Tori Spelling: As Seen on (Mediocre) TV

While many actresses struggle with the burdens of talent and marketability, there are only a chosen few with the courage to pursue their dreams despite possessing neither. Their determination should be an inspiration to us all, and I can think of no greater embodiment of such fortitude than Victoria Spelling. Born on May 16, 1973 into wealth, prestige, and the absence of honest self-assessment; “Tori” would soon find her calling as an actress.

Thanks to her father’s influence in the business, Tori was awarded cameos on The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Saved by the Bell before landing her first lead role playing doomed cheerleader Stacy Lockwood in the made-for-TV masterpiece A Friend To Die For. In the interest of both brevity and clarity, I will list her subsequent made-for-TV-movie appearances in chronological order:

Awake to Danger – Tori plays Aimee McAdams, the 16-year-old daughter of a parent who is murdered during a rather inefficient home-invasion. During the aforementioned crime, Aimee sustains a head injury and is comatose for 18 months (presumably to minimize her on-screen dialogue.) Unfortunately for young Aimee, the killer is still on the loose and she awakens to more than a high medical deductible. 

Deadly Pursuits – Tori plays Meredith, a former stripper who has defaulted on her (student?) loan to the mob who in turn assigns a hit man to teach her a permanent lesson. Hijinks and mayhem ensue as Meredith encounters and befriends Tim, a young man attempting to locate his father in the exact same locations chosen by an on-the-lamb retired exotic dancer.

Co-ed Call Girl – Tori portrays Joanna Halbert, a college student whose roommate, as a prank, signs her up as a high-end prostitute (Sara! You are such a joker!). Joanna is mildly furious but decides to keep her career options open and soon finds herself seduced by the monetary rewards of the carnal trade. Unbeknownst to Joanna, there is a dark side to unregulated high-end prostitution.

 Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? – Tori plays Laurel Lewisohn, a wide-eyed college student who become romantically involved with an upstanding young man named Kevin Shane. Without warning (or clichés) Kevin becomes possessive and violent toward young Laurel and she must rely on her anemic cunning to survive. There has been rumor of a sequel: Father, May I Nap With Peril?

Alibi – Tori plays Marti Gerrard, an injured ski-champion who befriends a famous software tycoon named Connor after he dials her phone number by mistake. As luck would have it, Connor’s wife is violently murdered while they are chatting and Marti realizes that only she can be his (wait for it…) alibi.

Hush – Tori plays acclaimed children’s book author Nina Hamilton whose husband decides to move back to the small town where he grew up in order to open a medical practice. Unfortunately for Mr. Hamilton, and the local chamber of commerce, a crazy ex-girlfriend is out for revenge. Stolen embryos and feline homicide are just a few of the treats waiting for the audience in this gem.

Mind Over Murder – Tori plays Holly Winters, an assistant district attorney who suffers a head injury that gives her psychic abilities. She uses her new superpower to track down a dangerous killer and conspiracy that could shake the very foundations of a local municipal government.

House sitter – Tori plays Elise, a waitress and aspiring painter who is hired to housesit for an eccentric local with a large coin collection. At some point she decides to have sex with a local plumber (presumably to settle a bill) and things get complicated.

Aside from her professional career, Tori has made some great personal strides as well. Thanks to rather ambiguous legislation in her home state, Tori was able to obtain a generic religious ordination via the Internet in 2007 and perform a wedding ceremony at a bed and breakfast.

Just this week however, Tori revealed that she had completed the greatest role of her career:  conduit to the great beyond. In a new book that painfully stretches the tender boundaries of wordplay, Uncharted TerriTORI, the starlet reveals that while making a routine stop at her celebrity psychic she was able to speak to the spirit of the late Farrah Fawcett.

According to her book, Farrah gave Tori several messages that she wished to communicate to her surviving family. Tori obligingly wrote them a letter to inform them that their dead mother/common-law wife had communicated to them beyond the grave. Tori’s celebrity psychic, John Edwards (insert joke here) has been unwilling to confirm or deny the conversation took place.

