Schadenfreude is a powerful drug.

Much as one may want to be a good person and bring a positive attitude to the world, it's hard not to pump your fist and laugh when something terrible happens to a truly horrible human being. I have been floating all day since seeing my first #CruzSexScandal tweet. Cruz has since denied the rumor and there seem to be plenty of reasons to doubt it, starting with "what human female would willingly have sex with Ted Cruz for free?"

But while I love seeing a sanctimonious Christian right winger get his face rubbed in hypocrisy as much as anyone else, I can't help but feel that pang of "good guys aren't supposed to kick someone who's down, even if he is a certifiable monster."

Instead, I think it's time we stop worry about tax rates and foreign policy and transgender public restroom rights and focus on the very obvious fact that Ted Cruz is a severely psychologically-scarred human being motivated by a need to be loved and accepted.

Ted Cruz is an Unloved Child

In college, I dated a girl whose parents brought her to the United States as a small child from the Soviet Union. They left family and spent all the money they had so she could have a better life. And she was reminded of that regularly. She didn't get a lot of hugs and kisses growing up. Were you to suggest they show some affection to help their daughter's emotional development, they'd likely point out they'd given up everything for her so how could anyone question their love for their only child?

Ted Cruz's father gives a similar vibe with a religious zealotry added to the mix of being a refugee who fled Castro's Cuba. You can see the desperate need for approval from a father who would much rather preach than spend time with his own flesh and blood. That's driven Cruz to the success he's had, pushing his father's religiously-motivated hate and discrimination into public policy.

Last year, Cruz's campaign put out 15 minutes of raw video of him with his family for SuperPACs to use in "independent" advertisements on his behalf. Watching it, you realize he's as smug and over-rehearsed in real life as he is on the stump, but mostly, you realize even his own family doesn't like him and is creeped out to the point that they need coaching on how to hug him.

Correspondents on the campaign trail have talked about how Cruz is painfully devoted to his shrewish wife, a Goldman Sachs executive who clearly married him for status and not for love. While that devotion may take on a new light if the sex scandal rumors are true and that he was cheating on her while she was suffering depression and contemplating suicide, it speaks to the emptiness of his relationship and his desperation to earn the love of someone who has no interest in him emotionally.

And let's not forget that his children--who say in that video that they consider him a guest when he comes home--don't want to interact with him.
Ted Cruz is a Socially Awkward Teen

Making people laugh is a good way to get them to like you. But how do you learn to be funny? From the time we are babies, we observe what makes others laugh. Children will mimic things that made their parents or others laugh in an effort to get the residual humor.Over time, they learn not just what is funny, but why it's funny. Using successful jokes and scenes as a template, they're able to develop their own personal sense of humor.

Or not.What was the point of this? He wasn't leading up to some metaphor like "What this reminds me of is that eight years of Obama's administration has left us only mostly dead." His hurried performance makes clear he knows his audience is familiar with the film. Try watching it again but pretend you've never seen Princess Bride.

The point is again that Cruz wants to be liked. He wants to make people laugh and be win that "candidate I'd most like to have a beer with" support. Yet everything he does results in the opposite reaction. I'm sure it's frustrating to a Harvard-educated lawyer who's argued before the Supreme Court not to understand why Carrot Top gets laugh and he doesn't.

On that note, how disgusting are those sycophants laughing at him? He gets some polite laughter, the way you would for a child or a mentally disabled person if they were rattling off dialogue from Star Wars with emotionless, rapid-fire delivery. But there are a few guffaws that feel dirty. There is no reason to laugh at this. If you've seen the movie, this would at best make you think about it and how awkward it is that a man who want to be the most powerful man in the free world is trying to impress you with the fact he memorized parts of it; and if you haven't seen it, none of this would make sense.

Ted Cruz is the Kid the Teacher Forces You to Play with at Recess

As the aforementioned sycophantic laughter illustrates, Cruz can see that people suck up to power. His starvation for love drives him to be an important and powerful person. He worked hard to make himself the personification of congressional obstruction by marketing himself as the face of the government shutdown and the Tea Party. He has set the uncompromising tone that has driven the GOP for the past eight years, and that's made him one of the top two contenders for his party's presidential nomination.

Yet no one likes him. https://s3.amazonaws.com/wp-ag/wp-content/uploads/sites/72/2016/01/cruz-jeb-gif.gifLindsey Graham endorsing him while saying he's the third worst of the 17 Republicans who threw their hats in to the presidential ring, and that John Kasich would be a better president, may be the epitome of the feelings toward Cruz by his fellow Republicans.While they will fall in line because of his political maneuvering, no one wants to be Ted's friend. When people do listen, he boasts of all the things he's done and then comes up with crazy ideas of things he'd like to do. Like the kid in elementary school who insisted his dad was friends with John Elway, claimed he could do a 1080 flip, and swore he had a girlfriend who goes to another school, Cruz vows he'll carpet bomb the Middle East, create special police patrols for Muslim neighborhoods in America, abolish the IRS, and repeal Obamacare. No one believes him any more than they do the kid who maintained Elway was going to come talk to the class after the season was over, but he keeps at it in a pathetic grab for respect and attention.

So while Ted Cruz is undeniably a horrible, homophobic, Christofacist monster fueled by hate and awkwardness, who among us can say we wouldn't be if our own family members didn't love us and our only friends were people who felt obligated to pay us any attention, and that every well-calculated effort we made to endear ourselves to people served only to push them further away?

Someone, please give Ted Cruz a genuine hug and tell him everything is going to be okay. Maybe then he'll finally go away.

Following last night's Republican presidential debate in Texas, Cenk Uygur opened the recap and analysis on The Young Turks by comparing the debate--and then the entire Republican primary race--to the Royal Rumble.

The more I've thought about it, the more apt the analogy seems, and I've found myself booking the match in my head and recognizing several common Rumble tropes that have played out during the primary season.

The Prince Who Was Promised
In many years, the Rumble has what seems an inevitable winner. For three of the past four years, the winner was obvious, and when the writing on the wall isn't as clear, there still are only three or four potential options out of the 30 entrants. Fans spent much of the last four Rumble matches trying to convince themselves maybe WWE would pull a surprise ending instead of taking the most obvious and direct route to its Wrestlemania main event.

For the past two years, Roman Reigns has been put in a position to win. He's a decent if unspectacular wrestler who lacks charisma and stumbles on the microphone, and is being pushed beyond his abilities largely due to his pedigree and successful relatives. Fans haven't taken to him and the more he's been pushed, the more the fans have pushed back, cheering for other wrestlers when he's in the ring... and not just his opponents, but retired and dead stars of the past.

Jeb Bush came into the race as the son of a former President, the bother of another, and with more money than any other candidate--even delaying the announcement of his candidacy so his campaign could coordinate with the SuperPACs that would support him without violating the law. Many Republicans were excited by the potential, but quickly realized Jeb's heart wasn't in it and shifted their support elsewhere. Eventually, Jeb was eliminated, as Reigns was at this year's Rumble. But there is little doubt WWE will have Reigns will win the title in the main event of Wrestlemania, so is there any reason to think Jeb won't be back in 2020?

Scott Walker also would have fit into this category until he actually launched his campaign. It remains to be seen whether he'll be able to weather his disappointing White House attempt or if he's Rick Perry-ed himself forever.

Token Women's Offense
Detractors of both the WWE and the GOP will denounce the organizations as sexist. In an effort to distract from that well-founded accustion, both will sometimes let the girls play too. Chyna, Kharma, and Beth Phoenix have all participated in Royal Rumbles. The game plan is always the same... and should be familiar to anyone who watched Carly Fiorina's campaign.

First, the Diva is announced and the crowd reacts with shock. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that she will lose, but it seems rude to say so out loud. She rushes in to the fray and the men let her take a few shots at them to sell the idea that she belongs and that they respect her. She'll even eliminate someone before some man exerts his dominance, puts her in her place, and she's swiftly eliminated with a "would a woman that strong be part of a sexist organization?" reminder. Meanwhile, men in the audience laugh--most to themselves but some boisterously aloud--at how she's ugly and a bitch, and they celebrate her getting her comeuppance for thinking she was good enough to compete with men.

And little girls sadly shake their heads and accept the fact they're never going to get a fair break.

Promising Talent Wasted
One of the biggest criticisms of WWE is its inability to capitalize on innovation. Vince McMahon has been trying to recapture the success of the 1980s Rock 'n Wrestling era for 30 years. Roman Reigns is being groomed to be another John Cena, who is the closest thing Vince has found to the "say your prayers and take your vitamins" Hulk Hogan. Along the way, there have been innumerable other attempts at finding the "next Hulkster," including Lex Luger, Psycho Sid, Rocky Maivia, Billy Gunn, and Tatanka.

