Because I love you:
John +2
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
… gradually, and then suddenly.
This blog will pay for itself.
You cannot shame the shameless.
Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.
They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
The lights are all blinking red.
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
Fuck these fucking interesting times.
One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.
Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.
An unpunished coup is a training exercise.
Ah, the different things are different argument.
Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Dave C
As funny as this scene is, it’s even better within the context of the movie. Not that I truly believe you lot would be so uncultured, but if you haven’t seen The Three Amigos before, you should really rent it at your earliest opportunity!
Lennox
There can’t be any blog on the intertubes with such a disconnect between the content and the advertising… I know it’s from the all-powerful Googles, not the blog itself, but it’s so odd to read some insightful commentary or funny Dog-in-dead-shit annecdote and then look over to see Lady Starburst asking me for money as she stares upward into the distance (presumably at a Jumbotron of her perfect self).
And then, of course, there’s the christian-filipina.com ad… just wow…
And now a guide to meeting Thai women?? What gives? Who decided that the readers of Balloon Juice were the perfect target market for Asian mail order brides?
John Cole
@Dave C: Yeah, unless you understand that everyone in the bar thinks they are cold blooded killers, it kind of loses something.
cay
wonderful. cay +5
MattF
The most drunk I ever got was on tequila. Many years ago. The last thing I remember from that night was thinking “Hey, I didn’t know that tequila came in quart bottles”
General Winfield Stuck
@Lennox:
The wheels of commerce must turn. Even for DFH commie riff raff, present company excluded, of course. The bernanke ad has a nice moderating influence, don’t you think. And Sarah Serendipity, what can you say. she is with us always, even when she isn’t..
Lennox
@General Winfield Stuck:
Hey don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating. If it’s putting some bucks in JC’s pocket, then I’m all for it. Hell, I even clicked on the ad to tell me how to get Thai women… apparently only $37 will get me a guide to the secret Thai mating call.
Anybody got $37 I can hold till the first?
John Cole
Well, we joined advertising liberally so the SOROS bucks should be coming in any day now.
BTW- I really didn’t think through that 72 virgin thing before joining the Democratic party.
AhabTRuler
Yeah, but aren’t the Project Wonderful ads actually bid on? Only the top (what is it, skyscraper?) ad on the sidebar is google inspired wackiness! Doesn’t that mean that someone actually thinks that the BJ commentariat is cruisin’ for asian chix?
Or do they revert to a pool of random low cost ads if no one bids?
General Winfield Stuck
@Lennox:
Wha.. No jiffy wedding at the Elvis Chappel in Vegas. I’d hold on to my $37 if I was you. sounds a tad shady.
Just Some Fuckhead
Martin Short had a tonight show type of show for awhile a few years back. I thought it was excellent.
Lennox
@General Winfield Stuck:
But… there’s a money back guarantee!
How can I go wrong?
I mean it’s just like those beautiful women that have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for me to call 976-LUUV… and we all know that’s legit!
Svensker
Sew! Sew like the wind!
Great movie.
AhabTRuler
@Just Some Fuckhead: Martin Short, much like Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, has mastered the art of flogging a shtik until it has had every last ounce of humor wrung from it.
John Cole
@AhabTRuler: I have NO idea how it works. All I know is I get emails saying I have bids awaiting approval, I approve them, and move on.
JK
David Brooks’ Grope Gate Incident now yields 48 hits on Technorati.
Grope
Other
People
D-Chance.
I never realized such a thing existed… train mooning.
I live such a sheltered life.
Dave C
@Svensker:
“In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be *the actual* El Guapo!”
So, so good.
Lennox
@John Cole:
So what exactly is the going rate for a human soul these days?
Just Some Fuckhead
@D-Chance.: We used to do that when we were kids.
General Winfield Stuck
Well, I’m off to Stuck’s Foreign Flik Movie House. tonights feature is Au Revoir Les Enfants. another Frenchy set during ww2, a fav topic a mine. Nothing but 5 star reviews. We shall see.
John Cole
@D-Chance.: I got kicked off the high school swimming team for convincing half the team to moon people off the back of the bus as we were leaving an event. At the next football game someone made a big sign that said “Swim Team takes a Dive, Experts Blame it on a Full Moon.”
I also got kicked out of school for three days for punching a kid in the face while we were in the library. I was also banned from the library for the rest of the year, and at that point, my mother was so burnt out from my misbehavior and misdeeds that her only response was “Thank goodness you didn’t hit him while you were in the bathroom.”
