Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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Open Thread

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Started True Grit while eating dinner, before I knew it it was eight. What a great movie. Lot of good quotes, too- “I am a foolish old man who has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers——and a nincompoop!”

BTW- new White Collar season starts tonight. I know how the ladies love Matt Bomer. Well, my mother does, anyway.

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  2. 2.

    Trainrunner

    True dat about True Grit.

    Bonus: the movie’s worst villain is named Chaney/Cheney.

  4. 4.

    metalgirl

    Covert Affairs also starts back up tonight! Two of my favorite shows are finally back. I guess not too many chores will get done after 9pm.

  5. 5.

    guachi

    My wife is so excited there is a new White Collar tonight!

    She is in CA at school and doesn’t have cable. I am taping White Collar (taped the marathon of episodes from yesterday) on my awesome CableCARD tuner for my computer, removing the commercials using VideoReDo, shrinking them using HandBrake, and sending them to her via DropBox (it has a 2 GB max so I need to shrink the 7 GB initial file size.)

    It’s like copying with a VCR and mailing the tapes like people used to do, only way, way quicker (it’s not easier, just quicker). My wife pretty much loves all the original USA network shows so I’m taping them all for her.

    Hooray for original TV in the summer!

  7. 7.

    BD of MN

    It’s 100 degrees here in MN (hit 103 in St. Paul). I was going to start up some charcoal for the piece of Copper River salmon for dinner, but now I think I’m just going to lay it on the top of the grill and let it cook there…

    Interestingly (to me, anyways), I was waiting for a load of steel this afternoon, and at the same time it was hitting 102 degrees, there was a guy with a bulldozer pushing over the last 3 foot pile of snow in the back corner of the big dirt parking lot. In March the pile was 15′ tall, and the accumulated dirt was insulating the remaining snow…

  8. 8.

    Chyron HR

    I tried watching the True Grit remake, but I couldn’t figure out why Rooster Cogburn was trapped in cyberspace.

  9. 9.

    Allen

    Read the Portis book first, watch the John Wayne version, then the Coen version and compare contrast. Most will say the Coen brothers is the best, at least it shows the last third of the book.

  10. 10.

    stuckinred

    @BD of MN: So much for July and winter! I’ve lived in Georgia for 26 years and I still have to convince people how hot it can be in the midwest in the summer. I remember leaving Busch Stadium after midnight and it was still over 100!

  11. 11.

    Violet

    Since this is an open thread, seems like a reasonable place to post that I had the distinct misfortune of hearing Our McMegan on the radio today.

    No idea what show it was, but it was NPR. She was being interviewed about the folly of co-signing a loan for someone, like parents for kids who need a loan for college. And then she followed by saying, “My parents did that exact thing, but it’s worked out for them. I’m three years ahead on my paying back my loan.”

    Typical McMegan. Do as I say, not as I do.

    And…she sounds like a whiny teenager. Honestly, I’d think that someone who holds the esteemed title of “Business and Economics Editor for The Atlantic” wouldn’t sound like she was still in high school.

    She also said she’s still paying off her student loans. Isn’t she in her mid-to-late-thirties? She didn’t go to med school or something, did she? And she’s been working for awhile. How does she have such extensive loans? I’m confused.

  12. 12.

    stuckinred

    @Violet:You know I realize there is an insider deal here with these all these Sully and McMegan posts but it’s really a bummer when you google this person and you get Fire-fucking-dog-lake as the first hit.

  14. 14.

    Southern Beale

    Speaking of assholes:

    Wisconsin state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) is standing by the state GOP’s new strategy of recruiting fake Democratic candidates for the state Senate recalls — which have been launched as a Democratic counter-attack on Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union legislation — in order to force Dem primaries and delay the general elections. And furthermore, Fitzgerald said such a tactic would not create voter cynicism — the recalls are the source of voter cynicism.

    All the best rat-fucking that Koch money can buy.

