The Increasingly Slight Adjustments of Johnny Malloy: “In Which a New Year Occurs and Things Change Ever So Slightly”

Happy 2012 everyone! Or as the Mayans used to say: “Dun dun duuuuuuuun!”

By now all of your new year resolutions have probably already been broken, shattered into little pieces of failed self-improvement gone awry. You’ve already stopped going to the gym. You’re food related “cheat day” turned into an all out binge where you wound up in bed with a cake feeling just awful (and bed bugs, you probably got bed bugs too). You’ve already stopped trying to do someone a kindness every day because people just don’t appreciate it and no one ever waves “Thanks” when you let them make a left turn, and it’s hard to make most left turns, and I’m acknowledging that and trying to help them and half the time they’re on their frickin’ phone and – uhhh! You’ve also probably stopped trying not to fly off the handle so easily, blindly shifting from a third to first person point of view mid-sentence. Oops.

At this point in the year you’ve probably came to the same conclusion you came to all those other years: You can’t change who you are.

Oh sure, you can tweak who you are a little, gradually over time, but it’s not likely you’ll ring in the new year by feeling radically different inside. For example: You won’t change from a cat person to a dog person overnight. You won’t suddenly like dogs. You won’t want to get one. You won’t suddenly find it fun to have an animal that can’t do practically anything without your help. You won’t suddenly want a pet that is (inexplicably) OK to smack around a bit because he hasn’t learned your rules about the couch yet. You won’t suddenly want to have to “deal” with a situation when the dog jumps all over a guest that is clearly not a dog person by halfheartedly telling them to stop saying ‘No. Stop. Johnny is trying to appraise that Fabergé egg and you’re all over him,” and then giving up rather quickly after the dog keeps doing it. You won’t suddenly like pee stains, dog hair, 6am walks, and your house smelling like the thing. Nope. I do not want a dog in 2012. It’s who I am.

I can try all I want to do yoga because it’s the only thing that’ll make me not have a weird looking, sloppy midsection, but I’m going to quit relatively quick because it’s a lot of painful balancing, and I work a lot, so I’m gonna walk through the door at night, look at the couch or bed and say, “I choose you,” every time. Ours is a love for the ages.

Have I tried to change myself ever? Sure. I’ve wanted to start eating better lately, since I’m packing on a lot of pounds (not mass) and leaning forward while sitting down creates creases on my stomach. Not even symmetrical creases, it’s like a kid wildly took a red crayon to my stomach. That’s not pretty.

Yet, I know with a month or so of effort, I can get it back to normal (keep in mind my normal is still kind of chubby, but I never take my shirt off and I at least look skinny with clothes on, so it’s more so that when I get into the shower every day I don’t suck in my gut to trick myself into thinking all is well on the southern front.

See, I don’t want to be the ab-tacular guy from infomercials. I want to be a slightly better version of myself. That’s what we should all strive for. Being content is wrong, and I mean that seriously. I don’t think content is a practical way to be. If you’re content, you are fine with the status quo. You don’t want anything to change.

I think our lives should be (and sometimes are without us knowing) in a constant state of change. I’m not saying being content in a relationship is wrong. Being content in a relationship is a good thing. People equate being content with being bored, and that’s simply not true. Plus, that kind of comment usually comes from someone trying very hard to be “single and lovin’ it!”

Being content with who you are is the danger zone, because we’ve all got issues. And we’re always gonna have them. Me? I’m cranky on the inside. I try to balance this out by being absolutely 100 % agreeable on everything all the time outwardly. But I’m still cranky on the inside. So suddenly, and for no reason at all, I will take a stand and simply refuse to do something – usually, something really dumb and insignificant. That’s the cranky me coming out and taking over. My pissy Tyler Durden. Which means while I think I’m agreeable most times, I’m really about 50 / 50. So I work on that. I try to do things I want to do, and not do thing I don’t want to do. And when I have to do something I don’t want to do (say, for work) I try to suck it up and deal with it because that’s life and I’m lucky to have a job. But I’m human and that’s not always gonna work out. Those pills can only balance my chemicals so much.

I felt strongly about not making a “New Years Resolutions Don’t Work” blog because: 1) It’s been done to death 2) It’s been done to death by me. and 3) Why does there always have to be three reasons? I’ve only got two. Oh, I could’ve just said the first one and then said the second one and dispensed with the list altogether. Huh…makes sense.

I do think the more reasonable road to self improvement is done incrementally. We can’t change who we are, but we can tweak and tinker. So here’s to everybody fulfilling their New Year’s Tweaks.

Johnny Malloy will tinker with being slightly less agitated this year. However, for the sake of this blog, and the tone I adopt when writing it, it will not be shown in my writing. Blogs are not the place for even-handedness and rationale.

The 10 Most Annoying of 2011: Numbero Uno

We’ve come to the end of a long road you and I. The number one most annoying annoy-er to have ever annoyed is almost always anti-climactic. Mostly due to the fact that I often compile these lists as I go along, not really ranking them in any specific order. I did make an attempt this year, which is good since otherwise humanitarians might have been ranked higher than rape-apologists. Then where would we be? Well, we’d be here.

I am fully aware that my annual list always has its peaks and valleys. I’ll post a morose downer of a blog the day before Christmas, toss in two jokes, and hope you all forgive me through the magic of “Christmas spirit”. Maybe you’ll give me a pass because you all liked my “The War on Christmas That Wasn’t” blog. That blog was a hit, and easily the most read, especially from random passersby. Who knew tags and keywords work? I actually think I could post a blog that was essentially an inaccurate recipe for rice pudding, toss in a few tags like “jennifer lopez” “jamie foxx” and “sham-wow” and I’d easily have my most-read blog ever.

