Everything Matters

March Madness Bracket Breakdown Rd. 1 and Round 2 picks

2009-03-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

March Madness 2009

Bracket Breakdown – Round 1

Euripides said it best – “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.” – Had he lived into the era of big-time college basketball Ol’ Rip might have added, “,,,they first make March madness.” Round one made me mad, as in insane. Thursday was fine, 14-2. The sun was shining, all was right with the world. And then Friday, the madness kicked in. Down goes #4 Wake Forest with three potential NBA players to #13 Cleveland State. Down goes #5 Florida State to #12 Wisconsin. I guess the Seminoles didn’t want to win for fear that like the football team they might just have to give it back. Down goes #8 Ohio State, no big deal really as a the #9 Siena Saints were picked by just about everybody. Except, in a fit of contrarianism worthy of the genius stockpickers of CNBC, me. Down goes overseeded #5 Utah to underseeded #12 USC. (I had this one but it’s here to add to the madness.) And down goes #6 West Virginia who I had thought capable of a deep run, to the #11 Dayton Flyers, a team whose nickname brought back memories of a simpler time, of flying machines and barnstorming pilots landing in haystacks, and who thoroughly outplayed the slick hicks from Morgantown. And even Pitt and Kansas looked very beatable against low, low seeds from East Tennessee and North Dakota. And when the dust settled it said 10-6 and a .625 winning percentage will almost always guarantee a first place finish in baseball, in picking an NCAA pool winner, not even close. So, as Euripides said so famously in Medea, his masterpiece about madness, “On to Round 2.”

Saturday’s Picks Round 2:

East Regional

Villanova over UCLA. Another home game in Philly for ‘Nova and this one won’t come down to a last shot against UCLA.

Texas over Duke. Republican Coach K repeats Republican talking points as he says the President should concentrate on the economy and not fill out brackets. Hmmm? Guess Coach K shouldn’t have lent his (and Duke’s) name to that fundraiser for faux-Senator Liddy Dole years back. Hypocrite with a tiny mouth and a stupid, creatively mispronounced name. (Is it clear just how much I hate Coach K? Good.) I also think Texas has too much bulk in the frontcourt. Now let’s hope they can get some calls in Grennsboro.

South Regional

North Carolina over LSU. The crowd will be all Carolina Blue and the Tarheels will come in waves and the boys from Baton Rouge will be beaten bloody by their own red stick. Could be closer than that but still it’s Carolina moving on.

Gonzaga over Western Kentucky. The best run of Round 1 was ‘Zaga’s against Akron that went on for almost 9 minutes. I give them two four and a half minute runs against the Hilltoppers but it will be enough.

Oklahoma over Michigan. Which player from Michigan will do what Wrestlemania move on Blake Griffin? And after Blake and his brother move on, which Griffin’s next, Stewie?

West Regional

UConn over Texas A&M. Calhoun will be back and even though he doesn’t suit up the Huskies have more than enough to beat the Aggies.

Washington over Purdue. On a day of great match-ups, this has a chance to be the best.
More importantly, it sets up the all Husky match-up in of course, Glendale, Arizona, everybody’s favorite winter wonderland.

Memphis over Maryland. Are the Tigers as bad and as overseeded as they looked on Thursday against Cal State Northridge? Northridge – epicenter of strip malls and epicenters? I think they’ve got one good game in them.

March Madness Predictions - Friday's Games

2009-03-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

March Madness 2009

And here are Friday’s picks:

East Regional

Pitt over ETSU. East Tennessee State sounds like a historically Black college, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Outside of that, not much on the ETSU front. Pitt by 25.

Tennessee over Oklahoma State. Red state match-up. But Tennessee’s guys have the NCAA experience. And I’m betting that the players all voted for Obama.

Florida State over Wisconsin. Toney Douglas will make the cheese-heads look like, well, cheese-heads. The Big 10 can’t win a BCS bowl or this game.

Xavier over Portland State. The X-Men, not to be confused with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, will rule until the government bans them.

South Regional

Temple over Arizona State. Temple’s star is named Dionte Christmas. Or Dionte Xmas. But never Dionte Happy Holidays.

Syracuse over Stephen F. Austin. The Orange parlayed 6 OT’s into a 3 seed. They’ll put this one away by the half.

Midwest Regional

Louisville over Morehead State. Morehead just won the play-in. Now they get to play-out. The ‘Ville by 25.

Ohio State over Siena. And the Saints go marching out.

Arizona over Utah. The 12 over 5 plays out here as ‘Zona has 2-3 NBA prospects and Utah has the ghost of Keith Van Horn.

Wake Forest over Cleveland State. Years ago Cleveland State pulled a major upset and that coach ended up in a crack-house. Gave new meaning to the phrase – “Take the rock to the house.”

West Virginia over Dayton. Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins looks and dresses like an Irish mobster extra from Miller’s Crossing. His players call him “Don.”

Kansas over North Dakota State. The kids playing for the Bison are the only young people left in the entire state of North Dakota. Or as most people call it, “Uhhh, Canada?”

USC over BC. The Trojans have length. And height. And mass. And a win.

Michigan State over Robert Morris. The one Big 10 team that can make a very deep run.
And please, ZZ in Italian is pronounced TZ so his name is IT-ZO, not IZ-ZO. Just as it is PETE-ZA, not PIZZ-A. It doesn’t matter how you pronounce Robert Morris. After this game you’ll never hear the name again.

West Regional

Marquette over Utah State. A good team minus a good guard beats a team with guys in their late 20s back from their 2 year Mormon missions.

Missouri over Cornell. They both go up and down the court with some speed. Only the Tigers will score.

March Madness - Round 1 Predictions - Thursday

2009-03-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

March Madness 2009

I love basketball. My screen name is NY11399 which is the score of the famous Willis Reed game, Game 7 of the 1969-70 NBA Finals between the Knicks and the Lakers.
I was there at the Garden in the blue seats ($5!!!) behind Marv Albert. I was at the old Garden for the famous college basketball game in the ECAC Holiday festival between Princeton and Michigan, Bill Bradley vs. Cazzie Russell. I remember UCLA winning with Goodrich and Hazzard, Alcindor and Jabbar, Walton and Patterson. I saw Texas Western and I saw Dr. Dunkenstein. I love this game.

Here are Thursday’s picks:

East Regional

VCU over UCLA. Eric Maynor is better than Darren Collison. The Bruins foul constantly and get bailed out at home but may not find the officiating as homerific
in Philly as at Pauley. Last chance to see the future President of the Cameroons, Alfred Aboya, and Josh Shipp, a nothing player who will be doing his nothing in Turkey next year if he’s lucky.

Villanova over American. ‘Nova at home in the cradle of liberty playing American.
How fitting. ‘Nova by 20+.

Texas over Minnesota. How the Big-10 got all these teams in the tournament is beyond me. Maybe the Selection Committee thought it was a hockey tournament. Big 12 over Big 10. By 11.

Duke over Binghamton. This could get ugly. But not quite as ugly as Greg Paulus.

South Regional

North Carolina over Radford. Ty Lawson’s toe woes are more interesting than Radford.
And how many of you thought Ty’s name was Tyrone and not Tywon (not China!).

LSU over Butler. Books will not be written about this match-up.

Western Kentucky over Illinois. I listened to Western win last year on a buzzer-beater while parking at Langer’s Deli on Alvarado in L.A. for the best pastrami outside of Katz’s on Houston St. The Illini’s best guard has a bum hand. And tell me how the Big 10 got all these teams in?

Gonzaga over Akron. The Zips are coached by LeBron’s old high school coach. Their nickname is the Zips. If the Zips could go scoreless that would be so great for headline writers everywhere.

Clemson over Michigan. There will be idiots on CBS and ESPN who think they are cool by shortening Wolverines to Wolves. They are idiots. Wolverines and Wolves are separate and distinct animals. Maybe someone on Michigan can call another time-out they don’t have.

Oklahoma over Morgan State. Blake Griffin is orange. Why didn’t he end up at Syracuse?

Midwest Regional

No games Thursday.

West Regional

UConn over Chattanooga. The UConn Huskies (get it? Yukon? Huskies?) against a team named after a “bend in the Tennessee River”. WTF??? UConn by a million.

Texas A&M over BYU. How can you root for a team from a state that bankrolled the hate of Prop. 8 in California? Not me.

Purdue over Northern Iowa. Almost everyone in Indiana has a Robbie Hummel figurine somewhere on a shelf.

Washington over Mississippi State. Huskies at home. If they can get by Purdue in Round 2 they set up an all-Husky game on March 26th. In the old days Husky was a size in boy’s clothing. Very lame.

Maryland over Cal. Maryland has a Puerto Rican guard named Grievous Vasquez.
The best guard ever out of Puerto Rico was Marquette’s Butch Lee who almost led them to an Olympic win over the US. Question – Puerto Rico’s not a country. How do they have an Olympic team?

Memphis over Cal State Northridge. I say Memphis pulls the Matadors apart like so much pulled pork and wins by 35+ as Calipari wants them to show the world. CSUN,
see lose.

Everything Matters - Watchmen Giant Blue Review 3/11/09

2009-03-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

Watchmen

Who watches the Watchmen? The first weekend, 55 million dollars worth of viewers; after that, not so many folks. So, finally, all these years later, an answer to Juvenal’s question. (And no, Juvenal is not some misspelled hip-hop artist’s stage name; he of the many pit bulls.) So yeah, Watchmen. I was curious. I was intrigued. I had seen the first trailer and I had read the graphic novel and I was there Day 1. And it was lame. It was boring. It had not a whit of humor or irony or anything resembling a compelling narrative. So, having watched the Watchmen I feel compelled to write.
And I don’t even care about the missing tentacled monstrosity from space. I’m going
to talk about what was there. Cause what was there sucked.
First off, if the movie (and the book before that) were meant to “reflect contemporary anxieties” I call bullshit. It’s set in 1985. We liberals in the West may not have liked Reagan or Thatcher but in no way were we nearing 12:00 midnight on the Doomsday Clock. The Cuban Missile Crisis two decades earlier, yes. But 1985? No way. The idea of five terms for Nixon, now that would cause anxiety, but imminent nuclear annihilation in 1985, the year of a-Ha’s “Take On Me”, nope. If there was anything we were all afraid of it was the next song by Phil Collins.
So the basic premise that we’re given, that we’re all consumed with the potential for global Hiroshima is just false. And boring. How many more Nixons, how many more prosthetic noses and jowly bass voices and beads of flop sweat while dark eyes dance furtively must we see on screen before Nixon as the Devil is put to rest? The actor playing Nixon looked like the guy from Coach with some baker’s dough stuck on the middle of his face. So much for the Dybbuk.
So the timeframe is wrong and the big demon is lame. Well, let’s go to our heroes, our finely deconstructed super-heroes with damaged ids, egos and libidos.
Dr. Manhattan, or should I say Billy Corgan of Smashing Giant Blue Pumpkins, was bland from the get. That stupid new-agey voice. The giant nakedness, the giant blue junk, his oh-so-symbolic watchmaker father (Benjamin Button does the same thing with the whole prelude with the blind clockmaker – the battle lines behind God and behind science both use watchmaker and clockmaker symbolism) just too fucking much. And when he builds his weird gears-within-gears assemblage on Mars, Giant Manhattan Smurf basically does a clock’s inner workings made into a cathedral by Gaudi.
Or Rolex in Wackyland. He built this city, we get it. And it’s sharp and it hurts.
And the good Doctor’s soap opera backstory? The ex-g.f. with the chemo comb-over, revealed on some tabloid news show? Mexican telenovelas have more intricately plotted and more interesting devices. And they’re made for a sub-literate audience still living an agrarian existence. Hmm, kind of like fanboys except fanboys sub take-out for subsistence farming.
But he does have shading. He makes out with the underage Silk Spectre. He cares about humanity, he doesn’t care about humanity. Before the Dark Knight, before deconstructing the superhero ethos, the only questions posed by fans were simplistic ones on the order of, “Who would win a fight between Superman and Batman?” Ah, the good old days.

And that stupid symbol on his head. Is it the old alchemical symbol for gold? Is it a hydrogen atom? Does it matter? Do we care? I find I do as days later that’s the only question I have about the character. He drew a perfect circle. He’s god. Now draw the pirate and the parrot and go to matchbook art school and leave us all alone.
Nite-Owl? Batman with erectile dysfunction? He’s good. He goes to bad parts of town to talk to old superheroes. He doesn’t quite know what to do with women. He’s got a bit of a paunch. He’s boring as fuck. If anyone asks why actors always want to play bad rather than good, point to Nite-Owl and Rorschach. One’s St. Theresa with night-vision goggles and one’s batshit crazy. And one makes you want to watch and one makes you want to leave. And one more thing - Whether or not Dr, Manhattan’s sperm is cancerous or not, there’s no way his bitch, Silk Spectre, sleeps with this avian loser.
And his name – Dan Dreiberg. Can we get any more lame? I can hear Carson as Art Fern saying, “Ewww, Dan Dreiberg.” Try it at home. A bit nasal. No, more. Good. That alone has more shading than the character itself.
And his love interest, Silk Spectre? As they say in L.A., “what a lox.” Pia Zadora wasn’t available? Sally Field selling Boniva, some bone supplement for the soon-to-die set, is more convincing. Malin Akerman is her name. Malin as in Malign. As in Mail-In, like her performance. Just such a nothing. And now never ever say or write her name again.
Ozymandias, the world’s smartest man, blonde Aryan superman, complete with quasi-Nazi accent. So let’s get this straight – he’s obsessed with Alexander the Great yet he names himself after Rameses the Great, an Egyptian pharaoh. Why not Alexander? Well, cause there’s no famous sonnet by Shelley called Alexander whose theme is the hubris of man. We all die, great and small, and our works and deeds are forgotten. The famous line from the poem “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” is ironic because we’re just looking at ruins. In Watchmen all the irony is removed surgically because his works, the destruction of some of the world’s great cities – IS A CAUSE FOR DESPAIR. Thank you Mr. Moore for taking a poem we’ll be reading for centuries to serve in your book which people will stop reading, oh, about ten minutes after seeing the movie.
And the less said about the lame pet of his, Bubastis was it? A plush toy sold in gas stations? What was up with that? Oh, thjs Ozymandias is weird, look, he’s got one of those? When he kills all his workers, scientists, whatever, so they can accompany him to the next life isn’t that the clue that he’s going to die as well? But he doesn’t? He doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid. Pretty smart, after all.
Which leaves us with the Comedian and Rorschach, the only real flesh and blood characters in the movie.
The Comedian kills Kennedy, he kills the Vietnamese woman carrying his baby, he shoots unarmed demonstrators, and he fathers Silk Spectre. All the killing is bad enough but must every sci-fi fantasy story involve parentage that’s traced to the worst of us ala Darth Vader? He’s the Comedian not because he’s funny but because he knows that life is pointless and meaningless – it’s all a joke, a great, big cosmic joke. He dies early in the film but then jeeps coming back into the stories of others for the entire almost-three hours of the film. Having sat through the film, I know exactly how he felt.

But at least he had some character and some blood and some contradictions. He was a human being. As was Rorschach, the man with Mask of a Thousand Blots. With a childhood comprised of equal parts Dickens and Cormac McCarthy, Rorschach is a staunch defender of the truth. It may be his truth, but at least it’s truth. His death at the end gave me the only lasting image of the film – the snow angel made of his blood and viscera. I know it’s in the book but it looked great on the screen. And in terms of a hero, what better hero than a damaged sociopath who only wants the Truth? And since there won’t be a sequel, at the end we are left hoping that his journal gets published so THAT PEOPLE WILL KNOW THE HORROR AND THE TRUTH.
If only they’d published it before I went to see the movie.

Greatest Smackdown Ever of Creationism/Intelligent Design

2009-03-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

How to respond to requests to debate creationists
Category: Creationism
Posted on: February 18, 2009 4:15 PM, by PZ Myers

professor at the University of Vermont, Nicholas Gotelli, got an invitation to debate one of the clowns at the Discovery Institute. Here's what they wrote.

Dear Professor Gotelli,

I saw your op-ed in the Burlington Free Press and appreciated your support of free speech at UVM. In light of that, I wonder if you would be open to finding a way to provide a campus forum for a debate about evolutionary science and intelligent design. The Discovery Institute, where I work, has a local sponsor in Burlington who is enthusiastic to find a way to make this happen. But we need a partner on campus. If not the biology department, then perhaps you can suggest an alternative.

Ben Stein may not be the best person to single-handedly represent the ID side. As you're aware, he's known mainly as an entertainer. A more appropriate alternative or addition might be our senior fellows David Berlinski or Stephen Meyer, respectively a mathematician and a philosopher of science. I'll copy links to their bios below. Wherever one comes down in the Darwin debate, I think we can all agree that it is healthy for students to be exposed to different views--in precisely the spirit of inviting controversial speakers to campus, as you write in your op-ed.

I'm hoping that you would be willing to give a critique of ID at such an event, and participate in the debate in whatever role you feel comfortable with.

A good scientific backdrop to the discussion might be Dr. Meyer's book that comes out in June from HarperCollins, "Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design."

On the other hand, Dr. Belinski may be a good choice since he is a critic of both ID and Darwinian theory.

Would it be possible for us to talk more about this by phone sometime soon?

With best wishes,
David Klinghoffer
Discovery Institute

You'll enjoy Dr Gotelli's response.

Dear Dr. Klinghoffer:

Thank you for this interesting and courteous invitation to set up a debate about evolution and creationism (which includes its more recent relabeling as "intelligent design") with a speaker from the Discovery Institute. Your invitation is quite surprising, given the sneering coverage of my recent newspaper editorial that you yourself posted on the Discovery Institute's website:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/

However, this kind of two-faced dishonesty is what the scientific community has come to expect from the creationists.

Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. Creationism is in the same category.

Instead of spending time on public debates, why aren't members of your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences? If you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish. Academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly explored. Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or scientific proof of the existence of a god. That would be Nobel Prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the prominent mainstream journals.

"Conspiracy" is the predictable response by Ben Stein and the frustrated creationists. But conspiracy theories are a joke, because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and on new empirical studies that overturn previously established principles. Creationism doesn't live up to these standards, so its proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books, blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don't maintain scientific standards.

Finally, isn't it sort of pathetic that your large, well-funded institute must scrape around, panhandling for a seminar invitation at a little university in northern New England? Practicing scientists receive frequent invitations to speak in science departments around the world, often on controversial and novel topics. If creationists actually published some legitimate science, they would receive such invitations as well.

So, I hope you understand why I am declining your offer. I will wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages of Nature and Science. But until it appears there, it isn't science and doesn't merit an invitation.

In closing, I do want to thank you sincerely for this invitation and for your posting on the Discovery Institute Website. As an evolutionary biologist, I can't tell you what a badge of honor this is. My colleagues will be envious.

Sincerely yours,

Nick Gotelli

P.S. I hope you will forgive me if I do not respond to any further e-mails from you or from the Discovery Institute. This has been entertaining, but it interferes with my research and teaching.

WHY DOES A PERSON BECOME A REPUBLICAN?

2009-02-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

538.com, Nate Silver's terrific site, has a great post up by Sean Quinn called WHY DOES A PERSON BECOME A REPUBLICAN? The comments are thought-provoking. Here's mine"

David Castro said...
Why Does a Person Become a Republican?

Fear of The Other
which leads to
Hatred of the Other
which blends perfectly with
Your Own Feeling of Superiority
which justifies in your mind
Your Racism and Sexism and all other isms
which you will deny to your dying day since
You Live in a Constant State of Denial
because
You Have Never Spent an Introspective Moment
Truthfully, Painfully Examining Your Life
because
You Believe in Your Own Innate Superiority
because
The Others are not like you
You Are Better

February 28, 2009 8:44 AM

Slumdog Millionaire uncut full feature spoof Redneck Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-24T19:53:00.001-08:00

As tribute to the Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, we created a redneck spoof. Enjoy!

Everything Matters - 2/23/09 - Oscars Wrap-Up Edition

2009-02-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/23/09 – Oscars Wrap-Up

Things I Learned During Last Night’s Oscars:

Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller are the same size. Which makes them the
same size as the kids from Slumdog.

When they had the 5 previous winners in the acting categories stand in an arc
and look all noble and serious (i.e. Tilda Swinton wearing Greek statue drapery)
it reminded me of numerous ludicrous Star Trek episodes where Greek gods or
super-aliens stand around in an arc looking all noble and serious as they force
Kirk and Spock to fight for their lives and the lives of the crew of the Enterprise.

And wouldn’t it have livened up the show if Supporting Actress nominees
Amy Adams and Penelope Cruz had to fight for the Oscar AND their lives?!
And the lives of the crew of the Enterprise?!

Robert Pattinson, the young male vampire from Twilight, has yin sanpaku eyes.
Sanpaku eyes is the Japanese concept for "three whites," wherein the white of the eye
is visible below the iris, above the lower lid. Thought by some to indicate ill health, mental imbalance, and a possible foretelling of tragedy; thought by others to be very sexy and charismatic. Other famous people with Yin Sanpaku eyes include Marilyn Monroe, JFK, RFK and Abraham Lincoln. This is the single most interesting thing about this
remarkably vapid-looking actor.

While we’re talking vapidity, Zac Efron’s face has no affect. None. He looks like
he could be a soulless serial killer or rolled up inn a ball, rocking for hours in that little cabinet under the sink.

In the Oscar swag given to the stars last night, each A-lister got to take home a
Slumdog kid.

Stiller was brilliant as Serpico-wannabe Joaquin Phoenix. Brad Pitt’s already
planning to top him. Next year Pitt’s going to show up with Octo-Mom Nadya
Suleman and fuck with everybody.

Or better yet, Billy Bob Thornton, Angelina’s ex, shows up with Nadya Suleman.

I’m Daniel Craig. I’m James Bond. I sleep with the most beautiful, most glamorous, sexiest women alive. And I’m presenting an Oscar with Sarah Jessica Parker???
Everybody’s grandmother would refer to her looks as “interesting”. Which is
Grandmother-speak for “sheesh”.

Phillipe Petit did magic and balanced the Oscar on his chin. He was great.
Next year’s host – the guy at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco who does both
those things AND juggles chainsaws.

Two great things about last night’s show – No Jack Nicholson and no Robin Williams
making 37 references to Jack Nicholson.

I know she makes movies and I know some may have made money. But does anyone really think that Jennifer Aniston is a movie star???

Is there a soul who thought that both Sean Penn and Jerry Lewis would epitomize graciousness? Penn’s acceptance speech was heartfelt, pointed and smart.
And Lewis was classy and brief. And just as he did after not winning for Dreamgirls,
and even though he was presenting the award, Eddie Murphy left the Oscars immediately after NOT winning the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award.

Has Beyonce’s mother ever made clothes for anyone other than Beyonce and her sister?
Were any of the last night’s stars wearing anything from the Beyonce’s Mother’s
Collection?

Greatest acceptance speech ever – the Japanese guy who won an animation Oscar
and thanked his pencil, the Academy and animation itself. And then actually said,
Domo arigato, Mister Roboto. And somewhere in “classic rock world”, Dennis de
Young of Styx has to buy another round for Loverboy and Air Supply.

Sophia Loren knew Machiavelli personally. And she still looked great.

Steve Martin and Tina Fey are now comedy’s Tracy and Hepburn. And in 20
seconds they obliterated the lunacy that is the “religion” called Scientology.
Obama, you want to balance the budget? Take away Scientology’s tax-exempt status.

Insufferable? Pretentious? Smug? Meet Jack Black.

The guy who won for Speilzeugland said it took 4 years to make a 14 minute movie.
That’s 3 and a half minutes a year. I think James Franco and Seth Rogen as the stoners
in Pineapple Express work at a faster pace. Which leads me to believe that unified Germany has some really great pot.

Meryl Streep’s daughter’s name is Mamie Gummer. Amazingly enough, “Mamie? Gummer.” is what Dwight Eisenhower used to say to his wife when he was feeling stressed out.

When they didn’t see Owen Wilson at the Oscars did any of his friends go to his
house to make sure he was okay?

Little-known Oscar fact: Ryan Seacrest is not allowed inside the building.

Prior to last night’s show, Kate Winslet’s dad could only be heard by dogs and
Kate Winslet.

Everything Matters-2/19/09-Oscars Edition - part 6 (the last)

2009-02-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 6

SUPPORTING ACTOR – the nominees are Josh Brolin/Milk,
Robert Downey Jr./Tropic Thunder, Philip Seymour Hoffman/Doubt,
Heath Ledger/The Dark Knight, and Michael Shannon/Revolutionary Road.
Has there ever been as great a lock to win anything as Heath Ledger to win
Best Male Supporting Actor? Maybe Secretariat to win the Belmont after
winning the Kentucky Derby by something like 37 lengths. And I’m not so sure Secretariat’s performance was any better than that by Heath ledger as The
Joker. He will be missed. And nice of the Academy to announce today that when he wins his Oscar will go to his daughter Matilda… when she turns 18!
Hmmm, somebody go to Shirley Temple’s house. She got one when she was like 6.
Oh, but she was already sleeping with Harry Warner… Never mind.
So Josh, Robert, Philip and Michael, thank you playing. We’ve got some wonderful parting gifts for you including the home version of the Academy Awards and
some Z-Brick wall tile and we hope to see you again sometime.
Just not here on this stage tonight.

BEST ACTRESS – Anne Hathaway/Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie/Changeling,
Melissa Leo/Frozen River, Meryl Streep/Doubt, and Kate Winslet/The Reader.
Okay, Melissa Leo, great that you’re here for a small, indie film. You represent all the talented indie actresses out there who aren’t murdered by Phil Spector and just continue
to do quality work year in an year out. But there’s no way in hell you’re getting an Oscar tonight.
And Angelina, with your pipe-cleaner arms and legs you’re almost believable as an actual human rather than an action heroine who packs a punch. If you made a fist I’m afraid the bones in your hands would poke through the skin so please don’t. You do look good in a cloche. But Oscar hasn’t given an award to anyone in a cloche since 1935. Next.
Meryl, you’ve got about 9 Oscars but please, not for this overblown, hyper-melodramatic
soap opera about priestly and sisterly (nunly?) shenanigans in the Bronx years ago.
Priests molesting children and the twist is SHE NEVER MADE THE CALL TO HIS OLD PARISH BUT HE LEFT ANY WAY??? Like O. Henry. Unpublished O. Henry.
Anne Hathaway gave the best performance of the year as the sister interrupted in Rachel Getting Married. She was tough, she was crazy, she was victimized, she was cold-blooded. In other words she totally inhabited this character. Terrific.
But she won’t win cause the Academy likes Holocaust stories and special needs stories.
And Kate Winslet plays an unrepentant Nazi, BUT SHE CAN’T READ. A special-needs Nazi. Her final solution is learning to read. I hated this film but she will win because the Academy does not ask me to be the final arbiter on taste. Yes, Germany needs to constantly reevaluate their national soul. A good place to be would be with their Hitler Youth Pope and his friend, the Holocaust denying Bishop.
Kate Winslet, Oscar winner.

