Paul Simon needs to go suck his own nuts, but he’s too short to reach. November 19, 2008
I was watching the Colbert Report tonight night, and his special guest was Paul Simon.
Colbert asked Simon about his book, Lyrics, which contains pretty much all of Paul Simon’s songwriting since 1964. But when Colbert asked Simon if there were any songs that barely made the cut, Simon immediately said, yes, “Red Rubber Ball” was not one of his proudest moments.
Paul, are you fucking kidding me? This song (as made famous by the Cyrkle) is possibly in the top five best things you’ve ever done. You fucking shmuck. You and your goddamned Africanesque polyrhythmic soft-and-warbly Jim Croce bullshit. Your asshole songs with faux poignant lyricism about going to Graceland and being some stupid girl’s bodyguard make me hate you nearly as much as your crappy movie, One Trick Pony. Go and die.
But first, write us another ten songs as good as this one:
where the fuck were you when we needed you? November 17, 2008
This comment on a recent photo essay in LAist about the No on 8 protest sums up exactly what’s going on in my mind.
What Ross hinted at is that yes, goddam it, where was this mass energy when we needed it? We’ve been living in a conservative, er, cesspool for years, yet for some reason, most people I know felt no compulsion to come down and help man the phones to prevent this from getting on the ballot, which is where we should have stopped it cold, or to rally opposition to it once it got there. Politics only works for the side of good if we’re proactive, not reactive. It’s so much easier to fight against a bad law if it never gets passed.
I would go one step further and say, seriously, shame on you if you are able-bodied and capable and didn’t at least try to help with this cause. That goes double for all my homo friends who didn’t bother to help out. Though I understand that many of y’all may not want to get married, at this juncture or in the foreseeable future, all your rights as equal citizens with equal protections are in grave danger now that Proposition 8 has passed. And not only yours, but the rights of gays in other states–not just to marry, but, say, to teach kids, or coach little league, or leave a living will with their partner–are all going to be affected by this. This was a litmus test for the rest of the country, as the Mormon church well knew, and as this bill goes, so too goes the public perception about the law’s role in curtailing queer equality. Or any equality.
So, if you didn’t help out, you fucked up! I’m not saying that the protests are not important, because better late than never, I guess. But next time, open your damned eyes and try to swat away the flies of injustice before they lay their eggs in your face.
Update: There’s a silver lining here. Apparently the hateful supporters of this bill were just as dumb about donating money as we were dumb about not donating time.
electoral hanky-panky in Alaska? where are all those votes? November 7, 2008
I read an interesting post today from Shannyn Moore: looks like there may be some serious missing votes in Alaska. No proof here, folks, but she does present quite a head-scratcher.
This year, early voters set a new record. As of last Thursday, with 4 days left to vote early, 15,000 Alaskans showed up-shattering the old record set in 2004 by 28%! Consider the most popular governor in history-and now the most polarizing-was on the Republican ticket. Consider the historic nature of this race; the first African American presidential candidate EVER! The second woman to ever make a presidential ticket; and she’s one of our own. Despite that, we’re supposed to believe that overall participation DECREASED by 11%. Not only that, but this historic election both nationally and for Alaska HAD THE LOWEST ALASKA TURNOUT FOR A PRESIDENTIAL RACE EVER!!! That makes sense. REALLY??? Something stinks.
I remember well the 2004 election with Ohio–though Bush may still have taken the state, there were clearly several instances of sheer voter fraud from the Republican side that benefitted him. And now it sounds like Alaska may have gotten into the game (though of course Palin would never use her political might for personal reasons). Just because McCain may have won the state anyway doesn’t excuse disenfranchising 11% of the population (or more!). The question is, will this be investigated?
After all the times the Republicans have rigged precincts, hired guys like Diebold to make shitty automated voting machines with no oversight, and then turned around and cried foul at a truly great organization such as ACORN when some dude at the mall wrote down “Mickey Mouse” as a name for their voter lists, it’s clear that we need voter reform ASAP. One of the biggest goals of this administration and of this Democratic congress needs to be to undo all the jerryrigging that conservatives have done to our electoral systems, as well as to our media, to how we contract services in time of war, to how we conduct ourselves on the national stage–okay, to just about everything.
my predictions for Fox News and Republican spin November 6, 2008
"I Predict!"
