Yeah, yeah, so J-Lo dumped me. It wasn’t because of my affairs with strippers, and it wasn’t because I tried to get Smith to cut her out of Jersey Girl entirely, and it wasn’t even because of her apparently very satisfying orgies with the former members of the Miami Sound Machine. No, it was because of my plans for Superbowl Sunday.

The Superbowl is a long-heralded tradition of testosterone here in America, when it’s perfectly okay to settle down with a bowl of corn chips the size of your television and enough salsa to fill Kathy Bates’ bathtub. Oh yes, Superbowl Sunday is that time when men most resemble the Neanderthals of a million years ago, if only those cavemen had television. It’s the one day of the year when it’s socially acceptable for men to paint their faces and scream like extras from Braveheart. Women wear makeup every day of the year, this is our day.

Anyway, J-Lo wanted to go to the Superbowl with me, which would be fine any other year, but I said, “No, baby, I got plans.” This isn’t like the NBA Finals or watching the Red Sox get knocked out of the ALCS. This is not a day for men to be bringing their wives and/or girlfriends to the show, let alone for the show that I’m going to.

That’s right, boys, I’m going to be at the Lingerie Bowl. After all, Superbowls happen every year. Things like the Lingerie Bowl and the XFL are once-in-a-lifetime occurrences, and I’m going to be there for this one. What man in his right mind wouldn’t go if he had the money and a nagging girlfriend who’s threatening to go back to Puff Daddy? The only downside is that the Lingerie Bowl is only during the Superbowl’s halftime, whereas I think just this one year the Superbowl should be a half-hour and the Lingerie Bowl should be three hours.

After all, let’s weigh the two against each other:

• The Superbowl is the fulfillment of an entire season of NFL football, bringing the champions of the AFC and NFC together to duke it out and see which conference takes the trophy this year. The Lingerie Bowl, on the other hand, is the fulfillment of every heterosexual man’s fantasies, like a catfight with rules and corporate sponsors.
• The Superbowl features eleven overgrown men per team on the field at a time; the Lingerie Bowl features seven women per team, wearing lacy-looking sports bras and volleyball shorts. While it’s not real lingerie, I think the girls win that argument.

In the end, the question comes to, which one do you root for? Which one, out of Team Dream or Team Euphoria, would you put money on? Without going into any huge amount of detail, I’m leaning towards Team Euphoria, whose quarterback is Angie Everhart, to win by seven. Damon, on the other hand is going for Team Dream, quarterbacked by Nikki Ziering. I can’t explain Damon’s bet, but my uncle Artie once told me never to bet against a redheaded supermodel in an event that passes for athletic competition while shamelessly bordering on sexploitation.

And, maybe uncle Artie was right, but who’s getting exploited here? Is it the models and the other gorgeous women playing for the two teams (who often make good money for wearing less clothing than in this event), or the men who are paying $24.99 for a halftime show?

I was flipping through the comments on the last post by Lizzie, and WP Legend’s right. Seventy-five percent of Americans are overweight, but -this being America- it’s our God-given right to be fat; it said so in the Declaration of Independence: Pursuit of Life, Liberty and a Double Quarter-Pounder With Cheese.

That’s right, we’re Americans who propelled, “I’m OK, You’re OK” to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, but seem to have forgotten the second half of the title and now see it as, “I’m OK, But You’re A Fucking Asshole, So Stop Criticizing Me Before I Shove This Broomstick So Far Up Your Ass You’ll Be Picking Splinters Out Of Your Teeth.”

We’re Americans, and collectively we’re fat, but rather than simply admit that we have a problem with over-eating, we eliminate any chance of being flawed in any way whatsoever and hire scientists to find the elusive “Fat Gene”. I don’t care if they find the Fat Gene; I want scientists to find the gene that makes people retarded and not take responsibility for anything.

Case in point: The fuckheads who think it’s Ronald McDonald’s fault they look like Grimace and take the whole company to court. If only Mayor McCheese could step in and say, “You’re fat, it’s your fault, fuck you. Here’s five dollars’ worth of gift certificates for your pain and suffering, thank you and come again.”

But it’s a damn good thing we’re fat, because weight-control books dominate the bestseller lists; diet-pills are sold mainly to truckers, college students and essentially anyone else who can’t find good amphetamines; Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers offices are open all over the country… Being fat is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, employing thousands of people across America, who likely have absolutely no other job qualifications. Couple that with the money generated by things at actually make Americans fat, and you realize that our own obesity is the only thing keeping us out of the poor-house.

