It was a scary but surprisingly uplifting Halloween in Jupiter, Florida. Yes, I did say uplifting. Edward Mordrake and the demon on the back of his head chose their victim both wisely and well. Good work, dead freak killers.
My mother made all my Halloween costumes when I was little. I remember a Raggedy Ann doll costume, and possibly some kind of witch. Kids in the neighborhood put on plays every summer so she made me a bird costume, and a cape, I think, or a cloak. I had in the back of my mind the idea that part of mothering is making a costume for the kid from scratch.
Which is how I ended up on my back porch at 9 p.m. pimping out a cardboard ride for 9-month-old Amelia Earhart for the ‘hood’s Halloween parade last Saturday. I am the least crafty person on this earth, so by the end of the three-block route the wings got a little saggy and the propeller wouldn’t turn, but the pilot’s skills made up for it:
Della and Oscar don’t like being messed with, which is why I have turned to a dog on All Hallows’ Eve.Remember Winston, my friend Lizzy’s pooch? I declared him an honorary cat last Spring but since then he’s undergone a startling transformation into the HELL HOUND OF PORTLAND:
This second picture has some sort of supernatural thing going on. Anyone buying that? Actually, Sir Winston started squirming like a cat. That gave him instant street cred with Della Street:
Now that you’re scared by that beast, BOO from Crowded House:
Do not all orthodox Catholics believe that that authority is most certainly to be accepted over the objections of “a minority—sometimes a small minority,” as Mr. Douthat describes himself and his fellow-travelers? This minority self-identifies as orthodox and, it seems, potentially more orthodox than the synod. But it is a self-identification without credentials to validate the claim.
Finally, what are we to make of this: “Remember there is another pope still living!”? “Another pope still living!” This sounds like a threat. Are Mr. Douthat and the like-minded Catholics for whom he speaks appealing to a pope more to their liking over a pope less to their liking? If so, the statement has a regrettable sinister ring. Or what? Let’s hope that Ross Douthat does not mean his reminder to be as schism-suggesting and radically un-Catholic as it sounds to my conservative ears.
The thing about most Benedict fetishists is that they think he gives a shit about their concerns and will ride in to save them mounted on a mighty steed. I don’t like the guy at all, but he would eat Douthat for breakfast and have the rest of the Times editorial board for a tasty snack. He’s not dumb enough to ever, ever, ever take this kind of thing seriously.
Should Ross and the six other people who imagine they’re in a Michael Bay Battle Pope movie approach Benedict on bended knee and humbly beg the honor of dying to put him back on St. Peter’s throne, I can only see the Holy Father Emeritus patting Douthat on the head kindly and signaling for the Vatican psychiatrist.
Plus Benedict is four thousand years old, and in any case not in possession of the Papal Armies of the Borgias, so absent his jacking a Humvee and hiring Blackwater, he’s kind of shit out of luck.
“I tell Madison, Sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the pigeon, and sometimes you’re the statue.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Since Madbum is from North Carolina, I’m sure his father is familiar with the dubious folk wisdom about getting shat on by a bird being good luck. Not my experience, but maybe it explains Madison’s phenomenal pitching. Ya never know.
A few more pictures from SFGate after the break, I cannot help myself.
A little known fact about me is that I used to give tours in New Orleans. I was quite good at it too. It helps being a ham. One of the places I used to take my groups was St. Louis Cemetery Number 1 right outside the Quarter. Something I used to urge my people NOT TO DO was this:
That’s the reputed tomb of Marie Laveau, the reputed Voodoo Queen. The Xs are supposed to bring you good luck/juju or some such shit. I call it desecrating someone’s tomb, but some clueless malakas provide instructions on how to do it. One of them is a hack travel writer by the name of Rita Cook and that is why she is malaka of the week.
Instructions: To be done at St. Louis Cemetery #1 at the foot of a tomb. Draw an X on a piece of paper with a red pen or marker and place the paper on the gravestone marker. Kick your right foot backward three times. Kick the grave three times with your right foot. Knock three times. Turn to the right three times. Bow. Put your right hand on the X and make a wish. Give your offering. (Your offering can be three to five pennies.)
