American Chimpanzee

Hard Core Advice From Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie Dear John,      I am a senior in high school, and I have been dating "Brianna" for 10 months. She graduated last year and attends a community college, but really has no ambition to be or do anything. We spent last summer together, and I honestly fell head over heels for her.      Here's the problem: I have been accepted to a college that's out of town. It's always been my dream to go away to school, so I told Briana that it wouldn't be fair to either of us to stay together while I'm away, but that I want us to be together as much as possible until then. However, ever since I said this to Brianna things haven't been the same. She's begun cutting herself, and tells me if I leave she'll kill herself.      You see, Brianna's dad left when she was 12, and she's still crushed by it. She doesn't get along with her family, and tells me I'm al...

Well, stand aside Nostradamus.      Once again I was 99% correct in my annual prediction of who would take home an Academy Award. Even I, your humble Hollywood correspondent, took home an Oscar, but that was only because one particular winner got too drunk to noticed me stealing it.      The only category I got wrong was for Best Actor. I was positive that Daniel Day-Lewis would go home a bridesmaid, not a bride, for his portrayal of President Abraham Lincoln. While others praised his performance, I found it to be just that: a performance. The animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland is more natural and lifelike. My money was on Clint Eastwood for his portrayal of an aging ( insert occupation here ).      I was saddened that the cast of the movie Frankenweenie decided to boycott the ceremony, but I find their Pro-Life stand to be both brave and courageous. Wait, that's the same thing, isn't it? Nevermind. ...

Opinions are like belly-buttons... everybody's got one. But is that going to stop me from telling you who I think will win the top six categories at the Academy Awards annual self-congratulatory ceremonies?      Get real.      I'll start with Best Supporting Actress, since, when it comes to the women, all anybody's really interested in is what they're wearing and whether or not they're able to legally have abortions.      For Best Supporting Actress you can immediately cross out the names Jacki Weaver ( Silver Linings Playbook ) and Amy Adams ( The Master ). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they don't have a chance...      Well, I guess I am saying that.      If there were a category for Best Naked Performance By An Actress Past Her Prime, then Helen Hunt ( The Sessions ) would win hands down. But Best Supporting Actress? Sorry, Helen. By the way, how's your brother, Mike? ...

Hard Core Advice From Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie        Dear John,       My girlfriend and I are going through a very rough time after five years together, and we are now on an extended break.      I am trying hard to address my own issues through counseling, and one of those issues is dealing with being lied to. I can't stand it. I am a rather honest person, but my girlfriend is far from it. After being exposed to her little white lies for so long, I have become aggressively suspicious and controlling, and borderline paranoid. I am hoping to address this and learn to "let go," since the snooping, spying, and obsessive grilling of her for the truth is destructive.      I try to offer her opportunities to tell me the truth about things, but her first reaction is always to lie. It could be about something as innocuous as what she spent her time on in the evening, or it cou...

     I just got back from taking my lovely wife to dinner for Valentine's Day.      "How would you like to go to a world famous restaurant?" I asked her.      "I'd love that," she answered.      So I took her to McDonald's.      Let's just say that that didn't go over so well, and, instead of the night of romance I had hoped for, I'm here writing this for my humor blog. How could an idea that seemed so right, turn out to be so wrong? Which, in an odd way, leads me into what I want to talk about.      Way back in 1945 (May 17th, to be exact) the city of El Paso found out that federal highway funds of between $1 to $2 million were headed its way so that an El Paso section of a postwar superhighway could be built.      The citizenry of El Paso were outraged. OUTRAGED, I tell you! Well, at least the citizens who...

"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a closer look at the American Indian." Henry Ford        Reporter Vic Kolenc wrote a very interesting article in the Business Section of the Sunday El Paso Times (1-20-13) concerning unemployment in our fair city. At least I think it was interesting. It was so long, I didn't bother to read it.      Instead I read his very interesting article from the day before. In it, he wrote how El Paso's unemployment numbers have gone up to 8.9%. The gist of the article, as I understood it, was that things had to get worse before they could get better. Interestingly enough, that's what my grandmother told my grandfather just before his chest cold turned into pneumonia, and he died.      The article explained how last year (December 2011) it was at 9.9%, went down to 8.9% (November 2012), and then...

Y'know what bothers me most about this whole Manti Te'o affair? I mean, besides the apostrophe in his name? A last name with only three letters in it should NOT have an apostrophe. But I digress...      What bothers me most about Manti Te'o is that he only had ONE make-believe girlfriend. If I were a college football hero, I'd have a whole HAREM of make-believe girlfriends. I'd be the BIGGEST make-believe stud on the team.      But enough of that nonsense and all those capital letters. I was tired of the Manti Te'o story five minutes after the news media began to go all OCD on it. Sadly, my news media friends weren't, and they bragged to me about how they were going to commit all their time and all their resources to get to the bottom of the story, until they could finally report to the American people the truth about what happened.      "You mean, like Benghazi?" I asked them.      "Ben who?" ...