Being a Republican in Hollywood can be tantamount to career suicide. It used to be the other way around. 1947 saw the HUAC hearings that would eventually lead to the creation of the Hollywood Blacklist. But nowadays, most of the powerful studio heads, agents and opinion-makers seem to be… wait for it… leaning to the left. And you thought I was going to say “Jewish”. Shame on you.

It comes as no surprise then, that conservative stars tend to keep quiet – while liberal icons never seem to shut the f*ck up. Leonardo DiCaprio went on tour with Michael Moore to promote Farenheit 9-11. Danny Glover was arrested last week at a protest outside the Sudan embassy in Washington. Martin Sheen continues to make a nuisance of himself whenever out-of-doors and I won’t even bring up Sarandon and Robbins out of fear that I may spontaneously combust.

It’s for that reason that I can’t help but salute the Republican superstars that risk all and rear their ugly heads from time-to-time. But are the vocal ones really helping the cause? Ted Nugent is free to advise me on the correct way to skin a boar if he’d like. And if Brooks and Dunn want to give me a hands on “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” lesson I’m game. But on matters of politics I’ll look elsewhere for advice – and to more credible celeb-citizens to stand up for the party.

I recently found a great list of self-professed Republican celebrities and wanted to share it with you. There are some surprises and then there are some… “duh!”s.

Given: Hank Williams Jr., Clint Eastwood, Oak Ridge Boys, Pat Boone, Tom Clancy, George Steinbrenner, ZZ Top, Mel Gibson, Don King, Robert Davi, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Crystal Gayle, Charlie Daniels, John Tesh, James Caviezel.

Shocker: James Caan, Adam Sandler, Norm MacDonald, Paul McCartney, John Travolta, Charles Barkley, Sean Astin, Sharon Osbourne, LL Cool J, Dennis Hopper, Danny Aiello, Vince Vaughn, Marilyn Manson, Mike Piazza.

Regardless of their stature, I wish more of them would speak up and drown out some of the silly twats that are currently influencing the way America’s youth is going to vote in November. MTV’s Rock The Vote (for Kerry) and Choose (Kerry) or Lose campaigns have swamped media outlets that cater to the 18-25 demographic with partisan advertising that is currently scaring the hell out of me. But regardless, thank God Lil Kim registered this year.

Prisoners get creative. There was The Great Escape Tunnel, The Shawshank Redemption chess set and the paper mache dummies from Escape from Alcatraz. And I remember many episodes of Oz where the prisoners would drink some concoction called Pruno that they distilled in a remote janitorial closet. In between ass-rapings in same said remote janitorial closet.

But if there were an Oscar for creative brig intoxication, it would have to go to a group of cons in Grafton prison in New South Wales – where a group of inmates have been milking spiders for their venom, diluting it with water and then injecting it into their veins. And we’re not talking about a few daddy-long-legs here. These lads kept four deadly Aussie Redback Spiders as milkable pets. Think a cow with eight legs. Or a spider with a little mini-udder. Actually completely forget that I just went off on that tangent, please.

Alright, “deadly” doesn’t really begin to cover it. These little bastards are a close relative of the black widow, and are even responsible for the odd down-under death. “The venom acts directly on the nerves, resulting in release and subsequent depletion of neurotransmitters.”

There’s a Flaming Lips tune called “The SpiderBite song” which I always thought was a euphamism for heroin induced needle tracks. So I found this spider milk article strangely ironic. But after a quick bit of research, I found out that Wayne Coyne actually based the song around the time he provided a hungry arachnid with a snack while cleaning his garage and had to go to the hospital. So that angle went out the window like a Great Depression stockbroker.

One politician, from the current NSW government’s opposition, remarked “NSW prisons are more like a holiday farm than a prison system.” I’ll take Cabo and a cold sixy of Corona over spider spit anyday thanks, mate. But maybe the politicians should be worried that the practice of spider juicing could spread beyond Australia’s prison system. Or already has – that theory would explain Savage Garden, at least.

Looking eerily like K.D. Lang, Pye in the Face reader and friend Michael Moynihan held court recently at a Think Tank Timbro forum on the sad state of Swedish journalism. Mike is a Libertarian living in Sweden and began publishing his own conservative newspaper, The Spectator, back in April. The aim of which is to provide an alternative to the country’s current flagrant liberal media spin – and the paper has recently exposed examples of plagarism amongst some of Sweden’s more prominent political columnists.

To say that Mike’s paper has been getting a lot of attention in Swedish journalism and political circles would be putting it mildly. “The paper comes out April 1st and my apartment should be on fire April 2nd.” The perception of a Libertarian in Sweden can be compared to a fully-regailed Klansman at a Jay-Z concert, so I applaud him for sticking up for his beliefs and for putting a remarkable dent in Sweden’s former anti -U.S. comfort zone. Shake ’em up, Mike.

I can remember being called a joker, a clown and a buffoon at various times in my life. But never a cartoon. That is…. UNTIL NOW:

We had these done for our website at work, and before seeing it this morning I was very skeptical as to the outcome. I had one done at The Perth Garlic Festival a month ago where I looked like one of the Gallagher brothers from Oasis and it was scary. The cartoonist asked my sister what I like – you know, so she could incorporate it into the drawing. Janet replied “beer and cheap women”. Now, while I’m not exactly protesting that description, the caricature came out like ka-ka and I was left wondering “Do I really resemble the same person who wrote Wonderwall?” It was a shock, as I usually get Ron Livingston or Brendan Fraser which I can deal with.

And about three years ago I went to this strange party in the North End. This independantly wealthy, and very strange, socialite was having a party in her apartment which was a converted warehouse across from Joe Tecce’s. She’d paid a cartoonist to come in and draw all of her guests. Now, I don’t know if said artist was stoned out of his gourd, or if I actually resembled a handicapped Aztec that night – but the drawing was another disaster.

I quite like this one. I’m going to use it as my blogger profile image, methinks. If anyone needs similar Boston area caricature work done for whatever strange reason, email this guy. He’s good.