Carrie Nations

Not long ago, a friend asked me if I believed in free will. Sure, the whole concept of having our life choices being up to ourselves can be interpreted in many ways, and the idea of free will is vague in itself, but I guess I do believe in free will. Or rather, I always have. Free will may be nothing more than a myth, but I’ve always found it to be comforting to think that I hold the power to the outcome of my life. So maybe that’s just the purpose it serves – comfort. After telling my friend that I believed in it, the questions started.

“So do you not think that everything has a cause?”

“If everything has a cause, and as a result of that cause, there is an effect, where is your free will? Where do you come into play if everything is already determined by an original cause?”

And then of course, he goes into his spiel of free will vs. Determinism vs. Big Bang theory vs. the reason why I chose the panties I wore that day and how that effected the chances of me getting laid that evening and the big grass grows all around and around and the big grass grows all around. I took in what I could, but let’s face it, I’m not an intellectual. I’ve never claimed to be. I’m just somewhat clever, occasionally witty, and always wise.

While my friend thinks I never take his heated debates seriously, I do. I appreciate the ways it allows me to reflect upon my own life, and since 2005 has come to a close, I appreciate the reflections even more. 2005 was not a good year for me. Sure, it had its ups as well as the downs, but when I try to put both into a category to see who has the advantage, the downs wins the race by way more than a nose. The only good thing I can say about 2005 is that I’m glad it is over. I feel I made some really bad decisions which ultimately gave into the outcome of me having a bad year. Free will, right? The responsibility of me having the shittiest year ever falls solely into my hands since I hold the power. The year was up to me.

Or was it? After thinking that everything is pretermined by a previous cause or a effect, maybe I didn’t have so much to do with this past year being shitty for me. It was already in my cards. Something I did years ago set off some molecules in my body chemistry that gave into 2005 sticking it in my ass. Or maybe it’s all that the terrible events of this year led to more terrible events. Actually, when it’s put like this, maybe I like this line of thinking better.

This line of thinking puts a whole new perspective on 2005 for me. The New Year began with me finding out that my roommate Brooke was moving out suddenly. So, with the whole cause and effect thought process, as a result of Brooke moving out suddenly, we had to find a new roommate.

As a result of having to find a roommate on short notice, we let anyone who was interested move in without really finding out what kind of roommate they were in the past.

As a result of this, we ended up with Steve who spent more money on coke than he did on rent and bills.

As a result of this, Steve goes out of town one weekend and never shows back up.

As a result of this, we’re left with a room full of his stuff and no extra money on bills.

As a result of this, I start dating Jeff so he can pay for my dinners and my other roommate Brandon starts exploring alternate solutions to the living situation.

As a result of this, I’m unhappy with Jeff spending more money than attention on me, and Brandon finds two friends in Florida that need a roommate. Jeff and I break up, Brandon wants to move out.

As a result of this, I decide I have to find a place of my own and I’m scared.

As a result of this, I meet Joey, a guy completely different from Jeff. As a result of this, things move fast with Joey – I become completely smitten with him.

As a result of this, having him move into my own place with me doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

As a result of this, I become paranoid that since we’re living together I have to be this perfect girlfriend and I start catering to him and let a lot of stuff slip by.

As a result of this, he thinks he can get by with anything and in the mean time finds me “smothering.”

As a result of this, he stays out at all hours of the night, giving me lame excuses and I buy them.

As a result of this, I’m left home alone a lot and become really depressed by it.

As a result of this, my relationship starts to crumble.

As a result of this, he starts cheating on me.

As a result of this, I find out and he is booted out the door.

As a result of this, I’m left scarred by relationships, definitely jaded, living by myself and very very hurt. And there’s much more that happened involving this whole cause and effect thing but you get the gist of it.

So what have I been blaming 2005 on? Myself of course. I told myself I should have never jumped into a relationship with Joey so soon after just meeting him, I should have never asked him to live with me, I should have never bought his crap. I should have just moved into my own apartment and focused on myself. All of this, it’s my fault.

Or was it? Because I mean, looking back over what I just wrote, none of this would have happened if Brooke had never moved out. So maybe it’s Brooke’s fault!!! Or maybe I’m not even getting it. Like I said, I never claimed to be an intellectual. I’m just excited at the prospect of getting to blame someone else for my misfortunes.

The last dinner Joey and I had together was at a little Chinese place about a block away from our apartment. As usual, we waited until we both finished eating and then we opened up our fortune cookies to see what exactly our future was to hold. Mine was probably something lame, but I remember when Joey read his to himself, he crumbled up the fortune and threw it down on his plate.

