Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I really should read my own blog.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Open Thread: Save the Iowans – Kill the Caucuses!

Open Thread: Save the Iowans – Kill the Caucuses!

by | 212 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

There are supposed to be no fewer than 19 presidential candidates at the Cedar Rapids Democratic Hall of Fame Dinner this weekend, so there are liable to be some embarrassing anecdotes that don’t involve Steve King…

… Campaigns are costly affairs, both financially and emotionally, and Iowans pay the price for this without receiving the benefits. Presidential campaigns cause burnout among volunteers and voters alike, and they fail to make any lasting contributions to our state while they’re here.

Being able to get a selfie with whichever presidential candidate is in town doesn’t outweigh this cost.

In the 2018 midterm elections, I spent a majority of my time volunteering for Abby Finkenauer’s congressional campaign. Her campaign was exciting — a 29 year-old progressive woman against an incumbent Tea Party Republican. I couldn’t have felt more energized.

Not everyone felt the same.

When I would call or knock on the doors of other Democrats to ask them to volunteer on the campaign, I was frequently told that they were still too exhausted from the 2016 caucuses to get back into politics.

MacKenzie Bills, a lifelong Iowa Democrat currently working for the State Department, explained that the situation is basically unavoidable.

“While there’s a great diversity of political ideologies in Iowa, there’s just not a lot of people here,” she said. “Campaigns today are very metrics driven. In order to get the numbers that they want in our small state, you have to try to get as much out of each person as possible.”

This is especially true for campaigns with limited resources…

Volunteer burnout happens wherever campaigns occur, but what makes Iowa different is that there is never a real break between campaign seasons because of the Iowa Caucuses. There were only two months in between the 2018 midterm elections and when the first 2020 presidential candidate arrived in Iowa. There’s still nine months before the caucuses, but Iowa groups are already feeling fatigued from the demands of the 2020 campaigns…

Of course, without the caucuses, Iowa would probably miss out on the Marianne Williamson Experience. But then she, or her spiritual heirs, could set up shop in lovely ‘Live Free or Die Trying’ New Hampshire, #FITN! Where the largest local industry is tourism, so they’re better equipped to milk the quadrennial circus…

Reader Interactions

212Comments

  3. 3.

    cmorenc

    I just wish an “Act Blue” contribution didn’t put me on the radar of a couple dozen campaign emails plus a couple dozen “cause” email chains. And a second “Act Blue” contribution a couple dozen additional ones, it seems and so on.

    Yes, I can unsubscribe, but unsubscribing to that many campaign email chains takes up a huge amount of time of itself.

  4. 4.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Baud:

    I agree. Change the primary schedule.

    I suggest making the state you are in be the first one. That way, Baud! 2020! hits the ground running.

  5. 5.

    Sab

    I agree. I worked madly on campaigns all through high school. When I moved out of state to Michigan after grad school and ran into their caucuses, I stopped voting altogether until I ran into some of Jesse Jackson’s voter registration people. With the caucuses there just seemed to be no point in voting. White male union bozos ran everything.

  8. 8.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cmorenc: A suggestion? Use a different email address for your ActBlue donations. Heck, for all political activity. Now, that’s a PITA, so there’s an easy way to do that: the RFC 822 standard or email specifies that you can have a “plus-suffix” to an email-address, that is not interpreted by mail-agent software, but is passed all the way to the user’s receiving mail software. So you could use “[email protected]” or whatever, as the address you provide to all politically-related sites/orgs. And guess what? They’ll email you THERE, not at your primary email, which let’s presume is “[email protected]”. And in your mail-reader, you can use a “filter” to sort mail with that suffix into a bin that you look at every N days, or whatever.

    I do it with gmail, and it’s a breeze.

    ETA: for clarity: mail sent to [email protected] goes to the *same* place as mail sent to [email protected]. Any “plus-suffix” is just ignored during transport. You can choose suffixes as you wish, for whatever purpose you wish, and hand them out to people.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    A few souls were out canvasing this afternoon. I put my head down and turned up my music so I couldn’t hear them. It’s just too early.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    Caucuses are the devil. I’ve heard more states are moving away for them. That is good.

