To summarize the plot rather crudely: Frankie Fitzgibbons is a demure and docile small-town New Englander, 45 years old, not long widowed, who one day goes bananas and begins to take over the world.Of course, HL Mencken got it right decades before that.
And so begins her reign of terror.
Then I came back to New York and set about writing, a thing I believed I loved to do. I was wrong. I liked having written things. Writing them was the worst.My bold. I think that’s very true – a lot of people would like to have written a book, and talking about it at parties and such, but very few people love the down-in-the-weeds, slugging it out part that is the actual writing. Of course that’s probably true of anything, really. I’d like to hang out at whatever my generation’s version of Toots Shors is and regale everybody with my stories of playing center field for the Yankees while banging out Blake Lively, but I’m not terribly interested in putting in the work to get there.
Soft butter. I don’t think I even knew this existed until I got a girlfriend and had dinner at her house. A stick of butter could not enter my house unless it was frozen solid as if hurled from a comet. And good luck actually spreading this shit on a piece of bread; after 3 seconds the bread would be shredded, and 99% of the butter was still piled high on one spot. Great. I remember trying tricks such as putting the butter on top of the toaster while I toasted my bread or shoving it up Raoul the stockboy’s ass from Sunnyside Grocery down the road. Zero luck. Although on a side note I did learn how to milk another man. Thanks, hard butter! - XMASTIME
...do we really need to pretend that the odds of her face splattered across every magaZine in America six months having "changed my life!" rehab-style are anything less than 100%? - XMASTIME
“Love Mike or hate him, he’s the standard for sports-talk radio,” says Hollander. “When he and Chris started, there was no competition, really. Today there’s ESPN and hundreds of radio stations, and Mike is still No. 1.”I'm so fucking bummed I can't watch right now. Of course I'll be there in spirit by once again posting the single greatest blog post of all time (not just Xmastime mind you, but in the history of the internet. You're welcome, Earth.)
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Going at it Just As Hard as They Can
A coupla years back The Sports Guy wrote a running diary account of a day in the life of Mike and the Mad Dog, the world’s single greatest wadio pwogwam. I remember at the time thinking this was a Sports Guy Classic, one for the ages; my friends and I reveled in it for weeks. As it always is when time puts some space between the actual and the memory, the aura of the article grew larger and larger in my mind as the greatest, funniest collection of words put together since that Sunday edition of Bloom County where Opus is buying Preparation H. Recently I found the article and read it for the first time since it appeared and, me being Xmastime, of course I can only think one thing: I can do better.
Not only can I do better, I say to myself, but I’m going to point out the Sports Guy’s article for comparison –I’m not gonna pretend I never saw his article. Here it is, in your face, I’m better. Here it is...one man’s thoughts on the greatest show on Earth.
(for a quick primer, click thru this link to the Youtube clip...)
1:04pm for the intro they’re busting on Dawg being a Yankee hater by playing clips of him declaring the Yankees’ season over at various points throughout the year. The main one being on May 1...with 139 games left in a 162-game season. Hmm. This is like a father calling his son a loser who will never become a goddam thing at the age of 7. Flash forward a quarter century and well well well, look who’s sittin’ pretty on his own sofa-bed, hasn’t drunk-pissed himself in 2 years and is on the verge of getting his own checking account? FUCK you, “Dad”, fuuuuccckkkk you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:06 one of the great things about these two is that after 20 years, sometimes they talk as if they’re dancing with each other. Rhythmic. Like right now Mike is starting in about the Mets, with Dawg chirping in. “Folks, we are watching a team in udder collapse. Udder (tewwible, Mikey!!) udder (tewwible!) udder (terrible!) collapse” Dawg is like your mother chirping behind your father while he’s giving you a belt-whupping, driving him even crazier and making it worse for your ass.
1:14 They guys have been hyperventilating re: the Mets collapse for ten minutes now. Nobody’s seen Mike this animated since Sonic started serving breakfast - must be why he’s actually in his seat coming out of commercial; for some reason, 90% of the time Mike insists on walking back into the studio about 20 seconds after Dawg has already started the segment. His rock star moment, I guess.
1:17 after screaming/laughing bout the Mets choking, Mike admits that no, he didn’t actually see the game. Yet he sounds off as an authority. Typical. But then Mike hasn’t seen his dick in about 25 years and he just had a kid, so I guess somehow he really does just know things.
1:18 Seriously, I’ve never seen Mike this happy. Did Ben & Jerry stock just split? Mike is usually so stoic, but now he is singing along and tapping on the desk to “If This is It” (NOT the Huey Lewis one, the other 70's one.) I've seen it all, and wanna throw up.
1:25 one thing The Sports Guy got right is that Mike kinda sounds like Yogi Bear. Anytime he references Yogi Berra, he should hafta do the voice. And how nobody’s come up with a M&MD Yogi the Bear cartoon with Dawg as the Boo-Boo character is beside me. “Hey hey Doggy, looks like Ranger Smith left some food out!” “Oh, that’s a TEWWIBLE job by Ranger Smith, Mikey!” “Ugh.” “Tewwible!” “Ugh” “Tewwible!”
"AAAAAAAAND now those blacks won't fuck with us ever again, Doggie."
