ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WAR, CONT. Breitbart.com has published a press release under the arresting title "DELGADO'S 'HIP TO BE SQUARE' STAKES CONSERVATISM'S CLAIM TO BE COOL." This, says I to myself, I gotta see, so I did:
The press and liberal Hollywood can't stop telling us that President Barack Obama is eternally cool.If you're not convinced already by this show of confidence, get a load of Delgado's scholarship:
A.J. Delgado begs to differ.
The Big Hollywood contributor's new e-book, "Hip to Be Square: Why It's Cool to Be a Conservative," lays out 60 reasons why it's "right to be Right" -- each reason consisting of its own chapter.
The author draws upon a wide variety of pop culture icons, celebrities, films and television shows to state her case, including:Also, "Johnny Rotten, Siouxsie Sioux, and Bob Dylan defending Israel," and "the Beatles on leftist revolutions." Did you know the moptops came out against Chairman Mao? Talk about courting controversy!
A chapter on lifelong Republican Johnny Ramone.
An analysis of three "South Park" episodes blasting the Left (on the extremes of the anti-smoking crowd; the smugness of environmentalists and liberal Hollywood; and the hypocrisy of green activists)
"The Lord of the Rings" and its conservative message
"Team America: World Police"
The punchline:
"Square" is the culmination of six years of Delgado's research...Thanks to Amazon's Look Inside feature, I also got some insight into Delgado's motivation.
Throughout college, law school, and living in New York, I was taught -- both directly and indirectly -- that it was shameful and wrong to be a conservative. Friends, colleagues, even career opportunities fell by the wayside.Maybe they fell by the wayside because you wouldn't stop telling them how Yoda was modeled on Friedrich Hayek and speculating on the most conservative Bubble Yum flavor.
UPDATE. Ms. Delgado has graced our comments with "LOL" and other proofs of her preciosity. Sample zinger: "Thanks for proving my point about the general nasty tone of liberals these days." Anytime, kid!
Wow. this iws beyond reading tealeaves. This is profoundly sad. Or it would be if he wasn't advocating for ever more hell on earth.
ReplyDelete"I am TOO cool! Know how I'm cool? Huh? 'Cause I'm telling you, I'm cool!"
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's going to work just as well for conservatives now as it did when they were being stuffed into their lockers in high school.
And, of course, there's the unimaginable sadness of spending your days viewing life through lenses that parse everything you see into political terms.
What... no love for the new TeeVee show Revolution? This imagining of a post apocalyptic world with no electricity featuring roving gangs killing people and taking their stuff sounds like the perfect libertarian paradise.
ReplyDelete"The Lord of the Rings" and its conservative message
ReplyDeleteFeudalism! And, um, environmentalism?
Every one of Delgado's cultural references just seems to muddy the waters. The bigger picture is either mixed, or drawing out the right-wing aspect does nobody any good.
ReplyDeleteTake Tolkien. He's most rewarding when you DON'T think about the political implications. Moorcock labeled him a bourgeois reactionary, a Christian apologist, etc. Well sure. If I ever read Tolkien again I won't do it Moorcock's way, or Delgado's.
What? Nothing about "I'm A Conservative" by Iggy?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't he like the small red marks on his hand?
"hip to be square: SIXTY GUARANTEED TO WORK pick-up lines for bankers, campaign consultants, and fracking lobbyists"
ReplyDeleteMan, Jonah Goldberg has the luck to write a magnum opus at exactly the right time--dead-smack in the middle of conservatism's slide into idiocy--and now every other halfwit thinks they can pull off the same trick.
ReplyDeleteDelgado's in the comments at the Breitbart piece, making classic "Central to my point" arguments.
ReplyDeleteIn the same way that LOTR goes a lot faster if you skip ahead every time someone starts singing, if you insist on reading right wing blogs, it goes a lot faster if you skip ahead whenever the writer says: "Well, you KNOW that [insert work of art here] is really conservative."
ReplyDeleteAlso, too - naming your opus after a song released a quarter of a century ago. That may in fact be central to his point, but I can't help but think this fella's got his finger on a corpse vainly searching for a pulse.
ReplyDeleteMove west when everything goes in the crapper? The elves all live in Wyoming now.
ReplyDeleteWell, 'Repo Man' was certainly about the consequences of an entitlement society.
ReplyDeleteReplyDelete
"An analysis of three 'South Park' episodes" -- seriously? This is hilarious!
ReplyDeleteNothing says "cool" like a Huey Lewis and the News reference.
ReplyDeletenaming your opus after a LAME song released a quarter of a century ago.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a decent sociopolitical analysis that doesn't read like (or actually is) someone's dissertation, you could do worse than that of < a href="http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=7813">China Mieville, himself no slouch in the writing department, published in the Socialist Review, no less. I agree with him that the film is much improved by cutting out the songs and Tom Bombadil, "a cod-folk nature spirit whose soliloquies sound like the ramblings of a village idiot."