Still, I do go into these knowing I am going to name people somewhere in the list. Like this year I knew I was putting Tosh.0 in here somewhere. I knew Christopher Moltisanti angrily selling 1800 tequila would make it. And those Krochet Kids…ouh…how they unfathomably irked me for no reason! Hipsters must die (metaphorically)!

So when you get to number one on a list, of any list, chances are people will be disappointed with who or what you pick. I will tell you right now, this is the case for this list. However, in my defense, this is a setup for a whole new set of blogs with a completely different spin. Allow me to explain:

Every time I do these lists, about halfway through, I get the nagging sense that I am reaching to find people or things that annoy me. That isn’t to say that I am not annoyed by people who think there is a war on Christmas. No no. You people annoying the hell out of me. But if I was being honest, I’m not all that bothered by James Franco willfully trying to be a misunderstood artist.

I’d even rank him less-annoying than some of my honorable mention annoyers such as Meryl Streep, who is one of those actors with a very specific, rigid set of rules as to what is art, what is drivel, what we should like, and what we shouldn’t. Waving her hands, closing her eyes, and saying, “I don’t watch those movies!” when the old guy on 60 Minutes asks her about the proliferation of comic book movies. How dare people enjoy those when there are important movies like The Devil Wears Prada and Mama Mia to be experienced. Not to mention her false modesty has fallen to the side and she is basically adopting a “Yeah, I’m awesome at my craft and I’m going to be very aloof and snooty about it. Chardonnay!” attitude.

Any number of reality “stars” could’ve made the list, or even the editors that insert that “thud” sound and smash cut to someone looking offended in slow motion after someone else says something bland and inoffensive. Every “Real Housewife” reacts to anything anyone says with a Botox-y dun-dun-DUN face.

Honestly, there are a lot of things that annoy me, and that kids, is the point. We spend our lives being annoyed by things, hating things, disliking things. Hell, people literally want Facebook to have a Dislike button. How insanely negative is that? And the people that want it usually are insanely freaking negative to begin with. Can’t we all let the sun shine in a little?

Thus, my number one annoying people of 2011 are The Unpleasables. The people that are annoyed by everything. And yes, I see the incongruity of placing people that are annoyed by everything on a list I’ve made consisting of people that annoy me. But I’m here to tell you all I’m ready to break the cycle of negativity (or at the very least tone it down).

In the coming new year there will be a new blog category. It will be about things I like. I haven’t settled on the name yet. Perhaps “I’m Not Made of Stone”, or something simple such as “Like Like” (which ironically are my least favorite Legend of Zelda bad guys - they eat your shield! I just bought it! Like…like…c’mon!).

I’m not saying I’m not going to make cracks anymore. I’m just saying, it seems as if the only time I use the word “like” is when I’m about to launch into a silly (but wholly original) metaphor. I like things too.

I did a Google search on “things i like” and when I got to “things i” Google started listing the most popular “ends” to that search. “Things i hate” was higher than “things i like”. That seemed wrong, expected, but wrong.

So here’s to a new year! Mr. Cecil’s Blogatorium in 2012, love it? You’re gonna like it!

Johnny Malloy has spent the past year talking about people that annoy him and his unhappy experiences working in a liquor store. Next year he plans to pepper in musings about things he likes. Unexpected things he likes. We’re talking “Not changing that Air Supply song on the radio when you’re alone in the car” things. Mr. Cecil – making blogs…out of nothing at all…makin’ blogs…out of nothing at all…MAKIN’ BLOG…

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 2 – “We Are Penn State!”

When you are accused of heinous acts of child molestation, or if you look the other way, or don’t do everything in your power to stop it, you aren’t annoying – you’re inhuman. You literally fail as a human being. You may perhaps not have that intangible life force called a soul.  In order to have the ability (and it is an ability albeit a vile one) to have such little regard for another human life, you must also possess the mental fortitude to somehow live with yourself day in and day out. It’s simply unbelievable.

And somehow people like Jerry Sandusky, and to a lesser extent people like Joe Paterno, found a way to get up in the morning and go on with their lives. Lives, mind you, that were looked upon as inspirational. Sandusky, who adopted six children, took in countless others, and was perceived as a mentor to young boys, is charged with over 40 counts of sexual assault on eight boys over fifteen years (as of Nov 23rd). I believe the number to be much higher than eight. I believe that his adopted children suffered some forms of abuse. I believe his wife is either in an advanced state of blind denial (or is just as purely evil as he is).

Then there is Paterno, who looked the other way and in his words, should’ve done more in hindsight. I love when people say that “in hindsight” they made the wrong choice, because it means one thing: Now that I’ve been caught, I won’t even go so far as to take full responsibility for my actions (or in-actions). He’s had years, decades to have hindsight. Instead he chose to do what even good men so often do, and that is nothing.

I realize the 10 Most Annoying People of 2011 list is a light, puff-piece, snippet of writing that often invents ways to find fault with perfectly agreeable people (No hard feelings, Krochet Kids?), however, I do believe there is one group of people in this whole tragedy that can (when I’m going very easy on them) best be described as “annoying”.

The students. The supporters. The people that heard about this story and chose to latch on to the real issue, the true injustice: the firing of Joe Paterno. It wasn’t the forced sodomy, sexual assault, and disgusting abuse of power that angered these kids, it was the firing of their coach and unofficial mascot, 85 year old Joe Pa.

If there was an award for Completely Missing the Point it would go to these kids. Even Ashton Kutcher, blindly Tweeting that it was an injustice to fire Joe Paterno, retracted this statement when someone sat him down and suggested he read beyond the title of online articles. But these kids knew better. They knew why he was fired. Yet they arrived, en masse, to his house to support him and join him in a chant of “We are Penn State!”