BEST ACTOR – and the nominees are Richard Jenkins/The Visitor, Frank Langella/Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn/Milk, Brad Pitt/The CC of BB, and Mickey Rourke/
The Wrestler.
Again, Richard Jenkins, the male Melissa Leo, thank you for playing our game.
Make sure to get Brad’s autograph on the way out.
Frank Langella, nice caricature, nice cartoon, but I’m tired of hearing how great he was as Nixon. I always felt that I was watching Frank Langella ACT. A great actor, a great performance, would’ve made me forget that. Sorry, Frank. (The great Mr. By-the-by from The 12 Chairs)
Brad Pitt, a true triumph of something, lets call it PEP, performance enhanced performance (technology akin to steroids in baseball) but certainly not acting.
No way.
It’s a contest between two heavyweights – Sean Penn, brilliant as dead gay martyr Harvey Milk, and Mickey Rourke, brilliant as soon to be dead WWE martyr
Randy”the Ram” Robinson. Penn was great except for the guns. Harvey Milk had arms like Angelina Jolie. Sean has guns like Suge Knight. Just weird when they were on screen.
And Rourke looked like he really did have staples shot into his back. I think he really had a bypass. He’s got to win. If only to hear his speech. And he might just bring his surviving dogs on stage with him to accept. With a shout-out to Loki. Yes!

BEST PICTURE – and the nominees are The CC of BB, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire.
Basically a two-horse race between Milk and Slumdog.
The CC of BB will go down in history as the most nominations and the fewest wins.
But hey, it’s history.
Frost/Nixon, about as historically accurate as The 13th Warrior and that at least had Vikings and Neanderthals. On horseback!
The Reader, the reveal that she couldn’t read was about as subtle as the Woman is really a Man reveal, clear to anyone who ever lived in a big city, or had ever seen men and women before, in The Crying Game from a few years back. And do we really have to hear Kate Winslet prattle on about how she’s proud of her real woman’s body and how she likes her ass these days? Good for you, Kate. I’m glad you’ve beaten that whole negative self-image thing. But I go to the movies to see people I might not see in my bedroom. Oh wait. That’s what the internet is for. Never mind.
Milk would’ve won in any year without Slumdog so sorry, Harvey, and all the sons of Harvey. Your story will continue to inspire people. And maybe in your next life you’ll be allowed to get married. Just not to that moron Jack. What a maroon!
So the winner, Best Picture, as if there was any doubt, the single best picture of the year, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. Because, as well all know, it is written.
And because freida Pinto is the single most gorgeous woman in the movies today.
Jai Ho everybody! Please drive home safely.

Everything Matters -2/19/09-Oscars Edition - part 5

2009-02-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 5

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – the nominees are Eric Roth and Robin
Swicord/The CC of BB, John Patrick Shanley/Doubt, Peter Morgan/Frost/Nixon,
David Hare/The Reader, and Simon Beaufoy/Slumdog Millionaire.
Lets’s see, The CC of BB was so long I felt that I had passed Einstein’s time-space
loop and was aging both forwards and backwards and this will not sit well with Oscar judges.
Doubt is one of those phony “important” pictures that really isn’t the more you
examine it. Oooh, Meryl Streep. Oooh, Philip Seymour Hoffman. They’re both
so well respected. This picture must matter. But it doesn’t. And the picture has the shameless Hollywood (maybe Broadway too) ending where Meryl Streep is
racked with guilt under the tree, almost shrieking, “I have doubts.” So bald, so
lame. But the costumes. Nuns in the Bronx in the early 60s? Again, straight
from Pee-Wee’s closet. Not a winner.
Frost/Nixon, phony history masquerading as important. Doubt for the secular
set. Nope.
The Reader; why do folks think this is a good movie? Her character has no shading.
She never changes and the kid and Ralph (where the fuck does RAFE come from?)
Are the saddest people in the world because an older woman you once fucked stopped fucking you??? After a month or so when you were 15???!!! The only person still fucking the same person they were fucking at 15 is Bristol Palin! Nope.
And the Oscar goes to, Slumdog Millionaire. Not a single mis-step or mis-scene
(or even mise-en-scene), a great epic romance writ large against all of India.
And yes, I actually did write that sentence.

FOREIGN FILM – and the nominees are The Baader Meinhof Complex/Germany,
The Class/France, Departures/Japan, Revanche/Austria, and Waltz with Bashir/Israel.
(the synopses are from Oscar.com)
The Baader Meinhof Complex - The roots of the infamous German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction, are traced to the turbulent events of the late 1960s. When a political riot leaves a protester dead and an assassination attempt is made on a left-wing leader, student radicals Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin join forces with journalist Ulrike Meinhof to form a violent faction that turns to bombings, kidnappings, and murder to achieve its goals. I came of age during this time and I am the audience for this. And this will never come to Asheville, a city of 72,000 in formerly red North Carolina. Netflix, baby.
But no Oscar.
The Class - This portrait of a year in the life of a class of Parisian middle school students focuses on the ethnically diverse children who comprise the group and their dedicated teacher, François Marin. Unfolding almost entirely within the classroom itself, the story explores the diversity of personality and background among the students that makes Marin's work both challenging and rewarding. Oscar voters love realistic portrayals of public school, considering none of their children will ever drive by one, much less see the inside of one. Makes limousine liberals feel good about themselves. And limousine is a French word. Possible winner.
Deprtures - When cellist Daigo Kobayashi finds himself unemployed, he returns with his wife to his hometown and answers an ad he believes has been placed by a travel agency. The available position, however, turns out to be with a company that prepares corpses for cremation--an elaborate ritual for which the stunned Daigo proves to have a surprising aptitude. An unemployed cellist. Corpse preparation? How did I miss this?
Or better yet – How did this get made? Even in Japan? Well, in two years we’ll get the American remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar and it will be really good. I’m sure.
Revanche - A crime results in a web of guilt and revenge that knits together the lives of two very different couples. Ex-con Alex plans to help his girlfriend, Tamara, escape from her life in a brothel by robbing a bank in his grandfather's small town. When the plan goes awry, Alex is drawn into a complex relationship with Robert, a local policeman, and his kindhearted wife, Suzanne. This is the story of every girl from the Ukraine since the beginning of the internet. Not a chance.
And the winner is – Waltz with Bashir - Filmmaker Ari Folman's animated feature explores his own participation as part of the Israeli army in the 1982 Lebanon War. Unable to recall key parts of his actions during the war, Folman interviews other former soldiers and begins to piece together both his own past and the repercussions of a troubling period in modern history. We can learn from this film and demand that the entire Bush Administration be held accountable for the last 8 years. Friends, who I love and respect, as opposed to friends I just love, have said this is a great film. It will open in Asheville, NC in 17 years.

DIRECTOR – The nominees are David Fincher/The CC of BB,
Ron Howard/Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant/Milk, Stephen Daldry/The Reader,
and Danny Boyle/Slumdog Millionaire.
David Fincher directed a lot of CGI ghosts and Brad Pitt with those EKG things stuck to his body for motion-capture and we know how good that Tom Hanks Xmas train movie was a few years back? I don’t care that it’s technology.
That doesn’t make it good.
Although the Blind Clockmaker at the beginning of the film is an allegory for Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Anything that makes religious fanatics crazy I am for.
But an Oscar, Nope.
Ron Howard always casts his brother Clint. Ron was Opie and he was and may still
be cute. But Clint looks like one of the People Under the Stairs or a Boogen and history be damned, it’s all blown when Clint’s giganto-cephalic profile appears. Nope.
Gus Van Sant is the other person who can win. Milk is a great biopic and a very good movie. But he won’t.
Stephen Daldry is in the running to give them 5 nominees. Let’s be honest here.
He got to tell his good friend Sam Mendes’s wife, Kate Winselt, to parade around naked
for weeks at a time. I’ve tried that with wives of friends and nothing. Not even a quick shot using my cellphone. Call it what you will, it won’t win an Oscar.
But the Oscar will go to Danny Boyle for Slumdog. The Indian landslide continues.
Thanks to Shiva and Allah, as the lead character says. And the voters of the Academy.
Jai Ho!

SUPPORTING ACTRESS – the nominees are Amy Adams/Doubt, Penelope Cruz/Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis/Doubt, Taraji P. Henson/The CC of BB, and
Marisa Tomei/The Wrestler.
Well, first off, the two women from Doubt cancel each other out, Amy Adams and Viola Davis. So then it’s a choice between Taraji P. Henson who may have been a Muppet in another lifetime and since she ages about 60 years in The CC of BB, may well be a Muppet. And I love that she’s Taraji P. Henson as if there was another Taraji Henson when she went to get her SAG card so she threw that P. in. She was fine but the most amazing thing about her character, and the thing that was never ever explored, WHY SHE NEVER SAID ANYTHING TO ANYONE ABOUT THIS MIRACULOUS BACKWARDS-AGIN PERSON SHE WAS RASING AS HER SON???!!! She shouldn’t win just for that.
So for me it’s a choice between Penelope Cruz, so hot, and that hair, my god, I want to live in her hair, and Marisa Tomei playing an exotic dancer in The Wrstler, who paraded around naked almost as much as Kate Winslet. Mickey Rourke may have the broad back to carry Tomei to another win but I say Penelope Cruz, if only for showing the world what real, hot Latin sexuality is all about.
The winner – Penelope Cruz.

Everything Matters - 2/19/09 - Oscars Edition - Part 4

2009-02-19T14:47:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 4

CINEMATOGRAPHY – the nominees are Changeling, The CC of BB,
The Dark Knight, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.
Changeling is a very strange. It’s a glamour shot of a movie; Angelina going
all serious as a distraught mother in 1920 L.A. playing off her 2009 role as the
together Mom married to a man who ages backwards. But the movie doesn’t know
what it wants to be. is it about her and her missing son, replaced by an imposter?
Is it a mental institutional horror story, Roaring Twenties Girl Interrupted?, or is it a serial-murder mystery set in the deserts outside what’s going to become Los Angeles?
None of the movies it wants to be is satisfying. And the whole is weaker than the sum
of its parts. Most people on leaving just wonder why it’s not THE Changeling?
But that sounds like some weird M. Night Shamalayan movie. Hmm, might’ve been better. Until the ending. No Oscar for this. But OctoMom Nadya Suleman will be rooting for this one.
The CC of BB will also not win yet another Oscar. It looked pretty enough but
not nearly as pretty as Brad. The director said the same thing to Cate Blanchett
when she asked for better light.
The Dark Knight – somebody had to keep the camera in focus when the
Batmobile goes shooting through Gotham. Good job, focus puller, but not
Oscar-worthy.
The Reader – Nazi porn with an almost-always-nude Kate Winslet braving the colorlessness of postwar Germany. The whole movie is done in grey scale.
So many shades of grey. Or gray. Doesn’t matter, this wasn’t exactly
Lawrencce of Arabia. Not a chance.
And the Oscar goes to – Slumdog Millionaire. More colors than the 256 million
on Photoshop. Now that’s cinematography! Jai Ho!

ART DIRECTION – the nominees are Changeling, The CC of BB,
The Dark Knight, The Duchess, Revolutionary Road.
Changeling had to make present-day Los Angeles look like 1920s Los Angeles.
So they went to East L.A. Not a winner.
The CC of BB might win this. They had an old TV that they watched the Beatles
on Ed Sullivan. They borrowed it from Pee-Wee Herman’s old set. Maybe.
The Dark Knight could be the sleeper. As Stevie Wonder might say, “Gotham City;
just like I pictured it.” Maybe plus.
The Duchess might win if they don’t win the Oscar for Best Costume. If they don’t
win one of these, they might not make effete period pieces. Possible.
And
Revolutionary Road with all those 1950s touches. Again, Pee-Wee Herman’s old s
et could’ve supplied everything for this film. Give the Oscar to Paul Reubens.
I say Revolutionary Road gets the Oscar. It didn’t do any box-office, nobody saw it,
but people think it must’ve been real good.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM – the nominees are Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, and WALL-E.
Are we kidding? Kung Fu Panda is something on the menu in Beijing.
Bolt is the Wanted of animated films – What the fuck was Bolt?!
And the winner is, again, are we kidding, WALL-E.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – the nominees are Courtney Hunt/Frozen River,
Mike Leigh/Happy-Go-Lucky, Martin McDonagh/In Bruges, Dustin lance Black/Milk, and Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter/WALL-E.
Let’s face it, it’s between the heroic gay martyr, MILK, and WALL-E, the gay little machine in the future. You don’t think he’s gay? WALL-E’s favorite film is the
musical Hello Dolly, starring gay-world icon Barbra Streisand. Imagine if WALL-E
had found a VHS copy of Yentl? Now that’s a movie I want to see!
Milk will win because it will not win so many others and the Penn was brilliant but he won’t win and the guy’s dead and his life and his story matter. And it should.

Everything Matters - 2/19/09 - Academy Awards Edition - part 3

2009-02-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 3

ORIGINAL SONG – the nominees are Down to Earth from Wall-E,
Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, and O Saya from Slumdog Millionaire.
Down to Earth from Wall-E – I love Peter Gabriel. He’s was championing
world music before we even called it world music. And who can forget John
Cusack holding the boombox in the rain in Say Anything while In Your Eyes plays?
But for all the hype about Wall-E, the first 30-40 minutes are brilliant when it’s
just the machines and their world. Once humans are introduced, as in life, the
whole thing turns to shit, or in this case, an eco-friendly lesson episode of The Jetsons.
With fat people. And this song is not In Your Eyes. There is no light, no heat,
and no Oscar.
Jai Ho – the perfect Bollywood ending, the entire cast dancing in the train station
to the uplifting Jai Ho. This should win and if not, you are a mother-jodh which
probably means what we all think it means.
And if it doesn’t win then
O Saya – should win. MIA just had a baby and she should win simply because
she didn’t have eight babies!! At the Grammys her belly looked almost as big as
Kanye West’s ego. I’m playing this now.
The Oscar goes to O Saya.
Had there been a Love Theme from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button done by,
let’s say, Phil Collins, that’s another Oscar that The CC of BB wouldn’t win.
Either way, Jai Ho or O Saya, world music wins. Sorry, Peter. And for the record
they don’t call it world music. Wherever it’s made they just call it THEIR MUSIC.

ORIGINAL SCORE – the nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/Alexandre Desplat, Defiance/James Newton Howard, Milk/Danny Elfman, Slumdog Millionaire/A.R.Rahman, and WALL-E/Thomas Newton.
I defy anyone to hum or whistle anything from the CC of BB. Impossible. We were
too busy thinking about all those different Brad Pitts.
Defiance? Belorussian Jews killing Nazis? No, but if you hum a few bars…
Milk, score by Danny Elfman. Elfman usually works with Tim Burton.
What would Tim Burton’s Milk have looked like? First off, Johnny Depp is Milk
and he’s the single prettiest 40 year old Jew in history. And I’m counting Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson and they’re younger!!! So lets be glad it wasn’t Tim Burton’s Milk. But still, not a winner.
WALL-E? NO-E?
And the winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Accepting the Oscar are the 39 million people
of Mumbai. We may be here a while.

SOUND EDITING – the nominees are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, and Wanted.
The Dark Knight, great look. But the sound? I heard everything. Isn’t that the fucking point?!
Iron Man. Yep, heard everything here too. Even Samuel L. Jackson screaming as Nick Fury after the credits. Okay, making his voice palatable for the human ear, I can see that thia is sound editing.
WALL-E is animated. The actors are in a recording studio. How hard is that? Nope.
Wanted. What the fuck was Wanted? Anybody? It’s not even on IMDB. Nope.
The winner – Slumdog Millionaire. The filmmakers went all over the Indian subcontinent and we heard everything in glorious SOUND.

SOUND MIXING – the nominees are The CC of BB, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, and Wanted.
Once again, if the sound mixers of The CC of BB had aged backwards maybe they’d
win an Oscar but as they didn’t, no way.
The Dark Knight – a real movie movie. But we come out talking about Heath Ledger
as The Joker. I guess that means we heard everything he had to say. Thank you sound mixers but no big prize yet.
WALL-E – again, you don’t like the sound, call the actors up and have them do it again, over and over. It’s an animated feature, you have them locked in a room. You can do anything you want with them. No big deal mixing this sound. Sorry.
Wanted. Again? Somebody greased some Academy palms. Wanted? Oh, that mindless movie with Anglina Jolie where they bend bullets by flicking their wrists as they shot their guns? Even as I watched it I realized I was dying a little more as time was slipping away from me for the 2 hours I was in the theater. No fucking way!
And the winner is – Slumdog Millionaire. Y’know how hard it is to mix Hindi and Urdu and Bengali and English and cars and cows and cellphones and television studios and television sets and the sound the Taj Mahal makes at night? Clearly the best Sound Mixing.

Everything Matters - 2/19/09 - Academy Awards Edition - Part 2

2009-02-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 2

FILM EDITING – the nominees are The Curious case of Benjamin Button,
The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Milk, and Slumdog Millionaire.
Now the CC of BB was nominated for just about every possible Oscar and it can
make history by not winning the most Oscars in history. So let’s keep that string
going here. The CC of BB, nope.
The Dark Knight, maybe the best comic book movie ever. But that whole subplot
with Harvey Dent as TwoFace? That’s where a good film editor was needed. Nope.
Frost/Nixon, god, did I hate this movie. Phony history and the jowls of Frank Langella do not, I repeat, equal gravitas and a good movie. ALSO, the history in the movie is phony, false, A LIE. NIXON NEVER APOLOGIZES FOR WATERGATE OR ANYTHING ELSE. AND THE WHOLE DRUNKEN PHONE CALL THAT THE PLOT RESTS ON – IT NEVER HAPPENED!!! The only thing I hate more than the phony history of this movie is the real history of Richard Nixon. Nope.
Milk, a wonderful movie about a great man, great writing, great acting, and great editing. But sorry. There’s another movie called –
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE that is transcendant. The Oscar goes to Slumdog.
Because yes, it is written.

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT) – the nominees are The Conscience of Nhem En, The Final Inch, Smile Pinki, The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306.
There will be no snark. There will only be honor and respect and gratitude that people dedicate their lives to bringing the subjects of documentaries such as these to light.
(synopses from Oscar.com)
The Conscience of Nhem En - In the wake of Cambodia's takeover by the Khmer Rouge in 1975, a sixteen-year-old soldier named Nhem En was instructed to photograph the tens of thousands of citizens who passed through a processing center on the way to their execution. Impossible to read that without tearing up, close to sobbing.
The Final Inch - Contributing to the global efforts to eradicate polio worldwide, dedicated individuals in India travel throughout the country urging parents to vaccinate their children against the disease.
Smile Pinki - Pinki, a girl in rural India whose cleft lip has made her a social outcast, has a chance for a new life when she meets a dedicated social worker.
The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 3006 - The Reverend Samuel "Billy" Kyles, a witness to Martin Luther King's assassination, reflects on King's life and legacy as he recalls the events surrounding his murder.
Sadly there is only one Oscar. Luckily there may be more than one heaven. And that is where the subjects and the makers of these films will find themselves someday, among the honored and exalted.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – the nominees are The Betrayal (Nerakhoon),
Encounters at the End of the World, The Garden, Man on Wire, Trouble the Water.
(synopses from Oscar.com)
Again, these subjects and filmmakers deserve our honor and respect. This is a no-snark zone.
The Betrayal - The life of Laotian immigrant Thavisouk Phrasavath serves as a metaphor for the far-reaching repercussions that are still felt from America's involvement in the Vietnam War. When his family suffered persecution following the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia as a result of his father's work for the CIA, Phrasavath's mother fled with eight of her ten children to a life of poverty in Brooklyn.
Encounters at the End of the World - In the extreme conditions that define existence in Antarctica, filmmaker Werner Herzog explores the range of personalities who have been drawn to spend their working lives in one of the world's harshest environments. From research scientists to blue collar workers, Herzog's subjects demonstrate a self-reliance and intrepid sense of adventure that both equip them for their frigid surroundings and place them outside the mainstream of society.
The Garden - In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a fourteen-acre expanse of city-owned land in a South Central neighborhood was developed by local residents into one of the country's largest community gardens. In 2003, the tract was sold back to its original owner, whose plans to develop it prompted area residents to organize in an attempt to stop efforts to oust them from the land.
Man on Wire - In 1974, French performance artist Philippe Petit hid with several friends after hours in the World Trade Center, strung a high wire between its Twin Towers...and walked between them for the better part of an hour, to the amazement of New Yorkers on the streets below. How Petit planned and executed his spectacle is detailed in extensive interviews with Petit and those who helped him achieve his dream.
And
Trouble the Water - As the drama of Hurricane Katrina unfolded, New Orleans resident Kimberly Roberts recorded the chaos and devastation of her own experience on videotape. Her footage forms the heart of this portrait of Roberts's long journey with her husband, from the early days of the storm to their subsequent evacuation, resettlement in Memphis, and eventual return to the decimated city.
I have seen Man on Wire and I have seen Trouble the Water. Again, just split it five ways and we all win.

COSTUME – the nominees are Australia, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
The Duchess, Milk, and Revolutionary Road.
Okay, back to sniping and snark.
Australia? Dusters and Oz-inspired Calvin Klein? Jesse James in the Outbaack with the occasional loincloth? Not a chance.
The CC of BB? Brad wears Steve McQueen chinos and t-shirts and sweatshirts and even rides a motorcycle. It’s like a spread from Men’s Vogue:Brad is Steve Issue. But an Oscar for what you can buy at K-Mart? Nope.
The Duchess – was this a movie? Did anyone see it? But it has a name that means a previous century and that means Costumes. Looks like a winner.
Milk – the least fashion-conscious movie ever made about gay men. Nope.
Revolutionary Road – mid 1950s, late 1950s, we’ve all seen it on Mad Men and it looks just fine there. Maybe if the movie had any shelf life?
The winner – The Duchess. And under his breath, Gus van Sant mutters, “Bitch.”

Everything Matters - 2/19/09 - Academy Awards Edition - Part 1

2009-02-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition

The Oscars. The little golden man. The stars, the history of the movies, Hollywood.
Hugh Jackman?????

WTF???!!!

Wolverine is hosting the Oscars?!

I want a comedian. I want snark and social commentary. I don’t want a giant
Australian actor made famous by playing a mutant with a skeleton made of
adamantium, the hardest substance known to man.

So the ratings haven’t been good lately. Who cares?
Give me Sarah Silverman. She would fucking kill.
Give me Stephen Colbert. He would fucking kill.
Give me Margaret Cho. She would fucking kill.
Give me Conan O’Brien. He would fucking kill.
But Hugh Jackman?! Did you folks not see Australia?!
Oh, excuse me, NOT A SOUL SAW AUSTRALIA.
Then again, it could be worse. Nicole Kidman could be the host.

Okay, there are 24 main categories and we’ll go backwards towards the top –
(and I’ll be posting in groups of four)

VISUAL EFFECTS – the 3 nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
The Dark Knight, and Iron Man. Now the CC of BB, my own far-too-cutesy shorthand for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, or as most people know it,
Forrest Gump ages backwards and instead of Tom Hanks he’s now Brad Pitt,
should win. The entire film is a visual effect. All films are, I know but this is the first movie that has a credit at the end that reads – Special thanks to the 300 Koreans with
Mac laptops who did all the time intensive CGI work (for pennies on the dollar, I might add) that meant that Brad Pitt was only on set for a total of 4 days. Remember the
Hologram of Will I. Am that CNN interviewed on Election Night? That was also
Brad Pitt. There is no Will I. Am. God, if only there were no Fergie.
The Dark Knight had some rather amazing visual effects, not the least of which is convincing us that Maggie Gyllenhaal is the sexiest woman in Gotham City. Has anyone on this planet ever whipped their head around and said, “Wow. That was Sally Field?!” No. And Maggie Gyllenhaal looks like Sally Field’s niece. Great actress but only in a mythical city would she be the sexiest anything. Think of Jesssica Alba in Sin City.
There is no Sin City but thank god, there is a Jessica Alba.
And the third nominee, iron Man also had some great visual effects. The best of which was making Terrence Howard disappear from the sequel.
And the winner – THE CC OF BB. Accepting the award is the lightstream from a laser pointer, otherwise known as Brad Pitt.

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM – the nominees are Auf der Strecke (On the Line),
Manon on the Asphalt, New Boy, The Pig, and Spielzeugland (Toyland).
These plot summaries are taken straight from IMDB.com
Auf der Strecke - A department store security guard is secretly in love with
a clerk in the store's bookshop. Okay. I’m so not there. Well, maybe if the
security guard is Wolverine and the bookshop clerk is Maggie Gyllenhall.
Manon on the Asphalt - A woman gains a new insight of life while she's
near death. Next.
New Boy - Captures the experience of being the new kid in school through
the eyes of Joseph, a nine year-old African boy. The school’s in Ireland, and
it’s from a story by Roddy Doyle, the guy who wrote The Commitments.
The Pig - A man facing surgery finds comfort in the painting of a pig hanging
in his hospital room. I want this to win just because this is the single greatest sentence in the English language I
have ever seen.
And
Spielzeugland - 1942: what happens when a German kid believes that his Jewish neighbors are going to Toyland? A story about lies and guilt. And now I want this to win because the summary of Spielzeugland IS NOW THE SINGLE GREATEST SENTENCE EVER WRITTEN IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!
Also, as harsh as German can be on the ears, wouldn’t it have been great if the famous 1934 Laurel and Hardy movie had been called Babes in Spielzeugland?!
And the winner –New Boy, from Ireland, as the countries that once made up the British Empire start their relentless march to Slumdog dominance.

