It’s not even 10:00 am in Des Moines and Beto O’Rourke has run a 5K, Kirsten Gillibrand is talking to a book club, and here’s John Hickenlooper exploring the Farmers Market. pic.twitter.com/3ZBrG6zXbh
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 8, 2019
"I loved the caucuses when I first moved to Iowa in 2012 for college. But now, after actively participating in politics here for the last five years, I would cheer their demise." https://t.co/pG6X0XlPFB
— The Outline (@outline) June 6, 2019
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…
“I live in Des Moines, Iowa. I’ve moved to Des Moines,” presidential candidate @marwilliamson tells @erinfjordan https://t.co/H4IkEqreCz
— Brianne Pfannenstiel (@brianneDMR) June 6, 2019
Finally bought the @RAYGUNshirts #IACaucus shirt I wanted pic.twitter.com/nyralNPHQ6
— Pat Rynard (@patrynard) June 8, 2019
Baud
I agree. Change the primary schedule.
Baud
If I do worse than Marianne Williamson, I’ll be really upset.
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.
Jerzy Russian
@Baud:
I suggest making the state you are in be the first one. That way, Baud! 2020! hits the ground running.
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.
Baud
@Jerzy Russian:
Agree. The state of anxiety should be first.
Steve in the ATL
@Sab:
Hey—don’t be stealing my shtick!
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.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sab:
Talk to Steve in the XXX about that.
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.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Oops, sorry.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: That’s right, for Steve in the (wherever the fuck he is), union bozos are billable hours.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: mmmm…billable hours….
Baud
Caucuses are the devil. I’ve heard more states are moving away for them. That is good.
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.
Chris T.
Since this an open thread…
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?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Uh-oh, now your naughty bits are all a tingling.
Redshift
@Baud:
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.
Chris T.
@Redshift: “There’s an XKCD for that”
chris
@Chris T.: Surprise! FNYT went along with Trump’s version. for a while anyway.
Major Major Major Major
All caucuses are bad. I say this with full knowledge that they’re one of the reasons we got Obama.
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.
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.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
A good king doesn’t make monarchy a good system.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: well I don’t know if I’d go that far. Fortunately in this case doing the right thing also leads to the best outcomes.
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.
gene108
@jl:
Hey, gaming caucuses is how Obama beat Hillary, in 2008. That and Superdelegates.
oatler.
@gene108: But there WAS trouble in River City! But the young’uns WERE rollin’ tailor-mades like cigarette fiends!
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.
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.
gene108
@oatler.:
I am sorry. I am not cool ? enough to get the reference. ?♂️?♀️?♂️?♀️
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Rotating tag in the BJ rebuild!
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: Yup, coming right after ‘fuckem’.
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
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.
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.
jl
You’ve always got trouble trouble trouble at balloon-juice blog.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Everything comes after ”fuckem.” EFG still rules.
Baud
@gene108:
Right there with you, brother.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108: No problem I live in a cave and am horribly uncultured*.
*While I’ve not seen ‘The Music Man’, I do know enough about it to know the reference cause I’m old.
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.
SiubhanDuinne
@gene108:
No.
As I said, no.
I can’t wait!
chris
@gene108: “Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell”
See y’all later, I’m off to the dark web.
ETA: NVM it’s on YouTube.
Baud
@jl:
“Worse than Juicers” is where the majority of voters are.
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.
jeffreyw
@gene108:
Uh, got a link for that?
Another Scott
@gene108: Marge vs the Monorail.
The songs are better in TMM, but MvtM is great as well.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Isn’t fishing generally a process whose best result is producing empty beer bottles?
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: In the site rebuild, there will be a link to nominate rotating tags.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108:
I just tell myself it’s because everybody here is twice my age ?
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108:
Is it on Netflix?
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.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I didn’t know you were only 17.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
(checks pantry). Dang it. Not a Bevo nor a cubeb to be had.
Talk about trouble.
:)
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.
schrodingers_cat
Is the Orange One back or is he is he still on his tour, of how can I embarrass the United States today?
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Kind of like me with “Two Little Girls in Blue,”
chris
@gene108: JFC, not even so bad it’s good.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
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 believe that I covered that I live in a cave in a previous comment. Do try to pay attention, jl.
ThresherK
@NotMax: I’m all out of a mint called Sen-Sen.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Obviously, my administration is going to be a Team of Rivals.
