Posted 8:28 PM by Gene

If the Web's bad side is preserving no-talents who'd race to oblivion but for the yelling of monomaniacs, its good side is occasionally rescuing the undeserved from it. Such is the case with Vess L. Ossman, the premiere banjoist of his day. That his output is exclusively acoustical (he died in 1923, two years before the first commercial "electrical" discs) does not blunt that he was really good. The banjo recorded quite well on the horn, and he cut hundreds of cylinders and discs. Though he played a wide-ranging repertoire he seems to have done best with rags. It is hard to imagine he didn't influence the bluegrass boys, and for the better. Archive.org has collected his recordings but I'd guess the celebrated UCSB Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project has crafted a superior sound, though its catalog is largely limited to Edisons. Here is a classic example. One thing I love about acoustical recordings is that for years they had opening announcements -- necessary as the artist and song title were only molded onto a cylinder's rim, and early phonographs (indeed most phonographs up to the LP era) could only play one song at a time.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: We end up paying a ransom for our captain.

FURTHER TRANSLATION: The captain has shown far more bravery than THE ONE, but that goes without saying.

Posted 6:23 PM by Gene

Bogle slowly takes his seat on the train, then contorts his arthritic hands to push the recline button. After taking a pull from his coffee, he ticks off some grim statistics: U.S. family wealth plummeted 18% last year, the most since the 1930s; $9 trillion in stock market value has vanished since 2007; the Dow Jones industrial average touched 6500 in March, a level not seen since Bill Clinton's second inauguration. And yet (and yet!) the financial services industry took home some $500 billion in fees last year. "What the hell for?" he thunders. "If they looked after other people's money with the same care they look after their own, we wouldn't have to be bailing out banks."

You got us there.

Posted 6:16 PM by Gene

This week on the cover of ZEITGEIST: EPILEPSY.

Perhaps JonBoy prayed on bended knee to the LORD GOD ST. WARREN, Who told him to lay off the customer-service clerks -- for a week.

In the international editions -- "CHEAP OIL FOREVER". This isn't a contrary indicator, is it?

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

White House says Obama getting updates on pirates

We are certainly happy to know that!

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

Thirty or so years ago Brendan Byrne (Brendan who?) predicted permanent prosperity for Monopoly City. Today all it has are slot-machine boxes; and they may not last. Oh well, back to living...



...in the gheeee-TTOOOOO....

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

A new feature for Firefox! Its button plays hide and seek in the taskbar. With this sort of behavior it could make the BUGMEISTERS look good.

Posted 10:36 PM by Gene

Here's another Amazon.com thread of note. Most seem to agree "music" stinks, and then quite a few suggest for antidotes the whangers and bangers of the last three decades who've vastly added new stink. Lack of taste is almost a virulent disease.

P. S. John Simon, having just seen the stage attraction at a new Branson East theme park, offers a definition of whanging and banging:

“Rock of Ages” is innovative even for the most experienced critics: For the first time, we are asked to review Noise. Not pure noise, to be sure, but noise encroached on by a smattering of unmusical music, stultifying lyrics, banal dialogue and a story that carries triviality to new heights, or lows. It is impure noise, against which the best earplugs offer only partial relief.

Sounds like a -- rock opera, or the kind of thing that's earned thousands of five-star ratings.

Posted 9:20 PM by Gene

Yahoo! Japan has developed a new form of electronic spying. Oh yes, it's calling it a "billboard" but it takes pictures. It's creepy enough that it's "intelligent" and aims ads at passersby by sex and demographic. If we're going to have our privacy further invaded let's at least hand the "billboards" to law enforcement to further pretend they can catch criminals with cameras.

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

Our SLICK Pick-Up Line of the Day! Not even Anonymous could have improved on it! Pffffffffffffffffffft!

And our Slick Pick-Up Line RETORT of the Day!

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

I don't know what Peggy "BS" Noonan is up to. Okay, on 9/11 even investment bankers were heroes -- but not because they were investment bankers. I don't think it will help their cause trying to extend the lease on their heroism.

(Via the usual NRO)

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH, we didn't think we were voting for someone like THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!

Well then who were you voting for, squooshy "moderate" Catholics?

