2006 Douchebag of the Year

There really isn't much to this. Below you will find a review of the weekly winners from 2006. (By review I mean that I cut-and-pasted the winners from the various weeks that I actually wrote something.) I will accept any comments as votes for one person in particular or separate nominations. I will announce a winner and my reasons later this week.

My criteria:
1. Just how stupid was the act committed?
2. Could common sense have prevented the action?
3. How hard did I laugh when I read it?
4. How much hatred for the person wells up from the deepest depths of my soul?

The nominees:

About 50 people in Bakersfield; From the city that brought us the monkey that tore off his former owner's testicles comes these fine specimens of the human race. They stole money from the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief funds. How? They worked for the Red Cross helping hurricane victims file for financial relief and just put their names and the names of some of their friends and family in the hopper. This brings up two questions? (1)What kind of douchebag steals money from the Red Cross? (2) Are there really people in Bakersfield smart enough to come up with this plan? A suitable punishment for these people should be having to live in Bakersfield for the rest of their lives.

Pat Robertson: I really should re-name this award the Pat Robertson Honorary Douchebag of the Week with all of the comedy that comes from this guy. First, he blames the 9-11 attacks on abortion, homosexuals and the ACLU (OK, he really just agreed with Falwell). Then he calls for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez because Venezuela was a source of Communism and extremist Muslims. Well, I could go on forever or I could just show you this link, which will guide you to six pages of wonderful Pat Robertson quotes. In any case, this time he has decided that Ariel Sharon is to blame for his own stroke because he gave away God's land. Now, that is pretty bad, but he went on to say that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was "the same thing." Here is where I take the bigger issue. I was a freshman in college when Rabin was assassinated. This guy started a major movement towards peace between Israel and Palestine, signed a peace treaty with Jordan, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. My guess is this guy was in pretty freakin' good with God (even though he was surely going to hell since he didn't believe in Jesus - that's a joke). I, for one, blame the assassination on the asshole who shot him, thus bringing another decade of hate and war to the region. Pat Robertson, I think you need to meet up with Rev. Latham and blow eachother.

Suzy Collins: Lots of people in recent history have cheated on their significant other and lots of them have been caught. Ms. Collins, however, was caught when her boyfriend's bird did its best impression of her calling the other man. If the "I love you Gary" wasn't enough, the bird began regularly chirping "hiya Gary" when the phone rang. Also, when he turned off the lights the bird squawked "Oh yeah Gary, come get me big boy, oh yeah, right there, harder! harder! Call me Xena! Call me Princess Di" OK, I made the last part up, but the rest is true. What a douchebagette.

Curtis Gokey: Gokey is suing the city of Lodi because one of their workers backed a city truck into Gokey's truck. Wait for it... Who was driving the truck? Curtis was. This dumbass backed his city truck into his own personal truck and wants the city to pay for it. Well, the city, which normally just pays for damages caused by its workers, is fighting this douchebag. I think they need to fire his ass as well. Seriously, does he really think they'll just say "OK, we'll pay you for your own fuckup?" This guy should move to Bakersfield so he can fit in better.

Comedic Douchbag of the Week: Sylvester Williams was arrested for selling crack. Nothing unusual about that. The comedy is in how they caught him. Well, it turns out that he was a very enterprising crack dealer and so he had made some business cards that ended up in the hands of the police, who called in an order and arrested him. The slogan on his business card (and my new life mantra): "For a quick hit on time call the boss." I think he was sampling the product a little too much.

Asshole Douchebag of the Week: Bill Handel decided last week that the death of a few hundred Muslims making a traditional pilgrimage would be a good subject for a comedy bit. He created a fake traffic report about the stampeding crowd that ended up in the death of 363 people. When the Council of American Islamic Relations demanded an apology, he responded that he would apologize only if CAIR denounced terrorism, recognized Israel's right to exist, and deny any connections to terrorist groups. Where's the connection there? I have no idea. He's done it before too. In 2004 he said that Muslims don't bathe, hate Jews, and have sex with animals. How is this ass-clown still on the radio? I guess any station willing to put Dr. Laura on the air is willing to accept and racist asshole.

Michael Garibay: For the winner we travel back to Orlando. (How can the same city that hosts Disneyworld also host so many douchebags?) Mr. Garibay was arrested for trying to sell cocaine to a police officer. The catch is, this officer was not part of some undercover operation to bust drug dealers. He was in uniform, on patrol, and sitting in his police car. Drugs are bad.