"Wow! GWEAT job, Mikey! One for the Big Guy!!"
1:27 Dog just tried to say "Colorado." After three fly-bys, finally just plowed thru it "Carararro." Sounds like a Chinese guy ordering Sammy Hagar’s tequila. Ugly.
1:30 Mike now makes his official Yankee declaration “You will have your October.” Of course those 5 words took about 120 seconds to say as Mike inhales the fumes of his own genius. This kicks off the first hellacious Doggie laugh of the day, which sounds like someone shredding cardboard while stepping on a cat, but not as calming.
1:38 Now they’re yapping bout some goofy throwing contest by fans. I guess they’re cutting on Boomer from the morning show. No idea what they’re talking about. But Mike is still giddy, which to me has become the story of the day.
1:39 our first “hahahahaha say something funny Mike!” yelp from Dawg. Ironically, Mike is actually the funny one. Which makes no sense. He stares down at his desk and makes serious proclamations like he’s the voice of the almighty, but he actually gets off a few funny lines a day. I guess it’s true that a fat, dour, self-righteous, condescending, smarmy know-it-all clock is right twice a day.
1:42 how does YES pay these guys a million each a year and they have two commercials? Wtf?
1:43 and how is it possible that these guys haven’t been on Michael Kay’s CenterStage yet? Emmanual Lewis, Lambchop w/o Shari Lewis and the guy in the “Safety Dance” video, but no Mike and Dawg? I guess Mike somehow sees this as competition to his NBC show Mike’d Up. The best part of that show is for some reason they place a HUGE bowl of candy or chips on the table in front of Mike throughout the ½ hour – my dream is to hire some kid who during commercials can sneak in there and put a dent in the candy each time, so it looks like Fatcessa has been devouring the bowl on each break. Shit disappears as the show goes on. Kills me. Well, and I dream that men would be angels, and angels would be God. But the candy thing, camon....
1:46 I love it when the callers announce that they’re gonna ask their question and then “I’m gonna hang up and listen to your answer.” Really? Just once I’d like to hear “then I’m gonna hang up and drop the radio in my bathtub so the last words I hear on this Earth are ‘oh, Dawg, brutal. Ugh.’” Or “then I’m gonna drop the phone and sprint away as quickly as possible, just run as far as I can. thanks guys!
1:50 John from Staten Island calls in to cry about the Mets bullpen, and Mike is incredulous: “if you cant get 6 or 7 outs, why bother even talking about the bullpen? They’re awful!!” I feel we’re only minutes away from a “Mariano Rivera is a God, on a different level” speech. Only question is how will Mike tie in his precious ’61 Yankees? Rivera/61 Yanks while guzzling another crate of Diet Coke = Mikey hat trick.
2:00 now we’re listening to a clip of David Wright saying the Mets have to “dig down deep” and “find that something extra” so they can “finish strong.” You think an alarm is going off cross town in Derek Jeter’s locker to warn that another player is trying to out-cliche him?. I can’t wait for 40 years from now and old-timers try to school youngsters on what a great cliche-er Jeter once was. “You fucking call that a cluster of cliches? Derek Jeter, young man, did the intangible cliches, the cliches that don’t always show up in the papers the next day! Derek Jeter could put a reporter to sleep in four questions, you fucking punk!!! Know your history!!!” And David Wright sounds like Jermaine Jackson. Which is funny, cause there’s probably only 4 other males on Earth who have heard Jermaine speak, but this is how I’d picture his voice.
2:05 Mike declares that he never thought the Yankees would win the division. Wow, what a genius. He stuck to his guns, even when the Yanks were 14 ½ back. Can’t wait for Mike’s “I knew Suri was gonna be a screwed-up kid” proclamation 20 years from now. Right again, Fatcessa!!! You did it!
2:08 Now Doggie’s going thru the Yankees season and it’s big turning points. Tuff for Dog, who is the king of all Yankee haters. Which makes the show great. And he somehow just found a way to toss tennis into the discussion three times. Nothing’s worse than when Mike’s on vacation in the summer and Dawg regales us with the play by play of whatever local tennis match he played the night before. “high wob, I fwoat back, cwossstwoke aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannd....15-wuv, storms coming fwom the northwest, I know I gotta huwwy!!!” For 5 hours. A brutal test for any listener. Like sitting there for hours listening to a girl prattle on and on cause you know this is the night she’s finally gonna give it up. Just hang in there, fellas.
2:11 Mike seems distracted; now I see he’s staring at the computer beside him, ready to pounce like a bear. Sniffing it. Like great white sharks mating in nature, humans have never witnessed Fatcessa on a computer. He is the original proud luddite; a few years back Dawg tried to get him to admit he knew what the internet was and after about an hour Mike finally admitted that sometimes he went online to “check out my stories.” Nobody even wants to know what these stories are. And....BAM! There he goes, to the computer! See the bright colors, big guy! Sniff sniff!
2:12 be amazing if all of a sudden he pulled a ham sandwich out from inside the monitor, wouldn’t it?
2:30 Sorry. Just took a dump so big a doctor came in and made me name it before I flushed.
2:38 Dog loves that the guy is gonna put an asterisk on Bonds’ home run ball. Mike sniffs he’s a “fashion designer.” I guess Mike thinks XXXL plain white button-down shirts with pit stains and Cheetos dust design themselves.
