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.
Continue reading “AHS Freak Show Thread: Twisty The Night Away”
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 … Continue reading Halloween & Occasional Friday Kickblogging
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: Continue reading Friday Guest Catblogging: Hell Hound Of Portland
You wanna roll in the Pope’s Mercedes? 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 … Continue reading Ross Douthat, the Pope Is Just Not That Into You
The quote comes from Kevin Bumgarner, the father of MVP Madison:
“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.
Continue reading “Quote Of The Day: World Champion San Francisco Giants Edition”
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. … Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Rita Cook
From Album 5 So, maybe not a groundswell, but at least some on the commentariat are suggesting that the other Bush is, if not Mr. Right, Mr. Right-Enough/If-You-Squint-He-Kind-Of-Looks-Like-A-Daddy-Hero figure…this despite the fact that his self-identified Steely-Eyed-Rocket-Man moment was actually more Operation Stumblebum and his total cave/fold to the wingnuts during the extended obscenity over Terry Schiavo was something they’ll now go to great lengths to ignore if not forget. 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 … Continue reading Longing For The Sacred Heart Of…Jeb?
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:
Continue reading “Pulp Fiction Thursday: Bride Of Frankenstein”
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. The latest Jose sighting involves that whole Second Amendment thing: 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. … Continue reading Today In Responsible Gun Ownership: Jose Canseco Edition
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…
Continue reading “Album Cover Art Wednesday: Son Of Schmilsson”
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.
With flop sweat glistening on his brow, Gillespie is throwing the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass:
story about school shooter’s social media decries “prurient curiosity” of newsies poring over shooter’s social media pic.twitter.com/0sLmLfoDcL — Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) October 24, 2014 A. Continue reading Media Reports Media are Horrible as if Media are Not Involved
Why would a good newspaper be the future of newspapers? 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 … Continue reading Let’s Invest in Everything But the Newsroom!
Way to freak out the schoolkids: 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 … Continue reading Nice Job Breaking It, Wingnuts: Halloween Edition
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.
Continue reading “Boardwalk Empire Thread: 13 Stops Closer To Downtown”
It comes from a piece at Salon by Gabriel Arana: 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 … Continue reading Headline Of The Day: Diseased Minds Edition
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!
We’ll start with well, they DO all look alike……
Ferguson is now a free speech zone
The Verge ^ | August 14, 2014 | T.C. Sottek and Matt StroudPosted 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?
To: 2ndDivisionVetThe deceased, Michael Brown.>
To: kabar
To: GabzBREAKING: Ferguson’s Michael Brown PICTURED WITH A GUN – Flashing Gang Signs According to Gateway Pundit, it is. Jim Hoft lives in St Louis and claims that it is Michael Brown. So how do you know that it is NOT Michael Brown? Is the picture below Michael Brown?
To: kabarFrom 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.)
To: GabzA 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.
To: kabarThat is not Michael Brown. That is a punk named Jodah Cain, who killed his grandmother in 2013:
You should have the mods pull your post.
86 posted on 8/15/2014 5:55:16 AM by Conscience of a Conservative
Continue reading “Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – Mouldy Oldies edition”
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
— bomani (@bomani_jones) October 26, 2014
Now that you’re gobsmacked and horrified, the freak parade continues after the break. American Horror Story ain’t got nothin’ on these folks.
