Dr. A and I are on the road today after a whirlwind trip to Virginia for our nephew Ryan’s high school graduation. His graduation ceremony was a bit *too* exciting as there was a threatening phone call that led to the hall being cleared. It turned out to be a crank call, but in 2018 one has to take these things seriously. So much for my plan to embarrass the nephew. So it goes.
This post is a place holder but I do have a theme song: Life On The Road from the 1977 Kinks album, Sleepwalker. It’s the opening track of that record and it rocks like crazy:
The closing track of the album has the word life in the title as well. It’s the story of a guy who tries to commit suicide on an impulse but decides to live instead. A subject that’s both timely and timeless.
How about one more Kinks tune for the road.
That’s it for this week’s weak edition of Saturday Odds & Sods. I wrote this before hitting the road so I’m using a two-year old picture of the nephews doing what they call the Twin Towers. Kids today.
The Insult Comedian went on his favorite teevee show this morning. He had a lot to say even though little of it made sense. We’re used to nonsense from this president*. It’s one reason he wears an asterisk. Anyhoo, here’s the quote heard round the world:
“He’s the head of the country, and I mean he’s the strong head. He speaks and his people sit up in attention. I want my people to do the same.”
He’s also a dictator, you nitwit. Trumpy is just a wannabe although he’s transformed the Republican party into a personality cult centered on him. The stupid bastard isn’t even a longtime Republican. It’s something of a cautionary tale that Democrats should pay heed to as well. Turning your party over to an independent is madness even if that person isn’t as bad as the Kaiser of Chaos. Nobody is as bad as Trump.
I’m old enough to remember when GOPers were anti-communist and anti-Russian. Under Trump they pander to Putin and the bloodthirsty Kim regime. Kim is an old school commie and Putin is a KGB irredentist seeking revenge for the Soviet Union’s “humiliation” at the end of the Cold War. John Foster Dulles and Ronald Reagan are spinning in their graves. Hell, my head is spinning like a top.
I believe in talking to everyone BUT not in taking one’s talking points from a dimunitive dictator with a bad haircut. Next thing we know Trumpy will start wearing a jump suit in honor of his little buddy, the artist formerly known as Little Rocket Man. A too long red tie will look weird with a jump suit but Trump has the right stuff to make it work. Did I say right stuff? I meant weird stuff.
Trumpy has, of course, said other stupid shit this week but I have a summer cold and I don’t want my head to explode. It’s time for another aspirin.
I’m not sure which of the covers below is from the first paperback edition. I have a guess, it’s the one with the old man and the cat. What’s a vintage pulp fiction cover without either a femme fatale or damsel in distress?
I’m on the road and should zip my lip but I’m not very good at being silent when there’s this much news. I guess you’ve noticed that already. I prefer writing on the mighty Wurlitzer that is my desktop keyboard but a laptop will just have to do. I’m not, however, a fan of track pads. I find them user hostile and unatracktive…
The G-7 summit was a Trumped up fiasco. Remember when even jerky American presidents made nice with our allies? How is it possible to fight with Canada, which currently has one of the most amiable leaders in the world, Justin Trudeau. Trudeau has followed his father’s playbook in dealing with Donald Trump. Trudeau the elder disliked Nixon but forged a decent working relationship with him. When he learned that Tricky had called him an asshole on the White House tapes, Pierre Trudeau had an elegant response: “I’ve been called worse by better people.”
Everyone is better than the Insult Comedian.
The Dictator-Dotard summit was a farce. Trump left it spouting North Korean propaganda. If they allowed dancing in the streets in Pyongyang, they’d be doing it as I write this. If this is winning, I’d rather lose.
The good thing about being on the road is that I’ve missed all of Trumpy’s teevee bragfests. I like how my friend Laura described his appearance: “Even sitting down for an interview, 45 is gross. Looks like he is working hard to have a bowel movement.”
Hey, at least he gives a shit…
In election news, Never Trump Republicans are doing a rotten job of “taking back” their party. Exhibit A: Mark Sanford. Exhibit B: Corey Stewart. Virginia Democrats are thrilled that Lost Causer Corey will be Tim Kaine’s opponent this fall. It’s yet another sign that the GOP is well and truly Trumpified.
