Drugs are Good, Mr. MacElroy! Drugs are Our Mates! Tuesday Open Thread

Whelp, for those of us on Uncle Sam’s payroll, prepare your anus for another Republican Shutdownapalooza.  Yes, in the increasingly likely event that the GOP refuses to agree to a continuing resolution to keep government “discretionary” funding flowing, we’re shutting back down at the stroke of Midnight Thursday evening, and the Treasury will be effectively Out of Money two weeks later. I say “we” are shutting down, but I and my dear colleagues will continue to work on the understanding that they’ll stop paying us at some near point.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Sorry.

NFL NEWS: All drugs, all the time!

-CrimeBeat!: Cowboys right tackle La’el Collins has now served two games of his five-game suspension.  It was originally reported that although it was under the league’s Substance Abuse Policy, it wasn’t for a dirty drop.  Rather it was for missing tests, which Collins claimed were during excused absences, and the league and NFLPA negotiated it down to two games.  Collins was still unhappy, and so the matter went to a neutral arbitrator…who promptly increased it back to five games.  Turns out it wasn’t two or three missed drops, but seven.  And it turns out that Collins tried to bribe the NFL drug-sample collector.  No word yet on what the offered bribe was, but given that this voids the injury guarantee on his massive contract roughly halfway through, I hope it was substantial.  We give him a lot of shit, but if there is one thing Roger Goodell will NOT stand for, it is an attempt to use money to subvert the rule of law.

Yes, two Bob Krafts- one for the videotape/SigInt bullshit and one for the sex trafficking. Good luck getting that last picture out of your mind.

-Team Sticky Icky leading receiver Josh Gordon has been reinstated from his sixth suspension and is expected to sign with Kansas City as a complement to Complete Piece of Human Excrement Tyreek Hill.  As many wags have noted, this is somewhat of a surprise as neither Kansas nor Missouri has legalized recreational marijuana.  It is currently unclear (read: I am too lazy to research) whether Gordon will still be subject to marijuana testing, since the latest collective bargaining agreement removed weed from testing for most of the year and is not grounds for suspension. I dunno if there’s some sort of grandfather clause (presumably a grandfather who looks like Tommy Chong) which still applies for parole under the former system.  Regardless, I assume he will test positive for horse tranquilizers by Week 11.

Other Sports:

We’re headed into the final week of the interminably-long slog that is Major League Baseball. Toronto/Buffalo is clinging to life in their battle with The Fuggin’ Yankees and Bahston in the AL.  Given that they play said Yankees and then the Orioles, hopefully the most exciting young team in baseball will still be playing in October.  Meanwhile, the Most Glorious El Beisbol Cardinals continue marching like Sherman through Georgia (or perhaps like Taco Bell through an American colon).  They play a Milwaukee team with nothing left to play for and a Cubs team with nothing left in their souls. One win in six..I like those odds.

Finally: another installment of Obscure Movie Hot Tip. This week: UHF!

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UHF stars the ageless “Weird Al” Yankovic, pre-racist Michael Richards, pre-insane Victoria Jackson, pre-SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and the criminally underappreciated Emo Philips.  It’s 60 percent absurdist, 30 percent parody and 10 percent pork entrails.  The plot (such as it is) is that perennial loser George gets fired from flipping burgers and gets hired at his uncle’s newly-obtained Far Up The Dial tiny TV station. (Feel free to draw any Arthur Smith parallels).  In desperation, he begins airing insane programming that the public laps up.

Somewhat like Idiocracy, reality has almost rendered some of the humor moot.  The concept of a small, independently-owned TV station is so outdated as to be laughable unto itself.  The “outlandish” TV shows on Channel 62 are now things that you can see some dumbshit young programming exec at Fox pitching.  Putting EZ Cheez into a split Twinkie is no longer a fascinating exercise in disgust; it’s the Texas State Fair.

But it’s still a lovely movie.  Gentle in its humor and parody, like the comedy equivalent of the Great British Baking Show.  Go see it.