Fox News Internal Memos: A New Idiom Worth Dipping Into

So, here's the backstory: A new documentary that takes apart the purported "fairness" and "balance" of Fox News is now #1 on Amazon's sales ranking for DVDs. The documentary, Outfoxed, is the result of hours and hours of carefully-combed Fox News footage and expert analysis. Basically, what the network boils down to is a mouthpiece of the Republican party. Part of the documentary's evidence comes from leaked memos from John Moody, Senior Vice President, News Editorial, for Fox. I love leaked memos! Wonkette has them all.

Reading Moody's skewed directives to his shrill and shilling hands-up-their-asses legion of robot 'reporters', I couldn't help but be intrigued by a few choice idiomatic expressions which deserve more wide-spread usage.

pure Fox!
...This one is my favorite. While Moody is referring to national forests-as-pot farms, it could have a variety of applications in everyday parlance. "So, what did you do last night?" "Fucked up, man. I snorted coke off Mary Kate's distended belly." "Dude, that's pure Fox!"

mouth candy
...Another good one. Mouth candy. Wasting on-air time saying nice things about a guest when really we should be cutting to a commercial for the new Hummer. "Uh, cut the mouth candy with that guy. It's obvious he's not going to let you fuck him!"

virtual "thank you's"
...Related to mouth candy. Those annoying little pleasantries we pay to people below us, like waiters and bus drivers, that we really don't mean. "Oh, darling, thank you for running all the way across the mall to the other Nine West for a pair of Bruno Maglis in my size, but could you please stop breathing heavily on me???"

weekend news
...Anything that's not worth reporting on during the weekday, when everyone is watching (i.e., anything having to do with John Kerry, or 99% of my life).

taste race to the bottom
...The race that Fox continually finds itself winning, or, any competition in which two or more entities try to outdo each other as purveyors of salaciousness and sensationalism. "Yeah, I guess my lowest moment came when I was tweaked out at that White Party and came to riding a massive dong in a papoose on the back of an ancient drag queen." "Well, once I sucked off Elton John in a limo as it cruised the streets of Minneapolis." "Pure Fox."

(and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don't shine)
...Appended to anything done that happens to violate the Bill of Rights. "We're going to round up everyone who has bought a copy of the Koran from Barnes and Noble in the past six months, put hoods over their heads, dress them in orange, and hide them in cages on a corner of a communist island (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don't shine)." Alternatively: "Time to snipe me some abortionists (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don't shine)."

day of lives
...A day of talking to real live people, finding out the 'word on the street', testing the waters, taking the pulse of the nation, speaking to the average joe about the issues that really matter to him. As in, "Well, it's official. I'm now out of toilet paper, ramen, clean underwear, and Tina, so I'll have to visit the grocery store, the Gap, and my dealer. I guess it's going to be a day of lives."

blow breaks
...Foregoing commercials to stick with a hot story. If Jacko climbs up on an SUV without any pants on, we're going to blow breaks and stick with the story. "I was so kicking ass last night at Quake that I blew breaks and ended up actually pissing myself." "Check out Janet over there. She's had so much to drink--I think she might puke at any moment." "Well, I'm not going to miss THAT! Let's blow breaks until she vomits on her boyfriend."

dip into
...I suppose it's okay to dip into Kerry's campaign speech today, as long as you somehow manage to call him a flip-flopper. "Did you read the newspaper this morning? The world is totally fucked up. We probably won't make it to the year 2020, what with global warming, terrorism, and general instability and turmoil spreading throughout the world. Fuck, we probably won't even have a national election this November." "Meh, I didn't get the sense that things were so bad. But then again, I only dip into the news."

Youth! Youth!

"Let us go and sit in the shade," said Lord Henry. "Parker has brought out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must not let yourself become sunburnt. It would be very unbecoming to you."

"What does it matter?" cried Dorian, laughing, as he sat down on the seat at the end of the garden.

"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray."

"Why?"

"Because you have now the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having."

"I don't feel that, Lord Henry."

"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it always be so?

"You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don't frown. You have. And Beauty is a form of Genius,--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won't smile.

"People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

"Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which really to live. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.

"Realize your youth while you have it. Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar, which are the aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.

"A new hedonism,--that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to you for a season.

"The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, what you really might be. There was so much about you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will last,--such a little time.

"The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as golden next June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will have its purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we did not dare to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!"

Questions of Travel: Answered!

Thank you, guest blogger Glen. Isn't he charming, folks? The photocollage with Kirstie Alley at the top was so incredibly charming [ed. note: psst did you notice that Thom Filicia has replaced Kirstie as Pier 1 Imports' spokesperson? You don't think...].

Pascal was wrong, dear friends, or at least not entirely right, about sitting quietly in one's room. Seattle was a kick in the pants, a freebased shot of espresso, a monorail on fire. I fear I may have contracted deep vein thrombosis (DVT) on the flight back, so before the clot that's sneaking through my circulatory system lodges among my gray matter, cutting off my frontal cortex from much-needed oxygen, let me share with you some of the best (and worst) of seattle...

**best!... running into old friend from London and feline flame of sexuality Kristi at the Dyke march on Capitol Hill! This fortuitous event precipitated a night of dancing at Chop Suey one night and checking out Hell's Belles, a rockin' AC/DC cover band another night. It was so wonderful to have wonderful Kristi draped about me again like a fancy stole.

**best!... walking around Deception Pass and being reminded of Lake Superior's north shore, where I grew up. Also, feeling like Merry and Pippin while walking through the old growth forests around there. Oh, also skipping stones.

**best! ... string quartets on the Washington State Ferries!

**worst!... I thought it would be hard to avoid Starbucks over there, as I boycott them always and pee on them when I can. Unfortunately, I did partake in Starbucks coffee while I was there, but made it up by drinking about forty ounces a day from a few excellent independent shops in the area.

**best!... Aurifice and Bauhaus Books & Coffee .

**worst!... UTILIKILTS! Okay, I have a huge problem with utilikilts. I'd seen them a lot the first weekend we were there, mostly covering the rumps of Bears. I didn't think much of it--they'll wear anything. But then we began to see utilikilts everywhere--on the ferry, in the restaurant, at QFC. Now, I know Seattle is a casual place. Very casual, in fact, which is good. But just as I draw the line under casual at wearing your pajamas out to the bar, so do I object to wearing silly unbifurcated mens garments around town. I'm all for smashing silly gendered cultural norms, in general think that men in skirts are hot, but let's face it. This is more about being lazy but still retaining your 'masculinity'. All they care about is being able to quickly wash out their undercarriage. All you gotta do is squat above the garden sprinkler system.

**worst!... Brian's encochlophobia.

**best!... The new Seattle Central Public Library where I spent time off working on some projects. Yes, it can kill you, or at least provides a million vistas from which to hurl yourself, but when you are in the top floor reading room, way off to the side there in the corner, with your headphones on, you can't hear the bored gasps from philistine children being exposed to some 'culture'.

**worst and best!!... Seattle's hills. Which do a number on your glutes when it's the end of the day and you've been hiking around town and all you want to do is sit down with a beer. But generally, I miss interesting topography. Minneapolis is so fucking flat it gets oppressive. In Seattle, you can see more than two blocks in front of you. And sometimes you see a mountain or some water.

**worst!... Not being invited to a cocktail party at Kelly Cash's upstairs penthouse.

**best!!... Monday night drink specials at the Cha Cha Lounge.

**best!!... being able to take the new light rail from (almost) the airport into downtown Minneapolis. How European!