Last Call

Open Letter to Senator George Voinovich

2009-07-24T13:19:00.001-07:00

Dear Senator Voinovich,

I, like many, am very concerned about the true identity of own of this nation's most powerful elected officials.

I speak of course of John Boehner. Why won't he show his birth certificate? How do we know that the minority leader in the House is an American Citizen? Are we supposed to merely take his word, the word of a foreigner about this?

We need to take America back from these insidious interlopers. Please introduce legislation making it a requirement that all members of congress prove their American citizenship as a requirement to hold office.

Come to think of it, sir, have we seen your Birth Certificate? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?

Thank you,
Rev. Caleb Bullen

You should write your legislators too about this. Seriously, have you seen John Boehner? He doesn't look like he's even from this planet much less America.

The Opposite of a Call to Arms

2009-06-02T17:58:00.001-07:00

In St. Paul?s first letter to the Corinthians he wrote, ?When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.?

Over the last 30 years politics in America have become increasingly childish, petulant and angry to the point where it seems like we often do not see or hear those we disagree with as people who have differing views but as an enemy to be crushed at all cost.

And yet even the most disparate of us have more that we agree on than we don?t. We all value education, safety, family, and American values as we define them.

When men like Eric Rudolph, James Adkisson and Scott Roeder commit their acts of violence they may help their cause in the short term insomuch as it makes abortion more expensive because of security costs and may scare some away from their legal rights however in the long run they hurt their cause by sullying the reputation of the entire pro-life movement and its supporters in the eyes of the majority of Americans.

In light of Dr. George Tiller?s murder there has been a lot of mention of how certain news channels and websites went out of their way to call Dr. Tiller a murderer or Nazi and during the Bush years there were many on the opposite side of the political spectrum who called the president and his supporters murderers and Nazis. In either case, no matter how heart felt the opinion, such expressions reflected more poorly on the speaker than their subject matter.

Can we as Americans agree to disagree where we do without name calling, without death threats, without incendiary speech or literal calls to arms? Can we as Americans, right and left, pro life and pro choice, religious and atheist, come together to discuss, debate and even disagree like mature responsible people?

And if we can, can we also come together in calling out those who can?t, whether we agree with their fundamental position or not? Can we as a society put away these childish things and speak, at long last, as adults?

Reverse Racism and why its not the same thing as Racism

2009-06-01T13:21:00.001-07:00

In the media wake of Sotomayor?s nomination the term Reverse Racism has been thrown about like so much confetti at a Rip Taylor performance and some contrarians have argued that there is no such thing as Reverse Racism; that there is only racism no matter who perpetrates it.

This argument seems logical enough at first blush. If you pre judge somebody based on their skin color, gender, religion, or ethnic background, does it really matter what your skin color, gender, religion or ethnic background is? As it turns out the answer is yes.

Semantically, racism is racism and bigotry is bigotry and it doesn?t matter one whit if you?re a Hutu who hates Tsotsis, a Jew who hates Palestinians or Rush Limbaugh hating? well? everybody. Unfortunately, we do not live in a purely semantic world and in the real world the bigotry of those in power has more impact than the bigotry of the oppressed.

The racist statement piles on to the tide of existing racism in our society and taken in with said tide helps to make the non white, non male person less likely to feel they can truly excel. Less likely to try. Less likely to? really if I have to explain how racism in general is bad to you, you shouldn?t be reading this in the first place. Let?s move on.

The reverse racist statement though it may be just as bad a statement as the racist statement will only have the same effect when, ironically, there isn?t any more racism. Sotomayors statement isn?t going to make any white kids grow up and think they can?t be judges. Questioning the intelligence of a woman who graduated 2nd in her class at Yale while suggesting she might have only gotten there through affirmative action, taken in consort with the other racism in society, could make a young Latina think she can?t be a judge.

