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| Quotes of the Week |
"It's the most important decision I've had to make since
1978 when I decided to get a bikini wax."
Arnold Schwarzenegger on his decision to run for California governor.
"It's better than being asked, 'Where's Matt Damon?'" Ben Affleck on whether he tires of questions about fiancée Jennifer Lopez.
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| Hair Apparent |
For a minute there, we thought pubic hair was going the way of the trucker hat and Michael Bloomberg's approval rating. Just as we were penning a TWR requiem for the muff to the tune of the Bonanza theme song, no less the ladies of the Far East have stepped up to the plate en masse. A few months ago, we reported that Japanese women were coloring and styling their bikini areas to mimic David Beckham's trademark faux-hawk. This week we learned that the Korean peninsula is crying out for a lot more bush. Yes, the latest trend in South Korea is pubic hair transplantation. "In the West, women try to reduce their genital hair as much as possible, but in Korea the trend is for forestation," beamed a prosperous pubesmith. The operation is conducted under local anaesthetic and bandages can be removed after just one day. In Korea, a mass of pubic hair is considered a sign of fertility, which was why many women are having hair transplanted from their heads to the tune of $2,800 approximately as much as a Brazilian woman would spend on waxes in a lifetime. Grant Stoddard
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| You're So Vain |
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I am annoyed with Brazil. Here are my grievances.
1) Bikini waxing. This is the country that made pubic hair a widespread concern. No one thought about this too much before stupid Brazil and its stupid wax rolled all up in here. Now, whether you wax or not, you have to devote some mental energy to the topic. This is a waste of brain.
2) Samba. Maybe there is something wrong with my ears and brain, but I imagine that subway gropers enjoy samba music. Samba creeps me out.
3) Hotness. Hotness should be distributed evenly among the regions of the world. But Brazil is a total hotness hog. It's rude.
I was happy, therefore, to learn that Brazilian women were paying for their unlawful hotness with massive amounts of self-loathing and neurosis. A study conducted by Avon cosmetics a firm long renowned for its sociological
research has determined that Brazilian women are the vainest in the world. Ninety percent of them classify beauty products as essential rather
than a luxury; half of them are prepared to undergo plastic surgery. When
asked about their country's endemic urban poverty, the women smiled politely
and asked the interviewer to repeat the question. Carrie Hill Wilner
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| Mom Gone Feral |
The U.S. judicial system acknowledges that there are different categories for crimes. Murder One is murder in the first degree. What was suffered by a sixteen-year-old boy in Shenango Township, Ohio, a few weeks ago should be Embarrassment One. (It's as bad as it gets. Using this new Shanago scale, having your entire extended family walk in on you while you're manually relieving a Bassett hound would be classed like, Embarrassment Nine.)
This week, twenty-seven charges were leveled against thirty-four-year-old Patricia Johnson in common pleas court. Here's why. A few weeks ago, Johnson, her son and three of the boy's friends met up at 10 p.m. intending "to ride go-carts." The go-carts were already rented out. The imaginative and resourceful mom wasn't about to be swindled out of a fun night with four strapping young lads, however. She immediately swallowed a handful of prescription medication, bought a thirty-pack of beer, swerved her way to a nearby Radisson Hotel and rented a room. Eyewitnesses said her car left the road entirely on two occasions.
Police reports indicate that once in the room, Johnson gave the boys beer then tried to touch their penises and lick their faces. She then handed out $1 bills, told them she wanted to be a stripper, asked them to put the money in her panties, exposed herself and told the boys to spank her. According to police, after the boys declined her offer of beer, Ms. Johnson had a screaming fit trashed the room. Mom's mania apparently hadn't dissipated by the morning: she demanded that the boys get her breakfast. "When one said he did not have a license, she told him to go anyway," said incredulous cops. Johnson later asked the boys to get her something to drink, which also required driving. Finally, she drove the boys home at speeds up to 100 mph. Ms. Johnson's son was reportedly humiliated by his mother's behavior shocker! Three days into the school year, the poor lad will never hear a "... your momma" punch line the same way again. Grant Stoddard
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| Crazy/Beautiful |
You know when there's something wrong with your head or face, like when you have a peeling sunburn and you think everyone is laughing about how hideous you are, but actually, they don't care about you or your blemish? Well, multiply that experience by forever and
everyone, and you have reality. Researchers at the University of Missouri and St. Louis University have determined that both women and men consistently rate themselves less attractive than others rate them. In
particular, women saw themselves as heavier than men did, and men saw themselves as less muscular than women saw them. This is scientific proof that not only does the world not revolve around you, but all the members of the opposite sex are trying to kiss your ass. Once again, science shatters your worldview but improves your quality of life. Carrie Hill Wilner
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| Rocket Man |
American independence from the British crown was a dramatic affair: gunpowder, rockets, cannons, flares, property razed to the ground. Thus, for 200 years, American independence has been commemorated with fireworks. Australia's independence from Britain was a less dramatic affair. It was pretty much heralded by a coy smile and a shrug on both sides. Possibly a ceremonial shrimp was thrown on the barbie, and good Queen Vic found time between lunch and dinner to sign something. That is why we must forgive Aussies for not treating fireworks with the reverence they deserve for example, they stick them in their asses.
