This past Christmas holiday, my apartment was extremely well-stocked with liquor--even more so than usual, which is saying something. The reason? My roommate The Rev has a group of friends and family that were smart enough to know what he REALLY wanted for Christmas... which is to say that almost all of them bought him bottles of hard core liquor. It was an interesting contrast to what I received for Christmas, which was JACK FUCKING SQUAT. It's telling, wouldn't you say? In no uncertain terms, his family is telling him that he's a full-blown alcoholic, while my family is telling me that I'm a miserable piece of shit. But I must say, in my family's defense--they never know if I'm even gonna show up on Christmas. I usually don't, to be honest...

Anyway, one such bottle of liquor just happened to be some fancy, expensive tequila. Upon seeing this bottle in the liquor cabinet, I eyed it warily. I do NOT like tequila, not one bit. It brings back some less-than-fond memories of childhood, when me and my cousins filled a gallon jug to the brim with 50% tequila... and 50% cherry Kool-Aid... then proceeded to pour that unholy concoction down our underage gullets. I had fun for roughly an hour, but before too long I was hurling like a puke geyser. So I guess you could say that I still carry a bit of a grudge towards tequila after THAT little incident. After all, I'm not very good at puking... I'm not a supermodel.

The thing is, The Rev's bottle of tequila seems to be mysteriously evaporating. Just last week, he peered into the bottle and remarked "Who's been drinking the fucking tequila?" Of course he eyed me suspiciously, and with good cause. Knowing what a lush I am, he wouldn't put it past me to pull a Kitty Dukakis and down a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "I don't know," I said, shrugging grandly. "You know that I don't drink that shit." I'm not sure if he believed me or not, but he dropped it after that. I suppose the thought crossed his mind that he may have, in fact, drank it himself during one of his many benders and just doesn't remember doing so. Or maybe my cat Monte is a LOT sneakier than I give him credit for, that furry, orange bastard...

A few days later, it happened again. "What the fuck??" he bellowed from the kitchen. "What's happening to this shit?" Indeed, the tequila bottle seemed even lower in volume than before. Now it really started bothering us--was a friend of ours the tequila bandit? Was one of us sleepwalking or something? Were we being visited by an alcoholic ghost that's too cheap to get his own shit? I'm not sure, but there was something odd about this particular bottle of tequila. It intrigued me. In fact, it intrigued me SO much that I decided to call a truce in my lifelong war with tequila and mix myself a drink...

Unfortunately (and strangely), the ONLY mixer I had in the apartment was... you guessed it... fucking Kool-Aid. The fates were obviously trying to tell me something, but I guess I'm a moron because I mixed it anyway.

BLEAHHH!!! The only way I can describe the drink I made is to say it tasted like Kool-Aid made using a teabag consisting of dirty, smelly socks and warm goat piss. Out of spite, I forced myself to finish it--but I narrowly avoided becoming "Old Faithful" once again and spewing out vomit at an alarming rate. Gads, that shit tasted NASTY.

So the bottle returned to the liquor cabinet, where it continues to mysteriously evaporate. All I can say is, if it IS a ghost doing this, I wish he'd party with us sometime. And I hope he likes my taste in pornography, which consists mainly of HOT GIRL ON GIRL action! Lord knows he's seen plenty of that hanging around THIS apartment.

THE MAURY POVICH SHOW KICKS ASS
I've never been big on talk shows. Truthfully, I find them incredibly irritating. Most of the people that go on these shows are so pathetic, they make my life look great in comparison. I fucking HATED that dumb broad Jenny Jones and literally had a celebration when I found out her dumbass show got canceled. (Although the pervert in me does somewhat miss the "My Teen Daughter Dresses Too Sexy!" episodes.) As for Jerry Springer, I would have to admit that it's entertaining in its own sleazy way. But it's obviously staged--I mean, even with my dim view of humanity, I find it difficult to believe that his hillbilly guests could be THAT stupid and useless. The Springer program has literally become the pro wrestling of talk shows, complete with staged fights and everything... ("Stay away from my man, bitch!!!" *POW!*)

That's why I'm such a big fan of The Maury Povich Show. His show is every bit as sleazy and stupid as the other ones, but Maury has an ace up his sleeve--he's found a foolproof formula that works every single time. Much like Sally Jessy Raphael, who used to make me laugh my ass off with her "Send My Wild Teen To Boot Camp!" shows, Maury has found a niche of his own... paternity test episodes. Sweet Jesus, are these shows hilarious or what?

"YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER!"
If you've never seen the Povich show, the formula goes like this; the scene opens with a woman sitting next to Maury on the stage. This woman is usually quite skanky, and packs an ass that's roughly the size of a Volkswagen. More than likely, the woman is sobbing and clutching some kleenex while Maury pretends to be sensitive. The show then falls into the same, predictable pattern;

Woman claims the man backstage is the father of her bastard child, yet he denies it. A picture of said child appears on the big screen, which illicits a chorus of "AWWWW's" from the deviant idiots in the studio audience. Woman claims that she is "110% sure" that the accused man is the father, after which a split screen image appears with pictures of the child's and the man's faces side by side. "Look at his lips!" the woman bellows. "And his eyes! That's his baby! They even have the same little penis!" At this point, the studio audience bursts into applause. Woman continues her rant, complaining how the man "doesn't do nuthin" for her child and how he needs to "face up to his responsibility" and "start being a man." For some reason, the audience applauds again.

A video tape of the accused man is run on the big screen. He claims that he is, in fact, "1000% positive" that he's not the father because "she's a slut and a ho." Besides, the two of them "only had sex a couple of times" and the baby "doesn't look nuthin" like him, anyway. Furthermore, the man states, she needs to "leave me the hell alone and get out of my life!"

Man is brought on onstage as the audience boos him loudly. Woman jumps up from her seat, screaming and crying. "How you gonna say that ain't yo baby??" she shrieks. "He look just like you! He do! He do!" Man tells her to shut up, and says he regrets sleeping with her "nasty ass" in the first place. He then boasts about how he "takes care of all of my kids" but HER baby can't be his because she "slept with three of my boys." Woman continues to seethe with righteous indignation and claims that he MUST be the father because "I ain't even been with no one else."

Maury produces an envelope which contains the results of the paternity test. In a very dramatic fashion, he looks down at the paper and announces "In the case of six month old Leon, Andre...you are NOT the father." Woman springs from her seat, having the nerve to look both shocked and surprised. Man leaps several feet into the air, hooting and hollering "I told you! Not mine! Not mine!" He then gleefully points at woman and begins shouting "Yo a ho! You a ho!" Woman buries her face in her hands and runs backstage, sobbing uncontrollably. Meanwhile, man does victory lap around the stage and slaps hands with his homies in the studio audience. Maury finds woman backstage and offers to "help you in any way that we can." Several weeks later, the woman appears on the show with another man (or maybe several men) and makes new accusations. We start again at step #1.

Now I know what you're thinking--it's sleazy. It's predictable. But I'll tell you something... it's fucking funny. I've seen at least fifty of these episodes, which always have titles like "I Slept With Four Men... Who Is My Baby's Daddy?" and "I'll Prove You Fathered My Child!" And you know what? They NEVER get tiresome, especially when Maury throws a "lie detector" test into the mix. (I guess most of the brain dead viewers would be baffled by the word "polygraph".) I love watching the men fail the polygraph tests, I love watching the women scream and cry, and I love watching Maury preside over all of the shenanigans, pretending like he's actually producing a show of substance.

If you haven't witnessed this train wreck, I highly recommend that you check it out. In fact, it's coming on in a few minutes... and according to the TV Guide, today's topic is "I Need To Know... Is My Son Having Sex With My Fiancee?"

Sounds like a winner to me!

-JTL

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