ANIMATED SHORT FILM – the nominees are La Maison en Petits Cubes,
Lavatory – Lovestory, Oktapodi, Presto, and This Way Up.
La Maison en Petits Cubes - The film features an old man living alone in a town that has become submerged. His answer to the slowly rising water is to keep building on to his original home--like placing cubes on top of cubes to keep out the water. When he loses his favorite pipe, he dons scuba gear to retrieve it. As he descends and sees the earlier levels of his home (now submerged) he relives in his mind his life and loves. It's all very sweet and sentimental. And it really helps to be hitting the bong with Michael Phelps if you want to enjoy this one.
Lavatory-Lovestory - focuses on a lonely, middle-aged woman who is in charge
of a public lavatory. In Russia. Doesn’t get much better than that. Why is this not a feature? Maybe she could age backwards and it ends with Marcel Duchamp stealing a urinal and she can’t do shit cause she’s a baby. I’d see that.
And here I thought it was about Senator Larry Craig of Idaho.
Oktapodi - Two Octopi fight for their lives with a stubborn restaurant cook in
a comical escape through the streets of a small Greek village. It’s The Great
Escape with octopi instead of Steve McQueen. Sixteen legs instead of just two, it’s light eight Steve McQueens. And just how fucking cool would that be?!
Presto - A stage magician's rabbit gets into a magical onstage brawl against his neglectful guardian with two magic hats. It’s like Chuck Jones meets the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Bugs Bunny kicks Mickey Mouse’s ass. I’d pay to see that. It’s going to be tough, though. Oktapodi? 8 Steve McQueens?
And
This Way Up - A.T Shank & Son have a bad day at the parlour when a falling boulder flattens their hearse. This sounds so much like a Wallace & Gromit idea. Which is a good thing. But c’mon, 8 Steve McQueens? Octopi???
And the winner is – Oktapodi. Yes, calamari for everyone!

MAKEUP – the nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
The Dark Knight, and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
This category brings up an interesting question – just what is makeup?
In The CC of BB I’m looking at little computer generated Brad Pitts, like he
was kidnapped and the FBI crime lab and the CSI guys are giving us computer projections of what Brad Pitt might look like at various ages… but that ain’t
makeup! And Hellboy II? Those are costumes and special effects. Something tells me Hellboy doesn’t wear makeup. Kinda blows the whole Hellboy thing
if Hellboy wore eyeliner and night cream. But The Dark Knight… the late, lamented Heath Ledger as the Joker. That’s makeup! If kids and kid’s moms
can recreate that look for Halloween, that’s makeup. And if it makes you think
of a great young actor gone too soon, that’s Oscar winning makeup!
The winner – The Dark Knight.

25 THINGS ABOUT ME THAT FACEBOOK NOW OWNS

2009-02-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

25 Things About Me That Facebook Now Owns

(Or Would Own if they didn’t go back to their old policy of not owning them)
(some tangible, some just memories…)

1. any and all social security benefits (I’m at the tail-end of the generation that
still might get them)
2. all those pictures in those big plastic tubs of dead relatives I don’t know the names of
3. my love and pride when I just think of my daughter chloe or my son danny
4. 3 giant sized containers of montreal steak seasoning (at Costco I always assume
I need this)
5. 2 tickets to see Bruce in Atlanta on April 26th (at least can I go with Facebook?)
6. all those wonderful memories of a young me and the young her I met at the NYU bookstore all those years ago
7. any recollection of game 7 of the knicks championship victory over the lakers; the famous “willis is going to play” game. I WAS THERE!
8. the taste of my mother’s “sliced meat” – I didn’t know it was just “pot roast” until I was about 35
9. my all-time favorite song, The Way You Look Tonight, sung by Sinatra
10. my 3 favorite movies of all-time, genres be damned – The Philadelphia Story,
The Magnificent Seven, and Trainspotting
11. and the Big Lebowski
12. the memory of the first time I saw daphne – she was being kissed by jack marion
13. the time I got Alfred kicked out of yankee stadium cause I was throwing stuff from the upper deck down at frank robinson of the orioles after he clearly DID NOT CATCH roy white’s game-winning homer
14. the small nostril-sized vicks nasal inhaler that my brother Harvey used to stick in my nose and hold it in what we called, pre-cheney, “the torture”
15. every issue of the believer magazine and the first 7 of the national lampoon when it was fucking funny
16. my father’s ashes and his recipe for “roskas”
17. 4 containers of Tropicana orange-tangerine juice
18. my mother telling me we won’t drink minute maid because Bing Crosby is a major shareholder and he does their commercials and he beats his kids and he’s an anti-semite
19. at 19, 2 weeks in the tuolomne meadows in a tent in Yosemite with a gorgeous girl from rolling hills estates, California
20. the great pleasure I took in closing the door of E-124 and talking with the kids about anything and everything
21. the one fork from my mother with the bent tine that I use to beat the eggs
22. my bacon-of-the-month club certificate and how shana doubled my cholestrol
23. I have seen every super bowl and now so has facebook
24. Walton ford, alex gross, mark ryden and r. crumb on my walls
25. late-night dinners and conversation at terroni on beverly

Everything Matters -2/18/09 - After Lunch Edition

2009-02-18T12:46:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/18/09 – After Lunch Edition

So let’s see – the New York Post, a right-wing tabloid run by human shar-pei Rupert Murdoch, ran an editorial cartoon today -
which showed a chimpanzee laying in his own blood, dead on the ground, two bullet holes in him. One cop says to the other (the one with the smoking gun who did the shooting) –
“They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

In how many ways is this supposed editorial cartoon horrifically racist and wrong (and thus, in how many ways is it perfectly acceptable to the base base of the Republican party – the evangelical fringe ex-Confederate states with some mountain state anti-tax craziness thrown in for good measure):

1) The Post is not just calling President Barack Obama,
a biracial man with an African father, a chimpanzee,
they are fucking drawing it!
2) The Post is advocating, clearly, the murder of the President of the United States.
3) Yes, the Post will hide behind their denial by saying that the cartoon simply shows the dead chimp representing the Democratically led Congress and Senate since they are the ones who wrote the stimulus bill. While this can not be believed by any thinking person (and thus, no Republican) this means the Post is advocating the murder of Democrats in the House and Senate.
4) The two white cops are drawn as weird big-nosed morons. Right-wingers love to say they are all for law and order. This portrayal of two of “the finest” shows their utter contempt for the folks who actually do the job.
5) And just to remind you, the Post is advocating, clearly, the murder of Barack Obama, the President of the United States.

Added to the ludicrousness of the cartoon is the front page itself. At such a critical, pivotal time in our nation’s history, the Post has three main stories on its front page – 2 mil in NYC money to pay off a drunk who fell in the subway; the major newsworthy revelation as to why the chimp in Connecticut went berserk; and of course, the major human interest story
of the day – sexy Jen Aniston’s b-day kiss. Quite a feat of world-class journalism.

The only way this front page could possibly be any better would be if: A drunken Jen Aniston, after a hard night of birthday partying, decided to show her street cred by using public transportation and was impregnated by the berserk chimp on the #4 Woodlawn-Jerome line and the City of New York had to pony up millions after she gave birth to eight hair-tossing babies, but still realizing her lifelong dream of motherhood and forever being known as Jennifer Aniston, Octo-Chimpo-Mom.

And Rupert’s got enough money; don’t think he can’t make that happen.

Roland Burris, the man appointed to the U.S. Senate by disgraced poetry-spouting lunatic, ex-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, should be forced to resign soon.
This from the Chicago tribune Editorial Board - Let’s see if we have it right: Burris had zero contact with any of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s cronies about his interest in the Senate seat being vacated by President Barack Obama— unless you count that conversation with former chief of staff Lon Monk, and, on further reflection, the ones with insiders John Harris, Doug Scofield and John Wyma and, oh yeah, the governor’s brother and fund-raising chief, Robert Blagojevich. But Burris didn’t raise a single dollar for the now ex-governor as a result of those contacts because that could be construed as a quid pro quo and besides, everyone he asked refused to donate.
On his way out of office, Blagojevich quoted Kipling and compared himself to Mother Theresa and Gandhi.
Burris can make it easy on all of us if he just says, “You’re right, I’m outta here. At least I didn’t do steroids.”

Thanks A-Rod. Who knew that major league baseball and the lure of multi-million dollar salaries was the gateway drug to steroids?
And that also means there’s no way I’m allowing any kid of mine to enter the world of competitive swimming. Who knew that competitive swimming, at
an extremely high level, was the gateway to marijuana use?
Phelps, who at 23 is young and naïve (has he ever taken a picture without his mouth open and a goofy, doofus look on his face) didn’t use the excuse of being young and naïve nearly as much as A-Rod WHO WAS 25-26-AND 27 WHEN HE COPPED TO INJECTING STEROIDS INTO HIS OWN ASS!!! Oh, excuse me, COPPED TO HAVING HIS DOMINICAN COUSIN INJECT STEROIDS INTO HIS ASS!!!

Fuck the War on Drugs? All that government money should be going to the
War on the Little League?
And what about the 103 other positive drug tests that have yet to be revealed from 2003 in major league baseball? Drug use is so rampant in baseball, imagine the guys from Trainspotting being able to hit the curveball.

President Obama is in Phoenix today offering his fix to the housing and foreclosure crisis which he says will keep over 9 million people from losing
their homes. Phoenix is in the Valley of the Sun, which got its name from
the fact that with over 40,000 foreclosed homes in the last year, the city now has as many people living outdoors as indoors. Senator John McCain, cranky election loser, doesn’t have to worry. He has 11 homes, or make that 12 now that good Republican wife Cindy just had another one built out of Xanax and Botox.

The Press loves a feel-good story. Mickey Rourke’s dog dies and the headlines read: Mickey Rourke’s beloved Loki dies. And we feel sorry for him and Loki, as we should. But you know that before his comeback triumph in The Wrestler the headline would’ve read: Jobless Bum Mickey Rourke kills his own dog and eats it.

Sarah Palin’s finally going to pay the back taxes she owes the state of Alaska for the per-diem money she billed them for travel and expenses when she simply stayed home. Too bad. By paying her taxes she can never be a member of Obama’s cabinet.

Let me be the first to say it and it makes Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman’s bat-shit crazy story even bat-shit crazier – I’M SAYING HER SPERM DONOR,
THIS MYTHICAL UNKNOWN “DAVID SOLOMON” IS HER FATHER, DOUD SULEMAN… WHICH, BY THE WAY IS THE ARABIC/ARABICIZED VERSION OF, YEP, YOU GUESSED IT,
DAVID SOLOMON!!!!! DOUD SULEMAN = DAVID SOLOMON.
Please, somebody do a DNA test of the grandfather and the babies.

Nadya wants to be a TV expert on child-rearing. I can see her first piece – “The first two things all you young mothers out there are going to need – a ridiculously high litter of children AND A REALLY BIG SHOE TO LIVE IN.”

The Octo-Mom grandparents are not sticking around. The grandpa is going back to
work in Iraq; he’d rather face roadside bombs than 14 kids in a 3 bedroom house.
And the grandma is going to visit relatives in Europe. Yes, America, that shining beacon of democracy and opportunity and frozen embryos is not where they want to be right now.

Everything Matters - 2/13/09 - Hat Tip to The Believer Edition

2009-02-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

I read The Believer magazine. It is wonderful and more people should read it. Or at least look through it at a friend's place.
This article is in the new issue, the Feb. 2009 issue and it made me laugh out loud.
It's called The Fifty Greatest Things that Just Popped Into My Head by Jack Pendarvis. Enjoy.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200902/?read=article_pendarvis

Everything Matters - 2/9/09 - Sports Extra

2009-02-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

A-Rod? How 'bout A-Hole?

Everything Matters - 2/8/09 - Grammy Awards Edition

2009-02-08T20:31:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – Grammys Edition

Okay, some basic truths:

Craig Ferguson had maybe the best awards show intro patter ever when he
introduced Katy Perry as “the bi-curious Katy Perry”.

Al Green has earned the right to never sing on stage with Justin Timberlake.
And about Timberlake’s intro of the Rev. Green, does anyone, anywhere believe
that in Memphis, Al Green lived “down the road” from Justin Timberlake.

On the same theme, Stevie Wonder has earned the right to never have to sing on
stage with the Jonas Brothers.

I give the lead singer Jonas Bro 2 years before he splits and goes solo.
And why do I think women have nothing to worry about when he takes his stupid
promise ring off?

Kid Rock surprised the shit out of me – this boy has pipes. And soul.

Kate Beckinsale is absolutely gorgeous. Please do a movie that isn’t vampires
and werewolves. And film it at my house.

The female half of Sugarland kicks major ass.

Paul McCartney and Robert Plant, both living history, almost one hundred years
of rock and roll between them and clearly part otter. How do they still manage to
have every hair on their heads that they had at 17?

And thank god neither of them wore that same doofus hipster hat shared by Jack Black,
Jason Mraz, Justin Timberlake, and many others.

The single coolest hat of the night was the giant black almost flat killer Western preacher
deal worn by Kid Rock’s guitarist. But only the second coolest guitarist of the night.
that was Carrie Underwood’s lady guitarist with the 50’s country music blonde cascading
curls.

I love that Gwyneth Paltrow is a huge fan. She was visibly thrilled to be introducing
Radiohead.

And any second of Radiohead is better than the entire careers, past, present and future
of the Rap Pack (as Latifah called them), Jay-Z, TI, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne.

M.I.A. seemed to be almost exactly the same size, vertically, as Kanye, Jay-Z, TI,
and Lil Wayne. In contract talks, Kanye West had demanded that his bulge be bigger
than hers. When it was pointed out that she was 9 months pregnant, Kanye simply said,
“Ain’t mine.”

Who knew? Samuel L. Jackson is friends with Justin Timberlake.
And Morgan Freeman is friends with Kenny Chesney.

Just for the record, the major Motown legend should always be introduced as
“Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Bill “Smokey” Robinson” and never just
Smokey Robinson.

Ne-Yo somehow made the doofus hipster hat cool. And I am definitely going to
download some Ne-Yo from Itunes.

Surprises: Katy Perry – prettier than I thought. The USC Marching Band has not lost
anything since Tusk. And Jack Black is 3 feet tall.

Neil Diamond looks like a weird cross between today’s Martin Landau and Montgomery Clift.

Must there be commercials for Friday the 13th during this show. Or ever.

Lamest Grammy participant intro – “…the star of something something Witch Mountain,
Duane Johnson.” He was slightly less lame than Gary Sinise or the Mentalist guy.
Thank you CBS for all the lame CBS show people.

Best rap superstar shout-out that will never be repeated – Lil Wayne saying, “Robin Thicke, yo.”

And the single most surreal moment – Lil Wayne and Robin Thicke duetting on
“Feets don’t fail me now.”

There are only 5 members of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. What’s up with that?

Separated at birth – Jack Black and T-Pain.

Tom Petty, call T-Pain, he’s got your hat.

Zoey Deschanel is Katy Perry.

T-Bone Burnett looks like someone who knew Andrew Jackson. Or Henry Clay.
Or John C. Calhoun.

Most demonic drummer ever with neon green socks – the drummer backing up Robert Plant
and Alison Kraus.

Not bad.

WHAT OBAMA NEEDS TO DO & ASHLEY JUDD IS MY NEW HERO

2009-02-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

President Obama has written an Op-Ed piece in today’s Washington Post where he states his case for the stimulus package. He went on TV today, speaking at the Department of Energy, where he again stated his case for the importance of the stimulus package. What he’s NOT DOING is saying, clearly and simply, just who are these enemies of the stimulus, these folks who would rather see the country fail and fall further into a massive depression. HE IS NOT SAYING THAT THEY ARE REPUBLICANS. He is using the euphemisms of politics as usual, or
lack of bipartisanship, or far too much partisanship. Millions of us didn’t vote for you, didn’t vote for change, to hear platitudes and euphemisms. This is clearly war, a war declared by the Republicans in the Senate and the House led by their Viagra-crazed fatboy, Rush Limbaugh, on the middle and lower classes and the working class and the working poor and the poor and the underemployed. And if you’re going to fight a war one of the first things you must know before going into battle is this – KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Well, folks, we know the enemy – the REPUBLICAN PARTY. Now we need our President to say it. We need the Senate and House leaders to say it. Over and over again, on television and radio and in newspapers and magazines and on the internet. Everywhere. To borrow a paraphrase from Walt Kelly’s Pogo, We have met the enemy and he is not us. HE IS A REPUBLICAN.

Ashley Judd is my new hero. She did a spot for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund where she goes after Sarah Palin for continuing her evil practice up in Alaska of the aerial killing of wolves. Coldblooded humans shoot wolves from low-flying planes in winter – when the wolves have no cover and no place to hide. Palin, the ghoulish gov, has also asked for a hundred and fifty dollar bounty to be paid for every severed foreleg of a murdered wolf. It’s not enough to shoot them from above; now they’ve got to be butchered in death. Palin’s defense was the typical response of the life-hater – we don’t live in Alaska so we don’t know how wolves decimate healthy populations of moose and caribou. Well, if you go to any page on wolves in a reference book or on Wikipedia you’ll find this out – wolves don’t decimate populations of anything. They’re part of the natural order of things and they only eat what they need. Furthermore, they typically feed on the weak and the aged. The symbiotic relationship that wolves have with their prey is long documented – by science, something that Palin, who doesn’t believe in evolution, would not and could not believe. Wolves, as predators, are actually helping to create a better population of moose and caribou by culling the herd of those that should no longer be in the gene pool. Hmmm? Now where is that gene pool that could really use to be drained? Ashley Judd, my hero.

Everything Matters - 2/2/09 - Andrea Mitchell Edition

2009-02-02T14:10:00.001-08:00

Everything Matters – 2/2/09 – Late Afternoon Edition

Let’s talk about Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC. To regular watchers of MSNBC it is clear
that Mrs. Greenspan (she’s married to Alan Greenspan, the economist and former head of
the Fed who still has not seen the complete meltdown of global finance. Or his part in same.)
is, if not hitting the Phelpsian bong, on some sort of high-priced Dr. Nick prescribed
medication when she is on camera. She cannot ask a simple question because she is unable
to utter or complete a simple sentence. Her breathy, aspirating, stop and start, circuitously tortuous interviews make Christopher Walken line readings seem utterly normal as human speech. Add to that a wide-eyed, Keane painting total lack of affect on her face, Ms. Mitchell comes across as the News Reader from Deliverance, a porch-sitting inbred who looks like the traumatized aunt of the teenaged traumatized victim in a ludicrous American remake of a somewhat less ludicrous Japanese horror film. She is unable to speak in a clear, coherent
manner which makes her painful to listen to and to watch. MSNBC should have a 24 second clock on screen, right near the omnipresent logo, and if she is unable to get her question out in that time, a loud horn blares, she loses possession and the person being interviewed, invariably some Confederate, I mean southern Republican lunatic like Richard Shelby or Mitch McConnell gets to speak to whatever they were going to speak to anyway. Since her questions are unable
to be deciphered as such, her guests don’t answer them. They can’t. There’s no agreement with subject and verb, subject and predicate or subject and interviewer. Please, MSNBC, an intervention is in order, if only to salvage what is left of the real Andrea Mitchell. And the
sooner she’s off the air, the sooner my fantasy MSNBC hot chcocolate with vanilla cream three-way of me with Tamron Hall and Contessa Brewer can replace Andrea’s spacey face in my subconscious. Back to you, Contessa. Oh yeah.

Today, Punxsutawney Phil came out, saw his shadow, realized that winter would last 6 weeks longer, so he asked the Federal Government for 400 billion dollars to pay the added cost of
home heating oil. The Democrats agreed but Senate Republicans, led by Richard Shelby of Alabama and David Vitter of Louisiana sad no to the bailout. And ate him.

If Michael Phelps can win 8 gold medals in one Olympics while smoking some righteous herb, isn’t it about time we legalize this shit? Phelps, who should also be getting the gold for beating the strict Olympic drug-testing procedures, said that his urine samples always came straight from the pool… where they were mixed with the urine samples of every other swimmer.
In a part of the drug-testing regimen that may have to be revised, Olympic swimmers are allowed to pee in the pool after it was discovered that all swimmers, Olympic or otherwise, pee in the pool.

A volcano erupted about 90 miles northwest of Tokyo, coating parts of the city in a fine white ash. Scarlett Johanson, misunderstanding, said she would love to be back in Tokyo showing off her fine, white ass.

Relatives of disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff are considering changing their last name so as not to be connected to the man who lost 50 billion dollars belonging to others. Some of the less infamous last names being considered are Hitler, Stalin and Schickelgruber.

Everything Matters - 1/30/09 - After Lunch Edition

2009-01-30T12:53:00.000-08:00

Everything Matters – 1/30/09 – After Lunch Edition

The Republicans in Congress are crowing about the fact that while the Democratic stimulus passed the House, it did so without getting one Republican vote. And the upcoming vote in the Senate may not be any better. I think the problem is in the word stimulus itself. The Republicans are a party of old, white men. Words like stimulus, stimulate, stimulation don’t mean much to them any more. If they ever did. And the Democrats only compound this problem by calling their plan a “stimulus package”. I mean, c’mon, who is fucking Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky? Really, do you think Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah has ever gone down on a woman? Can Mormons even do that? And what about shiny-faced boy-Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham? You think he gets excited about baseball’s Spring Training and the words, pitchers and catchers report? Just what team does old Lindsey play for? So don’t call the Economic Stimulus Package program that any more. The Democrats would be smart to call it the Democratic Plan to Help, Aid and Save Widows, Orphans, Wounded Veterans, Puppies and Kittens. Let’s see any Republicans vote against that!

So the woman in California who gave birth to octuplets already had 6 kids. 6 would make sense if this were 200 years ago and we all lived on farms and we needed help with chores and farm work and some of those 6 might not make it. But it’s not 200 years ago, it’s 2009 and most of us don’t live on farms and we don’t need help with the chores and the harsh necessities of farm life and we have a thing called fertility drugs and for some reason this lady with 6 kids already was on them!!! I’d think if you have 6 kids and you want a whole bunch more that you probably are already on drugs, and the fertility kind wouldn’t jump out at me as to what you were taking.
So some genius doctor somewhere clearly doesn’t do his homework, like maybe ask, or even check, so, how many kids do you have right now, before we give you the pills? But now, she gets the pills and 8 babies take and she gives birth to octuplets. Now I don’t know about you but octuplets sounds like something from a horror movie. Or the American remake of a Japanese or Korean horror movie. Octuplets. Baby makes sense. One. Baby. Twins makes sense. Two. Happens with some regularity. But once you start getting into the “lets” at the end of the word – trip-lets, quadrup-lets, quintup- lets, it becomes more like “LET’S NOT DO THIS,
LET’S RETHINK THIS.”

And the Republicans are having a field day with these octuplets in California. Seems the mother lives at home with her parents and her 6 other kids and the grandfather announced he’s going back to Iraq to get money for his giant new family. Look, we brought democracy to Iraq and she was free to come here and have 14 children, and that’s democracy in action and she has no job and no way of supporting those kids and maybe we should just shut up right now about democracy in action and freedom in Iraq. Never mind.

Boy do we need healthcare in the United States when the grandfather of the woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets, that’s 8 babies, has to GO BACK TO IRAQ FOR MONEY TO HELP SUPPORT HIS DAUGHTER’S FAMILY!!!

And seriously, how many of you when you first heard about the octuplets in California thought Bristol and Levi must be at it again!

Samantha Power just got a big job as a White House advisor on national security. The woman who shot to fame during the Democratic primary for calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” now gets to call the right people monsters – Donald Rumsfeld, the Republicans who think Guantanamo should be open forever, the Republicans who think torture is a good idea, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannitty and Jack Bauer.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is worried that his party is becoming a “regional party”.
It already is. The red states once had a regional name. They were called the Confederate States of America.

Clearly, times have changed. If Lincoln were alive today he’d be a liberal Democrat.
He was the last Republican who believed in preserving the Union. Any Union.
The United States. The United Auto Workers. Any Union.

More than a week after the Inauguration and more and more stories are coming out about
how lax security was around the Obamas. I’m betting the Secret Service is looking at Barack and Michelle and thinking, “They look like they can handle themselves. I mean, they’re from Chicago. And uh, they are Black.”

The greatest take in renewable energy is a carnivorous lamp that cactches flies, feeds on them
and uses the energy generated through that to power LEDs. Already the Holocaust deniers are claiming that Auschwitz was simply ahead of its time – using Jews and gypsies to make the engines of the Third Reich run. Yes, the Holocaust denies have a new slogan – The Nazi Party: It wasn’t easy being Green.

