, Obama isn't really our champion. He's just less hateful. Sadly, we have to settle for that.

Like you, we want this tedious conversation to cease. There's only one way to do that, however; let us marry whom we love. Let us raise families. Invite us to the table. Live your lives as you see fit, while always defending your countryman's right to do the same...especially those with whom you disagree. These issues will go the way of the buggy whip and betamax. Doesn't that sound infinitely more pleasant?

Oh, and by the way: Crocs are over.

The Year of Ass-Whupping Dangerously

Bitches! On the austere occasion of COWA's first anniversary, we have decided blow our own horn (it's good to be double-jointed) and reflect on the many, many fruitful journeys we've taken together. It seems like only yesterday we were possessed by an unnatural urge to throw open the floodgates of our infinite wisdom/bile/wit/boredom/psychosis on the grateful denizens of cyberland. In the process, we've written 400 glorious posts, garnered a quarter of a million hits (most of whom were Googling "nigerian ass sex" and found themselves sucked into our vortex), and gathered a small army of mentally unstable fans. Why, we think we feel the urge to cry. Wait, no. That was a fart.

To review: in the last year, we've...

• Explored the wonderful world of poop
• Featured the enchanting poetry of Donald Trump, Lynne Cheney, Rosie O'Donnell and Foxy Brown
• Thoughtfully distilled 27 movie reviews into the ancient form of haiku
• Exposed the most frightening and toxic effect of Chernobyl, the Ukrainian phenomenon that is Verka Serduchka
• Unleashed the formidable Aunt Betsy on the unsuspecting populace
• Dispatched a vast underground army of spies to the far corners of the globe in order to eavesdrop on the appalling conversations of celebrities and world leaders
• Extolled the many virtues of the bewitched magic kingdom of China
• Pondered God's place in the universe
• Expressed heart-felt concern and dispatched much-needed advice to the world's most clueless celebrities
• Compiled a rogue's gallery of douche-bags and ass-hats
• Scooped the freshest news items ever
• and the list goes on...

So join us in drinking a toast to our gorgeous ass. We take this solemn oath to continue ass-whuppin for forever and a day til the cows come home until we're distracted by something shiny, and/or cease being interested, whichever comes first.

Oh! And remember that Tipping is not an oppressed, pollution-choked city in China.

And buy a G*ddamned tee shirt/mug/fagnet!! You know you want to!

As always, we remain
WAM (Whup-ass Master)

oxoxo

say it ain't so

Heath,

I swear...

A Eulogy For Marcel Marceau

A Letter to Tammy Faye

Dear Tammy,

When you cried your face was transformed into a ghastly/beautiful oil-slick rainbow, your spackled-on layers of mascara, foundation, eyeshadow, eyeliner, lipliner, gloss and rouge running down your face in a technicolor avalanche. We assume it kept going, a gloppy soup of Mary Kay and Maybelline accumulating reservoirs in your shoes.

We laughed at you. The most delicious schadenfreude is when the self righteous fall; it's our catharsis. Your downfall in particular was a spectacle of delectably trashy theatricality. Your destiny was sealed; you had become a drag icon, you were camp. You had very little to say in the matter.

But then, something happened. Beneath those dozen or so coats of kabuki clown paint, you emerged as the genuine article. You proved you were quicker to laugh at yourself than we were. More to the point, we had grown accustomed to the evangelical set picketing our parades, throwing eggs at us, spreading hateful petitions and damning us to hell. You gave us nothing but love, with no qualifiers. Your joy was contagious. Your faith wasn't an act. You had no points to score by asserting it. It was simply present. The real McCoy.

Last Thursday, weighing 65 lbs, you were interviewed by Larry King. You were shriveled, poor dear, but your kabuki makeup was reliably excessive. We love you for that. You thanked the gays for coming to your rescue when you hit rock bottom. Would that we could have done it again, for old time's sake.

You stated with certainty you were bound for heaven. We like to think you've met the Jesus you sang about in your atrocious tone-deaf voice (readers: check out Tammy's delicate stylings on "Oops, There Comes a Smile" ...you really mustn't miss it). When you laid eyes on him, we imagine your face paint washed down and flowed between those meticulously pedicured piggies couched within your silver espadrilles, the mascara-blackened river of your tears.

RIP, Tammy
WAM

This Just In: Cuba Unveils A New Kind of Pinko Commie!

HAVANA -- In Cuba, one can be imprisoned for saying the wrong thing or associating with the wrong people (one can even be jailed on the horrifyingly Orwellian charge of "pre-criminal dangerousness," whereby one is pre-emptively punished for something one is deemed likely to do). Historically, Cuba has also been inclined to subject gays and lesbians to a versatile smorgasbord of cruelty, from forced labor camps in the early days to HIV internment to prison and torture/beatings (skeptics are invited to read Reinaldo Arenas' "Pentagonia" and/or "Before Night Falls"). In short, Grandpa Fidel is a pushy S&M top daddybear who's into cigars, uniforms and control/dominance.

