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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Give ’em enough thread

Give ’em enough thread

by DougJ|  November 29, 20103:08 pm| 56 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Buried amidst the minutiae of the Wikileaks dump is the shocking revelation that Jeane Kirkpatrick loved this advertisement.

Talk about anything but the TSA.

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Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    Fuck! A Duck

    November 29, 2010 at 3:13 pm

    So what, you’ve started buying your post titles from the PBS’s remainders bin?

  2. 2.

    jl

    November 29, 2010 at 3:15 pm

    I have no idea whether this is some DougJ snarkbait. I would bite but cannot think of any political outrage to attach to his dubious assertion.

    Except, would the totalitarian Obamafaschist TSA let you bring that wonderful wet but dry whatever it is alcohol glop on an a commercial airline today, in our supposedly free nation? I think not.

    That Willis real hair, back then?

    What happened to this miserable lefty sanitary landfill crisis blog? Only one post on that topic in the last few days. And I missed it. Was eating (Edit: mass quantities)

    Edit edit: Suddenly I cannot spell fascist (there it is!). Too much celebration, blood still in stomach, I guess.

  3. 3.

    Redshirt

    November 29, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    The Return of Bruno!

    Sadly, I owned the cassette tape. Inspired by this commercial, Moonlighting, and an exciting defeat of Hans Gruber, I felt compelled to buy it. I might have blocked it out, but I can only recall listening a couple of times.

    Hudson Hawk ruined my love of Bruce Willis, at least back in the day.

  4. 4.

    JGabriel

    November 29, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    5 men, a dog, no women, and a paean to wine coolers.

    Yeah, those GOP women like their men … macho.

    (Even if DougJ made up the Kirkpatrick love, you just know K. Lo would swoon over this.)

    .

  5. 5.

    General Stuck

    November 29, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    Talk about anything but the TSA.

    Since this is the only blog i read these days, the TSA is the only thing I know anything about. That and garbage collection.

  6. 6.

    Loneoak

    November 29, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    It’s wet and it’s dry!

  7. 7.

    DougJ

    November 29, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    @Redshirt:

    I didn’t watch Moonlighting much, but I really dig the theme song, even though Al Jarreau generally annoys me.

  8. 8.

    BGinCHI

    November 29, 2010 at 3:21 pm

    This would be a perfect ad if at the end a machine gun opened up on Bruce and Hall and Oates and Oates and Oates and the dog.

  9. 9.

    Redshirt

    November 29, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    @DougJ: Moonlighting was fantastic back in the day, of course until the romantic tension of “will they hook up” was finally resolved (much like every story that employs that trope). I’d be afraid to watch it these days however, for fear of ruining my fond memories.

    Anyone seen an episode of Moonlighting in the past few years? Does it hold up?

    I loved this wine cooler commercial too. I’m not ashamed to admit it kicked off a brief but very RED wine cooler phase amongst my peer group, at the time.

  10. 10.

    DougJ

    November 29, 2010 at 3:24 pm

    @General Stuck:

    What about Four Loko?

  11. 11.

    cleek

    November 29, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    @Redshirt:

    I’m not ashamed to admit it kicked off a brief but very RED wine cooler phase amongst my peer group, at the time

    mine too. but we were 16.

  12. 12.

    jibeaux

    November 29, 2010 at 3:27 pm

    Man, that TSA stuff was agga-ra-vating. This is my busy time at work, I want to take a tiny little mental break and it’s like the all TSA blog….anyhoo…

    My non-TSA contribution will be that federal employee pay freeze won’t matter to the deficit, so sure it’s just symbolic, but I also think it’s a good idea. It’s not great optics in a recession to have standard pay raises every year when no one else is getting them. I work for the state and haven’t gotten a raise in three years and there’s no end in sight. Last year we got furloughed, so it would actually be a GOOD thing if our pay got frozen. Plus the federal bennies are very good and ours get suckier and suckier. You combine that with the pay freezes and I’m getting worse off every year I stay here. Maybe it’s just jealousy, but I would happily jump ship to the feds even at the very beginning of a pay freeze.

