LIVE from the Faculty Lounge...

This morning on the 'Morning Joe' show on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan once again hit the nail on the head as other's just waltzed ever so closely to it.
They were discussing the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary and Pat said that Obama was "faculty lounge", a comment and a characterization that sums up some very complex ideas. Ideas like anti-intellectualism, a gut-level distrust of the over-educated. In the same way Sen. John Kerry appeared to be Eastern Establishment, Ivy League, 'limousine liberal', and perhaps condescending and pedantic - Buchanan painted Obama with that brush so that the image of him pontificating on some obscure international social justice subject as he swills free-trade coffee in an Armani suit in the university faculty lounge became a "mental bumper sticker" (C)2008 - Beaconite Group. These are the crafted short-hand of idea brokers, a way to concisely describe a person, place, thing or idea in a nutshell, without the extended verbiage used to soften the message.

The Last American Hero

In the 1960s Tom Wolfe wrote an article in Esquire magazine about moonshine bootlegger turned stock car driver Junior Johnson. The other day as I flipped through the channels lamenting the utter banality of cable TV 'news' (infotainment avec fluff!) I found the 1973 movie based on his colorful describe of the race car driver starring Jeff Bridges. Also look for a young Gary Busey as part of his Southern-baked pit crew!

The REAL Men in Black!

OK, this MIB legend has some truth behind it... I remember sitting in a movie theater waiting for the start of The People V. Larry Flynt. Among the movie trivia slides was a hype for the upcoming Men in Black movie and I was very excited! I leaned over and told my lady about how in the 50s a guy in New Jersey had a UFO newsletter and he was told by three men in black to stop his research, he closed up shop and then "disappeared". I was hopeful the movie would be a dark X-Files style thriller true to this story.
But I was so bitterly disappointed that what came out was a childish comedy with Will Smith - that hack!
BOO! BOO! HISSSSSS....

Anyway, I got over it and there is info on Albert K. Bender here, and here...

I'd also suggest watching the music video for the Frank Black song.

War veteran recovers, marries...

Making fun of a disabled veteran is not my style, but maybe you heard about the guy who came back home from the war after being blown up by an RPG. The surgeons put him back together as best they could. He was in the hospital recovering for months and his high school sweetheart read about his heroism in the local paper so she visited him. They slowly fell in love and as the day of his release came he proposed to her and she accepted. On their honeymoon night he was nervous as the doctors told him everything would "work right", and in practice it did! So, she was waiting in bed and when he took off his clothes she screamed. The surgeons had reconnected his penis to his right hip!
"Oh my god! What the...? No way baby, that's crazy!" she screamed as he swayed side to side as if he was doing the 'bump', demonstrating how it was going to happen.
"No, don't be afraid, it works fine! We can still have children! The doctor said so!" he said.
She shook her head and demanded he put his clothes back on, that he was a "freak" and they would have to get an immediate divorce. He thought for a moment and pointed to his left armpit and told her,
"Kiss my ass bitch!"

The Mechanic 2 = sequels that never were!

I watched Charles Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent in the assassin movie The Mechanic from 1972. I've seen it before but this time I saw some odd things in it, maybe something more than they planned on... a certain 'more than friends' aspect to the drama. But who can say?
And even if that was the case, would it really matter?? Nah!

Anyway, I mentioned I saw the flick to a media-obsessed friend and he mentioned TV's "Airwolf" with JMV and Earnest Borgnine flying a super high-tech helicopter to stop bad guys!!! Wow! I remembered it not at all fondly as the acting was wooden and melodramatic as I remember.
Then I mentioned, as a goof, the sequel to The Mechanic that was not made, The Mechanic 2: He's NOT my father! The guy looked at me and believed me until I laughed out loud at that title, but it stuck and I found this fake ad for the movie that never was.

Another misdirection tactic!

Some people see things in a picture of VP Dick Cheney while fishing...

I see something too, a misdirection tactic cleverly timed to distract newsies and their ilk away from the Cehney-related news story that came out the day before, 4/10/2008 about secret White House torture memos!

"Cheney, Others OK'd Harsh Interrogations" - AP
WASHINGTON (April 10) - Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned."

OK, so, the memos come out and are reported, proving the war criminals are not some group of wayward patriots...
The next day a cute photo of Cheney fishing, his hand gripping his pole reflected in his sunglasses, is released by the White House and the news jumps on it since some creepy perverts see boobs reflected in his sunglasses?
What?
Boobs???
Uh... yeah... he said, Boobs!
Yeah, he's a boob alright, and a war criminal.

Baby Bump on Lockdown!!!!

Seems our language, American English, is indeed being slowly destroyed from within as if some sort of ignorant 5th columnists are at work night and day. I remember cringing the first time I hear "preggers" years ago. Euphamisms are silly and childish and adults who use them who are not in the company of actual children are in fact adult children. Cutsie poo crap drives me nuts. A few years ago the so-called tabloid media began describing pregnant celebrities as having a "baby bump", which is just stupid! Grow up!

NEXT!

The Lockdown fetish.
I have noticed a lot of references to "lockdown" nearing some sort of obsession, as in, there should be some enterprising web-czar making a Lockdown monitoring service where you get "e-mail alerts" about who, what and where is currently on "Lockdown". What school, neighborhood or office is being plagued by criminals and those unlucky enough to be on the scene are denied their freedom of movement since, they are guilty until proven innocent. Cable TV news is the worst offender shrieking how some elementary school in East Bumlick is on "lockdown" because some idiot scribbled "Death to jocks!" on a bathroom wall...

