Monday, March 23, 2009
Live Satire Alert!
If you've never seen the really huge trainwreck that is the Nosmo King live experience, come catch me, Nosmo King, tomorrow (Tuesday, March 24th) night at the YDFPFT show. It's at The Room, 1323 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica CA 90404, and it starts 9pm-ish. The entrance is around the back of the building, and the show is in the third room in. I was booked a long time ago for this-- let's hope they remember I'm on. If not, free guerrilla-style Nosmo King Show in the parking lot, or the Volvo dealership next door-- your choice! There will be other fully credentialled comedians on the bill, but let's face it, we know who the draw is here.
Lightening Up: Past Weekend Bicycling Blogging
(Author's note: My efforts to write the definitive post on the financial crisis and its criminality on a grand scale have frustrated me for so long that I just sat back and typed, and typed this. So there. It's a different side of Nosmo King, and obviously even I am uncomfortable with it somehow. Hey, I'm whimsical sometimes, so sue me. Or at least claw back my bonuses.)
So on a recent Saturday my wife was away, doing something mysterious and female, to which I was not invited because I am not female, nor mysterious (it's okay, it's fine-- I have long since come to terms with my chronic masculinity). So I take the high road-- literally, and go out on a bike ride. I just make it into the guttering light of a thick mist Angelenic evening, the kind that in the valleys turns into such blanket as might disgorge Sherlock Holmes. But it is too early for that, but I still wear my sparkly jacket and turn my lights to announce me, at least, if not mesmerize the motoroids with my dazzle. I am on my three-speed, a contraption that I built up myself from a mountain crank and a road frame, one that must be ridden hard or not at all, and was in fact not being ridden at all, because it needed fixing, because I made it, and it broke. Broke like Citigroup, broke like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Indy Mac and all the other Macs and Maes and owners of those buildings with signs in the sky . The difference being that those august institutions were supposedly built by experts, while, as I hope I've made clear, me (occasional) writer, not expert bike so much builder very. But this evening, while my spouse is having a girls' night out, my oneliest bike creation is fixed, and I am pedaling it to beat hell or at least traffic, up and down ,some big hills till I don't notice the slight grade that runs for a mile or more on the home stretch. I am breathing deep and rhythmic and I am deeply happy, the kind that you wonder if you should tell anybody about because inside you it feels like really big news, sensational, almost pornographic. And I wonder why I find that on a bike, moreso than other places, and why that feeling is important or desirable in modern Upper Losangeleswood. So, herewith, the answer to these and other pressing questions.
I labor in the picture business by day, making other people's movies more like themselves. And to do this, you live here, in America's second largest city, a place that people say nobody comes from even though one in thirty US citizens is either me or a fellow county dweller. This mega-city (literally one million cities, which I believe is an accurate description of Upper Losangeleswood) is built upon the promise of rapid motion-- jumbles of expressways replacing the largest electric rail system that ever was in the world-- and that promise is broken. The freeways are jammed eight hours a day, their feeder streets stopped cold, we weary drivers forced to try ever more obscure side streets and byways to keep our cars moving at all, because cars are like sharks-- once they stop they start to stink in a very short time. And our tempers fray, our minds frazzle as we move more of our lives into the cars, eating breakfast, applying makeup, frantically calling friends if we have them, therapists if we don't (yes, I know many people have both-- we need all the help we can get in this town). Into this school I swim, sans armor, on a delicate device powered by whim. I am a minnow among sharks taking my life in my own hands. I am vulnerable and I know it. And I am happy.
Happy because, while the promise of motion for cars in ULAwood is a cruel, sad joke, if you're on a bike it is alive and well. All the streets, even the tiny byways, are spacious, so much more than those in Pdxville, one state to the north, for instance. In a car here, I feel like my progress is suffocated by all of these other cars, all so manifestly on some frivolous errand , making my unbelievably important, life or death journey nearly impossible. But on a bicycle, I am always going as fast as I want. I have my sense of control back, and thus I feel free. Thus the happiness sensational, almost pornographic.
I think the cars sense this, which is why they hate us. But most of them don't hate us enough to want to kill us, or at least not so much as to raise their insurance. People have asked me if I'm scared to ride in traffic. No, I say, traffic means witnesses. Besides, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk here, and at the speeds I go, downright unneighborly. So into the mix I go, happily.
