The only place I go anymore is the grocery store and gas station, and I’m apparently starved for diversion, so I take pictures of magazines that amuse or enrage me. Here’s one from a couple of weeks ago:
I’m sure there are other cultural artifacts that better explain the mindset of people who will accept Trump’s lies, but this one is good enough. Convincing people that a rich, grifting publicity whore is the real victim here is Trumpism in a nutshell. Here’s another one that I saw yesterday:
I’ll bet that Trump still reads People magazine, and I can only imagine the verbal rage diarrhea that he spewed out when he saw this cover with the Jesus-like Fauci portrait. Trump brought a butter knife to a grenade tossing contest when he tried to fuck with Tony Fauci, who’s been infighting since Fred bought Donald his first Klan robe.
In more important news, I just bought a Balloon Juice calendar, you can, too.
In Case You Missed It: The Pet Calendars Are Ready to Order!
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Somewhere there’s a photo of Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kim Kardashian listing under each one their accomplishments. For the first two, it’s the number of Grammy awards, albums sold, net worth, charity work, etc. For Kim, it’s “one porn tape” and that’s it.
Perspective is a great thing.
Baud
I expect Trump will ask the Government Printing Office to make up a fake People magazine with him on the cover.
Comrade Colette
Speaking of surfing … it’s another sunny day here, and later I’m going for a walk at the beach to look at the surfers and birds and waves. Last night I picked another two pints of homegrown tomatoes. The roses, herb garden, salad greens, and various flowering annuals are all going strong.
It’s December 4, and I live in San Francisco, which is not exactly a tropical hotspot. Our annual rainy season officially began on October 15; since that date, we’ve had one day with measurable precipitation – a mighty 0.5 inch. That’s 14% of normal.
Climate change is lovely in the moment, but when you add up all the moments, we are in deep, deep trouble.
narya
At one point, Quinn Cummings had a Twitter thread explaining the Kardashian family grift-a-thon, including the ways in which there may be liabilities (e.g., for fraud, because of over-valuing assets). It was illuminating–I don’t follow or watch any of those folks but of course their faces pop up all over the place.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Trying something different – making some savory latkes that I threw together from some leftover mashed potatoes to go with some fried eggs.
They’ll be tasty but not beautiful.
lee
I can’t believe I’m writing this but….wasn’t some doubt about her $1B? Wasn’t the SEC or State of CA investigating her for inflating her wealth in front of investors?
Splitting Image
In Kim Kardashian’s defense, she supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, making her a better person than sixty – no make that seventy – million other Americans.
JPL
Where do you take the photos at the gas station or the grocery store? Creepy guy taking photos of Kim again, on aisle 4.
Baud
@Splitting Image:
That is a good defense.
PJ
+10 for the Go-Betweens reference. It’s hard to believe that record came out 20 year ago.
I am so old.
jonas
I’m not that old, but these days I don’t seem to recognize maybe 8 out of 10 faces on the covers of these celebrity tabloids and magazines anymore. I presume they’re probably reality show stars or famous TikTok-ers or something.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@JPL:
I don’t go inside at the gas station, so this was at the grocery store. Everyone’s looking at their phones in the checkout line, plus we’re all separated, so a quick photo isn’t noticed, as far as I can tell.
Baud
FWIW, $1 billion would buy me a great deal of happiness.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@PJ:
They were right about one thing on that album: the clock turns.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If he doesn’t, Menalie does. It was either her recent and sympathetic biographer* and/or Stephanie Whosits-Wazzerame, the one who’s spilling the beans on the inauguration scam, who offered as evidence that they don’t actually hate each other that Melanie hate-reads magazines and cuts out articles she knows will piss him off.
*it’s a sympathetic bio, but she’s the one who said Melanie and her son stayed in NYC for the first six months while her pre-nup was renegotiated.
mad citizen
I was 13.5 when People magazine started. Wiki tells me the first issue was March 4, 1974. It was a big deal. I remember thinking, there is more than Time and Newsweek? You’re going to do a whole magazine just talking about people? (Seinfeld: “People are the worst”)
The other day I was thinking about the great line in the Big Chill, Jeff Goldblum playing a writer from People magazine.
Karen : How about you Michael? So tell us about the world of big time journalism.
Sam Weber : Yeah.