  15. 15.

    bobbo

    I have been thoroughly researching this on the internet for a good 5 minutes and have reached the unshakable conclusion that this Matt Bomer person is a gay. Hooray! Go team!

  17. 17.

    Martin

    I Googled this.

    Can someone tell those Arizona looters to stop demanding public firefighters and go fucking hire their own. We don’t need the government providing services the free market offers.

  18. 18.

    DFH no.6

    The recent Coen bros. True Grit was a pretty decent movie, for a tired, tired, way-overdone genre. The dialogue (similar to the book, IIRC) was the most interesting part, I thought – formal and stylized to our modern ears, but supposedly fairly accurate for the times depicted (as was Deadwood’s; again, supposedly).

    Bridges did all right – The Dude as old-West marshal. Good casting, that.

    The book (as I recall from reading many years ago) was also pretty decent.

    The John Wayne version – as all John Wayne movies – sucked, of course. What a towering mediocrity that hack was.

    Flame on, I guess.

  19. 19.

    Chris

    Haven’t seen the John Wayne, but the remake = AWESOME. It’s the Dude, walking in the Duke’s footsteps, and speaking in a delightful Authentic Frontier Gibberish.

    Now that it’s out on DVD, I’ll be watching it and the original back to back.

  21. 21.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I’ll have to wait until tomorrow for my White Collar fix. I don’t have cable, so I watch on HULU. Can not believe they are holding Psych until fall. I need my Shawn and Gus fix.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jeff Bridges was on the Tweety show yesterday, promoting an anti-hunger program.

    Tweety’s man-crush and star-fucker tendencies had him so bug-eyed and dopey-grinned I thought Monsignor Russert had come back from the Great Beyond

  23. 23.

    Martin

    @Violet: Yeah, speaking of looters. She’s 38 and married and still having her parents co-sign loans? I was mortified at 20 when I needed to ask my parents for help on a student loan that I had taken out without a co-signer because I got sick as was unable to work for a semester. Hell, I’m still embarrassed about that.

  24. 24.

    kdaug

    Loved the Coen version as well. At it’s core, it’s a parable about the wages of vengeance – you can have it, but it’s gonna cost you.

    Didn’t get that from the John Wayne version, which was the tale of the hero.

  25. 25.

    stuckinred

    @kdaug: Did everyone see Rooster Cogburn and the Lady with Katherine Hepburn? It’s funny as shit.

  26. 26.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    @Southern Beale:

    recruiting fake Democratic candidates for the state Senate recalls

    Really, what’s he doing, signing up the PUMAs at FDL?

  27. 27.

    James E. Powell

    Seems to me that the TV ad writes itself. Republicans cannot defend their plans to destroy workers’ rights, so they have to hire fake Democrats to mess up the election. Are these the people you want running your state?

  28. 28.

    PurpleGirl

    @Martin: Did you see Krugman’s blog post on something Pawlenty said about people going on Google to find services and then ending the government’s provision of the service? It’s a good sarcastic post.

  30. 30.

    kdaug

    @stuckinred: Weird. I was talking with a writer buddy Saturday and he brought up the same movie. I’d never heard of it. But he said the same as you – funny as shit.

  32. 32.

    Suffern ACE

    @Violet:

    “My parents did that exact thing, but it’s worked out for them. I’m three years ahead on my paying back my loan.”

    Doubtful. She finished her MBA ten years ago. Are you three years ahead when you’ve refinanced the original repayment period?

  34. 34.

    BO_Bill

    Just chilling out at McDonalds. Had a McDouble, large Fries, and medium diet soft drink. The quality of the food was pretty good. Am thinking about having a hot fudge sundae. I can report that as of yet there have been no gang beatings, or people swinging chairs around. My seat is by the restrooms, and lots of people use them without buying food. In my opinion this is kind of abusive.

  35. 35.