Hey, it was a meaningful day. 1/20/09 Inauguration Day Photos

2009-01-29T12:02:00.003-08:00

Yep. Even more Inauguration Day photos 1/20/09

2009-01-29T11:56:00.001-08:00

Still more Inauguration Day photos 1/20/09

2009-01-29T11:50:00.001-08:00

Yet more Inauguration Day 1/20/09 Photos

2009-01-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

More Inauguration photos 1/20/09

2009-01-29T11:36:00.001-08:00

2009-01-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

Inauguration Day - 1/20/09 - Washington, D.C. - The Ascension of Obama

2009-01-29T11:16:00.000-08:00

Inauguration Day Memories - Part 5

2009-01-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

1/20/09 Inauguration Day – Part 5

According to Jane’s, the British outfit that publishes yearbooks of military equipment and is looked upon as some sort of expert in the counting game – usually numbers of casualties, collateral damage, range of blood splatter and limbs lost per artillery shell/mine – 1.8 million of us were on the Mall in D.C. for the inauguration on 1/20/09. Nice of Jane’s to enter the “counting the living” business. Hopefully they weren’t just looking at photographs in their posh London offices thinking about which weapons would kill the most of those 1.8 mil most effectively.
I would think some sort of airborne pathogen but I’m no expert. As it was, on the Mall with 1.8 mil, even though it was cold, we were a living, breathing, hacking, spitting, sneezing Petri dish of
disease. I figure if I can make it through that day, in a weakened condition (no sleep, outdoors exposed to microbes and elements for far too long, etc.) then I can advertise myself in a Craigslist personal as having a gene pool to die for. Or to live for. I’d once read that people descended from folks who’d survived the Black Death had a gene mutation that left them immune to the AIDS virus. I think surviving the Mall on 1/20/09 is a close second – medically, biologically, and maybe even genetically. Among the hearty crew that day on what used to be grass were some remarkable folks. Sadly, I have lost their names and email addresses and I apologize for not getting the pictures I took of them and their loved ones to them, but I seem to remember taking it out of my fifth layer of pants, the XL blue (always representing liberalism) sweatpants as I made my way to the Metro on my way to 2AMYS, a great great Neapolitan pizza place in DC out in the NW near American University. Truly great pizza. And sorry for the lack of pictures sent right to your homes, fellow citizens, but here’s a quick rundown of who you were and what you meant to me:
Most meaningful was the black woman in her eighties (?) from Indiana known as Doctor J.
She’d been a teacher for years, all the way up to the university level, and she was there with I think 4 generations of her family to bear witness and bask in the light of history. She was feisty,
learned and battle-tested. She’d had a cross burned in her front yard years ago and figured that the true test of time being on her side was this day and this place. She was straightforward in her thinking and her speech and her gaze. Her voice neither trembled nor wavered. She was strong. She had to be. She was there for the millions who couldn’t be. Her teeth had those thick metal bands holding them tightly to the next, the sign of old-time dentistry. Her lower lip stuck out when she spoke and she looked you straight in the eye. She was mighty impressive. I told her how proud it made me to meet her and to be there with her. She very matter-of-factly said that it was equally important that people who looked like me be there as well. I quoted Sam Cooke, one of my all-time favorite singers – “It’s been a long time comin’, but I know, a change gonna come.” She gave me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek and I felt like a million bucks. I was hugged by history.
Met a young Hispanic single mother from California. She was in her early thirties with an 11 year old daughter. She was there filming with a crew from her media studies dept. from Pitzer College. She was the future. She was getting a B.A. and then going on for a Master’s and then law school to fight for father’s rights in child custody cases. Didn’t ask what her personal connection was but I was convinced by her drive and determination that she would succeed and make a difference. And her daughter would learn from her example and make a difference as well in her life. Again, it’s always in the eyes. Her eyes were clear and smart and strong and had that flash of the always learning, always questioning. She would ask a question of someone, point the camera, and then just let them talk. She let people be people. And she had a permanent smile on her face through the cold and through the hours we spent together in that small space. Terrific. When I taught in LA I always told the Mexican American girls that they were the future. Nicole Aragon, you are the future. You are also the present and I salute you.
Met a young, 25ish, South Carolina woman who’d swum competitively in college and wasn’t bothered by the cold since she’d been getting up at 5 in the pre-dawn dark for years to plunge into freezing pools of water. South Carolina is as Republican as it gets. South Carolina is the only Southern state that SENT NO SOLDIERS WHATSOEVER to fight for the Union in the Civil War. South Carolina is a tough place to be a progressive Democrat. But she is. Not so sure her boyfriend is as he’s pursuing the dollar. Within minutes I was telling her to leave him, that his soulless pursuit of Mammon would always be an obstacle in their impending marriage but she laughed and said no, he was a good person. But hey, at least her blue vote cancels out his red one. She’d lost her job teaching swimming at a YWCA somewhere in SC but she also had a perpetual smile on. The cold, the hours, the closeness, none of it mattered. We were there, we were together and Obama was our President. To quote the Cube, “It was a good day.” Jamie Adamson and the very lucky Taylor McFadden, do great things and stay progressively liberal and liberally progressive.
Met two military wives who driven up from one of the many military bases in and around DC. Could’ve been SC, NC, VA, MD, anywhere. They’d brought their 3 kids, all boys, all restless on the dirt half the time boys, up to witness history. They were late 20s, hot and lively. They bounced from foot to foot to fight the cold and they wore matching red ski parkas. Baseball caps, hair in pony-tails. They were MILFS and they knew it. They talked about how the people back at the base thought they were crazy for coming up to this. They knew tons of folks who’d voted for McCain. But they also knew how dangerous Palin was- they said they were smarter than her and they shouldn’t be President! They also said that keeping one’s own house in order should be a top priority for anyone seeking the Presidency and with Palin’s daughter getting knocked up that alone should disqualify Mom. They loved Obamas’s family unit and remarked just how happy they all were. Not seemed to be. Were. In reality. They were Moms, they could tell.
Loved them.
Family of 5 who’d come up from Georgia. Mom, dad, 3 kids – 2 girls 6 aand 10 and a boy about 12. All bundled up, never complained once about the cold. The dad and I talked about being there. He was black and he knew the south. He’d heard all the stories growing up from parents and grandparents about the way it used to be. Said it was lot different now and LOTS DIFFERENT TODAY. He couldn’t stop smiling either. The two girls weren’t all that interested but the boy was upset that he couldn’t see anything so during Obama’s swearing in I looked to the dad, he kind of nodded and I told the boy to hold his arms stiff at his sides with his elbows tucked. I lifted him up and told him to put his feet on my thighs and lean out like those carvings on the front of old sailing ships. He did so and I was able to hold him like that for about 15 seconds. Maybe. Kids are all muscle and muscle weighs more than fat and it was not easy. But he lit up and yelled out “WOW, I can see everything.” And for those 15 seconds (maybe) everything was right with his world. I put him down (dropped him is more like it, but he landed on his feet) and his Dad gave me the most real, true best handshake I’ve had in years. Not dap, not a high five but a real man’s handshake. I know it sounds silly but I will never forget that handshake at that Inauguration.
There were others. There were the seeming dozens of older black women dressed up in their fur coats. This was not a day for PETA protests. This was a day to strut, to show off and to be noticed and those black women in their fur coats were doing the job! There were the folks waving American and Canadian flags. There were the people who broke out the big plastic garbage bags as soon as Obama’s speech was over and started collecting trash. There was the mother and son who smiled so nicely for my camera. There were older white lefties who still believed in America. There were 1.8 million of us, dressed like the crowd at a January playoff game for the Steelers at Heinz Field, crying and smiling, smiling and crying, overjoyed and joyous, singing through the tears and knowing we were part of something magical that had actually happened in our lifetime. And we were there and we were going to tell everyone and we were never going to forget it.

Inauguration Day - Part 4

2009-01-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

1/20/09 Inauguration Day – Part 4

So it’s approaching 11:30 a.m. and I’ve been up for 8 HOURS ALREADY AND OUTSIDE FOR SEVEN and maybe it’s in the low 20s and amazingly I’m starting to sweat under the many many layers I’m wearing. And people are still smiling and people are still happy and the look and the talk that is shared is invariably a look or a mention of CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW FUCKING GREAT THIS IS AND HOW GREAT IT IS THAT WE ARE HERE TO SEE IT AND SHARE IN IT?! And the hours don’t matter and the cold doesn’t matter and nothing matters now except that Joe Biden is being sworn in as the Vice President and it makes sense cause if something were to happen to the PEOTUS in the few minutes before his swearing in we’d still have a President and the business of government could go on functioning as efficiently as it always has. Kind of dark and kind of scary but I imagine that’s why they do it v.p. first. And forget that bit about the business of government functioning efficiently. Yeah, that’s why we have no reasonable energy policy or no realistic health policy and every other policy we don’t have thanks to 28 years of Reagan-engineered deregulation and dismantling of government.
Anyway, joe’s sworn in, it all goes smoothly and associate justice john paul stevens does the job well, a precursor to the piss-poor job coming up. Stevens was appointed by Gerald ford and he’s been an okay justice, usually putting the law first and thus helping people. As opposed to the current chief justice, corporate punk/shill john Roberts, whose moment of infamy will come soon.
And then rick warren, the homophobic, evolution-denying pastor of a monolithic megachurch in southern California is up to deliver the invocation. It’s a prayer and it pisses me off. warren is the opposite of jesus in so many ways – he’s obese, he hates the poor and downtrodden, and he’s a right-wing ideologue. Jesus, had he been walking the Mall today would be the painfully thin (think Ramones thin), lover of the poor and downtrodden and a far-left, ultra liberal, flaming progressive. Just read what he had to say and you know he’d have a show on MSNBC on each night at 10, after the two hour block of keith and Rachel, olbermann and maddow, followed by Christ. Hardball with chris matthews, countdown with keith olbermann, the Rachel maddow show, and following all that, He says, she says, Jesus Says. I am so there. Sorry, david shuster, but this is the JC we’re talking about.
Anyway, rick warren talks interminably with a complete lack of style and in a crowd of 1.8 million, many of whom are of color, that is unforgivable. Nobody is listening and we are getting colder for the first time and then he does two things that make me want to separate church and state right then and right there for all those yahoos who think the founding fathers were Christians (they were deists!) and that america is a Christian nation (it isn’t. read the fucking constitution!).
He gives us 5 names of jesus!!! He gives us emmanuel, he gives us yehoshuah, he gives us Hay-sus, and I don’t even know what the other two are and I’m thinking about that line that the devil has many names and here’s fat, boring rick warren giving us 5 names of his god or son of or whatever (who exactly do these fellas pray to and where exactly does jesus fit into that pantheon they’ve created to appeal to those pagans two thousand years ago???) and if jesus has many names maybe he’s, you know, like the other guy… hmmmmmmmmm? Bet they won’t be talking about that one at liberty or bob jones or any of those other phony baloney colleges that actually give degrees in this stuff.
Anyway, the many names of jesus isn’t even the best part of his bit. It’s when he spits out in some weird way the names of the obama daughters that he hits the hights. SA-SHA!!!
And MA-LI-A!!! he spits out SA-SHA! Like he’s the drunken m.c. at some strip club near LAX and SA-SHA is the latest in a long line of Ukrainian teenage virgins who came to this country to become doctors but needed to make some coin so here they are stripping, prior to hooking, prior to being dissolved in the acid bath for wanting to return home cause stripping and hooking is not pre-med at UCLA. I’m convinced rick warren was an M.C. at a strip club and I want to hear the tape of him introducing DES-TINNY!!! CHAS-TITTY!!! SA-SHA!!!!!
And then it’s Obama’s turn to put his hand on the bible and he’s got lincoln’s bible and please, let’s not get into any symbolism there, and john Roberts, that dickwad of a chief justice, blows the whole ceremony by blowing the words to the swearing in. he tried to memorize the what, 5 or 6 sentences and couldn’t do it and right-wing nutjobs all over immediately thought the swearing it was invalid and I said loudly, “in the new york city public schools, in like the 3rd grade, we all had to memorize the entire preamble to the constitution. What were we, like 9, 10 maybe? And we all did it. And here’s the chief justice, the corporate apologist, a man who probably blew it cause he was never this close to a black man (okay, half black) in his entire life that he got nervous and no, Clarence Thomas, the supreme court justice WHO HAS NOT ASKED ONE QUESTION YET IN ALL HIS YEARS ON THE COURT, does not count cause I’m sure he speaks to no one and no one speaks to him. Yeah, so Roberts blows it and Roberts blows and obama’s the president and people are smiling and clapping and tears are streaming down everybody’s cheeks and we’re happy and history has been made and it is truly a wonderful moment and a wonderful sight and a great thing to have been there.
Soon, the people I shared this moment with………..

Inauguration Day memories - Part 3

2009-01-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

1/20/09 Inauguration Day – Part 3

So it’s 9:15 and the gates are opened at last. National Guard troops on the other side. Full cammy outfits, those cool berets, they all look like college kids or Costco employees. But they’re in charge and it’s time to listen. The crowd becomes a giant ketchup bottle, squeezing out 8 folks at a time before the squeezing stops. Amazing. Thousands of people pushing and only 8 at a time are going through. Magic. We all have numerous layers on so asking us to open our jackets is kind of absurd. There’s no pat down, they barely go through the backpacks. They ask us to take out any metal, anything with tin foil, and then we’re through aome sort of metal detection thing and handed back our keys and belts and metallic objects. All very cursory. Then I realize why – we’re going to be so far from Obama and the ticketed dignitaries so even if we did have something dangerous, WE’D ONLY BLOW UP EACH OTHER. REGULAR CITIZENS, EVERYDAY PEOPLE. ACCEPTABLE LOSSES. I started feeling like the folks killed by those drone missile we have up over Waziristan. We claimm to maybe perhaps to have gotten an Al Qaeda operative but in doing so we also killed 5 kids and 4 women and a farmer and a goatherd and the local poppy grower. I feel like them. I think we need to stop using drone missiles and killing people we’re not sure we should be killing to maybe kill the one person we want to kill. I think the problem is WANTING TO KILL ANYONE. THAT’S REVENGE AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN A NUTSHELL. If we can get past revenge and towards diplomacy and talking and reconciliation, hey, who knows, we may one day beat our drone missiles into plowshares. And at this point, plowshares are better than shares of Intel or Microsoft.
Anyway, back to DC. Through the National Guard checkpoint. Oh, and while were’ talking about the Guard, a few things. When there’s a hurricane or a tornado, I love that the National Guard, like the Red Cross, is there to help. That’s their job and they do it well. But far too many young Guards people have been killed in Iraq and that’s a shame. They didn’t sign up for tour after tour in that stupid, illegal immoral war. They should be helping victims here at home of natural disasters and then going back to their lives, right here at home. And another thing, when I go to the movies, I don’t want or need the jingoistic bullshit of that horrible song Citizen Soldier by that horrible group 3 Doors Down which is just a commercial for poor kids to join up and be killed. Every time I’m at the movies and that comes on I try to go outside and make a phone call rather than be subjected to the false patriotism of that song and its images. And when it’s over I always yell out the same thing – ‘BRING ‘EM HOME.” Yes, I am the crazy guy, the lone voice in the back of the theater, yelling out BRING ‘EM HOME after the images of soldiers killing redcoats and soldiers helping fallen comrades and giving out blankets and toys to little parentless Middle-eastern kids (parentless because we killed their parents!!!). So fuck you 3 doors down and fuck citizen soldier and war is not like some stupid movie, it is real and young people and civilians get killed and we don’t need 3rd rate rock acts and some photoshop stormy skies to help sell war. It’s bad enough that people have to sit through an Adam Sandler movie. They don’t need this crap added to that. The only song I want is that dancing popcorn and soda anthem, Let’s go out to the Lobby song. And one more time, BRING ‘EM HOME.
So it’s 9:30 and I’m through the checkpoints and I’m headed the Mall with thousands of other happy happy citizens of these United States, hopefully now bluer than ever. But of course they’re not letting us go to that furthest east part of the mall for the general public, the closest part of the mall nearest the Capitol steps where you don’t need tickets. No, now they’re rerouting us to the Mall at 12th street. That’s the second of the two big blocks of the Mall open to the public. Well, nothing to do but follow the crowd and we head towards 12th street. It’s light now and the big screens are set up around the Mall so you can see what’s happening. And we’ve got more room than we all expected. The New York Times had an article about how little room we’d all have; how we’d all have trouble turning or breathing or moving and that wasn’t the case. We didn’t have room to put down a blanket and catch some rays (it was 13 degrees now) but we could move without elbowing the person next to you and without catching whatever disease they had. I was convinced I would end up, a few days later for incubation purposes, with every disease known to man – dengue fever, ebola, the flu, a cold, typhus, cold sores, whatever – because we were going to be packed in so tightly and most people don’t know what it means to sneeze or cough and cover their mouths and people tend to spit in public and I figured this was some sort of weird Petri dish for illness but I think the cold killed most of the germs and here it is Saturday evening and I haven’t had to call the CDC in Atlanta yet cause I have symptoms that include the word “buboes”. Knock on wood. I think we’re all going to be okay. And that was the overriding sentiment on the Mall. Everyone was smiling, everyone was happy, and we were freezing and uncomfortable and somehow we all felt and knew that it was all okay and it was all going to be okay. Maybe not tomorrow but the optimism that bubbled up through that crowd was palpable. You could feel the choclatey Obama-goodness through all the layers of clothing. Hope is real.
And on the big screens they showed highlights of the Concert at the Lincoln Memorial and people sang along with Bruce and Pete Seeger doing This Land is Your Land and they had the words on the screen for the hearing impaired and I thought of Garrett Morris and there we were singing at the top of our lungs. And I loved bruce’s intro of the song where he called it “maybe the best song ever written in this country” and maybe he didn’t even say maybe. It is a great song and Seeger and Springsteen even sang the verses which said negative things about railroad bulls and private property and churches and god, that song was wonderful. And they showed Bono and then they went live and there was the occasional open mic and you caught little bits of “Hey, how you doing.” From the VIP section. And the occasional announcer voice saying, “Congressman Eric Cantor” and that got boos from the more politically astute in the crowd who know his as the obstructionist Rethuglican he is. And we’re approaching the magic hour of 11:30 when we know the VP is going to be sworn in. And we’re all smiling and we’re all talking and we’re all sharing and it is so real and the day is so raw and it is life as its finest. More tomorrow.

Inauguration Day memories - part 2

2009-01-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

1/20/09 Inauguration Day – Part 2

So I’m at the Glenmont Metro station by 4:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The drive over was what you’d expect at 4 in the morning – you’re the only car on the road and for a brief moment you think you’re in an M. Night Shyamalan movie or a Danny Boyle zombie movie and everyone is dead and you’re the only one left but that’s how you felt during the 8 years of Bush and that’s going to be officially over at noon today so time to get hopeful, get happy and get to the National Mall for the inauguration. Parking’s a snap even though the bottom level was fairly filled. A handful of people headed to the escalators to the Metro. Lots of “Hope you got lots of layers” and “What a great day” are exchanged. I’m down the escalator and on the Metro before I even have a chance to feel just how cold it is. (Travel note – I was smart enough to buy my Metro pass the day before in the late afternoon. The lines then were 12-15 deep at every ticket machine and I wasn’t about to first start digging for change on Tuesday morning.) The Metro was waiting there for me and there were plenty of seats. So glad the folks I was staying with lived near the end/beginning of the line. Sat next to two black women – one was striking, early 40s, Lena Horne’s gene pool with a no-nonsense air about her. Since I talk to everyone I started talking with her. She had flown out from Bakersfield and had scored tickets from a Republican Congressman who her next-door neighbor knew personally. She was a Corrections Officer and lived in an upper-middle class neighborhood. She was heartsick over the housing/foreclosure crisis and had seen what it had done to many folks in her neighborhood. But she was also big on personal accountability – banks and mortgage companies were wrong, but so were the people who took the loans to get their piece of the dream. She had worked hard her entire life and had earned everything that had come her way. And she knew that people needed help. So as tough as she was, she wanted government to help, even if it meant helping folks who’d done the wrong thing, in her estimation. The crowd in the Metro car was predominantly black (I counted 2 white faces, mine and one other) and she couldn’t get over that “a middle-aged white man” had driven 500 miles to be at the inauguration. I told her about my Bronx background and how I had grown up with diversity and how it had helped form me and my beliefs and values and how I had loved it. Told her I had gone to college in Harlem at City College. Mentioned a few of my favorite lines – mainly how post-war American culture is all Jews and Blacks (movies, music, books, Broadway, et al) and that’s the culture that was transmitted all around the world and we should be damn proud that today is the political highpoint of that cultural shift from “old white men” to ethnics and people of color. Told her I had to be there to beat witness, to feel the energy, to be counted among the thousands who were there. Getting up early was nothing. Being cold was nothing. Being generally uncomfortable for hours was nothing. A bi-racial President who looked like most of the world; a former Constitutional Law professor who inspired with words he actually wrote; a young man, a family man, who preached compassion and accountability – that was something. And I had to be there to see it just as much as she had to be there to see it. She
said I was the first white man she’d ever talked “race” with. I said I preferred “ethnic” since it was white people who put my people in cattle-cars. George Bush is a white guy. Miami Steve, Little Steven from the E-Street band and the Sopranos, he’s ethnic. Pacino, ethnic. Dick Cheney, white guy. Phillip Roth, ethnic. Donald Rumsfeld, white guy. When I told her that I wanted to be judged by the content of my character and not by the non-pigmentation of my skin, she laughed. The announced her stop – Judiciary Square – for the ticketed folks. We hugged. I couldn’t resist. I said a little too loudly, “See? Black and white can get along.” She laughed. Very few others did. Didn’t matter. It wasn’t even 5 in the morning and it was already a great day.
Next stop was Chinatown, my stop. I’d been reading for days which Metro stops would be closed, and which would get me to where I wanted to go on the Mall and Chinatown was it.
To me, for a city to be world-class it has to have a Chinatown. Because this means it has Chinese food. (This law of mine may only apply to Jews since the Old Testament story of manna from heaven, which we all know today as Kung Pao Chicken.) And DC has a Chinatown and it lets you out on 7th Street which was perfect cause I was going to head down 7th Street to the checkpoint. This would lead me right to the first part of the National Mall open to the public and right behind the last ticketed area. Things were looking good as I left the Metro and hit the street. And then the reality of bitter cold, darkness, and crowds hit. There were thousands of people out. Everybody was bigger and bulkier than they might otherwise have been because we all had layer upon layer on. We looked like the world’s worst shoplifters – simply putting on all the clothing we were stealing and then trying to walk out of the store inconspicuously. I had on the following: On my legs – thin REI thermals, another pair of REI thermals over that, a pair of dungarees, fleece pants over those, and XL sweatpants over everything. On my feet – a pair of thermal socks, insulated boots and handwarmers in the boots. My legs were warm. My feet were toasty.
Up top I had on long-sleeved REI thermals, long-sleeved Kurt Cobain style thermals over that, long-sleeved Obama Inauguration Day T-shirt that I’d gotten for donating money to MoveOn.org and I was wearing “to represent”, hooded Miami Dolphins sweatshirt that I’d bought in Vegas years before (I hate the Dolphins, but the colors were good), blue (representing again) Patagonia fleece, and a Murphy Brown jacket that came to me somehow from my ex-wife. A pair of gloves from snowboarding and a thermal headband from REI and a Denver Broncos knit cap. I was representing Blue America, NFL America, TV America, recreational America, and consumer America and I was warm and it felt good.
At 7th Street I was in the first group of thousands that were smashed together at the first checkpoint. Some of those concrete highway barriers were there to guide us into lanes but there were too few to actually do that and we quickly became this giant amorphous mass. Friendships were made, vows were exchanged, babies were born – it was that intimate and it went on for hours. I talked to a couple from Cameroon who were thrilled to be there. They kept apologizing for their English but I told them that they spoke better English than our departing President and they laughed. None of that Japanese girl hand to the face hiding their laughter. They laughed deep and rich and real and I told them I wanted to be a stand-up comic in Cameroon because if audiences laughed like they just did, that had to be the bext feeling in the world. They said they didn’t know of any Cameroon stand-ups and I said that’s because you’ve got other things on your mind, like will you be eaten by crocodiles today and they laughed again. Note to self: look into plane fare to Cameroon and possibility of opening up a comedy club. Far inland. Not near any rivers. No shirt, no shoes, no crocodiles.
And we waited. And we shifted our weight from foot to foot, doing the freezing, god I have to pee dance. But nobody was peeing. The port-o-sans were all behind the checkpoints and they were probably already filthy. I think they’re filthy when they come off the assembly line. I think the folks who make them shit in them and pee in them to test them and then don’t clean them cause they’re port-o-sans and that’s what they’re supposed to do. Note to self: Never ever use portable toilet.
Met two women in their 60s who come in with their church group on a bus from Ohio. One had on a faux mink coat and the other had a Cleveland Browns jacket. They actually passed a small flask back and forth to take off a bit of the chill and I said that their Church must be the greatest Church ever. The woman in the Browns jacket said, “If you’re a Browns fan you always have the flask ready.” I loved them.
Helicopters kept passing overhead with their searchlights trained on the crowd. When a young guy next to me said, “WTF are they looking at?”, I answered, “A shitload of alleged perpetrators.” Huge laugh. Note to self: Start doing stand-up again but only in Black clubs.
Hours passed. Talked to everyone around me. The crowd was like those movies they show in bio class of the paramecium – the pseudopods reaching out, oozing like jelly, the amoeba body following. When someone moved, turned or shifted, the people around you all changed. You were no longer looking left and talking to the Cameroonian couple; you were now facing behind you and talking to the college kids wearing the yellow Presidential Inauguration Conference headbands. Talked to one id with a BY Terriers hockey hat. He played club hockey and we talked hockey for a while. Only natural on an pre-dawn 11 degree morning. As a hockey dad it was very natural. He and a friend of his from Penn State (God, how I hate Big 10 football) and I talked politics. Great to hear young people with articulate, progressive views. And they were with a girl from Florida who was wearing ballet slippers. When I pointed out the fact that it was 11 degrees and her feet would probably fall off before Biden was sworn in she said “I’m from Florida.” I said, “I’m from Earth but I know that the Moon has no oxygen so I’d better bring my own if I go. Did you ever hear of a little thing we call WINTER?!” She said her feet were already freezing and I told her to collect as much newspaper as she could. And somehow wrap them around your feet. I made a homeless reference and a Valley Forge reference and she actually said “Ewww.” I said she could be a slave to fashion and have no feet or she could wrap her feet in newspaper and maybe live to dance again one day. Last I saw her the two college boys were picking up newspaper for her after we got through the checkpoints. College guys will do anything to get laid, even if it means fighting homeless people for insulating material.
7 o’clock came, the checkpoints were supposed to open and we were supposed to be on our way to the Mall. Nothing. No word from the National Guard behind the metal gates.
7:30, still nothing. Crowd chanting “Let us in.” No response.
8:00, and yet more nothing. People on cellphones are finding out that other checkpoints are letting people in. WTF?! My plan to be in that first big block of free public space on the Mall, behind the last ticketed group, was in danger of failing.
8:30, I get a call on my cell. A friend, Jerry Ramirez WHO HAD FLOWN IN THAT MORNING FROM L.A. AND HAD LANDED AT DULLES AT 6:15 OR SO WAS ALREADY ON THE MALL!!! WTF???!!! He had flown in on the red-eye, landed, taken a cab to the Metro and Metroed to the south side of the Mall AND HE WAS ALREADY ON THE MALL!!! WTF??!!
9:00, still nothing and then sometime after 9:15 they opened the gates. 8 at a time. Great. 8 at a time, 2 gates, thousands of us, yeah, I’ll get to the Mall sometime in February.

Inauguration Day Memories 1/20/09 - Part 1

2009-01-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

1/20/09 Inauguration Day

The alarm on my cellphone went off at 3:25 a.m. Luckily for this techno-peasant, there was a 12 year old at the house I was staying at in Silver Spring, MD who was able to set the alarm for me, otherwise I’d have had to stay up all night to make sure I got to the Glenmont Metro by 4:15 to assure myself of parking. Glenmont is the last stop on the Red Line and that was good news since it meant I’d probably get a parking spot and a seat. At 4 in the morning if you can’t have a warm bed and a roaring fire, a parking spot and a seat on the train are a close second. Why 4 in the morning? The media said that all Metro parking lots would be filled by 5:30, the latest. I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d driven the almost 500 miles up from Asheville, NC the day before and I wasn’t about to be driving around a strange city in the pre-dawn looking for parking. So 3:25 it was. Had a few sips of water, 3 mini-donuts left from the trip up and a handful of pumpkin seeds. Went to the bathroom any number of times. Felt like a child – nothing was happening. But I wasn’t leaving until something did. I was going to be standing at the National Mall with more than a million others. In the cold. The freezing cold. It was 11 degrees at 3:25 a.m. Not much different at 4. There might’ve been 6 thousand portable toilets on the Mall but there was no way I was going to be using any of them. I’ve seen Trainspotting. The Worst Toilet in Scotland. I figured any Andy Gump in DC on Tuesday had to be that bad. Or worse. So, yeah, I was going to be cold. I was going to be hungry. And it was going to be great.