That’s it for me. I have a high school graduation to attend. I’m glad that relatives don’t have to wear caps and gowns. It’s not a good look for anyone, especially a grown man with a size 8 head.
The Resurrection Of Pigboy Crabshaw is one of the best album titles ever. Pigboy Crabshaw was the nickname/alter ego of Elvin Bishop. Why anyone would want to be called Pigboy is beyond me, but I’m not from rural America like Elvin. I’m a confirmed city slicker.
In addition to the cool art design by William S Harvey, this is a helluva album musically. The Butterfield Blues Band moved from a guitar based blues ensemble to a horn heavy R&B combo after the departure of Michael Bloomfield to form Electric Flag. A very young David Sanborn plays alto sax on the album.
Crowded House week continues at First Draft. In 1996, Crowded House said farewell to the world by playing a show outside the Sydney Opera House. Since they regrouped in 2006, they decided to celebrate the earlier celebration on its 20th anniversary. How celebratory of them. Pop open some bubbly and enjoy.
It feels like August outside as I write this with the ceiling fan whirring up above my head. It’s time to dispense with the weather report lest I sound whinier than I am. And I’m pretty damn whiny even though, unlike Della and Paul, I don’t have a fur coat to contend with. Paul Drake deals with his by shedding copiously. Della Street rages against the elements in her own way. She is one mouthy cat, y’all.
I may have cats on my mind but the rest of the city is obsessed with rats in a French Quarter eatery. There’s a viral video and everything. Oh wait, there’s always a viral video in 2018. As someone who worked in the Quarter for many years, the thought of rats near the Big Muddy is not shocking. I’m not planning to go to that restaurant but even good places with clean kitchens have the odd rat. Repeat after me: to live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough. She-doo-be.
The new Mayor is “being intentional” by launching a PR campaign dubbing New Orleans the City of Yes. In the immortal words of movie mogul Sam Goldwyn, include me out, unless it involves the veteran prog rock band. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell “being intentional” means. So it goes.
When I started this regular feature in 2015, I used songs about Saturday as theme songs for the first few weeks. Saturday Sun is one I somehow missed but I’ve had Neil Finn on my mind and in my ear of late. We have two versions for your listening pleasure: the promo video and a live performance on the BBC.
Now that we’ve basked in the Saturday Sun, it’s time to put on some sun screen and jump to the break.
Depression is a horrible thing. From the outside, Anthony Bourdain was on the top of the world with a job he loved and more adventures on the horizon. The hoary aphorism “never judge a book by its cover” rings true today: Anthony Bourdain committed suicide at the age of 61 in France.
His body was discovered by his friend, the world-class chef, Eric Ripert who Tony called the Ripper. I call him Tony not because I ever met him in person but because of his style. It was intimate and confidential thereby living up to the title of his first book, Kitchen Confidential. Most of his viewers feel as if they’ve lost a friend. A friend of mine who’s in the restaurant business described him as her Pope. The loss is shocking and deep. It was a helluva thing to wake up to this morning. Imagine being in the Ripper’s shoes. Mon dieu.
Bourdain took us many places in the world to which we’re unlikely to travel. Despite his renegade/bad boy image, Bourdain treated other cultures with the sensitivity and respect that they deserve. He always looked like he was having a great time but looks can be deceptive His demons finally caught up with him. He will be missed.
I never ran into Anthony Bourdain, but Tee Eva Perry was a New Orleans legend who I met on many occasions. She was an amazing character: baker, back-up singer to brother-in-law Ernie K-Doe, and a baby doll on Mardi Gras day. She died this week at the age of 83.
Everyone called her Tee for auntie so when she opened up her first place on Magazine Street she called it Tee-Eva’s. It was an eclectic hole-in-the-wall located around the corner from Adrastos World HQ:
I’m not a snow ball guy but I loved her pies and pralines. After Katrina, she relocated to a bigger location on Magazine but I’ll always have a special feeling for the original space. It was as charming and eccentric as Tee Eva herself.