  13. 13.

    slag

    November 29, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Talk about anything but the TSA.

    Surely at least one of Bruce Willis’ action movies has involved nefarious use of an airplane?

  14. 14.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    November 29, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    This isn’t surprising

    back in the day, in was a well known “open secret” that Jeane Kirkpatrick was an alcoholic.

  15. 15.

    General Stuck

    November 29, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    @DougJ:

    What about Four Loko?

    We may need an update on that, the major points are fading a bit. Doesn’t take that long with my middle age brane.

  16. 16.

    jeffreyw

    November 29, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    Makin a huge pot of soup with turkey and root veggies and brussels sprouts and broccoli and stuff but it just doesn’t smell right.

  17. 17.

    Punchy

    November 29, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    I wonder what Sullivan thinks of that ad….

  18. 18.

    Sentient Puddle

    November 29, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    I’m a fan of today’s shirt on Woot. Unfortunately, so too were a lot of other people.

  19. 19.

    Ash Can

    November 29, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    @jeffreyw: Brussels sprouts and broccoli never smell right when they’re cooking.

  20. 20.

    jibeaux

    November 29, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    @General Stuck:

    I wasn’t really around for any of the Four Loko discussions either, but that crap sounded insane. ER doc quoted in our paper said he had treated dozens of people for overdoing it on that crap, not one of them 21+.
    I drink very little that isn’t alcoholic or caffeinated, and I enjoy them together too, but the equivalent of four drinks and five cups of coffee in one fruity-flavored can is asking for trouble.

  21. 21.

    El Cid

    November 29, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    Turns out that the California Law Enforcement Association (union) didn’t do well by investing so much in backing the Whitman campaign.

    [O]ne of the state employee unions that the labor legend advised to oppose Gov.-elect Jerry Brown must negotiate a new contract with the incoming administration.
    __
    And the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union Novey is credited with building into a political powerhouse before he retired eight years ago, is going after its former leader over a contract dispute…
    __
    …Law enforcement groups paid him at least $560,000 in fees in the past two years to dispense political advice, state records show. None has dumped him, Novey says…
    __
    …Perhaps no union was more affected by Novey’s whiff at the plate than the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, which spent $1.6 million on independent ads supporting Whitman and opposing Brown in the final weeks of the race…
    __
    …It was a huge gamble for the CSLEA, since its 7,400 members – a broad swath of state public safety employees, ranging from game wardens to cheese inspectors – haven’t had a contract since July 2008.

    Surely no union could ever lose out by pouring a bunch of money into backing a Republican candidate.

  22. 22.

    Steve M.

    November 29, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    Patrick Bateman was also a big fan of Bruce Willis’s vocal stylings.

  23. 23.

    cynickal

    November 29, 2010 at 3:45 pm

    Sorry, can’t not talk about TSA. Flew to visit friends for the weekend and didn’t get a post-grope cuddle, didn’t get get groped at all, didn’t get cancer scanned, didn’t get probed, didn’t get mutant super-powers, didn’t even get my carry-on violated.
    Overall I’m disappointed.
    And lonely.

  24. 24.

    Poopyman

    November 29, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    Who’s the guy in the middle that looks like Sean Hannity?

    I don’t remember much about “Moonlighting”, ’cause I just watched it for Cybill Shepherd. It had a plot?

  25. 25.

    Lysana

    November 29, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    @Sentient Puddle:

    I’m a fan of today’s shirt on Woot. Unfortunately, so too were a lot of other people.

    Fortunately, Woot’s shirts go up for sale at a slightly higher price a day or two after the first run. And I love their shirts. I own several of them and would have more if not for the damned unemployment situation.

  26. 26.

    Lysana

    November 29, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    @El Cid:

    Surely no union could ever lose out by pouring a bunch of money into backing a Republican candidate.

