While alicubi.com undergoes extensive elective surgery, its editors pen somber, Shackletonian missives from their lonely arctic outpost.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...
...about the Obama-Galifianakis comedy sketch and how this was -- wow, everyone hit the buzzer at the same time and said "an outrage," huh? Yes, but I tell you how they did it!
In what way does that sketch even compare, to Richard Nixon, confused and cranked out of his head on Ibogaine, joining a blond pixie idjit, a man with a pornstache and 7 pack-a-day habit, a midget with a kaiser helmet poking up out of a fern, whatever the hell Joanne Worley was, and Sammy Davis, saying "Sock it to me?" and then hustling off stage following the siren song of Phillip's gin?
Remember the days when a president could be respected and cherished for starring in a video in which he searches the Oval Office for weapons of mass destruction and fails to find them? I want my country back!
President McCain said he agonized over the decisions to use nuclear warheads against Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Burkina Faso and California, in an interview broadcast from a craps table at Harrah's Las Vegas.
O'Riley's full of it, so full, shit squirts out his ears. Lincoln would have LOVED going on a comedy show. He was not Mr. Gravitas, any more than O'Riley is, is, is, ummm.... sentient?
Didn't Lincoln wrestle on the campaign trail for the Illinois legislature? I know he was a joker all his life and much criticized for it. Oh, I forgot he was a marble statue and tragic figure and deeply saddened all the time.
It was well past midnight, the house submitting to the quiet of the night. The only light came from his home office, the harsh illumination of the monitor falling on his face. How many times had he watched it - fifty? A hundred? Two? He'd downloaded the source video so that he could cut it into a loop, playing repeatedly as he took notes. Those notes now filled the waste bin - gibberish, adding nothing. Talking to the liberals at the office (he knew they were liberals because they cruelly oppressed him by turning their heads any time he tried to talk about traditional marriage) had yielded little more, save a remark heard several times: "You just don't have much of a sense of humor."
This "humor" was clearly a powerful tool, but how could it be harnessed? The liberals seemed to know how.
He stopped the video and trudged out into the living room, falling into his comfy old sofa. The table was covered with DVDs, dozens of them - all comedies, mostly the recent ones that the kids and the hip crowd liked. He'd watched several of them a night since seeing the video, taking notes on those as well. He had plenty more to go, but the prospect of learning something seemed increasingly remote. A few times, he'd felt something coming on - a jocular sensation, a tug at the corners of his mouth. But then he realized that what he was watching contained no criticism of leftist philosophies, and the feeling passed. How could anyone laugh without partisan politics?
Ignoring the movies, he settled back and closed his eyes. The others said that he didn't have a sense of humor, but that wasn't true. He always got a kick out of the conservative comedians he followed. They were great bits - one of them would encounter a liberal professor or feminist at a party (always red-faced and sputtering - they must look like overfilled balloons, he thought) and would quickly disarm him with an Oscar Wilde-esque riposte about the system of dependency. Okay, he never really laughed, but they were enjoyable - that's what comedy is, right?
He reached for the remote and turned on the TV, which was tuned to Fox News. Maybe watching the replay of Hannity would make him feel better. Now there's a man who gets humor, he thought.
(My little homage to everyone who responds to laughter with "It's not funny! Don't you understand?")
Most enjoyable! Let me take a few notes on my "stickies". Try out the Peter DeVries book "The Vale Of Laughter". So funny I remember actually falling out of my chair while laughing. Half the book is written by a man with no sense of humor, who is trying to understand what is.
Paleotectonics has below recounted the tale of Nixon on Laugh-In, and some may recall then-Governor Ronald Reagan on Sonny & Cher's show. Republican gravitas was pretty thin even before Bush Sr. barfed in the Japanese prime minister's lap.
There are few Americans old enough to remember Franklin Roosevelt's turn on the deck of the Hornet, dressed as a fighter ace after the battle of Midway.
"I can't do this" he said to an aide." It's too painful. You'll have to hold me up." And "I don't need this cup on my dick. I'm not even going hunting!"
I hope the President and Mr Galafinakis don't find out that their sketch didn't hit the mark with the "perpetually-faux-outraged right wing dullard" demographic they were so clearly targetting.
We need to keep this news on the down-low, because Presidents-of-the-United States and comedians can be quite fragile about their art. .
I would like to tuck this comment's arm under mine and take it for a walk around the block before settling down on the back porch to discuss it further.
Mom jeans still??!! Oh yes, the cut of his jeans is so evocative of his presidency and how he has governed. WWGWHW (what would George Washington have worn) while crossing the Delawre and all that other stuff? NOT MOM JEANS, PRETTY SURE OF THAT!!
