Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

The willow is too close to the house.

The new temporary speaker of the house is a spiteful little shit.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

You cannot shame the shameless.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

If you are still in the GOP, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

… gradually, and then suddenly.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

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By the incompetent at the expense of the stupid

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When I got to New York last night, Gloria’s driver, Fred, met me at the airport in the town car, handed me a martini and whisked me off to Gloria’s little apartment on the Upper East Side before I’d even managed to finish it.

Dear Gloria was very well and looking more fabulous than ever. After we had caught up, we were driven to East 86th street to see “Atlas Shrugged”. Now, it might seem odd, on my first night back in the big city, to go see a film which we all know stinks more than Rush Limbaugh’s feet after he’s eaten a cheeseburger. However, given the amount of whining Ayn subjected her friends to in life, it’s only fitting we attend to witness her final humiliation now she’s dead.

Fred went and bought the tickets for us and then took the car home. Takings were obviously pretty grim, so the movie had been shunted to the smallest cinema they had. We had to walk through the foyer, out the back, past the toilet, down an alleyway where some rats were dancing in a circle chanting “Kill the pig. Spill his blood,” in Spanish, and round two more corners, until we reached a dingy screening room somewhere in Queens that had all of six seats in it.

We sat at the back, but we were still so close to the screen that every time that bloody train went through a tunnel I felt like I was back watching a porno at one of those old cinemas on Times Square.

We were the only ones in the cinema, except for a fat young man with green sweaty skin, who was staring fervently at the screen and clutching at his bag of cheetos like they were the bones of St. Therese of Avila. When the titles began, both of us cackled and Gloria hooted like a monkey, to the young man’s evident dismay. He kept turning around to ask us to stop, his yellow-flecked lips quivering at the injustice.

Now, I have to admit that we didn’t really throw subsidized cancer medication at the screen. That would have been in the nature of a joke, Joyce. However, we had both stocked up on several pounds of peanut M&Ms and whenever Dagny’s cheap blond bob appeared on screen, we’d subject her to a fusillade of chocolate that made it sound like there was a hailstorm.

Slowly, the young man’s protests decreased and he slumped down in his seat, as it became more and more apparent that we were in the presence of true mediocrity.

Making a movie from the rancid scribblings of that vile and termagant shrew – a woman who never met a circumlocution she didn’t like and whose idea of character development was to have someone rape someone else – was never going to be a great idea.

However, to make this kind of complete stinker, it takes both true ideological single-mindedness and the kind of directorial genius that thinks that mise-en-scène is something to do with having rodents on set. Let’s just say that Paul Johansson thinks it is acceptable to put Grant Bowler on screen for 97 minutes without once making him take his shirt off, and as such is obviously truly artistically bereft.

The movie is cheap, amateurish and seems to have been stitched together from offcuts from “Weekend at Bernie’s” and the final season of “The Colbys”. The production values hit a height of crapulence that is exceeded only by the poverty of the script. No one ever shuts up. They just talk and rant and declaim, often simultaneously. This might be ok if the actors playing the “good” characters weren’t engaging in the most wooden acting since William Wyler cast Charlton Heston as a piece of petrified timber in Ben Hur, and the actors playing the “bad” characters weren’t chewing more scenery than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on crack.

Ayn Rand may have been an evil old ferret with a heart of frozen poison and the morals of a tapeworm – in person, she may have made your palms itch with the urge to strike her and keep on striking her until she fell down – but at least she wasn’t boring.

This movie, on the other hand, is the only experience I have ever had which is more tedious than actually reading Atlas Shrugged. I haven’t been that bored since Andy Warhol asked Joe Dellasandro to hock up a loogie on the ground, filmed it for three hours and then made all of us at the Factory watch it in slow motion.

I’ve been to funerals that had a better script, livelier action and a happier ending.

Finally it was too much for both of us to bear any more, so we decided to leave. The young man was snoring, so as we walked out, Gloria shook him by the shoulder. He grunted awake and staggered after us.

When we were on the footpath, I turned to him and said, “Old Ayn used to say that evil requires the sanction of the victim. And you, sir, just got screwed royally by a dead bitch and her no-talent followers.”

Then I handed him fifty bucks and told him to use it to get a haircut.

And in doing so, I managed to do more good in five minutes than Ayn Fucking Rand did in her entire miserable fucking life.

Then we went and got very very drunk.

[Cross posted at Sarah, Proud and Tall.]

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  3. 3.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Good stuff. Was that Ingatius in the theater with you? I hope his valve is okay.