Because the other reason I love to cycle is that it gives me a chance to do only one thing. I step out of my mobile breakfast nook/ phonebooth/ panic room and just ride. I have no Ipod, no radio, and I'm working really hard at not answering my cell phone. I have the freedom to do only one thing-- keep myself alive. It's better than any video game, the graphics are un-freaking believable, and the multiplayer engine is ssssweet. I'm still searching for the reset button, and knowing that there are no extra lives makes it-- well it makes it something, lemmetellya. You can't program something like this, nor would you want to. It's life at the speed of life.
I'm trying to get better about not doing this for exercise. The best thing I can do for myself is to bicycle, and the best thing I could do for the planet is to bicycle. If you're a typical resident of this city of the mind called Upper Losangeleswood, one of the only things that matter to the environment is reducing the amount that you drive. I've got a ready-made solution here on two wheels, but I do have commitment issues. I just need to commit fully to the notion of my bike as transportation, not just therapy. I need to stop making excuses for not doing it. Which, I realize –META ALERT! WRITING ABOUT WRITING COMING UP! LOOK AWAY IF YOU MUST!-- applies equally well to this blog. I need to stop making excuses for not doing it. I need to realize that the only thing that matters is increasing the amount of time I spend on it. I need to start using it to get where I need to go. So, some cycling blogging will probably become a semiregular feature her, in this small world of irregular features. I encourage you all to get out there on your bike, and go somewhere you were going to go anyway, or go someplace new. Everybody already has a screenplay; most people have a blog, but not everybody has a bike. Oh, and get a road bike, for crying out loud. You live on a road, you probably don't live on a mountain. To those of you on mountain roads, or mountain bikes, my sincerest apology.
So on a recent Saturday my wife was away, doing something mysterious and female, to which I was not invited because I am not female, nor mysterious (it's okay, it's fine-- I have long since come to terms with my chronic masculinity). So I take the high road-- literally, and go out on a bike ride. I just make it into the guttering light of a thick mist Angelenic evening, the kind that in the valleys turns into such blanket as might disgorge Sherlock Holmes. But it is too early for that, but I still wear my sparkly jacket and turn my lights to announce me, at least, if not mesmerize the motoroids with my dazzle. I am on my three-speed, a contraption that I built up myself from a mountain crank and a road frame, one that must be ridden hard or not at all, and was in fact not being ridden at all, because it needed fixing, because I made it, and it broke. Broke like Citigroup, broke like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Indy Mac and all the other Macs and Maes and owners of those buildings with signs in the sky . The difference being that those august institutions were supposedly built by experts, while, as I hope I've made clear, me (occasional) writer, not expert bike so much builder very. But this evening, while my spouse is having a girls' night out, my oneliest bike creation is fixed, and I am pedaling it to beat hell or at least traffic, up and down ,some big hills till I don't notice the slight grade that runs for a mile or more on the home stretch. I am breathing deep and rhythmic and I am deeply happy, the kind that you wonder if you should tell anybody about because inside you it feels like really big news, sensational, almost pornographic. And I wonder why I find that on a bike, moreso than other places, and why that feeling is important or desirable in modern Upper Losangeleswood. So, herewith, the answer to these and other pressing questions.
I labor in the picture business by day, making other people's movies more like themselves. And to do this, you live here, in America's second largest city, a place that people say nobody comes from even though one in thirty US citizens is either me or a fellow county dweller. This mega-city (literally one million cities, which I believe is an accurate description of Upper Losangeleswood) is built upon the promise of rapid motion-- jumbles of expressways replacing the largest electric rail system that ever was in the world-- and that promise is broken. The freeways are jammed eight hours a day, their feeder streets stopped cold, we weary drivers forced to try ever more obscure side streets and byways to keep our cars moving at all, because cars are like sharks-- once they stop they start to stink in a very short time. And our tempers fray, our minds frazzle as we move more of our lives into the cars, eating breakfast, applying makeup, frantically calling friends if we have them, therapists if we don't (yes, I know many people have both-- we need all the help we can get in this town). Into this school I swim, sans armor, on a delicate device powered by whim. I am a minnow among sharks taking my life in my own hands. I am vulnerable and I know it. And I am happy.
