squidbag

Robertson: Fuck You, Tornado Victims

On what has previously been a bastion of balanced and sane programming, the 700 Club, maniac and complete fuckwit Pat Robertson took a break from having God talk to him to condemn people who build houses where tornadoes might come while also claiming that God was responsible for tornadoes without being responsible for them.

It breaks down like this: See, God makes tornadoes when a group of air of one temperature meets a group of another temperature, and they are used by God to siphon hot air away from Earth, since presumably, tornadoes extend into space, but any damage they cause during that process is the fault of stupid, stupid people who build things anywhere in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas, or really, about a third of the United States.  Now you could build stuff that might be knocked down by tornadoes there, but you'd have to pray really hard that God would divert the tornadoes from your stuff, and if your stuff got knocked flat or you died, it's your fault because you didn't pray hard enough.

Got that?  Because Robertson also believes that Sandra Fluke is a fornicator who'd like others to pay for it (and that Rush was "a little over the top" in talking about it), that the earthquakes in Haiti happened because that country's founders made a deal with the devil, that 9/11 could be blamed on lesbians, abortionists, the ACLU, and others who disagree with him and Jerry Falwell, made money off of Hurricane Katrina, and is financially linked to Charles Taylor, Mobuto Sese Seko, and blood diamonds. In addition, God frequently talks to Pat (who's real name is Marion, so he went with the far more masculine 'Pat') and has recently told him who will win the 2012 Presidential race. 

Poppycock, all of it.  Everyone knows that tornadoes are formed when the hot air from doorknobs like Robertson and his ilk collides with cold truth.  Whatta maroon.

Reading The Rogue

I have this week just finished Joe McGinniss' excellent book, The Rogue: Searching For the Real Sarah Palin.  I will tell you this, just to begin: If Joe is to be believed, and I think he is, since his journalistic integrity score measure (JISM) is pretty high (the man wrote Fatal Vision, The Selling of the President 1968, and gave back a million bucks rather than write about OJ - though there is this to consider), whatever your current opinion of Sarah Palin is, it'll be lower once you read this book.  Mine certainly was.

I'd like to give that the weight it deserves.  To repeat: My opinion of Sarah Palin was lowered by the information in this book.  Previous to reading this book, I wrote this.  And this.  And perhaps most damnable, this.  And if you read closely, I mention her every few days or so like a dying person mentions the rash that started this whole death thing in the first place.  So I pretty much hated Sarah, but I thought it was just because I disagreed with her about everything and that she was an idiot and a liar.

But it's worse.  She's a fake and a bully and an opportunist and a crazy religious person, too.  It's like the fuckwit combo plate.  "Excuse me, waiter?  I'd like the Fuckwit Combo Plate."  "An excellent choice, sir, we call that the Palin Plate.  Would you like that with extra bullshit on the side?"  As if there were really a choice in the matter.  There is so much bullshit, and it goes everywhere.  She's much worse than you imagine.  Why?  Her lack of matrimonial and parenting skills coupled with her habits of cutting people loose once she's done with them would seem to indicate that she's some kind of sociopath, incapable of forming actual personal relationships.  She changed colleges five times to escape people of color, then fucked Glen Rice when she got a chance.  She's a Dominionist, just like Prick Perry and Michelle Batshit and given years of research, Joe STILL couldn't put to bed the Trigg Conspiracy.   Because you can't.  It's too weird, and not enough information is available.

On top of everything else, she vomits hypocrisy upon us, and we can't remember that it is hypocrisy, because we can't remember the thing she said before she did the thing that directly contradicts it.  Read the book - I recommend it.  It's going to be something we need again in 2012 when she runs for real, hoping that we've forgotten about all the stuff in it, too.

Lucy Sucks

Every now and then a character comes along who can ruin the story for you.  Usually, for me it's a villain with a very specific set of criteria; they have to be annoying and evil, and for them to really just fuck up the story - never quite get what's coming to them.  No satisfying comeuppance.  Fate happens and you find yourself sitting there going; "That's not how I would have done that.  More suffering, please."

Quentin Tarantino is a good example of this, and in typical fashion, also a bad example of this.  In Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction, Zed and Col. Landa really get what's coming to them in a very solid, somewhat drawn-out way, really satisfying for the audience, and giving us the - again, classic - "I'm gonna get medieval on your ass" from Marcellus Wallace.  On the other end of things, of course, there are the twin examples from the Kill Bill suckfest, where the man who took part in hundreds of systematic rapes of the Bride is quickly crushed in a door (not good enough) and then Bill himself's death, which is just too predictable and dumb after you've waited two movies for it.