Michael : Well I where I work we only have one editorial rule. You can’t write anything longer than it takes your average person to take an average crap.
jonas
@Splitting Image: To say nothing of her own husband, but he obviously suffers from mental health issues.
Watching Trump’s lawyers and all these addled weirdos they dug up to claim they saw the ghost of Hugo Chavez stealing the election, serious emotional and mental disturbance seems to be an increasingly common thread among Trumpists these days.
Hoodie
I can’t think of anyone who has managed to own Trump as much as Fauci. He’s the rare guy who managed to avoid Josh Marshall’s dignity wraith syndrome after interaction with Trump. It probably frosts Trump’s balls that Fauci is enthusiastically welcoming working with Biden’s team.
SFBayAreaGal
@Comrade Colette: I live a few miles south of you.
Last year there was no rain for the entire month of February. The year before that we were behind on the needed rain.
Yes we are in deep, deep, drought trouble.
schrodingers_cat
@Hoodie: He has balls? I thought they are in Putin’s safe in Moscow.
RobertB
@Baud: “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”
– David Lee Roth
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This will ruin The Beast’s short game this weekend
ALurkSupreme
(And also too) Kicks just keep gettin’ harder to find.
Benw
Thanks mistermix for the reminder that Halle Berry is still rocking it!
Mallard Filmore
Baud @ 13 –
They say you cannot buy love,
but you can get really damn close.
The Moar You Know
@RobertB: A thousand years from now, if we’re lucky, history will list the preeminent philosopher of our times as David Lee Roth.
If we’re unlucky, it may well be Rush Limbaugh. Or Kanye West.
SFBayAreaGal
“Whoever said money doesn’t buy you happiness obviously doesn’t have money.”
I wish I could remember who said the above quote.
Hoodie
@schrodingers_cat: No. The photos and tapes are there, however.
PsiFighter37
@Hoodie: I do hope that Biden tells Fauci to spend less time giving interviews going forward. Now that he will be working for competent people who will have consistent messaging, I hope he focuses on his day job more. I have found Fauci to be far too optimistic in his projections, because he consistently underestimated the stupidity of the people he was working for/with.
I also hope Deborah Birx is thrown overboard on January 20th as well. She’s a useless hack.
JPL
Sidney Powell filed a suit to have the election overturned in GA. The Dominion Machines switched Biden’t votes to trump. ? ?
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
The starting point for most wraithing is that the wraithee is sucking up to Trump in the hopes of getting something from him: money, fame, access to power, or whatever. Fauci doesn’t depend on Trump that way. He’s doing this stuff because it’s his job, and because he’s a civil service employee, he doesn’t even need to fear Trump as far as keeping his job. He’s also well past ordinary retirement age, so even if Trump could fire him, it wouldn’t necessarily be a personal disaster. Trump lacks all the usual handles he needs to wraith someone.
The Moar You Know
@SFBayAreaGal: First asshole who I can recall reading that from was George Harrison. It was when I was a young teen and my mother and I were both on food stamps.
My thought back then was “maybe not, but I’d sure be willing to give it a shot, motherfucker, because this sucks”
My later thoughts were a violent lifelong dislike of Harrison specifically and the Beatles in general.
craigie
@jonas:
I don’t recognize those people either, but I take that as a badge of honor.
Raoul Paste
Sydney Powell really needs a proofreader
Baud
@JPL:
Probably the first true things she’s said.
mad citizen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m kinda confused as to what “chief medical advisor” even means here. Fauci is in a civil service position and can and/or does advise the President. What more is there. Unless Biden did it to frost trump’s balls, which I am all for, of course.
Hoodie
@Roger Moore: I think wraithing lies less in sucking up than in having your own agenda and thinking you’re going to get him to do what you want to fulfill it. I think that’s what really triggers Trump, e.g., guys like Tillerson thinking they could manipulate him while calling him an idiot in private. Fauci never did that. Civil service status didn’t protect guys like Rick Bright, so I don’t think that’s it. I do think being near 80 and not wanting anything from a career standpoint is part of it.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@lee: Why not? Everything about her body is inflated, so why shouldn’t her financial assets we inflated as well?
