Republican Congressman Mark Foley resigned Friday as news broke that he had written sexually explicit emails and IMs to male, teenage congressional pages. I’ll stop there. You either know about this story or don’t care. What I care about is how a U.S. Congressman gets his cybersex on. So here is an excerpt from the ABCNews.com transcript of Foley’s chat. Congressman Foley is “Maf54″.
Teen: haha
Maf54: and gram the one eyed snake
Maf54: grab
Teen: not tonight…dont get to excited
Maf54: well your hard
Teen: that is true
Maf54: and a little horny
Teen: and also tru
Maf54: get a ruler and measure it for me
Teen: ive already told you that
Maf54: tell me again
Teen: 7 and 1/2
Maf54: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Maf54: beautiful
Flumesday: Sorry Maf, sorry Teen, I had to go take a phone call. LOL!!
Flumesday: Let me scroll up and see what you guys were talking about…
Flumesday: OMG! Congressman, you’re sick! How often do you make him measure his dick? And what was going on there with the super long “um”? You guys are gross!
Flumesday: I’m outta here! TTYL : (
•ABC: Full IM Transcript
•CNN: Full Story
•Huffington: Meet the Real GOP
Dustin Diamond, the actor who played Screech Powers in NBC’s “Saved By the Bell” has made a sex video. Yes folks, Screech stars in his own 40-minute porn in which Diamond, 29, has all sorts of sex with 2 women at the same time. Gossip site TMZ reports that in the video, Diamond pulls off the notorious “Dirty Sanchez” which is slang for the loving act whereby a man uses his penis to paint a mustache on his partner with her own feces. Diamond apparently is flat broke and filmed the video in order to make some money and ignite a pathetic post-Bell career. Although Lisa Turtle routinely got stuck with Screech by default, Turtle reportedly was not one of the ladies in the video. Since milking “Saved By the Bell” for all it was worth including a stint with the putrid “New Class”, Diamond has pursued a stand-up comedy career. Unfortunately, I’ve seen his stand-up and it elicits more pity than laughter. Hence, he’s flat broke. Diamond and his manager are shopping the vids to Hustler and Vivid Video for widespread release.
It’s about time. The Shanghai Daily reported Thursday that China Eastern Airlines would introduce a direct round-trip flight from Shanghai to New York starting December 8. China Eastern will run its new service 4 times a week and will be the first airline to make this trip. Numerous American airlines have been vying for permission from the Chinese government to offer the service, and so far Continental, beginning the N.Y. to Shanghai service in March, is the only U.S. airline to have been authorized. Presently, the only direct flights from America and Shanghai are through San Francisco, Los Angeles or Chicago. Northwest is trying to begin Detroit/Shanghai service next year while American Airlines and United are exploring flights to Beijing from Dallas and Washington D.C. respectively. Needless to say, I am thrilled about this news. This flight offering will shave 5 hours off my and all the other New Yorkers’ trip home. Plus, with the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, many Americans will be making the trip to China in the next few years.
Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens denied Wednesday that his overdose Tuesday night was an attempt to kill himself. Owens, who is on medication to heal a broken finger, was taken to a Dallas emergency room Tuesday night in what local police reported as a suicide attempt. T.O.’s publicist, Kim Etheridge, called 911 after finding T.O. in his living room non-responsive with an empty pill bottle in front of him. Can you blame her? In sworn police testimony, officers claimed Etheridge told them Owens ingested the whole bottle of pills because he was depressed and had indicated to her that he wanted to harm himself. In a press conference Wednesday, Etheridge denied saying any of this. Owens claimed his O.D. was the result of an allergic reaction to the medicine. What exactly happened Tuesday night is unclear and it will be interesting to watch the facts unravel. Owens, who may or may not be addicted to pain medication, is certainly addicted to attention. No matter where Owens has been in his career, he has done his best to take focus from his team and bring attention to himself. Whether he actually attempted suicide or just has an addiction to his pills, it’s clear that T.O. has problems. He’s not right in the head. And though T.O. has brought all of this onto himself, maybe it’s time the media should quit thriving on this guy’s misery.