ReplyDeleteMarin County, more like. They serve great lembas at the B&Bs.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started about the pipe-weed out there.
ReplyDeleteI left this at BH--let's see how long it lasts!
ReplyDeleteI'm rather wondering what your point is. Is it that conservatism is cool because, every once in a while, someone who's cool says something that can be considered conservative in some way? Or is it that conservative people can listen to Duran Duran and the Ramones and not feel bad because they're (allegedly) not 100.00% liberal? It's not as if there aren't already lists out there of "conservative" music and the like by such notable right-wingers as Bruce Springsteen.
This in response to the author admitting that at least a few of the people specifically mentioned weren't really conservatives. Out of politeness, I refrained from saying what else was on my mind, which was, "Six years? Six fucking years it took you to come up with this dungwad?"
Mieville also wrote my favorite piece on the libertarian idea of "seasteading:"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/
He's a great writer, and I've enjoyed his recent novels quite a bit.
Lydon conservative? At the risk of blogwhoring, computer says no.
ReplyDeleteIn the conservative version, Saruman wins.
ReplyDeleteObviously he was badly constipated. Ex-lax: too violent. Phillips: tastes horrible. And eating fiber/healthily is out. So what could he do but bring in a few newspapers and magazines, maybe a "Twilight" book, and wait... for... it.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the soundtrack, which, if I'm not mistaken, featured a song titled "Tea Party Tonight", or something.
ReplyDeleteChrist on a unicycle, this must be what the college profs here and all over this, the greatest nation in the country, must have to deal with every semester: theses consisting of fifty pounds of selective, reductionist bullshit in the service of a conclusion that isn't remotely true, or is laughably trivial if it is. And A.J.? You spent six years on this? Your friends fell by the wayside because you're an idiot. HTH.
ReplyDeleteThe very concept of cool, rooted in African-American culture, is, by definition, anti-authoritarian. By it's very definition, "cool" cannot refer to smug, bourgeois mainstream culture. Conservatism, being rooted in authoritarianism and the denigration of black achievement, cannot be cool. Conservatives are going to have to find another word to refer to themselves while claiming cultural relevance. I suggest "peachy keen", which refers to their skin tone... and the fact that they are the pits.
ReplyDeleteAlso, their choice of the word "cool" reveals that they are decades behind the times as far as vernacular English is concerned. Tres uncool, eh?
Here AJ Delgado gets out her green visor and red pen. Watch and learn, aspiring editors.
ReplyDeleteWait. The elves went Galt?
ReplyDeleteUgh, let me try that again.
ReplyDeleteAlso 'Let's Have a War'.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget the part where the Government tortures Otto, because "time is running out". Fappity fap fap.
Todd Aiken has been called by many "The Fifth Ramone".
ReplyDeleteSo that's what Carlos Delgado has been up to these days.
ReplyDelete"Team America: World Police" The author seems to have missed the snark in that flick. Dirka, Dirka, Allah Jihad!
ReplyDeleteOh... that poor thing. :(
ReplyDeleteSaruman was a RiNO! Delgado's aggitating to get things named after the real conservative hero, Morgoth. Minus Morgoth? Mt Morgoth? (Aragorn wasn't even born in Gondor! Arwen made a Kill Morties tape!)
ReplyDeleteSix years of researching what? Brady Bunch episodes where the kids sing about how opposite marriage is groovy? You'd think even wingnut welfare providers would be wise to this scam by now.
ReplyDeleteBut the title gives it away -- this is really a nostalgia book for the days of Alex P. Keaton and the young Reaganites. See, they were cool once, so suck it libs!
Bombadil-bashing; the geek version of hippie-punching. I liked him. Nature spirits aren't exactly known for their blinding intellects anyway. Are they? Haven't met many. But they're more fun than Austrians.
ReplyDeleteDo kids today even know who Joey Ramone is? Also, what about teen heart throb Pat Boone? Also this http://www.lloydmarcus.com/?p=1162
ReplyDeleteThat's not "Revolution", that's Fox coverage of New Jersey.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why he didn't include Iggy Pop. No one in Rock & Roll is cooler than Iggy and he's a conservative.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, Iggy nailed conservatives in the fewest possible words in that song. "It would mean so much to me, if you would only be like me." Yep.
There's simply no real reason for him to be in the book; he and his supporting characters (including the evil willow tree and the barrow-wights, both of which he runs interference against on behalf of the hobbits) are grafted into the narrative from an earlier poem that Tolkien wrote for his children about their favorite doll. Even worse, given the anguish and permanently soul-damaging effects of the ring on both Frodo and Sam, it's revealed that Bombadil is literally the only being in Middle-Earth that can handle the Ring without being corrupted by it, but he just doesn't feel like it, maaaaaaan. Fuck him.
ReplyDeleteSweet holy christ, no wonder it took her six years to squeeze out that book. The woman was willing to spend half an hour arguing with a single page of an Obama speech? And was then so proud of her effort that she tweeted the picture of it?