Continue reading “Malaka Of The Week: Blackface Ray Rice Costume Dude”
These people are cruel and also liars, or they are grotesquely stupid, and in either case should not be making decisions for anyone: 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 … Continue reading On the ‘Unintended’ Consequences of Personhood, North Dakota Edition
GamerGate and its bullshit makes the NYT: These players are so concerned about the fragility of big-budget video games in the face of cultural analysis and criticism that they circulated an online petition last year calling for the website GameSpot to fire a critic, Carolyn Petit, for daring to complain that Grand Theft Auto V “has little room for women except to portray them as strippers, prostitutes, long-suffering wives, humorless girlfriends and goofy, new-age feminists that we’re meant to laugh at.” (There were no such demands for the heads of male critics — including me, writing in The New York Times — who said … Continue reading On Losing Your Identity and #Gamergate
Here’s one of my all-time favorite live bands from a 1977 appearance on German teevee. The opening medley of Skin It Back and Fat Man In The Bathtub is to die for and there are few things in the world as much fun as listening to Lowell George and Paul Barrere trade guitar licks: Continue reading Sunday Morning Video: Little Feat Rockpalast Live
Most memorable thing you’ve seen at a rock concert? Saw Neil Young in concert several times, and Bob Dylan (who is almost impossible to understand, even more so than usual), and a very, very, very undergraduate-drunk Dave Grohl, but probably the most indelible thing to me is Leonard Cohen, a few years back. I was in the very back row of the very last section but I felt like I was on stage with him: A. Continue reading Weekend Question Thread
(Sorry I was late on this. Flight didn’t get back until late yesterday and I owed my lovely wife an actual dinner with drinks. — Doc) Apparently his good deeds and great movement of Wisconsin in a positive direction has led him to an insurmountable lead in the polling of… uh… Wait… We’re fucking tied? Walker’s answer to everything has always been, when he’s in trouble, throw cash and obfuscation at it. According to a Washington Post article today, he has moved into the Oliver Twist realm in dealing with the Republican Governors Association By asking “Please, sir, more…” Despite … Continue reading Scott Walker’s new jobs plan: Buy more ad time
You make me FEEL LIKE I’ve been locked out of PARADISE: During the Cold War era, Western economies delivered broad and growing prosperity for the middle class. This nurtured a general faith in political institutions and culminated in the democratic triumphalism of the 1990s. So begins David Brooks, who apparently slept through Watergate, and NAFTA for that matter. Democratic triumphalism? Trust in political institutions? Seriously, did Maureen give him some of her devil weed? If you are not earning enough money so you can feel respected, and live without desperate stress, you will begin to lose confidence and élan. Also … Continue reading David Brooks Thinks We Have an Emotional Recession
Bobby Jindal may be one of the most unpopular Governors in the country but he knows how to pander to the gun nutterazi: https://twitter.com/Gun_Shots/status/525159387078602752 Little “Bobby” looks ridiculous in that picture but not as ridiculous as the caption. And that monogrammed windbreaker is from hunger. In the end, his campaign will only amount to a Magical Misery Tour: Since the Krewe of Spank met last night, I could not resist the Krewe du Vieux reference. It was the mother krewe’s theme in 2008. I suggested Spank do a political freak show theme this year with PBJ and Bitter Vitter as conjoined twins but the group … Continue reading Tweet Of The Day: Gun Totin’ PBJ Edition
When you’re as gorgeous as Della and Oscar, you can never get enough beauty rest: Continue reading Friday Catblogging: Beauty Rest
Bucky’s getting his winter fur on, and his winter pudge, and his winter napping: A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging: Winter Edition
Halloween comes a week early on Freak Show. Not to worry, Murchak gave us Edward Mordrake Pt. 1, so Halloween will last for two bloody weeks. It’s not unlike life in the French Quarter in between building collapses.
The post title comes from the mouth of Dandy Mott. He’s ready to go out and terrorize trick or treaters but Jupiter is under curfew. He initially satisfies himself with refusing to dress up as Howdy Doody and threatening to murder the family’s spunky housekeeper, Dora. One of the high points of a relatively subdued episode was when Patti LaBelle crowed (if that’s the right word) like Woody Woodpecker. Undignified but funny, much like the entire series.
More about Edward Mordrake Pt. 1 after the break.
Continue reading “AHS Freak Show Thread: Curfews Are For Poor People”
Sun-Times yanks political reporter off his beat after story unfavorable to Republican governor candidate gets published. Reporter says I’M OUT BITCHES: Yet, on the first day back, I was advised I shouldn’t have a byline on a LeapSource-related story “right out of the gate” even though it was a legitimate follow-up to our initial story. While later relenting and offering me a contributing byline after I protested, the newspaper had failed an important test: It was not permitting me to do my job the way I had been doing it for almost two decades. Was all this retaliation for breaking … Continue reading Knuckling Under: Media Edition Part the Two Thousandth