Yes, this week a twenty-six-year-old man suffered a fractured pelvis and severe burns to his genitalia after a firecracker exploded between his buttocks, leaving him incontinent and sexually dysfunctional. After an ambulance responded to reports of a man hemorrhaging from the buttocks, said man was transported to the amusingly named Wollongong Hospital in a serious but stable condition. He's now the proud owner of a colostomy and a catheter. Surgeon Robert McCurdie likened the man's condition to "a war injury" and speculated that the man had stumbled and fallen on the firecracker. (Sure, Doc. Like the guy that slipped in the melon patch and ended up with a seven-pound honeydew in the keister.) It is not known whether the man had been imitating the Jackassstunt wherein Johnny Knoxville and pals shot fireworks out of their ass cracks. Grant Stoddard
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| Mind the Gap |
Institutional attempts to catalogue Youth Culture are always pretty funny. Inevitably, they widen the generational gap instead of narrowing it. There's
nothing more profoundly alienating than your father telling you not to overdo it on "the ganja."
In a world full of this clumsy anthropology, Beloit College's "Mindset List" stands out. Written to give
professors a cultural reference point with which to understand the class of 2007 (born, for the most part, in 1985), it is possibly the most amazing and
perplexing thing I have ever read. It includes the following facts about today's college freshmen (my notes in parentheses):
2. They are not familiar with the source of that "Giant Sucking Sound."
(Is
it some sort of sea creature? Or maybe the void in my soul? No one in the
office knows what this means.)
4. "Ctrl Alt Del" is as basic as "ABC."
(When they are not using their
magic radar-signal language, they communicate through restarting their
computers over and over again. It is a bit like Morse code. But wholly
evil.)
8. An automatic is a weapon, not a transmission.
(This is because they are
all guerrilla warriors, foot soldiers in the Army of the Night. Your time has
come, America.)
17. There has always been some association between fried eggs and your
brain.
(Put down the crack pipe.)
19. They have never been able to find the "return" key.
(Um, it's right here
)
(See?)
(There it goes again! Can I get a biscuit? *)
48. Killer bees have always been swarming in the United States.
(Ha, you'd
forgotten about killer bees, hadn't you? Well, while you were living your
quiet, ignorant life, these teenage beemasters have been gathering force.
They actually ARE part bee, did you know that? And there's nothing more
dangerous than a bee-child with an automatic: weapon, that is, not
transmission.)
*Full disclosure: I was born in 1981, so I should mention the possibility
that something strange happened in those four intervening years which,
indeed, left today's eighteen-year olds unable to find the return key. Carrie Hill Wilner
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| About The Weekend Review |
The Weekend Review is Nerve's sociopoliticoanthropological roundup of news about sex, gender, relationships, and whatever else we find interesting. Did you know that if you fold an orange juice label just so, it looks like a little mouth?
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Commentarium (32 Comments)
"Giant Sucking Sound" - Ross Perot's speech regarding the influence of NATO on jobs and their fleeing to the mexican border. In the "Funniest Politcal Analogies Ever" top 10.
are you sure thats not an enter key?
"Giant Sucking Sound" == Cultural Vacuum
It was NAFTA, not NATO.
The "great sucking sound" was a phrase that Ross Perot used when campaigning against NAFTA in the early 90s. It was, he said, the sound we would hear as American jobs were being dragged into Mexico. The only reason I can think of for a college professor (even in Beloit College, where I lived for a short spell) to find this interesting is that they probably think it sounds dirty.
"Giant Sucking Sound" - Isn't that a quote from the presidential debates where Ross Perot was describing the effect of NAFTA on US jobs?
Oops, your way ahead of me.
I won't be the first, probably, but just in case:
The "giant sucking sound" is the euphonious description of jobs being pulled out of the United States and down to Mexico as a result of NAFTA. This bit of homespun protectionist phraseology was coined (I think) by H. Ross Perot, who also gave us flip-chart infomercials (wacky but good) and the Reform Party (wacky and not so good).
As a Brazilian, I'd like to make a correction upon one of grievances with my country (getting freaked out by samba is a matter of personal taste so I'll leave it alone)...Despite the name, the Brazilian bikini wax originated in an upper east side spa in New York.
As a pubic hair, I'd like to respond to the brazillians and the japanese. Leave me alone.
little mouth comment = great
That Giant Sucking sound....I think Ross Perot coined it regarding all the jobs that would be go overseas from America if we allowed free trade. Circa 1992...his debate with Al Gore
The "Return" key (found on typewriters) has been replaced with the "Enter" key, hence the reference to the "can't find the 'Return' key".
Also, as noted, Perot coined the "Giant Sucking Sound" in 1992, when these kids were what, seven? Sheesh, like seven year olds don't follow national politics.
This page is getting dangerously fark-like in its contents.
WHERE'S THE COOCH?
