Shawn Macomber

Redbelt, Not Red Belt

As a precursor to my large feature on David Mamet's political conversion in the June issue of The American Spectator, I have a review up this weekend of his new film Redbelt.

"The Reverend Al Sharpton crept in and out...

...of the designated protest area at One Police Plaza like the blob in a lava lamp."

In Defense of Bill Tucker

The caboose in today's TAS Reader Mail is pretty funny with a young liberal inviting Bill Tucker to spend some time in rural Pennsylvania with him--cue AmSpec slumber party-esque chit chat as to whether such a trip would constitute a date--where he will presumably continue to take our esteemed colleague to task for a recent column "What Conservatives Want." His letter reads, in part: Liberalism makes sense to me. I like the idea of making sure that my neighbor is taken care of. And I like the idea of my neighbor taking care of me.

Okay, so then...take care of your neighbor. Do you really need the government or Bill Tucker to validate that dream before you make it a reality? Is Barack Obama's ascension the starting gun to allow young liberals to stop lecturing and start actually--gasp!--living up to their professed ideals? Then again, I suppose leading by example is a quaint notion in a nation that has spent the last 100 years convincing itself it is more noble to compel with state power than force of argument. (No, Young Liberal, I obviously do not believe Republicans are guiltless on this point.) Charity is the business of the government and not the individual, etc., etc. It's sad to see people so convinced of their own personal impotence making declarations of faux strength like: You guys blew it. It's our turn now. Turn to do what? Let someone else do it for you, yet again?

Woe Is Us

As is now common with political campaigns of all stripes, I was emailed a copy of John McCain's prepared remarks at Wake Forest University this morning hours before they were delivered. I never understand why we aren't just provided the meat of the speech, rather than the meat and all the niceties and playful banter which instantly reveals itself to be meaningless once you're informed it's contrived. For example:

We appreciate the hospitality of the students and faculty of Wake Forest University, and especially during exams. I know exam week involves some tough moments, like when you're up at 3:00 a.m. and have to choose between studying or watching one of Fred's old movies. Most of the students here look confident and ready, so you need no advice from me as final exams draw near.

Was Fred in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle? Well, at any rate, that's the American college student for you. Long before you've even actually laid eyes on them you can already be sure they'll look confident and ready at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Things have apparently changed since I was in college back in ought-two when students would stumble into 3 p.m. classes bleary-eyed and woefully unprepared. That was before Obama started filling their hearts with hope, I guess. More:

But for those of you who might be feeling a slight sense of panic coming on, all I can say is that a few bad grades don't have to be end of the road -- so just give it your best and move on. An undistinguished academic record can be overcome in life, or at least that is the hope that has long sustained me.

Talk about an inclusive campaign--Good morning students! Confident and ready to aim low? Join us! Slavishly in need of a strong leader you've never met to validate your existence and re-make your life? Choose the other guy! Lord, woe is us.

More Denial

For anyone who may be interested, I've followed up my recent Lawrence Solomon Q&A with a review of his excellent The Deniers in today's Washington Times.

Well, There Was That Whole 2004 Primary Thingee

"God used David to challenge Goliath," Sharpton said. "So what makes you think God can't use Al Sharpton to challenge George Bush?"

Come on, Rev. God didn't even want to use you to take on Dick Gephardt. Plus, remember He once put an unholy love of tracksuits in your heart. Not a good sign.

Location, Location, Location

Everyone is whining about gas prices, but could Rosemary's baby even fit in this $800,000 basement room at the famed Dakota? I think the Fritzl dungeon had roomier digs. (Thanks, Karol.)

C'Mon, Girl. Growl Like You'd Rather Be On A Bike

Occasionally, I'll get the heavy metal itch again--most recently scratched in 2005--and check the Craig's List postings for keywords like "grindcore" or "hardcore" to see if there are any other old bastards out there looking to recreate something that had its heyday between 1981 and, say, maybe 1994? Here's an intriguing ad I came across recently:

Hey y'all. I am a female vocalist-I have never been in a band before but I am pretty sure I can scream and growl real well. I'm looking to start a band - preferably with more female members. The lyrics would definitely be coming from a pro-fat, pro-sex, pro-queer, pro-bicycle, feminist, anticonsumer culture, situationist prospective. Any takers??

