Woke up early this morning, made some coffee, and said to myself “Let’s go see what awful things have happened while I slept.” Then decided against it.
Which is why I haven’t posted anything today.
BTW- For those of you who have proven incapable of understanding Louis Ck’s “White People Problems” and insist on claiming it is something racial (it isn’t, it’s about wealth, class, and the overwhelming privilege of most residents of the western world), basically what he is talking about is anything I have complained about here on the blog. “OMG- I’m sitting here in my heated home, well fed, well taken care of, with everything in the world going for me, but DAMNIT WHY IS MY INTERNET SO SLOW!” Or- “Picking out the right coffee grinder is a problem and this amazon website is not giving me enough information.” Or “I’m having a really awful time trying to figure out where to go on vacation.” Or, for example, this post.
Those are “white people problems.”
And Louis CK is, in my opinion, a genius and as close to the George Carlin of my generation as it comes.
MobiusKlein
Sun rose.
Bears used the woods as their private lavatory.
Pope still not Jewish.
schrodinger's cat
John Cole@ top
We need new Tunch photos to tide us over these difficult times.
Kthx bai
Blackfrancis
That sounds like an excellent plan. I wish I weren’t such a masochist and could do it as well.
Mark S.
Why does mistermix hate white people?
gnomedad
Louis CK’s defining example for those who didn’t click:
I want my country back! My grandfather never demanded Polish on his ATM!
Mark S.
Also, why does DougJarvus Green-Ellis hate our ombudsmen?
Suffern ACE
I to enjoy picking and choosing the moments when I can get pissed off about the world and how annoying gross injustice can be.
cervantes
Music and other song lyrics here.
The Suburban Crab Grass
Tragedy Blues
{INTRO}
[1’st Verse]
My mistress, she done left me.
Hopped on that Shaker Rapid train.
My mistress she done left me
And my life is filled with pain.
Took the quarter-mil in T-bills
I had sheltered in her name.
[2’nd Verse]
My daughter don’t respect me.
Her momma raised her oh so cruel.
My daughter don’t think ’bout me,
And she made me out a fool.
She went and pierced her navel.
It’s the talk of the country club pool.
[3’nd Verse]
You know, I’m workin’ for The Man,
Treated like I am a slave.
Break my back sellin’ stock tips.
I make 12 phone calls each day.
This 20 hour work week
Gonna put me in my grave.
You know nothin’ ever goes right,
And it can bring you to your knees.
Misfortune seems to chase me,
I pray, “Dear God, won’t you help me please!”
’Cause Thursday morning on the golf course,
All I had left was PINK golf tees!
[Final Verse]
My life is so damn tragic,
Sometimes I think I can’t go on.
This life is a disaster,
Don’t think I’ll face another dawn.
And now Jose, my trusted gardener,
Says I have crabgrass in my lawn!
SiubhanDuinne
Second schroedinger’s cat’s request for Tunch pictures. I’m snowed in here in Atlanta and could use the diversion.
After our boss sent a message to everyone today telling us again not to try to come to the office, I got an email from a colleague, the guy I carpool with. He said, “My wife’s been asking me how to google The Donner Party. Should I be scared?” LOL.
David Marotta
Louis C.K. IS brilliant. And, btw, hilarious!
D-Chance.
Louis CK is, in my opinion, a genius and as close to the George Carlin of my generation as it comes.
IOW, he’s a “populist” who’s raking in millions by taking advantage of the very system he decries…
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Thank goodness for video games and comic books (and video games based on comic books). Last week I played Hulk (2003) and this week it’s Wolverine. Smashing, slicing and dicing in PC-land is far more pleasurable than reality.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark S.: Hatred and contempt are different things.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark S.: Hatred and contempt are different things.
gnomedad
Sorry, I just can’t give Sully up:
The “Politicized Mind” Of Gabrielle Giffords
gnomedad
@D-Chance.:
Weak sauce. Thanks for playing, though.
Joseph Nobles
@D-Chance.: Like John said, the Carlin of our generation.
ruemara
You shouldn’t be so unfair to white people. When my sole car was looking like it was on its last legs and my less than adequate pay could not cover a repair, much less a replacement, my wag of a superior regaled me with stories of her unreliable car. Of course, it’s unreliable because the mirror is loose and it’s a bit messy but it’s totally the same! And she makes 600x my salary but it’s so the same! I love that.
and it’s rightly first world problems, but whatevs.
Trinity
@schrodinger’s cat: This!
Kevin K.
I like Louis CK a lot but he doesn’t cover political turf enough to be paired up with Carlin. My pick would be David Cross. His It’s Not Funny is an underrated stand-up masterpiece and he knocks the shit out of every political topic he touches on it. Seriously, grab a copy of it if you haven’t already.