“Mine was stupid too,” he said.

“Let me see,” I said and reached for the fortune.

The small red words said, “Avoid compulsively making things worse.”

I started laughing out loud. “Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t stop laughing. “This fortune is perfect for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Well you know, it just seems that every time something good starts happening for you, you seem to fuck it up somehow.”

“What am I fucking up now?”

I figured I would spare him a list, but gave him numero uno. “Us. You’re making things worse with us.”

“We’re fine,” he says, and tucks the fortune into the pocket of his jeans. “I’ll keep the dumb fortune anyway since you think it’s so fitting.”

So after talking with my friend about free will and determinism, reflecting on my past year and coming up with better excuses for the year’s events, I decided that perhaps this new year I’d start out resolution free, and instead try focusing on something more productive like getting my closet organized. Only once I started cleaning, I looked to the floor to find something I had completely forgotten about. The fortune.

“Avoid compulsively making things worse”. The more I thought about it, Joey was right. The fortune did not necessarily apply to him. It applied to me. For years I’ve led this topsy turvy lifestyle letting things ride smoothly for a short time, and then finding ways to throw it for a curve. I rarely think things through and I act more on impulse. If it feels right, I’ll do it, but that doesn’t really make it right, does it? Where has my logic been?

Surely, all of the events of 2005 could have been avoided if I had sat down and thought, “Hey, why don’t we shop around for a roommate? This way, we’ll have a better chance at finding someone who is responsible and reliable. Why move in the first person that is willing?”

With Jeff I should have just realized maybe he wasn’t that much into me as much as I wasn’t that into him. I mean, I told myself that I was, but that was because I liked the attention and I liked being pampered a bit. So I kept dragging it out until I was miserable enough to jump into a relationship with the first guy I met after we broke up.

With Joey it’s obvious – I should have taken my time with him. It could have possibly been a good relationship if I just wasn’t in such a rush in fall in love.

Avoid compulsively making things worse, Carrie. Use your head. And I know it’s not good to look to your past and list the could’ve, should’ve, would’ve’s, but in my case, I think it’s necessary. I’ll be 25 in 2006. It’s time to grow up. I’ve taped the fortune to my mirror so that I am forced to look at it every day.

So this is one life choice that IS completely up to me. Or is it really just a result of me having Chinese that day and reading Joey’s fortune that caused me to adopt this line of thinking? Either way, deep thinking makes my head hurt, so I was able to sip champagne in a more relaxed state of mind this past New Years Eve knowing that I will thoughtfully consider any decision I make in 2006 before jumping into them.

Of course, this means no one night stands occured on New Years Eve either. Such are the breaks when coming to terms with your life.

Carrie Nations’ first big decision of 2006 was whether or not she should drink the pink champagne or the regular champagne. They both taste the same, but she has always been a big fan of the color pink. She decided to mix the two. You can email her your New Years resolutions at sundaysgirl@gmail.com.

Paul Dini has done it all. He started out writing for classic 80s cartoons like Transformers, G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe. Then, he went on to write for the groundbreaking Batman: The Animated Series. Now, he is writing for Lost, one of the hottest shows on television.

While he is certainly very busy these days writing for Lost, working on his comic Jingle Belle and adjusting to life as a newlywed, he was nice enough to take some time out to talk to us.

Let’s take it all the way back. As a child, did you read a lot of comic books and watch a lot of television? What were your interests growing up?

I did all the normal kid things. I didn’t read all that many comics. I didn’t read superhero comics at all until college because I didn’t find them all that interesting. I mainly liked comic strips and funny comics – things like Peanut collections and Pogo. We subscribed to three newspapers, so I pretty much got to see everything published in the Bay area between 1960 and 1980.

What got you interested in comics?

In college, in the early 80s, I was rooming with some people who were big comic fans and who actually managed a comic book store near Boston. Every Thursday night, one of my roommates would come home with a new comic, so I would read them and go, “Hey, these are pretty good.” He had a huge collection of various comics stretching back to the 50s. A lot of Jack Kirby comics, a lot of Will Eisner – some of the real groundbreaking and defining stuff of the comics medium. That was sort of my comics education.

You started your television career writing for animated shows. Was that something you always dreamed about doing or was it just a way for you to break into the business?