Ms. Cook issues a pro forma disclaimer telling people they shouldn’t do this. I’m not buying it. It’s the old don’t do as I say, do as I do thing, which may have inspired Cole Porter to “do that voodoo that you do so well”or maybe not. I just felt like quoting Cole…
The rest of the article is an ode to Lexus and a compendium of kitschy New Orleans tourist cliches; at least she didn’t spell it N’Awlins. (Only the lateFrank Davis could get away with that without relentless mockery.) I don’t know about you, but I’m more interested in offbeat stuff when I travel, not in learning how I can drive a Lexus to the nearest allegedly haunted house.
My second favorite meaningless disclaimer comes at the end of the article:
NOTE: This author does not and will never take any money from any automotive brand or destination/restaurant/activity, etc. in exchange for coverage – the views are strictly the authors opinion.
If that’s true, Ms. Cook is not only a malaka, she’s a fool. I, for one, don’t buy it for a second. If she were writing a genuine unsponsored travel piece, it wouldn’t center around the glories of the red Lexus hatchback she just happened to be driving around the Quarter. Get out the car and walk, lady. You might see something other than touristy cliches. You will not, however, run into Lestat or Lasher…
Here’s the deal: I may enjoy horror movies but I don’t believe in ghosts, haunted houses, or things that go bump in the night. I’m tired of people coming to New Orleans to get drunk and puke in the gutter on Bourbon Street, and of those who think our culture revolves around Voodoo. There are people who practice Voodoo as a religion but not many and it’s not as central to our history as hacks like Ms. Cook or the makers of AHS: Coven would have you believe. (Btw, the desecration of tombs in the cemetery long predates AHS or Cook’s malakatude. That’s not on them but she perpetuates it while pretending to criticize the defacement. Guess that makes her two defaced.) Most people don’t know that the majority of African-Americans here are Catholics and not Voodoo-ites or even Baptists.
This post was suggested to me by my friends and fellow Spanksters, David and Brett whose critters have been featured in guest catblogging. Brett is a buggy driver/tour guide with a passion for historical accuracy. She called out Ms. Cook on her malakatude on Twitter. She, in turn, issued a kinda sorta apology for the piece and promised to make changes. I suspect that’s when she inserted the disclaimer without a difference. I’m not sure, I never saw the piece in its original form. I tend to avoid Satan’s Botoxed Handmaiden’s joint like Dracula avoids mirrors or garlic.
Ms. Cook is currently on a trip to Crete. I hope she doesn’t call them Cretins. They don’t like it. Also, try not to mention Zorba the Greek. He’s a fictional character who was played by a Mexican-Irish actor. I suspect Ms. Cook cannot help herself, manipulating touristy cliches in between plugging products is what she does. And that is why she is malaka of the week.
Finally, the Freak Show recap will be posted at some point on All Hallows’ Eve. I was busy rooting for a certain team in the World Series last night and we won. It was written, it’s an odd year.
But the real tell here is the lengths they’ll go to in ignoring the fact that a significant element of the Republican Party is, well, bugfuck insane — and has been ever since they began feeding at the trough of myths ladled out by Ronaldus Magnus. Oh, and they also ignore the very real fact that the present occupant of the White House IS in fact pretty close if not spot-on with regards to their fondest hopes. Moderate, not particularly partisan, a proponent of an agenda they agree with…well, except for the fact that he’s a Democrat. Which must be a particularly egregious sin in their eyes.
I’ve had this golden age horror film classic on my mind since watching Jessica Lange sing Gods and Monsters in AHS: Freak Show last week. That Lana del Rey song title made me think of the 1998 film of the same title, which is about James Whale who directed Bride Of Frankenstein.Welcome to the way my mind works, you poor bastards.
In many ways, the Universal Frankenstein trilogy represents the apogee of the 1930’s studio system. The war lessened the studios hold on the industry and it was all downhill from there. The studio also cheapened the series by having Frank meet a bunch of other scary dudes. They should have stopped with 1939’s Son Of Frankenstein.
The film itself is remarkable; full of chills, thrills, and great characters. I remember getting nightmares from Dr. Pretorious’ jarred “creations” the first time I saw the movie as a wee lad. I didn’t scare easily but that seriously creeped me out. Now I do the creeping out…
Here’s one of a multitude of poster variations. This beloved film has been re-released many times:
Some of our readers in an alternate internet universe have requested a few more stand alone music posts. Like Ray Davies, I give the people what they want.