Goodbye to Bush - 1/23/09

2009-01-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

Ariana called him "delusional". Chris Mathews called him a tabula rasa. I call him the beady-eyed son of privilege who championed class-war with tax cuts for the wealthy while New Orleans drowned, while Iraq burned, while Afghanistan festered, while government fulfilled Reagan's prophecy and became the enemy, while religious superstition and scientific falsification ran wild, and yes, while the Twin Towers came down in New York due to his negligence, ignorance and his C-student unwillingness to read Bin Laden poised to strike in US. He was the American political legacy who gave inbred European aristocracy and further removed and further inbred ancient Egyptian nobility a bad name. He was the college cheerleader who was never good enough to play in the game who took his Dad's bat and balls and simply made the game up from his gut - spilling the guts of countless thousands on the way. He was the lifelong failure who showed us all what a big man he was. He was the least introspective man of his time. He was the least curious man of his time. He actually said last night - "You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make tough decisions." It was your job, asshole. You want praise for doing your job?! You entered the scene without a hint of class or grace. You leave having learned nothing, without a clue as to the lives led by most people on the planet, wallowing in self-pity and still not a hint, a glimmer, of class or grace. Go back to Texas, the hate-crime capitol of the United States. Fitting. Clear more brush, don't clear brush. But go. And go fuck yourself while you're going. And take the smirk off your face, finally, once and for all. You always were the joke. Go take a long look in a mirror at that smirk. It's held in place, frozen in time, a President Sardonicus for the ages. And while you're smirking, go fuck yourself one more time. Think of it as one more tough decision.

Redneck Slumdog Millionaire - Trailer

2008-12-29T07:43:00.000-08:00

We loved the original film by Danny Boyle Slumdog Millionaire so much that we made our own American Redneck version called Redneck Slumdog Millionaire.

You can see the trailer here

Redneck Slumdog Millionaire

Just for fun, compare it to the original trailer seen here.

The Problem with Heaven - Rick Warren at the Inauguration

2008-12-27T09:26:00.001-08:00

Rick Warren, who based on his weight could be the Queen of Tonga if he
wasn’t the homophobic pastor of the evangelical Saddleback Church in Lake
Forest, California, has made lots of folks angry lately. It wasn’t enough that he
publicly supported California Proposition 8 which amended the state constitution
to ban same-sex marriages. No, there’s footage of him telling a Jewish woman
that of course she’s going to Hell if she doesn’t embrace Jesus. And it doesn’t take a beautiful mind to extrapolate that to mean that all those who don’t embrace Jesus are going to Hell. Which means that Heaven is reserved for Christians. And people are pissed.

My question is WHY?
Rick Warren says I’m going to Hell because I don’t believe in Jesus.
My response is – I don’t even believe in your Hell. I don’t believe in your Heaven.
I don’t believe in your God. Or his Son.

And I would add that all the other Jews and Muslims and Hindus and animists and atheists and agnostics and believers and non-believers of all kinds on the planet
would agree.

Because religion is about believing YOUR FAIRY TALE. Not the other guy’s.

Tolerance of other religions or belief systems is a phony proposition.

Each religion is the One True Way. Each religion is the Path to Salvation.
Each religion is The Truth.

Which means that all others are FALSE. I’ll make it even more clear. All the others are a pack of phony-baloney lies. Let’s not beat around the Burning Bush here.

Believe what you want to believe. Knock yourself out. Religious tolerance always comes with a shrug and rolled eyes and a bit of a snort. So sing your songs of praise and learn about your miracles and your saints and your pillars of wisdom and your keys to a faithful life. I repeat, knock yourself out.

Those are yours. For your belief systems. For your religions.
They have nothing to do with me.
Not while I’m alive and certainly not after I’m dead.

The Mormons, who oddly enough also made a big deal about supporting California Proposition 8, are going around and baptizing the dead of other religions. In their thinking this makes them Mormons in the next life and then forever. They’re doing this to Jewish Holocaust victims and making lots of Jews and others nervous. But again, the question is WHY?

Mormon Heaven, Mormon Hell, Mormon baptizing practices have no meaning to me and they certainly have no meaning to dead Jewish Holocaust victims. Because to me and to them – Mormon Heaven doesn’t exist, Mormon Hell doesn’t exist, and knock yourself out in your baptismal pools but getting folks wet in other people’s names and adding your mumbo-jumbo doesn’t make it real. It may be real to you in Salt Lake City just as Rick Warren’s Heaven and Hell may be real in Lake Forest.

So for all the millions of human beings slaughtered and enslaved in the name of religion through the years I offer this –

Rick Warren, you can go to your Heaven. And you can certainly go to your Hell.

Mormons, same with you. Go to your Heaven, go to your Hell.

But you can’t make me go and you can’t take me with.

And when I’m in D.C. for Obama’s inauguration and Rick Warren is giving the invocation I promise not to boo or hiss or make a scene. Now that’s tolerance.

Everything Matters - 12/19/08 - Evening Edition

2008-12-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

Bristol Palin’s mother-in-law was arrested today for running a meth lab
out of her house in Wasilla, Alaska. Let’s look at a few of the small-town
values on view in Sarah Palin’s immediate and extended family – teenage
pregnancy, unprotected sex, sex before marriage, drug taking, drug making,
drug selling, and a marked inability to name any book, magazine or newspaper
that you have read or read regularly. Yep, that’s our Sarah – too busy
looking over at Russia to see what’s going wrong in her own backyard.

Illinois Governor and noted Elvis fan Rod Blagojevich says he is innocent and
will fight the federal charges against him until his last breath. To support his
case he’s hired a famous defense attorney and released an mp3 of himself
singing “Suspicious Minds.”

Actor Jeremy Piven has walked off Broadway where he was appearing in David
Mamet’s Speed the Plow. Piven claims he has mercury poisoning due to his
habit of eating sushi daily for years. David Mamet responded to Piven’s quitting
by saying “Fuck Jeremy Piven, fuck mercury, fuck mercury the element and
fuck mercury the planet and fuck mercury the messenger of the gods.”
He added, “Fuck poison, fuck Poison the hair band and just for the hell of it
fuck Brett Michaels of Poison too. “

In the Minnesota Senatorial race recount, a vote with Lizard People written
above the name Norm Coleman was counted while one with Brett Favre written
over Al Franken’s name was not. The state board criteria was that Lizard People
was clearly not a real vote but the one for Brett Favre was. So basically the
criteria is if you’re just a lunatic and wrote-in Lizard People your vote counts,
but if you’re a dick and thought you were funny and wrote in Brett Favre your
vote doesn’t count. The joke’s on them as Sarah Palin just announced she’s
running as the Lizard People candidate for President in 2012. Makes sense.
Palin is cold-blooded, hasn’t fully evolved, and had to have an expensive
make-up artist on call during the election because of her dry, scaly skin.

The pirates of Somalia have told the world press that they became pirates to
make money which would help them attract the ladies. On the pirates’ Facebook
page, their interests are listed as “throwing people overboard, murdering innocent
sailors, and breaking global maritime law. Piracy must work because on the same Facebook page the pirates are all listed as “In a Relationship.”

Twilight Movie Review from Everything Matters

2008-12-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

See what the crap you get from typical Hollywood with Movies about not fucking and sequels of sequels of sequels.

The Hills Have Thighs - Big Foot in the South!

2008-12-14T08:06:00.001-08:00

In order to help out other fellow Youtubers, we thought we'd pass on this trailer for this film. Should be good for a number of laughs.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Everything Matters - 12/11/08 - Movie Mash-Up Edition

2008-12-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

I love the end of the year in movies. All the top 10 lists, the best of the year, the worst of the year. And especially the movies that are nominated for awards – Ny Film Critics, LA Film Critics, Golden Globes, Oscars…
But as much as I love the movies, I’d love to see not so much sequels and prequels as mash-ups – movies that are made, like music mash-ups, of 2 or more movies mashed together to make one new movie.
The Dark Knight Vicky Cristina Barcelona – Tag line - a 3 way we’d all like to see.
Milk The Wrestler – the story of America’s first openly gay WWE wrestler. Tag line – He pinned his opponents inside the ring and married them outside. Except in California.
Frost/Nixon Burn After Reading – Tag line – Burn After Taping is More Like it.
Milk Man on Wire – A gay French aerialist tightropes across the twin towers – just to deliver the milk.
Mamma Mia Defiance – Russian Jews fight back against the Nazi war machine, all to bouncy sing-along ABBA hits.
The Dark Knight Happy-Go-Lucky – A new Batman, now on Prozac.
Rachel Getting Married 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – a lot can happen before Rachel gets married.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Kung-Fu Panda – Brad Pitt as you’ve never seen him before – An endangered species… who fights back!
The Reader, The Visitor, The Duchess, The Dark Knight – this year’s Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. And Jim Carrey’s all of them!
Slumdog Millionaire In Bruges – The weirdest Craigslist personal ad in Belgium. And see who answers!

Everything Matters - 12/11/08 Afternoon Edition

2008-12-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

Brad Pitt’s new movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is up for a slew of Best Picture awards from major critics across America. It’s about a man who ages backwards – starts out old and ends up young. In L.A. it’s also known as The Dyan Cannon Story for the actress who was born in 1937, married Cary Grant in 1965, and based on her appearance at L.A. Laker games, is now 19 years old.

Also at the movies, Ron Howard’s new film, Frost/Nixon, about the 1970s David Frost interviews with disgraced former President Richard Nixon is getting good reviews but is not expected to do well at the box office. That’s because a similarly themed movie came out a few years back and did terribly – how many of you remember Griffin/Hitler, about the weird Merv Griffin interviews with disgraced former Fuehrer Adolf Hitler?
In the works however, should Frost/Nixon do well are Kimmel/Cheney, Letterman/Mugabe, and my favorite, The Ladies of The View/Putin.

Rod Blagojevich is refusing to resign as Governor of Illinois. He’s been indicted on federal charges of trying to sell the open Senate seat of President-Elect Barack Obama.
Funny, usually when your last name’s Blagojevich you’re not the Governor of Ilinois, you’re the former Serbian strongman being tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity. On second thought, having seen his hair, he should be tried at the Hague
for crimes against humanity.

Blagojevich is blaming the whole thing on bad luck. Yes, a black cat did cross his path. And then somehow it ended up on his head.

The Congress voted to give 14 billion in loans to GM, Ford and Chrysler. They’ll also create a “car czar”. The “Car Czar” will have 3 duties - oversight over the auto industry, raise environmental standards and create greener cars, and of course, as Czar, bring the Romanoff monarchy back to Russia.

I love how in the United States, a democracy, we’ve “borrowed” or “co-opted” the word Czar from Russia, our big enemy during the Cold War and the model for totalitarianism.
Need someone to run the war on drugs – Drug Czar. Need someone to oversee the bailed-out auto industry – Car Czar. I shouldn’t worry, it’s just a word. I’ll worry more when the Car Czar sends out the Cossacks to kill labor unionists, intellectuals and Jews.

The indicted Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is claiming he did nothing wrong. He wasn’t selling off the Senate seat. After watching the Federal Government bail out the banks, Wall Street and the auto industry, he was just looking to for the bail-out of Blagojevich Incorporated. Of which he is the only employee.

On the taped phone calls the government is using to build their case, Blagojevich can be heard saying “Fuck Obama” and Obama’s people “don’t want to give me anything but appreciation.” Soon he’ll be getting much more – an 8 x 12 cell, a metal toilet, and a 6’8” roommate with a shaved head named 8-Ball.

When Blagojevich says “Fuck Obama” on the tapes he’s upset because Obama didn’t represent the change that he needed. Matter of fact, he didn’t want change at all.
He wanted a million dollars in small bills, non-sequential serial numbers. But no change.

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, has called the auto industry bail-out “ass backwards”. Considering Vitter was a client of the DC Madam and liked to be dressed
in big, adult diapers when he met with prostitutes, thinking of Vitter and anything “ass backwards” is almost as unpleasant a picture as the roadkill perched on top of Rod Blagojevich’s head.

Ever since the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon in disgrace and he was forced to resign, every scandal anywhere has to have the suffix GATE attached. The current one in Illinois is no exception – Blago-Gate is what they’re calling it. First of all, Blago has no rhythm, no poetry. Blago sounds like someone who fights Popeye, or a weird minor character from Lord of the Rings, like a cousin of Bilbo or Frodo.
How about these alternatives to Blago-Gate –
1. Senate Fantasy Camp – Not just a week-end, spend 6 years with the Senators – only a million bucks.
2. Bla-Gate-Evich – it gets the Gate in there but keeps his Serbian heritage intact.
3. F@@k Obama Gate – it keeps Obama’s name front and center and is the number one choice among Republicans.
4. Spinning Lincoln-Gate – based on the great line about Illinois corruption from U.S. Attorney Patrick Sullivan.
5. Dirtier than Louisiana/New Jersey/Nevada/Arizona Gate – pick any of the other scandal-ridden states to make your comparison.
6. Spitzer wanted Pussy, I wanted Money Gate – two stupid Governors in one. And you get 2 of the 3 biggest cities in America.

Everything Matters - 10/29/08 - Morning Edition

2008-10-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

So you do know that there is no Mrs. Joe the Plumber. Something about the
male threading on his pipes not really fitting into the female threading on hers.

Obama’s got a half hour campaign ad on TV tonight which people are calling
“very special”. Just what we need, another “very special” episode where Uncle
Obama talks to the cast of Two and a Half Men about the dangers of unsafe sex
and teenage drinking.

Doesn’t Joe the Plumber look like the giant gladiator Tigris of Gaul who’s sent
in to fight and kill Russell Crowe in Gladiator? But he ends up dead with the
sword in his foot? Raise your hands – how many of you would like to see
Joe the Plumber with a sword in his foot? Or to get him to shut the fuck up –
in his mouth?!

So you do know that there is no Mrs. Joe the Plumber. Something about his
pipes leaking early before her faucets were actually turned on.

McCain is having a Joe the Plumber rally at a lumberyard in Florida.
Obama had a crowd of a hundred thousand in Denver the other day and
a week before the election McCain is speaking before a hundred guys in Florida
with toolbelts and visible buttcracks. And all of them thinking the same thing –
“How do I get a shot at laying some pipe into Cindy McCain?”

Sarah Palin gave a speech on energy policy this morning where she said
we need to build 45 more nuclear power plants. Actually she said 45
“nuke-u-ler” power plants. Hey, crazy lady, if you can’t fucking say it you
can’t fucking build it!!!

Palin did say what she’d do with the nuclear waste generated by those
45 “nuke-u-ler” power plants she wants to build.And she listed – New York,
San Francisco, Washington, D.C…

Everything Matters - 10/28/08 - After Lunch Edition

2008-10-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

Vanity Fair has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the records of a 1964 car crash in which a young (let’s say “younger” since McCain was never young) John McCain may have been involved in a deadly car crash which has been covered up for years. So now McCain’s not just like George Bush, he’s like Laura Bush as well since the First Lady ran a stop sign as a young woman in Texas and killed someone.
McCain votes like Bush 90% of the time and he drives like Laura the other 10%.

Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted yesterday of corruption for not reporting 250 grand worth of goods and services for his home. To make matters worse, under Obama’s tax plan, anything under 250 grand wouldn’t be taxable anyway!!!

Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity that she likes being in the underdog position.
Which accounts for most of her support from male voters who salivate just
thinking of Palin in the underdog position.

I love the Republicans. Now they’re saying that one party rule didn’t work
out so well for them so don’t let the Democrats do it either. The new Republican
slogan – We’re all gonna lose so vote for me.

Convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens – doesn’t he look like something that
should be looking back at you from inside an aquarium.

Convicted Senator Ted Stevens said he’s too old to go to jail.
Sarah Palin agreed and volunteered to shoot him from a helicopter.

Everything Matters - 10/27/08 - Evening Edition

2008-10-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

In Hollywood, the movie Max Payne finished second in the box office numbers last week. And in politics, Max Payne, otherwise known as John McCain, is doing his best
to finish second as well.

Leaks from the McCain campaign are calling Sarah Palin names like Diva and Rogue. Just what I’m looking for in a Vice President – someone who’s a little bit J-Lo and a little bit uncanny X-Men.

With 8 days to go McCain is falling further behind. He needs Joe the Plumber now more than ever cause his chances to the White House are in the toilet.

Over the weekend US forces attacked militants in Pakistan and Syria, two countries we are not at war with. Until now.

The McCain campaign is calling Obama things like socialist, communist, Marxist.
No wonder McCain likes that Arizona desert heat. He’s still fighting the Cold War.

McCain calls Obama, Pelosi and Reid a dangerous threesome. Hey, a dangerous threesome is won the NBA title for the Celtics last year.

Famed mystery novelist Tony Hillerman died today in New Mexico.
Foul play is suspected but Navaho police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim
Chee are already on the case.

Everything Matters - 10/21/08 - Hollywood Edition

2008-10-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it, if Hollywood were to remake Frank Capra’s classic It’s A Wonderful Life and base it on the Republican policies that lead to the collapse of the global economy, the Bailey Building and Loan Association would foreclose on everyone in Bedford Falls, George Bailey would commit suicide and take half the town with him, and Clarence Odbody, the Guardian Angel would plummet to Earth in a fireball cause he would never get his wings. They could even use another movie title to show the true horror of the world left behind after 8 years off George Bush – Apocalypse Now.

Everything Matters - 10/21/08 - Xmas Sing-Along Edition

2008-10-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

John McCain has said that if/WHEN he loses that "he has a great life" and he'll simply go back to Arizona. Well, here's the Xmas carol we want the whole McCain clan to sing on Xmas eve around the Yule log - a carol specifically designed to go over just how poorly his campaign was run.

The 12 Days of John McCain’s Christmas

On the first day of xmas the campaign gave to me a bad joke as a V.P.

On the 2nd day of xmas the campaign gave to me 2 voter frauds

On the 3rd day of xmas the campaign gave to me 3 bill ayers

On the 4th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 4 facial tics

On the 5th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 5 robo calls

On the 6th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 6 banks a-closing

On the 7th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 7 senate seats lost

On the 8th day of xmass the campaign gave to me 8 town halls missing

On the 9th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 9 we’re all georgians

On the 10th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 10 blue states once red

On the 11th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 11 pundits switching

On the 12th day of xmas the campaign gave to me 12 joe the plumbers

Everything Matters - 10/20/08 - Evening Edition

2008-10-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

After a front page report in the New York Times, the McCain campaign is releasing more of the candidate’s medical records. They’re doing so chronologically. So far we know McCain had measles when he was 6, mumps when he was 7 and he survived the Black Plague in 1348.

McCain’s endgame for his campaign is to endlessly repeat the words – socialist, terrorist, Muslim and baby-killer. The Yaser Arafat estate tried to get a cease and desist order against McCain, claiming that Arafat’s reputation as the world’s most famous socialist, terrorist, Muslim baby-killer was being damaged.

The Taliban stopped a bus in southern Afghanistan and beheaded as many as 30 passengers. The Taliban left notes for the international media, they sent videos to
the international media, and they broadcast tapes of the murders.
John McCain blamed Barack Obama.

This year’s World Series is a match-up between the Philadelphia Phillies and
the Tampa Rays. Phillies is urban slang for a marijuana cigarette and Tampa is
well-known as a cigar-making city. So it’s basically the Up in Smoke Series –
Cheech and Chong vs. Garcia y Vega. Or simpler, homegrown vs. subsidized.

Everything Matters - 10/19/08 - Serious Edition

2008-10-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

What Do We Do If:

The GOP has their way and the voter rolls across America are purged by
the thousands? The ten thousands? The hundred thousands? The MILLIONS?

Suppression of Democratic voters goes unchecked and countless Americans
just can’t vote?

Untold numbers of “provisional ballots” are relegated to the dustbin of history?

We wake up on Wednesday, November 5th to another stolen election and the nightmare scenario of a President McCain and a Vice-President Palin?

What Do We Do Then?

Everything Matters - 10/16/08 - Afternoon Edition

2008-10-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

Super investor Warren Buffet today said “Buy American stocks. I am.”
Warren Buffet has 35 billion dollars. Americans who aren’t Warren Buffet
said “We’d love to but we’re too busy trying to buy American food,
American clothing and American shelter.”

The Supreme Court ruled today and stopped a GOP effort to suppress the
vote in Ohio. Don’t get too happy. In the spirit of fairness the Court also
ruled that the GOP COULD suppress the vote in the other 49 states.

Headlines everywhere are blaring that Sarah Palin’s staff are keeping her away
from the news so she won’t get depressed. Which proves that this latest version
of the Terminator T-1000 DOES have human emotions.

So Sarah Palin’s staff is keeping her away from the news so she won’t get
depressed. Funny, every time I read about her or see her in the news I get
depressed. And she’s been a public figure for all off 6 weeks now. Have you
seen how depressed the stock market has gotten in that time???

John McCain, down in all the polls, is looking into what he calls “a narrow
victory scenario.” Basically it means that after Obama is inaugurated,
McCain would become King of Arizona and Alaska.

I’m sorry but doesn’t Joe the Plumber look like he should be fighting Rick Flair
and Ivan Koloff in a cage match? Loser leaves town.

How many of you are aware that Oliver Stone’s movie about Bush, W., is the prequel
to Spike Lee’s movie X, about Malcolm X? As Malcolm himself would’ve said,
“George Bush destroyed this country… by any means necessary.”

Everything Matters - 10/16/08 - Afternoon Edition

2008-10-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

After last night’s 3rd and final debate (with apologies to Budd Schulberg’s On the Waterfront):

Act III, Scene 6 - PLACING THE BLAME

Int. Hofstra University Debate Hall – Night

Deserted. Bob Scheiffer is gone. The people and media types are gone.
Barack and Michelle are gone. Cindy McCain is gone. In a darkened dressing
room, only George Bush and John McCain remain. Tension and the threat of
violence in the air.

Bush
Look, kid, er, old man, I - how much you weigh, John?
When you weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds
you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn,
and that skunk you got for a campaign manager, he brought
you along too fast.

McCain
It wasn't him, George, it was you. Remember that night
in the Senate you came down to my dressing room and you
said, "Kid, er, old man, this ain't your night. The country’s
going for the price on Obama." You remember that? "This
ain't your night"! My night! I coulda taken Obama apart!
So what happens? He gets the title shot on January 20th
outdoors in D.C. and what do I get? A one-way ticket
to Palooka-ville! You was my President, George, you shoulda
looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just
a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money.

Bush
Oh I had some bets down for you. You married that beer
heiress. You saw some money.

McCain
You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a
contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which
is what I am, let's face it. It was you, George.

Everything Matters - 10/15/08 - After Lunch Edition

2008-10-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

The polls say that McCain is hurting his chances by only using attacks. All Obama has to do tonight to win the debate and blow McCain away – utter the two magic words – “Duck season.” McCain will come back with “Rabbit season” and on into the night and the debate and the election are lost!!!

McCain says that he’s the more experienced, he’ll have “the steady hand on the tiller.” Don’t think I want this bozo steering the ship of state? This is the Navy flier who crashed two planes before he even got to VietNam.

And what’s with McCain’s “steady hand on the tiller” crap? We’ve seen our retirement income disappear and Wall Street collapse after 8 years of Republicans. Republicans never mean a “steady hand on the tiller”, they mean a “steady hand IN the till!”

The McCain campaign is now paying for robocalls to folks in North Carolina, Missouri, Colorado and Wisconsin slamming Obama’s patriotism and saying that he puts Hollywood above America. When I hear the word “robocall” the first thing I think
of is Robocop which was a pretty damn good Hollywood movie. And the bad guys in Robocop were big-shot businessmen.
Kind of like today. Hey, Hollywood’s not so bad. I’m voting for Obama.

Everything Matters - 10/15/08 - Lunchtime Edition

2008-10-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney was headed to the hospital this morning to “restore his normal heart rhythm.” No truth to the rumor that he was accompanied by weapons manufacturer Tony Stark.

Dick Cheney is off to the hospital today to “restore his normal heart rhythm.” Most leading doctors told him they couldn’t help him with his heart problem… said he’d have to consult first with a certain Doctor Wizard in Oz.

McCain went on record today about possible voter fraud in Florida. He said that ACORN has registered Mickey Mouse to vote. Hey genius, ever been to Orlando? Disney World? Not only is Mickey registered to vote, he’s the fucking Mayor!

There are Obama for President ads in the latest Xbox 360 games out on the market. To counter this futuristic move, the McCain campaign is buying space in the new Sears and Roebuck catalog which will feature McCain wearing “long pants”;
John McCain will be meeting both Buster Brown and Buck Rogers in this Sunday’s comics;
and lastly, they’re coming out with a two-page chromolithograph suitable for framing of an heroic McCain fighting off the Sioux at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Everything Matters - 10/14/08 - After Lunch Edition

2008-10-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Tim Mahoney, the Florida Congressman who succeeded Mark Foley after he resigned because of a sex scandal, is now involved in a sex scandal of his own. Foley, of course, sent pages of emails to male House pages. Got that? Pages of emails to male House pages. Foley was found guilty by the Court of It Sounds Like an Old Danny Kaye Song.

It seems Congressman Mahoney paid off a former mistress to the tune of $121,000.
And that was before the economic meltdown. But it did coincide with his own.

Paul Krugman, Princeton professor and New York Times columnist, won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, for his work in “analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Let’s see – I go to a store (a location of economic activity) and
I give them money and get something in return (analysis of trade pattern). As my grandmother would say, “For this he got a Nobel Prize?”

Everything Matters - 10/14/08 - Late Lunch Edition

2008-10-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

The McCains are perfect for each other – when it comes to Ayers, she puts them on and he talks of nothing but.

McCain today compared Barack Obama to Herbert Hoover, the Republican President at the start of the Great Depression, forgetting that George Bush is the Republican President at the start of this Depression. Other things McCain forgot today – any numbers after seven, what pizza tastes like, and the name of “that guy with the hair” on Seinfeld.

Have any scientists noticed that global warming is affecting all the Earth’s polar ice except the massive frigid glacier that is Cindy McCain?

You do know that John McCain, famous for his temper, recently called his wife Cindy the C-word? Yes, if Hemingway were alive he’d be rewriting The Old Man and the C? The story’s the same – an old man in search of younger tail.

Nice to see all the make-up that Cindy McCain puts on her face each day. Did you know the colors of her make-up can change when she senses danger?

Today John McCain unveiled his long-awaited economic plan. He’s going to have 11 families of celebrities live in whichever of his houses he and Cindy aren’t in at the moment. His plan is called Who Cares: I Married a Hundred Million Dollars!

