After Oprah, what?

From the creators of “Jersey Shore” comes “Redneck Riviera.” Conceived by Ron White (“They Call Me Tater Salad”), it stars Lone Star Staters Lance Armstrong, former President George W. Bush, Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry, Jessica Simpson, Randy Quaid, Meat Loaf, Vanilla Ice and Gary Busey as a potted palm.

In the first episode, Randy Quaid Skypes from Canada to bet Meat Loaf that Jessica Simpson can’t suck a golf ball through a garden hose from Mustang Island to Port Aransas. Meanwhile, Gov. Perry challenges President Bush to a tongue-wrestling contest, and Lance Armstrong wonders over a succession of Shiner Bocks how Oprah would look in a blonde wig and whether Club Fed-Three Rivers has a runway long enough to accommodate his private jet.

Friday Funnies

Ah, Black Friday: The gift that keeps on giving. As some Walmart employees are agitating for a living wage, Sears customers in San Antonio are throwing hands and drawing firearms. Some people clearly did not enjoy enough mood-altering tryptophan on Thanksgiving.

At the higher-end shops, meanwhile, those mannequins you’re inspecting are inspecting you right back, with cameras and facial-recognition software not unlike that used by les flics. Hey, there’s one … whoops, nope, it’s just Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile, here’s something to leave on the shelf, no matter where we are in the shopping season. And fuck Weepy John Boehner and the horses’ asses he rode in on.

Friday Funnies (preview edition)

Livewrong
Think Big Tex will suit up on Friday?

Some folks are expecting The Cyclist Who Shall Not Be Named (TCWSNBN) to ‘fess up on Friday in Austin, during a fund-raising hoo-hah marking the 15th anniversary of Livestrong.

Alas, while Bob Dylan famously noted that “even the president of the United States/Sometimes has to stand naked,” I don’t see The Boss pantsing himself in front of all those yellow rubber bracelets. Anyone who wants to see that hard ass in the cool breeze is gonna have to take an active role, and they’d best pack a lunch, ’cause Big Tex plays for keepsies.

My fabulously uninformed opinion is that he’ll use the occasion for yet another spirited defense of the indefensible, maybe launch a line of yellow rubber crucifixes, and fight a bloody, noisy delaying action until the last lawyer sprawls dead at his feet. I don’t see surrender. I see the Alamo.

Let’s assume for argument’s sake that he’s as guity as a yellow dog caught collar-deep in a trash can full of chicken bones, bacon grease and Benjamin Franklins. Where’s the percentage in coming clean now? The UCI has yet to weigh in — Fat Paddy and Lyin’ Hein are still trying to get their big-boy pants screwed on, I expect — and then there’s always the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

And besides, the only people who would buy a weepy mea culpa at this point are the Walking Deadstrong, that hard core of soft brains who, if they saw him mainlining EPO in a porta-potty at a sprint tri’, would blame Greg, Betsy, Tyler, Floyd and Obama, in that order.

I’ve been wrong before, and often in spectacular fashion. But I don’t see Big Tex coming clean until the End Times are truly upon him, which will be when the money runs out. Then he’ll “write” a tell-all book, hit the rubber chicken/morning talk show circuit and get back on that gravy train.

RomneyBot’s Mendacity Engine working overtime

There is nothing about which Mitt Romney will not lie. Not even the murder of a U.S. ambassador and the current president’s response to the crime.

Kevin Drum has the nuts and bolts of it (heavy on the nuts). Read it and weep, because this asshole could be the next resident of the Oval Office if we’re not careful.

Consider the firestorm of outrage had it been a Democratic candidate who had the effrontery to cobble together this shameless political attack out of whole cloth after four of our ambassadors were killed while serving the nation abroad. Home Depot would sell out of pitchforks, torches and rope before Denny’s served its first Grand Slam of the morning.