What can you do on Love Your Body Day? Go to Hallmark and try to find a card to send to someone, and then ultimately realize that the Love Your Body Day is just a giant publicity stunt created exclusively to promote the National Organization For Women at a minimal cost by getting their followers to go all Stuart Smalley and say, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and damn I look hot in these 54-inch stretch-pants…” and then hold rallies for yet-wider seats at movie theaters, airplanes and sports stadiums.

If they had their way, Fenway Park would seat nine people, just to make sure the fattest people on earth could all sit there and be happy as pigs in shit, which is a pretty appropriate metaphor, don’t you think?

I know you expected to hear from me last weekend, but I’ve been kind of busy, what with my gambling and boozing and whoring and what-not. Since three of you are big fans of mine, I suppose I owe you an explanation for why it all happened.

J-Lo and I called the wedding off on Thursday because the swanky hotel we were getting hitched at was double-booked and someone from the other wedding party decided to call up Entertainment Tonight or some such media outlet, who then informed the rest of the media, who then informed the paparazzi and the general public, which led to the cancellation of the wedding. Or, that’s how the story goes. In reality, I was the one who called Entertainment Tonight, and it was J-Lo (by herself) who called off the wedding.

There are reasons for this. She wanted me to sign a prenuptial agreement that said she got half of my fortune if she decided to divorce me for infidelity. Now, really, who can blame me for something like that? Just because I sleep with two, three, four strippers while I’m out on a movie set doesn’t mean I don’t love her. Well, in a passive-aggressive way, I suppose it does, but that’s not the point. That’s like me having a clause that says if she makes a bad album then I get twenty million dollars. It’s just something that we all know is going to happen.

Really, the cancellation is just a sign of much larger problems, anyway. For example, when I tried to move the wedding to Conference Room B of the Howard Johnson’s on Wilshire, she stormed off with her entourage, and I took that as a no. I didn’t get it, because she wants three-hundred people at the wedding, but she wants privacy. So, I did what any man in the situation would do: I went to Vegas for a boxing match, went gambling, even tried online gambling from sbobet ???????, fell off the wagon and woke up with strippers. Maybe they were hookers or possibly dancers who wanted to try out for J-Lo’s next video, but that’s not the point. The point is I tried, and she backed out on me.

When this all started, we were just another Hollywood celebrity couple. We could have burned down West Beverly Hills and the newspapers would have put it on page 8. Then I made the stupid mistake of proposing and buying her a ring that cost me the better part of a year’s pay (after you take out taxes, agent fees and the “donations” I make to the Weinsteins to keep my career intact). I jumped in with both feet, and now look where it’s gotten me: The movie I did with her is second only to From Justin To Kelly as the worst movie of all time, and we’ve still got one more that could conceivably top it.

So, boys (because most of you are boys, merely looking for pictures of the Olsen Twins naked), let me impart upon the lot of you a piece of advice: When you like a girl, you’re going to get frustrated, and you’re not going to know what to say to her. Then, when you think she likes you as much as you like her, it’s all easy. Then, reality strikes, and you realize that she didn’t like you as much as you thought she did, in which event it’s often because she likes some other guy more than you and failed to mention it over the course of your dating or correspondence.

Just save yourself the heartbreak and always keep one foot out the door at all times, because one day -out of nowhere- she’ll drop you, and you’ll just realize that you were wrong about everything. They’re all blind corners and the end of your relationship is around one of them. As for me, I’ll just wait for my agent to say it’s okay to get married again, if ever. He said once that my box-office pulled an extra twenty-million per picture when I was an eligible bachelor, so he probably won’t, and the closest I’ll get to a happy-ending is watching Chasing Amy, and all I have to fall back on is the knowledge that I was the bomb in Phantoms.

You know, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to thank Colin Farrell for putting the shout out to me that Fubar has found a new home. It would’ve been nice to get that information from Justin, but since he’s on the ass-end of the earth from whence come things like SARS.

Regardless, I’ve been pretty busy lately, what with getting down on my knees and smiling like a donut for the Weinstein Brothers, and pretty much anyone higher up in the Disney company than the kid who runs Space Mountain during the mid-afternoon shift at Disney World.

Then let’s not forget these anti-piracy trailers that I’ve been doing with Jim Cameron and just about everyone else in Hollywood who sold their souls to Satan (a.k.a. Michael Eisner) for a percentage of the back-end on some movie or another. But I’d just like to say that if Justin keeps on buying VCD’s, then Hollywood won’t be able to produce another summer of mind-numbing action extravaganzas that suck your will to live. And then I’ll be out of a job, and Cameron will be out of a job, and the rest of the tools who were in that commercial, well, fuck ’em, that’s why they’ve got unions.

