Float Away

It occurred to me that 2012 is the 10-year anniversary of Marah's Float Away with the Friday Night Gods, which at the time was their "will they or won't they", break-out or breakup record that rather predictably served as the dividing line between the fans that were there from the beginning and those who would only hear them after they "sold out"; ie Let It Be vs. Tim. I mean hell, there's still people furious that The Beatles outgrew The Cavern Club and resent that the rest of the world became privy to their little secret.

Float Away is still my favorite Marah album - while Kids in Philly is one of the defining albums of my lifetime, when listened to objectively Float Away hits harder and closer to me personally.   Leaving in particular is a desert island funeral slice - the catching of breath going into the final verse is one of my favorite rock 'n roll moments of all time (yes, that's Greggumz with a Z.)  

Don't take my word for it? Visit five years ago when Paddy Mac and Theodore, the Conservative Bear, fought it out. Gotdam.

To the Moon Pie, Alice!

I'm not a dessert guy, but in the latest Bon Appétit (JESUS, get over it people, YES I am one classy mothertfucker!! Christ, move the fuck on already!!!) I noticed a recipe for that Southern classic, the moon pie.

I don't really give a shit about moon pies per sé, but it seems like a good time to pimp out my old friend David Magee's book, Moonpie: Biography of An Out-of-This-World Snack:

The story of the iconic MoonPie provides the framework for this unusual historical biography of the South and its most revered snack. Developed in 1917 in response to coal miners' request for a filling—yet portable—snack, the MoonPie quickly became a favorite treat countrywide, with particular appeal in the South. This clever narrative chronicles the long and arduous path the lunar confection has traveled during the past 75 years—including bouts with economic depression, war, recessions, conglomerate competition, and changing generational tastes—and its enduring popularity almost a century later.

Some Chick in Asheville Has No Idea What the Fuck She's Talking About

On the train today I was flipping though the latest issue of Bon Appétit (YES, I'm that fucking classy, get over it) and this caught my eye:

"I seriously have dreams about the Steinbeck burger, which is topped with pimiento cheese, bacon, and jalapenos. Paired with a draft beer, of course."

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “Didn't you define Steinbeck burgers YEARS ago?"

Why yes Faithful Reader, I fucking did:

Tonight's Book: The Grapes of Wrath

Menu: hamburger patty, fried potatoes
Take some grease (the older/more used the better), heat in skillet.
Slice up potatoes, put in skillet.
When pretty done, move to side of pan. Place burger in pan.
Grill burger.

Serve with no salt, no butter cause these are hard fucking times. Be pissed about there being no jobs cause the bosses are assholes. No seconds. Let stranger nurse from breast (if applicable.)

Pimento cheese? Bacon? Jalepenos? Does this idiot think she's feeding the goddam Kennedys? Wtf?

Nearing Forty. Sigh.

I played football* this weekend for about 20 minutes** with Paddy Mac & Brothatime!!, and my quads*** feel like they've been beaten with aluminum bats and set on fire.  Fucking hell.




*ie, stood around while Paddy Mac tried to run past me and Brothatime!!, repeatedly getting crushed into the ground, you can imagine how well that went for someone who's 3 feet tall and forty pounds.


** 5 minutes

*** front leg fat

It's Official

I've decided to give up any hopes of finding a girlfriend who is even remotely attractive - I hope to soon be briefing my friends before meeting my girlfriend with "okay, I wouldn't call ______ a handsome woman, but..."

Me: I'm really happening, aren't I?

Sigh. Right On Fucking Cue.

Minutes after I posted THIS, Sarah Palin is now debunking Global Warming because it's cold in, get this...Alaska.  Hmm.  This is like claiming homosexuality isn't real while in Wilt Chamberlain's bedroom.

They're Back!

The Real Housewives of South Boston are back for the Super Bowl! Enjoy their first classic HERE.

Also, nice to see my RHOSB gf mention the Fung Wah  :)

Degrees

It's January 31, the sun has been down for 2 hours, and it's almost 60 degrees.  I have the door to my roof open and am sitting in nuthugger shorts & a t-shirt that is about to rip open thanks to my ripped bod.  Maybe I'll remember this the next time The Drudge Report snarkily asks "What Global Warming?" the next time a snowflake falls on planet Earth.  Hmm.

This Shit

Is cracking me the fuck up.

Goals. I Have Them.

I wanna be a doctor just so I can ask a patient fora stool sample, and when they come back with one I yell "I meant stool, like the furniture!!  What the fuck - you're disgusting!!!! Get that shit away from me!!!"

Sigh. Me - I'm really happening, aren't I?

Fucking Hell. Guess Who Dumped His Life Savings into Pink Slime Futures Just Yesterday? Fuck Me.

Louie, Louie

Louis C.K. on how a pilot is made.

Part interesting, part eye-rolling as he tries to make it sound absolutely miserable, which h succeeds at until you remember "oh yeah, I'm sure crafting your own vision of a tv show is MUCH worse than my crappy job."  It's as if he wants to discourage would-be writers, "oh, don't even try, this is AWFUL!"  Kinda like trying to explain to dudes how awful pussy is and they should just stay away, I reckon.

Also, I wonder how much of this is bullshit - it certainly doesn't jibe with how Dylan McKay gets movies made, after all.

Also, I still like Lucky Louie better than Louie and wish it was back!

Good, Juicy Question

The TV Club over at Slat asks if Mary is a black widow:

Now I’m wondering if she wasn’t also realizing that she’s a bit of a black widow when it comes to men. Let’s look at her relationship history: Patrick, who she wasn’t in love with but was going to marry anyway, went down with the Titanic. Mr. Pamuk, who she wasn’t going to marry but did take to her bed, died on top of her. (As the dowager countess might say, trust a foreigner to take the little death too far.) Now Matthew, the only boy in the world for her, seems to have lost his manhood. Sir Richard Carlisle might want to check his life insurance policy.

Meanwhile, it was Mrs. Xmastime Sybil a few episodes ago who sniffled that "all the boys I've danced with are dead." Wtf is it with these girls? Can we assume that the one hick who Edith could get her mitts on has been run over by his wife on his own tractor?  Yeesh.

At least Sybil's dudes were killed in war; Mary's just have weird shit happen to them.  Killed in the most infamous ship sinking in history, and dying whilest fucking (DWF, trademark Xmastime 2012.) Meanwhile, Matthew can only WISH he'd died in battle instead of never being able to enjoy the pleasures of sweet, sweet stank again. Cruel.

And yes, if I'm Sir Richard, I'm looking up at the sky for falling anvils or grand pianos.

"Thaaaaaaaat's right, come a little bit closer...liiiiiittle bit closer....MWA-hahahahaha!"