Happy because, while the promise of motion for cars in ULAwood is a cruel, sad joke, if you're on a bike it is alive and well. All the streets, even the tiny byways, are spacious, so much more than those in Pdxville, one state to the north, for instance. In a car here, I feel like my progress is suffocated by all of these other cars, all so manifestly on some frivolous errand , making my unbelievably important, life or death journey nearly impossible. But on a bicycle, I am always going as fast as I want. I have my sense of control back, and thus I feel free. Thus the happiness sensational, almost pornographic.
I think the cars sense this, which is why they hate us. But most of them don't hate us enough to want to kill us, or at least not so much as to raise their insurance. People have asked me if I'm scared to ride in traffic. No, I say, traffic means witnesses. Besides, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk here, and at the speeds I go, downright unneighborly. So into the mix I go, happily.
Because the other reason I love to cycle is that it gives me a chance to do only one thing. I step out of my mobile breakfast nook/ phonebooth/ panic room and just ride. I have no Ipod, no radio, and I'm working really hard at not answering my cell phone. I have the freedom to do only one thing-- keep myself alive. It's better than any video game, the graphics are un-freaking believable, and the multiplayer engine is ssssweet. I'm still searching for the reset button, and knowing that there are no extra lives makes it-- well it makes it something, lemmetellya. You can't program something like this, nor would you want to. It's life at the speed of life.
I'm trying to get better about not doing this for exercise. The best thing I can do for myself is to bicycle, and the best thing I could do for the planet is to bicycle. If you're a typical resident of this city of the mind called Upper Losangeleswood, one of the only things that matter to the environment is reducing the amount that you drive. I've got a ready-made solution here on two wheels, but I do have commitment issues. I just need to commit fully to the notion of my bike as transportation, not just therapy. I need to stop making excuses for not doing it. Which, I realize –META ALERT! WRITING ABOUT WRITING COMING UP! LOOK AWAY IF YOU MUST!-- applies equally well to this blog. I need to stop making excuses for not doing it. I need to realize that the only thing that matters is increasing the amount of time I spend on it. I need to start using it to get where I need to go. So, some cycling blogging will probably become a semiregular feature her, in this small world of irregular features. I encourage you all to get out there on your bike, and go somewhere you were going to go anyway, or go someplace new. Everybody already has a screenplay; most people have a blog, but not everybody has a bike. Oh, and get a road bike, for crying out loud. You live on a road, you probably don't live on a mountain. To those of you on mountain roads, or mountain bikes, my sincerest apology.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
On Undersized Red, White and Blue Balls
As the election approaches and the days get shorter, I have found myself thinking about an old, peculiar, vanished American institution, one whose effects are, in my opinion, still reverberating today. With all the talk about fraud, about disenfranchisement, about winning and maps and red white and blue Americas, I can't help but think about the (old) ABA, the American Basketball Association. Back when men were men and wore short shorts and huge hair, the ABA were the small market anarchists of basketball, from whence we got the 3-point shot, a lot of great players, and your world champion (at some point this decade, right? I'm not what one could call a sports nut.) San Antonio Spurs. Back when the ABA was around, the NBA studiously ignored it where it could and ridiculed it where it couldn't, calling its games too high-scoring, too free-wheeling, its players too flashy. The statistics for the ABA games were startling when I saw them; a hailstorm of undersize red white and blue balls at the basket, and may the team with the hottest hand win. To which I , at this remove, say heck yeah.
I've noticed that in this election cycle, there's one side trying to shoot out the lights, one side trying to set a record with teamwork, and everybody playing their hearts out for the full game. And then there's the other side. Far from working to run up their own totals, they seek instead to hold down the other side's scoring. Instead of running on their own merits, they try to implant falsehoods about their opponents. They are obsessed with defending the status quo, because they can't run and they can't score, and instead will be working the refs, trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of any victory their opponents might get.
The Obama campaign, though vastly better funded, reminds me of ABA basketball. It's an offensive clinic-- more volunteers, more donors, more field offices, more detailed policy descriptions. Everybody with their eyes on the goal and the scoreboard, playing their game for all that it's worth. McCain's campaign is playing defense to the point of denial-- they can't even accept that their opponent is who he is, so they run against a Bizarro-world simulacrum with the same name, who is everything the real Obama is not-- Muslim, Terrorist, Communist, Socialist ,Anti-Christ. I mean, I will, if Obama is elected, hold his feet to the fire about any number of things, but I will not pretend he's anything other than an intelligent, centrist, non-plutocratic Democrat who can give an amazing speech. Which, at this point in American history, feels like a triumph.