  15. 15.

    Doug R

    Just look at what happened in Washington State in 2016 to see how undemocratic caucusi are. One reason Washington State’s moving over to a primary this year.

  16. 16.

    Chris T.

    Since this an open thread…

    So basically the U.S. undermined its credibility in all future trade negotiations in order to get Mexico to do a bunch of stuff it had already agreed to do.

    https://twitter.com/Neil_Irwin/status/1137457626172862464 (via Krugman’s twitter feed)

    Can we get our credibility back by successfully impeaching Trump and convicting him of being a traitor?

  18. 18.

    Redshift

    @Baud:

    Caucuses are the devil. I’ve heard more states are moving away for them. That is good.

    One of the best results him the Wilmerites pressing the DNC to make the primary process “more democratic” (i.e., more of whatever helped Wilmer, like caucuses) was that they made some changes to make it actually more democratic, like discouraging states from having caucuses.

  20. 20.

    chris

    @Chris T.: Surprise! FNYT went along with Trump’s version. for a while anyway.

    It is super weird that the NYT is pretending that figuring out that there is nothing new in this deal requires anonymous sourcing. No.It's all publicly available. Everything in the joint declaration was already announced months ago. pic.twitter.com/TkucKNABzj— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) 8 June 2019

  22. 22.

    Jay

    @Chris T.:

    “Can we get our credibility back by successfully impeaching Trump and convicting him of being a traitor?”

    Nope. Going from Dolt 43 to President Barak Obama was hoped by the World to be a return to responsible leadership, but going from President Barak Obama to The Insane Clown POSus made it clear to the World that with out a serious purge and housecleaning across the full spectrum,

    The US remains one election away from another Moron or Facist in charge.

  23. 23.

    jl

    Thanks for link. I found the article odd, and the complaints more about the costs of being a early state in the presidential primaries in general than about the problems with caucuses in particular. People in New Hampshire are not pestered to death with candidates?
    Fact that caucuses are in some real sense less democratic because they usually have lower voter participation, and too easily gamed seems more important issues. They do have the virtue of giving little-known candidates, who have the ability to do effective organizing and have a compelling message, a better chance. So a trade-off, IMHO.

  26. 26.

    gene108

    @Chris T.:

    Between Bush, Jr.* and Trump and the fact every single 2016 Republican candidate for President declared they would get us out of the Iran nuclear deal**, I doubt the US will ever have the credibility it had at the end of the Cold War.

    In short, as long as there is a serious possibility of a Republican becoming President, our credibility will never recover. And with the EC, they don’t even need to get more votes.

    * People forget that before 9/11/2001 happened, and the Iraq War, he was already getting us out of an anti-ballistic missile treaty, so he could shovel millions (billions?) to defense contractors to build a missile defense system. He also scrapped the Agreed Framework the Clinton Administration agreed to with N. Korea to keep them from building nukes.

    ** Every Republican anywhere was saying they would get us out of the Iran Deal. It was the most main stream view Republicans had.

  27. 27.

    gene108

    @jl:

    and too easily gamed seems more important issues.

    Hey, gaming caucuses is how Obama beat Hillary, in 2008. That and Superdelegates.

  28. 28.

    oatler.

    @gene108: But there WAS trouble in River City! But the young’uns WERE rollin’ tailor-mades like cigarette fiends!

  29. 29.

    Barb 2

    @Doug R:

    So right about Washington State. Bernie and others bought the caucuses. We have proof – the primary vote for Clinton beat Sanders in 2016. The caucus out come was reversed. The Bernie gang acted like cult members and made fools of themselves at the convention.

    Caucuses are undemocratic .

    It is such a relief to know that my vote will count next year in the primary.

  30. 30.

    jl

    @gene108: The word ‘gaming’ may have been too pejorative. Everyone knows the rules of the game going in. There is a trade off in advantages between primaries and caucuses, at least in a corrupt political environment where primaries can often be bought for enough ad money and free air time the corrupt corporate media deems fit to bestow on various candidates. There is an argument for different states having different rules that allow various approaches to electoral politics to display their strengths and weaknesses.

