By Jonathan Kiefer
August 3, 2006

Technically, Operation Groucho was over more than a month ago. But only last week, after a whimsical making-of documentary surfaced on the local humor site BadMouth, could the happening find its proper audience. “BadMouth has been getting thousands of hits a day, which hasn’t happened for a while because the site’s been a little dormant,” said John Marcotte, the Groucho and BadMouth mastermind, in a weekend phone call. Marcotte had been diverted from his usual high jinks by the arrival of a new daughter, but as he explained, “Operation Groucho was my I’m-back-in-a-big-way type of thing.”

It concerned the evidently contentious aesthetic scheme of the intersection between Folsom Boulevard and 65th Street, which juxtaposes a large LED display reading “F65” with Davis artist Stephen Kaltenbach’s Greek-ruin-esque sculpture, an oversized, severed head called “Matter Contemplates Spirit.”

“We always thought it was an odd place for that statue. I’m not sure it matches the environment,” Marcotte went on, echoing, if more politely, what Robert Berry lamented in these pages last year as “a mixture of Salvador Dali and RadioShack.” Less politely, perhaps, Marcotte also took action. Harkening back to Marcel Duchamp’s mustachioed “Mona Lisa” of nearly a century ago, he temporarily appended Kaltenbach’s sculpture with a set of custom-made Groucho Marx glasses, complete with bulbous nose, bushy black mustache and eyebrows.

1. “Tricks of the Trade”
2. Iron Monkey
3. snoop dogg & me

Okay, now you've seen it, peer on over at them donate buttons on the right. C'mon, you know you want to be a "producer" of a top notch panhandling documentary. So go ahead, gimme money. While my online panhandling continues to earn at a snail's paste, the documentary funding is off to a great start. We've gotten $400 (thanks Larry Scholl and John J.) in finishing funds donated since putting this trailer up. Thanks guys. You can donate using the donation buttons on the site, just specify that you're sponsoring the film and not buying me green tea and wheat free vegan brownies. Feel free to contact us about sponsorships as well. Just write to whylieineedadrink at yahoo.com. thanks. And hey, I could really use some green tea and wheat free vegan brownies.

1. why lie? i need a drink
2. the banana strikes back
3. why lie? i need milk and cookies

• Subscriptions to comments so you can follow your arguments more closely.
• Gravatars: Global avatars so you can pick an icon to represent yourself in the comments.
• Better archives, including category breakdowns.

1. Badmouth is in Maxim
2. Badmouth on Badmouth
3. the poetry of badmouth

• Last year's award show was the 2002 Dotties. This year's is the 2004 Dotties. We're missing a year somehow.
• They reduced the number of finalists from five to three. So I'm up against Rob Cockerham's sublime Cockeyed and the boys over at Suckramento.
• Rob Berry's cooler-than-cool site RetroCrush continues to be snubbed by the Dottie voters for some unfathomable reason.
• I am not a judge this year. The past few years, I've helped judge the event. Although I didn't get to judge my own category, it probably didn't look good to be introduced as a judge then recieve an award.

1. you like me, you really like me
2. badmouth 2.0

Sure navigating the site is now like swimming through molasses, but it's worth it as long as I know that I'm the next best thing to a boobies link.

For bonus fun, see if you can guess which day we got FARKed using only the above chart.

1. trailer: why lie i need a drink?
2. Interview: Fark’s Drew Curtis
3. badmouth 2.0