    Southern Beale

    @Mike Kay (Team America):

    According to the article they are trying to turn the July 12 recall election into a primary by getting Republican(s) to run as Democrats. That way the Republican candidates facing recall would have more time to campaign because the actual election would be postponed until August.

    Or something like that. As usual, it’s complicated.

  37. 37.

    jwb

    @DFH no.6: I like Wayne in Stage Coach and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. There are a few others that are ok. He did often suck.

  38. 38.

    stuckinred

    @PurpleGirl: And don’t miss the Shootist. Lauren Bacall, Opie, Jimmy Stewart (If I were a man like you I wouldn’t die a death like this), Richard Boone and others. Great film and his last.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Suffern ACE:

    Jeeze. 10 years out and hasn’t paid them off? Of course, hers were probably substantially more than mine were. Her earnings as an MBA were probably far greater than mine as an Army officer, though…

  42. 42.

    BO_Bill

    The Facility is going great. I think I will not mention it again as I seem to be upwardly mobile and business is good. But I have learned that the majority of dildos are in fact sold to men. This came as a surprise to me. I also recently sold a device that allows females to strap on a hollow penis type thing and pee standing up. That one kind of made me sad. People should be happy with who they are.

  43. 43.

    BO_Bill

    Not ignoring you Neutron Flux. It is just that my response triggered moderation.

  44. 44.

    stuckinred

    Also,too. The High and Mighty. Not just because it was the name of my notorious hippie softball team but you have to see a movie where a guy pulls a 38 on a plane and fires it. The co-pilot roughs him up, takes it away and says “I’ll give it back to you when we land”! The Dulle as Whistlin Dan Roman.

  47. 47.

    Southern Beale

    Oh my God. The American media has really jumped the shark this time. I just really don’t know what to say to this:

    Max Read — Around 6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday evening, CNN, Reuters and The New York Times, among others, seized on the juicy news that a “mass grave” of at least 20 “dismembered bodies” had been discovered in rural Texas. Only, the cops hadn’t found any bodies, membered or dismembered — just a house with some blood on the porch. Also: They were acting on a tip from a psychic.

    WTF is wrong with CNN?

  50. 50.

    John Weiss

    @BO_Bill: EEEUUUU! McDonalds?!

    Maybe they’re much better than the last time I set foot inside one. I used to take my son, then quite small, thinking he liked the food. It shortly obvious that he didn’t like the food, it was the cheap-ass toys! We had a conversation about that: I said, wouldn’t you rather go to a toy store? He agreed and that was it.

  51. 51.

    JC

    I’ve gotta say, is there a movie where Bridges doesn’t play variations of ‘the Dude’, nowadays?

    I think Fearless is the last time he didn’t play the Dude.

    Luckily, version of the Dude pretty much fit a lot of different situations – grumpy Dude, spaced out Dude, cool cat business visionary dude…

  53. 53.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    My DH watches old westerns on TV every morning during the weekend. I think I have seen every episode of “Cimmaron Strip” “Gunsmoke” “Chyanne” and “The Rifle Man” that has ever been made. I am strangely hooked. It worries me.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    We’re discussing John Wayne’s greatest roles and no one’s mention Genghis Kahn?
    @Southern Beale: CNN really is a clown car, still chasing that elusive FoxLite demographic. Seems like that failed strategy has survived several corporate chieftains. Erik Erikson apparently was offering his endorsement in return for cash. I only wish we still had Campbell “we’re real journalists” Brown to kick around.

  58. 58.

    Chris

    @jwb:

    The overt racism of the main character in that movie was, well, interesting. It was a blunt way to tackle the central fact of westward expansion – and it wasn’t presented as a good thing. In that sense, I thought it was more mature than a lot of other westerns, the ones that give us characters who got along with the Indians or at least weren’t hostile towards them.

  60. 60.

    John Weiss

    @jwb: John Wayne, Gods love him, was a one-note actor. People love him, I think, ’cause we Americans are stuck on the self-sufficient tough guy.