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

In some other world, Japan's prime minister would be laughed out of office. But let us take him seriously -- he foresees a "$200 billion to $300 billion market" for anime. To that end he's spending $120 million in stimulus money for a "National Comprehensive Centre for Media Art". If we take our top ten media tyrannies, with operations worldwide, their revenues scarcely approach $300 billion. This buffoon thinks he can build TEN PEOPLE WARNERS or EIGHT ESPNCORPS with funny looking characters with big faces, huge eyes, tiny pug noses, and pinch-hole lips. Most likely he will get away with it because government is a synonym for incompetence.

Asō has faced low approval poll numbers almost since his ascension to Japan’s highest post last September.

Even an anime site knows better.

Posted 2:41 PM by Gene

Wonder how often this has happened here: some "pinheads" have been convicted of staging some sort of PR0N stunt at a memorial for Canada's Great War dead -- the third time it's happened. That someone cares enough to get mad shows our northern neighbors may not yet have thrown themselves on the funeral pyre.

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

When first I saw this story about a GE BANCORP NETWORK factotum at LEAVEOURFRONTPAGEALONE.COM my first thought was "screamer". Then I saw this: "He said Bromstad was 'not a screamer' but a 'professional . . . who leaves people alone so they can do their jobs.'" That a SUPERBIGGIE like Dick Wolf comes to the rescue of this exec proclaims that most network busybodies are screamers, and they hurl lots of their screaming at us, and that's why we should make their lives as difficult as possible by continuing to pay them no mind, a silence more deafening than any screaming.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Speaking of sick:

Source: Samantha Is Sick of Lohan Drama

You know, if this constant Web nuisance were as good at ac-TING as at getting her name plastered everywhere -- oh, we forgot: that's an accomplishment nowadays.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

Hey WAX: I've got a better name for your site:

WHOCARES.COM!

Shucks, it's taken.

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

The good thing about Cuba: it has lots of "classic cars."

I wonder why.

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

One of the great clichés of modern times is that people fail to communicate. With the Web they fail to communicate more easily and thoroughly than ever. Most Web communications are one-way, even through the much-vaunted social networks. To paraphrase a newspaper ombudspoop (I wish I could find the link), writing a letter to the editor doesn't work because it's a one-way street; nearly every time you hear nothing back. So with Web communications; with so many one-way chats comes ever mounting frustration. That's why I liken comments to spitting in a fierce wind. But what if you're angry and you try to keep it inside?

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

The Daily Beast is going to keep a running tally of mass gun violence in America....

...until we lose interest, or until Tina fails to find a sugar daddy, whichever comes first.

We are slowly realizing that the Web, in some insidious ways, is worse than the elaborate system of hackery it's replacing.

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: As recorded ...sound becomes fragmented (a consequence in no small way of recorded...sound having no talents) it must rely on gimmicks like the 140-CHARACTER FAD. Once musicians could sell themselves with a song; now they must sell themselves jumping up and down on an electronic street corner, for deep inside they know they can't cut it otherwise.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

Hey Anonymous! When do YOU start writing in ALL CAPS?

And the sad thing is somewhere, somewhere, there's buried in Anonymous an intelligent, thoughtful writer; but all those years toadying to SLICK and the success of that NOVEL may have buried them permanently.

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

I could use a little more boredom in my life. After a struggle registering I left a comment on a certain Web site for a particularly egregious piece (I will not link). I don't like leaving comments, in part because I have my blog (for what that's worth, which is zero), in part because they're mostly spitting in a fierce wind, and also because most comments are ritten by peepol hoo spel fonetikly, and augment their ignorance with a gust of four-letter words. Also I must confess to wondering if I've hit a fly with an anvil. Much as I would welcome thoughtful, intelligent comments -- I am eager for someone to prove me wrong; it would make my blog better, although that would take a lot -- with so many phreaks out there I won't do it, and moderating them would take more time than posting. Indeed after the burst of nerves and anger I had trouble calming myself down commenting. It is such an empty thing; blogging has made me a more anxious and suspicious creature than otherwise, and I am rewarded with people looking up pictures of Sophia Loren and a fat beauty-pageant contestant. (Although that's better than it was.) Yet I keep at it, hoping someday to be noticed, and that it will be worth the nerves.

