INTRODUCING: DAILY DIRT SHWAG! BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT!!! We here at the Daily Dirt have begun assembling a line of branded, high-quality, collectible Daily Dirt merchandise, suitable for either home or office! It's entirely up to you! For years now, readers have been writing in to ask me: "Jerky, I fuckin' love the Daily Dirt, but I'm one of those sissy-pants fancy-boys who's not so keen on the porn. I'd really like to financially support your publication, but all your advertizing is for porno! Short of mailing you a box of cash money, how can I support your worthy journal?" Now, you folks finally have an outlet for your boundless generosity. Simply make the Daily Dirt Shwag Shop your one-stop holiday shopping locale! Still others have asked me: "Jerky, I feel that your online e-zine represents humanity's last, best hope against the impending take-over by our robotic overlords. I'd like to get the word out about your awesome work, but I'm a friendless drifter with a rare infectious skin condition and breath so bad it can warp glass. How can I get more people to log onto your superlative publication?" Simply buy a t-shirt, friend, and become a walking billboard for the CAUSE! No face-to-face contact required! Note: Availability of items will be strictly limited to the number of orders! Remember, there are only 126 shopping days left between now and Christmas! There will be no surplus, so get your orders in TODAY! *** **** *** CRISP WHITE T-SHIRTS! Help to educate the public about the threat of terrorism AND protect your delicate pink nipples from the sun's deadly ultraviolet radiation with these luxurious, 100% ring-spun cotton body-coverings! Essential for wet t-shirt contests! Buy a gross and tie them together for a handy prison escape ladder! Check out our full line! GREY T-SHIRTS! Some non-virgins feel they don't have the right to wear white. Cleanliness-challenged filthy pigs also have problems with white, as it tends to pick up stains. But their shame need not hold them back any longer! We here at the Daily Dirt have produced grey versions of all our popular white t-shirt options! Now you don't have ANY excuse not to buy! Great for sopping up blood after a vicious beating; yours, or someone else's! Check out our full line! BASEBALL JERSEYS! You know that sports and sporting culture are for mentally retarded people, but you're surrounded by bull-necked jocks who will push your head into the nearest unflushed toilet at the slightest hint of weakness. What to do? Either switch dorms, or pretend to be one of them with our patented Daily Dirt Baseball Jerseys! Check out our full line! COFFEE MUGS! Drinking coffee can be an arduous task. Grinding the beans with your teeth, pouring the boiling water into your mouth, not being able to say anything for so long, afterwards, while you heal. But now, thanks to the geniuses at DARPA, drinking coffee just got a whole lot easier. Behold: the COFFEE MUG! Check out our full line! *** **** *** On an unrelated note, I just want to say that I'm sorry about that whole blackout thing. I didn't realize drying a load of laundry while simultaneously micro-waving a cup of water for my diuretic herbal tea (don't ask) would wreak such dire havoc with the Lake Erie Transmission Loop. So anyway, like the Eskimos say: "my bad." I'll try to be more careful next time. Tomorrow, back to a regular, non-self-prostituting edition of the Daily Friggin' Dirt! Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com

ON THESE DAYS! LOVE TO LOVE YOU, BABY!!! August 19 On this day in the year 1972, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a drunken, bare-naked George Dubya Bush snorted a line of cocaine off a stripper's belly in a Tijuana tavern while his buddies beat the bartender's blind old dog to death with their fat fucking wallets. On this day in the year 2000, the infamous PUSSY MONSTER makes her first appearance in the Daily Dirt. She quickly became a reader favorite, even receiving a number of marriage proposals from smitten suitors along the way! On this day in 1934, by dint of a national plebecite, the German people hand over sole executive power to Adolph Hitler. The vote was thirty-eight million for Hitler to four million, two hundred and fifty thousand against... which means he had an approval rating of 88%. Which, by today's degraded political standards, means he was GOOD, right?