What I'm reading here, between the lines of "pro-fat," "pro-bicycle" and "anti-consumer culture," is one hell of a hunter-gatherer with a very sturdy bicycle and loud amplifiers built entirely out of organic dung and dumpstered wire. Maybe I can swing with this. (I got to admit, she's got impeccable taste in crusty-grindy stuff.) You know, from a situationist perspective.

Pleased...

...but most certainly not delighted.

"In addition, we'll also tell the kids tales from norse mythology, which has been of great inspiration for all of us..."

I don't know if playing a kindergarten is necessarily the best career move for a self-described "Viking metal" band, but Norway's Helheim is apparently saying damn the torpedoes!

HELHEIM will play acoustic for the children, but will be in full costume for the show. No need for parents to worry, though. "We're there to entertain, not to scare the kids," the drummer says.

Elisabeth Alnes of Klosteret Barnehage sees absolutely no problem in letting the viking metal band play for the children. "Lots of people get this all wrong, and think metal and Satanism are two sides of the coin," she says. "These are great guys, and Norse mythology is a very important part of our cultural heritage."

So, relax, parents of Klosteret Barnehage: Your children will be keeping company with a costumed, pagan -mythology-loving band that feels the need to reassure you that they aren't there to scare the kids. Move along, nothing crazy-like to see here. Actually, all I feel when I read this story is...I'm sending my children to school in Norway, where they know how to really educate--via heavy metal.

Apocalypse Maybe Later

I've been a bit remiss with site updates this week thanks to travel and research obligations, but I did have two pieces run: First, a Q&A with Canadian environmentalist Lawrence Solomon regarding his absolutely essential new book on global warming, The Deniers, as well as a more controversial piece on the positive vibe I got when I recently met with Carly Fiorina, former HP CEO, now McCain...uh, Victory Chairwoman.

Honor Thy Call Girl

It's been a tough year for Randi Rhodes. First, she wasn't the victim of a fascist right-wing attack which probably would have gotten her a book deal, and now, insult to injury, she winds up getting fired by Air America for calling former hero-of-the-left-turned-reactionary-demon Hillary an "f--ing whore" during the least funny stand up routine ever.

On the bright side, maybe she'll get that book deal now. Dissent is, after all, patriotic and should be rewarded.

The best part of this, however, is Rhodes former writer Barry Crimmins  who in the midst of much bashing of Air America ("an allegedly progressive talk show network") and Hillary ("the perfect tool of the patriarchal war machine"), explains, "something no one is talking about is that she said this in San Francisco where many sex workers are unionized and she used 'whore' as a pejorative."

Which I suppose means the left-wing's latest position is, Don't call Hillary a whore...it might insult prostitutes.

Tap, Tap, Tap. Bore, Bore, Bore.

Dave Weigel has a good write up of the The Week magazine's Opinion Awards over at Reason. This was my favorite bit of celeb dish, though:

When emcee Margaret Carlson made a joke about wiretapping abuses, Rove stage-whispered a joke: "Your calls aren't that interesting, incidentally."

Mourning in St. Patrick's

Thoughts and scenes from William F. Buckley's funeral last friday.

The Man Who Would Be A Cartoon Pig

I have a interview up with Bob Bergen, the man who took over several classic cartoon voices when Mel Blanc passed. Here's the opening:

A mere five years into his life, Bob Bergen already felt confident enough to share the culmination of his worldly ambitions with his parents: When he grew up, the wee lad declared, he didn't want to be an astronaut or a race car driver or a fireman. No, Bergen would not rest until he became . . . Porky Pig.

"My mom said, 'You can't be Porky Pig. You're Jewish,' " Bergen recalled. "Being more '-ish' than 'Jew,' I had no idea what she meant. I just knew there was this cartoon character I liked and could imitate...

Hey Man, Is That Freedom Rock? Well, Turn It Up!