Along the way, the company stumbled into the most successful era in the history of wrestling with decidedly non-Hogan-esque stars like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Mick Foley, the Hardy Boyz, Golddust, Edge and Christian, the Dudleys, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Val Venis, and lots more. Still, Vince continued (and continues) to sign and push tall bodybuilders over shorter, less chiseled talents like Dolph Ziggler, C.M. Punk, Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt, Neville, and Kevin Owens. Fans cheer for the new talent and new ideas, but WWE continues to push lumbering big men and punishes those who try to be something fresh.

The Republican field also had a handful of fan favorites who never had a chance because they didn't fit the mold. Rand Paul foolishly thought he might convince the GOP that America should address the deficit by not starting wars all over the world. Chris Christie made the mistake of showing gratitude to President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and no amount of backpedaling could make up for donating money to Planned Parenthood in the past. John Kasich can't gain traction with the suggestion that drug addicts could be better served by and government money better spent on treatment than prison or that the gay marriage issue has been settled and the country should move on. Instead, the GOP pushes more homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-feminism, fear mongering, and threats to carpet bomb the planet.

Past Stars Surprise Returns
My kids and I went to the Royal Rumble in 2013 and I've said several times that Chris Jericho's unexpected entrance was the loudest crowd reaction I've ever heard in my life. Every year, a few of the 30 Rumble slots are reserved for stars of the past to make a surprise appearance. Most of the time, they've lost a step or five, but the fans don't care. Like the token women, it's understood that Diesel, the Godfather, Bubba Ray Dudley, or the Boogeyman aren't going to main event Wrestlemania. They're just there to do their shtick, get a payday, and fire up the crowd with nostalgia.

Likewise, we got return appearances by Rick "Three Departments" Perry, 2012 Iowa Caucus Champion "Dogfucker" Santorum, and "Mad Mike" Huckabee, all playing their greatest homophobic, god-fearing hits before ducking out to cash in on the lecture circuit.

The Job Squad
To fill out 30-man Royal Rumble, you need 30 men, and not everyone can be a star. You need a fair share of Tom Brandys and Heath Slaters and Jinder Mahals and Warlords to march out to the ring and be summarily dismissed, often to comedic effect. These guys are still professional wrestlers and proven themselves in smaller venues, but aren't cut out for the big time. Bobby Jindal, Jim Gilmore, and George Pataki have all been governors, and Lindsey Graham is a high-ranking senator, yet each was the equivalent of an "Okay, I have time to run to the kitchen" entrance at the Rumble.

The death of Antonin Scalia has drawn me back into the mystery of how his mind worked. While the political right would like to suggest Scalia was a paragon of incorruptible devotion to the Constitution, many of his decisions are hypocritical and politically biased, giving fuel to critics who interpreted his rulings as anywhere from curmudgeonly and out of touch to racist, homophobic, and outright evil.

But the arch-conservative Scalia was close friends with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Elena Kagan, and in the days following his death, several stories came out that he'd openly lobbied the Obama White House to appoint Kagan. Stephen Colbert shared a story about how Scalia was one of the few targets of his 2006 White House Correspondent's Dinner who could take a joke. Scalia was widely recognized for appreciating intellectualism, even when--or possibly especially when--it challenged his own views.

But that passion for intellectualism makes it all the more frustrating that Scalia purposely blinded himself to vast swaths of knowledge and logic. In 2013, Justice Scalia told an interviewer with New York magazine that he believed in the devil:

You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. ... I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! ... Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

One could the same argument against indoor plumbing. "Benjamin Franklin never used a flush toilet! Sir Isaac Newton never took a hot shower! Are you saying you're better and smarter than they were? You're looking at me as though I'm weird because I poop behind bushes and bathe in the pond at the nearby golf course."


The Framers' Nightmare
One of the concerns the framers of the Constitution had was that creating the Bill of Rights would effectively limit those rights to the ones listed. In saying, "These are the rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens," they were on the hook to figure out every single right extended to Americans lest one be overlooked and thereby be denied. And, sure enough, just over two years after ratification of the Constitution, Congress passed the 11th Amendment as an "Oh, yeah, and another thing!" clause.

As a constitutional originalist, Scalia embodied those framers' fear. Any understood right that isn't specifically written in black and white isn't really a right. If you're convicted of a crime you didn't commit and sentenced to be executed, but later prove your innocence, you have the right not to be put to death, right? Not according to Scalia.

This argument is one (of admittedly many) that Scalia's detractors have jumped on to show his callous nature. That's not a tough sell when he states, "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who ... is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent." But if you look closely, Scalia's not saying you should execute the innocent man, only that there's no law against it.

In essence, Justice Antonin Scalia is the judge in a kids' movie who declares, "There's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball/a mule can't play football/a monkey can't play third base... I'll allow it!"

Frustrating as that line of thinking may be--particularly if you're a team of hard-working tween basketball players who've spent all season preparing to win the regional championship only to be embarrassed because you never bothered to learn how to play defense against a golden retriever--there is a value to challenging seemingly obvious, logical conclusions. Scalia was most known for presenting complicated hypotheticals to lawyers during oral arguments. Many of these questions have been presented as evidence of Scalia's closed-minded, regressive evilness, when, in context, they can be seen as legitimate questions an attorney should be prepared to answer, but taken to an extreme.

Many of the examples getting the most play come from cases involving LGBT rights, and particularly same-sex marriage. Scalia often posed the question of whether Americans have the right to be offended by gays, and argued they do, just as they have the right to be offended by any number of other things. He suggested bosses who may be uncomfortable with homosexuality have the right to fire gay employees or to hire a straight candidate for a job over a gay one. He noted many communities had long-standing traditional reasons to outlaw homosexuality.

Liberals who hear those comments cringe and conclude Scalia made them because he harbors those beliefs in his own heart. And while it's entirely possible--and even probable--that he did to at least a certain extent, progressives should not shy away from Scalia's style.

In fact, Scalia could be the role model progressives need.

Can Constitutionalism be Progressive?
Perhaps the greatest failing of recent generations is the lack of new Constitutional amendments. The 27th Amendment was added in 1992, but was proposed in 1789 and took more than 202 years to ratify. All it does is set guidelines that put a waiting period on raises that Congress gives itself, and was originally part of Article One in James Madison's early drafts. The 26th Amendment lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 was ratified in March of 1971.

That means six current U.S. senators and more than 50 representatives have not had an constitutional amendment proposed and ratified in their lifetimes, and House Speaker Paul Ryan was 14 months old. 48 of the 100 senators were younger than 17 at the time the 26th Amendment took effect, including Republican presidential hopefuls Lindsey Graham, who was 15, Rand Paul, who'd just turned eight, and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who were both shy of their first birthday. Among other 2016 candidates, Chris Christie and Martin O'Malley were both nine, Scott Walker was four, and Bobby Jindal wouldn't be born for another three months.

This has led to a shift in perception of the Constitution from a living document meant to flexibly be adapted to reflect the times to a rigid, immutable document reflecting some attributed hero worship that paints the Founding Fathers as infallible demigods. Listen to Sean Hannity and others and you will hear sincere suggestion that the Constitution was divinely inspired and should be treated with the same reverence as the Bible.

And like the Bible, the lack of updates and clarifications puts an onus on interpretation of the existing text. But when a Baptist minster and a Lutheran pastor interpret a passage from Ecclesiastes differently, the effect is limited to their congregations and not legally binding for everyone else in their state or nationwide. For more than four decades, it has fallen on the courts to determine and interpret the changing philosophies and sensibilities of American culture, and justify them legally. Over time, this pattern favors liberal beliefs, but progressives shouldn't be content.

Rights granted by a court case only open the door for more court cases attempting to reverse the decision. It's been 43 years since Roe v. Wade, but multiple lawsuits are still filed every year for the sole purpose of chipping away at the legality and availability of abortions. A SCOTUS ruling in favor of same-sex marriage didn't end the controversy. It only signaled a need for opponents to find new tactics to continue their intolerance.

Progressives have ample reason to despise Scalia for siding against the LGBT community at every opportunity or giving corporations the powers to skew political agendas and sidestep regulation or for ruling health care isn't a basic human right while denying your employees birth control is. But rather than raging against the biases of a dead man, we should instead be upset that his rulings and hypothetical scenarios didn't lead us to changes he couldn't argue.

Obama's plan for replacing Scalia should be to find a progressive voice who will be loudly frustrated when he has to side with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Find a Justice who will say things like, "The framers of the Constitution never considered health care or gay marriage or abortions a right. If I am to interpret the 'spirit in which the Constitution was written,' I am, unfortunately, forced to consider that spirit to be largely misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and with a limited scope of knowledge of science and technology."

Pose those same arguments Scalia would, but use them to drive proponents to create real and lasting change by amending the Constitution rather than filing more and more competing court cases. Instead of making a case for why the 14th Amendment should also apply to gender discrimination, amend the Constitution to outlaw gender discrimination. Instead of figuring out a way to tie the forced housing of soldiers to campaign financing, get states to ratify a provision limiting the amount of funds candidates and SuperPACs can receive from wealthy donors. Instead of mining every word of Article One to justify providing health care to American citizens, make the Constitution explicitly state that the United States considers health care a right that should be provided to all citizens.