Posted 11:29 AM by Gene

Once I made fun of Prof. Krugman as a knee-jerk left-wing idiot. I have not had reason to do so lately. In his latest column he suggests banking be made "boring". While this is an excellent notion I further suggest other businesses be made boring. Too many businesses have become exciting as they learned to please the inner megalomaniac. Obviously banking was the first, but it wasn't the last. I think we respected other aspects of American life more when they were boring. Excitement does not seem to have done our pocketbooks or our souls much good.

Posted 11:55 PM by Gene

I like this: Tantrum throwers like PILLHEAD throw a tantrum. This causes somebody named Achenbach to throw a tantrum (only he wouldn't call it a tantrum; he'd call it "irony"). This causes PILLHEADS to throw more tantrums, which causes Achenbachs to throw more ironies, and soon so many people throw so many tantrums and ironies it causes mass high blood pressure and people to throw their computers out the window.

Ache, how's your agent doing? Lined up a spot on a cable newsance yet?

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Passion plays have gone into full Cecil B. DeMille-fake mode, complete with a considerable dose of Grand Guignol -- in short, they've gone tacky show-biz -- but the writer is too much the GRATE.COM gentle ironist to attack, although he hints at one good reason for it in his last graf, when he says all this money for theatrical blood might better be spent on "throw[ing] a dinner...and invit[ing] the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame." Though a little GRATE.COM cleverly worded it would serve a useful purpose, which so much of religious observance doesn't.

Patton Dodd is a doctoral candidate in religion and literature at Boston University and author of My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion.

Can't KAPLAN, INC.'s teacher's pet find writers who are older than 35?

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The WORRRULLLLD COMMUNITY is as ready to solve the pirates as it is all the other problems.

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

ED MURROW RAN AN INFOMERCIAL!

Call out HOWIE HAIRSHIRT!

"We were told after the bit that everything he said was ad-libbed," Esch said.

By his WRITERS?

(This, by the way, is from the one newspaper Web site in a formerly two-newspaper town. The question isn't whether this would have run in two newspapers, but how much more of such garbage runs in the surviving paper. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MARK!)

Posted 2:35 PM by Gene

More evidence THE BOOM YEARS ARE COMING BACK!!!!!

I'd say the BIG C is trying to waft a little of its fantastic rep over to its Web site. Man it smells.

OR:



(Clip posted 2:42 p. m.)

Posted 2:30 PM by Gene

And a car can be a lethal weapon, as in this awful case. Do we outlaw cars -- or motorists?

I'm for the latter -- and I'm not altogether joking.

P. S. at 7:32 p. m. A DRUNK DRIVER, natch. And it comes just weeks after two other drunk-driving catastrophes in that area, not to mention the drunk-driving arrest of Donte Stallworth in Florida. Where's the outrage here?

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

Before we start talking gun control, maybe we ought to have a Federal law outlawing ownership of snakes.

Pffffffffffffffffffffft!!!!!

(Via ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS.com)

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

French Economist Argues for an 80-percent Tax on the Rich

...and con-SER-va-tives have argued for a ZERO-PERCENT TAX.

Economic fantasies beget economic fantasies. The laissez-faire of the Roaring Twenties paved the way for 90-percent tax rates, which over time led to trickle-down, which in turn led to bubbles and Lehman. This is just another fantasy, to be answered in kind with a fantasy.

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

We wonder how many stories our crusading truth-telling First-Amendment defenders ignored that they shouldn't have. Slavery, racial discrimination, the Holocaust and the Killing Fields come to mind.

We wonder how many stories our crusading truth-telling First-Amendment defenders have obsessed over to the point of driving their readers insane that they'd have been better off ignoring -- like the subject of THIS ONE, for instance.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

During the interview last week, Pelosi called attention to a small statue of a coal miner that she has always kept in her office. It was a gift to her father from the late Jennings Randolph, who represented West Virginia in the House and Senate.

She said she points to the statue when she discusses energy and environmental questions with her mining-state colleagues. "They need not fear what I would write as a bill, (that I would) say, 'Let's write a bill without coal,'" she said. "You can't."

Those are not the words of an ideologue. In fact, that's the one thing Nancy Pelosi isn't.

TRANSLATION: A left-wing version of EM without the fake cigar ash in his prose.