John McCain's search for a campaign song may have just narrowed a bit:

Web Poll IV of more than 27,000 respondents cited stronger than expected interest in the November 2008 election among fans of rock, classic rock, and alternative radio stations. It also found that John McCain, the Republican candidate for U.S. president, was the top pick for the Oval Office for men and classic rock partisans--those people who tune in to stations playing music from the "original classic rock era" of 1964 to 1975, comprised of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Pink Floyd.

Meet the new boss, same party as the old boss. The big news here might be that there are three people who say they actually want Ted Nugent to be president.

Addendum: Title explanation.

So, I Had A Chance To Chat With Tony Orlando...

...and he was a pretty super guy. Much more interesting than I was led to believe by Yo La Tengo back during the youthful days when I somehow found virtue in boring music.

Pavlov's Party Members

Howard Dean gets his Princess Leia on.

How To Not Buy Into "Feminist Orthodoxy"...

...and still find a nice girl.

Actually, some of this interview with six conservative female bloggers about dating is funny, but I also have to admit I found it somewhat disturbing that political persuasion would be such a make or break issue with these ladies. (Although, when Karol, a pal and one of my favorite bloggers, warns, "Some of the guys I have dated started out liberal, but they didn't stay that way," I have to just say all's fair in love and war.

Not that I want any of them to have to suffer through an Obama lecture/rally with a crying and/or fainting date and, per usual, I'm probably an outlier, but, lord, if I had been determined to find someone with exactly corresponding political views to mine, not only would my courting opportunities have been basically limited to gun shows, tax day protests and a convention I attended recently where a pick-up truck with the license plate "ANTIGOV" pulled up, but I'd almost certainly be sitting home alone tonight watching Twilight Zone and The Prisoner box sets.

Quote(s) of the Day

New York magazine has a fun profile of John Waters up now. Within the first four paragraphs the reporter manages to tag along as Waters practices his new hobby ("Hitchhiking is my midlife crisis") and reveal that the shock director accidentally smoked crack at a recent party held at his own house when he mistook it for pot, which happens all the time I'm sure:

“I thought, Am I addicted? Am I gonna rob my parents now? I had a horrible hangover, but I’d been drinking anyway. I was glad, actually, in a way. I would never now purposely try a new drug, I don’t think, but I’m secretly glad I know what it feels like. All I remember is it freezes your lungs. I did meth when I was young, but it was methedrine, which became like a terrible biker drug, like the lowest-class redneck drug, and how it ever became a gay drug is still a mystery to me, because it was so déclassé.”

Uh, Yeah, This Might Be An Uphill Battle

Lord, anyone who hasn't read this GQ profile of Meghan McCain yet is really missing out. I could just as easily cut and paste the whole crazy thing in the space, but, instead, I'll show some restraint and offer just two of my favorite bits:

Meghan recalls the day when actor Wilford Brimley, he of the Quaker Oats ads, called to offer his support. An operative got off the phone and grandly announced to the room, “We’ve got Brimley!” The phrase, she says, became a rallying cry for the campaign.

I'm sure Wilford Brimley was as shocked by this as anyone else. Then again, maybe the Colbert Report sketches have gone to his head. More:

Meghan confesses that her real love life hasn’t been especially active lately. She’s gone on only one official date since her dad’s campaign began, but she bowed out early with a “headache.” Then there was also the rumor that she’d been seen with—horrors—a Ron Paul supporter. “That has been blown out of proportion in every way!” she exclaims. “What happened is that I dropped my coffee and he helped me with it and was like, ‘Do you want to go to Baja Fresh?’… Not that I would be against dating a Ron Paul supporter, but he turned out to be very strange. He collected Barbie dolls. I called my girlfriends after and was like, ‘That’s weird, right?’ ”

Riiight. Weird. I love Baja Fresh and voted for Ron Paul, so I suppose if I want to stay this side of wacky I better stop salivating over those dolls in the Toys R' Us flyers. Thanks be to Jim Antle for pointing me to this.

I Bet He Got An "A" In How To Dress Like A Goofy Meat-Hammer-Swinging Dipshit 101

This morning at the gym I ended up fitness machine-ing next to a guy wearing athletic shorts over his  black and blue spandex pants and a T-shirt that read in college-style print: Porn Star in Training. Way to top off the ensemble, pal. I wanted to ask if that was a two or four year program, what sort of facilities the school has and if there was a remote learning option for people parked on the information superdriveway like me,  but, alas, the opportunity never arose.   

