Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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

Our messy unity will be our strength.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

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Another Open Thread

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For some reason, there have been requests in the comments for proof of life pictures for Rosie- like I would do anything to mah puppeh! She’s as happy and healthy as can be, and as always, proudly perched on my lap:

She actually spends more time on my lap than Lily does these days, because Lily is so secure she is in her forever home, and likes to relax on the bed underneath the comforter. On the other hand, Rosie is a JRT, so that means I am unable to even walk to the bathroom without her following me, and, as such, is surgically attached to me at all time.

Also, too, I watched a Burn Notice ad for the new season, and it reminded me how much I love this song:

There are so many things I like about that song, from the guitar riffs, the trumpet, the deadpan white boy rap, and the overall edginess, on top of all of that the descending crescendo (did I make that up?) of the background vocals and synth overlays as they enter the chorus, that I wonder if maybe I should buy and download some Cake albums.

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    the descending crescendo

    You can descend melodically on a crescendo. Otherwise yeah you’re contradicting yourself.

  2. 2.

    asiangrrlMN

    Awwwww, Rosie is a sweetie, Cole – don’t lie. I’m really glad she’s more secure in her forever home and more chilled than before.

    I like Cake, but cake is a lie…

  4. 4.

    The Dangerman

    Rosie … Rosie …. this reminds me of somethin’ … oh, yeah, it’s time to put on some Springsteen.

  5. 5.

    odp

    Buy all the Cake albums. I use “The Distance” as the ringtone when my son calls me . All the songs are quirky and lots of fun.

  8. 8.

    Spaghetti Lee

    I’m actually listening to Cake now. Not a big fan of “The Distance”, but I like the whole “Showroom of Compassion” album.

  9. 9.

    jl

    Thnx for nice doggie Rosie pic.

    I guess I should go to sleep I’m so tired I’m seeting things. I thought I saw furries in that white boy rap clip.

  14. 14.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @PeakVT: Seconded. In fact, I like pretty much every Cake song I’ve ever heard except Going the Distance, not sure why that one bugs me but it does.

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    John Cole:

    I wonder if maybe I should buy and download some Cake albums.

    Maybe. Did you like the Chuck theme song? That was by Cake too: Short Skirt / Long Jacket. The verse thoroughly rips off a guitar riff from something I can’t remember(Sweet Jane, maybe?)

    Also, skimmed through Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express last night, and now I can’t get California Dreamin’ out of my head.

    .

  18. 18.

    JGabriel

    @John Cole:

    Cuz no Chuck fan has ever heard that…

    Okaaay, you already knew that. Like how the fuck are we supposed to know? All ya ever talk about is listenin’ to Little Feat and the Dead like some leftover sixties stoner.

    .

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I truly hate that song. “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” is tolerable. Okay, I am not a Cake fan. I prefer pie.

  23. 23.

    Sentient Puddle

    I’ve always seen Cake as one of those bands where if you hear one of their songs and like it, you’ll like everything else they do. Little surprised at the number of people saying they hate one but like another.

    Anyway, yes, go buy Cake.

  27. 27.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    For some reason Cake makes me want to listen to Beck.

    I think I like them though. Although the the choppy vocal delivery (I imagine it’s deliberate) is unsettling at points. It’s twitchy. Both in the song above and in the “I Will Survive” cover. I think I like it. It bothers me, but in a good way? Hard to explain.

  29. 29.

    Alison

    Ha, like others I can’t stand that song. When I first saw the commercial, I thought “The fuck are they using this old ass song for? And an annoying as all get out old ass song, at that.” I think the problem was a common one, that the song itself wasn’t so bad but it got played SO GOD DAMN MUCH on the radio (and I actually listened to radio a decent amount at the time) that I grew to despise it.

  38. 38.

    Origuy

    When Steve Benen moved to Rachel Maddow’s blog, he took This Week in God with him, a weekly look at religion in America. This week he links to a report from Right Wing Watch about Tony Perkins’ latest reason to be outraged. A video made to promote tourism to the USA has a brief scene of a man with his arm around another man, riding a bus. If you blink, you miss it. Apparently, Perkins thinks this is another instance of Obama’s plan to debauch America.
    Watch the video, it has a lot of nice images and Rosanne Cash has a pretty voice.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I’m bi, and I don’t like the chick in Chuck.

    I stand corrected. Well, actually, I’m sitting, but you get the picture.

    .

  40. 40.

    satanicpanic

    This was their best song. After that the novelty of their deadpan singer got old.

  41. 41.

    Gozer

    Just got done with a party at our house for a friend who just got a prestigious literary award. I made a couple pots of gumbo and we had like 6 bottles of champagne and several bottles of wine.

    Dr. Mrs. and I finished cleaning and I think I’ll play a few rounds of Battlefield 3 and hibernate tomorrow.

  43. 43.

    JGabriel

    @gaz’s wife:

    How is cake a lie?

    It’s from the video game Portal. As you try to escape an experimental training and testing compound using a gun that creates portals, you repeatedly come across graffiti scrawls from a previous test subject, or subjects, that says, “The cake is a lie.”

    Obviously, the cake is a metaphor for the promises of corporate rewards — although it is kind of sweetly literalized if you make it to the end credits of the game.

    .

  46. 46.

    Petorado

    The Cake song that always gets me is Nugget. Yeah, they say STFU in it a lot, but some days the song just hits home.

  48. 48.

    suzanne

    @Alison: Concur. “The Distance” has always irritated me, even when I was fifteen and listening to the radio as if it could deliver me from the private Idaho (and literal Arizona) that I was “living” in. However, “Short Skirt Long Jacket” is adorable and fabulous.

