Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

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

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

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

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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Friday Afternoon Open Thread

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Gotta admit this is genius:

image

May this young man’s taste in booze someday catch up with his brilliance in the art of subterfuge.

As of today, I am on vacation — woo! We’re supposed to grill some steaks tonight. It’s raining hard at the moment, but that shan’t dampen my spirits.

What’s up in your neck o’ the woods?

Reader Interactions

181Comments

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    I also plan to start using the word spatchcock in ways that are even less appropriate than one would imagine.

  5. 5.

    Trollhattan

    For any Juicers thinking about an SF abode, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to to live in the Mrs. Doubtfire house By sheer coinkidink a friend of a friend own it, and I’m assured the staging furniture ain’t his. .

  6. 6.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    Betty, your story about ordering Pina Coladas with your sister made my day when you posted it, and this reminded me of it.

  8. 8.

    ? Martin

    May this young man’s taste in booze someday catch up with his brilliance in the art of subterfuge.

    Yeah, in a few years he’ll own 17 pets and run a political blog populated by a bunch of degenerates.

  11. 11.

    pamelabrown53

    Have a wonderful vacation, Betty. Any chance of hearing where you’re going and when you’ll return?

  12. 12.

    Trollhattan

    I’ll note that our HS scheme of buying beer in quarts at Chinese-owned grocery stores worked without fail. Booze could only be had in a state liquor store so might as well have been behind a vault door. All for the best, methinks.

  14. 14.

    Trollhattan

    @? Martin:
    Yeah, the last painted lady that sold went for eight figures.

    I want to know exactly what those two cars in the garage are up to.

  17. 17.

    germy

    Any Drunk History fans out there? From what I understand, Lin-Manuel Miranda will be guest starring this season, drunk in the house he grew up in and talking about Hamilton. He’ll also be guest hosting SNL.

    That’s all the Hamilton news I’ve got. The people who actually give a crap probably aren’t reading this thread.

    —————–
    In other news, my wife is severely allergic to an antibiotic that begins with the letter “L”. The last time someone prescribed it, we had to have an ambulance rush her to the hospital. I’ve been bugging her for six years to buy one of those medic-alert bracelets, just in case. She finally sent away for one.

    It arrived yesterday, with a Chinese return address. “Uh oh,” I joked. “I hope it doesn’t give you lead poisoning.” (We’ve seen reports of dollar store toys covered in lead)

    Today she texted me a photo of her wrist. It’s all inflamed from the bracelet.

  18. 18.

    ShadeTail

    Not too bright to put pictures online. Bragging about it to IRL friends? Whatever. But putting up more than enough evidence to get him busted for a felony? Dumb. He’d better hope the statute of limitations has passed.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    @pamelabrown53: I’m renting a houseboat and cruising around aimlessly! I’m sure I’ll have some nature pictures to share at some point when I’m in an area with a mobile signal.

  24. 24.

    germy

    @Trollhattan: I saw an interview with the creator of Drunk History. He says he has nothing but love and respect for his editors, who have to watch seven hours of people rambling in order to edit it down to ten minutes.

  25. 25.

    Josie

    @Corner Stone: My youngest son and I made kimchi a couple of months ago. It was a lot of trouble but so much better than the store bought stuff. We will probably try again soon with a smaller recipe.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    It’s probably made of nickel, which is a very common allergen. If she doesn’t want to return it, it can sometimes help to coat the back with clear nail polish so the metal doesn’t contact the skin anymore.

    As an alternative, you may want to consider a Road ID bracelet, which comes in a medic alert style now. And I remember that Werebear had a really nice one that she liked.

  29. 29.

    The Dangerman

    @? Martin:

    Surprised it’s only $4.5M…

    Me, too; what’s wrong with it? Maybe home prices in my beloved Central Coast home have warped my ability to guess Big City prices.

  30. 30.

    germy

    @Mnemosyne: Thank you; I’ll tell her about that.
    It looked like stainless steel to us, but who knows? I just don’t want her being given that antibiotic again in the event of some emergency.

  31. 31.

    Hal

    I officially hate Tiny House Hunters. I’ve been watching a marathon of the show today and I’m kind of surprised how much I loathe the concept. The people are ridiculous in their expectations and who in their right mind would want to live in 200 square feet with 4 people and a composting toilet?

    Extra points for the episode where this guy looks at a property in what was referred to as something like a “small house park.” Um, that’s a trailer park, dude.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    “I went to pick up my spatchcock to complete the repairs on the sink but found someone had stolen it!”