Witches Brewing

For some reason, teenage girls in upstate New York have started freaking out with seizures and fainting spells:

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is launching her own investigation into the outbreak;...However, a doctor treating many of the students is confident that they are suffering not from poisoning, but from mass hysteria, also called mass psychogenic illness and other variants. Typically, symptoms—which can include Brownell’s Tourette’s-like movements, along with nausea, dizziness, cramping, and more—start with one or two victims and spread when others see or hear about them. Victims are often accused of faking it, but more often they are suffering real physical symptoms that are psychological in origin. The phenomenon has been observed for centuries, with the blame shifting to whatever specific anxieties are culturally pervasive at the time. But one theme has remained consistent: The victims are overwhelmingly female.

In other words, biches gonn' be bitches!! But seriously, perhaps someone should maybe ask Goody Brockovich if a Haitian housekeeper has been brought into the community to show the girls voodoo?

On a side note, just yesterday I saw this, which should serve to provide some sense in our own day & age of creating entire wars because we like little school girls when a mouse walks into the room:

The take-home from the trials shouldn’t be that poisonous plants can make you hallucinate, but that a perfectly capable, religious, and law-abiding community that laid the roots for American justice legally and conscientiously executed 20 of its own innocent citizens; that over 150 people in Salem that year who were charged as having consorted with the Devil. In [the jimsonweed] theory, the girls went crazy. In [historian Mary Beth Norton]’s, the town went crazy.

BONUS: Brockovich's connection could lead to a sequel of Hollywood's best cleavage film?

Finally. My Successor.

Sometimes I look at the NBA and am disheartened to see players playing the game "the right way": hustling on defense, passing the ball to teammates, and busting their asses to hit the boards hard. So it's refreshing to finally see Blake Griffin playing the same way I did back in the day: above the rim, making sure the opponent smells your balls as you embarrass him in front of the world, then run into the bleachers and urinate on his family, rubbing his wife's tits with your dick, taking a cab to his house and burning it down to the ground, riding back to the game in the cab and running over his foot after the cab cuts a few doughnuts at midcourt, making him sniff your balls again, then maybe finish things up with a few minutes of doing the worm. It's called basketball, not cotillion class.

When Joe Scarborough Is the Smartest Guy in the Room Throwing His Hands in the Air and Waving Them Like He Just Don't Care, We're In Trouble

Life Lessons

If a girl says ________ is "the biggest asshole/douchebag in the world", the odds that she will sleep with him range from 100% to 100%.

An Open Letter to Joe Namath's Daughter, Jessica:

You are the latest Mrs. Xmastime, and you have leap-frogged everyone else straight to the #1 slot. Congratulations (and, of course, you have been warned.)

Joe Willie

I've been bitching for a Joe Namath movie, and finally we get an HBO doc on him.  OF COURSE it's awesome - Joe Namath reading the phone booth is entertaining; Joe Namath + the voice of Liev Schriber = match made in heaven.

There are also some parallels between him and the Mickey Mantle HBO doc: strapping young bucks with insane athletic ability and Southern drawls who hit the New York City nightlife like hurricanes, both on injured knees which to this day makes those who saw them run at 100% feel sorry for those who never could, and both with a physical toughness and willingness to play through obscene pain that their teammates absolutely loved them for, despite they're being placed on pedestals by fans and media (and both funny as hell.) 

Joe Show HERE. 

Run, Newt, Run!!!!!!

THIS has been going around everywhere for a day now:

 “Vote for Newt. Annoy a liberal." - Sarah Palin

Of course, as a left-wing commie-pinko liberal I can tell you THERE IS NOTHING MORE I WANT than people voting for Newt and keeping him in the GOP race - hell, watching Newt careen around the country like a hot-air balloon/bulldog Transformer topping himself in the Ass-Baffling Olympics (not to be confused of course with the Batshit Olympics) makes it almost worth voting for him to be president just so we can REALLY sit back and watch him perform as George Bush with insane ambition and a dangerous belief in his "smarts." In other words, frighteningly entertaining.

Meanwhile, even after all these years it's hard to decide whether Sniffy is actually that unaware and stupid or that brilliantly ironic.  Myself, I'll chalk it up to an asteroid coming close to Earth.  Hey, whom amongst us has not been distracted by the tug of our Motherland?


"A gobba wobba cvhhfhjked  ufgpogpb  ajnanaahhjkhjkh  2%%666  kkjdksjdjkkjjjokddhchy!"

 

Oh, Camon

Ezra Klein's joint HERE has a piece about why people are flocking to Chinatown Buses: the danger.

Their study in Urban Geography, “Everything but the Chicken: Cultural Authenticity Onboard the Chinatown Bus” finds that it’s not just the cheap fares that draw customers. “Participants routinely framed the Chinatown bus as an authentic urban experience,” they found, “a thrilling and danger-enhanced departure from daily life, and as an engagement with the multicultural city.”

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life.  This is total fucking "sorority girl braving the bridge to go to a 'dive bar on Bedford Avenue, hipster trust fund kid moving to a block with only one Starbucks" bullshit. Nobody chooses a fucking bus based on the odds of it being dangerous - can I start a bus company wherein I immediately set the thing on fire and you can only hold on to your seat and hope you get to your destination before being blown to fucking bits?

Hey, a quick "Chinatown Bus" search on this blog will show you I've had many, MANY experiences on the Fung Wah, but all of them laughable - not once did I think "oooh yeah, the driver is nodding off! This is awesome!"  I take the Chinatown Bus for the exact same reason everybody else does: it's half the price of Greyhound and, by the time Greyhound makes it's precious fucking stop at Baltimore Plaza (adding another 25 minutes thanks to these motherfuckers), quicker.  I got on a Chinatown bus in DC at 10am this morning and set foot in Midtown Manhattan at 1:50, with no less service and no more danger than Greyhound provides on a regular basis.  Fucking hell.

Life Lessons.

There's nothing quite like trying to piss in a Chinatown bus bathroom to make one think "you know, maybe I really shoulda hit the books a little harder after all."

Must Say

I think I like the new Ferris Bueller commercial more than I ever did the movie.

Speaking of The Shining ...

...BOO!

Shelly Duvall in 1980. Sigh.

You know The Shining is an Xmastime slice of slices, but these people are prolly fucking nuts.

It's Official: I Am No Longer Man

I've spent the last 13 hours scheming re: how can I get out of watching the Super Bowl next Sunday so I don't miss Downton Abbey. Will I be the first person to ever cal in suck to a Super Bowl party?

Sigh. Me - I 'm really happening, aren't I?