Chad Kroeger: A Man of Subtlety & Taste

                 When one thinks of excellence in musical composition several names come to mind like Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, and Debussy, but I hereby declare the list to be incomplete, nay, grossly deficient. For it is unadorned by one of the greatest auditory prodigies mankind has ever produced. A man wielding so much raw talent that his six foot albino frame can scarcely contain it, a man whose sex appeal and hubris have formed an unprecedented symbiotic partnership to benefit the breadth of all humanity, a man whose only shortcoming is his inability to accept his own shortcomings. My only regret is that I only have two ears with which to appreciate his body of work.

Chad Kroeger was born on November 15, 1974 in Alberta, Canada, Kroeger first picked up the guitar at the ripe age of thirteen. His meteoric rise to fame was briefly interrupted by a misunderstanding the Canadian authorities callously referred to as “breaking and entering, theft, and vandalism.” What budding young musician hasn’t repeatedly broken into a publicly-funded middle school to reallocate education funds? At any rate, Kroeger eventually completed high school and began writing songs that embodied the full spectrum of human emotion that he would later showcase under the banner of his band Nickelback.

In 1996, the group released the seven-song EP Hesher which contained many songs that would later appear on their first full length album Curb. Chad’s star really began to shine on the band’s 1998 album The State which contained auditory gems such as “Cowboy Hat,” “Old Enough,” and “Little Friend.” The album’ first single, “Leader of Men” is a sweeping social commentary that deftly exposes the crumbling infrastructure of the broadening middle-class. When asked to comment on his opus, the always humble Canadian replies, “This is a song about tripping on 'shrooms!” Indeed.

In 2001, Kroeger & company unleashed Silver Side Up, a vessel for the most important contribution to modern culture since the birth of Ryan Seacrest. “How You Remind Me” became the top rock song of that decade and established Chad as a mouthpiece for the masses. Recently I ran an algorithm on the song’s lyrics to remove any words that were repeated more than once and I was floored to realize that I was left with (in original order) the rough outline of a touching Haiku:

Tired blind sick inside without sense feeling
Didn't know that said love swear

Still do so bad because with damn near killed

The album would eventual sell almost six million copies and was quickly followed up with 2003’s The Long Road which debuted at number six and would later be certified triple-platinum. Among the disc’s eleven tracks, Kroeger nestled a tender, romantic sonnet called “Figured You Out.” A sampling:

I like your pants around your feet
I like the dirt that's on your knees
And I like the way you still say please

I love your lack of self respect
While you're passed out on the deck
I love my hands around your neck

While “Figured You Out” undoubtedly became a staple at weddings, Kroeger outdid himself with 2005’s “Animals,” another affectionate ballad that utilizes tasteful euphemizes to describe a night of courtship:

You're beside me on the seat
Got your hand between my knees
And you control how fast we go by just how hard you wanna squeeze
It's hard to steer when you're breathing in my ear
But I got both hands on the wheel while you got both hands on my gears
By now, no doubt that we were heading south

Concerned that the song’s lyrical content was too ambiguous, Mr. Kroeger selected an image of two rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?) engaging in sexual congress as the single’s cover art. Like any great composer, Kroeger continued to reinvent himself and in 2008 the band released Dark Horse, an exemplary showcase of Chad’s subtle prose. On the single “Shakin’ Hands,” the front man openly lamented the moral bankruptcy of the fairer sex:

A congressman would call her every once in a while
Got the school girl skirt on the top of the pile
She’d done everyone once
And everyone knows
You got to get a little dirty when you’re digging for gold

Apparently still concerned that his views on fornication had been unexplored, Mr. Kroeger also wrote “S.E.X.” where he yet again used his refined sense of understatement to explore sensuality:

Yes, sex is always the answer, it's never a question
'Cause the answer's yes, oh the answer's yes
Not just a suggestion, if you ask a question
Then it's always yes, yeah

As with any artistic pioneer, Kroeger has had his share of detractors. Some publications have failed to grasp his trailblazing vision such as:

Rolling Stone

"If you're looking for originality, you might want a full refund instead of a Nickelback."

