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January 31, 2008
Get fit and ruin your spine, in just four easy payments!
As I asked the American Caliban (who sent this): When did the world become a Mr. Show sketch?
January 30, 2008
We now put down the fork for a brief reality check.
Two articles published in the NY Times within 24 hours of each other:
January 28, 2008
Arguments, tears, hurt feelings: it's the Democratic primary!
Tom Tomorrow hits it on the nose this week:
Here's his comment on the comic:
I wrote this one because I kept running across something I found really bizarre: the notion that top tier candidate X is above criticism, and any Democrat who supports top tier candidate Y or Z instead is a Republican dupe, if not an active emissary sent out by Karl Rove himself. If you follow message boards or comments threads at all, you know that it’s vehement this year, in a way that I don’t really remember from previous primaries. Supporters of each candidate are certain that if you don’t fall in line behind their person, then the Democrats will lose and “it will all be YOUR fault!” Whoever you are. Choose the wrong top-tier candidate this year and you might as well be a Naderite. It’s a strange way to approach a primary season.
You can find an excellent example of this over at Slog, the Pacific Northwest's preeminent sandbox of pale, snarky hipsters. Last I checked, 112 commenters had gotten their fleece in a twist over this Hillary vs. Obama post.
Way to bring the smack talk, Seattle—and I'm not just talking about your heroin habit.
January 27, 2008
Barack Obama speaks after winning South Carolina.
Worth watching.
Mental mayhem, via telephone.
BK Homman is a fan of phony phone calls, with a preference for the truly loopy and confusing. Some years ago he gave me a tape of calls made by a friend of his (who shall remain nameless for now).
Here's one:
In another call, this person made up the name "Ed Tantamount", which I used years later when interviewed by local L.A. news about snowboarding.
Now BK has sent me a new batch of calls, which are remarkably similar in tone and style, but even stranger. He claims they're not made by the same guy, but I'm unconvinced. See what you think.
January 26, 2008
Up in the burn zone.
This is Glendale Peak in Griffith Park today; it's the first time I've been up there since the fire last May.
Welcome to the moonscape, if the moon had dead trees and a blue sky. And new grass growing. Hmm, I guess "moonscape" isn't a very good analogy after all.
More here.
January 24, 2008
Hay yr screens derty!
Lemmy fix that for ya k?
Via hot stuff.
January 22, 2008
Your brain on Lolcats.
Mad Science on Lifehacker: Evolution explains why Lolcats control your mind.
January 20, 2008
10 years in and out of the Pythons.
After getting the recommendation from MF McD, I'm about halfway through Michael Palin's Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years, and despite running to over 600 pages, it's pure crack cocaine for the Monty Python nerd in your life.
Palin has managed for most of his life to be a ridiculously disciplined diary-keeper, whether after a day of walking across the English countryside or of smashing chrysanthemums as Mr. D.P. Gumby. He comes across as one of the saner members of Monty Python (though being the writer, he's clearly at an advantage), and there is much recounting of endless mood swings and personality clashes among the group, giving the reader a new perspective on what is now part of the absurdist canon.
The book is filled with unironic juxtapositions of the glamorous and the utterly mundane. So you get a story of the troupe being photographed nude by Richard Avedon—
Soon the Python group were a little naked gaggle and Avedon was busy arranging us in a parody of the sort of beautiful person photo where all is revealed, but nothing is shown. So our little tadgers had to be carefully hidden behind the knee of the man in front, and so on, and every now and then Avedon would look through the vewfinder of his Rolleiflex and shout things like 'Balls!...balls, Graham, balls.'
—and a footnote explaining his mother-in-law's election to county council.
Due to Boundary Commission recommendations, Huntingdon ceased to be a county and was absorbed into Cambridgeshire.
It's also an excellent window into the great amount of hard work that goes into making comedy, Palin's passionate dedication to that work, and how great popular success, once achieved, can be shamelessly milked for years through endless live performances and other sorts of repackaging. Palin is charming and self-effacing throughout; here he's observing himself while creating one of his signature characters:
I do seem to play a lot of seedy, unsuccessful and unhygienic little men. After washing my hair and shaving at 7.00 in the morning I am driven to work and immediately my hair is caked down with grease and my face given a week's growth of beard.Ken Shabby was especially revolting, with an awful open sore just below the nose. But Terry J (who has seen the rushes) is worried that it was shot with too much emphasis on Shabby and not enough wide shots to create the joke—which is the relationship of this ghastly suppurating apparition to the elegant and tasteful surroundings.
And here, setting off for a day with the family:
Sun shone in the morning and tempted us down to the beach. We took the windbreak and an axe, which is Grandfather's traditional instrument for knocking the windbreak into the sand. It may save him money on a mallet, but one does feel rather sinister taking a wife, two small children and an axe down to the beach.
Highly recommended.
January 11, 2008
The coyote abides.
Ms. Stockton continues to shoot fine photos.
January 09, 2008
Fox News: Kill kill kill, you Navy pussies!
Also today: sensing that comedy is not their forte, Fox News announces The Kill Everything In Sight Show.
Via 23/6.
January 07, 2008
This machine thrills fascists.
What's America's favorite faux-populist bully/douchebag to do as his ratings wither away? Why, cast himself as the oppressed everyman defending the free press, of course.
This blotchy old monkey deserves nothing better than being ignored, but you should make an exception for this clip; his desperation for attention is hilarious.
Via Crooks and Liars.
For your consideration.