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    Also, yes, as a Hamilton and “Drunk History” fan, I am super-excited to see my two worlds collide. Funniest tweet afterwards: LMM said that a bunch of his friends contacted him the next day and said, Um, you tried to Facetime me while you were drunk filming yesterday, do you remember doing that? And he did not. It sounds like he’s not a big drinker to start with.

    Derek Waters was on local radio here and I’m also super-excited to see another upcoming episode with Tony Hale as Buster Keaton.

  36. 36.

    gogol's wife

    @germy:

    Look, I’m now watching “black-ish” religiously because Daveed Diggs has a nothing role on it for a few weeks.

    Drunk History will be Nov. 19. SNL is some time soon, I forgot when, but it’s in my calendar.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    Tricky thing that Fitbit found out the hard way — a lot of “surgical stainless steel” contains small amounts of nickel because when you’re using it for surgery, it’s generally not touching the body long enough to cause an allergic reaction, but when you wear the same alloy as jewelry, it can cause a problem.

  38. 38.

    germy

    @gogol’s wife: Blackish sometimes irritates me with the blatant product placement and some of the behavior they write for Dre, but the scripts are often hilarious and the youngest daughter, the grandmother and his wife are great. I saw the episode where Obama gets elected and I found it moving.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hal:

    I think I saw one (1) Tiny House episode that made perfect sense to me. They were a couple with no children whose house in the mountains had burned down, so they wanted (a) a house that was small enough to be self-sufficient with their solar panel array and (b) only enough room for stuff that would fit into their car in case there was another fire and they had to evacuate. They were pretty traumatized by how much they had lost in the previous fire.

  41. 41.

    scav

    @JGabriel: Oooohhh, I would sooooo rather go for closer to the original definition of the verb spatchcock in any situation involving Der Trumpster. Or spitchcock, which is the same, only eelier.

  42. 42.

    germy

    @Mnemosyne: I’m a Buster Keaton obsessive, so I’m looking forward to that one. I’ve seen only a few scenes from the Donald O’Connor biopic. From what I understand, the story was ridiculous and wrong. But any time Keaton gets a mention anywhere I’m a happy guy.

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    Doug Applegate is only two points behind Darrell Issa, who has threatened to sue him for defamation for quoting a NYT article about Issa’s corruption in a TV ad. Link

    It’s the only TV commercial I’ve ever seen for a Democratic congressional candidate in this district. They showed it on CNN during the the Hillary/Trump debate.

  47. 47.

    Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck

    What’s up in your neck o’ the woods?

    Starting writing on the outline for Please Don’t Tell My Parents I Have A Nemesis. Preorders are already up for I Did Not Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence. My publisher is not dragging their feet on this!

  49. 49.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    Keaton was a consultant on the biopic, and this is the story I’ve heard:

    O’Connor went to Keaton to ask him about a scene he was about to film, where the young Keaton, as a brave little circus kid, is about to go on in front of an audience after his father’s tragic death. Keaton looked at O’Connor and said, “I was never in any circus, and my father died of pneumonia when I was 50 years old.” So, yeah, that’s how accurate the movie is … not.

    If you read biographies, I can highly recommend the Marion Meade bio of Keaton that came out a few years ago, Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase. It’s very well-researched — she was even able to track down his two sons, who had never spoken to a biographer before — and she was able to dispel a lot of the myths that Keaton himself had promulgated.

  51. 51.

    jl

    Here’s a story about goofballs dressing up as grown-ups.

    Gingrich Boldly Labels Alicia Machado ‘The New Benghazi’
    TPM

    ” In a Thursday interview, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed Hillary Clinton’s resurfacing of Donald Trump’s comments about a former Miss Universe as “an ambush that was as false as Benghazi.”

    “This is the new Benghazi lie,” he said…”
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gingrich-alicia-machado-is-the-new-benghazi

    Nutjobs, all of them. And Trump degrades them from their normal level of competence. Newt was an imaginative gofball scum. I really expected something better from ‘Lil Newtie.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    This teenager was walking for hours to and from work — until a police stop changed his life

    As its name might suggest, Industrial Way is not known for being pedestrian-friendly.

    The road in the Northern California city of Benicia is lined with trucking companies, warehouses and metal-finishing factories. As it curves north, before it turns into Channel Road, the street cuts under busy Interstate 680.

    So when Cpl. Kirk Keffer of the Benicia Police Department spotted a lone, lanky teenager walking on Industrial Way during the graveyard shift a few Saturdays ago, he was curious. It was after 11 p.m. and dark outside, and the boy was just nearing the highway overpass.