“All the Right Reasons is so depressing, you're almost glad Kurt's not around to hear it.”

The New York Times

“For hard-rock ridiculousness, Nickelback is tough to beat.”

NOW Magazine

“Kroeger’s voice sounds more like a wounded goat than ever before, and their blatantly recycled songs touch on familiar themes like strippers, sex, prostitutes, drugs, sex, drinking, and sex.”

All Music Guide

“Despite all their newly developed relative nuances, Nickelback remain unchanged: they're still unspeakably awful.”

“Nickelback are a gnarled, vulgar band reveling in their ignorance of the very notion of taste, lacking either the smarts or savvy to wallow in bad taste so they just get ugly, knocking out knuckle-dragging riffs that seem rarefied in comparison to their thick, boneheaded words.”

The Guardian

“Nickelback's music reaffirms every sex-and-stupidity cliche hard rock can offer.”

Pop Matters

“Kroeger sounds sophomoric, inane and downright stupid.”

We can only hope that Mr. Kroeger will persist in defying the wishes of critics, music fans, and aficionados of good taste by continuing to expand his body of work. Certainly he cannot be held accountable for the populace’s failure to recognize his genius, despite the fact that it is waiting for them every time they attempt to listen to a modern rock radio station.

What is intolerable is that these same shortsighted critics have begun to impugn Mr. Kroeger’s character. Just last week, The Montreal Gazette reported that Chad fired his longtime maid for having the audacity to wear some of his current girlfriend’s old discarded clothing in public. Unsatisfied with removing the single mother’s source of income, Mr. Kroeger then proceeded recant a promise he made to the maid’s young children to give them tickets to a Nickelback show in their hometown.

Many feel that such actions were exaggerated and callous, but I would sharply disagree. Should we really expect a wealthy rockstar to tolerate “the help” wearing their current female companion’s cast-off outfits? Sure, it starts with her wearing what’s-her-face’s blue jeans but before you know it she is dipping into you 401K and you are unable to get the electricity cut back on at your summer house in Boca Raton. Personally, I think that these maids should be grateful they are even allowed to touch the leather-trimmed undergarments of his faceless conquests. In fact, I would pay a security team to regularly break into my maid’s home, gather their family together, and set fire to all of the discarded clothing in my possession that might be of use to their impoverished existence.

Early Retirement

Every morning as I prepare for work I watch the news, both to remain informed of recent international developments and to stay abreast of which politician said something offensive that week. Monday morning as I was eating breakfast I was confronted with several tragedies; the ongoing oil leak in the gulf, the 47 mine workers killed in China, but nothing could prepare me for devastation of discovering that Amanda Bynes was retiring from acting at the age of 24.

The announcement came through her public-relations matrix (Twitter) and quickly superseded coverage of the BP Oil Spill and escalating tensions in Gaza. Bynes admitted, after an implied period of soul-searching, that acting “wasn’t fun anymore” so she has “stopped doing it.” While this type of admission is common among proctologists and career criminals, it is unusual for such a young thespian. The impact of her premature departure has sent waves of panic through the pre-teen population and several executives at ABC Family. It is rumored that a handful of middle schools in the Midwest are offering grief counseling.

For those of you who had the misfortune of missing her meteoric rise to fame, she began as a spokeswoman for Nestle Buncha Crunch candy at age seven. She went on to star in the aptly titled Nickelodeon vehicle The Amanda Show and briefly appeared on The Drew Carey Show. Soon enough Hollywood came knocking and she received star billing in such cinematic milestones as Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure and What a Girl Wants.