    My favorite Wayne move was The Quiet Man. Not a good movie, but quite fun.

  62. 62.

    xochi

    @Allen: Seconded. Charles Portis’ book is such a treat that it’s a shame that people only know True Grit from the movies. That said, the Coen brothers’ version is about as faithful an adaptation of any book I’ve seen, with a cast that knocks it out of the park.

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @Violet:

    She also said she’s still paying off her student loans. Isn’t she in her mid-to-late-thirties? She didn’t go to med school or something, did she? And she’s been working for awhile. How does she have such extensive loans? I’m confused.

    IIRC (it’s been a while), the Business & Economics Editor Formerly Known As Jane Galt parlayed her expensive Upper West Side private school education into a full-fee English degree at some Ivy or other, followed by an expensive (but network-heavy) two-year degree in ‘business programming’ in a field that was already going under, followed by 911!911!911! so she “had to” go for her MBA, but not in anything that might involve numbers (‘business journalism’ instead of accounting, or some crap like that). All of it paid for by the parents, because even if the world needed more useless credentials, McMegan’s not gonna lower herself to digging around for the kind of workstudy programs underprivileged kids are expected to hunt up. In other words, she began as she meant to go on — demanding the world give her a free ride, and in a first-class cabin, and then whining that the champagne at the captain’s table wasn’t up to her (is it her fault she was raised to expect MOAR?) standards…

  64. 64.

    Lysana

    @BO_Bill:

    I also recently sold a device that allows females to strap on a hollow penis type thing and pee standing up. That one kind of made me sad. People should be happy with who they are.

    Setting aside the difference between “who they are” and “how their body looks,” I can think of many women who would benefit from such a device. Every last twit who insists on squatting over public toilet seats and refuses to clean up after herself. There’s also its applicability to camping in the rough. The less time you have to spend bare-arsed and squatting, the better in such conditions.

    (ETA: Trying to reduce possible number of pseudo-pr0nographic terms to knock this out of moderation.)

  66. 66.

    John Weiss

    @Southern Beale: “WTF with CNN?”

    WTF with Houston cops? The NYT sent me an email with this “breaking news” in it; I searched the NYT website for it in vain. Newspaper of record, indeed!

  67. 67.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Watching Rachel Maddow, two thoughts:

    1) Reince Preibus is such a snotty pencilneck he makes Tim Pawlenty look like a mensch.

    2) Martin Bashir should be moved into Ed Schultz’s slot

  69. 69.

    Lysana

    I am staring at post #63 and deeply curious if I used the wrong email address. I cannot tell what would’ve triggered the moderation filter otherwise.

    ETA: And clearly I did not use the wrong address. FYWP.

  70. 70.

    Lojasmo

    @BO_Bill:

    Nothing wrong with a standing pee. It can even be done without a device, if the internetz can be believed.

    Also, dildos and vibrators make good gifts. ;)

  72. 72.

    patrick II

    Glen Campbell ruined the original “True Grit” for me. Wayne was as good as Wayne can be. Many people thought he was doing a brilliant ironic takeoff on his standard role — he won an academy award for playing Rooster — but Wayne later explained he was just playing it the way he always did. Didn’t get the irony at all.
    My favorite line from that movie was when Mattie and her horse were swimming the river: Rooster, looking on in admiration: “By God. She reminds me of me.” It just seemed so John Waynish.
    The Coen brothers version was tremendous, and Matt Damon was a huge step up from Campbell. The thirteen year old young lady who played Mattie was also stellar. And of course the Dude’s great grandfather was also spot on. The movie for me had tremendous authenticity. The movie was so detailed and beautifully shot.

    Tonight I just finished the Netflix streaming of “Men who Stare at Goats”, which had Bridges playing another variation on the Dude, plus Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Kevin Spacey. It is an offbeat picture supposedly based on a true story of Army psyops. I’m not sure I recommend it for everyone, but the crowd here might like it. I did.