AhabTRuler
Also from Metro.co.uk, it’s a terribly sad story, but the headline is win: Teen sucked to his death.
Martin
Heh. Ms. Martin was part of yesterday’s moon show. She had an errand to run that way and thought ‘what the hell’.
Cain
What did he do? He didnt put his hand on your thigh while you were sitting at the table reading your library book did you? :)
cain
John Cole
@Cain: It has been so long ago, I don’t remember. This was a guy I went to prep school with for a couple years, and we always hated each other. One time at the prep school I was at my locker, he was walking down he hallway and pushed me into the locker and i hit my head, and I turned around and punched him in the face and knocked out two teeth. That cost a pretty penny. Then we both transferred to a public high school, and he started shit with me again, and I knocked him out. I don’t remember what it was, but it was almost 25 years ago. I never understood it, though. I never start fights, but have a super hot temper when I’m being screwed with or if someone is picking on a friend.
beabea
I guess I’ll go ahead and admit that I have not seen The Three Amigos, but I put it in my queue based on comments here.
Living here in central wingnuttia, perhaps some faux-Mexican slapstick will be just the ticket next time something pisses me off, like the fact that our governor Bobby Jindal takes a helicopter on the taxpayer’s dime, to go to church services in northern Louisiana. Gotta go up to uber-wingnuttia to shore up that wingnut cred with the uber-wingnuts.
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
Oh, your poor sweet mother. Ah well, at least you appear to have turned out to be a law-abiding member of society…as far as we know
Pavlov's Dog
Re mooning – I was driving my car with the school mascot strapped to the trunk to an out of town game, following six busloads of football players, the band, and drill team. I had the wise idea of having my buddy riding shotgun to moon all six buses as I passed them in the fast lane. Of course everyone in the busses ran over to the left side of the buses almost causing massive crashes. I think it cost me a week.
Not to mention getting kicked off the cheer leading squad the morning of elections as well as VP of my senior class as the principals decided I was not the type of person they wanted representing our school. They never did get me for throwing a few thousand pot seeds in the big planter box where everyone congregated, they had all the FFA kids out there to pull them up when they all came up after a big rain…good times.
srv
I’ve been drinking all weekend and I still haven’t figured this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqteDk15Ud8
Richard Pryor channels Gene Simmons dealing drugs from the stage and then going Columbine on the audience.
Far out.
John Cole
@RedKitten (formerly Krista – the Canadian one): I can’t even go into 95% of the things I did as a teen, for obvious reasons, but it is one of the reasons zero tolerance infuriates me.
If I were a teen today, I would probably be doing hard time. I’m just lucky I grew up white and when I did.
burnspbesq
If that’s what you put up out of love, I definitely have no desire to feel your hatred. What comes with that, an old black-and-white clip of Bob Lind lip-syncing “Elusive Butterfly” on American Bandstand?
Hammy
Saw ‘The Hangover’ today. I knew those guys were in trouble when they started off the night doing Jagermeister shots. The last time I did them, someone called the police.
AhabTRuler
The president of the student council at one of my HS’s was stripped of his office for mooning a class, and I remember watching the campus Police at UMASS Amherst trying to arrest people for streaking (we harassed the Cops until they threw their hands up in the air and left, but this was before Tasers and anti-terrorism legislation). Apparently, baring one’s buttocks or genitals remains the gravest threat to the stability and continuity of the status quo [obligatory].
RedKitten
No kidding, huh? It’s gotten absolutely ridiculous that there is no room for common sense anymore in schools. I had awesome grades, but I definitely pulled my share of stupid stunts — nothing that warranted even a suspension, but definitely a few things I had to talk my way out of (getting caught smoking in the bathrooms, getting caught fooling around with one of the guys on the debate team in the back of the bus on the way home from the provincial tournament…stuff like that.) Today, it’d be suspensions, mandatory counselling, and all other sorts of bullshit.
passerby
Thanks for that clip, John. I have the 3 amigos in my home dvd library. The movie is a great comedy, it’s “feeled wit leetle tiny sorprices.” In fact, I think I rewatch it tonight.
BTW, I rented and watched “The Big Lebowski” this weekend based on enthusiastic recommendations from BJuicers. That was a brilliant movie.
The hair clip, the rug, the ashes, the arguments, great! Not a big fan of John Goodman, which is why I never bothered to see it before, but he was outstanding in character.