I always liked strip cartooning and I would draw my own comic strips all through college. When I began thinking about a career, it didn’t look like strip cartooning was that viable an option based on what they were buying at the time and what my interests were and how well I felt I could do it. But, I did get an offer to go to California for a while and work in an animation studio writing. I did that in the early 80s and started writing things like Fat Albert, Masters of the Universe, things like that.

You were also involved in Transformers and G.I. Joe. Seriously – those four have to be considered the grandslam of 80’s cartoons.

It was a good way to finish up my college years by having either a six month gig at an animation studio or be able to do some freelance work and pay off some college bills. I was reading the stuff and writing the stuff at the same time. And then, shortly thereafter I got an opportunity to go up to Lucasfilms in Marin County and work on the Ewoks and Droids cartoons, which was my first long steady gig.

Talk to us about that experience, and what it was like at the Skywalker Ranch working with George Lucas?

It was an amazing experience. It was like a once in a lifetime experience. I sort of looked upon it as graduate school to learn how to make films. Even though we weren’t making films, we had all the resources of Lucasfilms to draw on as far as creating the shows and George was accessible to us if we needed to ask him a question about anything. Early on, he was contributing quite a bit to the development of both those series and it was a very fun time.

My one regret about the way we did those shows was that there was no Cartoon Network at the time. There was no venue to show the cartoons and for us to really make what I thought was our best effort. I think the cartoons, Ewoks and Droids, turned out pretty well for the time and for what we were entrusted to do. But 15 years later when I saw Clone Wars, I was thinking it would have been fun to do that first Star Wars series with the same amount of freedom that Genndy Tartakovsky and his crew had because basically they had no network to answer to and no notes and constant orders to dumb it down.

The worst thing about Saturday mornings is basically the executives will tell you “dumb it down, the kids won’t understand. It can’t be too much action.” And then Clone Wars comes out and rocks the world and wins Emmys and everything. There was a big difference between 1985 and 2005 as far as what you could do and where you could show a cartoon.

So how frustrating is it dealing with network executives? Is it a constant battle?

With children’s programming, you’re dealing with people who may have failed in other elements of TV programming and wound up there because they have contracts and there is no other place for them. Very rarely do you get someone with a passion for children’s programming who really enjoys it.

The less you can deal with their creative restrictions, the better the show will be. You’ll always have the censor putting in their two cents worth, but, on the Warner Brothers stuff particularly, we did a good job censoring ourselves, so the notes were not as crippling as they might have been. But, the creative programming notes sometimes are just agony. You have people going back and forth for days over whether a character should wear berets or ribbons in her hair – which is hippest, which is freshest. The edict is to think young, hip and fresh coming from people who are none of those things.

You eventually went on to write for Batman: The Animated Series. How did that job come about and what was it like working on that program? How was working on Batman different from the other animated shows you had previously been a part of?

At the time we did Batman, which was about 14 or 15 years ago, we were coming off doing the Tiny Toons show, which had Steven Spielberg’s involvement and we also had Fox, which really wanted to do interesting programming for kids and it was kind of like a blessed time with a lot of coincidence working to our favor – that attitude was right, the network was right and the people doing the show were all right to do this as a united vision. And, for a while there, right up to the present day, we were getting away with some fun and interesting shows. I say getting away with because the norm is not that.

It’s distressing to work on a show like Batman, Batman Beyond and now on to things like Justice League where you’re really encouraged to raise the bar a bit and do shows that are engaging to children because they love superheroes, they love the basic design of them and they love the action and then you’re getting an older audience of tweens, teens and adults who may have been fans of the stuff growing up and you are hitting on all bases as far as the audience goes and you’re allowed to do that. You’re kind of on a little island there because the rest of the TV programming world is not like that. We were able to do the shows as best we can, but it’s kind of with the idea that the rest of the animation world isn’t like that and if we do another show it will probably be like a kids’ show or a Saturday morning show or an action adventure show.

You actually created Harley Quinn, who became so popular they even made her a part of Batman’s comic book universe. How did you come up with the idea for that character and how does it feel to have created such a well-received character?

Well, it feels kind of good. The way I created her was I was writing a story called “Joker’s Favor” and it was my first Joker story and I wanted to make it good and I wanted to make the Joker everything he is in the better comics books, which is funny and scary and egotistical and I thought maybe a foil would bring out some of those personality traits. The Joker traditionally has a couple of goons who work with him and we thought we’d throw in a couple of henchmen and then I started thinking about a hench-girl and what kind of girl she could be. I thought, one of the things they used to do in the old Batman series in the 60s is the villian of the week would usually have a gun moll of some type, so what if we gave the Joker a girl, but kind of did a riff on the sassy girl who followed him around and gave her a little bit more of a presence?