I play Scrabble every once in a while. I'm what's known as a good living-room player. I don't play any defense, really. I try to light it up as much as I can with the letters I'm given. Those people who clog up the board with c's and v's, take triple word scores with two letter words on the off chance that I may be able to do something with them-- I have no patience with them. Why do you play a word game, if you're scared of big words? I don't and won't win every time, but sometimes an awesome game does break out-- like three seven-letter words stacked one on top of the other, or that-- OK, time to stop Scrabble-geeking out. You get my drift.
Which brings me to the point I always reach with some on the Right. If you hate voters, why run in elections (this is a rhetorical question-- I think I know the answer, although I hope I'm wrong.)? If you believe government is the problem, how can you govern ? Why do you play word games if you're scared of words? What do you believe in? The only answer I keep getting, is power. The power to send young people to die, to reward your backers and punish your critics, to tell people that they are different and undeserving of rights. It's the right to pick winners, and decide who matters. But you have to respect the process. Believe what you want, but don't lie about what you believe, or about what it means. Me, I think everybody matters. I just want to see the scoreboard light up with the really big numbers. I want more people to have a say in who makes our decisions. I want flashy, run and gun, ABA-style politics, everybody on the floor playing hard. But maybe that's because right now, when you get down to it, there's only one candidate running who can shoot the J.
I've noticed that in this election cycle, there's one side trying to shoot out the lights, one side trying to set a record with teamwork, and everybody playing their hearts out for the full game. And then there's the other side. Far from working to run up their own totals, they seek instead to hold down the other side's scoring. Instead of running on their own merits, they try to implant falsehoods about their opponents. They are obsessed with defending the status quo, because they can't run and they can't score, and instead will be working the refs, trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of any victory their opponents might get.
The Obama campaign, though vastly better funded, reminds me of ABA basketball. It's an offensive clinic-- more volunteers, more donors, more field offices, more detailed policy descriptions. Everybody with their eyes on the goal and the scoreboard, playing their game for all that it's worth. McCain's campaign is playing defense to the point of denial-- they can't even accept that their opponent is who he is, so they run against a Bizarro-world simulacrum with the same name, who is everything the real Obama is not-- Muslim, Terrorist, Communist, Socialist ,Anti-Christ. I mean, I will, if Obama is elected, hold his feet to the fire about any number of things, but I will not pretend he's anything other than an intelligent, centrist, non-plutocratic Democrat who can give an amazing speech. Which, at this point in American history, feels like a triumph.
I play Scrabble every once in a while. I'm what's known as a good living-room player. I don't play any defense, really. I try to light it up as much as I can with the letters I'm given. Those people who clog up the board with c's and v's, take triple word scores with two letter words on the off chance that I may be able to do something with them-- I have no patience with them. Why do you play a word game, if you're scared of big words? I don't and won't win every time, but sometimes an awesome game does break out-- like three seven-letter words stacked one on top of the other, or that-- OK, time to stop Scrabble-geeking out. You get my drift.
Which brings me to the point I always reach with some on the Right. If you hate voters, why run in elections (this is a rhetorical question-- I think I know the answer, although I hope I'm wrong.)? If you believe government is the problem, how can you govern ? Why do you play word games if you're scared of words? What do you believe in? The only answer I keep getting, is power. The power to send young people to die, to reward your backers and punish your critics, to tell people that they are different and undeserving of rights. It's the right to pick winners, and decide who matters. But you have to respect the process. Believe what you want, but don't lie about what you believe, or about what it means. Me, I think everybody matters. I just want to see the scoreboard light up with the really big numbers. I want more people to have a say in who makes our decisions. I want flashy, run and gun, ABA-style politics, everybody on the floor playing hard. But maybe that's because right now, when you get down to it, there's only one candidate running who can shoot the J.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Last Chance at Gladiator Stadium
So, I'm the go-to political guy for a lot of my friends. My little circle of fools, clowns, and jesters will frequently pipe me onstage with something akin to “I always look forward to this guy's analysis,” which as we all know, means comedy gold. People love them some analysis. So then what was I doing, on the last day of voter registration, scurrying from Nosmo King World Headquarters with only one thing on my mind? Why me, who can tell the curious tale of Richard Nixon's downfall as a bedtime story off the top of his head? Me, not even legally registered to vote in the polling place nearest his own World Headquarters? Well, yeah.