I hate to use a term out of the dictionary of journalistic clichés, but Tee Eva Perry was a New Orleans original. She will be missed.
UPDATE: it turns out that Bourdain ate Tee Eva’s jambalya on an episode of his first teev show A Cook’s Tour. I haven’t seen that series but it’s on Amazon so I will soon.
Della Street was an aloof cat for the first 9 years of her life. Our running joke was that she was Oscar’s cat and he was all she needed. Slowly but surely she became a lap cat: first with Dr. A and then with me last fall. Here she is on my lap in our messy living room.
I’m sure you’ve all heard about Scott Pruitt having an aide badger Chik-fil-A into giving his wife a franchise. Hey, they’ll need an income when Scotty stops grifting the EPA. It’s gotten so bad that Gret Stet Senator John Neely Kennedy publicly urged Scotty to “stop acting like a moron.” The national media has learned what the Louisiana press has known for years: Neely likes spouting off on teevee and usually has a corny one-liner saved up. If he weren’t a Republican, I might offer to supply him with some Neelyisms but he is so I won’t. Besides, I’m not adept at Hee Haw humor.
Back to Scott Pruitt. The reason I call him a chickenshit grifter is that he’s fond of grifting relatively small amounts aka chickenfeed or chickenshit. He’s even been asked to stop messing up the White House mess by eating there so much. Yo, Scotty: pay your tab, it’s only 400 bucks. In short, this is chickenshit grifting at its smallest and pettiest. Avarice thy name is Scotty.
I was astonished when this tweet landed on my timeline:
— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) June 6, 2018
I checked to make sure this was an genuine Fox News feed. It is indeed and it’s actually “fair and balanced.” I didn’t know they were allowed to criticize Scotty. This could be a signal to the Insult Comedian that it’s time to stop watching Scotty grift. Grift, Scotty, grift.
One would think that, as a major criminal, Trump would be offended by the picayune and penny-ante antics of Scotty. They’re both grifters but Scotty is strictly small time. He’s hanging on because the president* likes his terrible policies but he can turn on a dime; just ask Trudeau or Macron. I wonder when Scotty will ask for a pardon. Let’s start the countdown…
Whenever I think of Chik-fil-A, I think of this masterful float by the Krewe du Vieux sub-kreme, Seeds of Decline, as well as this photo by my erstwhile nemesis, Michael Homan.
Photograph by Michael Homan.
Since I refuse to give Homan the last word, I might as well expel this disgusting earworm from my head.
One of these days I’ll write new lyrics and transform that horrendous tune into Watching Scotty Grift. There could even be an alternate version, Watching Scotty Blow.
The answer, my friend, is grifting in the wind, the answer is grifting in the wind.
James Meese week continues at First Draft. He’s something of an internet man of mystery. I wasn’t able to learn much about him other than he was as short-lived as he was as prolific as a pulp fiction illustrator. I’ll just have to let his work speak for itself:
I don’t want to give you the impression Meese never did covers for some of the more popular crime fictionistas. Here are two he did for Agatha Christie paperbacks:
President Donald Trump reportedly justified the tariffs he placed on Canadian steel and aluminum by asking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a phone call: “Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?”
CNN reported on the exchange, citing sources familiar with the call. The British burned down the White House in the War of 1812, when Canada was a British colony. CNN reported the President may have been joking, but the tariffs, justified on national security grounds by the Trump administration, have left Canadians furious.
“To the degree one can ever take what is said as a joke,” one source “on the call” told CNN, when asked if Trump meant the comment as a joke. “The impact on Canada and ultimately on workers in the U.S. won’t be a laughing matter.”
I guess we can be grateful that Trumpy didn’t go on about Dolly Madison pastries while tossing zingers at Trudeau the Younger in pursuit of his stupid trade war. He probably doesn’t know that James Madison was president in 1812 and that Dolly was a legend in her own right. The Insult Comedian will inevitably claim that he gave Madison his period nickname, Little Jemmy.
Only in the Trump era would the words Canada and trade war be found in the same sentence. Canada is the best damn neighbor in the world and Justin Trudeau is the most amiable of world leaders. Oy, just oy.
