Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

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

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I really should read my own blog.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Open Thread

Open Thread

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You know what? There’s a lot of shit to do when you plan to move cross country for a couple months. It’s nothing too onerous or difficult- just dozens of little things.

So that’s what I have been up to. And eating everything from my freezer.

I have been cruising through the Spanish Princess. It’s been fun. For the record, that queasy/appalled/detached look Margaret Pole gets on her face whenever something unpleasant happens- that is how I feel on the inside when someone I don’t know talks to me in public.

AND DON’T FORGET TO BUY YOUR CALENDAR!!!!

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  3. 3.

    bbleh

    … that is how I feel on the inside when someone I don’t know talks to me in public.

    Alas indeed that a large fraction of the country hasn’t learned to deal with such instinctive feelings other than to scream about building walls and prisons and such.

  4. 4.

    Elizabelle

    Arizona’s gain is WV’s loss.  And I bet you do have some wonderful food stored up to nosh through.

    Where will you spend the holidays?

  5. 5.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Apropos of nothing in particular, we’ve been thinking / talking about Leonard Bernstein a lot lately. We’re kind of Bernstein stans (as I believe the kids say) around here. A lot of Bernstein-related stuff happened kind of simultaneously and sort of coincidentally.

    • It started with Bradley Cooper doing the rounds to publicize Maestro, so we saw those interviews and that had us talking about Bernstein and agreeing that we would see it when it hit Netflix.
    • A chorus I sing in performed Bernstein’s Mass a week ago (written for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971) and that had us reading and talking a lot about the craziness of the premiere. (Among other notable events, Nixon boycotted it for stupid reasons).
    • We went up to Princeton to hear Westminster Choir College’s annual Christmas concert. My wife is an alum, got there in ’78. She missed singing with Bernstein by a few months because he left the NY Philharmonic about then, performing instead with Zubin Mehta as conductor.
    • The night before the Princeton concert, we decided to see a movie in Princeon and the local movie house was playing… Maestro! So we went. Learned about how Felicia died of cancer and how deeply that affected Bernstein.
    • Then we started talking about the timeline of the events in the movie (they opted not to show dates on any of the events depicted, so we had to do some Googling to map this out). And we realized that the reason Bernstein stopped working with the NY Philharmonic in ’78 was it was exactly when Felicia was dying, and he withdrew from public life to be with her.
  6. 6.

    HumboldtBlue

    I can already sense the posts we will get once you get to Arizona. Oh, sweet Jesus pulling lapsed Catholics from purgatory while the flames from Ol’ Scratch’s lair tickle their feet, it’s gonna be a ride.

    Went back and started re-watching The Bear. I started it a few months ago but quit it for some reason. It is good TV.

  7. 7.

    brendancalling

    Philadelphia jackals!

    This Saturday I will be teaching a two-step lesson with my gal Miss Elizabeth at the Baby’s First Rodeo Winter Formal, at the legendary Ortlieb’s Bar. It’s an early show, doors are at 6:00. I’m guessing the lesson starts around 7:00. The bands, Ramona and the Holy Smokes w/the Red Tailed Rounders, are both great. $20.00.

    We’ll have a good time, everyone is welcome! You don’t have to be a great dancer to learn how to two-step!

  8. 8.

    frosty

    We go through the same thing packing up the trailer for a cross-country trip. Basically down-sizing everything we’ll need that will fit. So far it’s worked. I get home and look at the clutter and think that maybe I should just throw everything else out.

  10. 10.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​A chorus I sing in performed Bernstein’s Mass a week ago

     OMG, how fantastic! I saw a recording of the production on PBS sometime in the early 1970s and it blew my mind. I can hear some of the music and lyrics in my memory, and see Alan Titus in his accumulation of vestments.

  11. 11.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @H.E.Wolf: I have to confess that there are only two pieces of classical music that I’ve heard live that I’ve failed to enjoy (both times a friend was in the chorus or orchestra, that was why I was there) & one of them was Bernstein’s Mass & the other was by someone named Messiaen or something like that.

  12. 12.

    Suzanne

    Enjoy AZ in December and January! It’s the best time of year to be there. Stay through the palo verde exploding in yellow flowers (load up on allergy meds). And then…. GTFO. Summer is coming.

  13. 13.

    catclub

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: IN the late 70’s my wife met a woman who talked about her piano lessons as  a kid, and her  useless teacher.

    The teacher would always tell she was bad because “Lenny can play this, why can’t you play this?” Lenny was Leonard Bernstein.

  15. 15.

    Rose Weiss

    JC, I’m counting on a mile by mile report of your cross-country journey. I’ve been reading about your opinions and your life for probably 20 years so I feel like you’re part of my family.