In Bill's defence, it's entirely possible that he could have been saying that Lincoln wouldn't go on an Internet comedy show because the Internet hadn't been invented when Lincoln was alive?
I mean, that's possibly one of the stupidest things anyone could say, but is it really that much stupider than snarky, witty, "I thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I ever heard... I had heard our adversaries over the way had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it... I presented the question to the Attorney-General, and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize." Lincoln being scared of comedy shows? I rest my case.
They are pissed off because the real Obama refuses to conform to their narrative of a scary, rage filled (thanks, Dinesh, hope you like prison!) tyrant. The guy is smooth, competent, and doesn't take himself seriously, and this makes them look all the stupider.
Hey, if you define "intellectual" in a completely different way than everyone else does, then he's absolutely an intellectual. This is central to my point.
And, of course, walking hand-in-hand with one of those a-rabs, and even kissing him on the lips! If Obama did that, every window in NYC would be broken by Pam :"Mazel-tits!" Geller's screams.
Johnston, as a fellow writer I have to say that I hope you never get sucked into technical writing. You have faaaaaaaaaaar too much talent at narrative.
They've moved on to criticizing the president for being seen in public with a pink sweater in his hand. Fox assures us this is a major PR disaster, because as all Fox viewers know, if a man comes into contact with the color pink, his penis and testicles shrivel up and fall off, his wrists become limp, his gait and speech effeminate. Even if the pink sweater is being purchased as a gift for a daughter.
I remember when pink, lime green and khaki were a proclamation of one's essential whiteness. The pre-Benneton years, when your colors might suggest you'd consent to having a cigarette snuffed out on your ass.
Note to Jeff Jacoby. David Gergen was not a Clinton loyalist. He was a hired gun Clinton brought in because he had publicly known experience in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. Not because of any useful skills, of which as far as anyone can tell, Gergen has none.
I was more thinking of the number of people Lyndon Johnson invited into the presidential shitter to either admire his latest bowel movement or his wang. That's some major Presidential gravitas right there.
At this point, he's a Washington Pundit because every TV political show has him on as a Washington Pundit. It's the equivalent of that old definition of "celebrity" as someone who is famous for being famous.
And who knows more about quiet dignity and reserve than right-wing bloggers? If any of these guys were president, you'd have hair metal on the intercom and deep-fried corn dogs at state dinners.
Hey, Jo Anne coulda been somebody, you know? She coulda been a contender! But what she ended up as was a has-been who almost was, missed it by *this* much... Merv Griffin did for her what he did for a lot of comics in the '60s, Laugh-In should have been her door to fame, but alas, she was no Goldie Hawn, or Lily Tomlin. From there it was the talk show/game show circuit, bit parts in a lot of shows and movies you've heard of, and she's still "oh, yeah, wasn't she on laugh-In?". Them's the breaks. We went to the same High School (12 years apart), and my sis used to babysit her brothers & sisters. That's my 3 degrees of stardom. Thank you, thank you, you're too kind...
Tangentially, but do Americans realise just how obnoxious it is for them to refer to their President as "the leader of the free world"? Last time I checked, I lived in the sovereign nation of Sweden, not in a province of the American Empire! :P
It's that whole laughing-at-not-with thing. I'm wondering if she'll bring even more props next year; it reminds me of the urban legend of the psych professor whose class conditioned him to deliver his lectures standing on a stool and screaming at the top of his lungs.
"...I've talked to a lot of older folks (and not just conservatives) about the skit in the last 24 hours and it's a bit of a surprise how many of them just didn't get the premise, didn't think any of it was funny, and thought the whole thing was kind of pathetic." Old people didn't get a Zach Galifianakis sketch!
Specifically, the oldsters who show up to Tea Party rallies in their Medicare-bought electric scooters. I'm sure that Doughy is quite cognizant of the mid-terms being less than eight months away.
Just like in high school, being cool is unattainable for these guys and they reflexively hate anyone who is. That Obama does it so casually and easily makes it that much worse for them.
Let's say Pres. Obama shows up in public in a spray-on pair of bunhuggers; could the country survive the resulting spittlefest and head-splody? I'm willing to give it a shot.
"After all, if millions actually do sign up as a result (which I highly doubt), it would mean that there are millions of young people out there who couldn't be persuaded by billions of words in newspapers, magazines, State of the Union addresses, and news broadcasts, but they are persuaded by a hipster webcast comedy show.
Newspapers, magazines and news broadcasts. Yes, these guys truly have their finger on the racing pulse of the under-30 set.