ReplyDeleteNo, really: go look. This is what the GOP is reduced to: barking-mad shitweasels arguing with imaginary liberals in their own heads, hoping Jesus or Saint Ronnie will stick their finger-paintings up on the fridge in Galt's Gulch.
IKR? Three out of however many hundred that there are by now. (Personally, I haven't been even slightly impressed or amused by South Park ever since this episode, which demonstrates that Trey Parker neither has clue fucking one about what alcoholism is nor could be bothered to ask someone who could have told him.
ReplyDeleteI've heard some folks grumble that Tom should have destroyed the Ring, but one does not simply skip into Mordor.
ReplyDelete(Hey there old Mother Spider! Back in your hole! Eat flies, spin webs! Leave old Tom to his quest!)
AJ Delgado never got called an asshole?
ReplyDelete"Heart and Soul": objectively Christian.
ReplyDeleteDick in a box LIBEL!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sadlyno.com/archives/23552.html
~
I took him to be a reference to The Old Gods (sort of like the bison in Sailing To Sarantium); a reminder that There Are Forces In The World Who Really Don't Give A Toot About Your Silly Ideas Of Right And Wrong, And Rings And Shit.
ReplyDeleteMuch less of a waste of time IMO (in book and film) than the tedious wanderings of Frodo, Sam and Gollum. Coulda cut that in half easy.
You're right: "cool" IS anti-authoritarian. That's why there's also a huge market in Wingnuttia for pieces painting Obama as a jackbooted Chicago thug who will send us all to re-education camps to learn how to sing all twelve verses of "The Internationale", whose EPA will force us to recycle and shove clean air and water down our throats, and whose FDA will lay out our diets for us and force us all to eat our broccoli, and punish the consumption of double bacon cheeseburgers and 24 ounce sodas by waterboarding. Conservatives had to create a complete Potemkin universe just so they could look like something approximating "cool".
ReplyDeletebut he just doesn't feel like it
ReplyDeleteNo, he is incapable of being concerned about it. Bit different. Also, I wonder at all the dissing of Bombadil, but no grousing about the Army of the Dead. That set off more incongruity bells for me than old Tom.
I want to put water lilies in bowls around this comment's pretty feet.
ReplyDelete...Or writing a book about how cool you are. People love that, like when a guy insists upon being called by a nickname? Awesome.
ReplyDeleteNow, if they could demonstrate that Miles Davis was a conservative...
ReplyDeleteOf course, no sane person would care.
Am I the only one who suspects that the "argument" (which has never been made with such care, etc.) is just a bunch of re-edited blog posts?
ReplyDeleteMorgoth National Airport.
ReplyDeleteAnyone look at Delgado's Amazon page? Check out that sexy cover! I bet she spent five whole minutes on it.
ReplyDeleteAnd imagine, I was going to get a professional to do my next cover. Apparently, all you need to make a best seller is MS Paint and six years of old blog posts.
Ahem -- Johnny thank you very much. Joey was a great guy who also managed to write "The KKK Took My Baby Away" about the Republican bandmate who took his girlfriend and got him to play guitar on the fucking thing. Plus, "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg".
ReplyDeleteAnd finally, you'd be shocked -- no kidding -- about the number of young Angeleno Latino-Americans who love the Smiths and the Ramones. The Kids, as the man said, Are Alright.
I watched South Park during its first few years, but it didn't take long for me to realise Parker and Stone had a limited bag of tricks at best, as well as a very shallow sense of what constitutes satire. Shock value became a crutch for them, and it was particularly problematic because they kept having to push the envelope further and further in order to achieve a reaction from their audience. This reached its obvious conclusion when entire episodes began to feature what one might term as cruelty for cruelty's sake.
ReplyDeleteThe show became fuckin' mean as hell, which coincided with its support of "libertarian" politics taking center stage. During the last period when I bothered to watch the show, I learned the following very interesting lessons: (1.) That corporations should be able to do whatever they damn well please, (2.) liberals were the real fascists, and (3.) Bush legitimately won the 200 election fair and square, and all those people complaining about it were just a bunch of whiners and losers. Uh huh.
AJ Delgado writes: The press and liberal Hollywood can't stop telling us that President Barack Obama is eternally cool.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Hollywood.
I have news for you. I guarantee that politics is a very distant secondary concern of those who make movies and TV shows because frankly we devote our time and resources and effort to the worthwhile vocation of making movies and TV shows.
Yes, there are those who contribute large amounts to political causes, but you see, that's because there's money falling out of their pockets and they can't think of anywhere else to put it and it gets written up because it's Hollywood.
And if you think of Hollywood as liberal, you've never been on a movie set, where despite the unionization, you'll find that most of the crew are sort of redneck-conservative in politics, if political at all.
As are the bosses, and the Producers, and the Studio heads, and the lot suits.