Others?  Dolores Umbridge comes close to not having enough comeuppance, until you realize that she is not only publicly humiliated by the Weasleys, but probably gang-raped by centaurs.  I personally found the deaths of both Bellatrix LeStrange and Voldemort pretty unsatisfying, but that book was so riddled with fucking death, I just wanted to be done with it.  Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars?  Not nearly enough - would have liked to have seen the fear evaporate from his face along with his skin or something.  Darth's supposed redemption story is pretty weak, too.  Belloq and the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark are good - God explodes their faces with death angels due to their arrogance?  Awesome.  Ideally, you (Okay, I) want whoever the villain is to get the full Mussolini, dragged out, exposed, flipped upside-down and murdered in the town square.

Comic books, TV series (including soap operas) and horror movie villains are a special case inasmuch as since they have to come back for something else later, they never quite die.  The Joker, Dr. Doom, Sonny Corinthos, Arvin Sloane, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers get punished and seemingly killed a bunch of times, but they have contractual obligations, so they end up coming back.  This is why I typically don't watch horror movies of the slasher genre - I find them unsatisfying.  Too many pointless murders, not enough scale-balancing.  I can only sporadically watch General Hospital with my wife because the cycles wear me out.  Sloane got his, and if you stick around reading comics long enough, you see the villains really get theirs a bunch of times, and it fuels the rage behind their returns.

Building to this, then: I hate Lucy.  Hate the bitch.  Lucy is an opinonated loudmouth bully, massively insensitive, lazy, self-centered, obsessive, pathological and stupid.  It's like we had 60 years of practice for Sarah Palin before she showed up.  Lucy ruins Peanuts for me, just a little bit.  I typically skip the ones with this insulting name-caller in them, and only half watch the specials as a consequence.  I stick to Snoopy jokes and Pig Pen and ones with just Linus and Charlie Brown.  If Charlie Brown represents hope (and being a sucker) with the football thing, Lucy represents the world looking to fuck you while wearing a pretty dress every single time.  If Charlie were smart, he'd simply kick Lucy.  For a field goal.  Lucy's uncivil, she's uncooperative, has the ego to charge people for her shit advice, and it's pretty clear that she has low self-esteem that she deals with by screwing with the lives of others.  The bullies should have always been the voiceless, faceless adults in the world of Peanuts; having this predatory ass come from within the fold of children might be realistic, but she never really seems to get hers - not enough - and I find it unsatisfying, to say the least.

So - your examples are welcome - whose comeuppance and/or lack thereof works or doesn't work for you in your favorite fiction?

An Unwanted Xmas

Every year, there are albums and specials and stuff that I can't even begin to imagine the creative process behind, like that new TV one where Judd Nelson is Santa Claus.  What?!?  Here are some of the shittiest theoretical ideas for this kind of thing I could come up with; some ill-conceived special ideas for the "enrichment" of your holiday season:

1. The Next 14 Fucking Christmases: Rod Blagojevich sings the holiday classics from Illinois prison.

2. Herman Cain's Sausage Stocking Stuffer Special: On Lifetime, a 1 hour special where Herman Cain tries to run for Santa, but is caught by his wife making "special deliveries" to the sexier elves and is forced to discover the true meaning of arrogance.

3. A DaVinci Christmas: The "History" Channel - International art critic and DaVinci scholar Hans Doun will examine the Mona Lisa's history as a Christmas gift passed down between generations, and will finale with evidence that an image of Santa shaking hands with Jesus can be found in Leonardo's enigmatic and most famous painting.

4. Christmas On the Dark Side: Darth Vader breathes over your favorite holiday standards.  James Earl Jones.

5. The Palin Alaska Caribou Jesus Holiday Spectacular!  From the glassy shores of Lake Lucille, where Sarah Palin can see the North Pole from her backyard, comes a three-hour long return to the family values the Palins hold dear: Jesus, racism, speaking in tongues, stealing money from others, useless platitudes, lying, killing stuff in the woods and not seeing the sun go down until 1am!  Sarah will whine her way through the songs she can remember, and someone will probably give birth.

6. Merry Chimpmas: Three hours of chimpanzees ripping into elaborately wrapped presents.  Well, I'd watch it.

7. Occupy The Winter Holidays: The Occupy movement, represented in various major cities, will be filmed breaking into and occupying the homes of the richest 1% on Christmas Eve - Revolution abounds as the snow is dotted with red blood and green money.  Fat Asshole Cop will pepper spray people while dressed as Santa.