Three more words:
Clear Plastic Sandals
Brick Oven Bill
I have come to know a friend who gets truly scared when a door slams. This person grew up in a different world than I did. I think of those things in terms of collections and sport. We talked about the flag at length last night. I had bought three back in 2001 and flew them. In 2005, they went down with disgust with my government.
Today I re-hung one flag at the place of business, and bought a second, which is now flying at my residence. This friend of mine is a very smart person. Here is a picture of my new flag.
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
-Mark Twain
AhabTRuler
Oh god, the man’s a genius. The only two reasons I watched Roseanne was for him and Sara Gilbert.
That said, he is awesome in many movies [obligatory]
John Cole
@passerby: He isn’t just good in the Big Lebowski, he was awesome in O brother and One Night at McCool’s and he was awesome in the West Wing and his SNL performances are the best the show has seen other than Alec Baldwin and Christopher Walken. And that fails to mention all the thousands of other things he has done.
John Goodman is solid fucking gold. I’ll not debate this.
RedKitten
Tequila is definitely a trouble-making drunk. Too much wine just makes me sleepy and stupid. Too much beer makes me bloated, but relaxed. But with tequila, I get adventuresome, and I come up with REALLY bad ideas (“Hey guys, let’s hot-wire a car and drive to New York!”) Fortunately, the tequila makes me completely incapable of actually implementing any of these ideas.
beabea
The most drunk I ever got was at “2 for 1 night” at some dance club while I was in college. I am a one-drink lightweight anyway, so as soon as they put two drinks in front of me, there was no way for this to end well.
I had four kamikaze’s, then had the brilliant idea to switch to white Russians to “coat my stomach”. Had four of those as well.
Not recommended. Ever.
JK
@AhabTRuler:
I can’t say enough great things about John Goodman’s performance on Roseanne. Dan Conner is one of the all-time great characters in TV sitcom history.
General Winfield Stuck
All I did in High was get drunk and thrown in jail, several times. got kicked off, (suspended from all three HS sports) Everyone got along Ok, and the only time we fought was when we were shitfaced, and nobody could ever remember what for.
When I was sixteen, and had just gotten my driver license, me an a buddy got caught buying beer at the local bootlegger (dry southern county). Six months later, I had to testify in court against the bootlegger. but pointed out the wrong dude in court. I thought they would send me to the Big House for that one, but they didn’t.
Steeplejack
Three Amigos is all kinds of stupid funny. Definitely a guilty pleasure.
For more bracing fare, other excellent movies on
latertonight:1. Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) just started on Sundance. King Lear in feudal Japan. Visually stunning.
2. Lady Vengeance (2005) is on Sundance after that, 12:45 a.m. EDT. Weird Korean thriller.
3. Fires on the Plain (1959), 2:00 a.m. EDT on Turner Classic Movies. Definitely not the feel-good movie of the year. Japanese soldiers in extremis at the end of World War II.
I’m gonna have to work some DVR magic to get all these.
passerby
@AhabTRuler:
Okay. Now I’ll have to rent Barton Fink.
My opinion of Goodman was based on his talk show appearances and his starring in Roseanne. Since I didn’t care to watch Roseanne, and have been avoiding his movies, maybe I’ll see him in a different light.
Because even though I loved Jeff Bridges as Dude, TBL would not have worked without JG’s brilliant performance.
Also, I tend to shy away from Coen Bros. movies without a good recommendation. I could not sit through the end of The Hudsucker Proxy and I HATED Oh Brother Where Art Thou but I loved The Big Lebowski and Burn After Reading. Raising AZ was ok.
passerby
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, stupid fits here. It’s kind of a stoner movie. I have to be in the mood to watch 3 Amigos.
I caught Ran when it first came out and the only thing I remember from it is the decapitation scene. Life was something of a blur for me back in ’85.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Be careful what you ask for.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Goodman was also superb in the Coens’ Raising Arizona.
passerby
@John Cole:
I think one of the reasons I HATED O Brother Where Art Thou can be summed up in two words: George Clooney. I don’t remember Goodman in that movie. He was in That?
Steeplejack
@passerby:
You need to watch No Country for Old Men. The dark side of the Coens, but awesome all the way through. Great acting all around, stunning cinematography, excellent script–although there are some verbal flourishes in the dialogue that are a bit, er, ornate. But that’s just a quibble.
burnspbesq
The Coen brothers are going to heaven for Miller’s Crossing. Everything else is just embellishment.