Vanessa Jackson: (nominated by Pete at Life Outside the Rat Race). What is the definition of a bad parent? How about feeding your kids from the same bowl everyday, only feeding them water on some nights, not feeding them at all on other nights, or beating them with shoes when they try to get food. Maybe you force them to sit on the stairs all day, then keep them awake at all hours, also forcing them to stay in bed until after noon. Then you don't let them outside. Don't take them to a doctor despite the fact that the kids are grossly malnourished. All of this while your other kids live normal lives. This is exactly what Vanessa Jackson and her now dead husband did to four of the foster children they had. Jackson, along with her biological children, deny that these stories are true, but the skinny-ass kids they found digging in the garbage say otherwise. I almost feel bad putting this lady in the same category with the other douchebags.

Ann Coulter: You would think that I am nailing this psycho for something she said about politics, but I am not. Unfortunately, Ann ventured into the world of Oscar predictions. Warning: If you are black, Asian, gay, transgender, any combination thereof (yes, she uses the term "gaysian"), or just a human being with a conscience, you may be offended by what she wrote. For example, she said Crash would not win because "Hollywood feels it has done enough for the blacks." and "Hollywood can never do enough for the gays." She also quotes the award's namesake by saying that "homosexuality has gone from 'the love that dare not speak its name' to 'the love that won't shut up.'" No, really. Then she suggests titles to movies that will follow the Brokeback gay cowboy theme: "Westward Homo," "The Magnificent, Fabulous Seven," "Gunfight at the K-Y Corral" and "How West Hollywood was Won." She correctly predicted that Hoffman would win, reasoning that they couldn't give everything to Brokeback but also saying that "at least Truman Capote was gay." There are so many more gems in there including her suggestion that Al-Jazeera gave a 4 1/2 pipe-bombs rating to a documentary about suicide bombers. By the way, she makes all of these comments after having admitted to not having seen any of these movies. Congratulations Ann Coulter, you are an absolute fucking douchebag.

The winner is the person or people that broke into my truck last night while I was eating dinner at Green Street. They took 3 bags after smashing my window. One bag had an iPod and my digital camera. That stuff is expensive, but easily replaceable. However, in the other bag was the free loot that I got from the Vroman's Book Bus, which was all books and a few trinkets. The other bag had my school work (including the gradesheets for my students' notebooks which took me 3+ hours to do), my planbook, the sample CDs from the book publishers, my paycheck, my $80 UCLA textbook, my checkbook, and really more things of almost no value to them. So I am sure these cunts (yeah, I said it) are enjoying the new digital camera and iPod while all of the stuff that I can't replace is in the garbage. So, thanks...you complete fucking douchebags.

Who else, but our beloved Pat Robertson. What for? Well, it turns out that our dear friend Pat claims that he can leg-press 2000 pounds. I'm not kidding. Check the link. Look, I will rightfully claim that I have very strong legs. When at the gym, I generally will do sets of leg presses at around 200+ pounds. The record for the leg press at Florida State is 665 pounds. So this guy must be full of crap. How does he do it? By drinking a protein shake. No, seriously.


Anybody who buys this video game: Are you familiar with the "Left Behind" series of books? If not, it is a long-running series of books written at the 5th grade level telling an completely unrealistic story of the biblical end-of-the-world. The authors are taking in cash hand over fist while uneducated tremble in fear that they are not going to disappear when Jesus comes back and be "left behind." In any case, they are now making a video game. Not just any video game, but a violent video game. Yes, very Christian of you. According to the description, players will be armed for a military-style crusade to "convert people" by blasting them to pieces. I'm hoping that they go really biblical and have crucifixions, people skinned alive, turn people into salt, feed them to the lions, etc. However, they are probably not that creative.

I don't have time for a list of nominees, but a winner jumped out to me today while watching the morning news.

If you are not aware, the mayor of Los Angeles is trying to take over the LA Unified School District as part of his plan to reform and improve the schools. Although I won't come to the defense of the LAUSD bureaucracy 100% on this issue, Mayor Villaraigosa has showed just how much he cares about the real issue here. At a "town hall" meeting last night about AB1381, the Assembly Bill that would essentially give him the ability to take over LA schools, he left early. Parents and interested parties were left without the ear of the one man that seeks to gain a huge amount of power from this deal. I think that is just what he wants: more power.


Here's another example of just how concerned Villaraigosa is with the views of the people. Just 3 hours before a scheduled attendance at a San Fernando City Council meeting he cancels because he and his people were not prepared for a public meeting. Earth to douchebag - all City Council meetings in this state are public. ITS THE LAW! Do you not know the law? Maybe you should learn the law before you ditch the people of LA for your attempt at running for governor next time around. That is what I think the real issue is. Believe it or not, LA schools are achieving great success and growth. I think there are dedicated teachers and support staff that make this happen. My school has seen incredible growth in the time that I've been there. I think Villaraigosa wants to take over, get credit for this success, and then run for governor.

