WTF! My home state is using my hard earned tax money to recall license plates with the potenially offensive letters W-T-F on them. Seriously, here’s a news story. (the story also has a link to a wonderfully produced slide show that teaches parents that the letter p stands for parents.)

Why stop there? Why not just go ahead and ban the letter F? I mean it stands for FUCK doesn’t it? I don’t want my child seeing the letter F any more.  Cause if they see the letter F they may learn how to spell FUCK. We should ban C too. There’s several reasons for that letter to go away. How about B? A is out. D? Definitely D. Shit! We’ve got to get rid of S.  

My current car tag’s letters are XTK. What does that represent?  Xylophone Tit Kum or X-Box Twat Kock. Oh, my god my car’s a menace.

Letters are dangerous people. You better watch out for them.

Thank God George Carlin didn’t live to see this.

…who just passed away a few days ago, the Van Gogh-Goghs would like to present this essay from Inauguration Day 2001, because, um, it’s the only Robet Altman-related thing I think we have. Enjoy, and give our best to Abe Lincoln, Bob.

Why Did I Agree To Help Robert Altman Move?

by T. Mike

Oh, my aching back! Cripes! I can barely move! And my feet! Dear God are my dogs barking! This past weekend was one of the most miserable weekends of my life. For that was the weekend I helped famed movie director Robert Altman move. Robert Altman was as good as his word - he said he would move to France if George W. Bush became president. He’s a man of his word, you have to give him that- not like those flip-flopping Hollywood phonies Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger. They backpedaled immediately on leaving the country in the event of a Bush presidency. Wusses.

No, Robert Altman said he was Franceward bound, and that’s where he probably is right now, sipping Champagne on the Seine as bereted lackeys unpack his boxes. You know, in France they think he’s a genius. I mean, he IS a genius, and Americans also think he’s a genius, I just meant it was nice that he went to a country that also appreciates the work of a man who gave us 1993’s emotionally resonant Short Cuts.

We started with his matching set of sofa beds and it just got worse from there. He didn’t like closets, so most rooms had oak wardrobes. And I never saw so many credenzas in my life. Everywhere you turned, boom, there was a credenza.

Watching him pack things into boxes was just sad. He would just throw a bunch of random crap into a box and tape it up. He hadn’t gone through anything. I swear one box was full of old Beverly Hills phone books. I almost stopped talking about the brilliant casting of 1980’s Popeye to comment on it, but I decided I had better let it slide. I had already had an awkward moment when I asked, “When are the others getting here?” and he said, “What others?”

But I think the saddest moment came Saturday when we took a well deserved break to watch the inauguration on his heavy looking wide screen (Why couldn’t he have bought one was of those nice new light flat screens?!). He seemed to watch intently, especially when the camera cut to the crowd. His trained director’s eyes were scanning, scanning, scanning. But for what? Right after Bush took the oath, Altman seemed to sag visibly. I watched the great man for a second.

“Turn it off,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” I asked jokingly, “You were hoping he’d get assassinated right during the oath of office?”
Altman turned with a start and stared at me. I think I heard him mumble “maybe” under his breath, but then he jerked his head toward the Italian-marble-topped coffee table.
“Let’s get that on the truck,” he said. I let out a little sigh and grabbed one end.
“Hey! Lift with your legs, not your back, buddy” he said. If I had a nickel for every time he said that to me, I could have used the money to hire some professional movers. And I had a sneaking suspicion he kept calling me ‘buddy’ because he had forgotten my name.
“We’ll get the refrigerators next, buddy,” he said as I walked backward down the stairs with the coffee table.
“Quit pushing! Not so fast!” I said. Somehow I always ended up being the one to walk backwards, listening to his innumerable admonitions to watch the door frame. Why a big celebrity director was so adamant about wanting his security deposit back was beyond me. And why the hell did he need THREE refrigerators?

And why oh why did I have to bump into him in that Safeway? Why did I have to offer a few trenchant insights into the elegiac americana of his epic 1975 work, Nashville, that got us talking? Why did I tell him 1999’s Cookie’s Fortune was undeservedly underrated? Why, oh why oh why did I agree to help him move? What the hell was I thinking? I guess I was just overwhelmed by his star power - I mean, the guy directed M*A*S*H (1970), the AFI number 7 American film comedy of all time! But who knew he would own so many heavy, heavy things? I thought it would be all movie posters and maybe a couple of Oscars or something. Throw ‘em in a box, throw ‘em in the truck, and boom! It’s beer time! How wrong I was. How very, very wrong.

