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Bottoms Up

Unreal considers becoming an ass-vertizer and wonders what's up with Dunc's junk.

Daniela Droke's get-rich scheme was hatched like so many entrepreneurial endeavors. Late one night the 29-year-old St. Louis resident was surrounded by mounds of credit card bills when she asked her boyfriend: "What am I going to do? Pull a million dollars out of my butt?" Cha-ching!

This month Droke launched www. milliondollarsoutofmybutt.com, a Web site that features a photo of her derriere packed inside a pair of size 8 jeans. Each time an advertiser purchases a $100 ad on the site, a ten-by-ten pixel section of the jeans are removed.

Unreal: That's one bodacious backside. How would you describe your bottom?

Daniela Droke: Guys are always saying, "Hey, lady. Nice ass!" I think it's pretty fine. It looks fantastic in jeans.

You have a graduate degree in Applied Women's Studies. What would your professors think of the Web site?

I'm sure there are feminists who would think what I'm doing furthers the objectification of women. But I also think that if something is inherent in society you have to have a sense of humor about it.

By inherent you mean guys inherently wanting to see your naked can?

Yeah. If you can't beat them, at least take their money for looking!

What does your boyfriend think of so many people checking out your tush on the Internet?

He's the one who built the Web site, so he can't be too upset. He's also the one who took the photo of my butt with jeans and without. And, by the way, the photos are not airbrushed.

What about your fanny? Was there prep work involved: i.e. waxing, plucking, buffing?

There was exfoliating. I'll leave it at that.

So far you have only one "ass-vertizer" and that's from the travel company owned by your boyfriend's mother. Do you think you'll actually pull a million bucks out of your butt?

I hope so. I mean, stranger things have happened.

God's Warriors
Heady Christian rock thumped over the loudspeakers in the auditorium of the nondenominational Gateway Christian Church in Des Peres on a recent Thursday evening. "Church people go out on Wednesdays," a church lady explains to Unreal as we enter. "Thursdays, there's a lull." Hmmm, we thought, scanning the hundreds of parishioners who had already taken their seats.

Piles of bricks and cinder blocks teetered onstage. Behind the curtain, meaty members of the Dallas-based Power Team — bodybuilders who bend steel and break bricks to demonstrate the power of God — are readying themselves for their show. As manager Shawn Barker put it: "They're going over their notes for their message and putting on cologne so they don't stink."

These warriors of God had devoured eleven meals earlier in the day. One dude alone threw back 22 hamburgers, 5 Happy Meals, 4 apple pies, and, yes, a toy. And, as if that wasn't enough to make Unreal feel oh-so inferior, Barker steps up and delivers a booming introduction with proclamations of "True love waits!" and "Alcohol is not a high, it's a lie!" Despite all the hooting and hollering, we were pretty skeptical that a woman can smash five slabs of concrete with her forearm. Or that a man who can bench-press 500 pounds can also straighten a horseshoe with his bare hands.

One of the highlights of the evening's program, though, warrants more description. It comes during he first act when team's lone chick, Janet, cheers on a 300-pound male cohort, Jeremy, as he blows into a rubber hot-water bottle trying to make it pop. "Look at how big it's getting," screams Janet. "He ain't gonna quit! You might have hard times in life, but with the help of God you keep going!"

The water bottle looks like a bloated butt, crack and all, ready to fire a hemorrhoid. Jeremy is swaying. "Whoa, it's so big!" squeals Janet. All of a sudden the bottle explodes and little pieces of rubber pepper Janet. "Oh my goodness. Oh, wow! Honey, I'm soooo proud of you!"

Dry-humpus Interruptus
Was it the piñata, Homer Simpson or Charlie the Tortoise that kicked Chris Duncan where it counts?

When it came to the latest below-the-belt blow to the St. Louis Cardinals' postseason hopes, the warning signs, reportedly, were there: Manager Tony La Russa has gently hinted that Duncan's baggage has bothered him for the past six weeks. But the Cards skipper had been cagey about the precise nature of his star left fielder's affliction, referring to it as "a lower-half injury."

That all went by the boards in Phoenix over the weekend, after Duncan was forced to depart Saturday's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, having fallen victim to the euphemistically named "sports hernia."

According to WebMD, a sports hernia is a groin injury that occurs from "overuse of groin muscles, which causes stress on the inguinal wall." The injury can occur "when too much stress is placed on an area...[which] often happens when you overdo an activity or repeat the same activity day after day."

Oh, no!

As faithful readers of STLog, Riverfront Times' blog, are well aware, Dunc's groinal region has been under a great deal of stress over the past ten months, having been made to dry-hump everything from the World Series trophy to an oversize copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Now the slugger's hurting — in a big, big way: "It can be pretty debilitating," confirms Rick Lehman, medical director of the U.S. Center for Sports Medicine in Kirkwood. "It's a breakdown or tear in the floor of the pelvis, which is the kind of gristly thing that holds the muscle structure of your groin together. Every time you stride, it hurts. It's like if you wear the same pair of pants for five years straight, the material in the crotch will get kind of thin and banged up."

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