I know this is all very touchy feely and shades of grey for many people but basically it comes down to this. Once there are no pay gaps based on gender or race, when our government representatives approximately represent the demographics of the people, when the percentage of CEOS or Firepersons, or Nurses breaks down approximately by the demographics of the communities they?re in, then there will be no reverse racism because there will be no more societal lean toward non-reverse racism. You can?t have one without the other.

(so shut up, Cracker ass cracker!)

Finally Good News from Wall Street

2009-05-27T11:05:00.001-07:00

The FDIC reported today that for the first quarter of 2009, the banks made a profit of 7.6 Billion dollars. Not too shabby, eh? And that?s profit not income which gets the cost of salaries, rents, and the little chains for the pens taken out of it but profit which shareholders get to take home and roll around naked in. 7.6 Billion dollars of the stuff. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn?t it? Madonna doesn?t have 7.6 Billion dollars and she used to live in a castle! But when you put it into context, all of the sudden it doesn?t seem like all that much money.

For one thing, in 2008 the banks made 19.3 Billion dollars. So if you have a bad attitude about these things you could look at the meager 7.6 Billion dollar profits as a loss of 11.7 dollars. Can you imagine losing 11.7 Billion dollars? I lost two dollars this week because I left some spare change on my desk at work over the long weekend and I?ve been kicking myself ever since. If I had to multiply that loss by five billion or so, I don?t know what I?d do. But even that is candy coating things.

The American Tax Payer was kind enough to loan/give the banks 700 Billion dollars between that 19.3 Billion respectable first quarter of 20008 and the measly 7.6 Billion dollars of 2009?s first quarter. So if you add that in, the banks really made no profit at all and had a net loss of 692.4 Billion dollars. Fortunately, we?re all agreeing to forget about that 700 Billion dollars for now. Because if the FDIC came out and said, ?Good news! The banks have only lost 692.4 Billion Dollars this quarter.? It might hurt consumer confidence.

Good thing nobody?s putting things into perspective on the business pages.

Open Letter to Congresswoman Marcia Fudge

2009-05-19T13:46:00.001-07:00

Dear Rep. Fudge,

I am disheartened to hear of congresses blocking of the $80 Million to close Guantanamo Bay's Prison.

It appears that the Democratic Party is cowering in fear from the roar of a mouse named GOP.

Why should democrats, or America as a whole, have to buy into the Republican's cowardice. I'm sorry that they are so terribly afraid to have detainees in domestic prisons but these are not times for fearful leaders. If our prisons can hold serial killers, drug-addicts, rapists, and arsonists, they surely can handle a handful of accused terrorists as well.

I think that it would help the Democratic party to shun Right Wing timidity and instead embrace the bold and brave spirit that has made this country great.

On the whole, you're doing a great job as a rep. Thank you very much

Caleb Bullen

thoughts on the torture controversy

2009-04-22T13:57:00.001-07:00

I'm making an official prediction here. Let's see how it really pans out.

Very little will be done about torture until closer to the 2010 elections. That's not a weasel word, I don't mean closer like tomorrow would be closer than today, I mean when races heat up, Holder will move on this.

We won't find out much new about the investigation till the 2012 elections are coming up, again I mean once the GOP have drafted their candidate.

There might be some flak fired at underlings but mostly they will try to roll the investigation up to the top.

President Bush will claim he didn't realize all what was going on and the people at large will believe him. He will walk.

Cheney will get thrown under the bus as the torture scapegoat but will have yet another of his many cardiac incidents and will die of natural causes before he's brought to trial much less convicted.

Nobody important will do time. Nobody will feel things were set right from the whole thing. The best we can really hope for is that it will provide political fodder to force the GOP to run as the party of torture or as Christian Democrats for a couple elections.

Feel free to come back and heckle me if my cynicism proves incorrect.