I blame the Republican Party, for giving us satirists the pure uncut China White. There's so much material to work with that we ignore all else, like children on a perfect snow day, sledding our way for hour after hour on perfect fluffy hills of bullshit, innuendo, and bigotry. Much of this is carried in on a front from Alaska, of course, but ultimate responsibility rests with an unstable mass of hot air that has blown out of the Arizona desert for some years, and has caused damage wherever it's been felt (several aircraft destroyed, untold financial losses, not to mention many promises broken beyond repair.). Combine these two stormfronts (what, you were actually expecting a link there? For shame…) and it's sledding today, sledding tomorrow, sledding forever. So little things get neglected. And I must leave my abode in the Vertical Quarter to do what no-one can do for me.
At the gates of Gladiator Stadium, a few tents are set up, staffed by comically mismatched County employees-- teams of two, the largest paired with the smallest more reliably than in any vintage cartoon. They cheerfully help all of us who put this off for weeks, months, years-- a truck driver from Harbor City, a glassblower from the City of Mercantilism, mothers with kid in strollers or in tow, a Deputy conducting us into stacked parking with his-- flashlight. His giant cop flashlight. What's up with those ? (Rhetorical question. I know what's up with those.) I went with a magazine and a flashlight, expecting the worst-- long lines, a climate of barely contained hostility, a vast throng of dimbulbs with urgent philosophical questions. I was wrong. I was in and out in forty-two seconds, though it should be noted I had, at least, filled out my form in advance.
If doing everything at the last minute was always this easy, I could recommend it unequivocally to all and sundry. But It isn't. So keep your voter registration current, keep it next to your bed, or under your pillow. You'll want to be able to use it at a moment's notice, when malefactors like McCain and Palin stage their home invasion.It's the only language they understand. It's the only thing we have that can control certain kinds of weather.
I blame the Republican Party, for giving us satirists the pure uncut China White. There's so much material to work with that we ignore all else, like children on a perfect snow day, sledding our way for hour after hour on perfect fluffy hills of bullshit, innuendo, and bigotry. Much of this is carried in on a front from Alaska, of course, but ultimate responsibility rests with an unstable mass of hot air that has blown out of the Arizona desert for some years, and has caused damage wherever it's been felt (several aircraft destroyed, untold financial losses, not to mention many promises broken beyond repair.). Combine these two stormfronts (what, you were actually expecting a link there? For shame…) and it's sledding today, sledding tomorrow, sledding forever. So little things get neglected. And I must leave my abode in the Vertical Quarter to do what no-one can do for me.
At the gates of Gladiator Stadium, a few tents are set up, staffed by comically mismatched County employees-- teams of two, the largest paired with the smallest more reliably than in any vintage cartoon. They cheerfully help all of us who put this off for weeks, months, years-- a truck driver from Harbor City, a glassblower from the City of Mercantilism, mothers with kid in strollers or in tow, a Deputy conducting us into stacked parking with his-- flashlight. His giant cop flashlight. What's up with those ? (Rhetorical question. I know what's up with those.) I went with a magazine and a flashlight, expecting the worst-- long lines, a climate of barely contained hostility, a vast throng of dimbulbs with urgent philosophical questions. I was wrong. I was in and out in forty-two seconds, though it should be noted I had, at least, filled out my form in advance.
If doing everything at the last minute was always this easy, I could recommend it unequivocally to all and sundry. But It isn't. So keep your voter registration current, keep it next to your bed, or under your pillow. You'll want to be able to use it at a moment's notice, when malefactors like McCain and Palin stage their home invasion.It's the only language they understand. It's the only thing we have that can control certain kinds of weather.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Preview of Coming Attractions
For those of you wondering where my further thoughts on the bailout went, I'll be aiting some of them tonight onstage at the YDFPFT Show tonight at 10:00 pm. It's at The Room in Santa Monica, 1323 Santa Monica Boulevard (at 14th St, downstairs and to the the back. Rick Overton , Jim Coughlin, Lizzy Cooperman and other funny folk will be there too, Google "YDFPFT" for the full 411. For those who can't make it, there'll be a new post this week, I promise, covering the same ground.