You'll find among the writers and actors your liberals, i guess, but again, they are not a particularly political bunch and when they contribute or make noise for any political cause, it gets ink because, well, Hollywood.
Remember that these same people put a lot of time and effort into creating a list of greatest conservative rock songs of all time--a list that included "Englishman in New York" by Sting. After all, what could possibly be more conservative than and ode to Quentin Crisp?
ReplyDeleteTrenchant, powerful analysis. This needs to be on a bronze plaque somewhere very visible for conservatives to see and be reminded of on a daily basis. My first thought was the Reagan National Library but on second thought it will reach its target audience better outside of every single Applebee's.
ReplyDeleteAnd we can make some flyers of it for feed stores and porn shops.
"Each chapter is like visiting her scrapbook of favorite quotes with an almost Jonah Goldberg style commentary to tie them all together. While the quotes of others do most of the talking for her, she occasionally leaves her inner Jonah with her Storytime vignettes of personal experiences, which are sometimes very intimate. These recollections are not peppered into her book like the victimhood popcorn you see in the popular press. These stories provide the personal backbone of why conservatism isn't just good for the government but for everyone everywhere."
ReplyDeleteThis was totally not at all written by Jonah Goldberg.
Of all the ridiculous conservative articles, these are my favorite genre. After incessant howling that "COOL doesn't matter" they then want to claim the adjective for themselves. And pretend that it isn't laughable. Johnny Ramone? Seriously? What happened to Ted Nugent and Meatloaf and Bruce Willis. OWN IT few chris' sakes! Also too, Zappa didin't drink or do drugs! He was a conservative too!
ReplyDeleteI think this author took the "you're cool too, honey" reassurances from his mom and wife a little too seriously.
Sorry, old chum, you're thinking of "TV Party Tonight."
ReplyDeleteZappa didin't drink or do drugs!
ReplyDeleteAnd he didn't take no shit from liberal harpy Tipper Gore. No, wait, circuits shorting out...
Oh dear lord, I detest Huey Lewis and the News with the white-hot burning of a thousand suns. Such mediocrity. I'd rather listen to really bad but heartfelt music than the technically adequate but soulless commercial fodder put out by Lewis and his ilk.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, unlike Pat Boone, Huey Lewis allegedly is hung like a horse. This according to the say-so of Sweet Sweet Connie.
Then again...he fucked Sweet Sweet Connie, so that's another strike against him.
"Bombadil is literally the only being in Middle-Earth that can handle the Ring without being corrupted by it, but he just doesn't feel like it, maaaaaaan"
ReplyDeletePlus, he voted for Nader in 2000 and was going to in 2004 but forgot what day election day was.
It's been a while since I read the books, but like Leeds Man, one of the things I came away with was how Sauron is the greatest problem that men face, but nearly everybody else -- the giant eagles, Tom Bombadil, Radagast the Brown, not to mention the vast majority of elves, dwarves, hobbits and ents, don't really give a crap or would rather just stay out of it.
About the only South Park episode that speaks to conservatism is the one with the Underpants Gnomes. It lays out the formula for conservative "thought" more clearly than anything that has ever issued from the mouth or mind of a conservative:
ReplyDeleteStep 1: Steal underpants
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: PROFIT!!!
Plug any conservative "idea" into that formula and it works. Example:
Step 1: Invade Iraq
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: VICTORY!!!
Or:
Step 1: Cut taxes for the wealthy
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: REVENUE GROWTH!!!
I'm serious. It works for EVERYTHING conservatives believe. Which is why Delgado completely missed it.
What continues to perplex me is why a not insignificant number of conservatives are obsessed with "cool." It's pretty much a moot point if one looks at the pantheon of arch-conservatives. Robert Bork? Little Boots? Cheney, for gawd's sakes? Phyllis Schlafly? Akin? Newticles? Herman Cain? Doughy?
ReplyDeleteThese people are, first and foremost, Grade-A, USDA Prime wankers. Yes, some of them are dangerous, but only because they got the keys to the dynamite closet, and that's only because a significant number of wankers in this country voted for them. Out of power, these people are just hopeless cranks and crackpots. (Well, they are, in power, too, for that matter.)
While it may be difficult to define "cool" these days, what with the social media trying to steer us toward what advertisers tell us is cool, recognizing it is a lot like Potter Stewart's definition of pornography--you know it when you see it. And, you know when you don't see it.
Jean Schmidt? I rest my fuckin' case.
You don't haveta pay a ghost army.
ReplyDelete"Johnny Rotten, Siouxsie Sioux, and Bob Dylan defending Israel,"
ReplyDeleteWho are these young people? I never heard of them.
The corpse in question being Johnny Ramone, dead these past 12 years. And while this aging goth will always have a soft spot in his heart for Siouxsie Sioux, I'm not going to go out on a limb claiming her as some cultural icon with mad currency (though it does make one laugh to see the Conservatives claim an openly bisexual atheist as an icon of their movement just because she happens to think Isreal should, you know, exist).