2:50 Biff from Philly calling in... “Biff”? from Philly? Are you kidding me?
2:52 I’m always amazed more crank calls don’t get through. Anytime someone slips thru, the guys bitch at their call screener. Like it’s impossible to be lied to over the phone. I don’t see how stopping a caller is even possible. If I wanted to call in and tell Mike to eat his own fat ass, couldn’t I fool the screener long enuff? Or does it go “Okay, what’dya wanna ask the guys?” “I wanna tell Mike to eat his own fat ass.” “Sorry (click)” I would think I’d have the brains to pull off:
“Okay, what’dya wanna ask the guys?”
“I wanna ask if they’d start Clemens over Chad on Sunday.”
“Please hold...” now they switch to another voice, try to make me slip up
“Okay, what’d you say you wanted to ask about?”
“I wanna tell Mike to...”
SHIT! couldn't even pull it off here...guess it is tough after all. Fucking hell.
2:55 Mike’s at the door with his back to us, talking to someone...right now, every single YES viewer is making the exact same joke. “lemme check before you take off, make sure they put on double pepperoni...”
2:57 first “in the mix”sighting, one of Doggie’s pet phrases. Though it almost gets lost in the wreckage of Dog using it with the word “strategy;” “there’s some stwategy in the mix!” fucking christ; is there a St. Bernard lapping at his face that I just don't see?
3:01 I get a kick outta the fact that at every break Dog has to say “Sports Radio 66.” And you know Mike makes him be the one to say it, just to be a dick. When I first started listening, I was amazed that someone with Doggie’s speech um, “patterns” could get a job on radio. I decided that this guy must be amazing, must REALLY know what he’s doing to get a gig on radio. It’s like going to the track and betting on the three-legged dog: why else would he be running?
3:02 hooker with one titty mighta worked back there, too.
3:08 Dog’s blowing his nose into some toilet paper. Not television’s proudest moment. Looks like a dachshund putting on a surgical mask.
3:09 Now they’re going thru playbacks of different announcers from the game last night, trying to detect panic in Met announcers. Are they psychiatrists? Should they be a carnival act? “Step right up, Doggie will guess your feelings while exploding into 1000 pieces as Mike sits in a chair to ease his ‘mysterious knee pain.’”
3:10 “oh, Dawg...ugh...ugh” Mike’s pretending to be sad re: Mets collapse panic.
3:11 now they’re trashing Keith Hernandez’s handling of a play while in the booth. I wonder how they woulda done on Seinfeld? Dude was in an hour-long episode and made out with Elaine!!! To be fair, Fatcessa mighta played Newman, will hafta double-check that.
3:12 Dawg is pissed no one’s showing up to support the Mets: “they should boo the fans for not showing up!!!!!” Really? If there’s no fans showing up, who’ll be doing the booing? And at who? Dog’s a little slap-happy now, he’s been fighting to hold Mike off his Hot Pockets for 2 hours now.
3:14 Clip of Willie Randolph trying to break David Wright’s cliche record for the day. Stumbles after saying “we gotta go get em tomorrow” by missing the chance to say “we gotta take it day by day.” Can hear Wright goffawing in the background, Willie’s pissed.
3:18 John Minko, the update guy, is walking in to give some scores as he does every hour. Camon, one time, do it naked! Or in a chicken costume. Just walk in, do the news in a chicken suit. Have Mike and Dog pretend to not even notice.
3:26 Chris from Jersey gives us our first “first time/long time” moment. Everyfuckingbody does this: “hey it’s Chris, first-time caller/long-time listener...” I’d like to call in “hey it’s Xmas, this is my ninth call since this morning when I first heard of you guys...” surely I’m not the first person to think of this?
3:28 is Mike reading a magazine? This is what its come to?
3:31 Mike coming in late from commercial again. They should have the train from Silver Spoons cart him back and forth every break.
3:38 Mike never says “hi” to a caller, just quickly gruffs their name. “Hey guys, it’s Ricky.” “Ricky.” If you set it up perfectly, listening to Mike could be like an Abbott & Costello routine.
3:40 seriously...what the fuck does Mike do every break? Sprints outta the chair every time. I assume the shitter; but we’re now 2 & ½ hours in, how much of the pre-show Velveeta pony keg can still be “processing”? Fuck!
3:58 Mike just spent 2 minutes trying to explain “Sal wanted a pony for Xmas”, a metaphor for a Mets win, which takes Dawg about 7 passes to finally get. Which leads to Dog asking if Mike wanted a pony when he was a kid, to which Mike seriously says oh, no no. Definitely not. Sad solemnly, in case we were to ever get the wrong and presumably dangerous impression that at one time he would’ve wanted of all things a pony.
3:59 Now Dawg’s talking about his cat as a kid. Yum Yum. After destroying some upholstery, Dawg’s dad got rid of Yum Yum. Mike, in one of the rare moments he’s curious about another person’s life, asks Dawg what he means by this. Dawg says they found another home for it, to which Eddie from the booth chimes in “under a tree.” Hardest I’ve ever seen Mike laff, and all it took was a young child’s dead kitten. Nice. I think I’ll make sure Mike’s around next time I read “Where the Red Fern Grows” to, you know...”keep things light.” Ugh.