    “Usually in the industrial area, there’s no foot traffic, so it was kind of weird to see someone walking around on foot,” Keffer told The Washington Post.

    He stopped his patrol car, got out and called out to the pedestrian.

    Was he okay? What was he doing out there by himself?

    The teenager, 18-year-old Jourdan Duncan, was equally startled at first.

    “I was absolutely nervous,” he said. “I thought, okay, um, did I do anything wrong? Is he going to put me in cuffs? I didn’t do anything bad.”

    Duncan told Keffer he was walking back to his parents’ home in Vallejo. He had just gotten off from his job at Pro-Form Laboratories, where the teen worked on the packaging line from 3 p.m. until around midnight.

    “Vallejo? That’s like seven miles away,” Keffer said he remembered saying to Duncan.

    Soon, he had cleared out the passenger seat in his patrol car and offered Duncan a ride home.

    On the drive, Keffer asked the teen more questions. Why Benicia? Why not drive to work?

    He was agog that anybody would walk more than two hours each way, every day.

    Duncan explained that he had just graduated from Jesse Bethel High School the year before. He had gotten a job at Pro-Form Laboratories in May, and enjoyed being around his co-workers. He was saving money for college, he said — but really wanted to be an officer with the California Highway Patrol, to follow in the footsteps of some relatives who were in law enforcement.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @eclare:

    There was a big fad among the Hollywood studios of the 1950s for making biopics about famous entertainers, but most of them were more fantasy than reality. Another infamous one was Words and Music, which had Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart (of Rodgers and Hart), except that they had to come up with a completely bullshit reason for Hart’s tragic life because the censors wouldn’t let them even hint at the truth that Hart was gay.

  56. 56.

    Keith P.

    I’m impressed at the legs this Trump 3am tweet has had today. It’s more than half of what MSNBC has covered today. And it sets up an awesome Clinton 3am 2.0 commercial. Trump is that fighter who sticks his chin out at his opponent at gets KTFO’ed (Google “Nate Campbell idiot” for an example). Republicans have to be absolutely mindblown by this sex tape tweet.

  58. 58.

    germy

    @Mnemosyne: The funniest one was Cary Grant playing Cole Porter in a biopic. Orson Welles commented on the dramatic arc: ”The only suspense is — will he or won’t he accumulate $10 million?

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    I managed to track down a copy of the Rudi Blesh biography, which was written with Keaton’s cooperation, but there’s a lot of stuff in there that Keaton made up himself just to mess with Blesh. He liked to do that with journalists and biographers. :-)

    I got to meet Eleanor Keaton, his much-younger widow, at a screening here in LA (she has also now passed away). She had two business cards, as the manager of his estate, and as a dog trainer.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    @Hal: Tiny houses make me cringe. They are for people who don’t own any-damn-thing and don’t mind people hearing them poop. I am by no means a McMansion person, but it would be really nice if we could create an affordable happy medium.

    When I was in Munich, I toured a MicroCompact Home village, which was a living concept for students. Each home was like a 12′ cube that was pre-fabbed and then installed on this steel rack that served as the foundation, contained the electrical and plumbing service, and had these raised walkways and patios. Great concept, but there was no way not to shit where you eat. Ixnay.

  64. 64.

    germy

    @Mnemosyne: Buster was more fortunate than Groucho at the end, that he was able to find a woman who made his final years tolerable. From what I understand, she was a nice lady. Groucho’s Erin, on the other hand…

  65. 65.

    Hal

    http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/alabama-chief-justice-suspended-over-gay-marriage-stance-n657511

    Roy Moore’s Christian rights are under attack again. When will evil liberals allow him to force his beliefs down the throats of everyone?

    Roy Moore, Alabama’s controversial chief justice of the state Supreme Court, was suspended without pay for the remainder of his term on Friday for instructing probate judges to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses, in contradiction to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

    “For these violations Chief Justice Moore is hereby suspended from office without pay for the remainder of his term,” stated the order from the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. “This suspension is effective immediately. Chief Justice Moore is also taxed with the costs of this proceeding.”

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suzanne:

    I went to visit someone at his tiny one-room cabin in Topanga Canyon, and you didn’t have to worry about people hearing you poop, because the bathroom was a separate building about 25 feet from the cabin. It was nice — a flush toilet and real shower, not an outhouse — but the giant fucking black widow spider spinning its web next to the toilet freaked me out.