Bubblegum Tate
There’s a fantastic word in Icelandic that I’m not even going to try to approximate here (I’ll ask my Icelandic friend how to spell it), but its basic translation is “luxury problems.” In other words, the sorts of problems that aren’t really problems, just things people complain about. That’s what Louis CK is getting at.
Nellcote
We need more Tunch pix to balance the damn gun ads infesting this site lately.
RSR
otherwise known as first world problems by some
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@D-Chance.: I bet he pays his taxes.
Bnut
@Kevin K.: Bill Hicks would have owned any and all other comics if he were still alive.
harlana
But, but, some people of color complain about selecting coffee grinders, too!!
harlana
Oh, and by the way, after two years of unemployment, those “white people problems” have not surfaced in some time and I developed an unhealthy resentment towards those who opine about such trivial matters.
As such, I appreciate the author’s intent and know in my heart that consideration of such “problems” for many others will begin the dissolve in the wake of rapidly approaching national deprivation and desperation.
geemoney
To be more in line with the tone of this place, I propose that the rotating tag line be changed to, “A snarking mass of vitriolic jackals.”
Kevin K.
Dude, c’mon. That’s crazy. Yakov Smirnoff would eat the reanimated corpse of Bill Hicks for lunch.
Svensker
Did y’all see how Peter King (R-ny) wants to have GUN CONTROL! ? ! Isn’t that odd? Now, we won’t have to worry about concealed carry in malls or restaurants or our children’s classrooms, yay! Oh, wait. What’s that you say? Oh, it will be illegal to carry a gun around a government worker. So we can still take our guns to the mall except when a congressional staffer’s going to be there.
Gun control for thee, but not for me. Asshole.
TR
@Kevin K.:
David Cross is great, but Patton Oswalt’s stuff on Bush on Feelin’ Kinda Patton was epic.
Also, the portrayal of America as a retarded trust-fund baby was sadly accurate.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Kevin K.:
In Soviet Union lunch eats you.
Linda Featheringill
Nice post, John.
Yes, I’ve seen some times when my very basic needs were not being met but those times are not here today.
And, yeah, why is my internet so slow? :-)
Rosalita
Add me in on the requests for Tunch pics, and Lily please. It’s been a while and they give us some well needed Zen.
Ross Hershberger
JC reminds me of the movie The Italian Job (the remake) where Edward Norton is a rich bad guy. In one scene his cable goes out and his petty tantrum of outraged entitlement is pitch perfect. One of those artistic moments that perfectly highlights a behavioral pattern we see all the time and don’t notice.
Lihtox
“White person problem” is okay in a comedy routine, maybe, but if it becomes mainstream then it reinforces the idea that white people are all well-off and non-white people are not. The bedrock of prejudice is made up of little things like this.
I’ve heard “first-world problem” as a substitute, though maybe that’s just as bad, I dunno.
Nutella
‘White people problems’ are sometimes known as ‘sorry ass tiny little first world problems’.
Alwhite
@Kevin K.:
Yup, Mr. Cross is totally under appreciated. & that is a great listen.
FormerSwingVoter
John Kerry gave an amazing speech today.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/01/if_you_read_only_one_john_kerr.html#more
WyldPirate
@ruemara:
Which is what my point was in mistermix’s thread–that and the double standard that goes with what is considered humorous about race (or in turn interpreted as racist) and what isn’t taken that way on this board and in society.
A good example is “Black Jimmy Carter” used as a tag and my previous use of “Black Jesus” (which I quit using because some were offended by it, not that I meant to offend). One of these terms is meant to mock Obama as being a failure as a Democratic president. My use was meant to mock the fact that some of Obama’s supporters see him as infallible just as some religious people see Jesus as infallible.
I agreed with the premise of mistermix’s original post. I got the fact that his post was about class, not race in the first post. My original beef was with the fact that I dislike the double standard and I thought it detracted from the post.
ruemara
@harlana:
I was listening to Randi Rhodes (shut up, I love her) and a female caller opined that white people were entering black reality now, thanks to 2yrs and counting unemployment. Most of the anger-her opinion again-was that this sort of thing just wasn’t the norm, but it has been inn the black community for some time. Shorter on this was, welcome to being black.
Alwhite
@Bnut:
I can’t forgive Hicks for the hit job he did on Clinton over Waco. He bought the bullshit Robertson & company were selling about flame-shooting tanks etc. Even in the pre-Internet days it was not hard to expose that fraud but he didn’t, instead he used it to fuel paranoia and fear.
MattMinus
Louis CK is waaaaaaaaaaay funnier than Carlin.