Now that Obama will soon be President, and will have a relatively safe Democratic majority in Congress to help him implement a new and progressive vision for America, look out for the biggest punditory flip-flop in recent history. Conservative talking heads will soon be bending over backwards to contradict everything they ever espoused about how the political process should work.
- The phrase “legislating from the bench” in regards to judicial rulings will disappear from the lips of conservative pundits, as the Judicial Branch is now arguably the only conservative-leaning branch of government.
- Pundits will stop bitching about filibusters as if they are a nuisance that prevents work from getting done. Instead, they’ll be portrayed as heroic attempts to curtail big government.
- Conservatives in Congress as well as in the press will accuse Obama of secrecy or even tyranny if he ever once evokes Executive Privilege. The name “Stalin” might be bandied about.
- Unitary Executive Theory? Is that a ballet outfit?
- After an initial round of bashing Obama for judicial litmus tests, we’ll see Republicans in Congress getting all huffy and filibustery and apply litmus tests of their own the moment Obama starts appointing Supreme Court Justices–which complements my other prediction, that at least a couple justices will retire the moment Obama is sworn in.
Goodbye gay marriage! November 5, 2008
I am ashamed to be Californian today, and perhaps even more so to be an Angeleno. Our people are a mix of economic moderates and social liberals, or so I had thought. Live and let live seems to be the motto for many in Los Angeles, where gays and straights and people of all walks of life, all colors, all inclinations, mingle in front of Pink’s to get a hotdog and look forward to the Gold Line extension that’s coming in 2009.
So WHY THE FUCK did you people vote to take away the marital rights of gays and lesbians to enjoy the same benefits as everybody else? Why is it that if I get in a long-term relationship with a man, our state government will no longer recognize us as family? What happens if I’m in a medical accident–do my parents or cousins get to make the decision for me as to whether to pull the plug, and not my husband-not-husband? And what happens regarding kids I might have with a partner who is less than a spouse?
This decision by the voters is absolutely no better in spirit than the ruling of Plessy vs. Ferguson, a legacy that shamed the Deep South, and shamed the hell out of me when I lived in Oklahoma (even though it was never really that southern, or that deep). Separate but equal is never equal, and the 52% or so of voters who voted for Proposition 8 showed themselves to be selfish bigots. Their mild distaste for seeing homos kiss made them feel justified in trivializing the real need hard-working Californians who just happen to be attached to someone of the same sex have for the protections only marriage provides. Worse, they allowed themselves to be fooled by the Yes on 8 folks’ lies about churches and schools being forced to promote a gay agenda, when we ALREADY have had gay marriage and NONE of that shit has happened because of it.
As I drove home last night from watching the election at a friend’s house, the joy I should have felt at Obama’s victory was drowned in the sorrow I felt at the step backwards my state has taken. My car’s stereo was playing my newly purchased copy of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, his sorrowful symphonic masterpiece composed at a time in his life when he’d discovered himself to be deathly ill and had just lost a daughter to Scarlet Fever. Mahler’s masterpiece really overcame me, matching my mood perfectly. I nearly wept with sadness at how close we had come to true equality, and how stupid fucks took it away just because they think butt sex is nasty and against Jesus.
Das Lied von der Erda has warm and hopeful parts as well, and so does the current state of gay marriage–though our own state is still bigoted and full of hulking moralistic dinosaurs, other states such as New York and New Jersey are gearing up for a real solid state of equality. But I mourn the state we were for just a few months.
Sarah Palin and the Fabulous Stains
I watched McCain’s concession speech last night, which was actually a fantastic and warm speech. Say what you will about the ugly campaign McCain ran, and his warmongering attitudes toward foreign nations, his lust over offshore drilling, and his crummy voting record. I think this dude is still the man he was eight years ago in his heart, a moderate and somewhat rational leader in a house of nutso. He would have been a better president than any Bush ever was if we’d had the misfortune to see him get elected.
However, I couldn’t help but notice as I looked through the crowd at his acceptance speech…
…there are a scores of women in the audience un-ironically dressing up in bangs and glasses just like Sarah Palin! Watch the footage with an eye towards the crowd, and tell me you don’t see some serious mimickry. And this ain’t no Tina Fey rendition–this is an honest-to-god appropriation of Palin’s style in lieu of her substance, or lack thereof. It reminded me way too much of this scene in the Fabulous Stains:
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