In a land where the exchange of ideas is limited and the freedom of expression is, well, non-existent, there sure are a hell of a lot of web logs. Yes, China’s number of blogs has hit 34 million. What does this mean? Well first, China has more blogs than any other country. Second, China’s number of blogs has quadrupled since 2002, when the blog craze began. And third, China has 34 million watered-down, government-regulated blogs. The increase in the number of blogs in China has presented entirely new opportunities for advertisers, according to the Xinhua news agency. Advertisers who once had to rely on signs and periodicals are now using blogs to push their products. While China’s blog count has reached 34 million, according to a national report, there are only 17 million bloggers. This number does not include Flumesday, the owner of which has not “registered” his site with the government, as any good blogger in China should. Rumor has it, Beijing has a team of 30,000 engineers patrolling the Chinese internet for content that is politically incendiary or critical of the government. According to a Reuters story Tuesday, the filthy words “democracy” and “freedom” are the most popular words to be searched for and censored. Whether this is fact or a scare tactic, I’m not sure. But what I do know is last week, I wrote about Axl Rose’s alleged new album entitled “Chinese Democracy” and Flumesday lived to see another day. And I just wrote it again. But the best thing to come out of this story is a new slogan for Flumesday. Here it is: “In a land of 34 million blogs, there’s only one that counts.”
Before launching its 32nd season, NBC’s SNL has fired 3 of its cast members. Horatio Sanz, Chris Parnell and Finesse Mitchell will not be returning this season. Sanz, the first Latino cast member, never blossomed into the crazy fat guy that producers envisioned when hired in 1997. He was certainly fat enough. SNL will resume with 11 cast members this season, 5 less that the 16 players of last year. Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch left to do some weird sitcom, 30 Rock, that sounds like some dumb SNL spin-off. Seth Meyers, who I couldn’t pick out of a lineup, was promoted to head writer and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update.” God, it’s sad what’s happened to this show. It used to be a springboard for witty comedians. Now it’s a graveyard for the untalented who laugh at themselves harder than the people watching.
The NFL announced over the weekend that the 2007 season will kick off in Beijing with the first ever NFL game in China. The August 8 preseason game between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks will be played at Beijing Worker’s Stadium and will begin the one year countdown to the 2008 Olympic games. Leading up to the game, CCTV, the state television network, has agreed to air this season’s ESPN Sunday Night Football in order to draw some attention to America’s most popular sport. This Patriots/Seahawks opener will be the 42nd NFL game played on foreign soil. While this event is yet another attempt by the NFL to globalize, it remains to be seen whether the NFL has an actual interest in appealing to the world’s most populous country or is just using the allure of China to market a preseason game. China is as oblivious to the NFL as Americans are to, say, Aussie Rules football. While Americans have probably heard of it, they could not explain it to their girlfriend. Similarly, while the Chinese know the NFL exists, the rules and the look of the game are completely foreign. The NFL is never on T.V. (I don’t believe the whole Sunday Night Football thing) and the only football video games here are the other kind of football. How would they know what it is? The other obstacle is the language barrier. NFL football is a game of complex rules that would need to be explained very carefully to a Chinese fan base. Philadelphia Eagles tight end Chad Lewis, who is fluent in Mandarin, came to China in 2002 to help endorse the game. The NFL is also sponsoring flag football leagues in Chinese high schools to hopefully create the foundation of a football culture in China. While I applaud the NFL for making an effort to spread its product to a very welcoming country, I fear that the turnout for China Bowl will be a lot like the April Rolling Stones concert in Shanghai– a lot of white people.
Monday night marks the first time the New Orleans Saints will play in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina hit last year. The facility, which served as a shelter to 30,000 locals in the wake of Katrina, has undergone 13 months and $185 million worth of renovations in preparation for its grand reopening. While Monday’s game against Atlanta may help New Orleans residents put to rest the misery and desperation associated with the old Superdome, it is not clear what the new Superdome will represent. Governor Kathleen Blanco believes the new Superdome serves as a “a symbol of recovery”. The return of sports to New Orleans will no doubt provide some sense of normalcy and unity to those whose lives were forever changed. But let’s not forget the that the spectacular sports facility to be unveiled Monday night sits in the middle of neighborhoods with nothing more than boarded-up homes and garbage-filled streets. Half of the city’s residents have not returned because their homes, their jobs and their schools were washed away with Katrina. So while it is great that New Orleans has its football back, don’t be fooled into thinking everything is fine.