  5. 5.

    Warren Terra

    Fantastic. It’s great writing indeed when the word “termagant” is properly used and it’s the least of my joys in the reading. You break character towards the latter half, perhaps – committing a profanity to the page! heavens forfend! – but it was so worth it.

  9. 9.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    Termagant?

    Mainly because of Termagant’s depiction in long gowns, and given that female roles were routinely played by male actors in Shakespearean times, English audiences got the mistaken notion that the character was female, or at least that he resembled a mannish woman.

    Ah, apt.

  10. 10.

    Mike in NC

    Sarah is brilliant.

    I managed to do more good in five minutes than Ayn Fucking Rand did in her entire miserable fucking life.

    One of the best takedowns of Ayn Rand I ever saw was in a cartoon feature that Harper’s used to (?) run. But this was well over ten years ago and I doubt if there’s any way to find it online.

  14. 14.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    You rock, madam (as the kiddos say these days, or was that last decade?), and thank you. Have a wonderful weekend.

  16. 16.

    Studly Pantload

    I lol’d till I hurled. Then I lol’d some more.

    Oh, and you were most charitable to your fellow theatre goer, which sounds suspiciously like my fraternal namesake, aka Jonah Goldberg. Likely he took your modest lucre in search of a back-pages dominatrix in the vein of the inimitable Ms. Taggart. Not that I’d blame him. Every male’s fantasies have their dark (or blonde) underbelly.

  19. 19.

    stuckinred

    I’ll never forget that mournful day
    When Uncle Pen was called away
    They hung up his fiddle, they hung up his bow
    They knew it was time for him to go.

    Late in the ev’nin’ about sundown
    High on the hill and above the town
    Well Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lordy, how it would ring
    You could hear it talk, you could [ hear it sing.

  22. 22.

    srv

    I have to stop halfway in, because my ribs hurt.

    Sarah, having a crises. I’m going to see Buddy Guy, but at the symphony hall. What the hell do I wear?

    Will you have any stories about Hendrix, or Lennon?

  25. 25.

    MikeJ

    Pity those porno theatres in Times Square are gone. The New York of that era would have kicked the shit out of Trump.

  26. 26.

    Tara the antisocial social worker

    Oh my.

    I’ve been to funerals that had a better script, livelier action and a happier ending.

    So stealing that.

  28. 28.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    @srv:

    Sarah, having a crises. I’m going to see Buddy Guy, but at the symphony hall. What the hell do I wear?

    Prada with spats.

    Will you have any stories about Hendrix, or Lennon?

    Both at the same time, if I recall correctly, dear. Lordy, lordy, what a night that was.

  30. 30.

    Jay C

    Well, whatever award you get for winning the Internets, Sarah; for this:

    We had to walk through the foyer, out the back, past the toilet, down an alleyway where some rats were dancing in a circle chanting “Kill the pig. Spill his blood,” in Spanish…

    you deserve it! With oak leaf clusters!

  31. 31.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    i thought the previewed coming attraction they ran before atlas shrewed sounded better, although with the parts 2 and 3 so much in doubt, i am not sure the franchise needed a prequel.

    the is it a doc or is it cinema verite story of dagny, character, travelling the country side doing “dog tricks” and solving crimes. sure, beastial water sports aren’t meant for a broad audience, but that has never been this franchise’s problem.

    big screen, small screen or by travelling to the netherlands, i for one can’t wait for “dagny and lassie, and lassix too!” if only they could turn the whole franchise into an ice show.
    i for one will pay money to see dagny and lassie.

  38. 38.

    Fred

    Why would you even go in the first place?

    Sounds to me like it is not unlike the torture in Clockwork Orange where they keep his eyelids open and make him watch endless rape and violence.

  40. 40.

    General Stuck

    I swear Sarah, you alone give me reason to stop by here. Wonderful prose and dry humor (the best kind). Try to pay no never mind to my half twin brother STUCKZILLA! when he knuckle drags across your path. He outgrew the attic, so we had to set him free.

  42. 42.

    Tim, Interrupted

    @Sarah Proud and Tall:

    That might be true, but you’re a humorless boob with no life

    .

    Wow. You’re awfully sensitive for someone with a nationally prominent blog and diahrrea of the typing fingers.

    Your stuff would be a lot funnier if it was cut by at least half. It’s unfortunate that you are too delicate a flower to accept criticism. You must be good friends with ABL.

  48. 48.

    Kobie

    Ayn Rand may have been an evil old ferret with a heart of frozen poison and the morals of a tapeworm – in person, she may have made your palms itch with the urge to strike her and keep on striking her until she fell down – but at least she wasn’t boring.

