Month: May 2012

50 Shades of Porn

/ DearMisterVernon / Leave a comment

PrincessMy wife says it best: I’m a “book whore.” I simply cannot read only one book at a time. Hell I’ve even serial-cheated on Stephen King. Could it be that my scrambled egg book brain works best in a blender? Whatever the case, at one point this year I was reading fiction: King’s brilliant 11/22/63; non-fiction (really?) Heaven is for Real; and a biography: Rob Lowe’s Stories I Only Tell My Friends…except the story about snorting coke with teen girls. All great reads, and best enjoyed in a blender. “Hit puree!” [watch Goonies].

My wife, on the other hand, is a book bore. She’s a prolific reader of the type of romantic westerns that Laura Ingalls would rate G. At least, that’s what I believed before I bought her a Kindle Fire last Christmas. ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring…except Shane syncing his wife’s Kindle Fire to her Amazon account.

When what to my wandering eyes should appear…but half-naked cowboys on the covers of her countless “historical romantic westerns.” These weren’t Little House on the Prairie novels…they were Little Hoes on Fabio! I feared her Kindle might catch FIRE or go into heat from all the barebacked, bare-chested, naked cowboy romance.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little. But for every Sarah, Plain and Tall my wife reads…there’s at least one Tall, Dark, and Handsome on her Kindle Fire. Nothing, however, compares to the genre switch that has her giggling in bed until the wee hours of the morning. Yep, it appears that Fabio has hung up his saddle and hair extensions to allow my wife to enjoy the newest sensation that’s titillating women all over the nation…MOMMY PORN!

50 Shades of Grey? Bondage. Domination. Sadism. There’s no gray about it. It’s porn!

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And since I’ll never be accused of judging a book by its cover…I’m now reading the book my wife reads under the covers. My initial review: It’s Crap-tacular! I mean, how can’t you love this crap:

“Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian?”
“No, Anastasia it doesn’t. Firstly, I don’t make love. I f**k… hard!”

To quote EL James’s fellow literary genius Wayne Campbell:

“Ex-squeeze me??? Baking powder???”

Yes, the writing is hack…but it’s HOT…and it’s flying off e-Book shelves faster than Christian’s and Anastasia’s clothing. Think of it as a permission slip for conservative wives/moms everywhere to feel a little naughty. I mean, don’t all wives/moms deserve a  little extra sugar, spice, and everything nice (eg, masks, handcuffs, whips, and ties)?

What I find most entertaining is trying to predict which mom, daughter, sister, or even grandmother is reading it. Since the Kindle has essentially become the modern-day brown-bag booze cover….I pay extra close attention to the moms who read their Kindles at my 6-year-old daughter’s baseball games. Note to Moms: Your 50 shades of blushing give you away.

The book has been dubbed “mommy porn”, but I think that’s an unfair tag. I call 50 Shades of Grey mommy escapism. An escape from “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mama. Mama. Mama.” [watch Family Guy].

So to moms everywhere, I say: embrace your “inner Goddess”…and enjoy your 50 Shades of Porn.

Laters baby,

Shane

NOTE: Universal has already purchased the movie rights to 50 Shades of Grey. My wife is campaigning HARD for Matt “White Collar” Bomer (ryhmes with female boner). While I can’t agree with her casting prediction because I’m jealous of him, I will offer the following prediction.

The following exchange….

“Why don’t you like to be touched?”
“Because I’m fifty shades of fu**ed-up, Anastasia.”

…will replace “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” as the corniest fu**ing line in film history.

You Can’t Judge a Facebooker By Its Cover

/ DearMisterVernon / Leave a comment

CriminalIn one of the world’s most widely anticipated—and reported—IPOs in history, Facebook is poised to raise at least $5 billion and begin selling its stock this spring. Perhaps more impressive than the expected $5 billion windfall are the 800 million active users who are still wild about a “fad” that I once called “the pet rock of the digital age.”

Okay, I admit it. I was way off about Facebook…and I have been almost off Facebook more times than the seven stranded castaways on the Isle of Gilligan. Why? To quote the Gospel According to John Hughes, “in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions”…Facebook still feels like high school to me. In high school, we all fit neatly into one of five social categories, right? So I must steal a page from the Hughes script and apply this same “five social categories” principle to all 800 million of you Facebookers out there. I like to call it “The Five MEs of Facebook.” So which Facebook ME are YOU?

Are you a “Hey, remember ME”?
These aren’t actual Facebookers…they’re YearBookers. They’re the first to scan and post pics from old yearbooks and photo albums from the good ol’ days. If it were up to them, we’d celebrate reunions like birthdays and we wouldn’t need Netflix…because we’d just stream old home movies from each other during homeroom. And we’d buy the lie that we look as good in bathing suits today as we did in all those spring break pics we “just happened to find” while visiting mom’s attic. Shame on ME!

Are you a “Hey, look at ME”?
These are the FaceHookers. The ones voted most likely to turn their cell phone cameras around and pimp themselves out…daily. If they have children, they’ll occasionally exploit them too…but their children are more like trophies that help shine the spotlight onto “look at ME”. Or better yet, garnishes that attempt to enhance the presentation of cheap meat. And for many a FaceHooker, real tricks are being turned. Ever notice how it’s always summer in their world, their clothing stores ran out of sleeves, and their cell phone cameras are Velcroed to their bathroom mirrors?

Are you a “Hey, Facebook’s not really for ME”?
These are the FakeBookers and FaceLookers. They sign up for Facebook, go on a 24-hour friending spree, only to Faceplant themselves in the Facebook protection program behind the same years-old profile pic/smug shot. They know who they are, and we’re not fooled by their ambivalence toward social networking. They secretly monitor our every post, pic, and nip slip. They’re not quite voyeurs, stalkers, or gawkers…they’re more like the hall monitors of middle school, the narcs of high school, and the nosy old neighbor who peeks through her blinds every G-damn time my kids so much as breathe within 300 feet of her house. Sorry, where was I?    

Are you a “Hey, help ME”?
These are the FaceHaters and FaceBaiters who routinely bitch and cry for help from the BFFs they should text in private in the event of a real emergency. For every blunt “I’m not happy with my life” or whiny “I can’t fall asleep” there’s a vague, almost redemption-fueled cry like “You know who you are” or “I know what you did last summer!” And we’re all stupid enough to take the bait because “the boy who cried wolf” is the only parable that made any sense to us growing up. Note to the “Help MES” of Facebook: In the event of an actual emergency, you can just dial 1-800-GET-OFF-THE-F**KING-COMPUTER!

Are you a “Hey, nothing…just hey from ME”?
These are the FaceInvaders who abduct our news feeds with hackneyed links and mindless musings about the contents of their refrigerators, closets, and shitters. They’re narcissistic enough to believe their midnight jaunts to 7-Eleven for Big Gulps are as newsworthy as dancing the jig with the bulls in Pamplona. Every crap they take is 60 Minutes-worthy. Maybe they share the mundane so we can feel their pain? Or maybe they fancy themselves as the Dos Equis man of Facebook…when, in fact, they are the least interesting men and women in the world.

OR…and God bless you if you are…
Are you one of the rare, relevant, and refreshing Facebookers who we all aspire to be? Sure you may be guilty of the occasional nostalgic, vane, or mundane post…but you never lose sight of what’s witty and post-worthy. Simply put, you make the Facebook world go ‘round and this world would be flat, square, shameless, and (perhaps) IPO-less without you.

Now does being one of Facebook’s finest give you a golden ticket to the IPO?  Heck no! Like me, you may have to settle for a far less lucrative stock…or the next pet rock.