Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

When we show up, we win.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

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

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

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

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Cruz-ifiction / Friday Evening Open Thread: Comedy, It’s Not for Amateurs

Friday Evening Open Thread: Comedy, It’s Not for Amateurs

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Sure, lots of people have used a combination of odd physiognomy and quick wit to spark a career in comedy, Ted, but you also need a functional sense of humor and that is a gift God has not granted you. It’s Amateur Day for would-be comedians, but that only makes it more dangerous.
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Apart from the healthful exercise of rolling our eyes, repeatedly, what’s on the agenda as we start the weekend?

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Apart from the healthful exercise of rolling our eyes,

    I had an eyelash stuck in my eye. It hurts to roll them.

  4. 4.

    PsiFighter37

    Some off-topic fun – Hamburger Helper (yes, the boxed food) released a rap mixtape on April Fool’s Day. It is actually kind of decent. You can have a listen here and you can thank me below. You’re welcome.

  5. 5.

    jl

    @Baud: I’m not sure who Rosario Dawson is, and even after a close examination of the archival materials, links and an intensive two minute internet search on ‘rickrolling’ the internet memes and basic facts behind this story escape me.

    Can I be your veep nom now? I’ve proven that I am totally out of it.

  8. 8.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @PsiFighter37:
    I’ll thank you to not introduce me to any rap music of any kind!

    Back from another week in purgatory but I now have been trained on 7 habits of highly defect people and how to give a presentation

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @jl:

    She’s a young actress who said something kind of dumb about the primary. In other news, water is wet and the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning.

  13. 13.

    PsiFighter37

    @John Revolta: Oh for crying out loud, it’s good in that a) the lyrics fit quite well for talking about Hamburger Helper, and b) the production quality and the beats are actually professionally done. It’s not going to win any awards, but I like it better than the usual April Fool’s dreck that most companies do.

  14. 14.

    lamh36

    ‎@maddow
    We’ve got some news to break tonight on the unreleased DC Madam phone records… 9pm ET, MSNBC.

  15. 15.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    It’s been a long day, and I haven’t even gotten to work yet. I’ve spent a large chunk of it dealing with friends and allies who are pretty much slandering Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman over his decision not to indict the police officers involved in the shooting of Jamar Clark. They’ve been hopelessly mischaracterizing his stated reasons for not indicting, saying that he ignored evidence that he patently did not ignore, and saying that his primary reasoning was something that he patently said he didn’t rely on in making his decision.

    As with the DoJ’s report on the shooting of Michael Brown, everyone has decided they don’t need to read the report that Freeman wrote on the case, and can judge him solely by the press conference he held on Wednesday.

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    @lamh36: I’m going to guess that Ted Cruz was an employee, not a client. Catering to certain very specific niches, of course.

  20. 20.

    lamh36

    Good evening peeps.

    Stopped at a local stop to get me a chicken plate. I was going to go to Popeyes, but the line was too long. I forgot about the $5 Box…I stilll had to wait 15min for the lady to drop some chicken wings…but, when I got home I realized she gave me my order and another small order. It’s raining too hard, or I would have turned around…but nope

  21. 21.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    The WH correspondents dinner is coming up. Imagine LusTed or Trumpster doing their thing at the dinner. Enuf reason alone to vote for Hils!

  22. 22.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @maddow
    We’ve got some news to break tonight on the unreleased DC Madam phone records… 9pm ET, MSNBC.

    Damn it! I told Baud! over and over again to use a burner phone.

    Ugh. We got to come up with a plausible denial (as we used to say at The Company)

  23. 23.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, I broke down an looked her up on wiki. She was in one of the Mean in Blacks, and Rent. i remember who she is now, kind of. Face seems familiar. Didn’t leave a big impression on me for some reason.