ReplyDeleteThat review--I read the whole thing. It made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteYes. That boat they took at the end? A Princess cruise to Hawai'i.
ReplyDeleteStupid Dead-heads. Get a shower, hippies!
ReplyDeleteTea Party, Tee Vee Party. Same thing. (OK, coulda called it "AM Radio Party Tonight.")
ReplyDeleteNo sheet. I wonder if all that Morrisey love is an only in L.A. phenom?
ReplyDeleteVisions of Patrick Bateman delivering his exegesis on "Fore!"
ReplyDeleteThe hell he didn't drink. Smoked Winstons, too, but helping Big Terbacky is all cool, right? "Tax the churches!"
ReplyDeleteSince I've always self-identified as a massively dorky nerd, I guess I can understand the lusting after coolness thing to some degree. In my case, I've dealt with being uncool by focusing on other things. But if conservatives believe that these geometric proofs of their own coolness will help, then whatever floats their boats I guess.
ReplyDeleteHere is a cool cat who wants another Israel. Eat it, Siouxsie!
ReplyDeleteSomeone pointed this page out to me. I'm the author of the book you're all critiquing and, geez, LOL, thank you for the laughs.
ReplyDeleteIt must be fun to sit in your PJ's behind your computers with your anonymous screen-names and attack someone else's work.
You know what normal, well-adjusted individuals do if they read about a book in which they're not interested? Simply not read it! But nooooooo, the Left has 'snark' and 'ridicule' as the response -- oh, what an efficient use of your time!
Thank you, it's flattering you've all taken such time (even looking at my Twitter page -- wow! bit creepy!) to dissect my work.
And... thanks for proving my point about the general nasty tone of liberals these days.
Go write your own books -- I promise no conservative will bother to post about it.
Peace.
As usual the Simpsons Already Did It:
ReplyDeleteHomer: So I realized that being with my family is more important than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square."
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart and Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart and Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool—not caring, right?
Bart and Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?
Milhouse: "My moooooom says I'm cool!"
ReplyDeletenope. everyplace, ese.
ReplyDeleteThis is some sort of elaborate self-referential joke right?
ReplyDeleteRight???
Has to be. No one that would take six years to write a 316 page book has any business lecturing anyone about efficiency.
ReplyDeleteI was more put out by the line about PJs.
ReplyDeleteYou know what normal, well-adjusted individuals do if they read about a book in which they're not interested? Simply not read it!
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, the same behavior can be practiced in regards to blog posts.
Some friendly (and sincere) advice: When you sink a lot of time into scouring the internet for criticism of your work and stewing about it, it's better to take a step back.
Johnny Ramone? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteJohnny was a conservative. He was also, by just about every account, a massive dick.
Go write your own books -- I promise no conservative will bother to post about it.
ReplyDeletePeace.
[...sob...]
Bless her heart.
I'll give HL&Ns a break. He gave a good low-key performance in Short Cuts. And back when they were called Clover the News backed up Elvis Costello on My Aim is True. Now if AJ will try to claim good old Declan for the right, hilarity will truly ensue.
ReplyDeleteI've only read The City and the City so far, but based on that I'll be reading more.
ReplyDeleteI have to give this guy his due: I have spent more than six years on shame issues.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever read Tolkein again, I'm skipping at least one glowing gleaming city and one glowing gleaming maiden.
ReplyDeleteWhat, T'Pau?
ReplyDeleteStrictly Chanel No5, dahling...
ReplyDeleteRemember: "The KKK Took My Baby Away" is not just a song, it's a way of life (for the KKK and not that loser).
ReplyDeletegetting stuffed into lockers only accounts for the glibertarian branch of the conservatoid family. The rest are the bullies doing the stuffing, which I guess accounts for their argument for having a Big Tent.
ReplyDelete'We are the world' consisted of star after star after star, with two exceptions, two co-op bands all of whose members appeared, Culture Club and Huey Lewis and the News. Not much, I agree, but admirably 'giving the band a chance'. Plus,'I want a new drug' was funny on its own, and good enough to be stolen for the 'Ghostbusters Theme'. Jes' sayin'.
ReplyDeleteNothing says 'I don't care' so much as a million boring, whiny words about how much you don't care.
ReplyDelete"Go write your own books -- I promise no conservative will bother to post about it."
ReplyDeleteWhat if it becomes massively popular and you have to write an addendum about how it's secretly conservative?
Checkmate, weird boring person.
So I know there are some Trekkies posting on this board so I think we need to figure out the top 10 conservative Trek episodes:
ReplyDeleteMy vote for number one is "The Omega Glory" -- Evil Asiatic commies defeated by stupid neanderthal white guys who half remember the constitution and have a tattered American flag. It's wingnut porn.
You know what normal, well-adjusted individuals do if they read about a book in which they're not interested? Simply not read it!
ReplyDeleteI guess we're all normal, well adjusted individuals then.