Somewhere, someone has whole albums of “Before and After, and After, and After and…” photos of her and her sisters. Sort of like the Jackson family needed albums to figure who who was Michael and who was LaToya.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mallard Filmore:
Money can’t buy love, but it can buy a Cadillac convertible so you can drive around and look for it. — Unknown source
Roger Moore
@JPL:
They’re going to have a hard time claiming the tabulating machines were switching votes when there was almost perfect agreement between the machine and hand counts.
Ian G.
Anyone else familiar with the term “blackfishing”? Because that Kim Kardashian photo seems like the dictionary definition of it. It’s creepy.
Also, Fauci’s refusal to bow to Trump means he has to live under armed protection like he’s Salman fucking Rushdie. The MAGA cult doesn’t even need the fatwa from their Khomeini figure. Words cannot describe how much I loathe the Trump cult.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: As Randy Newman said:
Roger Moore
@SFBayAreaGal:
Money may not buy happiness, but poverty can certainly get you misery.
Capri
@The Moar You Know: When I was in 10th grade I recall my English teacher telling the class that since we all came from well-to-do families we couldn’t really be unhappy. Two weeks later a 9th grader from my school killed himself by lying across a railroad track.
It’s complicated. Just because the lives of rich people are easy doesn’t mean they are necessarily happy.
Immanentize
@Raoul Paste: So do you. Her name is spelled “Sidney.”
Glass houses, stones, etc.
WaterGirl
@Raoul Paste: We had a “Paste” commenter here before. Are you Brickley Paste?
zhena gogolia
Speaking of Fred Trump, I have been reading Mary Trump’s book before bedtime, and it is a real page-turner! It’s more about her own father and about Fred than about Donald (at least so far), but she paints a horrifyingly believable picture of a foul family.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: That doesn’t seem to have been an impediment. They either ignore the issue of the hand-count or just emit a cloud of squid ink (kraken ink?) to confuse things.
Baud
@Capri:
I’m just talking about my life.
scav
@SiubhanDuinne: Which sometimes helps, but also attracts people only staring at and only wondering how to get into the Cadillac.
It’s silly to oversimplify things. Even wealthy people have beloved pets that die.
terry chay
I think you are confusing Kim Kardashian with Kylie Jenner. There was some beauty or fashion company that, because of a merger with some property belong to Kylie Jenner, reported the true revenues of one of her brands as being very different than her statements before. This left them open to a ton of lawsuits.
my wife mentioned it to me so I may have gotten the details wrong (she didn’t).
Not that I wouldn’t put it past it to be the MO for the entire Kardashian “empire.” My wife only mentioned it in the context that I observed that I imagined they went political because they lost relevance due to Trump being everyone’s reality TV and that the post-Trump world will accurate that trend as advertisers realize that those who follow such things are not their target market, which has been cleaved into two camps after the election.
Aleta
lol re: happiness
twitter.com/SlenderSherbet/status/1334033996880244737
Amir Khalid
@PsiFighter37:
That’s a decision Biden can safely delegate to Dr Fauci himself. Dr F has earned a lot of public trust and the new national leadership will need to make good use of that in asking the public to do the right things. He has had to provide a credible, authoritative voice on the pandemic at a time when Americans aren’t getting that from the national leadership. He’s not doing it for the glory, it’s just part of his job.
But because he’s a civil servant, he has still had to manage his relationship with the White House, while not being a yes-man to Trump. That won’t be a problem under Biden.
zhena gogolia
@Aleta:
My husband and I have watched that 1000 times.
Suzanne
@Splitting Image:
Agree. And at least so far, she has stayed in her lane and used her celebrity mostly for good, especially getting a pardon for that woman who had been in prison forever.
I am no fan of the Kardashians, but I am also not thrilled about shitting on them, especially w/r/t gossip magazines. It’s more socially acceptable to denigrate diversionary activities when women enjoy them as opposed to the silly things that men enjoy. See also: the dudes who will scoff at gossip about the royal family or makeup tips or Ariana Grande but then happily settle in to spend a day watching other strangers play a game. (Hint: it’s all silly and that’s okay.)
SiubhanDuinne
@scav:
Um … I was quoting a joke throwaway line I saw 30-odd years ago. It’s hardly my philosophy of life.
