It's The Last Friday of 2022, ya Bastids...

OH yeah.

Catnip

Apparently I found the good stuff.

…or a magical space wand that can conjure puppies…

Things One Wonders at 1 a.m.

What is that weird white thing in my egg?

Via Yahoo! Sports:

That string is called a chalaza—pronounced kuh-LAY-zuh. According to the American Egg Board, eggs actually have two chalazae inside their shell. The chalazae are "twisted, cordlike strands of egg white" that anchor the yolk from the top and bottom of the shell membrane, keeping the yolk from getting busted before you crack the egg. In a fresh egg, the chalazae will be especially visible—so don't feel like you need to remove them.

In Other News
• Was Lauren Boebert's Shooters Grill Replaced by a Mexican Restaurant? (Spoiler: True) (Snopes)
• As far as Zappa live collections are concerned, 'Erie' headed to top (Goldmine)
• Porky's should be in the National Film Registry. Hear me out...

For Sale

Hey ya'll. I'm now selling digital trading cards of my cat. $99 apiece. Here's an example. Just kidding of course, because I'm not a f87king grifter like Disgraced, Twice-Impeached Former Preznit Carnage. Don't you want to rub his belly?

And Then He JUMPED OVER The Reporter

Frank With A Pearl Earring

Alley-Oop!

Simpsons In It For The Money

"Frank Zappa is my Elvis." (Matt Groening)

Kitteh is IN the bag

Kitteh also likes to sleep on my turntable cover. I could buy him all the fluffy cat beds in the world. He has to sleep on the device I use to try to keep dust OFF of the turntable.

Ear Wormies

I know now that the Sam Phillips music from a little television show I like to call The Mighty Gilmoreans has at least two key doppelgängers. I know this because my brain keeps mashing them all together and playing them.

Examples follow:

For starters, if you've watched the show, these tunes are rather familiar:

My inner jukebox has matched this stuff with a little Beatles...

...and a bit of Traveling Wilburys...

Dare to Dream

Holy f87k I love Cake.

Cause. Effect.

Trading Places

Good Morning, Kitteh

I have just now gotten out the comforter as nights lately have gotten chilly.

Henry has discovered that he likes the comforter.

Let's Make Sure He's Well Dressed

Oh drat. Where did I put the stepladder.

ROAR

Kitteh and I play a fun game called “roar.” He stares at me for a while and then I make a tiger gesture with my hands and yell ROAR and he runs off like a little maniac. It’s a fun game.

Nothing. But Beef

In Time

It's. Friday. Ya. Bastids.

Kitteh Haz Logo

Henry finally gave me a good opportunity to get a nice picture of the markings on his back. It’s like he has his own logo.

Don't Play That Song

It's Friday ya bastids!

It Would Be Called 'Elon Musk,' Of Course

Setting the Record Straight

"Getting to the facts can be difficult, but it’s always the right thing to do. Except when it isn’t."

Act 3 argues what I've been saying for years about "UFOs" and life from other planets.

Direct link to the podcast in the This American Life archive.

Related: Metabunk

Abigail Disney

Marc talks with Abigail about her social awakening earlier in life and her current roles as an activist, philanthropist and filmmaker. They also discuss her new documentary, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, about the unequal economy as exemplified by the corporation that bears her name.

A terrific conversation that may light a fire under one's ass.

Direct link to this episode in the WTF with Marc Maron archive.

Sublime.

Wonton

So. This happened.

Preaching from a Bible verse, Lauren Boebert got stumped by the meaning of “wanton killing” and pronounced “wanton” like wonton, the Chinese dumpling:

“I don’t know what a [wonton] killing is. I’m going to have to look that one up, but it sounds interesting.” #WontonKilling pic.twitter.com/xwXxSIMbjO

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) September 13, 2022

This person is a member of the House of Representatives.

Adventures in Mac

I will offer my unsolicited advice at the beginning to save you some time: If your early-2015 era MacBook starts throwing errors and restarting and you take it to the Genius Bar and they wipe the drive to fix the problem, and you take it home and set it up again and you keep seeing the errors and the restarting, do not throw up your hands and give up and go and order a new MacBook Air.

Keep running your machine. Keep restarting. Keep seeing the errors. Push the thing for a while. It may require this before the issue is fixed, and apparently, the geniuses at the Genius Bar do not tell you this.