8. A Very Dawkins Holiday.  Richard Dawkins, along with special guests Ira Glass, Ricky Gervais, Natalie Portman, George Clooney and LIVE by remote Dr. Stephen Hawking will get sloshed on spiked eggnog and explain why it's just a very lovely holiday season and nothing more, so try not to get twisted up about it.  Ani DiFranco and Harvey Fierstein do "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

9. Naked Lindsay Lohan SINGS! (Holiday)  Another jailhouse recording, LiLo sings holiday songs from jail while naked.  True, you can't see naked on a CD, but like that's going to fucking matter in this day and age. To be released the same day as her Playboy debut, and free copies of the disc given away as incentives with the new issue.

10. Governor Rick Perry's Indeterminate Number of Days of Christmas: "On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...gave to me...one, two...oops."

11. Pack the Holiday Season: The members of the Green Bay Packers have a 12-0 days of Christmas Extravaganza when Santa's sleigh breaks down over Green Bay, Wisconsin.  As the Pack's Defensive LIne pulls Santa's sleigh across the night sky, QB Aaron Rodgers throws passes for all the world's children, hitting chimneys for holiday TDs!  Belief in Donald Driver spawns a new winter holiday - Drivermas.

12. A Secret Touchy Christmas: Proceeds to benefit the Jerry Sandusky Defense Fund.  Becomes the most unpopular album of all time, and is used as fuel to burn that piece of shit in a public Yule fire.

Because I like to end on a cheerful "up" note.

Penn State

An old axiom: "You will regret that which you did not do far more than that which you did do."

Probably true.  I'll bet Joe Paterno regrets not chasing down the allegations of rape happening in the showers of the Penn State locker room.  I'll bet he really regrets it now that he's out of a job, asked to fuck off and has his "legacy" ruined beyond repair, but that's attrition, not contrition.  I learned that in Bible school and also from Morgan Freeman.  What he should have done is trusted that his linebacker coach, Mike McQueary, was telling him something that was so urgent and so important and so completely fucked up that it needed to be looked into right now and stopped immediately, instead of whatever it was he did do, which I can't find anywhere, but what must have been a sort of "passing the buck" up the chain of command.  Meanwhile, a predator systematically raped kids for years.  Good job, guys.

I get that you're attached to JoePa and stuff because football, especially college football, in the United States is like a religion, and as such, often makes blinkered, unthinking assholes out of people.  And because he's been around since fucking LBJ was in office, and has 409 victories.  Right.  And one colossal fucking failure, the failure to remember that you work in a school, and as such, are charged with the education, protection and fostering of children, even if some of them aren't strictly minors.  The football program IS NOT more important than the school to which it's attached, no matter what you think, and the fact that we act like it is in this country is one of the reasons we as a society just might be in decline.  Bread and circus, folks.

In fact - and this will be hard for some people who really love it to accept - football, in and of itself, is not important at all.  When it inspires and tells stories or has heroism inherent, then, yeah, it's doing something.  But it doesn't matter, not any more than a TV show or a comic book or a cookie or a rose or gentle wind on an autumn day.  Might be nice, but pretending that it matters makes us into something less than people.  There's nothing wrong with enjoying football, but ultimately, the word "game" in there should be a BIG clue - it's an amusement for most, a recreation for some, but not important - at all.  Sorry.

And JoePa?  Well, the great and powerful and venerated Joe's kind of a crotchety asshole.  You might even have seen something like this coming.  He lost his temper and did something to a ref that the law would call "assault" back in 2002, and made light of an alleged sexual assault on campus in 2006.  And then, of course, there's this, which is hardly a phenomenon confined to Penn State, but taken with everything else, well - it makes kind of a pattern.

What I'm more than a little confused by is the lack of outrage over McQueary having ACTUALLY SEEN what was happening and not having stopped it or called the cops himself.  You know what qualifications are required to call cops over something like that?  A pulse, a spine and a brain.  That's it.  McShithead's apparenlty lacking in one of these important categories.  Now, of course, the university Prez is fired and Paterno's gone - but McQueary's on "paid administrative leave?"  What the fuck is that about?  Any Penn State riot that misses burning down that guy's fucking house is a pointless riot.

Now of course, we're past the "Penn State Is Emotionally Retarded" stage with the riots, and we're into the other half of the Penn State brain holding candlelight vigils for the victims.  While I'm glad that they seem to have (sort of) moved past the idocy stage, with all of the campus moodswings they're into right now, I think you'd need Dramamine just to go to class.  You know 'class?'  Those things they have at colleges that aren't football?

 

Lone Gunmen & 9/11

About six of my fellow tinfoil hat-wearing friends have sent me this since yesterday, so I figured I would re-post.  It proves nothing, but then that would be the nature of the thing no matter what it was.  I actually enjoyed Lone Gunmen for the one season it was on, but I think it would have quickly worn thin.  I understand that this episode (which is all chopped up here) ran in March of 2001.  Enjoy and be slightly creeped out.