George W. goes on 60-day tour (which was extended) to tout the virtues of Social Security privatization. Cherry-picked questioners ask him softball questions. Appearances are "dress rehearsed" beforehand to help questioners prepare.
Result: flop.
Obama shows up on one goofy comedy show, gets mocked a little bit.
All I can say is don't give up. Meanwhile, do your best to keep body and soul together, and write as much as you can. Freelancing for a variety of magazines, while not the best-paying bit of employment, is a great way to build a portfolio and help pave your way into the better-paying gigs.
Oh, THIS. There's your explanation for the contemporary right, right there. WASP privilege + Bircherite lunacy + Neocon hubris / end of cold war = high school dweebs on the warpath!
At least he's consistent. He continues to believe that he is *inherently interesting.* "If it occurs to me, then it is fit for public consumption," is his primary directive. Other writers--i.e., decent ones--continually ask themselves, "Is this true? Is it interesting or funny? Is it written in good faith with a minimum amount of honesty?" JG asks only, "Am I done yet?"
I just realized they were worried about the dignity of the Presidency by bitching about the guy they portray as a Kenyan Witch Doctor with a bone through his nose.
If I can hijack the thread for a minute: I've had two novels put out as digital serials, one of which - a short dystopian novel called The Fabulist - actually made an okay amount of money and even made it into their first print anthology. Still, it just feels like a beginning. The project I'm shopping around now is deeply personal, and I feel it deserves more than a kissoff from everyone in New York (FUN FACT: I got another rejection in while I was writing the top post).
Eh. I'm working on a follow-up to The Fabulist right now - maybe I can rewrite the main character as a teenager and sell it as a Hunger Games knockoff. Apparently, the market can always bear those.
Last time I flew through Arlanda they had a sign hanging over a long, long hallway that said, "Hopscotch zone". And they had hopscotch grids?fields?tables? marked on the floor.
Take heart from your success with The Fabulist--most of the people I've met who call themselves "writers" have never been published and paid. BTW, I'd have guessed The Fabulist was a biography of Jonah the Fail. I'll have to get my hands on a copy to make sure that "short dystopian" actually isn't Jonah as the title character.
D'Souza released2016: Obama's America, a film based on his 2010 book The Roots of Obama's Rage, both of which posit that Barack Obama's attitude toward America derives from his father's anti-colonialism and from a psychological desire to fulfill his father's dream of diminishing the power of Western imperial states. The film has been the highest grossing conservative political film produced in the United States.
Well that really isn't saying much now is it - get a few dozen people to see it and set a new Guinness record :)
No, no that would be Orlando - that way the elderly will try it, break their hips and die quickly without being the selfish lazy burden on that St. Cruz tells us they are.
Heh. I suspect we're all quite aware of what the fixation is, and I'm betting it is linked to all that "shoved down their throat" stuff they are always banging on about.
Dunno about W, but FDR did. Eleanor was dubious about this, but His Majesty King George VI loved it. (Not making any of this up.) Clearly FDR realized, as one aristocrat to another, that the poor guy just didn't get a lot of fun and needed somthing completely out of the royal ordinary.
I'm a technical writer and I haven't found that to be the case. Then again, I chose to do it, because I like meticulous procedural writing. A lot of the rest of the time, I write nonfiction, though.
It has the advantage of being safe from any prospect of contradiction by reality, and removing all surprises out of events. Obama is acting contrary to the prestige of his office? See, he relies on his own cult of personality!! Obama is expecting respect for the prestige of his office? Come and see the cult of personality inherent in the system!
One of the minor pleasures of my life is trying to slip Veblenian words like "otiose" or "nugatory" past the attention of the reviewers when writing arcane academic papers on perceptual mechanisms. It's a creative challenge, I tell you.
In what way does that sketch even compare, to Richard Nixon, confused and cranked out of his head on Ibogaine, joining a blond pixie idjit, a man with a pornstache and 7 pack-a-day habit, a midget with a kaiser helmet poking up out of a fern, whatever the hell Joanne Worley was, and Sammy Davis, saying "Sock it to me?" and then hustling off stage following the siren song of Phillip's gin?
ReplyDeletePres. BHO is a stone square compared to that.
If it weren't for those ferns, Crimea would be free. (Or at least cheaper.)
ReplyDeleteI remember the RMN episode and, while a mere lad, shumthing didn't sheem right at all...
ReplyDeleteRemember the days when a president could be respected and cherished for starring in a video in which he searches the Oval Office for weapons of mass destruction and fails to find them? I want my country back!
ReplyDeletePresident McCain said he agonized over the decisions to use nuclear warheads against Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Burkina Faso and California, in an interview broadcast from a craps table at Harrah's Las Vegas.