Everything Matters - 10/10/08 - Lunchtime Edition

2008-10-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

An evolutionary haiku

Dinosaurs lived with
Men and Sarah Palin’s proof
She walks among us

Based on the hatred and race-baiting used in the McCain-Palin campaign, shouldn't her problems
in Alaska be renamed "Storm-Troopergate?"

China banned an herbal drug after 3 deaths. 3 deaths? For China, that's like a drop of milk in the ocean.
Wait. China, please don't dump any of your milk in the ocean.

Colorado is going to review how it purges its voting roles. In the past the rules to purge were - "vaguely Spanish", "Jamal is black or Muslim", and oh yeah, that's Jewish".

Everything Matters - 10/10/08 - Morning Edition

2008-10-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

A Sarah Palin Haiku:

Palin on Newsweek
Can't airbrush in or retouch
Sorely lacking soul

A Republican ticket haiku:

McCain P.O.W.
Sarah Palin wingnut MILF
Acronyms from Hell

The McCain-Palin campaign issued a report that has exonerated Sarah Palin in the Alaskan Troopergate scandal. At the same time they've issued a report which blames Senator Obama for the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Cubs abject failure in the 2008 NL Divisional Series.

A 2008 Campaign Biblical Haiku

And lo, John Mc-Cain
Is so clearly un-Abel
Don't let him play God

Everything Matters - 10/9/08 - Lunchtime Edition

2008-10-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

The first country to fall in the wake of the global financial meltdown is Iceland. The Icelandic government announced today that they were going bankrupt. They said their problems began a thousand years ago when their real estate investment
in Vinland didn’t pay off.

McCain said today that he was forced to go negative because Obama wouldn’t agree
to 10 town hall meetings. He was forced! This has now become the Bush rationale
for waterboarding and other forms of torture. The terrorist captives wouldn’t agree
to ten town hall meetings. We were forced to torture them!

Cindy McCain attacked Obama by saying his vote on a troop funding measure sent a cold chill through her body. Considering the Ice Princess has a standard body temperature of about 10 below zero, how could she tell?

Cindy McCain went to Alaska to campaign for Sarah Palin and won the
State Fair award for Best Ice Sculpture.

The Republican Party keeps saying that McCain’s use of the term “that one” at the debate has no racial subtext. Interesting. In other news, Mississippi and Alabama have revealed the design of their Presidential ballots. It’s lists McCain as the Republican nominee and That One as the Democratic.

Everything Matters - 10/8/08 - Afternoon Edition

2008-10-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

So the Daily News reports that John McCain is taking a supplement that folks with Alzheimer’s and senile dementia are taking. Nice. The bad news is he’s taking it. The good news is that he’s remembering to.

A lot of to-do over the fact that McCain referred to Obama as “that one” last night at the debate. Not that bad. Considering that during his debate practice he kept referring to Obama as Kid Chocolate, Mandingo-bama, and M.C. Bama, the Illest
man in Illlinois, “that one” isn’t that bad.

At McCain-Palin events in the past few days audience members have screamed out “terrorist”, “treason”, and “kill him” when Obama’s name has been mentioned. The amazing thing is they yell out the same epithets when Jim Belushi’s name is mentioned.

Today, Conservative columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks, said that “Sarah Palin represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party.” The Republican party, much like it’s Presidential nominee John McCain refused to reveal its medical records.

John McCain’s economic plan at last night’s debate was to buy up lots of bad mortgage debt. Which is what the recently passed 700 billion dollar bailout is going to do. Later his campaign also announced that McCain is against slavery in
the Missouri Territory and would argue strenuously to repeal Prohibition.

And a great new Everything Matters YouTube video from the Obama rally in Asheville, NC on 10/5/08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr03WpZdhJo

Enjoy.

Everything Matters - 10/7/08 - Lunchtime Edition

2008-10-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin is quite the pitbull. From prison, Michael Vick said if he had a bitch like Sarah, he never would’ve lost a dogfight.

Today, McCain-Palin rallies are turning increasingly ugly with crowds lashing out at the media and Obama. Tonight they plan to add Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals to their list.
And tomorrow… tomorrow, the world.

The McCain-Palin campaign is so covered in slime you’d think they just won a Kid’s Choice Award on Nickelodeon.

After seeing Sarah Palin get dirtier and sleazier with each day, Joe Biden, realizing he shook hands with her at their debate, voluntarily started getting rabies shots.

Joe Biden voluntarily started a series of painful rabies shots today after realizing he shook hands with Sarah Palin at their debate last week. “I knew she was a pitbull”, he said.
“I just didn’t know she was rabid.”

The Republican Party, upset at charges that they are trying every trick in the book to suppress the vote, have hired a watchdog group to oversee the polls in all 50 states.
The watchdog group is staffed completely by ex-Chinese milk inspectors.

Possibly my favorite headline ever – “Duchovny leaves rehab for sex addiction.”
Hey, if I ever leave rehab, you can be damn sure I’m headed straight for sex addiction.

It’s not just the collapse of global markets and imminent worldwide depression.
As if you needed more proof that the 1930s are back in a big way this headline in the Times – Germany seeks wider role for Army. And you know by wider they mean Poland, France,

Everything Matters - 10/4/08 - Late Afternoon Edition

2008-10-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

This just in – Philosopher George Santayana rolled over in his grave during the Vice-Presidential debate and sent this updated version of his famous maxim – “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be Sarah Palin.”

Sarah Palin emphatically said that John McCain knows how to win wars. 5 years as a guest of the VietCong isn’t exactly winning. Oh, he’s counting the times they’ve played Risk.

McCain last week said that he’s consulted Sarah Palin “many times” on foreign policy. Let’s see – they’ve known each other about 6 weeks, she’s been to 2 countries that aren’t ours and she lives next door to Russia. McCain also announced that he’s consulting through a séance, the spirit of Anna Nicole Smith for help with the economy.

That 3rd grade class that Palin gave a shout-out to at the debate… They’ve learned their lessons well from her. They’re refusing to answer any questions their teachers are asking, preferring to just go to their talking points. When asked to multiply 7 by 36, little 3rd grader Nevaeh Beaumont said, “That plan is just a white flag of surrender.”

When told that the bailout of Wall Street would cost every man, woman and child in America about 2,300 dollars, John McCain said “And I bet Obama taxes that.” When told that the 2,300 dollars wasn’t really theirs to being with, McCain said,
“The Democratic plan to tax non-existing money is reprehensible.” When told he was still confused on the issue, McCain said, “That Jeter’s a hell of a shortstop.”

New Political Web Series Called Everything Matters

2008-10-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hello, I just wanted to post a quick blog entry to invite you to see what I've been working on with Blind Lyle Films. Below is one of our videos that is mocking our wonderful VP Candidate Sarah Palin.

Remember to goto our youtube channel, subscribe to the videos, rate them and comment on them. Finally, e-mail the link to your friends.

Thanks

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Everything Matters - 10/3/08 - Evening Edition - V.P. Debate Wrap-Up

2008-10-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

So the pundits are saying that Sarah Palin didn’t show any human emotion after Joe Biden’s heartfelt story about losing his wife and daughter and almost losing his sons. I was more concerned with her lack of humanity when she never once stopped to move the hair from her bangs that was poking he in the eye all night. A real human being would’ve simply moved it away. But not Sarah. I half expected to see her slice open her eyeball to reveal a glowing red light and lots of circuitry like Arnold as the Terminator.

So Palin would like to see increased powers for the next Vice President? How much you want to bet that she’ll believe it if she’s told the next V.P. will have X-ray vision?

Today in Pakistan a US drone missile killed twelve suspected terrorists. And at last night’s debate, Sarah Palin’s droning talking-point answers killed another 37.

Sarah Palin was upset she didn’t use one of her zingers last night – she was hoping to be asked her views on evolution and she was going to answer,”Yes, I am a creationist. A job creationist!” When told that under 8 years of Republican rule millions of jobs have been lost she smiled and said, “That’s just history talk.”

If George Santayana were alive today he’d say “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be Sarah Palin.”

Palin's Alaska as a Microcosm of Everything

2008-10-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

And Alaska isn’t just a microcosm of America. It turns out that Alaska is a microcosm of any place on the planet.
According to Palin and the McCain campaign, Alaska’s proximity (that’s “closeness” for all the other Joe 6-Packs out there like Sarah) to Russia makes her a foreign policy expert. Palin has stated that Russia is separated from Alaska by just a narrow maritime strip. Greece and Turkey are also separated by a narrow maritime strip.
Therefore, Alaska is just like Greece and Turkey.
Alaska has Native Americans, commonly called Indians. India also has Indians. Therefore Alaska is just like India.
And let’s not forget the West Indies; places like Jamaica. It follows that Alaska is just like Jamaica and the West Indies.
Using Sarah Palin logic, can you see how her foreign policy expertise and experience simply grows at an exponential rate?
The question must be why was she not put to better use as Secretary of State where her formidable foreign policy
genius could have been put to better use?
But back to her microcosm.
Alaska has mountains. Lots of countries have mountains, such as Nepal, Tibet, Peru, Chile, and Romania.
This makes Alaska a microcosm of all those countries and just like them. As Sarah Palin famously put on a bumper sticker as Governor of Alaska, Alaska is just like Romania, only without the vampires. Our tourism rates shot up after people saw they wouldn’t be bitten by the undead if they came here.
Alaska has ice. Lots of countries have ice, like that cute Iceland, and Norway, and even places like Brazil which have electricity and can make ice in those little hotel room refrigerators. So Alaska is just like a microcosm of Iceland and Norway
and Brazil and places with electricity and hotels just about anywhere.
Alaska also has seals and polar bears and so many places with zoos and aquariums have seals and polar bears so Alaska is just like them. I mean, the Berlin Zoo has that cute little polar bear Knut so in a very real way Alaska is just like Berlin
which is in Germany. But not the bad Berlin or Germany with those bad people, the Nazis. Alaska isn’t like Germany with Nazis. We’re more like the Germany with regular white people who aren’t Nazis. And our seals and polar bears aren’t Nazis either. And while I was Governor I had a tanning bed put in the Governor’s mansion so I could add a little color to the usual Arctic white skin tone we tend to get up in the far North. And by tanning myself I felt a kinship with all the tannish people of the world so in that way Alaska, or me representing Alaska, was myself a microcosm of all the tannish, darker, non-White people in the world. So Alaska is then a microcosm of Africa and Asia and Latin America and South America and most of New York City. That tanning bed provided me with so much foreign policy knowledge and experience.
So as you can plainly see, Alaska is just like any other place on Earth.
With a really high rate of sex crimes.

Everything Matters - 10/1/08 - Morning Edition

2008-10-01T08:55:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin said yesterday that Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Let’s look at the population figures from 2006. 70.7% of Alaskans are white.
15.4% of Alaskans are Alaska Natives or American Indians. So rounding off,
71% of Alaskans are white and 15% are Native Americans.
White people and Indians. Yeah, Alaska is a microcosm of America.
America in 1847.

Just Discovered - the text of a "Real Sarah Palin" ad

2008-10-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

"Hello, I'm Sarah Palin and I'd like to just talk to you, the American people as me, Sarah Palin. So you get to know the real me, so you can see the real me, preacher. So you can see the real me, doctor. And so you can see the real me, mother. Those lines are from a rock and roll song that Todd and I don't really listen to cause rock and roll is bad and causes homosexuality but we sometimes play it real loud when we don't want the kids to hear us fooling around in our evangelical Jesus loving way. Sound really carries in Alaska and that's another reason I am a foreign policy expert cause that means not only can I see Russia from here but I can hear Russia also. ‘Course my preacher says that could be the radio transmissions coming in through the fillings in my teeth which the liberals pushed through Congress back in the sex and drug sixties so they could brainwash us while we sleep. Which is why I sleep with my mouth open so the transmissions just go out into the room and not into my head and anyway, Todd, my first dude, well he just loves that my mouth is open like that all night. Anyway, I hope you're getting an idea of what me, I, myself, the real Sarah Palin is or are like. I'm just like you, and you, and you. You know I can't really see you but what I'm doing there is using what we mothers call "the imagination dealie". That's where we make things up to make life more fun and just better for our kids, of which I have like 5. We make up things like dinosaurs and evolution and dna and the law of gravity, like no ones' ever broken that, I mean, planes go up, rockets go up, and they only come down when we say come down, or make them come down. I lost a balloon years ago with track or trig or trailer park, one of my kids, and it hasn't come down yet so there goes that "law" of gravity stuff. That balloon went up and never came down so if the elite liberal scientists are going to lie about that they'll lie about everything. I'm Sarah Palin and this is the real me."

Everything Matters - 10/1/08 - Early Morning Edition - pt. 2

2008-10-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

Indian officials said the stampede which killed 147 was worsened by devotees of the goddess Durga who brought cracked coconuts as offerings which slickened the temple floor with coconut milk making escape impossible. Through a spokesperson, the Hindu mother Goddess Durga said, “I’m very sorry for the pain and suffering and the loss of human life. On the other hand, I really like coconut milk.”

Everything Matters - 10/1/08 - Early Morning Edition

2008-10-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

When interviewed by Katie Couric yesterday, Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin could not name one newspaper or magazine that she reads that helps shape her world view. In a snap-poll taken right after the footage aired, 89% of voters now think the Bridge to Nowhere is simply the space between her ears.

Palin may have won the all-important Adults Who Retreat into Childishness when Confronted with Hard Questions vote when her answer to a question about her worldview was answered with – “I see Russia but not France, I’ve seen Putin’s underpants.”

Which was still better than her first answer. When asked what her worldview was she originally said, “Round.” And then after a pause she added, “But we should teach Flat Earth-ism because science can never be too sure.”

Good to know the American people care about the issues. In an online poll, 9 million people voted on this question – “Is Sarah Palin’s lipliner a tattoo?” Imminent financial meltdown, possible depression, and let’s not forget two wars and global terror. But most importantly, “Is Sarah Palin’s lipliner a tattoo?” And here I thought Lipliner and Tattoo were two of her kids.

To celebrate the opening of Bill Maher’s Religulous, a film about the intellectual inconsistencies of blind religious faith, 147 pilgrims were killed in a stampede at a Hindu shrine in India.

Indian officials said the stampede was worsened by devotees of the goddess Durga who brought cracked coconuts as offerings which slickened the temple floor with coconut milk making escape impossible.

And since this is the 21st century, this line from the New York Times – “It was the second deadly religious tragedy in the past few months in India, where pilgrim stampedes are not uncommon.” So to be clear – India 2008, a nation in contrast – nuclear weapons, outsourced American high-tech jobs, and pilgrim stampedes!!!

We might consider importing the idea of pilgrim stampedes. They might make those boring grade school Thanksgiving pageants easier to sit through. Or run from.

The dolphins at a Japanese aquarium are going on a diet after visitors noticed they weren’t jumping as high out of the water at their shows. Officials blamed the problem on the dolphins’ high fat diet of mackerel. The dolphins blame their weight gain on the fact that they are enslaved by men who spend night after night drunk in strip clubs and grown women who dress like middle-school versions of Sailor Moon and their unhappiness at their situation translates to extra pounds. That and shitloads of mackerel.

Everything Matters - 9/30/08 - Morning Edition

2008-09-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

Everything went down in value today as the stock market went down 777 points.
That Ukrainian freighter hijacked by Somali pirates was said to have 30 million dollars worth of arms and ammunition and the pirates wanted a 20 million dollar ransom.
Today the pirates said they’d settle for a signed photo of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

In Israel, disgraced former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel should pull
out of the West Bank. With the global economy failing, pulling out of any bank
makes perfect sense.

To put the 777 point loss in the stock market yesterday –
- Randy Moss, the wide receiver for the Patriots, has scored 762 points. That’s taken him 11 years.
- Tris Speaker, baseball Hall of Famer, hit 792 doubles. That took him 22 years.
- Gordie Howe scored 801 goals in ice hockey. That took him 34 years.
So in sports, on average, it takes about 22 years to hit or approach the number 777.
The stock market did it in one day. I worry what the next 22 years will look like here.

777 point drop in the stock market. Interesting that on the web, 777.com is “the home of serious gamblers.” Yeah, we know.

Bill Clinton may be going to Florida to campaign for Obama this week but his heart clearly isn’t in the whole Obama thing. He’ll only be speaking in Miami to nursing home patients with Alzheimer’s and he can’t be blamed if they forget to vote.

That’s at least a bit better than his original Florida schedule which only had him speaking in the Everglades to the all-important undecided-alligator vote.

Those Somali pirates who hijacked the Ukrainian ship filled with arms for Kenya now find themselves cornered on all sides by the US Navy. You hear that? The 21st century technologically advanced futuristic US Navy against Somali pirates in loincloths with swords. The pirates are obviously huge underdogs. Betting site 777.com says take the pirates and the points.

NASA announced yesterday that the space shuttle mission to fix the Hubble space telescope will be moved to 2009 after the election. Makes sense. The last thing Bush wants is anybody else out there seeing how bad things are here on Earth.

Everything Matters - 9/29/08 - Late Night Edition pt. 2 - Predictions

2008-09-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

I predict that Thursday's Vice-Presidential debate will not happen because Sarah Palin will not be there. The reasons for her non-appearance -
Bristol's water will break and the concerned mother and grandmother will rush to her side;
a moose will die outside the debate hall and need to be field dressed and butchered for freezing;
she's just too fucking dumb and she believes McCain when he says he'll Google-Map the directions for her and he's never used Google;
to show her support for Israel she's still celebrating Rosh Hashanah (even though the all-important first two nights are over);
she will be back in Alaska watching for the giant head of Vladimir Putin read his head over the Bering Straits;
she will be arrested for attempting to kill Katie Couric... and Tina Fey... and every other woman in America who is smarter than her.

I predict that John McCain will invade both Iran and Pakistan on January 21st, 2009. Whether he is President or not!

I predict that Sarah Palin, in an appeal to the evangelical base, will announce that her daughter Bristol and her baby-daddy Levi Johnston, will name their baby if it is a boy, Matthew Mark Luke and John-ston. And if it is a girl they will name the baby My Mom Made Me Have This Johnston.

I predict that oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens will pull a Montgomery Burns and rather than blot out the sun so we can't go solar will simply buy the wind.

And I predict that Todd Palin will never, ever, ever get another blow job.

Everything Matters - 9/29/08 - Late Night Edition

2008-09-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

So Congressman Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri said that the economic bailout bill didn’t pass the House today because they had to rush the bill and its details because of the Jewish Holidays. Roy Blunt, Republican Congressman from Missouri, the Show-Me state…show me anti-Semitism!!!

The John McCain automatic speech writer – first you say the terrible thing that Obama did. And then you say “but America needs our help so we should never lower ourselves to talk about this”. Here’s an example: “Some have said that Obama drinks the blood of middle school virgins. But we should never let his dietary habits intrude upon the seriousness of the Presidential election.” It works for everything – “Obama was seen in a Japanese Zero in the skies above Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. But the events of almost 70 years ago should never enter into the election process.”

Congressman Price from Georgia just said that he’d support a bailout bill if it included a reduction of capital gains taxes. That’s all the republicans want – more financial help for rich, white people. Lower capital gains taxes! Most Americans don’t have capital or gains!!!

ABC news said that with the wall street down almost 800 points today after the bailout failed in Congress, Americans lost 1.1 trillion dollars in the market today. I gotta tell you; if I find 1.1 dollars in the market, I’m fucking keeping it!!!

NASA announced today that it is snowing on Mars. And President Bush said that if the snowstorm on Mars gets any worse, FEMA will be there in about 87 years.

The stock market today finished lower than it was the day Bush was inaugurated.
Remember when he said he was a uniter, not a divider? Actually he’s both; he’s united both parties against him and divided all of us from our money. Actually, he’s not a uniter or a divider… he’s just a dick.

Everything Matters - 9/27-9/28/08 - Late Night Edition

2008-09-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

After last night’s performance at the first Presidential debate, John McCain is taking a lot of heat for not ever looking directly at Barack Obama. Give him a break. After years of opposition to regulatory oversight, McCain is not used to looking at anything too closely.

During the debate McCain made a big show of using the word “festooned.” Trying to win the votes of the vast number of undecided archaic word freaks, McCain then accused Obama of “ruthlessly pricking his gonfalon bubble”.

Last night at the debate John McCain never used the words “middle class” or the words “working people”. Not only didn’t he say them, he’s never met them either.

So at the debate last night John McCain didn’t use the words “middle class” or “working people” but he did use the word “festooned”. Great. The Republicans are running a man from the early 20th century using a word from the 19th century to try
to lead us into the 21st century.

At the debate McCain quoted Winston Churchill but didn’t give him credit; he made up a story about Dwight D. Eisenhower; and he mentioned something about Alexander the Great. To put aside any fears that he was out of touch and out of date, at the end of the debate McCain did sing the theme song from The Jeffersons while doing the Mashed Potato.

The first Presidential debate was held last night at the University of Mississippi, commonly called Ole Miss, which is also John McCain’s nickname for his first wife.

Just for the sake of nostalgia, last night at the first Presidential debate, the University of Mississippi had two doors to the stage – one door said Barack Obama and the other said White People.

The University of Mississippi just can’t seem to get its head around the way we live today. The official program for the Presidential debate last night at Ole Miss called it The Presidential Debate and Minstrel Show. And the pre-debate warm-up was Michelle and Barack Obama performing as the Tap-Dancing Ethiops.

Did anyone notice that John McCain’s eyes were so fully dilated last night at the debate that they looked like little black buttons instead of eyes? Eye doctors say this may be a sign of a permanent state of arousal. Great, McCain won’t release his medical records because he doesn’t want us to know he’s got an IV drip of Viagra going 24/7.

Or his eyes really are little black buttons and John McCain is really a snowman.

Terrible news out of China. As of yesterday, 53,000 children have been sickened by drinking tainted milk. And an hour after this report, 53,000 children were again sickened by drinking tainted milk.

The Chinese government is trying to put a good face on the fact that 53,000 children have been sickened by drinking tainted milk. The government announced today that none of the children has gotten sick by drinking milk at a school built before the recent earthquake.

When John McCain was told that Somali pirates had seized a Ukrainian freighter off the coast of Kenya his first reaction was to say, “Let’s see how this plays out. We may need those pirates to defeat the Spanish Armada.”

Let’s see, Somali pirates have seized a Ukrainian ship headed to Kenya with 30 million dollars worth of grenade launchers, ammunition and battle tanks. No, this is not level 3 of some video game. Somali pirates have really seized a Ukrainian ship headed to Kenya with 30 million dollars worth of grenade launchers, ammunition and battle tanks. They are, however, demanding 30 million dollars and the codes to get to level 7.

Every article about the Jonas Brothers talks about their vow of chastity until marriage and the fact that they all wear “promise rings” to show this to their fans. What isn’t said is how many millions of young fans are wearing similar rings that symbolize the fact that they promise they will never, ever have sex with any of the Jonas Brothers.

Everything Matters - 9/26/08 - A Little Later Morning Edition

2008-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

At the big White House meeting to save the economy yesterday, John McCain played bailout spoiler. Besides staying silent for 40 minutes, McCain offered no specifics and refused to say which side he was on in any bailout scenario. One person close to the negotiations said, “Bush is no diplomat but compared to McCain he’s Cardinal freaking Richelieu.” McCain said that he knew Cardinal Richelieu and please don’t drag his good friend Richie into this.

Yesterday Bush said, “If money isn’t loosened, this sucker could go down.” Today, ice princess and White House press secretary Dana Perino slipped when she said that Bush was not referring to the country as the sucker that could go down. No, Perino said, the sucker is the American people. Has been for 8 years.

Considering McCain’s incoherence and total lack of leadership and understanding of the economic crisis, Obama’s people have a new ad up. In it they say that McCain agrees with Bush more than 90 percent of the time and with Herbert Hoover 100 percent of the time.

McCain loves to talk about his time in VietNam. You watch, tonight at the debate he’ll say he was against the economic bailout cause the last time he bailed out he was a P.O.W.for 5 and a half years.

Gtreat. Just what I want in a President – a hot-head who brings up VietNam more than Walter Sobchek, the gun-toting, quick-to-anger character played by John Goodman in The Big Lebowski.

John McCain can be compared directly to the Wall Street meltdown. He’s old,
white, rich, with no idea as to how he got where he is today.

Everything Matters - 9/26/08 - Late Morning Edition

2008-09-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

So McCain goes to Washington and sits silently in a meeting with Bush, Obama, and the major players in the bailout scenario. According to all published reports, McCain IS THE REASON there was no deal reached yesterday because he would not reveal what side of the deal he was on. Today McCain said, “Deal, no deal. The minute I see 26 supermodels with suitcases full of money I’ll decide.”

Deal or no deal. Bush says the future of the American economy is at stake here.
Wall Street has collapsed and the middle class is disappearing. And today Bush called
in his secret weapon to stop the bleeding. Tonight in primetime House Republicans, the group that skewed the deal yesterday and remain the last holdouts, will be asked by Howie Mandel, “Deal or no deal?”

The Bush Administration wants to save Wall Street. Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership want to save Main Street. And John McCain and the renegade House Republicans want to save K Street so they can go back to Easy Street.

The renegade House Republicans who blew the bailout deal yesterday are demanding
that capital gains taxes be rescinded for 2 years as part of any deal. Considering that working people have very little capital and certainly no gains, this is clearly a case of putting party before country.

The renegade House Republicans who are insisting on a 2 year moratorium on capital gains taxes before they’ll agree to an economic bailout are clearly putting party before country. With this in mind, I finally figured out why Republicans seemingly always have the edge in the polls when it comes to handling foreign policy. To Republicans, the United States is a foreign country. So everything they do is foreign policy.

Watch this now!!! Sarah Silverman - The Great Schlep!

2008-09-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/25/91356/3480/342/609860

Everything Matters - 9/25/08 Afternoon Edition

2008-09-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

So there’s now footage all over the news of Sarah Palin at her church accepting the blessing of Pastor Thomas Muthee who asks Jesus to fund her political campaigns.
Then he throws in that she be protected from witchcraft. And what the hell, for good measure he kind of casually tosses in that Jews (he calls them “Israelites”) control the economy and that’s what’s causing all the corruption. Nice to know the woman running for VP in the 21st century is living in the 13th.

This all goes to prove that belief in witchcraft is the gateway drug to anti-Semitism.

This Pastor wanted Jesus to fund Palin’s political campaigns. Makes sense.
After Jesus chased the moneylenders from the temple, with the money he
confiscated Jesus started a Political Action Committee.

And if Palin were to raise millions of dollars with no records of who or where it’s
from she and the Republicans can now claim it came from Jesus. What can the Democrats do? Gonna take a lot of guts to swiftboat Jesus!