She became a household name in 2006 with what is still considered the single greatest Shakespearian-themed teen movie to utilize cross-dressing as a plot device: She’s The Man. While the critics may have been reluctant to acknowledge her talent, the fashion industry was not. In 2007, Miss Bynes signed a five-year contract with elite clothing boutique Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear. Unfortunately, the company filed for bankruptcy within a year of agreeing to carry Byne’s clothing line and as of 2009, ceases to exist at all.

She followed this up with a made-for-television movie and a sitcom that was not picked up. She recently wrapped production on Easy A which is to be her last silver screen appearance. It is a modern reimagining of The Scarlett Letter that takes place in a high school and was written by a casting assistant on the television show Third Watch.

One can only dream of the future projects humanity will be missing out on due to Byne’s absence:

·         She’s The Man, Again

·         Easy C-

·         What A Girl Wants Back

·         Charlotte’s Web 3: Wilbur’s Pork Roast Debacle

In all fairness to Miss Byne’s, if she reaches 27 and none of the activities on her resume are preceded by the term “court ordered” she will have done more than Lindsay Lohan. Perhaps most disheartening of all is that she seems self-aware enough to avoid substance abuse and self-destructive behavior; and as everyone knows she will never get an E! True Hollywood Story that way. If anything she will be briefly mentioned as a counterpoint in the next 2-hour Lohan special. If only Justin Bieber would retire early…..

More Random Thoughts...

·         In almost every disaster movie, a portion of the plot is devoted to repopulating the Earth by selectively preserving the life of a small percentage of the populace. This is traditionally accomplished by placing the select few into secret underground caverns or onto cutting edge ships. It is later revealed that this group was comprised of botanists, physicians, and sociologists as those in charge felt that such skills would be valuable in the post-apocalyptic landscape. While I do not disagree, I have yet to see a disaster film where they bother to include carpenters, plumbers, or mechanics. So my question is who will build the hospitals and greenhouses these people are going to necessitate?

·         Why am I charged an extra “shop supplies” fee when I have maintenance work performed on my vehicle? Does the fact that the mechanics sometimes utilize towels still catch upper management by surprise after all these years?

·         Favorite Bumper Stickers:

“I hope you follow Jesus this close”

“My kid sold drugs to your honor student”

“I give evolution two opposable thumbs down”

“Sorry about you face”

“I brake for your mom”

“Honk if you are easily manipulated by bumper stickers”

·         I wonder if it is a coincidence that all of the print ads for optometrists use small fonts that are difficult to read.

·         Is it possible to locate a car dealership that doesn’t have the best prices in town?

·         How bad has the world become that we have to manufacturer canine anti-depressants? Isn’t one of the main incentives of dog ownership stress-relief and unbridled joy?

·          While attending my sister-in-law’s graduation I was interested to learn that one of her classmates was named “Lupus” (apparently after the chronic auto-immune malady of the same name) and I have been inspired to pen several disease-themed names for my future children:

For a Girl

Rosacea     

Chlamydia (Clammy)

Polyp (Polly)

Gingivitis (Ginger)

Rubella (Ruby)

For a Boy

Sars

Thrombosis (Thrombo)

Jaundice

Gout

·         I have decided to launch my own line of scented candles for men (called “Mandles”) so they we will not have to be embarrassed to check out at a Yankee Candle store. These will be some of my initial scent offerings:

Roundup™

Pile O’ Sawdust 

Oil Change Mishap

Musty Ski Lodge

A1 Steak Sauce™

WD-40™

Charcoal Grill

Paint Thinner

Questionable Leftovers

Inadequacy

·         I once was issued a Dodge Caliber as a rental car and it might be the worst designed car I have ever operated. It has more blind spots than a bathroom stall and the interior looks like it was designed by Tonka. This all served to compliment the lack of padding, embarrassingly underpowered engine, and a transmission so smooth that it could only have been lifted from a used lawn tractor.

·         Why are people under the age of 70 still not embarrassed to hold up the line at Wal-Mart by writing checks? In the name of all that is holy just get a debit card. If you want to keep it old school so bad just offer the clerk some buffalo nickels and a pack of Lucky Strikes in exchange for your dry goods.