I suppose these kids figured since even 9/11 only shut down football for a week, it was no big deal, and they were the unfortunate “victims” in all this. I remember watching the video of the kids outside Paterno’s house. The video of Joe outside talking to the kids. It was all about him. It was all about them.

I know that everyone knows someone that has suffered from sexual abuse, if they haven’t suffered from it themselves. It changes you. It breaks you in a way that quite often can’t be fixed. It robs you of your innocence and of your trust and faith in human decency. It makes you feel inside the same way you suspect (or wish) the perpetrator feels inside – if they have the capacity.

But of course that takes a backseat to self-centered college kids, self-important coaches, and football.

Johnny Malloy hates the fact that it seems like our nation, our world, is slowly losing it’s soul, so every once in a while I like to make a “no pressure” plea to my dozens of readers (there are dozens of you – DOZENS!) to let a little humanity creep in once in a while. For all my sarcastic blogs, I live my flawed life day to day with one goal in mind – to not hurt anyone. And if that’s not a gooey sentimental end to a blog posted the day before Christmas, I don’t know what is.

From all of us here at Mr Cecil’s Blogatorium, which is me, Johnny Malloy, and my online handle Mr. Cecil, “Happy Holidays!” (or) “Merry Christmas” (or) “Merry Nice-Long-Weekend!”

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 3 – Donald Trump

I am a natural born US citizen. I have a birth certificate from the state of Massachusetts, which is not only part of the original 13 colonies and the original 6 hockey teams, but also a commonwealth. This means I could be president.

Not only that, I talk like a presidential candidate. I often say a whole lot of nothin’ at length and in great superfluous detail…in this great country…AMERICA!

See? That was awesome. The way I mentioned this great nation of ours! America and I are best-ies! And I don’t care what people (socialists) say, our nation is number one! In pride. The best of the seven deadly sins. Lust being a close second. I have lust in my heart. So did Jimmy Carter.

I even have some intangible qualities that make me appealing to certain people, like my ability to raise only my left eyebrow in a super high arch that implies, ‘Someone is taking my photograph and I will not take it seriously,’ and ‘Sarcasm is afoot!’.

I am awkward and socially inept (Gerald Ford anyone?). I have the ability to effortlessly charm women, which annoys my wife to no end! Sorry babe, I’m just working the Kennedy (for skinny girls) and Clinton (for all the real girls with curves) mojo.

But more than anything, I can work a superlative into any conversation. Hell, every time I have a fight with my wife I tell her, “You always do [such-and-such],” which is the worst thing to do in an argument because the other person always takes it literally. ‘Really? I’ve never washed a dish? Really?’

While I use this tactic to poor effect, nobody sells everything they do as ‘the greatest’ like Donald Trump. Whether it’s his casinos, or his steaks, or his mattresses, or his abandoned presidential campaign, everything the man does is awesome. Because he said so.

Trump, when he was riding high in the polls earlier this year, decided he would appeal to the conspiracy-theory, * moderately racist (and some of you full-on racists too!) people by suggesting that our own President Obama was not born in the United States because he wouldn’t show us his birth certificate. Nevermind the fact that he did, any joker can do that, but where was the long-form birth certificate? Granted, I don’t know what a long-form birth certificate is, but I’m assuming it’s not the one we all have in our attics. What we he hiding? Who is the real Barack Obama? Did this labyrinth plot begin while he was still in his mother’s womb on the off chance he may some day make history and be president?

* Some may argue you can’t be moderately racist, and that’s true. When have I ever used words properly? It’s my shtick.

It has, for a long time now, been in our nature as a nation to not tell people to just stop being an idiot. Nobody around Michael Jackson ever took the time to say, “Mike, just stop bein’ weird.” And no one has ever told Donald Trump to stop being a jackass. Mostly because for Trump, it works.

People that don’t follow politics very well get a bug planted in their ear and they begin to believe and regurgitate things they’ve heard on TV. They might actually vote for Trump. He can run a business, he can run the country!

I can’t argue with that logic (except for the part where Trump goes bankrupt from time to time) especially since Obama had little experience running anything before we made him president and gave him the world’s first preemptive Nobel Peace Prize for things he’ll probably do in the future. (Side note: Here and on Facebook, I wrote “pre-emptive” today and spell check didn’t like the hyphen and suggested I change it to “pee-emptive”, which I assume is when you go to the bathroom before you leave the house even if you don’t have to…just in case)

Plus, it’s hard to get on the Trump hating bandwagon when his chief critic is Rosie O’Donnell. You kinda just want them to beat each other up in the press and stay out of it. It’s like, I agree with a lot of what she, or say Janeane Garofalo, is saying, I just hate the way they go about expressing it.

Yet, even now that he’s not running for president (most likely), Trump is hosting a Republican debate, which like, two people are showing up to. Newt “I Don’t Seem to Get It, Yet You People Don’t Seem to Care” Gingrich and Rick “Gay People Have Actual Cooties” Santorum. You may ask how logical it is to have Trump host a debate, but then again Gwen Ifill hosted the Vice Presidential debate between Palin and Biden after having just written “Obama: My Scrap Book Collage of Obama the Awesome” (actual title may vary) so I wouldn’t be surprised if an Independent party debate was hosted by musical artist Dawes.

You would think it’s stupid that a man that takes Celebrity Apprentice seriously should be in charge of the country. If you think that, clearly you haven’t been paying attention to society in the past fifteen years. The ability to not fire Gary Busey is something to respect. The gift to see past Meatloaf’s anger management issues and find something useful is refreshing, because when you think about it, there’s a little Meatloaf in all of us (even if it’s vegan).

Johnny Malloy hopes to one day appear on Celebrity Apprentice because he knows full well as long as he acts crazy and interesting he’ll stick around for at least most of the season. And I’m totally picking a fight with whomever they pluck out of Third Eye Blind for that season. I’ll accuse a band member of being high on crystal meth, but NBC will radio-edit it so it sounds like I’m saying “doing cray-malist”.