    I don’t live in Iowa, so not in a mood to try to tell that state how to do its political business. I think there is room for a few caucuses in the primary system.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @gene108:
    Have you never seen The Music Man?

    If I were another kind of commenter, I would say “gene108, you are dead to me.” But because I am nicer than that, I shall merely urge you to familiarise yourself with that musical.

  35. 35.

    jl

    Huh? Hoocuddanode? Turns out that what actually happened is that Mexico told Trump to go to hell on all of his new demands that had to be met to avoid higher tariffs. So Trump decided to settle for status quo, which includes some new, and most experts say probably ineffective, measures that had already been agreed to in previous months. Trump declares victory.

    I guess we still have enough honest journalists in print media to tell the truth. The national radio and TV media reports I have heard so far simply parrot Trumpster lies and propaganda. Though during an interview with local CBS radio news station, a subject matter expert managed to squeeze in the truth at the end of a segment to a apparently somewhat surprised interviewer.

    Our corporate national affairs radio and TV news media is corrupt, lazy incompetent and worse than useless.

    @Neil_Irwin
    So basically the U.S. undermined its credibility in all future trade negotiations in order to get Mexico to do a bunch of stuff it had already agreed to do.
    https://twitter.com/Neil_Irwin/status/1137457626172862464

  36. 36.

    gene108

    @jl:

    Just do what Parliamentary systems do and we did. Get the party leaders together and let them decide, who will run.

    No mucking about with 2 year long campaigns for President.

    Unlike Parliamentary systems, I don’t think the main central national parties dictated to state and local parties, who could stand for Congress or the state legislature.

  37. 37.

    gene108

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I have never seen “The Music Man”.

    Have you ever seen “Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell”? No? Well you aren’t dead to me, because it is the worst movie I have ever seen and arguably the worst movie ever made.

    Also, too reading Balloon-Juice has made me realize I am very uncultured and not nearly as well read as I thought I was.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @gene108:

    Also, too reading Balloon-Juice has made me realize I am very uncultured and not nearly as well read as I thought I was.

    Right there with you, brother.

  42. 42.

    jl

    @Baud: Baud 2020! Goddammit, now there’s a guy I’d like to go fish for empty beer bottles with.
    Nice to see you reaching out to the voters.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @gene108:

    Have you ever seen “Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell”?

    No.

    No?

    As I said, no.

    Well you aren’t dead to me, because it is the worst movie I have ever seen and arguably the worst movie ever made.

    I can’t wait!

  44. 44.

    chris

    @gene108: “Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell”

    See y’all later, I’m off to the dark web.

    ETA: NVM it’s on YouTube.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Major Major Major Major: We didn’t get Obama because of caucuses. We got Obama because he and his team understood the rules throughout all aspects of the process and worked to maximize his delegate count. If we didn’t have caucuses, they would have some done somethings differently to work toward the same result.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: I can’t speak for Major Major, but I will say that if Obama hadn’t won Iowa, he would not have won the nomination. It was lily white Iowa voting for Obama that made people believe Obama could really have a chance.

  56. 56.

    jl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I find the reasoning (to be generous) behind your comment both odd and irrelevant, as usual.
    I felt ‘fishing’ was a genteel euphemism for ‘trash bin diving’.
    genteel euphemism marks the dife’rence
    between a gentlemen and a bum
    with a capital “B,”
    and that stands for certain commenters here at balloon-juice blog.

  60. 60.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl:

    I find the reasoning (to be generous) behind your comment both odd and irrelevant, as usual.

    Of course, as is usually the case, you didn’t understand my comment since you’re not a man of the people and have no understanding of the common folk.

    I felt ‘fishing’ was a genteel euphemism for ‘trash bin diving’.

    I believe that I covered that I live in a cave in a previous comment. Do try to pay attention, jl.

  63. 63.

    joel hanes

    I’m an expatriate Iowan, I love Iowa, I’ll be back there for the Fourth, and am likely to move back there within a year or so.