    And surely no union would suffer under a Republican-run administration, especially these days.

  27. 27.

    bkny

    November 29, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    heh… bruce willis when he had hair and no underwear… can’t possibly imagine what jeanne kirkpatrick would see there when she was surrounded by such neocon hunks… ;-)

  28. 28.

    DJShay

    November 29, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    You have GOT to read this rant over at Daily Kos. It’s got the emo progs a wailin’

    So here’s the plan: defend the only damn horse you have in this race because you won’t get another. Attack the fucking enemy. Choose to be either a journalist who reports or an activist who comes up with policy positions, or yes, indeed, you need to STFU and take up knitting because politics is obviously too long-term, too compromised and too important for you thin-skinned, emo, “I cut myself when Obama talks to Republicans,” useless self.

  29. 29.

    geg6

    November 29, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    I am enjoying two things today.

    First, watching the pissing match going on between Sully and Jeffrey Goldberg over what Wikileaks tells us about how much everyone wants the US to attack Iran. Goldberg seems to think it vindicates his Israel knob polishing and Sully points out that Goldberg’s crowing seems to ignore that the most vociferous voices among those itching for us to attack are exactly the countries which he and Israel hate almost as much as they do Iran. Not to mention the country most responsible for 9/11 (and that would most definitely NOT be Iraq or Afghanistan). Since I tend to agree with Sully’s criticisms of Israel and its supporters, I’m cheering for Sully.

    Second, James Fallows absolutely pwns Douchehat’s latest gibberish with this masterful post: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/11/in-which-i-become-a-conservative/67146/

  30. 30.

    jeffreyw

    November 29, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    Hmm…seems a buncha thyme, sage, and marjoram have a pronounced effect on the soup’s aroma.

  31. 31.

    Randy P

    November 29, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    Re: Moonlighting. I liked it a lot back then. But how come Bruce Willis became an action hero and Cybill Shepherd disappeared? I’m always puzzled at who becomes a star and who doesn’t. I mean you look at the original cast of SNL and the breakout star is Chevy-freakin-Chase?

    Re: Anything else. Speaking of movies, I’m a little emotionally drained today. After we got rid of the relatives, we decided to go to the movies. Ended up seeing “For Colored Girls” in the last area theater still showing it, because we had both been curious about it since the original stage show. I knew that was going to be wrenching but geeze… some of those scenes still have me reeling.

    Then for “lighter” fare on Sunday we went to see the new Harry Potter. I admit I’m an HP fan, but I haven’t read the last two books. I warned my wife this was the beginning of the war, it was Part 1 of 2, and so it wasn’t going to be pretty or leave us in a good place. So that happened.

    I need some mental junk food. Based on the Leslie Nielsen thread, I may try to rent “Zero Hour” if it’s available. That sounds like a hoot for “Airplane” fans.

    P.S. I absolutely love seeing movies with black audiences (I’m non-black mongrel). We were watching Spiderman 3 when Bad Spidey knocked down Mary Jane. A voice from up front said “Oh no he didn’t!” and the whole place cracked up. The audience commentary in “Colored Girls” helped a lot in easing the tension. Some.

  32. 32.

    Randy P

    November 29, 2010 at 4:01 pm

    @Poopyman: They were a detective agency so somewhere in there were crimes and some sort of clues and solving going on. I don’t remember if either character was any good at it.

  33. 33.

    Mike Goetz

    November 29, 2010 at 4:12 pm

    You know, the thing I love most about Obama? He does not give the Kaspar Hausers of the Netroots the time of fucking day. Obama knows who his base is, and it ain’t the boors. It’s the reasonable, center-left people with mortgages, children, and workaday jobs who could seriously give half a fuck about federal pay rates, et. al.

  34. 34.

    Fuck! A Duck

    November 29, 2010 at 4:19 pm

    Mike Goetz: Oh, you mean the people who systematically pissed on the working class, but couldn’t figure out why it was raining on a clear day.