Great article here about the Morrissey/Chicano connection: http://www.ocweekly.com/2002-09-19/music/their-charming-man/1/
ReplyDeleteYes, her internet basement dweller insults are every bit as up-to-the-minute as her cultural references. Or maybe it really is 2003 again and I'm so busy eating Cheetos and taking care of my many cats, I hadn't noticed.
ReplyDelete"attack someone else's work"
ReplyDeleteYou worked on that? O Lord, you poor thing.
Watch out she might 'go Galt'. Where would we turn our 'snark' and 'ridicule'?
ReplyDeleteMorrisey was on the Colbert Report recently, and I was almost afraid to watch. But he made me proud.
ReplyDeleteI think I see the problem. We weren't attacking you. We were laughing at you. Better?
ReplyDeleteI see that she quotes Anthony fucking DeCurtis: "In a lot of ways in the United State, the Republicans have gotten much more punk rock than the Democrats."
ReplyDeleteI guess that settles that!
Also, I was looking for a Regnery stamp on this, but it seems to be self-published. She's an outsider! A rebel!
I got you there, bstar, although I can't pinpoint a specific episode. In TNG, they manage to morph the Prime Directive from a sort-of-reasonable "don't give guns to the natives" guideline to a sociopathic "under no circumstances save anyone from disaster, because SHUT UP" doctrine.
ReplyDeletePrecisely. Never mind their tastes in pop culture. Look at the clowns they vote for.
ReplyDeleteHaven't you heard? Punk, post-punk, and folk are all the rage.
ReplyDeleteA.J., in all seriousness, trying to be a cross between Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg is no way go through life. I know wingnut welfare seems really tempting (and lucrative!), but one day you'll be older and wiser, and being a pathetic loser will grate at your soul much more.
ReplyDeleteNot to put too fine a point to it, but a cool person wouldn't have bothered to post a response.
ReplyDeleteIrony, illustrated.
...will grate at your soul much more.
ReplyDeleteAssumes facts not in evidence.
(I'm going here on the assumption that someone with a soul wouldn't have debased themselves in this fashion in the first place, and on the further assumption that it's not possible to grow a soul; you either have one or you don't.)
To show there's no hard feelings, here's a song in your honor ("All You Need is Hate", by the Delgados):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSMLx44DqFc
Those spanking loyalty cards really pay off long term.
ReplyDeleteBud: Credit is a sacred trust, it's what our free society is founded on. Do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia? I said, do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia?
ReplyDeleteOtto: They don't pay bills in Russia, it's all free.
Bud: All free? Free my ass. What are you, a fuckin' commie?
Why are people downvoting this. It is hilarious in its ineptitude. Everything about it is perfect.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite bit is the line of dialogue after that; unfortunately no one has ever put it up on the youtube. Goes something like this:
ReplyDeleteBud: Just look at them. If there was just some way to hunt them all down and make them pay.
Otto: With what? They don't have any money!
Conservative policy, in a nutshell.
I think it was OK of Delgado to show up. I mean it is a post about her. I'd like to hear about how John Lydon is a conservative when he labelled Queen Elizabeth II as part of "the fascist regime"
ReplyDeleteeven looking at my Twitter page -- wow! bit creepy!
ReplyDeleteThis is the funniest part. Really, an accusation of stalking from someone who doesn't understand Twitter timelines are public, and then logs in to Disqus from said Twitter Account? And made sure to post the URL to her Twitter account in her Amazon bio?
This is a personality disorder, isn't it?
"He just doesn't feel like it": incorrect. As far as he knows, the Ring is just some unimportant magic thing that doesn't work. Later, the Council of Elrond suggests giving it to him, but Gandalf says hell no-- he thinks Bombadil is just too disorganized and will lose it. So they never make the offer.
ReplyDelete"The City on the Edge of Forever": To save the future, a 20th-century pacifist social worker must die.
ReplyDelete"Bread and Circuses": The Roman Empire is replaced by pure love and universal brotherhood as soon as Christianity is invented.
"Is There In Truth No Beauty?": Foreign diplomats are so horrifying you will lose your mind if you look at them.
"Elaan of Troyius": Women can control your mind if you let them cry on you.
"The Way to Eden": Well-meaning but silly hippies follow their crazy leader to a planet made out of poison.
"Spock's Brain": A man can live without a brain.
Ha! The power of editing makes me look smarter.
ReplyDeleteExcellent article ADHDJ. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWho says we're not interested in your book? The idea that someone seriously writes things like this is interesting to me, although it's less the "oh look, a four-leaf clover" kind of interesting and more the "whoa, the mental state of this country must be worse than I thought" kind.
ReplyDeleteIf you're like me and you're too cheap to fork over $5 for the Kindle version of this magnum opus to hipness, go read why Delgado believes that Rocky IV -- the "greatest film ever made," in her words -- aptly espouses conservative values in 10 point outline format. Point #1: COMMUNISM SUCKS. (Posted to Not-so-Bright-Bart 9 Jan 2012.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/01/09/The-Top-10-Conservative-Lessons-of-Rocky-IV
No, really. Go. I'll wait.
