Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

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

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

We won’t go back.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

You are here: Home / Dispatches From the People’s Republic of Madison

Dispatches From the People’s Republic of Madison

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Just had a great dinner at a raw bar, and I had the creamiest pacific coast oysters from Washington that I have had since going to San Diego a few years back. I really prefer west coast oysters over east coast ones.

Decided to walk home, got lost, caught in a violent rainstorm, and had to meekly call the hotel and say “Hi, Steph. I’m the idiot in room xxxx. I am currently huddled under an awning at this address. By any chance would you send a shuttle to pick up my stupid ass? If not, I will completely understand, natural selection and all.”

I can’t decide if my life is more tragedy or farce.

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  4. 4.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    There’s something missing here.

    How was the getting lost caused by a dog and/or cat? I’m pretty sure that’s a required element in a Cole-tastrophe post.

  5. 5.

    JCJ

    John, if you need you can call me. I live about an hour away, but I know Madison fairly well since my daughter goes to UW. I won’t let natural selection take you out of the gene pool (not yet, anyway.)

  7. 7.

    mbss

    hang in there, cole.

    that stuff happens to the best of us.

    and never been an oyster man myself.

  8. 8.

    evap

    I was in Madison last week, Wed-Sun, for MathFest 2012. If I had known you were there, I would have bought you a beer. (Have you made it to the Great Dane brewpub yet?)

  9. 9.

    srv

    Chapter suggestions, y’all feel free to add

    On roof with no ladder
    The joys of naked vacuuming
    Can you believe they let me drive tanks
    Once Upon A Wingnut
    When Tunch Attacks
    Sully and Me

  10. 10.

    FoxinSocks

    Every time John posts one of these dispatches, I physically cringe, because I know it’s usually going to involve something going horribly wrong. Good to hear it was only a thunderstorm this time and not, for example, John getting eaten by mountain lions.

  11. 11.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I can’t decide if my life is more tragedy or farce.

    I sorta think of it as “mockumentary”.

  13. 13.

    dance around in your bones

    @srv: Excellente.

    I would add:

    Shoulder Injury Whilst Saving Dog From Frozen Paws, Jerked It Back Into Place Myself With A Doorknob

    All You Ever See Is My Knees, Feet and Possibly an Elbow

    Oh Wait! Except For That Time I Drunk-Posted My Mug On A Bad PC Cam!

    But, For Some Inexplicable Reason, U All Love Me Anyway!! WTF? Over…

  18. 18.

    Caz

    You should have just walked in the rain – perhaps you would have melted! That would have been one less brainwashed, bitter, dishonest, hack voter contributing to Obama’s fundamental transformation of our great nation into a socialist experiment where the govt sees all, controls all, and takes all. I mean, this used to be a free country, but anymore it’s only free when the govt decides to let us be free from time to time and then expects us to thank them for it. The founding fathers, which you have no respect or admiration for, are turning in their graves I’m sure!

  19. 19.

    gnomedad

    @srv:

    On roof with no ladder
    The joys of naked vacuuming
    Can you believe they let me drive tanks

    Awesome haiku.

  23. 23.

    dance around in your bones

    @Caz: You really ought to call yourself Just Some Fuckhead, except that name is already taken by someone far more worthy than you.

    Do you love pie?

  28. 28.

    Steeplejack

    @Cole:

    Doesn’t your phone have GPS on it?! Or are you crushing on the shuttle driver?

  30. 30.

    Some Loser

    @Caz:

    I know you’re an obvious troll, but I am going to treat you with some respect:

    In what world is Obama socialist? A lot of people seems to hate for this reason in fact. And actually, what is wrong with socialism in the first place? You know socialism doesn’t have to lead to Big Brother world, right? Socialism is an economic model, and Authoritarianism is not. They aren’t mutually exclusive, but they one does lead to the other.

  31. 31.

    mbss

    @Caz:

    “socialist experiment”

    i wish. maybe we’ll truly experiment a bit with it the second term. get ready for a loss.

    on the plus side maybe 4 more years of mendacity and whinging will drum up some hits for your shitty blog.

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    @srv:

    “Friday Night Fights: Good Liquor and Bad Music Videos.”

    Alternate title: “Little Feats Don’t Fail Me Now.”