Friday, September 19, 2008
My Solution to the Financial crisis
Ha! I don't have one. Made you look! But if I did, it would look something like these two fine articles that EVERYBODY should read:
this one
and this one
Read them and weep, or cheer, or write your Congressman, or all of the above. Do it before they give these so-called "Masters of the Universe" a blank check from your account (oh wait, they already have.). Have a pleasant weekend everybody. I'll be sharpening my pitchfork and making enquiries as to the current wholesale price of tar and feathers.
this one
and this one
Read them and weep, or cheer, or write your Congressman, or all of the above. Do it before they give these so-called "Masters of the Universe" a blank check from your account (oh wait, they already have.). Have a pleasant weekend everybody. I'll be sharpening my pitchfork and making enquiries as to the current wholesale price of tar and feathers.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Everybody's talkin' bout the new kid in town…
(Editor's note: This piece is slightly reworked from a reading I did at an Episcopal church here in the Minor Outlying Islands. No actual vice-presidential candidates were harmed in the making of this post. Nor is any but the most general and trifling offense intended to the great state of Alaska. Sorry you popped up in my line of fire, dude. I'll make it up to you someday, I promise. Yes, I know I'm going to freeze in the dark, thanks for sharing.)
Oh Republicans, you cruelest and most capricious of parties, you have done it again. You have waylaid my plans, rerouted my intentions, tossed aside my desires like so much chaff. I had intended for tonight's feature topic, “New Kid in Town”, to serve as an introduction to the personal side of Nosmo King, a selection from any number of tender tales I could tell about being a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land, even a turd drifting lazily in a punchbowl. But then you, Republicans, have to go, and mere days before the show, nominate Sarah Palin for vice president. And suddenly, everyone is in a tizzy. Nothing else is news, we must find out what Sarah Palin is all about, starting completely from scratch. And I did-- it's Pay-lin, near as I can tell. Anyway, now that she's here, the Democrats are wondering, how do we attack her, a likeable neophyte with children, without seeming too mean, too chauvinistic, too much like a primary no one could be really proud of? The answer is simple, Obama campaign: you don't. You can't. But luckily, I can. I am angry, obscure in all meaningful senses of the word, no one would let me anywhere near a microphone next to an official campaign banner, as I have all the savoir-faire of Kim Jong-Il and the folksy down home charm of Rudolph Giuliani. So when the Republicans make our political landscape into Chernobyl, you can send me into the hotspots without a suit. Let's go there, shall we?
So Sarah Palin is a woman, whom nobody knows anything about, and who returns the favor, appearing to know nothing about anything else. What is her judgment like? Well, let's look at her 5 children: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. That is 5 lovely, precious, and distinct individuals to spring from her loins, yet between them there is only 1 proper name-- shared with Britain's 6th largest city. Now, it was a long time ago, but I remember my own childhood as tough enough without people confusing you with that thing that soured you on math forever , a tree, or Britain's 6th largest city. It could have been worse, I suppose; we could be faced with Palin offspring named Macadam, Liverpool, Paper Barked Maple, Trombonist, and non-Euclidean Tensor Analysis. But that wouldn't happen, because then she would have actually had to read a book, rather than just inquire on how to ban them.
Which brings me to my first joke: What's the difference between Sarah Palin's eldest son, and her record as a politician? You can run on a Track, but you can't run on her record as a politician. Thank you, I'm here all week. Try the veal, it comes with extra suffering.
Anyway, so Sarah Palin, the result of a massive vetting and selection process resembled nothing so much as letting a rat loose on a bingo card and reading the name underneath the first turd (yes, I have used the t-word twice in the same piece. Sue me.), turns out to be quite the joker herself. Here is the first joke she told in her speech at the Republican Convention. She asked, in that triumphant just a little too loud tone that makes people actually appreciate the studied phony cool of real comedians “You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a Pitbull?”. And of course, now we all know the answer. “A pitbull doesn't lie repeatedly to the media and the voting public.” Putting the state jet up on eBay isn't the same thing as selling it. Keeping 78 million of the money for the "bridge to nowhere" is not the same as refusing it. And on and on and on.
