Tag Archives: politics
Weinergate: Why do we watch?
Go back in time for a moment. I’ll wait. Skip around the 60′s and 70′s with the ease your time/space transporter allows and visit some people you may recognize; your family, important historical figures. Inquire about the social climate at that time: the unrest over the assassination of a beloved President and his brother, the anger and frustration over an unjustified war with unattainable victory. Perhaps you’ll let slip that you are from the future and they will begin to ask questions of you.
You’ll inform them that we are fighting multiple wars, suffering an economic turmoil of crippling magnitude, and that Country Star John Rich won The Celebrity Apprentice.
“I’m sure these wars caused people to take to the streets,” they’ll assume.
“Well, they did for a while,” you’ll reply, “but eventually people got fed up and stopped caring when we got a black president.”
“A black president?!” they’ll exclaim. “That must have been a momentous occasion!”
“Well, it was for a while. Then people started to question why he didn’t stop any of the wars. And others questioned whether he was a Communist Socialist Liberal Foreign Muslim Atheist Nazi…and eventually people got fed up and stopped caring.”
“So what’s the biggest story in the news right now?”
“A Congressman tweeted a picture of his penis to some chick.”
“I’m sorry, what’s ‘tweeted?’”
At this point, you’d let out a deep sigh and huff-and-puff your way back to the future, realizing how utterly obscene your little world has become. Of course our elders will claim that our generation is spoiled and brainwashed with no sense of the real world, stumbling blindly through a cavern of subliminal advertising forcing us to consume until we explode; but we haven’t changed that much.
If anything, kids today learn that the consequences of their actions are real and immediate because it’s happening all over, to a lot of people, including most of their friends. Because of the technology, we can mature faster and learn to use it responsibly. And even when we’re not being responsible, we know we’re being irresponsible.
The previous generation doesn’t have this luxury. They only see the anonymity and a way to send picture of your dick to younger women. Of course, it only happened to Anthony Weiner because he was already in the public eye (didn’t he used to be in the Beastie Boys?). How could something like that ever happen to me?
It’s this disregard for the reality that separates our generation from that of our parents. We younger people have a twisted mindset that given the right alignment of stars in the right time and place, we could be instantly famous at any moment. This delusion keeps us under the impression that we don’t need to work for what we get, but on the plus side, it makes us feel that our actions have more significance than they actually do.
Adults, you need to grow up. Realize that there’s a responsible way to get off without putting yourself or others in harm’s way. It is interesting, however, that the roles are reversed. The youth is responsibly handling news coverage, revolutions, significant (and insignificant) social interactions around the globe. And the people who we’re meant to be looking up to as our leaders and role models just don’t give a shit.
Filed under Rant, Television, Top Story
Life Lessons from Comedian James Adomian
(Stand-up Comedian, James Adomian, is a regular on LA’s alternative comedy show, Comedy Death-Ray at the UCB Theater. His voice, along with his comprehensive library of characters and impressions can be heard semi-regularly on Scott Aukerman’s podcast: Comedy Death-Ray Radio. His wildly funny and fresh pop satire is what landed him amongst the top ten finalists on the most recent season of Last Comic Standing.
I was fortunate enough to check out his act and improv skills in New York, and later, he agreed to expose himself…well, at least some of his thoughts and philosophies…)
How has the comedy industry changed since you’ve begun your career?
I tried to ignore the “comedy industry” when I started and I still don’t have much patience for the parts of the business that take place outside of creative art. That may have held me back some, and certainly an ambitious “A-student” career attitude does well for some people’s stature, but it’s not really in my personality. There are good people and there are bad people; you have to work with all kinds. Most business in our capitalist society boils down to some kind of scam. At least in comedy, people have a good time, usually.
Who did you look up to most starting out in Comedy?
Phil Hartman, Bill Hicks and many others. I was greatly influenced by Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which came out when I was 13. I think I watched every single episode in the summer of 1994.
What lesson have you taken away from your experiences in Stand-Up Comedy?
I have to watch shows from the back of the room because my laugh is disruptively loud.
When did you first realize that you had a talent for voices and impressions?
I was imitating voices from real life and media as soon as I could talk. I used to run around in diapers doing the voices of newscasters with their grave tones–I have never respected their artifical authority. When I was in school I’d do all my teachers and coaches, and some celebrities as time went on. When I was 14, I started calling in to a local L.A. talk radio show (Ask Mr. KFI) and pretend to be prominent Republican media figures at the time, like Bob Dornan and Phil Gramm. That was probably my first experience doing impressions for a broadcast audience.