In other news someone arrived on my site last night Googling www.shawn is gay Welcome, friend! I'll be blogging here until my hanging for treason!

When Does My Show Trial Start?

So in today's American Spectator I have an interview with Paul Crespo, president of Civica Americana, discussing how to best help Hispanic immigrants become part of our culture without losing theirs. It went up at Midnight. Here's an excerpt from the first email I received fifteen minutes later:

Instead of defending Americans right to their own memory, customs and identity, you eagerly shilled for the browning of America. Having chosen treason, you should not whine when the day of reckoning for traitors arrives.

Well, striving not to whine, all I can say is I hope you have a nice day too!

War On Terror Pretty Much Over?

First Anbar tribal councils turned on al Qaeda in Iraq. And now at least one gay porn mogul has joined the fight against jihadists. How much longer can the radical Islamists withstand the pressure!?

Sigh. Scooped again by The New Republic. 

"The cop said ‘since you think it's bullshit we are now going to give you all full body cavity searches.’"

This account of California death metal buzz band Brain Drill breaking up is pretty damn funny. Keeping with Lambgoat readers' policy of complete over-the-top callousness, commenter Portslob notes, "proves my point that everyone from california is a faggot."

I like not only that this is a "point" a guy who nicknames himself Portslob continues to strive to prove, but also that he believes a story about potheads in a death metal band arguing with border patrol over illegal fireworks  somehow validates his theory about everyone in California. Go you, buddy!

Utopia Banished? Not!

For the second time, I had the pleasure of chatting with the vocalist of the band that put the "extreme" in "extreme metal," Napalm Death. We got pretty far afield of music in this one:

Sampling such apocalyptically cacophonic songs as "Fatalist," "Puritanical Punishment Beating" and "Rabid Wolves (For Christ)" from "Smear Campaign," the latest offering from legendary extreme metal progenitors Napalm Death, those unfamiliar with the band could be forgiven for perhaps assuming a dark thing or two about the band's vocalist/lyricist, Mark "Barney" Greenway.

That Greenway is actually a peace-loving Ralph Nader-endorsing charming and witty Brit probably wouldn't land in the average person's top 50 guesses. But it's the truth. "I always liked that guy," Greenway said of the now-perennial presidential candidate. "I think he's straight up. Unfortunately, the way things are, he doesn't get a significant enough share of the vote to make a difference. Still, you can only align yourself with what you believe to be right. It's a bit of a conundrum, really."

Read the rest. Title reference here.

So Goes The Nation

New Hampshire's sissy legislators continue reveling in their pathetic fears.

'Kind Of Stupid' Is the New Black So Long As It Comes Accented With Green

Former supermodel/actress Shannon Tweed spoke recently to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about her 25 years of happily "unmarried life" with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, who she swears--despite, um, significant evidence to the contrary--has been faithful to her since 1983. This was the bit I enjoyed most, though:

What one thing about Gene would surprise us the most?

Tweed: How soft he is. He's very sweet, and kind of stupid. [Laughs] He can't make a sandwich—but he can make a lot of money.

Well, you knew there had to be some reason a woman would be with a man who would go on NPR to tell Terry Gross (of women in general): "If you want to welcome me with open arms, I'm afraid you're also going to have to welcome me with open legs." There's more to life than sandwiches, you shallow bastards! (And, yeah, stupid+money=sweet.) By the by, a few years ago a conservative website commissioned me to do a review of one of Simmon's books at a time when the bassist was dissing jihadists or somesuch. They eventually paid a kill fee and it never ran. It was pretty strange stuff, a lot of Simmons praising the free-market and quoting Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Which explains why Eliot Spitzer has yet to have made a cameo on Family Jewels. The time for a tie-in/potential spin-off series is clearly ripe, however.
 

A Little Good News

The luminary willing to ambivalently wander away from the spotlight while still relevant is rare bird, indeed, but these fowl do exist as one quickly learns chatting with Canadian folk-rock institution Anne Murray.

