$#!' The PTC Says

There's a new TV series starring William Shatner and people are protesting. I would have thought that they were protesting William Shatner, but it turns out that was the least of their concerns. (Go figure.) No, they're protesting the name of the series. Because it's called "$#!' My Dad Says". They object to the $#!'. Really?

Before I get into what is being objected to by who and why, I'd like to say that using the apostrophe as the last symbol in that title looks ridiculous. I think that the percentage sign would have been better. Then it would have been $#!%. That looks more like a curse word than $#!'. Actually, almost any symbol of substance would have been better than the apostrophe. It could have been $#!* or $#!? or even $#!~, though I'm not thrilled with the last one. But I digress.

Here's the scoop: Something called the Parents Television Council has sent letters to 340 companies that that purchase a lot of TV ad time. In the letters, the PTC was asking those companies to not buy ad time on that show unless the name was changed. That's going to be a little hard to do at this point, especially considering that the whole show is based around the Twitter feed of a 27-year old guy who lives with his dad. Justin Halpern opened the Twitter account, shitmydadsays, and tweets about just that. S**t his dad says. And it's hilarious.

My favorite tweet that Justin has posted is this: "A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed." Not only are those words of wisdom, but they couldn't be more true.

But back to the protest. According to a one Tim Winter, who is the President of PTC, "Parents really do care about profanity when their kids are watching TV...All parents? No, but something like 80 or 90 percent of parents. Putting an expletive in the title of a show is crossing new territory, and we can't allow that to happen on our watch." Um, what?

First of all, there isn't an expletive in the title of the show. It's symbols. Granted, they symbolize something (it's right there in their name: symbols), but what else are they supposed to do? Call it "Stuff My Dad Says"? That just seems wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, but definitely not right.

Mr. Winter said in his letter to those companies,"When you advertise on television, do you want your customers to associate your product with (bleep)?" Clearly, Mr. Winter hasn't watched a lot of TV lately. If he had, he would know that 90% of what is on TV already is s**t and advertisers have no problem at all with their product being associated with it. None.

You know, you can SAY s**t on TV now. I'm not saying that I'm OK with it, but it kind of seems like the PTC is overlooking things that are a little more blatant than a bunch of symbols that stand in place of the word s**t. But here's an idea: What say that instead of policing everything to the point of censorship, what say that you let folks monitor what they and (more importantly) their children watch on TV, OK? I'm not saying that's going to go over very well, judging from all of the crap that's already on TV that people love to watch. Have you ever seen Family Guy? South Park? Two and a Half Men? All are certifiably filthy. All are also certifiably hilarious. And all have certifiably large audiences. But if you don't like it, don't watch it. And don't let your kids watch it. For God's sake, don't let your kids watch it. But first, you'd be best served to just get over yourself, Mr. Winter. After that, maybe we'll talk. Now if you'll excuse me, Jersey Shore is on.

No @#$&!?* Cussing?!

There's a whole lot of problems going on in California right now. The unemployment rate for the state is hovering somewhere around 12.7. The budget is far from balanced. The state is going broke. The population of illegal immigrants in this state is sky high. And corruption abounds up there in the State Capitol. So with all of that going on, I'm having a really hard time grasping why it is that the California State Assembly passed a resolution making the first week of March "Cuss Free Week". Wait. What now?

Correct. Cuss Free Week. I swear. Now, if you're asking yourself what the #$*! Cuss Free Week is, well, are you in for a surprise. Granted, just because it was passed by the @#*&$! State Assembly doesn't guarantee that it's going to happen. It still have to be passed by the &*%#@ Senate for it to go into effect. But that's not really the crux of my anger over this stupid #*$&%* idea. My anger stems from BS like this getting passed at all.

Why is this $&*@#& necessary?! Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of everyone not cussing. I am not a fan of the swearing (even though I can do so like a sailor). It makes me insane when people are swearing and there are young children around. They don't need to hear that. No one does, really. But that doesn't mean that I want some sort of stupid ass legislation passed as what will amount to nothing more than a free good measure at best. Let's see how this line of BS got started, shall we?