What really makes him a douchebag, though, is this article. Apparently he makes it a habit of leaving things early and being a dick. The article discusses this memo that got out of the mayor's office to the LA Times last week. There are very strict rules about being an aide to the mayor: always be within his line of sight, seat him near an exit, have a backup exit plan, and always have a packet of Listerine breath strips are among the requirements. Just like a freakin' rock star. I thought this guy played himself off like a man of the people, but to me he looks like a douchebag.

Peter McBride. Now, I am not one to be very critical of a person's reason for getting a tattoo. You see, I have two yellow stars inked on my right arm - one for each of the L.A. Galaxy's MLS Cup titles. However, I feel that my criticism of this guy is pretty fair. You see, he was in the tattoo parlor and the guy in front of him was wearing a polo shirt, so Peter got the Polo horse logo tattooed on his chest where it would be if he was wearing a Polo shirt. I wish it was still PC to call stupid things gay, because this would completely qualify.

Sen. George Allen: The Virginia Senator was going after one of the volunteer's for his opponent and started calling him "macaca" which is basically a racial slur (like macaque - a type of monkey) that is more common in France. Allen speaks French. D'oh! It gets better. His first excuse? Its not a real word, I just made it up. Except you speak French and your mother is French Tunisian. Excuse #2? We call him mohawk, I messed it up. Yeah, they sound alike. And he said it twice. Next? Today's excuse was that it was a combination of "mohawk" and "caca" thus calling him a shithead. Here's the reality. Allen used to keep a Confederate flag in his office - with a noose next to it, he opposed a state recognition of Martin Luther King Day, and wanted a Confederate History Month. Nice try douchebag.
(Note: a lot of this material on George Allen comes from The Carpetbagger Report. Go read, its funny.)

I guess it was going to happen sooner or later, but my Douchebag of the Week is our favorite Scientologist*, Tom Cruise. After 14 years of working together, Paramount has decided to drop Crazy Tommy from their lineup due to his off-screen behavior. What could they possibly mean? His harassment of Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants? Jumping on Oprah's couch? Talking shit too Matt Lauer? His freakishly secretive child? The "kidnapping" of Katie Holmes? I'm not sure why Paramount is so worried. Maybe its because millions of people (like me) will no longer go to any movie with Tom Cruise in it because he's a complete spaz and a total douchebag.

(* Note: to any Scientologists that read this - I love Scientology and I don't think that you're crazy so please don't send your minions after me)

Ted Stevens: In my last post I talked about the "secret hold" being placed on the bill that would create a database of federal "pork barrel" spending. I suspected that it was Ted Stevens and it turns out I was right (for once - my record was tarnished by my World Cup predictions). Why did he place the hold? According to him, he needed to do a cost-benefit analysis. The database would have cost $15 million. Stevens once helped pass spending that gave $223 million to build a bridge in Alaska joining a town of 50 to a "city" of about 8,000. I think the only analysis going on was analyzing how fucked he is going to be once people see how much pork he produces.

Bus driver: So this guy (I assume) tells the black students to go to the back of the school bus because the front is for whites. No, I'm not going back to the 50s or 60s for this winner. This happened last month in Shreveport. If you've read this blog for a while you've heard me talk about the South before, and I'll repeat it: there is nothing good about the South. Why are they still a part of our country? (If you're from the South, I'm just messing around. I love the South. So don't send a lynch mob or the Klan after me).

Our government: First, they have decided that there are no more hungry people in the U.S. Those same people now face "very low food security." I guess people with cancer are facing "low cell-growth control" and people with AIDS are fighting "low immune security". Let's face the facts. We spend a lot of money on things other than food for starving people. Only our current government would try to hide it. Second, there has been a new low set in the controversy over torture. The new argument is that when our government tortures a suspect they are then aware of a top secret piece of information. Therefore, we can use more torture to make sure that they don't talk about being tortured. In other words: they're pretty much fucked either way. How do they get away with this type of shit? Oh, right. They are in charge of their own accountability.

James Pacenza: IBM fired Jimmy for going on sex-chats while at work. Although this seems like an obvious move, its not so cut-and-dried. He is now suing IBM because he was addicted to the internet and they did nothing to help him before they fired him.

Jim Rutz: The title of his article says it all: Soy is Making Kids Gay. Seriously. He wrote that. Here is a quote from the article that really defines his brilliance/douchebagness: "Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products." Again, let me clarify: he wrote that - not me.