That’s the kind of month I’ve been having. Spending every Saturday for the last three Saturdays milling around in the Eastview Apple store, the first Saturday they wiped the drive completely only to see the problems continue; the second Saturday to be told that the logic board, which is essentially a Mac’s motherboard but Apple has to name everything differently, and the third Saturday to order a new MacBook Air.

So last night, I got out my vintage machine and fired it up to collect some information for trade-in. I’d been running it on and off throughout this whole process. So I left the Mac running while doing my “day job.” And the thing has been running ever since. No errors. No restarting. I’m typing on it right now.

So by way of explanation: The reason they wiped data to try to resolve the issue is because they assume that some third-party app is running a process that is interfering with the computer’s boot-up. Wiping the data, including all third-party apps, is thought to cease the harmful process.

But wiping the offending app apparently didn’t stop the process from running. It needed to run its course before it stopped. So I experienced the errors after the alleged fix. And now, I’m not. One would think the geniuses at the Genius Bar would inform its customers.

Looks like I’m about to cancel a MacBook Air order and save myself a couple thousand dollars.

It's Friday Ya Bastids

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Vote

Parenthood, the soundtrack

I have been on a watching binge of the 2010 television series Parenthood. This is largely due to a recent urgent need to keep myself going through the night as my work shift has gone from my nice cushy evening shift to a shift that propels me to work from sunset to sunrise Sunday through Thursday. When on such a shift, boredom is a real creeper. It's six seasons of wonderful family wholesome. Like Eight is Enough without the cheesy morality tales, and while we all love Betty Buckley, Bonnie Bedelia steams the joint up a bit more as the matriarchal Mrs. Braverman.

As music plays a vital role in this program (a central storyline is that the brothers Crosby and Whathisname run a recording studio together, but the show overall uses music to great effect), I half-thought about procuring a Spotify playlist based on the many eclectic tunes used throughout. Before making the effort, though, I thought I'd see if some other obsessive soul had previously done the work.

Runfaster19, you are the man. Person. Whatever. What a comprehensive playlist you created. Congratulations.

A Brand New Me

It's Friday ya bastids

Duh Duh

Abortion Rights Are Good Health and Good Science (Scientific American)

Girls To The Front

Donny Hathaway: Jealous Guy

Because it's Good Friday ya bastids. And chag sameach ya bastids too. Donny Hathaway. Covering. John Lennon.

Kitteh Iz Really Into Vinyl

Yeah, I didn't need that little shelf under my phonograph anyway.

Henry the Love Sponge

It's been touch and go with new kitteh, I can't lie.

The barfing. The barfing. Holy cow, the barfing. Sunday it was barfing then withdrawing to under the bed. Kitteh was not doing well. Dad and Hick were nice enough to deliver some of the food he'd been used to, but even after that, there was barfing.

Now there was barfing last night too, but it was different barfing. I don't need to go into the details, but I think the initial barfing was from stress, stress because some moron shoved him into a box Saturday and drove him across town. I think last night's barfing was because I earnestly offered him too many food choices and he gorged a bit. I'm saying the barf was different. Also last night, no hiding, and in fact he was back at the bowl immediately after. He's getting settled. And where Sunday I was confessing to my Mom on the phone that I wasn't sure getting kitteh had been a good idea, today I'm feeling pretty confident about it.

We had a good day yesterday, even if the Tar Heels did blow a 16-point lead at the half to lose to Kansas.

The weirdest part is when I come out to greet him and I can't find him. He's always finding new places to perch. Here's today's.

This "I know I had a cat last time I came out here" stuff is the most bizarre part of my nascent guardianship. But it is what it is.

And yes, kitteh's full name has been updated. He is officially Henry the Love Sponge (thanks, Bubba). Anyone who's met him will agree that it suits.

Cat Daddy

So today I became a Cat Daddy.

A few weeks ago, a little blondie short-hair kitteh walked into the office where my Dad's wife works. This of course happened shortly after their sweet purrer of a kitteh Anna met an untimely end under the wheels of a speeding automobile. Cats are kind of magic like this. This guy walked into our lives right after we lost one we'd loved and cared after for decades.