My Los Lobos bender continues unabated. I’ve had this song in my head for days so it’s time to unleash it on the world:
Former American League MVP Jose Canseco is a legendary meathead. From turning his team mates on to steroids, to damaging his career by pitching in a game to satisfy his huge ego, to various brushes with the law, Jose has an established track record of severe malakatude.
Former baseball star Jose Canseco nearly lost a finger after accidentally shooting himself in the hand Tuesday.
Las Vegas Metro police Lt. Mark Reddon told the Associated Press that officers responded to a call of an accidental shooting at Canseco’s home just after 5:30 p.m. ET. Canseco told police he was cleaning his gun in the kitchen when it discharged and shot a finger in his left hand, according to Reddon.
Canseco’s fiancee, Leila Knight, told the Los Angeles Times that doctors said they’ll have to either amputate or perform reconstructive surgery and warned that Canseco will never have full use of his hand again.
“I heard the gun go off and saw his middle finger hanging by a string,” she told the newspaper.
Knight told the Times that Canseco had been to the shooting range recently, so there was still a round left in the gun’s chamber.
Canseco, a six-time All-Star, made his career with the Oakland Athletics in the 1980s and played for several other teams before retiring in 2001.
Apparently, it will be awhile until Jose is able to flip anyone off with both hands, but at least he’s clean.
Unlike the dude in the Bash Brothers poster, Jose talks loudly and carries a small stick…
That concludes today’s episode of tasteless comedy theatre.
Since it’s All Hallows’ Eve on Friday, my regular features this week are going to be vaguely horrific. Make that marginally horrific.
Harry Nilsson was on top of the world when he recorded Son Of Schmilsson. Its predecessor, Nilsson Schmilsson, was the biggest hit of his career. RCA hoped that Harry would stick to the formula. He did not. He delivered an album that was every bit as artistically successful but it lacked an obvious smash hit single such as Without You. Instead, it was 39 minutes of whimsy and quirkiness. I like it more than Nilsson Schmilsson, but the public did not even though it peaked at #12.
In 1972, the public was less burnt out by vampires. I know I was. I used to do a killer imitation of Dwight Frye as Mr. Renfield in the 1931 Dracula, but now I have vampire fatigue. As Bela would surely say if he were still alive and undead, I no longer vant to drink your blood. That’s why this cover worked so well instead of feeling tired and cliched as it would in the post-Twilight and True Blood universe. Fuck you, Vampire Bill…
This has nothing to do with religion except for those people who think football is one. It’s a world class collision of malakatude, sports, and political desperation. Former RNC Jefe and senior Dubya adviser Ed Gillespie is running for the Senate in Virginia. Things are not going well for him since he’s running against popular incumbent Mark Warner who was a very effective Governor from 2002-2006.
Wrapports LLC announced a plan Tuesday to launch Sun Times Network as a separate brand, conceived by Michael Ferro Jr., chairman of Wrapports. “Michael Ferro will become chairman of the board of the Sun Times Network and spearhead this aggressive digital push,” Wrapports CEO Timothy P. Knight said in a statement. “He deserves great credit for that leadership and for this innovation which begins an exciting new chapter for the Sun-Times brand.”
Set for this Friday, the launch will coincide with plans disclosed here last week for the company to sell all of its suburban publications — including six dailies and 32 Pioneer Press weeklies — to Tribune Publishing, parent company of the Chicago Tribune. That will leave the much smaller Wrapports with only the daily Sun-Times and the free weekly Reader.
In addition to material aggregated and curated from local sources in each market, the network will provide “national exposure to the paper’s award-winning entertainment, sports and political coverage,” according to a company statement. Insiders said that would include content of national interest from such Sun-Times writers as movie columnist Richard Roeper, TV critic Lori Rackl, celebrity columnist Bill Zwecker, Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet and sports columnists Rick Telander and Rick Morrissey.
There are already syndication services available which would do that.
Since Diana DeGarmo first captured national attention by being runner-up to Fantasia Barrino on the third season of “American idol,” the singer and actress has gone on to Broadway success in such shows as “9 to 5,” “Hairspray” and “Brooklyn: The Musical.” DeGarmo also starred on “The Young and the Restless” soap opera and now is touring in a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” — co-starring with her husband, Ace Young, a fellow “Idol” alum whom she met while doing “Hair.” Young famously proposed to DeGarmo on the season 11 finale of “Idol.”
News your “hip” grandmother can use! The entire country is crying out for that!
And just how much is being spent to share this wonderousness with the world?