The Prescience Of Pastor Wright

Nearly a year ago the New York Times ran a story exploring some of the issues the Obama campaign might have with the candidate's church leader--stressing the progressive and social justice elements of the church, of course, as is the media's wont whenever the hate-monger in the pulpit happens to be a left-winger. The last few graphs are instructive:

Despite the canceled invocation, Mr. Wright prayed with the Obama family just before his presidential announcement. Asked later about the incident, the Obama campaign said in a statement, "Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church."

***

Mr. Wright, who has long prided himself on criticizing the establishment, said he knew that he may not play well in Mr. Obama’s audition for the ultimate establishment job. "If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me," Mr. Wright said with a shrug. "I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen."

And so it came to pass. If Pastor Wright foresaw this, perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss his other contentions. Maybe whitey is the devil...

The Naughty Time Revolution

You know any post that begins with "I'm a 52-year-old man with sexual issues" is going to be entertaining, but even that opening salvo does little to prepare you for Philip Weiss' defense of Eliot Spitzer by way of attacking the “widely-upheld pretense that bourgeois American marriage resolves sexual life for all men.” It’s a revolution, Weiss cries! “Gays had their liberation, women had theirs, what about straight married guys?” 

Well, yes, why not? In fact, this very evening I plan to put the proposition to my wife in the plainest possible terms: “Look, we gave you the right to vote. Now you’re going to sign this permission slip saying I can have sex with whatever neighbor or acquaintance is interested in servicing a slightly chubby man’s sexual desires. You’ll do it because we both believe in equality.” Honestly, I’m not that optimistic and the sure-let-my-wife-screw-other-guys! revolution is no doubt a bit further off... More:

In Europe his needs would have a place. Not a place of honor, but a place. In the U.S. we make marriage a sexual stronghold in the midst of a hypersexualized culture, then stoke the men with Viagra like hormone-fed cattle, stroke them with internet porn, politicize married sex as a kind of covenant of citizenship.

Spitzer likely appreciates the support now, but one gets the impression he wouldn’t have been lenient with the supposed prostitution ringleaders he took down if they had only argued they felt like stroked hormone-fed cattle being forced into a puritan covenant. Me? I say legalize it, but let's not celebrate it.

Still, Weiss clearly feels passionately enough about Spitzer’s case to issue rare praise for Alan Dershowitz (“Execrable on Palestinian human rights, he was eloquent on Spitzer's”), whom he normally finds himself at loggerheads with over the vast Israel Lobby complex, as well as Spitzer’s call girl (“beautiful chick, amazing rack”). And if someone such as…Oh, I don’t know, say, Silda Wall Spitzer happens to believe maybe an “amazing rack” doesn’t supersede wedding vows or create an air of nobility, Weiss isn’t having it:

I know what [Spitzer] was thinking; I get it. And all the patronizing talk about men's stupidity bothers me. God made me this way. Any smart wife knows there's an upside.

Yes, quit being so stupid honey, and pass me the checkbook. I've been um, difficult with my special paid lady friend again, and she needs some more cash to accept it's...safe. Lord! “I'm not complaining about marriage,” Weiss insists in his original post, “it's the best thing in my life.” Just potentially not better than a legal, if a bit too pricey, prostitute.

Bring On The Tumors!

The New York Times succinctly summarizes High School Confidential, the latest reality series to build a basic cable buzz:

Filmed over four years in Overland Park, Kan., the documentary series tracks 12 girls through two pregnancies, bouts of serious depression, numerous experiments with sex, drugs and alcohol, and, finally, one brain tumor.

I have to admit I wasn't all that interested until the writer got to "brain tumor," although personally I'm rooting for a neoplasm that will turn one of these pheromone-addled, oblivious to their own blessings mall dwellers into a John-Travolta-in-Phenomenon-esque genius. Kids impersonating Clueless characters sans irony is old hat nowadays. Someone wandering through one of these series with a dectectable IQ, on the other hand, would be ground-breaking television at this point, like an uncomfortably close to real-life remake of Idiocracy. (I write that as if any trip to a Manhattan supermarket or movie theater isn't already too close to an Idiocracy remake for comfort already!)