    Iowa should ditch the caucuses, and give up their “first in the nation” spot in the campaigns, for precisely the reasons that they will not do so: both institutions tend to magnify the influence of Iowa political leaders far out of proportion to Iowa’s actual importance to the nation.

    Back in the days of Governor Ray, when Iowa was sending Harkin to DC, and Iowa had a bone-deep commitment to good government and good schools, those things made more sense, or at least were less harmful to the nation. But now that the Iowa Rs have the trifecta and have gone full-metal wingnut, Iowa’s political influence is largely deleterious. (E.g. : ethanol from corn makes no sense in terms of environmental policy, nor in terms of energy efficiency.)

    There are still a lot of really wonderful people in Iowa, but they’re not in the Des Moines political leadership.

    And over the years, Grassley has gradually morphed from a spineless mediocrity to a genuinely pernicious detriment to the nation.

  66. 66.

    ThresherK

    @SiubhanDuinne: Okay, I’m a bit lost here. The wiki refers to about a third of the score being lost for a ’70s Off-Broadway revival.

    And there’s a song by that name which sounds very Gay Nineties, very “After The Ball”. That song was written for that show by Vincent Youmans?

  67. 67.

    Steve in the ATL

    @joel hanes: read an article in The New Yorker last year or so about the Dutch Reformed church in Steve King’s part of Iowa and how they have ruined and will continue to ruin Iowa.

    We have a group like that where I live. They’re called “Georgians”.

  68. 68.

    Aleta

    @joel hanes: spent half my childhood in Iowa, riding bikes around a town along the Mississippi. Brick streets, green-gold haze in the summer.

  72. 72.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: I agree that an early win that showed that white people would vote for him was a necessity. Of HRC had gotten out to a large early lead, it may well have been insurmountable. That being said, I still say it wasn’t the caucuses per se that benefited him, Rather it was that he and his team looked on each state as an opportunity to add to their delegate total. There were states where they could “lose” and still add to their delegate count. They knew that and campaigned accordingly.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    This is Bloomberg:

    The State Department didn’t respond to an inquiry made through its press department. The White House declined to comment or offer proof to back up Trump’s tweet. The Mexican foreign ministry’s press office declined to comment.
    Mexico is already a large buyer of U.S. farm goods, including corn, soybeans, pork and dairy products. It had given no indication of attempting to find alternative suppliers during the one-week standoff over Trump’s proposed steep tariffs on Mexican goods.
    Increasing Mexico’s purchases from the U.S. wasn’t discussed during the three days of talks in Washington that led up to Friday’s agreement, said the three people with knowledge of the deliberations who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
    Mexico has no state-owned agricultural conglomerate to buy food products or handle distribution, or a government program that could buy farm equipment for delivery to producers.

    What is wrong with these people? They know “Mexico”, the country, doesn’t do the purchasing. That isn’t what “trade with Mexico” means. The country isn’t buying the products. That isn’t what a “trade deal” means, despite what the ridiculous President tweeted. They know this.

    Trump has addled their minds. They are no longer capable of thinking.

  78. 78.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax: I wasn’t nodding to Billy Joel, so I can’t accept the accolade. “You Got Trouble” has a reference to Sen-Sen, which is one of Prof. Harold Hill’s warning signs.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, the latest Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang came in today’s mail.

  83. 83.

    jl

    @Kay: As is being reported in the print media, Trump’s stupid blustering tariff threat was stone cold busted by Mexico, they gave him nothing, so Trump is just lying and riffing at random to cover his complete failure. Good thing, in the big picture, that he did back down, since it would have triggered a recession for sure.

    So, his flunkies are just saying whatever shit they need to in order to get through the next few minutes.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    Why don’t they ask one of the unnamed officials why the President of the United States believes that “Mexico” purchases ag products? I mean is that what he thinks? That the country buys corn and distributes it to people and that’s what “trade” is? That he can demand Mexico buy “more” corn, by executive decree? Is that what he thinks about avocados coming in from Mexico? That the US Treasury purchases them?

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @ThesherK

    Well aware of the reference from TMM. There’s a Billy Joel song which includes the lyric “a pack of Luckies and a mint called Sen-Sen.” As you (unconsciously?) used the exact same words as the four I’ve bolded, go ahead and accept the credit.

