The Rocktagon Recap of Bellator NYC: Sonnen vs. Silva!

Can't afford the PPV, or your desktop too damn slow to stream the card online? No worries, homey - our LIVE(ish) coverage while keep you in the loop ALL night long. 

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@JimboX

You know, this actually isn't the first Bellator PPV - they tried doing this "give us money to watch people who haven't been relevant for at least five years" shtick  in May 2014, which - very, very suspiciously - drew upwards of 100,000 buys despite being headlined by a way past his prime Rampage Jackson and a never-even-had-a-prime King Mo.

With the UFC busting the gates of MSG wide open last November, Bellator pulled out all the stops to make their sophomore PPV event the grandest imaginable. And by "grandest," I mean "the most fuckin' ridiculous thing you've ever seen anybody do in their life." With all of the hot up-and-coming talent in the promotion, what did Scott Coker book as their top-billed bout in NYC? That's right - they're putting a guy who hasn't fought in four years in the cage against a dude who probably took a dive in his last match and asking Joe and Susie Q. Public to shell out $50 a set to see it. And if THAT wasn't enough to get you to fork over your wallet, they even had the foresight to book 40-year-old FEDOR EMELIANENKO against a dude whose highest profile win has come against Gabriel goddamn Gonzaga. If nothing else, you have to admire the sheer balls of that kinda' booking - with glorified freak shows like this, Bellator isn't even trying to establish themselves as serious competitor to the UFC, and in a weird way, I think that's actually for the best. 

Of course, we do have some real fights on the docket tonight, including no less than three championship bouts - the best looking one, of course, relegated to the free Spike TV preshow, because fuck it, that's just how they do things at Bellator. Granted, this may not be a contender for card-of-the-year, but with so much way out there tomfoolery on the line-up, there's really no way you can avert your eyes from the practically guaranteed trainwreck.

As always, we here at The Internet Is In America will be offering you LIVE(ish) play-by-play commentary for the whole PPV affair, which is plum peachy for those of you who can't afford to order the PPV legally or stream it illegally through some dude in England's site. We'll start doing updates at 10 p.m., Eastern time, with instant hit-by-hit, kick-by-kick and choke-by-choke coverage coming at you in-between every round. So what are you waiting for? Go on ahead and bookmark this shit for Saturday night, and keep hitting that refresh button, will you? And lastly, be sure to tell your fightin' friends about our free community service - it helps pay the bills around these parts, y'know...

Alright, we are calling this hootenanny LIVE from MSG in NYC. Calling the action from the crow's nest is MIKE GOLDBERG, Josh Thompson and THE Brendan Schaub, while MAURO RANALLO and Jimmy Smith call it live cageside. LOL at Ranallo saying Lorenz Larkin has "sleeping aides" for a right hand. Hey, I thought that was Bill Cosby's line!

Nope ... doesn't remind me of anything at all.

We've got a lengthy video package for the Douglas Lima/Lorenz Larkin title bout. Eh, it's nothing special.

Larkin comes out to "Something in the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins. Shit, what an original pick for a walkout song. Also, somebody is doing the old Tatanka whooping cry in the audience and it's annoying as all fuck. Lima comes out to some techno hip-hop song I've never heard before. But it sounds like it would be right at home in a car commercial circa 2009, though. The in-ring announcer is some guy named Michael C. Williams, who's like a poor man's version of Michael Buffer, who himself is just a poor man's Bruce Buffer.

Bellator Welterweight Championship Bout

Lorenz Larkin (18-5-0-0) vs. Douglas Lima (28-6-0-0)

Longtime Bellator staple Douglas Lima reclaimed the company's 170-pound strap last November when he bested Andrey Koreshkov in Israel (and no, Bellator, regrettably, didn't call the event "Hebrewin' Up Trouble," like they should have.) Meanwhile, challenger Lorenz Larkin - a guy who, since 2011, served as a midcarder in Strikeforce and the UFC - was last seen elbowing Neil Magny half to death a year ago. Since it's a championship bout, this one is scheduled for five rounds ... which, considering these two guys' less than explosive styles ... might just be the longest 25 minutes of all our respective lives.

Big John McCarthy is the ref. Interestingly, Lima is a Brazilian who is billed as fighting out of Atlanta, Ga. Mauro says both men are capable of "stealing souls" with their gloves. Shit, I hope that's just a metaphor, or else we're in store for some spooky Shang Tsung shit tonight. Larkin has random shapes shaved into his skull. Well, three minutes in, we've got nothing but leg kicks going on. No, I'm not kidding, that's literally all that's happened so far tonight. Larkin with a one-two, but all he hits is air. Lima hits a hard thigh kick. Lima with an uppercut to close out the round.

Round two. Rory MacDonald is in the crowd. Ranallo - who I didn't know was Canadian until right now - said he thinks he should nickname himself "the Canadian Psycho." Larkin with a combo. Larkin with another combo but Lima blocks all the shots except for the midsection kick at the end. Lima with a straight jab. Larkin staggers him. LIMA DROPS HIM AND MAKES HIM EAT A MILLION BILLION ELBOWS. Lima in the closed guard. Larkin manages to get back to his feet. Larkin with a jumping knee that doesn't really do anything. Larkin misses on a huge uppercut. Definitely a 10-9 round for the defending champ (that's Lima, by the way.)

Round three. For those of you wondering, the cage is plastered with product placement for Miller Light, KFC and the new Planet of the Apes movie. Lima misses on a kick and actually knocks the shit out of one of the cage pads. Lima connects on a low kick. Larkin misses a punch by a mile. There isn't shit happening so the announcers keep talking about the next match on the card. A minute left. Lima with a gut punch. Larking throws a bajillion combos, but he doesn't hit a damn thing. Eh, I've got it 30-27 right now for Lima.

Round four. Matt Mitrione walked into the arena wearing a Batman shirt, while Fedor looks pretty much the same as he did in 2003. Other ads on the mat? Product placement for Dave and Buster's, the Marines and some kind of liquor I think is called Blackheart. Oh shit, there's one for Monster, too - can't forget, you can't have an MMA promotion without some kind of energy drink sponsorship. Ranallo says Larkin needs to "pump up the volume." Some guy on Twitter says this is "an awesome fight," so we know there's at least one person out there watching the PPV while high on crystal meth. OK, four minutes in and all these fuckers have done is thrown punches at the wind. Larkin tries to close the gap and Lima kicks him in the stomach. Lima gets a leg trip and he hops in the open guard. Both men up and doing absolutely nothing while dry humping against the cage. Begrudgingly, I'd give the round to Lima.