Welcome to Diamondville!

It's true!
I worked for Neil Diamond's production company as a temp when I lived in Albany NY, the whole strange story is here.

Another good movie...

A Boy and His Dog starring Don "Miami Vice" Johnson!
Yes, it's true... I love science fiction movies, especially those in a post-WWIII dark vein. This 1975 gem was a book by Harlan Ellison from 1969. Johnson subsists on scraps, as does his dog - with which he is in telepathic communication. What???
OK, so then they discover there is an underground, not a factional rebel underground like I am part of, but a literal underground civilization.
They are actually the remnants from our own society complete with a patriotic marching band and cheerleaders, except these semi-inbred soon-to-be-troglodytes are in need of new 'seed' to refresh their ever-shallowing gene pool.
One of the best midnight movies that freaked me out! 5 stars! I laughed, I cried!

Remembering Grand Royal

The Beastie Boys own magazine was a freak of nature. The deep-thinking hip-hop mag had it all, then the inevitable decline into the gutter... oy vey!
My favorite article was from issue #4, 'Kojak - Zen warrior or the White Shaft?', where various lines of dialogue embedded in his TV show from the 1970s was rife with Zen wisdom, like, "Who loves ya baby?" and "Drop the gun punk!"
Love it...

Franks Sinatra sings...

Mrs. Robinson!
He changes the lyrics around too.
Ding, ding, ding!

Dazed and Confused!

Watching movies and I realized this is another film I lived...
it was the late 1970s and I was hanging out with the 'wrong crowd' at the local bowling alley. I met a character much like Mathhew McConaughey's - David Wooderson (who looks just like Joe Walsh when he was in the James Gang), except his name was Ralph Aviles and he drove a black 1969 396 Chevelle, 4 speed Muncie rockcrusher transmission and he'd street drag race it up and down Rt. 9 in southern Dutchess County. A lot of the action in this 1993 film by Richard Linklater was eerily familiar to me.
I was the young guy learning the ropes at the gameroom at the roller rink, in the parking lot out back, how to handle more than a few beers and how to be cool in front of the chicks. Ah, good times...

Bomb the FLDS!

Texas authorities finally raided the FLDS compound to 'save' underage pregnant 'married' girls from Fundamentalist Mormans...

I know if they were Muslims this would have never happened, they would have been bombed long before they laid the first brick, too bad 'we' treat religions differently... put up with one way too long and vilify the other. What hypocracy, all religious fanatics are a threat to freedom, liberty and democracy!
Wareen Jeffs is as bad as Osama bin Laden.

Seinfeld in accident!

True, true... news comes forth that Jerry Seinfeld driving a 1967 FIAT had a failure of the braking system (surprised? Not really...) and flipped over as he was approaching an intersection grabbing the emergency brake to no avail. He was alone at the time, Saturday night and the accident happened in East Hampton Long Island New York.

An on the spot report of the FIAT tragedy was sent in by noted British used car 'expert' Carcoat Damphands who was on vacation in the States at the time and made his way from Manhattan out to the Hamptons for brunch with alleged 'friends' Sunday morning...

"Bleety! The very crumblies of the soggy eggies and veggies on the plate were a sharpshard of tasty noshies. Friends of Dampies sipped slappy fizzy chams with Yank bangers. Talk of porker flogger Seinfeld's flippy trip night last brought fast fun trummy bum laughs. No shock as FIAT brakies are gareth at speed. Night work is unbecoming and the Italian special `67 BTM was a real noggler to the unencumbered biscuit gripper! We had a belfursh blush at that quiet claim of samsteenism, at best a nardy tipsy bank shot off the motorway flexy pipes. More fizzies and another wet bagel messy sack of wast-leaf. Semi-minty, firm and tufted like Connolly in dapper British racing green, left a smidge of shmear as we piped the birds off to the shoppies with doggies and pram pushers aloft to the Hampton scrapies. Puffy must preen the miffed dollypops as his rappies are a shambles. Simply moist for them to regard as a natch-match made in rooster cack. So along comes a peepers type from the briny froth claiming he viddied the Dago crash aftershock, bits of bumper bites and metal frags permeated the undergrowth of the area as the Bobbies pretreated the tarmac to conceal the reperswigs and Bathurstoki gobbies. I had a snicker and a glam puff at the describe. Jerry sings to the radio as he plies the tyres over the meander poppy areas underneath, dig? Can't fasten the hatcher fast and pedal shake indicates a lump nod, panic poster as he grips the e-brake lever, crackles of pasto as the wet noodle brakies sunder his britches. Flash of fellow porker flogger James Dean in ghostly miasma and ectoplasm. A fast turn to avoid shackles in his face at the grippy pike poker. Me thinks he had a crass Jackson moment of clarity and lucidity as his breefy-conny comedy life flashies before his wonkers. Egads! Could have been the last showboat for the Jerry bullyboy. Sharp. Quincey. Pricey. Back to the snoggle chow and we are off for the tight turn slippy drifty compact Merc in the car park."

Huh? That guy is nuts...