stupid people Archives - Magick Sandwich

Feckless Douche of the Week: Mark Williams

July 16, 2010

I know, I know. You were expecting Mel Gibson. Or maybe Whoopi Goldberg. But Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams has proven himself the douchiest of them all!

Mark Williams at Tea Party Rally

This guy’s got a bee in his bonnet about the NAACP condemning the Tea Party’s tolerance of racism. He countered Monday on CNN’s Situation Room with the I’m-rubber-you’re-glue gambit, saying the NAACP is racist. Why? Well, for one thing, it uses the words “colored people” in its name. Also, “the NAACP is a bunch of old dusty old relics trying to stay relevant in the 21st century and they make money off of race-baiting.”

On the other hand, Williams describes the Tea Party as “… a movement based on the Constitution of the United States. Therefore, it is impossible to be a racist and a Tea Partier because the Constitution is all about individual rights and civil rights.” I don’t think that even qualifies as pretzel logic. And I’d like to point out that denying a person’s ability to be racist is, in itself, pretty racist.

Wolf Blitzer, citing racist representations of Barack Obama, asked, “Should the Tea Party leaders be more assertive in disassociating and condemning these outbursts?” Williams responded, “Well, since every Tea Partier is the Tea Party leader, there is no formal organization; that’s exactly what they do. . . . After buying the mainstream media myth that they’re going to find a happy home in the Tea Party, racists quickly discover that it’s all about rights and that’s not what racism is about. It’s about America and the ideal of equality.”

That might be easier to believe if there weren’t so many images of Tea Partiers with signs depicting Obama as a witch doctor, Hitler, or the Joker, to name but a few. I won’t show the image of a sweet little old lady holding a stuffed monkey and a sign saying, “Send Obama Back To Kenya.” I’m guessing she doesn’t cry socialism when she gets her Social Security check.

Williams said it’s not his job “to police the personal beliefs of everyone in the Tea Party.” Fair enough. But would Martin Luther King have spoken up if the Klan had attended his rally? I think so. When Roland Martin pressed Williams to tell racists they’re not welcome in the Tea Party, he responded, “The racists have their own organization. It’s called the NAACP…a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color.”

Then he and Martin showed up on Anderson Cooper 360 and did it all again. What was said? I was distracted by Martin’s penchant for using the word “epitaph” when I believe he meant “epithet.” I remember Williams blaming the media again for “inviting” the racists to rallies. Blah blah blah. Listen, I’d be perfectly happy if “news” cameras stopped showing up at these events. It’s the attention that feeds the movement. And the need to fill a twenty-four-hour news cycle feeds the networks. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

After his appearances on CNN, Williams still felt the need to share his outrage. So, on Tuesday, in an interview on NPR, Williams said, “You’re dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history.”

Temporarily out of the spotlight, Williams took to his blog and dashed off a fake letter to Lincoln from NAACP president Ben Jealous. I refuse to link directly to his blog so that link is to an article in The Guardian that quotes the entire post.

In this fake letter, the NAACP has changed its mind about emancipation. It’s mind-blowing. You should read the entire post, but here’s a snippet:

…The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.” Again, they directly target Colored People. That means we Colored People would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mark Williams: for your insistence you don’t support racism after calling Obama an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug” (people keep records of these things, you know), for your contagious ignorance and egregious misuse of satire, you are officially Douche of the Week. Hell, you might even be Douche of the Year. Watch your back, Mel! This crazy racist is gaining on you!

*****

Update:

On Friday, Williams appeared on MSNBC and claimed that the NAACP brought offensive signs to rallies to make innocent tea partiers seem racist: video here. TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro calls Williams the King of ‘Accidental’ Racism.

Over the weekend, Williams removed the “letter to Lincoln” from his blog while still protesting that it was intended as satire. Meanwhile, the National Tea Party Federation expelled Williams and his Tea Party Express. That group’s spokesman, David Webb, appeared on CNN and CBS’ Face the Nation and called the blog post offensive but not racist. On both programs, NAACP’s Ben Jealous called bullshit on that.

Meanwhile, Williams says he’s done talking about the controversy but not until after he accuses Webb of turning the debate into a “World Wrestling Style personality conflict.” How long will he be able to keep his mouth shut? Stay tuned.

Previous honorees:
Feckless Douche of the Week: Rush Limbaugh
Feckless Liar of the Week: Spencer Pratt

Can’t Make this Stuff Up: Death Row Edition

July 22, 2009

A death row inmate in Texas wants to donate his body to an artist who will turn it into fish food. Then people will be able to feed him to goldfish in an aquarium set up in an art gallery.

Gene Hathorn killed his own family. Marco Evaristti, the artist, once hosted a dinner party and served meatballs in sauce he made from his own liposuctioned fat.

Is it wrong that I think these guys sound pretty interesting? In fact, I’m feeling so inspired, I’m going to invite my friends over right now. I’ve got some art in my toilet I want them to see.

Air Sex World Championship Tonight

June 12, 2009

As if Air Guitar Nation weren’t cringe-inducing enough, there’s a new way for aficionados of fraud to strut their stuff: it’s called Air Sex.

Like all great pastimes, this originated in Japan. Its founder, seen here in this seminal footage, explains that it is a competition born of necessity. Apparently, Japanese guys are not having a lot of sex and need to practice. In the audience, the Japanese women in the audience appear unimpressed by their ersatz exertions.

The first Air Sex USA Championships took place last year and, as always, we Americans kicked it up a notch. First of all, we added women. Duh! There are several videos to choose from on YouTube documenting the event and I can’t recommend any of them, mainly because I can’t bear to watch them.