THEY SAID IT! "Fox News, the owner and operator of the world famous Fox News Channel ("FNC"), is the owner of a federal trademark registration in the mark Fair & Balanced. Fox News has used the mark Fair & Balanced, sometimes depicted as Fair and Balanced to distinguish and brand FNC's distinctive method of newsgathering and reporting since its wellpublicized launch in October 1996. ... Defendants' intent in using Trademark in this unauthorized fashion is clear -- they seek to exploit Fox News' trademark, confuse the public as to the origin of the book, and accordingly, boost sales of the Book. This behavior constitutes willful trademark infringement in violation of the Lanham Act as well as unfair competition under the Lanham Act and New York common law. Moreover, since Franken's reputation as a political commentator is not of the same caliber as the stellar reputations of FNC's on-air talent, any association between Franken and Fox News is likely to blur or tarnish Fox News' distinctive mark in violation of blah-blah-blah..." - Excerpts from a hilarious niussance lawsuit (full text here... I especially like where they make a typo calling themselves "Pox News"! How true!) filed by the FOX "news" channel - criminally insane Aussie billionaire Rupert Murdoch's 24/7 neofascist propaganda-churning Dubyapologist spin machine - against Al Franken and his publishers over the title of his latest book, Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Before Fox's decision to sue him, Franken's tome was in the low 500s on the Amazon sales chart. Within a day of announcing their frivolous, bogus lawsuit, it reached NUMBER ONE with a BULLET! *** **** *** "From everything I know about law regarding satire, I'm not worried. As far as the personal attacks go, when I read intoxicated or deranged and shrill and unstable in their complaint, I thought for a moment I was a Fox commentator. And by the way, a few months ago, I trademarked the word funny. So when Fox calls me unfunny, they're violating my trademark. I am seriously considering a countersuit." - Al Franken fires a return volley at his financial benefactors.

JOKES! Today's first joke was sent in by our old pal Dewcross. A Scotsman is sitting at a bar and a beautiful young woman sits beside him to find out what he wears under his kilt. "Why don't you just slip your hand up there and find out?" says the Scotsman. So she slides her hand up his leg. After making her discovery, she promptly whips her hand out and exclaims: "Sir! That's just gruesome!" The Scotsman smiles and replies "Aye lassie... and if you slip your hand up my leg again, you'll feel it grew some more!" *** *** *** Thanks to our old pal Wally for sending in today's second joke. There are two Mexicans who have been lost in the desert for weeks, and they're at death's door. As they stumble on, hoping for salvation in the form of an oasis or something similar, they suddenly spy, through the heat haze, a tree, off in the distance. As they get closer, they can see that the tree is draped with rasher upon rasher of bacon. There's smoked bacon, crispy bacon, life-giving juicy nearly-raw bacon, all sorts. "Hey, Pepe" says the first bloke. "Eeesa Bacon Tree!!! We're saved!!!" "You're right, amigo!" says Pepe. So Pepe goes on ahead and runs up to the tree salivating at the prospect of food. But as he gets to within five feet of the tree, there's the sound of machine gun fire, and he is shot down in a hail of bullets. His friend quickly drops down on the sand, and calls across to the dying Pepe. "Pepe!! Pepe!! Que pasa, hombre?" With his dying breath Pepe calls out: "Run, amigo, run! Eesnot a Bacon Tree... eess... a HAM BUSH!" WORST JOKE OF THE DAY Today's worst joke was sent in by Andres Raid. But we love him anyway. 3 men argueing, whose wife has bigger ass. one says my Jenny´s strings fill the washing machine. The 2nd boasts her wife`s ass is bigger to fit any chair. The third, gazing into infinity, sighs and says: " my Mary has the most beautiful eyes in the world." After a moment of silence he added: " Everything else is an ass!"!

ASK JERKY! Relationship troubles? Philosophical quandaries? Nagging doubts about your spouse? Jerky knows the answer! Send your letter to the feedback address at the bottom of the page: Hey Jerky! There was an interesting thing in Pumping Iron where he was in the Mr Universe competition against Lou Ferigno: one of my favorite Arnie quotes: "Lou, I've won the last SIX Mr Universe contests in a row... Doesn't that boggle your MIND?" Cheers! Signed: Verbal Yer old pal Jerky was watching Pumping Iron recently, and was struck by how much bigger Lou Ferigno was than Arnold at the time. But the idea that bodybuilding is a "sport" is ludicrous on its face. Body-building competitions are no more a sport than, say... ballroom dancing, or solo synchronized swimming (which brings up the question of how anything "solo" can also be "synchronized," but I digress). Basically, all body-building contests boil down to the sweaty-palmed judges choosing which anabolically-enhanced "dish" on the beefcake buffet they would most enjoy being thrown to the ground and brutally raped by. Either that, or they vote for the one who promises to give them a blow-job in the parking lot out back after the trophies are handed out. Not that there's anything wrong with that. *** **** *** Dear Jerky; This is really weird but cool!!! While sitting at your desk make clockwise circles with your right foot. While doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction!!! Signed: Diana Williams Dear Diana; No it won't. *** **** *** Dear Jerky; I have a simple question for you. What is the worst of the two evils, capitalism or the greed-ladened capitalists who run it? Signed: Charger2 Dude. Shut the fuck up and buy a t-shirt. It's good for what ails ya!