Round five. Sweet fuck, Rory MacDonald is going to ass impregnate whoever wins this fight. Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture are in the crowd, and considering how much Bellator likes them some UFC wash-ups, I'm actually shocked neither one of them were booked for tonight's event. Smith says Lima is more effective but Larkin is busier. The Compustrike stats say both of these guys are batting less than 30 percent with connected punches in this bout. A brief "Let's go Larkin" chant breaks out. Wait, since when did American Top Team have a gym in Atlanta? OK, three minutes in, and ain't doo-doo going on. Larkin with a couple of high kicks, but they don't connect. Ninety seconds left. The two exchange leg kicks. Lima with a high kick to the shoulder. Thirty seconds left. Nobody does anything so the commentators just talk about how much Jimmy Smith looks like Joe Rogan instead.

I think Larkin may have won the last round, but I use the term "won" very, very loosely. Let's go to the judges, why don't we? It's 50-45 and two 48-47s for Douglas Lima.

In the post-fight, Lima wears a tee shirt that says "fight for your right to vape" and thanks Jesus. He says he ain't afraid of Rory MacDonald and the camera pans to him and he looks uninterested as fuck and it is glorious.

With such luminaries as Michael Page and Brennan Ward, Goldberg says Bellator's welterweight fray is among the best in all of MVP. Goddamn, I have no words for that. Meanwhile, MacDonald says he thought the last fight sucked (finally, somebody who speaks the truth) and he's gonna' beat Douglas Lima like a conga drum. And here's a hard sell for the Aug. 25 show, which takes place in some Indian casino in the Catskills.

We get a video package for Aaron Pico, who literally dropped out of high school to become a fighter. Well, it's about time we had a fighter today's wayward youths could look up to. Freeman comes out wearing his pants up to his he-titties and is accompanied by literal stock audio that sounds like something you'd hear on the Weather Channel. Also, he has the worst white person cornrows you've ever seen in your life, and that's saying something. Pico comes out to "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin. He's just 20 years-old, but he already has BJ Penn-level cauliflowered ears.

This is what losing million and millions of dollars looks like.

Lightweight Bout

Zach Freeman (8-2-0-0) vs. Aaron Pico (0-0-0-0)

Freeman is a 33-year-old fighter making his Bellator debut this evening. Nicknamed "The Altar Boy," the St. Charles, Missouri has tooled around in various no-name promotions since 2011. His opponent, however, isn't just making his company debut - he's making his first appearance in any kind of MMA competition. Bellator signed Aaron Pico when he was barely 18-years-old and have waited a good three years before unleashing him on the waiting world. Despite not even having an amateur MMA contest under his belt, Pico nonetheless has quite the combat sports pedigree, having won a litany of junior national and international championships in wrestling, boxing and pankration. So yeah, Bellator is betting a lot on this Pico kid becoming a huge, Conor McGregor/Ronda Rousery-esque phenom - and by golly, I reckon that Freeman chap would just love to rain all over their parade, wouldn't he?

The ref is Rob Hinds. Holy shit, Freeman just popped Pico with an uppercut once, locked him in a D'arce choke and he fucking TAPS.

The official time is just 24 seconds. In the post-fight Freeman says some shit about the power of belief and declares he wants to fight everybody in the 155-pound division. Remember kids: STAY IN FUCKING SCHOOL.

In the crow's nest, Thompson and Schaub try to salvage what's left of the Pico hype train. Naturally, they say he'd be better at 145.

OK, time to pimp the 155-pound title bout. Let's roll the hype video!

Primus comes out to "Sail" by AWOLNation, when we all know he should've come out to "Jerry Was a Racecar Driver." Chandler comes out to a song that sounds like it was lifted from a Madea movie, and there's a whole bunch of Photoshop fire plastered all over his Titantron promo. How original.

As it turns out, a one-legged man really doesn't have much of a chance in an ass kicking contest...

Bellator Lightweight Championship Bout

Brent Primus (7-0-0-0) vs. Michael Chandler (16-3-0-0)

Current Lightweigh Champ Mike Chandler is riding a four-fight winning streak, with his latest victory coming against Ben Henderson, who I TOTALLY forgot was in this company until I looked at the Wikipedia page. Meanwhile, the undefeated Brent Primus - whose middle name, I assure you, isn't Mud - is 5-0 in Bellator competition and apparently spent a lot of his childhood homeless and/or selling drugs for a living. This one is scheduled for five rounds, so if I were you, I'd be hitting the caffeine hard ... this 'un might take a while.

The referee is Todd Anderson. Both men throwing a ton of leg kicks. Chandler slips and his ankle looks fucked up, so naturally Primus starts thwacking the fuck out of it. Chandler's leg almost gives out on him. Chandler lands a solid jab as a counter to Primus' attempted leg kick. And the ref stops the fight so Chandler can get his leg checked out. Except the ref CAN'T do that and the doctors stop the fight and there's this great moment where Chandler jumps up and says "let's go" to try and get the crowd fired up but the doctors pull the stool out from under him and he falls flat on his ass.

And the TKO comes at 2:20 of the very first round - we've got ourselves a new world champ.

Primus says he's going to give Chandler and automatic rematch. So far, Chandler is the only person who's gotten anything even remotely resembling a pop from the audience. He says he wants them to cut off his taped up leg and he'll keep fighting. Up in the crow's nest, Thompson and Schaub do their best to make it sound like Chandler is still the company's marquee fighter, but yeah ... it ain't exactly effective. And LOL at Goldberg reminding Schaub about that time he got knocked out by Roy Nelson back in 2009.

Time for the Fedor/Mitrione hype video! Matt says he feels like "a douche" for having kidney stones and missing the Bellator 172 main event. Royce Gracie and Randy Couture put over Fedor and yeah, I am getting a little goosebumpy.

Mitrione comes out to "Simple Man" by Skynyrd. Meanwhile, Fedor comes out to some Soviet propaganda music ... I think.

...and there goes another million dollars down the shitter.

Heavyweight Bout

Matt Mitrione (11-5-0-0) vs. Fedor Emelianenko (36-4-0-0)

Of course, this bout was supposed to headline a free Spike TV show earlier this year, but it got scratched when Mitrione ran out of tampons. At this point, what can I say about Fedor that hasn't already been said by more eloquent, thoughtful souls than I? Granted, the Fedor we got here tonight ain't exactly the same fighter that had all those classic fights against Big Nog and Crocop and Kevin Randleman, but you never can tell when a dude is really passed his prime in MMA ... just ask 46-year-old World Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture. Mitrione, the far younger fighter, used to play in the NFL and did a fairly long stint in the UFC, where he once kicked Kimbo Slice's shins off and murder-death-killed Derrick Lewis in just 41 seconds. He hasn't fought in about a year, though, so he could show some serious signs of cage rust. But then again, you could say the exact same thing about Fedor - and unlike last time, he doesn't have Putin around to override the judge's scorecard - or does he?