·         If you are marketing ready-made pancakes, perhaps you should come up with a better brand name than Krusteaz Pancakes. The last thing that most people want to associate with a fluffy breakfast pastry is “crustiness.” The spelling choice also may erode consumer confidence.

Hallmark & Honkies

I am a fan of righteous indignation, and on occasion, even outrage. There comes a time when the citizens of this great nation must gather in solidarity to expose injustice, prevent genocide, or even boycott new David Haselhoff albums. So when a friend of mine told me about a recent NAACP press conference that was organized to express anger over blatant racism and prejudice, I applauded the sentiment. Indeed the time has come for humanity to shed its petty ethnic divisions in favor of a brave new future devoid of such rudimentary classifications. Unfortunately, it appears that in this particular instance the NAACP was simply bored.

The focal point of the group’s outrage is a talking graduation card sold by Hallmark that features the antics of a pink cat and green bunny rabbit better known as Hoops & YoYo. The pair has graced the covers of hundreds of cards (of both the e-mail and paper variety) and continues to be one of the company’s most lucrative creations. This particular graduation card carries a cosmic theme that compliments the tongue-in-cheek audio banter that states:

Hey world, we are officially putting you on notice

You better watch out because this graduate here is kicking rear and taking names

This graduate is going to run the world, run the universe, and run everything after that

Whatever that is…maybe black holes…you’re so ominous

Congratulations!! Good luck taking over the world!

And you planets watch your backs!

Hallmark explained that the card’s theme was to playfully flaunt that the cognitive abilities of the card’s recipient were so impressive that even mysteries as complex and enigmatic as a black hole would be no match for the graduate’s newly-acquired intellectual prowess. The Los Angeles NAACP, however, feels that the card’s audio actually says:

“Black whores, you’re so ominous…… watch your backs!”

They claim that the card is racist, offensive, and seeks to threaten African-America women. The group maintains that the word “whores” is clearly audible during the card’s playback and that the entire planetary theme is a thinly-veiled racist jab.  

Although Hallmark insists that the card does not mention the word “whores” and is simply a cosmic themed encouragement card, they have voluntarily removed the card from store shelves despite the fact that it was introduced over three years ago.

Interestingly enough, the outrage over black holes and racism dates back to 2008 and when a Dallas County Commissioner named John Wiley Price accused fellow commissioner Kenneth Mayfield of racism when he referred to the town’s central collections agency as a “Black Hole.” Although Mayfield claims he was simply referring to the agencies lack of transparency, Price demanded an apology as he felt that Mayfield’s use of the term was malicious and motivated by prejudice. Price later lamented that blatant racism could also be seen in the cake and pastry market since angel food cake was always white and devil’s food cake was always black. Duncan Hines has yet to comment….

   While I fully support the eradication of racism in all of its forms, I am not convinced that Hoops & Yoyo are secretly leading a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Generally speaking, corporations are motivated by the promise of revenue, and when you are the world’s largest greeting card company and have a dedicated line of cards specifically marketed to the African-American community; it is not in your best interest to sell a graduation card that references “black whores.”

If there should be outrage over anything, it is that Hallmark’s talking cards now cost almost $6.00. I don’t know about you, but if I shell out six dollars for a graduation card it better come with a career. Let’s be honest, a graduation card is simply a temporary disposable wallet in which to store checks or paper currency. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if the cover of my graduation card had the words “Honkey Lips” outlined in glitter and called me a “Trifling Cracker” when I opened it.

Right-Belters

Six months ago, my world was shattered. It was a collapse that weakened the very structure of my social identity. It started off innocently enough; I arrived at work and began conversing with my semi-esteemed colleagues about the upcoming day’s events when someone noticed that I and a coworker had dressed eerily similar. This is colloquially known as being “twinsies” and carries with it a petty, but very real, stigma. From what I can tell this stigma stems from the assumption that you and your counterpart are so embarrassingly unoriginal that even given the freedom to clothe yourself, it is still likely you will construct an unofficial dress code using mass produced polos from Old Navy.