So, I decided to make her a funny counterpart to the Joker to maybe work up a little “Punch and Judy” attitude between them. Then, I thought, “What if the girl made jokes too, but her jokes were actually funny and the Joker looks for a reaction from his henchmen and he kind of has to scowl at them before they laugh and applaud, but the girl henchmen would naturally be funny and the guys would laugh at her more?” And the Joker would be irritated by that, but still have this strange relationship with the girl where she’d be part of the group. He wouldn’t just shoot her and throw her out.

I’m good friends with Arleen Sorkin, the actress who does Harley’s voice, and I kind of patterned the character after her a little bit because she’s very vivacious and very funny. I had seen her on Days of Our Lives at that time and in a little continuity clip, they had her character running around in a jester costume and I was thinking, “Oh, there’s kind of a sign.” So we cast her and she did the voice and I think the voice added tremendously to the appeal of the character and she just became a funny character to write, so we could write a Joker story without Harley and it would still be good and we could feature Harley in her own little stories. So she became another player in the Batman villainous universe.

The other day I was at a dime store or drug store and they had some toys off to the side and there was a DC magnet set and there was Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Supergirl, Batgirl and Harley. I thought it was kind of cool that Harley made the cut. She’s now kind of one of their more iconic characters.

Kevin Smith actually named his daughter after the character. How does that feel? Is that strange for you or is it a cool thing?

Oh, that’s very cool. That’s cute. It’s fun when I go over and visit and her mother, Jennifer, will say, “Harley Quinn, come up here right now.” I’m kind of touched that he decided to name his daughter after the character. She’s a sweet, sweet child.

Are you and Kevin Smith pretty close?

I know him pretty well. He lives a few miles away and when we throw parties, we invite each other. I’ve been on his film sets. We talk online. His wife is friends with my wife. What can I say? He’s a terrific guy, a very creative person and a good buddy.

You’ve created your own comic book called Jingle Belle. For those who aren’t familiar with it, what is the comic about and how did it come about?

I had gotten to know a lot of people in Los Angeles who were working in the film business and who were rather well known to the world at large and I was kind of wondering what their families thought of them. You might have a film director who’s known for making wonderful movies that touch hearts and souls of the world over or you may have a comedian who makes everybody laugh, but what happens when they’re at home and they are just dad? Do their kids see them the same way?

And I was looking around, not really to do a Christmas story, but a story that would kind of touch on those same feelings and I guess it just happened to be Christmas time and I was looking at a Christmas card from Steven Spielberg and his family and thought, “What if you took someone like Santa Claus, who also delights kids and use a story about his life?” Santa Claus, in popular mythology, has no children, but what if he did? My version of Santa was a bit younger than the traditional jolly old man and he had a teenage daughter and what if she was spoiled rotten? The idea that Santa gets along with every other child in the world except his own. He fell victim to perhaps overindulging his child as a lot of parents do and so she turned out kind of spoiled because, after all, who could give better presents than Santa Claus? So Jingle Belle is a teenage daughter and she’s grown up with sibling rivalry for the rest of the world. But I never wanted the book to be hateful; I wanted it to be more fun than anything.

As if your resume wasn’t impressive enough, you are now a part of one of the best show on television today, Lost. How did you get involved with the show, and what’s it like to be a part of such a tremendous success?

I was approached by Bryan Burke, who works with J.J. Abrams, about the possibility of contributing to this new show they were doing. I went in and talked to Damon Lindelof and he pitched the premise to me. He said, “This plane full of people goes down on this island and they all have to learn to get along together. It’s kind of live action Survivor – oh and there’s a monster.” Monster? Ooh, sign me up. I thought it was really great. They had liked my writing on things like Batman and I’ve kind of been all over the place in my writing, so they were looking for kind of a unique writing staff.

What sets Lost apart from most of the other shows out there today is the compelling story telling and the mystery involved with everything from the characters to the island itself. Talk to us about the process of working on this show. Did all of the writers sit down and write out the mythology of the island or was it something J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof had planned out in advance? How far into the future is the show planned out? Do you already know what is going to happen over the next few seasons or is some of that left up in the air?

Everything sort of hit the ground running and the show took a long time to sort itself out. I think that from the beginning, J.J. and Damon had definite ideas of where they were going to take the show and an overarching idea of where the show was going to begin and where it was going to end and a few key things along the way. Then we went into a long development process where we were all tossing ideas around to figure out the day to day of life on the island and who these characters were. So once we were picked up and the show started moving, Damon and J.J. had some long conversations about where the show would go and about the mystery element involved. Is every detail worked out in advance? No. But a lot of the big picture elements are worked out.