However, and this is a HUGE "however," Cuba is poised to become the first Caribbean nation to give full marriage-related benefits to domestic partners. That's right, trash. Raul Castro's daughter Mariela Castro is campaigning to bring a measure before parliament that would reform the Family Code. Having purged all homophobic rhetoric from the books in 1997 (impressive, given the fact that the U.S. seems to be adding such rhetoric to its laws), Cuba has the "political will...to eliminate all forms of discrimination," according to Ms. Castro.

So...we have to ask: if Cuba beats the U.S. to the punch on this hot-button (but basic) human rights issue, how exactly can our government continue to justify our increasingly pointless (and cruel) embargo?

Let's look at the scoreboard of the Americas, shall we? So far, the U.S. remains the only country in North America not to have federal laws supporting gay unions (gay marriage is legal in Canada whereas Mexico has enacted domestic partnership laws). In Central/South America, Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay have either approved or are considering such legislation.

We see this as the ultimate domino principle, one that is destined to isolate the U.S. in its reactionary prudishness; a "pink embargo" whereby we'll find ourselves on the outside looking in, our noses pressed to the glass. We will only be able to watch as legions of fairies say "I do" in weddings held on tropical beaches, while "maids" of honor mambo down the aisle in Carmen Miranda fruit-hat drag.

Mr. Arenas, we hope you're watching.

Eurovision Arrives: VOTE VERKA!!

HELSINKI -- Tomorrow night, as the lights dim in the dazzling Helsinki Arena, the finalists in that aggressively retarded spectacle known as Eurovision will prance about in their stupid costumes, holler their tone deaf way through dozens of thoroughly grating hybrids of disco and whatever quaint native dance their grandparents do at weddings in their homeland when they're drunk.

Yet in this tempest of mediocrity shines bright beacon, our relentlessly cheerful Chernobyl-irradiated candle in the wind, representing the Ukraine: Miss Verka Serduchka. We have blogged about this zaftig drag queen more than once, mostly because ever since her ear-raping ditty called "Tanzen (Lasha Tumbai)" infected our brain we are a little dumber, a tad more irritable, and just slightly more likely to devour human brains. It's like the rage virus in "28 Weeks Later" that way.

Here are pictures of Ms. Serduchka "rehearsing" in Helsinki. Poor thing looks frightfully hung over.

Again, we are compelled to point out that as Ms. Serduchka waddles and brays her way through this curious fusion of disco and polka, not only is she arguably inebriated past the ability to hit the right notes or feel pain, but she is also flanked by the Buttsexski twins, two gangly homos clad in metallic boy scout uniforms and BLACK KNEE-HIGHS!  That cannot be emphasized enough, to our mind. These two mincing queens are so gay they make Lagerfeld look like General Patton. Verka is clad like a mirror ball stuffed with kielbasa. In the background, aside from the unwelcome but obligatory accordionist, there's a swarthy broad with an enormous rack dressed in a gold gown slit so far up the front that the world is her gynecologist. We can't quite figure what she brings to this aural feast, aside from cleavage, estrogen and a touch of chlamydia, one suspects.

Asked by Greek blogger Stella Kosmas what she wants to say with her song, Verka charmingly replied: "I want call Europe to dance. Not to shoot, not to kill, not to destroy, but to dance!" We love this bitch.

Let's be honest. Who else deserves to win?  Marija Serifovic of Serbia and her 5 screaming lesbians? Switzerland's DJ BoBo and his retardedly titled "Vampires are Alive?" Scooch, the UK offering, the campy foursome who are like a quartet of Up With People twits on meth? Please, trash (okay, Scooch is pretty damn hilarious and they should totally come in second).

To our European comrades everywhere (that means you, homo-superior): VOTE VERKA!!

An Open Letter to Mike Penner

LOS ANGELES -- Today, Mike Penner (staff sports writer for the LA Times) wrote an astounding column. He has come out as a transsexual. He wishes to be called Christine now. As you can imagine, we have a few things to say about that:

Heya, Christine

We're sure that you're prepared for asswipes like us to make retarded jokes (mostly, predictably, having to do with "balls"). We bet the hatemail's already piling up (just as predictably written by self-proclaimed "Christians" to whom hate is a traditional value) but we think you're prepared for that, too. Besides which, f*ck 'em.

Your article was frank, self-deprecating, soul-baring, upbeat, brave and honest. We can't think of a more dignified way of handling it. We can't conceive of a more apt role model for anyone. We don't know you but we're proud of you.

You go, girl.

WAM