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

If PVT. ZELL's LaLa boys are so concerned about their NEWSGATHERING INTEGRITY why do they run SO MUCH ENTERTAINMENT BS?

At least THIS IS SLUGGED AS AN AD, UNLIKE YOUR REPORTING.

(Via the usual Romy, who is FURIOUS LaLa would run THIS sort of thing but probably wouldn't mind the OTHER as that's JERNALISM)

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

Obama invites friends, aides to seder dinner

Wait a second, didn't he win the...oh, never mind.

Yes, this clever PR is another reason to STEAL FROM THE ASSPRESS.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

And in yet another demonstration why DEAN's plaintive cries to people to STOP STEALING OUR ASSPRESS!!! deserve to be ignored, one of its sports flacks types what he supposes to be iconoclasm about The Golfing Machine, merely confirming that he is one, and that the flacks, who'd hit their first tee shot so far out of bounds it would land in an adjacent state, are among his biggest press agents.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

OH oh, EM discovers who Jonathan Yardley is:

Can you believe it? In the public prints, I have been called a "pipsqueak" and a "self-important pipsqueak" at that.

Two things, EM: 1. You never wrote a scholarly history of American English; and 2. It is highly unlikely that Menck would have used DEMOCRAT AS AN ADJECTIVE.

And a third thing: Menck never hired DAVID BROCK either.

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE DE LAWD!!!!! PROSPERITY IS BACK!!!!!

And how much of those profits are OUR DOING, ST. WARREN?

Meantime people aren't buying as much at Walmart, which may mean the crisis has ended only among people who daydream with our money.

P. S. at 10:40 a. m. Although maybe that's because folks are RUSHRUSHRUSHING to higher-end stores! Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!!, AMERICA'S SHOW-BIZ JUNK LEADER, issues a CLARION CALL FOR GUN CONTROL!!!!!

We were wondering when the hacks would start with this. Certainly we were overdue for a lecture on a problem that would not be solved but by Bunsen Honeydews, and at the total destruction of our society. One doesn't wish to minimize the problem but we read stories daily of innocent people run down by drunk drivers, and their numbers must far outweigh the people killed by psychos. The hacks are nothing though without their desire for total control, which (as we've repeated ad nauseum) does NOT explain newspaper stocks under $1.

Indeed Kevin is so GUNG-HO he types this:

Since 1976, an average of 18 mass fatal shootings have occurred yearly in the USA, killing nearly 3,000 people....

Since you meant 3,000 total why didn't you use the word -- or were you trying to exaggerate? And how many were domestic disputes that went out of control? And how many happened in ghetto neighborhoods which are exempt from our concerns? And what about before 1976?

Guys, will you PLEASE go back to SHOW-BIZ ADVERTORIALS? It's the ONLY thing you do well. A special NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD (Political Division) to KEVIN!

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

The world has a new definition of BLITHERING IDIOT.

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

Speaking of MadAve, we see its storefronts are emptying. You'd think all those supercharged ad-agencies and their clients would do their best to put up a brave false front before the world. Some civic group on our South Street is filling empty storefronts with art. Why not fill up these storefronts with ADS?

Posted 5:53 PM by Gene

What Orangutans Taught Simon Clift About Social Media

...we fear may not differ much from what many assorted simians have taught the length and breadth of MadAve.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

From ARCHDaily:



Well, not ALL modern architecture is uncivilized.

Although we must wonder if those two trees needed a mortgage.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Evidently JonBoy got enough compliments over his "God is Dead" (or rather "Is God Dead?") shtick that he's launched another shtick saying he really didn't mean to say that God show go Unitarian, or PC, or whatever it was we didn't read because he's a disciple of REV. PETERS. (That or he's drumming up support from his soon-to-shrink rate base.) Look JonBoy, you don't have to convince us you're knee-jerk liberal; but why must you spend so much of your time convincing people you're not?

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

And pray tell what will prevent the spammers from ultimately conquering the social networks, or that immortal 140-character fad of the moment?

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

With all due respect to Marty, when most people speak of The One's "nuances" they're praising themselves for their good taste. Nuance may be nothing more than pricey equivocation. What makes The One so Nixonian is that even this far into his reign we can't pin him down exactly; he's as Slick as Slick but because he's sexy we call him good. He can't continue to govern with verbal bobbing and feinting. But maybe that's all we'll get as in so many ways he's as fully formed as used Silly Putty.