Fedor gets a huge ovation. And man, is it weird to see those non-Reebok sponsorship banners getting unfurled, huh? Dan Mirgliato is the ref. Fedor needs a translator to know to touch gloves. Fedor with a leg kick. THEY KNOCK EACH OTHER DOWN AT THE SAME TIME, BUT MITRIONE GETS UP FIRST AND POUNCES FEDOR'S CORPSE AND PUNCHES HIM OUT UNTIL THE REF WAVES IT OFF!

The official time of the KO is at 1:14 of round number one. Before the post-fight Mitrione puts on a New York Giants jersey. "This shit is going to be just like that time I knocked out Derrick Lewis," he said. In the best moment of all-time, he says fuck the Golden State Warriors he'll come visit Donald Trump at the White House and follows it up by telling people to donate to a GoFundMe for the family of Tim Hague.

Mitrione hugs on Chuck Zito and Randy Couture in the crowd. "Pride is officially dead" Schaub says.

What the hell? A Gracie ... winning by submission?

We've got some time to kill so we're going to have Dave Marfone vs. Neiman Gracie - which I guess was originally scheduled to go on after the main event - up next.

Gracie with a takedown early. He has Marfone's back. Gracie with a big right hand and then he slips and falls flat on his ass. Gracie is in the full mount. Marfone is up. Gracie goes for another takedown and Marfone shakes him off. Both men back up. Gracie with a leg kick. Marfone locks in a DEEP guillotine choke with seconds left. Gracie's saved by the bell. 

Round two. This is a welterweight contest, if you were wondering. Gracie with some high kicks. Gracie grinding Marfone up against the cage. Gracie has Marfone's back. Now he has a standing body triangle. Marfone falls backwards but Gracie still has his foe's back. He sinks in a rear naked choked - it's deep and Marfone TAPS.

The tap came at 2:27 at the second round. Renzo and Royce celebrate in the crowd.  In the post-fight, he speaks English, but just barely.

And here's our hype tape for the main event. Sonnen says Silva jumped him in front of his wife back when they were filming that one season of The Ultimate Fighter in Brazil and now he wants REVENGE, damn it.

Sonnen's Titantron has a reference to 911 - the emergency phone number - in it. During a PPV in New York. Ladies and gentlemen ... that's Bellator. His music is "Too Much Fun," by some country music singer. Silva's Titantron is a pastiche of a horror movie, but at least he still comes out to "Sandstorm," as God and everybody else knows he should.

Light Heavyweight Bout

Wanderlei Silva (35-12-0-0) vs. Chael Sonnen (28-15-1-0)

Well, here we have it, folks - the veritable Grudge Match of MMA. Both these fighters were supposed to have a big money UFC showdown about four years ago, but since both men have a bad habit of failing drug tests, that shit never came to fruition. Proving once and for all that Scott Coker is hellbent on turning the organization into the mixed martial arts equivalent of TNA wrestling, Bellator decided to snatch up both men - who, for several years, have been in a state of de facto retirement - to resolve that made-for-TV bad blood literally everybody and their mamas forgot about at least three years ago. In case you're wondering, Wanderlei hasn't fought since 2013 and Sonnen broke a three-year retirement spell to pretty much throw a fight against Tito Ortiz earlier this year. So - needless to say - expect a pure-D shit show of legendary ... and dare I say it, Kimbo and Dada ... proportions.

Both the Brazilian and American national anthems are played. The "Star Spangled Banner" is performed by Dave Navarro, of all people. And it only took about 20 minutes, too! Sonnen with a takedown already. Big John is the ref. Loud "USA" chants. Sonnen popping Silva with rights on the ground. Sonnen going for a can opener submission, of all things. It ain't working, so he just keeps hitting him with elbows. Silva gets to his feet. And, of course, Silva drops Sonnen with a right hand. Now Silva's in the full mount. Sonnen gets up and lands a takedown and then Silva tries to lock in a guillotine. Sonnen transitions to the full mount. About thirty seconds left. Sonnen trying to get a kimura. Sonnen lands some elbows as the round expires. A tough one to call, but I'd go 10-9 for Sonnen.

Round two. "You got clipped, pussy!" Tito Ortiz yells on camera. Sonnen with a jumping knee. Silva clips him on the rebound with a knee of his own. Now Silva is looking for a guillotine choke. Silva is bleeding from his right eye and he is sucking wind hard. "This is not the mannequin challenge," Ranallo declares during the inaction. The ref stands 'em up. Sonnen with a running takedown. Sonnen not doing much pound with his ground right now. Ninety seconds left. Sonnen lands some pillow hand punches as the bell sounds. 20-18 Sonnen, in my book.

Round three. And Sonnen gets the takedown. He's in the butterfly guard. Sonnen with some shitty elbows to the head. Now Sonnen is going for a kimura. He loses it. Now he's fishing for the kimura again. Sonnen's got the full mount. One minute left. LOL at the "Fuck You, Tito" chants coming from the audience ... and he's not even in the fight. With twenty seconds left, Sonnen just hits Silva with shoulder strikes and takes no chances. It has to be 30-27 for Sonnen. 

Let's go the judges. One 30-26 and two 30-27s for Chael Sonnen. "Goddamn I hate New York," Sonnen says in the post-fight. He challenges Fedor and Silva pushes him as he leaves the cage.

We take it back to Goldberg, Thompson and Schaub. They wonder whether Sonnen's next opponent will be Fedor, Ortiz or Wanderlei again. Holy shit, this is WCW booking Hulk Hogan against Randy Savage in 1999 all over again. Goldie pimps an upcoming card in Thackerville, Okla., and - thankfully - that's all she wrote from MSG.

B-Movie Review: 'SpaceCamp' (1986)

You know exactly what America needed right after the Challenger disaster? A movie about goofball teenagers accidentally being sent into space by a robot that hacked into the NASA mainframe. 

By: Jimbo X

JimboXAmerican@gmail.com

@Jimbo___X

If you're looking for reasons why NASA ain't doing much of shit anymore, Jan. 28, 1986 is your answer.