So the Farm had its last cat standing, the black-as-night kitteh appropriately named "Blackie." Then this one walked in and roamed all over the warehouse and wouldn't sit still for anyone until he walked up to Hick. But their place is more a dog place than a cat place, and the dogs tend to view the felines as toys. And frankly, my folks were kind of looking to retire from the cat-rearing business. So conversations began about old Henry, as she had dubbed him, becoming an apartment dweller.

I'll be honest, I was inclined to demur. It's quite a lot to take on, and I've been used to a solitary lifestyle for a long, long time. But then I met said kitteh. He's extremely affectionate. He likes to rub on your legs. He likes to sit next to a person on the sofa and purr. He does NOT like being picked up, or as I think of it, he has a strong sense of bodily autonomy. But there's a personality to this guy. He's just lovey.

So it came to today that I found myself driving home from the farm with a meowing, struggling cat in a cat carrier. It's about a 25-minute drive I'd say, and I was talking to him the whole trip because he did not enjoy being in the box. But the whole time, I told him my concept, that once he arrived at my little one-bedroom apartment, he'd see it as an improvement. That while somewhat short on square-footage, my place, he would be lord of the joint, no bullying dogs, no competing cats, and there would likely be cat trees to climb in his future.

And once I freed him, he seemed pleased to be out of the box. He spent about an hour wandering, rubbing his cheeks on everything. He discovered the windows. He found his litter box (praise be). I eventually got him to eat a little kibble, though I am presenting him with both dry and wet food choices as we go (he came in a bit underweight).

I’m a bit apprehensive about it and have been. I enjoy cats, but being one’s guardian (yes, I watch Jackson Galaxy a lot, but Galaxy’s language is spot-on because, let’s face it, nobody has ever owned a cat) is a lot. Life-changing, really. Not to mention, he’s much more of an energetic kitteh than I had previously thought.

As I write this, he’s watching out the window as if he’s watching American Idol. He’s got a lot in store; a vet visit later in the month, then later a snip-snip and shots.

I reckon this might be fun.

Warning

Warning: This blog may soon become somewhat more of a cat blog. My apologies, but there is not much I can do.

I mean, lookit him.

Have Mercy

Sometimes A Fella Just Wants a Nice Steak Dinner

Spoiler: He Was Jacking Off

The Good Wife :Episode nine, season two, “Nine Hours.” Zach encounters Kalinda for the first time when she knocks on the door and he answers. She is wearing a purple leather coat and a black skirt. And the boots. Always the boots. He answers the door, as she is on her mobile phone. “You work with my mom?” She replies “yeah” and blasts right by him.

Later, Zach knocks on Alicia’s door and gestures his need for the bathroom. Alicia gestures come on through. As he goes into the bathroom, Zach’s eyes go all over Kalinda, head to toe.

After a few minutes, Zach is seen kind of stumbling out of the bathroom.

I wonder what Zach was doing in the bathroom. Oh, who am I kidding. I was 14 once. I know what Zach was doing in the bathroom.

It's Friday Ya Bastids

How Bout Dah

It's Friday ya bastids

Here We Go Monday

Nobody Expects the Gaspacho Police

Just to clear things up, @RepMTG

Gazpacho: a vegetable-based Spanish cold soup
Gestapo: Nazi Germany's secret police pic.twitter.com/T9q76r706G

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) February 9, 2022

Good Doggie / Spotify

I was today driving in from my second run this weekend to Mendon, trips that reminded me that I am not a trained wheelchair lift engineer and that sometimes 15-degree weather is just a bitch on mechanical systems, when I went to make a left turn and the car next to me, I think a blue Subaru but not sure, started honking its horn. As we were the only automobiles in traffic, I had to assume the other vehicle was honking at me, and I must have left the trunk open or my gas cap off or maybe my Coke on the roof or something because the honking was rather urgent. So I turned my head to the right and gave the other driver a quizzical look.

He mouthed to me "it was the dog." Dude had a puppy in his lap who had decided at that moment to become curious about the horn.

That, my friends, just made my day. Along with the fact that today's temperatures were in the mid-30s and the problem with the wheelchair lift was, as they say at my day job, "resolved without engineering intervention."

I gave the driver a wave and a laugh as I took the left turn.

Meanwhile, among the other things I was getting worked up about this weekend was my choice in music streaming services. This concern arises from time to time, and I don't know why I bother having the debate because I always land in the same spot. (Ify.)