Steeplejack
@passerby:
Yeah, Goodman played the “cyclops” character with an eye patch who clubbed Clooney and his friend and stole their car.
passerby
@Steeplejack:
Thanks, will give it a go, I don’t mind dark and I’m curious to see what those verbal flourishes are like.
burnspbesq
The day that Ran comes out on blu-ray I will be standing outside my local B&N when it opens. If I’ve seen another movie that was as visually awesome as that one, I don’t remember it.
Steeplejack
@passerby:
Well, there are a couple of places where Tommy Lee Jones’s character goes a little heavy on the “Zen cowboy philosophy” angle. But it’s a very minor thing. The movie is excellent. Very haunting. It was on some cable channel a few days ago, I noticed it as I was channel-hopping and ended up watching the whole damn thing again.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
But … but … where are the 87 acoustic 12-strings? And the string section of the LA Philharmonic?
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
I haven’t seen it in a long time–maybe since it first came out–but Kagemusha probably gives Ran a run for the money. And also Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. I’ve been lusting over the spruced-up Criterion edition of that.
And that’s just “Asian” movies I’m thinking of. But, really, Ran is in a class by itself.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Jeez, some people are never happy.
BTW, I have always loved that song, sappy as it is. Really takes me back to a particular moment in time.
JK
@Steeplejack:
Damn. All those films sound great. Unfortunately, I have basic cable not premium. I wonder how long it will be before the cable industry creates a 3rd tier of programming and moves some basic channels into that tier.
Haven’t seen many Coen brothers films but I liked The Man Who Wasn’t There.
John Goodman is one of the few actors I can think of who can move seamlessly from comedy to drama. He’s currently appearing on Broadway in a revival of Waiting For Godot.
Seeing these film posts makes me wish John would start a top 10 favorite films list.
KRK
@Steeplejack:
My guess is “weird” would be an understatement. The writer-director’s earlier film Oldboy was beyond disturbing with character motivations that MADE NO SENSE.
Hammy
John Goodman was great in Barton Fink.
burnspbesq
@JK:
Now you’ve done it.
In no particular order:
Citizen Kane
The Godfather
Belle de Jour
The Conversation
Run Silent, Run Deep
On the Waterfront
Much Ado About Nothing (the Branagh/Thompson version)
Dangerous Liaisons
Ran
Miller’s Crossing
passerby
@burnspbesq:
Miller’s Crossing. Check.
Looks like I’ll be having a Coen Bros festival this week.
(But, I still HATE O Brother Where Art Thou.)
Edit to add: Another rec from Hammy for Barton Fink, think I’ll get that one first.
Steeplejack
@JK:
Most providers that I have experience with (currently Cox Cable) have several different tiers, or “packages,” now. So you can get, e.g., Sundance, IFC (Independent Film Channel), Turner Classics and some other good movie channels without going all the way to HBO, Showtime, etc. You should check your provider and see what’s up.
And, if you don’t have one, I strongly recommend a cable box with a built-in DVR. It will totally change your viewing habits (for the better). I think mine is $10 extra a month. But well worth it, as it allows me to record movies in the middle of the night (like tonight) and watch them at a more convenient time later.
Steeplejack
@KRK:
I was at a loss for a one- or two-sentence description and didn’t want to descend into a long-winded explanation.
I haven’t seen Oldboy, but, based on Lady Vengeance, I take your point.
JK
@burnspbesq:
Love your list. Especially happy to see The Conversation and Belle De Jour which I consider criminally underrated and underappreciated.
This is one of the lists most near and dear to my heart (the others being rock songs, rock albums, tv dramas, and tv sitcoms)
My 10 favorite films in semi-descending order
1. The Godfather Part II
2. The Godfather
3. Citizen Kane
4. Lawrence of Arabia
** 6 remaining films in random order – too difficult to rank them
Mean Streets
Goodfellas
The Graduate
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Annie Hall
Manhattan
Flocking101
Thanks for the clip, John. Brought back fond memories of seeing Three Amigos with my sister when we were teens and laughing til we cried at the scene with the Singing Bush (“She’ll be riiiiding six white horses when she comes..”) and summoning the Invisible Swordsman.
I have to admit I only really like John Goodman in Coen Bros films. He can be surprisingly scary.
Dennis-SGMM
@passerby:
Just bought a brace of Coen Brothers movies on DVD at Costco for a whole nineteen bucks. The “Coen Brothers Movie Collection” included letterbox versions of “Fargo,” Raising Arizona,” “Miller’s Crossing,” “Blood Simple,” and “Barton Fink.”
The scene in “Barton Fink” with John Goodman in the burning hallway is one of my all-time faves.