PBS Memories

You know I loves me some  Todd Snider, and it looks like Tinsel & Rot was introduced to him the same moment I was in 1996, when PBS aired his Austin City Limits show.  I also remember seeing him play Oh Boy! with Joe Ely on some show that was hosted by Tom Luke Duke Wopat...wtf that was, I have no idea.   I went on to wear the fuck outta that album, although I've curiously listened to nothing of his since.  But I still love that record.

Mostly, thinking about it remembers of an odd stretch in Oxford when PBS seemed to play on a continuous loop:

A Hard Day's Night
The Making of A Hard Day's Night
Help!
The Red Green Show
The Steven Banks Show - featuring one of my favorite all-time television movements, his song I Miss Paul.  An incredible mix of comedy ("No one could make a pot of tea like Paul could") and poignancy ("I wish we were back in Liverpool.")  Super super slice.

Skip ahead to the 5:00 mark for the song.

Ha!

A few days ago I mentioned that John Tyler has two grandsons still alive; here's an interview with one who doesn't much keep up with politics but still knows Newt Gingrich is a total douchebag. Ha! Newt is only 2 degrees from being repulsive to our 10th president. Kudos, asshole.

Something My Nephew Just Said

"Don't hate. Participate!"

Questions. I Have Them.

Why is there no The Real Housewives of Newt Gingrich reality show?

Thoughts, Barely, By Xmastime

I've just about fucking had it with actors or musicians going on tv and blathering on and on about how unimpressed with their jobs their kids are, how "uncool" they see them.  Yes, I'm sure your kids wish you were the assistant manager at Kmart.  For fuck's sake, shut the fuck up - just once I'd like to see someone say "I'm a fucking movie star, you're goddam right my kids think I'm the coolest thing in the world."

Mo' Nuggets, Mo' Problems

Just yesterday I reminded you that CHICKEN MCNUGGETS ARE FUCKING AWESOME!!! 

THIS GIRL agrees with me, eating them every day since she was two years old and being at death's door at the ripe old age of 17:

 "She's been told in no uncertain terms that she'll die if she carries on like this. But she says she can't eat anything else."

The only variation in Stacey's diet apart from fries is the occasional slice of toast for breakfast — and CRISPS.

She said: "I first tasted chicken nuggets when my mum took me to McDonald's when I was two. I loved them so much they were all I would eat.

"I just couldn't face even trying other foods. Mum gave up giving me anything else years ago."

Sigh.  And you people wonder why I wanna move to England - the streets are paved with Chicken McNuggets!!!!

Sick Songs

THIS article asks "why are there no more songs about disease?"

I dunno. I guess disease isn't as sexy as it once was. That jump-rope song, whatsitsname, "ashes to ashes we all fall down", came about because people were LITERALLY falling down dead from the plague.  We're not as at ease with death as, say, the Victorian Age, when a kid would drop dead in the morning and be buried in the afternoon - mom and dad would be back working before dinner, and then Elizabeth Gaskell would write a short story about them, rinse lather and repeat.  I guess (thankfully) we're just not able to be as matter of fact about, say, AIDS these days.

Meanwhile, if you gotta have a disease and sing about it, this is the one you want.  (Sniff sniff...oh, Johnny Rivers...snifff...someone cutin' onions up in here???!!)

Questions. I Have Them.

How many presidential elections away are we from a candidate during a debate earnestly answering a question about his critics by saying "hey, h8r's gon' h8!"?  2016? 2020? Hopefully?

Cool Hand Xmastime

Last week HERE I mentioned my newfound interest in the WWI era, thanks to my  being a woman  love of Downton Abbey.  As I said, pretty much all I'd ever thought about WWI before was that it's partly responsible for us never really hearing about the 1918 Influenza (which is odd since 3x more Americans died of it than WWI) the US wasn't involved in it for too long, and it was greatly overshadowed in the US by it's sequel (a á Godfather II being better than The Godfather.)

Of course in Europe it was a much bigger deal, and this article in the NY Times (as usual, the world has followed my lead and said "hey, yeeeeaaah...I wanna know about WWI too!"...get a life, people!) mentions several reasons why: besides it being the first war to be largely filmed, it was the first one of weapons of mass destruction, which greatly changed what man was willing to put up with in a war:

But there is another deeper, perhaps more profound reason the war continues to preoccupy us. It was a conflict between 19th-century armies equipped with 20th-century weapons — hence the unprecedented carnage. The tactics were 19th century — advance on the enemy. But the enemy had weapons of mass destruction — the battlefield was dominated by tanks, machine guns, howitzers, aircraft and poisonous gas. Some 117,000 American servicemen died in the 19 months of United States participation in World War I — more than twice as many as in Vietnam, nearly 20 times as many as in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

No society today would accept such a horrendous casualty count. At the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, on July 1, 1916, the British Army suffered 60,000 dead and wounded — in one day. It was arguably the worst butcher’s bill in military history, of army versus army. There is a very real sense in which the modern world — our world — was born between 1914 and 1918. Something changed in human sensibility. Soldiers wouldn’t be willing to engage in such slaughter.

Even MORE interesting to me, the war remains a bigger deal to Britain than other countries partly due to poetry:

One of the reasons for this is, paradoxically, the resonance of the poetry. The poets of the First World War — Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Isaac Rosenberg — are taught in almost all British schools. I can remember Wilfred Owen’s terrifying poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” about a mustard-gas attack, being read aloud to us in the classroom when I was 10 or 11. One boy actually ran outside, he was so overcome and upset. The war poems shaped your earliest perceptions of the First World War and were swiftly buttressed by the familiar images of the trenches and the histories of the futile, costly battles.       

I remember reading Dulce et Decorum Est, but I don't really remember giving a damn about it being set in WWI.  Which, as an American, shouldn't really be a surprise.

I'll tell you one thing though: if those krauts so much as mess up a hair on Captain Crawley's beautiful head, they best be ready to knuckle up and guard their grill.

Thoughts, Barely, By Xmastime

Eventually, Gwen Stefani is gonna hafta actually do something to warrant her being splashed throughout dozens of magazines every week, right?

Well. Maybe Mitt Was Right.

Maybe corporations ARE people.  Small, petulant, whiny babies, sure; but people nonetheless.

The GOP Presidential Race

Fidel Castro is not a fan:

The Republican presidential race is “the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been,” former Cuban president Fidel Castro wrote in an opinion piece on Wednesday. 

Castro made his comments in his latest column of “reflections” on a Cuban government website, attacking the Republican candidates two days after their debate in Florida.

You know what? Castro can go eat a bag of commie dicks; he wouldn't know a great tv show if it bit him in the ass.  This is by far the best season of any show since Season 4 of Seinfeld, the last great show that was "about nothing," and this jerkoff is whining.  In his defense, maybe he's just no "getting it", and perhaps when this season streams on Netflix he'll be able to watch it at his own speed and appreciate it more.