And the promotional tour for Gigli. That came right about the same time that I fired my agent for getting me involved with that piece of complete and unadulterated shit. He made it sound so good, because the director of Beverly Hills Cop was attached (but he left out any mention of the box-office on Meet Joe Black), J-Lo was in it (and, quite honestly, I thought the title of the movie was pronounced ‘jiggly’ and it was a reference to her ass). My agent made the whole thing sound so good, and now it’s the worst film in the history of film.

And then there were those hookers. And strippers. And Damon’s ex-girlfriends. And Casey’s ex-girlfriends. And any women who submitted screenplays for this year’s Project Greenlight.

In any case, J-Lo’s sleeping now, which means this is my chance to kick on the Spice channel (not to be confused with the Spike channel, which is not to be confused with Spike Lee, who is not to be confused with Spike Jones or Spike Jonze), because the alternative is J-Lo’s eyebrow-stylist who’s set up permanent residence downstairs, and looks more like Jim Carrey than Mariah Carey. Thank god for hardcore pornography.

… be absolutely sure to listen to celebrities with whom you share political views, because we are your leaders. What I think about all of this is immaterial, but just about every actor (except me), actress (except J-Lo), singer (except J-Lo) and even a few of the homeless people on Wilshire (including three of J-Lo’s former husbands) have put in their very public two cents about the impending war, regardless of the fact that their fifteen minutes of fame were up about eight years ago.

I mean, first you’ve got Charlie Daniels. Here’s a guy who had been about as much out of the spotlight as Great White was until he released his “It’s Not A Rag, It’s A Flag” song last year, which was apparently offensive to someone or another, which only served to get him more press and therefore more record sales. He hopped on the pro-war bandwagon this week by writing a letter to the celebrity community, which several newspapers printed for some ungodly reason, essentially saying that anyone against the war is un-American and should be deported or some such thing, which speaks really well for his understanding of the Constitution. Then again, he’s a desperate country singer who hasn’t had a hit since “Devil Came To Georgia,” so we can forgive him, maybe.

And then there’s some other country singer with a pro-war song out right now, and we all know the real reason for doing this stuff. It’s not because these singers support the war or anything like that, but because it’s an opportunity to make some quick green on a hot-subject before their careers go belly-up when their listeners finally realize that country music hasn’t been good since the early 80’s, when the songs were all about drivin’ your big rig.

And then on the anti-war side, you’ve got Mike Farrel, who did two things in the twenty years between his acting on M*A*S*H and Providence, and those two things were jack and shit. He’s opposed to the war, but nobody cares because he’s about as much in the public consciousness at this point as Cat Stevens.

Actually, Cat Stevens is back with a new anti-war song. Yes, this is true, but since he changed his name to Yusuf Islam a couple decades back, he’s been harder to find than Salman Rushdie during the 80’s. He’s got a song out, but that’s all I know, because no one’s going to play a Yusuf Islam song, because he’s about as well respected at this point as Jane Fonda was during the Vietnam War.

I ran into Keanu Reeves this week and asked him what he thought of the war, and he responded, “Dude…” I don’t know if that was a yea or nay kind of, “Dude…” but that’s his opinion. I think there might’ve been a, “Whoa…” in there somewhere, but I don’t think it would matter.

What I’m trying to say here is, if you’re not sure whether or not you support an American invasion of Iraq, don’t listen to us celebrities. We’re either out there because we want to boost sales on something or try to convince the world that we’re not actually dead, though our careers might be. Pick up a newspaper, listen to talk radio (Mancow and Howard Stern do not count as talk radio), do anything but listen to us celebrities, because we’re just good-looking idiots.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Fubar comes back up just in time for me to make a shameless plug for my new movie, Daredevil, which I did solely as a favor to Kevin Smith, since he needed to get the resale value up on the first issues of the series’ re-release, courtesy of Marvel Comics.

And it’s Valentine’s Day. What can you buy for the woman who has everything? No, seriously, this is an actual question, seeing how I bought J-Lo a ring that cost more than my salary for Armageddon. I mean, I’ve bought her a car, a ring, paid for her divorce attorney… and yet she still wants me to surprise her for Valentine’s Day. There’s no way to stand out from the crowd, seeing how I’ve seemingly got half of the desperate men in America, forty-three Venezuelans, twelve guys in Peru and assorted guys all over the rest of the world sending her flowers. So I can’t buy her flowers. I bet Damon would be able to think something up, but he’s probably still in the institution after Bourne Identity flopped.