4:14 Dan O’Dowd is talking. GM of the Colorado Rockies. I missed the last 15 minutes. Why is he on? I have no idea.
4:17 Mike declares this year’s umps have been the worst ever. That’s it! In the books, 2007 the worst ever. Prolly already on Wikipedia as fact.
4:18 Just occurred to me - I hope they brought this guy in just to make Dawg hafta say Colorado again. Poor bastard, he can’t even fall back on “Rockies” and sound like an adult.
4:19 “Good job Dan!” Dawg always says that you did a good job when the interview’s over, like a pat on the head. Always seems vaguely surprised a guest comes on and isn’t completely retarded. You’d think being in a room with Mike all this years, he’d be programmed to always assume whomever he’s talking to is a genius. But then, you’d also think we could get Cuba Gooding Jr into a movie that’s almost watchable, so I guess you never know.
4:29 Dawg just said that El Duque had a “weird bunion problem.” How can Mike not jump on this? Oh, right...he’s been asleep for the last ½ hour. Don’t wake the bear, Doggie!!!
4:37 they’re reading a quote from Skip Carey, who’s upset about being left off playoff telecasts. But apparently not about being named “Skip.” Interesting.
4:38 Wait - there’s Skip AND a Chip Carey? The Keebler Elves had children? What the fuck?!!!
4:39 You know, they’re right about bringing in announcers for playoffs that haven’t even seen any of the teams all year. It’s complete bullshit. It’s like bringing in Richard Simmons and Lance Bass to judge a Cameltoe Contest. Why wouldn’t they bring one local announcer from each team?
4:41 I gotta take break for a second, flip over to Beverly Hills 90210. Valerie is irked her latest conquest is leaving: “what do you hafta do, balance the federal deficit?”
4:47 Is anybody alive out there? Dawg’s gettin amped up re: Bruce on The Today Show the next morning. It's a good thing Bruce didn't play for the Giants last year, Tiki would SHRED him on Today for sure.
4:48 Dawg is outlining his morning for watching Bruce on The Today Show. Trying to decide if he’ll buy his kid a little guitar to take. Wow. Now we find out from an uproarious Mike that at some Bruce shows, Dawg actually takes a toy guitar along to “jam” on during the show. Again: wow. There’s air guitar, there’s being the kid in the “quit being mean to Britney” video, and then there’s that. Dawg's kid’s gonna be thrilled. “Thanks Dad, being your son doesn’t get my ass kicked quite enuff at school, this should definitely take it over the top. You’re the best!”
4:49 almost 4 hours in, just now getting our first call from a Vinny? There a massive hair-gel sale going on all day I don't know about?
5:07 Dawg’s pounding himself for dissing the Yankees so early. Now comes the time of the day where they get lazy and just repeat themselves from earlier, saying the same shit they’ve already blathered. This is like a father calling his son a loser who will never become a goddam thing at the age of 7. Flash forward a quarter century and well well well, look who’s sittin’ pretty on his own sofa-bed, hasn’t drunk-pissed himself in 2 years and is on the verge of getting his own checking account? FUCK you, “Dad”, fuuuuccckkkk you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5:09 Joe Torre’s on. I’d make a child abuse joke here, but isn’t getting drunk and slapping little people around funny enough already?
5:11 Jesus Christ. Torre. Lulling me to sleep. Blah blah blah.
5:22 You know what’s creepy? During phone calls when they put the person’s picture on screen; you can hear the dude talking but they have a still picture there, staring back at you. Do we need this? You find yourself staring at the person’s photo, hypnotized. Like whenever I watch something with subtitles, I find myself staring at the words on the screen and not the actors. Which is why it takes me so long to “issue” during “Rencontres Anales 4.”
5:24 Joe gives his thoughts on each team. Hmm. Lemme guess. “solid, good team. Will be tough to beat.” Thanks, Joe. Really going out on a limb here.
5:30 The last hour or so usually sucks, I always hope they go off topic such as “top ten movies.” This is fun cause now Mike has to pretend he’s never seen a movie in color except The Godfather. "Tom Hanks? Who's that?" And Dawg always asks Mike for his lists, never vice versa. Of course the Babe Ruth of these time-wasters is the Ratings Game, wherein Dawg reads out recent games to Mike who then tries to guess that games national and local television rating. At first you think they’re kidding, they GOTTA be putting you on, but you look at Mike and he looks like he's cracking logarithms on the bowl over there. And no matter how far off he is, he always nods his head as if he understand WHY he was off. “Dawg I’m gonna say for Giants/Boys, I’m gonna say 8.2 national, 10.1 local.” “They did a 6.6 national and 8.9 local.” Now Mike starts nodding his head, “okay, okay, I can see that.” And Dawg acts like he’s at a funeral, crestfallen “Mikey, that a tewwible wating! That’s an awful job by CBS, Mikey...just awful...” while Mike nods his head. "Well Dawg, it was the 3rd-to-the-last nice day left in the summer, so I knew that..." Are we supposed to take this seriously, that Mike really thinks he can guess these numbers? This reminds me of a guy I used to work with, Harry. EEEEEVery day Harry would check his lotto numbers from the night before and try to match them with his and see what he did wrong. “Okay, they have a 12, I chose 14...okay...22, I said 28...” I’m like Harry, it doesn’t matter, it’s completely random! But he insisted he was figuring it all out. My secret hope for the stupid ratings game is this is actually an inside joke they’ve been playing on listeners for years and are just waiting for the day someone finally phones in and calls bullshit on ‘em. “This ratings game, you’re fucking with us, right?!” Dude “wins” a weekend at Hooters with Mike, we never hear this stupid game again.
