Womb Raiders

How do I get me one of those adopted Third World babies?

Just about anyone who’s who is getting themselves one. They’re all the rage in Hollywood it seems.

Nicole Kidman has one; Sharon Stone has one; Meg Ryan has one; Calista Flockhart* has one; Angelina Jolie has three, and now Madonna has one too. And, you know if it’s good enough for the Material Girl, then it’s good enough for me!

I imagine if I could get my hands on one of these nappy-haired less-than-fortunate orphan babies, my street cred around town would skyrocket dramatically.

And that’s a bet even Pete Rose couldn’t pass up!

It must be pretty easy to do by the looks of it. Just get yourself a return ticket to any Third World shantytown and pluck up any random child splashing around in a disease-ridden puddle and, VIOLA! - Instant parenthood. And without all the regular preliminary bullshit, like child birthing and dating n’ stuff.

And I know what you’re all thinking: making me responsible for the well-being of any small child is about as good an idea as having R. Kelly coach girls volleyball. And I agree wholeheartedly! I would probably drop the poor thing like 3rd period French at least three times before we even boarded the plane. I don’t have the good sense that God gave a goose.

But, how then, do all these Hollywood celebrities get their mitts on these disadvantaged foreign children? Surely, the members of Hollywood’s A-List aren’t really being thought of as anything resembling a stable, supportive family role model - are they? Shit, Drew Barrymore was shot gunning beers and doing lines of coke off her nannies ass when she was seven years old for Pete’s sake.

But, still, it seems that adopted children have become the new fashionable accessory. Soon, all the top designers will be peddling starving orphans in all the schmultzy boutiques along Rodeo Drive.

“Oh, Paris! That Nepalese crack baby really brings out the rhinestones in your Gucci shoulder bag.”

But really – what’s the big deal?

The Queen of Pop, recently returned to Malawi to meet her adoptive son’s father as well as to check on some aid work she is involved with. On her last trip last year, Madonna stirred up controversy after being accused of using her celebrity status to circumvent laid down rules about foreigners adopting Malawian children. Yohane Banda, the father of little David Banda, Madonna’s adopted son, claims that he did not understand the conditions of Madonna’s interim custody order when the child was taken from him. He claimed that his child had been stolen from him.

“One minute we talking about all going for ice cream, and the next thing I know, I’m left standing there holding a goat”, says Mr. Banda on what he remembers about Madonna’s adoptive process.

So her return visit to Malawi to temporarily reunite the child with his father could be viewed as nothing more than a strategically planned daycare damage control.

And not to be outdone, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt adopted a 3-½ year old boy from Vietnam named Pax Thien. That’s the third adopted child into Angelina’s growing brood. She already has Maddox, 5 (Cambodia), Zahara, 12 (Ethiopia), and little Shiloh, 10 months. The tabloids have even claimed recently that when it comes to her United Colors of Benetton family of children, it’s little Shiloh, her own flesh and blood that often goes without Mommy’s love.

I guess Angelina doesn’t dig white meat.

But, whatever, the two are gripped in this whole game of adoptive “One Up-man-ship” in the media lately. Many are concerned that this recent Third World baby boom among celebrities casts a shadow somehow over the whole foreign child adoptive process.

Shadow? What shadow? Shit, if Angelina Jolie or Madonna were ever to decide that they wanted to adopt a single, white, male idiot in his mid-thirties, I’ll gratefully leap into that dog pit with a nice, big, fat, juicy pork chop tied around my neck. No fucking problem!

Some people are saying that these women are selling out their celebrity status to satisfy their motherly whims.

Yeah. And?

Not that I’m one to jump to celebrities defense or anything, but who fucking cares? Madonna would sell out for the cool side of a pillow, so why is everybody shocked that she would use her celebrity super powers to sidestep the odd law in getting herself a fashionable Third World baby? Heaven’s forbid the child should ever later regret being taken away from his mud puddle and delivered into wealth and opportunity. Isn’t that every orphan’s dream?

I should know, my sister watched ‘Little Orphan Annie’ every day for a solid year as a child!

Shit, I’m 34 years old and have parents and I get disappointed when I don’t wake up in some four-poster bed in some lavish Irish castle.

Stupidlousybrokeparents…

If I were Madonna and had, like, a zillion dollars – I’d adopt too. Lord knows it’s to her advantage. Over the years, Madonna’s squish mitten has been worked over so much that you could hold a field practice for the whole Denver Bronco’s football team in there.

Why wouldn’t she give herself the break and just adopt instead?

No muss – no fuss.

To retaliate, Angelina Jolie is set to announce that she plans to adopt each and every surviving student at Virginia Tech. That’ll really show them who means business when it comes to global charity!

If I had a little bit better of an income, I’d be interested in getting me a Third World baby too.

Something in a, oh, I don’t know…something in a Malaysian AIDS orphan maybe, or an orphaned war casualty from Sierra Leone. You know - something hip and now.

Unfortunately, things have been a little tight since they have assigned a security guard to the wishing well at the local mall, so the best I could do would be for an abandoned street kid from the New Jersey projects.