  68. 68.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Suzanne: We stayed at a Citizen M hotel near CDG airport in Paris and it was like it had been snapped together out of legos. The room was as wide as a king sized bed is long because the bed was wedged into the far end. OTOH, it was only 115 euros.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @eclare:

    You know why? Because he was famous throughout Hollywood for his bridge-playing prowess. That was how he and Eleanor initially met — she wanted to learn to play bridge, and she was told that he was the best bridge player around. It was slightly creepy that she married him when she was 20 and he was 50, but as was not that uncommon in the 1940s-1950s, she had dropped out of school at 14 and been working full-time to support her mother and siblings, so she was pretty emotionally mature for her age.

    @germy:

    Chaplin also lucked out with Oona. Not that he deserved it.

  71. 71.

    germy

    @Mnemosyne: One of these days I want to see “Three Little Words” the biopic of Kalmar and Ruby.

    People in the 1950s seemed to be fascinated with the ’20s and ’30s, just as people in the 1970s were fascinated with the 1950s.

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne

    @eclare:

    Also, too, if you want to catch Keaton in one of his supporting roles, he’s one of the costars of In the Good Old Summertime, which is a remake of The Shop Around the Corner with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.

    There’s a slapstick scene where Johnson accidentally knocks Garland over and she gets rolled around in the street, and Keaton was Garland’s stunt double for that.

  75. 75.

    Chyron HR

    If Trump wins, can public accountants start advising their clients to follow his “unregistered charitable foundation” tax avoidance strategies?

    You know, just put a note saying “Per POTUS” in the file in case the IRS audits the taxpayer?

  76. 76.

    germy

    @Mnemosyne:

    Chaplin also lucked out with Oona. Not that he deserved it.

    I remember reading how pissed off Chaplin was when he escaped America for Switzerland, thinking he’d finally find some peace and quiet.

    And his property was right next door to a fucking gun range. All day long he’d hear “Bang! Bang! Bang!”

    I’m reminded of that whenever I’m irritated by my teabagger neighbor and his untrained dog.

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    @eclare:

    See my link at #49 — Marion Meade’s bio is probably the best one there is. Stay away from the Tom Dardis biography — it’s so bad that Meade felt compelled to address it in her own book to point out the most egregious errors.

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    @Mnemosyne: I know some of them have separate out buildings, but again that just seems insane to me. I simply cannot fathom having to pee in the middle of the night and having to get my damn galoshes on and grab a flashlight and go outside. I could barely deal with it for a week at camp as a teenager.

    @Iowa Old Lady: I could do it for a night. Not live there. I’ve done the European hotel thing with the bathroom down the corridor, and that is reasonable.

    The scientific consensus seems to be that people need about 500 SF of living space per person for optimal health and happiness. There are cultural variations and individual variations, and of course this doesn’t continue to scale up (a five-person family would need more than half of the space of a ten-person family). But it’s a good rule of thumb.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @eclare

    Sunset Boulevard trivia:

    When crew members asked director Billy Wilder how he was going to shoot the scene of the burial of Norma Desmond’s pet monkey he simply replied, “You know, the usual monkey funeral sequence.”

  81. 81.

    pamelabrown53

    @Betty Cracker: # 19

    Betty, the houseboat vacation sounds so amazing. I just have to ask: is there an equivalent to a houseboat bnrb? This would be an awesome birthday present for the spouse (it’s almost impossible to surprise her). Plus it sounds cool enough to entice a couple of her artist friends to join in the festivities . Especially since I’m paying!

  82. 82.

    Corner Stone

    Well, the Debate Commission just spatchcocked the fuck out of the next couple news cycles. Apparently, according to MSNBC, the DC “admits” to microphone issue for Trump. Doesn’t matter what the details are, what the truth is. This will run wild in CT cesspools forever.

  87. 87.

    hovercraft

    I just saw a clip from the Trump deposition, and not to be like Trump, actually he dishes it, so I will too. The man is ugly as shit. He also suffers from resting bitch face, which is maybe why he makes all those ridiculous faces all the time. This man has no business commenting on anyones else’s looks.

  88. 88.

    Gelfling 545

    My daughters are 4 years apart in age & in their youth they had a real resemblance. My older daughter would enter a drinking establishment, then pass her id out to her sister, usually via a friend. Only once did they get called on it but managed to convince the id checker that they were twins and the younger forgot her id but really, they were both alike so what difference would it make anyway?. I suppose the fact that they were both extraordinarily pretty didn’t hurt – a fact that I am unable to account for in any way. Oddly, now, in their 30’s – which is when I heard about this escapade-there is very little resemblance. Both still gorgeous, though.

