Let's get down to brass tacks reloaded

I get the feeling that this blog thing is ready for me to open the floor up for a little Q and A once again. I know how important my opinion is to everyone out there. I think we're all on the same page so let's hop right in without a lot of fanfare or explanation. No, there's no need to stand on ceremony in this blog, gang. It's tit for tat, just like you've come to expect from old Berry and by God, that's always what you're gonna get from him. Straight shooting. Plain talk express. Did the Bullet Boys wait around three or four seconds before belting out "smooth up in ya" as loud as your 6x9's could push? Hell no. Instant screaming on that track and it was a massive hit, so that's how I'm gonna play it here on the interweb.

Dateline: right now. You're probably sitting there thinking to yourself "Berry, how do you feel about ghosts and the supernatural?" First off that's a damn fine question and I'd like to thank you for asking. Real good work.

To answer I'd have to say I think ghosts are pretty much pussies. I've been trying to get one to pop up around my place and scare me for years, yet they refuse. Why, are they afraid I'll bust their ghostly lip open if I catch them creeping around my house? Fine I can understand that (I know Taebo.) Then I took my show on the road.

I snuck into an abandoned hotel that was supposed to be crawling with ghosts and spirits and whatnot. It was dark and creepy as Hell and I figured "alright this is it. There's bound to be something about to jump up and freak me out." So there I was in the middle of the night walking around an abandoned old building all alone. Armed only with a crappy little flashlight I walked up down the halls and up the stairs and into the rooms and all over the place. I heard some weird noises a couple of times, but mostly I just had to take a dump really bad. As I walked around waiting for the super spooky that just had to be around the next corner I was continually leaving little pockets of pungent gas all over the place. About a half hour or so of just being bored and having to crap and absolutely nothing. Spook factor zero.

So basically I went into the ghosts' house and farted up the place and they didn't even try to retort. I started thinking about planning a trip to another location but then I thought why bother? How powerful could these things be if they let me walk around in their own dojo, farting at will and fearing no reprisal? You think they'd at least go for the Glade. With the peeping turtle I was sportin' that night I'm sure I reeked that place out something fierce and what did they do about it? Nothing, they just sat there and took it. No wonder they're dead.

Berry 1, ghosts 0.

Everyone who pretended to like me is gone

I experienced a groin pull this weekend. That's bad enough but unfortunately I was at the top of the stairs when it happened.

NOTE: A funny thing happens when you get the sensation that your balls have detached and are falling to the ground- you forget whatever it is you're doing and clutch those precious cashews with all your might. I did that and the next thing I knew I was hurtling through time and space, stopping only after my melon had busted a massive hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I tell you this people, it's a good thing that wall wasn't load-bearing or that whole complex would have come down around me, leaving me lying under a pile of rubble clutching my balls and moaning in agony.

Now let me describe to you the groin pull. It felt kind of like Kerry von Erich had appeared and applied the infamous "Iron Claw" to my taint, and Skandor Akbar was nowhere in sight. I was in the Piper's Pit of pain and not even Terry "Bam-bam" Gordy could help me now.

While I still have some discomfort in my taintal region, I think Kerry has finally relented. My weekend sucked.

Oprah caught me telling lies on my blog

Everyone's been talking about Oprah hammering James Frey for lying about most of the stuff in his "memoirs." I hope Oprah learned her lesson and does a little more research before slobbering all over somebody's garbage. I think it would rule if she did some digging around and found out that the kid in the wheelchair that wrote all the crap poetry was faking his terminal illness. Although he's probably really dead, as anyone who coined the term "heartsongs" should be, it would still be funny to find out he got hit by a car while playing extreme frisbee.

The big question remains; how long until Oprah figures out Dr. Phil is full of shit? Hell we don't even need the smoking gun for that one, anyone twice as fat as me making millions selling weight loss books has got to be chock full of the classic brown. He even had his own show where he sat around dispensing common sense in that gooey twang of his to a bunch of Springer rejects who sadly didn't know any better than to listen to a pantload like him. I guess he has a gift, he must have to make telling someone to stop screwing their sister sound like a genuine revelation in psychiatry.

It irks me that turds like that are millionaires based solely on the fact that Oprah liked them. Clearly my goal in life should be to write a book that Oprah will pump in her book club. Given the examples above it shouldn't be that hard, just remake myself as balding fatass in a wheelchair that lies about doing drugs. My book of poetry inspired by the horrific years I spent smoking crack and eating cream cheese danish will be flying off the shelves. Hell I'll even go smoke some crack just to give it that hint of authenticity in a truckload of bullshit feel that Winfrey seems to loves so much.

Sam Alito: about a shifty looking MF'er

I'm not going to say much else about it because frankly I think the picture speaks for itself. That's not a handpicked image either; one that caught him in a particularly sinister looking light. The bastard always looks like that.

He may be an alright guy and all, Hell I don't anything about the man. Just look at that picture for a couple of seconds and ask yourself if you'd let that man have the spare key to you house. Just asking.