    ;)

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Completely OT: I just got a couple of texts from someone in DC saying that there was a disturbance at the DC Pride march. Cops arrested someone with a gun; apparently no shots were fired, but marchers did get stampeded a bit. That’s all I know at this point.

    ETA: News report.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @jl:

    Right, but don’t rebut his premise! His premise is imaginary! Start at the beginning- “When we talk of trade with “Mexico” we don’t actually mean the government of Mexico does the purchasing of US products sold in Mexico”. If that’s necessary, and apparently it is.

  95. 95.

    dnfree

    @cmorenc: Yes, I’ve been busy unsubscribing myself from numerous emails from the 2018 election. When they ask a reason I just put “not in district”.

  97. 97.

    jl

    @Kay: They are all just saying whatever random shit that they think makes them look good and gets reporters off their backs.
    I’d like to read of an analysis of how much of the senseless ignorant crapola they pump out gets credulously repeated by the corporate radio and TV news media, as if it even means something.

  98. 98.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @FelonyGovt:

    Is Sen-Sen the little black pastilles about 1/8” square that taste like soapy licorice? I eventually learned to enjoy them but they were definitely an acquired, deliberate taste.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:
    Tis true.. while I was a true believer in2007, it took the Iowa Caucus to get other Black folks to believe that Senator Obama had a chance to win.

  100. 100.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax: I accept. That was an unconscious use of those words. I actually thought that exact phrase was also in “Ya Got Trouble”, but no soap. (PS If the Wiki is to be believed, those are the only two songs mentioning them.)

  101. 101.

    Steve in the ATL

    @jl:

    I’d like to read of an analysis of how much of the senseless ignorant crapola they pump out gets credulously repeated by the corporate radio and TV news media

    Just about all of it, from what I see

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    And also for your mention of WNEW-AM, which unearthed memory of setting the sleep timer on the first radio I owned which had one to shut off after Barry Gray’s late night talk show, which I usually fell asleep to back when.

  108. 108.

    mrmoshpotato

    WTF? Presidential candidates are already in Iowa pushing corn dogs and fried butter into their faces? ?

  118. 118.

    SiubhanDuinne

    For the first time in several days, just had a quick squint at Trump’s twitter archive. Jesus Christ in a Heinz ketchup bottle, that man is dim.

    Stupid, ignorant, and incurious is no way to go through life, son.

  119. 119.

    joel hanes

    @joel hanes:

    Ah. I see that my understanding was out of date.

    [The maker of Sen-Sen] discontinued the product in July 2013

    I remember actually seeing it for sale on the counter of a liquors store within the last decade.

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    @J R in WV: So did the Doors!
    Doors: Ship of Fools

    Also, Red Skelton joke I remember (Gertrude and Heathcliff were recurring seagull joke vehicles):
    G:. Hey Heathcliff look down there, it’s the ship of fools!
    H:. How do you know it’s the ship of fools, Gertrude?
    G: They’re looking up aren’t they?
    Ba doom!

  123. 123.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Presidential candidates are already in Iowa pushing corn dogs and fried butter into their faces?

    Deep-fried lard or GTFH.

  130. 130.

    raven

    “People were injured Saturday during the Capital Pride Parade while running from what they thought were gunshots, according to District of Columbia Deputy Mayor Kevin Donahue.

    Donahue said in a tweet that there is no gunman.
    Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a tweet that DC Fire is treating minor injuries. She didn’t specify how many people were injured.”

  131. 131.

    dnfree

    @SiubhanDuinne: “The Music Man” and “Guys and Dolls” are the two musicals that I will see anytime I have the chance to. “Into the Woods” is a later addition to that group.

    Have you ever read “And There I Stood With My Piccolo”? If you love “Music Man”, you should.

  133. 133.

    mrmoshpotato

    @SiubhanDuinne: It better be fried in lard too!

    Eww gross.

    Sadly, Rick “Eliminate the Department of Energy” Perry most likely won’t be making a porno with a corn dog this election cycle.