Christmas Special (recap)

2008-12-23T08:27:00.001-08:00

Once again I’d like to thank the cast of our little Christmas Special

Ian Ralph as Razzap Snookums blakslee.com
Laurence Simon as Santa Claus isfullofcrap.com
Anima Zabaleta as the Cop zabbadabba.com
Arri Gaffer as the Guard
Justin Lowmaster as Sanjay the ‘elf’ thebeandom.com
Daphne Abernathy as the little girl daphneabernathy.com
Laeianna as the mom hodgepodgepoint.libsyn.com

And I’d like to reiterate the slightly hamfisted point I was trying to make throughout the program and that is that slavery is still alive and well in the world today. In fact according to the CIA over 50,000 slaves go through the country or are still here every year. Most of those are sex slaves but they also wind up as domestic slaves, in agriculture and the garment business. That’s just in the USA.

Worldwide there are about 27 Million slaves right now. That’s the highest number there’s ever been in the world. Fortunately, the percentage of people in slavery is the lowest it’s been in history.

I wish I could tell you a surefire way to combat this but there isn’t. Theoretically, you shouldn’t be able to buy anything in the states that was made by slaves but when you buy products made overseas that are super cheap, there’s always a chance. Wal-Mart officially does not deal with providers who use slave labor, for example, but has been caught more than once breaking its own rules on this.

There are a number of organizations who will take your money to support people who actively try to liberate enslaved people but I don’t have any statistics on the legitimacy of any particular group. If you do, please share. I do know that buying things that are locally grown and made or bear a Union or Fair Trade label on them are probably safe.

I’m not trying to ruin Christmas for you and I’m sorry I don’t have better answers for you but I do think the first step to ending slavery is to be aware that it is still going on and trying to shop accordingly. Hopefully, I was able to throw in enough jokes to make it palatable for you. And lastly don’t forget that instead of gifts, if it’s not too late, a donation to Oxfam probably does more good than getting the newest thingamabob or whatsit for the kids. Or at last including some level of charitable giving along with other gifts, is an excellent way to show compassion and teach the real meaning of the holiday season to young people. Personally, I’ve found those gifts to be much more memorable than the gift of stuff in a life full of stuff.

Merry Whatever

Focus, people!

2008-12-19T08:36:00.001-08:00

I know it’s the holidays and everyone’s got their mind on Bailouts, Nazis, and Jennifer Aniston (like we do every year) but I think, “we” and when I say, “we”, I mean you really need to focus here.

Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.

However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.

Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.

Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.

Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.

You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.

Focus!

2008-12-19T08:35:00.001-08:00

Ho Ho No

2008-12-13T15:17:00.001-08:00

I'm not known for being a big fan of the holidays. I encourage people to not give gifts for the holidays but instead give to charity. When someone tells me to have a Merry Christmas I bark back with, “Happy Hannukah” in a tone that probably qualifies as assault. So I will admit that there is a chance that I might be missing the obvious Christmas tie in that others see in it but I absolutely cannot understand why they are releasing the new Tom Cruise movie, Valkyrie, on Christmas day.

Valkyrie is a movie about a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler; which doesn't seem like a traditional subject for holiday fare to me. Although if this is the new thing that's going to take off, let me recommend it on a double feature with Downfall, the movie about the last few days in the bunker for next year. Or if you want to make fun of this strange new tradition, you might want to throw on a saved copy of The Diary of Ann Frankenstein.

The only way it makes any sense, to me, as a holiday movie is if they gave it a hollywood ending and let Tom Cruise win. I could see going to see a movie where Hitler is thwarted on Christmas day and I'm sure there might be a few other Jews who might feel the same.

However, the actual plot to kill Hitler failed. So it's not just a movie about Nazis on Christmas day but it's also a movie about somebody not actually doing something. I wonder what they'll do next if this is a hit; a movie about the Dickstein Brothers, Gene and Alice (don't ask) who almost invented the aeroplane and would have if the Wright Brothers hadn't done it first. Maybe they'll make a movie about all the people who haven't discovered a cure for cancer, that would be riveting, I'm sure.