FOURTEEN MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS.
Wrapports said the new company was being funded in part by a $14 million investment from Irish businessman Denis O’Brien, founder of the wireless phone company Digicel. CEO of Sun Times Network will be Tim Landon, co-founder of CareerBuilder.com and Cars.com.
Career Builder and Cars.com are both sites that succeeded because at the time there was nothing like them. There are about a billion things like every Sun-Times columnist out there, but hey, let’s sink 14 million smackers we could be using to produce and sell the paper we already own into it!
A WTNH report from last week said that Newington schools do not want students bringing their costumes to school on Halloween.
Why? Because, as parents explained, “they got letters from the principals stating that since not everyone celebrates Halloween, it should not be celebrated.”
Some parents thought this was a silly bit of political correctness, and the story took off over the weekend. The Daily Caller ran a piece on it titled “Elementary Schools Ban Halloween Because Maybe Somebody Could Get Offended.”
William Collins, the superintendent of Newington Public Schools, sent a letter to parents yesterday[PDF] clearing things up. He says the controversy was a misunderstanding and he wasn’t going to comment on this in the first place, except that they started receiving “threatening and hateful phone calls and emails from national extremist groups.”
Is America I should not have to worry about other people’s feelings if they don’t like it get the hell out of this country
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bad enough Christmas, now Hallowe’en, too. so sad. what’s next, the damn Tooth Fairy?
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The Muslims dress in Costumes EVERYDAY! Let the kids have fun damn it!
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Yes, but schools should not teach kids what to think. They should teach them how to learn, memorize, do math skills, and write. Now our schools are teaching humanist doctrine, trying to make disciples for progressivism. That is why so many are home-schooling if they can.
The jokes, they write themselves.
Why do these people have to fuck up every holiday? First the defensive Christmas horseshit, and now whining about goddamn Halloween, which last I checked the Christianists were supposed to hate because it promoted devil worship. Can’t there be one day off work where we all eat chocolate and chill out?
Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter is a protege of David Chase and was one of the mainstays of the Sopranos writing staff and production team. To call The Sopranos series finale cryptic is an understatement. Winter chose another path to conclude 5 seasons of his series. Here’s a link to an interview he gave Alan Sepinwall about the rise and fall of Nucky Thompson. Warning: it contains spoilers up the wazoo so you should only read it if you’ve seen El Dorado.
GOP’s public health hypocrisy: If Obama were Reagan, he wouldn’t mention Ebola until 2017
The drums are beating on the right for action now on the so called Ebola crisis. First, any crisis is in Western African, not here. Second, the methods proposed by them: travel bans, automatic quarantines are, in a word stupid, and the latter are already being crawfished on by Cuomo and Christie.
The fantasy that the Obama administration is lollygagging is once again being driven by historical amnesia and the current fixation on instant action. In the public health sphere, instant action will rarely be the right thing to do and can cause all sorts of problems. Besides, actions involving science and medicine should not be driven by people who say, “I’m not a scientist” when asked about climate change.
The point of Arana’s piece is that the slow federal response to AIDS was driven by prejudice and stigmatization of its victims. St Ronnie could not bring himself to mention AIDS until 3 years after it exploded, and only then because a fellow old time movie star, Rock Hudson, was afflicted.
ROSE: Do these quarantines go against science? Because you have always insisted we should start with the science.
FAUCI: Well, first of all, the most important thing is to protect the American people. And, as you said, you got to base your decision and your policy on scientific evidence and scientific principles. What we are taking about health care workers coming back, they are at different levels of risk depending on their experience. And you tailor the kinds of monitoring, passively, actively, direct, according to that kind of risk. The idea of a blanket quarantine for people who come back could possibly have a negative consequence of essentially disincentivizing people from wanting to go there. The reason that’s important, Charlie, is because the best way to protect Americans is to stop the epidemic in Africa. And we need those health care workers to do that. To put them in position when they come back that, no matter what, automatically, they’re under quarantine can actually have unintended consequences. And that’s reason why we’re concerned about that.
Morning, everyone! Well, the Freeperati are currently freaking about about Ebola in New York in pretty much the same way they freaked out over Ebola in Dallas, so I’m not even going to mess with it. Just read last week’s “Obsession” and substitute the city names.
This is a good chance for me to go through some older stuff, though – so let’s jump in the Wayback Machine!