“I’ll show you the life of the mind!”
General Winfield Stuck
Top ten off top head
Doctor Zhivago
Untouchables
Apocalypse Now
Godfather 1 and 2
Titanic
Aliens
The Graduate
Hombre
Glory
Tell No One
To Kill a Mockingird
In the heat of the Night
that’s 13, but who’s counting.
gbear
I love the Coen’s first film, Blood Simple, a murder anti-mystery (the audience is aware of everything going on but none of the characters knows what each other are doing). Very slow moving but incredibly tense for that reason. Great soundtrack also.
Unfortunately, the Coen’s edited the film later to create a director’s version that replaced the original. I like the original a lot better, but the only way I can see it is to bring out the VHS recording I made when the original version was on cable.
Et Tu Brutus?
Having known some Thai women, all I can say is you dudes should be so lucky
Steeplejack
@passerby:
No Country for Old Men will be on again at 8:00 p.m. EDT Tuesday on Encore Mystery, if you get that cable channel.
passerby
@Steeplejack:
No cable and I just last week got unlazy enough to set up my digital box and antenna…football preseason coming up first week of August.
I rely on Netflix. I’m ruined. Now, if I’m watching anything on TV, I keep finding my self reaching for the remote so I can pause, ff or rewind. I imagine its the same w/ TiVo.
@Dennis-SGMM:
Good god, Fargo, I haven’t see Fargo yet and I’ve been meaning to get it into my netflix cue. Fargo, check.
Actually I stopped the clip halfway through cuz I didn’t want to know what happened in the hall since I’m going to rent it. Just in case of spoilers and all.
Anne Laurie
Well, she said mildly, it does help explain what you were doing in the military, Mr. Cole.
Speaking of cheap nostalgia, the Spousal Unit’s (Papillon!)dog’s registered name is ‘Elusive Firefly’ because her parents were ‘Rockin Robbin’ and ‘Glitter’. Since it’s impossible to yell ‘FIREFLY! ! !” from the porch in one’s unmentionables, that morphed to Flicker-Bug… Flicker when she’s respectable, Bug when she’s not… although 13 years of increasing age & assitude have earned her the title Buta-Hima-Sama (Most Honorable Princess Pig).
Cain
@John Cole:
But satisfying I’m thinking.. the jackass. If I picked on someone (didn’t happen, I was only 4’11” in high school.. I ahd no leverage) and someone knocked my front teeth out, I’d probably not start shit with that person again.
cain
Cain
@John Cole:
I’m beginning to think that our youth is no where near as bad as we were as youths. I’ve listened to the kind of things people did when they were kids (making bombs and the like) and we’d probably be doing time thanks to “Homeland Security” jeezus. I wish it was the 70s again (with some modifications) Too many damn laws..
cain
Cain
@RedKitten:
I’m really resisting the urge to comment on the debate thing :-).
I seem to remember schools listening to a lot of child psychotrists (er you know what I mean) Kids who have such a strong individual streak need to be rooted out in their mentality and instead counseled to be that way way.. to be “good citizens”. But generally these people who fly by the seat of their pants are the future successful businessmen of tomorrow since they aren’t afraid to take chances or risks.
Hopefully I’m writing this properly, I’m sort of not caring about how I’m writing my sentences this evening.
cain
Steeplejack
@passerby:
Yeah, that’s the addictive beauty of a DVR. You can pause, rewind and even fast-forward (in the buffer) live TV. Joy!
The DVR keeps a buffer of up to 60 minutes (on the current channel), so if you want to go back and see a scene again you can. Or–more common for me–I can tune in to a show, hit pause, go do something else for 15 minutes or so and then come back to the show and be able to watch it straight through and skip all the commercials.
Also great to be able to pause for interruptions–phone calls, bathroom breaks, grab a snack, refill a drink, etc.
I was going to add that you should also see Fargo, but someone else beat me to it.
Svensker
@Dave C:
Do you know what a plethora is?
RememberNovember
I have a plethora of piñatas…
katiemc
@General Winfield Stuck: Dr. Zhivago.. yep.. my favorite movie of all time!
Jen from Christian Filipina
I want to thank John for the chance to bid on the advertisements through project wonderful. At Christian Filipina we are a place where Christians meet friends, but we’re not a marriage broker (just to clarify one comment above). One gentlemen said he thought it’s a disconnect to have our ad on the site. All I can say is that we have members from Balloon Juice. We wouldn’t be placing the ads if we didn’t feel that we had something to share with the other readers here that was appreciated.