5:37 Now they’re talking about clothes, and Mike has just revealed that he has “active” socks and “inactive” socks. There’s no way I’m topping that sentence with anything else.
5:40 commercial, flipping to MASH...why did Hot Lips pick Frank Burns? All the doctors there to fuck, she picks him? Camon!
5:47 Now Mike and Doggie are talking to Ed Coleman, local beat guy for the Mets. Its official: Pedro Martinez will save millions of Mets fans from killing themselves tonite with a win. Comforting. This is the most the city has had to depend on a Latino since it got J-Lo to hide P-Diddy’s guns back in the day. HUGE game, Mike tells us 14,000 times in a row.
5:57 fuck!! They’re cutting the show early to get to the Yankees game. Mike and the Mad Dog. My life!! For you people outside of NY who wanna listen in, hit them every weekday starting at 1pm at WFAN.
BRAD AND ANGELINA ARE JUST FINE, NOT FIGHTING. SEEM HAPPY IN THEIR MARRIAGE.
TOM & KATIE ARE TWO EQUALS IN A SECURE, REAL MARRIAGE.
PLASTIC SURGERY? I DO NOT KNOW, DESPITE THESE WEIRDLY-ANGLED, UNFLATTERING PHOTOS. I WOULD NEED TO SEE MEDICAL RECORDS.
JENNIFER DID NOT SPEND LAST NIGHT CRYING, DRUNK-TEXTING BRAD.
IS LINDSAY ON THE EDGE? I HAVE NO IDEA, I DO NOT KNOW HER PERSONALLY.
Contributing to Bush’s problems was a personality trait that hindered his ability to work with others in the political arena, particularly the opposition Democrats. He brought to his presidency a high level of sanctimony — an apparent conviction that he operated on a higher plane of rectitude than other politicians.His defenders of course like to loftily say "oh, a hundred years from now history will determine that he was a great president", as if it's something us normal people, you know, just don't "get" just yet. The genius of course is it's impossible to disprove in our lifetimes. If I said "100 years from now wolverines will be working the layaway department at Target", can you prove I'm wrong? No, and here's the irony: a wolverine would probably make a better president than Bush was!!
In Bush’s case it was seen in his refusal to acknowledge any major mistakes, which made it difficult for him to change course when inevitable setbacks demanded flexibility. This rigidity not only kept him clinging to failed policies but also created the spectacle of the president issuing what conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. called “high-flown pronouncements” about plans and programs seen widely by others as hopeless.
The Beatles' large earnings placed them in the top tax bracket in the United Kingdom, liable to a 95% supertax introduced by Harold Wilson's Labour government.Meaning yes, if you too were a multi-millionaire you'd be right to worry about Obama raising tax rates on you, albeit 1) not anywhere near 95% and 2) not while making you suffer the soul-crushing, Jesus-and-freedom-destroying socialism that England enforces on it's unknowing victims. As far as I know, none of my FB friends should really be up at night terrified they're gonna wake up as fabulously wealthy CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, so come the fuck on already with that shit.
Let’s talk about Roberts. I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to. It’s well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Therefore neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts’ writings you can see the cognitive dissociation in what he is saying.It's not even the quack idea I give a shit about, I'm sure if you look under a few right-wing rocks there's even crazier ideas, but the highlighted line I love, because it's Savage. Who, a few years ago, I pointed out is the smartest man in the world...because he says he is. Awesome.
It looks like Michael Savage is banned in the UK for fermenting hatred. I wish he was banned here - not because of his fermenting hatred but because he spends about 80% of each show explaining to everybody that he is the most educated person in the radio, always with "look, I'm not boasting, it's just a fact, it's something you have to accept, that I'm incredibly smart, I'm not boasting" and on and on and on. It's kind ofcharming,actually. Last night apparently he spent the first hour doing "something that's never been done before" ie did the hour as satire. Okay. Then after informing us that that's what he he had been doing, he went on to say that in listening to a recording of it during the break he realized that he had kind of failed because his amazing education and raw intelligence did not allow him to speak without being 100% correct on all things. Brilliant. Reminds me of when I apologized to a chick for my dick being too big and my lovemaking TOO amazing to give her the Big O.douchbaggy
1) I don’t understand "mutually exclusive" or "your lips to God's ears." When people say these things, I nod my head but have no idea what they actually mean. Makes no sense to me. "Mutually exclusive" just sounds contradictory, like they cancel each other out. And if I tell you something and you say "hey, from your lips to God's ears" does that mean you're saying you're God? Seems a little arrogant, no? - XMASTIMEAccording to Louis C.K., Jerry Seinfeld will guest-star in his show this upcoming season:
1. Jerry Seinfeld makes a guest appearance during the connected last three episodes of the season. Unlike much of Louie, the three will involve one long storyline, and C.K. said that Seinfeld's acting was both phenomenal and something that fans wouldn't normally expect.Based on Seinfeld's "acting chops", I do not think those things to be mutually exclusive, fuck you very much.
