Which reminds me…in movies and TV shows, they often show a struggling new parent (often the bumbling oaf of a father) being urinated on by their child as a source of both humiliation, exasperation and, theoretically, hilarity for the audience. A baby peeing out of control is mildly humorous on-screen and still mildly humorous off, with all its madcap scrambling to control the damage. What isn’t funny – and I dare any filmmaker to put this in their next comedy-with-a-heart-of-gold – is being shat upon. Don’t believe the lies that newborn baby poo doesn’t smell. NEW-newborn poo doesn’t smell but trust me, once they start chugging down that breast milk, boy, watch out. And it doesn’t just sneak out like a scared turtle head. It violently shoots out like goddamn Old Faithful. Where was this scene in LOOK WHO’S TALKING? I want to see John Travolta covered in poo. “Iss like…so weeid because I’m like…covered in poo!”

Anyway, with the amount of fecal spills taking place at Shangri-Sampson, I took last week off and felt guilty about it, but in all reality there was no way a column was getting done. And even though the baby was born about two weeks ago, I still don’t think I’ve recovered. I feel like someone has poured sugar in my proverbial gas tank. Maybe it’s waking up at 3:00am to a screaming baby. Maybe it’s the lingering fumes from the dirty diapers. Maybe it’s a little of Column A and a little of Column B. In any event, if I seem a little bizarre this week or next, don’t start with the hate mail just yet. Wait another two weeks and then send the hate mail. For now I’m back, hoping to return to my pre-baby form.

Yet here I am and somehow I can’t get anything done. Like ADAPTATION’s Charlie Kaufman I sat in front of my computer, typing, erasing, typing, erasing, pacing, drifting, tapping, humming, thinking and doing everything short of actually working on my Poop Shoot column. This is the extent of my boredom: at one point I wondered why I hadn’t gotten any e-mail all day, so I e-mailed myself to check and make sure my account was still working. An e-mail from “Michael Sampson” immediately popped up in my inbox proving A) that my e-mail account is working just fine and B) nobody loves me.

It’s March and that means a few things. One, the Irish will be puking in the streets. Two, somewhere in Mexico, Florida and/or Texas, beautiful college girls from across the States will be drunk, horny and half-naked. And three, compulsive gamblers cream their jeans as March Madness begins.

It seems like everyone gets involved in the NCAA tournament even if they know nothing about college basketball. I remember in college, my grandma calling me on the phone to give her bracket picks so she could enter the contest at the local Rotary club. I personally have never done very well at all, yet every year I feel compelled to try my hand at the picks. There’s just something about that crazy bracket that gets people all excited.

While thinking about March Madness and how much more fun it was in college when I literally sat home and watched every single game with a bunch of friends, a case of 40s and a bucket of wings, I somehow got thinking about bad movies. Don’t ask me how it creeped into my mind but I was thinking that clichéd thought about how many bad movies came out in the previous year. I mean, how do you decide the what’s worse: KANGAROO JACK or SWEPT AWAY? In an effort to help, I thought I’d bracket last year’s worst films like the Final Four so that the readers of this very column can decide for yourself.

Take the bracket below and print it out. Go through each of the films and pick which one of the two is the worst. If you haven’t seen all of them, pick the one you’d want to see least if you had to choose between the two. If you have seen all of them, well God help you.

Then you’ll get to the end and have your own personal Worst Film of 2002. I won’t tell you what mine was yet `cause I don’t want to taint the voting (hehehe, he said taint). But have fun with it. Get into March Madness spirit, movie style.

This Week’s Random Thoughts:
Why is it that rich, old, white people acting hip-hop is so funny? Watched the trailers for both HEAD OF STATE and BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE and both feature stuck-up whiteys converting to breakdancing, ebonics-speaking homeys. That shot of the old dowager busting out with “Fo’ shizzle my nizzle” in HEAD OF STATE annoys me now every time I see it. Maybe it’s just because I’m partial to “fo' sheezy mah neezy” if I’m going to use a slang derivative of “for sure my N-word.”

This woman, assuming she’s not a lesbian, married into this name. Now that’s love. Just read this bio and count how many times you laugh. I was up to about 19 before I had to stop. Almost as funny as this buddy of mine who’s interning for a Judge who just happens to be named Sack. The Honorable Sack. Judge Sack. I couldn’t work with that man all day long. I would never get any work done. I just want him to get my hands on some “From the Desk of Judge Sack” letterhead.

Run don’t walk over to www.markromanek.com. You probably know the guy from directing ONE HOUR PHOTO but his real masterpieces have been the countless music videos he’s done. My favorite is the brooding paranoia of Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut.” Check it out…

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