But, in general, yeah, I'm a fan of both reality and reality television. (And, I hasten to add, always against brain tumors!) I'm part of the problem!

Hey, That's Not What Michael Moore Told Me!

New York University professor and Cuban expatriate Enrique Del Risco explains to the New York Times why life in a police state is not such a great trade-off for the supposed wonderful schools and clinics of Fidel:

“At the root of that is a great belittling of Cubans,” he said. “It’s like we are some sort of little animals who only need a veterinarian and someone to teach us tricks and we’ll be fine.”

H/T: Matt Welch

The Archeology Of Journalism

So I was randomly invited to a screening of the new Morgan Spurlock movie Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden this week and even thought about going until I realized I'd be breaking stringent admittance rules, i.e. "No one in the entertainment industry or media will be permitted to attend." The other requirements? Well, no cameras, of course, no children and:

No one will be admitted who appears to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. No one who is dirty or improperly dressed will be allowed to attend the screening. Anyone creating a disturbance or interfering with the screening enjoyment of others in the audience will be removed from the theater.

It's good for we journalists to know our place in the social strata, which, it seems, is somewhere between intoxicated and dirty, over near killjoy.

"The Sky Is...Probably Going To Stay Just About Where It Is"

Scenes from the 2008 International Conference On Climate Change.

UPDATE: Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, was kind enough to grant me a short interview during the conference the result of which is now up at AmSpec.

Social Justice: Fun and Glamour Edition

n the latest Entertainment Weekly The New Adventures of Old Christine star Julia Louis-Dreyfus not only cops to being a fan of Keith Olbermann--breaking news?--but goes onto explain her recent heroic off-set role helping writers defeat exploitative fat cat executives. Or, as she put it: "I dig demonstrating." She certainly wasn't alone on that count.

"It was really fun," she told the magazine. "I'll picket anybody at any time."

Really? Anybody? At any time? The possibilities are endless, but my first challenge if I had read this a couple days earlier would have been Barack Obama on the set of Ellen. Maybe it would have stopped him from creating this embarrassing spectacle.

It's Tough To Disagree

My pal Karen thinks she's Parent of the Year.

Negotiate A Beating BEFORE The Betting

Over at one of the best blogs in existence, Todd Seavey explains how a libertarian can go to Vegas without gambling even if he believes consenting adults should be able to do what they like with their cash:

I probably refrained mostly or entirely from gambling, not because Jesus dislikes gambling but because (absent special skill at poker or blackjack), gambling is a losing proposition designed to benefit the house at the expense of people too stupid to understand probability. In other words, reason and an appreciation for math will keep me from temptation (though as a libertarian, I certainly think gambling should be legal for those who want to indulge in it — but then, I also think it should be legal to sign contracts saying your family has the right to beat you senseless if you lose the family fortune at the craps table).

Be sure to read the whole post and explore the site a bit. My own reflections on gambling community living here.

Inescapable Bedlam

My Weekly Standard review of Tom Bedlam from a few weeks back is available now here.

Reason 96523 Why Sometimes It's Better Not To Stop To Have Sex With A Corpse

Is this so crazy it might actually work? I hope not!:

Commenting on the charge of murdering Miss Bowman, Anthony Glass QC, defending, said: "It is, you may think, a very unattractive defence. He did not know she was dead until intercourse was concluded. Even though you may think his conduct is disgusting, he allowed his lust to get the better of him."

Not For Chimps?

Walter Schreifels of Quicksand/Rival Schools fame has not only posted a great stripped down acoustic cover of Agnostic Front's "Society's Suckers" from the NYHC classic Victim In Pain, but also a blog arguing the hardcore group's supremacy over The Shins and...Mozart?:

I think cavemen would have liked Victim In Pain better than anything Mozart ever came up with, or the Beatles. If you had to get psyched up to kill a Wooly Mammoth, would you listen to The Beatles with Sgt. Pepper on french horn or Victim In Pain with Vinny Stigma on lead? I can almost hear the cave men screaming (if they had developed language) STIGMA!!! It's timeless music, post apocalypse Mad Max people will be rocking to it in a thousand years. Do you think anyone is gonna give a shit about The Shins when you could be raped, lit on fire, dragged by a motorcycle and killed for a liter of gas (which kind of defeats the purpose)? Shit, Apes from Planet Of The Apes would love AF, though the Chimps and Orangutans maybe not as much.