I’m sorry if I cut this short, but me and J-Lo have dinner reservations at nine, and then I’ve got to wake up in the morning and talk to Marc Norman about writing a Shakespeare In Love spin-off about my character, Ned, probably due out in late-2004 if I can get it done fast. I’m thinking that in this one, Ned writes a different not-so-well-known Shakespeare play, since the Bard is out sick or something. A “here Ben comes to save the day” kind of movie. And don’t any of you make jokes about Ned writing Coriolanus for Damon’s character. It’s just not funny, and Rupert Everett made the joke when I first pitched the movie to the Weinsteins back in ’98.

In closing, I’d like to thank Justin for coming back and granting me the opportunity to hawk Daredevil to the masses. Go see it. Now. If you’re on the east-coast, you might still be able to catch a late-show, so push all of the couples down and steal their tickets. It’s one hell of a lot more entertaining than The Hours or any of those Oscar-nominated movies. Way I see it, the last time a decent movie got nominated for an Oscar was Good Will Hunting. But, that’s another story for another time, because J-Lo just threatened to take my balls off if we didn’t make our reservation-time.

Well, everybody, it’s almost Halloween again, which means it’s time for all of us to kick back and remember the good ol’ days.

Where I grew up, God’s little cruel joke on us youngsters was making it snow for Halloween. I can only assume this was because Easter was completely lost on us, and He was getting back at us for looking forward to Halloween so much. I mean, really, when’s the last time you saw someone go out for Halloween dressed as a biblical figure? I mean, other than the time me and Damon tried going out as a plague of locusts. Hence, snow for Halloween. Nothing quite complements a great Spider-Man costume like a fucking parka.

I got a couple of older cousins who remember going out trick-or-treating without having their parents hanging over their shoulder. Nothing quite like the badge of shame you get from having mom follow you around in the family station wagon. Hell, they remember a time when parents didn’t comb through your candy looking for razorblades and anthrax. I think my mother just wanted her cut of the take, which was probably at least twenty-five percent; this is probably related to her recent indictment on extortion and racketeering charges.

For all intents and purposes, it’s a kids’ holiday, but the parents don’t seem to see it that way. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone’s totally insane out here in Hollywood, but last year, Saturday before Halloween, I’m sitting in my apartment and there’s a knock on the door. I figure it’s the hooker I ordered, so I open the door and see this little kid dressed up as Good Will Hunting. I stifle the urge to call him a fucking prick and he says, “Trick or treat.” Now, Halloween’s not for another three or so days, so I ain’t got any candy, and I tell him that. Next thing I know, Queen Bitch of the Universe (his mother) walks up and asks why I don’t have any candy for her child, like it’s his fucking birthright. Apparently, it was her belief that she could just “bump Halloween up” a few days, so her kid wouldn’t be going out on a schoolnight. I, of course, have to break it to the crazy bitch that Halloween isn’t one of those floating-holidays like Thanksgiving, and it doesn’t take place on the last Saturday in October, so I ain’t got any candy for her kid. And, just before I close the door on these buffoons, I get right in the kid’s face and say, “So how do you like them apples?” *SLAM*

So, this week, I’m expecting to open the door to a little ten year-old girl and say, “My, my, that’s quite a streetwalker costume you’ve got there,” to which she’ll inevitably respond that she’s actually dressed up like Christina Aguilera.

This Justin guy really pisses me off sometimes. He starts off by dragging me on for three weeks, letting me think he’s Avril Lavigne, talking about this and that… not cybersex, but cyber-foreplay for sure. So anyway, I’m seeing a connection here, and so I went to an Avril Lavigne concert, got backstage and she’s like, “Oh my god! Ben Affleck!” And I’m like, “Good to see you, too, sweetkins,” dropped my pants, and next thing I know I’m slapped with a restraining order. So I get back online and find this Psykotik2k person and I’m like, “Bitch! You lied to me!” and then Justin explained it all and we both had a good laugh over it. Well, he had a good laugh, and I fell off the wagon. God, I hope he doesn’t still have those IM’s logged away somewhere.