(The American Film Institute thanks you for your patronage, Ms. Delgado. However....)
Right. I would have understood a desire to claim JOEY Ramone for one's side, but having to settle for Johnny just seems like grasping at straws, and is puzzling given that there are far more well-known stars of film, tv, and sports who are conservative and have at least for stretches, been undoubtedly considered "cool." I mean was Johnny Ramone really ever on anyone's "cool" radar? That's an honest question, I'm not a big punk fan so it's out of my wheelhouse.
ReplyDeleteAfter two weeks, she couldn't do a single push-up. Jesus, who is she trying to inspire? Maybe she convinced Breitbart to stop exercising. Keep up the good work, AJ.
ReplyDeleteDoes Delgado mention The Nuge? Fine upstanding Conservative psychopath that he is.
ReplyDeleteNo, there is a real reason. Without the Shire AND Tom B. AND the Prancing Pony AND Rivendell, you wouldn't have any reason to care about the good characters fighting the bad characters; it would just be "An orc! Slay it! More orcs! Slay them!" You need to see the good stuff and understand what they're fighting FOR.
ReplyDeleteActually, though he did smoke, Frank was really addicted to just three things: work, espresso, and his family. Wish he was still with us because I'd so love to hear what he'd say about all the political crapola on both sides.
ReplyDeleteI have to put a fake name to loving this comment.
ReplyDelete"Spock's Brain": A man can live without a brain.
ReplyDeleteAs evidenced by Jonah Goldberg, whom this poor girl has taken as a role model. Sad, really.
If someone told they me they spent 6 years writing a self-published e-book, the first image that would come to mind is them hanging out in their pajamas, living with their parents.
ReplyDeleteWow. It's hard to make sense of all this. I'm more of a Johnny Marr kind of guy, but viva Morrisey!
ReplyDeleteNever mind Miles. I desperately need to know Ornette Coleman's political leanings.
ReplyDeleteJonah also has Spock's beard from "Mirror, Mirror." Or wishes he did.
ReplyDeleteCheck out his review history. He's reviewed exactly three items, one of which was Goldberg's latest gift to the world.
ReplyDeleteWell, he did play guitar real good.
ReplyDeleteAm I a bad person for wishing I could see Jonah experiencing the agonizer? Even for just a minute? On the other hand, the thought of him in one of those arm- and chest-baring Mirror Universe uniforms is quite agonizing enough for me.
ReplyDeleteBeing cool is like being moral or being funny -- if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
ReplyDelete"for feed stores and porn shops."
ReplyDeleteWait--there's a difference?
Actually, that just means that things work the same way in Middle Earth that they do in the real world.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. The human mind, which is what I'm equipped with, cannot fathom how any sensible person could lavish however-many thousands of words on a formulaic, gotta-keep-grinding-'em-out, by-the-numbers Rocky movie and call it, without blushing, the greatest movie ever made. It's like holding up a political cartoon and comparing it--favorably--to Raphael.
ReplyDeleteMore proof--as if any were needed--that these people live in a parallel universe, where outwardly things are much like ours, but their "meaning" and the uses to which they're put are grotesque caricatures of what we agree is reality. Rocky IV may be the greatest movie ever made, but not on Real Earth.
I'd like to hear about how John Lydon is a conservative when he labelled Queen Elizabeth II as part of "the fascist regime"
ReplyDeleteNO YOU WOULDN'T.
Accounts also seem to vary on his drinking. Some say he drank socially but not to get drunk and viewed alcohol as "bad" like drugs. Others say that he only embraced only an occasional margarita late in life after his diagnosis. But he was certainly famously anti-drug, even forbidding his players from doing them when they were on the road. This is the element that I could see the Right claiming "See, he's one of us!" despite his famously raunchy lyrics. I too wish he were still around.
ReplyDeleteAJ Delgado writes: You know what normal, well-adjusted individuals do if they read about a book in which they're not interested? Simply not read it!
ReplyDeleteBut we are interested in it, for a couple of reasons: first, it's fascinating that anybody would devote so much time and effort to something so trivial as whether they're cool or not. It's reminiscent of those crazy clerics who would hole up in a garret for thirty or forty years, deriving prime numbers from the text of the bible, or running out pi to the last decimal place (only to screw it up three decimal places in, rendering the whole of the work invalid, which is pretty much what you've done).
Second, you're full of shit, and I'm afraid it falls to us normal, well-adjusted individuals to apprise you of this. Otherwise, you'll remain ignorant, and you wouldn't want that, would you?
Third, well, jeez, crazy lady, wherever in the world did you get the idea that you know anything about what being a well-adjusted individual is like?