  134. 134.

    J R in WV

    First it was a novel:

    The idea for Ship of Fools originated in a voyage that Katherine Anne Porter took from Mexico to Europe in 1931. Some of the passengers she encountered on the ship became the models for the characters in Ship of Fools. Porter began work on the novel in 1941 and it took her twenty years to complete …

    Then it was a famous film, I suppose the songs arise from the novel and film…

  135. 135.

    Shana

    @Aleta: What town in Iowa? I grew up in Rock Island, IL and while I couldn’t wait to get out of the area for college and never wanted to move back, I had a lovely childhood the likes of which my children gape in wonder at when I tell them about the freedom we had.

  136. 136.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax: Now if I told my nephews that I’m hip to this newfangled “anti-comedy” because of Uncle Floyd they’d never believe me.

    @Immanentize: Have you tried laudanum? It was all the rage before the Pure Food and Drug Act, which Trump will overturn by fiat any day now.

  138. 138.

    raven

    @J R in WV: Not really

    The human race was dyin’ out
    Noone left to scream and shout
    People walking on the moon
    Smog will get you pretty soon

    Everyone was hanging out
    Hanging up and hanging down
    Hanging in and holding fast
    Hope our little world will last

    Yeah, along came Mr. Goodtrips
    Looking for a new a ship
    Come on, people better climb on board
    Come on, baby, now we’re going home
    Ship of fools, ship of fools

    The human race was dyin’ out
    Noone left to scream and shout
    People walking on the moon
    Smog will get you pretty soon
    Ship of fools, ship of fools

  139. 139.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @dnfree:

    No, have never even heard of it! Thank you! — always on the lookout for new things to read.

  141. 141.

    Immanentize

    @Shana:
    Sheena!
    Old thread reply: I saw the Ramones when I was in college too. It’s a long story of work, bad bosses and young love….

    But I got to the show! And they were horrible! Couldn’t play two bars together. But they were very loud and I was with my GF and it was great.

  142. 142.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Immanentize: if they couldn’t play two bars together because they were too drunk, then you also described the Replacements

  143. 143.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @dnfree:

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Just had Amazon Kindle send me a sample. My to-be-read queue is enormous, yet I keep ordering fresh books. Am sure i’ll order this, but want to check out the writing style first.

    Again, many thanks for the recommendation.

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Semi-senior moment. While it was Barry Gray’s radio program, it was broadcast on WMCA, not WNEW.

    Barry Gray returned to WMCA in 1950, and stayed there for 39 years, refining the talk show format still utilized today. During the 1960s, he was in the odd position of having an 11 p.m.-1 a.m. late night talk show on a station otherwise dominated by Top 40 music and the youth-targeted “Good Guys” disc jockey campaign. But for teenagers who kept their radios on into the night, Gray’s show was a window into the high-brow New York culture of the 1940s and 1950s. Gray would often have authors on, and he made a point of saying he had actually read their books, something not all talk show hosts did. Gray also had a tendency towards risqué (for the time) topics, such as the novel nudity found in European films playing in art houses, or characteristics of the prostitution scene in Manhattan. Source

  145. 145.

    Shana

    @Immanentize: A badge of honor! I dip in and out of threads, frequently finding something I want to comment on when a thread is dead and then leaving after I’ve made a comment and never seeing responses on live threads.

    Damn we probably both saw some great shows.

  147. 147.

    raven

    @Steve in the ATL: One of the great revelations of my life came when I went to see Neil Young at Lakewood after I got sober. It was the first time I hadn’t gotten totally fucked up for a show and I though. “goddamn, this is good and I’ll remember it”! 27 years later. . . it’s still the case except I can’t fucking stand up for 3 hours anymore!

  149. 149.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Shana:

    I dip in and out of threads, frequently finding something I want to comment on when a thread is dead and then leaving after I’ve made a comment and never seeing responses on live threads.

    I do that all.the.time.

  150. 150.

    ThresherK

    @Steve in the ATL: Saw the Replacements opening for Tom Petty in 1989. They were great, didn’t miss any time sigs or cues.