  89. 89.

    Suzanne

    @Iowa Old Lady: Concur. I feel enough body shame that I need to do my thing cloak-and-dagger-style. Having to go outside or walk to a separate building where any observant raccoon would know what I’m doing?! Aw hell no.

  90. 90.

    NotMax

    @germy

    Shows up on the TCM rotation not infrequently. Red Skelton pretty much overwhelms the proceedings and steamrolls over Fred Astaire..

  91. 91.

    HR Progressive

    Current poll results on the USA Today Editorial Poll –

    Strongly Agree – 69%
    Agree – 2%
    Don’t Know – 0%
    Disagree – 2%
    Strongly Disagree – 27%

    53437 votes when I voted.

    If it wasn’t confirmed before, it’s confirmed now.

  92. 92.

    Mary G

    @Mnemosyne: Have you seen the Ham4Ham Vote? It’s on Twitter, but I can’t find a link, maybe because it’s mostly in Spanish? They do include And Peggy near the end.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gelfling 545:

    My BFF and her sister were able to pull that scam, too. It came in really handy the night her sister was driving my car in Oregon (I was in the passenger seat) and we got pulled over for speeding. J passed “her” driver’s license up from the back seat because, of course, her sister had managed to lose her driver’s license in the airport the very day she arrived in Oregon.

    That was a pretty epic road trip all around. We didn’t get a ticket because it was my car, with Arizona plates, and S was pretending that the CA driver’s license was hers and she was just visiting her sister. Too much trouble for the cop to figure out how to write that ticket.

    ETA: It was a notorious speed trap, so we got pulled over for doing, like, 30 in a 20 zone. Nothing too exciting on that front.

  94. 94.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Corner Stone: I saw that. Sigh. I mean, if there were problems, then they need to say it, though.

    It’s not on Drudge, though. They’re pimping “Hillary steadies self before going down stairs.” So the mic thing could be a nothingburger even for the CT folks.
    ETA: If you were curious, the news is that there’s a clip where a 68-year-old woman briefly hovers her hand over somebody else’s hand before going down some stairs, in case she needs a little help. STOP THE PRESSES

  95. 95.

    Peale

    All I wanna do is go home. I was worried that I would miss my Atlanta connection. But now we’re on hour four of a flight delay.

  96. 96.

    JGabriel

    @scav:

    Oooohhh, I would sooooo rather go for closer to the original definition of the verb spatchcock

    The thing is, the verb, when used with chicken, is actually kind of redundant, since a cock is a chicken (or any male bird, really) – which makes me think the word spatchcock probably originated as a noun, or a verb-noun pair.

    Hold on, let me check the Great Gazoogle …

    Yep, the Great Gazoogle tells me I’m right. Spatchcock @ Wikipedia:

    A spatchcock is a historical term for a culled immature male chicken, but increasingly denotes a preparation technique.

    I think “a culled immature male chicken” is a pretty nice description of Donald Trump.

  99. 99.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Kimchi stinks. I don’t know how anybody can handle the smell. Kimchi is up there with cooked white radishes. It’s smells like something left rotting in the waste disposal.

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    @Major Major Major Major

    Yeah, because “‘Defective mic’ made stupid stuff come out of my mouth” makes so much sense.

    Again, audience had no trouble hearing the blather about his temperament (and responding to it).

    Guess we can all complain with impunity about a persnickety keyboard for any dunderheaded comments.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    I’m a Buster Keaton obsessive, so I’m looking forward to that one

    I recall seeing a couple of places that later when he was down on his luck, Keaton was an uncredited writer for Red Skelton.

  103. 103.

    scottinnj

    I was trying to think what would make the joy of watching Drumpf even better would be a Friday afternoon tweetstorm from Senator Pocohantas,…and she delivered. I don’t know how to embed tweets but these couple give you an idea:

    Is this what keeps you up at night, @realDonaldTrump? Thinking of new & interesting ways to call women fat or ugly or sluts?

    A thin-skinned bully who thinks humiliating women at 3am qualifies him to be President does not understand America & is not fit to lead.

  104. 104.

    Major Major Major Major

    @NotMax: I guess the problem was with the mic that held the internal feed, so, what the people in the room heard. Nothing to do with what was broadcast. I mean we knew he was lying and it doesn’t matter and is stupid, but bleh. Whatever.

  106. 106.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:
    A sales rep for one of the mass spectrometer companies told me that Fitbit had bought one of their top-of-the-line instruments. Apparently they’ve gotten into enough trouble with allergens in their bands that they decided they need to do more testing and have set up a very fancy lab to do it. I guess it’s a lot cheaper than doing another recall.