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 5 and 4 – James Franco and Daniel Tosh

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s when I start running out of time and have to start jamming two people into one blog post. Just like final exams it’s time to cram!

The 5th Most Annoying Person of 2011, so sayeth I, is a man who is a jack of all trades, a man who does a little bit of everything, sadly, mastering none of them. I of course mean movie actor, soap opera special guest star, Oscar host, student, artist, teacher, muse, architect, marine biologist, fifth Beatle, man whom that Carly Simon song was actually about, and Verizon customer service agent of the month James Franco.

James had a busy year. He started it out inexplicably reappearing on General Hospital (which is like entertaining a convict on death row, because you’re giving something with no hope some love even though it’s not gonna be around much longer) playing psycho-graffiti artist-killer-fanboy Franco. He followed that by hosting the Oscars with his female antithesis, Bizarro James Franco (AKA Anne Hathaway). Anne brought her wide mouthed, manic energy to overcompensate for his squinting indifference and lack of enthusiasm. For most of the telecast he looked like he was thinking over his grocery list in his head. ‘Am I out of bok choy? Does the co-op have bok choy?’

Then several of his movies were released including something with the words “Planet of the Apes” in the title. By practically removing him from all promotional material that movie was actually able to be a moderate success despite his own panning of it and the fact that it was one of those “Planet of the Apes” movies.

Columbia College Hollywood even taught a course “Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco”. This of course is so meta-textual and self referential that I don’t have the energy to explain how it all works here (I mean, I’m trying to shorten these things) but its safe to say that in lieu of fifteen minute breaks, the students usually just wait until the universe folds into itself and starts anew.

Of course, we all simply don’t “get” what he is trying to do. Only he understands why he works in such mysterious ways. As such, whenever any of us comment on his bizarre choices, he gets upset like a high school girl with a plunging neckline “losing it” due to guys failing to make proper eye contact. Seriously guys, why are you all looking at James Franco? Is it because he’s graffiti tagging Tim Tebow’s mom whilst wearing a fedora and Natalie Portman’s white swan outfit from Black Swan while singing a metal version of that awful Jason Mraz song (You know which one I mean)? You people seriously have problems…

And now for some light jazz, a brief interlude, and back to the blog!

I’ve had the 4th Most Annoying Person of 2011 in my head for a long time, but I needed to work my way up the list until he was close of the top of the heap of awfulness. I fully admit to finding Daniel Tosh funny…at first. Then a funny thing happened. His so politically incorrect they have to be ironic jokes dovetailed into jokes about AIDS and rape. It’s not even so much about the subject as it is about the way he went about telling the jokes – it seemed to be purely and unequivocally malicious.

Then, there was the clip where someone died falling down an elevator shaft. Someone in a wheelchair no less. So naturally he put 60 seconds on the clock to see how many jokes he could make about it. In a weird way, it felt to me like he thought it was okay because it happened in Japan and not America. Almost like it wasn’t a tragic thing because it didn’t happen here. Don’t ask me why I think this and it could be totally baseless, it’s just my opinion.

Of course, he’s not above joking about that topical thing that is really sad that happened in the lower 48 just to get a shock-laugh out of his frat boy audience either. Nothing is out of bounds for him. Luckily for him he’s got freedom of speech on his side so all I can do is rank him high on my barely-read list and not watch his TV show.

Still, there is a vibe behind the things he says. A vibe that you can only get from a soulless 17 year old that thinks he’s hilarious because he says the things no one else says (mostly because they’re callous), and jokes about the things everyone needs to lighten up about. I suppose once you get older and someone you love dies of cancer it’s harder to make that “edgy” joke, so I can only assume nothing truly bad has ever happened to him or anyone he loves (if he’s capable of such an emotion).

Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m getting older. I know all the young people (and their companions) think he’s hilarious. He doesn’t care what he says that rapscallion! I suppose he’s no worse than a roast comic where the goal is to say the most awful things possible. When you think about it though, don’t you think all the people that made “You’re gonna die soon!” jokes to Patrice O’Neal at the Charlie Sheen roast feel bad now that he died almost immediately afterward? You’d have to be as soulless as Daniel Tosh not to.

Johnny Malloy admits to possibly “cranking” this blog out. Let’s face it folks, it’s the holidays, I got stuff to do. They can’t all be gems. Next one will be good though. Promise. Scouts honor. All that. Although, all the blogs I think “bite” are the ones people latch onto and love, and repost, and make into their PC desktop wallpaper so who knows. Maybe finding James Franco (as James Franco in James Franco’s “James Franco”) and Daniel Tosh annoying and/or horrible will strike a cord.

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 6 – People Who Believe There is a “War” on Christmas

SPOILER ALERT: The 6th Most Annoying People of 2011 is People Who Believe There is a “War” on Christmas

My wife is smart. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those “Ya’ll Wanna Know How Kick Ass My Spouse Is?” blogs, because honestly, she and I hate them as much as you do. Nothing makes you wince more than reading a Facebook update about how someone’s boy/girlfriend or spouse is just the greatest and rocks socks (except a week, month or year later when they’ve split up over long festering issues – then things get really awkward). However, my wife did make an interesting and astute point the other day when she saw someone post one of those angry, please-disagree-with-me-so-we-can-argue “It’s Merry Christmas not Happy Holidays!” images on Facebook. Gee, my wife is so smart and cute, it’s almost too much to take. Life rocks! I married the Sun Drop girl! I am having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich! Allow me to list all the awesome things I am currently doing so you can imagine me kicking back in a chair top o the world! Yadda yadda… (It’s wince inducing, right?)

