Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Their freedom requires your slavery.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

No one could have predicted…

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Republicans don’t trust women.

Let there be snark.

He really is that stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Night Open Thread

Friday Night Open Thread

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Another day of appointments with doctors and other folks, and still working through my issues, which I know I haven’t talked about much lately, but I will update you when I feel like there is something to say. It’s been a really long couple of months and I just wanted to thank all of you for being good sports in my semi-absence and being so supportive (and that goes double for the front pagers). It’s so weird to be a misanthropic introvert but still appreciate your emails and kind thoughts. One of you folks sent me a pillow, which was super sweet, but unfortunately I never got to use it. Someone else claimed it:

rosiepillow

She always knocks all the blankets down and then lies on them like the Princess and the Pea. The pillow was on the other couch, but she apparently decided it needed to be relocated to her own personal bed.

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  3. 3.

    Anne Laurie

    Always good to hear from you, John.

    Should’ve included the “Readership Capture” tag, tho. :)

  5. 5.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    It’s okay, John Oliver has been doing just fine as blog owner. But the chair will always belong to you, good ol… Juan Cole was it? Cole Porter? Nat? It will come to me…

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    We also need pix of Steve and Lily.

    Also, why am I getting an ad that wants me to buy a sports bra? I grew a beard to get away from nonsense like that, goshdarnit.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Depending on one’s tolerance for “edgy” college radio dj hipster noodling, this is either awesome or TEH SUCK. Or possibly who gives a shit.

  12. 12.

    Violet

    What a lovely pillow. I can see why Miss Rosie decided it had to be hers. Glad you are hanging in there, John. Appreciate the update. Have been wondering how it’s been going.

  15. 15.

    Suzanne

    That pillow is lovely.

    Has anyone else just had it with 2013? This has been a really shitty year. Lots of shitty things have happened and I’ve been in a shitty mood about them.

  17. 17.

    spudgun

    Aww, Rosie’s sweet – what a nice picture!

    And from one misanthropic introvert to another: hang tough, ya bastid. I think you’re gonna be okay.

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: Yeah, two. Hoping to take one in December, but I don’t know if I can swing the exam fee before the holidays. (That’s the other bit of awful about these fuckers. We pay through the nose for this “privilege”.)

    I am ready for, to quote Fünke, ANUSTART.

  24. 24.

    Suffern ACE

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Wasn’t the the end supposed to be last year? Next year I think it’s supposed to fall on 4-1-14, or 1-4-14 if you’re in Europe. The world is going to end as one big prank on all of us.

  25. 25.

    Lyrebird

    And even some of us who haven’t sent any emails are sending good thoughts & wishes! When you find your secret journey ‘n all that.

  28. 28.

    John O

    Nice to hear from you, John.

    I hope you’re compiling all your political frustration into one epic rant that you’re saving for just the right moment.

    Be well.

  29. 29.

    Suffern ACE

    @Yatsuno: It’s one of those ethnic groups with more pronouced sexual dimorphism than is usual for our species. The women look like walking goddesses but the men appear to be trollish.

  30. 30.

    Tim C.

    Figured you were dealing with the alcohol issues you mentioned last summer quietly, but I’ve been down a similar path and am glad your working it though. Glad you are following though, you’ve got a lot of people pulling for you.

  32. 32.

    CaseyL

    Thanks for the sort-of update, John. Hope you’re making progress, and taking any setbacks as normal – not to be encouraged, but not to beat yourself up over, either.

    That is a lovely pillow. Does Rosie have her own personal bed? I thought her bed was… pretty much your bed, actually. Perhaps JSF can make a little quilt to go with the pillow… or another pillow, for you, so you and Rosie can have matching ones :)

    At this point in my life, I’m just grateful to make it through the year. Seems something sucky happens every year, whether it’s friends and acquaintances starting to die off, or another round of My Manager Hates Me at work.

  34. 34.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    Sorry that you are having a bad year.
    2012 was not just a bad one but my worst one ever and I was hit by a truck 19 yrs ago, among several other disasters that year, so I know from bad years.

    ETA I may be the guy you don’t want to sit next to on the train or plane. With my bad luck gene you may just get involved the next time a big steaming pile of crap hits me.

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    @Ruckus: Thanks. I am sorry that last year was so rough for you. Actually, most of this year’s misery has happened more to my loved ones than to me, but it is very hard to watch them shouldering these burdens.

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    Hey maybe next year will be good for you. This one has been for me, although it’s not great, better is better. Yes I’ve learned to tell soft piles of shit from hard piles without having to walk barefoot any more.

  38. 38.

    something fabulous

    Hey all; mostly lurker, but commenter-sometimes and met several of you lovely folks at the LA meetup. So long as it’s sucky year sharing, seems like time to dive back into commenting at last: my dad died on Monday night after a long series of illnesses and complications. So, you know: not at all a surprise, but always somehow a surprise, and always sucky and sad. Am here in Chicago dealing with the last wrapping up stuff with my brother; haven’t been home in two months. Been going on so long, and it feels so strange, like nothing has changed and yet everything has…

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @something fabulous:
    Sorry about your dad. I don’t think it’s any easier just because you know it’s coming.
    Had to put my dad in hospice at the end of his journey with alzhiemers. That last day was still the toughest.