    My husband and I are car shopping this weekend. His 1999 Civic took its final shit a month ago, and now we need something. Looked at an 2006 Civic Hybrid today. Liked it a lot, for the price. My friend recently got a Nissan LEAF and is trying to convince me to get one, but the sticker price is ludicrous. However, anything I can do to stop supplementing the Venezuelan economy would thrill me.

    Sigh.

  51. 51.

    Nicole

    Got back from the Belmont Stakes and am now finishing some work I have left to do.

    Beautiful day at the racetrack. I’ll Have Another’s withdrawal from the Belmont (and retirement) due to a minor now, but potentially significant injury if he continued to race, was a bummer, as it meant no Triple Crown, but the connections did what was best for the horse. There were some pretty hilarious conspiracy theories floating, though. And a lot of free I’ll Have Another buttons and posters that no one wanted.

    And it’s hard to root against the Belmont winner, Union Rags- his owner, paralyzed in a car accident in 1960 (when she was interning on the Kennedy campaign), today won her first big race with a horse she sold and then bought back because she dreamt that he was going to be her “big” horse, and the trainer, Michael Matz, is a former Olympic equestrian who, years ago, rescued three kids from the wreckage of a plane crash. Seriously. So, some days the good guys win.

    As my husband put it, nice to see a “Union” win SOMETHING.

  55. 55.

    JGabriel

    @Nicole:

    As my husband put it, nice to see a “Union” win SOMETHING.

    We won the Civil War … not that you’d notice so much from the way Republicans keep trying to re-fight it.

    .

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    Cake are local boys, but so are Tesla so I think we’ll call it a draw.

    Fam is at Dizzyland and I have COMPLETE CONTROL of the house and its stuff, so I unwrapped my dusty Bluray of “Stop Making Sense” and blasted it tonight. My doggie curled up right in front of my teevee and the center channel speaker, despite the sound being on “11”–she’d rather be with me than retain her hearing, I guess.

    What an amazing movie/concert/band. Damn.

  58. 58.

    Keith

    I’m not a fan of Manny Pacquiao and think Mayweather will pick him apart, but he got royally jobbed vs. Tim Bradley tonight. Good card though, except for the Arce fight ending way too early (and it was shaping up to be brutal)

  66. 66.

    Hill Dweller

    @Keith:

    I’m not a fan of Manny Pacquiao and think Mayweather will pick him apart, but he got royally jobbed vs. Tim Bradley tonight. Good card though, except for the Arce fight ending way too early (and it was shaping up to be brutal)

    I had forgotten that fight was happening until seeing the ESPN crawl. Their boxing guy had 119-109 Pacquiao.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I would probably have no clue who Eddie Izzard is if G hadn’t made me watch “Dressed to Kill.” Yet another of the many reasons I sat on him until he agreed to get married. ;-)

  72. 72.

    ditch digger

    Cake is great, in lots of different situtaions. They take their time between albums and really do put out a complete set of songs, their deeper tracks are often better than the ones that make the radio (Frank Sinatra, Sheep go to Heaven, Satan is my Motor etc.), not a lot of bands I could say that about nowadays. ‘Long Time’ off Showroom is sweet, give it a listen if you haven’t yet.

  73. 73.

    Mister Papercut

    @Alison:

    @gaz’s wife: Gamer nerds know. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-cake-is-a-lie

    BTW, at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, “The Cake is a Lie” had a damn good showing among the posters, including one of my group’s. We needed something in a pinch, and it turned out to be the one that people stopped us most often to take a picture of.

    In fact, I’d bet at least half of people’s signs were Internet-meme based, which, I’ll be honest, was a little strange to have them take on physical form and be all around you (the person who wore a paper costume of the trollface guy did give me life, though).

  75. 75.

    Joey Maloney

    I believe the opposite of “crescendo” is “diminuendo”. In music jargon “ascending” and “descending” by default refer to melody. So no, not a contradiction.

  76. 76.

    LiberalTarian

    Way back in the day I sat on their stage and drank at the Cattle Club during their show. So fun.

    Their early days were definitely inspired. Rock n roll lifestyle is great, but so is mr mastodon farms.

  77. 77.

    Lojasmo

    @suzanne:

    Look into the Chevy cruze or sonic with the 1.3l turbo. Quick, fun, and 41 MPG HWY. American made, also, too.

  78. 78.

    Abraxas

    You should download them all because they’re a great band, but if you can’t or aren’t inclined, you should at least get 1996’s Fashion Nugget. Fantastic album.

  79. 79.

    JoeK

    I just love Cake. Yesterday my SO was rockin’ some Neil Diamond in her new Nissan Leaf, which is cool with me, except afterwards I had “Sweet Caroline” stuck in mah hed for the rest of the day. But I hit on the perfect solution: I started singing it in the style of Cake, and it was so awesome that it drove the original right outta there. I think that would work for pretty much any song. A few weeks ago I had “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” wedged in there for like three days straight, and I’ve been afraid to even think of that song since. But just now I thought of it, then Caked it, and it was just as wonderful as I was expecting!

  81. 81.

    snarkyspice

    I can’t believe that it makes me so happy to see a happy little dog 3,000 miles away, but it does anyway.

    I followed Rosie’s story from the beginning and was rooting for you to keep her back in the days when most people were telling you to give up. She just seemed like she needed you so much. To hear now that all is well … well, it just melts my heart. Thanks for being such a good guy :)

  82. 82.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)

    Consider me a Cake fan. Their cover of I Will Survive is fantastic. Comfort Eagle is a blast start to finish. But…no love for Sad Songs and Waltzes? That is a fantastic country song. Also Stickshifts and Safetybelts.

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