It would seem that the whole idea was inspired by a one McKay Hatch who founded a No Cussing Club at his middle school two years ago. Apparently the feel good idea took off and now his website, Nocussing.com, boasts that there are over 35,000 members worldwide. That's great, I suppose. I will definitely give kudos to McKay for getting this movement started. I'm sure he's been beaten up more times than I can imagine over this (and numerous other things I'm guessing). But let's be realistic. 35,000 worldwide? Listen, there's a Facebook page called "Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback?" Do you know how many people are a fan of that pickle? 1,529,277 right now as I'm writing this. Over one and a half million folks are a fan of that particular pickle. That is over 43.5 times the number of people worldwide in the No Cussing Club. I'm not trying to diss the No Cussing Club, I'm just trying to put it in effing perspective is all.

The California bill (which is ACR 112. Remember that because you won't find it in any other article you read about this crap, which is why I had to look it up. Can't the Legislature pass a "No Crappy Media Reporting Week"? My God, at least that might get something done.) was written up by Assembly Members Portantino and Smyth. If you are a California voter, please make note of those two names and vote against them when they are up for re-election. We cannot continue to have them in the Assembly wasting the taxpayers money and time on garbage like this. Portantino and Smyth. Don't forget. Out!

Wait. I just read the final version of the bill. There are other co-authors that have climbed aboard this s**t-train. The other coauthors of this piece of crap are: Assembly Members Jones, Solorio, Adams, Beall, Bradford, Caballero, Chesbro, Coto, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Fong, Furutani, Galgiani, Gilmore, Hayashi, Huffman, Jeffries, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Niello, Nielsen, V. Manuel Perez, Salas, Skinner, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran, Villines, and Yamada. Make a note. Print this out. Vote these folks out of office when that time comes! What a bunch of softheads.

Basically, all the bill does is give you a bunch of flowerly prose on why cussing is bad and how a bunch of people have decided to follow McKay's suggestion and not cuss. It also goes on to say that for the No Cussing Week, that businesses or whatever else you are should have a jar with a label on it available in a public place. That way, if you are guilty of screaming "You stupid M-F-er!!" when the mail clerk mixes up your mail again, you put some monetary amount in the jar. The bill then suggests that at the end of the week, the amount in the jar be donated to a charity. A charity!?

The M-F-ing state is going M-F-ing broke!! And you *!#&^?$#s want to go the money to a bleeping charity?! Why in the world isn't it going back to the M-F-ing bankrupt state?! For cryin' out loud, what is wrong with you a-holes?!

But then I started thinking about it. What if I did want to stop cussing? My BFF has given up cussing for Lent. (It's not going all that great, by the way. Sorry, friend! Heart you!) And she has some spectacular cuss hybrids that she tends spout out when needed. And they are spec-tacular. What is she supposed to use instead? I figured that McKay's website, being as he's so into this being so important and all, would have some suggestions. And I was right. It did have some suggestions. For a price. What the $*?#!@?

That's right. He wants to charge you two bucks to download his e-book which seems to be titled "Oh, Pickles! Sassafras! Barnacles! & other G-rated substitutes for cuss words". I guess you get the three on the cover for free. It claims to have over 100 others inside, but you're going to need to pony up two effing dollars if you want to know those. What a scam.

If you'd like to read this stupid-#$@&^! bill you can find it here. I could go off on a tangent about how something like this could be interpreted as the government trying to censor the people in a land which is ruled by it's First Amendment, that of the right to free speech. I could go off on that tangent. But I'm not going to. That's because I'm way too irate about the Assembly wasting time and money (Good God, how much money is this thing going to cost?!) with something that is feel-good at best. There are REAL PROBLEMS out there to be solved!! Do they need a list?! I'll give them a list and I won't even charge them two bucks for it!!