A Mongo Confession

In light of recent news stories such as Tiger Woods and Jesse James, I felt that it was unfortunate but necessary to come forward with an admittance and apology. My behavior is not excusable nor expected of someone who tries to uphold certain values. Although I am not without faults and far short of perfect I cannot make excuses for my actions. Instead of dealing with these issues and shortcomings away from the daily life I have come to lead, I feel the need to cleanse my soul and start the healing with you, my readers.
I never thought it would be so hard to walk that line and coming to grips with what has transpired in recent years is going to take some time. I do not ask for forgiveness but support in making things right. I know I am asking far more than I deserve but by seeking help I am making that first step towards closure and I thank those who have chosen to come together around me instead of shying away in fear and disgust.

The heart of the matter is that I have had several secret relationships with other women since before and after my marriage. I did treat my marriage honestly and have made several efforts to conceal my actions over the years. Now, I can sit here and tell that these others meant nothing to me and that it was just mindless engagements but that would be lying. I have had multiple encounters with these others and continued to participate in secretive activity with them while my wife was even in the house. It is amazing how you can conceal certain things if you truly wish to. Unfortunately, remnants of our trysts were left behind and were and now I am forced to come clean. Quite frankly, maybe I wished this upon myself. Perhaps the strain of concealing these acts was too much and I unconsciously put myself in the path of discovery in order to end the charade. I do admit that having my wife walk into our kitchen and catch me in an embrace with one of these others was regretful but ultimately, I have hurt her more than I can ever know.

Now, in the interest of protecting all parties, I was advised to not divulge the names of these other women but I feel that by concealing their identities they will undoubtedly be thrust into focus in an attempt to capitalize on what could be considered a scandalous situation. I have conferred with all parties and have been given clearance by all but one to announce their identities in the hopes that we can stop the wildfires of gossip before the flames can be fanned. This is extremely difficult and I find that my hands are shaking as I write this.

The names of the involved parties are:
Wendy
Dolly Madison
Little Debbie
Sara Lee
Betty Crocker
an unnamed Hostess
Dairy Queen

Please accept my sincerest apologies for breaking the trust we had between us. I will try to be a better person.

2009 D-Bag Awards

It’s getting close to the end of the year and here at M.A.M.S. we’d thought we’d look back at 2009 and see who was the biggest d-bag of all. When I say “we” I mean “me” and the voices in my head. 2009 was quite the year for d-baggery. Usually, in case like this, I would do a straightforward list. But I wanted to be a little different and thought it would be fun to pit these folks against each other for my amusement. The worst part about it is having to only choose 32 competitors. There were a lot more that I wanted to include but felt that the field would be too diluted.

The remaining few weeks of 2009 are filled with retrospective lists of pop culture goodness. Unfortunately, to compete with everyone else, the demand for supremacy ultimately causes some list makers to miss out on crucial proponents of their topic that occur after press time. I have been planning a list of the biggest d-bags of 2009 and had hoped to publish them before the end of the year but had I done so I would have missed out on one of the biggest stories of the year. So, I waited and tried to gather more research in order to bring you a more complete list. Unfortunately, this project comes right at the busiest time, the holidays.

I had such hopes to do something exciting and different with this post. I had it all planned out as a March Madness style tournament that would bring matchups between nominees based on their area of d-baggery using bracketology. I just don’t have the time to be that creative and the scope of this project is way beyond me, so let’s just do this as simple as possible. So, here are the list of nominations in their matches. We’ll go from there.

D-Bag Dogs

1. Tiger Woods
2. Charles Barkley
3. David Letterman
4. Steve Phillips

D-Bag Dads

1. Jon Gosselin
2. Richard Heene
3. John Phillips
4. Roman Polanski

Deadly D-Bags

1. H1N1
2. Salmonella
3. Death
4. Conrad Murray

Political D-Bags

1. Rod Blagojevich
2. Sarah Palin
3. Kim Jong Il
4. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
5. Mark Sanford
6. John Edwards

A to D List D-Bags

1. Lindsay Lohan
2. Megan Fox
3. Heidi and Spencer Pratt
4. Ryan Jenkins
5. Chris Brown
6. Kanye West
7. Chad Johnson
8. Manny Ramirez