Obviously the blatant, barely-pretending-to-hide-it lying by McCain is out of control. And, because the American voters are so fucking stupid, the shit works. My question is, why stop with the lies he's already propagated thus far? Why doesn't McCain go all the way - why not tell us that if we vote for him, he'll give us $100,000 each? Why not tell us that if they win, Palin will come blow in your ear for 20 minutes? - XMASTIMERight on schedule, Romney has come out and said that Day One of his presidency, he's repealing Obamacare. Of course. Cause it's that easy.
7) Where did the myth about sexy, slutty flight attendants begin? The stereotype is of gorgeous horny babes banging dudes at every layover. I don't fly a lot, but every time I do the attendant is usually, if not a flaming dude, some spinster who weighs in at 400lbs. She's out of breath while showing us what to do in case we crash, and constantly scraping my shoulder with her fat ass every time she squeezes by. What the fuck. - XMASTIMESecrets of flight attendants:
Of all the drinks we serve, Diet Coke takes the most time to pour—the fizz takes forever to settle at 35,000 feet. In the time it takes me to pour a single cup of Diet Coke, I can serve three passengers a different beverage. So even though giving cans to first-class passengers is a big no-no, you’ll occasionally spy 12 ounces of silver trimmed in red sitting up there.Though does she specifically mean DIET Coke, or any soda/carbonated drink? INteresting.
Me, a slice of Wonder Bread, and Clarence Thomas have asked the same number of questions during Supreme Court arguments over the last five years. - XMASTIMEThe Supreme Court is getting a lot of attention today, duh, which means it's easy to remember what a shitty, do/know-nothing benchwarming nothing like Clarence Thomas is. But just now I realized his wife's name is Virginia Lamp.
“During the week of July 9th, the House will once again repeal ObamaCare."But then he's from a state that can't stop re-enacting a war it famously lost, so.
3) With warm weather coming up I’m bracing myself for the inevitable advice we’ll get during the first heat wave: “Stay inside with the air conditoning on.” Really? Wow, thanks! Cause I was gonna cover myself in maple syrup, put on my heaviest wool sweater and spin in circles on the baking asphalt for a while. Thanks! Jesus fucking christ. “Stay inside with the ac on.” If I could do that, Professor, then I wouldn’t give 2 shits about the fucking heat, now would I? That’s like if I wanna be a millionaire, “Have a million dollars in the bank!” thanks, assface. - XMASTIMEAh, yes, HERE we see a "report" on how to fly to Paris "in comfort, on a budget". And then we click through and it turns out that the big secret is ta-DA!!....to have a lot of money. Thanks, professor!
- The success of Springsteen is, apparently, some sort of object lesson in staying true to your (geographical?) roots, and not being too “eclectic,” or something, who the fuck knows. The column literally has this line in it: “Did it occur to them at that moment that, in fact, they were not born in the U.S.A.?” I don’t know, David, do Clash fans realize that London is not actually calling them?And eff you too Rex Ryan:
- Brooks’ entire story of how Bruce’s success is rooted in his deep connection to his original roots and milieu completely ignores the stylistic eclecticism that has defined his career since fucking “Nebraska” (an album that is not named “New Jersey, Where I Am From”) but whatever. Whatever, David. No one cares that you like Bruce Springsteen.
But, Chris Christie, you are not actually the world’s biggest Bruce Springsteen fan, and you are something of a jerk so it basically makes sense that the (actually somewhat shy and retiring) Springsteen doesn’t want to grab a beer and shoot the shit with you, because, like everyone else in the world, he does not care that you like Bruce Springsteen. No one does.And of course the old George Will quote will never die.
They say you've never really seen a Bruce Springsteen concert until you've seen one in EuropeBut then the guy fucks it all up by insinuating that Hungry Heart came out during Darkness On the Edge of Town. It did not. Argument: nullified.
Nobody says this.
5) The other day I walked by a magazine stand and there was a Penthouse with Jenna Jameson on the cover with the headline “Jenna…as You’ve NEVER Seen Her Before!!” I’m like, what does that mean? Jenna fully dressed in a library reading to children? Jenna in a nice pantsuit watching the game? OHHH, wait, it’s Jenna getting drilled by 2 dudes with her face in a doggy dish. Hmm. Sorry, but yes, we have seen this before. - XMASTIME
As with "65 Love Affair" mentioned below, there are certain songs that I have only ever heard on my hometown radio station, and if I went home today and turned to 105.5 on the dial, I swear they'd be playing. Stuck in some weird, not-even-oldies-or-ironic-we-just-still-play-them time warp playlist. I sometimes think these songs were only ever played at that station and nowhere else, including:I don't know much about terrestrial radio elsewhere, since I've never driven anywhere else, but my return behind the wheel has taught me that Richmond radio cannot go longer than 5 minutes without playing Segar's Old Time Rock and Roll or John Cougar Mellencamp's I Need a Lover. Whack.