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: G000,000,000GLE is the next eBay. Pfffffffffffffft!

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

It sounds crazy: Just a week after the White House scolded Chrysler LLC for relying too much on gas guzzlers, the company is heading to a marquee auto show Wednesday to unveil a new SUV.

Chrysler insists the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which clocks in at 20 mpg in its two-wheel-drive version and 19 in four-wheel-drive, is a crowd favorite and a crucial part of its lineup.

“This is a very important vehicle for us. It’s one of the primary legs of the Chrysler stool,” Chrysler spokesman Rick Deneau said.

TERMITES!

As Wolkonowicz put it: “To some extent, it’s refreshing to me to see them not kowtowing to the government.”

Chrysler -- The Con-SER-va-tive Auto Company!

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

INSURANCE COMPANIES! GET YOUR RED-HOT BAILOUT!

Which they will use to raise premiums, no doubt.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Well maybe we don't have to worry about all those Third-Worlders buying cars yet -- the Indians aren't buying the Nano.

They have more sense than American auto executives.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

OOOOH, if you run advertorials and insult your readers' intelligence, the American Society of Magazine Editors might withhold an award -- "but that rarely occurs"!

TRANSLATION: There's NO ECONOMIC COST to insulting your readers' intelligence!



LONG LIVE HENRY LUCE!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

"Why didn't the waters part, the sun shine and all ills of the world disappear because President Obama came to Europe this week?"

I don't know -- didn't you rely on the hacks for your weather forecast?

"That wasn't our expectation. . . ."

That was ours -- thanks to your @#$%&* weather forecasters.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Speaking of stocks, can anyone come up with a line that would more happily trip off the tongue of a con-SER-va-tive than "free-enterprise Darwinism"? Who cares if hundreds of thousands of workers go extinct?

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

We know when a stock hits single digits it's in danger of elimination. When do the CEOs realize their beloved sports perks are headed that same direction? The SELIGISM Festival hit a single-digit rating last year, and now the NPCPCAA's CEO Extravaganza hit an all-time low in the championship game. Yes, some have pulled back, but that's largely because their businesses are in the doghouse. These showoffs must realize to many people sports is boring, and the hard core fans are getting increasingly restless. And the hard core should really worry the CEOs because beyond reason they've stuck with sports through all manner of insults like strikes, salaries and ASTERISKS.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

Well, as we should have foreseen, that PR0N incident at UMd ended with a fierce gust of hot air from all sides. We should have known it because college abandoned their students' safety and their remaining marbles in general decades ago. We would not be surprised down the road apiece to hear of some vicious gang rape or menage à mille, or of an NPCPCAA probation (REMEMBER LEFTY DRIESELL!), or of a big protest for disinvestment.

Posted 7:33 PM by Gene

Recession forces Paris Hilton and her BFF to economize

Maybe Paris and her BFF economizing are one reason you clowns are having to economize in the press box.

This is also an argument, we're afraid, for stealing from the ASSPress.

OR:

Reuter's [SIC] Tom Glocer: 'Why Does The New York Times Need to Have 6-700 [SIC] Journalists?'

The former GanNETt at a not-very-spendthrift $2.69.

(Second and fourth links via the usual Romy)

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

Some countries have their scourges -- like the one just struck by an earthquake:

Italy has a record of botching recovery programmes. The performance of the authorities following the last big earthquake, in Umbria and Le Marche 12 years ago, is encouraging. By last September, 92% of houses that been damaged had been made habitable again. But what haunts the survivors of the latest disaster is the Irpinia earthquake of 1980. It was the prelude to scandalous waste and corruption. Cash was diverted to the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, and even today some of the victims are still living in what was intended as temporary accommodation.

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

The newsrag up north that shares a name with a toothpaste has done its own take on religious decline. Look, you can't deny something's at work here. What used to be called assimilation works against religious identity; so does the dumbing down of religious traditions. So does prosperity, which knocks a pretty fair prop out from under the need for churchgoing. Modern culture offers its own version of omnipotence. That Islam almost alone shows an increase is a function of its community's intense social cohesion and a faith strict enough to inspire -- militants. In the end, who wants to be bored with bad music, bad preaching and bad politics -- what too much of religious "life" has come to? The people are not dead to religion, but religion is too often dead to the people.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

I didn't really want to mention this, but Paramount Pete says he wasn't forced up! Whether true or false we know somebody's full of it.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Somehow we can't imagine Ol' Blue Eyes doing a "concept album about an electric car".