    She wasn’t?

    Very well done review.

  49. 49.

    No one of Importance

    @Sarah Proud and Tall:

    Happy zombie Jesus day to all, by the way.

    Enhanced it for you. :)

    Tim, Interrupted:

    You must be good friends with ABL.

    And you must be no friends with anyone, you misogynistic diarrhoeal fart.

    Q. How many Interrupted Tims does it take to paper a room?
    A. Depends on how thin you slice them.

  50. 50.

    Johnny Flashpoint

    Very funny. Also, totally agree about the pointlessness of a fully-clothed Grant Bowler.

  53. 53.

    Cerberus

    @Tim, Interrupted:

    Yeah, that doesn’t make you look like a sexist idiot who finds the idea of women blogging to be threatening to them so he needs to compensate with fake bravado and objectification…

    Nope, nosiree.

    Seriously, that’s like responding to criticism that your new SUV is a tiny penis substitute by admitting its a giant penis substitute and then looking around smug like you just served the critic.

  54. 54.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @BR:

    the snark has already worn a bit thin…

    Not for me, not for me. Just linked to SPaT’s blog and read it all. There are different ways of writing one’s memoirs. Dead serious and portentous is one way (e.g. Every Damn Politician).

    Finding a way to describe one’s interactions with Great People with humor and insight is another. And actually remembering that you kneed Ayn Rand in the head after a night of champagne and blow … well that’s just priceless.

    BSoSR +4

  55. 55.

    Tim, Interrupted

    @No one of Importance:

    misogynistic diarrhoeal fart.

    I’ll cop to being a diarrhoeal fart, but could you point out the misogyny please? Thanks.

    Q. How many Interrupted Tims does it take to paper a room?
    A. Depends on how thin you slice them.

    So is that a torture/murder threat or just one of your masturbatory fantasies?

  60. 60.

    Tim, Interrupted

    She’s funny. Incredibly funny. Laughing until it hurts funny.

    Jesus. SP&T’s peeps are a defensive bunch.

    I never said she was not funny. You may note that my first comment merely indicated that Sarah could use an editor (to cut back on the bloat). She took great offense and immediately responded with an insult. It’s been downhill from there.

    Any writer who doesn’t think they can benefit from the attentions of an editor is a deluded egomaniac.

  61. 61.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Tim, Interrupted: Well, having written and edited, and been edited, and having had people hack my words to hell and gone, my humble opinion is that Sarah doesn’t need any editing. Your opinion may vary.

    In my sad experience, the boss (or client) who pays for the writing gets the final edit. SPaT is lucky in that respect.

  62. 62.

    nota bene

    Ayn Rand may have been an evil old ferret with a heart of frozen poison and the morals of a tapeworm….

    Fuckin brilliant….

  64. 64.

    licensed to kill time

    Sarah, you are the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, the elephant’s eyebrows, the eel’s hips, the whip in the cream. The saps who are beating their gums about you are all wet; a bunch of Mrs. Grundy’s who should mind their own potatoes. You slay me, sister! And how!

  65. 65.

    Baron Jrod of Keeblershire

    @Tim, Interrupted: In other words, you insulted Sarah in your first comment, and when she zinged you back you got pouty and butthurt.

    Go away, you fucking tool. Your habit of flinging derision around like it was nothing, then turning into the world’s biggest crybaby the second a little is pointed back at you, is tiresome as all fuck.

    Great review, Sarah. Keep up the good egomaniacal work!

  66. 66.

    No one of Importance

    @Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:

    Your habit of flinging derision around like it was nothing, then turning into the world’s biggest crybaby the second a little is pointed back at you, is tiresome as all fuck.

    Quoted for truth.

    What’s so amusing about the interrupting timothy is that SP&T is probably only female for our amusement, but such is the size of his fragile male ego that he can’t help himself reacting as if she’s the real thing.

    Anyway, I’ve decided timmy needs to eat more pie. It’ll do wonders for his manners.

  68. 68.

    Tim, Interrupted

    @No one of Importance:

    SP&T is probably only female for our amusement, but such is the size of his fragile male ego that he can’t help himself reacting as if she’s the real thing.

    Please explain why you are obsessed with SPT’s alleged vagina or lack of. How does this relate to her bloated writing? Are you suggesting that ABL and SPT’s literary diahrrea is explained by their femaleness? Isn’t that kind of a sexist position to take?

    BTW, I read Digby every single day. I am fairly certain she has a vagina.