And once we take care of all the social inequities, our fine nation can finally come around to the agreement that dogs do not belong on the basketball court!

The first words out of Ted Cruz's mouth after winning the Iowa caucus were "All glory be to God." In other words--and another faith--"Allahu akbar."

Depending on who you listen to, Cruz rode to victory either because the Holy Spirit willed it or thanks to the support of a long bearded religious zealot who insisted we "rid the earth" of people who support same sex marriage. He won the largely evangelical masses of the state, edging out the past two Iowa GOP winners, Mike Huckabee--who supports the idea of using the U.S. military and the FBI to stop abortions--and Rick Santorum--who thinks federal resources being used to fight climate change should be redirected to fight gay marriage--as well as Dr. Ben Carson, who--oh, man, how much space do I want to dedicate to this?--believes an angel taught him chemistry, calls the Big Bang a "fairy tale" and suspects Satan is behind the theory of evolution, doesn't think Muslims can be President, has an unironic painting of himself with Jesus, and thinks that scientists think aliens built the pyramids.

And while she's not running this time around, it's worth mentioning that former Minnesota Congresswoman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate who won the 2011 Iowa Straw Poll Michelle Bachmann recently indicated her belief that President Obama is literally the antichrist.

While rightwingers are quick to lump all 1.6 billion Muslims together and brand them a terrorist threat to America for sharing a belief in a deity and a holy book, the leaders of radical movements are largely outcasts, rejected by mainstream society. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi isn't running for Governor of Maine on a platform of beheading criminals (rather, that would be the stance of the current governor).

The CIA estimates ISIS has fewer than 32,000 members, and maybe as few as 9000. Russia's intelligence puts the number at around 70,000. Either way, it's fewer than the nearly 86,000 people in Iowa and New Hampshire who selected Ted Cruz as their choice to be the Republican nominee for President, even if you add in the thousands of Al Qaeda operatives in the world. The number may even be smaller than the more than 27,000 who cast their votes for Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee.

Here in Phoenix, a federal trial is underway against the cities of Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, known as the enclave that's served as home to the Fundamentalist Mormons led by Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence for promoting polygamy and sex with minors. City leaders are accused of conducting their own version of Sharia law in by shutting off the water of non-church members and seizing their property while refusing to investigate crimes by church members.

A Pew Research Center study from last year found religious belief is on the decline in America. Between 2007 and 2014, the percentage of the population claiming to be Christian dropped by eight percent while more than one in five Americans definined themselves as atheists, agnostics, or "nothing in particular."

And this is where it gets dangerous.

The decline in religious belief is largely reflective of open-minded people who have had beliefs challenged by others or by themselves and found the evidence for religion lacking. Most telling may be the correlation between age and religious belief, where people born after 1980 are more than twice as likely to be non-believers than those born before 1965.

This could be reflective of the fact that non-believers are more likely to raise their children to be non-believers, and that it's more likely a believer will lose faith than a non-believer will find it, thus the number of non-believers will grow with each generation. But it's likely the result of a larger power: the internet.

We are living in an age of unprecedented information availability, and maintaining a belief in an all-powerful creator in 2016 is largely a matter of stubbornness and willful ignorance. In generations past, people who questioned their faith would likely turn keep their questions quiet for fear of becoming a pariah. If they did voice their doubts, it would likely be to the clergy or a fellow parishioner who would tell them to pray or suggest their questions were the work of Satan trying to lure them away from God's love. Today, Google can offer innumerable articles, essays, blogs, Tweets, videos, and cartoons examining those questions and rationally explaining their legitimacy and the lack of evidence behind religion-based answers.

Years ago, President Obama was blasted by conservatives for describing some of his opponents for "clinging to their guns and religion." They didn't dispute that was what they were doing, but took umbrage with the implication that there was something wrong with doing so. That sentence painted a picture of the evangelical right as "proudly ignorant and willing to resort to violence," and they embraced it.

As religious belief declines, it has less influence on our government. Support for things like gay rights, gender equality, abortion availability, and drug legalization grows. A vocal minority makes noise about morality and some legislators respond with laws that eventually get struck down as unconstitutional later, but not before using them to raise thousands or millions in campaign funds.

With each year, more and more people turn away from the biblical suggestions that gays should be put to death or that women should be subservient to men, leaving only the most ardent, non-rational, unwaverably ignorant and prideful believers. These people believe in universal truths and morals and won't be swayed by the will of the voters, for they know that Satan actively interferes in the affairs of mankind. In other words, the more enlightened society becomes, the more likely we are to see terrorism by Christian extremists who understand the power of martyrs and have a shit-ton of guns.

Every four years for the last several decades, Americans have to endure listening to soccer fans remind us that "futbol is the most popular game in the world," implying that our apathy toward it is somehow wrong. (I understand the previous sentence implies "Americans" and "soccer fans" are separate entities and that no person can fall into both categories. I understand it and still didn't rewrite it, so you know where I stand.) Bear in mind that pederasty was hugely popular in Greece for centuries and Jerry Lewis is considered a comedic genius in France. One of those things is so disturbing the very mention will make stomachs turn and kill any conversation and the other is having sex with kids. So let's just agree the rest of the world is stupid for liking soccer.

However, because soccer fans are a vocal minority and Hollywood loves to cater to those, the 21st episode of the fifth season of "Quincy, M.E." tried to grab a slice of that hot World Cup excitement. One might expect to see some recognizable soccer stars like Pele or... well, I'm pretty sure there were some other ones. Perhaps a plot where a soccer player dies on the pitch and Quincy has to figure out why? Maybe we'll get a murder at halftime. Can't you just picture the hijinks as Quincy tries to interview some players at practice and they give him a hard time, juggling the ball around him or making him play goalie?

Well, "Deadly Arena" offered none of that. Instead we got botulism, a kid whose hair composed half of her body weight, meandering back story filler, and a romantic subplot between Dr. Pulaski and Oscar Madison.

Let me reiterate. Someone looked at

and
and said, "Dear me, is the air conditioner broken? My goodness, it's getting hot in here." Then, they peppered their flirty dialogue with discussion of the ideal environment for botulism to spawn. Also, at no time is anyone shown playing soccer. There is a girl who kicks around a soccer ball in the parking lot--where she hangs out literally every day and night for a week without her parents noticing--but at no point do we see any on field action.This episode was particularly high in filler. As I was breaking it down, I started to realize how much pointless character backstory is used that has no bearing on the plot whatsoever. Arthur wants to start his own chili brand and retire to a tropical island. The truck driver loves baseball. And a woman who serves no purpose other than to be a third victim of botulism so Quincy can connect some dots gets roughly 45 seconds to jabber on about her husband, her anniversary, her ignorance of soccer, and how many times she's been to this empty stadium instead of the zero her character warranted.

Worst in all this was the fact the Cousin It-haired soccer fan who spends day and night hanging around the stadium parking lot without any adult supervision spends no time explaining that away. Instead, when she winds up in the hospital, the actor playing her father clumsily says, "We thought she was at her aunt's!" completely out of context and gets cut off while delivering the line. No one asks and no one responds, almost as if the character is dead and hasn't caught on yet that no one else can see or hear him because he's a ghost.

How much pointless backstory do the characters yammer on about without contributing anything to the story or the plot? To find out, I edited it all together and found it takes up roughly two minutes less than the above compilation of every pertinent moment of the episode.

It only took five seasons and five episodes, but I finally enjoyed a "Quincy" episode unironically. In "Hot Ice," Quincy stumbles into a diamond smuggling scheme, but refuses to take part in an FBI/Customs Department joint sting operation targeting a mob boss because he'd rather judge the Miss Coroner Pageant. Instead, the Customs agent rope him into the sting against his will and--again, I say this unironically--Agent Nevin is my favorite Quincy supporting character ever. Sorry, Old Window Leaping Ninja, Creepy Ape-Faced Mom Who Yelled At Dr. Asten's Alcoholic Goddaughter For Murdering Her Son, and Badly Dubbed Kung Fu Master. You all just got bumped down a notch. Obviously, I wasn't the only one because he comes back for another episode the next season, which is mind-blowing. Not to get ahead of myself, but it involves jewel smuggling Nazis and mummies.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned that. "Hot Ice" really pales in comparison what without the Nazis or mummies.

Interesting Note: The guy who steals the briefcase/stabs Quincy in the leg/gets judo flipped by Dr. Asten is described in his IMDB bio as being best known for Rover Dangerfield. But stranger than that is if you read his list of credits, the majority are for "Baby V.O." Was he really hired that many times to provide the sound effect of a crying baby from off stage? Can you make a career of that? Or is this a case where he made a crying noise for an episode of "Alice" in 1981, and studios have been using the same recording for three decades the way some laugh tracks today are a recording of an "I Love Lucy" audience from the 1950's.