Since Trump makes all educated Americans feel like Charlie Brown, it’s time to pass the zingers:
Now that we’ve had an afternoon snack with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Sally, and Linus, it’s time to make like the Canadians:
Wait. Talking Heads aren’t Canadian? Who knew? Certainly not president* Trump.
There’s even a third alternative used to describe electoral systems such as California and the Gret Stet of Louisiana: top two. I prefer open but hate the system itself. It led to much advance agita about yesterday’s election in California. There is rare good news: Democrats were NOT locked out of any Congressional primaries. A collective sigh of relief was heaved, otherwise we might have hurled.
I admit that I was surprised when California adopted an open primary system via ballot initiative in 2011. No state should emulate Gret Stet politics but they did. At least the California lege can pass a budget, which ours cannot do as I pointed out on the tweeter tube:
I'm almost nostalgic for the days when the #lalege was mostly crazy on social issues and fairly sensible on fiscal issues. Thanks, PBJ.
The premise of the open/jungle/top two primary is that the role of political parties should be limited. It’s a deeply silly goo-goo notion. Repeat after me: You can’t take politics out of politics. It’s the system that gave Louisiana the run-off from hell in 1991: the Charming Crook versus the Kreepy Klansman. Mercifully, things turned out well yesterday despite this goofy system. The best way to check the Kaiser of Chaos is to retake the House and unleash the subpoena power. Then Scott Pruitt will really have to go to the mattresses.
The teevee punditocracy insist on calling the open/top two system the jungle primary. It has the virtue of being dramatic, it certainly beats the hell out of a *fourth* term of art: non-partisan blanket primary. I hate to be a wet blanket but that sounds like a dull and wonky slumber party.
Jungle primary is a meaningless term that must have been dreamt up by someone who watched too many Tarzan movies on teevee as a kid. I watched a few of those fakakta flicks on TCM recently and I cannot decide if they’re from hunger or campy fun. Tarzan even fights the Nazis in a couple of war-time entries. Tarzan good, Nazis bad.
The news from New Jersey was also pretty darn good. Democrats have an excellent chance to flip four seats held by the GOP. There’s even a rising star in the bunch: former Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill who’s also a graduate of the Naval Academy.
It was a another good night for Democrats. Turn-out was good and the enthusiasm gap was visible; something the inside the beltway pundit class continues to have a hard time spotting. I think Nate Silver nailed it:
Like, I think most NYC and DC-based journalists think of the #TheResistance as "people who mostly share my epistemological (not necessarily ideological) priors and class signifiers, but who are much more naive about politics than I am". Familiarity breeds dismissiveness.
I hadn’t planned to do three consecutive Motown album covers in this space but that’s how it worked out. The cover is by painter James Meese who is best known for his pulp fiction paperback covers.
As you can see, Tamla/Motown often used back covers as ads for their other releases:
Finally, here’s the title track from this 1967 album:
The Kaiser of Chaos was feeling feisty this morning. He tweeted out a preposterous assertion of executive authority:
As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!
So, why tweet this if you’re a not guilty man? (Like “collusion,” “innocent” is not a legal term of art: please substitute “conspiracy” and “not guilty.”) Something big is going on behind the scenes right now. This is the latest in a long line of panic tweets sent by the man who thinks he’s dictator. He’s a dictator in his mind only but the public needs to pay careful attention when he gets like this.
Trump’s plan is to live and die by the tweeter tube so it’s only fitting to post a twitter riposte to the president*:
I’ve complained before about amateur internet and cable teevee lawyers. Trumpy is by far the worst of the bunch. Frankly, his real lawyers aren’t much better after that fakakata memo they sent to team Mueller asserting that it’s legal for the president* to shit on the constitution and wipe his ass with the bill of rights. And of course Mayor Noun Verb 9/11 has been all over teevee belching and farting smoke. I’ve come to the conclusion that Rudy and Trumpy are the same dude. Heckuva job, Rudy.
Very few genuine legal eagles think that Team Trump’s claims hold any water. If they did, we’d already be living in a dictatorship instead of watching a pre-Great War style autocratic hereditary monarchy creep up on us. There are signs of it every day; particularly in the admonitions to exempt Trump’s family from criticism and scrutiny. His son-in-law and daughter are White House aides so they’re fair game. Junior and Eric have big mouths so they are too. I feel sorry for Melania and cannot blame her for disappearing. Lord, what a family.