  73. 73.

    chris

    Everyone should go take a look at Nancy Smash!! Over at theobamadiary.com as she is entering the state dinner. She is gorgeous! Bad ass and looking good while doing it too…
    /shameless Nancy Fanboy

  74. 74.

    El Cid

    Hmmmm. Juan Cole had a post about a clever ad for the Nissan Leaf. In commenting on its theme of what if we never used gasoline, he mentioned that the use of fossil fuels is likely to be contributing to the ‘epidemic’ of autism.

    There appears to be no epidemic of autism nor increase in its prevalence. Though it keeps being said that there is.

    I pointed out yet another study, this one a fairly conclusive look at undiagnosed rates of autism among UK adults, and though the figure ends up being a shocking 1% of UK adults having autism (including illnesses usually included in that umbrella term), that’s the same rate as among children, so if adults and children have the same rates, there’s no support for the notion that the rate is increasing.

    So far my comment hasn’t appeared. A later one on another post did. I wonder if this is yet another place where the blogger makes a challengeable point but the responses are not approved?

    Happened with Brad Delong last week or whenever when there was a quote of a French author on how Chomsky and others lied about a particular motive for a preface etc for a Holocaust denier’s book, and it was a factual claim, and the factual claim was wrong, whatever one thought of the whole situation or Chomsky or whomever. You still could have concluded that Chomsky loves Holocaust-deniers, just not on the basis of that particular accusation. Maybe a million tedious minions appeared. Who knows. Maybe only people like Henry Kissinger deserve to have very particular accusations against them scrutinized for factual accuracy.

    I just think it’s a bit silly to use a post to make a basic factual claim which is either quite challenged or apparently factually wrong.

  75. 75.

    John Weiss

    @patrick II: I thought that the “Men Who Stare at Goats” was a comic parody until I read the book: the author swears up and down that the events in his book are true. If that is so… Then the events depicted are hilarious/terrifying, an unusual combination.

  78. 78.

    Neutron Flux

    @BO_Bill: Glad thing are well at the Facility.

    You were lucky there were no urban gangs causing you trouble at McDonalds. I see on Drudge that this a clear and present danger.

    I forget how this ties back into the Presidents master plan to transition to a complete Socialist country. Can you help me out here?

  81. 81.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I work in a building that has one of those elevator TVs (Captivate or something) and they had a repeating headline today referring to “Speaker” Nancy Pelosi. Not Dem or Minority Leader. SPEAKER.

    LOL.

  84. 84.

    Neutron Flux

    @BO_Bill: Glad things are well at the Facility.

    You were lucky there were no urban gangs causing you trouble at McDonalds. I see on Drudge that this a clear and present danger.

    I forget how this ties back into the Presidents master plan to transition to a complete Soci*list country. Can you help me out here?

  85. 85.

    patrick II

    @John Weiss:
    I knew about the Jon Ronson book when I saw the movie. That is part of why I enjoyed it. Supposedly Rumsfeld was a big supporter of the special group that was trying long distance assassination. It is in a weird space between parody and real life craziness.

  86. 86.

    AliceBlue

    My all-time favorite cheesy John Wayne movie is “The Horse Soldiers”–Ding dong! Ding dong!

    (Anyone who has seen it will know what I’m talking about).

  88. 88.

    John Weiss

    @patrick II: I especially liked the fellow, a leader of the group, who regularly tried to walk through walls.

    Now I’m not sayin’ that this feat is impossible. What cracked me up is that he just didn’t sit at his desk and maybe try it with his hand. No! There he was, leading with his nose!

    Can you make this up?

    Also: if Rumsfeld was an enthusiast, I’m not surprised.

  89. 89.

    Anne Laurie

    @Lysana: There was a FYWP-forbidden word in your block quote. Thomas Bowdler seems to have designed the spam filter here.

  92. 92.