The image in question had the words “It’s Merry Christmas not Happy Holidays!” with Santa Claus underneath it. Santa. Not Jesus. Not a cross. Santa. This is where Tracy had the issue, since people are always so concerned non-Catholics are trying to take religion out of everything. Why, us filthy liberal Democrats, with our concern for others and sinful lust of science have nothing better to do than try to ruin Christmas, don’t we? I mean, what is more religious than Santa? I think we all remember the book of Santa in the Bible where He made a list of all the good boys (good = circumcised) and girls (good = subservient, barefoot), while his elves (who were in fact, Jewish, in an M. Night Shyamalan twist) made all the toys. (You can read more about the Book of Santa in an upcoming “We’re on a Mission From God” blog, because that blog still exists and I am still writing for it, just not currently posting. Just sayin’.)

“Christmas trees are becoming Holiday trees!” they’ll say. And yes, this is true. I suppose you can call the tree whatever you want. Potato / poe-tah-toe. I think there is a myth that people get offended when you wish them Merry Christmas. I’m sure some people do. I’m sure some people like the movie Ballistic: Eks vs Sever with Antonio Banderas and Lucy Lui, you’d just be hard pressed to find them. There are always people that have to jam their non-religious beliefs down your throat. However, most people don’t care either way. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t wish people either, because I’m afraid that whatever I say, they’ll have it in their head I should’ve said the other thing. So, nice going, now people aren’t going to say anything around the holidays.

But for all the people that want to unleash Steven Spielberg’s War Horse on people trying to kill Christmas, I just want to say two thing: 1) Sending a Jewish man’s horse to fight a mythical anti-Christmas war is just the sort of incongruous thing you people would do. Like Tea Party people whose own protest signs have two opposing views on them. 2) No one is trying to kill Christmas. We’re just trying to be all inclusive (which you probably don’t like either). We’re just trying to remember the actual spirit of the holiday season. Is it not better to give than to receive?

The holiday season isn’t about thinking Catholicism is the one true religion. It’s not about saying our nation was founded as a Christian society (mostly because that argument is based on selectively choosing when society was founded. Kind of like saying, “This is our religion, startiiiiiiiiiiing – now!”

Shocking as it may seem, not everyone is Catholic. I know every TV show on the planet has “Christmas episodes” but that doesn’t make it the universal holiday for everyone. Still, no one is stopping Linus from dimming the lights and telling us the story of Christmas.

With that being said, I don’t care either way. When people say “Merry Christmas” I don’t respond, “Oh thanks, but I’m not Catholic. I was raised Catholic but I was soured by all the intolerance and pedophilia. Happy Holidays!” It’s very much like when someone hands me one of those Jesus flyers and they says, “This is for you. God bless you,” I don’t snap back with some anti-religious comment. I just say, “Thank you.”

I guess I just don’t literally, actually, see people enforcing this rule that you can’t say “Merry Christmas” (outside of chain stores). You can say whatever you want. Although, if you wish someone “Happy Ramadan” don’t be surprised if you don’t zip through airport security. It’s just the world we live in. And don’t snap at the flight attendant (a PC term!) when she offers you peanuts. She doesn’t know you’re fasting (or maybe she does, I haven’t read all of the Patriot Act).

Have we lapsed into another comfort zone where we don’t have actual, real problems, so we find stupid things to be upset about? Maybe. Is it just another catalyst to easily start a Facebook flame war where it starts as an argument about religion and quickly devolves into nitpicking about spelling and politeness? Most likely. At any rate I do sincerely hope everyone is having a very [pleasant adjective] [generic or non generic time of the year], but I must go because the lights on my indoors-y tree are not blinking properly and my landlocked reindeer on the front lawn fell over.

Johnny Malloy is halfway through his list of the 10 most annoying of the year. Five more to go. At least I know who they are. Knowing who is most annoying is half the battle. Also, hide your camping food in trees so bears don’t eat it. And brush your teeth. And don’t get in that van. G.I. Joe taught me so much.

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 7 – Mario Lopez

* Just real quick before we get started – don’ t ya love how I put the person’s name in the title, so you know who I am currently finding to be annoying, yet I write the first paragraph or so as if I’m leading up to a big reveal? Just letting you know I am aware is all!

The Krochet Kids were just trying to help empower women in Uganda. Michael Imperioli was just trying to sell vodka and collect a paycheck. And those Occupy Wall Street people were just trying to do some good old fashioned protesting. But number 7 on my list did something much more important this year. He taught us all a valuable lesson about treating those less fortunate than us with respect. When I say those less fortunate, I of course mean our nations true minority: The celebrities. And the man who rose up to teach us all about our awful hate speech? None other than professional smiling machine Mario Lopez (see above: title). A man who, when he isn’t irrationally excited about where Gwyneth Paltrow plans to have her next baby (most likely in a tub to the sound of whale orgasms), apparently felt the need to wag his manicured finger at us commoners.

Who else but A.C. Slater to teach us this? Zach could stop time. This is his power, his gift. With great hair comes great responsibility. So in order to learn us all, Mario created a little show called “H8R“. Now, I know your natural instinct is to read that “H – eight – R”. This is wrong. Instead, read it in the language of texting. “Ahh…hater. OK. Got it. Continue.”

Mario, not content teasing out what J-Lo is hiding under her bed (it’s slippers) and how Jennifer Aniston is going to have twins (in a movie), decided people that went online to complain about celebrities via blogs and webcams needed to be taught a valuable life lesson. And so Mario created “H8R“, and it wasn’t good. And he said let there be stage lights, and there were. He looked into two-way mirrors and said let there be hidden cameras behind these, and it was so. And on the seventh day Mario rested (because he was interviewing Kat Dennings early Monday morning at a press junket, and if you want to sell the line, “…and I just adored Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” you’re gonna need your rest).