That morning, the Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all seven people on board. Strangely enough, one of the people who was originally slated to be onboard was the bitch who played Big Bird on Sesame Street, and the only reason why she wasn't was because NASA couldn't find a helmet big enough to fit her big fluffy head.

The administration didn't even bother launching anything for another three years, which coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union, pretty much ended the great Space Race. Business picked up a little in the 1990s, but when history repeated itself with the Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA more or less packed it up and hasn't tried to do anything ambitious with live crew members since.

Pictured: something no one has ever fapped to.

Now, I wasn't around back then, but to say the Challenger disaster really fucked with people back in '86 would be an understatement. For 30 years the space program had been one of the nation's greatest symbols of pride, a testament to American technology and our engineering ingenuity. When those seven people got blown the fuck out (literally), all of a sudden we had to come to grips with the fact that - maybe - we weren't the mechanical masterminds and aerospace whizzes we thought we were. Remember, this happened right around the same time Japan started to eat us alive with electronics tariffs while rice burner sales slowly began eclipsing American-made rides. For three decades we thought our superior intellect and unparalleled craftsmanship would give us an eternal leg up on our Asiatic competitors, but as soon as the panels started flying off the shuttle, all of a sudden we just knew we weren't the industrial (or aeronautical) titans we had convinced ourselves we were. 

Which, naturally, made the timing of SpaceCamp about as unfortunate as finding poison gas Pokemon Go monsters running around at Holocaust memorials. 

In the mid-1980s, Patrick Bailey and Larry Williams wrote a book about the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. (more on that in just a bit.) ABC Pictures thought the premise of kids getting accidentally launched into space and having to learn to work together to survive interstellar death was a dandy idea for a feature and groundwork on the feature film began in 1985. A June 1986 release date was targeted, with the filmmakers expecting it to be the family-comedy breakout hit of the summer.

To say the Challenger disaster put the brakes on the project is kinda' like saying the JFK assassination kinda' hurt Kennedy's chances of re-election. Since the film was almost 100 percent done at the time of the shuttle explosion, the studio felt it was too late to yank the plug on the $25 million movie, so despite the deluge of bad publicity, the film was released as planned that summer. 

Pictured: something everybody has fapped to.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the movie was a colossal box office dud, failing to earn back even $10 million. Thanks to endless repeats on Saturday afternoon cable throughout the 1990s, however, the film has since gone on to become something of a minor '80s cult classic, with enough people having seen it to garner at least one or two passing gags on Family Guy.

But does the movie have any sort of intrinsic value beyond rudimentary nostalgia? Well, how's about we fire up our old VHS cassette and see for ourselves ...

The movie opens with a little girl in a cornfield wishing on a shooting star. She says it's like John Glenn is winking at her from space and shes' destined to become an astronaut. Well, flash forward 20 years and she's all grown up and played by Kate Capshaw and married to Tom Skerrit. She's pissed because she just got turned down for an astronaut gig because she's a woman (probably) and has to operate a junior cadet space camp alongside her hubby for the summer.

The kids show up and it's your usual grab-bag of multi-ethnic teens (and LULZ a plenty when they assign the Asian kid to the yellow team.) So we get some exposition on the history of the space camp (it's a real place in Mobile, Ala.) and then we're introduced to Kathryn, this dorky girl (played by Lea Thompson) who knows everything about the lead space camp woman and kinda' idolizes her. And of course, the token black kid yells a lot, and displays several tendencies that suggest he is literally mentally retarded. We also meet Tish (played by Kelly Preston) who looks like your basic valley girl and says her dream is to become an extra-terrestrial dis jockey. Then this annoying ass white guy named Kevin (played by Tate Donovan) pretends he's the Asian guy so he can be on the same team with Tish, prolly because he wants to hump her and stuff.

The adults show off the shuttle simulator and here's where Jinx - the film's iconic robot - makes his debut. The crew refer to it as a "$27 million handyman" while the kids simply refer to it as "an extra-terrestrial midget." Then this one little kid (played by Joaquin Phoenix, back when he was trying to convince everybody to call him "Leaf" instead) starts complaining about how badly he wants to move up from the cub scout program to the teen cadets, while the  girls talk about the size of all the boys' hands (get it, because it's an allusion to their penis sizes!) Kathryn and Tish start to bond and as it turns out, Tish is actually something of a savant with an encyclopedic memory of everything, including piloting controls, for some unexplained reason. She then tries to convince Kathryn to let her give her a makeover while "Walk of Life" plays in the background.

Holy shit, the black kid says his big plan is to open the first outer space McDonalds. Then Kevin tells him "not to take any of this shit seriously," because this is an edgy family-friendly adventure-comedy, that's why.

And it's still not as high as his brother River was in 1986.

The little kid hides Jinx in the closet and the older kids start bullying him. Then he hears somebody say "shit" and the robot starts talking about solid waste disposal. The kids quickly realize Jinx literally does anything you tell it to and after a series of contradictory orders, it malfunctions. So, yeah, I guess that makes it the world's first autism-bot. The little kid repairs Jinx, so now it says "yo, man" as a greeting, then calls all the older kids "jerk-offs" and "monkey-glutes" for messing with him. He attempts to convince the robot to not take things so literally, but since it's a robot, it clearly don't give a fuck what some eight-year-old thinks.

Time for a montage of cadets testing out equipment. Man, those blue tee shirts are bitchin'!

Kathryn the nerd girl can't figure out how the gyroscope stabilization thing works (you know, that giant, spinning hamster ball thing from The Lawnmower Man) and feels bad. Kevin tries to reassure her and gives her a ride out to the lake in his jeep to look at the stars. His pick-up line: "so, you're really into this space stuff, huh?" She talks about watching the sky as a kid and how she couldn't wait to grow up. The romantic tension is so taut, even my fucking TV is sweating right now.

Jinx tells the adults the two kids snuck out and they catch Kathryn and Kevin making out by the waterfront. Kate Capshaw gives 'em a stern talking to and says she sees a lot of herself in Kathryn and that she has a lot of potential and she better not screw this up. Then the little kid starts crying, because he wishes he was in space instead of on Earth. Goddamn at the angst, eh? So Jinx takes over the control room and starts talking with NASA's mainframe. He LITERALLY puts the kid in the astronaut database, because he takes everything literally, remember?

Later, the kids go through a mechanical spacewalk simulator and rush through a power failure drill. Kevin does a Cheech and Chong impersonation when the adults tell him to take over. And he keeps telling more bad jokes while they simulate crashing and burning. 

