May. 15 2012 — 1:09 am | 102 views

AMC’s ‘The Killing’ Breaks Record for Longest Unsolved Murder No One Cares About

By Lewis Grossberger | Grossblogger.com

Day 7,423

Another rainy, foggy, soggy, sopping, gloomy, overdramatic day in Seattle, the water now five inches deep in the streets. Everyone is completely drenched because a city ordinance forbids umbrellas. At a very evocative intersection, former cops Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder are sitting on Edwin J. Peltz, a mob-connected dentist, and twisting his arm.

Peltz: Ow. Get off me!

Linden: Not until you tell us.

Peltz: Tell you what?

Holder: Come on, Peltz. We know you knew Rosie Larsen.

Peltz: Of course I knew Rosie Larsen. Everyone in Seattle knew Rosie. That girl led a highly energetic secret life which everyone in town knew about except her parents.

Linden: So you admit you killed her.

Peltz: Of course not. I have an airtight alibi.

Linden: What is it?

Peltz: I was shooting smack with Holder at the time of her death.

Linden: Is that true, Holder?

Holder: Yeah. He’s telling the truth.

Linden: You always disappoint me, Holder.

Holder: Sorry, I’m trying to change my colorful lowlife tendencies. Did I tell you I’m in skank rehab now?

Peltz: Could you guys get off me? You’re not even cops anymore. You’re more like deranged, homeless bums.

Linden: Maybe so but we’re still working the case. We’re obsessed, you know.

Holder: I still have my badge. I gave the chief a fake one when he fired me.

Linden: We’ll crack it, too. There are only six people left in Seattle we haven’t eliminated as suspects.

Holder: Of course, we haven’t checked out Walla Walla yet.

Cut to Stan Larsen’s House.

Stan: Boys, I told you to go to your room.

Boys: Aw, come on, dad. We’re in our late forties. We want to get jobs and start twisted families of our own that have lots of dark secrets which, when unraveled lead to corruption and cover-ups at the highest levels of society.

Stan: No! Not until we find Rosie’s killer! Now go to your room or I’ll revert to my violent past and beat someone to death because I think he killed Rosie although it’ll later turn out that he had nothing to do with it.

Boys: OK, dad.

Stan: And don’t let me catch you talking to your Aunt Terri, who knows more about Rosie’s death than she’s letting on. She’s dead to me!

Boys: We know, Dad. We saw you beat her to death in the last episode.

Stan: Oh, yeah, I forgot. But later, in a quiet moment of introspection, I’m going to feel deep regret over that. If you watch my face, you’ll see a very agonized expression come over it as the camera zooms in.

Boys: OK, dad. Night.

Darren Richmond’s campaign HQ. The room is jammed with politicians, teachers, teenagers, reservation Indians, extras and walk-ons.

Indian chief: Why did you bring us all here, Richmond? It’s crowded.

Richmond: We all have something in common.

Disgraced teacher: What?

Richmond: We’re red herrings. Every one of us had our lives ruined because we were once suspects in the Larsen murder. I’m in a wheelchair because of it and I have to keep running for mayor over and over even though I have no chance of winning.

Indian chief: And we Indians are sick of being portrayed as sinister crooks. It’s not only false—well, OK, partially false–it’s politically incorrect.

Sinister crook: So what can we do about it?

Richmond: I don’t know. I was hoping someone might have an idea. I got nothin’.

The door swings open and an attractive older woman enters.

Woman: I have an idea.

Everyone else in unison: OMG! It’s Rosie Larsen! An older, more mature and haggard Rosie Larsen with lines of hard-won experience and tragedy etched on her beautiful face but still recognizably Rosie Larsen!

Richmond: So you were never killed?

Rosie: No, I just got tired of the never-ending gloomy, rainy, overdramatically yet symbolic and intensely atmospheric atmosphere of Seattle and I ran away. I went to Hollywood and became a writer of episodic television. I created this show, in fact.

Ominous growl from the crowd.

Oh, please. We’ve won awards and the critics love our gritty intensity and our gloomy, rainy atmosphere. This show’s going to run forever and Rosie Larsen’s entirely fictional murder will never be solved. I stole the idea from Twin Peaks. Now go back to your assigned roles and quit whining.

The people in the room rush Rosie Larsen and beat her to death. Then they all stomp her to a bloody pulp and burn the remains. Then they beat the remains. Meanwhile, Linden and Holder, on skateboards, head for Walla Walla.

Holder: Tell me again why we’re going to Walla Walla, Linden.

Linden: Instinct, Holder. My instinct tells me an important break in the case is breaking there.

Holder: So far, your instincts have destroyed both our careers and kept us on the same case for 21 years.

Linden: True but at least we’ve laid bare the dark underbelly of a previously underpublicized American city. And that’s not nothing.