  35. 35.

    jl

    @srv:

    goat wishes and generator dreams
    special bonus remodel color spread: Shit cost too much!
    Tuna cans of death
    Those warn’t tornadoes: the Rosie years

  36. 36.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @mbss:

    “socialist experiment”

    How he got Republicans in on it will be the stuff of intrigue for another hundred years.

  38. 38.

    Citizen_X

    @Caz:

    one less brainwashed, bitter, dishonest, hack voter

    Iz in ur teerducks, drinkin ur sorroe.

    What’s the matter? Starting to realize that the Kenyan Usurper is going to crush your side this election, once again?

    BTW, you should know that a modern medical system, like they have in EVERY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY ON EARTH, /= the Gulag.

  41. 41.

    jl

    BTW, Cole (as if)

    What happened with the remodel job on your can?

    Didn’t make the medal round, what?

    Edit: And Cole wonders why this blog don’t pay for itself. Big build up, then nuttin’.

  44. 44.

    FoxinSocks

    @MikeJ

    John Cole, cynical
    Rages like a summer storm
    Oh look, it’s Lily

    All I see is white
    Winter Blizzard? Mighty Cloud?
    No wait, that’s just Tunch

  48. 48.

    Corner Stone

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Oooo. Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.
    It seems to remind me a little of when people kept trying to get Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to reconcile.
    I leave it up to the unkind commentariat to decide where to go from there.

  49. 49.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Corner Stone: Can I hold your jacket for you while you comment? I’ll just watch. I’m sorry but I’m feeling really inadequate after that awesome comment in Bernie’s thread.

  50. 50.

    Violet

    I really prefer west coast oysters over east coast ones.

    So a friend who ate an “oysters from around the world” plate at a seafood restaurant said the Gulf oysters were the best. I think there were six varieties of oysters on the plate. Kind of crazy.

  51. 51.

    dance around in your bones

    I guess I will sound like a hick if I say that oysters are just a semi-solid snot glob for delivering tasty sauces.

    Ok, I grew up in the Southwest and never had anything other than Mrs. Paul’s fishsticks until I was over 20.

    But still…..

  52. 52.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @srv: Darn the Bad Luck, My Folks Could Only Get the Myrtle Beach Timeshare Thanksgiving, Christmas & my birthday!

  54. 54.

    MikeJ

    @Violet: An oysters from around the world platter is just wrong. The best shellfish are fresh shellfish. My faves are imported all the way from Whidbey Island, from the Penn Cove farms.

  60. 60.

    Steeplejack

    @Maude:

    Whoa, you’re freaking me out! Somebody actually remembered something I said on the Interwebs. I know I mentioned several times that I was moving, but I thought I had quashed the talk of the crazy landlady. She is so crazy, and she was getting in my head so much, that I was starting to be afraid that if I vented about her on Balloon Juice it would turn out that she was a regular reader, she recognized herself, and she would sue me for libel or something. LOL.

    This is how crazy she is: I lived in the man-cave for 6½ years, and I moved out on July 31. She had a new tenant move in on August 1. I am a fairly neat person—I once had a girlfriend pay me the backhanded compliment that my place (a different apartment) wasn’t just “guy clean” but “clean clean”—but I don’t care who you are, you cannot live in a studio apartment—any apartment—for that long without leaving a trace. I had the carpet professionally cleaned and I scrubbed the whole place thoroughly, but she should have repainted the place and even thought about replacing the carpet. It’s a cost of doing business. I even tried to accommodate her tight schedule by getting out half a day early, and her response was to call me late in the afternoon of the 31st to demand that I come back to replace a lightbulb in the bathroom. “It’s in the lease! I’m going to have to hire a handyman!” I think she was freaking out because it’s a slightly odd halogen bulb, but c’mon . .  . I told her to pound sand.

    And there was drama with the new place. I had one place lined up, but it fell through unexpectedly, so I was apartment-hunting at the last minute. I found this place around the 24th but wasn’t “preapproved” to even see it until the 30th. WTF?! I looked at it for about five minutes and took it. Then I found that “immediate occupancy” is actually a euphemism for “the new carpeting is not going in until the 2nd.” I was able to crash at my brother’s house for two nights, and all my stuff went into the storage space that I had wisely reserved against the catastrophic emergency of not having a new place lined up.

