I couldn’t pick Justin Beiber’s music out of an iTunes lineup, but Alex Pappademas’ Grantland “open letter” (on the occasion of the New Canadian Menace getting busted for assault) is still entertaining:
… Keith Richards once said, “Let me be clear about this — I don’t have a drug problem, I have a police problem.” It’s one of the best Keith quotes ever. Of course, if you have to make it clear to people that your apparent drug problem is actually a police problem, you probably also have a drug problem….
I understand, though. One of the few things you can control right now is your brain chemistry. You’re trying to define yourself, which is hard when you’ve been famous for more than half your life. From an absurdly early age, you were under a level of scrutiny that pretty much qualifies as psychic molestation — I really believe that. If anybody deserves to get a little trippy, it’s you, and nobody is more excited than me about the possibility of a “psychedelic” Justin Bieber album. But listen: You can’t be a dick to service-industry people. At the level you’re at, a cleaning person is somebody you pay to not send pictures of your bong room to Harvey Levin, and the only way that sacred covenant gets broken is if you’ve somehow made the cleaning person hate you. Either learn how to show respect for people, or get a Roomba. Same with limo drivers. That guy’s job is to forget what transpires on the other side of the partition. You could fuck a squid back there and he wouldn’t say anything, but all bets are off when you start hitting him in the head. You can’t King Joffrey the help, Justin — the irony of your situation is that they can buy and sell you as easily as you can buy and sell them.
You have to remember that there’s a whole clickbait economy built around people pretending your behavior is shocking and depraved, even if it’s just stupid — this will be the case until you go to rehab, at which time they’ll switch to pretending to be concerned. (No matter how many people sign that petition calling for you to be deported, you probably have nothing to worry about — President Obama would never willingly send that many gossip-industry jobs to Canada.)…
***********
Apart from emulating Emily Dickinson (“How doleful, like a frog — to quote your name the livelong day — to an admiring bog — “), what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
I’ll probably spend the evening trying to forget about Justin Bieber again.
Hungry Joe
Peak Poe: “Are Militant Atheists using Chemtrails to Poison the Angels in Heaven?”
Website is harddawn.com. I refuse to link, but Poe or no, that headline is sheer genius. Takes me back to the glory days of Ed Anger in the Weekly World News.
Litlebritdiftrnt
The unwritten rule of never piss off your chef or your waiter seems to be lost among the 1%. I have no idea how much mucus, piss, and excrement these people have eaten over the years. I remember that ABC expose that Diane Sawyer reported on several years ago, when a waitress deposited the entire contents of her nose into a customer’s cup of coffee. You piss off your service providers at your own risk. As my Uncle always told me, “people who matter don’t mind, people who mind, don’t matter”
Richard C.
The Bill Nye v Ken Ham debate is on.
lamh36
Speaking of POTUS, here’s a video of the visit he made last week .
President Obama records students in a Buck Lodge Middle School Using Class Ipad
raven
I got my MRI report from the orthopod and I’m going back to my GP to see what non-surgical options there are.
ulee
Emily Dickinson. She didn’t have agoraphobia. She just realized early on that she didn’t want to hang around with people. Nothing wrong with that. As Philip Seymour Hoffman said, acting Lester Bangs. I’m always home. I’m uncool.
MikeJ
Marriage equality passes in Scotland:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-25960225
muddy
I am completely gobsmacked. I have Scott Pelley on the CBS news. I use it as a barometer of middle-of-the-road blather. Usually I have nothing nice to say to Scott, but then I am only watching to see what the misinfo of the day is, so it’s not like I’m disappointed or anything. Tonight he started saying about the CBO report and the 2 million jobs – I paused it quickly, cursing at him that he was going to tell it wrong as usual. Presently I started it back up, and having had a drinkywinky to compose myself I decided to listen to exactly how wrong he was.
And then he told the full story properly. Jeezum fucking crow what what what? Worms turning, etc. There’s still too much stuffing in the front of his jacket though. Pigeon-looking.
Hill Dweller
I’m binge watching the first season of The Mind of a Chef.
raven
@muddy: Even a blind squirrel finds and acorn once-in-a-while.
MomSense
@raven:
Have you ever tried osteopathic manipulation? I have found it helpful for treating my back and shoulder. I did have major surgery on my knee and I am so glad I did. Nothing else worked. The recovery was painful but well worth it.
imonlylurking
My roommate is watching that appalling “debate” about evolution vs creationism. I can hear it in my room-gotta find the headphones now.