Million Dollar D-Bags

1. Wall Street
2. Auto Industry
3. Fox
4. NBC
5. Raj Rajaratnam
6. Bernie Madoff

Seven Sins For Seven Virtues Part 2: Purity and Lust

Purity vs. Lust

A continuation of the Series Good vs. Evil: The Internet

When I first decided to tackle this idea I didn't give it much thought. There's Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues. How hard could that be? Yeah. Not everything on the Internet be boiled down to seven ideas. I knew what I wanted to say against the Internet as far as Lust but I really don't have a clue how to show the Purity side of the Internet. I guess in terms of Chastity or Purity there's websites for every single religion out there. In fact you can get yourself ordained as a minister of an online church like the The Universal Life Church of Modesto California. I did. Seriously, I did. Back in 1995, The ULC made it easy for anyone who wished to be a member of the church the right to be ordained. Their thought process is that we are all in this world together regardless of race, creed, or gender. It shouldn't matter what you believe in as long you seek to provide a fuller life for everyone, eternal progression, and that you live and help live. As long as you are doing what is right without infringing on the rights of others you are getting the message correctly. According to their belief we are already ordained by a higher power, they are just recognizing it. In other words, it's just as real as any other religion out there. It's not what you believe as long as just believe.

Of course all religions have gone online to spread their message and provide clarity to their cause. In a world where decisions and information are dealt out in a matter of seconds, sometimes the message needs a little clarification. Case in point, during the Democratic primaries a lot of people refused to vote for Obama because they thought he was a Muslim. Granted his ancestors may have been raised Muslim even though he is Protestant, but the issue is that the Internet and the 24 Hour News Cycle has let information slip past the editors before they have all the facts. Remember the Sago mine disaster. Every one glued to a monitor got to share in the pain and suffering as the reports of alive miners flooded the airwaves before the family members were told of the mistake. By then papers were printed and the mistake was made.

However, this part of the post isn't about what is wrong, but what is right. As short and useless as it is, there are points to be made. If you are unsure which path to follow, I highly suggest going right to the source of the religion and read what they have to say. Stay away from the news sites and political sites. Use an ounce of common sense. If I want to know about Methodists or Presbyterians, I'm not going to Fox News or other slanted media outlets. I'll go to http://www.umc.org/ or http://www.pcusa.org/. Although, I highly recommend checking out the Church of the Subgenius or my personal favorite, The Flying Spaghetti Monster also known as Pastafarianism. Of course those are parody religions but organized religion is itself a parody of the actual message that has been lost over time.

Now onto a topic that is a little easier to comment on in terms of the Internet, lust. It used to be for someone to see images or movies of a certain nature, you had to visit a particular store, theater, a section of a magazine stand, or even perhaps the saloon style swinging doors at your local video store. Now, you can literally type any childish or clinical term into Google and hit search and everything is one click away and there is no embarrassment of having someone see you or your car at a retailer of ill repute. And if you click the Image tab, look out. Now there is even a video tab, too. In fact, the more we try to filter stuff from innocent eyes and minds, the more technology and the rampant nature of website creation slips past the radar and your ten your old is asking you what 2girls1cup is. But were just talking about you alone with the lights off in your home.

What if you're thinking about straying from a relationship? In the pre-Internet days, you had to cruise a bar or a place that had people. Maybe you searched the papers for personals. Either way, you had a lot of tracks to cover and intentions to conceal. Sneaking around had a sense of stealthiness to it. With the Internet, it has become so much easier and there is a wider pool to choose from. Chat rooms, myspace pages, adult websites, and even craigslist can find you someone to keep you warm at night. Granted, with all that convenience there is a modicum amount of evidence of your deeds. Cell texts, emails, Internet cookies and history can all expose you for the devil you are. The Internet has made cheating a lot easier to do but also a lot easier to get caught. Even famous people get caught with their hands in the cookie jar thanks to the net.

The Internet leaves a nice little bread crumb trail for the authorities to find you..or at least your significant other. It doesn't even have to be cheating in your spouse. Just ask Mark Foley. Most people involved with sex scandals are lucky if they end up just divorced. The real scum are the ones who troll myspace or seek out underage kids. Those guys mostly end up having a blind date with Chris Hansen. Trolling message boards and chat rooms for underage kids, these sickos end up meeting with the Dateline crew instead of their intended victim. What kills me about that show is that people still get caught. They even admit to watching the show.

"Are you OneUglyMutha22?"

"Yes. What the hell are you?"

Although, do you really want them to wise up or do you want these bastards caught and prosecuted? The name of the game hasn't changed but the types of equipment have. I do believe the Internet is a gateway drug for Lustful actions because of its high tech whiz bang gadgetry and accessibility. I even think that in the fight between purity and lust, lust wins out in a heartbeat. It's easier to find porn than religion on the Internet. But is it inherently evil? If you are dumb enough to want to cheat or commit crimes of a sexual nature be prepared to end up divorced, on Megan's Law websites, or even in jail.

In this matter, the Internet is only slightly evil, yet makes us profoundly dumber.