    BO_Bill

    Those gangs are the shock troops of President Obama’s domestic police force that is just as well funded and just as well equipped as the United States Military Neutron Flux. Fortunately for me and my former fellow McDiners, laboring at The Facility incorporates what amounts to continuous and fairly intense physical training yielding, well, me. These Obama gangs are most hazardous to the sick, the elderly, infants, crippled people, and students of elite universities.

  94. 94.

    Mike in NC

    @AliceBlue:

    My all-time favorite cheesy John Wayne movie is “The Horse Soldiers”—Ding dong! Ding dong!

    The worst of the John Wayne/John Ford collaborations has got to be “Donovan’s Reef”, which even decades ago appeared to be hopelessly racist.

  95. 95.

    patrick II

    @John Weiss:
    What struck me about the story was that fears that the Russians had been trying long distance assassination caused the army to try it. Even if they thought it unlikely, the U.S. army couldn’t even let the possibility of a potential Russian capability go unchallenged.
    I took it as a metaphor for craziness of the cold war. How much crazier really is psyops than 3000 nuclear warheads built because of the imagined “missle gap”?

  97. 97.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @stuckinred #82:

    True, but he was Speaker when he resigned and has not held a subsequent elected position. Nancy SMASH! holds a different current job which is her correct title. Once she leaves office I will gladly call her Madam Speaker every day for the rest of recorded time.

    /smashbot

  98. 98.

    WaterGirl

    Stuckinred, if you see this, I left you a (sad) dog question on the dog rescue open thread.

  99. 99.

    Neutron Flux

    @BO_Bill: Thanks, I had forgotten how this all unfolds. My friends tells me this is a fact, but not for us sheep to know.

  100. 100.

    Neutron Flux

    @BO_Bill: Thanks, I had forgotten how this all unfolds. My friends tells me this is a fact, but not for us sheep to know.

  101. 101.

    John Weiss

    @patrick II: The very best satire of the period? Dr. Strangelove, of course. I gots to see that picture at least once a year.

    The psi-ops was tame, on the craziness meter, IMHO, compared to the nuke build-up. Either the US or the Russians could have Ended It All by detonating their nukes on site. “We’ll meet again/Don’t know where or when… “On the Beach”, not a great movie, addressed this insanity in a serious vein.

  102. 102.

    Neutron Flux

    @John Weiss: Welcome to crazy train.

    ETA: I hear this all the time at work. I really did forget about the shock troop angle tho

  103. 103.

    John Weiss

    @BO_Bill: Hey Bill, I looked at the clip, and I’m not sure about the context. I missed that speech. When did he give it? Do you have a link to the whole speech? The clip is somewhat alarming. I’m, however, not heading for the hills, as I’m already there ;).

  104. 104.

    Allen

    @xochi:
    When I decided that I was going to go see the Coen brothers version I re-listened to to the Portis book just to get the Wayne one out of my head. Was pleasantly surprised with the Coen version. The Wayne version wasn’t bad but lacked the chutzpah of the book.

  105. 105.

    And Another Thing...

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG that is one of the worst movies ever made largely because it had such aspirations. I had a VHS of it that I used to torment movie neophytes. A house guest told me it was her mother’s favorite, so I gave it away. What a gem of a movie.

    Parlor trick: name 5 movies where Wayne was not a cowboy, in the military, or recently in the military, or a cop. The man had range I tells ya.

  106. 106.

    John Weiss

    @Neutron Flux: Gods, CT where do you work?!

    I don’t want to be on no crazy train. I like it here, in the woods, far away from de big city.

  110. 110.

    piratedan

    @And Another Thing…: here’s another parlor trick…. how many hollywood movies are there about farmers, bankers, writers, house painters, tailors, etc….

    There’s a reason that Wayne never played those parts because for the most part, those weren’t the movies being made….

    He never was God’s gift to the thespian craft but for crying out loud he’s no Keanu Reeves either.