  41. 41.

    CaseyL

    @something fabulous: Sympathy and condolences. Wrapping up after someone has died is hard. Such sadness, deciding what to do with their belongings and being in a house that still rings with their “presence.”

  45. 45.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Very well said.
    That moment. Dad died in my arms, I knew the second it happened. Went to a friends house afterwards and we drank a bottle of Jamison in honor to his Scotch/mostly Irish ass. I think he would have liked that.

  52. 52.

    John O

    Today is Mom’s 72nd. Still makes me laugh. I’ll be 55 in March.

    Not the product of planned parenthood was I.

    Condolences, something fabulous. It’s a tough thing, no matter how “ready” you are. (I’m at the point where every time I get a phone call from the immediate family I consider it possible bad news on dad, who is chronically illin’.)

    I figure at least things are happening in the right order. I’ve been blessedly lucky on the death front…

  54. 54.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: I am lucky. Both of my parents are alive, I lost my first grandparent when I was 26 (almost 27) and the last one this spring, and I knew two of my great grandparents. This spring I had a new experience with a death and funeral. Normally, my dad is the guy everyone leans on. Everyone else can cry and collapse, and he handles things. This time it was his mom and he went through the preparations and ceremony hanging by a thread. I, the elder son and oldest of the grandchildren, had be the one who had tissues for anyone who needed them and made sure no one was left alone for too long or was bothered when they needed to be alone. It felt a bit like growing up at 48.

  57. 57.

    Suzanne

    My big challenge this year has been with my mom. She got laid off about three years ago, and has struggled with depression my whole life. In April of this year, she called me at work and asked me to come over because her house was being foreclosed on and she was going to commit suicide. When I got there, she was ENTIRELY ready to go. I restrained her and had the cops come and had her committed. Then when she was released, she came and lived with me for about three months. Things are more stable now, and Obamacare will be a godsend, but this has been a very heavy weight.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: You ARE lucky in that respect. None of my grandparents saw me graduate from high school.

    Death sucks. I realize that that is not news. But yeah. Sucks.

  60. 60.

    YellowJournalism

    @Suzanne: Can’t give too many details except to add in a hearty “fuck yeah” to what you said. Just keep getting pounded with shit since around this time last year.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    Have decided to try to always from now on refer to a certain junior senator as Ted Cruz (R-Mordor).

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Of course this thread has poked at the never healing scab, just thinking, I have been watching family die/attending funerals since I was 10, along with friends. Kids up the street that I went to school with came home to find mom/dad in murder/suicide. Went to church/school with one of the Manson girls. Watched friends die motorcycle racing. In one case was the last person to talk to him and that was for a half hour. 15 minutes later I was 20 feet from him, watching when he died. Went to the funeral of a friends wife, both of them worked for me.
    It goes on and on. And then it just doesn’t.
    There is only one person left in my family out to second cousins who is older than me.
    I wonder what it would be like to not have been exposed to so much death. It’s like a river, it washes over you, it carries you along, it affects you, want it to or not.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: I have never heard the Norrington set. I’ll look it up. I like the concept behind the early music guys; One gets to hear the music as the composer conceived it. Other versions have value, but they aren’t exactly what Wolferl and the other boys wrote.

  68. 68.

    something fabulous

    Thanks so much all. I’m youngish (about your age, Omnes) to have had a dad who’d have been 87 in December, but my folks got a late start, and now are both gone. It’s a weird perspective– I guess most kids these days will have it, but in the 60’s my folks were definitely outliers getting married for the first time in their 30s.

    Since we’re also talking classical, does anyone have recommendations for a good version of Beethoven’s 9th? Dad was a big fan, so we were thinking playing (bits of it anyway) at the memorial on Sunday, and I don’t know much about it.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @something fabulous: Also, as far as the 9th goes, if you aren’t going to be around a bunch of hipster music snobs, any version by a remotely reputable orchestra will serve your purposes. You want the Ode to Joy bits, I assume. Don’t worry too much about the perfect version.

  76. 76.

    Something fabulous

    @NotMax: cool; thanks much. will dpend some time googling around tomorrow and will listen to your links then too. am of course wide awake but also of course not home and everyone here sound asleep. maybe i should try too. night all.

  77. 77.

    Stewish Steel

    @something fabulous: I’m partial to the Claudio Abbado, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra version myself.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Mein gott! Why would you do that to your old internet pals?

    @efgoldman: I knew you’d have the skinny on the transcriptions! I’ve already bookmarked some Katsaris to order when I have two nickels to rub together. I think I like Gould so much because he pedals so little. Brings the piano closer in character to the fast decaying sound of the guitar. That’s my theory, anyway. But really, you don’t like his Well Tempered Clavier? Or The Goldberg Variations?

  78. 78.

    Yatsuno

    @Ruckus: Yeah. It’s a wee bit creepy. But I’m also only two degrees from Kevin Bacon.

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think that’s through me. You apparently have 3 degrees two different ways.

  79. 79.