The next time you hear canned laughter on an episode of "Dog With a Blog," realize almost all those people laughing are probably dead. And turn off "Dog With a Blog." Have some dignity.

I tried to cut together the thirteenth episode of the third season of Quincy, but the final third of it all takes place in a courtroom as Quincy tries to prove a guy's regular beatings of his wife contributed to her later death.

Instead, I decided to focus on how much empty silence there is in this episode.

Three years after addressing the topic of parents beating their kids, Quincy flipped the script for the twelveth episode of the fifth season and addressed kids beating their parents. The topic of elder abuse, however, gets muddied as the writers send Quincy on a quest to learn more about the subject and introduce a second plot about two spinsters who are being starved to death and robbed by a nephew who is so transparently evil that calling his character one-dimensional is attributing it too much depth.

But thing really go off the rails when they lose focus and attempt to tackle the subject of growing old and feeling unwanted and unneeded in general by shoehorning in a tertiary plot based no doubt on some human interest article one of them read about a program that brings together elderly people and abused children and the benefits to both. It is dense with statistics and specific details and introduces new characters, one of whom makes it into more than one scene. It goes like this:

The woman who serves as Quincy's expert on elderly abuse and aging runs a home where elderly people come hang out during the day and do arts and crafts and teach some of their skills in guitar making to abused kids. She wants the county to hire elderly people to staff at least some of its new community center for abused children, but they aren't going to do so because the county has an "old people are worthless and feeble" policy. Also, a guy brings his daughter to the house because her mom smacks her around while he's a work and the girl meets an old lady who helps mend her doll and the old lady gives the mom some motherly advice and agrees to come stay with the girl and her sister while the mom and dad go on vacation because that will stop the mom from being abusive and the county guy witnesses this and decides to hire elderly people for 20% of the staff.

That is longer than the description of most full episodes and yet I was able to remove all traces of it from the edit below and not affect the story arc.

You may recognize Mr. Coogan as "Blue" from Old School or the rich husband of Jennifer Coolidge who likes soup in Best of Show or from any number of the more than 100 roles he's played in movies and TV shows, all of which were old men. Patrick Crenshaw first played a character called "Grandpa" in a 1970 episode of "Green Acres" titled "The Picnic." Through his death in 2005 (and the release of his final movie Air Buddies in 2006), he played such varied roles as:
Old Man
The Old Man
Grandpa
Gramps
Old Man
Grandpa
Ancient Sorter
Old Man
Elderly Man
Old Man
Old Man
Pappy
Old Man
Man Dying in Elevator
Old Man
Codger
Old Gentleman
Old Man
Pop
Old Bail Boy
Old Man
Old Man
Miles Hollings in the "Monk" episode "Mr. Monk and the Very, Very Old Man"

Mock if you wish, but how many actors can work steadily for 35 years (and he worked for years before that, just not in roles where the character's name is a clear indicator that he's extremely old), much less consistently playing "probably won't be alive much longer?"

Also, what's the deal with the birthday party at the end? That seems to be the Quincy writers' room go to denouement scene. "How do we wrap this up? We need an excuse to get people together in a room where they can all discuss the outcome of the subplot endeavors and get a happy ending."
"Birthday party!"
"We've given no indication that anyone's birthday is coming up. And why would the family of a man who committed suicide because his son beat him attend the birthday party of a woman they've never met whose nephew was stealing from her. And why would the detectives and Quincy's co-workers be there?"
"Birthday party!"

As I was editing this one, I realized it wasn't living up to my memory of it. "A Good Smack in the Mouth" is from the second season. Watching in order, it stands out because of its over-the-top melodrama and Quincy's righteous crusade to save a kid from child abuse even if it means kidnapping the kid and having the police cover for him. When I first watched it, I tweeted that it would have been more subtle to have Jack Klugman stare directly into the camera and scream, "CHILD ABUSE IS BAD!" for 50 minutes straight.

However, after seeing some of the later episodes from the fourth and fifth seasons, "A Good Smack in the Mouth" is rather discreet.

Most off-putting about this episode is the creepy vibe to Quincy's compassion for the abused Joey. Jack Klugman's interaction with child actors always come off like borderline pedophile. Go watch his interaction with Timmy's sister after her birthday party is ruined. It's even more disturbing when you watch multiple episodes and realize how many women Quincy dates, but never touches or kisses or hugs. I don't know if this was Jack Klugman being overly friendly with child actors or if it was a character trait chosen to illustrate how ill-suited Quincy is to human interaction thus explaining his decision to become a doctor for dead people.

As I watched this episode, I began to wonder how much editing one would need to do to manipulate the scenes of this episode into a disturbing story about a pedophile who becomes obsessed with a boy named Joey but then finds himself competing with the boy's pedophile father for the kid. And in the end, once he wins the boy, he gets bored and sells him to a couple that wants to have sex with a kid.

Answer: Surprisingly little. Many of these scenes are unaltered.Also, they say Joey's name a lot in this episode. Unfortunately, this isn't all of them because I didn't download all 50 minutes of raw footage. This is from about 60% of the episode.

In the third episode of the fourth season, Quincy dedicated an hour to explaining autism to viewers. Eight years later, Dustin Hoffman would win a much-deserved Academy Award for his portrayal of Tom Cruise's autistic brother in Rain Man. Unfortunately, Hoffman must have been too busy shooting Kramer vs. Kramer in 1978 so the casting agents for "Quincy" had to go with a kid who was told to continually wave his hand in front of his own face. He also has an over the top freak out scene that makes the entire episode worth watching. You've certainly heard the comment that an actor was "chewing the scenery." In this case, he chews his co-stars.

On one hand, the show's producers' hearts were in the right place. Autism is still widely misunderstood today and they worked with experts in the field to help educate viewers, but so often the show misses the mark. The premise is based on the idea that an autistic kid died because he was sent to a home for retarded kids and was able to slip away because the caretakers didn't bother to stop him from seeing the combination to a lock on the back gate since they assumed he'd never be able to memorize it.

Quincy and his expert-on-autism friend become convinced that the exact same fate is preordained for another possibly autistic boy who is going to be sent to a home for mentally retarded kids. Because the show is about autism, it gets a pass because people are too concerned about being labeled "insensitive" to criticize. But if the episode was about a guy being hit by a meteor or struck by lightning and Quincy spent 45 minutes shaming the browbeaten bureaucrats who are in charge of an overwhelmed, underfunded observatory or weather station for not being able to take precautions specific to one other person he has convinced himself could someday get hit by a meteor, it would be laughable.

Furthermore, the fact that the "happy" conclusion of Timmy's story arc is "Good news! Your child will never be able to interact with society! He still poses a threat to your friends, neighbors, and yourselves! But there is a 30% chance he might be able to dress himself someday if he gets very specialized training, which he won't be able to start for a year so you'll still be caring for him, the doing of which has essentially destroyed your marriage and driven you to the brink of insanity." And the parents are fucking thrilled! Their prayers have been answered and they're ready to consummate their "not getting a divorce" right there in front of their puzzle-putting-together son and a room full of middle aged men behind a one-way mirror.

Perhaps the epitome of how much the show's good intentions miss their marks comes in the denouement when Quincy tries to make up for Timmy's sister's ruined birthday party. It's supposed to be touching and sweet, but what is creepier than the notion of a 50-something-year-old "friend of the family" getting an eight-year-old girl all dolled up in a fancy dress and taking her to a bar down by the harbor where four other men she's never met are eagerly awaiting her arrival with a birthday cake and her parents are nowhere to be seen?

Bonus Content
You may be thinking, "Hey, that actor playing the autistic kid looks familiar. And so does the girl who arrives at the birthday party a minute and a half in. Where have I seen both of them in another scene together?" That's because two years after this episode aired, they did this:

If the words "Quincy versus a ninja" aren't enough to convince you to spend eight minutes watching this, I'm afraid we can't be friends.

But, just in case, here's a bunch of other reasons:
1. Quincy solves the murder of Not Bruce Lee
2. Quincy bows to all the Japanese people he meets. I could watch Jack Klugman bow to Asians for an hour straight
3. Mako
4. Harold Sakata is clearly reading cue cards and in some cases sounding out the words phonetically
5. Despite that, they still had to bring someone in to dub over Harold Sakata's lines
6. Pretend the date Joanna Kearns mentions is with Alan Thicke as Jason Seaver
7. The most unexpected "murderer reveal" scene outcome of any Quincy episode

Those who follow me on Twitter are all keenly aware that I have spent a significant portion of this summer plowing through Netflix's catalog of "Quincy, M.E." There's no good reason except that I must not like myself very much.

Some episodes are more cringeworthy and cliche-laden than others. It's hard to make a case that you should take 52 minutes to sit down and watch a truly terrible episode. That's why I will periodically be presenting the highlights of especially bad episodes condensed down to 5-10 minutes for the budding Quincy-phile on the go.