So can you tell us anything that is going to happen on the show?

Ah-hah. I’m sworn to secrecy about further Lost developments. If I let anything slip, a polar bear will be dispatched immediately to eat me.

The fans of Lost are like no other. As soon as a new episode is over, fans flock to message boards to try and figure out all of the subtle clues sprinkled in every hour of the show. People are literally watching frame-by-frame. Do you ever read any of them and, if so, do you ever shake your head at some of the crazy theories people have come up with?

I have been on some of the message boards and some of those theories aren’t so crazy. It shows that Lost is a series a lot of people feel emotionally connected to, much the same way viewers respond to a Star Trek series or a soap opera. The characters become very real to them, so it’s natural that fans would want to spend time thinking about what will happen to them. I’m sure there are a lot of great theories being generated about the Lost characters even as we speak, I just don’t have time to keep up with them all.

How often do friends and family try to get you give away secrets?

Every week. I tell them my brain is mind wiped after every story session and reinstated each subsequent meeting, but that excuse is growing thin.

In your opinion, which fans are more obsessive – Star Wars fans, comic books fans or fans of Lost?

Actually, I’ve found old record collectors beat them all. I was at a record convention in Austin, TX about seven years ago, looking for some old Bob Wills 45s for my juke box. Every time I went near a table, the dealers would snarl and show their decaying teeth as they hugged the precious sides to their soiled t-shirts. How about that? I now have Texans, record collectors and Bob Wills fans pissed off at me, too.

You’ve won five Emmy awards. Honestly, is there anything you can’t do? Talk to us about what it’s like to be recognized at such a high level.

It feels good. A lot of good writers work years without getting much attention, so I feel very fortunate to have been recognized, either by myself or as part of a talented team.

Tell us something not many people know about you.

I once did the screams for Vincent Price in an episode of Tiny Toons. He was not in good voice that day having just recovered from a bad cold, so every time he had to scream in horror, I did it for him. I told him I was trying to give it an Edward Lionheart feel from Theater of Blood mixed with just a smidge of his Dr. Phibes.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he said kindly, as if talking to an overzealous fan, which I guess he was.

We’ve got one last thing for you here – word association. We’ll just throw out a name and you tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.

Batman.

Cool.

Harley Quinn.

Fun.

The hatch.

A bunch of Japanese ninjas in suspended animation since World War II.

That was actually my dad’s original theory, but it was much better than mine, so I’m using it here.

4-8-15-16-23-42.

My measurements, but I’m not going to tell you where.

Paul Dini.

Misty’s husband.

The future.

Exciting.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy, January 2006. You can find out more about Jingle Belle by checking out the official website.Lost is on Wednesday nights on ABC.

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Brian Murphy

Welcome to the first annual Note to Self awards. I know that if it’s the first one, then technically, it can’t be considered annual yet – but that doesn’t matter. This isn’t about poor journalism choices – it’s about recognizing what made the 2005 NFL season so damned memorable. Enjoy.

My first Selfie is known as the Paris Hilton “What exactly do you bring to the table?” award, and it goes to Baltimore Ravens QB Kyle Boller. Paris Hilton has never done anything to deserve the amount of attention she receives on a daily basis. Ditto for Boller. The best thing I can say about him is that he used to date Tara Reid. Seriously, this guy is so awful, that he was intercepted in a practice game BY A MISS USA PADGENT CONTESTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Maurice Clarett “Punch in the turdbowl” award goes to former Denver Broncos RB Maurice Clarett. That’s right, not since Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig disease has something been this easy to see coming. My brother argued “shouldn’t the award be named the turd in the punchbowl?” I had to tell him that in that scenario you’d have all that good punch, and a little turd to ruin it. With Clarett, it’s always been a lot of turd, with not much punch.

After growing tired of hearing everyone say that “any running back in Denver can run for 1,000 yards easy,” I bet my buddy Jason $20 that Denver’s offseason acquisitions Clarett and RB Ron Dayne couldn’t combine to get 1,000 yards. The odds were really in my favor after Clarett was cut during training camp – that is, until word came out over the weekend that the former Ohio State Buckeye was wanted by the Columbus, Ohio police on two counts of aggravated robbery. Now there’s no telling how far he’ll run.

