Features:
Mayoral Survivor Contest: The BEAST Wants You to Run for Mayor!
Truth is Overrated: Why Does My TV Think Bush Won the Debate? - Al Uthman
Political Snickering: M&M/Mars' Campaign of Terror - Matt Taibbi
Big Brother Knows Best: Blockbuster Rents Bogus Fahrenheit 9/11 DVDs - Paco Alameda
Scary Little Man: Bush's Belligerence -William Rivers Pitt
Kneeling Before George: President Bush is a Serious Stud - Merry Dunce, the Beast's "Fresh Voice"
American Indian Museum Opens in DC, Promptly Stolen by American History Museum -Jake Novak
Reading the Blitz: Election Hacks Score Touchdown in Overtime Frenzy - Matt Taibbi
Freedumb: Zell Miller Echoes Militaristic Fallacy - Mark Golden
The Straight Dope w/ Dr Rotten
Brush with Greatness: I met Gretzky - Seamus Gallivan
Entertainment:
Movies:
Music:
Album Reviews: Tom Waits, De La Soul
Events:
Misfits Roadie's Haunted House -Ken Barnes
Sports:
High Quality Losers: Numbers Game Pays little for Bills -Ronnie Roscoe
Deep Fried - Jason Yungbluth
Bob The Angry Flower - Stephen Notley
© 2004 The Beast
True story: After eagerly awaiting the DVD release of Fahrenheit 9/11, I take a bus to The Hamburg, NY Blockbuster and ask the first friendly clerk I see to point me toward the new releases. He walks me over to the Fahrenheit 9/11 display and being a very helpful chap, takes a DVD, hands it to me and says "Is this what you were looking for?"
"Yeppers!" I said, and went to the check out, plunked down my four bucks and change on the counter. This was followed by thank yous all around. I headed to the bus stop for the ride home.
Back home, after starting the DVD, I started to feel like I just chugged a quart of sour milk. My partner said "Are you sure you got the right movie, bonehead?" Instead of Michael Moore's flick I had been given something called Fahrenhype 9/11, named and packaged to look exactly like Fahrenheit 9/11 right down to the graphics on the DVD itself.
The movie is a typical right wing asshole media vendetta, a "fair and balanced" smear against Michael Moore. Rather than refuting Moore's claims, it just basically calls him a fat traitor. Dick Morris wasn't the propagandist I had in mind.
I checked out the Blockbuster website. On the "New Releases" page, Fahrenheit 9/11 was listed as #2. In the 11 pages of new releases on 5 October, Fahrenhype 9/11 was not to be found. I did a site search for Fahrenhype 9/11, and guess what? The reply to the search was, "There were no matches for your search on Fahrenhype 9/11."
More than slightly pissed off, I went back to Blockbuster. There was no sign of the clerk I wanted to disembowel, so I called over a bored-looking kid behind the counter."Excuse me" I said, "I rented this about an hour ago and it's not the right movie."
"What movie did you want?" replied the skateborder.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" I said.
"Dude, this is Fahrenheit 9/11."
"Nope, it's not" said I.
"No disrespect dude, but it is; says so right here."
"Exactly." I replied. Not wanting Beavis to have a seizure, I pointed out the spelling discrepancy.
"Wow, that's weird. Show me where you got it from," said the intuitive imp and I walked him over to the display.
"So this bogus DVD was behind one of the real boxes?""Indeed!" I said.
"Let's scan the one you brought back," which he did. It SCANNED as Fahrenheit 9/11!
"Seems to me that some counterfeit product made it to your store's shelves. Is your manger around?" I asked.
So Gen X pages him. Then out of the office comes the manager, who also happened to be the same helpful cocksucker who steered me wrong to begin with. He took one look at me, turned heel back into the office, locked the door and ignored a few more pages.
"That's ok," I told the kid as he gave me what I had originally come for, "just tell the weasel that word of this bullshit is going to get out."So there it is, people. Either Blockbuster is trying to fill your head with crap and deprive you of your right to see this movie, or this asshole at the Blockbuster in Hamburg is. I don't know which possibility pisses me off more.
By the way, the address of the Blockbuster in question is 266 Buffalo St., Hamburg, NY 14075. When I called and asked for the name of the manager on duty the night of October 5th the response I got was "We're not sure."
MAYORAL SURVIVOR: A BEAST CONTEST
ATTENTION BEAST READERS! The BEAST needs you to be the next Mayor of our dear city. That's right! We want you, a lowly loyal BEAST reader, to be the next Mayor of the city of Buffalo. WE ARE TOTALLY SERIOUS! We are launching a search for 16 contestants willing to run for the position of Mayor in 2005...
Truth is Overrated Al Uthman
It's been almost a week since the second Presidential debate, and I'm still baffled at the post-debate coverage.
Well, no, that's not really true. I remember turning to a fellow viewer as we watched Bush go to pieces and saying, "watch; they're gonna come on and call it for Bush."
Kneeling Before George Merry Dunce
Man, It's so cool to have my own column. Now whenever I get mad that my liberal traitor colleagues are smarter than me, I can regurgitate White House talking points all over the region's only major newspaper! No need for boring insight or analysis; after all, I'm a Republican! We hate that brie-eating crap!