I will begin with 1980's "Unhappy Hour," a very special episode about teen alcoholism. While in the first four seasons, "very special" episodes were rare, in the fifth season, the producers dedicated approximately two out of every three episodes to some public service announcement-worthy cause of the day. This might have been to garner more Emmy buzz or it may have been because writing those episodes was so simple since 60% of the dialog sounds like it came straight from pamphlets a showrunner grabbed from some non-profit's office.

"Unhappy Hour" shifts the focus from Quincy to Quincy's boss, Dr. Astin, and his alcoholic teenage niece. It features cutting edge computers, a story of redemption and failure, a mystery, and almost every line you've ever heard from every other after school special, made for TV movie, and junior high health class filmstrip about alcoholism.

Also, one can assume that most of the scenery used in this episode had to be replaced after shooting because of all the teethmarks the actors left.

BONUS CONTENT: Full "It felt like someone was hugging me" monologue:

My daughter loves CM Punk. And as far as idols for an eleven-year-old girl go, I can think of a lot worse than a guy who has defied the odds and found success solely through hard work, who speaks up about the wrongs he sees, and who would rather walk away from something he loves to do than do it half-assed. Not to mention he maintains an alcohol- and drug-free lifestyle without coming off like those preachy, superficial "Just Say No" campaigns from when I was her age. She gets teased a lot at school because girls her age are supposed to like Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber--and they're not suppose to like wrestling--but CM Punk has taught her that being right is liable to get you booed by those who are wrong.

So the news that Punk would be out until August's Summerslam pay-per-view hit at our house a little harder than it probably did at yours. Punk tore some knee ligaments in his Wrestlemania match against Undertaker and though he won't need surgery, he will need rest and rehab. Furthermore, unlike football, basketball, or any other sport you can name, wrestling doesn't have an offseason. Punk and the rest of the regular WWE performers spend about 300 days a year away from home, so no one could fault him for wanting a little down time.

Rumors are buzzing, though, that Punk was unhappy backstage in the weeks leading up to Wrestlemania and wanted to leave the company altogether. Even though it sounds like a work (made up storyline) to me, it's believable enough to gain some traction. Punk's notorious "pipebomb" interview two years ago showed that a heavy dose of truth can be the best fiction of all, and these rumors play on many of the same themes: Punk is unhappy with the way WWE has handled his character. Punk was the company's top villain all year, yet at the top show of the year he was in the back watching John Cena and the Rock during the main event. Punk isn't getting the creative freedom he needs.

In light of Punk's 434 day reign as WWE champion and the promos he cut using the ashes of Undertaker's former manager and friend, the late Paul Bearer, as a prop leading up to Wrestlemania it's hard to argue the WWE doesn't respect him and/or isn't letting him push envelopes. Instead, the problem is everyone on the roster who isn't CM Punk or John Cena or a handful of other approved superstars. Punk's departure is worrisome not because the WWE doesn't have the talent to fill his spot, but because the WWE hasn't seemed willing to let that talent do so.

Tonight, my daughter suggested she might stop watching wrestling until August since CM Punk is currently the only reason she watches. I pointed out all the talent on the roster, including many other wrestlers she enjoys, but she was quick with a counterpoint.Antonio Cesaro, quite possibly the most impressive wrestler in WWE over the last three months, has been made to lose time and again on TV to help legitimize others and build their storylines, then was left off the Wrestlemania card. Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes, who should be individual competitors in a stable, are, instead, stuck as tag team partners and were tossed into a who-cares, throw-a-bunch-of-names-in-a-hat, mixed gender, eight-person tag match at Wrestlemania that got scratched so Puff Daddy could do a medley of songs he sampled fifteen years ago. Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler, who should have been wrestling each other for the World Heavyweight Title at Wrestlemania were, instead, competing for the Tag Team belts and undermining the entire tag team division by showing that two guys thrown together six months ago as a joke are better than any legitimate tag team, and, furthermore, the top contenders for the championship are two dudes, one of whom has never wrestled on WWE before.Unfortunately, she's right. I continue to watch WWE because I love the performers and I love the potential, but more and more I hate their performances and wasted potential. Without CM Punk, will anyone be able to overcome the WWE's writing?

This season, I finally gave up on "Walking Dead." I learned my lesson with "Lost" and am not eager to repeat it. In both cases, rabid fan bases ignore the salient fact that the show they want ever so badly to use all the tools at its disposal and be great is not very good. Every decent episode of "Walking Dead" is considered proof that the producers have learned their lesson, are finally on the right track, and that everything is going to be perfect moving forward. Then the next three terrible episodes are written off as minor speed bumps that aren't too bad just because the characters are unlikeable and inconsistently written and the action makes no sense. Instead, they focus on the actors' performances elsewhere or the writers' skills on other shows or the comic book which would seem a perfect blueprint for the show if only they'd actually follow it.

Will CM Punk's departure finally serve as the exit I've been both looking for and simultaneously ignoring? Or will it prove the launching pad for the performers I named above and others to fill the gaps left by Punk both in the ring and on the microphone, finally giving us a show that uses its stars to their potential on a weekly basis and sends fans home satisfied?

I guess I'll give it a few more weeks to decide.

When Wrestlemania 29 ended an hour ago, the universal consensus from the people with whom I watched and most of the people I follow on Twitter seems to be: "At least the C.M. Punk/Undertaker match was good." While I certainly was in that camp, the more I thought about the evening, the more frustrated I became by all the squandered potential.

Traditionally, Wrestlemania is the end of the WWE's season (for lack of a better term). Feuds culminate in face-to-face match ups with a clear, indisputable winner and the next night on Raw, things start anew. Granted, not all matches are classics. While WWE would like you to think only the finest talent and the greatest rivalries make it to the granddaddy of all pay per views, never forget that Wrestlemania has brought us the Bodydonnas vs. the Godwins, Big Show in a sumo diaper, Undertaker vs. a giant in a airbrushed bodysuit designed to make him look naked and hairy, and Golddust's slutty ex-wife vs. Jerry Lawler's slutty half-his-age girlfriend.

Tonight's show had some good wrestling performances, but overall nearly every match fell short of what it could have done.

The opening match of Big Show, Randy Orton, and Sheamus versus The Shield deserve a lot of credit for allowing the three upstarts of the Shield to showcase their skills against three former World Heavyweight Champions. Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns shined, but Seth Rollins went to a new level. At one point he leaped off the top turnbuckle with such power I wouldn't have been surprised to see him land on the opposite turnbuckle.

Most people pegged this match as being ripe for either Big Show or Randy Orton to turn on his teammates, maybe even joining the Shield in the process. Sure enough, Big Show got fed up with Orton hogging ring time and refused to make a critical save when the Shield had Orton pinned.

This match could have easily had Big Show punch Orton and taint the Shield's victory, but WWE resisted and allowed Orton to be the victim of his own hubris rather than outright betrayal. The win also strengthened the Shield's reputation where Big Show interference would have weakened it. Unfortunately, WWE wasn't as sensible the rest of the night.

Jericho and Fandango's match started at a disadvantage because after five months of buildup, Fandango could have been Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, and Stone Cold all rolled into one and still not lived up to the hype. Furthermore, after wrestling in WWE's developmental territories for six years as Johnny Curtis, he's saddled with the silly character of a competitive ballroom dancer who gets upset when people mispronounce his name.It was hard to tell what went wrong in this match. Fandango's only signature move seemed to be a leg drop from the top turnbuckle that he did twice and I believe might have tried a third time. That repetition would become a theme for much of the night.

But strangest was the ending, where Jericho overshot a Lionsault while Fandango raised his knees in a move that would normally lead to Jericho miming a rib injury. Instead, Jericho jumped up, grabbed Fandango's legs, and attempted his Walls of Jericho finisher. Announcer JBL suggested Jericho might have injured his knee, though there was no reason to suspect that as neither wrestler had done anything to sell the idea of a knee injury. Jericho wiggled his knee a bit while trying and failing to get Fandango into the Walls, then was rolled up for an anticlimactic Fandango victory that prompted me to tweet:

I wonder how that Fandango match was supposed to end. #wrestlemania29

— Angry Jake (@Angry_Jake) April 7, 2013

While the tag team title match featured some great wrestling and one of the highlights of the night in Daniel Bryan's near revenge for A.J.'s good luck kiss, the match up itself was questionable. Most will agree it's time to split up Team Hell No and push Bryan to the moon as a singles wrestler. But if they're going to drop the title, why put them in a match with a guy who's already the de facto #1 contender for the World Heavyweight belt and a guy making his in-ring debut? How much better would it have been to watch Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler go one-on-one? How does a guy who's never wrestled in WWE before qualify as a top contender for a belt? There was little story behind this match and what there was was about A.J.'s relationship with Kane and Daniel Bryan, yet she played little role in the match. Ultimately, the Hell No victory felt empty. They hadn't overcome any great obstacle, there was no internal strife, everything was exactly as it appeared on its surface.