ReplyDeleteO'Riley's full of it, so full, shit squirts out his ears. Lincoln would have LOVED going on a comedy show. He was not Mr. Gravitas, any more than O'Riley is, is, is, ummm.... sentient?
ReplyDeletei was a democrat until galifianakis.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Lincoln wrestle on the campaign trail for the Illinois legislature? I know he was a joker all his life and much criticized for it. Oh, I forgot he was a marble statue and tragic figure and deeply saddened all the time.
ReplyDeleteIt was on a major network during prime time. So it was okay.
ReplyDeleteI'm just sad that the interview wasn't with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog instead of Galifianakis.
ReplyDeleteHey, Crimea river!
ReplyDelete(okay, I got tired of waiting for a good opportunity to use that.)
"Why do they like this? Why are they laughing?"
ReplyDeleteIt was well past midnight, the house submitting to the quiet of the night. The only light came from his home office, the harsh illumination of the monitor falling on his face. How many times had he watched it - fifty? A hundred? Two? He'd downloaded the source video so that he could cut it into a loop, playing repeatedly as he took notes. Those notes now filled the waste bin - gibberish, adding nothing. Talking to the liberals at the office (he knew they were liberals because they cruelly oppressed him by turning their heads any time he tried to talk about traditional marriage) had yielded little more, save a remark heard several times: "You just don't have much of a sense of humor."
This "humor" was clearly a powerful tool, but how could it be harnessed? The liberals seemed to know how.
He stopped the video and trudged out into the living room, falling into his comfy old sofa. The table was covered with DVDs, dozens of them - all comedies, mostly the recent ones that the kids and the hip crowd liked. He'd watched several of them a night since seeing the video, taking notes on those as well. He had plenty more to go, but the prospect of learning something seemed increasingly remote. A few times, he'd felt something coming on - a jocular sensation, a tug at the corners of his mouth. But then he realized that what he was watching contained no criticism of leftist philosophies, and the feeling passed. How could anyone laugh without partisan politics?
Ignoring the movies, he settled back and closed his eyes. The others said that he didn't have a sense of humor, but that wasn't true. He always got a kick out of the conservative comedians he followed. They were great bits - one of them would encounter a liberal professor or feminist at a party (always red-faced and sputtering - they must look like overfilled balloons, he thought) and would quickly disarm him with an Oscar Wilde-esque riposte about the system of dependency. Okay, he never really laughed, but they were enjoyable - that's what comedy is, right?
He reached for the remote and turned on the TV, which was tuned to Fox News. Maybe watching the replay of Hannity would make him feel better. Now there's a man who gets humor, he thought.
(My little homage to everyone who responds to laughter with "It's not funny! Don't you understand?")
Phonesexing his subordinates while trying to fish a lost vibrator out of his sigmoid colon with a boat hook?
ReplyDeleteLincoln wouldn't have done it.
Most enjoyable! Let me take a few notes on my "stickies". Try out the Peter DeVries book "The Vale Of Laughter". So funny I remember actually falling out of my chair while laughing. Half the book is written by a man with no sense of humor, who is trying to understand what is.
ReplyDeleteThe right-wing freakout show should obviously be called "Between Two Derps."
ReplyDeleteI think Zach is an underutilized talent. I wonder if he could pull off a biopic of Oliver Reed. Looks just like him, only smaller.
ReplyDeleteThat's filthy.
ReplyDeleteJonah Goldberg, "conservative intellectual."
ReplyDeleteAh, Roy, that's the funniest bit of all.
True. And what a great idea for a film.
ReplyDeleteWith Cate Blanchett as Vanessa Redgrave for The Devils sequence, and some guy with a beard as Alan Bates for the naked wrestling.
ReplyDeletei give this comment three and a half bickles.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like Clinton would have played sax on the Arsenio Hall Show or W. Bush would have dressed as a parachutist. Presidency is SERIOUS BUSINESS.
ReplyDeleteWe'll need someone to play Ann-Margret. Perhaps Amanda Donohoe might play herself.
ReplyDeletePaleotectonics has below recounted the tale of Nixon on Laugh-In, and some may recall then-Governor Ronald Reagan on Sonny & Cher's show. Republican gravitas was pretty thin even before Bush Sr. barfed in the Japanese prime minister's lap.
ReplyDeleteIt does give a new insight into the term, "oxymoron". N'est ce pas?
ReplyDeleteI am simply outraged that the elitist, out-of-touch president is always acting so uncouth and degrading the prestige of his office.
ReplyDeleteI love the fact that Jonah consulted old folks to get a barometrical reading on how "Funny or Die" went over with them.
ReplyDeleteDancing with the Nigerians was full of gravitas, too.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the tumble off the Segway.