I'm pretty fussy about my streaming and about my music library in general. Every few months, Apple Music offers a three-month subscription for cheap, and I often take it just to try it out (again). The supposed advantage to Apple Music is that you can download music to your devices and seamlessly include them with your own music, whether MP3 or AAC or whatever format, so all your tunes are in one place, which sounds like a good thing.

Not for me. I like my personal library to be in one basket and my streaming content to be in another. This is further complicated by the fact that I despise Apple's music manager. The whole concept of having to go through their proprietary "music library" is cumbersome and annoying and becomes doubly so trying to manage both selections from my library and from Apple Music. Apple probably has not had a decent music management system since 2004 and even then, it required somewhat of a learning curve. There are alternatives, such as Foobar2000, which is supposed to sync with your music library, but the sync is sluggish with newly added files, and I fear Apple will stop support for the app any day now, as they often do with software they can't outright acquire. I otherwise adore my iPhone (currently rocking an SE), but the way Apple has you manage music files is just plain annoying.

Which brings me to Spotify and alternate streaming options and the latest mass exodus from the former. Leaving Spotify has become the thing to do thanks to its bizarre (albeit perhaps financially difficult to budge) dedication to a certain podcaster with a penchant for spreading dangerous nonsense on his air. Neil Young is out. Joni Mitchell, and Crosby Stills and Nash, too. India Arie, and my favorite Trump, Mary. And my brother, he went to Tidal.

The problem is that nothing touches the Spotify UI. It just works. Playlists are where they should be, and Spotify makes playlists easy to make. Apple has this thing called "smart playlists" where you can create somewhat of an algorithm to make you a playlist, and you can't turn it off apparently, and it's annoying. Spotify: Find the tune, add to playlist. If you're on premium Spotify, you can download the playlist, or album, or whatever for offline access. And Spotify works across platforms flawlessly, in fact, it works better with Amazon devices than Amazon Music. In my experience, Spotify is just better. Your mileage may vary, of course. If, for example, one's preference is more aligned with needing lossless quality or Dolby Atmos, Amazon Unlimited or Tidal might be a better choice. Me, I am still running the Kenwood stereo tuner my dad bought me at Circuit City with I was 17, so someone comes at me praising Dolby Atmos, I'm like whatsy whozit?

Besides, when you consider the true business model of your typical music streaming service, the ethics of one platform over another I think becomes even more relative. Music streaming services essentially exist on the basis of blackmailing the music industry–If we didn't exist, and if we couldn't be allowed to stream your content, piracy would run amok. I mean, remember Napster? Spotify and its ilk would argue that they are the finger in the hole in the dike keeping file sharing pirates at bay, and they're probably correct. It is an evil justification to exist. But it allows them to exist. So regarding music streaming services, no matter which, none of them are out-and-out "doing no harm."

I'm not usually a boycott guy anyway; I don't think they're generally effective, though some have pointed to Spotify's sinking capitalization as evidence to the contrary. However, I think that Joe Rogan will one day dry up and blow away or at least will become a forgotten item, and Spotify's stock value will recover. I think leaving a service you enjoy and find useful based on one stupid loudmouth you don't listen to anyway is kind of senseless. Nope, I'm staying with Spotify, and I'm ditching Apple Music.

Happy listening!

It's Friday ya bastids

My Car Is Leaking Highly Classified Information.

It's snowed in.

Really.

From Far Out Magazine: On this day in 1969, the day after the The Beatles rooftop concert, Ringo Starr was sent this postcard from Paul McCartney

Chiefs - Rams

Alexa. What the F?

Before There Was Naked Eyes…

...there was Lou Johnson.

In Other News
• Year One What Biden Has Done Mega Thread (What Biden Has Done)

It's Friday Ya Bastids

Four Touchdowns In One Game

Gabriel Davis of the Buffalo Bills: I just scored four touchdowns in a single game.

Al Bundy: Big deal. I did that in high school. Polk High School Panthers. 1966. Four touchdowns in one game.

Go Bills!

Praying For The End Of Time

It's Friday Ya Bastids

Year One

Share this. yearone-dot-watch

yearone.watch

I’m Sure He Was Just Joking

"African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans."

Yes. He actually said this.

A reminder that Kyrsten Sinema has always been kind of an a-hole.

Kyrsten Sinema’s combustible thumb (The Washington Post)

Bless Your Heart

So. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Pokey LaFarge.

