Earl Merkel's Blog
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Jan.18.2013
From our "Unintentional Humor" -archives: Note To Screenwriters: you probably didn't want audiences to laugh out loud at the line, (from Arnold Schwartzenegger's new "comeback" film) "Mein name ist Sheriff Ray Owens."
If you are somehow personally committed to the character-name being either "Ray"...
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Jan.17.2013
Let's just cut through the "freedom of artistic expression" -pontificating and say it: The only way this "Praying Hitler" installation could be "acceptable" art is to position a statue of a hooded headsman --poised with sword in mid-swing-- behind Herr H.
As with so much "statement art," the...
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Jan.16.2013
In the interests of full disclosure and postscript'd contrition, I hereby confess that during my competitive-writing days, I... I... well, I used steroids.
But in my defense, it was just because all the other writers were juicin' on talent. I had to somehow stay competitive, don'cha see...
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Jan.16.2013
I had planned --HA! Faithful Readers KNOW that "planning" is the antithesis of what gets written on this eponymous site-- to weigh in today on the Great Florida Python Massacre. But, as is usually the case, Dave Barry did it both faster... and, I have no doubt, better.
A "teaser" excerpt from Mr....
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Jan.16.2013
The accompanying image-message may be damning Mr. Armstrong with faint praise, but none can say it isn't fitting: rumor has it Lance told Oprah only half the story.
But in fairness, he did all he was equipped to do.
-- Earl Merkel
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Jan.15.2013
Despite the (frequent) entertainment value, IMHO one of the more disheartening aspects of the current political environment is the apparent complete inability of the American public to recognize --let alone roll-on-the-floor laugh at-- what rhetoricians term "Straw Man Arguments." (To maintain...
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Jan.15.2013
I confess to a strange fascination with the Brit-import show "Keeping Up Appearances," currently airing (in Chicago) early Saturday evenings on PBS.
Humor-wise, it is as hilarious as your typical heart attack (tho in humility, I also admit that I may just not understand British humor; still,...
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Jan.14.2013
We get serious (for a moment) re: a Facebook comment-thread on the logic & message of an "anti-rape" viral Internet image. (See: "Enuf With The "Her Clothes Made Me Do It" Stupidity (And Slogan)..." at http://redroom.com/member/earl-merkel/blog/enuf-with-the-her-clothes-made-me-do-...
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Jan.14.2013
Great-- just what I need: a bunch of giggling, homicidal maniacs looking for a rafter over which to toss the noose...
-- Earl Merkel
(POSTSCRIPT: Hey... didn't I meet this guy in gaol? "No, it was Yale. And he was going by the name of Yim Yohnson." )
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Jan.14.2013
Really, I have no idea precisely why this clip fills me with such sadness and mirth, in roughly equal proportions.
I am either exceptionally empathetic... or I am a bad, BA-A-A-D person...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jNOm9Y_Ve40
-- Earl Merkel
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Jan.13.2013
Can I have a chant of "We're Number One! We're Number One!"?
And a contribution to the Concussion Senility Fund, to forward to Mr. Chan?
C'mon-- we've all seen the out-take reel that he excerpts at the tail-end of most of his movies. He's blameless here, of course. And a bit clueless too, I'd...
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Jan.13.2013
I think we'd all agree that saying "her clothes made me do it" is as facile as mumbling "da Debbel made me do it." It's a blame-shifting lie, not "stupidity."
But I also wonder why so much ink is wasted in repeatedly throwing around this "idiots-blame-the-clothes" homily: can we just stipulate...
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Jan.13.2013
Jerry Springer proudly proclaims that he is "the Father of the Destruction of Western Civilization."
This is neither the first --nor will be the last-- example of a symptom taking credit for the root disease.
Still, I'd vote we send him over to Maury Povich's fellow geek-show for one of those...
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Jan.12.2013
Despite the usual spate of breathless hyperbole ("This is an amazing surprise. It was there for so many years and people were sitting on it when it was a loaded cannon!”) and misnomers ("Parks workers came upon a LIVE (emphasis mine) cannon ball loaded in a [Amer. Revolution-era?] cannon...
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Jan.12.2013
HEADLINE: "Baseball Hall Of Fame eschews steroid users."
But allow me to paraphrase comedian (and genuis-level iconoclast) Lewis Black:
"Superhuman strength? The endurance of a thousand crazed Kenyans? The bodies of Greek gods?
"The question is NOT 'why were they using steroids?'
"The REAL...
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About Earl
Earl Merkel is the author of Fire Of The Prophet (Diversion Books, 2013); Virgins And Martyrs (Five Star 2008, under the name "E L Merkel"; Final Epidemic (PenguinPutnam/NAL), a Barnes and Noble national bestseller re-released in hardcover by Elmtree Press/...
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