Thanks for Visiting

I was in the mood for another round-up to see what brings y'all to Mock Whiskeyville. It turns out raw bloodlust for The Big Lebowski draws a lot of new readers.

Here are a few recent searches that have brought people to my blog lately:

1. cocaine Hawaii - While not actually a Big Lebowski reference, it might as well be
2. Yeah well, that's just, ya know, like, your opinion, man.
3. sam's bbq montgomery
4. freezer whisky -tape - huh?
5. I see you rolled your way into the pull the trigger till it goes click - They don't exactly nail it, but you get the point.
6. matrix name maker
7. "jen lav" - I think someone might have an admirer, heh?
8. deos mio man
9. lyrics to i said it's either me or the whiskey
10. sam turano blog -I think someone else might have a French admirer, sil vous plait?
11. aporkalypse - Mmm, yummy.
12. for all you haters
13. Marjorie payne file this please - In this case, I think someone is googling herself, don't you think?

So, except for the lovelorn seekers of FOS (Friends of Scobie), I am a little despondent over the "types" I seem to be attracting. Big Lebowski and Matrix fans? Nerd alert! Maybe I should blog endlessly about The Wire (which I not so secretly wish to do), just to attract a minutely broader audience.*

I can feel a New Year's resolution forming. More John Roberts? Cher? Are the masses really clamoring for Jen Lav and Sam Turano? I will give the people what they want. This is a democratic blog.** More on this later, while I mull my topical options for '07.

*I recognize that essentially invites others to stop reading this blog, so I won't do it. I am just admitting the self-control has been difficult to muster.
** Other than the self-restraint w/r/t The Wire, no, it actually isn't democratic. But people love "democracy" so, you know, give the people what they want.

Proof that Alabama Medicaid Did Not Know Who It Was Messing With.

As you know, I have previously touted the wondrous deeds of J. Lav. We all knew it was just a matter of time before Jen brought Alabama's f***ed up Medicaid system to its knees. It turns out that Jen has a secret Superfriend in her battles: CHER. I once saw Mike Dukakis on the street in Boston, but we didn't even make eye contact (at 14, I was already taller than he was).* No celebrity has ever come to my assistance, although now I guess I can claim Jenny Lav as my celebrity helper, since she babysat a few times and even brought a delicious chicken over when the Doodle was born.

Anyway, Cher is a big deal, and I hope that, with Cher's help, Alabama Medicaid comes begging Jen for help in clearing up what is no doubt an awful backlog of denied benefit appeals they've been meaning to grant.

* I do have more recent celebrity sightings than this. For example, my cousin saw Viggo Mortenson at an anti-war rally, holding a poster of Earth or something. Also, Rowan Atkinson took a piece of cauliflower off Brook's plate at the River Cafe in London (not exactly true) and Val Kilmer has 2 daughters, one of whom is a tomboy that looks like Oliver from the Brady Bunch after it jumped the shark. But my friend Virginia sort of passively engineered those sightings, so I feel like maybe she's my celebrity helper, in the sense that she has helped me to see celebrities.

Shout Outs to J Lav

Not satisfied with merely surviving the Tuscaloosa summer, Jen Lav has decided to bust Alabama Medicaid's ass. Clearly Medicaid does not stand a chance.

Alabama's Medicaid's Riposte

As you know, Jen Lav, through a dentist friend of hers, enlisted Cher's help in battling her client's problems with Alabama Medicaid. You KNOW that Alabama won't take that s**t lying down. Here's a recent story from the Tuscaloosa news (reprinted in full so that you won't have to give them highly valuable private information):

Cher, the international movie, TV and pop star, has a song in her vast repertoire called “I’m No Angel." But you couldn’t prove it by Joseph Sullivan of Northport.The 16-year-old has muscular dystrophy. He can move his head and fingers but little else. His mother, who is 69, is disabled from two strokes. Sullivan lost his Medicaid coverage this summer when his survivor benefits from his father’s death increased his monthly income to $13 over the agency’s $599 limit. When Medicaid was cut off, his family couldn’t afford the $190 a week cost of home health care that helped keep Sullivan bathed and dressed. Without those simple amenities, his hopes of leaving his house and eventually returning to school were dimmed. A local dentist, Dr. Tony Davis, heard of Sullivan’s plight and contacted Cher, who has been helping children with disabilities since her movie“Mask," which focused on a disfigured teen. She donated $550 for two weeks of home health care, saying that she hoped the money would inspire others to help the Sullivan family. Now the Area Agency on Aging for West Alabama is providing the family $1,200 from money set aside for caretakers older than age 60. Along with the seed money from Cher, it will cover Sullivan’s home health care through October. Meanwhile, others have donated nearly $450. Cher might be the first to admit that she has not always lived an exemplary life. But there is no denying the good that she has done in helping to publicize Sullivan’s plight. In an age of cold glitz and hot Hollywood scandals, her involvement shows that celebrity can be a positive force as well. We hope it inspires many others to help the Sullivans.

So Jen asks, what did Cher do that was so bad to deserve this little offhand slap? I posit that AL is starting a smear campaign against Cher to discredit her good works in helping the Sullivans. Shame on them.

By the way, her old name is Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre Bono Allman.