Back in 1993, Ross Perot warned us of "the giant sucking sound" of American jobs going to Mexico after the signing of the NAFTA treating.
You've probably already received this explanation several times, but when Ross Perot was running for President, he was opposed to NAFTA. As part of his opposition he said that "That giant sucking sound" was American jobs disappearing to Mexico.
I suspect none of the explanations you people made up were as prosaic as the real source.
The "giant sucking sound" was Ross Perot's term for what we'd here when American jobs left this country for cheaper labor elsewhere.
(This nano-moment of prescience on Perot's part was, of course lost in the shuffle of his other remarks, like the CIA using Adobe-photoshop to ruin his daugter's wedding, etc.)
Isn't "giant sucking sound" a Ross Perot quote, his description of what NAFTA would do: suck American jobs into Mexico?
Re: Jackass Gone Wrong
You really shoudnt make fun, you would be shoving firecrackers up your ass aswell if you lived in Wollongong.
The "giant sucking sound" featured prominently in H. Ross Perot's run for president. It was the sound of American jobs being sucked away by cheap labour in foreign countries.
I guess you were 11.
OK, I'll cop to graduating from high school the year you were born, and explain one of the listed items that was before your time. As I remember (without Googling), the "giant sucking sound" was what initially-intriguing-yet-ultimately-entertainingly-wacky-and-a-bit-scary former presidential candidate Ross Perot said was going to be the result of jobs being sucked from the U.S.A. down into Mexico as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
19. They have never been able to find the "return" key.
Um, it's right here…
See?
There it goes again! Can I get a biscuit? *
Ummm... Carrie, dearie,
you've proven their point. See, way back in the olden times, there were these things called manual type-writers. When we old souls took typing classes on how to use them,we would look at a page of a manuscript and diligently type what was before us. But, when we came to the end of a line in the m.s., the authors of the typing manual would put in something like: "". This was supposed to alert you to reach up with your left hand and push the lever that was attached to the carriage (the contraption that held the paper in the type-writer)back. This action moved the typing area back to the left hand side of the page and moved the paper up. If one didn't move the carriage back by hand, the type-writer would keep going and one would start typing on the platen (the roller) instead of the paper. Most manual type-writers had a bell to warn us to return the carriage, but, sometimes, we'd not hear the bell, or we'd try to finish off a long word before pushing the carriage back. (This was a vexing problem, too, because we didn't have white-out, either!)
Stay with me here... (and, yes, it was a five mile walk uphill, both ways, to the one room school house.)
Now, the silly thing was that some of us, upon seeing the sign in the instruction book, would go looking for that darn return key. There simply never was one to find. It was a common mistake, and was good for a self-deprecating laugh. The fact that you have a return key and we didn't back then is the very point that the Beloit people are trying to make.
your decrepit elder,
allen schulz*
*I was born in 1965, near the manual/electric typewriter divide. I used to write my high-school term papers on a manual type-writer and wished for an electric type-writer as a graduation present! I was, obviously, not part of the "cool" group. You do know what I mean by "cool" don't you....???
Hi, I am a self-professed computer nerd and avid reader of your column. I just wanted to clarify that the "return" key is not present on todays computer keyboards. They were on typewriters years ago. That's why the young'uns wouldn't have been able to find it. It is the Enter key now. Thank you.
can i just say, this weekly column MAKES MY WEEK. too too too funny.
"Giant Sucking Sound"
Don't you guys use Google? It was Ross Perot's term for Mexico stealing all our jobs via NAFTA. So, no, being born in 1981 doesn't make you old enough to know these things.
just a point of clarification for the anal clarifiers and self proclaimed "computer nerds". i just want to point out your obvious lack of cross-platform difference recognition. most designers, writers and general creative types use Apple computers for their daily work. while it's true that Intel based pc's do not posses a "return" key, i can assure you that Apple computers do.
see, i just hit it!
isn't that NAFTA, carrie?
2. They are not familiar with the source of that "Giant Sucking Sound."
the great sucking sound of american jobs going south?
"Giant sucking sound" - Ross Perot former Presidential candidate - stated this about the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) referring to the jobs that the US would lose to foreign countries.
I think the giant sucking sound is this column. Just kidding.
Hah! Caught you, you lazy farkers. You're getting all of your material from the Fark headlines. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Hilarity ensues.
To Carrie Hill Wilner,
Certainly there is someone in your office who is 10 years your senior. I'll admit that all of the refereces you listed are just mad and I agree with your take on the "Mindset List." The "giant sucking sound" is in reference to, I believe, the 1992 Presidential campaign. Ross Perot (a footnote in the history books by now) made the colorful statement to dramatize Mexico sucking away American jobs when NAFTA was passed.
It may be a rather vague reference for sure. I was born in 1971 and I got it. My wife, though, born in 1961, had no idea what it meant.
I'm 41, so I know what a "Return" key is. But reading that college kids couldn't find it doesn't surprise me. Both of the carriage-return keys on my more-or-less standard PC keyboard are labeled "Enter".
Now you say something