From Album 6 Adding my own .00002 cents worth to Adrastos’ post, and going from Headline of the Day to a possible candidate for word of the year, I nominate “classy,” as in, “who knew 2015 would end on such a classy note?” Anyway, we know that the effect this will have on The Donald’s supporters is…nothing. Hell, at this point, Trump is virtually bulletproof when it comes to his base…which happens to be the GOP base…in other words, a kind of downward spiral symbiosis between the core and the candidate. They deserve each other. And, while I agree with … Continue reading OK, One Possible Word of the Year
Before Ryan Secrest and even before Dick Clark, there was Guy Lombardo: The Royal Canadians sound like a head-on collision between trucks carrying Canadian Club and Crown Royal. Entirely appropriate for New Years… In other news I’m taking a wee blogcation and … Continue reading Album Cover Art Wednesday: New Year’s Eve
There’s a lot of fail in this story and it starts with the headline: Chicago police trained to not shoot innocent people, but it still happens How about THEY STILL DO IT? Can we not even grant them that amount of agency before the BLUE LIVES MATTER people start crawling all over the comments talking about how mean you are for noticing that? I mean, even if you grant that it is a fuckup, and I’m not sure I do, it is still a fuckup DONE BY SOMEBODY. The guns don’t fire themselves, unless the NRA has been wrong all … Continue reading Today in Fucked-Up Uses of the Passive Voice
Shorter John Kasich: At least we’re no longer using fire hoses on you people. Statement from Ohio Gov John Kasich on the grand jury decision in Tamir Rice shooting https://t.co/KS4uXC6soF pic.twitter.com/xHBOEixdVj — Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) December 28, 2015 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js So there he is, John Kasich, the moderate Republican, the sane one in the race, the one I’ve heard many not openly insane acquaintances lament is too “reasonable” to win next year’s primaries. There he is, saying basically look, we are only tacitly approving of giving the state the power to execute people on the street, and only some people anyway, … Continue reading Tamir Rice, the Power of the State, and What We Think is Reasonable
Nearly 24 hours after he said that Hillary Clinton had been “schlonged” by Barack Obama during her failed 2008 presidential campaign, Donald Trump took to Twitter to defend his comments.
Schlonged, the Republican businessman said in a tweet, was not a vulgar reference to a penis. Instead, he argued, he meant “beaten badly.”
Once again, #MSM is dishonest. “Schlonged” is not vulgar. When I said Hillary got “schlonged” that meant beaten badly.
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2015
Trump went on to defend his comments, saying that NPR’s Neal Conan had once used the phrase to refer to the trouncing at the polls that the Walter Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro presidential ticket received in the 1984 election.
I’ll see your “woo-hoo” and “Hoo-wa” and raise you a “schmuck”.
Of course, as we all know, “schmuck” doesn’t mean “penis” as much as it means that I just beat your face badly with one.
Of course, some of the Freepers drop the dog whistle entirely:
To: Cringing Negativism Network
When I said Hillary got “schlonged” that meant beaten badly.
Yeah, beaten badly with a big penis.
6 posted on 12/22/2015 8:06:54 PM by Future Snake Eater (CrossFit.com)
So – is The Darnold lying, or are you?
To: Cringing Negativism Network
I am not a NYer and to me it’s an obscenity.
16 posted on12/22/2015 8:09:57 PM by Ditter (God Bless Texas!)
Come on, Freepers – try to have a little class here.
To: ConservativeMind
“I prefer to continue to believe he meant ‘to beat senseless with a man’s private part’.”
Could have been Huma’s strap on .
25 posted on 12/22/2015 8:12:41 PM by sushiman
That’s better.
To: Cringing Negativism Network
Actually, it is a vulgar insult. If he wants to say it, he should at least own up to it and stop claiming that his vulgar insults weren’t meant as vulgar insults.
26 posted on 12/22/2015 8:13:08 PM by livius
One Freeper is just happy to expand his vocabulary.
(I guess a couple hundred words weren’t enough)
To: Lisbon1940
Yes, that one’s delightful as well. I’ve been searching for a replacement for “dick-smacked”, and “cock-walloped” just feels too derivative. So if nothing else, I guess I can say Trump was good for something this year.