MLK Day

"Conservatives" quoting MLK's "...not...by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character..." is like when Homer Simpson bursts into the church yelling "SANCTUARY" and Rev. Lovejoy rolls his eyes and says, "Oh, why did I teach him that word."

Phallus on the Play

Patriots' wide receiver Kendrick Bourne grabbed the first touchdown pass in Bills-Patriots yesterday at Highmark Stadium yesterday, fourth and goal with 4:12 remaining in the third quarter. This and the extra kick made the score 33-10 and dildo.

Yes, a fan saw fit to throw this gigantic rubber penis onto the field following the Patriots' first scoring play. And, it's not the first time this has happened. In fact, it's become somewhat of a tradition since 2016. Oh, yes. You can bet on it.

And Yet Here We Are

It's Friday Ya Bastids

Cleanup in aisle...

Nice

Well, I just bought me some new underpants.

The secret word for tonight is...reissue...

Frank Zappa and the Mothers’ Epic 1971 Fillmore East Shows Get 50th-Anniversary Reissue (Rolling Stone)

Zappa's Legendary 1971 Fillmore East Run, and Shocking Final Rainbow Theatre Gig Commemorated with Definitive Eight-Disc Boxed Set (zappa.com)

Purple Fly On The Wall

So then you take off all your clothes and jump into the lake after he has challenged you to purify yourself in waters of Lake Minnetonka. And so you do, you take off your clothes and show your titties and you jump into the lake. And, as you do, he says “that ain’t lake minnetonka” and then he gives you a bunch of shit spazzing out on your bike while you try to get on it while you are trying to settle into your wet clothes. And then, then, this is the closer, he’s like DON’T GET MY BIKE WET. Isn’t that great?

Vanity: Fuck this.

DC5? ARE THEY INSANE?

The Great Rock Hall Purge: Which Hall of Fame inductees don’t belong? (cleveland.com)

---

Architects hear that commercial like "so you only I.M. Pei for what you need."

As if I adored this man enough already.

'What a moron': Dr. Anthony Fauci on Senator Roger Marshall after heated exchange (Reuters)

GTO

They Don't Make Heterosexuals Like Pamela Des Barres Anymore (Gawker)

"Her 1987 memoir 'I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie' is a testament to just how much this woman loved terrible men"

Kent Water Ruled

Mayor Chandler actually gave me one of my first jobs as a teenager, digging and moving rocks one afternoon in their backyard. I forget what she paid.

A New Path for Pence

I am not often in the business of advising Republican politicians. However, I really hate to see Columbus North High School's most prestigious fella pass up such a smart opportunity.

Former Vice-President Mike Pence has let a few impressions leak that seem to me to be trial balloons regarding his recent invitation to testify before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Via the New York Times:

In recent weeks, Mr. Pence is said by people familiar with his thinking to have grown increasingly disillusioned with the idea of voluntary cooperation. He has told aides that the committee has taken a sharp partisan turn by openly considering the potential for criminal referrals to the Justice Department about Mr. Trump and others. Such referrals, in Mr. Pence's view, appear designed to hurt Republican chances of winning control of Congress in November.

The problem is that Pence, who presumably has designs on the presidency himself, is in a rather difficult spot. He seems concerned that capitulation to the Select Committee would lose him sway among the mighty Trump base. But didn't he already lose that precious anointing when he refused to throw out the generally accepted election result on 1/6/2021? Or when he's seen on video being quickly evacuated from the legislative floor?

This why I suspect we are reading such speculation in the great NYT. He needs to test his standing with the MAGATs. With the Qanons. With the true believers. With those who await the necromancing of JFK Jr., the ones who think Wayfair furniture is built out of human remains. Pence is sticking a wet phalange into the wind. And I don't think the results are gonna be all that great for him.

That's got be to quite a kick in the gut for a guy who spent four years staring into the back of Preznit Carnage's head with a look on his face like when Itchy the Wookie is watching Diahann Carroll sing "This Minute Now" in the Star Wars Holiday Special. This is Mr. "I Am Deeply Humbled to Be Your Vice President," after all. His repayment? HANG MIKE PENCE. HANG MIKE PENCE HANG MIKE PENCE.

So why is he even pondering this when there's a much better, albeit more risky, way forward?