"Take It Easy On Me" – Little River Band
"Stranger in My House" – Ronnie Milsap
"I Wouldn’t Have Missed it for the World" - Ronnie Milsap
"Just Once" – James Ingram
"For Your Eyes Only" - from the Bond flick, whoever did it. Sheena Easton? - XMASTIME
The New York Yankees are proud to continue HOPE Week 2012 (Helping Others Persevere & Excel) on Tuesday by celebrating the charitable work performed by Jorge Munoz. Yankees players Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Hiroki Kuroda and Boone Logan will honor Jorge Munoz by surprising him in the kitchen of his home and helping him cook the daily meal he prepares for 140 people. Later that afternoon, Munoz and his family will be the Yankees’ special guests for their 7:05 p.m. game vs. Cleveland. They will watch batting practice from the field and be part of pregame on-field ceremonies. Shortly after the start of the game, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman along with Yankees front office staff and former HOPE Week honorees will join Munoz in traveling back to Queens to assist in distributing food to the hungry at Munoz’s usual time and location (9:30 p.m. underneath the elevated subway tracks at Roosevelt Avenue and 73rd Street).Well. I guess we should hope he doesn't see the post before the Yankees show up.
This, my friends, is an image showing several of the most notable spacecraft we plucky human beings have created (and are busily creating) to date. The past, the present, and the ones that never quite made it. All spacecraft shown are to scale (assuming my sources were accurate).We landed on the moon in a ship 1/10 the size of the space shuttle. Also, none of these in any way resemble the shape of what we think UFOs look like, so.
Speaking at a fundraising event at Symphony Hall in Boston last night, President Obama thanked the city for sending third baseman Kevin Youkilis to the White Sox, his hometown baseball team.
"And finally Boston, I just want to say, thank you for Youkilis," Obama said. "I'm just saying, he's going to have to had to change the color of his Sox, ha, ha, ha, ha."
The chuckles in the crowd quickly turned to a round of boos for the president.
"I didn't think I'd get any boos out of here but..." Obama said jokingly to the room of wealthy backers. "I should not have brought up baseball, I understand. My mistake, my mistake. You've got to know your crowd."That's how you do it. Besides, anyone who changes their presidential vote based on his/her sports team preference is about as clueless as Dwayne picking NFL games based on the color of their helmets.
Last week, my kids attended their first Springsteen concert in Baltimore. At one point, I looked over at my 15-year-old daughter. She had her hands clapped to her cheeks and a look of slack-jawed, joyous astonishment on her face. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing — 10,000 people in a state of utter abandon, with Springsteen surrendering himself to them in the center of the arena.Now, Brooks has decided to check out one of his European shows:
The most interesting moment of Springsteen’s career came after the success of “Born to Run.” It would have been natural to build on that album’s success, to repeat its lush, wall-of-sound style, to build outward from his New Jersey base and broaden his appeal. Instead, Springsteen went deeper into his roots and created “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which is more localized, more lonely and more spare....It makes you appreciate the tremendous power of particularity. If your identity is formed by hard boundaries, if you come from a specific place, if you embody a distinct musical tradition, if your concerns are expressed through a specific paracosm, you are going to have more depth and definition than you are if you grew up in the far-flung networks of pluralism and eclecticism, surfing from one spot to the next, sampling one style then the next, your identity formed by soft boundaries, or none at all.This reminds me of me pulling my fucking hair out re: Hillary not picking a favorite fucking baseball team. For fuck's sake.
The whole experience makes me want to pull aside politicians and business leaders and maybe everyone else and offer some pious advice: Don’t try to be everyman. Don’t pretend you’re a member of every community you visit. Don’t try to be citizens of some artificial globalized community. Go deeper into your own tradition. Call more upon the geography of your own past. Be distinct and credible. People will come.
It's Star Wars you dipshit, not Star Wars IV: A New Hope. What the fuck.- XMASTIMEI've never been a Star Wars geek, but I came along at a great age to love the Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back/Revenge of the Jedi trilogy - the whole thing seemed bigger than life, and you'd kill to get the goddam action figures. Of which I had none...I'm pretty sure my mother tried to pass generics off on me. "Oh look, it's Dirk Fader!" Ugh. If you had that fucking toy Death Star, I'd assume you were crazy rich. All those years later it never occurred to me to bother going to see the "prequels". I didn't give a shit, and the whole thing seemed silly to me. And yet I feel my Irish rising whenever some little kid refers to the prequels without having any knowledge of, you know....Star Wars. I mean, come the fuck on with that shit already.
Arguing with a 5 year-old that it's DarTH Vader, not DarK Vader.But one thing I do love is to hear superfans of the franchise bitching and moaning about George Lucas ruining their lives. The Big Bang Theory, for example, rarely misses an opportunity to mention how Lucas ruined their lives by forcing these other movies on them. So I will say that I'll eagerly watch The People vs. George Lucas, reviewed by Filmvetter, even though I can pretty much guarantee you I'll never fucking watch the prequels, or sequels, or whatever the fuck the recent trilogy is. It's just like with heavy metal:
ANYways, it turns out that heavy metal is one of those things like movies to me - I'd rather hear people talk about it than sit through the shit myself. I'd rather you set my eyelids on fire than hafta listen to about 10 seconds of the shit, but I'm now hooked on That Metal Show on VH1 Classic. Here we have grown men arguing over worhtless shit like who played bass on the last "real" Scorpions album, or who was the better Sabbath frontman - Ozzy, or some other jackass. AND about 1/2way through you realize that the old man falling asleep next to them is actually Ace Frehley.
