Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

T R E 4 5 O N

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

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

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Everybody saw this coming.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Let me file that under fuck it.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Come on, man.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

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Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    Jewish Steel

    So fucking what?

    The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.

    That’s fucking what.

  2. 2.

    eemom

    The last thread was a veritable symphony of fywp. It needs to be preserved in a museum somewhere.

  4. 4.

    Jewish Steel

    @eemom: Mercy! I thought those were all comments in conversation skimming past the first time. Reading them just now, it’s like some kind of Roger Corman, low-rent acid trip.

    We were lucky to escape. The others? Probably lost forever. Sniff.

    @eemom: Nope. Power drive. Very working class.

  7. 7.

    Linda Featheringill

    I’m awake, too. Damndog decided to defend the house against white elephants or something and only loud barking would drive the monster away. Tulip is inside now, resting from her labors, and I’m wide awake.

  8. 8.

    freelancer

    I was exhausted all day, so I came home and took a nap. Woke up at 9pm. I think I just ruined my weekend.

    Also, earlier, Cole wrote:

    I blame it on scotch and the altitude in the arena.

    And I, in my post-nap, groggy haste, read arena as “enema”, and then thought, “Well, if JG wants to buttchug a nice single malt while playing WoW with the ladies, that’s entirely between him and his God.”

    Now, that stupid fucking thought came back with a vengeance, “Well, yeah, no wonder he’s complaining about his gut.”

  9. 9.

    Jewish Steel

    @Haydnseek: A lyricist myself, I thought it was a fine turn of phrase too.

    “Better Than Springsteen”

    -anonymous internet commenter

    That’s going right on the poster.

  11. 11.

    jayackroyd

    The QB coach of my high school football team told me there were two things I needed to pay attention to 1) this Jimmy Carter guy and 2) this Bruce Springsteen fellow.

    I didn’t heed his advice; I’ve only seen Bruce once, at a Kerry fundraiser in Philadelphia, with REM, John Fogarty and someone I’m forgetting. The band was amazingly tight, but there were a remarkable number of, for lack of a better analogy, Rocky Horror moments where a core group of fans had standard responses to moments in the performance. The couple of them I talked to over the course of the evening were country club/glibertarian Republicans from NJ. They found the political content (and Michael Stipe) irritating, but they always seek out Bruce.

    This has always stuck in my head. I’ve been to other shows I don’t remember nearly so clearly, but the middle aged accountant types throwing their fists up at She’s the One stick. I think one reason is the weird dissonance going on. The audience member is going to a benefit for a candidate he’s gonna vote against. The performer is so sickly rich that he only does this because he wants to, but his performance is tied to identification with ordinary people, which he has not been for a very long time.

    I’m not criticizing here. Bruce and the band were great–professional, entertaining and on message with the benefit. I regret not seeing the band before Born to Run, just as I regret not seeing The Clash when they played in a local movie theater.

    But there’s a weird thing going on with Bruce, his audience and his message.

    OTOH,

    It’s my work he’d say and I do it for pay. And when it’s over I’d just as soon go on my way

    maybe I’m just wanking. It’s late.

  14. 14.

    Phylllis

    @Linda Featheringill: I’m up because of the neighbor’s dog doing the same damn thing. My usual sleep-inducer of about a thousand rounds of Bejeweled on the iPad ain’t working for me tonight.

  15. 15.

    kdaug

    Can’t sleep.

    You and me both, chief.

    Or, more accurately, crashed at 8 and got up at midnight.

    Have some wedding I have to go to this afternoon. Don’t know any of the people (some friends of the wife) but I have the privilege of dusting off decades-old clothes and trying to look presentable.

    Might be cool.

    Might suck.

  17. 17.

    ulee

    @kdaug: Crashed at eight, up at midnight, with a wedding tomorrow? You’re screwed. Get drunk and wing it. If someone questions your behavior, say you’ve got the flu and are taking tussin or benadryl.