Why won't young people pay attention to the ads we place in the Classifieds anymore, asks Ben Shapiro.
ReplyDeleteThere are few Americans old enough to remember Franklin Roosevelt's turn on the deck of the Hornet, dressed as a fighter ace after the battle of Midway.
ReplyDelete"I can't do this" he said to an aide." It's too painful. You'll have to hold me up." And "I don't need this cup on my dick. I'm not even going hunting!"
I hope the President and Mr Galafinakis don't find out that their sketch didn't hit the mark with the "perpetually-faux-outraged right wing dullard" demographic they were so clearly targetting.
ReplyDeleteWe need to keep this news on the down-low, because Presidents-of-the-United States and comedians can be quite fragile about their art.
.
I would like to tuck this comment's arm under mine and take it for a walk around the block before settling down on the back porch to discuss it further.
ReplyDeleteCalvin Coolidge in a Cheyenne war bonnet, lighten up!
ReplyDeleteBill O'Reilly: "All I can tell is you Abe Lincoln would not have done it."
ReplyDeleteOh, Bill was SO close... he just had the wrong president. Now if he had just said Calvin Coolidge, I might have agreed.
goodnight, and good luck, nro reader.
ReplyDeleteJust goes to show that this eternal truth applies: the entire American Right is in more dire need of a blowjob than any white men in history.
ReplyDeleteEspecially considering the blowjob is the default position for everyone on the Right. I wonder how they manage to reproduce.
ReplyDeleteJeez, guys, come on... how could anyone listen to Sarah Palin's closing speech at CPAC and claim that conservatives aren't funny?
ReplyDeleteMom jeans still??!! Oh yes, the cut of his jeans is so evocative of his presidency and how he has governed. WWGWHW (what would George Washington have worn) while crossing the Delawre and all that other stuff? NOT MOM JEANS, PRETTY SURE OF THAT!!
ReplyDeleteIn Bill's defence, it's entirely possible that he could have been saying that Lincoln wouldn't go on an Internet comedy show because the Internet hadn't been invented when Lincoln was alive?
ReplyDeleteI mean, that's possibly one of the stupidest things anyone could say, but is it really that much stupider than snarky, witty, "I thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I ever heard... I had heard our adversaries over the way had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it... I presented the question to the Attorney-General, and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize." Lincoln being scared of comedy shows? I rest my case.
They are pissed off because the real Obama refuses to conform to their narrative of a scary, rage filled (thanks, Dinesh, hope you like prison!) tyrant. The guy is smooth, competent, and doesn't take himself seriously, and this makes them look all the stupider.
ReplyDeleteGoodnight, and good luck not shitting the bed, that is.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he had an aide who specialized in vibrator removals.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Ben Shapiro is on that list, and getting laid only made him even more bitter and angry.
ReplyDeleteHey, if you define "intellectual" in a completely different way than everyone else does, then he's absolutely an intellectual. This is central to my point.
ReplyDeleteAlso, too: fondling a female Olympian's buttocks, and the shoulders of the female German chancellor.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, walking hand-in-hand with one of those a-rabs, and even kissing him on the lips! If Obama did that, every window in NYC would be broken by Pam :"Mazel-tits!" Geller's screams.
ReplyDeleteCrimea doesn't pay.
ReplyDeleteThis is why Lincoln was known as the Tailsplitter.
ReplyDeleteJohnston, as a fellow writer I have to say that I hope you never get sucked into technical writing. You have faaaaaaaaaaar too much talent at narrative.
ReplyDeleteOxymoron? Isn't that the drug Rich Lowry's addicted to?
ReplyDeleteJust... wow.
ReplyDelete[bows head in respect]
You can both Crimea river!
ReplyDeleteThey've moved on to criticizing the president for being seen in public with a pink sweater in his hand. Fox assures us this is a major PR disaster, because as all Fox viewers know, if a man comes into contact with the color pink, his penis and testicles shrivel up and fall off, his wrists become limp, his gait and speech effeminate. Even if the pink sweater is being purchased as a gift for a daughter.
ReplyDeleteIt must really suck to be right wing and feel like you're being trolled by reality 24/7.
ReplyDeleteI once picked up my girlfriend's purse to hand it to her and my penis fell off and I married dude. Weird.
ReplyDeleteI remember when pink, lime green and khaki were a proclamation of one's essential whiteness. The pre-Benneton years, when your colors might suggest you'd consent to having a cigarette snuffed out on your ass.
ReplyDeleteI bet Abe was a laugh riot. What we need is an eyewitness account. Let's ask John McCain.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is...in this one case, this feeling that they have is correct.