H8R only lasted four episodes. So I’m told. I only made it through half an episode and that was on a night where I didn’t have control of the clicker at the liquor store. What I did see was the premiere episode where Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi ambushed one of her haters, spent the day with him, cooked for his family, and basically tried to make them like her – by not trying at all, and by “being real” which celebrities do naturally when they’re not playing pretend and appearing on scripted reality shows.

The worst part is that the “hater” wasn’t some overly-angry twit in his basement screaming and yelling and showboating for the Logitech cam. He’s some guy who doesn’t like that Snooki is “famous for being famous”, and for writing (*cough*) a terrible book. Shit, that sounds like me, and probably you, the reader! Fourth wall broken! You are now in my blog and must fight your way out Tron-style!

The whole idea behind the show is ludicrous. It’s like singling out the geeks in high school that snicker at the jocks and cheerleaders at a pep rally. They have no real power. The high school food chain has already deemed them to be the lowest of the low. Mocking the people that get all the attention (based often solely on physical attractiveness and ball catching/throwing skills) is all they have. Do they really need any more humbling life lessons? Does anyone need to be taught a lesson by Snooki while Mario Lopez sits in a surveillance van giggling and clapping? I think not.

What’s more, the second celebrity of the first episode was a man that needs no introduction (nope, he needed a Google search and an IMDB check) Jake Pavelka. Nope, he didn’t invent cheap vodka, you’re thinking of Relska. No, according to this database of movies (and reality TV) Pavelka was one of the bachelors on The Bachelor.

His hater was a young girl that thinks he’s arrogant and a jerk. He denies that while sauntering around a pool in real-time slow-motion. How can he be arrogant? He’s a pilot. Who was on a reality show. Where he had sexual relationships of varying degrees with a gaggle of women. Women who debased themselves and conformed to what they thought he wanted them to be (or whatever the script called for that week).

The rest of the celebrities that never got to see their hater revenges played out on TV were Scott Disick (not even looking him up, he must dance with stars or something), Kim Kardashian (the Voldemort of celebrity names in this blog), Maksim Chmerkovskiy (Which…that can’t be right, Russians can’t be stars in America! Are they remaking White Nights?), Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizanin (who I looked up, and he is a wrestler just so you know), Levi Johnston (Bristol Palin’s baby daddy), and Janice Dickinson (who appears to be some sort of sad vampiress who can go out in the sun but really doesn’t like it all that much).

All that is fine, I don’t even know half those people, and it’s bad enough that Mario is coming to the rescue of Ki…Ki…Ki…she who shall not be named again…but one of the un-aired episodes features someone getting a dressing down for being a hater of Dina Lohan. Dina Lohan. Do you need a minute? Well, you’re reading so you can stop reading and come back anytime so I’m gonna keep going.

Mario Lopez is defending Dina Lohan. From us. We’re the problem. You and I. So again, not Dina Lohan. Somewhere Billy Bush is saying, “Damn, I wish I thought of this! I’m a soulless shell of a man too!”

Johnny Malloy can’t believe he’s only done four of these blogs. Looking back I see around this time I generally start packing them in, two annoying people per blog. I may have to start doing that if I want to celebrate Christmas this year.

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 8 – Certain Members of “Occupy Wall Street”

I remember one year I put myself on this list for finding fault with seemingly everything. And at times I certainly do. That is the only way to explain my failed endeavor “Occupy Greenwich, England”, and it’s battle against (or was it for?) the Prime Meridian. I remember holding up my protest sign “We are the 0% (Longitude)” wondering what it was all for. The solidarity I expected from my fellow “Greenies” was non existent. Not to mention the message got further clouded when it turns out most of the “Greenies” were either there to support Australian lorikeets or psycho stimulant drugs (both called greenies apparently). I was in my early 20s at the time (late 1990s) so I blame this mostly on the non-existence of Wikipedia and the actual existence of Alta Vista, whose slogan at the time was “The Premiere Leader in Search Results Entirely in Chinese Font Characters”.

Anyway, my point is that even though our message was unclear, we did make some strong points, and the merging of ideas that came about because of it were extraordinary, except for when some people tried to get one of those Australian birds super high. “Dude, we’re merging the ideas!” said Tony.

However, you’re always going to get a few hanger-ons, a few people looking to jump on the equatorial bandwagon, arguing about time zones they know nothing about, overfeeding the birds, just really stupid stuff. You know, it just occurred to me that this is very much like that thing I read about in the news lately, something called Occupy Wall Street. Or is it Occupy: Wall Street? Or Wall Street 3: Money Still Won’t Go To Bed!? Probably not that last one, the second did poorly at the box office. I should probably go back and edit the title of this blog as it currently reads “The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: But First, Remember That Time I Vaguely Protested Something?”.

For many, occupying Wall Street is about being heard. For others, it’s about taking a stand against those that make the most money and receive killer tax breaks to boot. For others, it’s a killer drum circle.

It’s sad when I watch the news and see police officers dragging protestors around by their hair, taking a baton to a young girl who is just standing there, or just escalating things in general. I know it can’t be an easy task trying to watch over a gigantic protest, but they need to keep their cool – especially since everyone has camera phones now.

However, sometimes I read about occupiers who have sustained injuries and have thought to myself, ‘What did you expect?’ Like recently, on Yahoo! (the premiere leader in Bieber news) there was an article that said “Occupy Wall Street Finally Gets a Face – and It’s Bloody!” with a picture of a guy with blood running down his face. Reading the article I saw that the young man had grabbed an officer’s hat and was tackled to the ground (thus sustaining the injury). It was also reported that he threw a AAA battery at the police as well. Let’s put 60 seconds on the clock and see how many assault and battery jokes I can make!

