Out of the darkness, I tentatively creep. Covered in muck, I slowly open my weary eyes to see a glimmer of hope on the horizon ...

Since my last doom 'n' gloom column, I have begun to notice some very encouraging signs that maybe mankind is not ready to pack it all in and go the way of the dodo bird. Those signs did not come proudly marching in as a cure for cancer or a car that runs on water, but rather teetering on custom-made size 12 designer f**k-me-pumps on the freakishly gi-normous feet of Paris Hilton. Let me explain.

When I heard that La Hilton's latest film, The Hottie and the Nottie, averaged an embarrassingly low $249 per screen, I felt as if the Virgin Mary had miraculously appeared on my English muffin and whispered, “Everything is going to be alright.” $249 per screen—talk about “total gross!” Do you know what this means? It means that people are waking up and smelling the awful celebrity perfume! It means that people do not want to waste their hard-earned money on an untalented horse/slut who should be playing small cameo roles instead of the lead—especially when that lead is supposed to be a “hottie”! For some reason, I picture the following disclaimer flashing across movie screens at the beginning of the movie: FOR MAXIMUM ENJOYMENT AND BELIEVABILITY, THE PRODUCERS STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU SQUINT WHENEVER MISS HILTON APPEARS ONSCREEN. THANK YOU AND ENJOY THE MOVIE. ALL FIVE OF YOU. And this big-screen vehicle for Mrs. Ed wasn’t just a financial flop, it was a critical bomb, too! The picture has gotten F’d more than its equine star. Perhaps I should send Paris a sympathy basket full of carrots and sugar cubes. (Get it? ‘Cause that's what horses eat. Snap!)

The Tacky and the Can't Actie wasn't the only sign from above that people are wising up and refusing to be screwed in the arse with no lube by the entertainment powers-that-be. Your honor, I would like to enter into evidence the recent movie, Blonde Ambition, that raked in a whopping (wait for it, wait for it ... ) $165 per screen! Leading lady Jessica Simpson spends more than that for lunch at the Ivy! Who’d-a-thunk that a film starring a retarded blow-up doll, the normal-bodied-but-for-some-reason-fat-faced Luke Wilson, yawn-on-two-legs Rachel Leigh Cook, shrunken applehead kitchen-witch lookalike Willie Nelson, bisexual boozer-of-a-trainwreck Andy Dick and is-that-your-face-or-a-photo-of-the-lunar-surface Larry Miller wouldn't have people running to theaters!? There’s sad and then there’s just plain tragic, and Jessica’s fall from grace has been downright spectacular. Here it is in a nutshell: Can’t tell the difference between chicken and tuna (what is she—a blind pedophile!?), can’t hold onto her B-list boy band hubby Nick Lachey, can’t say no when Pizza Hut and Proactiv Solution whip out their corporate checkbooks (wait, doesn’t greasy pizza cause pimples!?), can’t act her way out of a wet paper bag in big-screen tripe such as The Dukes of Hazzard and Employee of the Month, can’t stop her perverted father from making inappropriate comments about her mammoth melons, can’t seem to pass a plastic surgeon’s office without darting in to have her trout-pout pumped up, can’t remember the words to the classic pop song “9 to 5” by the legendary Dolly Parton at the Lincoln Center Honors and, finally, can’t seem to accept the fact that her 15 minutes are over!

Add to these two cinematic signs that a cultural apocalypse is not upon us, the fact that the ABC shitcom Cavemen—based on a Geico insurance commercial—was canceled faster than you can say “Yabba Dabba Don't!,” the Grammy for album of the year went to 67-year-old Herbie Hancock—best known for his 1983 music video for “Rockit” starring deconstructed robots—instead of to bloated-ego-in-sunglasses Kanye West—and American Idol ratings are way down, and it looks like things are indeed getting better!

But before you think the human race is doing all hunky dory and is no longer in danger of snuffing itself out like a cheap lead-filled Dora the Explorer candle made in China, consider these terrifying facts: At press time, Miley Cyrus is the biggest star on the planet, doddering old fart John McCain has 1,033 delegates, it’s still legal in more than 30 states to fire someone simply for being gay, one out of every 100 American adults, is currently incarcerated and, unbeknownst to most of its citizens, the United States of America as we now know it will soon cease to exist when it joins Canada and Mexico as part of the North American Union. Seriously. George W. Bush signed all the papers without asking any of us. Google it.

Uh oh, I’m getting depressed again ...

illustration by www.glenhanson.com