The trouble with cars

The big problem I can see with cars is that they have people in them. Not just people, but other people, the worst kind. Sitting in the drivers seat has an almost magical ability to turn everyone into a raging a-hole, while simultaneously making them the biggest wuss in the universe. They'll cut you off in traffic, flip you off as they speed by and lay on the horn for an inappropriate amount of time, so long as they traffic is moving. But for some reason when the traffic slows they are suddenly as ferocious as a hamster. Do they fear you will leap across the road and break them down with a flurry of Taebo moves you picked up from Billy Blanks tapes? They should, my Taebo is strong.

But the biggest question I have is this: why won't people pull up to the car in front of them? Why do they insist on having at least ten car links between them and the car in front of them? Why will they sometimes pull up but only to the point where they aren't next to you, so you can"t look at them and see if they are a hot chick or studly young man, depending on your preference?
I guess it boils down to this- if you're pressing on the gas pedal you are an unstoppable killing machine that fears neither man nor God. If you're pressing on the brake you're Steve Urkel. Cruising through traffic? Monster. Sitting at red light? Urkel.

If you are a highway badass you derive your power from the turning of the wheels. Red lights are like kryptonite to you and sitting at one instantly drains you of your Godlike ability to flip people off and give them menacing looks that cause them to soil themselves and run off the road just to avoid looking at you.

I bet Bin Laden was an interstate badass before he traded his Toyota in for a 1999 camel. Hitler? Huge butthole on his commute back and forth to the bunker. Can you picture Stalin flipping people off and laying on the horn for no reason? Of course you can.

Don't be that guy. Get drunk before you get behind the wheel, it'll make you happier and happy drivers are better drivers.

Note: None of the above applies if you have a DE3 sticker on your ride. In fact any Earnhardt reference on your vehicle grants immunity to red lights and makes you a permanent badass, even when you get out of the car. I mean truck. The same goes for a little guy pissing on FORD or CHEVY.

Bizarre love triangle

Dear Ms. Keilber,

I would like to extend to you my utmost gratitude at your generous offer that I marry you and make like ten thousand babies. Really, I am speechless. However I should be forthright about this situation as I know I hold your tender heart in my hands and it would hurt me to know that I damaged you any more than was necessary. I would eat at Arby's for you Stacy, you know that, but my heart belongs to another. I'm in love with Ms. Chan Marshall and there's nothing I can do to change that. Be strong Stacy, I know there's someone out there for you so keep your head up. You're a good kid.

Yours truly, Berry

PS - If this thing with me and Chan doesn't work out we can still do it right?





Chan,

How's it going baby? You are not going to believe this but I just turned down a very steamy offer from one Stacy Keibler. No shit. So look, you know how much I wanted to get with her. Remember that night we were laying there talking about people we would totally do and I said "Stacy Keibler. I would fight the Kiss army for a piece of that?" Well I turned that down for you, that's how much I love you. We were obviously meant to be together. I mean, how many Irish Jews are there in the world, like 5? Tops.
So anyway let's make this thing work. If however you feel like this thing ain't gonna work out I need to know quick before Stacy changes her number and I miss the boat with that. Anyhow, Love you.

PS- Get back to me on that ASAFP. Not trying to rush you or anything but I'm on the clock.

Shouts out to the insides

Some times I feel sorry for my inner self. I think of him as kind of a slave, captive to and being abused by a world-class dickhead. He's suffered one injustice after another with no say in the matter at all, practically a spectator watching his own life play out without him.

So let me say it here:

Self- I'm sorry, man.

In fact, this goes out to all the inner selves out there taking a lickin' and keeping on tickin'. To all those children father to the men, cramped up in there watching us screw them out of their birthright. Sitting on the other side of the looking glass while we get drunk and make out with large, strange women. Through all the car wrecks, through all the breakups, through the hair metal 80's right through to today; you've always been there. Inner self, I salute you! You've always been the best part of all of us. In the words of Kipling,


Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din

Broke Dick Mountain

Broke Dick Mountain: a screenplay by Berry Goldstein

Attention Hollywood, Steve Spielberg and that guy who played Opie on television

[Movie starts]

Panoramic shot of picturesque Montana (or somewhere with mountains.)
Roll opening credits here.

{Music: that "I want to bathe with you in the ocean" song.}

The camera can just sort of float around the mountains for a few minutes until the credits are pretty much over. Make sure and say pretty early on "written by: Berry Goldstein" because I did.

A man sits before a dying campfire in the brisk morning air. He stares intently at the dying embers as if he has just spent the previous night sweatily doing something he may or may not regret for the rest of his life. Finally he slowly rises to his feet as he tosses the rest of his hot cocoa into the fire, making it hiss menacingly.

The camera pulls back revealing a contented looking horse standing just behind the man, eying him lovingly. The man looks briefly at the horse before looking back at the ground shyly. Slowly a smile creeps onto his face and he looks tenderly back into the horses eyes. The horse whinnies and rares back ecstatically.

Letters erupt on the screen as the "stand with you on a mountain" part of the song crescendos gayly. The letters start off really small but appear to be growing, like you are driving in your car and are about to run over them. The letters spell out the title, "Broke Dick Mountain." When they get big enough to read they kind of just stay that size and sit there for a few minutes, so everyone in the audience has plenty of time to read it, even if they are mildly retarded or are children.