Or a Ship of Fools.
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.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: you never struck me as a 34-year-old either.
@Omnes Omnibus: I wrote and then deleted something to this effect, actually.
H.E.Wolf
@gene108:
The opening song deliberately mimics the rhythms of a train starting, accelerating, and coming to a stop at a station.
Google “music man opening number” to find YouTube versions.
There are a few typos in this transcription of the lyrics, but it’s fairly close:
https://genius.com/Meredith-willson-rock-island-lyrics
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?
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”.
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.
Jay
@chris:
It’s no Attack of the Killer Tomatos.
Raven
@Aleta: And the juke box on the Addie Mae!
NotMax
@ThresherK
Wow, a segue to Billy Joel. Nice.
Sen-Sen’s strapping taste, though, came from licorice and anise.
Leisure read, from 1985: WHEN MEN WERE MEN, THE CHOICE WAS SEN-SEN (all caps in original). (The original Sen-Sen’s manufacture ended in 2013.)
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.
justawriter
My dad actually did have a copy of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: There is my age and then there is the age that my psyche believes is my age.
Kay
This is Bloomberg:
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.
jl
@Baud: ” Or a Ship of Fools. ”
Baud 2020!, the new Straight Talk Express!
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Killer Klowns From Outer Space
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.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: roger that
ThresherK
@justawriter: Heh. Ya beat me to it!
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
This joint is getting overrun with coastal elitists.
Raven
The Doors – Ship of Fools
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.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Should everyone with even half a brain who works at State just quit?
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?
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
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.
;)
FelonyGovt
I used to love Sen Sen. Definitely an acquired taste though.
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.
eemom
@NotMax:
Also mentions his old man’s Trojans.
Keeping the Faith, is that the title or just the refrain?
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Fucked up formatting, and FYWP won’t allow me to correct.
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.
chris
@Jay: Now that was a movie!
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: was it a glitter gun?
@SiubhanDuinne: I mostly just read it for the cartoon caption contest
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”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
Steve in the ATL
@jl:
Just about all of it, from what I see
NotMax
@ThresherK
Extra credit overdue, too, for your mention of Uncle Floyd the other day.
;)
Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yup, it was no Thrills, which tasted like soap, and is still around.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: He’s back, golfing and tweeting.
RawStory.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
Is he wearing black pants because they are slimming?
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.
Immanentize
@ThresherK:
If only I had some throat discs or Terpinhydrate, I could get rid of this cough!
mrmoshpotato
WTF? Presidential candidates are already in Iowa pushing corn dogs and fried butter into their faces? ?
J R in WV
@Raven:
The Grateful Dead did a song called Ship of Fools, very lyrical, a great tune.
Immanentize
@gene108:
Dude! 76 Trombones?!
Raven
@J R in WV: Produced by Lowell George.
eta
Wrong, that was Terrapin
Steve in the ATL
@Raven: @J R in WV: World Party did a good song by the same title in the late ‘80’s
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Not a Bevo nor a cubeb to be had.
I believe that Sen-Sen is still sold.
NotMax
@J R in WV
Damn good cast in an equally good film, also too.
Raven
@Raven: @Steve in the ATL: say who
Raven
@NotMax: Marvin is awesome.
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: It’s been an earworm (3:52) for me since it came up in this thread.
Good tune.
Cheers,
Scott.
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.
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.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: @Raven: Ship of Fools.
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!
NotMax
Too lazy to look it up but suspect Penzey’s sells cubeb.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
Deep-fried lard or GTFH.
NotMax
@Raven
Yup. As is Michael Dunn.
Immanentize
@Raven:
Sorry, you got there way first.
raven
@Immanentize: I mean I love the Dead but that IS Ship of Fools,
Sab
@Steve in the ATL: Betsy deVos is one of them. Same folks as ran South Africa into the ground. These are truly horible people.
debbie
@NotMax:
Simone!
Immanentize
@raven: exactly!
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.”
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.
Doug R
@gene108: @jl: The Music Man “Ya Got Trouble”
Family Guy – Shipoopi
Humble brag-I played a couple of bit parts in our High School production of Music Man. Michelle Meyrink played Zenetta Shin.
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.
J R in WV
First it was a novel:
Then it was a famous film, I suppose the songs arise from the novel and film…
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.
