It's the 2007 Douche of the Year award!

You know, a lot of people have asked me, "Chuck, why don't you blog any more?" Or at least one person, my friend Pedro, has asked this. I don't really have good answers to this question, other than

1. I have two jobs, plus freelancing assignments, and as a result have very little time.

2. I'm also looking for another job that would allow me to cut down to one.

3. It's the holidays and nobody really pays much attention to things other than egg nog, champagne and any and all alcoholic beverages necessary to delude themselves into thinking they really care for their relatives and it's a good idea to spend four hours watching the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

But, it is now New Year's Eve, and as years of media consumption have taught us, it's time to watch the Humanitarian Bowl from Boise, Idaho, matching Fres ... er, no. Time for an end-of-the-year list or award! Like, say, my Douche of the Year award!

Previously we had nominated Dick Cheney and Rupert Murdoch. Throw in best buds Pat Robertson and Rudy Giuliani, and we have a crowded field, folks. They're all assholes, to be sure. But what is it about each of them that allows them to transcend asshole status and become the remarkable douches they are? Let's take a quick look:

Dick Cheney: The CEO of the Bush White House, he is the man in charge of the neocon assault on humanity, the U.S. Constitution and common sense.




Rupert Murdoch: The media monopolist whose minions are directed to ignore the tenets of the journalism they are purported to practice and serve merely as water carriers for Bush, Cheney and the neocons.



Pat Robertson: Fundamentalist Christian televangelist bent on whipping up a fervent faith amongst the masses not in the Prince of Peace but in the politics of fear and hatred.


Rudy Giuliani: A pure opportunist who stops at nothing -- not even the untimely deaths of 9-11 victims -- to exploit his way to power.


An impressive lineup, all of whom are worthy candidates for Douche of the Year. But only one can win. So I must be especially scrutinizing when it comes to their credentials, and of particular interest, since this is a yearly award, is their activity within the last 12 months. So Robertson, who made an impressive return to relevance with his well-hyped endorsement of Giuliani but who has been a bigger douche in other years, is out. Cheney, whose influence took a hit from the midterms of 2006, albeit a tiny, barely recognizable hit shrinking in effect with each day Nancy Pelosi and the pecked hens of the Democratic Leadership Committee sit on their hands in Congress, is also out. Giuliani, who has slid in the polls while leveraging defeat in early, small state primaries against a large-state sweep on Super Tuesday, is in great position to be the douche of the year for 2008. But the choice for 2007 is a man who has worked largely behind the scenes to spread propaganda, fear, hatred, hypocrisy and out-and-out lies across the country and around the world for years. Rupert Murdoch, whose empire expanded with the acquisition of the Wall Street Journal and whose mendacity was enough to strike fear into as nefarious a figure as Journal editorial page chief Paul Gigot, is accorded the dishonor of the very first Time stops for no one Douche of the Year award.

Congratulations, Rupert! May you rot in hell!

Why can't we be virtual friends?

It's never fun dealing with Rupert Murdoch. He's probably the only person who can challenge Dick Cheney in the Douche of the Year contest (for which he is hereby nominated), and the chief reason why he might win is the size of his gargantuan and ever-growing sphere of influence, with which he's attempting to swallow reality whole. Perhaps the most surreptitious of these assaults is his MySpace empire, which he acquired in 2005. If you're 25 or younger, chances are you have a MySpace page, and are therefore subject to loud, flashing advertisements, a mountain of spam and fraudulent come-ons, and random encounters with strangers. There are other popular "social networking sites," most notably Facebook, but MySpace has remained the gold standard. There are plenty of older folks, like myself (OK, I'm 28, so I'm not that much older, but so it is) who have MySpace pages, too, and I believe most of them, like myself, lament the corporatized, audience-tailored replacement for the face-to-face encounter the site has in some way become.

Perhaps the most glaring and obvious example of MySpace- fueled societal decay can be encountered when someone you have never met decides to ask if you would like to become their friend. I've found that the most fruitful friendships I've had in life have begun organically, without a defined moment when strangers became acquaintances and acquaintances became friends. It never starts with a cloying "Will you be my friend?" query. But that's how it's done on MySpace. There are no acquaintances -- only friends and un-friends. You're either with somebody or against them, just as in Murdoch's black-and-white, maverick politics.