    Hoo-fucki’-ray!

  35. 35.

    Redshirt

    November 29, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    @Poopyman: The plot was always: A. Some detective type story with humor, but really, B. Would the gruff detective (Willis) get with the sophisticated business owner (Shepard)?

    The answer was, eventually, yes, and it was Sam/Diane levels letdown.

  36. 36.

    fucen tarmal

    November 29, 2010 at 4:33 pm

    if that ad wasn’t bad enough, it seems to have been the inspiration for the viva vi(phizer) ads that plagued the football season a while back….

  37. 37.

    Phyllis

    November 29, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    @jeffreyw: I’m making a pork loin wrapped in bacon.

  38. 38.

    DougJ

    November 29, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    @Redshirt:

    Yeah, I always thought the dynamic was similar to Sam/Diane.

    Would it have been possible to entice Cybil Shepherd to come on Cheers as Sam’s love interest?

    Fuck it, I’m not writing fan fiction in the comments here.

  39. 39.

    Jewish Steel

    November 29, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    I promise I will not even think of the TSA, but as I type this I am in the Minneapolis airport rt now.

    I will report that I am delighted to find sushi here, even if it is packaged.

    I will also report that I am baffled (and a little menaced?) by something that calls itself the Fox News Store.

    That is all.

  40. 40.

    Donald G

    November 29, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    @slag:

    Surely at least one of Bruce Willis’ action movies has involved nefarious use of an airplane?

    That would be Die Hard 2.

  41. 41.

    Bill Murray

    November 29, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    I would not have thought Jeane Kirkpatrick could have truly loved anything as her heart went missing after she put out the Kirkpatrick Doctrine.

    Cybil Shepherd did have her own sitcom for a few years and was on Psych for parts of a couple seasons. Looking at her work history, she still does quite a bit (5 movies and 6 television guest star appearances in the last 2 years), but just isn’t the publicity hound that Willis is.

    Moonlighting was a higher budget Remington Steele

  42. 42.

    Citizen Alan

    November 29, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    @Bill Murray:

    Moonlighting was a higher budget Remington Steele

    Oh that’s not fair. I was a fan of both until their respective shark-jumping moments, while they can both be characterized as “rom-com detective shows,” they were quite different in tone, direction and premise. In particular, Moonlighting was quite groundbreaking for its time and practically invented the idea of “breaking the fourth wall” and in injecting surrealist humor into an otherwise straightforward plot. The Taming of the Shrew episode was real quite bold and extraordinary when viewed against the backdrop of otherwise mediocre 80’s television.

  43. 43.

    TooManyJens

    November 29, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    @Redshirt:

    Moonlighting was fantastic back in the day, of course until the romantic tension of “will they hook up” was finally resolved (much like every story that employs that trope).

    Sigh. The old “Moonlighting Fallacy.” Responsible for two decades of chickenshit TV writers drawing out tedious “will they or won’t they” crap for years out of deathly terror of portraying an adult relationship. I will be so glad when the generation of TV writers who were scarred for life by “Moonlighting” die off or quit.

  44. 44.

    Citizen Alan

    November 29, 2010 at 6:11 pm

    Yeah, IMO, the real reason Moonlighting failed is that Cybil Shepherd get pregnant and the writers couldn’t figure out how to write around it except to have her suffer a miscarriage … which was represented by an incredibly weird musical number. It was like something out of Twin Peaks.

  45. 45.

    TooManyJens

    November 29, 2010 at 6:19 pm

    @Bill Murray:

    Moonlighting was a higher budget Remington Steele

    Not that this is relevant to anything, but Remington Steele actually had a really high budget for the time. When LA hosted the 1984 Summer Olympics and they couldn’t use their usual exterior locations, they filmed all over Europe instead.

  46. 46.

