Like any decent American, I am ashamed and embarrassed by my country.I spent decades thinking we were the good guys until Bush and crew came and ruined us, turned us into a bunch of heavy-handed fratboys with no consciences or consequences.

Except maybe not. I wasn’t around for Vietnam, but Kurt Vonngut, Jr. sure was, and his words on American torture in Vietnam are as true and heartbreaking today as they were when he wrote them 36 years ago. I first read the following piece in “Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons,” a marvelous collection of Vonnegut’s essays and speeches.

Originally published in the New York Times in 1971, “Torture and Blubber” mirrors my disgust with our country and a sadness for the entire human race — a disappointment I thought was new and mildly fashionable.

The piece is short and well worth your time — in its entirety after the jump …

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Behind that adorable black face, behind those sweet mournful eyes lies the soul of an unapologetic shit-eater.

For real.

That is not a metaphor. She’s gone from stealing fruitcake and puking it under the tree last Christmas to full-blown coprophagia, gobbling it right up from between dead leaves on the ground at night. Cold and hard or piping hot and still steaming, she doesn’t care and she does it quick, too, too quick to catch sometimes. She just can’t help herself.

Layla’s my sister Jess’s dog, half-beagle and half lab with incurable separation anxiety. She was taken from her mother too young, and consequently has massive incurable anxiety. Jess has tried training camps, reading dog books, everything. Nothing works. Every time Jess is gone for a little while, Layla overindulges in something she shouldn’t: fruitcake, shoes, a purse, now fecal matter.

All training methods exhausted, my sister now just spoils the dog completely rotten, talking to her in a high, squealing voice, carrying her in her arms like a large infant and allowing the dog to “kiss” her directly on the lips.

A few weeks ago, Layla vomited a five-inch turd onto my parents’ living room carpet. My mom called Jess up immediately to report the news, saying only

“Your dog has vomited a massive turd onto the carpet. Yes, a turd. Go ahead and let her lick your lips again. As a concerned mother, I hope you’ve got good health insurance,”

and hung up.

Such was the climate of the household this Thanksgiving. Everyone was exhausted and frustrated with this new habit, this repugnant fetish for a newly repulsive creature that’s far too cute to kick.

Jess and I spent Thanksgiving day over at my aunt and uncle’s taking care of my grandparents. They moved in sometime last summer for a few weeks while my grandpa recuperated from an operation, and it’s become clear that they’re in no shape to live independently. My grandpa’s 88 years old with congestive heart failure, kidney failure and diabetes. He needs a walker to get around now and can’t lift his legs by himself.

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It’s a weird day — I’m packing, cleaning, racing to La Guardia and flying home, all in between working from home today. I wanted to post something holiday-themed, but really, the best gift is a funky gift.

So here’s Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street in the ’70s. Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving, people.

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The cast and crew of NBC’s “30 Rock” performed live to a standing-room only audience at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre last night. According to writer/actress/nerd goddess Tina Fey in a brief pre-show monologue, every penny of the proceeds benefited the show’s PAs, who have been out of work since the beginning of the ongoing writer’s strike.

Please don’t leak any of the story or jokes to the Internet,

Fey asked,

because, y’know, this show is like ‘Heroes’ and we don’t want to ruin it for everyone else. Also, all of you who bought tickets to this show off of Craigslist for hundreds of dollars are suckers … this is going to be on TV for free in a few weeks. We hope …

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I was three-quarters of the way through a bowl of duck noodle soup in Union Square last Friday when I got this mysterious, terrifying text:

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Usually the initials MF are used to neuter my favorite expletive — but I’m pretty into those letters when they refer to a gallery on the Lower East Side that’s either named after Martina and Frank or Monster Face. Last Saturday’s opening at the MF Gallery was no slouch, either … it was the MF Gallery’s fifth annual toy show, full of cuddly monsters and blood-stained plush from artists including Suckadelic, Jenny Harada, Diana Schoenbrun and MF Toys.

I got there early, got some pics and checked out. The place filled up like a subway car, and fast. Most of the stuff there was priced to move, and I liked a lot of the work.

More photos of favorites, after the jump.

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I just discovered SoCalled about fifteen minutes ago and I’m smitten already. This video has the best things in the world all in one place: cowboys, retro robots, soulful singing and solid beats. It also would have scared the absolute whoopsies out of me when I was younger, along with mimes and certain department store mannequins. And the wind.

Here’s SoCalled’s MySpace page, and the video for ‘You Are Never Alone’:

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I don’t make a single dime off this blog, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pay off big-time. I don’t have ads or a large readership, but apparently my influence is enough that people are imitating things they see on here … something that might get them hurt or killed slowly through sheer fat absorption.

Take Bret Wallin, for example. He and literally hundreds of thousands of other people saw the post a little whole back about that ridiculous Franken-fast food pizza. And while some folks thought “yeah, I’d taste that,” Bret said “who’s got a Boboli crust” and MADE one. Actually, he made several:

My friends and I definitely tried our hand at making a couple McDonald’s pizzas. The first was exactly like the pictures you posted – each fast food kept to it’s own kind. The second, though, we chopped up the fries, nuggets, and burgers to spread out the toppings more traditionally.

A really fun time, for sure. We felt that the pickle was surprisingly one of the emergent tastes (as well as the ketchup and mustard to some degree). I first saw a link to your post (I think) on the site Kissing Suzy Kolber. I was visiting some old college friends and I knew right then – “we have to make that… we have to make it TONIGHT!”

And we did. Like I said, a great time. Most everybody felt fine except a couple guys had three slices. That sort of knocked them out for a little bit.

Understandably.

So wait. They made one of these things, ate it, then turned right around and made ANOTHER one. You know, to get it right.

This is why I use my fingers and eyes to make love to the Internet all day long.

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You think you know what’s right and what’s wrong, think you got it all figured out when it comes to video game etiquette and music and style, and then one night winds everything up like a tangled nest of clock springs and throws all your tools right off the bench.

I was teaching some friends the finer points of Big Buck Hunter II at the East River on Saturday night. The bar was packed and the game was old and fast, blurry deer rocketing around the screen which would’ve been hard enough except we’d been impairing our hand-eye coordination around the corner for a few hours, too.

You’ve got to stand back a bit from the machine just to give it a fair go, and it was right as I was trying to explain that the bucks usually hide behind the does and sometimes you’ve gotta give a blast into the air to get things moving that this dude tried to walk between the machine and the little neon plastic shotgun.

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I was deep in the horse latitudes of the afternoon, fighting off lunchtime burrito coma and trying not to spend money online. It had been quiet for hours when Rob banged his hand on the card table that serves as our shared desk in the mutually understood signal for “take out your headphones.”

Dude, this is serious,

he said.

Would you rather have one testicle or three?

I thought about it for a second.

Three, I guess,

I responded.

See, everyone always says that! I’d go with one. I’d rather be a little sad than creepy and freakish.

He makes a good point. But I’ve always had this irrational fear of being chased over a chainlink fence in a junkyard while wearing a pair of Umbros — getting torn open and leaving something behind. As an innate packrat, I like the idea of having a spare handy.

At its essence, the issue is this: would you rather be pitiful or terrifying? What about you guys? Which would you rather have — or encounter?

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