Holder: My skateboard is wobbling, my head hurts and I need to pee. Can we take a break?

Linden: You call yourself an obsessive, Holder? Keep scuffing along. We’re on the right track at last.

 

Apr. 28 2012 — 2:09 pm | 208 views

Romney Blasts Obama for Spending Too Much Time in Bathroom

By Lewis Grossberger | Grossblogger.com

President Obama spends too much time in the bathroom and not enough time governing America, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney charged today in a fiery speech to graduating seniors at the Cadbury Hill Nursery School in Westover, Utah.

“Studies show the average middle-aged male goes to the bathroom four times a day,” Romney said. “But a recent book by a former administration official revealed that Obama goes six or seven times. Americans are demanding to know, ‘Mr. Obama, what are you really doing in there?’”

An administration spokesman charged that Romney was just trying to divert attention from important issues such as why he has so much trouble convincing people that he is human.

But a Romney spokesman countered that the administration spokesman was raising that issue only to take voters’ minds off the question of why Obama had slow-jammed the news on the Jimmy Fallon Show the day before instead of criticizing Romney for attacking him. “I don’t think the American people want a president who is wallowing in the sordid trough of late-night TV entertainment when he should be using his valuable time answering every inane question brought up against him by a bona-fide political opponent,” he said.

At that point, Romney broke into the phone call, interrupting his spokesman to interject, “What the heck is ‘slow-jamming the news?’”

In an equally preposterous political development, future former Republican candidate Newt Gingrich announced that he still planned to drop out of the race but had delayed the official announcement of his dropping out for another two weeks.

 

Apr. 12 2012 — 11:09 pm | 709 views

25 Little-Known Facts About the Titanic

By Lewis Grossberger | Grossblogger.com

1. The old story that a man dressed as a woman to secure a place in a lifeboat is a myth. Actually, the man, Osgood J. Wemple, who had made a fortune recycling used dental floss, was a cross-dresser. Tipsily dancing to a phonograph record in his stateroom, he was clad in a blonde wig and floor-length gown when the call came to abandon ship. With no time to change, he rushed on deck in drag and was directed to a lifeboat by able seaman Frank Harbridge, who fell in love at first sight and proposed to Wemple after they were both taken aboard the RMS Carpathia.

2. From an engineering standpoint, the Titanic was not really a ship at all but a gigantic, seagoing zeppelin.

3. There was a horse aboard the Titanic. Baron Ignatz von Gluckbogen, a wealthy playboy and stable owner, brought Fleet Strudel, his finest racehorse, and exercised the thoroughbred daily in a custom-built paddock on C deck. When informed the ship was sinking, the Baron declared he would go down with his horse. But Fleet Strudel panicked when the water reached his fetlocks, threw his hapless owner and was last seen swimming toward the Belmont Park racetrack.

4. Of the 143,619 books written about the Titanic since 1912, perhaps the most fascinating from a literary point of view is Howard Kepler’s “How I Survived the Titanic Disaster By Being Born 22 Years After It Sank.” The book is written entirely in Morse code.

5. Approximately 30 minutes after being launched, the No. 13 lifeboat struck a very small iceberg—more like a large ice cube, really–and sank. But no passengers were lost because nobody would get into a lifeboat numbered 13.

6. A U.S. Senate hearing held after the disaster revealed that the iceberg that caused the fatal gash in the Titanic’s hull had dangerous design flaws, lacked modern safety features and should never have been allowed to go to sea.

7. Titanic’s superb master chef, Michel Louvain, steadfastly remained at his station, preparing snacks of pate and truffled pheasant so that first-class passengers would not have to drown on an empty stomach. When urged to save himself by his sous-chef, he replied, “Le fois gras, c’est moi,” Perhaps because the remark made little sense, it seldom has been repeated over the years.

8. As its bow filled with water and the Titanic began to list forward, second-class steward Reg Fenster was ordered to rearrange the deck chairs in order to stop the ship from sinking. New engineering studies show that he came heartbreakingly close to succeeding.

9. There were only six toilets on the Titanic. In those days, most passengers and crew members still observed the age-old maritime tradition of going over the side.

10. Upon realizing the great vessel was doomed, its designer, Thomas Andrews, clapped his forehead and exclaimed, “Oh my God, I knew should have used the new iceberg-resistant steel, but no, I had to save a few pennies.”

11. It’s getting harder and harder to find little-known facts about the Titanic. Years  ago, I was able to easily compile hundreds of little-known Titanic facts on each anniversary of its sinking. Now, though I promised 25, I could barely come up with 11 because today everyone knows reams of Titanic trivia. Thanks a lot, James Cameron, you Titanic-hogging interloper jackal. I don’t even believe you went near a submersible. That so-called underwater documentary of yours was all special effects and fake wreckage.