  69. 69.

    Baron Jrod of Keeblershire

    @Tim, Interrupted: I refuse to take any advice on taste or humor from a man who thinks that is a snappy comeback.

    O, thou hast zinged me! Forsooth!

  70. 70.

    licensed to kill time

    @licensed to kill time:

    Upon review, I see it is a solitary sap who is being a wet blanket, hence this correction:

    The sap who is beating his gums about you is all wet; a Mrs. Grundy who should mind his own potatoes.

    He’s probably got the Blue Nozzle Curse.

  72. 72.

    Yutsano

    @furioso ateo: Meh, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. It doesn’t make you a bad human. I happen to enjoy it for several reasons, one of which is the author is a true delight.

  73. 73.

    furioso ateo

    I think it’s the narrator’s tone or voice. I can’t get the dripping condescension of a nice-place-in-the-Hamptons throat and lips saying with its dahling-with-an-h accent all of this screed out of my head.

  78. 78.

    fhtagn

    @furioso ateo:

    Well, what did you expect from the BJ budget? Austerity is the order of the day. You can’t get Greta Garbo for the spondulicks that Old King Cole has available. Tax cuts for Tunch, voice-over cuts for the rest of us.

  79. 79.

    Yutsano

    @furioso ateo: Well don’t tear your hair out over it. Just breathe and scroll on by. You at least aren’t flying off the handle and attacking the dear woman.

    @fhtagn: Okay that made me seriously LOL. But Tunch does require his bluefin.

  82. 82.

    NobodySpecial

    @Tim, Interrupted:

    You may note that my first comment merely indicated that Sarah could use an editor (to cut back on the bloat).

    (looks around)

    You realize this is a blog, and not a national magazine, right? And that maybe the blog host isn’t rolling in the simoleons needed to edit some very distinct voices into something you’d enjoy reading at Vanity Fair? Or the particular desire to do so?

    Are you always this clueless everywhere you go? Do you complain about having to wear shoes inside a store, too?

  83. 83.

    PIGL

    @WBZ: What a pack of lies and distortions and propoganda. For example, having a progressive income tax (justified by every economic argument other than libertarian wank fantasies) does not imply having a narrow tax base or a small number of Galtian tax-payers who can create havoc by leaving the state. It means wealthier people pay more $ but equal utiles (and WSJers know this full well, they are lying and willing tools of would-be looters and killers).

    And the biggest example of “job creation” is some “even a democrat” deciding to open up a few hundred fast food resto’s in Texas, where the workers don’t take breaks. Such a loss. Fuck him with a rusty but functional chain saw. Screwing the workers more will not fix real estate prices nor restore a broken state finance system, broken, be it noted by and for these mother-fuckers.

  84. 84.

    jprfrog

    A mild demur: Please, PLEASE don’t turn BJ into an annex of the Salon comment section, or (even worse) that of WaPo. Whatever the merits (or otherwise) of a piece, could we not turn it into an occasion for flinging verbal monkey poo at each other? (I would think that at your estimable age, SP&T, that you would reconsider getting into a pissing contest with a petulant teen-ager…then everybody gets wet).

    That said, I pose a question to ponder: Who picks up John Galt’s garbage? Or is he so exalted that he doesn’t produce any?*

    In my opinion, Ayn Rand was so misused by s bunch of too-enthusiastic Bolsheviks that, having the basic temperament of a Bolshevik herself (think David Horowitz), she over-reacted and started to see Bolsheviks in everyone who did not agree with her. Alas, she had a certain odd talent for fascinating perpetual adolescents like Alan Greenspan and Paul Ryan. If there is anyone left in a hundred years who can read history (or read at all) she will be recognized as a key figure in the decline and fall of the American experiment.

    *Without people to do the nasty work of picking up what we throw out, we would all be susceptible to any number of nasty diseases. That’s why I think that garbagemen should be paid more than CEO’s. Without them, the Galt wannabees of this outdoor insane asylum we call American society would be just more feeding grounds for typhoid bacilli.

  85. 85.

    russell

    How ironic that we’re actually seeing “Atlas Shrugged” play out in the state that “houses” Hollywood!

    Texas has more people below the poverty line than CA. It has a lower per-capita income. It’s not the worst state in the union for general economic well-being of working people – that honor probably belongs to Mississippi – but it ain’t a worker’s paradise.

    Businesses are moving from CA to TX because they can make more money there. It’s nice that that happens to create jobs, but it’s a shame they aren’t jobs that pay enough to keep people above the fucking poverty line.

