Hey, Uh, I, Um...So Where Were We?

Thank you all for coming. I'd like to read a brief statement and then take just a few questions from the assembled crowd.

Some people [that may or may not be my mother] often ask me whether I've ever regretted the decision to pull the plug on the fierce playground of irreverence we called Slack LaLane. Sure, the masturbatory exercise of blogging has its upside and reward -- Look at me! I have opinions! -- but the daily grind of maintaining a website full of half-baked, misguided jokes about minorities and brain-dead bulimics just stopped making sense along the way. 

But like all masturbatory exercises, it's tough to stay away for terribly long. And since the world wide web seems to have an astounding lack of attempt-at-snarky blogs written by self-centered twenty-somethings, I think it's just about time to get back in the game. They say all the greats eventually return; now we know that all the mediocre ones return exactly a year from when they left. I'll take some questions now.

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post. So why the comeback, Ace? What's behind this decision? Do you really crave attention that badly?

Of course I do, but that's not why I'm adding to the congestion on the information superhighway. I'm just not done yet. I've got some resin left in the screen. I want you all to know why I rank Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS just ahead of Pearl Harbor and just behind 9/11 on the list of important events that changed the balance of the universe. I want to bring "Psyyyyche" and "Grotie to the max" back into the mainstream. I want to tell the world that the new Indiana Jones debacle was demonstrably worse than a combination of tapeworm, the NBA headband trend and C. Thomas Howell's performance in Side Out. I've got shit to say, and chances are, you'd rather read a bit of hot garbage than do actual work. 

Eleanor Clift from Newsweek. Have you been writing at all this past year?

Eleanor, gee I think you're swelleanor. I've had an exceptional year actually. I used Slack LaLane's renowned reputation as a natural springboard to literary stardom, (self-)publishing the Idiot's Guide to Date Rape, What's the Deal with Skinny Jeans?: How Crushed Testicles Became Fashion, The Steve Holt Story: Steve Holt! and a series of investigative pamphlets about Chien-Ming Wang's secret involvement in the persecution of the Falun Gong. 

I also wrote and developed a new weekly series for ABC Family based loosely on the Defenestration of Prague, and I created a ton of erotic Mythbusters fan fiction under the name JaimesMoustacheRider. Other than that, I've just been chillaxin' (as, I believe, the kidz are still saying) and appearing in dance clubs under the nom de dance Mr. Wave:

Ace, Helen Thomas, Old Cat Lady Times. Have you been following the politics? Thoughts?

Excellent question; well asked. I'll tell you one thing, as an unabashed supporter of the Tuskegee Experiment, I'm not voting for that crazy preacher with all the scary snippets on the YouTube. He's a candidate, right? Oooh-eee, he was hateful. I find him to be very unpatriotic, and I bet he doesn't wear a flag pin or drive a Ford Focus. But as an uncommitted superdelegate, I've still yet to decide my vote. I'm kinda leaning towards the half-white gentleman raised by old caucasians who went to Columbia and Harvard Law that people have taken to referring to as "the black guy."

And to be honest, McCain should be disqualified. Policies aside, how can you have a president that can't lift his arms over his head? When he accepts the Republican nomination next to his youthful, vigorous running mate, they're expected by law to lock inside hands and raise them high above their hands. Then they pump their raised interconnected fist a few times while waving with their outside hands or giving rapid-fire thumbs ups. That's how staged politics works. You know the move. If he can't pull it off, I say "Thanks for your service -- now hit the bricks, pal."

(On the serious, how many people can identify and name all the presidential candidates on the stage at the first couple of Democratic and Republican debates? Now how many people can identify and name some wackadoo preacher with no relevance to the world at large whose most outlandish statements were parsed every night on TV and talk radio for six weeks? Awesome stuff, media. Great work.)

Anderson Cooper, The Mole. The original one. Way back. It was a cool show. Now I'm on CNN. Craisins, as you'd say. Anyway, let's get back to the blog -- what do you expect it to be? Will it be daily?

I don't know the end game, but it certainly won't be daily. The general problem with blogs is the rush to be first and the desire to be loudest. On this go-round I'd much more prefer to speak mediumly and carry a stick of unspecified length. 

Some people are ace when it comes to providing expert analysis and pithy remarks just moments after the news breaks or they get back from a life-changing vacation. But most bloggers are so quick to be the first one out of the shoot that they fail to consider the big picture. I'm hoping this can be more of an arena for essay and insight rather than quick-take, reactionary jibba jabba. That won't actually happen, but it's nice to dream. So what do I expect it to be? In terms of importance and staying power and awesomeness, I'd say somewhere along the lines of the Federalist Papers. 

David Byrne, boss musician. You know any good jokes?

I'll tell you later. 

Tom Rinaldi, ESPN Schmaltz Division. Are you going to keep talking about subjects that suck, like soccer and Phish? Should I just tune out now before you start?

Look at the stones on Tom. What do you wanna discuss now, my favorite color? (Noice, you weren't expecting a Colonel Nathan R. Jessup reference, but I got one in anyway. It's funny...I know Kaffee says to Jo and Sam that Jessup's dying to let the world know he ordered the code red, but when the lieutenant gets all up in the good colonel's grill, the judge actually finds him in contempt of court and tells the the witness he doesn't have to answer the question. Even though Jessup is a real sonuvabitch and a picture of smug, shouldn't he, as a decorated Marine officer, have enough discipline to let the question and the trouble pass without comment? Aren't they all about discipline? Maybe the threat of the airmen's forthcoming testimony was enough, but I think Jessup's better than that.) Shit, what were talking about? Swimming pools? It's tired in here. 

Oh, right, yes. I will probably be talking about Liverpool striker Fernando Torres every time I get the chance. Is it weird that I'm trying to become a fluent Spanish speaker in the off chance I run into him one day? Dreamboat Central. I'd go Larry Craig with him in any baño. 

At this point I'd like to issue a saucer full of thanks to my longtime run-in buddy Scuffy McGee for coming up with the clever play on a Digible Planets classic for this new blog's moniker. And at this point which follows that point, I'd like to declare that I'm back, to let you know, I can really shake 'em down. Let's begin.