Back to legal scholars. I’d like to direct your attention to two op-ed pieces in today’s Failing New York Times. The first by a Democrat: former Deputy Attorney General and US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Harry Litman. The second piece is by former Reagan and Poppy Bush White House counsel, Douglas Kmiec. who deftly lays out precedents on executive power. Holy bipartianship, Batman.
There are also some swell pieces at Slate. The first by Jed Shugerman posits that Trump’s lawyers seem to have admitted that he obstructed justice. It’s a detailed essay so you should read it for yourself but it’s as convincing as hell. We already knew that a legal team featuring Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani, and the departed John Dowd was not ready for prime time. The Shugerman piece confirms that belief.
These are perilous times. We have a petulant president* who believes that he is above the law. He’s surrounded by yes men and women who only tell him what he wants to hear. He conducts himself like a medeval monarch dispensing justice to his followers and denying it to his opponents. I’m fond of the Kaiser Wilhelm II analogy because *that* fucking moron was deposed at the end of the Great War. Like Trump, he was an arrested adolescent who fled to Holland to avoid being arrested. I wonder if they’d take Trumpy in? Not bloody likely.
One more tweet before we go. If only the Kaiser of Chaos would listen to Jerry Ford:
“Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.” — President Gerald Ford, after Nixon resignation, August 9, 1974 pic.twitter.com/cL6p0k3ToP
For the record, Ford’s Attorney General, Edward Levi, was the one who cleaned house at the Justice Department after Watergate. It’s his legacy of apolitical justice that’s under attack by the Kaiser of Chaos and the Duke of Deception, Rudy Giuliani.
The last word goes to the late Tom Petty. All you have to do is substitute Kaiser for King:
I thought of Henry Adams when I learned of the Trumpy Bear this morning on a friend’s Facebook feed. The grandson of our most brilliant president and great-grandson of Paul Giamatti famously said: “The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.”
I wonder what Adams would have made of the Current Occupant who has become the second Oval One to be transformed into a plush toy:
The fact that it was Teddy Roosevelt supports the Adamic theory of devolution. Life appears to not only imitate The Sopranos but the band Devo who posed the eternal question: “are we not men?” In 2018, the answer is not Devo, but Trumpy Bear.
I felt obliged to check Snopes to see if Trumpy Bear really exists. To my chagrin, I learned that it does. Oy, just oy.
Imagine giving Trumpy Bear to your favorite toddler. They’d be scarred for life even if they dig the secret compartment containing Old Glory. It reminds me of a Chucky doll and I hate Chucky. He makes me wanna upchucky as does Trumpy.
I suspect you won’t be shocked to learn that Trumpy Bear originates in Texas, home to Energy Secretary and syrup hugger Rick Perry and the wingnuttiest wingnuts in Wingnuttia. If I were an actual journalist I’d do more research but I’m a pundit, so fuck it. Just read the Snopes entry.
The commercial for the product sounds like a vintage SNL parody ad:
I wonder if the Insult Comedian gets a cut? He likes to wet his beak, after all.
The Trumpy Bear is the Trump butt-plug in reverse. It’s for fans and people who like to traumatize friends and family of all ages. It could, however, be posed in various obscene ways but I’m unwilling to shell out $39.90 plus shipping and handling. That’s right, I’m not from Texas.
I have another concern about this product: why isn’t Trumpy Bear orange? A brown Trumpy Bear strikes me as unrealistic but the hair *does* resemble a dead nutria pelt.
Since I played Elvis yesterday, I have a raging earworm. Sorry for not being more original. As far as I know, there’s no rock song about Henry Adams, so here we go:
I just want to be your Trumpy Bear. Did I say that? Is Joy Reid’s hacker after me now?
It’s been a long, hot pre-summer so far, which has me feeling languid and ennui laden. We went to an anniversary/hurricane season opening day party yesterday at Chez Homan. Long time readers might recall Michael as my blog nemesis. The feud is over and I won.