Citizen Scientist
Bill Nye/Ken Ham Evolution/Creationism debate is happening live: here. Also on npr here. Thus far, Ham appears to be disingenuous, as usual.
geg6
Vegetating, hopefully. Tired and sick of winter. Another ice and then snow storm are on their way over night. Shockingly, the campus chancellor put the word out that we could expect a text announcing a 2 hour delay in the am. I’ve worked there 15 years now under this guy and early notice has never, ever happened. Gonna drink some wine and watch crap on tv.
muddy
@raven: I have seen him cast plenty of acorns away, in any case.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Justin Bieber or a rousing 19th century debate. Balloon Juice is bringing it.
LanceThruster
Denis Leary: Remember Jim Fixx? The big famous jogging guy? Jogged fifteen miles a day. Did a jogging book. Did a jogging video. Dropped dead of a heart attack when? When he was fucking jogging, that’s when!
muddy
At least Scott reassures me with his signature head-on-hand-holding-glasses move at the end of the feelgood segment.
boatboy_srq
This is the distinction between the 0.N1% and the folks the 99% think of as the 0.N1%. Entertainers and pop culture figures can be brought low because their talent and reputation are all they have, and what they use to make their (smaller) fortunes. The true 0.N1% have both the resources and the low profiles to ensure that their help (with the exception of the finance and legal teams), even if they went public, can only do minimal damage.
No, Ahmurrca, Justin Bieber is not part of that 1%: he’s just a lot more visible than they are.
ulee
Emily Dickinson refused to go to church in her early teens. Her overbearing father found her sitting on the basement steps. Emily said she had “retired underground.”
GregB
Speaking of creationism, on a long trek home back from Keene, I stumbled upon some hyper-religious radio broadcast last night with an author railing on about the Nazis and their deep rooted environmentalism and the UN’s Agenda 21 and how American environmentalists were all neo-fascists.
Oofah.
jharp
How is the weather for everyone? I have shoveled a few inches off my driveway twice so far.
And it is still snowing. 5 to 10 inches expected. Then zero for 2 nights.
Then shitty for the next 5 days after that. And then who knows.
A dreadful winter.
Elizabelle
@Litlebritdiftrnt:
Governor and Mrs. Robert McDonnell of Virginia learned that one the hard way.
mainmata
As I reported on a previous thread, mothers are melting snow to bathe their children in the WVA affected areas of the Freedumb Industries chemical spill, weeks after the event. Mary Tennant’s testimony (Sec. of State for WVA) was pretty intense. Can WVA get out of its perennially subservient attitude to the Coal and Chemical Industry Sociopaths this time?
Schlemizel
My tolerance for the inflamed pimple on America’s ass ended when he decided to race a high powered machine on a public street while under the influence of multiple chemicals. Fuck him & fuck Richards if he ever did the same thing. The fevered cry for attention constantly made by effluent like Bieber and Cyrus and the like, along with the industry that exists simply to make sure we cannot ignore them should all just fall off the face of the earth to make this a better place. Fuck ’em all
lamh36
Obama Aides See Clinton Repeating Past Mistakes
the Conster
Got to walk behind Scott Brown on my way to South Station – there was a brief window of opportunity where I could have pushed him into oncoming traffic, thereby possibly changing the course of human history – Sliding Doors style. Oh well. If he ever gets elected nationally for anything ever again, you can blame me.
MikeJ
@ulee:
Some people might say her life was in a rut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1ct5yEuVY
J.
When Balloon-Juicers start discussing Justin Bieber, we are all doomed.
Also, we needed more cute cat pix, so here you go. (Steve, you have met your match.)
ulee
@Schlemizel: They are just people. We all make mistakes. With that said, yes, I think that Beiber should be told–you’ve exhausted your U.S. privilages. See ya.
Schlemizel
@Litlebritdiftrnt:
Years ago, before he was so well known around the country but was prominent in NYC I read an article about bridge workers stopping work over the Hudson River to piss over the side of the bridge whenever Trumps yacht sailed underneath. I knew just enough about him that it made me smile to think of it.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@the Conster: Push him, then run like hell, hide in a library. If they catch you, make sure you are reading Catcher In The Rye.
ultraviolet thunder
@jharp:
I’m far from home enjoying a non-freezing week in S Carolina. It was 70 degrees here yesterday and it just felt Wrong. It will be snowy and frigid when I get back home on Friday.
