I enjoyed watching that Facebook movie, because there’s something intoxicating about watching people get rich by doing something that looks like fun. Everyone likes the idea, I think, that if you rock out hard enough you’ll make it big. In this case rocking out meant writing programs all day in Palo Alto with Justin Timberlake, but there’s other movies where the same thing happens with playing the guitar or making art or playing a sport.
I think this is the principle that the Tea Party operates on. You put on period costumes or make “Back In The Saddle” videos or get liquored up and write incoherent tweets or shut down the government for no reason, and you can be a big star, get a gig at Fox or at least a wingnut welfare sinecure at Heritage (all of these things are of course easier and more destructive than whatever it is that the Facebook guy did, obviously, but they made it look easy in the movie).
It does look like fun to me, a lot of fun!
Being a Villager also looks like fun. Go on Morning Joe and blab about how serious Paul Ryan is for a few hours, then hit the Charlie Palmer steakhouse. You get paid a lot of money, people treat you like a big shot, and it’s not very taxing. Who wouldn’t want to have a job like that?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Someone who doesn’t want Satan to snatch his soul out through his asshole when he dies.
Also:
You’re welcome.
kdaug
Vapidity! It’s the American way!
Comrade DougJ
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Thanks.
eemom
ok, this IS a “Wild Horses” ref, is it not?
I’m beginning to lose confidence after nobody got my “they’re just like streetcars” catch earlier. : (
Chris
You are so right, Doug.
maye
Those facebook kids had computer smarts. The political blowhards got nothin.’
Comrade DougJ
@eemom:
Well, that title was a reference to that Fleetwood Mac song, I think it’s called “Dreams”.
This is indeed “Wild Horses”.
MikeJ
@eemom: Yeah, I really like the Sundays. I think some other band did it too.
Comrade DougJ
@Comrade DougJ:
Also, botched the title, it should have been “childhood living”. I fixed it.
eemom
@Comrade DougJ:
The “streetcars” line is a little known extended lyric of “Miss You,” which I always got a kick out of:
Yeah, we gonna do up this town
We gonna mess and fool around
Hey Man! What’s with you?
Yeah, you been strung out for too long
You know girls will come and go
They’re just like streetcars!
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=584
Chris
Speaking of the teabaggers, did anyone else see that maniacally grinning, interrupto-bot “Dana” on Anderson Cooper a few minutes ago?
She seemed to take the philosophy Doug describes here to heart, with special emphasis on violent non sequiturs followed by deranged laughter when others refuted her “points.”
EvenTheSerious David Gergen actually shook his head and put his hands up to his face with shock as she continued a word salad that will no doubt earn her an appearance or two on Fox & Friends.
Comrade DougJ
@eemom:
I like it!
Suffern ACE
Yes, but living like adult children can be pricey. Apparently picking up a whimsical statue of a teddy bear could set you back $10 million. Sometimes effort these guys go through to maintain the illusion of child-like innocence can be expensive.
http://gothamist.com/2011/04/05/giant_stuffed_teddy_bear_coming_to.php
lllphd
heh – money for nothin’ and yer chicks for free.
James Hare
Meh.
Zuckerberg made a less-busy myspace at the right time. There wasn’t any real technical ability involved. It wasn’t really all that special an idea. He just got lucky.
sukabi
Go on Morning Joe and blab about how serious Paul Ryan is for a few hours, then hit the Charlie Palmer steakhouse. You get paid a lot of money, people treat you like a big shot, and it’s not very taxing. Who wouldn’t want to have a job like that?
yeah, what’s not to like about being a whore? you become the “go to guy” for every nasty tool that needs blowing…
Little Boots
so prosser and this lying bitch from Waukesha have decided to steal this thing. incredible.
jeffreyw
“Childhood living is easy to do”. Yeah, till the cheese balls run out.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
um, not that i consider myself an expert on boomer music or anything, but how could the kinks not get more love. every line of this song could receive doug j titular recognition,
but back to the lecture at hand(so to speak)
‘Cause he gets up in the morning,
And he goes to work at nine,
And he comes back home at five-thirty,
Gets the same train every time.
‘Cause his world is built ’round punctuality,
It never fails.