Not exactly the exotic accessory en vogue these days.

* Apparently, Calista’s arms are so thin and weak that she cannot actually hold or support the child, but instead, hired a team of around-the-clock Sherpa nannies to look after the child on trips out.

April Tool's

So far; so good.

It’s been three whole days since April Fool’s, and yet, somehow, I’ve managed to refrain from kicking anybody in the jewels, setting anything on fire, or dropped any heavy objects from highway overpasses.

Yay me.

April Fool’s Day, you see, is the Holy Grail holiday for assholes. The one day of the year where every retard on the planet suddenly decides he’s Jerry Lewis.

Even the most cantankerous, humorless, and spiteful sourpuss can dust off his rubber chicken and be an instant comedic god. How did such a noble concept for a nationally recognized holiday go so wrong? From the moment you leave the house you are constantly confronted by these unfunny moolyaks who are attempting to yuck it up as if they were a regular Robin Williams on meth.

Only one fucking problem – they’re not.

But I think this year it’s safe to say that April Fool’s Day has successfully passed without incident or violent injury.

Like every other holiday, I hate April Fool’s Day. When exactly did our culture go tits up and resort to celebrating holidays involving fake vomit, whoopee cushions, and plastic piles of dog shit? Or do they just make up these asinine holidays on the spot?

How then did all this madness get started anyway?

Well, although still open to debate, it’s most commonly accepted that April Fool’s Day originated back in 1582, when Pope Gregory XII ordered a new calendar (The Gregorian Calendar) created to replace the old Julian Calendar in use at the time.

First off, how fucking cool is that to wake up one morning and decide: “you know, I feel like a new calendar today”? Now THAT’S a power trip, baby!

But, anyway, the man in the funny hat wants a new calendar. Up until that time, most ancient cultures celebrated their New Year’s Day on or around April 1st, which closely follows the vernal equinox on March 20th or 21st.

Why? Who knows? It was good enough for the Romans and it was good enough for the Hindu’s, but apparently it wasn’t good enough for Pope Gregory. No, sir! Pope Gregory wanted his New Years Day on January 1st – and so, SHAZAM! We had the new calendar year that we have now.

France adopted the new calendar almost immediately. No real surprise there, right? The thing is, and as explanation has it, many people either refused to accept the new date, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Years Day on the original April 1st despite what the Pope was peddling at the time.

Here’s another prime example of ancient cultures being completely asleep at the wheel. Imagine being so ignorant to the times in which you live that you somehow fail to hear, or understand, that New Year’s Day had officially been moved four months early.

Definitely to your advantage to write that shit down, don’t ya think?

Other people began to make fun of these traditionalists, or “bumpkins”, as I prefer to call them, and attempted to send them on “fool’s errands” or trying to trick them into believing something false. So, in essence, it’s a holiday dedicated primarily to teasing stupid people.

How fucking beautiful is that?

An entire holiday completely revolving around the tormenting of poor, unfortunate retards everywhere. Funny, then, how the French were so quick to adapt this practice. You’d think that what with such a large canvass to cover as it was, they might frown upon inciting public pranking riots in the streets by it’s general populace. But what do I know?

Eventually, the practice is said to have spread throughout the rest of Europe. There’s only one problem with this whole scenario is that England did not adopt the new Gregorian calendar until 1752, and yet, the April Fool’s Day tradition was well established before then.

Uh-oh!

Another explanation was then put forward by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University. He explained that the practice began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job at running the empire.

Pardon? They told who what?

I don’t know about anyone else, but if I were Emperor Constantine, I’d have castrated the little fuckers for daring to openly criticize my total and absolute authority. In fact, I’d hunt down courts jesters and fools everywhere and have them roasted alive. So much so, that comedians today would be born with third degree burns.

Instead, we’d be celebrating ‘Roast An Idiot’ Day on April 1st. I wouldn’t exactly have made him king for a day or anything!

But Constantine, however, was amused, and did just that. He allowed a jester named Kugel to be made king for a day. Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an annual event.

Yeah. Like I’d ever let that happen.

Unfortunately, though, Boskin himself was full of April Fool’s bullshit. So the chances of this actually happening were slim to none.

It is worth noting, however, that many different cultures have had days of foolishness around the start of April, give or take a couple of weeks. The Romans had a festival named Hilaria on March 25th, rejoicing in the resurrection of Attis – and you can just well imagine what kinds of kinky shit the Romans got up to then! The Hindu calendar has Hopi, and the Jewish calendar has Purim. Perhaps it’s something about that time of year, with its turn from winter to spring that brings out the complete and utter jackass in everyone.

Everyone but this complete and utter jackass, that is.

April Fool’s Day is just another excuse to barricade myself indoors, safely stowed away to weather the storm.

It’s a good thing we Canadians are not allowed to arm ourselves in public, otherwise I’d be going all ‘Walker: Texas Ranger’ on every dipshit, moron, and rhubarb that should ever make the fatal mistake of shocking me with a joy buzzer, or asking me to pull their finger.

POW!

“Aprils Fools to you too, motherfucker!”