So anyway, maybe he felt so guilty that he decided to give me this job, or maybe it’s because he found some jackhole on the internet who hates me and linked him to my name at the end of the story I wrote, and I can’t do anything about it. I mean, I can stand criticism, but this guy is saying I look like Popeye-meets-Rambo, and that’s just the nastiest thing someone’s done to me since Damon convinced me to play Chuckie instead of Will Hunting. He gets an Oscar nomination for acting, and I end up playing second-fiddle to Mork From Ork! Damon’s a manipulative bastard, Justin’s a lying bastard, and this Popeye-thinkin’ fuck is fucking clown shoes. Yeah, you piece of crap, I read your Pearl Harbor review and I ain’t gay!

So let’s talk about breasts. You want proof I ain’t gay? We’re talking about breasts. Now, let’s be honest: J-Lo ain’t got much up top. You ever seen Money Train? Yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about. I bet you can probably find that picture over in that naked celebrity thing on the left there. I mean, I am a man in pain. Gwyneth? Ha ha, nope, nothin’ up there, either. I think I’m getting known for this, which might be why they cast me against Liv Tyler and Kate Beckinsdale in Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. If I had a thing for Canadian girls, I’d be on the first flight to Toronto for a Leafs game and visit the girls who post here on Fubar.

So, me being Mister Dissatisfied Ben Affleck, let’s talk about the actresses I should’ve nailed on movie sets over these past years: Salma Hayek in Dogma, Christina Ricci in 200 Cigarettes, Claire Forlani in Mallrats, Charlize Theron in Reindeer Games, Kristy Swanson from when I was an extra in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and this chick even though I never acted with her, because she’s really hot! Man, I’d dump J-Lo in a heartbeat for that chick. She must be like a foreign superstar or something. The name’s just so exotic, like Cher or Bjork, who are superstars that I don’t want to nail, but I will if it’ll prove to all of you doubters that I ain’t gay!

[Editor: I’m sure Ben would’ve wanted me to add the Popeye-Rambo link for clarity.]

Hey, folks, I figured I might as well follow up today’s posts with a man’s point of view on things. Yes, in Justin’s absence, I’ve been brought in to bring a dash of testosterone to the page. So, in this posting, I’m going to impart upon the readers of the page a few lessons I learned on a date a while back, back when I was a struggling actor playing bit parts in movies like Dazed & Confused.

First impressions are terribly important. I can’t even begin to tell you how important. For example, when a girl introduces herself and mentions how her name is spelled, all in the same sentence, just run away. Quickly. What would normally sound like, “Hi, I’m Christine,” turns into that very phrase followed up with, “spelled with a K… and an H… a Y, a double-E and a silent Q.” So, of course, while she’s babbling on about god-knows-what, you’re trying to figure out how her name is actually spelled.

Khryqsteen? What the fuck, was she named after a region of Persia?

Well, Khryqsteen was a pretty girl who I met at a party being held at the apartment complex I was living at. Unfortunately, I didn’t know to run after she explained how her name was spelled (that’s experience for ya), so I asked her out for the trusty ol’ Dinner & A Movie, which is the easiest type of date because you can always bump the movie if the dinner conversation is particularly enlightening.

Okay, the budget for the date was sixty bucks for both the dinner and the movie. Struggling actors don’t make much, you know. She orders a salad. Not like a Mondo Chicken Caesar Parmegiana Salad or anything like that. She orders a house salad with oil and vinegar. So, what’s a guy to do in a circumstance like this? I was living on ramen noodles at the time, so I ordered an eighteen-ounce filet-mignon, medium rare with sour cream and bacon bits on the potato.

She launches into this five-minute monologue about how “I killed a defenseless cow, meat is murder, the cows don’t deserve to die, you could eat soy, blah, blah, blah…” She goes so far as to accuse me of misrepresenting myself when we met by not informing her that I occasionally eat animals. I mean, she’s done everything but accuse me of being the Chupacabra of Latin-American myth. I light up a cigarette, knowing full-well that it’s the non-smoking section, but I just don’t care anymore. I say to her:

“You’re wearing leather pants. The same cow that’s going to be on my plate in five minutes is wrapped around your thighs right now… Hey, before you go, just one more question: Are you a hypocrite or just plain stupid? Because I really want to know.” The waiter brings the dinner in a bag and I went to see two movies that night.

What’s the lesson to be learned from this? Disclosure. When you first meet someone, just spend the next twenty minutes telling each other everything about your respective lives, because eventually you’ll find something you wouldn’t be able to live with, and that’ll save you a whole lot of money, time and grief in the long run. Of course, J-Lo still doesn’t know about the trips me and Damon make to Thailand every year.