Naturally, Kate chews the kids out for not taking all this make-believe space shit serious enough. Meanwhile, Jinx is still finagling with the NASA super computer to put an eight-year-old aboard the next shuttle. And OOPS! Jinx unwittingly manages to convince the computer to LAUNCH while the kids are doing a test run inside it! Despite the fact it just sentenced half a dozen tenth graders to certain death, Jinx rationalizes his actions by declaring he and the little kid are "friends forever" and that by causing a thermal curtain failure, he's actually giving the kid everything he's ever dreamed of. 

Thankfully, Kate's character remains aboard, so naturally, she screams "we're going to explode!" when the shuttle starts taking off, because that sure as sugar won't scare the dookie out of a bunch of 14-year-olds already crying their eyes out. So, to avoid a very Challenger-esque mishap, ground control has no choice but to send Kate and the kids into orbit. 

After some stock footage plays, the kids continue to panic and say very adult words like "shit" and "goddamn." Still, they can't help but "ooo" and "aww" when the window panels open and the see the curvature of the Earth. And just like that, the pants-pissing horror of literally two minutes ago is supplanted by joy and mirth as the kids point out Africa and the Swiss Alps.

Huh. Who'd thunk the people who made Mega Man would've had a direct line to NASA headquarters?

Back on terra forma, Tom Skeritt says the president wouldn't believe him if he told them they just launched his wife and five kids into space, so NASA - rather realistically - decides to keep this one mum. Now, as to how D.O.D. radar, civilian aerospace monitoring systems, Soviet detection modules and everybody within a 50 mile radius of the goddamn launch site wouldn't realize a shuttle just took off with no explanation nor warning, of course, is never diegetically addressed. In orbit, the kids realize they have 12 hours worth of air, but oh shit, they're going to need at least 13 to survive re-entry. So they decide to hook up with a space station that's conveniently right beside them to get more oxygen. And of course, Kevin the comedian is still making jokes about 7-11, despite the fact there's a 99.999999 percent chance he'll be dead as shit in half a day's time.

The kids eat some tube food and come up with this convoluted plan to communicate with ground control by Morse Code. Kate puts on a space suit and seals up a loose hatch. Then she does a full suit space walk and is absolutely awestruck looking at the Earth. As in, it literally sounds like she's orgasming while looking at it. Unfortunatley, she doesn't have a jetpack and can't reach this satellite thingy she's trying to get to. So - naturally - they put the little kid in a space suit to save her. Of course, he starts freaking out once he's out there, but then Kevin starts doing an Obi-Wan Kenobi impersonation and that inspires the little twat to rescue his adult supervisor "using the force."

I ain't bullshitting you when I tell you the rescue sequence goes on for about 20 minutes. The kid eventually lets go of a sandbag anchor and goes flying off into space and Kate isn't even that concerned at first. Shockingly, the greenscreen effects aren't that bad for a mid-80s production. Of course, she manages to save him, because the idea of leaving a child to suffocate all alone in the vacant nothingness of space is probably too much for a PG-13 movie. 

The black kid is tasked with connecting the oxygen tubes to the shuttle. Kate lets him know if they connect the wrong tubes, the whole thing is going to explode. He and Kathryn bicker back and forth whether the red wire or the yellow wire is the right one. Anyhoo, the black kid was right, which means that if the nerdy white girl had the final say, she would've been responsible for a sextuple fatality space explosion. The moral of the story? Never trust women with math.

God damn it, now Kate gets hit by the runaway sandbag and the little kid has to rescue her. A bunch of dudes smoking cigarettes at NASA headquarters tell them to get out of there, but the crew says "fuck that" and do a manual override to open the cargo doors. Kevin takes the lead as shit gets real and he pulls her back into the pod. Now the nerdy girl is kvetching to Kevin about not being as good a captain as he is - you know, right in the middle of a life or death struggle for space survival. Kate, who is still passed out from spinning around in space for so long, is wrapped in duck tape to keep from floating around the shuttle bumping into things and the kids decide to land in the middle of the desert because ... well, I don't know why, to be honest.

Now Jinx relays the Morse Code back to NASA (remember that plot point from like 45 minutes ago?) and Tom says he is going to "treat him to a can of oil" for his good work (even though the entire situation is solely the result of his up-fuckery.) He then lets them know about an alternate landing site in the desert, then Annie wakes up. The kids prepare for re-entry. The nerdy girl takes the controls and has to stabilize the craft. Hey, just like that exercise she couldn't do in the movie's first act! She has a flashback of Annie's pep talk from earlier, and re-entry begins. Unfortunately, it's too little too late and they all crash and die. Nah, just bullshitting 'ya, they survive unscratched. Everybody celebrates not getting blown to smithereens and that, kiddos, is all she wrote ... no Goonies-esque post-climax character resolutions or  resolved subplots or nothing, just the shuttle hitting the tarmac and the credits a-scrollin'. 

The most advanced artificial intelligence lifeform ever designed, and the government is using it as a janitor at a kids' summer camp. Welcome to Reagan's America.

You know, I always wanted to see a sequel with everybody at NASA losing their jobs for child endangerment and Jinx being declared an enemy of the state for hijacking federal I.T. Alas, fortune never smiled upon us, and regrettably (well, no, not really) we never got ourselves a SpaceCamp 2: Space Harder. 

If you're looking for the definition of "a mediocre movie," I think SpaceCamp is the perfect bellwether. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just kinda' there. About half the movies you'll watch in your lifetime will be better than this, and about half the movies you'll watch in your lifetime will be worse. It's the most average movie I've ever seen - one sans any notable qualities, nor any notable defects. It exists in an impenetrable sac of absolute, total and perfect unremarkableness ... being asked to give an opinion on the overall objective quality of the movie is akin to being asked to write an essay on how water tastes.

I don't hate SpaceCamp, I don't love SpaceCamp, I can't find anything to praise SpaceCamp for and I can't find anything to condemn SpaceCamp for. It's a movie forever vacuum-sealed in its own meager existence, and in that, assigning it any kind of value judgement is pointless. Some of you may really, really like the flick and some of you may really, really dislike it, but being the peculiar jumble of particles and protoplasm I am, I just can't muster enough psychological energy to describe the film as anything other than "meh."

Really, all I can tell you is that the name of the guy who directed it was "Harry Winer," which is really, really phonetically close to sounding like "hairy wiener." And according to the iMDb, the original ending had the kids being rescued by a Russian shuttle, which ... hold on to your panties, M. Night ... was manned by a bunch of Soviet children. And, perhaps most importantly of all, that I still would like to fuck Kelly Preston, preferably missionary style. 