Your first duty upon receiving one of these requests is to find out whether it's a real person or a spam- spewing robot -- an easy determination in real life but a bit trickier on MySpace. The best way to find this out is by clicking the link to the potential friend's profile and examining their page for prominently displayed nude pictures of themselves, feverish promotion of their favorite consumer product, or a combination of the two. Another tell-tale sign are the person's friends and their comments -- on MySpace you are who you befriend -- which, if they are filled largely with male rednecks in their 30s who seem quite happy to have been added, are a sure indication that this is one request to ignore.

But then, therein lies a hard-to- resolve dilemma -- if you are actually engaged by a real human being and accept their request to become friends, what should your first words to them be? Common etiquette dictates that you comment on their page with a "thank you for the add," but as this has become widely used it has become even more distant and didactic in tone, leaving the friend requester to wonder if they have just committed the cardinal sin of inviting a spam robot to their page. A warmer approach can be made by including one of the vast multitude of graphics with "Thanks for the add" imprinted on them, usually along with a kitten and twinkling sparkles. These are perfect for teenage girls and particularly effeminate men, but, alas, no good for anyone else.

There is, as I have discovered, the witty approach. You can take the popular "Thanks for the add" phrase and have some fun with it, but the risk of misunderstanding is great. For instance, take this exchange of comments from a pair of MySpace pages:


Me, commenting on my new friend's page: Thanks for the a-d-d! Better go take my Ritalin!

My new friend, on my page: What?

Me: Oh, sorry. I was making a joke. I meant ADD, as in attention deficit disorder.

My new friend: I don't have ADD.

Me: I know you don't have ADD. I was just bringing it up because I was trying to say "thanks for the add," but noticed the word add is also the acronym for that syndrome. Just trying to switch things up a bit and lighten the mood.

My new friend: You really have got to be careful ... you shouldn't make fun of people with ADD.

Me: I never meant to make fun of anyone with ADD. I'm very sorry you took offense.

My new friend: You better be.


My guess is I won't be getting an Evite to any of that guy's holiday parties this year. Which is just as well, I suppose, since I probably wouldn't feel very comfortable and wouldn't be my usual jovial self at the affair, given our initial encounter. I suppose that would be the ultimate effect of MySpace -- to discourage one from seeking out face-to-face encounters, the kind of meet-up that lacks advertising space and very often entails conversations that are difficult to document for the purpose of government surveillance.

But hey, I just got some good news! A bunch of strangers named Beverlie, Daniel, Brianna, Sydney, Taylor, Trinity, Samantha and Darryl all want to be my friend! I hope none of them suffer from any attention-span related disorders.

Tampex, have I got a sponsorship opportunity for you!

After meeting the people who interviewed me for a job today, I began thinking, we need to have a way to recognize the world's biggest douches, like the Douche of the Year Award*. We're talking the worst of the worst in male behavior. The guys who put the "men" in "menstruate." We need to have a Bitch of the Year award, too, but I'm holding off on that until I get the proper inspiration. And to avoid taking a needless, unhealthy swipe at any and all of my exes. That, too.

So, I think it's on ... the 2007 Douche of the Year Award will be handed out here on TIME STOPS FOR NO ONE in December. I would say on December 31, to ensure no douche-like behavior goes unrecognized this year, but chances are I'll be drunk that day, as is New Year's tradition, if not the day before, too, so we'll just say sometime in December.

From time to time between now and the award presentation ceremony, we'll be nominating candidates. We might even have a cool bracket-style elimination round later on. You never know what you're going to get around here at TIME STOPS FOR NOTHING BUT SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOT ... er ... TIME STOPS FOR NO ONE!

So, our first nominee is ...

Dick Cheney. Of course. No recitation of the world's douches could possibly go on without mention of the man behind the curtain of the Bush Administration. But is he part of the Bush Administration? Is he part of Congress? Or is he, as Keith Olbermann said, a rogue nation that must be invaded, in order to establish a free and democratic Dick Cheney.

You know, even if we had blindly elected some person randomly named Dick Cheney, we could assume that, given Dick Cheney is most likely the nom de plume of a dominatrix, this person might get us mired in some pointless, resource-draining conflict. We wouldn't expect the person to be so pernicious, defiant and deviant. Unless we paid extra and asked her first with a "Mistress please ..."

*-As you might have guessed, that means if offered, I'm probably NOT going to take the job.