But Sarah Palin is a maverick, just like John McCain. She's not afraid to shake things up, to take a fresh look at things and try to see them in a new light. Take rape and incest. Most people have this quaint, old fashioned belief that these things are always wrong, all the time. Not courageous maverick hockey-mom Sarah Palin. Wake up people, this is the 21st century, and the first woman to be nominated for the vice-presidency by the party of Lincoln has a different vision. She is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Well of course -- She's governor of Alaska. How else do they keep the birthrate up, up there? You're cooped up for 8 months out of the year with your family and your liquor cabinet, howling storms and polar bears stalking the streets outside-- things happen, is all I'm saying, and some of those things have buck teeth, a Hapsburg lip, and goiter. And they deserve an earmark like everybody else in Alaska. And where some small town mayors looked at rape and saw tragedy, Sarah Palin , ever the optimist type, saw a revenue stream. I guess she thought, When life gives you rape, and you have to make rape-aid, make sure you charge by the glass. By the way, the author of the Federal Law making rape kits mandatory, which John McCain voted against? Joe Biden. So, folks, this time it's personal....
I would like to point out that Sarah Palin's stupidity, cupidity, and disingenuousness are not problems as far as her party is concerned. They're assets. A long time ago, back when I thought stuff like this was accidental, I had a picture of Dan Quayle, wandering around his house after George W Bush's installation (as he is no smarter than a major appliance, just a whole lot meaner, this is the correct verb) drunk and teetering, saying over and over again, “They said I was too stupid to be President, but apparently I wasn't stupid enough.”. It is no accident, because these people hate government. By their lights, it should be dismantled completely, but until that finally happens, it may as well be staffed by secretive parochialists who view it as a vehicle to settle scores and reward high school buddies. Tammany Hall is back, this time from the opposite side of the aisle. Because government itself is tainted, policies don't matter. It's what you do before you hit gov't that counts. So Palin's qualification for high office is that she didn't have an abortion, just as McCain's is that he was a POW. Once. A long time ago.
Sarah Palin is the ultimate weapon-- an antifeminist woman whose goal is the same as every other Republican minority-- to make sure that the opportunities she got vanish from the earth, as surely as polar bears caught in the global warming that she denies is a problem, or the wolves she offered a $150 bounty per foreleg on. And when other people's daughters come home pregnant, why, if those people just worked real hard and became governor of a small state themselves, those kids wouldn't do too badly, what with a per diem for sleeping in their own house and all. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but make sure to leave one foot free to kick the guy below in the face.
Facing this sort of bracing Surrealpolitik, I become a very bad person. When I saw baby Trig Palin, coked up on baby 'ludes during his mom's speech, being passed around from Palin child to McCain adult, as though he were a mere charm whose wonderful pro-life mojo would rub off on them, I found myself hoping that the child would, on his arrival into John McCain's rictus, pee on the still presumptive Republican nominee. Because I knew that all McCain could do was stand there and take it, a clenched half-smile for the cameras, as the warm spot spread on his 5000 dollar suit, and him thinking, “Oh well, I've got another one at home. But which home? Dammit, why can't I remember anything? Well at least we can take the private jet when we hunt for my other suit. Hey, whose baby is this anyway?”
Oh Republicans, you cruelest and most capricious of parties, you have done it again. You have waylaid my plans, rerouted my intentions, tossed aside my desires like so much chaff. I had intended for tonight's feature topic, “New Kid in Town”, to serve as an introduction to the personal side of Nosmo King, a selection from any number of tender tales I could tell about being a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land, even a turd drifting lazily in a punchbowl. But then you, Republicans, have to go, and mere days before the show, nominate Sarah Palin for vice president. And suddenly, everyone is in a tizzy. Nothing else is news, we must find out what Sarah Palin is all about, starting completely from scratch. And I did-- it's Pay-lin, near as I can tell. Anyway, now that she's here, the Democrats are wondering, how do we attack her, a likeable neophyte with children, without seeming too mean, too chauvinistic, too much like a primary no one could be really proud of? The answer is simple, Obama campaign: you don't. You can't. But luckily, I can. I am angry, obscure in all meaningful senses of the word, no one would let me anywhere near a microphone next to an official campaign banner, as I have all the savoir-faire of Kim Jong-Il and the folksy down home charm of Rudolph Giuliani. So when the Republicans make our political landscape into Chernobyl, you can send me into the hotspots without a suit. Let's go there, shall we?
So Sarah Palin is a woman, whom nobody knows anything about, and who returns the favor, appearing to know nothing about anything else. What is her judgment like? Well, let's look at her 5 children: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. That is 5 lovely, precious, and distinct individuals to spring from her loins, yet between them there is only 1 proper name-- shared with Britain's 6th largest city. Now, it was a long time ago, but I remember my own childhood as tough enough without people confusing you with that thing that soured you on math forever , a tree, or Britain's 6th largest city. It could have been worse, I suppose; we could be faced with Palin offspring named Macadam, Liverpool, Paper Barked Maple, Trombonist, and non-Euclidean Tensor Analysis. But that wouldn't happen, because then she would have actually had to read a book, rather than just inquire on how to ban them.