Hey. Mike. Get to marching in Liz Cheney's parade.

Do I think Liz Cheney is doing what she's doing because she wants what's best for the country and she believes the Big Lie is a Big Lie and that the Insurrection of January 6 was ungood? I guess. But on the other hand, I think Liz Cheney sees a BIG FAT LONGSHOT PATH TO BECOME LA PREZNIT OF DEEZ UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA.

After all, what happens when or if the unexplainable shine wears off of der cheeterhosen? Criminal charges. Lawsuits. Sexual assault charges. Civil suits leaving him hemorrhaging money. His recent vaccine endorsements are already throwing off his most loyal unwashed. Who's going to be there if and when the Republican Party tosses Former Preznit Disgraceful Carnage out on his ass in his fat golf khakis? Liz Cheney is so far the only one betting the long game that it's going to be she. (Okay, yes, Adam Kinzinger, blah blah blah. Dude is really kind of an afterthought on all this, methinks.)

Cheney has begun to forge a path that might could behoove the former Vice-Preznit to embark upon. It could start with his straightforward, unredacted public testimony to the Select Committee, followed by public calls to his own party to purge itself of this enormous, treacherous lie, to respect the fair and correct result of the 2020 election, and to get back to the business of working for true conservative values.

Mr. Former Vice President, heed my call: You sir, are in need of a reinvention. And I would argue that the Congresswoman from Wyoming is showing you the way. Show up. Testify. Cooperate. Throw your former boss, who I remind you tried to have you assassinated, way deep and far under the bus. It will be good for the country. It will make you seem to be presidential.

Heck. It might even make you presidential.

Thus, It Is, With The Cheese Lady

As a microbusiness, surviving the pandemic means taking it one day at a time (NPR Marketplace) I love the cheese lady.

---

Holy Crap! This Could Actually Be Good!

Yellow Garners Some Press

Best Albums of 2021 (Jazz Revelations)

Make 'Em Pay

NFL Playoff Bracket 2022

NFL playoffs schedule, bracket and what you need to know (The Washington Post)

Hay's for Horses

To Sir, With Love

First of all, how about them Buffalo Bills, as of today AFC East champions for the second straight season! Let's see who's up Saturday... hmmmmm...Patriots? Chargers?

UPDATE: Patriots.

Second, I was shocked to read about the passing of the world champion of telling the "the Aristocrats" joke, Bob Saget. I really hate it when the funny ones die.

Third, To Sir, With Love.

Propelled by the recent death of Sidney Poitier, after the Big Sunday Dinner, we landed on this for a movie. And, I mean, it's all right. Dated. Kind of weird. Kind of after-school special. Lulu as that generation's Adele. Contrived situations that kind of make no sense. An extended dance scene betwixt teacher and student without even the benefit of John Travolta's choreography. It's kind of a squeaker. Better than Birdman, I reckon.

But without it, is there a Dead Poet's Society?

Yeah, probably. Maybe we should have gone with Lilies in the Field.

In Other News
• The Best Griddle Temp For Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Shampoo

Turner Classic Movies sucked me in early this morning, causing me to watch nearly all of a 1975 film starring Goldie Hawn, Goldie Hawn' mini-skirts, Warren Beatty, juror #7 in 12 Angry Men, and a 17-year-old Carrie Fisher.

Shampoo.

Beatty plays George Roundy, a hairdresser in Beverly Hills who bangs every one of his customers, and follows his attempts to juggle these relationships on the night before the 1968 presidential election. I'll say this, I am certain that Ben Stiller spent some time with this film when he was formulating his Zoolander character.

Such an experience is one reason I keep the silver channels. Through my Saturday, I had on this nutty film, but earlier they played Bad Day at Black Rock, which I'd seen before but is always worth a view. This stars Spencer Tracy as a one-armed guy who stops into a weird backwards town looking for someone. The dude has a bum arm, but he can still kick Ernest Borgnine's ass. Then they showed Gilda, which is the reason men sit up a bit in their chairs when you say the words "Rita Hayworth."

Since I'm thinking about movies, one should probably give a moment to reflect on Sidney Poitier, who, strangely, has been on my mind the past month or so. Lilies in the Field, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, how do movies get any better than these? Poitier died this week but leaves behind a trove of amazing work.