Furthermore, it didn't make sense for Ziggler to win one half of the tag team titles considering he is holding the Money in the Bank contract that all-but guarantees he'll be the World Heavyweight Champion soon. Ziggler had implied he'd use the contract at Wrestlemania, which--given an almost certain pending suspension for Jack Swagger after his DUI and drug possession arrest--had many expecting Del Rio to win but to be so hurt and exhausted after battling Swagger that he'd be easy pickings for Ziggler. Instead, the match just ended. Ricardo Rodriguez got no revenge for his broken ankle. Del Rio bounced up after the victory as though he'd been napping rather than being beaten half to death by a psychotic Tea Party racist. And we wound up with our first truly squandered opportunity of the night.

As it stands now, Swagger and Del Rio are either finished or they have to repeat the exact same program but with some special stipulation at Extreme Rules like a submission match. How much better would it be if Swagger and Del Rio beat each other senseless with Del Rio pulling off a victory by breaking Swagger's arm in the Cross Arm Breaker? Then as medics rush to the ring, Ziggler runs in behind them. The huffing and puffing Del Rio, barely able to stand on his severely twisted ankle (thanks to the Patriot Lock), is an easy target for Ziggler who becomes the new champ.Swagger goes away to "rehab his broken arm" and serves his wellness policy suspension. Ziggler and Del Rio feud for the next two pay-per-views, trading the title back and forth. Both guys have prominent ringside personalities so in addition to Ziggler vs. Del Rio inside the ring, we also have Ricardo Rodriguez competing with A.J. and Big E. Langston outside. Then Swagger returns and wants revenge on Del Rio. Put them in a #1 contender match at Money in the Bank, then roll into a 3-Way Dance between them all at SummerSlam.

C.M. Punk and Undertaker had a much better match than you'd expect a 48-year-old who hasn't wrestled in a year to be capable of having. Within the first five minutes, Undertaker had already been involved in more action than the Rock had in both his C.M. Punk matches put together.Punk managed to make Undertaker look better than he has in years and whether it deserves it or not, I expect this will get the Slammy for Match of the Year. Also, Living Colour came out and illustrated to Diddy and Machine Gun Kelly that the best way to not get booed when performing live music at Wrestlemania is to not suck.

As the announcers explained that Triple H's career was on the line in his match against Brock Lesnar, a friend who doesn't watch WWE asked, "What happens if Triple H wins?" We could offer only that Vince McMahon's broken pelvis would be avenged. This match would have no real consequences since both wrestlers get in the ring about twice a year as it is. Triple H's retirement would only mean we won't see him at Summerslam.The match played out very similarly to the John Cena/Brock Lesnar match from a year ago, with Lesnar almost exclusively on offense until then Cena, now Triple H could hit his finisher on the steel steps that had been brought into the ring. The only difference here was the ten minute sequence of Triple H slapping the kimura lock on Lesnar's arm, the two lying there for a few minutes, Brock picking Triple H up and slamming him onto the steps to break the lock... then Triple H slapping on the kimura lock and repeating the whole process twice. So much for the old rule of not repeating a spot.

But by far the biggest lost opportunity was found in Cena's victory over the Rock. It was obvious Cena, who hasn't held the WWE Championship for over a year, was going to win the belt if only because the WWE needs a champ who will actually appear on Monday Night Raw and go to house shows. But audiences have grown increasingly hostile toward Cena in recent months. Where once it seemed a fair 50-50 split between "Let's go, Cena" and "Cena sucks" chants in arenas, the scales have been steadily tipping toward the latter with every show. I would guess the Royal Rumble crowd was about 60% anti-Cena, but the Cena haters in the audience at last Monday's Raw in Washington, DC outnumbered his fans about ten to one and lambasted him with a chant of "BORING! BORING!" during his show-opening promo. Even when Cena promotes the Make-a-Wish Foundation:

This crowd just booed the Make A Wish foundation. #CenaSucks

— Chris Sims(@theisb) April 7, 2013

The same thing happened when the same video was shown during the previous night's WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony as well as every other time Cena's face was shown on screen.

Cena's promos for the last two weeks steadily built up his obsession with defeating the Rock. He blamed every problem in his life from injuries to losing matches to his wife divorcing him on his loss to the Rock at last year's Wrestlemania. He began to show defiance to the fans rather than pleading for their love. Early in his match with Rock, he responded to a "Cena sucks" chant with "Oh, that's how it's gonna be, huh?" and Rock made a point of asking, "Do you hear that?" All the pieces were in place for Cena to turn heel. Throughout the match, he showed shock at Rock kicking out of a variety of finishing moves and breaking free of Cena's STF.

At this point, Cena should have taken the match outside the ring and brutalized Rock. Put him through the announce table, hit him with chairs, toss him into the steel steps, slam his arm into the ring posts, all while screaming about how the Rock ruined his life. Finally, a bloody, barely conscious Rock gets an Attitude Adjustment in the middle of the ring, but kicks out of the pin defiantly. Cena locks on the STF and screams like a madman into the camera as the Rock is forced to finally give up and tap. Fans boo, but Cena doesn't care anymore. His new attitude is "I hear you saying I suck. Well who's got your belt? You don't like me, but you'll respect me!"Instead, Cena and Rock chose to repeat their Wrestlemania meeting from last year almost move for move for the first 80% of the match. Then they started hitting their signature moves or setting up for them repeatedly, resembling WWE '13 on easy mode where each wrestler's been given infinite finishing moves. For approximately five minutes, Cena and Rock went back and forth between Cena putting Rock on his shoulders for an Attitude Adjustment to Rock sliding off to set up the Rock Bottom to Cena putting Rock on his shoulders for an Attitude Adjustment, and so on.

When Cena finally won, he walked over to speak to the Rock for about a minute, expressing his gratitude. This lead to a handshake and a hug and a deafening chorus of boos.

It's hard not to feel that while WWE may have more talent than ever on its roster, its shows keep clocking in as mediocre outings. Unfortunately, there are usually enough highlights to keep fans' hope alive that something good is about to happen and we wind up in a perpetual cycle of disappointment and faith.

But at least the C.M. Punk/Undertaker match was good.

When learning a new language, the hard part isn't memorizing a bunch of new words to substitute for the ones you already know. To truly master a language, you must understand idioms. Figures of speech don't translate directly even across the same language--Bob is not my uncle, you limey! Stop saying he is!--so you can imagine how difficult it must be for a native Russian or Spanish or Greek speaker to figure out what Americans mean when we say we're beating a dead horse because we have a chip on our shoulder

If, however, you ever find yourself in a scenario where you are teaching English to someone and he takes pause at the phrase "phoning it in," the solution is a simple one. Hand him a copy of Incredible Hulk Annual #17 because there is no more clear example in history and that includes all the times people have literally used a phone to complete a task.

I consider myself a bit of a connoisseur of bad comics. My first paid writing gig and my first published book both owe a debt of gratitude to my obsessive dissection of stories about Lois Lane bathing in mercury and radiator fluid and Jimmy Olsen trading brains with an ape and Mr. T fighting inner city ninjas. As such, I wish Incredible Hulk Annual #17 was half as terrible as a Superman, Wonder Woman, and Supergirl shilling for Radio Shack. Unfortunately, it can't quite muster the effort to be bad enough to be accidentally entertaining.

The book gets off on a dull foot with a story about the soldier who gave Hulk his name nearly slapping his kid, drawing a parallel to Bruce Banner's own abusive father. Peter David wrote that and the second story, in which Betty Banner makes friends with Tyrannus by teaching him about makeup.

Both stories are boring, but competent. Neither felt like it was begging to be told. But compared to the rest of the filler in this issue they seem to rank right around the Warren Commission Report in terms of importance.

The third "story" is a two-page parody of the old Mean Joe Greene commercial for Coke. In this case, five people who won a drawing to appear in a Hulk comic learned just how terrible that prize could be. Instead of getting to be in a Hulk comic drawn by Dale Keown, they wound up in a "Popsi" joke drawn by some anonymous Bullpenner.I have to say the part that annoyed me most was that the kids later call Hulk "Mean Joe" and he throws them his torn shirt, which winds up the size of two king-sized comforters sewn together by the time it reaches the kids. Of course, had I won what I believed to be a legitimate contest and bought a double-priced comic book to find my "likeness" was used in a throwaway joke that neither the writer or the artist wants to be credited for, my "part that annoyed me most" might have been different.

The next story focuses on Rick Jones, who is on a book tour promoting his autobiography, "Sidekick". After a signing, someone tries to run Rick down with a truck, but a kid who considers himself Rick's biggest fan shoves Rick out of the way. Rick goes with the kid and the kids' girlfriend to a diner and gets up to leave after fifteen minutes because he's tired of listening to the kids go on and on about how great Rick is. The art for this story was done by John Statema, who is probably best known for not actually dying back in 2001 when it was reported that he did. What's a shame is that in Jerry Ordway's obituary, he neglected to mention the mind-blowing fact that Statema went his entire life without ever seeing an actual human being eat an ice cream cone."Woman in foreground is eating an ice cream cone? Where am I supposed to find reference for that? I supposed I'll have to lightbox the cover image to this VHS copy of Fat Black Cock Worshippers Vol. 5... again!"