    I liked him best in The Quiet Man, The Longest Day, Donovan’s Reef, Rio Bravo and Stagecoach. Feel free to flame on from here.

  113. 113.

    John Weiss

    @piratedan: Here’s some balm for the flame. I agree with you.

    However, I cannot imagine John Wayne playing a house painter. Good house painters don’t lurch about, and I never saw him in a role where he didn’t “act” as if his hips didn’t hurt.

    Also, I think that it’s pretty funny that he didn’t use his given name as an actor. I guess Marion was too sissy for a tough guy. He was a man of his times.

  114. 114.

    And Another Thing...

    @John Weiss: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I absolutely count the Quiet Man and Hellfighters, Hatari,North to Alaska, The Conquerer (Ghengis Kahn), and The Barbarian & the Geisha. There are about a half dozen qualifiers that Wayne made in the early 40’s. He made aaabout 170 movies. And yes, my Dad was a hig fan of Wayne.

  116. 116.

    piratedan

    @John Weiss: aye John, but many of the most famous leading men eschewed their given names for a more “glamorous” moniker, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis just to name a couple and there were many more. Westerns and Musicals were the primary staples of films during Wayne’s heydey and I’m pretty sure he couldn’t sing. He could ride and he was chiseled and he was a damn sight less painful to watch on the screen than others. The industry has changed and to be revisionist about what we see today and try and apply it to the industry back then seems unfair. The gait was influenced by a football injury to his knee while he was @USC, it’s what kept him out of active duty in WWII, if I remember the biographical stuff correctly.

  117. 117.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @John Weiss:

    Also, I think that it’s pretty funny that he didn’t use his given name as an actor.

    You can’t fault him for that though, somebody probably picked the name out for him, along with Lucille LaSoeur, Bernard Schwartz, Archibald Leach, Vito Andolini and all those other people who have never been in my kitchen.

  118. 118.

    John Weiss

    @IrishGirl: Oh, yes. I’ve ridden a horse for many hours. Believe or not, I trained horses for a couple of years.

    Everything hurt, but I don’t think that I ever walked around as if I had a stick up my ass from riding horses.

  120. 120.

    Joel

    I have to say, I didn’t love True Grit (Coen version, never saw the Wayne version). It watched like an “old movie” and frankly, I’m not too fond of most older movies.

  121. 121.

    Anne Laurie

    @John Weiss:

    I don’t think that I ever walked around as if I had a stick up my ass from riding horses.

    Nathan Lane & Robin Williams parody the John Wayne walk in The Birdcage, but unfortunately my google-fu failed at finding an embeddable, English-language version of the clip.

    http://youtu.be/Io-ZEKpRw5k

  122. 122.

    Cliff in NH

    There’s a sucker born every minute.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/07/gbtv-glenn-beck-takes-his-show-online-for-5-a-month/

    Watching Glenn Beck’s show after he leaves FOX News at the end of the month will cost you…but not as much as it costs you to read the New York Times online.
    __
    The Times is reporting that Beck will move his TV show online where subscribers will be able to access it for as little as $4.95 a month on the newly launched GBTV.
    __
    ..snip..
    Update: Beck is currently on GBTV (and presumably the radio) telling listeners he argued to get the price down to $5/month despite the fact it would require a ridiculous amount of subscribers to make it work.
    __
    He’s also asking listeners to consider whether he has provided $5 worth of information this past month and (choking up) gives listeners “his word” they will be getting their money’s worth.
    __
    Says Beck: “I have global plans.”

  123. 123.

    Erik Vanderhoff

    @DFH no.6: If you mean by “flame on” that I will set you on fire and piss on your smoldering corpse, then by all means. =)

  124. 124.

    Death Panel Truck

    I haven’t forgiven Bridges for “The Vanishing.” Probably never will. Most memorable part of that movie was Lynn Hamilton playing the insane woman singing the Lucky Charms jingle: “Magically delicious, magically delicious…”

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