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    So I’ve been thinking about jobs in lab but not bench work I could look into…and it hit me…Infection Control/Prevention. I could do that and still find some PRN or PT bench tech stuff to keep up my skills. Usually IFC involves RNs but a lot of them also list Micro MT experience. it’s about the “amount” and quality of Micro experience. Just today I saw at least 2 IFC positions in DFW that listed MT Micro and one was at my old hospital.

    when the coming of the new addition, I’ve been seriously thinking about moving back to DFW to be near my youngest sister and her baby. she has her husband and his family, but they’re not close and my other sister isn’t very reliable so the pregnant sis is basically alone up there alone.

    Just thinking…gonna look into the possibility this weekend while I’m off

  25. 25.

    Face

    @PsiFighter37: So the character who voices the cartoon Ham Help appendage can literally roll up at parties and tell peeps he makes all his money with hand jobs?

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    Speaking of comedy, greetings from intermission at the Capital Steps concert. If they weren’t so busy and well rehearsed, I’d say they were juicers judging from the humor.

  28. 28.

    Pogonip

    I missed the original corporate training comment, can someone show me where it is?

    89-year-old father doing much better. We hope to get him to at least 90. HIS grandmother lived to 96, I sure hope I got her genes. She was a poverty-stricken Cherokee so making it to 96 was quite unusual.

    (Yes, I know, but she was honest-to-God Cherokee on both sides.)

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    Just caught this on my FB feed.

    I rarely repost stuff that’s just random spam.

    This is powerful enough that I wanted to share.

    Trigger Alert Warning…
    Duke Breaks Out

    In relation to our recent discussions of rape culture and war-time rape, I thought I would share this movement from some female students from Duke University. They’re calling it “Duke Breaking Out”. These women were raped, and this is their way of raising awareness of rape on campuses and how universities fail to properly address the issues beyond the crime.

    Below is a link to their blog, and to their Facebook page.

    sites.duke.edu/develledish/2015/04/15/breaking-out-2015-2/

    facebook.com/dukebreakingout/

  33. 33.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    My wife got a new smart phone. And she’s given me her old one. Rather, I should say she made me take her old one. I didn’t want it. I was happy with my little foldy telephone. But, no. Now I have to have a fancy-schmancy-ass smart telephone. Shit. I didn’t even want a clever phone, much less a smart one. I want a dumb phone. I say again, shit.

  37. 37.

    lamh36

    Lord that Galaxy S7 commercial with Lil Wayne gonna have some fool trying to drown their phone and killing it :-)

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    Yes, this is the world in which we live, it appears one needs to have ones brain removed in order to make the grade of manager

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    @Mai.naem.mobile:

    The WH correspondents dinner is coming up. Imagine LusTed or Trumpster doing their thing at the dinner. Enuf reason alone to vote for Hils!

    Alas — and I say this as a Hillary supporter — I don’t think doing a comedy routine is her strength. Obama has incredible timing and delivery, but none of the current candidates (of either party) shares those gifts. I really wish they would just totally drop the expectation of having the President make like a late-night talk show host. Except for Obama, they can’t pull it off, and it’s cruel and unfair to make them try.

  42. 42.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @lamh36: Krugman is a corporatist, blue-dog, conservadem on bended knee to his Wall Street pay masters.

  46. 46.

    Gin & Tonic

    @lamh36: So what was Rachel’s big scoop? It’s 27 minutes in, she’s probably gotten to the point by now.

  48. 48.

    dmsilev

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Remember George Bush oh-so-humerously looking for the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction underneath the carpet and so forth? Honestly, that entire dinner tradition should be taken out and shot.

  50. 50.

    lamh36

    Not at all surprised…

    @danmericaCNN
    Hillary Clinton is currently speaking at Black Girls Rock, an award show for black women that will run on BET this week.

  51. 51.

    jl

    @lamh36: I think Obama will be ranked in top 15 presidents. Definitely above the Grover Cleveland line (that is my estimate of dividing line between presidents who will be considered to have had historically significant terms, in a good way, versus those who will not). I think higher than Big Dawg.

    Health care reform and getting country through Great Recession will be enough.I think, plus cleaning up mess W left. And Iran nuclear treaty may become more important as time goes by.