The Alanis Morisette “If I re-release my only decent CD, but make the songs acoustic, will anyone care about me again?” award goes to Boller’s teammate, CB Deion Sanders. Way to hang around and collect a paycheck because you used to have talent, Prime Time. I’d ask what you’re doing on an NFL roster, but you play for the genius, Brian Billick, and local Baltimore rules prohibit questioning anything he does or says.

The HBO Real Sex award (part one) goes to the Minnesota Vikings for their memorable sex cruise on Lake Minnetonka just before their bye week.

According to reports by several Minnesota news outlets, about 17 players were among the approximately 90 people on two boats for a chartered cruise on Lake Minnetonka during the team’s bye week. Crew members on the boats alleged that the cruise was cut short because nude women were performing lap dances and sexual acts with male cruise participants, including some of the players. Talk about happy endings – four Vikings players were ultimately charged for their involvement in the “Mistake on the Lake,” and head mechanic Mike Tice was fired the minute the season ended.

The Adam Sandler “Hey, didn’t you used to be good” award goes to Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre. You say Little Nicky, I say the Packers are 4-12. Sounds about right, huh?

Along those same lines, the Corey Haim and Corey Feldman “Where are you now?” award goes to the Baltimore Ravens once-dynamic duo of Jamal and Ray Lewis. Just two years ago, Jamal was less than 100 yards away from breaking the NFL single-season rushing record and Ray Ray was the most feared player in the league. Now, Baltimore is trying to decide if either player figures into the team’s long-term plans. As you can see, the Ravens didn’t win very many games this season, but they sure cleaned up during the Selfies.

The HBO Real Sex award (part two) has been given to Angela Ellen Keathley and Renee Thomas, the two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders who were arrested for having too much fun in a public restroom of a Tampa nightclub called, “Banana Joe’s.”

Witnesses claim Thomas and Keathley were having sex with each other in a stall when other patrons grew angry that the two were taking so long in the bathroom. Another woman waiting to use the bathroom told them to hurry up, and Thomas hit her in the face. The best part was, the girls were in Tampa on their own. Even though the Panthers were in town to play the Buccaneers, teams don’t take cheerleaders with them on road games.

If the girls like the town so much, they can move there – they were released from the cheerleading squad as soon as the story broke.

The Kwame Brown “At some point it’s not everyone else fault you suck” award goes to Detroit Lions QB Joey Harrington – with Houston Texans QB David Carr and Washington Redskins QB Patrick Ramsey accepting on his behalf. With Kwame it was “Michael Jordan is too hard on him.” Then it became “Coach Doug Collins yells at him too much.” Finally, everyone settled on the correct answer – Kwame sucks.

For fours years now, everyone has been waiting for one of these three quarterbacks to justify their first-round selection and become a Pro Bowl caliber quarterback. And we’re still waiting. I don’t care about Houston’s pitiful offensive line or the “Steve Spurrier effect” on Ramsey – at this point, these guys should have to pay teams to let them play on Sundays.

The HBO Real Sex award (part three) is presented to the fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who took tailgating to the next level. Turns out that six women were performing lap dances inside a 40-foot motor home parked across from Raymond James Stadium. The mobile strip club was charging $20 to get inside, and then $20 to $40 apiece per dance, depending on whether the girls were topless or totally nude, police said.

Cops caught on the day of the Buccaneers game against the Chicago Bears, Nov. 27. Turns out it was the fourth game this tailgating bonus feature was offered. I guess the four men guarding the jet-black motor home, decorated with a sign for strip club called D’j’ vu, kind of gave it away. In the end, cops arrested everyone involved and seized more than $2,000 and the cameras the girls were using to photo each other during the fun.

(Quick sidenote – after noticing both the cheerleader and stripper fan incidents took place in Tampa, I’m a little surprise that the sex cruise didn’t happen there too. Was the Buccaneers’ pirate ship unavailable?)

And finally, the Grandpa Murphy “cut the cord” award goes to Philadelphia Eagles WR Terrell Owens. Quick story – many years ago, my grandpa brought a radio into work with him so he could listen to his country music throughout the day. Well, whenever he left the immediate area, several of his co-workers changed it to a local R&B station. He’d get so pissed that someone had touched his radio, that one day he finally snapped and he cut the power cord on his own radio so his co-workers couldn’t ever change the station again. He was too dumb to realize that he was only damaging his own radio. Sounds like T.O. to me.

Brian Murphy will neither confirm nor deny that he was part of the group of individuals involved in the PEPCO radio-changing fiasco. Contact him at murf@the5holes.com.

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