The kid follows Rick out to the parking lot and the same truck tries to hit Rick again. Rick subdues the driver and we learn it's a former member of Rick's Teen Brigade who is jealous because Rick has had a good life while his own has been mediocre. Rick then takes the opportunity to shit all over his biggest fan.That's the guy who's on a national tour promoting his book about how he's been buddies with Hulk, Captain America, Rom: Spaceknight, and Captain Marvel and became a card carrying member of the Avengers simply by hanging around celebrities--often in spite of Bruce Banner warning him to get away for his own safety--belittling an emotionally stunted teenager who gets bullied at school regularly and has toilet bowl caliber self-esteem for being excited about saving his idol's life and knowing a lot about Rick Jones at a signing of Rick Jones's autobiography.

Of course, the kid sees Rick is completely correct and apologizes for being a weirdo and wishes Rick well, leaving the reader to wonder what the point of any of it was. There is no compelling reason to tell this story. Rick comes off as an asshole. The pathetic bullied caricature remains a pathetic caricature now bullied by his idol. The obsessed former fan club member angle comes out of nowhere and is given all of one panel to be explained. The only moral to the story appears to be that a complete lack of understanding of perspective and anatomy or ability to transfer same to paper does not preclude one from being paid to be an artist for the world's largest comic book publisher.The only redeeming think about Rick's story is that it's followed by an even more pointless story starring even less interesting characters, Achilles and Ulysses of the Pantheon. And the only redeeming thing about Statema's art is that it's followed by inker John Stanisci's attempt at being a penciler.If my eight-year-old son drew that, I would spill a glass of iced tea on it before he could ask me to hang it on the fridge. When Hulk editor Bobbie Chase saw it, she said, "I'm going to put this in a book that dedicated fans will have to pay twice as much to read as they do for the monthly comic drawn by a man who is already coming to be known as one of the quintessential artists in the decades long history of this beloved character."

The story is about a kid with superspeed who gets recruited by Justin Hammer to help Whiplash, Ringer, and Barrier (I've heard of 33% of those guys before) steal some plans to an experimental aircraft. Ulysses and Achilles show up, the kid realizes Justin Hammer is a criminal, and everyone fights for a page and a half, which allowed John Stanisci to cash a fat paycheck for drawing this.Ultimately, the bad guys are beaten up, though it's not always clear how it happened because Stanisci makes an effort not to draw action whenever he can instead show the aftermath of action. (In Stanisci's defense, writer Eric Fein likely shares some blame here for trying to fit so much action into four panels tightly backed on the bottom half of a page.)While the kid expresses concern that his family is in financial straits due to his mother's medical bills, and feels guilty for taking a job without considering it might be illegal to break into a high security technology firm, but laments being out of work regardless of the morality of said work when one's family is in need, Achilles and Ulysses congratulate themselves on a mission accomplished.

What? This was a decade before George W. Bush declared "Mission accomplished" prematurely, so this isn't an ironic, timely reference. Rather, it appears the comic book ran out of pages and Fein had no choice but to end his story by having the heroes be completely blind, self-obsessed shitheads.

Again, the story seems utterly pointless. The kid isn't joining the Pantheon. Achilles and Ulysses are not developed as characters (which is the subject for another post at another time). The villains are D-list characters who, likewise, do not develop and could be any number of interchangeable mediocre, barely known villains.

Overall, Incredible Hulk Annual #17 is a dumping ground for what was probably audition material for artists like Statema and Stanisci that Marvel then threw into a giant-sized package and sold in bulk. None of the stories in it makes even the vaguest attempt at capturing anyone's imagination, much less out attention.

Pope Benedict resigned from the papacy for health reasons, so the next time anyone tells you, "The Lord never gives you more than you can handle," point out that the Pope had to step down from serving God because it was too much for him to handle.

Or was there another reason for the Pope to retire? I suspect it was political.

After the death of Pope John Paul II, there was much debate during the ensuing selection process about the future direction of the church. Much had changed during the nearly 30 years of John Paul II and cardinals had to consider whether to select a Pope who might change church doctrine regarding homosexuality, birth control, women's rights, and other hot button issues, or more accurately, when they would select such a pope.

The selection of Cardinal Ratzinger allowed that decision to be put off for a few more years. The papacy was the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award for Ratzinger, who'd been Frank Nitti to John Paul's Al Capone. He was also very old, which meant he wouldn't be around long. Progressives within the Church were satisfied that Ratzinger deserved the spot the way Don Ameche deserved an Oscar for Cocoon, and in a few years, they'd be able to see significant change.

As age set in, Benedict knew his replacement would dealing with many of the same issues he was, but that the new Pope would very likely hold different opinions than he did. So he quit.

For the first time in centuries, the college of cardinals would have to go through the selection process while the last pope was ostensibly in the other room. The new pope would have to lead the church knowing the old pope was discussing and second guessing him with cardinals. When key decisions were to be made, he would either have to consult with the old pope or he'd have to make a point of not consulting with the old pope. In that environment, what are the odds of a younger, progressive pope being elected in the first place, much less making real and significant change?

About five seconds of research into the new pope shows Benedict's plan worked. Unlike eight years ago, there was little debate about progressive cardinals. Five seconds of research is all it takes to see Pope Francis nee Cardinal Bergoglio is a radical opponent of contraception and gay rights. In retirement, Pope Benedict ensured his legacy and conservatism will live well beyond himself.

Followers of Steve Manale's 140 Characters or Less who also play WWE '13 on Playstation can download my Manale-approved versions of O. Snap and No U. Diint.

O. Snap is a big man who's move set is based largely on Paul Wight and No U. Diint is mostly Eddie Guerrero. Make them a tag team called O-No and they should have finishers and everything programmed in. And for their entrance music, I suggest "Science is Real" from They Might Be Giants.

Unfortunately, trying to put the word "Manale" in the keywords or the description resulted in a warning for inappropriate language. All I can figure is "ale" is verboten.

So search for them by name or look for creations by Angry_Jake.

As I was cataloging the last four nigh-flawless years of John Cena's career, I was tweeting various observations and debating the definition of a "clean" loss with some of my followers. Adam Popovich, who writes about WWE over at Grizzly Bomb, raised the question of what one could do to fix Cena's character. All he could suggest was adding werewolves. Whether Cena would fight the werewolves or reveal himself to be a werewolf or fall in love with a werewolf who is feuding with a vampire Cena has already professed love for, I don't know. The point is that I have been debating this question since writing that last post.

On a side note, I am also the father of a ten-year-old girl who professes to love WWE. (I know you're not supposed to pick favorites between your children but when your son asks me to buy him a John Cena shirt to wear to the Royal Rumble and your daughter asks you for a Cactus Jack one, they make it hard not to.) This is a matter for an entire different column, but sufficed to say the more she watches the more disappointed I get in the lack of a legitimate Divas Division. A.J. Lee, the biggest female star in the company, doesn't even bother to wrestle. Instead, she's spent a year playing doe-eyed admirer to a series of boyfriends who disrespect and don't appreciate her.

I only mention my problem with the Divas because as I was trying to fix Cena, I stumbled upon a solution that also fixes the Divas' lack of relevance. The only problem is I'm about a month late. This plan should have gone into effect in December--and I can't believe I'm saying this--when Cena should have beaten Dolph Ziggler at the Tables, Ladders, and Chairs pay per view.

As it was, Cena, who had blown his own opportunities to win the WWE Championship from CM Punk (by no fault of his own, of course) took on Ziggler, who has a Money in the Bank contract that grants him a Heavyweight Championship title bout anytime or anywhere he wants. Much like Cena winning the Royal Rumble to secure himself a spot in the main event of Wrestlemania--where everyone knew he would be regardless of the Rumble result--this seemed like a case of Cena stealing an opportunity from another deserving worker. Cena's reputation has him already hogging the spotlight while simultaneously pushing others into the darkness. Cena was poised to win and steal Ziggler's title shot when A.J. turned on him with a sneak attack and cost him the match.

Instead, I would have had A.J.'s sneak attack fail. Despite being pushed off a ladder and then taking a superkick or a Zig Zag or anything else Ziggler and A.J. wanted to throw at him, Cena gets up, shoulder blocks Ziggler's ladder and sends Ziggler out of the ring. He bounds up the ladder without any hint of struggle that is the signature of all ladder matches and becomes the new Mr. Money in the Bank. Afterward, A.J. says she did it because Cena didn't care about anything but titles and being the best and that his obsession scared her. She was hurt by his rejection, but she was also worried by what would happen to the WWE if Cena was given yet another title match. Her words are dismissed since she's a "crazy chick," but they prove prophetic.