    However, at one point the bassist got a spotlight on him before a song and he said, “Can you turn that off? I’m not feeling too perky tonight.”

  152. 152.

    dnfree

    @SiubhanDuinne: It not only mentions “The Music Man”, it has stories from Meredith Willson’s career as a piccolo player. And the joke behind the title is worth the price of admission. I have a very old edition, but it was republished a few years ago. There is more detail of his conception of the musical in the sequel, “But He Doesn’t Know the Territory: The Making of Meredith Willson’s the Music Man.”

  154. 154.

    Immanentize

    Ok. I have been banished to moderation pergatory? Ok, but you are all just my avatars there!

  158. 158.

    plato

    teh stupid

    As JFK famously said, “We choose to go to the Moon not because it is easy, but because it is Mars"— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) June 7, 2019

    and yet

    Trump added at least another $3.6 million to his taxpayer-funded golf tab after his Trump to his Ireland golf resort, making the overall total for 2 1/2 years of trips to his clubs nearly $106 million, according to HuffPost.https://t.co/w7Z4MQ3gDx— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2019

    Only in murkkka.

  162. 162.

    Immanentize

    @raven: at some point you really must stop making me green with envy regarding all the amazing shows you saw…. Did you always know the bouncer?!

  164. 164.

    joel hanes

    @NotMax:

    Sadly, the double bell euphonium has gone out of fashion.

    There is one, and examples of other euphonium styles, in the museum in Music Man Square in Mason City IA. And of course, there’s a wind band practice hall with 76 trombones suspended from the ceiling. (My Mom’s old-people’s concert band practices in that room — she’s still playing percussion at 87, and with considerable brio.)

    Sadly, the Music Man Square center has been in financial trouble for a while, and may go under. Those of you who love the musical should go see it, and soon. If you have the funds, it’s perfectly delightful to stay in the recently-restored Park Inn Hotel two blocks away, the last remaining working hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Excellent restaurant: try the lamp chops. The Quarry next door is another good place to eat.

    The pool hall that started all the Trouble, Ransom’s Pleazol Billiards and Cigars, is still in business in the same location, after 150 years. It’s still seedy.
    https://globegazette.com/news/local/landmark-bar-ransom-s-pleazol-celebrates-years-in-mason-city/article_e66d7825-1edf-5ba0-a1f5-53d4a935ea1a.html

  165. 165.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @dnfree:

    Looking forward to both. Thank you again!

    Am also hoping to read, soon, Todd Purdom’s Something Wonderful, about how Rodgers & Hammerstein changed the American musical forever.

  167. 167.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl:

    In the site rebuild, there will be a link to nominate rotating tags.

    That’s the best news I’ve heard today! Of course, we want more: Is there any way to resurrect all the suggestions over the last few years? Search all comments that include the phrase “rotating tag” maybe? There were some good ones and they just got lost in the ether.

  168. 168.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Sadly, the double bell euphonium has gone out of fashion.

    At moments like these, I really miss e.f.goldman.

  173. 173.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax:
    School Newspaper Editor? We almost got expelled for publishing about the drugs and sports problem at our HS. That mitigates Mathletes, no?

  177. 177.

    NotMax

    @Immanentize

    Newspaper editor and Mathlete kind of cancel each other out, IMHO.

    Now, if you’d said school newspaper photographer….

    :)

  180. 180.

    frosty

    @Immanentize: Good for him/her! The school is a lot more focused on getting kids to graduate than when I was there. I suspect a 50% attrition rate eventually didn’t look good to prospective students.

    Still full of nerds though. Tell him/her to learn to ride a unicycle this summer.

  181. 181.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax:

    Newspaper editor and Mathlete kind of cancel each other out, IMHO.

    That, in a nutshell has been my life

  182. 182.

    Millard Filmore

    @gene108:

    Have you ever seen “Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell”?

    This is where I start whistling non-nonchalantly.

  185. 185.

    WaterGirl

    @frosty: There might be a way to search for something like that, if one of my wishes comes true. We’ll have to see what the new site brings.

  186. 186.