My March To Womanhood Is Now Complete

It's official: I have now sent an email about fashionable hats from 100 years ago.  Wow.

Depressed

How the fuck is it possible that January is already almost over? Wtf? I feel like we're just starting to gear up for 2012, and it's already almost February? Are you kidding me?

At Da Wal-Marts

Wal-Mart is apparently laying off their night-shift supercenter greeters. Wal-Mart is the biggest employer in the nation and the world's biggest retailer, gets a shit-ton of tax breaks and presumably has a small army of lawyers who work 24/7 to shave down their tax rate as much as possible, has most of their goods made in China for about a nickel a year, made $103B last year, and yet isn't interested in keeping on about 3,000 employees making a coupla bucks an hour for whom that money makes enough of a difference in their lives they're willing to work nights at Wal-Mart. I'm not saying Wal-Mart needs to be running a charity, but if this isn't a sign that the whole "gee, if we only kept their taxes low, they'd nobly create jobs for people!" line we're supposed to be falling for is absolute bullshit then I really don't know what is.

Well. This Is Interesting.

The Washington Post HERE mentions something everyone as been noticing for a while now, that Newt Gingrich sure likes to describe himself as being "grandiose."

Meanwhile, in reading the Columbine article I wrote about in the post below, you know who else are described as being "grandiose"? PSYCHOPATHS!

Harris' pattern of grandiosity, glibness, contempt, lack of empathy, and superiority read like the bullet points on Hare's Psychopathy Checklist and convinced Fuselier and the other leading psychiatrists close to the case that Harris was a psychopath.

I ain't saying Newt's gonna get a gun and start killing people, but it's finally starting to make sense.  Hell, he's TELLING us he's fucking nuts!!!

Why Hasn't Anyone Made a Parody of the Song "Closing Time" with "Columbine"?

Interesting article from a few years ago on Slate about the minds of the Columbine killers.  Most of us assume it was an extreme case of the ol' "bullied misfits vs. the jocks", but it turns out Harris was propelled by an air of superiority:

It rages on for page after page and is repeated in his journal and in the videos he and Klebold made. But Fuselier recognized a far more revealing emotion bursting through, both fueling and overshadowing the hate. What the boy was really expressing was contempt. 

He is disgusted with the morons around him. These are not the rantings of an angry young man, picked on by jocks until he's not going to take it anymore. These are the rantings of someone with a messianic-grade superiority complex, out to punish the entire human race for its appalling inferiority. It may look like hate, but "It's more about demeaning other people," says Hare.

And was in fact an actual psychopath:

Harris' pattern of grandiosity, glibness, contempt, lack of empathy, and superiority read like the bullet points on Hare's Psychopathy Checklist and convinced Fuselier and the other leading psychiatrists close to the case that Harris was a psychopath.

It begins to explain Harris' unbelievably callous behavior: his ability to shoot his classmates, then stop to taunt them while they writhed in pain, then finish them off. Because psychopaths are guided by such a different thought process than non-psychopathic humans, we tend to find their behavior inexplicable. But they're actually much easier to predict than the rest of us once you understand them. Psychopaths follow much stricter behavior patterns than the rest of us because they are unfettered by conscience, living solely for their own aggrandizement. (The difference is so striking that Fuselier trains hostage negotiators to identify psychopaths during a standoff, and immediately reverse tactics if they think they're facing one. It's like flipping a switch between two alternate brain-mechanisms.)

Interestingly enough, it looks like Harris/Kliebold were the Lennon/McCartney of the school-killing set, partners who fit as perfect complements to each other:

The diagnosis transformed their understanding of the partnership. Despite earlier reports about Harris and Klebold being equal partners, the psychiatrists now believe firmly that Harris was the mastermind and driving force. The partnership did enable Harris to stray from typical psychopathic behavior in one way. He restrained himself. Usually psychopathic killers crave the stimulation of violence. That is why they are often serial killers—murdering regularly to feed their addiction. But Harris managed to stay (mostly) out of trouble for the year that he and Klebold planned the attack. Ochberg theorizes that the two killers complemented each other. Cool, calculating Harris calmed down Klebold when he got hot-tempered. At the same time, Klebold's fits of rage served as the stimulation Harris needed.

Here We Go Again

This is interesting:

The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy.

Of course this shouldn't be controversial at all since math is math and economics is economics, but of course this will be seen as Obama's Socialist spending $$$$ on Welfare Queens, so. Oh, here we go:

It remains to be seen if the potential political backlash proves too daunting.

Of course, QE3 won't happen because we need to make sure the people that a continuing recession would most destroy are fooled enough by the people for whom it's continuation would most benefit are made happy; I eagerly await Joe the Plumber's outrage over some Wall Street Hedge Funder being made to pay a $50 application fee to buy Joe's foreclosed home.   Fun to watch.

In Other Earth-Shattering News, Chocolate and Peanut Butter Are a Tasty Combination

And I Haven't Even Mentioned Phoebe Cates Yet

No matter how old you get or how many actual women you see in your lifetime, there's still a cognitive pizza theory-esque thrill when you flip around late night and land on Private School.  Sigh.

The Washington Bullets

Via HERE we see Newt Gingrich being his normal humble self:

Gingrich rebutted the charge that he is “grandiose” by comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, the Wright Brothers and John F. Kennedy.

Is it wrong for me to say that I'd want Newt to resemble those very two presidents as well?

Of course, America sucks at that these days, so it's just wishful thinking anyways.

He's Right - Bill Only Cheated On One Wife

L'Onion

THIS was already laugh-out-loud hysterical, but the last line:

As of press time, Peters was urging Carter to turn his short story into a feature-length screenplay.

takes it from A+ to A++++. Dying!

This Is Fucking Exhausting.

For some reason McDonalds still can't accept the fact that Chicken McNuggets ARE FUCKING AWESOME; for some reason, every coupla years they gotta come out with a new chicken product, almost apologizing for the old standby McNuggets, when the fact is they knocked the shit outta the park the first time and should just stop it already.  This time it's the McBite, which THIS GUY SAYS are just balls of over-seasoned fried batter.  For fuck's sake.  It's like trying to come up with a way to get a girl pregnant  that's more pleasurable than fucking.  You won't, you can't and just stop fucking trying already.

What They Never Teach You in School

One day you will find yourself thinking "if this little shit says 'what?' one more time I'm breaking his fucking face."

Things I Think About, Again

I'm watching the pilot episode for BH 90210, natch, and I notice that in Kelly mentioning to Brenda that she'd broken up with Steve she says he's "having a hard time understanding that it's o-v-e-r." Well of course he does, I couldn't help but think - knowing Steve as I do, if you're spelling it out to him, of course he's not going to understand you. Duh!