ReplyDeleteThey are, in fact, being trolled by reality.
Note to Jeff Jacoby. David Gergen was not a Clinton loyalist. He was a hired gun Clinton brought in because he had publicly known experience in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. Not because of any useful skills, of which as far as anyone can tell, Gergen has none.
ReplyDeleteIt's a spelling issue. It should have read "conservative ineffectual.
ReplyDeleteEvery president at least up to and including Reagan was a marble statue, except for Carter. He had to settle for basalt.
ReplyDeleteI was more thinking of the number of people Lyndon Johnson invited into the presidential shitter to either admire his latest bowel movement or his wang. That's some major Presidential gravitas right there.
ReplyDeleteGoldberg: ...I've talked to a lot of older folks (and not just conservatives) about the skit in the last 24 hours
ReplyDeleteTranslation: My sphincter is sooo wide open right now...
Jonah really earns that "blowhard" label.
Well, that's how you know you did it right.
ReplyDeleteEating strawberry ice cream and going down on a guy in assless chaps are pretty much equivalent.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the Crimea, it's the covereupa?
ReplyDeleteAt this point, he's a Washington Pundit because every TV political show has him on as a Washington Pundit. It's the equivalent of that old definition of "celebrity" as someone who is famous for being famous.
ReplyDeleteAnd who knows more about quiet dignity and reserve than right-wing bloggers? If any of these guys were president, you'd have hair metal on the intercom and deep-fried corn dogs at state dinners.
ReplyDeletewhatever the hell Joanne Worley was
ReplyDeleteHey, Jo Anne coulda been somebody, you know? She coulda been a contender! But what she ended up as was a has-been who almost was, missed it by *this* much...
Merv Griffin did for her what he did for a lot of comics in the '60s, Laugh-In should have been her door to fame, but alas, she was no Goldie Hawn, or Lily Tomlin. From there it was the talk show/game show circuit, bit parts in a lot of shows and movies you've heard of, and she's still "oh, yeah, wasn't she on laugh-In?". Them's the breaks.
We went to the same High School (12 years apart), and my sis used to babysit her brothers & sisters. That's my 3 degrees of stardom. Thank you, thank you, you're too kind...
Thanks. Shame the ninety-odd literary agents I've contacted don't feel the same way.
ReplyDeletePresident Hoity Polloity...
ReplyDeleteTangentially, but do Americans realise just how obnoxious it is for them to refer to their President as "the leader of the free world"? Last time I checked, I lived in the sovereign nation of Sweden, not in a province of the American Empire! :P
ReplyDeleteOr former Thirty Years War embed Bob Schieffer....
ReplyDelete[h/t Charlie Pierce, of course]
Oh meanie (may I call you "meanie"?) -- brilliant! If that doesn't sum up the whole rightwing cognitive schizophrenia, I don't know what would!
ReplyDeleteMy complicated relationship with Neapolitan ice cream is beginning to make sense.
ReplyDeleteNo shit. If a pastel sartorial signifies emasculation, then every college in the old south would technically be an all girls school by now.
ReplyDeleteYou know what the term for chaps that have an ass is?
ReplyDeletePants. Thank you, thank you!
What's that? The judges would also have accepted "assed chaps," which chaps my ass a bit, but there you have it.
I liked joann worely.
ReplyDeleteHere's a picture of Nixon in great danger.
ReplyDeleteYour penis fell off? What are you? A kapauku papuan?
ReplyDeleteSounds chilly for the guy...arent the assless chaps already cold enough.?
ReplyDeleteCoolidge is famous for the, "Same hen every time?" joke. I wouldn't be so fast to rule him out.
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
ReplyDeleteHey, we got some nice sweaters out of it.
ReplyDeleteI think they've battled themselves to exhaustion and are lying there panting.
ReplyDeleteThe free world consists of the US, Israel, and the Tories in England.
ReplyDeleteWhen I want to know how something's going over with the 26-32 year old set, I talk to older folks.
ReplyDeleteThe weed of Crimea bears bitter fruits...
ReplyDeleteAnother note to Jeff Jacoby: Dude, if you're 55 and that's the best beard you can grow...
ReplyDeleteSounds like you need a better harness, then.
ReplyDeleteIt's that whole laughing-at-not-with thing. I'm wondering if she'll bring even more props next year; it reminds me of the urban legend of the psych professor whose class conditioned him to deliver his lectures standing on a stool and screaming at the top of his lungs.
ReplyDeleteHe was, in fact, known for his dirty jokes. (Note to self: after building time machine, make sure to get Abe doing his version of "The Aristocrats.")