  52. 52.

    Shana

    @Major Major Major Major: I agree wholeheartedly. I suspect that those badly blurred pictures in the Enquirer were not meant to be accurate and that however many women he really slept with were all paid. Why anyone would want to sleep with him for anything but lots of money boggles the mind.

    ETA: The DC Madam’s lawyer has petitioned the SC to unseal the documents and they’ve put it on the docket. He also says he’s put the documents online somewhere and there’s a dead man’s switch so that if he doesn’t reset it at least every 72 hours it gets released to the press, in case anything happens to him.

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    @dmsilev:

    I sure do, and all these years later I cringe at the recollection.

    IIRC, he also (more than once, I think) had that stupid “Barney-Cam” gimmick going. Unclever and uncute.

  55. 55.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    Alas — and I say this as a Hillary supporter — I don’t think doing a comedy routine is her strength.

    If it has to happen — and I’m afraid it does, at least once, or it’ll be non-stop No sense of humor Shrillary hates fun!!!! from the usual suspects — they better pic the Comedian Speaker carefully. I think Hillary can do a more-than-adequate Dave Letterman routine, the deadpan straight guy responding to a manic shrieker, but she def needs a partner there. And that means picking a headliner who won’t get offended at having a third party on stage.

    ETA: Imagine Sarah Silverman, for instance, going Full Frontal Earnest Social Justice Warrior & having to be talked off the ledge by Hillary.

    (Hell, the HRC team could pick Silverman as the headliner, and just the thought of a girl talking dirty in front of Our Nation’s Leaders will give Media Idiots like Ruth Marcus an aneurysm!)

  56. 56.

    ? Martin

    @Baud: USSC may take up the petition – it’s on the docket. The list may drop in 72 hours, or not. A presidential candidate may be on the list, or not.

    Based on the timing of the thing, assuming that they guy isn’t completely full of shit, I would be betting on Trump.

    Trump wants us to know all about his sex life. He doesn’t regard sex as a private activity. It’s something he broadcasts to demonstrate his dominance, of both women and men. In his view, treating women like meat is a necessary precondition for winning, and winning is all that matters in his world. By winning, Trump means asserting superiority. And since life is a zero-sum game, superiority can only be achieved at someone else’s expense.

    But given that Vitter is on the list with his diaper fetish, then yeah, Cruz could be on there with some kind of Max Mosley-like nazi fetish.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Shana:

    there’s a dead man’s switch so that if he doesn’t reset it at least every 72 hours it gets released to the press, in case anything happens to him.

    That’s one way to encourage people to make sure something bad happens to you.

  58. 58.

    jl

    @Baud:

    ” You are highly qualified. ”

    Aw shit, I guess that disqualifies me for a position in Baud! 2016! admin. At least if he stays true to his principles.

  60. 60.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    WASHINGTON — (NYT) G.O.P. Fears Donald Trump as Zombie Candidate: Damaged but Unstoppable

    Republicans who once worried that Mr. Trump might gain overwhelming momentum in the primaries are now becoming preoccupied with a different grim prospect: that Mr. Trump might become a kind of zombie candidate — damaged beyond the point of repair, but too late for any of his rivals to stop him.

    Should Mr. Trump lurch into the convention so fatally compromised with general election voters and a sizable faction of Republicans, it could make it easier for the party to wrest the nomination away from him. But it would also make the consequences of failing to defeat him all the more ruinous if the specter of choosing a seemingly unelectable nominee does not deter Mr. Trump’s supporters.

    Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who has frequently praised Mr. Trump’s insurgent campaign, said the front-runner had made a series of bewildering and irrational mistakes.

    “None of the mistakes have been forced, and nobody forced him to react negatively,” Mr. Gingrich said. “It’s almost as though he is so full of himself that he can’t slow down and recognize that being president of the United States is a team sport that requires a stable personality, that allows other people to help him.”