"Spell? I'm only 37 years old!"

Things I Think About

I just noticed that Brandon wasn't in the Beverly Hills 90210 finale.  Um...what? I don't wanna be an asshole, but what on Earth could Jason Priestly have even POSSIBLY had going on that he couldn't make it for the taping? I mean, really?

oooooh, pilot's on now!  (squealing)

Le Nuit, Tous Les Chats Sont Gris

Craig Ferguson is the King of Late Night TV and to me there isn't even remotely a closed 2nd.  This week he's been replaying his week in France from last year, starting with this musical kickoff.  I have yet to watch it without cracking up every time the alligator and bunny pop up.

Memories

It's not fair to compare his solo show to the classic Mike and the Mad Dog, but listening to Francesa's annual Super Bowl quiz without the Marqui de Sade is toally depressing.  Sigh.

An Open Letter to the Guy Whistling at Foodtown

Dear Sir:

In what I'm sure is a big surprise to everybody, your incredibly loud whistling was in fact NOT more pleasing to the ear than Adele singing through the store's speakers - while her voice is ridiculously amazing, your shrill whistle served merely to slice through my skull and stab my brain.  This is not to say I don't admire your presumed belief that we're all living in your world and you above all else should be paid attention to, in fact I admire that, but maybe next time you hear one of the world's greatest singers who has sold millions of records and thrilled millions in audiences around the globe while you're in a public place, take pause before assuming people would rather hear you instead.  Thank you for your cooperation.

I remain,
XMASTIME

Liz Cho is Catapaulted Onto the Mrs. Xmastime List

I never watch the local news.  Or news at all, really. Well, except for FOX News, but that's only because it's the best sitcom I've seen since Seinfeld (actually, it might be even better - who woulda thought a show could be that funny if ALL the characters were Kramer????!?!)  But I have been aware of the Channel 7 Eyewitness News beauty queen Liz Cho, who is regularly voted "Hottest News Anchor in the Country" year after year, which is a no-brainer since she looks like this:

Nice, right?

But suddenly, today in the office a tv was on while she was doing the news and my dick did a double take, as she had glasses on: "Wha-wha-wha-WHA?!?!?!??!?!!!!!"  - ohmygod, she looked like Sarah Palin at minute 7 of a bukkake session.  I mighta glanced at her about 100 times in 14 years, and then SUDDENLY she had glasses on, and it was a game-changer  Unreal.

My dick calling the shots, I did a  has never happened in my life  standard check-in on the Channel 7 11 o'clock news, as I wanted to know what was going on in Teaneck NJ, and this was my reward.  I've been wrong this whole time: there is a God, and he fucking looooooooooooooooves me!

My Online Dating Luck May Be Changing

Despite Marley's best efforts, I have not exactly been setting the dating world on fire via Match.com; however, a new dating site has made an appearance in my life that may make a real difference:



This is a win/win for me - as well as anticipating my upcoming tenderness with Heather, I greatly look forward to real fellowship with Jeanie, Ferne, Jammie, and Dxemcaolxlw.  First day of the rest of my life, guys!

What I Liked Most About the State of the Union

If I glance at the acronym SOTU quickly enough, it looks like STFU.

WELL, Well Well.

Check out how Apple did this last quarter:

Apple's stellar quarter generated sales of $46.3 billion, a tech industry record. That's up 73% from a year ago, and it easily topped Wall Street analysts' $38.9 billion median forecast, according to a Thomson Reuters poll.

It was one of the most profitable quarters ever for any U.S. company, trailing only ExxonMobil's record-setting $14.8 billion quarter from the fall of 2008, when oil prices were at an all-time high.

How many times did you fucking hear me say on this very blog that the minute they get Steve Jobs outta the way they can start making some REAL fucking money?

SOTU 9:34PM

I kept seeing excerpts of Obama's SOTU from several hours before the speech; I can't stand it when they release the text of speeches before they're even given. I know the president has a team of writers, but can't we all PRETEND it's kinda extemporaneous, that anything can happen? Knowing he's reading what anyone else could've hours beforehand makes a speech less (potentially) inspirational; even LESS organic than we already think it is. The speech feels somehow weaker if I feel like I could go up and read the damn thing and it would make no difference. It should feel like a "speech", not "reading."  At least fool us!

If nothing else, release a fake one. "OHMYGOD - he's gonna talk about invading Chuck E. Cheese???!?!!?"

"Bring it, bitch!" 

The World Is Finally Catching On

Gee. THIS is a real mystery: a few months ago I started saying that The Big Bang Theory is a new superslice, and now, WHADDYA KNOW, it becomes the first show ever to beat American Idol in the all-important 18-49 age group:

For the first time ever, “Big Bang” — or any CBS show, for that matter — drew more viewers in the 18-to-49 category than “American Idol.”

I'm not saying this means that I necessarily singlehandedly run the pop culture universe and have become THE arbiter of taste, I'm just...wait a second...oh yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Boom!

Good Judgement. It Counts.

- People need to stop calling Sarah Palin an "exciting!" choice as if "exciting" means anything in this context. Hey, it would also be "exciting" if McCain had picked, say...Tony Dorsett. Wouldn't that be exciting? Yes. Does that mean you should vote for him? Hmm. - XMASTIME

I was reminded of this by Ezra Klein's article about Newt's "Ideas':

When Gingrich was speaker of the House, Bob Dole was the Senate majority leader. And so Dole spent a lot of time listening to the speaker’s proposals. “Gingrich’s staff has these five file cabinets, four big ones and this little tiny one,” he told The New York Times. “Number one is ‘Newt’s ideas.’ Number two, ‘Newt’s ideas.’ Number three, number four, ‘Newt’s ideas.’ The little one is ‘Newt’s Good Ideas.’”

I've Lived Long Enough to Know I've Seen Too Much.

Getting off the train this morning I almost plowed through the arms of a couple because as I was walking towards them it didn't occur to me they could even remotely possibly be holding hands...SINCE WE'RE NOT IN FUCKING 7TH GRADE!!!  Wtf?  I don't think I've ever seen a couple in NYC walking down a train platform holding fucking hands.  AND of course holding hands made them more of a hassle to get around, adding to the already-burgeoning nangulance. I shoulda just busted through Rover-Red-Rover style.

I mean, for fuck' sake? Really? Give her your class ring too, Sport?

Ugh.  Life.  It;s really happening, isn't it?

Past State of the Union Xmastime Greatness, I

My Shit I Want Obama To Bring Up in Tomorrow Night's SOTU Classic Series:

"Why the fuck does Xmastime's high school girlfriend still have his letter jacket?"