I’m still suffering withdrawal symptoms from the end of The Americans. A bit of Moscow summer weather sounds rather appealing at this point. Of course, they make you drink vodka so I’ll pass. I guess that makes me as stubborn as a Moscow Mule…
It’s too hot to be wordy so I’ll keep this snappy. I know, famous last words and all that shit.
This week’s theme song was written by the brilliant Motown songwriting team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1966. It was originally recorded by Gladys Knight & the Pips but Marvin Gaye’s rendition was the bigger radio hit. It’s a foolproof song, which has been recorded many times over the years. We’re featuring Gladys, Marvin, and CCR today.
Now that we’ve shared some juicy gossip. lets find some shade and jump to the break.
Thus spake Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon to the Fat Man’s gunsel Wilmer. Crime fiction buffs out there will recall that Wilmer was the patsy in that classic novel and movie.
I thought of Spade’s put down of Wilmer upon the release of one of what the media insists on calling THE COHEN TAPES. While I dig the way it evokes Watergate, we’re talking digital recordings, not tapes. It’s starting to bug the shit out of me so I thought I’d go on the record and I’m not talking 33’s or 45’s either.
The crook may be cheap and his patter *is* gaudy but there are NO tapes. Repeat after me: THE COHEN RECORDINGS.
That concludes this episode of How Life Imitates The Maltese Falcon.
In the 1980’s I paid attention to televangelists because their antics were so entertaining. From Jim and Tammy Bakker to the Gret Stet’s own Jimmy Swaggart, they were larger than life as were their scandals. The so-called prosperity preachers will inevitably get into trouble and that’s how Jesse Duplantis came on my radar screen. I’d never heard of him even though his ministry was founded in Destrehan, Louisiana which is a mere 30 miles from Adrastos World HQ. Apparently, I am a slacker in the house of the lord. I should pay more attention to billboards on the interstate.
Duplantis has a problem. He wants to spread the prosperity gospel worldwide but he can’t do it flying commercially. He needs a fourth private jet. And that is why Jesse Duplantis is malaka of the week.
If Jesus was to descend from heaven and physically set foot on 21st century earth, prosperity gospel televangelist Jesse Duplantis told his followers, the Redeemer would probably pass on riding on the back of a donkey: “He’d be on an airplane preaching the Gospel all over the world.”
And Duplantis believes Jesus wouldn’t exactly settle for 30 inches of legroom or getting patted down by TSA.
Why would He choose anything less than the Falcon 7X, a private jet that nears the sound barrier but also has noise-limiting acoustic technology, a bluetooth-enabled entertainment center and an optional in-flight shower?
Duplantis, saying he needs roughly $54 million to help him efficiently spread the gospel to as many people as possible, has asked the Lord – and hundreds of thousands of hopefully deep-pocketed followers across the world – for just such a plane.
<SNIP>
During his request for a new plane, Duplantis said he realized some people would remain skeptical.
He said there was no obligation, and there was only one surefire way to determine what, exactly God wanted them to do: Prayer.
“So pray about becoming a partner toward it, if you like to and if you don’t, you don’t have to, but I wish you would,” he said. “Because let me tell you something about it, it’s going to touch people. It’s going to reach people. It’s going to save lives one soul at a time . . .
“If you pray about it, I believe God will speak to you.”
Did he say pray? He should have said prey because that’s what Malaka D and his ilk do: prey on the poor and/or ignorant. The prosperity gospel is a pious Ponzi scheme. It implies that if you give money to the preacher, you’ll become as rich as him. No wonder so many of these grifters are Trumpers. It’s same message, only the accent is different. You say youse, I say y’all. Let’s call the whole thing off.
The quote that stands out, of course, is the whole Jesus wouldn’t ride a donkey thing. I’m not a believer but I seem to recall Jesus being big on helping, not grifting, the poor. I suspect he’d take the bus, ride the subway, or drive a junker to get around. They’re the modern equivalents of riding a donkey. The only jackass in this story is the prosperity preacher. And that is why Jesse Duplantis is malaka of the week.
Contemplating Malaka D’s plane mania has given me some aviation related earworms.