Aleta
@zhena gogolia: Over and over. That optimistic tiny flying leap.
scav
@SiubhanDuinne: Sorry! But I wasn’t really picking you out specifically. There were far more egregious examples of oversimplification I should have gone with.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
(Edited because of comment #58)
Money can’t buy happiness, but it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place.
Ksmiami
@Ian G.: I’m in agreement to the point of actively hoping Covid lays waste to Magats and severely reduces their numbers… I used to be a nice person
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can help you snowplow past a lot of obstacles between you and happiness. Not having to worry about whether you can pay your bills or afford food is a big one. Granted, some obstacles are impervious to throwing money at them (depression, for example).
The Moar You Know
@Capri: Not really. Just don’t run around like a self-satisfied prick telling poor people that money doesn’t solve anything.
I am painfully aware the wealthy have their problems, they persist in telling us about them all the time, but wondering where their next meal is going to come from is not one of them.
Another Scott
@SFBayAreaGal: Yeah.
There’s also something like:
Money may not buy happiness, but one sure can be miserable without enough of it…
It’s horrible. Too many people who are wealthy scratch and claw to keep every kopeck, all the while playing the victim in any comparison to those objectively much worse off.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne:
“money can’t buy you love, but it will get you a reasonable facsimile.”
scav
@SiubhanDuinne: Ok, I’ll Play Along. Triggered!!! Oooooo! (satisfied?)
PS All Poor People are Incapable of Happiness and Live Lives of Unrelenting Desperation Without Joy! Middle Class People get Bursts of Contentment on Alternate Days, depending on the First Letter of Their Middle Name!
SFBayAreaGal
@The Moar You Know: I understand your anger. My mom, dad, I, and my siblings were on food stamps in the late 60s.
Kent
Without gossip magazines and social media Kim Kardashian would be nobody. Her wealth and fame are 100% fueled by this sort of stuff. She is mostly famous for being famous as far as I can tell. All these US magazine covers do is put more money in her pocket.
I’m sure SHE is well aware of this fact and does whatever is necessary to stay in the headlines and covers of magazines like US. I expect her publicist was thrilled by that cover. She’s not the victim here.
sdhays
Perhaps not that critical, but Fetterman is definitely not going to run against Toomey because Toomey is retiring. He certainly can run to succeed Toomey, and that sounds like something worth supporting.
VeniceRiley
@Suzanne: E-Sports are HUGE and it flummoxes me.
Aleta
Re: love
Kent
I like Fetterman, at least what I’ve seem of him from afar. But he strikes me as more of an executive branch leader than a legislator. The current PA governor Tom Wolf is term-limited and can’t run again in 2022. I would think Fetterman would be a more logical candidate for governor than senator.
Ruckus
@Ksmiami:
Difficult to remain even ambivalent towards someone who is actively trying to kill you.
The Moar You Know
@SFBayAreaGal: late 70s for me. Everyone’s entitled to their problems, but damn, just realize the optics of lecturing someone that “rich people have problems too”. I’m no longer poor, neither my mother, and sure I have my problems. But nobody will ever hear about them from me in person. Because I know the difference between my issues and real problems.
VOR
@Hoodie: If Fauci was actually fired, there would be a line down the block of med schools and medical-related companies offering him jobs. He’d have his pick of opportunities he’s not currently allowed to take because of civil service rules. Probably pay a ton more money. Plus with his decades of service he must be fully vested in his pension.
Kent
He could probably triple his salary and have his own show on CNN. The FAUCI SHOW on prime time where he talks about the pandemic and medical issues and interviews, chats with other experts around the world about what is happening. And what people can best do to protect themselves and their families. It would have HUGE ratings.
sdhays
@Kent: I’m going to stick with my position on Stacy Abrams – I assume the candidate knows what position they want, so if Fetterman runs for Senate, I’ll assume he wants to be a Senator and will be happy to support him. If he wants to go for Governor instead, more power to him. My only point was that Toomey isn’t running again.
Steve in the ATL
@terry chay:
Wait–when did you get married?! Same chick from the SF meetup?
mrmoshpotato
The Trump Humpers Who Couldn’t Assclown Straight
These dumb, fascist motherfuckers.
sdhays
@mrmoshpotato: When you’re an embarrassment even to Rudy Guiliani…
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: “I’d rather be rich than poor, if only for financial reasons”
–Woody Allen, from his stand up days
bluefoot
Did you guys see the twitter thread where Fauci describes his schedule for one day? It was exhausting just reading it. I want to know when the guy gets a chance to eat or rest. He’s pretty remarkable.