Who is your favorite character to perform?
Well, it changes with time. Original characters, I usually create in the service of an idea I want to talk about. Some of my favorite original characters are Miss Corona Martini (a filthy drag queen standup), Jonathan Summers (BBC announcer) and Bromian (my straight dude alter-ego). For impressions, I like to do people who make a big impression on me, positive or negative. I find a target who’s never been done, or someone who hasn’t been done right, or someone who hasn’t been done in a while where I have a unique angle. These days I love doing Jesse Ventura, Freddie Mercury, Huell Howser and Christopher Hitchens. Orson Welles and Vincent Price are two old favorites.
Does being a “gay comedian” play a significant role in your act?
To borrow Johnny Cash’s logic: I’m not a “gay comedian,” I am a comedian who is gay. Even then, labeling people never works well, since all kinds of sex acts happen outside of the defined sexual identities. But I publicly embrace “gay” since it’s a label that’s so heavily villified in our culture and it’s close enough for shorthand, I guess. In my act, I talk about having sex with other men and I talk about homophobia embedded deep in our culture, but I generally save it as a surprise for the end of the set because I have many things to say on a wide range of topics, and what I do doesn’t really fit very well into the established artistic ghetto of “gay comedy.” Accordingly, I am completely invisible to the official gay culture, but that’s fine with me because I speak to a wider audience than just “the gays.”
(on the Political Importance of Gay Rights)
Mainstream politics generally function as a calculated distraction from life. Sexual freedom is expressed by people and communities, not the state. I practice free love and recommend it to others. I find it insulting that we’re not supposed to have sex with other men, or that we’re supposed to live in quiet fear when we do. Homophobia, including hetero-normative (“straight-as-normal”) narratives come from fear: a wide-eyed terror at the limitless wilderness of human sexuality. Same-sex love has been enjoyed by humans since prehistoric times: sometimes it’s forbidden, sometimes it’s tolerated, sometimes it’s accepted, sometimes it’s encouraged — but it’s always happening, no matter what the nominal legal or social status. Free yourself and the world will follow. If you’re not interested in living free, I would advise you at least to step out of the way, because we’re coming.
What makes you optimistic about the future of humanity?
Not much. I’ve just about given up on the future of humanity. There are isolated pockets of wisdom, sustainable communities and resistance to global corporate tyranny, but overall, we’re headed for many different kinds of disaster. I hope someone put a copy of Dr. Strangelove in the Greenland seed vault so that the octopus creatures can see where we went wrong when they reach this level of planetary dominance in a few million years.
What are you optimistic about in life?
I live surrounded by love, wisdom and laughter and I don’t need much else to survive for now.
What advice would you give to a comedian just starting out in the business?
Watch, learn and do comedy as often as you can. Make friends with other performers. Learn how to live off the land, both for bread and for comedy. You will bomb and you will kill; you can have fun and learn a lot from doing either.
(on the feeling of being on stage in front of an audience)
The high stakes seem to be a great factor in forcing a performer to do something worthy of the lights, the mic and the audience’s attention.
(For more from the great James Adomian, check out his WEBSITE and look out for him at the UCB Theater if you’re in LA, or on Tour or on Comedy Death-Ray if you’re not!)
Filed under Arts, Fun Stuff, Intro, Special Guest Blogger, Television
Ron Paul: Nazi Creationist?
When I first learned of the existence of Ron Paul, I was legitimately excited–and rightly so! Along comes a political figure into the mainstream who reflects a decent Libertarian ideology of Constitutionalism and Freedom…but like graduating from college, my unparalleled optimism was soon crushed into a fine paste.
The first element that killed my boner for Ron Paul was his denial of Evolution as scientific fact. It’s difficult to take anyone seriously when they refuse to except certain elements of reality. The dismissal of Evolution as purely “theory” or “just a fucking guess” is so painfully and willfully ignorant that it almost generates a default respect for religious people who choose to accept Natural Selection as a process kick-started by a creator god. Almost.
It’s important to note that he hasn’t made any indication that this belief would effect his policies at all (such as banning the teaching of Evolution); however, the simple fact that he would be stupid enough to say something like this makes me honestly fearful of anyone who would blindly support him.