Seriously though, the guy in the picture has that Nancy Kerrigan, ‘Wuhhh-why??” look on his face. I mean, kid, you grab a cop’s hat and you’re surprised you got restrained? I could launch into a whole thing about how there are no consequences for people’s actions anymore but it would be long and ranty and then where would we be? OK, it would probably be a lateral move at best, but still, I must stay on message!

It is those people of the Occupy Wall Street movement that I have an issue with. The ones that want to shut down the subway systems and disrupt the lives of commuters that have enough issues to deal with getting to work in New York every day.

I do not begrudge the right of those that want to protest by spreading their message, which is what some of them clearly want to do. Unfortunately, others see it as a good excuse to pitch a tent near the best hot spot (I mean, if we’re gonna protest, our iPad needs a little Wi-Fi love, no? Those birds aren’t going to anger themselves.)

I, in general, have a distaste for the loud and the aimless. Outraged people who watch Fahrenheit 9/11 and boo and hiss at everything. Did you know on September 10th George W Bush went to sleep on a bed made of fine French linen? According to Michael Moore he did.

You see, I live in a gray world where I can strongly dislike Michael Moore and still hate George W Bush. I can vote for Obama and still criticize his excessive “nobody wins” compromises. I can watch a Lars von Trier movie (if I feel like I need to punish myself emotionally) and chase it with Wes Craven’s Shocker (Seriously, I don’t know what it is about Shocker, I think it’s the epic awfulness, that makes me watch it again and again).

Have you listened to some of the Occupy protestors? What’s the message? Well, it depends who you ask. It’s a mix (or since it’s a lot of college students with unpaid tuition they’d probably say it’s a mélange of things). Oh, those kids and their words!

In order to write this, I wondered if I should do some research into the whole Movement. Maybe look up what actually got accomplished on their Day of Action, which culminated in them all marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. I mean, as a Liberal Democrat this is supposed to be the sort of thing I should be all for, but like I said, I live in a gray world. A world where Wall Street corruption is rampant, billionaires run the country and the other 99 % of us get the spoony end of the shaft. A world where seeing crowds of people strumming guitars, giving peace a Tweet, and dancing really badly, just really kinda irks me for some reason.

However, as my title states, this is “some of” the protestors. Which is true for anything. Making a blanket statement is never wise (as I learned in previous blogs “Squirrels: Just the Cutest Things” and a follow-up posted not two weeks later “You Don’t Own the Trash Barrels Around Here, Filthy Animals!“. I am not for or against the Occupy Movement, because, and I’m not being a smart ass, I don’t know what the overall message/motive behind it is. That’s my point, I should know by now, and in the end, that’s more on them than on me.

Hey, I read Kerouac books when I was younger. It seemed really cool to think I could train and gondola ride my way across the country learning Buddhism and making run of the mill things sound really really interesting. But now I’m 35 and I see all these people who are idealistic and my old, jadedness kicks in, and I want to tell these hippies to get a job. Sure, they’ll tell me that’s exactly why they have all that free time to protest, but I’ll just wave my hand angrily and say “Ahhhhh…” because that’s what 35 year old curmudgeons do.

So in summation, I support the people of Occupy Wall Street if you protest peacefully, respectfully, and have a cogent message. I don’t support you if you’re using it as an excuse to be shiftless layabouts out in public. I can’t get any more black and white than that.

Johnny Malloy feels bad about putting the Occupy Wall Street people on this list. It makes it seem like I’m pro The Man. Some might say I should have put The Man on the list instead. Maybe in some alternate universe I did. Perhaps Evil Mr. Clive’s Hacienda (which I guess makes me a maniacal Englishman living in Mexico – who also blogs – on Blogspot).

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 9 – Michael Imperioli

The 10th most annoying (people) of 2011 were the Krochet Kids, with their skateboarding, down for whatever attitude and general lack of humility. They were also ne’er do wells and generally good guys, but as a general rule I don’t let that factor into my decision making process. I once found a cancer survivor’s LiveJournal blog to be “self-indulgent”, which rivals the sensitivity Randall gave to the guy with the blog about life in a wheelchair in Clerks II. In my defense, this guy also ended each blog with a list of band names he was “selling”. I stand behind my belief that you can slap two incongruous words together and make a band name. I came up with one in two seconds: Enigmatic Dishtowel. Any takers? Wow. And I had Bell’s Palsy for six months. How can you people sleep at night?

For my ninth most annoying person of 2011, I have again gone to the commercials to find my target. This time, it’s not someone trying to do good, or help society, it’s just someone being kind of a dick pitching hard alcohol.

# 9: Michael Imperioli

First off, let me say that The Sopranos was one of my all time favorite shows. I obsessed over it. I didn’t just watch it, I studied it. I’d watch it multiple times a week. I would look up whatever was playing on the TV sets of the characters to see the symbolic significance of it. I would go to awful, preening-and-posturing-via-words sites like TWOP.com where the overly-literate would dissect every word, look, and sigh of each character to gain insight.

With that being said, these days Michael Imperioli (who played Chris-tu-fah) is pitching 1800 Tequila in a series of ads that are increasingly annoying and severely proud of themselves.

In one commercial Michael, from the set of the all new Charlie Rose show, mocks supposed “pretend tequila” next to a bottle of what is clearly Patrón. I’m not sure why it’s dubbed fake tequila, that’s never explained. It’s certainly not because its cheap. I can see classy vodka drinkers saying all those cheap brands of vodka are not the real deal (although, if I’m drinking at home and want a flavored vodka, I’m buying Burnetts and calling it a night). I can do that and most people would give me a pass – and not the way mobsters give people “a pass”, because every time someone does that, they end up turning around and whacking the guy anyway. I mean, how can these guys not know this? All those black crows and oranges clearly symbolize death! Do these gangsters know nothing about foreshadowing?