And he’s oh, so good,
And he’s oh, so fine,
And he’s oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He’s a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.
And his mother goes to meetings,
While his father pulls the maid,
And she stirs the tea with councilors,
While discussing foreign trade,
And she passes looks, as well as bills
At every suave young man
‘Cause he’s oh, so good,
And he’s oh, so fine,
And he’s oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He’s a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.
And he likes his own backyard,
And he likes his fags the best,
‘Cause he’s better than the rest,
And his own sweat smells the best,
And he hopes to grab his father’s loot,
When Pater passes on.
‘Cause he’s oh, so good,
And he’s oh, so fine,
And he’s oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He’s a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.
And he plays at stocks and shares,
And he goes to the Regatta,
And he adores the girl next door,
‘Cause he’s dying to get at her,
But his mother knows the best about
The matrimonial stakes.
‘Cause he’s oh, so good,
And he’s oh, so fine,
And he’s oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
He’s a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.
Svensker
@lllphd:
That song is banned in Canada! For it’s anti-gay slurs. Silly Canuckers.
Roger Moore
I think there’s also a strong desire for simple solutions to difficult problems. That’s why so many of the solutions are basically slogans without any detailed policy behind them. People really want to believe that the solution to all their problems can be fit into a single tweet. We just need to adopt commonsense conservative ideas, go back to traditional values, tell warring factions to cut the bullshit, and have Obama use the bully pulpit and everything will be better.
hilts
OT
For anyone living in the New York City area –
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s 25th Anniversary Benefit
April 28, 2011
7:00pm
New York City
Join renowned activist and scholar Noam Chomsky, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore for a special evening to support FAIR.
h/t http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=167
Little Boots
do we care about fraud? I wonder. they sure as hell care about fraud when they lose. do we?
eemom
@jeffreyw:
Mr Chef sir! I hope you’re still around, because I have a very important question I’ve been wanting to ask:
When you are simmering something for a fairly long time at low heat, like a soup or stew, is it better to have it covered? or uncovered??
eemom
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
My girlfriend’s run off in her car
run back to her ma and pa
telling tales of drunkeness and cruelty
But I’m sitting here
Sipping at my ice cool beer
lazing on a sunny afternoon….
jeffreyw
@eemom: Covered it will cook quicker with less heat input, but it will take longer to reduce the liquids. I generally simmer things uncovered and then cover them to retain heat when I judge them done enough/thick enough.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Amen. Plus I like to be able to sleep.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: I love The Kinks.
eemom
@jeffreyw:
thank you. So there is not a preference in terms of producing a better taste?
SFAW
eemom –
It’s out of season, but “Father Christmas” is tough to beat.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@eemom: Haven’t we come a long way
From newly-weds in our bed-sitter flat?
We skimped and scraped every penny
For a down payment on our semi-detached.
New towns for all the young hopefuls,
A garden suburb with mortgage attached,
Oh, look at us now, sale all agreed, now it’s time to exchange the contracts
With the people who sold us a million-pound semi.
Straight out of national service,
Demob suits and short back and sides,
And saw the bomb sites turned air-raid shelters,
Where their families lived all of their lives.
Then the nation built them a utopia,
With pebbledash on the outside, oh,
Look at them now, they’ve come a long way, they are affluent and bursting with pride.
Soon we’ll be sitting inside that million-pound semi-detached,
Detached, in our million-pound semi-detached.
Looking back at the past of this million-pound semi.
Two up two down, a back garden, that was the dream,
Two kids, a cat and a dog, that was the scheme.
Then the kids both grew up and got married and moved out of home,
Then we were strangers again, together alone.
Look at us now, what are we like,
Sitting alone in our million-pound semi-detached?
They’re all taking early retirement, the sum total of all of their lives.
Now the country is fat with inflation, immigration has helped us survive.
Once an Englishman’s home was his castle,
Now it’s a freehold investment to buy, oh,
Look at us now, our debts are all paid, and the Empire has really struck back.
We’re the proud owners of a one-million-pound semi-detached,
So detached in our million-pound semi-detached.
A new generation is buying and starting anew,
And learning by all their mistakes the way people do.
Like all the young hopefuls we’re buying the future from you,
We hope that one day we’ll understand what you’ve both been through.