For the record: I've made something of a side career out of bashing recent AF records in various print outlets, but I'm completely on board with Victim In Pain.

Plan B

The general honesty of the new messiah notwithstanding, I'll do things Karol's way for the next four months, but if it gets beyond that and Barack Obama is still poised to make government bureaucrats my invisible, portable-as-state-run-healthcare roommates, to use his apparently thrilling rhetoric to make less of my life and money my own...well, I'm going to start sacrificing goats and chickens to Ra on my fire escape at sunrise every day, and, if all else fails, similarly beg a virtual pantheon of retired gods and goddesses for salvation in a big messy truly grassroots missive, as Converge best put it, petitioning the empty sky. And for a sissy vegetarian like myself, that's pretty hardcore. Not to mention how upset it'll make my pugs. (Pictured above.) Not that I'm endorsing McCain or anything.

It may all seem desperate, but I've been told hope is making a comeback so...

When The Best Thing You've Got Going For You Is An Asterisk...

It's tough not to take a bit of guilty pleasure from the opening of WSJ critic Joe Morgenstern's takedown of the new film, Jumper:

"Jumper," based on the novel by Steven Gould, re-defines--downward-- the notion of dreadful. It does so by dispensing with everything a movie needs for a shot at being merely awful. Dramatic development? None. Entertaining dialogue? Ditto. Internal logic? Puhleez. Intriguing characters? No characters, thus no intrigue. Interesting performances? Essentially none, though with an asterisk.

Oh yeah and--shocking!--he didn't like Definitely, Maybe either.

Screaming for Vengeance

So a Kucinich for President fundraiser was out, but that didn't mean Sean Penn and Dennis Kucinich weren' t still going to party--and maybe even get out a little pent-up aggression. How else to explain the pair winding up on a stage to introduce far, far underground heavy metal act Ringworm? After all, it isn't every day the would-be architect of the Department of Peace teams up with a bunch of guys who boast in press materials of conjuring a sound "powerful enough to bring metal fans to their knees"; powerful enough, indeed, to "exorcise humanity's filthy demons." (The rhetoric is par for the course, by the by.) Could it be the man who fervently believed Peace is Possible has been so demoralized by his recent loss that he's thrown his Carole King and James Taylor LPs out the window for something to better match his dark mood...say, for instance, Ringworm's The Venomous Grand Design and Justice Replaced by Revenge? Or is this simply the price one pays to keep up with a startlingly young wife?

If it's the latter, what's next? Fred Thompson stage-diving at a Between the Buried and Me show? I think we all recall how well this type of campaigning went for Alan Keyes in 2000...

A War Of Unremitting Empathy

24 creator and self-described "right-wing nutjob" Joel Surnow won't be returning to the show post-writer's strike. There have been all kinds of whispers about liberal navel-gazing replacing torture as the show's untreatable narrative tick--although, if you're like me, liberal navel-gazing is torture and the show should still work.

At any rate, now seems as good a time as any to point readers to Phil Klein's piece on an afternoon with Surnow. Meanwhile, my bit on the writer's strike that apparently set off this counter-revolution lives here.  

At Least They Give Them Fake Hydrants

Check out the posh relief area provided for contestants of the Westminster Dog Show.

Sincerity. Or: A Used Maxima Bribes No One

Bill Lerach, the once-powerful attorney set to be sentenced today after pleading guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice with a class action kickback scheme, can’t be all bad: After all, anyone who can entice the trifecta of Ben Stein, Sen. Carl Levin and Ralph Nader (!) to write letters attesting to his character cannot be entirely bereft of charm or merit. Nevertheless, the ruminations of some of these character witnesses unearthed by the Wall Street Journal’s always fantastically entertaining Law Blog seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Here are a few examples: 

When he bought a new car, he gave me his Maxima instead of trading it in.–Kathryn Lichnovsky, Lerach’s secretary for almost 30 years.