With Jesus now running the fundraising part of the Palin campaign we won’t be seeing a record of the following donation – Iscariot, Judas, 30 pieces of silver.

Ironically enough, once it became public knowledge that she is then only one of four major candidates protected from witchcraft, Palin announced that she will not be debating Joe Biden but she will be debating Harry Potter.

Last week the rumor that one of the players was using witchcraft at a soccer game in the Congo sparked a riot that killed about 30 people. I’m sure we all laughed and said, “Those funny Congolese, believing in witchcraft.” Now we hear that Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President was blessed by a pastor to be protected from witchcraft. What are American women going to say? “She’s got 5 kids, she’s a hockey mom, and she’s protected from witchcraft. She’s just like us.”

It’s amazing. Wall Street is Albert Brooks in Lost In America asking Garry Marshall as the boss of the Desert Inn for his money back. Only now we have Bush and Paulson and Bernanke playing the part of the Vegas casino boss and this time they say they’re going to give the money back.

The Asking for the Money Back from a Vegas Casino Scene from LOST IN AMERICA

28 INT. LOBBY

David walks very slowly towards Shuster's office. You
can tell he's thinking. He approaches the front desk
and clears his throat, trying to act dignified. The robe
diminishes this a bit.

DAVID
(to the Clerk)
Mr. Shuster, the Pit Boss, may I
speak to him, please?

CLERK
I don't know if he's in. Just a
moment.

The Clerk picks up the phone. He buzzes.

CLERK
(continuing)
Yes. There's a gentleman here
to see you.
(to David)
What is your name?

DAVID
I'm David Howard. He knows me,
we spoke on the telephone. My
wife was the one who was up for
hours.

CLERK
(into phone)
David Howard. Yes. Yes.
(hangs up phone)
He'll be right out.

David stands there. He's thinking, staring straight
ahead. Out of an office emerges JACK SHUSTER, the Pit
Boss, the man we saw earlier. Shuster's a large man,
in his early fifties. He's as intimidating as his
job calls for. He looks like he might have killed
somebody once, and actually enjoyed it. He walks
over to David.

SHUSTER
Mr. Howard? Come on in.

CUT TO:

29 INT. SHUSTER'S OFFICE

David tries to compose himself even more as he follows
Shuster into his office. David's story is now formed.
He knows what he wants to say. He feels confident.
David enters the office. He sits down in front of
Shuster's desk.

DAVID
First of all, let me say, I've
heard a great deal about you.

SHUSTER
(suspicious)
What do you mean? From who?
What did you hear?

DAVID
Oh, I just meant I've heard
wonderful things from everybody
in general, from the whole hotel.

SHUSTER
(relieved)
Well, that's very nice. Thank
you.

DAVID
No, thank you.

SHUSTER
Is your wife feeling better?

DAVID
Yes, she is.

SHUSTER
So, what can I do for you?

DAVID
I have a very interesting idea.
I think you'll be taken by it.

Shuster stares at him.

DAVID
(continuing)
I was a key executive with a major
advertising agency - one of the
biggest in the world.

SHUSTER
Yes, right. So?

DAVID
Well, I was the Idea Man there.
So, when I say I have an interesting
idea, I'm not speaking like any slob
that walks in off the street.

SHUSTER
Okay.

DAVID
(clearing his throat,
about to enter into
The Big Story)
My wife and I, we dropped out of
society. She had a very important
position in a department store and
again, I remind you that I was one
of the highest executives in the
world's largest advertising firm.

Shuster just stares at him.

DAVID
(continuing)
Anyway, we were going to find
ourselves. Then, we thought, maybe
we're too old, it's too late. We
can't find ourselves, that's only
for kids. And then we thought about
it some more and it hit us. Wait a
minute. Who's to say at what age
you stop being a kid?

SHUSTER
You gotta have some age. How else
could a court separate rape from
fun? In this state, it's eighteen,
by the way.

DAVID
Yes. But my point is we wanted
to find ourselves and we did and
we dropped out, just like they
did in "Easy Rider."

SHUSTER
Easy what?

DAVID
The movie, "Easy Rider." Famous
movie. Important movie.

SHUSTER
Didn't see that, I'm sorry.

DAVID
It's a classic. If it comes on
cable here, see it. Anyway, we
did something that no one has done
for a long time. Maybe no one has
ever done it because in the movie
they were movie stars, so they
didn't really do it, even though
they portrayed people that did it.

SHUSTER
I'm getting mixed up here. What
is your point?

DAVID
Well, we did it for real. We
quit our jobs and we sold everything
that we had. The only thing we own
is our little motor home, which is
parked outside. That's all we've
got and we were going to spend
years roaming around this beautiful
country, but we knew we couldn't
do it unless we had our little
nest egg tucked away in the bank.

SHUSTER
(interrupts)
I'm going off duty in a few minutes.
Now, your point is what?

DAVID
I'm getting to it. Why did we
come to Las Vegas? Because it was
a new beginning and I wanted to
remarry my lovely wife. That's
nice, don't you think?

SHUSTER
Very nice.

DAVID
I wanted to get remarried but I
wanted to spend our honeymoon in
the Grand Canyon, places like we
intend to spend the rest of our
lives in, but my wife is very fond
of your hotel and all of the
employees and she said, "Oh, come
on, let's spend our honeymoon here."
And we did and the room was very
lovely and everybody was very nice
to us, but my wife lost the nest
egg.

SHUSTER
Mr. Howard, stop right here. I
think I know what you're getting at.
I realize you've lost a great deal
here and I want you to know that
your room and your meals are comped.

DAVID
That's very nice but that's not
exactly what I'm saying. I think
I have a multi-million dollar idea.
Now, you have to be very secretive
about what I'm going to tell you
because the other hotels, if they
heard about it, well, they'll grab
it in a minute.

David leans over Shuster's desk and whispers to make
the idea really sound secretive:

DAVID
(continuing)
I think, as an experiment, you
give us back the money we lost.

SHUSTER
I beg your pardon?

DAVID
Well, imagine the publicity? I
mean, the Hilton, for example,
they have billboards all over L.A.
where they put the faces of the
winners of those slot machines.
Now, those people win a couple
hundred thousand dollars, but the
hotel is getting millions of
dollars of publicity with those
billboards because people drive
by and say, "Gee, the Hilton looks
like a nice place. Look at those
smiling people." So, what about a
billboard with my wife and I on it
and we would be smiling and there
would be a saying, something like,
"These people dropped out of society,
they couldn't take it any longer,
but they made a mistake. They
lost their nest egg at The Desert
Inn, but The Desert Inn gave it
back." And maybe there could be
some kind of a visual with you
handing us an egg or something.
Now I mean, I'm just formulating
this now, as I'm talking, but you
can imagine, when it's worked
out how effective it could be.

SHUSTER
(chuckling)
That's wonderful.
(he gets up)
Well, Mr. Howard, nice to meet
you.

DAVID
What do you mean nice to meet
me? You said this is wonderful.

SHUSTER
We're kidding each other here,
right?
(starts to
laugh again)
I gotta tell you, this is one of
the best things I've ever heard.
What's the board gonna say again?
"Gamblers, come and get your
money back."
(he laughs)
Great. That's great.

DAVID
(standing up)
No. No. Wait... Not "Gamblers,
get your money back."
That's wrong. We're not gamblers.
We're the few people in society
that have tried to do something
with our lives. See? We're drop-
outs. We're finding ourselves.
Someone's got to help the few
people like us, because if they
don't, nobody will ever drop out
again. Nobody will ever have
the courage to find themselves.

SHUSTER
Well, I understand what you mean,
but I don't think The Desert Inn
can help find you. I'm sorry, but
thank you for the idea and good
night.

He begins to escort David to the door.

DAVID
(stopping him)
Listen, I've experienced this
before. I've had clients that
didn't understand the idea until
they saw it on television and
then they said, "My God! What a
brilliant idea! Why didn't I
understand this?" I might have
used the wrong phrase. Okay,
picture this: maybe, my wife
and I will do a television
commercial for you and there
could be a jingle and it could
go:
(begins to sing)
"The Desert Inn has heart! The
Desert Inn has heart! The Desert
Inn has heart!" Something like
that. See what I mean?

SHUSTER
That's a nice jingle. Mr. Howard,
let's assume you're serious here.
What if this caught on? Could you
imagine what would happen? Why,
we would have to return everybody's
losses. The casino would just
crumble. We couldn't pay our bills.
You know the casino accounts for
a great deal of our profits.

DAVID
I understand. Of course, you don't
pay back everybody's losses. You
make a distinct division between
the bold, who are out there searching,
and all the other schmucks, who come
here to see Wayne Newton.

SHUSTER
I see. Now, I like Wayne Newton.
So, I fall into what category?

DAVID
(realizing this was
not the best example)
Oh, look, I picked a name out of a
hat. I like Wayne Newton, too.
I'm saying a schmuck, representing
the gambler and a bold person,
representing me and my wife and the
one or two others that probably
wouldn't come here anyway. You
wouldn't have to do this more than
once or twice, there's not too many
bold people around. I think it was
a mistake to use entertainers as
the dividing line. We could find
another system. Anyway, what do
you say? We do need that nest egg
back.

SHUSTER
I say good luck to you and stay
away from the tables next time.

DAVID
Oh, that's for sure, but come on?
Half the money, for courage?

Shuster opens up his office door. He escorts David out.

30 INT. LOBBY AT FRONT DESK

SHUSTER
Mr. Howard, nice to meet you.
A pleasure.

DAVID
Hold it. What about "Miracle
on 34th Street?"

SHUSTER
Christmas picture, right?

DAVID
(now rambling on very
fast, desperate, rea-
lizing his plan is
about to fail)
More than a Christmas picture. What
happened there? Macy's didn't want
to send their customers to Gimble's
because the president of Macy's
thought they would lose all of their
customers and lose a tremendous
amount of money and it would be taken
wrong. But it wasn't taken wrong.
What happened? Macy's did much better
than they ever did before. And that's
what would happen to you. The Desert
Inn would do much, much better because
you would get Gimble's business and
the casino would be full.

SHUSTER
Well, I'm not too familiar with
that picture but didn't Macy's have
Santa Claus to help them out?
(he starts to laugh)
I mean, if they didn't have Santy
Claus there, they might have done
very badly.

He continues to laugh. David now starts to laugh along
with him, except David's laugh has a pitiful ring to it.
He senses this is not going to work.

DAVID
Yes. I guess they did have Santy
Claus. Well, thank you. Thank you.
And just so I understand, we can t
get any of our money back, right?

SHUSTER
Well, not today, no. But if the
policy ever changes, we'll write
you.
(still chuckling as
he goes back into
his office)
That's wonderful. Very good.

He closes the door. The desk Clerk, who has just seen
Shuster laugh, turns to David, who is standing there
looking as bad as he's ever looked.

CLERK
I think he likes you. He rarely
laughs at anything.

David just nods a sickly "thank you."

CUT TO:

Everything Matters - 9/25/08 - Morning Edition

2008-09-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

Last night Bush spoke about the economic crisis, or as it’s known at his house – Other People’s Money.

In his speech, Bush let us in on how he really felt. And I quote, “It is difficult to pass a bill that commits so much of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money… But given the situation we are facing, not passing a bill now would cost these Americans much more later.” These Americans. He’s not including himself. Or anyone like himself. Republicans. Rich, white Republicans. Be very clear - these Americans are taxpayers who earn their hard-earned money through hard work. These Americans are the vast majority of the American people.
To paraphrase Walt Kelly’s Pogo: I have met these Americans and they are us.

So McCain rides into Washington on a white horse and saves the American economy. Not likely. First off, his white horse is busy lobbying for Freddie Mac or Georgia. Don’t forget, this is the man who has said he knows very little about how economics works and last Monday when the stock market fell 511 points he said the fundamentals of the economy are strong. He wants to save the economy – here’s a start –
How ‘bout he donates half his wife’s hundred million dollar fortune and 8 of his twelve houses to be used by foreclosed families. And the 5 grand he pays a Hollywood make-up artist to cover up whatever that is going on on his face. And the 500 dollar loafers he wears. And gets rid of every lobbyist on his campaign staff. Yeah, do all that for a start and then we can talk.

Look, it’s so clear that McCain suspended his campaign, whatever that means, so he wouldn’t have to debate this Friday and he wouldn’t have to debate on the economy, which is the real issue.
Never forget he voted for tax cuts for the wealthy in time of war and voted with George Bush over 90% of the time. McCain is still a P.O.W. – Prisoner of W (Bush 43)

And it’s even clearer that McCain suspended his campaign, whatever that means, so he could cancel the Palin debate as well. New Horror film based on Palin’s candidacy and reluctance to speak to the press – The Silence of the Moose.

Palin did tell Katie Couric that she would “get some examples of McCain’s economic leadership and bring them to her.” Well, the bad news is she won’t find any examples and the good news is at least it proves that one member of the Republican ticket knows how to use Google.

So Bush wants the American people to buy 700 billion dollars worth of investments that are so bad that no one can put a value on them. I’d offer to sell you a bridge but the American infrastructure is so bad that the bridge probably fell a long time ago.

How ‘bout we stop building the wall across the US-Mexican border and put it where it belongs – on Wall Street. We wall up Wall Street. With all the brokers and investment bankers inside. And if any of them have any ideas how to fix this mess they profited from and helped create, we send in Snake Plissken to bring them out. Oh, and if that doesn’t work because Snake Plissken doesn’t exist, enjoy the view, boys.

Everything Matters - 9/24/08 - Late Morning Edition

2008-09-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

Everything Matters – 9/24/08 – Morning Edition

Yesterday, in order to bolster her foreign policy experience, Sarah Palin met with the Presidents of Afghanistan and Columbia and ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Video showed her smiling and nodding, nodding and smiling, as she met with 2 minor world leaders and a war criminal. Just what we need in a Vice-President; a reactionary fundamentalist bobblehead doll.

Republicans don’t need to vote for her; they can get one free at opening day of the next baseball season.

I could just see her with the President of Columbia. “So you’ve got lots of cocaine and up in Wasilla where I was basically the President, we had crystal meth coming out of our ears. Perhaps we can set up some trade agreements? We live in perpetual winter, how ‘bout a Snow-for-Blow kind of deal?”

Prior to meeting yesterday with the Presidents of Afghanistan and Columbia, Palin’s foreign policy experience consisted of arguing with a waiter at a Korean BBQ restaurant.

Dick Cheney has me confused. Yesterday he told the Congress that if they pass the 700 billion dollar bail-out proposal, Wall Street will greet us as liberators.

He also said of the government takeover of AIG, a private insurance company, “It’s not socialism if a Republican does it.”

Cheney also explained the government takeover of AIG in Godfather terms. “It’s not personal. It’s business.” If only Cheney were Tessio. Then his “undisclosed location” would be the same as Jimmy Hoffa’s.

So the Bush-Cheney administration has taken us into perpetual war, overseen the near-collapse of the American financial system, and trampled on the Constitution. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being worst, they’re a 700 billion!!! Dante couldn’t create a hell deep enough for these guys. Hell isn’t deep enough for these guys.

So Rick Davis, the cross-eyed always angry manager of the McCain campaign was on the payroll of mortgage giant Freddie Mac through August of this year, EVEN THOUGH the McCain campaign said he’s had no ties with Freddie for years. Fifteen thousand dollars a month worth of “no ties” to his company. Trying to make things appear somewhat better, the McCain campaign said that Davis really didn’t do anything for the money. Or, as we called it in the Bronx, “fucking stealing!”

Call me old-fashioned but I’d prefer if my political scandals were more, well, old-fashioned. To start with, I want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be actual, flesh-and-blood prostitutes!!! I want my politicians paying Fannie and Freddie, not the other way around.

In other big news, President Bush spoke at the UN and basically said, “Remember when we started some pre-emptive wars and said we didn’t need you? Well, sometimes my gut acts a bit too hasty…” The other 191 members of the UN responded by getting up and going out for Chinese food.

Warren Buffet invested 5 billion dollars in Goldman Sachs saying he’s confident that Congress will approve a bailout. In news closer to home, I bought a loaf of bread at the local convenience store and dipped into the free penny holder for the last 7 cents. Then when the clerk’s back was turned I took the rest of the pennies.

I hate that Treasury Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the Chariman of the Federal Reserve go to Congress and say, “If you don’t do this, give us 700 billion, you risk causing a recession, increasing joblessness and pushing more homes into foreclosure.”
Fuck that. How about Congress grows a pair and says, “We’re in a recession, unemployment’s already up, up and away and there are already tens of thousands of homes in foreclosure. Explain how that happened ON YOUR WATCH, explain your plans FOR NOT LETTING IT HAPPEN AGAIN, and THEN WE’LL FUCKING TALK!!! Better yet, how ‘bout you live over a subway grate and eat out of dumpsters!!!

In Europe they used to have a two-fold solution to an economic crisis like this –
lamp posts and piano wire.

83 percent of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. And the engineer is busy texting teenagers.

With all the distressing financial news you may have missed this beaut of a new story – the EPA won’t limit toxic rocket fuel in our drinking water. Let me say it again – the EPA, that’s the ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, will do nothing to limit TOXIC ROCKET FUEL IN OUR DRINKING WATER. Well, folks, welcome to the United States of Jonestown. Our motto – E Pluribus Kool-Aid. Why do I keep hearing Bowie saying, “This ain’t rock and roll. This is genocide!”

In response to a New York Times article about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis on the payroll of Freddie Mac years after McCain said he’d left, McCain spokesman Algonquin J. Calhoun today said, “Not only do we deny the allegations but we detest the alligator!” Of course, Algonquin J. Calhoun doesn’t exist. He was the incredibly verbose lawyer on the Amos and Andy Show, to this day, the African-Americans that McCain feels the closest to. Ssshhhh. Don’t tell him they were played by white guys on the radio.

These are the experts, folks. Today at Congress, Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke said, “The financial crisis is rippling through the economy.” Yeah, rippling through. LIKE A FUCKING TSUNAMI!!!

Everything Matters - 9/22/08 - Afternoon Edition

2008-09-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hyman Golden, the 85 year old co-founder of the Snapple Beverage Company died yesterday. And that’s the Snapple fact of the day.

Hyman Golden, the 85 year old co-founder of the Snapple Beverage Company died yesterday. He had been ill for some time and was using an unorthodox method to deal with his illness. Rather than modern medicine, Mr. Golden was relying on Snapple’s Kiwi Teawi to cure his Cancer Shmancer.

Humoud Yakobi, the Chairman of Iraq’s Board of Tourism… that’s it, that’s the joke – Iraq has a Board of Tourism. Mr. Yakobi envisions a “six-star resort” and spa where one can cleanse their bodies, their spirits, and their neighborhoods of various ethnicities.

The United Nations announced that they are trying to end global poverty by the year 2015. And in news on this planet...

Henry Steinway, the chairman of Steinway and Sons, the famous piano makers, passed away this week at the age of 93. Services will be conducted in English, German, A minor and B major. Interment will be in a giant box that will be dropped at least 6 times on its way to the gravesite by the pallbearers, one short, fat man in a derby and one tall, thin man, also wearing a derby.

The McCain campaign had a conference call today to demand that reporters stop calling them liars. The conference call didn’t go smoothly as it began with the words, “We were going to call yesterday but we lost your numbers.”

A federal judge on Saturday ordered Dick Cheney to preserve his records from his time as Vice-President. Too late. As President of the Senate, Cheney had already ordered his Vice-Presidential records destroyed.

A federal judge on Saturday ordered Dick Cheney to preserve his records from his time as Vice-President. This might be hard. All of Cheney’s records are branded into the burning flesh of 12 year old Georgetown native Regan MacNeil with each page beginning “Help Me”.

There are currently 3 proposals circulating around Washington to deal with the 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout – one with no oversight, one with limited oversight, and one that puts 350 billion on red.

Everything Matters - 9/22/08 - Early Morning Edition

2008-09-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

The US Treasury's bailout of Wall Street was expected to cost 500 billion. They that was bumped to 700 billion. Now the number is up to 1.8 trillion. 500 billion. 700 billion. 1.8 trillion! Those aren't numbers; those are light-years!

Last night, the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles played the last baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Upending tradition and taking a tip from Yogi Berra, the National Anthem was sung at the end of the game by Maria Serrano, a 385 pound resident of the Bronx.

The President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, has agreed to resign after his own party asked him to quit. In Washington, that cease-and-desist order I faxed to the White House seven years ago just isn't cutting it.

The first Presidential debate is this Friday and the Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual, free-flowing format.
Taking advantage of this free flow, John McCain, trying to show off his rhyming skills and attract young voters, has spent the last few days trying to rhyme "surge" and "courage".

McCain's appeal to the young, urban voter won't work, considering he thinks "street cred" is the stuff on the soles of your Converse.

Trying to turn his negatives into positives and attract young voters, McCain's campaign admitted that their candidate does indeed have thirteen cars. Their press release on this subject stated that McCain has 4 more cars than Ludicrous and his blinged-out Crown Victoria beat Nas's solid platinum 700 series BMW in a recent episode of Pimp My Ride.

Yes, McCain even makes his cars into a patriotic plus when he says, "Yes, I do have 13 cars. One for each of the original 13 colonies." He then added that he is "still against that tax on Stamps" that King George is trying to make us pay.

The Palin-Biden Vice-Presidential debates will be much more structured, with few if any unfettered exchanges. As of now Sarah Palin will only take questions on how many children she has, her favorite color, and her favorite song from the movie Grease.

As her poll numbers have gone down and America sees that she has little, if any substance. the Republican Vice-Presidential candidates' name has now become Sarah Pal-in-significance.

The Bush Administration has balls. The proposal to Congress that the US Treasury bail out Wall Street and buy up to 700 billion dollars in mortgage-related assets came in at a whopping 3 pages. 3 pages! My iPhone bill last month was 37 pages. True, it was close to 700 billion, but that was with texting.

I love that after Bush announces we need 700 billion to rescue Wall Street and the American economy he meets with Alvaro Uribe, the President of Columbia. Let's see, to put 700 billion dollars in Columbian terms, imagine if the entire state of Virginia was made of cocaine.

Bush is shameless. He called the agreement he signed with the Columbian President the "Arms for Blow" deal. Here's the deal - we give Columbia advanced weapons systems and we get thousands of metric tons of "not baby powder".

Everything Matters - 9/18/08

2008-09-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

everything matters

economics and finance wrap-up :

Monday, lehman brothers, a 158 year old major wall street player, collapses. Merrill lynch was sold to b of a.
Tuesday, the federal reserve provides 85 billion to keep insurance giant AIG (American international group) out of bankruptcy.
Wednesday, Washington mutual puts itself up for sale, and morgan Stanley and Wachovia start merger talks.

And today, Thursday, in light of all that is happening to the American and global economy, john mccain scaled down his previous line that said anyone who makes under 5 million a year is middle class. Now it’s anyone who makes under 5 hundred.

Galileo may have to come back from the dead to disprove this but Wall street firms seem to be falling faster than the stockbrokers jumping out of buildings.

In a press conference yesterday John McCain, unable to answer any question coherently, seemed to reject US ally Spain as a US ally and would not commit as to whether or not he’d invite the Spanish President to the White House. He then smiled his garish, forced smile and said that “none of this Spanish stuff changes the fact that beisbol has been beri beri good to me”.
================

International news – in South Korea the law allows only the visually impaired to become professional masseurs. And baseball umpires. While those with mental impairments are forced to enter politics.
===============

In baseball, Ichiro Suzuki has over 200 hits for the 8th straight year, beating a 100+ year old record set by Wee Willie Keeler. Wee Willie, the former owner of the record and the lifetime owner of world’s most unfortunate anatomical nickname, was of course played by child star Shirley Temple for most of his career. Who can forget Wee Willie at the Big Top, Wee Willie’s Christmas, and Wee Willie meets Senator Larry Craig in a Minneapolis Men’s Room?
================

Motown songwriting and producing legend Norman Whitfield passed away at 68. Foul play was not suspected although 4 men in matching powder blue tuxedos were observed leaving the scene.
================

Everything Matters - 9/17/08

2008-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Carly Fiorina, the executive who ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground AND a McCain economic advisor, said yesterday that neither McCain nor Sarah Palin could run a Fortune 500 company. Based on the disappearing stock market with companies disappearing or being bailed out by the Bush administration, pretty soon the question will be, "Could they run a Fortune 200 company? Fortune 50?, Fortune 17?"

Let's see: McCain's 3 top economic advisors are Phil Gramm, the man most responsible for deregulation and thus the financial crisis we are in now; Carly Fiorina, the CEO who almost destroyed Hewlett-Packard; and John Thuin, the CEO of Merrill Lynch who was in charge when after 80+ yeaars Merrill went belly-up and had to sell itself. Consider the odds of having 7 dwarves and three of them are Dopey!!!

Phil Gramm is also the guy who when watching the middle class disappear and Wall Street implode referred to Americans worried about the economy as "a nation of whiners". Today the nation of whiners will be demonstrating outside of Phil Gramm's house and they now wish to be known as "A nation of whiners now armed with baseball bats."

John McCain has repeatedly said that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong". He said it the day Wall Street sufferedd its biggest one day loss since 9/11. In typical McCain fashion he has now retracted that statement and clarified it, saying he only meant "to put the fun back in fun-damentals."

Wall Street insurance giant AIG was bailed out by the federal government and now we, the US taxpayers, own about 80% of AIG. Wall Street is New Orleans without Katrina. Wall Street is Galveston, Texas without Ike. Basically the government bail-out program is like the movie Gremlins - as long as you or your city don't get wet, the Bush Administration will take care of you. Remember, don't get wet!!! Bad things happen when you get wet. Like the government forgets about you!!! (And of course, New Orleans also ate after midnight.)

Artist Damien Hirst had an art sale at the same time as the US and now global financial crisis and sold pieces of his work for over 200 million dollars. 200 million dollars!!! Most famous for putting an entire shark in formaldehyde, Hirst, no financial idiot, said in order to keep his profits from the sale safe he was not going to put them in a bank or any sort of financial instrument. He is simply going to put them inside a shark. Inside an even bigger shark.

In health news, the Amgen Corporation announced good results from a bone drug that strengthens bone density and keeps the spine stronger longer. Sadly the drug was not available for the Democratic Congress of 2006.

It's no secret that John McSame has co-opted Obama's mantra of change and now calls himself the candidate of change. When it comes to his 100 million dollar fortune, his 12 homes and his history as one of Washington's greatest de-regulators, the change McCain believes in for the rest of us is simply the change we have in our pockets!