  17. 17.

    danielx

    @Mike in NC:
    I feel your pain. I tested positive on Sunday and feel like hammered shit. Like a bad cold, no fever to speak of but a lot of congestion and such.​

  18. 18.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I didn’t know you were actually moving to AZ yet. Don’t get lulled by the Dec-Feb weather. By May you will wonder why you’re here. By July you’ll be wondering where you’re at because your brain will be fried.  By September you may be the Karen caught on video at Starbucks yelling about the ratio of ice and berries in your trente pink acai drink because your civility has dissolved away in  the sun.

  19. 19.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @catclub: A musical friend told me this story from her younger days when she was singing at the Spoleto Festival. While sitting in the house seats during a rehearsal, somebody standing behind her was smoking. Angrily she chastised the person in Italian, “No smoking! No smoking!” Then she turned around.

    It was Bernstein.

    In Maestro, I think he’s holding a cigarette in practically every shot where he’s not conducting or playing the piano. And he may have had a cigarette nearby on the piano. Apparently that was true to life.

    @H.E.Wolf: It was a “concert version”, not the full production with costumes and movement. Nor did we have all the separate ensembles of the full production, just some brass, percussion, a couple of flutes and a couple of overworked keyboard players covering everything else.

    But yeah, it was pretty amazing, and it’s such a privilege to work with fantastic soloists. I was uncertain of some of it at first, but the music definitely grew on me by the time we performed it.

  20. 20.

    dexwood

    My email address is good, Cole, if you break down in Albuquerque I have you covered. Treat you to some damn fine carne adovada, too.

  23. 23.

    Prescott Cactus

    @frosty:

    The bride and I decided to go on an adventure. Sold the car and gave everything else to nieces & nephews. No storage unit. We now have a suitcase and a carry on apiece. It was scary at first.

    We stay in furnished apt hotels, a fairly new breed of lodging. Fully furnished with washer dry in unit and fairy decent kitchen set-ups. Between one and three months each location.

    The freedom of not owning stuff is pretty nice. Now when we are getting ready to pack,  everything gets the once over and we drop anything not being used.

  25. 25.

    RaflW

    Just started my 29th consecutive year as a snowboarder today, up high in the CO mountains. Which I realized means I’ve been doing this crazy thing half my life.

    Gonna say goodnight, all, because it turns out a 58 year old gets tired kinda fast.

  36. 36.

    Trivia Man

    @frosty: Gas station cats, bat shit billboards, bizarre park names, jarring juxtaposition of old and new, abandoned infrastructure… he’s got a good eye

  37. 37.

    Kosh III

    Dean Phillips failed to get on the ballot for the Tennessee Democratic primary.
    He didn’t get enough signatures and failed to meet the deadline.,

    Awwwww…poor baybee…..playing the tiniest violin.

  38. 38.

    Paul in KY

    @Ben Cisco: I was at Davis Monthan for a week in April and it was about 100 every day. A dry heat, so for a Kentucky boy who was in Homestead, FL at the time, it wasn’t all that bad. If I had been there in July, I might be singing a different tune…

  39. 39.

    Sis

    And poor Margaret Pole! When I watched that show, I kept wanting to tell her character to flee the country and never look back. In real life, she suffered immensely, and her execution was horrifying even by the standards of 16th-century brutality.

  40. 40.

    SomeRandomGuy

    I have been cruising through the Spanish Princess. It’s been fun. For the record, that queasy/appalled/detached look Margaret Pole gets on her face whenever something unpleasant happens- that is how I feel on the inside when someone I don’t know talks to me in public.

    If you (or anyone, really) has always felt this way, it might be normal. But it also might not be, *especially* if you used to be fine with a stranger asking for directions, or otherwise engaging in small talk.

    If you don’t want to feel that way, there might be ways you can stop feeling that way – on the other hand, if you don’t care, I won’t be the one to tell you you should (care, or stop feeling that way – your call).

    I often feel that way, because I’m in so much pain, that I’ll have to hide, that I’m actually a bit angry this person is bothering me. If I could reduce the pain, reduce the interactions, or, feel more comfortable ending them conclusively, any one of those would make things better – so it’s not like there’s only one answer to pursue. (There might only be one answer that *works* – life’s like that. But at least you can ignore the ugly truth while trying the other answers :-). )

    I spent 20 years being in that much pain, without even explicitly realizing I was in pain. So I’m not just blowing peppermint smoke up your ass for the Christmas season, because I’m really not into any part of that. It’s just, until you say “this is a problem,” you never think of the brilliant solution that you’d have hit upon after thinking about it long enough. So, hey, New Years resolution assistance, or something something Festivus.

  41. 41.

    Paul in KY

    @Sis: She sure should have. Once she saw Henry VIII was crazy about having his own Tudor heir come Hell or high water, she should have seen where this was going and GTF out.

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