Walking Your Doggies

Op-Ed: What the U.S. can learn from Stalin's abortion ban (Los Angeles Times)

It's Friday Ya Bastids

I Never Meant To Cause You Any Sorrow

Insurrection

In the early summer of 1989 in Washington, D.C., my Dad and I took a Metro downtown (or maybe we drove) and went to the Capitol to see the mighty legislator Claude Pepper lie in state. As I recall, it was kind of on a whim. He at the time was running his own newsletter so his schedule was flexible; I was a kid, so my schedule was flexible. We woke up, he said hey, let’s go see Claude, and we went.

My Dad up and moved to D.C. a few years before this. By this time, he had purchased a hovel of a house over the river in Virginia that he would soon raze and replace. So I had been hanging out in D.C. for several years by that time. I was commuting like a pro by age 15, taking the Metro to wherever I liked, and where I liked was often to the National Mall. My favorite spot was the Lincoln Memorial, where you could stand at the man’s feet and see so much of our Nation’s Capital’s great landmarks all in a line. I’d sometimes walk the whole way from Lincoln, down to the Vietnam, along the Mall passing all of the great museums, past the Washington, and then wonder at the majesty of our U.S. Capitol building.

I would later spend a semester in D.C. via a program sponsored by my school, interning and visiting various interest groups and lobby shops. I would work a summer there as a busboy just off of Georgetown Much later, I would finally succumb and move there, landing a job on a magazine published by a trade association, and ending up as their Web guy until the job was too much for me. I lasted there 13 years. And, when the weather was nice, a lunchtime walk around the White House was a usual event. (This blog, in fact, was born there, a nice way at the time to get this introvert to go out and meet people.)

Washington, D.C. is in my backbone. And though I haven’t even been there in more than a decade, it is one of the places in the world that I call home. It is decades of memories. And many of those memories involve that big beautiful bicameral building.

So I was properly horrified watching the events of January 6, 2021. I was not just horrified for my country, or for my government, or for the insurrection’s victims. It was as if my own house was being mauled. It was as if someone had crapped all over my temple. I think of the fellow who sat with a big grin on his face with a foot up on Speaker Pelosi’s desk. I think of those morons rifling through legislators’ notes looking for “dirt,” as if they had half the brain-power required to even comprehend what was on those papers. I think of that douche in the horn-hat crowing from the lectern, those who climbed the walls, those who came prepped with plastic cuffs, and my blood boils.

Due to this, yes, I wanted to hear more from Attorney General Merrick Garland today. I have liked to imagine that his demeanor through his speech would be closer to how I feel about this event, that he’d get a vein-bulge on his forehead, that his eyes might bug out some, that he’d clench his fists and declare that heads will roll. But Garland doesn’t seem to be the veiny-forehead type. C’est la vie.

But I want to see heads roll for this. 365 days now and I have yet to witness this cathartic experience. I want heads to roll. I want tales told. I want names. I want to know who paid for this. I want to know who advocated for it. I want these people to suffer as I suffered seeing my home, my temple, so horribly violated.

More than anything, I want that orange idiot to be shuffled off in chains for this. Not for tax evasion. Not for fraud. This. I fear largely that this country may punish him for his toilet business practices but may never assign him accountability for his septic tank presidency. The Republican Senate failed to do this job. It failed to do it twice. And while the Attorney General is taking massive pressure to do something regarding this, I think every conversation about that should note that had the Senate done its job in February 2021, Garland’s position would not be nearly as precarious as it is now. He would feel far less political pressure as he does now to do the right thing, to prosecute this doorknob to the fullest extent of the law. Don’t land this on Merrick Garland. Land it on Mitch McConnell. He drove the getaway car.

As an American. As a person who used to live there and considered it home to my heart. As a person who followed public policy since I was 4 years old. As a guy who took a field trip with his Dad to see Clace Pepper’s dead bald head. As a person who would genuflect entering the Capitol but would refuse to do so in any other building.

I detest what took place one year ago. I hate them all. I hate them all with a passion that spills bile from my eyes, from my mouth, from my penis. I hate them all. I hope they all find a place in a burny place after they die, I hope that burny place chops them into little pieces one crouton at a time. I want them to suffer. I want them to know that what they did wrong. They invaded my home. They violated me personally. And I want them to pay the price.

Let’s go.

Laugh Now

From the sheet music of the Frank Zappa composition Penis Dimension.

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