  62. 62.

    jl

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Yeah, it is almost as though, huh? Lil’ Newtie has an insight. Will the GOP base either notice or care? That would be another example of the debt of ‘crazy’ the GOP has built up, using Josh Marshall’s metaphor.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    @Anne Laurie:

    I saw a thing a few days ago where one of the late night hosts* mansplained to her why she shouldn’t be shouty and screechy, and then when she modulated her voice, he told her to speak up and sound confident. It was a funny bit, and she was pretty good at playing second banana, but that is not necessarily the role you want to project to the country and the world once you’re POTUS. I think she has a good reactive sense of humour, and she’s mostly a pretty good sport, but these are learned, not innate.

    *I’m not playing dumb; I really don’t know, or much care, who most of them are, and I don’t watch any of them except in the rarest of circumstances. Stephen Colbert I know, but see only in after-the-fact clips. I know there are two hosts named Jimmy, but which is which I could not tell you.

  65. 65.

    Anne Laurie

    @? Martin:

    But given that Vitter is on the list with his diaper fetish, then yeah, Cruz could be on there with some kind of Max Mosley-like nazi fetish.

    No personal experience in the field, but from what I’ve seen in the popular media, Cruz is the kind of noisy “alpha male” whose fetish is for a serious Dominatrix to kick him around.

    Not to cause a run on the brain bleach, but I can imagine him paying well for a hooker who’ll demand he call her “Madam President” while she “administers physical correction”. Extra charge if she has to put on that cheap nasty latex HRC mask!

  68. 68.

    jl

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    ” I know there are two hosts named Jimmy, but which is which I could not tell you. ”

    I finally got it figured out. There is Fallon and a Kimmel. I’ll be able to tell them apart as long as Kimmel keeps his beard, if he shaves it off I’ll get confused again. HRC did the skit with Kimmel. I don’t think it projected any image problems at all. It was funny and has a good message at the same time. I think potential damage from sexist media narratives (tip o’ the hat to most of the crummy pundit talkers, such as Jugface and Matthews) is worse than any silly supposed non-presidential memes from skits like that. If HRC is likeable enough as a person, and has a decent personality, no one will care. I think she is and does, same with Sanders. She gets uptight and threatened too easily, but I don’t think it is a flaw with dominates everything else.

    Trump and Cruz have multiple flaws that dominate everything else about them.

  69. 69.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Yeah, we saw a few seconds of that while flipping from the tv to the bluray box. I’m sure it was well done, but after sixty years of personal experience with mansplaining I just couldn’ bear to watch.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    @Emma:

    I forgot my resolution to respond only using lyrics from “Hamilton.” I need to get back to that.

  72. 72.

    Anne Laurie

    @lamh36: I’m trying to get the image leaked into the social media.

    Because once imagined it can’t be unseen! {wink}

  77. 77.

    opiejeanne

    Drove from Seattle to Yreka, CA today and I feel a bit brain dead.

    In the hotel now, with the cat. She is now very quietly voicing her opinion of the place and this whole undertaking. Going to take it easy tomorrow and arrive at the cabin on Sunday around lunchtime.
    Wait until she finds out we are heading to Yuma after a couple of days in the cabin.

  78. 78.

    Elie

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    Lets let her be and see if over time that changes some. She is constantly dinged for not being as “natural” as either her husband or Obama. She really has not been able to be her true “self” outside of their halos. As with how she would run her administration — we do not know. I always want to be open to surprise and to get to know her in a new way — without the handicap that few other Presidents would need to endure. She might have sharper wit than we know… but then again, she may not. We don’t yet really know but I would like to see…

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer

    @jl:
    @Anne Laurie:
    @Baud:

    I thought it was funny, too. That was kind of my point, which I probably didn’t phrase very well — Clinton is fine doing mild comedy as long as somebody else is carrying the bit (in this case, the Jimmy). I just question whether she could carry a 10-15 minute monologue that was simultaneously (a) self-effacing, (b) a stiletto takedown of political foes, and (c) laugh-out-loud funny as shit. But the bit she did with Jimmy? Sweet, chuckly, but hardly what the Villagers pay the big bucks to see on Prom Night.