"Seriously, can we knock it off with all this faggot-ass sexy vampires shit already?"

"Get Jim out of this 'dual manager' crap and get him back playing pranks on Dwight. And seriously, how many fucking times can we do the ol' "oh no, we're downsizing/the branch is closing!' routine? What's next; the Professor having a plan to get off the island that is scuttled by Gilligan being a clumsy idiot?"

"And Mr. Springsteen: at each show, you can either do Mary's Place OR Waiting on a Sunny Day, but not both. For fuck's sake, people have jobs to get to in the morning, wrap the shit up already. Actually, they probably don't, so they for damn sure don't need TWO 'isn't life a big ol' party???!!!' songs in the show. Play Darkness tracks, remind them how bad shit can really be, and leave the "party!" cuts to Jimmy fucking Buffet for chrissake."

Past State of the Union Xmastime Greatness, I

2011:

Yglesias continues with what I said a coupla days ago: the SOTU speech is generally pretty useless.
 
Why even do it? How cool would it be for Obama to say "fuck it, ain't doing it this year"? Or, instead of a speech, merely recite a Bill Cosby routine? Or tell high school sports stories? I mean, camon. anything would be more entertaining and more meaningful. We're all gonna start watching, then try to stay awake, then begin to get irked he's cutting into whatever show we'd usually be watching. Then jerkoffs like Charles Krauthammer will smugly remark that what he's learned from the speech is that Obama "knows how to deliver a speech," and everyone else on FOX News will remind us that they're not too crazy about black people by coming up with a dozen different ways of saying his speech was all style, no substance. You know, cause Bush's speeches were always Newtonian in both their tone and ponderance of logistics. For fuck's sake - Obama should walk up to the mic, look around the room, and then finally say "As for the SATs, remember - it's almost never letter E. Good luck!" and walk out.

State of the Union

Tonight we get The State of the Union, and while Republicans want you to believe we pussy liberal pinko commies will all be spellbound by Obama's performance like he's preaching in a tent, hypnotizing us with his voodoo and his huge African cock, he's actually a fairly dull speaker when it comes to delivering a speech itself (be cool if he had the balls to pull a TJ.)  This will  of course make Charles "Dumb" Krauthammer's inevitable "there was plenty of style, but no substance" comment to Sean Hannity four seconds after the speech has ended that much more ironcially stupid and, of course, stupid.

Mostly, watching an Obama speech makes me pine for the one thing great about Bush: him speaking. Sigh.

Watching Obama right now reminds me what the best thing about George W. Bush as president was: putting him in front of a live camera. Right? He was like whenever Eric Dickerson got the ball handed to him, there's no WAY you're tearing your eyes from the screen, cause you know at any second he's gonna go all the way - mangle words in ways you didn't think possible, then light off a string of "what the fuck is he saying?" sentences before trying to make a joke that feels like someone cut one in church. Seriously, if Bush had become the first president to drop the n-word on live tv during a presser, can you honestly say you'd be S H O C K E D? He made blithering oblivion fun to watch. And it was FUN. Oh, everything he said was absolute bullshit, but you also know that if you took 60 seconds to walk to the fridge, there was at least a small chance that you'd find him onscreen doing shadow puppets, having said "aw, fuck it" with a broken bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 over his own head.

Sigh. We miss ya, Dubyanuts.

Smitten

via Sully:

13.9 percent. If you're really, really rich, that's all you have to pay in taxes, we see more plainly today. It seems to me that this is not about Romney and shouldn't be about Romney. He broke no laws; he seems admirably charitable; his massive wealth is not a marker against him.

The issue is the system. The president and the Democrats should not be piling on Romney because he's rich. They should be piling on the tax code because it is so insane. This issue is populist and good economics.

People are also giving Mitt shit for giving more money to the Mormon Church than the government but, in his defense, Eliza Dushku is Mormon, so....Mitt, I'm just saying: I get it, bro. I get it.

Congratulations Joe the Plumber

Your fears of waking up tomorrow as CEO of Goldman Sachs and having to pay a dime more in taxes than you would as a pretend plumber are all for naught, as it turns out we live in a country where someone making over $40M in two years gets to pay a tax rate much lower than the chumps coming over to snake his golden toilet.  Your valiant fight for those who have the most was a battle well-fought, but remember, our work is not done until our system dictates those very people be made to not pay a single dime.  Just think about how furious you'll be when you make $40M and are asked to pay even MORE than 13.9% on it - not even fucking worth it, is it?

Keep the faith, Joe!

I remain,
XMASTIME

Waiting on that call from Bain Capital.

The Dishes

Years ago I had a roommate who was a dishes hound - I could leave three dishes in the sink for 20 minutes and he'd be on me "You gonna do those dishes? huh?" Then he'd try to soften things up "hey big fellah, what d'ya say about knocking out those dishes?" And on and on. It didn't matter how few dishes were dirty in the sink (most days it was zero.) Tho I do admit I did relish a bit in how he must've done a slow burn all day while at work, dreading walking into the house and finding something in the sink. The horror!

So I finally solved the problem. Whether I had zero dishes to clean, or one or ten, I would pull clean dishes and pans etc outta the cabinets and just stick 'em in the drying rack. Really pile 'em up. He'd come home and think geez, Xmastime was really knocking the dishes out today! Awesome!!

Are You Shitting Me Tweet du Jour

“@mental_floss: John Tyler, who became President in 1841, has two living grandchildren. Not great-great-great-grandchildren. Their dad was Tyler's son.”

MF was born in 1790, has grandchildren alive today. Mind? Blown.

COLORADO: Come For the Snow, Stay So Your Kids Can Get their Heads Blown Off in School

Newt Has Always Been a Giant Asshole

David Frum brings up something interesting about Newt Gingrich:

It's striking that almost none of Gingrich's former colleagues in the House has endorsed him for president. Striking that nobody associated with a past Republican presidential association has done so.

He is a candidate of talk-show hosts and local activists -- and of course of Rick Perry and Sarah Palin -- but not of those who know him best and have worked with him most closely. 

Hmmmm.WHO could that possibly remind anybody of?

BREAKING NEWS: Heidi Klum's Sight Has Returned

Tennessee Finally Getting Rid of Slavery

Downton Abbey is Turning Me Into a Little Girl

You're gotdam right I bubbled up like a total fairy when Matthew came strolling into the room as Mary was singing.  What am I, amde of fucking stone, people??!!!!!

Topped only by my squealing a few seconds later: "ohmygod, AND he can sing??????!?!?!!????!!!!!'

Sigh.

Tumblr Idea du Jour

Pictures from around the world taken the day you were born.