And in a nutshell, that's all I've got to say about SpaceCamp ... and just as a general rule of life, be wary of anybody who's got any more to say about it than that. 

MS-DOS Review: 'Avoid the Noid' (1989)

If you're looking for the most aggravating video game of all-time, buddy, you just hit the jackpot.

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo___X

In the late 1980s, Domino's Pizza drummed up one of the decade's defining advertising mascots - the Noid. Long story short, the character was a dude inexplicably clad in a red bunny suit who - equally inexplicably - had an obsession with royally fucking up people's pizzas. Numerous commercials were produced starring the Claymation critter, ultimately making the phrase "avoid the Noid" a short-lived household saying. Like every other stupid popular thing in the 1980s, the Noid produced a merchandising bonanza, with the character's visage showing up on toys, cups, playing cards, car covers, buttons, tee-shirts, towels and fucking tambourines. And while Capcom's NES game Yo! Noid is certainly the most popular video game starring Domino's spokes-sonofabitch, it was far from the character's only appearance in the interactive entertainment medium in the decade.

Enter Avoid the Noid on MS-DOS systems. Developed by the preposterously soulless-sounding California Merchandising Concepts, the ShareData published offering is one of the most frustrating video games I've ever played. The game isn't just difficult, it's practically engineered to make gamers pull their hair out and sling their keyboards across the room in unbridled e-rage. In fact, you could almost consider the title a precursor to all that "unironically meant to be frustrating" platformers like Syobon Action and I Wanna Be The Guy. Except, at the time, the folks who made Avoid the Noid weren't aware that irony - as an abstract concept - existed and pretty much all of the irritating aspects of the game aren't intentional, but the aftermath of really, really shitty programming and substandard level design. 

The game has a very simple premise. You play - fittingly enough - a pizza delivery guy and your mission is to get the piping hot pies delivered to the top floor of a humongous skyscraper. Naturally, the Noid is all over the fucking place, doing everything he (I'm guessing it's a "he," right?) to ruin your pizza, get your fired, and make sure you have to live on welfare for the rest of your natural born life.

If this looks like fun to you, it's officially time you got off drugs.

So here's the big problem with all of this. You see, all the Noid has to do is touch you and it's game over. Now, that wouldn't be such a pain in the anus if it wasn't for the following design flaws:

1.) The hit-detection is extremely poor, and sometimes the game registers a "hit" against you even though the Noid is visibly several pixels away from making contact with your character.

2.) The only defensive move at your disposal is a shitty looking somersault. Strangely enough, if you touch the Noid while you're somersaulting, the game doesn't register it as a hit, but if you just complete the somersault animation and you're still touching a Noid, it's an instant-kill. 

3.) There are booby traps everywhere, with absolutely no visual cues whatsoever. So basically, you have to somersault the entire game to avoid activating a falling platform.

4.) To advance stages, you have to use an elevator. The Noid can also use the elevator, and because the thing is so fucking slow, a lot of times you find yourself going up and down to simply avoid letting the Noid aboard. And the moment you do get out of the elevator, obviously the Noid is going to touch you and you're going to fucking die anyway.

5.) And last, but certainly not least, not only does the game throw a preposterous number of Noids at you even in the game's early stages, the sons-of-bitches are easily twice as fast as your character, which makes fleeing from the buggers when all other options have been expended an absolute impossibility.

Granted, the game designers were gracious enough to give you a power-up that clears all the Noids off the screen, but of course, you can only use it a finite number of times and - of course - the fucking things still respawn just a few moments later. Alas, as ass-blisteringly aggravating as this game is, you have to be thankful they even included something as basic as that, because a good goddamn, do you need as much help completing this one as you can get.

We begin the game with a very brief cutscene showing your delivery boy entering the high rise (which, presumably, has the word "DOOM" spray painted on it, because FORESHADOWING, that's why.) The game is laid out very similarly to that old arcade game Elevator Action, with three pastel-colored levels per screen. The idea is to collect keys strewn about the stage to unlock the elevator so you can travel to the next screen. Yeah, it sounds really simple in theory, but just you wait - the pizza chunk-encrusted shit is about to hit the fan in a real hurry. 

As soon as the second stage begins you can see the error of the developers' ways. Now you've got a steady stream of the Noids coming at you in waves of three, and you have to time your jumps and rolls pixel-perfect to avoid hitting any of those pie-fucking-up bastards. Even worse, there's this second or two-long animation that accompanies your character unlocking a door, which is bollocks to the nth degree because you can STILL get hit by a Noid during the animation cycle. And as frustrating as that is, it's still like, only the eighth or ninth most irritating thing about the title.

Holy shit, this is more intense than playing Gunstar Heroes. While being gang-raped. Multiple times. Over the course of one afternoon.

The third screen is where shit starts getting nigh-impossible. Now, not only do you have to deal with a wave of Noids, you ALSO have to avoid rockets that are next to impossible to avoid while rolling or jumping in the air. Another awful design choice was the inclusion of the telephones. Not only is that incessant ringing annoying as fuck, you really have no clue which one has a key hidden inside it or one that's actually a death trap that will send you plummeting to the equally death-trap ridden level beneath you. And THAT is doubly annoying because every time you fall, your avatar lets out a warbled Mr. Bill "uh-oh!" sound and it makes you want to kill everybody. Oh, and by the way, if you die, you get a cutscene of the Noid mocking you and letting out a chip tune giggle so annoying, that if you hear it more than three times, you WILL become homicidal. Holy hell, this game is good at pissing you off. I mean, really, really good.

Screen four can go fuck itself, because that's when the Noids start arming themselves with rocket launchers. Also, now you HAVE to investigate every telephone booth because they start giving you the digits for a security code you have to enter to access the game's final level. But on the plus side, at least they DO change the music from screen to screen. You have to give 'em points for that, I guess. 

So naturally, you keep looking for keys and security code numbers and avoiding Noids until you get to level 30, which is where the EXECUTIVE SUITE is. Once you get there, you'll have to get on top of the roof to collect more keys, and wouldn't you know it, now the Noids are commandeering biplanes and dropping water balloons on you. Once you collect three of them, you can FINALLY enter the CEO's office, where you are rewarded with a completely dialogue-less ending scene where your avatar - who bares an uncanny resemblance to Bob Denver - wipes sweat off his brow while some unseen rich white motherfucker takes a break from snorting heroin out of strippers' buttholes like in Wolf of Wall Street to enjoy a slice of pepperoni and mozz. And after all that, they don't even TELL you how much you got for a tip, which to me, is way more agonizing than wondering what was in that FedEx box in Castaway.