Cut to man riding around the mountains on the horse. The man is sort of laying on his side with his head resting on the horse. The man's name is Ted:

TED: You know, Wynn Dixie (that's the horses name BTW) I had my doubts about what happened last night. [ Here he strokes the horses mane tenderly]

Wynn Dixie: [Whinnies quietly.]

TED: I know, Wynn. But I don't know how I'm going to go back to my wife and family now that I know what true love is.

...to be continued

Kobe Bryant: as unstoppable on the court as he is in the hotel room

The kid went and dropped 81 on the Raptors over the weekend. That's impressive, even for a man known for his unstoppable drives against well-guarded holes. The boy just won't take no for an answer. Maybe they should try him for raping the raptors defense.

What's the point though, he'd beat the case easily. The video evidence I saw showed conclusively that the Raptors were willing participants, going so far as to bend over and spread 'em for young master Bryant. Most of the Raptors seemed to be more intent on getting off the next Kobe poster than actually stopping him from scoring. The basketball equivalent of pulling up with a phantom hamstring injury when you just got burned badly down field.

On a personal note several things are really starting to bug me lately. I continue to find spectacularly idiotic ways to make myself broke. Those idiotic ways all have names, they're my friends. I don't want to come out and say my friends are retarded and cause me to get in trouble. I believe in personal responsibility and the buck stops here and all that bollocks. Having said that, my friends are all retards and they get me into trouble. Screw you friends, I hope you smoke turds in Hell for the trouble you've all caused me.

Some days my phone rings nonstop, signalling and endless string of "help me do this" and "C'mon man" requests. It's not that my friends have it easy from me but I swear to God I have my shit together enough that I don't have to make two or three desperate pleas for help every week.

Get a job, buy a truck and leave me the Hell alone for five minutes. I can't get through an episode of Zoey 101 without having to lurch for the phone, pants around my ankles, because someone keeps ringing it up over and over and I've finally convinced myself that nobody would call that many times back to back unless some very real emergency was taking place that only I could prevent from destroying the planet. No one understands or seems to care that if I look on the caller ID and decide not to answer or don't call you back immediatly then I'm probably screening. Don't take it personally but I don't want an urgent request to come pick you up from somebody's trailer in the middle of my personal time every day.

Also I think my toilet seat is bugged with some sort of weight sensing device. Every time I sit on it my phone immediatly rings. I never attempt to answer but the caller seems to turn up ANONYMOUS more often than not. A little fishy if you ask me. I just hope it's also bugged with some type of listening apperatus as well, because whoever was monitoring that bastard last night got their friggin' eardrums shattered by an outrageous clarion blast around 11:30 PM. It serves them right, but the pain of creating that blast was for me akin to a woman giving birth, and that was a little bit excessive for my tastes.

Maybe Bin Laden has the right idea. I wouldn't mind waking up in a cave every morning if it meant I didn't have to go help people move couches in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. There's definitely times when a shell exploding outside my cave door would sound less alarming than the seesaw action of my cell phone ringing, home phone ringing, cell phone ringing, etc, etc, etc.

It's getting to the point where the simple sound of a phone ringing sends me flying into an involuntary rage. I've been conditioned to do that. Remember Pavlov's dog, the one that would start slobbering everytime it heard the dinner bell? Well I'm Pavlov's asshole, cursing and screaming everytime I hear the telephone. It's only a matter of time before I rip the phone off the wall and hang myself with the cord.

Why is everybody always pickin' on Bin Laden?

Doesn't Bin Laden seem like a pussy to you? Like the kind of guy who sits around wondering why everybody's all up in his Kool-Aid? What did he ever do to anybody kind of shit.

Osama, it's just that you're so 2001. Just because cable news channels love to pump your latest mix tape doesn't mean real people give a damn about you anymore. We don't. There's a thousand assholes I have to deal with everyday that fill me with way more dread than your grizzled puss. Hell that old guy in my office that keeps breaking the printer is practically Stalin compared to you. So piss off, put down the mike, and quit sending Al Jazeera your greatest hits every six months.

Btw, just because new stuff keeps out from Bin Laden doesn't mean he's still alive. Remember Tupac?

Besides we have the playoffs to worry about. I like the Panthers and the Steelers to win this weekend, so go out and put your money on the Hawks and Broncos. I'm laying eggs this post-season and I'm not going to quit until this dead horse is pulverized.

And what about the heavily anticipated rematch between my boy Erik "El Terrible" Morales and MannyPacquiao? I correctly picked El Terrible in the first fight and I'm going with him again but it's a tough call. Manny is supposedly in some helluva shape and ultra-motivated, but I just can't go against my boy Erik. He's too damn good when he decides to box, and like my grandad said the man just can't stand to get hit. When he takes fire he returns it. Seems like the guys that give Erik Hell are slick boxers and hardcore tacticians, two things Manny ain't.

So in summary, go out and bet the farm on Pacquiao, the Broncos and the Hawks.