At any rate, our coworkers had us stand side by side so that they could more efficiently ridicule us when someone pointed out that my belt was on backwards. This drew an uncomfortable amount of attention to my crotch region and soon there was a chorus of voices asking me why my belt was “snaking right.” I laughed nervously as I slowly realized that I was the only guy in the room whose excess belt length pointed to the right instead of the left. I weakly announced that it was a matter of personal preference which was met with jeers and sarcastic comments such as, “You want to trade that in for a right-handed model?” and “I told you he went to public school!”

Quickly conducting an impromptu survey, I found that every man in the building (regardless of handedness) attached their belt in the same manner as my coworkers and I began to suspect that if word got out of my “waist handicap” I would be ostracized. For the remainder of the day, I was painfully self conscious of the positioning of my “pant girder” and even imagined that other passengers on the elevator were quietly ridiculing me behind my back. I can’t believe that for 28 years I had been living a lie, the revelation was almost as earth-shattering as when I found out that all men do not wear clip-on ties.

I decided to confront my parents about this fashion defect and found that I had always displayed signs of ambidexterity so they had not really discouraged any of my “eccentricities” such as the backwards belt. Crestfallen, I decided to sit my wife down and come clean about my dominant-hand ambiguity. The metaphorical tears fell as I admitted that on some level I had always known that I was bi-handed, and I suspect that if she were honest with herself, she had known it too. We decided that there was no reason to hide my belt preference any longer and that I should wear my pant appendage proudly in whatever direction the Good Lord had made me to wear it. That night I fell asleep with the knowledge that I had discovered the true Brian Taylor, and was pleased to make his acquaintance.

The next morning, after my wife left the house, I found myself alone in the closet with a leather belt in my shaking hands. “Just a taste,” I thought to myself as I threaded the belt to the left just to see how it would feel. The movement was awkward, unnatural even, as the low quality leather encircled my waist and I fastened the clasp. Nothing about it felt right and even the belt seemed to protest, its supple form trained from years of going to the right. “I can’t live like this,” I mumbled under my breath as I unthreaded the belt. Ashamed of my momentary lapse, I quickly repositioned the belt to my default position, gathered my pride, and held my head high as I walked into the office.

Several months have passed and although they no longer verbalize it, I knew my colleagues still saw “right-belters” as second class citizens.  They saw them as fashion anomalies that should be relegated to the dredges of society, just like men who feel that a soiled wife-beater satisfies the requirements of “casual dining.” Every now and then they will joke about finding a newspaper article that indicates “left-belting” is an early warning sign of schizophrenia or dementia. I suffered in solitude as I believed that I was the only one of my kind. I even took to the Internet but was only able to discover a single site that provided a haven for people like me. It was a Facebook group titled “i wear my belt backwards. deal with it,” but after reading a few wall posts it seemed that several of the 35 members believed they were in an adult chat room. Disappointed by the lack of solidarity provided by the web, I resigned myself to facing the stigma alone. However, that all changed when our intern Chris started….

One day as I was enduring another round of belt-related ridicule, Chris revealed that he too was a “right-belter” and was unashamed of his looping preferences. I was enthralled to find someone else who shared my special idiosyncrasy and although I was still outgunned, I was no longer alone. Over the following weeks, Chris and I worked to unmask workplace belt discrimination and perhaps it is only wishful thinking, but I cannot help but feel that the world is a safer place for those brave young men who are not afraid to “go right.”

Chris’s internship eventually ended, and I was left alone to fight the good fight once again. Although I occasionally still hear calls of “Hey Belt Boy!” I am proud to announce that I am a right belted American and I will thread my drawers however I feel lead to do so, regardless of how such an action may be perceived. I encourage all other right-belters to make themselves known and stop living in fear.