Bored on the Fourth of July.

"Ann Landers"
July 4, 1918 - June 22, 2002
So, let's get this straight. Ann Landers wasn't a real person. But was also at least two different people. And her daughter, who wasn't named Prudence, became Dear Prudence. And her twin sister was Dear Abby, only that wasn't at all her name. And when the twin sister retired, her daughter, whose name wasn't Abby either, then became Dear Abby.

Sounds like a scam to me.

"Ask Ann Landers" was created by advice columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over by Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer, who won a contest in 1955 after Crowley died. Eppie's column debuted on October 16, 1955, but just a few months later her twin sister Pauline Phillips decided she could write a better advice column and adopted the name Abigail Van Buren and started "Dear Abby". The two sisters fought back and forth for a decade or so but eventually made up. But that's not really what this is about.

What I'm saying is, I'm about to head to work in an hour or so to flip stinkin' burgers, and people are still making money writing advice columns telling other people what kind of hats to wear. I'm a semi-talented fellow, so what the hell? Why is it that I have to get burger grease all over my shoes on the Fourth of July while ritzy advice columnists are sipping brandy while wearing monocles like the friggin' Monopoly guy in limos and laughing loudly to themselves about the amusing "little" people? Where is Barack Obama's "social justice" when we need it, I ask you?!?

There is nothing more useless than the advice column. They're such terrible, pathetic wastes of time that I'm surprised Paris Hilton doesn't have one. In an era when newspapers are but oversized leaflets and have eliminated movie, art, and television critics to save money, you can't avoid the advice column. Like Marmaduke and The Family Circus, they're a permanent part of the landscape. And for all I know, they could have simply been reprinting the same column over and over for 60 years. Who the hell would know? Does anyone really read them?

But I digress.

Point is, advice columns are useless, and the advice column industry has made the same family (and only members of that family) stinking rich for the last 55 years. It's a racket, and a conspiracy.

I should start my own advice column for real men who like big boobs, cold beer, and movies with 'splosions in them. I'd call it "Dear Roscoe", or some other manly name. But then the advice column mafia would come after me and burn my house down for daring to write a column without the Ann/Abby family blessing. All I wanted was to give advice to men about beer and Chesty Morgan movies, and I get my house burned down?!?

Where's the justice in that. I'm just sayin'.