Except, that is, for one featuring a horny Sarah Palin taking office after McCain’s Viagra-induced frenzy kills him. (Could this be what Glenn Beck’s fever dreams look like?) The community theater on acid vibe only makes it more difficult to look away. Oh, and it’s acted out to the tune of “War Pigs.”

NSFW: You’ve been warned.

So if you haven’t barfed your kibble yet and have an interest in an evening of sexual karaoke, head to the Highline Ballroom in NYC tonight for the Air Sex World Championship. Real sex and orgasms are strictly prohibited, so you won’t need a raincoat. Cheer for Team USA and try not to be weirdly turned on: it will be hell on you to explain this to your therapist.

At the intersection of mime and lap dancing lies Air Sex!

Air Sex World Championship – Magick Sandwich takes a look at sexual karaoke and it isn’t pretty.

You Can Fix Stupid. It Takes a Bullet.

June 5, 2009

Someone dear to me who shall remain nameless was recently spammed at work by the resumé of a person I’ll call Mr. K. Though the spelling and grammatical errors grated and the cover letter’s promise to add value to the company rankled, it was the sheer number of emails that finally got my friend’s proverbial goat. After about fifty copies cluttered his inbox, he wrote back to Mr. K.

Dear Mr. K:

We may indeed have a position befitting your unique set of skills, positive attitude, professionalism, dedication, work ethic, ad nauseum.

Please report first thing tomorrow morning to our corporate headquarters at 69 Reade Street, New York, for an interview. We are always on the lookout for personnel of your caliber and persistence.

Everyone visiting Way Huge Software Company (Swollen Pickle Division) receives a token of our appreciation for visiting and interviewing with us.

Cordially,

I.P. Freely

The guy wrote back, “When would you like me to come in?”

No shit.

Okay, the guy could be forgiven for not knowing that 69 Reade Street was an abandoned building that had collapsed that morning. And obviously, the name of the company didn’t tip him off. He was sending that resumé out willy-nilly without noting where and to whom he’d emailed already. How do I know this?

He kept sending it. Finally, an IT guy had to block Mr. K’s emails to the entire department.

I hope he didn’t have his heart set on that t-shirt.

5 Lessons from Customer Service

August 1, 2008

To give you a little background on my expertise, I can tell you that during my professional career, I’ve made sandwiches, cleaned toilets, sold health food and hawked plastic surgery.

Amazingly enough, the plastic surgery patient has much in common with the health food store customer—one wants to stay young forever from the inside out, the other from the outside in. Both are pretty crabby as a result.

As for the lesson to take from being a sandwich maker and toilet cleaner? Since it was the same job, I can tell you this: disgruntled minimum-wage earners rarely wash their hands.

That said, let’s dive into today’s lessons, shall we?

1. Keep a straight face.

I learned this my first day of training in customer service at Kinney Drugs when I was 16 years old. An impossibly wizened old man appeared, slapped a pack of condoms on the counter and gave me a sly grin that still held a mossy tooth or two.

The woman training me actually dropped to her knees under the counter, shaking with laughter. I rang him up and got him “a pack of them Pell Mells,” as he put it. I never cracked a smile, but I did correct his pronunciation. I don’t think he cared.

2. Anticipate stupid questions.

Patient before plastic surgery: “Will I sleep until I wake up?”
Answer: “Yes, what will happen is you’re sleeping, you’re sleeping, then, boom, you’re awake.”

Customer at health food store: “Do you sell organic chicken?”
Answer: “Actually, all chicken is organic. We don’t sell cyborg chickens here.”
(Hah! That one was a trap. Were you paying attention? The correct answer is “yes.”)

3. Be prepared with helpful advice.

At the health food store’s vitamin counter, customers came to me with questions regarding their digestive health. Apparently, this had become an issue requiring attention although colons had been chugging along with no need for heroic measures for quite a long time.

One of these concerns had to do with toxins accumulating if a person’s bowels were not evacuating at a healthy rate. I mulled this over and found the perfect answer for those wanting to observe their own ‘intestinal transit time’: “Eat some corn.”

This always stopped customers in their tracks, perhaps because it reminded them of exactly what they were seriously discussing with a relative stranger, or perhaps because it was an ingenious idea. Either way, I think I helped a lot of people.

4. Remain professional at all times.

At the store, I interviewed an applicant for a promising career in the produce section. At first, I was put off by his t-shirt depicting a naked woman bound and stretched over a large wheel. Perhaps he hadn’t planned his wardrobe and had just spontaneously walked in to apply. Then I saw the button pinned to the shirt: “I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick.”

It seemed imprudent of this young man not to survey himself prior to entering the store and realize that it might be a good idea to take the button off and put it in his pocket for the duration of his interview. I’m all for freedom of expression, so I finished speaking with him and ushered him out the door telling him we would call if he got the job.

A few days later, he showed up yelling that he couldn’t understand why we still had an ad in the paper. As customers gathered, I tried to explain, “This is how interviews work. Some people get the job and some people don’t. It’s not automatic.” Our security guard helped him exit as he called me some names.

I consider this a failure on my part. I was unable to educate him about the process. The story does have a happy ending; a few weeks later, I saw him handing out flyers. I was gratified that he’d found a job and I quickly crossed the street.

5. Know when it’s time to leave.

At some point, it will dawn on you that now might be the time to look for another line of work.

At the plastic surgeon’s office, it came when I collected payment from a man scheduled to have liposuction. As he left, he said, “I feel lighter already!” to which I responded, “That’s just your wallet!”

At the health food store, it came when I toyed with the idea of creating a T-shirt that summed up my feelings quite nicely: Get laid and eat a cheeseburger, you pasty-faced maggots! It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

Class dismissed.

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