    So I finally moved in here a week ago today, with minimal stuff and a sort of weird mail-order-bride feeling. Not sure what I was getting into. The biggest relief was that the place is much bigger than I remembered it after seeing it briefly the first time. It’s not huge, but it’s a one-bedroom apartment (versus the previous studio), and both the living room and the bedroom are good-sized. The kitchen is a little smaller, but it is efficiently laid out, so it doesn’t feel like I’m losing anything there. I’m on the second floor of a three-story building (with six apartments), versus the eighth floor of a ten-story tower, and I’m on a quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac. The apartment has great light: the living room has a triple-wide floor-to-ceiling window facing east, and the morning light is moderated by a big tree on the street. The kitchen, bathroom and bedroom all have windows facing west, and pretty much all I can see is trees and lawn. The bedroom window sort of overlooks the building next door, but it’s at a very oblique angle.

    The two biggest pluses are the closet-sized washer-dryer stack, which holds a surprisingly big load of laundry—and I don’t care about the load size anyway because it’s a washer and dryer in the apartment—and the “set it and forget it” central air conditioning, which is a tremendous upgrade from the wheezy, inadequate, ancient window-type air conditioner built into the wall of the previous place.

    So, yeah, I’m liking the new place a lot. Still easing into it, and I have to get the bulk of my stuff moved over here in the next week, but it feels great. So much so that it doesn’t feel right calling it a man-cave. Will have to come up with a new term. At the very least it’s a man-grotto.

    Thanks for letting me indulge in the Mclaren-length blow. Felt good to vent.

  61. 61.

    dance around in your bones

    @Steeplejack: I’m glad you found something eventually. It’s hard changing places after so many years, so…..I wish you a good journey!

    P.S. Yea, the in-house washer and dryer are a goddamned blessing!

  63. 63.

    mainmati

    Wow, this is such a busy place. FWIW, venture forth to the Eastern Shore of MD or VA, which is not all that far from WVA and you will be blessed with succulent and slightly salty oysters at very reasonable prices. Not to mention the other panoply of other seafood.

    OT again Yeah, USA Women’s Football Gold!!!

  64. 64.

    Sean

    “Oh, I didn’t prepare for the rain, somebody please go out of their way to help me”. Typical liberal. A conservative would’ve taken the time to look at the forecast and plan accordingly, you know, personal responsibility.

    I’m kidding if you can’t tell. Love ya John.

    +1, but not from alcohol

  69. 69.

    dance around in your bones

    @piratedan:

    I’d give anything to see an interpretive dance by John Cole – especially if inspired by cold wet noses (in the armpit, naturallement!)

    I’d even pay a dollar for the privilege.

  73. 73.

    Mark S.

    Geez, Fred Thompson’s brain must be pudding:

    These tax-return demands are just one of the ways politics gives us an excuse for doing what we could not otherwise get away with. An adult watching movies every day during daylight hours would be frowned upon (unless he were a movie critic)

    I’m not really sure I give a fuck if someone watches movies during daylight hours.

    A middle-aged man poring over reams of pornographic material would be ostracized (unless he were a judge hearing a case about that subject matter).

    Um, okay. And this has something to do with Mitt Romney’s tax returns?

    Make sure to click thru to the link for the punchline.

  74. 74.

    dance around in your bones

    @Mark S.:

    Fred Thompson has permanently disqualified himself from public discourse with his reverse mortgage ads, the stupid fucker.

    P.S. TBogg is the awesome.

  75. 75.

    Triassic Sands

    I can’t decide if my life is more tragedy or farce.

    I’d go with melodrama. Perhaps you should invest in a waterproof Styrofoam suit.

  77. 77.

    YellowJournalism

    Ooooo…I wanna try some Cole haiku!

    Pouring a cocktail
    Or two…well, three…maybe four
    Naked Twitter Time!

    Lily cuddles John
    Rosie tears up a wallet
    Tunch stares with menace

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    I can’t decide if my life is more tragedy or farce.

    On the plus side, believing we all ride this merry-go-round only once rules out that it is payback.

  79. 79.

    TenguPhule

    That would have been one less brainwashed, bitter, dishonest, hack voter

    Caz volunteers to suicide.

    BJ goes wild!

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    I can’t decide if my life is more tragedy or farce.

    The first time is tragedy. The second time is farce.

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: I was going to ask you the same question last night (minus the crazy landlady) so it was nice to wake up to your answer this morning.

    If you ever move from this place, you should seriously be the one to write the real estate or rental description. It all sounds lovely!

    Edit: There are some mighty fine haikus in this thread!

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