So, uh, is your avatar supposed to be Asian, or just really, really tired from lugging around pizzas all day?

Conceptually, anyway, Avoid the Noid is a game you can beat in five minutes. That is, you could if the controls were worth a shit - odds are, you're just going to keep dying from cheap hits over and over again until you get your fifteenth game over screen over the course of half an hour and scream "fuck it" and go back to watching tranny porn. The 30-minute in-game timer theoretically gives you enough time to beat it, though, and once you figure out where all the booby traps are and figure out how to game the elevators for all they're worth, I suppose you can muster up enough autism power to actually complete it.

But man oh man, do you have to be OCD as fuck to get that far. I've played some punishing games over the years, but this one may very well be the most annoying per capita gaming experience of my life. This isn't some hard ass fighting game or a SHMUP with a million billion things onscreen at once, it's just a crappy platforming game hobbled by piss poor controls and some of the worst hit detection you've ever experienced. Even as a novelty throwaway it's an absolute chore to churn through, and even the two hours or so I spent documenting it for this site feels like two hours of my existence I'll never, ever get back. 

If you want to play a game that will make you want to break everything you own and burn the local Domino's to the ground like Mookie did in Do the Right Thing, then yeah, Avoid the Noid ought to be right up your alley. Just don't say I didn't warn you when you wind up chucking a remote control out the window or punching a hole through you laptop ... just like that sumbitch Noid would've wanted you to. 

Fuck EVERYBODY Running for Georgia's 6th Congressional District

Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter - representative politics is a load of hooey, and nothing demonstrates that better than this Tuesday's congressional runoff.

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo___X

I hate politics. But as boring and annoying as international geopoliticking may be, at least at has some cool stuff in it, like laser guided missiles and bacterial warfare. Unfortunately, you won't find robotic death machines and empty threats to invade rival nations to loot their precious natural resources in state-level politics, and you sure as hell won't see 'em in local level politics. Instead, you'll just hear a bunch of bickering and bitchin' about zoning ordinances and millage rates - i.e., topics about as interesting as the prospects of waxing your big toe. 

I should know that better than anyone, since I spent a couple of years covering local level government when I was a shittily paid reporter back in the day. There's no real way to adequately describe how boring it is to sit in city hall for six hours watching a whole bunch of cracka' motherfuckas' take turns debating the merits of increasing business license application fees and applying for block grants. I guess it's kinda' like sitting in a REALLY boring church service, except worse because at least at church you get some songs and if you're lucky, a wafer and a cup of juice. But when it comes to the great secular worship service, the only thing you get is uncomfortable seating and so much hot air, you kinda' want to run your hands underneath the podium to dry 'em off. 

Which brings us to my home state's 6th congressional district runoff - i.e., the most annoying fucking thing that's happened in Atlanta all year, and considering that also includes the time traffic was slowed to a crawl for two months because a crackhead set Interstate 85 on fire, that's saying a lot. 

Here's what you need to know about the state's 6th congressional district (and trust me, there ain't a whole lot for you to learn.) It encompasses a swath of about 700,000 people over a suspiciously arbitrary sliver of four different counties. The district is overwhelmingly white (about 72 percent of the total populace is mayonnaise colored) and stinkin' rich (the average household income is $72,000 - the average for the rest of Georgia is just $50,000.) Since 2000, the district has been more or less owned by Republicans, with Johnny Isaakson (now one of Georgia's U.S. Senators) and Tom Price (now the U.S. Health Secretary) being the only two men to represent the district over the last 16 years.

So, yeah, basically, it's been totally unwinnable RINO territory for liberals. That is, until this year, when this young up-and-comer named Jon Ossoff entered the race as a democratic challenger and actually won 48 percent of the vote - thus, facilitating a runoff against leading republican challenger Karen Handel on June 20. 

We'll get back to the specific candidates in just a bit. But first, we've got to talk about the national resonance of this particular election, which is apparently is so strategically important that even the fuckin' President of the United States is tweeting about it. 

Now, it's kinda funny that nobody gave a shit about the 6th district until recently. Remember, I lived and worked in the damn place for the better part of a decade, and nobody anywhere considered it a nationally significant congressional district. But all of a sudden, the fact that a dimmicrat might actually win the whole kit and caboodle has all them politicos in D.C. in a tizzy. After all, this is solid red clay Republican soil, and the idea of some lanky liberal coming in there and wresting the territory away from the conservatives just HAS to be a proxy referendum on Trump and a sign that the rural hoi polli are finally shying away from the G.O.P., right? 

Don't believe the narrative, kids. The way the national media has spun it, you'd think Georgia's 6th congressional district was home to NOTHING but MAGA-hat-wearing N.R.A. members with 17 different rebel flags on their trucks. Well, take it from somebody whose actually paid taxes in the district - that ain't the kind of "deep south" we're talking about here. 

Georgia's 6th district is basically a lily-white suburban stronghold, predominantly populated by out-of-region transplants. These aren't guys named Clem and Cletus who work on trucks for a living and spit tobacco on their kitchen floor. The aggregate 6th district voter is some guy named Chad or Gerald, who works as a financial planner or I.T. specialist for one of them big tech firms in Atlanta. He drives an Audi, he has 2.3 kids, and he was probably born in Pennsylvania or New Jersey. If by some chance he actually was born in the region, he almost certainly went to a big name SEC school and his family's wealth can probably be tied to owning a plantation at some point in their bloodline. Yes, he's more likely to vote republican than democrat, but he's anything but a populist. He's a firm believer in status quo, establishment conservative politics and he probably jacks off thinking about open trade and globalization when his wife is shopping at the latest and greatest "mixed use development" shopping behemoth. He probably doesn't own a gun, but he's in bed with Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and the rest of their ilk because they'll keep his taxes relatively low and provide him plenty of opportunities to offshore or outsource jobs to guys named Habib instead of paying a local worker to do the same job at double the cost. 

So, in other words, most of the voters in the district are what we would call "elitists." They've got money, they've got wealth, they've got retirement plans and they're every bit as entitled and class-conscious as your average first-year liberal arts college social justice warrior. In that, it makes sense that so many of 'em would jump ship from the post-Trump G.O.P. and its populism uber alles message to the dimmicrats, whose anti-economic-nationalism platform is actually more attuned to their own financial wants than the republicans.

Then again, you might be wondering how some scrawny, Jewish, 30-year-old kid with a Brillo Pad haircut who's never held any kind of public office before could have ever been catapulted to take over Georgia's 6th congressional to being with. Well, there's a simple answer for that one: because a whole hell of a lot of democrats from out of Georgia are bankrolling him.