    CA’s a pretty screwed up place these days. So’s Texas.

  86. 86.

    Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937

    @PIGL:

    If there’s a line out the door at a Carl’s Jr. while employees are seen resting, it’s because they aren’t allowed to help: Break time is mandatory.

    Lack of regulations does empower shitty managers. Don’t schedule breaks during the lunch rush.

  87. 87.

    Tim, Interrupted

    @furioso ateo:

    Furioso, you are obviously “a humorless boob with no life.”

    ;D

    The authoress’ skin is no thicker than her endless prose.

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    Number of comments so far that are either by, or in response to, somebody, interrupted: 22

    No responses to this person next time: priceless!

  89. 89.

    Tim, Interrupted

    @WaterGirl:

    You actually counted? Wow, get a life.

    And yes, by all means, don’t respond. All I did was state my opinion of the post, as happens oh I don’t know, 500 times a day here at BJ. But for some reason, you SPT fanboys and girls seem unable to scroll on by.

    Delicate flowers.

  95. 95.

    WBZ

    *Adult* response: “…you made an interesting observation and backed it up with quantifiable data, WBZ. I may need to rethink my position on Ayn Rand…”

    *3rd grader* response: “…you’re a poo-poo head WBZ!”

    Which category does “taylormattd’s response fit? (See below)

    > taylormattd – April 24, 2011 | 12:02 pm
    >
    > @WBZ: Oh my stars, a real-life, drooling,
    > half-wit Ayn Rand troll!

  96. 96.

    Tim, Interrupted

    @Sarah Proud and Tall:

    I apologise for insulting you. My response was both harsh and unconsidered

    Why, Sarah, I appreciate that. And I apologize for undue offense given you by my initial comment.

    You are indeed a gentlelady/man/person/whatever, unlike some of your fans. For instance, you may want to have a chat about etiquette and manners with taylormattd from above, and I quote: “Oh fuck off, you completely humorless moron.”

    hahahahahahaha….I never have quite grasped why the name of an activity as delightful as fucking is so often taken in vain. ???

  97. 97.

    Hungry Joe

    With ABL and Sarah now on board, there’s some seriously hilarious/outlandish writing going on around here. As for Tim, Interrupted, et al … if you don’t like Sarah’s style, I can’t understand why you don’t simply choose not to read her posts. It’s not as if you’re objecting to what she is saying, and are responding with fresh data or a different interpretation; her writing just isn’t your cup of whatever. Fine. Don’t read it. I’ll read it twice, to take up the slack, and everybody walks away happy. Smug, even.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Hungry Joe:
    Some people like to smell their own farts.

    I like the read twice for balance idea. I get to laugh twice as much and don’t have to waste time with lame criticism.

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @Angry Black Lady:

    Please do reconsider. Hungry Joe is correct. The quality of the writing, the humor, competence and yes sometimes snark makes this place. Don’t worry about the humorless, repetitious drones, they will always be with us. It is fun to see the slings and arrows let loose with the target completely unaware.
    “People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.” Calvin Hobbes

  105. 105.

    whitney

    @Sarah Proud and Tall:

    With just one movie review and deft comment reply, you’ve sent me over the edge and completely round the bend.

    Ms. Proud and Tall, I have fallen completely in love with you.

    One (or two?) of the funniest things I’ve read all year. My tummy aches, as I wipe away the tear smears from my face.

    Bless you and Happy Easter.

  107. 107.

    russell

    Oh Joe…that’s no fun.

    It’d be a lot more fun for the rest of us.

    you made an interesting observation and backed it up with quantifiable data, WBZ. I may need to rethink my position on Ayn Rand

    I missed the “interesting observation” and the “backed it up” part. Basically, I have no freaking idea what point you were making, other than CA bad TX good.

    Personally, I’ve been listening to people talk about Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and what superior value-creating supermensches they are for something like 30 or 35 years. It’s always sounded like a lot of self-serving, self-aggrandizing horseshit to me, and it still does, to this day.

    The correlation between “Randian” and “asshole” is just too strong to overlook.

    So I will not be “rethinking my position” on Ayn Rand, or anyone who espouses her demented anti-social point of view, now or ever.

    She was a messed up, insufferable creep. Her books and her statements reflect that. If there is one thing in modern American life that makes me fear for the future of the nation, it’s the inexplicable vogue for all things Randian.

    She was a sick human being. Find another hero.

  108. 108.

    Melbourneo

    This is absolutely hilarious! I choked on an easter egg whilst reading it. Bravo!

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