ReplyDelete"...I've talked to a lot of older folks (and not just conservatives) about the skit in the last 24 hours and it's a bit of a surprise how many of them just didn't get the premise, didn't think any of it was funny, and thought the whole thing was kind of pathetic." Old people didn't get a Zach Galifianakis sketch!
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, the oldsters who show up to Tea Party rallies in their Medicare-bought electric scooters. I'm sure that Doughy is quite cognizant of the mid-terms being less than eight months away.
Dude had some good lines. "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
ReplyDeleteHe was probably closer to Substance McGravitas.
ReplyDeleteIf you pack enough fat into your head along with your brain, you can pretty much immobilize it.
ReplyDeleteJust like in high school, being cool is unattainable for these guys and they reflexively hate anyone who is. That Obama does it so casually and easily makes it that much worse for them.
ReplyDeleteLet's say Pres. Obama shows up in public in a spray-on pair of bunhuggers; could the country survive the resulting spittlefest and head-splody? I'm willing to give it a shot.
ReplyDelete"After all, if millions actually do sign up as a result (which I highly doubt), it would mean that there are millions of young people out there who couldn't be persuaded by billions of words in newspapers, magazines, State of the Union addresses, and news broadcasts, but they are persuaded by a hipster webcast comedy show.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers, magazines and news broadcasts. Yes, these guys truly have their finger on the racing pulse of the under-30 set.
George W. goes on 60-day tour (which was extended) to tout the virtues of Social Security privatization. Cherry-picked questioners ask him softball questions. Appearances are "dress rehearsed" beforehand to help questioners prepare.
ReplyDeleteResult: flop.
Obama shows up on one goofy comedy show, gets mocked a little bit.
Result: success.
Hm.
That's some pretty good pre-Photoshop photoshopping.
ReplyDeleteTruly. The three or four hours every day that I'm being trolled by reality are bad enough.
ReplyDeleteDidn't W serve hotdogs to some visiting head of state? Sarkozy?
ReplyDeleteDon't forget various right-wing dictatorships in the developing world.
ReplyDeleteIf only Art Linkletter was still alive.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention technical writing. I got sucked into it, and if anything will suck the creative spirit out of you, that will.
ReplyDeleteJesus, couldn't he have just turned his fucking head?
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is don't give up. Meanwhile, do your best to keep body and soul together, and write as much as you can. Freelancing for a variety of magazines, while not the best-paying bit of employment, is a great way to build a portfolio and help pave your way into the better-paying gigs.
ReplyDeleteObama: informed and articulate.
ReplyDeleteBush: an idiot.
Hmm. Getting laughed at here is probably an annoyance. Getting laughed at in the bedroom is another thing entirely.
ReplyDeleteI am honoured to have provided said opportunity.
ReplyDeleteTo quote Jonah, "Fart!"
ReplyDeletehttp://ifarton.com/_farticles-Lincoln-fart-joke.html/
p.s. there is a website called "ifarton.com"?! Of course there is.
Arbeit Macht Freiwelt
ReplyDeleteUnfrozen caveman columnist. (h/t Norbizness)
ReplyDeleteRugosa
Oh, THIS. There's your explanation for the contemporary right, right there. WASP privilege + Bircherite lunacy + Neocon hubris / end of cold war = high school dweebs on the warpath!
ReplyDeleteAt least he's consistent. He continues to believe that he is *inherently interesting.* "If it occurs to me, then it is fit for public consumption," is his primary directive. Other writers--i.e., decent ones--continually ask themselves, "Is this true? Is it interesting or funny? Is it written in good faith with a minimum amount of honesty?" JG asks only, "Am I done yet?"
ReplyDeleteI admire this comment's raw nerve. It advances a daring thesis, but I'm willing to go with it.
ReplyDeleteAlso: ___ said to "Silent Cal," "I have a bet with someone that I can get you to say at least three words."
ReplyDeleteCC: You lose.
Tea Partiers say the darndest things!
ReplyDeleteIf only Ken Russell hadn't gone and died three years too soon...
ReplyDeleteI even liked her on $20,000 Pyramid, but this is classic. http://youtu.be/zeys_nmxNug
ReplyDeleteBehold King Missile's "Detachable Penis." http://youtu.be/byDiILrNbM4
ReplyDeleteWith their inspiration provided by the muse Derpsichore.
ReplyDeleteNow who's being naive Daniel?
ReplyDeleteOh whatever. Go enjoy your free educated, upwardly mobile, wealthy, contented and beautiful socialist hellhole, freak.
He did, that's the worst part.
ReplyDeleteI just realized they were worried about the dignity of the Presidency by bitching about the guy they portray as a Kenyan Witch Doctor with a bone through his nose.