Not quite allowing myself to believe that the cratering of Christie’s political career leaves the field wide open for Mitt 2: The Resurgence. Baby Jeebus just doesn’t love me that much.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
NPR also told it right. A bit to my surprise.
MikeJ
@Schlemizel: What did Cyrus do that so bad? She never hurt anybody. If you’re going to tell pop stars they shouldn’t do anything for attention you should go back to today’s Beatles thread and talk about your low tolerance for attention whores.
PurpleGirl
NYC is expecting a varid amount of new snow depending on where you are; the Bronx will probably get the most. I’m hoping my area gets an in-between amount. Also expecting more snow over the weekend. For the last few years NYC hasn’t had a lot of really bad storms. But this reas gets what it gets in the winter, better to make plans about what to do than to just complain about it. And maybe businesses should learn the better part of valor is to close the office.
Roger Moore
@jharp:
We might actually get some minor precipitation tonight. Not enough to end the drought, but every fraction of an inch helps.
Schlemizel
@ulee:
Drag racing on a public street is not a mistake we as a society should accept. I will tolerate the inebriated Juvenal act, licking strippers, pissing in mop buckets, dressing like a clown, twerking till their ass falls of, I just don’t care. I hate the industry that makes it all possible but I couldn’t care less about them. But that one thing is a line that should not be crossed. Toss in the “WHA I DOOOOOOO?” response & it just makes me wish they had tazed his useless ass like they would have done if he were a slightly different teen in FLA.
Mnemosyne
@ulee:
They found a new photo of Emily Dickinson as an adult recently.
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
I must have missed a post I made saying anything about the Beatles. Sorry, when I find it I’ll ask it be deleted.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: I mark things like this in my calendar, just in case later I want to say, “that was the day the tide turned, children…”.
SiubhanDuinne
Heavy mist in Atlanta — that annoying quantity of gentle precip which just doesn’t quite fit with any of the incremental settings on your windshield wipers.
the Conster
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Great plan, and wish I had thought of it. I’d get to take my place with Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley and Robert Bardo, and write my manifesto about the hatred of phonies – good looking phonies particularly.
muddy
@MikeJ: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/miley-cyrus-to-justin-bieber-pay-people-to-keep-you-out-of-trouble-20140131
NotMax
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Almost (almost) makes one long for the halcyon days of Paris Hilton.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
I did notice today that there was a lot of pushback on the RWNJ’s willful misinterpretation, and it was immediate. I guess the report, the lies, and the pushback all came early enough for the MSM to work up, I dunno, something actually resembling journalism in time for the evening broadcasts.
I do like the calendar idea.
ulee
@Schlemizel: You’re right. But he is young and stupid and may turn out alright in the long run. He should face consequences. It would help him. His father is a scum bag, which doesn’t help. On the other hand, John Lennon’s father was a scumbag and Lennon was full of empathy (though he had a mean streak) I don’t know, just trying to figure it all out.
PurpleGirl
@J.: She’s a pretty cat and has much tortitude.
Roger Moore
@Litlebritdiftrnt:
My grandfather taught me that when I was quite young. He told me that you can give other servants notice, but when you fire the chef, he has to be gone immediately. He picked up this piece of advice as a young man in India, where you could get much worse than bodily fluids in your food.
ulee
But of course, Lennon was a great writer and musician. Beiber, not so much.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: Keep us posted. A non medical/pharmaceutical thought can be had with an email to flsgreen at gmail. How’s your lovely bride?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@the Conster: Next time you have an inkling to kill someone, you reach out to Fuckhead.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Off topic but, on topic earlier so fuck you:
Report: F-35 Cracks in Tests, Isn’t Reliable
Yes, it’s a piece of shit, it costs more and is less capable than the aircraft it’s supposed to replace but, it looks sooooooo cool. We can, like, park our F-35 stealth fighters around our B-2 Stealth Bombers and celebrate the weapons systems that are both hugely expensive and absolutely useless.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
“She was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.”
–Saki (H. H. Munro)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Okay, that was funny. Thanks.
Ash Can
@ulee: BTW, nice to see you around.
gbear
I had a meeting on the north shore of Lake Superior this afternoon. It was sunny and 10 degrees warmer than in the Twin Cities (+8 in town, +18 in Two Harbors, MN. Wound up being a very nice day (the meeting wasn’t the disaster I was fearing).
MikeJ
@muddy: Again, I don’t see anything horrible about it. If whatshisname had stayed home and not annoyed the neighbors nobody would care about what he did.That’s exactly what she suggested.