Paterno

Joe Pa will prolly die within the year the way The Bear died after winning the Liberty Bowl - XMASTIME

Scene-Stealing Character du Jour

I stumbled upon Freezing, a short-lived BBC series from a coupla years ago, squealing with glee because both the Lord and Lady of Downton Abbey were in it, but the entire series was quickly stolen by their agent friend Leon, a funnier Ari Gold - he doesn't even say a word in the first minute and a half in the scene below, but still steals it with his looks.  Last seen by me in the HBO John Adams mini-series as the uber-creepy King George III..  Everything he said and every look he gave was hysterical. Highly recommended!

It's Pretty Easy Being Cheesy

Apparently today is National Cheese Lover's Day.  On personal note, 2011 was the year I finally gave up trying to be fancy and accepted that the best cheese for a cheeseburger was good ol' American cheese.  Who did I think I was impressing with Cheddar? Who the fuck did I think I was all those years, a Kennedy?

Also, still patting myself on the back (I am now capable of committing the perfect crime as I no longer have fingerprints*) over my Blac' 'n cheese bit heh heh heh. Sigh. Fun being moi.

Official Xmastime Cheeseburger Manifesto HERE

The 16 Pearls of Cheeseburger Wisdom HERE

Since, you know, you asked.




* anyone who can name what all-time Xmastime superslice this line is stolen from gets 7 minutes in heaven with me!

Office Crush Friday Update

Had a great exchange with Office Turtle Crush: she came bounding over to my area to ask my neighbor something, big fat tittays a-blazing to the point I actually thought Jesus, yes, I see them!!, I made a quip that got a laugh, then she said she had to pee so bad and off she was, gone as quickly as she had appeared. Sigh.

Full Circle

The 7th Grade was like the 1960's to me and my classmates: seemingly endless, every moment was hyper-important, and everything had changed by the end of it. And some days Mr. Russell would say fuck it, and put on a Bill Cosby record to let us relax and laugh to. My favorite was always The Chicken Heart. Gotdam I love Bill Cosby. - XMASTIME

Until I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, it never occurred to me that Lights Out was a real radio horror show from the 1930's and The Chicken Heart was an actual episode of it (based on genius/whackadoodle Alexis Carrel's claim of having created immortal chicken cells.)  Trippy.

Enjoy Part I of the all-time Cosby riff below - incredibly, you can listen to the original he based it on HERE. What the fuck did we do before The Prince of Tennessee invented the internet?

Well. Isn't This Interesting.

Between the standard right-wing tome that Obama is a Muslin-in-hiding merely waiting to spring some trap to turn us all into Muslims, and Ronald Reagan being that most fetishized of all men for being as American as apple pie and freedom itself and wrestling Communism to it's death with his bare hands because Jesus and his scrappy, lovable sidekick, baby Jesus, loved him best, I find this little factoid from his diary interesting:

“Visit from Muhammad Ali, ‘gave me an autographed Muslim Prayer Book.’”

Who knew? Turns out Ronnie hated America and freedom.  And that makes me sad.  See:   :(

"This is how I'm gonna punch freedom in the nuts!"

Three Years Ago Today

Washington began an  unprecedented expansion of big government and big spending, totally ruining everything that had been carefully built the previous eight years.  And that makes me sad.  See:  :(

"...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. You white people done fucked up now, jack!"

The Power of Wikipedia

Harry Reid cancels the Senate debate on the Protect IP Act, presumably at least party due to Wikipedia blacking out for 24 hours.

I'd love to know what would happen if I blacked out Xmastime for 24 hours.  I mean, the things that we could accomplish as a nation would be  non-existent since nobody would notice or give a shit  staggering, n'est-pas?

Goals. I Have Them.

Back in my youth, long before the internet, the appropriate term for best friends joined at the hip was "butt-hole buddies." Now, it's "best friends forever", usually shortened to the internet-friendly "BFF" (NOT BFFs, as I fucking explained already!)  I'm using 2012 to personally make "BHB" the most popular web lexicon of the year.  But I need your help, people.

Newt the Victim

This from moi (of course) last eyar:

David Vitter is back in the spotlight, what with people giving him and GOP leadership a lot of shit for his staying in the Senate despite breaking the law, while Weiner has been pushed out by his colleagues for doing a lot less.  I'd remind these people that Vitter is doing the right thing because God forgave him:

This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there - with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.

And while I may have had my doubts then:

You see that? He asked for AND RECEIVED forgiveness from God. Hmm. Really? He knows for fact that God forgave him? Can somebody please ask him how? Did God text him? I mean, did he really just say that? How can he say that and nobody asks him how this happened? And can I use this in court maybe? “Listen, your honor, I already talked to God and he forgave me for stealing the car, so you might as well let me go.” I guess him saying this horseshit makes it okay. Am I crazy, am I the only person on Earth thinking it's a bit much to believe that "God" reached out and spoke to this dipshit? A bum on the street talking to Jesus is "crazy", but we're alright with Vitter having God on his speed dial. Camon.

Obviously, I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about back then, in my silly youth.

When God forgives Anthony Weiner, then I can stomach having him in my Congress; until then, I've gotta get to a Newt Gingrich rally so he can explain what my family values should be, so if you'd please shut the fuck up I can get going. 

Now Gingrich is now  the hero of this crowd:

Hello, Sen. David Vitter, John Ensign, Larry Craig, and so on. Marianne is a Republican, so she probably hasn’t noticed that infidelity is no longer an electoral deal breaker, especially if you are a Republican, even more if you are a Christian who can claim having asked for and received God’s forgiveness. Who can fact check that? God’s not speaking on the record except to Tim Tebow. The Christian right bought it, which is why so many of their leaders tried to stretch biblical redemption far enough to encompass a thrice-divorced Washington insider who dwells among the infidels and makes massive amounts of money representing unsavory interests only to spend it on jewelry at Tiffany’s for his onetime mistress and now third wife. 

Note that Newt got a STANDING OVATION when snarling at the moderator last night during his Newtgasm.  Interesting.  The "Party of Family Values" is furious at "the liberal media" for pointing out Newt's hideous actions, but gives the man himself a standing ovation.  Preaching to and fooling stupid people is much easier than actually walking the line. In Newt's defense, I will say that it's solely his "is he gonna blow up like Christ Christie?!?!!?" presence that is making these "debates" even remotely entertaining.  Can we please get Sarah Palin on this show for the next round? Camon!!   If they can bring another chick onto The Jersey Shore, why can't they do this?

Shit New Yorkers Say

I'm putting the odds of a "Shit Williamsburgers Say" video coming soon at 100%.