The "opener" is said to be "a big guitar thing that lumbers around for a few minutes". Wait, that's the history of rock!

“Her engine’s running, and her fuel is clean,” he sings. “She only uses it because she’s a machine.”

Hey One! We've got a national anthem for you!

Did Neil Young ever get a rotten review before? Isn't he one of the sacrosanct?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

And as if he doesn't take enough from PILLHEADS:

Obama Sides With Banks Accused of Racism

This, we must guess, is among the lesser of many evils the banks perpetrate. Things like redlining do go hand-in-hand with FEES.

It's times like these we see The One's good side. Now if only he could break the 'Prompter habit and stop talking from both sides of his mouth.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

A story like this may explain why the hacks are somewhat playing down the courageous action in Vermont. See, if we don't test armor on something, maybe holy cockroaches and other such types would test it out on humans. Usually the hack's first instinct is to quote the screaming meemies. Strangely we don't see it so much here either even if the hacks covertly take their side. No we don't like it that pigs must die. Humans shouldn't have to make up the difference.

(Or maybe because it's "ho-hum". The exact opposite of a PILLHEAD or a BOB HERBERT!!!!! is a guy obscuring any passion or forthrightness under a fog of cuteness -- the Mike Kinsley way, the GRATE.COM way.)

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

"I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him. There's plenty of critics in the arena. I think it's time for the ex-president to tap dance off the stage and let the current president have a go at solving the world's problems," the former president said in Calgary, Alberta on March 17. "He deserves my silence. And if he wants my help, he can pick up the phone."

I guess it's too much then for Vice-President Throttlebottom to shut his yap. He could have said we're doing our darnedest. No, he had to remember his "testing" gag. When do the folks with the visors and the pencil sticking through both ears start with their cheerleading?

I'd feel better, Abe, if the people pointing out our pitfalls weren't WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!! JR. and PILLHEAD'S ACCENT.

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

I've long thought of "The Corner" as the conservative watercooler but if we can be the pill for desperate times, we'll be here for you.

MS. TRAVERS, I wouldn't have used that word.

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

Casino big: Don't discuss economy with gamblers

Who cares if our lever pullers are suffering? Just so long as the gamb -- GAMING business suffers less!

I love such Good Samaritanship!

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

We had vaguely heard about this business with Wolverine and paid it no mind until we learned this morning that our favorite PR guy Rog was fired for pirating it. That's a no-no, Rog. You should have at least asked your bosses' permission first. Now we figure it will be a long time before we hit up FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News.com again, and probably a long time before we read Rog's juicy flattery, but stranger things have happened -- like Paramount Pete being kicked upstairs.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Officials plan to unseal a 118-count indictment Tuesday accusing a Chinese national of setting up a handful of fake companies to hide that he was selling millions of dollars in potential nuclear materials to Tehran.

Jeez, One, maybe if we can just make nice with the Chinese and tell them how much we love them, maybe they'll stop doing things like this. And golly One, we really ought to put a reassuring arm around Nukeman and say, "We understand."

We understand, all right. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Posted 10:01 PM by Gene

Hey Jim! Can we have all your girlfriends?

Just don't give us your brains (or lack thereof).

(Via On Deadline)

Posted 9:56 PM by Gene

In this age going to j-school would seem (to use an overworked term) counter-intuitive. The supposed job-hunting successes suggest if the hacks did counter-intuitive things they might do a better job. We doubt that -- and we doubt most of the newly minted j-school grads will stick with jernalism for long when they realize they're not lucky enough to be WOODSTEIN or Gene 'n' Roger.

Posted 9:51 PM by Gene

How many cute little companies with cute little names have been bought up by big companies only to be spat out when they proved indigestible? Coca-Cola has been playing a decades long game of catch-up to PepsiCo (despite the UNDYING GENIUS of RRRROBERTO GOIZUEEETA); ten years from now most of its profits will probably still come from its tooth-rotting syrup -- and caffeine.

Now this is the wave of the future at Coke: a high-tech soda fountain.