Every day Mr. Lerach makes us a big pot of coffee and gives us juice, fruits, pastries, cookies.–Encarnacion Lopez Sanchez, Lerach’s gardener 

I will close by providing the Court with Mr. Lerach’s response to my pleas to return as his associate in the summer of 2006 . . . ‘Money makes people a******* Mary. That is why I would not pay you the money you insisted you were entitled to.--Mary Blasy, a former associate with Lerach’s firm. 

Ah, so sometimes cheapness is just another method of character building. Interesting. I thought that line of thinking went out of style at the end of A Christmas Carol. Judging my own experiences in journalism along those lines I realize I should technically be a much better person than I am by now or at least less of an a******, anyway. Or perhaps I have only gotten to the level where I deserve a used Maxima. It is so difficult to judge one's own worth.

An aside: These references remind me of the online Receipt Museum maintained by Todd Barry, probably the greatest comedian of this generation.

Doing Something With the Doing

You have to love a Q&A with Rob Thomas (of Matchbox Twenty fame) in which two of the first five questions are, "Are you high right now?" and, as a follow-up to a query on the singer's tubbier years, "Like you needed to lance your cheeks?" [Um, emphasis added.] That Thomas seems not a bit fazed by these and other probings is, I'm sure, a testament to his character on some strange level. It was this exchange, however, on rumors of illegitimate tour children that caught my eye:

So you could have more children out there?
No. I’ve had my wits about me for long enough now. I keep reading that I have a daughter, though. I’ve read that so many times.

You don’t?
No, I have a son who lives with his mom in Boston. The thing is that my wife and I really want a daughter. Like, we’ve been fucking, but now we’re actually trying to do something with it.

Well, actually doing something with the fucking is certainly a novel way of describing the miracle of life, and what I wouldn't give to have been a fly on the wall the evening Thomas and his wife decided to have the, you know, maybe we should start doing something with the fucking talk at the kitchen table. I'm sure it was a heartwarming scene to rival any of the rom-coms we'll all be flocking to en masse this Valentine's Day week. More from our intrepid reporter:

I’ve definitely read that you have a daughter.
I know, it’s like the rumor that I had sex with Tom Cruise.

Hmm. Maybe Thomas should leave the birds and the bees talk to his wife when the time comes. In the meantime, someone should get on writing a biography of the singer's life...immediately. It sounds hotter than Slash.

Can New Candidate Succeed Where New Coke Failed?

Feeling a little blue on this Super Tuesday? Not happy with the choices left on your ballot? Cursing the heavens over Fred Thompson's inability to gain traction? There may be another option yet: Vote Wal-mart!:

OBAMA, Clinton, McCain, Romney ... Wal-Mart? The nation’s largest private employer sure sounds like it’s running for president these days. It’s making sweeping commitments to reduce America’s energy use and improve its health care system. It’s obsessively polling voters, boasting of a higher favorability rating than Congress. It’s even touting an “economic stimulus plan for American shoppers” in the form of steep price cuts made last week. (Four 12-packs of Pepsi? $10.)

That last one may be slightly tongue in cheek — even discount retailers have a sense of humor — but the bigger message is not: after years of running afoul of the United States government on labor and environmental issues, Wal-Mart now aspires to be like the government, bursting through political logjams and offering big-picture solutions to intractable problems.

Be an informed voter as well, though. Make sure someone asks Wal-Mart whether they are actually controlled by Sam Walton's nefarious re-animated head or plan on invading Vermont.  Just to be on the safe side.

Quote of the Day

"There are certain things you can't prepare for. I guarantee you, this is one thing I never expected to occur. It is one person who committed, I believe, a horrific act—a horrific act—and therefore not only victimized his victims, but victimized this department, the media and the 13,500 people who work here."--Bob Butterworth, head of the Florida Department of Children and Families, on the arrest of Al Zimmerman, his agency spokesman, for soliciting young boys for sex.

Indeed. Actually my concern for the media and the Florida Department of Children and Families, so terribly (allegedly) brutalized by Zimmerman, was so great, I plain forgot about the boys at all. I'm sure they've had a rough time of it, too, though. After we tend to the wounds of the media and the bureaucrats we should definitely check in to see how the kids are feeling.