A 9/11 Remembrance

I'm doing this this morning because this is what you do.  I don't really know what else to do, and I've already done this, this, and this, which is basically just like what I'm about to do, so if you go read it, you'll either be really bored or catch me in an inconsistency.

Ten years seems no more significant to me than one or five or seven years, so I'm not sure why the media's erect right now except for the fact that we, as a culture, find nice round numbers satisfying.  Ten years ago, on a chilly Tuesday Wisconsin morning, my wife Christie woke me up with a phone call about a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers.  (Christie has subsequently awakened me with news about the Columbia, and about Johnny Cash's death.  I try to always be up before her now.)  This was before everyone could tell you exactly which tower was which with a glance, and when they still had them in establishing shots in shows like Friends, or anything that happened in New York, and when the Coup was going to release this, and the Spider-Man poster had the reflection of the WTC in the eye of his mask.  So she didn't tell me which tower it was because she didn't know at that moment.

As I recall, I don't think she actually woke me from a sound sleep, I think she just got me out of bed, where I was soaking up morning quiet. The mood was good before that morning - four friends of ours had married recently, and Christie was really amazingly pregnant and would be giving birth soon.  I recall standing on our rug - the one Max would eventually pour white paint on - and watching the coverage of the attacks.  I still went to work, but I did nothing productive or of consequence all day except watch primary Big Three network coverage on my old TV with the stickers on it and rabbit ears sitting on the edge of the work table with not enough extension cord.  Truth be told, that day is part of the reason I keep hanging on to that TV.

We had a discussion group that night - which was supposed to be a Comics Night where adult friends of mine sat around and read comics at one another - and I eventually put an American flag out in front of our house.  I was not then, and have not really ever been a nationalist, but I did feel two things: one, it was the quick, available symbol of the time, and remembrance of the dead was paramount, and also I was deeply, internally offended for the 3000 people who had the promise of what I believe America to be about - the right to live free from other people's oppressive beliefs, a promise that rarely pans out like I think it should - ripped away from them.  I displayed the flag then for the same reason I hold Captain America as my favorite superhero - it's all about the idea, the promise and the responsibility.  My flag came down, as did many, when we saw how it was getting exploited in a post 9/11 world.

The next 17 days for me is kind of a blur - I remember getting the newspaper on the 12th and holding onto it, knowing that it would important, and doing likewise with TIME magazine and Marvel Comics' fundraiser issues.  I basically bought one of those for every person I knew who I thought would want one.  I remember the absolute certainty that we would end up going to war over this, no matter what, and the outpouring of support and brotherhood from the rest of the world.  Yeah, remember that?  I remember when TV football was insane with 9/11 stuff, and when it was inescapable.  For a long time.  At the end of 17 days, my world refocused completely with the birth of my son.

Now, I'm looking forward to the rebuilding, which I posted a picture of at the top of this blog.  I want my family to be able to go there when everything is opened up and see what there is to see when we put things back together.  Destruction takes only moments.  Building takes a long time, and is usually worth it. I look forward to seeing the results.

The Long View of the Wrong View

I've seen enough now to realize that all I have to do is wait, and these dumb motherfuckers will go away.  Sometimes they come back, but ultimately - they just slowly go away.  I just wish I could remember that when they're actively annoying the shit out of me, but it's hard not to swipe at the flies when they're around your head.  Hopefully, someday soon, I will have the presence of mind to realize that they eventually all lose their sheen and they drop away like the petals from one of those horrible stench flowers that reek like rotten meat.

Fifteen years from now, Obama will still have been the 44th President of the United States, and Glenn Beck will be a double handful of nothing.  He's off TV right now for one reason and one reason alone - no one was watching.  Come on - can you imagine that greedy-ass Fox would take his show off the schedule if advertisers still wanted to buy time there?  Nah, he's out to the marginalized world of pull-string talk radio, where only the most inflammatory can still achieve any kind of recognition.  Remember when Rush Limbaugh used to write books full of non-ideas and had a big TV show?  When did that shit stop?  When he lost a rung or two on the relevance ladder.  No one went to Sarah Palin's movie - what do you suppose that means?  Remember when Bill O'Reilly was hot shit, and made the news everyday?  Now he's on this religion quest and generates more laughs than cheers.  Did you know that Ann Coulter squatted over America and  crapped out another fake book this year?  Yeah - neither did anyone else.  No one gives a fuck.