Ash Can
@lamh36: That is so cute! Thanks for the link.
Schlemizel
@ulee:
Yeah I should have mentioned the enablers in all of this. They are the ones who will look the other way for the ‘stars’. In sports or entertainment and occasionally in politics, jerks behave this way because there are people who allow it. Particularly when the ‘star’ is young and stupid and naturally self-involved. It makes for a dangerous combination that destroys a lot of lives. They should get the inner ring of hell, followed by the media that feeds off of and into the attention whoring and reckless behavior.
He may grow out of it, Milie may grow out of it but it also might destroy them. They wouldn’t be the first and sadly won’t be the last.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Granted, it is (was) a position with a limited number of practitioners, but besides the chef would add the Groom of the Stool (more info) to that short list.
ulee
@Mnemosyne: I’ve seen that photo and it seems genuine. I am 48 years old and I remember being in my early twenties, painting houses, and reading Emily Dickinson on my lunch break. Everyone thought I was strange.
muddy
@MikeJ: I was agreeing with you, sorry not to be more clear.
Smiling Mortician
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: This is excellent to know. Consider it filed away for future reference.
ulee
@Ash Can: Thank you. It is nice to be greeted kindly. It’s been a rough year, but now I am not suicidal, am employed. Sometimes, things improve.
Ash Can
@ulee: That’s good to hear. Continued success to you.
Mike in NC
@ultraviolet thunder: I was checking out the new releases streaming on Netflix. One of them was “Mitt” and another one was “Maniac” starring Elijah Wood as a psychopath who scalps women. The latter seems like a more sympathetic character.
Mnemosyne
@ulee:
For some reason that reminds me of the story of Richard Plantagenent of Eastwell, who claimed to be the bastard son of Richard III when the owner of the estate he was working at discovered Richard reading a book in Latin while taking a break from bricklaying.
Glad to hear things are going better for you.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Schlemizel:
There’s no map for people who find themselves making the lifetime incomes of hundreds of people when they’re just kids. Their families, who would hopefully be the source of good advice, are swamped by the money themselves. Who can tell you “No” when you have numerous staff telling you that anything that you think of is cool?
Someone like Danny Bonaduce could tell them the right of it but, they’re young and they just know that it will turnout differently for them.
Jebediah, RBG
@ulee:
Fantastic! Glad to hear it!
Anne Laurie
@ulee: Good to see you around!
Anne Laurie
@Schlemizel: Miley got to watch her dad make a very public fool of himself, even apart from selling Little Princess Froggy Dimples to the Mouse Factory. She seems to have been taking notes about what not to do, based on his example, since he threw her out in front of the audience because he’d screwed up a live interview… on her second birthday.
Schlemizel
@Anne Laurie:
And he is Robert Young compared to the Lohan guy. The adults may be evil but thats no reason to accept the results.
Suffern ACE
Leave Justin aloooone.
Ok. Mess with him. I saw the WH petition in a Facebook feed. I couldn’t see signing it. Revoke his green card! Deport! I honestly don’t feel the need to protect the nation that much.
FormerSwingVoter
Open thread, right?
I was talking with a friend about how people raised rich have no idea what life is like for us working stiffs, and this song was brought to my attention. I’m kinda embarrassed at how much I like it, given the “artists” involved… but the sheer, raw emotion boiling over as it goes on really gets me.
There’s gotta be at least five lines in that song that would make for great post titles here, given the content.
J.
@PurpleGirl: She does indeed. :-)
ulee
@Anne Laurie: Thank you Anne. Thanks to everyone. Good people.
Omnes Omnibus
@FormerSwingVoter: The original version of the song.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Personally, I prefer the Jackson/Shatner version, for the same reasons I prefer the Johnny Cash version of “Hurt” to the original — the sentiments sound better coming from the voice of long, bitter experience than from someone in his 20s or 30s.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: How about the My Chemical Romance version?
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Despite the delays, Pentagon officials remain committed to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, calling it “absolutely vital to national security” to have a fighter jet that is bigger, slower, more expensive, and less armed than China’s J-16. The project has a total projected cost of $1.45 trillion, or as Bogdan pointed out, “roughly one Iraq.”
According to a Lockheed spokesman, the military hopes to take delivery of the first F-35s “sometime in mid-2015, or, you know, whenever. You just never know, with these things.”
Duffle Blog
burnspbesq
Any precip you don’t want, ship it our way. We are looking at a 500-year drought.
Paul in KY
@the Conster: We will :-)