    Stewish Steel

    @efgoldman:

    Hey, you’ve had more ethnic nyms around this place than the UN.

    It’s all about the BROTHerhood of man, ef.

    Yes, that took me 2 hrs to come up with. But the important thing is that I got there.

  82. 82.

    anna_en_route

    I hope whatever journey you’re on is going ok.

    Rosie is adorable and very obviously rules the world (and that pillow)

    =)

  83. 83.

    gene108

    Growing up, I was always told that on Diwali people got up at 3 am and set off fire crackers. I’m now wondering why so many states – even those with conceal carry laws for guns – have banned the sale and personal use of firecrackers?

    It seems disproportionate that someone can carry a gun on him / her, wherever he / she goes, but I can’t buy sparklers.

    Anyway, Happy Diwali Balloon Juicers.

  84. 84.

    Alison

    @gene108: Having lived somewhere with the occasional sound of gunfire and somewhere with legal fireworks…I’ll take the latter any damn day of the week.

    I mean…there’s also the death thing, of course.

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @Alison:
    It’s funny that with the experience of living with both random gunfire and fireworks one can pretty easily tell the difference and know when to call the cops. But around here the cops rarely even drive by, they just send the helicopter, I think to see if it’s a gang war. If not I think someone has to actually get shot and call themselves to get any cop action.

  88. 88.

    MikeJ

    @Alison: I don’t mind firecrackers and such, but living in a place with a huge preponderance of cedar roofs I’m not a fan of amateurs having things that go up in the air. On the 4th somebody managed to do a million and a half worth of damage to a marina here, so a wooden roof isn’t even needed.

  89. 89.

    raven

    @@Ruckus: : We were out in the neighborhood on Halloween and ran into some folks giving away candy in front of their house. I struck up a conversation with a fellow that it turns out is a retired poli-sci prof. As we were shooting the shit someone set off a pretty hefty firecracker and, as I do, I jumped about a foot. He did too and I said something about be hypervigilant. He said “yea, in 1980 my wife and I went to Guatemala and it was pretty rough there, we’ve never really been able to hack fireworks since”!

  91. 91.

    debbie

    @raven:

    Hypervigilance is a curse, if you ask me. I got home-invaded about 6 or 7 years ago. The guy kicked in my front door, so now loud, sudden noises make me and my organs jump in different directions. I cannot believe that it does not go away.

  93. 93.

    Rosalita

    Been wondering how you are doing with it all, hang in there. You have three bundles of good energy at home and a whole blog full of assholes to make you feel better when possible. Courage!

  94. 94.

    Rosalita

    Been wondering how you are doing with it all, hang in there. You have three bundles of good energy at home and a whole blog full of assholes to make you feel better when possible. Courage!

  95. 95.

    Rosalita

    Been wondering how you are doing with it all, hang in there. You have three bundles of good energy at home and a whole blog full of assholes to make you feel better when possible. Courage!

  98. 98.

    StringOnAStick

    Hang in there John; keep doing the work and eventually it becomes habit to leave the unproductive stuff behind.

    We’re dealing with the disruption of convincing my 87 YO FIL to move with his other son to a new, but much smaller town. He doesn’t do anything other than watch TV these days (no friends; total curmudgeon) so it isn’t like it would change how he lives his life; the issue is the scary change aspect. This son has lived with him for years and taken care of him, and without him my FIL would require daily care.

    Son’s new job (very hard to come by here) is a 3 hour commute each day, so he needs to be closer because it is a “late more than once and you are fired” sort of job. It would be cheaper for this son to quit this job and we’d pay him to stay home with dad, but his pride won’t allow that. Selling this extremely run down house is going to be tough, nice ‘hood or not; it’s basically a scrape-off but FIL thinks it should sell for twice what I suspect it will (a realtor is coming by in a few days to give us a hint). The realtor’s conclusion will very likely cause a firestorm of consternation.

    Yesterday the power went off for 3 hours, which happens often here because of (1) too many big trees in this Midwestern forest, and (2) destroyed tax base so no infrastructure maintenance. FIL was nearly frantic about the power outage but can’t drive now to get away from it, and winter’s coming so a long outage means a really cold house. BIL’s new job (corrections) means no phone calls can be sent or received, so between the long commute and the job, that’s 11 hours out of the house and 8 out of verbal contact. The whole situation is untenable, and the thought of moving is stressing my FIL to his maximum, so his usual level of (treated) depression is high on top of his generally being angry about getting older. So, all sorts of fun right now.

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  1. […] Yesterday the power went off for 3 hours, which happens often here because of (1) too many big trees in this Midwestern forest, and (2) destroyed tax base so no infrastructure maintenance.FIL was nearly frantic about the power outage but can’t drive now to get away from it, and winter’s coming so a long outage means a really cold house.BIL’s new job (corrections) means no phone calls can be sent or received, so between the long commute and the job, that’s 11 hours out of the house and 8 out of verbal contact.The whole situation is untenable, and the thought of moving is stressing my FIL to his maximum, so his usual level of (treated) depression is high on top of his generally being angry about getting older.So, all sorts of fun right now.Replyhttps://balloon-juice.com/2013/11/01/friday-night-open-thread-60/ […]