The idea that there's enough "crazy" in the world to fuel both Charlie Sheen and Alex Jones is fucking terrifying.
Second, I found out that he has massive support for Conspiracy Theorists because he, himself, is a Conspiracy Theorist. Not only is he tangled up in all of the batshit 9/11 Truth Conspiracies, but he also believes that there is a conscious effort by multiple administrative bodies in this country to create a “New World Order”–in other words: a unified world government to destroy our freedom.
When politicians and policy-makers talk about a “New World Order,” they’re discussing a shift in the way the Western World is viewed by the rest of the world. As in, “We need to develop a new world order wherein Americans are considered empathetic, logical, and rational-minded people, and not psychotic fuckwits who believe that NYC buildings can’t possibly burn to the fucking ground.”
Then, I found out that there may be a deeper explanation to why Ron Paul believes this nonsense: because he could potentially be a White Supremacist Conspiracy ‘Tard.
My dream is to live in a nation as white as the morning snow.
In a recent article for News One, Casey Gane-McCalla argues that Ron Paul’s association with a group called The John Birch Society directly suggests that he is a (for lack of a better term) fucking nutcase.
I’ll let Casey explain it, and you can read the article here.
My only comment, or concern, is that Conspiracy Theorists–whether racist, creationist, or just plain delusional–have a different definition of “crazy” than the rest of us “normals.”
The Conspiracy Theorist’s definition of a crazy person is “one who is not a Conspiracy Theorists and lets the overwhelming evidence to support reality speak for itself–one who is herded like a lamb to the slaughter by scientific fact and observed reason over speculation–one who foolishly accepts that the world is run by fallible and petulant men and not malicious Mole People and Secret Societies.”
Of course, I’m being slightly facetious, but the point is that Conspiracy Theorists do not operate on the same plane of reality on which the rest of the natural world operates. Nothing can convince them that their beliefs may be far-fetched or illogical–they are a cult–a religion.
...kinda just threw that last curveball in there, didn't ya?
They will use phrases such as “There’s a movie you need to watch” or “There’s a book you need to read” as if to suggest that the information they’re giving you is somehow of value.
They will claim that “when someone wants to make a good man seem evil, they will try to portray him as a Nazi, just to scare people away.” Just like Ron Paul supporters do with Obama…
There once was a time when people had opinions on issues, but now our willingness to create our own idealistic realities has turned our society into a work of speculative fiction. There is a nobility to skepticism and an unique fucking idiocy to not accepting the truth once you’ve discovered it.
Would you still support Ron Paul if you really knew his positions? Probably (hopefully) not. Yes, he wants to end the war on terror and the war on drugs–those are good things.
But he wants to eliminate all of the progress the country has made as well. Overturn Roe V. Wade.
Stop talking about Climate Change, it’s a hoax.
He accuses income tax of being a communist practice that needs to end. I guess all government programs are shut down. Let’s not even discuss having universal Health Care.
Close our borders. America is a white nation under god.
Elimination of the Department of Education so parents can choose how to educate their kids…so that every child can be as educated as, say, Sarah Palin.
How can you support this man for President? Just because we like some of his ideas, don’t mean we have to adopt his entire psycho-fuck ideology. Maybe a new Independent will come around…someone who shares Ron Paul’s good points who isn’t isn’t leaking bullshit out of every pore…like…HOLY SHIT! MIKE GRAVEL?
Mike Gravel is like Ron Paul 4.0--all the bugs removed.
I don’t know if Ron Paul is a Nazi. Honestly, I wasn’t bothered to actually look into the claims being made in the editorial. But I freely admit that to you…that I don’t know. And while Conspiracy Theorists will call me a shill for the truth-suppressing fascist media, I possess something that they will never know: a grounded sense of reality.
(return to MAIN PAGE)
Filed under Educational, Hot News, Irrationality, News
Chimpanzee That!
In a recent article, I mentioned the ridiculous and intellectually offensive item in the news regarding a certain political cartoon. I know you’re all sick of seeing it, but here it is:
This Chimp represents nothing more than a Chimp. (Not Pictured: Al Sharpton representing a Horse's Ass.)
I don’t know why, but I am extremely frightened by the outrage that this cartoon has caused. Actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly why I’m frightened. I’m terrified because the attacks that this cartoon has prevoked could potentially serve to take away the essential freedom in this country to criticize our government.
