Rotten, Rotten People

Another winner from Donna Barstow. I really must ask: who the hell is she blowing?
I mean, this fails the Humorousness test by failing to be funny...It fails the Topicality test by not actually saying anything, though strangely including some up-to-date cultural buzz themes, which seem to make it be about something.

But even if we are to continue with the pretense of this being in some way a humorous observation about Life In These Here United States, what even would the observation be?

A) Gay men have iPhones and Houses? Lots of people do, in L.A. and elsewhere.
B) 'Gay' and 'Republican' are mutually contradictory? Well, I think so too, but what's with the rest of the padding in the 'joke'?
C) People in Los Angeles are a strange lot, and what they find important is alien to the rest of us. Although most people would be pretty strongly impacted by losing their house. And how did he 'lose' it? In a gay fire? Gay foreclosure?
D) Someone, somewhere pointed out to Donna that jokes take place in bars. Hence; in a bar=joke. This is the closest thing to an answer that I have.

But to return to the original question, whose polska kielbasa is she snacking on? I mean, to be this unfunny, surreally adrift in a world where there are familiar catchphrases and not much else...Artistically under-talented to boot, means that you must be at least very-close-friends with someone at the Syndicate.

On the other hand, here is her picture.

Is this, or is this not a picture of someone who has just noticed that look in the eyes of her friends at the barbecue? Oblivious to the idea that not only are her jokes tanking, but she's actually crossed over into something specifically unfunny, she has noticed that nobody's actually laughing anymore, not even courteously.

So this is the shot where she's saying, "C'MON, you guyyys! Doncha get it?" Because clearly they just don't understand you.

Meanwhile, fresh from his recent triumph over Chicago, Rush Limbaugh has encountered an Unfair Obstacle to his Completely Reasonable Wishes.

Let's step back a bit. You may recall that Rush was sort of disproportionately pleased in public recently when a city in the United States failed to get the nod to host the next Summer Olympics. This was because the main proponent of this idea was a person who Rush holds as an enemy of all good folks everywhere, the President of the United States.
So he -as well as a good many other childish morons- celebrated this games-not-getting. His personal political vision was demonstrated to be more important than his (you'd think) enthusiasm for a chance for some place in the United States to do something right.

Flash forward to yesterday, though, when he was told more or less to fuck off by the NFL. Rush had felt that the next best step was to purchase a football team. (Interestingly, the un-named protagonist of the Pink Floyd song "Money" had a similar thought process. They're actually ideological buddies, he and Rush.) The NFL, upon hearing this, said that they felt they could get along just fine without any of that. The right wing bullshit engine, of course, saw this for what it is.

"Tonight Rush became the metaphor for all of us… every man woman and child in this great nation of ours.

The enemy of this great nation, the enemy of you and me, Rush’s enemy… those on the left, inside and outside of this nation abhor success… and when faced with it will destroy it… by any and all means possible.

We all have our dreams in life… such as they might be. Rush dreamed of being an owner in the NFL.

Tonight the left proved that they will stop at nothing to end our dreams. Our dreams of success and happiness devastate their need to dominate and control you and me… and well everything and everyone."

What can I say? I love showbiz! This sounds like the beginning of a very bad documentary. Or the prelude to a pogrom. I like the unnecessary ellipsis before 'such as they might be'. Whose voice is reading that? Ah. Yes. Tom Selleck.

So...Yeah, when one of the first commenters asked the obvious question -are you joking?- the response he got was;

"You bailout whore, death panel loving, racist jerk. I would also like to point out that you have been accused of child molestation, and we would like to get your response to that before you post further."

Let the record show, your honor, that the right winger here was the one to begin with the name-calling. "What are you talking about?" gets met with "I'LL SKULL-FUCK YOUR DAUGHTER, YOU DONKEY-PUNCHING PORTUGUESE!"
And too, this is in response to some presumed joy on the left at Rush Limbaugh failing to purchase St. Looie's team, as opposed to the actual, well-recorded mass joy at an entire city failing to get the rights to an international sporting event.

Also, it is later suggested that those football team owners are a bunch of effete, left-wing pansies, which is just fantastic. This is strangely echoed in the thoughts of a bunch of -as far as I know- unpaid weirdoes who trumpet bullshit.
J'go over there and read it yet? Well, I'd only do it a great injustice by trying to encapsulate it, but I have to ask again: where exactly did all this childlike love for corporations come about in the more tender-minded communities in our polity? I mean, ideology can certainly cause a person to utterly disappear up their own ass, god knows, but this is what remains of the Populist movement we're talking about here. Just because you've been told to hate government does not mean that you love corporations.

Yet again, this is going on a bit long. Who else? Ah. Good. Mitch Albom.

Not just content to be that place you go to read the work of clearly fictional people like Marilyn vos Savant, Dotson Rader and Lyric Wallwork Winik, this thing-that-falls-out-of-your-Sunday-paper increasingly plays home to America's Favorite Guy Who Says Vaguely Comforting Things!

To be your generation's own Edgar Guest. Who ever said that wasn't something to aspire to?

Whenever I see that cute little plucky face with its determined chin and sardonic Grin n' Bear It! grin, I try to think of accurate ways to parody the guy. His writing style is so treacly, his conclusions so nauseatingly neutral-good, you could really just sit there all day going, things really are what they are, these days, you know? and probably nail it pretty good.

But here, Mitch takes on a Big Topic: hey guys, I know that maybe all of us formerly young types might sort of need a little something to turn to when things get tough. And they sure do get tough, don't they? Heh! I KNOW, right? Well, there's this God thing I just heard about, and...

Thing is, Mitch doesn't fit here because he isn't a rotten person (probably). He's just that fatuous bore at the party that we all know and tolerate, generally because they're a relative of ours. He will go on all day about how it's the little things, you know...that make life worthwhile, and we let him at least partially because this is actually true. It just sort of cheapens and diminutizes it to constantly be reminded of this mind-blowing fact by some feeb who can't just let it go.

One of my favorite objects around the house is this little red vase I got at a garage sale. It is small enough that space for one rather small flower is pretty much it in terms of its capacity. It is clearly homemade, and has a highly abstracted painting of a flower on it.
I like it because it's a nice example of the many small ways people go about prettying-up their little corner of the world. It's a nice, mute example, though it also sort of reminds me of country music.

Now, see Mitch, he would have turned that whole thing into a book that later is made into a Lifetime Television For Women movie. That is why he is awful.