@Bnut:
Wouldn’t Hicks have needed to have said something funny to own all other comics?
He was like a sanctimonious Sam Kinison.
MobiusKlein
@WyldPirate: Having to put up with WyldPirate is the quintessential ‘white person problem’.
Can I point out the Mad TV routine ‘Pretty White Kids with Problems’
Alwhite
@WyldPirate:
Please go back & read your original comment. If your goal was as you stated in this thread that other one was a swing and a miss & the flailing afterward was sorta sad.
Ross Hershberger
Early Carlin or late Carlin? In the ’70s he made people laugh, then think. By the 90s he wanted people to get mad, think, then laugh at the irony.
iriedc
Apologies if this point has been made in other threads, but I’ve heard black folks use the phrase “White people problems” in the same vein as Louis CK since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Broke people want “white people problems,” believe me.
Which is to say Louis CK was not the originator of the phrase or it’s meaning. But he is a very funny man, nonetheless.
El Tiburon
As are small penises and an inability to dunk.
Is that racial?
Safe to say that certain people of color can fall into the “white people problems” milieu as well. In other words, it just ain’t about white folk, but about those certain, privileged elites.
The corollary to that is the “I don’t want my standard of living to decrease” argument. This is a conservative’s polite way of saying “I ain’t giving up one goddamn red-cent to help the poor” so fuck off.
This is how they can justify invading and raping foreign countries for cheap gas and blue jeans.
different church-lady
I get it: like, having to lay off the “LEGAL” gardener and maid if my taxes go up by a percent or two, right?
Amanda in the South Bay
Its like Stuff White People Like, except its more like Stuff White People Bitch About. Even further its like Stuff Affluent Privileged People Bitch About That’s Really Trivial and They Should STFU About.
Shinobi
I think “First world problem” is probably the better phrase, because there are non white people who live in the privileged first world. (And it’s pretty rude to just whitewash all those people because of where they live when they get crap all the time for being a shade of non-white.)
ruemara
@iriedc: I could use some white people problems, but since I know a lot of white people and have seen more of them with problems that I do not have-I’ve seen intervention-I’d love to have some rich people problems.
The house next door is too close, buy it and tear it down! BCBG is so last year, we’re all at Armani Boutique!
It’s been far too easy to conflate “white” with rich, which just helps the rich keep us from uniting and keeping them in check.
New Yorker
So we have another big winter storm on its way to New York.
I have to say, I’ve liked this winter so far. I like my winters cold and snowy, and we’ve had that. None of the crappy 40 degrees and rainy stuff you often get in New York in the winter.
harlana
@ruemara: But I love Randi, I just don’t get to hear her anymore
Elizabelle
@gnomedad:
Brooks’ column today is appalling.
Sully has thought this through more carefully than Brooks.
I will ALWAYS trust Andrew Sullivan more than Bobo, because he’s more likely to come to the proper — if painful — conclusion than Brooks ever is.
Brooks has some psychological quirk where he just won’t allow himself to “go there”, when you can see his descriptive writing and logic are driving him to a conclusion that does not dovetail with Republican ideology. He’s almost there and then skitters away.
I am not so sure Brooks is a hack as that he’s willfully obtuse.
But maybe he is a hack.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
This is actually a white people (and Asian) problem in some parts of the world but not the U.S.
By the way, George Carlin was doing the White People Problems schtick a while ago: “White people have no business playing the blues ever, at all, under any circumstances. Ever, ever, ever. What the fuck do white people have to be blue about? ‘Banana Republic ran out of khakis’? ‘The espresso machine is jammed’? ‘Hootie and the Blowfish are breaking up?'”
WyldPirate
@Alwhite:
Since you’re so smart and seem to know so much about who I am, tell me what my goal was Alwhite.
Then tell me why I added this as the last sentence in the fourth post of that thread:
“The only color the “powers that be” that are fucking people over give a shit about is green.” if I didn’t know that the entire point of mistermix’s post wasn’t about economic class and power and the fuckwittery of many of the writers at Reason and libertarians in general.
I don’t give two shits about Louis CK or his humor. The double standard and the fact that a lot of people are suffering in this recession ticked me off. I didn’t find it to be funny in mistermix’s post, in part because I’m one of the motherfuckers without a pot to piss in (in a relative sense to be sure here in the USA) in part because of the relentless class warfare in our society. I was offended by it. Fuck you if you don’t like it, but you don’t get to determine what I am offended by,
Accuse me of being a crank and waking up on the wrong side of the bed. I’ll give you that and I’ll give you the fact that I misread things occasionally and that I hit post before I proofread and say things that are unclear at times. I do that shit all the time as do many people on this board. What I won’t take lying down is some internet smartass that doesn’t know me from Adam telling me what I meant or that I’m a racist.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@harlana:
You can listen to Randi Rhodes on KTLK-AM online at 2pm cst. Stephanie Miller is on from 8am-11am and Thom Hartmann is on from 11am-2pm. Just click Listen Live.