As far as doing interviews, it would be great if he could focus on his main job. But since he has so much public trust, the more he can get out there and have people listen to actual information rather than lies, the better.
sdhays
@sdhays: I just realized that my comments on Fetterman don’t make any sense because I thought this was on the thread after this (which is about Fetterman). No wonder no one already mentioned this! Apologies!
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
I think we’re more or less on the same page: wraithing is something people do to themselves. They sacrifice their dignity because they think they’ll get something in return. Fauci has succeeded in keeping his dignity because there’s nothing Trump has that he wants.
Steve in the ATL
@mrmoshpotato: I’ve known a few hack lawyers over the years*, but these clowns are unbelievable.
*I know what you’re all thinking, but that wasn’t a shot at Omnes! Or was it?
Captain C
@SFBayAreaGal:
Someone once said, “You can be miserable rich, or miserable poor. But it’s a hell of a lot more comfortable if you’re rich.”
Captain C
@mrmoshpotato: At this point, she’s either a drunk, demented, a Democratic plant, or doing a full-on Andy Kaufman routine.
Roger Moore
@VeniceRiley:
I don’t see why. Everything you might say about why it’s silly to enjoy E-Sports applies just as much to traditional sports, but watching other people perform in traditional sports is widely accepted. Why should video games be any different?
mrmoshpotato
@Steve in the ATL:
LOL!
mrmoshpotato
@Captain C: Why not all four?! :)
Bill Arnold
@mrmoshpotato:
Her Dominion conspiracy is, from a plausibility point of view, more likely to support the Biden to Trump switching (at scale, in various battleground states!!!! :-) than vice versa. This would explain the “polling errors” in Trump’s favor. I expect people will start talking about this now, after this apparent Freudian gaffe. :-)
Or, she a crypto-operative working to destroy the Republican Party’s reputation. :-)
Or, The Kraken is actually about spreading sedition by mainstream conspiracy theories to increase the probability of a civil war and/or stochastic terrorism directed the Biden administration.
Ian G.
@Captain C: I’ve been thinking this has to be some sort of parody performance art at this point.
Citizen Alan
@SFBayAreaGal: Actually, I’m pretty sure the phrase was invented by a rich guy as an argument for why his taxes shouldn’t go up.
mrmoshpotato
@Bill Arnold:
Help is needed after George War-criminal Wanker Bush, Mitt 47% Moochers Binders of Women Romney, Paul Fuck the Poor Ryan and this Soviet Shitpile Mobster Manbaby?
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
A. Fauci is at the top of his field. This is something tha D.J. Trump will never ever even understand.
semanticscholar.org/author/A.-Fauci/4607357
A. Fauci
Publications 1,263
h-index 182
Citations 125,792
Highly Influential Citations 3,357
catclub
@Baud: There is a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which they agree that $20M/ year is an absurd salary. Then Hobbes says that $15M sounds about right.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: yes, yes… the entire GOP platform has become harm the libs so now it will redound on them..
catclub
I prefer: “money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy the yacht so you can sail up near to it.”
S. Cerevisiae
My dad used to say money may not buy love but it can rent it for a while…
opiejeanne
@S. Cerevisiae: My mom said that Pearl Bailey used to say this: “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, and rich is better.”
Pearl was probably quoting someone else but it applied to her.
TomatoQueen
@opiejeanne: Oh did this open a nice history: quoteinvestigator.com/2017/07/01/poor-rich/
so Mrs Kauffman it is, and I believe it (that was a weird marriage she had with George S)
Another Scott
In the
nobody could have predictedCheryl got there first file:Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
@opiejeanne: That’s a Gloria Grahame quote from the film noire classic “The Big Heat.”
My favorite variation is “If you think money can’t buy happiness, you just don’t know where to shop.”
Next fave: “Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can rent some.”
J R in WV
@CaseyL:
After reading the whole thread up to 6:09 blog time, my favorite is money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a yacht so you can sail right up beside it. There were several good ones, but I’ve always loved the idea of having a big cruiser or sail boat.
That’s why I live in the mountains (east) and the desert (west) — natch!