Of course, the other side of this is true; if our guys cease to be relevant, we have to leave them behind, or we can't really claim any kind of progressivism, can we?  For now, though, I'm going to choose to focus on the fact that soon these rightwingnut talking heads will one by one die, and history will lump them all together as a loud and nasty hydra-shaped blip at the beginning of the 21st century.  "Loud and Nasty Blip" will become my "Calm Blue Ocean" mantra the next time Beck evokes Nazis or fascists or anytime I hear stupid, inflammatory crap being spouted by the wrong.

(Image found at ShirtaDay.com, so you can buy it, if you'd like.  On a shirt!)

Christopher Walken's Poker Face

I don't know why the schtick of Mr. Walken reading text aloud is still funny, but it is. I'm reasonably certain that it's just because he's funny, and that gets plugged into whatever it is he's doing.  I laughed out loud at this, but you kind of have to wait for it a little bit.  As always, though - it's worth it.  Not as good as an all-Walken stage re-enactment of Twin Peaks would be, but solid nonetheless.

A Righteous Proposal

It never seems to end.

An unyielding wall of inescapable and redundant noise from the GOP and the rightwingnuts that roam this country, running red over the political landscape with the color and quality of cherry Kool-Aid on the white linen tablecloth of civility, logic, and discussion.  At every turn, there is Rush chuckling his stogie-thickened laugh at Godwin's law, Palin spewing some non-news at the cameras that orbit around her like flies about a swollen and blackened corpse, McCain inferring his inferno was instigated by illegal immigrants, and the pulse-quickening frenzy of name-calling that ensued from this, Al Gore advocating for family planning.

Frankly, I think that we can all agree that there are just too many of these people, swirling around the waters of our society as they describe their inevitable Corilois effect down the toilet of history, stirring the turds instead of even attempting to rise above.  You know there are too many of them by the way one feels compelled to shout "down in front," or "clear a path" when they all take the stage during what we will still, in the interest of preserving the pleasant fiction that anything was actually discussed, call a debate.  Simply too many people, and too damned proud they are of sharing one idea.  Ideas shared in this fashion quickly become thin and tear easily under duress.  Eventually, the fabric of which they are made shreds completely and what little remains of the idea is obscured by the guttural snorts and smacks of those at the trough who sought perhaps more than their fair helping.  Best to have a table laid thick with ideas and enough space and seats for others who mayhap, have brought new and fresh ideas to share.

Yes, It is clear to most reasonable people who are paying attention that there are too many conservatives in this country, that they do not have enough to do, and that there is a need that they can fill, if they are only willing to contribute.  I speak of our problem with hunger.  1 in 6 Americans is no stranger to hunger, and there is no isolated pocket in America where hunger and malnutrition live - it is everywhere, widespread among people with and without homes and jobs.  There is a clear need here for more food for the hungry in America, and so what I humbly propose in the hopes that there will be no need for objection or wasteful discussion is this: As Americans, we eat the Republican Party before it eats itself.

Conservative Republicans are a hardy breed, largely healthy and wealthy, given to circumstances of contentment and comfort verging on opulence and luxury, and in this way, they have ensured their usefulness under my proposed new arrangement.  Much in the same way that a healthy veal cow is kept under a certain set of conditions that guarantee a choice cut of the finest meat, so too will conservatives be a succulent and well-fed source of food for America's hungry, largely due to how they have been kept.  Indeed, I would not be opposed to some sort of hutch, or pen, for individual conservatives.  Especially the more frenetic and vocal ones who are prone to damage themselves periodically.  In this way too, we could control their breeding schedules in ways they resist currently, and make more of their contribution by imposing some clear guidelines.

The meat of a conservative promises to be remarkably free from toxins, as the spleen and bile are regularly vented, and the brain tissue soft from little use.  The sweetmeats are sure to be useful for consumption as well, as the host has been consistently fed a diet of easily digested pablum since birth.  Be they round of bottom or long of muscle, some choice nutrition walks slightly to the right of the rest of us.  Baked, boiled, roasted - barbequed or rotisserie style, there is no end to the potential variations of preparation.  Even the older ones should be delicious in stews, with just the right amount of spice to counter the sometimes bitter aftertaste.

I know that some will certainly take issue with my proposal, but most of those will be conservatives, and while the concern that they will raise about cannibalism is a valid one, that point pertains only to humans eating other humans, and might be argued not to be applicable in this situation.  It is my firm belief that feeding the hungry in America is more urgent and important than the survival of what the conservatives call "thinking" and that it is long overdue for them become part of a movement of a different kind entire.

Humbly Submitted,

The Squidbag (with thanks to Mr. Swift)