It's the POP!Best! Pop!Quiz! about LOVE! (POP!Best!)

Pop!Best! is my weekly look at all the things people cared about, didn't care about, or thought to themselves something like "I wonder if Susan Lucci is still alive" about...




So this wek, I gave, over on Michael Offutt's blog, not only some awesome legal analysis that for some reason involved comic books, but also another reason why indie publishing (a term I coined, thank you very much Amazon) may help free us from the stocks that the publishing industry has cruelly placed readers into to face the torments of the crowd of authors who will gather 'round them and mock them until they (the readers, I mean) are led from the stocks to the platform where the hooded agents of the Revolution will place them (the readers, I mean) into the slotted board above which hangs the Guillotine of Rejection, which all too soon will slice down into their necks (the readers, I mean) dropping the heads of the readers into the basket of indie publishing where they...

... Wait, I think maybe aspiring authors should be in the stocks. Can I start over? Never mind. I was all caught up in French Revolutionary thinking because yesterday on the way home from work I listened to the fascinating history of Madame Tussaud's wax works on Stuff You Missed In History Class. Hey, it beats sports-talk radio. I can't listen to Jim Rome for 10 seconds without needing to punch someone in the face, and if I'm the only one in the car, that gets painful.

Anyway, I defended indie publishing again vigorously this week as the only possible way out of the hellhole that is having millions of books available to read but all of them somehow involve a seemingly-random combination of:

A. Vampires,

B. Authority figures who are loose stand-ins for mean parents and

C. Shia LeBeouf, who ought to be in everything. Wasn't he supposed to be our next Indiana Jones? What happened to that? I blame Rick Perry.

But I did all that defending of indie publishing before I was aware that something called Wet Goddess existed, and had I known about Wet Goddess before I made my comments, I, too, would have wished for the relief offered by Rob Lowe's character to the women who were Molexted In the season premiere of Parks & Recreation, which I watched last night instead of when it first aired 'cause I'm cool like that:

But I was talking about the book Wet Goddess and specifically about what is terrible about it. Here is what is wrong with Wet Goddess, in a nutshell: Its "Editorial Description" On Amazon, which reads:

Set at the height of Vietnam protests, Jimi Hendrix and LSD, Wet Goddess is a story of strange encounters, awkward misadventures, and ultimately, love.

Sounds good, right? Well, sounds, at least, socially acceptable, right?

Wrong! Here's the cover for Wet Goddess, which will give you more than a clue to what is wrong with this book and the fact that almost anyone can publish almost anything:

In case that didn't tip you off, I'll just say it: The book Wet Goddess is a book about a man having a sexual affair for nine months... with a dolphin.

It's either a memoir, if you believe some people, or an autobiographical novel, if you believe the blog IO9 (which I inadvertently copied the title of and I'm sorry and I've corrected it), or, if you believe the actual author's actual interview on Bubba The Love Sponge's show, it's pretty much what happened to him:

Mr Brenner spoke to Nightline from his Florida home. Below is the transcript of our conversation.

DF: Thanks for your time. How did this whole thing start?

MB: She began raking her teeth lightly against my arms and legs which was indescribably erotic. Some might find it frightening, I found it erotic.

MB: What was right with it is that the dolphin initiated the whole sexual thing. As I mentioned, she was in isolation - she'd be using me to satisfy her sexual needs.

The revelation that someone had not only had a 9-month affair with a dolphin but also wrote a book about it and then got on Nightline not only grossed me out all night long, but also made me put into perspective all the things I was going to talk about here on POP!Best! this week, those things being, of course, the other big things that happened this week, the other big things being, in no particular order:

1. The Emmys happening.

2. Netflix deciding to rename part of its service to take advantage of the stoner-Tweeter market, which America in turn treated as though Netflix had stolen its youngest baby and used said baby for ritual sacrifices because America didn't know that up next was

3. Facebook changing things.

Also, in case you were wondering, the audience at a debate booed and jeered a gay man who was willing to give his life for them and their stupidity, while all the people who want to be commander-in-chief of that man didn't say a damn thing because they're not only racists, but they're hypocrites and cowards, too, but I know you weren't wondering because you're still mad about that Netflix thing, which brings me to this week's entry, which I have decided to do in quiz format because I like quizzes.*

*Also, you knew this was a quiz because of the title, right?

I'm calling this quiz:

Say About Love, That's What They're Saying...

Here are some quotes from the week about various relationships that made the news in one form or another. The answers are at the bottom:

1. "There will be obstacles to overcome in this relationship, but there are challenges in every relationship. It's all about compromise. I'm trying to teach Fluffy to stop pooping on herself, and she's teaching me how to drink water from an upside-down bottle."

That is an actual quote from:

A. Rick Perry's book, speaking about Social Security.

B. That supposed 16-year-old girl who married that guy from Lost, on her new Reality-TV show.

C. The second-most-helpful reader review of the book Wet Goddess on Amazon.

2. "“It feels amazing. I hate to say it -- more amazing in a weird way.... You expect to the thrill be diminishing. It isn’t! This is a big surprise. It’s been very good for morale around here."

That was said by:

A. Gary Johnson, who is apparently running for President, too, apparently unaware that the media killed off Thaddeus McCotter to boost ratings this week.

B. The author of Wet Goddess, on his Bubba The Love Sponge interview, talking about when he first told the other staffers at Sea World.

C. Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, on winning an Emmy for a show nobody has watched in 2 years, at least.

3. "The hardest part about breaking up ... is getting used to falling asleep alone."

That was said by:

A. Ruby The Dolphin, who reportedly died of a broken heart after the Wet Goddess author went off to college.

B. I got nothing here; I'm going to be honest with you. I tried to put some GIFs in here, and it took forever to copy them and then when I tried to edit them I accidentally deleted 1/2 this post because Google Chrome doesn't have an undo button on a toolbar and I didn't know that CTRL Z is undo and had to search for it and even that didn't help, and I know that's not that big a deal, but it really... bugs... me because I then had to re-create this half of the post, and can't remember what I had for B for this answer.

C. Twitterer @Hipstermermaid, whose Twitter feed offered thoughtful, funny, insightful commentary on the Republican debate and other important events... but who got nationally quoted on HuffPo for that Tweet... which was about Netflix.

4. "The future is heading towards greater openness. Take my dog, for example."

That was said by:

A. The other big commenter on Wet Goddess, hyping his own book, "Furry Goddess Who Is Hanging Her Head Out The Window As I Drive."

B. The head of CBS, commenting on his second choice to replace Charlie Sheen on Two And A Half Men; cast members immediately heralded the dog as funnier than Ashton Kutcher, too.

C. Andy Samberg, pretending to be Mark Zuckerberg talking about Mark Zuckerberg's dog "Beast," a dog who has his own Facebook page, a page which 200,000 people "fanned" this week, meaning that nearly half as many people took the time to fan a dog as signed an online petition to stop an execution after 7 witnesses recanted their testimony. Way to go, America!

5. "It might be easier if you take a deep breath, lift from the knees, and shove it up your butt!"

That was said by:

A. That gay soldier, responding to the Republicans who would rather die in a terrorist attack than let two men hold hands in public.

B. Marcus Bachmann. Why, what are you implying?

C. Stanley, on The Office, deploying his new thing:

The Answer Key:

1. Yellow.

2. Anything not from Wal-Mart.

3. Dragons.

Next week: God only knows. I've been working on this thing for 2 hours now and that whole deleting thing has me incredibly frustrated. Yeah, yeah, first world problems. Whatever.