  107. 107.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: Trump is the bravest, most honest, most respecting of women and people of colo……

    GAWDDAMN KEYBOARD!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS DAMN THING?????

  110. 110.

    burnspbesq

    Couple of great new albums out today: Drive-By Truckers and John Prine.

    Mets win and Cardinals loss, and the Mets clinch a wild card. If I’m not mistaken, that would be the first time in franchise history that they would be in the playoffs two seasons in a row.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @efgoldman:

    Here’s the official ranking of swear words by Britain’s broadcasting regulator.I especially like “beef curtains”, “belland”, and “bloodclat”I am saving this and will post it again late evening/overnite for those who don’t hang around here in the afternoon.

    Wow. These are some strong words. They could even send some here to the fainting couch.

    I’ve seen the middle word spelled “bellend” more than with the a.

  112. 112.

    hovercraft

    Hilary trolled Trump at her Florida rally a little while ago. Video via TPM

    Hillary Clinton on Friday needled Donald Trump for his apparent obsession with Alicia Machado, saying it was easier for Trump to insult the former Miss Universe than to demand payment for his border wall from the Mexican president.

    Speaking to a crowd in Coral Springs, Florida, Clinton said Trump “finds it a lot easier to insult women than to talk to the president of Mexico about building a wall. I mean, really? Who gets up at 3:00 in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe?”

    “I mean, he hurdled as many insults as he could,” she added, “Really? Why does he do things like that?”

    Clinton also taunted Trump on his “only infrastructure plan”: demanding that Mexico pay for a wall along its border with the United States.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    He wrote gags for Harpo Marx as well.

    There is something sweet about the idea of “writing” gags for a silent performer.

    I had read that he wrote for the Marx Brothers, but did not know that it was specifically Harpo.

    I used to love watching Keaton movies at the Silent Theater in LA, with live music.

  115. 115.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @hovercraft: I totally agree. I’ve seen quite a few pics of Donald in the media when he was younger. He was barely average when he was younger and part of that is based on him being dressed well. He’s quite unattractive now and I can understand why he’s obsessed with his hair because he couldn’t pull off a bald head that a lot of guys can pull off with no problem. I would feel bad for the kids except the three older ones seem to be just as nasty as their daddy.

  117. 117.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Suzanne: I was at an MVOR when a female friend was overcome with the need to pee nownowNOWNOWNOW while the nearest porta potty was about a half mile away. She grabbed a lid off a plastic tub and walked out into the middle of a field, pulled her pants down while shielding her ass from view and peed in front of about 300 people. When finished she reversed the process and returned to camp to a standing ovation.

  118. 118.

    germy

    @Brachiator: From what I understand, Buster was responsible for some of the train gags in the Marx Bros’ “Go West” and some pieces of business for Harpo in “At The Circus”.

    By 1940 he was a gag guy for MGM, meaning he worked on a bunch of films (often uncredited) dreaming up funny stuff and often recycling things he’d done in the silents.

    Nothing beats seeing Keaton in a theater with an appreciative audience

  119. 119.

    NotMax

    @Brachiator

    Thing is that, insofar as the movie biz is concerned, he was never really down on his luck (in the sense of being destitute or unemployable). Of course his salary took a hit but he always managed to make a living in the industry.

    He continued, for all intents and purposes uninterrupted, working in a variety of capacities in Hollywood and also went off to Mexico for work in films there at times when Hollywood was coming up dry, then later worked a lot in TV.

    The Keaton biography by Dardris is a more than readable tome when it comes to the timeline of this life but also does tend to draw spurious conclusions from wisps about his motivation and is rather, um, fluid regarding the MGM films but gets better when it comes to the post-top billing years.

  120. 120.

    JGabriel

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Trump is the bravest, most honest, most respecting of women and people of colo……

    GAWDDAMN KEYBOARD!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS DAMN THING?????

    Gremlins?

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    So is Bill Weld just some kind of Brahmin Bertie Wooster, and when Johnson called to offer him the Veep slot he said, “I say, old top! That sounds like a deuced jolly lark!”

    ‏@ jeffjarvis
    “I’m not sure anyone’s more qualified than @HillaryClinton to be President of the United States,” GovBillWeld tells chucktodd.

  124. 124.

    joel hanes

    Possibly the only upside to starting male pattern baldness at age 17 was that I never had to resort to such desparate measures.
    I was never carded.