The perceived toughness of a name really reflects nothing about the hurricane itself.Then he goes on to say some stupid shit, who the fuck knows what.
Ever since Joe Plumber's Lonely Hearts Club Band came out this week, thepundits have popped hamstrings to sprint out and remind us that "small businesses are the backbone of this country!!!" And, much like when we're told the same thing about small towns, we reflexively nod our heads and think "Yes, how American."AAAAAAAAAAAAnd here we are, with someone else finally catching up to me:
But, if this is true, if small businesses really ARE the "backbone of this country", does that mean it's necessarily a good thing? Didn't our economy seem to have it's shit together a lot better back when we were a country of LARGE companies...pumping out cars in Detroit, IBM, huge manufacturing companies employing thousands of people etc etc, before we shipped them all overseas? Aren't we actually better off when we're a country of large companies?
I have no idea if this is right or wrong; I'm sure two experts could chime in with two different point of views and be right. Or maybe I'm just flat-out wrong (always possible.) But I don't think we do ourselves any favors by knee-jerkingly accepting such views of small business and small towns being the backbone of the country without wondering if the opposite may be true.
A 2010 National Bureau of Economic Research paper by University of Maryland economist John Haltiwanger and researchers at the U.S. Census Bureau found there was no consistent link between net job growth rates and the size of a business. Instead, the researchers found that firms younger than 10 years, particularly startups, are the real sources of job growth.
I think that as historians look back on the Bush presidency, one of the signs of how fucked-up things got is that during his 8 years in office the Red Sox won not one but TWO World Series, and the Yankees won exactly zero. I mean, there are signs of the Apocalypse, and then there's Chowderheads dancing in the streets. Let's get the Earth back on it's axis, people! - XMASTIMEJason Varitek's retied, Kevin Youkilis is traded, and Curt Schilling is broke because of a video game. As soon as Big Papi's name is finally leaked from the Mitchell Report and Mayday Malone starts hitting the bottle again, all will be well again. MWA-hahahahahaha!!!!!
Pick a country and describe a sequence in which:Answer: jacked up, mang!
How would you describe a democracy where power was being shifted that way?
- First, a presidential election is decided by five people, who don't even try to explain their choice in normal legal terms.
- Then the beneficiary of that decision appoints the next two members of the court, who present themselves for consideration as restrained, humble figures who care only about law rather than ideology.
- Once on the bench, for life, those two actively second-guess and re-do existing law, to advance the interests of the party that appointed them.
- Meanwhile their party's representatives in the Senate abuse procedural rules to an extent never previously seen to block legislation -- and appointments, especially to the courts.
- And, when a major piece of legislation gets through, the party's majority on the Supreme Court prepares to negate it -- even though the details of the plan were originally Republican proposals and even though the party's presidential nominee endorsed these concepts only a few years ago.
Underscoring the point, a Bloomberg poll of 21 constitutional scholars found that 19 of them believe the individual mandate is constitutional, but only eight said they expected the Supreme Court to rule that way. The headline nicely conveys the reality of the current Court: "Obama Health Law Seen Valid, Scholars Expect Rejection."That is ALSO jacked up, mang!
How would you characterize a legal system that knowledgeable observers assume will not follow the law and instead will advance a particular party-faction agenda? That's how we used to talk about the Chinese courts when I was living there. Now it's how law professors are describing the Supreme Court of the John Roberts era.
More people follow A's starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy on Twitter than showed up for Opening Day in Oakland, and really he deserves even more of an audience because he is hands-down the most intelligent and funniest big leaguer on Twitter. "I think it's hilarious that in the dead seriousness of courtrooms, there's a person who sits on the side and gets to do drawings."And moi:
What's up with courtroom drawings? What the fuck are these for? Anything else in the world we take pictures, or video even. We have pictures of other galaxies. Everything is a matter of public record. And yet whenever there's an article about anything from inside our hallowed halls of justice, it's accompanied by a Peanuts cartoon. What the fuck?Aaaaaand two:
The 24-year-old reliever Ryan Cook, also added in the Cahill deal, surrendered his first run in his 22nd appearance, and to date he has given up nine hits and two runs in 31⅔ innings. "His stuff is disgusting, with angry movement," says Brandon McCarthy.And ta-DA! Moi!
8) “His stuff is filthy/nasty”
I’ve noticed announcers during baseball games are trying to outdo each other with describing someone’s pitches. It used to be “Wow, Jim has a great curveball” or “Wow, Jim’s fastball is humming tonight.” Now the cool thing to say is “Ewwwww, Jim’s slider is NASTY!”, although this has recently been surpassed with “Ewwwww, Jim’s slider is FILTHY!!!” Filthy? Nasty? Seems a bit much. It’s just a ball being hurled from one dude to another, can we lay off the over-the-top nonsense? It’s only a matter of time before we’re hearing “Jesus, Jim’s curve is green diarrhea tonite!” or “Jim’s slider is a monkey-based strain of AIDS tonite!” Relax fellas. It’s only baseball.