A month later, Cena wins the Royal Rumble and Rock beats CM Punk for the WWE title, just as happened. Cena announces he'll be taking on the Rock at Wrestlemania and hints that maybe he'll use his Money in the Bank contract to go after the Heavyweight belt at Elimination Chamber. Instead, United State Champion Antonio Cesaro comes out and mocks John Cena as a typical, lazy American who can't accept that his best days are behind him. He notes how Cena lost to Rock and lost his Money in the Bank match last year and then went out of his way to get another Money in the Bank contract and another shot at the Rock. Cena responds with some jingoistic nonsense about Swiss cheese and skiing in the Alps and goads Cesaro into putting the U.S. Title on the line at Elimination Chamber. Cesaro carries Cena to a great match, but Cena pulls out the win as he always does. (Just for the hell of it, let's also have Ziggler beat Alberto Del Rio in the Heavyweight Championship Elimination Chamber match, ironically giving him the belt after he lost his shot at it. And why not have A.J. win the Divas Championship and get her wrestling again?)

Wrestlemania opens with a rematch between Del Rio and Ziggler. Twitter is on fire as these two each have a career match. Ziggler pulls out a win that leaves both men jelly-legged and glassy-eyed as the crowd catches its collective breath.

Cue Cena's music. He comes running down the ramp with the US belt around his waist, the Money in the Bank briefcase in his hand, and a referee in tow. He hits the ring and the ref signals for the bell. Cena pulls Ziggler to his feet, hits the Attitude Adjustment, and 1-2-3, he's the Heavyweight Champion having stolen the title from Ziggler with very own contract. Later in the show, Shield members Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns defeat Team Hell No for the Tag Team Titles, but why am I bothering to mention that when the rematch of Cena and Rock now has the potential to be a title unification match? Where are my priorities?

Cena and Rock rest hold their way through some tackles and clotheslines and an STF and a Sharpshooter and both kick out of the Rock Bottom and the Attitude Adjustment, respectively. This time, Rock tries the U-Can't-C-Me and Cena catches him. An Attitude Adjustment later, Cena is walking out with three belts.

The next night on Raw, Ryback is still feuding with the Shield. He challenges them to a match at the Extreme Rules pay per view for their tag team titles. He offers to find a partner and have a three-on-two handicap match. Cena offers to be Ryback's partner, showing off his three championship belts as reference. They win and now Ryback and Cena are tag team champs in addition to his other titles.

Building up to the next yet-to-be-named pay per view, Cena sets his sights on the Intercontinental belt, which at this point is held by another internet smark darling like Daniel Bryan. Bryan is supposed to defend the belt against El Generico or Tyson Kidd or Seth Rollins, but Cena puts the WWE belt on the line in a title for title match. Bryan takes the bait and makes Cena tap to the No Lock. But Cena loses it and clobbers Bryan with the Heavyweight belt in mid-celebration. He points out some technicality about Bryan's gear or something and the referee agrees to restart the match. Cena gets Bryan to tap to the STF and adds the Intercontinental belt to his growing collection.

By now, only the hardest of hardcore Cena fans are still rooting for him and think this isn't ridiculous. Just to make it clear heading into Money in the Bank, Cena goes to Stone Cold Steve Austin's ranch and attacks him to steal the Smoking Skull belt. During Mick Foley's Hall of Fame induction, a point is made of presenting him with the old Hardcore Championship belt, which Cena then attacks Mick backstage around this time to claim under the old 24/7 rules. He challenges William Regal to a fight for the defunct European title. If only Tazz weren't at TNA and could lose the FTW belt.

Meanwhile, on a July episode of Raw, Ryback and Cena defend the Tag Team championship against... pick somebody. Prime Time Players? The Usos? Cena let's Ryback do most of the work, then tags in after Ryback hits the Shell Shock, does an Attitude Adjustment, gets the pin, and celebrates, cutting a promo about how great he is and how lucky Ryback is to be his partner. Ryback gets upset and their fight turns into a match at Money in the Bank. Winner gets both tag belts and the right to choose his partner to be the other half of the tag team champions. Cena wins after kicking out of Ryback's Meathooks and Shell Shock, maybe using some brass knucks on his Five-Knuckle Shuffle to get some extra heel heat. The next night on Raw, Cena announces his new tag team partner is... nobody. He doesn't need anybody and why should he have to share the spotlight? To prove his point, he defeats Primo and Epico in a handicap match.

Cena is now in full-on heel mode, cheating when necessary, but usually winning the exact same way he does now. No matter what anyone does to him, he kicks out and keeps going.

Uneasy about the surprise nature of the Money in the Bank competitors, Cena talks both of them into a Triple Threat match at Summerslam. Both the Heavyweight and WWE Championships will be on the line with the winner of the first pinfall getting one and the second the other. They hesitate at first, but after Cena calls them cowards and other bullying, they eventually agree. The winners--take your pick from Randy Orton, Sheamus, CM Punk, Brock Lesnar, or another of your favorites--tear it up, but Cena cannot be pinned. Even on the verge of unconsciousness, Cena manages to get a shoulder up every time. They go at each other as as soon as one gets his finisher, Cena jumps in, knocks him out of the ring, and get the pin. The ref restarts the match for the second belt, Cena hits the Attitude Adjustment, and both Money in the Bank competitors have been dismissed.

The following night on Raw, we see how low morale is in the locker room. Everyone is giving up on the hope of ever winning a belt again. A.J. makes the observation she did before the Royal Rumble that John Cena's obsession would be bad for the WWE. Cena overhears her and makes an angry face. Later in the show, A.J. is defending her title in a Lumberjill Fatal-Four-Way match. Cena comes down and gets in the ring. The lumberjills try to stop him, but what chance do they have against a guy who can pick up Big Show on his shoulders and flip him? The four women in the ring stand up to him, but he hits them all with the Attitude Adjustment. He gets in A.J.'s face and accuses her of jealousy and mocks her and her silly butterfly belt. If she wants to talk trash about him, why doesn't she do it to his face? Why doesn't she put her belt on the line? She says no, because it's a Divas belt, but Cena argues that if she's not willing to compete against the best competition, what value does it actually have. For the next few weeks, Cena haunts A.J. and demands a title shot. Since she refuses, Cena instead threatens the rest of the Divas. When the number one contender is named, she declines the chance to fight for the belt at Night of Champions. The number two contender is likewise reluctant to take the title shot. A battle royal is held to determine A.J.'s opponent at the pay per view, but Cena storms the ring and cleans house. He declares himself the winner and demands his title shot. A.J. finally relents.

Night of Champions opens with Cena vs. A.J. for the Diva's title. Cena tosses her around like a rag doll and toys with her. Finally, A.J. gets in a surprise shot of offense--an elbow to Cena's nose or a kick in the crotch, something to slow him down. This enrages him, but makes him lose focus. A.J. uses her superior quickness and agility to hit and run, kind of like some of those old Rey Mysterio matches against Kevin Nash or Big Show or Undertaker. Cena is embarrassed and wants her to pay. He tackles her and gives her the Five-Knuckle-Shuffle, then sets her up for the STF... but she reverses it into a schoolboy for the 1-2-3! A.J. is the first person to defeat Cena in ten months!

As Cena struggles to come to grips with losing, it sinks in that at Night of Champions, every title is on the line. Kofi Kingston follows A.J. for the U.S. Title match. Cena throws some devastating moves but is clearly distracted by the loss, leaving him open for a Trouble in Paradise. Cena instinctively kicks out, but then the other contenders start to gather on the entrance ramp. He turns his attention to them and gets another kick to the back of his head. 1-2-3 and Kofi is the new United State Champ. While Cena argues with the ref, Cody Rhodes slides into the ring and hits Cross Rhodes to win the Intercontinental belt. Cena is reeling and struggles to his feet, only to be double teamed by... some tag team. Alberto Del Rio and Sin Cara? Big Show and Kane? Colt Cabana and Brad Maddox? After some double finisher, Cena gets pinned again and his tag team belts are gone. Cena is in panic mode and tries to get himself counted out, but Santino drives him back into the ring with the Cobra. Santino is your new Heavyweight Champion. That leaves the WWE title and the people's hero... Lord Tensai? Great Khali? Zach Ryder? Eh, it's probably Sheamus or Orton. Cena clings to his last belt like a mother to her baby in a hurricane. He musters some offense, digging deep as he realizes this is all he has left. Alas, it is too much and he falls, left a shattered wreck in the middle of the ring. Backstage, he gets stunnered, then Stone Cold pours beer on him and Mick Foley smashes a trash can over his head.

In the months to come, titles will shift freely and be defended often. Afterall, it's been two years since anyone but Punk, Rock, or Cena has held the WWE title. Cena finds an old WCW TV Title belt in a closet at Titan Tower, but that's not enough. He goes through all of his rematches, but a Diva always shows up to cost him the match. Cena goes on to be a monster heel, a man hellbent on controlling everyone and everything in his universe and making everything about reflecting his own glory, and seemingly impossible to pin, kind of a non-mystical Undertaker.

Or maybe he's a werewolf.