Look at us now, what are we like,
Sitting alone, in our million-pound semi-detached?
Look at us now, what are we like,
Sitting alone, in our million-pound semi-detached?
Seth Finkelstein
I know a couple of people trying for a niche version of that sort of job (I don’t want to give too many details). It’s harder than it looks. On TV, you only see the ones who succeed, not all those who tried and failed. The problem is that there’s a lot of competition among candidates. Plus you have to be relatively proficient at navigating the factional in-fighting. And the lower ranks don’t pay well at all.
Not that it compares to dig-ditching, etc. But there’s real political skill involved in being a top-ranked flack.
Butler
@James Hare:
“If you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook”
Seriously though, I don’t see how anything you say negates the facts in the post. Zuckerberg did something he liked doing and made a gazillion dollars doing it, with the added benefit of actually making something that adds value to the economy, as opposed to all the financial wizards on Wall Street who “made” gazillions of dollars which ultimately hurt so many. Good for Zuckerberg.
Petorado
What I’m getting out of DougJ’s post is something I’m finding increasingly true: the American dream used to be work hard, be frugal and you can profit from your own hard work. Now, it’s about getting an unlikely lucky break, making a killing, and laughing at all the chumps you left behind in the old neighborhood. I think Steve Martin’s movie “The Jerk” is a template for this.
A rising tide doesn’t lift all boats anymore, it’s the rich guys bribing the minders to get on the lifeboats before the Titanic goes under the waves.
Bill H.
I only had two small problems with what I found to be a fun and entertaining movie. One was that too much of the dialog was unintellibible as it was done in the form of being screamed at each other and drowned out by what was supposed to be a background of rock music but was actually a deafening foreground that turned it into a freaking mime show. The other thing was that what was scribbled on the window and was purportedly computer code was actually mathmetical formulas and would be completely useless in creating any kind of computer program or database.
Rita R.
I’ve come to despise every Morning Joe regular with a burning passion — although perhaps burning pity is more appropriate for the hapless Mika — while I have a special pit of hatred for pretty boy Harold Ford Jr. Does this jackwad even have a job? These millionaire idiots just spew the same nonsense every day about how Americans who are just getting by have to be part of “shared sacrifice,” while they wouldn’t even deign to sacrifice their “brewed by” Starbucks or their limo rides to NBC’s studios every day. When they start laughing and giggling about some Beltway BS during the Politico segments, I seriously want to shoot out the TV screen. If I wasn’t a gun-hating New York liberal, that is. In fact, it all actually makes Pat Buchanan’s daily minutes of hate kind of refreshing.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Rita R.:
i stopped watching it, at all some time ago. there was an almost overnight change in tone to the program in 2008, when obama won the election, its like the entire production had an oh shit, right on the air.
jdnyc711
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEea624OBzM
Church Lady
@Roger Moore:
Difficult Problem: Runaway costs of Entitlements
Simple Solution: Tax the Rich!
Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?
John Dillinger
And then, because you having a fun job means long hours, with late nights “working” at Charlie Palmer’s and other restaurants, you can say that even though you work such hours, you don’t see the problem in pushing off the retirement age for Social Security to 75 or 80. Look at Broder, he kept on villaging it until near the very end.
Paul in KY
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Great Kinks song! Have it on my iPod.
Nylund
I think part of the Tea Party problem is seeing how easily the likes of Paris Hilton, Snookie, and Bristol Palin can make money hand over fist at very young ages without any discernible talent. If they can do it, then “real Murkins” should also be able to, and the fact that they’re not is evidence that some evil nefarious force is stopping them. They’ve decided its brown people and liberals.
Judas Escargot
@Bill H.:
The other thing was that what was scribbled on the window and was purportedly computer code was actually mathmetical formulas and would be completely useless in creating any kind of computer program or database.
(Looks over at his whiteboard. Laughs).
Herbal Infusion Bagger
” It wasn’t really all that special an idea. He just got lucky.”
I think Facebook is the Work of Satan, but he figured something out that evaded Friendster, Myspace, and Yahoo, who given their position in free email, group listservs and ownership of Flickr, really f*cked up a golden chance with social media (anybody remember yahoo photos, yahoo groups and yahoo profiles?)