These attacks are reminiscent of those made by Muslims over the cartoons, in the Netherlands, featuring various depictions of Muhammad in various situations. In the Netherlands, however, these violent protests and threats of murder served to reduce the government to something close to the consistancy of a bowl of pudding. This has also happened in Great Britain.
Our story thus far is a bit different. People are outraged, but they are not violent. People are fed up, but they’re not threatening the lives of the cartoonist or the fine people at The New York Post. That’s a very good thing.
But do these blind dogs even know what they’re barking at? Those who were offended by the cartoon (which mostly included African Americans) called for a formal apology as well as the tarring and feathering of those involved in the cartoon’s production.
They fished their wish, so far. The paper apologized, but they apologized conditionally. They apologized in such a way to suggest that they did nothing wrong. Now The New York Post has never been a very decent paper, but I must say: Good For Them!
They have nothing to apologize for; but if they had to give an apology, I’m glad they basically said: “Sorry if you were offended, but we didn’t do anything wrong.”
If the cartoon had depicted a black man (or President Obama) being shot in some kind of racist spirit, a Newspaper who wants to claim that it is staffed by responsible journalists must (and I repeat must) apologize for that disgrace. But The New York Post, nor the Cartoonist, nor the Editor-in-Chief did anything wrong. They should not have to bow down and bend over backwards for a bunch of whiny cunts who choose to see teenage tits in a Magic Eye painting.
1. The Chimpanzee does not represent any human.
2. There was a Chimpanzee that was shot and killed, so the cartoon is within the context of that news story.
3. The cartoon is not a call to assassinate the president, Mr. NAACP.
4. Barack Obama didn’t write the Stimulus Bill, and even if he had, the cartoon is only making a comment that the Bill in question is so poorly conceived and written, that it might as well have been written by a Chimpanzee.
5. Next time a child draws, colors, or pretends to be a Monkey; I want the NAACP to break down that child’s door and call them out for the despicable, unrepentant racist that he is. That’ll show him how we do things in America.
I’ve said this before, and I will say it again…If we allow this kind of random, staggering, infantile bullshit to continue, we will no longer live in a free country. We will live in a country of babysitters, cry-babies, and fools.
Please make this disgraceful protest end. Soon.
We’ll all be better for it.
–alexG.
A Warm Recession
Judging by the epidemic of lay-offs, stock market plunges, and clusterfuck pissing competitions throughout the Legislative Branch, our country seems to be (for lack of a better phrase) bucked-fackwards.
While this financial game of Jenga plays out, we can do nothing but scream from the comfort of our own homes tents cardboard kingdoms for our elected officials to “Pull ANY block but THAT one!”
It’s important to remain optimisticin the grim face of pure in-discriminatory terror. America has a habit of bouncing back, even if it may be at the expense of millions of financially insecure citizens…and one poor, blood-thirsty chimpanzee.
This leads me into our next problem–one that may be larger and more significant than another “Great Depression.”
This involves a considerably serious double-standard that appears to be taking place in these first months of the Obama Administration.
Let it be said that if nothing else, George W. Bush generated a mass interest in politics that may not have existed to this extent since the days of old.
People discuss politics now. People vote and have opinions–even if, in most cases, they are the wrong ones.
It is for this reason that Obama is suffering more than the economic wrath that the gods hath inflicted upon this cursed hemisphere. He is suffering through unanticipated scrutiny. This is a good thing. Every public official should be so unlucky.
The problem is that because our new president is being so over-scrutinized, there remain blind-f0llowers on the opposite side who cry foul whenever anyone says anything slightly negative or asks a fucking question.
It’s gotten to the point when the night’s news is focused on moral outrage regarding a political cartoon of police shooting a chimpanzee.
This was an actual NEWS STORY. Police shot a chimpanzee who freaked out and tore someone’s face off. Which is really no reason to kill the animal. Tranquilize it, sure…but tearing faces off and being aggressive is what Chimpanzees DO. It’s like killing Yogi for swiping pic-a-nic-baskets…and eating faces.
There are probably plenty of reasons to shit on the writers of The New York Post, but this cartoon is not one of them. Arguably mentally ill activists are tearing the cartoonist behind this work of art a new asshole because they see the Chimpanzee as representative of Barack Obama.
Now, who is the real racist here? The one who drew the cartoon with no racial motive, or those who march with Al Sharpton to the beat of their own pretentious drums, casually calling any depiction of a Chimp a racial slur?