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

So yes, issue a condemnation in the Security Council to show one and all (especially the Japanese, who are sensitive about missiles flying over their territory) that we take this seriously. After that, send a message to North Korea's foreign ministry that we're ready to resume the six-party talks and to throw in a lot of incentives if Pyongyang is ready to change course—but that the next step must be theirs, not ours. It's time to stop playing their game.

TRANSLATION: Instead of dumping bowls of wet noodles on the Three-Millimeter-High tyrant, make him a nice tasty six-course noodle meal. It's still noodling.

Posted 7:14 PM by Gene

Movie rental company Blockbuster says the risk it may not complete financing deals raises "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern.

That doubt started when SUMNER bought it.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

These days, with the Wall Street bailout fueling populist rage, there is an opportunity for a new Mencken to show his mettle. But is there anyone among the current crop of right-wing pundits who can bear comparison to the Sage?

"Absolutely nobody," declares Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley, who edited Mencken's posthumous memoir My Life as Author and Editor.

"These people are self-important pipsqueaks," Yardley said, via e-mail. "I don't respect a single one of them, much less think that a single one of them deserves to be compared to H.L.M. I do have a measure of respect for David Brooks, whose knee doesn't seem to jerk in his sleep, but he's no Mencken and I suspect he'd be the first to say so."

And then, as if on cue:

Naturally, there are those on the right who would reject Yardley's assessment. "I THINK I AM THE RIGHT-WING MENCKEN!!!!!" Ann Coulter asserted on CNN in 2006. (For good measure, she also claimed to be the right-wing Mark Twain.) R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of The American Spectator, has been compared to Mencken, as have the Canadian writer Mark Steyn and humorist P.J. O'Rourke. (O'Rourke gets bonus points for being the H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.) [Self-important overemphasis added]

Despite his quasi-endorsement of David Gurgle Jr., we shall take it from a pro.

(Via the usual Romy, who wouldn't find a modern Mencken even if he were any good)

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Former Sen. Caspar Milquetoast Jr. is running for governor of Rhode Island!

The idea of a "coalition" of moderates of both stripes sounds so appealing in theory. In fact we get squoosh, and compromise in the worst sense, and the Dems remember they're cats, and Republicans remember they're dogs (or vice versa; I like cats and dogs). A politician has to stand for something, unlike Caspar, who stands on a big damp sponge. Unfortunately standing for something seems to mean PILLHEAD, or Speaker Babs.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

Having been a victim myself, through Madoff's West Coast feeder stalwart Chais, I know firsthand all about the high fees: 25% of income earned.

And STILL you invested?

Sorry though I feel for Bernie's victims, some of them may want to point the finger of blame at the mirror.

Posted 11:38 AM by Gene

The Flying Keyboard, on Freep's home page:

It will not save us. No basketball game can do that. No matter who wins tonight, Tuesday morning the jobs still will be gone, the factories still silent and empty, the houses still for sale or abandoned altogether.

Why do I suspect I'd find a big fat BUT when clicking on the link?

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

Somebody at The Econowiz is not taking The One seriously.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

North Korea's missile launch: UN punts, up to US now

In this game of football punting is the only play.

Posted 11:01 AM by Gene

TSA detains official from Ron Paul group

Aw, you shouldn'a done it, Der Homeland. Don't you realize the LaRouchites are basically harmless?

Except the ones on the street, who may give off germs.

Pfffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

Ford cuts debt by $9.9 billion; shares rally

Way to go big F! Not everyone in your biz is an incompetent.

Our auto industry can pull out of it, but it will be a long, hard slog.

Posted 10:36 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Is ESPNCORP's Pixar unit a victim of the curse of the intellectually self-satisfied -- and making films for itself?

(Via The Daily Beast)

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

Now if these "goons" had killed one of the paparazzi -- I think that would have been good PR, don't you?

Posted 9:25 AM by Gene

Paramount Pete's "quitting"!

Now we'll no longer know the thrill of having a real movee exec running a show-biz trade rag. There'll be others. (Or maybe not, the way rags have been going.)

(Via MediaBistro, who links to SUPERNIKKI!!!!!, who says he's been FIRED!!!!!!!!!! -- er, kicked upstairs. "Hollywood can now safely ignore Bart. Gray is the guy to suck up to there." And if he's the good show-biz flack we expect he is, he will return the favor.)