    CapnMubbers

    @Jay: Love that movie! I’ve bored many people to the point of them falling asleep, and then waking them up because I’m laughing so hard.

  189. 189.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax: Ah, coming in very late after a long dinner out, but the Uncle Floyd show was quite a source of respite with a colicky baby way back in the day. Quieted her down for some unfathomable reason.

  190. 190.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Immanentize: We got our yearbook canceled and all proofs/galleys/whatever-they’re-called destroyed. I guess administration wasn’t happy with the content we produced.

  193. 193.

    frosty

    @Immanentize: Sure he does! The unicycle ride to the donut shop started with the Class of 72. It’s a tradition!

    Also West (Dorm) is Best!!

    ETA: It’s better than being in the Ham Radio Club.

  194. 194.

    opiejeanne

    @frosty: Learn to ride a unicycle while playing a tuba. Then he can pose for the perennial photo with the caption: Tootling along.

  196. 196.

    opiejeanne

    @frosty: The Donut Man! Such good donuts! My youngest dated a Harvey Mudd graduate, almost married him. We already knew about the Donut Man (or is it Guy?) but he told us tales of a somewhat traditional great race to collect various items, the last of which was a baker’s dozen from the Donut Man.

  197. 197.

    opiejeanne

    @mrmoshpotato: In the 60s and 70s it seemed like every summer there was a photo in the newspaper of some kid doing that, and that seemed to always be the caption.

  200. 200.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jayjaybear: Back in the late 80’s or early 90’s a guy was in a legal dispute with Wells Fargo, that they lost and refused to pay up. He got the court to put a lien on the stagecoach. Wells Fargo paid up very quickly after that.

  204. 204.

    Matt McIrvin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I went to Boston’s Festival of Bands yesterday (yes, it’s the same weekend as Pride, makes for a nice celebratory atmosphere around Quincy Market) and there was a brief remembrance of efgoldman in the announcements.

  207. 207.

    J R in WV

    @zhena gogolia:

    @J R in WV:

    It’s a painting by Bosch

    Thanks!

    Bosch is one very strange person !!! I did not know about his “Ship of Fools” which doesn’t seem so connected to any of the others I knew about. Though it surely ranks high on the weird scale, as does most all of his work.

    Is there any biographical guess about Bosch’s life? What was Bosch like to have an ale with? I’ll have to go there now.

    Perhaps he grew ergot as a hobby…

  208. 208.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @Immanentize: We got our yearbook canceled and all proofs/galleys/whatever-they’re-called destroyed. I guess administration wasn’t happy with the content we produced.

    WOW, Good Job!! That’s how you know you did it right, if they destroyed all the proofs!

    Proud to know you!!!

  209. 209.

    J R in WV

    @debbie:

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Or the Kinks. They could barely stand up and Ray came close to knocking the stack of speakers over. But, boy, they were great!

    Went to a chambers Brothers / Kinks show in Philly back in 1969 or so, really enjoyed the Chambers Brothers, who were local and very popular, mostly black guys, very precise and together.

    The the Kinks, who were… um… sloppy, not understandable, loud. After 3 “songs” I left.

    Many years later we went to see Bonnie Raitt, opening for Little Feat. Same thing, she tore the place down, we loved it. Left after a couple sloppy bits by Little Feat… long drive home

  210. 210.

    Sab

    @frosty: Can you actually ride a unicycle? I used to have an amazing sense of balance. I was the star in my gymnastics class because of me on the balance beam.

    I spent a whole summer trying to ride a unicycle. Those things are tough. You have to balance sideways, like a bike. You also have to balance forwards and backwards, and you cannot coast.

    I am in awe of the people I know who can ride the things.

  211. 211.

    debbie

    @J R in WV:

    Creative juices can be good…sometimes. There were some groups (Humble Pie, Small Faces are two) that were just better on their albums than in person.

    Loved, loved, loved the Chambers Brothers.

  212. 212.

    artem1s

    get rid of the caucuses – not democratic. limit campaigning to a six month period before the election. this 24/7/365 election cycle has got to end. It’s too tempting to the industries that make money from it (MSM). the ends do not justify the means.

Comments are closed.