McCain's losing it. Today he said that "with change you can use pay phones." He then added, "With change you can also use vending machines." And my favorite, "With great change comes great responsibility." When he was told that now he was simply paraphrasing Spiderman, McCain put on his serious face and said "For 5 and a half years I couldn't read Spiderman."

Interesting that the more Americans are being held hostage by the economy, the less John McCain mentions that he was a P.O.W.

It's the opposite for forgotten fascist Rudy Giuliani. Yesterday he blamed the Wall Street free-fall on 9/11. He also blamed 9/11 for Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Maine, and the break-up of Chris Kattan's marriage.

And to quote Rudy, or Il Rudy as he prefers, "If Chris Kattan, who we know and love as Mango on Saturday Night Live, and his wife of six weeks don't get back together, the terrorists win!"

John McCain, trying to win the votes of at least ten black Americans, is now appearing in ads in the "community" as M C Cain, also know as Big Daddy M C Cain. The real Big Daddy Kane meanwhile was planning to start up a renewal of the famous East Coast-Arizona hip-hop feud.

Everything Matters - 9/16/08

2008-09-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

A McCain advisor said today that McCain deserves credit for helping invent the BlackBerry. When asked to clarify this, considering McCain is first learning how to sign on to the internet, the advisor said, “Oh, not the pda BlackBerry. The actual blackberry. McCain is old. He was there in the Garden of Eden when God made the fruits of the Earth and McCain remembers mentioning about something darker than a blueberry. God listens to John McCain is the lesson we should take from this.

There’s a big relief and rescue operation going on in Texas for the victims of Hurricane Gustav. Texans rally around the slogan “Remember the Alamo”. Not the best slogan for a rescue operation. All the people at the Alamo died.

Except Davy Crockett. Historians now believe that Crockett survived the Alamo and tried to escape in women’s clothing, only to be discovered and executed. Davy Crockett in a dress. That would make him (to the tune of the theme song) “Davy, Davy Crockett, King and Queen of the Wild Frontier.”

A brief history lesson: So the stock market crashes in 1929 and Herbert Hoover’s a Republican President and there had been Republicans in office for 8 years prior to him (Harding and Coolidge) and the country was smart enough to blame Republican policies and elect a Democrat in 1932. Perhaps you’ve heard of him – Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Gave us Social Security and Unemployment Insurance and lead us in the great crusade to defeat fascism. Hmmm. So here we are, 2008. Stock Market falling apart. Republican President, has been for 8 years. His economic policies brought us here, along with the deregulatory policies of his party since Reagan in 1980. And they want to destroy social security and put more people on unemployment. AND YOU’RE STILL UNDECIDED AS TO WHO TO VOTE FOR!!!

The people in Texas who were in the path of Hurricane Gustav were just told that it might be weeks before they get electricity and emergency food and water. And this is the government’s response in the President’s home state to people who tend to vote Republican!!! As my grandmother would’ve said, “WTF?!”

Good news from Germany. Two months after being beheaded, the newly repaired wax Hitler is back on display at Madame Tussaud’s in Berlin. Of course to make room for Der Wax Fuehrer all the wax Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals had to be moved.

And we’re not saying what Madame Tussaud’s did with the wax Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals but where they once all were a single candle now stands.

The wax Hitler is seated at a desk in his bunker. He even has a bit of a smile; perhaps because the wax Eva Braun is also in the bunker, under the desk.

The Personal is the Political

2008-09-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

My problem, our problem

My problem since the nixon administration is that republicans clearly don't see themselves as americans; they are not part of something bigger - a pluralistic democracy; they see themselves as REPUBLICANS, those who know what's right FOR EVERYBODY and will do everything in their power to shape the world in their image. of course when you see the world in terms of what's right for everybody it also means you see HOW WRONG the other guy is. and there is no dialogue, and there is no bipartisanship, there is only their one true path. that path is theocracy, that path is autocracy, that path is fascism. don't kid yourself - the republicans are going to be contesting every state they lose - caging voters, bullying tactics at polling places with lists of foreclosures, scare tactics aimed at ex-inmates, scare tactics aimed at students living out of state, they’re already calling jewish voters in florida with the question "how would you feel about obama if you knew he was giving large sums of money to the PLO? - ALL THESE ARE ALREADY HAPPENING OR HAVE HAPPENED IN PREVIOUS ELECTIONS. and all those tactics will help them in every state they win! the fact that this race is even close tells me two things - these tactics have worked remarkably well for the rovian side of the aisle, and the fact that there are "undecided" voters at this stage, not just in the election but folks who've lived through the past 8 years tells me that people aren't being truthful when the truth is they will vote against their own self-interests rather than vote for a mixed-race visionary. they will not admit to this in an exit poll. they may not even be sure it's what they are thinking because as we know most people do not examine their lives and have few if any moments of introspection and clarity. i am worried and scared beyond belief. i'll write my jokes and try to grow into the big leagues of comedy which is satire but the truth is this is the single most important election since 1860 when the fate of the union hung in the balance. now it is the fate of democracy itself. my children deserve better. all our children deserve better.

Everything Matters - 9/15/08

2008-09-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Everything Matters 9/15/08

It is fitting that John McSame is in favor of drilling for fossil fuels. He knew most of those fossils when they were alive.

At a faith-based conference for evangelical Republicans last week, a top seller at the vendor booths was a package of Obama Waffles, a waffle mix that on the box had a picture of Obama with exaggeratedly large lips and darker skin and the boxtop portrayed him as a Muslim. When confronted with their obvious racism the makers of Obama Waffles fell back on the “it’s only a joke” defense basing this on the theory that tragedy + time + racism = comedy.

Other examples they cited to bolster the tragedy + time + racism = comedy equation were the genocidal extermination of Native Americans, lynchings, and the inexplicable success of Larry the Cable Guy.

When that explanation didn’t work they said that they had tested the package on their focus group and it had passed with flying colors. The focus group consisted of the creators of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, the Cream of Wheat Chef and the ghost of George Wallace.

The latest O.J. Simpson trial has started in Ls Vegas where he’s accused of armed robbery, kidnapping and a host of other serious charges. Mr, Simpson’s defense is that he was simply retrieving items that belonged to him. Much like in his celebrated double murder trial when his defense claimed that he was simply retrieving his knives from the bodies of the victims. Over and over again.

The New York Times headline reads Financial Crisis Reshapes Wall Street’s Landscape. Yeah, like Vesuvius reshaped Pompei or Katrina reshaped New Orleans.

Even with Wall Street in meltdown mode and Lehman Brothers disappearing and Merrill Lynch selling itself to the Bank of America, John McCain said this morning that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong”. Maybe at his house. Or houses.

When asked to define one such fundamental, Mr. McCain demonstrated by folding some dollar bills and claiming that they had just doubled in value.

To show even further how out of touch with reality he truly is, McCain then said we shouldn’t just be drilling offshore; we should be drilling on the banks of all of our major rivers like the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Colorado. “C’mon, they’re banks”, he said. “They may not have oil but might have money.”

My favorite McCain campaign lie for today – Obama raised 66 million in August, a number which proves that he is two-thirds of the way towards becoming the anti-Christ.

When presented with the insanity of this claim, a McCain spokesman said that it is incumbent upon the Obama campaign to provide proof that he is not the spawn of Satan and to explain why Mr. Obama has The Omen trilogy in his Netflix queue.

The past few weeks the papers have been filled with Gustav and Ike, Ike and Gustav. How many people thought they were having a nightmare where we were back in World War II and Germany was invading the Gulf of Mexico? Nobody. Really? Then explain why John McCain cut short an appearance this morning to get on his campaign plane, telling the press that he had an urgent message he had to deliver personally to Adolf.

Karl Rove, on no one’s list of the 5 people you meet in heaven, said that John McCain’s lies about his opponent, Barack Obama, during the presidential campaign have gone too far. Karl Rove said that. In a related story, Satan, the Prince of Darkness, was seen at a local sporting goods store buying ice skates.

If you think that spreading democracy is easy be reminded that over the weekend a top European diplomat said that Afghanistan was in its worst shape since 2001.
That’s B.C.

In India, which most Americans know as the place that answers the calls you make to Microsoft, another futuristic technology story. They used brain scans that purportedly show activity in the memory centers to convict a woman of murder, claiming the scan showed she had “experiential knowledge” of the crime. The jury said that that brain scan wasn’t the only reason they voted to convict. They said they were also swayed by the other brain scans that showed the defendant also had “experiential knowledge” of seasons 4 and 5 of Two and a Half Men, the music of Air Supply, and “something sexual involving Donald Rumsfeld.”

Pope Benedict was in Lourdes this weekend in France, the city where a 14 year old peasant girl was said to have visions of the Virgin Mary back in 1858. In front of a crowd of 50,000 worshippers the Pope said ‘the power of love is stronger than the evil that threatens us.” The Pope then got into his bullet and bomb-proof Pope-mobile and sped through the threatening crowd of 50,000 loving worshippers.

Since he was in France, the Pope claimed to have seen the image of Jesus in the crust of a baguette, the burnt cheese on the top of a bowl of French onion soup, and the end credits of The Disorderly Orderly, his Eminence’s favorite Jerry Lewis movie.

It seems that over 200 zoos and aquariums around the world have joined a computerized matchmaking service for their animals and fish. With lions being the kings of the jungle and male lions able to copulate 20 to 40 times a day during mating season, the service is being called MatchMatchMatchMatchMatchMatch dot com.

It has been revealed that when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wassila she tried to ban the book Daddy’s Roommate, a story about a homosexual couple, from the local library. When that didn’t work she tried to interest the publisher in some other titles –
Daddy’s Roommate Joins a Mega-church and Gives Up the Gay, Daddy’s Roommate and the Eternal Fires of Damnation, and Daddy’s Roommate and 9/11: the untold connection.

According to a book coming out tomorrow (9/16/08) Vice President Cheney wanted nothing to do with the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. A few other things that Cheney wanted nothing to do with – love, compassion, empathy, sympathy and basic human decency.

Everything Matters - Pt. 3

2008-09-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

How can someone hate women so much? How can someone hate women so much AND BE A WOMAN? When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the enlightened community up by the Northern Lights, ACTUALLY BILLED SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS AND THEIR INSURANCE COMPANIES FOR THE COST OF RAPE KITS AND FORENSIC EXAMINATIONS!!! Think about how cold and cruel that is. Alaska, which is basically a welfare state living off the largesse of the federal government, billed sexual assault victims for the cost of their rape kits and forensic examinations! Soon we'll also find that while Palin was mayor she also billed shooting victims for bullet retrieval, car accident victims who had to be pried out of their crushed vehicles with the Jaws of Life on a hundred dollars per inch of Jaws used, and even child victims of abuse for each used anatomical sock puppet used to detail their injuries. I don't know about you BUT I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT SARAH PALIN'S CHILDHOOD. AND HER ADOLESCENCE. AND HER COLLEGE YEARS. AND HER YOUNG ADULTHOOD. I want to know about her high school Prom after-party. Everything. What a piece of work.

BTW, Alaska leads the country in forcible rapes per 100,000 population and is eighth in violent crime per 100,000. And Texas, the home of George Bush always leads the nation in hate crimes. Arizona is seventh in murder, second in property crime, third in motor vehicle theft and fourth in larceny theft, all per 100,000 population. No wonder McSame and Sarah Palin-drone and the President they are so quick to emulate are so conservatively law and order. Everyone in their states is out to get them.

Everything Matters - Pt. 2

2008-09-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

McSame says Palin knows more about energy than practically anyone in the United States. And she's always particularly perky and belligerent. Energy, perky above and beyond and belligerent... hmmm, you did know that Wasilla is the Meth capital of Alaska??? Energy, anyone?

We're all making too big a deal about Sarah Palin not knowing the Bush Doctrine. Hell, ask her if she knows the Monroe Doctrine.
Or who Monroe was, for that matter. And not Marilyn!!!

NY Times headline: North Korea's Leader is Seriously Ill, American Officials Say. WELL, DUH?!

Sarah Palin flew back to Alaska for some much needed dental work which she'd put off for a while. First she was for the Bridge to Nowhere, then she was against the Bridge to Nowhere. Ultimately, she decided to just forget about it and stay home. WHILE GETTING PAID.

Republicans want it both ways. A Black woman stays home, she's on welfare, doesn't want to work, is overpopulating the planet. A White woman does that she's the Governor of Alaska.

More to come...

Today's News - Everything Matters Pt. 1

2008-09-12T06:51:00.001-07:00

In a speech in Alaska yesterday, professional know-nothing Sarah Palin linked Iraq and the attacks of 9/11, a belief that Bush and his Administration have long since stopped pushing as having any credence. What's worse is that later in the speech she also linked soybeans and the death of the TV western, the teaching of evolution and the rise of West Nile fever in the United States, and America's dependence on foreign oil and the Stanley Cup.

When asked her qualifications on questions of national security Palin's answer is "Energy". It follows that when asked her qualifications on energy policy her answer will be "national security". This isn't just an affront to the American people who deserve better, much better. This is a way of speaking that takes us through Alice in Wonderland, into the backwards-speak of 1984 with a side trip to Porky in Wackyland and a brief rest in Dead Parrot sketch repetitive and cognitive dissonance. Or, to put it another way, for the Republicans, business as usual.

Of course Republicans in their platform don't believe in evolution. They haven't evolved. Look at McSame and Palin. It may as well be one million b.c. They both have a preoccupation to settle arguments with the use of violence; neither one has any facility with language; art and culture are never discussed but rather the killing of moose and tales of captivity and horror; genuine fear of the Others who may come here across the Rio Grande land-bridge; constant unease and fear of attack; and a primitive style of face painting and adornment. It's not McCain and Palin 2008, it's John McCambrian and Sarah Pleistocene, 2008 B.C. They should hold their next rally at the La Brea Tarpits. Among their constituents.

Add to Sarah Palin on Georgia

2008-09-12T01:30:00.000-07:00

In the years of recorded history here's what Georgia has given the world -STALIN. The man who killed 40 million of his own people. Georgians, Russians, and Ukrainians mainly. 40 Million!!! And there are still those in Russia who MISS HIM and would have him back tomorrow. (Not gonna happen - he's been dead since 1953.) I know there are women and children there and I know there are far too many millions of innocent Georgians who are leading normal, productive everyday lives. But when your first thought upon hearing the country's name isn't, Yeah, they created the polio vaccine, or Hey, that's where that great composer is from but is instead, Yeah, Georgia, that's where STALIN is from and HE KILLED 40 MILLION OF HIS OWN PEOPLE!!!, it's gonna be hard to get me on board with your BAT-SHIT CRAZY idea of going to war with Russia OVER GEORGIA.

Upon Hearing Sarah Palin Speak

2008-09-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Can't sleep. Up at 4 in the morning. Why? Simple. My children will not fight and die to protect the territorial integrity of GEORGIA!!! I don't think any American family should sacrifice their son or daughter on the Republican altar of BAT-SHIT CRAZY!!!
Maybe she's confused. Maybe she thinks Georgia and she sees Atlanta and the Braves on the SuperStation or she hears Ray Charles singing and if that Georgia were invaded or in peril, hell, I'd drive down to lend a hand. That's America. That's our Georgia. But to say that the Georgia that doesn't have teams in the NL or the NFL but is instead the Georgia from the former CCCP or the former USSR and is so vital to US interests that American men and women have to fight and die for her, NO FUCKING WAY! A brief note to Sarah Palin on history: the Russians beat Naploeon. The Russians beat the Nazis. They lost 26 million of their own doing that. 26 MILLION!!! They ate their own dead while they were starving at Stalingrad. And they still beat the Nazis there. I bring up the phrase "mutually assured destruction". The acronym is MAD. That's what war with Russia means. Mutually assured destruction. AND IT IS MAD INDEED. Two other quick historical anomalies: the one war the Russians couldn't win - you guessed it - AFGHANISTAN. You know who else couldn't win in Afghanistan? Alexander the Great. The Afghans are a tough, tough, tough, proud people. They're going to defend their poppies and their rubble and ain't nobody gonna take it from them. But heaven forbid that we learn from history. So let's recap - Sarah Palin, belligerent Republican, advocates war with Russia. The Russians don't lose wars. But, the one they did lose was in Afghanistan. Which is where we happen to find ourselves right now, fighting a war without end and a war that cannot be won. Sarah Palin has been revealed, she has been exposed for what she is - just another mediocrity from the base not the fringe of the Republican party; belligerent, with no grasp of history or current geopolitics; a walking collection of spin, talking points, and medieval attitudes - she is worse than the next four years of the last eight years. SARAH PALIN IS LIPSTICK ON A BUSH. Think Yes, Obama - No, Crazy Mama.

Notes from the Cam-Pain Trail - Pt. 3

2008-09-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

So Stepford graduate Dana Perino, also known as White House Press Secretary, said yesterday that not only was Osama Bin Laden NOT the mastermind behind 9/11 but that "...this isn't like the movies. We don't have superpowers." This only further convinces me that THE BUSH ADMIN. ALREADY HAS OSAMA AND IS WAITING FOR LATE OCTOBER TO UNVEIL THEIR OCTOBER SURPRISE AND SWING THE ELECTION THEIR WAY. Call me crazy - first Musharraf leaves which was the first part of the deal so he can't be blamed for allowing our black-ops guys access to the "lawless Western territories". Second, we read today that Bush secretly ordered those same black psy-ops raids into Pakistan. I'm telling you - somewhere in a medieval prison cell, Osama's in a cage with the pig-mask on just like Hannibal Lecter. Don't put it past Bush and Co. to parade him through the streets of DC like Caesar bringing home the vanquished Vercingetorix, the leader of the Gauls. All the rotting vegetables that people toss over Cheney's fence have been saved just for this occasion, to be handed out to Republican operatives with high school baseball pitching experience. George 43, CHEERLEADER, need not apply.

Perino said, in her nasty schoolteacher correcting tone, "No, Osama bin Laden wasn't the 9/11 mastermind. Khalled Sheikh Muhammed was." Dana, if you look at the depth chart on NFL.com and TerroristMastermind.com, Osama was the mastermind and KSM was his back-up in case Osama tore an ACL or pulled a hammy. Since Al-Qaeda releases fewer injury reports than the New England Patriots, we don't know if Osama was injured or not but we can assume that he started and was in fact the Mastermind of 9/11. Al Michaels and John Madden, on the opening night of Monday Night Football earlier this week, also noted that 3rd and 4th on the mastermind list were the late Bill Walsh and the late Buddy Ryan.

Notes from the Cam-Pain Trail pt. 2

2008-09-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

So Mississippi, always 49th or 50th in state rankings for anything resembling aid to education and medical care (Their state motto: Thank God for Alabama - usually interchangeable with MS in those rankings) has come up with an illegal dirty trick on this November's election ballot. Seeing as how the polls are saying they may elect a Democratic Senator, they're putting the names of the two candidates running for the US Senate AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BALLOT, after candidates running for Road Kill Ombudsman, Secretary of Heritage (also known as Keeper of the Sheets), and Commissioner of the Office to Bring Back the Poll Tax, AND THEY'RE NOT GOING TO LIST EITHER CANDIDATE'S PARTY AFFILIATION. Charming. Governor Boss Hogg, I mean, Haley Barbour, we salute you.

If you want the state to stay Red why not just leave the party affiliations on the ballot but next to them add the following:
(D) = Don't
(R) = Redneck (folks like us)

Animal Crackers in My Soup - Notes from the Cam-Pain Trail

2008-09-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

For the third day the McSame campaign is talking about being called a pig, being called a fish (WTF?!) and moose hunting. Pigs, fish and moose. They'll talk about all forms of life except the bipedal mammals who are losing their jobs and their homes.

As Governor, Sarah Palin earmarked 3.2 million for a study of seal DNA. And I thought Todd, the First Dude of Wasilla, was the father of all their children.

Yes, Sarah, the Queen of Pork Products, especially the tasty earmark, received 3.2 million of our taxpayer dollars to study seal DNA. Can somebody please tell supermodel Heidi Klum that Sarah is looking to become her husband's baby-Mama.

I don't like the idea of a Vice President whose had so many in the oven that Vladimir Putin will call her Easy-Bake.

Along with all the other lies, Palin-drone has consistently uttered that she "engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas-pipeline project." Yes, the pipleine project is now in the "almost-drawing-up-pictures" phase, having passed the all-important, "Yeah, we should do that" phase, the "Wow, can we really do that?" phase and the "Will people really work outside in Alaska to do this?" phase.

So the Interior Department was involved with oil and gas company executives and besides drug use and major payoffs, sex was traded inn order to make and seal the deals. Now we know why this Administration is always ready to "Drill, drill, drill."

Also nice to know that the Interior Department is taking their name literally.

Also nice to know that "offshore drilling" now means having wild Interior Department sex more than 12 miles off the coast.

Great headline in the New York Times today - Effort to help Chad ends. So it's official - Chad is so fucked that it simply cannot be helped. Game over, man. Next up on the government's official Cannot Be Helped List - the rest of Africa, the parts of Asia that aren't China, and Han Solo, but only while he's trapped in carbonite.

How to Win the Debates in 3 Words

2008-09-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

Much has been made of the previous old man the Republicans foisted on the Republic, R. Reagan, the man who didn't mention AIDS for the first 5 years or so of his administration, and how he pretty much won his debates with President Jimmy Carter with the simple phrase "There you go again." Well, while I was working I just had a similar thought - Obama will win the debates but he has to show the undecideds, the independents, anyone on the fence and wobbling the other way that he's more Chicago street fighter than Constitutional Law professor. Here's a simple and effective way to do that. Rather than sit back or stand back and watch his opponent mouth GOP/POW talking points rather than answer questions, all Obama has to do is interrupt (yes, interrupt) and say forcefully and continually, "Answer the question." Was Sarah Palin for the Bridge to Nowhere?" "Answer the question." America wants answers, not talking points and obfuscation. ANSWER THE QUESTION.

And while we're at it, another thought. Stop, as in never again, mention John McCain and "his service to our country." Stop giving him credit. Everybody who gets up and goes to work each day, everybody who raises a family, everybody who DOES THE RIGHT THING DAY IN AND DAY OUT IS SERVING THE COUNTRY. I am so tired of this military crap. Stop feeding that beast.
WE ALL SERVE THE COUNTRY.

The Smartest and Best Columnist in America

2008-09-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

Leon Wieseltier writes the Washington Diarist column in The New Republic. Read him, he is brilliant. This is his latest:
http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=98095efe-b735-456b-a729-cda0285f5269&p=1

Maybe the greatest line ever: You remember the teleological suspension of the ethical.

What you don't know, look up. Don't read to finish, read to learn and understand. The times we live in demand it. Those who would run your lives want you to be ignorant. Learn, baby, Learn.

Sarah Palin Billed Taxpayers to Stay at Home

2008-09-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

According to today's Washington Post (or WAPO in blog talk), Republican V.P. nominee billed the people of Alaska to stay at her own home. Didn't she realize that when asked the question, "Sarah, do you really think you're qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?", she could've answered in all honesty, "No. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.", and all America would've breathed easier.

Heartsick after reading DailyKos (panic edition)

2008-09-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

I am heartsick. When DailyKos has a story (by Kos) with an electoral map and panic edition in parentheticals, i don't know what the "high road" means any more. Seriously. This country, which was hijacked 8 years ago by A GANG, is in more severe trouble than ever. And that gang has no intention whatsoever of giving that country back. Yes, they have their base but they also appeal to the base, baser and basest instincts of all people. Their politics are limbic and visceral and based on hate, greed and intolerance. They will do anything to win. And hold what they have won. Seemingly a majority of American voters would rather have 4 more years, at the least, of this farcical fascism, than elect a young, half-black, mixed race visionary. If this election is lost there will never be another moment such as this. The people and the movement which worked so hard and gave so much will never come back in another four years. They will have been devastated and their hopes dashed and the mourning will last forever. This is the Southern Strategy writ large. Hate the Other, Vote against your own best interests because hate blinds you, all the while being told that Hate equals Love. The Right likes to think they're the true People of the Book. They are. Only their book isn't the Bible, it's 1984.

THE FIX IS IN - 09/08/08

2008-09-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

While we're all being oh-so clever on our Progressive blogs, THE FIX IS ALREADY IN.

Read this from Huffington Post this a.m.: http://www.truthout.org/article/nearly-600000-voters-subject-possible-caging-ohio

and if that's not enough, read this as wll, also from Huff Post:

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/03/voting

Don't think that every vote will be contested. And those are the votes that get past the Diebold drop software. Remember the coup of 2000? They've already got the Court.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

Take a stand.

When the Press Died

2008-09-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

The American Press, a free and independent Press, our safeguard against tyranny died in August 2005. It had been on life support all through the Reagan Administration and it took another twenty five years for the last gasping breaths to echo down the once proud chambers of Murrow Land. Remember how hungry Woodward and Bernstein were when they broke the Watergate news? Remember how proud you were that they followed every lead for you, for the country? Remember how feral and thirsty and unkempt Bernstein always looked in photographs? The same with Dustin Hoffman in the movie version? (Redford is always the picture of WASP cool.) History. All ancient history. Because in August 2005, ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings died. AND LEFT AN ESTATE VALUED AT MORE THAN 50 MILLION DOLLARS. Of course the mainstream media (MSM) isn't going to dig into the heinous and nefarious acts done in our name. THEY ARE PART OF THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT. When you've got 50 MILLION DOLLARS you don't report on Ronald Reagan. YOU ARE RONALD REAGAN. AND YOU ARE DICK CHENEY AND DONALD RUMSFELD AND BOTH MEN NAMED GEORGE BUSH. When journalists leave 50 MILLION DOLLAR ESTATES they don't look into abuses of POWER. They are POWER. MSNBC just removed Olbermann and Mathews from their anchor desks at their coverage of the single most important election since 1860. Clearly they were cowed by the powers that be in the McSame campaign. Yes, the Press, the free and independent American Press died, officially, in August 2005, with Peter Jennings. The ultimate irony - Jennings was Canadian.

Separated at Birth

2008-09-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

Lost in the "Hey, doesn't Sarah Palin look just like Tina Fey" which I'm sure is making Tina Fey sick to her Baby Mama prosthetic stomach, is the fact that from certain angles John McSame looks like world-wide cultural hero Charlie Chaplin. The main differences, aside from the fact that Charlie was a lifelong advocate for the oppressed and spoke out artistically and personally about the dehumanization of workers, are twofold - Chaplinknew to keep his mouth shut when he didn't know what he was talking about. And Chaplin played the Little Tramp. McSame married her.***

***That is you would know if the MSM did its job and told you about McSame's affair with Grinning Skull Woman (Cindy's honorary Indian name; everyone in Arizona has one) while he was still married and the fact that records show they were married BEFORE his divorce from wife #1.