84 posted on 12/22/2015 8:47:12 PM by HoosierDammit (“When that big rock n’ roll clock strikes 12, I will be buried with my Tele on!” Bruce Springsteen)
Well, as schlong as you’re read this far, follow below the fold for more fakakta Freeperisms …
Police respond to a 911 call, shoot the subject of that call, and wind up killing an innocent grandmother: Bettie Jones, a mother of five and grandmother of six, had worked full-time at the Alpha Baking bread factory before being diagnosed with ovarian cancer earlier this year, according to her brother, Robin Andrews. After a successful surgery, Andrews said, Jones was looking for an all-clear from her doctor so she could get back to work. “She was the kind of person who would come home after a 16-hour shift and then ask you if you needed anything,” Andrews said. “She … Continue reading ‘multiple family members said they think police shot through the door’
I went looking for this, this week, for a friend, and it seemed to apply to this holiday: At the end of the line, where enjambment sings: zero’s the number of the Fool, the shape of the storm. It’s the beginning and the end, depending on where you start counting. It goes around and around … God has to wear masks because you’re not prepared for a faceful of infinity, but that’s not the secret. The secret is: how many masks. The “war on Christmas” nonsense makes me tired. Not outraged. Not angry. Not defensive. Tired. I am not interested in … Continue reading Worse Things Than Poetry
From Album 6 So…interesting holiday discussion. Never thought I’d see “schlonged” subjected to analysis generally reserved for things like still images from the Zapruder Film, but… You know, just my personal opinion, but this is yet another reason to be oddly grateful The Donald is still sticking around, or, if you prefer, stinking up the joint. Maybe it’s time to take a long look into the national mirror, and come to grips with the fact that some people have long since left the reality-based community in the dust… and they’re the GOP base (what’s the saying? The Democratic Party despises/hates their base, … Continue reading A Stocking Stuffer For The Nation
So, so, so gross: Responding to a question about Sen. Ted Cruz often positively invoking her father’s name on the campaign trail and during debates, Davis said, “It may be this week he’s doing it more than the others. But they all kind of do it. But yet, they are so not like him. My father would be so appalled at what’s going on. He would be so appalled at these candidates. I don’t think he would be a Republican. And if another Ronald Reagan came along right now, I don’t think the Republican Party would accept him.” I don’t … Continue reading Yeah, Pats, Your Dad Knew To Keep It Quiet
“It” being enough to eat, but you’d never know that from all the trend stories about how today’s college students are being ruined by trigger warnings and safe spaces and helicopter parents: There’s a campaign here to start a food bank for students who can’t afford food, even though many work full time. Many also are raising families. It’s a stark view of the reality of American higher education, in which rich kids go to elite private and flagship public campuses while poor kids — including those who score higher on standardized tests than their wealthier counterparts — end up at … Continue reading Kids Today Just Don’t Get It
Thanks for a helluva run, Gaper’s Block: Thank you to the staff, both current and past, for everything you’ve done and continue to do for Gapers Block. Thank you to our colleagues in the media for taking a volunteer-run webzine seriously, and occasionally even acknowledging when we scooped you. 😉 And a huge thank you to the readers and advertisers who have stuck with us over the years, who have come and gone, and who just found us. This was all for you, and I hope we succeeded in getting you to slow down and check out this amazing city. … Continue reading May the Road Rise to Meet You, @GapersBlock
In talking about Trump last night a friend brought this up and it comes close to explaining why I get so angry at the “good people” who are surprised by all Trump’s rise and the hatred he inspires others to express: There are many things in our day-to-day lives that lead us toward developing little pockets of prejudice, that lead us toward acting unkind to others, without having any intent to do so. These are things that will just naturally develop in our day-to-day lives, so the problem with that all or nothing binary is it causes us to look … Continue reading Stuck in Our Teeth
I decided to post this famous 1926 image by the surrealist artist/photographer Man Ray because this week has been rather surreal. The dust from the New Orleans monuments flap hasn’t quite settled, but I expect it will take some time for General Lee to be toppled from his pedestal. Nothing in this town happens quickly or on time. There’s a phrase for that: NOLA time. It’s got something to do with the summer heat, people mosey around like they’ve got all the time in the world:
Adding to the surreal aura has been the weather. This El Nino weather is some weird shit, y’all. It’s muggy and warm one day, cold and windy the next. I wish the weather gods would make up their fucking minds. I can hear you saying: he’s on about the weather again. I plead guilty. When your life is torn upside down by a weather event, you get a bit obsessed. After all, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows; not even Jim Fucking Cantore. Actually, Cantore usually gets Jimmy Buffetted about by the wind when he’s on the job…
Equally surreal has been the fearmongering on the national scene after the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. I never thought I’d write a sentence with those two city names in it. Until recently San Berdoo was, in Frank Zappa’s words, “where they take all the cars that get hurt.”
The Republican candidates have been dick waving, claiming that if they were the Oval One the terrorists would just surrender. Yeah, right. They ought to try that out on their pals at the NRA. Of course, they’re as afraid of the gun lobby as they want the rest of us to be of Daesh/ISIL.
Let’s move on to this week’s theme song. It’s one of the Beatles best known album tracks, A Day In The Life. It’s 90% Lennon but Macca contributed the “woke up, fell out of bed” bridge, which makes the song something of a marvel. I wish I had a Benjamin for every time I’ve picked up the morning paper, scanned the front page and sang, “I read the news today, oh boy.” It’s a lifelong earworm; there aren’t many of those.
We begin, of course, with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Billy Shears will be along directly:
Here’s a swell live version by Cheap Trick. Congrats on their election to the Jann Wenner Hall of Fame in Cleveland, which, apparently rocks. I’m still waiting for Yes and Jethro Tull to be inducted. But while we’re waiting, here are the swell fashion and vocal stylings of Robin Zander:
Finally, an instrumental interpretation of Lennon’s haunting melody by Sixties guitar god, Jeff Beck:
It’s a pity that Beck has no imagination when it comes to band names: the Jeff Beck Group may have been rough and ready but it’s a boring moniker. Here’s my suggestion: Jeff Beck and the Bowl Haircuts. It’s an even better Moniker than Lewinsky…
On that discordant note, it’s time for the break. That reminds me of an old joke I liked when I was a young bloke. If someone said, “Gimme a break.” I’d say, “Arm or leg?” I thought that was droll when I was 15…
We spent most of last night at the emergency room with my mother-in-law. She suffered a massive stroke a number of years ago and lost almost all of her movement on her left side. As such, there are times where her muscles spasm uncontrollably and tighten to the point of unrelenting pain. Last night was one of those nights, even after three tablets of Percocet and whatever else they prescribed to her. Eventually, we found ourselves working with a wonderful set of doctors until nearly 2:30 in the morning, who worked tirelessly to help cease her pain and loosen her … Continue reading Shkreli Cat, Shkreli Cat, what are you feeding us?