READER'S SOAPBOX! Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want. TOPIC: T R U E'S BIG BLACKOUT ADVENTURE: PART ONE! Care of: T R U E in a city like ny, there are going to be many many tellings of stories of this blackout in the form of song, poetry, film... and i can't wait to hear / read / see them. this was my experience in this, the latest trial of the greatest city in the world... 1st off, i have to say that the last 24 hours have been some of the most magical, incredible, special moments i've experienced in years. normally i have to travel to some place thousands of miles away to get my exotic locale fix, but experiencing this city in complete darkness was like being transported into an entirely other dimension... an alternate plane of existence -- a bizarro new york that i wish the everyday new york more closely resembled. it felt simultaneously familiar and otherworldly. shared hardships have a way of bringing people together, and even tho this wasn't exactly a monumentally difficult period (commuter headaches notwithstanding) there was still a coming together that i hope will have some lasting impact on our social relations. i met and spoke with and sat with and shared with more of my neighbors in the last 24 hours than i have in my previous 4 years of living here combined. i had a chance to feel the spirit of community that is the reason i call bed-stuy home. i started off my blackout day with the realization that all my day's plans revolved around computers & subway trains... and since neither of which were going to be at my service, the best course of action on this particularly hot august day was to take a leisurely nap in the hammock. i then went to check on my friends to see that they had the essentials (people often teased me for stocking up on water, canned food, & supplies... but i wasn't the one runnin round to all the bodegas tryin to get some batteries for my radio or paying hyper-inflated prices for candles!). when it looked like darkness was going to greet us without power, i gathered up all my spare candles & handed them out to my neighbors. when darkness fell, i tricked up my bike with electro luminescent wire and set off to see a once-in-a-lifetime blacked out ny skyline. having an opportunity to decorate my bike with el-wire was kind of ironic for me in that i had had the idea to do it before, as i had at burning man, but thought that the city lites would kill the visual impact. what a perfect opportunity to have burning man-like conditions for art in the city! the funny thing is, when i say i had my bike tricked up "playa-style"... the burning man people reading this will interpret that as meaning "playa = the desert location of burning man," and the non-bm folks will probably read it as "playa" -- as in "player -- pimped out, mackalicious"... and of course, both would be true. i headed into crown heights to check on a friend to make sure she got home safely, & spent a while appreciating the silence of the nite & the beauty of a lean, brown, sweat-glistened body catching the flickering candlelite, then rode thru crown hts, cobble hill, carroll gardens... down emptied out stretches of atlantic, flatbush, fulton, nostrand... i came upon a group of people hanging out in front of the brooklyn moon singing bob marley on the sidewalk "...have no fear for atomic energy, cuz none a dem can a stop the time..." they had built a fire in a trashcan & someone's car stereo was providing the impromptu sound system. i finally made my way to the promenade, discovering along the way little pockets of brooklyn i didn't know existed (cobble hill park?? who knew?). when i get to the promenade, there was a couple there who had set up a telescope to check out mars (which is literally at its closest point in recorded history). it is so close right now that thru his telescope i was able to see craters on the face of the planet! after pulling myself away from that awe-inspiring and humbling view, i made my way over to the bk bridge. *** ***** *** END OF PART ONE! Tune in tomorrow, when the first paragraph starts: "one of the things that i have always craved in my constant search for adventure was the opportunity to scale the suspension cables of the bk bridge to see the view from the top. it struck me that with the spotlights off and the cops busy, that there was probably never going to be an opportunity..."

Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com