Of course if I did that with my tequila purchasing, I would be meet with the steely eyed glare of Michael Imperioli – his eyebrows bearing down on me like an angry bear who knows I’m hiding my food from him in a tree. A man who pitches alcohol with that “You’re smoking that cigar wrong”, “You don’t cast a fishing line like that”, “That’s not exactly what the infield fly rule is” sort of way that only the true man’s man can (when he feels the need to be needlessly nit-picky).

I Will Smack You If You Don't Drink the Things I Drink

Seriously, I think he’s mad at all of us, you guys. In one commercial he shows how the top of an 1800 bottle pours out a measured shot, then he looks at the camera with his patented “That’s right, bitch” look and begs us to ask Jose Cuervo what he’s done for us lately.

In yet another commercial he goes on about how you can’t tell what commercials are selling these days before looking at the camera and saying, “This is an ad for tequila,” adding an ‘Mmmm hmmm, that’s right’ nod at the end. It doesn’t matter he says it sounding like a cross between an 80s stand up comic (“What’s the deal with airline peanuts? They’re not made on a plane! And don’t get me started on commercials!”) and an old man telling you how he doesn’t understand all this rock and roll and kids riding rolley coasters.

I can understand a company wanting a talented actor from a prestigious show to do their shilling for them, but why pick a guy best known for playing a degenerate addict and alcoholic to sell your tequila? And why write it so that he just seems like an officious prick the whole time?

With the pomposity usually reserved for a Cigar Aficionado subscription, Michael tells us with each passing commercial, that if we are not buying and drinking 1800 Tequila (responsibly) we are not men. And if he has to emasculate us through more commercials where he picks apart how the color of other tequilas looks like unhealthy urine, he will. Believe it! Because if there’s one thing Michael knows it’s that you don’t stop -

Johnny Malloy would like to apologize to anyone who thought I died before I could end this blog. I didn’t die. I just had no idea how to end the blog so I just sort of ended it, and if you can’t understand that then you don’t deserve any of my 1800 tequila and you should go back to watching regular, non-cable TV with it’s non challenging, non ambiguous endings.

The 10 Most Annoying People of 2011: No. 10 – The Krochet Kids

Every year (give or take a year here and there) I list the people I find to be the 10 most annoying of that year. I try to steer clear of obvious choices and people who are pervasive in the entertainment news media. This means if you are a Kardashian or someone Billy Bush loses his goddamned mind over interviewing, you’re actually safer from my wrath. However, if you fall under my radar and constitute a “dare to be different” choice, you just may make this illustrious list.

Coming in at number 10, we have a group of guys who founded a non-profit organization that helps uplift people whose lives were hopeless. Finally, people with good intentions get knocked down a peg or two!

# 10: The Krochet Kids

How bad of a person do you have to be that you find three guys that are trying to help women in “war torn Uganda rise up from poverty” annoying? I don’t rightly know, but I am that bad.

To be fair to myself, (and I am nothing if not overly fair to myself and my unique self-justifications) the commercial about their exercise in do-goodery is ultimately an ad for Bing, the search engine. It’s like those commercials where BP tells you all the awesome things they do for humanity when they’re not hemorrhaging oil all over otters.

The commercial itself is where I have the problem with these guys. I have a natural intolerance to people talking about the good things that they do. I realize that someone asked them to talk about what they do, but the whole concept is so hippie-centric, so overly self congratulatory, that it makes me cringe. Again, this is not the natural reaction one is supposed to have seeing young people help the poverty stricken, but I’m not most guys, baby.

I know that these three guys didn’t go to Uganda, teach women to knit, and then sell the hats they made to turn a profit. That’s not what they’re trying to do, that would be The World’s Breeziest Sweatshop. They want to empower women. Why, every hat has the name of the woman who made it on the inside (which makes Inspector 12, creator of my underwear, sound especially cold and distant)!

The hats they (subcontract out to the poor to) make are those depleted bean bag looking hats, the ones that look like if a hat could be bummed out it would look like this. Of course the guys wear these hats because they are those kind of guys. The ones that are methodically disheveled. They should’ve shaved a week ago. They probably only listen to reggae performed by double amputees. They wear bow ties because (“Hey look! That one guy is in a bow tie!”) and they shape their mustaches to be 1970s porn star ready. They talk with a perpetual grin that misrepresents the pedestrian tale they’re telling you.

I mean, I’ve seen the extended commercial where one of the guys got a call that everyone was knitting, and he was all “Yeah, because I was down for whatever!” No, he seriously says that. First off, who says “down for whatever” outside of a Craigslist ad? Second, I hated it in second grade when kids tried to make the boring thing they did the night before sound super-awesome. I really hate it now.

I realize that hate is a strong word but I’m off my meds and all my emotions are heightened. I just cried like a baby watching that McDonalds commercial where the kid takes his dad to Show and Tell to show the class his “best friend”. I mean, come on, that’s so sad. Kids got no friends his own age…

Also, you’re not “Kids”. I realize you did it for the alliteration, but the other word is “Crochet”, which is not spelled with a K. That’s lame as well, like putting Z’s where S’s should be, or ending a sign with “Thanx”. So basically, you skateboarded down to the knitting place, teased out your mustache, misspelled a few words, patted yourself on the back a few times, Bing-ed yourself (because you can’t use Google now), ate something terrible you convinced yourself you liked, and then laughed at The Daily Show before the actual joke happened.

Lastly, did the guy in that commercial say that they took up knitting in high school to make some extra cash? Yes, he did. So that’s the Krochet Kids origin story. Thanx guyz.

Johnny Malloy once took a trip to war torn Uganda and had poor people make him clothes. Okay, it was Disney EPCOT Uganda, and it was Mickey Mouse in tattered clothes selling hats. To be fair, I’m pretty sure super poor people made the hat far below in the bowels of Orlando, Florida.