Posted on 8/14/2014 11:20:17 PM by 2ndDivisionVet
“They’re simply doing what Americans do in hard times.”In your neighborhood, do people shoot an innocent woman in the head, burn down a convenience store and loot & pilfer a Wal-Mart and dozens of other businesses when something angers you?
1 posted on 8/14/2014 11:20:17 PM by 2ndDivisionVet
To: 2ndDivisionVet
The deceased, Michael Brown.>
3 posted on 8/14/2014 11:25:44 PM by kabar
About 20 “white privilege” posts later, we get:
To: kabar
That picture is NOT the guy who was shot.
22 posted on 8/14/2014 11:52:35 PM by Gabz (Democrats for Voldemort.)
31 posted on 8/15/2014 12:00:06 AM by kabar
To: kabar
From everything I have read today, the person in your original picture is Michael Brown – but NOT the same one who was shot.
As to this picture, I have no idea who either is and really don’t care.
I am not defending the thug in your original picture, nor am I defending the MB who was shot. I come from 3 generations of NYPD, and until shown otherwise in a particular situation I lean to defending LEO’s.
A retired LEO friend of mine, on another forum, pulled that picture(your first one) after it having been proven to him it it was not the same person. He also apologized for not having done his own due diligence in ascertaining the veracity of the photo he shared.
42 posted on 8/15/2014 12:22:19 AM by Gabz (Democrats for Voldemort.)
“kabar” gets all petulant and shit:
To: Gabz
A retired LEO friend of mine, on another forum, pulled that picture(your first one) after it having been proven to him it it was not the same person. He also apologized for not having done his own due diligence in ascertaining the veracity of the photo he shared. I guess I will have to see the same proof your friend saw. Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has been following this story very closely since he lives in St Louis. He has contacts that provide him information. Hoft has yet to pull the picture down from his site.
50 posted on 8/15/2014 12:36:59 AM by kabar
We’ve had this discussion many times before here at First Draft: SOME THINGS ARE NOT FUNNY. Not everyone gets it and that’s why Blackface Ray Rice Costume Dude is malaka of the week. I don’t even know where this bozo and his family lives but they’re a perfect storm of malakatude. I stumbled on these images on the Twitter feed of Bomani Jones:
while i wonder what he’s thinking, i really wanna know what SHE is thinking. can’t be jokes about her black eye pic.twitter.com/y0gitqbRqe
The single-sentence measure would be the nation’s first to amend a state constitution and require the “inalienable right to life” at “any stage of development.” Supporters say it’s meant to protect the state’s current abortion laws from judicial activism. Those opposed believe the intent is to outlaw abortion altogether and say the vague wording could affect birth control, end-of-life care plans and in vitro fertilization.
[snip]
Butcher said the measure’s vague language is meant to “camouflage” its real intent to bar abortions and also could potentially affect end-of-life care plans and cause problems for infertile couples seeking to use in vitro fertilization.
“That absolutely is not the intent,” said Janne Myrdal, who heads ND Choose Life, a group supporting the measure. “The intent is to protect laws that are on the books already. The opposition is blatantly lying and trying to put fear in peoples’ minds.”
But Dr. Steffen Christensen, who founded North Dakota’s only in vitro fertilization clinic in Fargo 20 years ago, said he will close the clinic if the measure passes. His attorneys have told him doctors and workers are at risk of legal action “if there is a loss of an embryo.”
“We are covered for malpractice but criminal charges? We’re on our own,” he said. “Sooner or later, someone would try to make an example of us.”
North Decoder has a pretty great rundown on why this ballot measure and the rationales of its supporters are utter horseshit.
The uninformed and misguided actress in the video reads from a script which claims Measure 1 was put on the ballot “to protect the laws we already have.” This is false. An amendment to the state constitution that is unconstitutional under the federal constitution, is still unconstitutional. These laws — or some of them — were declared unconstitutional because they violate the federal constitution. The idea that a state can adopt a state constitutional amendment in order to shield its federally unconstituional laws from being stricken… is false. And it’s not just normal false false. This assertion made by ND Choose Life is also a lie about our neighbors in North Dakota. It is a lie that pretends to explain why Measure 1 was put on the ballot. It was not put on the ballot “to protect the laws we already have” because, as a matter of fact and of law, it could not possibly “protect the laws we already have” if those laws violate the federal constitution (which they do).
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