Elizabelle
Interesting comment by “Jim S” on David Brooks’ readers comments thread:
Kevin K.
@TR:
Thanks, I’ll have to check it out.
Bex
I’ve seen first world problems referred to as “size two jeans problems” in some contexts.
Also, there used to be a Donner Family Restaurant just off I-80 up near Truckee.
Calouste
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Well, Jeff Healy was blind, so I guess he had a reason to play the blues.
Angry Black Lady
I love Louis C.K.
That is all.
Davis X. Machina
They’re not white-people-problems. My mom was useless if taken to certain sorts of movies, especially Woody Allen movies, as she was wont to announce, loudly, to the theater “If that’s all you have to worry about, dearie, you’re ahead of the game.”
And you can’t get whiter than Southie.
Sasha
I usually refer to those things as “privilege problems”, problems that only exist for those who are sufficiently privileged to not have worry about an actual problem.
Paul in KY
@Kevin K.: In Russia, corpse eat you!
Edit: Dammit, JAF beat me to it.
Mnemosyne
@gnomedad:
@Elizabelle:
Sully also linked to the news story in today’s Times about what was going on in Giffords’ district before this happened. It’s pretty interesting, even if the writers insisted on giving the “it’s not our fault!” crowd the last word.
Origuy
I’m escaping from the 21st century with the Mediæval Bæbes.
Circle of the Lustful
Back then they had problems like plague, invasion, famine, etc.
Alwhite
@WyldPirate:
I’ll quote you directly from the earlier thread:
“Bullshit title.
There really is no need to bring race into this specific issue because you perceive that Reason and the “powers that be” don’t give a fuck about “middle class”—or as you crudely imply “white people” issues.”
HMMMMMMMMMMM – really tough to figure out what you meant by that. I am not telling you what I THINK you meant I am telling you what you said. In this thread you try to pretend you did not say what you clearly did say & can be easily verified.
You misunderstood what the post meant, I have no idea if that was intentional or accidental. When it was pointed out to you that you misunderstood it you flailed wyldly trying to defend yourself without admitting you were completely wrong. This was never about the humor it was about you not seeing the obvious (to everyone else) implications.
I never suggested you were a racist, I have no idea if you are or not. Quite frankly I find your suggestion that I did a bit troubling as it again misses the point several people made about your missing the point in the first place. I can't guess if that is a reading comprehension issue or if you hope to deflect attention from your untenable position.
Ruckus
@FormerSwingVoter:
I voted for Kerry but I did it because I felt, hell knew, that he was the lesser of 2 evils. Then I heard his concession speech. If he had talked like that for the campaign I think he would have won. Easily. He may or may not have been good presidential material but we know for sure his opponent was not.
And you’re right it is a great speech.
MTiffany
For your further enragement: How To Be A Father by Charles Mudede.
Jules
Seriously…how dense do you have to be to think “white people’s problems” is racial/racist?
Of course I think Louis CK is brilliant and I might *want to have his babies…
*I’m kind of meh on this…he’s got the ginger thing going on, but I’ve already got an overweight funny middle aged white man at home. I bet Louis makes way more money though…..
Bob In Pacifica
It does bother me when Amazon has a CD but doesn’t list the tracks on it.
Bella
I went to the Donner Party Museum up near Truckee. They have a statue that marks how deep the snow was — it was unbelievable.
Still, their salt and pepper shakers, there in a glass case with other artifacts, did seem perversely funny to me.
WyldPirate
@Alwhite:
Nice red herring, Alwhite. I’ll give it a 7.5 out of 10
Good to know you’re a dishonest piece of work. It will be useful in the future.
Bubblegum Tate
@Bubblegum Tate:
Update from my Icelandic friend: The term is “Lúxus Vandarmál”
I humbly suggest that we start using it.
fucen tarmal
imagine the shit that could have been stirred up by louis ck’s take on the difference between girls and women. seriously though, if a comedian doesn’t piss you off a little bit, at some point, they really aren’t anything more than a hack.
HyperIon
@Elizabelle:
That’s a rather low standard IMO.
sneezy
@Bnut:
“Bill Hicks would have owned any and all other comics if he were still alive.”
For years, I’ve been hearing about what a great comic Hicks was, so every now and then, I check out whatever video or audio clips I can find, and… he’s not funny. He’s not close to being funny. He’s not even close to being in the ballpark of being funny.
Just goes to show, I guess.