Jay Farrar & Ice Cube: The Hidden Connection

The Adios Lounge makes the link.

Lincoln Goes All In

I see that others have already picked up on this, but I was reading a news item about the coming flood of investigations the new Republican-controlled House intends to unleash when I noticed something very interesting in the background of the photo of Rep. Darrell Issa of California.  It's a painting executed in a very niche style: Republican Art.  It depicts a bunch of Republican presidents playing poker and busting a gut at a joke presumably told by Abe Lincoln, who appears with his back to the viewer.  Here's a closer look at what may be the cheesiest sh*t I've seen this side of a Thomas Kinkade. 

While the obvious analogy is to "Dogs Playing Poker", I think this painting perhaps has more in common with the popular dorm room poster, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, as both works replace the nameless figures in a familiar artwork with representations of historical figures in order to make some comment on those figures.  In the case of the reworking of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, the viewer is supposed to gather than Elvis, Bogart, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe were, despite (or because of) their fame, just as lonely and isolated as Hopper's diner crowd.  In the painting I'll call Republican Presidents Playing Poker, the message appears to be that were these leaders of various eras to be gathered around a card table, they would surely find themselves to be kindred spirits, as unified in their Republicanism as the poker-playing dogs are by their dog-ness.  As for the joke Lincoln is telling in the painting, I'd be willing to bet Bush 41's pile of chips that it involves Nancy Pelosi. 

Compared To What?

The next person who refers to Newt Gingrich as an "intellectual" should get smacked in the mouth with a Susan Sontag book.

Newt Gingrich is an intellectual like Justin Bieber is a headliner at the Gathering of the Juggalos.

Has a person ever become so willfully stupid that their PhD was voided?  I'm imagining a guy from Tulane showing up at Gingrich's office, removing the sheepskin from its frame, stamping a giant black VOID across it, and handing it back to him.


END OF RANT

The Selected Ballads' Brief Foray Into UK Election Coverage, Part Two

Neck-and-neck with Ed Balls in my Top Three Favorite Names of British Politicians are:
 
Alistair Darling (outgoing Chancellor of the Exchequer)
and
Eric Pickles (newly minted Communities and Local Government Secretary)

The Selected Ballads' Brief Foray Into UK Election Coverage

The BBC is reporting that the bookmakers William Hill have someone named Ed Balls at 12/1 to be the next Labour leader (at 12:42 EST, he's now at 16/1).  That is all.

Dream Journal #6 - Lost In A Dream, or Eliot Spitzer Live At The Village Vanguard

I dreamed that I was going to see the Paul Motian-Jason Moran-Greg Osby trio at the Village Vanguard (which I hope to actually do in waking life later this week).  I was going to the late set, but got there as the early set was close to wrapping up.  Motian was playing a cardboard drum kit with parallelogram-shaped drums, and Moran was on cello (even though there was a piano on stage).  Then more cellists came up out of the audience and joined in as Motian quickly showed them the tune.  Not sure what Osby was doing during all this.

Then, as I was waiting around between sets, the Vanguard had been transformed into some kind of big hall, and former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer was leading everybody outside, telling us we had to clear the hall because a woman had just given birth to twins.  I was waiting for an old friend to arrive for the late set, but it took me a long time to find him and I'd forgotten my cell phone.  Then I ran into one of my cousins who was attending a class reunion at a nearby school.  I don't remember much more, except that at some point I helped carry a piece of the cardboard drum kit to the stage from some kind of truck or trailer.

Boca Grande Strikes Again

For pure entertainment value, I recommend taking a look at the slideshow that goes with this story (the highlights are in an embedded slideshow in the left column).  It's a Republican Party PowerPoint document on how to improve fundraising.  It turned up on Politico.com after a hard copy was left behind at a $2,500-a-head retreat at the sounds-like-something-from-a-satirical-novel Gasparilla Inn & Club in Boca Grande, Florida (!!!).

My top 7 favorite things from this document:

• "Putting the Fun Back in FUNdraising"
• "Tchochkes!!!!!!!!!" (used twice on the same page)
• "Peer to Peer PRESSURE!"
• Two items under "Motivation to Give": "fear" and "reactionary"
• Separated-at-birth-style side-by-side of Harry Reid and Scooby Doo
• A guy from Brooklyn is co-chair of something called the "Young Eagles" (what will Colbert do with this?)
• An upcoming event called the "Young Eagles Texas Bird Hunt", which I suspect is a euphemism for "Conservative bros havin' some beers, cruisin' for UT chicks on 6th Street in Austin"

[Update: I see that the Democrats have jumped right on this and are using the leaked slideshow as part of their own fundraising appeal.  Essentially: the other guys' fundraising is cynical and fear-based, therefore give us money.  This is why I avoid posting about politics.  It's a stinking, poisonous mire.]

Richard Nixon, Big Fan Of The Kennedys

The Nixon Tapes are just full of gems, including this timely one (highlighted by the AP) in which Nixon discusses his motives for offering Secret Service protection to Ted Kennedy:

"You understand what the problem is," Nixon told Haldeman and Ehrlichman on Sept. 7, 1972. "If the (SOB) gets shot they'll say we didn't furnish it (protection). So you just buy his insurance.

"After the election, he doesn't get a ... thing. If he gets shot, it's too damn bad. Do it under the basis, though, that we pick the Secret Service men.

"Understand what I'm talking about?"

As the additional quotes in the AP story make clear, what Nixon was talking about was recruiting Secret Service agents for the Kennedy detail that would be willing to dish any dirt they uncovered back to the White House. That's some evil genius s**t right there.