    Cain

    November 29, 2010 at 6:51 pm

    @Redshirt:

    @Poopyman: The plot was always: A. Some detective type story with humor, but really, B. Would the gruff detective (Willis) get with the sophisticated business owner (Shepard)?

    I suggest you start watching “Castle”. Fucking awesome.

    cain

  47. 47.

    Redshirt

    November 29, 2010 at 7:04 pm

    @TooManyJens: I would say Sam/Diane is a bigger scar on the collective psyche of TV writers than Moonlighting. It is for me! Also with a side of Scully/Mulder.

    It’s an inherent flaw, however, in that specific drama: If the foundation of your show is the tension between your two leads in NOT hooking them up, then you’ve backed yourself into a corner and can’t really win. Better just to have them hook up at the end of Season 1 and then deal with the inevitable break up issues.

  48. 48.

    TooManyJens

    November 29, 2010 at 8:08 pm

    @Redshirt: Oh god, Scully/Mulder, what a clusterfuck.

    If the foundation of your show is the tension between your two leads in NOT hooking them up, then you’ve backed yourself into a corner and can’t really win.

    True, but there’s no good reason for that to be the foundation of the show. If the characters are interesting enough that I care whether or not they get involved, they’re interesting enough to sustain other storylines — IF the writers bother writing them.

  49. 49.

    russell

    November 29, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    I gotta say I never got the Bruce Willis thing. He just seems like a guy who never mentally made it out of seventh grade.

    In real life, guys like him are generally dicks. Why does a TV show make it any different?

    For that cool TV show him-and-her unmarried partner we-ain’t-telling sex vibe, IMVHO nobody ever did it like MacNee and Rigg on the Avengers.

  50. 50.

    Bailey

    November 29, 2010 at 9:45 pm

    @Redshirt:

    Redshirt, I LOVED Moonlighting back in the day and I bought series 1-4 on DVD when it released a couple years ago. I’m happy to say that, yes, it still holds up. Such a great, innovative show.

    (Well, the first 3 seasons were golden anyway. Season 4 started the big ugly slide down and season 5 was unwatchable.)

    8th grade me loved me some Bruce Willis back in the day along with his album (yes! I bought it!) and his real hair and his funky swagger. Back then I didn’t know he was a Republican.

  51. 51.

    Bill Murray

    November 29, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    @Citizen Alan: I never got that into Moonlighting possibly because of my preternatural hatred of Bruce Willis, but I liked Remington Steele quite a lot, so in my mind I was probably being unfair to Remington Steele. I liked the film noir based plotlines and Stephanie Zimbalist.

    @TooManyJens: the budget started pretty small, but went up for seasons 2 and 3, when NBC changed the show to be more action-adventury.

  52. 52.

    frosty

    November 29, 2010 at 10:28 pm

    @Redshirt: Hmmm. Hook up and break up seems to be what happened with Leonard and Penny in Big Bang Theory. It didn’t seem to ruin the show, with either the hookup or the breakup.

  53. 53.

    Redshirt

    November 29, 2010 at 10:36 pm

    @Bailey: Good to know, Bailey. Thanks. I’ve been into a groove watching terrible 80’s stuff lately, and while Moonlighting was not terrible, it certainly is 80’s.

    The 80’s rule, by the way. Except for the Reagan parts.

  54. 54.

    russell

    November 29, 2010 at 11:02 pm

    The 80’s rule, by the way. Except for the Reagan parts.

    With respect, saying the 80’s rule, except for the Reagan parts, is like saying “Make me one with everything, but hold the hot dog”.

  55. 55.

    russell

    November 29, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    funky swagger

    Bo Diddley had funky swagger.

    Bruce Willis was a Jersey white boy.

    I am, no doubt, simply displaying my own cultural preferences, but so be it.

  56. 56.

    DougW

    November 30, 2010 at 12:37 am

    Good sized basket on Willis… 00:4-00:7, either it’s legit, or perhaps a sock… Who knew…

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