Especially enjoyed the Amazon feature "Tags Customers Associate With This Product"-- (Click on a tag to find related items, discussions and people!). The tags are [drum roll]:
ReplyDeletean argument that has never been made in...
braaap
cheez-puff-stained wretch
goldbergian fatuosity
grasping at straws
self-published dreck
Cool, huh?
Ornette is a spacy dude. Politics might be too earthbound to hold his attention. Ornette: "Do you think 'the brain' is a good title for the brain?"--"Good enough for me," [interviewer Ben Ratliff] said.
ReplyDeleteLike Sun Ra, Ornette finds great significance in wordplay. Ah well, he probably votes dem and then gives novel explanations for why.
Thanks, Jack, that was a good read.
ReplyDeleteWow, great article, thanks Halloween_Jack!
ReplyDeleteWow. Welcome to helldump. You're using the usual defense, I see.(Hey, if she can be this ignorant of the modern day internet, then so can I... And my reference is better).
ReplyDeleteIn general, the Prime Directive was honored much more in the breach on TOS. I can't remember the Enterprise ever discovering a computer-run utopia where the all-controlling machine didn't give Kirk & Co. an excuse to overthrow its regime. (In general, Roddenberry came off as being almost as much of a computerphobe as Frank Herbert.) You also have "Turnabout Intruder", which makes the flabbergasting claim that, in the twenty-third century, there are no female starship captains, something that's retconned away by later spin-off series. (In fairness to Roddenberry, he'd pretty much checked out of the series by that episode (the last of TOS) and had had a female XO of the Enterprise in the first pilot, and had had to choose between keeping her or Spock when he filmed the second one.)
ReplyDeleteYou know what normal, well-adjusted individuals do if they read about a
ReplyDeletebook in which they're not interested? Simply not read it! But nooooooo,
the Left has 'snark' and 'ridicule' as the response -- oh, what an
efficient use of your time!
Are you seriously under the delusion that the normal social response to shitty work is a sort of benign neglect? Really? No wonder you're such a poor observer of, and commenter upon, popular culture. Just hope and pray that, say, Roger Ebert doesn't bother to take notice of you.
And don't flatter yourself--it really didn't take much time to take the measure of your dreck and craft an appropriate response. As I commented on breitbart.com, not only is it bad, it's not even particularly original. (Not to mention, speaking of efficiency, that it's still astonishing that it took you six. years. to come up with this stuff. Ye gods and little fishes.)
for those who don't know, Joey wrote that song about Johnny.
ReplyDeleteYou do know whose house this is, right? (Hint: top right under "My Stuff Elsewhere")
ReplyDeleteWhen you have this breadth of work, get back to us. Until then. . .
The Offspring: "You acknowledge their sentience, but you ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to hand his child over to the state? Not while I'm his Captain."
ReplyDeleteWait, didn't there used to be some totally fly bro' named "Coolio?"
ReplyDeleteI mean,
dude, concoct some way of proclaiming *that* guy as being on your team,
and you can totally announce Game Over (as well as "suck it, libtards").
Actually, his abiding concern was not derived from any sense of enforcing morality or bending the band to his will--he just had no patience for guys not showing up for rehearsal or recording on time and being ready to play (i.e. work). Studio time was expensive, and he hated the idea of burning up two hours waiting for somebody to sober up or straggle in after passing out on his girlfriend's couch.
ReplyDeleteFor The Right to claim FZ as "one of us," they will have a hell of a time ignoring how much he loathed the attempted morality of organized religion. From the album cover of "FZ Meets the Mothers of Prevention" (1985):
This album contains material that a
truly free society would neither fear
nor suppress. We guarantee that you will
not go to hell from listening to the
aforementioned material. This guarantee
is as real as the threats from the video
fundamentalists who use attacks on rock music
in their attempt to turn America into a nation
of check-mailing nincompoops in the name of Jesus Christ.
If there is a hell, its fires wait for them, not us.
Amen and RIP, FVZ.
The vast majority of us were commenting on the quotes Roy presented to us. I can't see how their full context could elevate them, but perhaps the book is a wonder. So many, many kudos if that's the case.
ReplyDelete"Thank you, it's flattering you've all taken such time (even looking at my Twitter page -- wow! bit creepy!) to dissect my work."
ReplyDeleteI love the fact that she takes umbrage at people reading and discussing the works she has deliberately made public. If you don't want people to talk about what you've written, here's a clue - don't publish it.
well Declan did say some racist things once when he was drunk, and that's so conservative
ReplyDeleteIt's also a joke ripped off from somebody else, somebody far superior. I believe it was a Gary Larson bit, somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.heroesofnewerth.ru/brainbring/11jamesmiller/
ReplyDeleteAlso, the harmonica solo on "Workin' For A Living" is still awesome.
ReplyDelete"Go write your own books -- I promise no conservative will bother to post about it."
ReplyDeleteI *did* write my own book, thanks very much. In about half the time this one took you. And mine includes numbers and shit.
Ronaldus Morgoth?
ReplyDeletethanks
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