As in, the guy's received more than $8.3 million from liberal sympathizers, and just 5 percent of it came from in-state donors.  Irony of ironies, he doesn't even live in Georgia's 6th district and not only did he attend college out of state, he attended it out of country at the London School of Economics. 

Basically, he's the very definition of a neo-carpetbagger. He's LITERALLY being funded by democratic elites from the northeast and west coast to impose their political ideals on Georgia's native born (you know, the few left in the district who haven't been displaced by U.N.-approved ethnic cleansing "resettlement projects" and socially-engineered migration "cultural enrichment" programs.) His campaign is basically a putsch to enforce alien rule on a nominally sovereign community simply for the sake of bolstering the dimmicrats' voting power in congress. He has no idea what the needs of the community are and he doesn't care. He's just there as a liberal puppet, another warm ass in a seat in D.C. to help the dimmicrat agenda.

It's not surprising the attack ads against him have focused on that - something he hasn't even tried to refute in his own campaign clips. In one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life, one anti-Ossoff ad brilliantly shows a whole bunch of stereotypical San Fran liberals talking at length about how happy they are to see Ossoff running in Georgia, complete with hippie chicks talking about how glad they are to see military spending cut because, in her words, "ISIS is overrated." There's also another good 'un showing Ossoff dressed up like Han Solo in college that busts his balls so hard that it's pretty much a guarantee that he's going to be pissing dust for the rest of his life. Needless to say, you need to see both of these things right fucking now:

The problem is, his opponent - 55-year-old, approximately 300-pound MIL-to-definitely-not-F Karen Handel - is every bit is annoying and full of dookie. If Ossoff is your dime-a-dozen liberal turd, Handel is the all-too-predictable republican counter-shit in the other stall that's just as damn stanky. 

Although Handel does have some experience in public office, it's not like her track record is that impressive. She's been Georgia's secretary of state and a member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, and before that, she was a veep of public policy for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure "charity" until they decided to start giving money to Planned Parenthood (she even wrote a book about it, but fuck it, nobody's got time to slog through that mess.) She also ran for the U.S. Senate in 2014 but (obviously) lost. She also ran for governor in 2010, but lost there, too. Basically, Handel is a bitch that loses a lot, but because she has kind of a brand name, the Republicans keep propping her up as *their-girl*. So basically, she's kinda' like John McCain, except I'd prolly have an easier time fucking him than her wrinkled, flabby, whale-hipped ass. 

As for the Ossoff counter-attack, they're basically saying she's a self-centered fat whore who spends taxpayer dollars on chairs and her own SUV and that she would - and this is a direct quote from one of the commercials - "fit right in in Washington." Of course, the Ossoff campaign never mulled the idea that if D.C. is a haven for self-serving turdwads, what does it mean when THEIR candidate wants to go there so much - but hey, by now, nobody expects consistency or logic in politics, especially down here in Georgia. 

Now right here I could give you a quick rundown on where the two candidates stand on issues like health care, military spending and the economy, but a.) you already know what they're going to think based on their political affiliations and b.) like you'd give a fuck, anyway. I'd like to say one of them is the lesser of two evils, but here, each candidate is especially annoying and irritating in their own unique way. Ossoff is literally there just to shoot down everything the Republicans propose in Congress (and possibly social engineer even more native Georgian jobs out of the market to appease his liberal bed buddies), and Handel is just a hammy Republican broad that brings nothing to the table and is going to swallow whatever crap the rest of the Republicans in Congress shat out without ever giving it a second guess.

The sad thing you realize with this runoff is that the concerns of the people who actually live in the area the candidates are representing is literally the least important thing in the minds of either Ossoff the Jack-Off or Karen (the floor can barely) Handel (her weight anymore.) This isn't about giving native Georgians their voice in federal policymaking, it's about the republicunts and demofags marching into our backyard and shoving these two dildo queens in front of us and telling us we need to vote for one of 'em because they'll help carry the red or blue flag of the Great Ongoing Political Culture War in that big old Thunderdome in D.C.

I know it's a drum I've been banging for a long time, but shouldn't we be doing shit truly democratically instead of this Mandaean "representative" bull crap? There's 700,000 people currently residing in Georgia's 6th district, and instead of leaving it up to old Brillo-pad-head or Thunder-thighs, why can't they directly vote in federal referendums? Shit, we don't even need senators or congressmen - every month, we'll just march on down to the polling precinct and pick apart the a'la carte legislative issues and let it come down to good old fashioned majority rules democracy. If we just have to have senators and congresspeople, at least limit their ability to make decisions. Sure, we'll vote you in to make laws on our behalf, but before any of that shit is official let the VERY PEOPLE YOU ARE REPRESENTING have the final say on what Capitol Hill is pushing through the sausage factory.

Representative democracy is, has and always will be a crock of shit, whether it's on the federal, state or local level. It ensures that party politics will always trump regional need, effectively signing away citizens' rights to lobby for their own interests. What we call "democracy" in the States is hardly anything more than an electoral war between dueling oligarchies, and nothing demonstrates the abject sadness of the system more than the two twats duking it out for control of Georgia's 6th district. 

So fuck Jon Ossoff, fuck Karen Handel, fuck everybody who's voting for either one of them and double fuck anybody who actually gave them campaign contributions. Neither Turd A nor Turd B is truly going to represent the hearts and minds of the people, and at the end of the day, absolutely nobody - regardless of their status as "elected official" - should be considered a proxy for your own voice.

Nobody - not no liberal democrat Jew or no fat ass republican she-beast - should lay claim to representing you on anything, and in that, no matter who wins on June 20, Georgia's 6th is hosed. Like thermonuclear war or Tic-Tac-Toe, the only responsible choice on Tuesday is to not vote at all, and if you run into anybody wearing one of those stupid "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker, you have the Constitutional right to sock their shirt over their head and give 'em a Terry Funk piledriver. 

Every ballot cast - whether it's for a municipal city council seat or President of the goddamn United States - is a vote for politics as is and a ringing endorsement for elitism uber alles. "Representative democracy" is a scam, a scheme, a ruse and a shakedown, and anybody who's proud to forfeit their right to home rule direct democracy in order to promote some counterfeit political savior and his or her dogmatic devotion to the party line ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And the fact that human sanitary napkins like Ossoff and Handel are deemed good enough to represent the public in federal policymaking should tell you all you need to know about the utter futility of politics in these United States, don't it?