  84. 84.

    jl

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    ” I just question whether she could carry a 10-15 minute monologue ”

    Well compared to whom? Trump or Cruz would be a disaster.

    I think HRC would do better than Sanders (and remember that I am a Sanders mega-donor).

    I don’t mind sitting through mediocre and somewhat stilted comedy from the next Democratic president, considering the alternative.

  85. 85.

    ? Martin

    @Anne Laurie:

    No personal experience in the field, but from what I’ve seen in the popular media, Cruz is the kind of noisy “alpha male” whose fetish is for a serious Dominatrix to kick him around.

    Yeah, that’s about what I figured as well:

    FIA President Max Mosley has been caught on film allegedly taking part in what UK tabloid News of the World has characterized as a “Nazi orgy.” Although we initially thought it was the world’s zaniest April Fool’s joke, we were wrong. Sick and wrong. During the five-hour video, which the tabloid also has in possession (and which we have had a quick clip from up top*) Mosley appears to be both dominated and submitting to the five hookers, who NOTW alleges were dressed both as Nazis and concentration camp prisoners. The 67-year-old, who has been married for 48 years, was at one point whipped so hard that the orgy had to be halted while a bandage was applied to stop his bleeding.

  87. 87.

    Elie

    @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:

    Heck, I have no idea but I thought she must have some sense of comedy during the last Benghazi hearing when she rested her chin in her hand and looked oh so bored — but in a way that had an edge and sense of irony. I think there is hope when she gets more relaxed — you can almost see her kick in another drive and I hope that is attached to some humor. She could be devastating with Trump using just that bored, ho hum sense she communicated at the hearing…

  89. 89.

    Elie

    Well, what I tried to say is that during that bored expression Hillary gave during the last Benghazi hearing I did have a sense of someone who kinda got the irony of the whole thing. When she relaxes, she can access that sharp brain of hers and I expect she can give a little shit with the best of ’em. Nobody, of course, expects Angela Merkel to split seams, but my guess is that once in her rhythm, she can get a few in. I personally would think she could devastate Trump by helping him screw himself. My observation is that no one screws Trump better than Trump — why get in the way of that? Just set it up…..

  93. 93.

    chopper

    oooh, a rickroll. that ted cruz is really hip on what all the kids these days find funny.

  95. 95.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne:

    I saw that – you’re not only a man, you’re an agent provocateur! Your mom must be so proud! Or deeply confused….

  96. 96.

    Anne Laurie

    @? Martin: Eeugh. i didn’t know those details, but Max was the son of Hitler supporters Oswald Mosley & Diana Mitford, so ‘I blame the parents’ probably works, for once.

  98. 98.

    Zinsky

    I believe to be a true conservative requires having your funny bone surgically removed. Quick! Name one funny conservative – and don’t say Dennis Miller, who is almost as funny as a chapped asshole. I didn’t think you could…

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elie:

    I was having that problem yesterday when I tried to link to a review for a new blender, of all things. Maybe there’s a hidden problem word in your link?

  103. 103.

    Elie

    @Mnemosyne:

    I truly have no idea and have given up. Should it be that obscure? I got no message of anything — it just disappeared — twice.

  105. 105.

    patroclus

    Che, Fidel, Ho, Mao, Guy Fawkes, Zapata, Cromwell, Spartacus, Bolivar and others were great revolutionaries in their day, but they’ve got nothing on Rosario Dawson and Susan Sarandon!

  106. 106.

    hamletta

    Not that anyone’s paying attention at this point, but the funny thing about Rosario Dawson’s critique is that she only signed up for Twitter in October of 2009 — a full 9 months into Obama’s first term!

  107. 107.

    VFX Lurker

    @Mnemosyne:

    I forgot my resolution to respond only using lyrics from “Hamilton.” I need to get back to that.

    Such a blunder. Sometimes it makes me wonder why I even bring the thunder.

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