I remembered that night while watching Team America, a movie that plays like a really bad Hot Shots, but with puppets to add that extra little bit of shittiness. After thirty minutes Team America had already made every possible joke about how clumsy and fey puppets are, but it keep telling them for 75 more. Puppet jokes aren't nearly as funny as they are obvious. Anyone who doesn't think 30 seconds into this piece of shit that we'll see marionettes having sex has to have clotted dicks where his brain should be. What you can't predict is how fucking long the puppet boning goes on, or how long every gag takes.

In Team America, a group of American superspies protect the world from terrorists, led by a speech-impedimented Kim Jong Il. Il uses liberal, know-it-all Hollywood stars like Sean Penn and Tim Robbins to distract the world while he enacts his plan. New recruit Gary Johnston, a theater actor, joins the team, seducing the ladies and drawing the wrath of one of the men, who once had a bad experience at "Cats." Johnston must overcome his own fears, and give a blowjob to his boss, to save Team America and the world.

Early into Team America I had to turn around and ask the asshole behind me to please only laugh hysterically at the jokes. And if he could, then only at the funny ones. He wasn't alone. There were about ten people among the hundred who were eager and willing to laugh at anything that seemed naughty or outrageous. They weren't amused, just thrilled that somebody else might be shocked. It was their way of shouting "Look how cool I am!" Then there were the people like me who were waiting for the parts that were not only blatant attempts at outrageousness but also clever. We laughed way less often. There are some funny jokes like a Broadway play in which everyone has AIDS, a surgery to turn a white man into an undercover Arab that goes horribly awry, and two man-eating panthers played by black housecats.

But the other 95 percent of the movie is supposed to be funny because it adds the word "fag" to celebrity names, puppets projectile vomit, is homophobic, makes fun of Asians inability to pronounce the letter "L", mocks fat people, sings an entire song about Pearl Harbor being a shitty movie, tiresomely emphasizes the point that we're watching puppets, and is even more homophobic.

Really, how fucking hard is it to make poop, gay and dick references? It's pretty God damn easy. If it weren't, my reviews would be about three sentences long. Obviously, I'm not opposed to them, but I sure do like it better when they have a point, or the joke isn't simply that a bodily function has been mentioned.

Director Trey Parker and his partner Matt Stone remind me a lot of myself before I had sex for the first time: obsessed with some misconception about it, and completely unable to mention it without giggling uncontrollably. Come on, guys, you're in Hollywood. I'd think you'd at least be able to pop your cherries with drew Barrymore.

Team America simultaneously mocks celebrities for complaining about America's unilaterilism and international arrogance and bases half its jokes on the same belief. I guess Parker thinks other Hollywood types are assholes, but he's so fucking funny he's allowed to make a statement. What a dick. Just because people say "fuck" and couch their opinions as sixth-grade jokes doesn't make them any more acceptable. Yeah, that includes me.

Two Fingers for Team America, a sweaty, desperate attempt at shock, when a few more jokes would have been a lot funnier.

Applying for jobs is shitty business. You want to embellish and exaggerate your credentials to get your dream job, but there's an unseen line you can't cross. If you cross it you'll end up qualifying for jobs you don't want, or ones where the boss can pretty easily figure out that you're full of shit. Like, did you know that people really go to school to be veterinarians? I thought that shit was all made up, but about two hours into my first shift at Arvada Animal Hospital, I recommended we give a Schnauzer Pabst Blue Ribbon and a pickle for its worms, and the techs were on to me. You know what, though? That's what we use at the Tavern. It's a holistic approach.

After a few interviews here in Arvada, I had two solid job offers. Not "offers" in the strictest sense of the word, where they gave me a job. More like I wasn't banned from the premises. That's as good as a job because if you show up the following Monday morning, stand around like you belong there and make n annoying-pitched constant drone, they'll put you to work. I'm pretty sure I read that in "What Color is your Parachute?" Either there or in "Fourteen Mindblowing Orgasms" from Mrs. Filthy's latest Cosmo. I don't remember which, just that reading both gave me a profound sense of inadequacy. Anyway, the point is, I embellished too much and was offered a job re-glazing bathtubs. It took me all of two hours to figure out that shit sucked. It took another week to get the baked-on glaze off my leg. Look, if you ever take a job like that, don't listen to your co-workers when they tell you to hold your leg in the oversized oven.

The second interview was as perfect as your wife going to her mother's the same weekend the Spice Channel shows Candy Bottoms' "Anything That Moves", Volumes 1-47 in order. Nobody can show initiative, attentiveness and gumption like me. If there were gumption olympics, I'd be the 100-yard champ because I can show it in short bursts like nobody's business. I dazzled the shit right out of Glee at the Hallmark Store. Seriously, I could smell it. She's about 200 years old and probably dumps in her pants anyway, but I was like tar heroin for the senior set. Blue hairs want to roll me up into a sticky dark ball, stuff me into their pipes and smoke the shit out of me until their eyes roll back in their heads. I don't know why, but I've always been more attractive to women who've all lost interest in sex than I am to fertile, horny girls. That's my gift, I guess.

Glee said she's open to new ideas to improve her Hallmark and qualify her as a Diamond Franchiser, so I didn't work long before I took an extended lunch break and put some serious thought into how I'd run a card shop. I came back to work and made some amazing suggestions.

First, from observation I saw that the shop drew almost all its business from weird women who could spend three hours admiring the pewter dragonsholding crystal balls. But nobody ever buys that shit. Men rarely shop for cards, and when they do, they grab whatever is in their path. We get the ones featuring big-boobed women at the liquor store or K-Mart. Glee can't simply carry the same ones, because there's no reason for a guy to go out of his way to buy what he can already get. She needs a higher quality product: either offer bigger-boobs or even more obscene inscriptions. Just because a card says "apeshit" and "cocksucker" doesn't mean a guy doesn't love his mom. In fact, I don't know how to express my feelings without using their words.

Second, Glee store isn't even open when men are likely to buy cards. That is, about two a.m. on a Friday or Saturday night, when my emotions pour out until I'm dry-heaving "I love yous" and "I'm so fucking sorry, I'm so sorries." Even if Hallmark was open, it doesn't have cards that capture real feelings. Where are the Shoebox Greetings cards saying "Wuzza, highm fight?" and "You and what army?"

Third, don't waste so much God damn space on those creepy little porcelain figurines of big-eyed kids peeing, playing baseball and smooching that only perverts and lonely old ladies buy. You want to draw men, put in some of those hilarious wind-up penises, vaginas-in-a-box and gag lingerie from the Spencer Gifts in the Mall. That shit's classy. And hire someone to keep the dicks wound. Nothing's more depressing than a plastic dick with nothing to do.

Finally, sell pistols. It's not hard to get a seller's license to do that, and everybody loves them. Plus, you'd corner the market on people looking for a Saturday Night Special and the "365 Days of Marmaduke Calendar. Diversify! After all, "Kittens and Things Like Rifles" seems to be doing pretty damn well down the street.

I got a future at Glee's, and that's good news, because I'm looking forward to stealing a few of those Precious Moments.

Help Filthy || Want to tell Filthy Something?