And finally, my back aching, my muscles sore, my shirt soaked with sweat, and after trying to make small talk by praising his early films Countdown (1968) and That Cold Day in the Park (1969), what do you think he did? Did he say “Great job, pizza’s on me?” Pfft! No.

Avoiding my gaze, he muttered “thanks,” and said, “Look me up if you ever get to Paris, buddy,” as he hustled me out, DELIBERATELY not giving me his new address. I didn’t push it cause I was ready to get the hell out of there. But… no beer, no pizza - I mean, those things are just common courtesy - it’s understood that at the end of a move there will be beer and pizza.

I pity the poor frogs he hornswoggles into helping him move into his new place in France. God as my witness, I will never help Robert Altman move again. I don’t care if Hitler gets elected president.

Hello I’m Charon. You might know me as Pluto’s “moon.” I’ve remained silent in the planet/not-a-planet controversy regarding Pluto, but I can remain silent no longer. The International Astronomical Union has decided to demote my life partner Pluto and take away his status as a planet. This blatant, divisive, and cruel discrimination can not stand.

Pluto and I are no strangers to controversy. Our very discovery was controversial. Percival Lowell’s outer-solar system witch hunt first outed us in 1930 due to the public’s panic about a supposed gravitational “influence” over Neptune. Well, now the truth is out there- our supposed “influence” on Neptune is minimal, people: minimal. Neptune is his own planet, and he lives his own life. As for us, we could live with the strange looks and being snubbed by space probes. But this time the astronomy establishment has crafted an arbitrary definition of “planet” simply to exclude Pluto. This is discrimination at its worst.

Am I not a planet? Do I not orbit the Sun? Am I not rounded by the gravity of my own mass? What more could you want? Yes, our orbit has been described as “eccentric”– but I’m here to tell you that this is an astronomy codeword for “inferior.” You can dress it up in all the euphemisms you want, astronomy, but it is still the language of hate. It’s time we stood up and proudly proclaimed that our orbit isn’t eccentric- it’s QUEER!

Obviously, panicked, conservative astronomers no longer want Pluto and I in the list of planets where children would have to be taught about us and our lifestyle. By demoting us, they think they can sweep us under the rug, out of sight, and pretend that moons orbiting planets and planets orbiting suns in neat little ellipses in the same plane is the somehow the “natural” order of things, despite the reality of the universe.

What they find even worse is that I don’t orbit Pluto. And Pluto doesn’t orbit me. We orbit EACH OTHER. We are not a planet and moon, but a double planet! Our relationship is an EQUAL partnership, and it is this fact that so frightens the establishment. Our existence challenges the so-called “traditional values” of the planet-moon relationship where the moon is always in the inferior position, and “knows their place.”

It’s sad that the astronomy establishment sees our equality as a threat that must be suppressed. A threat so great they feel they must revoke our status as planet. The IAU will no longer legally recognize our partnership, and will deny such recognition to all future double planets, or even, “God forbid” triple planets. But we’re here, we’re queer, we’re Kuiper! And we’re not going anywhere- in fact, our numbers are growing. Sedna, Quaoar, Varuna, - sure our names may not be from classic Roman mythology, we may not have the topography and atmospheres the “establishment” says is proper, but we all orbit the same sun as you.

The IAU has chosen to discriminate against Pluto by assigning it a status separate from the “classical” planets, and calling it something other than “planet.” Separate is not equal. Especially when the separate status thrust upon us is “dwarf.” Dwarf? We’re not dwarfs- YOU, you the astronomers, are the dwarfs- dwarfed in spirit, dwarfed in mind, dwarfed in imagination. Your hide-bound, outdated, antiquated prejudices have left you unable to see that all planetary bodies are created equal. Your plutophobia sickens and disgusts me.

There’s no need for it to be like this. Dark matter is 90% of the universe; regular matter, the type of matter that makes up planetary stalwarts like Jupiter, Earth, and Mars–is the very same stuff that makes up Pluto, myself, and a whole host of bodies you’ve probably never even taken the time to be aware of. We’re all part of the same, precious 10%. And it’s high time we all saw that.

We all orbit one, solitary star. Let’s try to remember that.