Which brings me to my first joke: What's the difference between Sarah Palin's eldest son, and her record as a politician? You can run on a Track, but you can't run on her record as a politician. Thank you, I'm here all week. Try the veal, it comes with extra suffering.
Anyway, so Sarah Palin, the result of a massive vetting and selection process resembled nothing so much as letting a rat loose on a bingo card and reading the name underneath the first turd (yes, I have used the t-word twice in the same piece. Sue me.), turns out to be quite the joker herself. Here is the first joke she told in her speech at the Republican Convention. She asked, in that triumphant just a little too loud tone that makes people actually appreciate the studied phony cool of real comedians “You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a Pitbull?”. And of course, now we all know the answer. “A pitbull doesn't lie repeatedly to the media and the voting public.” Putting the state jet up on eBay isn't the same thing as selling it. Keeping 78 million of the money for the "bridge to nowhere" is not the same as refusing it. And on and on and on.
But Sarah Palin is a maverick, just like John McCain. She's not afraid to shake things up, to take a fresh look at things and try to see them in a new light. Take rape and incest. Most people have this quaint, old fashioned belief that these things are always wrong, all the time. Not courageous maverick hockey-mom Sarah Palin. Wake up people, this is the 21st century, and the first woman to be nominated for the vice-presidency by the party of Lincoln has a different vision. She is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Well of course -- She's governor of Alaska. How else do they keep the birthrate up, up there? You're cooped up for 8 months out of the year with your family and your liquor cabinet, howling storms and polar bears stalking the streets outside-- things happen, is all I'm saying, and some of those things have buck teeth, a Hapsburg lip, and goiter. And they deserve an earmark like everybody else in Alaska. And where some small town mayors looked at rape and saw tragedy, Sarah Palin , ever the optimist type, saw a revenue stream. I guess she thought, When life gives you rape, and you have to make rape-aid, make sure you charge by the glass. By the way, the author of the Federal Law making rape kits mandatory, which John McCain voted against? Joe Biden. So, folks, this time it's personal....
I would like to point out that Sarah Palin's stupidity, cupidity, and disingenuousness are not problems as far as her party is concerned. They're assets. A long time ago, back when I thought stuff like this was accidental, I had a picture of Dan Quayle, wandering around his house after George W Bush's installation (as he is no smarter than a major appliance, just a whole lot meaner, this is the correct verb) drunk and teetering, saying over and over again, “They said I was too stupid to be President, but apparently I wasn't stupid enough.”. It is no accident, because these people hate government. By their lights, it should be dismantled completely, but until that finally happens, it may as well be staffed by secretive parochialists who view it as a vehicle to settle scores and reward high school buddies. Tammany Hall is back, this time from the opposite side of the aisle. Because government itself is tainted, policies don't matter. It's what you do before you hit gov't that counts. So Palin's qualification for high office is that she didn't have an abortion, just as McCain's is that he was a POW. Once. A long time ago.
Sarah Palin is the ultimate weapon-- an antifeminist woman whose goal is the same as every other Republican minority-- to make sure that the opportunities she got vanish from the earth, as surely as polar bears caught in the global warming that she denies is a problem, or the wolves she offered a $150 bounty per foreleg on. And when other people's daughters come home pregnant, why, if those people just worked real hard and became governor of a small state themselves, those kids wouldn't do too badly, what with a per diem for sleeping in their own house and all. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but make sure to leave one foot free to kick the guy below in the face.
Facing this sort of bracing Surrealpolitik, I become a very bad person. When I saw baby Trig Palin, coked up on baby 'ludes during his mom's speech, being passed around from Palin child to McCain adult, as though he were a mere charm whose wonderful pro-life mojo would rub off on them, I found myself hoping that the child would, on his arrival into John McCain's rictus, pee on the still presumptive Republican nominee. Because I knew that all McCain could do was stand there and take it, a clenched half-smile for the cameras, as the warm spot spread on his 5000 dollar suit, and him thinking, “Oh well, I've got another one at home. But which home? Dammit, why can't I remember anything? Well at least we can take the private jet when we hunt for my other suit. Hey, whose baby is this anyway?”
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