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.
Doug R
@gene108:
Link?
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
SiubhanDuinne
@dnfree:
No, have never even heard of it! Thank you! — always on the lookout for new things to read.
raven
@ThresherK: John Wayne hits laudanum in The Shootist!
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.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: if they couldn’t play two bars together because they were too drunk, then you also described the Replacements
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.
NotMax
@NotMax
Semi-senior moment. While it was Barry Gray’s radio program, it was broadcast on WMCA, not WNEW.
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.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
And battered and breaded.
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!
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
They were not too drunk. They just sucked.
Now Replacements (love) but for some reason I mixed them up just now with this:
Pavement.
I know Raven has seen them!
SiubhanDuinne
@Shana:
I do that all.the.time.
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.”
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Beef tallow or go home.
:)
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.”
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
Moderation. I will try not so fancy.
Ramones were not drunk, they just can’t play shit.
Replacements? Love them. But somehow I got this in my head instead:
What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high?
Pavement, Stereo
Immanentize
Ok. I have been banished to moderation pergatory? Ok, but you are all just my avatars there!
NotMax
@dnfree
Sadly, the double bell euphonium has gone out of fashion.
Immanentize
@Shana:
And I love you more for it.?
Immanentize
@NotMax:
I was once a Mathlete who played the Euphonium. Thank God I became a poetry major!
plato
teh stupid
and yet
Only in murkkka.
joel hanes
@Immanentize:
And they were horrible! Couldn’t play two bars together.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ll take “All The Stuff That Will Clog Your Arteries” for $2000 Alex.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Add in Chess Club for the protogeek superfecta.
:)
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?!
Immanentize
@NotMax:
Sorry, no chess club. But I did work at McDonalds!
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
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.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: that’s still confirmation that you remained a virgin through high school
frosty
@WaterGirl:
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.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
At moments like these, I really miss e.f.goldman.
NotMax
@Immanentize
The judges will also accept any of the following:
Latin Club
Ham Radio Club
Stagehand in Drama Dept.
Yearbook staff.
:)
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
We do not speak of that…
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: efgoldman, no periods.
Sheesh. You people.
Shana
@Immanentize: Aww, thanks.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
School Newspaper Editor? We almost got expelled for publishing about the drugs and sports problem at our HS. That mitigates Mathletes, no?
zhena gogolia
@J R in WV:
It’s a painting by Bosch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(painting)
But also a Michael Dunn (and George Segal!) movie.
Immanentize
@frosty:
Frosty! How are you?
Son’s best friend in HS going to Harvey Mudd….
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Quotable.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Newspaper editor and Mathlete kind of cancel each other out, IMHO.
Now, if you’d said school newspaper photographer….
:)
frosty
@NotMax:
Uh oh.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Now here is curious question – in Great Britain are they called Mathsletes?
;)
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.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
That, in a nutshell has been my life
Millard Filmore
@gene108:
This is where I start whistling non-nonchalantly.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
Because they have the real Maths?
Immanentize
@frosty:
Oh man! Lukas (guy) does not need that kind of encouragement.
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.
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.
Jay
@NotMax:
Binder, dundat.
Jay
@CapnMubbers:
Cherry Tomato, right?
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.
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.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Home for a Rest by the Sprit of the West did wonders for me for some reason.
CapnMubbers
@Jay: Pass the ketchup.
Uh oh….
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.
opiejeanne
@frosty: Learn to ride a unicycle while playing a tuba. Then he can pose for the perennial photo with the caption: Tootling along.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: That would be damn impressive.
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.
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.
jayjaybear
@ThresherK: I’m sure you meant to type “Came on the Wells-Fargo wagon.” :)
karen marie
@cmorenc: I just hit “spam” and I never see anything from them again.
?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.
karen marie
Of course this overlong thread appears dead but Imma leave this topical article about Iowa caucusers here anyway.
joel hanes
@karen marie:
thanks.
Some of us loop back around to read the ends of old threads.
frosty
@opiejeanne: Foster’s Donuts. I was neither a unicycle guy nor interested in getting up that early in the morning!
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.
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!
opiejeanne
@Matt McIrvin: That’s nice.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
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…
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
WOW, Good Job!! That’s how you know you did it right, if they destroyed all the proofs!
Proud to know you!!!
J R in WV
@debbie:
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
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.
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.
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.