  127. 127.

    scav

    @JGabriel: Culled immature male chicken I can see, but young? Nah, Capon is more like. Also, in birds that yellow color of flesh is usually a sign of a better bird but I’d doubt it here. As to the other definition end, according to this there do seem to be a lot of old definitions going on about the splitting open of birds / cocks or eels (of course) and either dispatching or spittocking (cooking them on spits) them for the verb half.

  129. 129.

    NotMax

    Among the lost footage of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is purportedly a scene with Keaton in a phone booth which was supposed to be maybe a minute, tops, but in which he ad libbed with sight gags to stretch it to around 8 minutes.

  133. 133.

    p.a.

    Rainy Friday Trek talk (various tv shows only, just ‘spitballing’):

    Best actors, no specific order:
    Patrick Stewart
    Avery Brooks
    Louise Fletcher

    Most intriguing non-Federation characters, no order:
    Garak
    Gul Dukat
    Kai Winn
    7 of 9
    Gowron
    Martok

    (advantage DS-9 because its static location allowed story arcs more than other shows)

    Best enemies:
    1) Borg
    2) Founders/Gem’hadar

    Best enemy:
    Mark Lenard, “Balance of Terror”
    Paul Winfield, “Darmok” (frenemy)

    Good premise, poor execution:
    Star Trek Enterprise (liked Bakula, no cast chemistry)

    Best ham, all electronic media:
    William Shatner, retire this award.

    Wanted to be human because records of tRump presidential run and support didn’t survive nuclear apocalypse:
    Data
    Voyager’s Doctor

  135. 135.

    Elizabelle

    @Mary G: I was happy to see that Long Beach Democrats are calling and even traveling down to canvass on behalf of Doug Applegate. Lotta people want to see Issa in the rear view mirror. Hope it happens.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    There is a longtime rumor that Keaton wrote the stateroom gag for “A Night at the Opera.” If you’ve seen Keaton’s films, it’s quite plausible. At a minimum, the actual writers and director stole from Keaton for the scene.

    @Brachiator:

    I used to go for almost every Keaton show, so we probably saw each other there without knowing it. Best night ever was when Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft showed up.

    But I haven’t had the heart to go back since the then-owner was murdered. I knew him slightly and was enough of a regular that I would occasionally chat with him before the shows.

  139. 139.

    danielx

    @NotMax:

    Ayrshire would be in Scotland if I’m not mistaken, which is always a possibility. Unlike certain orange-hued public figures, I usually have no problem admitting I’m wrong.

    Aside from that, this circular weather pattern that’s been dumping rain on us for the last three days can move along any time now, thankyewverymuch….

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    @p.a.

    Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and it is all subjective, but wow.

    Excluding the final category (which is a gimme), find zero agreement with a single other entry other than (possibly) Garak.

  142. 142.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy:

    People in the 1950s seemed to be fascinated with the ’20s and ’30s, just as people in the 1970s were fascinated with the 1950s.

    In the ’50s and ’60s, there was also a lot of camp-tinged nostalgia for the Gay Nineties through to just before WWI — understandable, I guess. I keep thinking of Walt Disney’s “Main Street, USA,” which was basically an idealized version of his small-town childhood.

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    Dardis is okay at debunking some of Keaton’s tall tales, but Meade really blows him out of the water with her research. Again, at the time she wrote her book, she was the only one who was able to get his sons and their families to talk to her. (I think they’ve been a bit more forthcoming since then.)

  146. 146.

    Hob

    I apologize in advance, this is like serving up a dish of gruel at a party and going “Hey look, isn’t it hilarious how bland this gruel is?!”, but someone on Facebook made me read this so I feel compelled to share the mild pain: “Why Clinton hasn’t put Trump away“, by Matt Bai (world’s foremost authority on how Democrats are always doing the wrong thing).

    After an extended display of Pundit’s Fallacy regarding the real reasons Americans don’t like Clinton, you will be amazed to learn the sensible centrist pundit’s conclusion as to what Clinton should have done: be Joe Biden.

  149. 149.

    NotMax

    @p.a.

    Nimoy’s Spock, for one, has a ineluctable right to be on that list. IMHO.

    Avery Brooks’ Sisko could have put Morpheus to sleep. YMMV.

  151. 151.

    Betsy

    @Betty Cracker: Betty. Your wickedly funny posts made my day today — as always. Thanks for bringing the sly yet plain-spoken wit. To a lib, suffering through in this awful national election (and the live broiling of the planet we live on), your posts are, like, the tastiest possible combination of those diametric flavors, good cheer and sarcasm. You’re like Florida’s own Molly Ivins, or something. A one-woman popcorn futures price-inflator.