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Analyst: YouTube Will Lose Almost $500 Million This Year

If YouTube were in another business, and run by someone other than the Perfect Kingdom of Mountain View, would someone have shut it down by now?

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Just now I wandered into Roger Ebert's Journal and his sigh over life in the old newspaper days. One could say Rog should write a memoir but I don't know because Rog is sure of himself, he's very politically sure of himself, he's written lots of rave reviews and he's made zillions. I think his life story is all those raves. For a moment, though, he forgot all that, and we forgot all that, and he made his readers envy a life before computers, and marketing, and, yes, bloggers.

Posted 4:42 PM by Gene

Today in a convenience store we noticed the latest issue of Fortune. We are old enough to recall when it was a rich monthly, jammed with hundreds of ads; when the Fortune 500 was a media event and a keepsake worth preserving. (The 500 is all but forgotten, swarmed over by the maniacal listicles of Forbeslist.) The latest issue is 70 pages and contains an article on how to find work if you're suddenly unemployed. We would make fun of Fortune but its past hints that we've lost something irreplaceable.

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

Speaking of the mystery man, "a former top economic adviser to President George W. Bush" is fighting for his sanity because this convention of international blowhards that just adjourned omitted the word "free" before "market" in its communiqué. To which we say, look what our "free" markets just did.

(Via The Corner, which is also in a violently shaking tizz)

P. S. at 3:18 p. m. We see why Jo-NAH finds this uproariously funny. Jo-NAH, please scribble your jokes in the boys room.

Posted 2:17 PM by Gene

In the latest practical jokes from ARCHDaily.com:



The covered modernistic bridge to nowhere!

AND:



No! NO! Not ANOTHER artificial sex organ!

Or is this a polyester clam?

Posted 2:14 PM by Gene

President Barack Obama said Sunday that North Korea broke international rules by launching a rocket that could be used for long-range missiles, and called on the U.N. Security Council to punish the reclusive Asian nation.

With -- let me guess -- three buckets of wet noodles!

One, you're as good at posturing as Dubya!

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

Recession has even rappers singing blues

First off, [C]RAPPERS don't SING; second, when a JAAAHHHHNNRRUH like [C]RAP sees sales declines that has me whistling a happy tune.

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

That SELIGISM isn't coming back any time soon -- indeed that most of its success hinges on a cabal of greedy CEOs who are actually cutting back their sponsorships -- may be seen in that even THE RED SOX are faltering. We wouldn't bet on it staying so; but perhaps a few years weaned away from SELIGISM will teach some people that financing zillionaire mercenaries isn't that important after all.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

You know, PINCH, You're always talking about reducing Your staff as though it's a sin (never mind what You're trying to do up north); but consider, if You could eliminate all the stuff in Your rag that's spin, or a partisan ploy, or a press release, or an advertorial, or stuff that can't be confirmed, or stuff that rehashes stuff you'd run before, how thick do you think Your Paper would be? Four pages -- even with ads?

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MIKE!

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

Let us guess: Rev. JonBoy (himself a disciple of "Journalism's Relentless Centrist") is happy the Christian Right is "dead" and he proposes American religion become a mixture of Unitarianism and "realism" (and hard-core-left politics) -- along with a few platitudes to please the hicks. We wonder why KAPLAN, INC. bothers with this joke. If THE LORD GOD (an obsolete if not nonexistent character in JonBoy's world whose functions have largely been assumed by ST. WARREN) came down to try to change Zeitgeist He would leave totally defeated.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Our guys say the Three-Millimeter-Tall Despot launched a piece of junk into the ocean. On another planet his enemies would reclaim his junkyard in a war reminiscent of comic opera. Instead he knocks over the WORRRRULLLLD COMMUNITY with a feather.

Posted 10:25 AM by Gene

A world without nukes is a noble goal, which Iranians, North Koreans, Islamists and the psycho on the block will strive to make more difficult, but at least it's worth a try.

We see The One has given up on ditching the European missile defense shield. We only wish his avoidance of rigid ideology weren't limited to a few foreign-policy matters.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Posted 12:09 AM by Gene

If our president is reduced to a cliché, think of a mere hack at the ASSPress.