  18. 18.

    csbella

    On the west side it’s only12:55, I’m just starting my typical sleepless night.

    I was photographer for my college newspaper when Bruce was still doing small venues. At the end of each show the band would carry him off stage on a stretcher. Wish I still had the photos.

  19. 19.

    Haydnseek

    @csbella: The west side of where? I used to freelance shooting local bands in LA in the 80’s. You might have some negs somewhere. I still find things once in awhile from back when…..

  20. 20.

    hamletta

    @jayackroyd: Those assholes were probably my contemporaries, Reagan Youth.

    It was a weird time.

    But if you came up in the mid-Atlantic states in the ’70s, The Boss is part of you. Just like Little Feat and NRBQ.

    It’s a thing.

  21. 21.

    hamletta

    I want to work out that first song he was working on for my church. 11/11 is a Sunday this year.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    The Onion once described Bruce — quite seriously, in an AV Club review of The Rising — as part rock star and part secular saint. The secular saint part must feel a little strange for him; he once said in a lyric, “It’s a sad, funny ending to find yourself pretending: a rich man in a poor man’s shirt” (Better Days, from the Lucky Town album). But for what Bruce does, one needn’t be autobiographical, one needn’t be reporting one’s life in the moment, to be truthful. I think people respond to the truthfulness in his songwriting and performance. They recognize that he isn’t a phony.

    At any rate, Bruce does seem to have a sort of authority, serious but not out-of-the-mainstream radical. It’s not common among pop-culture figures, or for that matter politicians. It’s why he doesn’t look as out of place in such a political setting as Kid Rock or Ted Nugent. Ronald Reagan recognized this as far back as the early 1980s.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    Wide awake, for no obvious reason. Listening to Mark O’Connor. I have a Dropbox full of law review articles that has so far failed to do me in. Might as well stay up and watch Spurs -Chelsea at 4:45.

  27. 27.

    Flying Squirrel Girl

    It’s off to the airport for the second attempt at putting my unruly dog on a plane. Tranquilizers? Check.

    Then it’s back to the house to finish cleaning/packing up to leave Costa Rica tomorrow for good.

    Did I mention the rain? Hi ho.

  28. 28.

    dance around in your bones

    @Flying Squirrel Girl: We had to drug our dog for a long flight once.

    But the joy she greeted us with when we picked her up made it all worth it. Dogs have a kind of ‘in the moment’ Zen attitude, so don’t beat yourself up about it. Your dog surely won’t.

    And good traveling to all of you.

  30. 30.

    ThresherK

    My only Springsteen concert (so far) was 9 years ago this month.

    Not much politics. Bruce did say something offhand that how the President struck him as a good enough man, but that Dick Cheney (by name) and others giving him advice were not trustworthy. It was not polemic in the least.

    Guess a few more years of the Bush II regime were enough for Bruce.

  31. 31.

    SBJules

    I saw him in the L.A. Coliseum in the 80s. It remains the most memorable concert I’ve been to. There was a long, long, piece on him in the Newyorker recently; made me like him more.

  32. 32.

    sgrAstar

    @SBJules: I was there too, if you’re referring to the mega concert Bruce headlined for Amnesty International. it started at 7 pm with Tracy Chapman and other great musicians- the Boss didn’t come on until midnight, and then just wouldn’t stop playing. Duet with Sting was awesome. Got home at 4 am. Fantastic experience..

  34. 34.

    csbella

    @Haydnseek: west coast now. Springsteen concerts in east coast, my earlier years. Would be sweet if the negatives showed up somewhere. Found some from Patti Smith, 1977 Boston.

  36. 36.

    Tony the Wonderhorse

    the live Thunder Road from 1975 still makes me cry

    I know Bruce isn’t 4 everyone, no one is. But he’s 4 me, or I’m 4 him

    okay, seven digits, my neurosis is satisfied, carry on …

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