    Damn, girl.

    Anyhoo. Just wanted to say how much I enjoy your writing, and a hearty thank you.

    Enjoy your vacation.

  153. 153.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m busily getting my ducks all lined up. I have to get up at FOUR O’FUCKING A M tomorrow, so I’m going to nap now before going out to run a few last-minute errands.

    G can’t go because he has to work and also because taking a 5-hour bus trip to talk to complete strangers is pretty much his idea of hell, but he says he’s going to get up with me and help me make sure I have everything that I need tomorrow morning.

  154. 154.

    Patricia Kayden

    So how exactly are Trump surrogates going to defend him getting up in the middle of the night and tweeting about a private citizen’s “sex tape”? No such sex tape exists. Plus, I thought Republicans were anti-porn. Also, is Trump going to tweet about all of his detractors in the middle of the night? Is this what we want our Presidents to be focusing on?

    Trump has no self-control, no self-awareness, and no boundaries. He is not fit to be President. Period.

  156. 156.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Josie: I don’t think the wife has made kimchi in about 20 years, it’s just too much trouble for what we eat. Interesting trivia, Korean has a word* for “making kimchi for the Winter”.

    *I’ve forgotten what it is and too lazy to look it up,

  157. 157.

    redshirt

    @Mnemosyne: Having done many trips of late, be sure to have 98% of your stuff ready to go tonight, that way you just have to wake up and get going. The morning is no time to figure out what to bring.

  159. 159.

    gogol's wife

    @Mnemosyne:

    The best one is Night and Day with Cary Grant, about Cole Porter. Grant manages to convey via his performance the whole story. I love that performance so much.

  166. 166.

    Corner Stone

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Plus, I thought Republicans were anti-porn.

    HAHAHAHAHA!! Good, one! That is good! Oh, wait…you really thought the R’s were against pr0n? As opposed to just being vocally anti-sin?

  169. 169.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    But I haven’t had the heart to go back since the then-owner was murdered. I knew him slightly and was enough of a regular that I would occasionally chat with him before the shows.

    Yeah. I feel the same way. Didn’t know the owner really, but spoke to him a couple of times.

    I also learned to love old Felix the Cat silents when I would attend screenings.

  170. 170.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Kimchi’s doesn’t smell bad at all, cooking kimchi soup on the other hand…

    The wife would apologize to the neighbors when she cooked kimchi soup.

  171. 171.

    Hal

    @p.a.: I think Kate Mulgrew was a fantastic actor on a middle of the road show. Star Trek Voyager was hampered by bad scripts and boring characters, but I’ve always loved her potrayal of Katherine Janeway. Plus, a captain that was a science officer? Awesome. Janeway and Picard as co-captains could rule the galaxy.

  173. 173.

    JR in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    I just hit up Col. Applegate with a couple bills – anything to help get rid of Issa!! I got on a roll and contributed to the Senate candidates in North Carolina, in Nevada, and Tammy Duckworth too. Hillary is on autopilot every month.

    Hope next election season is a tiny bit less emo than this one. I’m worn out already and we’ve got nearly 6 weeks to go!!

  174. 174.

    Eric U.

    @Roger Moore: back when I wore watches, I usually bought a stainless steel Casio. I had to put tape on the back, or I would get a rash. Had a couple of their watches over the years, all with this problem. Kinda funny fitbit would get in trouble for it and not Casio

  177. 177.

    Elizabelle

    @JR in WV: Way to go! Fab!

    @ Betty Cracker: Have a wonderful houseboat vacay. Are the boxers vacaying too? Now I am worried about them falling off the boat into croc-infested waters.

  179. 179.

    Betty Cracker

    @pamelabrown53: You can rent houseboats in several places in FL, including the St. John’s, the Suwannee, the Keys and the Chain of Lakes area. It’s really not that expensive, compared to the outlay for a stationary hotel room, and they aren’t very difficult to skipper since they don’t move much faster than a brisk walk. Email me using the drop-down if you’d like some more info on it.

  180. 180.

    BruceFromOhio

    This guy dresses up as his mom to buy alcohol

    If we had had an inkling that it would work we would have been all over it back in the day. Shameless fuck-ups looking for a buzz, yeah, that was the life.

    What’s up in your neck o’ the woods?

    Weekly grill-a-thon for next weeks’ lunches. And bourbon. Lots of bourbon.

    Maybe things haven’t changed as much as I like to think.

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