This is where we fail. This is where humanity fails. When we sacrifice our freedom of speech for our own paranoid comfort, we become no better than the cunts and pussies that make up the governments of Great Britain and Holland.
When our newspapers are afraid to print articles of social commentary because of the perceived outcome, we fail as a Free Country.
(There is the possibility of irresponsible journalism or works that encourage violence against others, but that’s a different story.)
We can not allow this to continue to happen. It is our duty to know, realize and stand up for the most basic rights of the people in this country. Even if we don’t agree, find them offensive, or have a complete cranial mis-fire and blurt out some of the most epic bullshit this country has ever had the misfortune of storing in our collective long-term memory.
From My Cold, Dead Hands
“For the next six months, Al Gore is going to smear you as the enemy. He will slander you as gun-toting, knuckle-dragging, bloodthirsty maniacs who stand in the way of a safer America. Will you remain silent? I will not remain silent. If we are going to stop this, then it is vital to every law-abiding gun owner in America to register to vote and show up at the polls on election day…”
Heston paused, picked up a replica of a Revolutionary War musket, and continued:
“…As we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed; and especially for you, Mr. Gore: ‘From my cold, dead hands!‘ “
–Charlton Heston (2000)
Well, Charlton Heston is dead in the ground. Those bumper stickers will last forever, however. I’ll try to keep this as un-political as possible, and instead try to focus on something that both sides of the “Gun Debate” fail to mention.
Guns are cool. And they’re fun. These two facts statements emotions facts are the main reasons for my purchase of a gun.
For the rest of this article, I think I’ll just have a bunch of neat pictures and type underneath. They were taken with my cell phone (and I forgot that it was on Sepia, so they look even more bad-ass). Nevertheless, I present to you…
The Ruger GP-100. 6″ barrel, 46 ounces of stainless steel, manufactured in the GOOD OLD U.S. of A (SIMIAN GRUNT). This bad boy is a double action revolver, which means that you can pull back the hammer into place before firing, or just pull the trigger and let it go BOOM (and I assure you, it DOES go BOOM)!
It’s a nice feature, even if in normal use you’d never just pull the trigger to shoot it, you could, in fact, still do it in an emergency.
(Fun Fact: I’m getting the hang of using the strikeout feature like everyone else on blogger…)
So the thing shoots .357 magnum rounds, which Wikipedia says is fine for deer, but inferior for shooting ungulates and bears.
That’s enough power for me. I’m not going big game hunting anytime soon, nor will I be hunting ANY dangerous game, for that matter…
But I digress. back to my gun. Why did I buy it? What was it like? So on? So forth? Etc?? Well, I bought this particular model after shooting the Smith and Wesson 686 6“, which is almost the exact same gun.
I was at Targetmasters, somewhere near Delaware, and told the guy I wanted to try a revolver, and asked what he recommended, and he pulled that out of the cabinet for me to try. I shot it in their range and fell in love. Well sir, when I found out how much those things cost, my little heart was broken.
I didn’t have $600-$800 to drop on something like that. So I looked around, did some research, and arrived at my decision. So, I took a trip up to Cabella’s to check out their used gun library, and Eureka! Found what I was looking for, asked a few questions, and started the fun process of buying a gun. Having bought the gun in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the process was fairly painless.
I had to fill out a form or two, and have my ID checked to make sure I wasn’t in the system anywhere, and about 30 minutes later, it was waiting for me at the check out counter.
(Fun Follow-up: I asked where the trigger locks were kept and they looked at me confused-like, and dug around in the Lost-N-Found box and handed me one with a key for it)
So I got a free trigger lock, a few boxes of ammo, and headed on home. Actually, I went to dinner with ANTHONY(!!!) first.
Now that my computer’s battery is running low, I’ll wrap up by talking about shooting the thing. As a .357 magnum, it can, of course, shoot 357 ammo, but it can also fire the similar .38 Special round, which is significantly less powerful (and significantly easier to hit the target with).
So overall, I’m very happy with it, and I think it’d be a great piece for anyone looking to get into the sport. Also, if you’ve never been shooting, don’t be afraid of it. That’s really the most important thing.
Give it a try, grab a friend and head down to the range. The people there will be super nice and helpful, and if nothing else, you might leave with a better understanding of a hobby enjoyed by millions of Americans.
I’ll talk politics the next time I talk guns.