Life Imitating Art

Coming up on PBS tonight is this:

The Artist Toolbox: Jason Alexander

The classic funny-man and "Seinfeld" star discusses his craft at the Saban Theatre in Los Angeles.

Wtf? Is this a joke?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

David Beckham extends bid to beg America to give two shits about soccer.

Official XMASTIME Soccer SOTU HERE.

Hey, remember when I banged his wife? Sigh. Thanks for the mammaries!

Sniffy Wiffy Opens Mouth, Says Some Stupid Shit, Sun Rises Then Goes Away

I mentioned earlier that Newt's wife coming out with the news that he asked for her blessing to continue fucking some woman on the side will only propel him into being labeled as that most hallowed of Republican Virtues, "The Victim"; now the Babe Ruth of Victimhood has come out swing for him:

I call them dumbarses. They, thinking that by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview that’s old news — and it does feature a disgruntled ex, claiming that it would destroy his campaign — all it does, Sean, is incentive conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction, because it’s played so selectively by media, that their target, in this case Newt, he’s now going to soar even more. Because we know the game now, and we just won’t put up with it.
So, good call media! Way to go to covertly hype this, even Gingrich opponents, for being so brilliant they sure are dumb. 

All of this is worth it simply because, as the post points out, she once again announces that, you know, "“I have a degree” in journalism, she reminded Hannity" Awesome. Has anyone ever made so much noise over less? Palin yammering about her journalism degree making her an expert on the media is like the Jets banging away that two unsuccessful trips to the AFC title game somehow makes them world champions.  Shut the fuck up already.

"A gobba wobba cvhhfhjked  ufgpogpb  ajnanaahhjkhjkh  2%%666  kkjdksjdjkkjjjokddhchy!"

 

Thing I'm Embarrassed to Have Just Occurred to Me for No Reason

Ross' kid would be a junior in high school today. So. Cough.

Kitchen Nightmares Revisited

A coupla years ago HERE I listed my favorite episodes as:

Moore Place
Fenwick Arms
The Fish and Anchor
Mamma Cherie's Soul Food Shack
La Gondola

I've actually loved each and every one, except for the one in Spain. Not really sure why; I think it's cause I simply don't like the way the restaurant looks. ANYhoo, I stumbled upon THIS SITE which gives updates on each restaurant, summarizing thusly:

Throughout the current 5 seasons 22 restaurants have been visited. Out of these only 9 are still open under the same owners.

So if you plan to have your restaurant on Kitchen Nightmares you have less then a 50% chance of being saved, good luck.

No word on if Mrs. Xmastime from Morgan's is still single or not. Nom nom nom!

Thw Big Mac Index

Speaking of McDonald's, what does it take to have these mofos lose money?
Via HERE:

Lifted by growing demand from consumers seeking low-cost meals in a deepening recession, the hamburger chain said Monday profits soared 80% last year to $4.3 billion.

Nobody has any money, nobody has a job, yet McDonald's profits went up 80%!!!! In other words, why the fuck aren't these people in charge of getting our economy back on track? Wtf? - XMASTIME

via.

Newt's Ex

Sully IS MUSING re: the impact of Newt's ex coming out and giving an interview about his asking for her blessing to continue an affair. I find it hard to believe the interview will have any negative impact on  Newt.  Everyone has long known his cheating and hypocrisy and nobody seems to really mind -  in fact, this "attack" from his ex might spur Newt more towards that most hallowed of GOP positions, The Victim, and he can blame the left-wing media, the lamestream media, the media, non-real Americans, Jesus-hating Americans, foreigners, European foreigners, the French, people who like ice cream, A-Rod, Letterman, dogs with missing legs, dentists, clowns, rodeo clowns, clown college professors, Clowns for Literacy, shortstops, left fielders, gays, Gisele, the 1943 Chicago Bears, Asians, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, birds, Eli Manning, Menudo, Johnny Carson, people that work at Frito-Lay, the Gilmore Girls (cast and crew), people that wear sunglasses indoors, animal trainers, Woody Allen, the Bad News Bears, The Bad News Bears remake, snakes, those things you shake up and it snows inside, bees, killer bees, killer whales, whales, Frank Whaley, popcorn, farts, armpit farts, squirrels, toilets that make you hafta hold down the lever until it's done flushing, cake, Tony Dorsett, Sweet Valley High, waiters, journalists and the president for what is surely a liberally-rigged attempt to crush the spirits of noble patriots and Jesus, along with his lovable, scrappy sidekick, Baby Jesus.

We Take Care of Our Own

via Backstreets:

Of course, perhaps even more than with "Born in the U.S.A.," even half-listening to the verses brings the awareness that the chorus is not as rah-rah as it sounds. This is a song of searching, and not finding — searching for mercy, for love, for work, for spirit, for the American promise, and, recalling "Long Walk Home" from 2007's Magic, for "the map that leads me home." The few concrete nouns point to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy as Bruce's prime example to put the chorus in perspective, "from the shotgun shack to the Superdome." Following the line "There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home," the "We take care of our own" chorus can be heard as cuttingly ironic: we don't.

WTF du Jour

Apparently Newt Gingrich, who of course loves nothing more than preaching to us about the sanctity of marriage, asked his second wife to allow him to fuck his current wife, whom he'd already been fucking for several years anyway.  Rush Limbaugh of course says this makes Newt a gentleman. To be honest, I'd love to sit down with these women - I know power is an aphrodisiac, but I had no idea it was a fucking date rape drug.  I mean, dear God.

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce

It's confusingly corny lyrics notwithstanding, I dig it; also, the keyboard bit reminds me of this early 80's joint.

Story of My Life

Finally

Someone other than Adele killing it:

Mrs. Xmastime, Fuck It, You Knew It Already

Well.

This is fucking scary:

In December, an Arizona judge upheld a state law that bans classes that “promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” That ruling’s already cost Tucson public schools their Mexican Studies program, and as part of that elimination, Shakespeare’s The Tempest is being removed from classrooms and sent to the district’s book depository. As nuts as it is to think that the Bard’s story of a sorcerer and his daughter could promote a rebellion in Arizona, there are a lot of other books that could fall under scrutiny if this law is allowed to stand.
1. Paradise Lost, John Milton: Sure, this is supposed to be John Milton’s repentance of his republican apostasy, but what if red-blooded American kiddies get confused by the eloquence of that wily creature Satan? That whole “Farewel Remorse: all Good to me is lost; / Evil be thou my Good” thing could cause all sorts of kerfuffles and uprisings, like those darn video games my grandson is always playing.
2. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens: It’s a short leap from Marquis Evrémonde to Mitt Romney, and we wouldn’t want to invite that comparison, now would we? Darnay is such an avatar of the politics of envy.