ReplyDeleteEnkew! And I encourage use of my name. That way I know who you're talking to...
ReplyDeleteAnd Segways.
ReplyDeleteWhile choking on pretzels.
I understand that some Indonesian junk was going 'round.
ReplyDeleteArt director George Lois FTW.
ReplyDeleteI think you mean the 1930s set: Good evening mister and missus radio audience and all the ships at sea - let's go to press!"
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of Lily Tomlin: .
ReplyDeleteAnd you'll never guess who shows up at about 4:20 or so.
Maybe not so has-beeny after all...
If I can hijack the thread for a minute: I've had two novels put out as digital serials, one of which - a short dystopian novel called The Fabulist - actually made an okay amount of money and even made it into their first print anthology. Still, it just feels like a beginning. The project I'm shopping around now is deeply personal, and I feel it deserves more than a kissoff from everyone in New York (FUN FACT: I got another rejection in while I was writing the top post).
ReplyDeleteEh. I'm working on a follow-up to The Fabulist right now - maybe I can rewrite the main character as a teenager and sell it as a Hunger Games knockoff. Apparently, the market can always bear those.
The last time I flew thru the Arlanda airport, they had a huge sign in the lobby saying, "Welcome to Stockholm, the Capital of Scandanavia"...
ReplyDeleteHe invented the popcorn bucket maneuver for the White House movie theater.
ReplyDeleteSome writers do find YA to be better than they expected: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/junior-varsity-is-where-the-work-gets-done/
ReplyDeleteLast time I flew through Arlanda they had a sign hanging over a long, long hallway that said, "Hopscotch zone". And they had hopscotch grids?fields?tables? marked on the floor.
ReplyDeleteTake heart from your success with The Fabulist--most of the people I've met who call themselves "writers" have never been published and paid.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'd have guessed The Fabulist was a biography of Jonah the Fail. I'll have to get my hands on a copy to make sure that "short dystopian" actually isn't Jonah as the title character.
I'm nothing if not edgy.
ReplyDeleteI imagine Oliver Reed lived a life somewhere in-between Richard Burton and John Huston.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see…"Sovereign nation" like the Sioux have up in South Dakota.
ReplyDeleteThe Derpsichorean Muse, in Pythonese.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what is their fixation with black men's pants?
ReplyDeleteRush Limpballs is trying to corner the market on it.
ReplyDeleteJonah listen - blowjob is just a word not a description - you don't blow hard you suck hard.
ReplyDeleteI delight in all manifestations of the Derpsichorean Muse!
ReplyDeleteLOL - looking at his Wiki page (emphasis mine)
ReplyDeleteD'Souza released2016: Obama's America, a film based on his 2010 book The Roots of Obama's Rage, both of which posit that Barack Obama's attitude toward America derives from his father's anti-colonialism and from a psychological desire to fulfill his father's dream of diminishing the power of Western imperial states. The film has been the highest grossing conservative political film produced in the United States.
Well that really isn't saying much now is it - get a few dozen people to see it and set a new Guinness record :)
No, no that would be Orlando - that way the elderly will try it, break their hips and die quickly without being the selfish lazy burden on that St. Cruz tells us they are.
ReplyDeleteAnd JennofArk wins the Intertubes today with that one!
ReplyDeleteHeh. I suspect we're all quite aware of what the fixation is, and I'm betting it is linked to all that "shoved down their throat" stuff they are always banging on about.
ReplyDeleteHe sure does. (Thank you, here all week, etc.)
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I think Clinton really enjoyed Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" and fried food.
ReplyDeleteDunno about W, but FDR did. Eleanor was dubious about this, but His Majesty King George VI loved it. (Not making any of this up.) Clearly FDR realized, as one aristocrat to another, that the poor guy just didn't get a lot of fun and needed somthing completely out of the royal ordinary.
ReplyDeleteNB: No connection with The Aristocrats.
I'm a technical writer and I haven't found that to be the case. Then again, I chose to do it, because I like meticulous procedural writing. A lot of the rest of the time, I write nonfiction, though.
ReplyDeleteIt has the advantage of being safe from any prospect of contradiction by reality, and removing all surprises out of events. Obama is acting contrary to the prestige of his office? See, he relies on his own cult of personality!! Obama is expecting respect for the prestige of his office? Come and see the cult of personality inherent in the system!
ReplyDeleteOne of the minor pleasures of my life is trying to slip Veblenian words like "otiose" or "nugatory" past the attention of the reviewers when writing arcane academic papers on perceptual mechanisms. It's a creative challenge, I tell you.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know to whom this comment is talking. You talkin' to me, comment?
ReplyDelete