The thing I really don't understand about this movie and it coming out on Christmas is what kind of a message does it send? If they tell a story anything like the real story it will be about a clever plot to kill Hitler that isn't so much as thwarted as it is avoided by dumb luck. Could there be a more atheistic message? They come up with a plan to kill one of the most evil men ever to live, they execute it as planned, and then Hitler accidentally isn't there when the bomb goes off. If there is a God, it would be a God that actually protected Hitler. Again, I really hope this doesn't become a new holiday tradition. Christmas is bad enough as it is, that would be even worse.

Run Your Mouth

2008-10-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

Heard on tonight's show:

Eyesight to the Blind - Mose Alison
I Am The Walrus - Scenario
You Run Your Mouth and I'll Run My Business - Joe Jackson
Love Is A Many Splendored Thing - Hugo Montenegro
It's a Sin to Tell a Lie - Fats Waller
Turquoise - Ken Nordine

Idiot Tag - yet another nod to Guy David

In The Land of The Blind - Nevermind the freudian implications of a one eyed man trying to rul the world. This is just a bit of silliness

Razz Ad - They made me play this one taselon.com is the site for Mr. Ralph's book

Debate Family - It's been a dream since the first debate to write a sketch that features this absurd style of speech extending out into daily life.

Crap on Discrimination - This came from a blog post that Laurence Simon had about this subject in Second Life. I Thought it would fit reasonably well on the show.

Mango - This was written by Anima Zabaleta. Sexy, no?

Tough Love for Third Party People

2008-10-10T03:52:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

Nothing. There isn't going to be a show this weekend but join us next weekend for another exciting adventure of the Black Tie Martini Club!

When third party candidates like Bob Barr or Ralph Nader complain about why they aren't more popular, they sound like Republicans. Primarily, they blame THE MEDIA. It's the media's fault that more people don't know who they are, it's the media's fault that they don't poll well enough to be allowed into the debates, it's the medias fault that they don't get as many supporters sending contributions.

Like traditional politicians, they never put any of that blame on themselves or on their organizations.

I'm not saying I'm against third parties, I'm actually very warm to the idea of breaking the stranglehold of a closed two party system. But most of the independent parties we have and the politicians who run for office from them aren't really ready for prime time. They especially aren't ready for the presidency. I'm sorry but some of these parties are little more than vanity caucuses for wannabe politicians. That doesn't mean they don't have some good ideas but you know what? we all have SOME good ideas. That doesn't mean we deserve special help to become president.

Both Bob Barr and Ralph Nader think they should have been in the presidential debates. They think the system is against them because they only allow people with 15% of the polls in their favor to debate. What I don't hear them addressing in their complaint is where the line should be drawn. Since neither are on the ballot in all 50 states, should Stephen Colbert be allowed to debate? Should I?

I don't think the system is really anywhere near as slanted against independents as most of these independents claim. Sure, the process of getting on the ballot can vary widely by state and some are tougher for independents. And yes, the media doesn't just cover anybody off the street because that person would like them to. I keep offering myself to the late night talk shows and I can't even get the TRL guy to return my calls.

But there really has never been a better time to be an independent politician or party. In the last couple years Barack Obama has shown that the right candidate can succeed with the right charisma, organizational skills, and some good old fashioned chutzpah. I know Obama is a democrat and not technically a third party candidate but how much help was his party giving him in the pre-pimary season which began two years ago? Do you remember how it was a done deal? Clinton had the money, the organization, the party support and was going to win it all because she could kick anybody's ass on either side of the aisle. Only she didn't.

With the internet, social networking, massive small donation, and excellent ground work, Obama went from being slightly more likely than Kucinich to win but less likely than Gravel to a tough party fight to being the likely next president of these united states.

The tools he used, are ones that anybody could use. Sure, he had some help from his party along the way but Ralph Nader had much more "celebrity" back in 2006. Which really had an advantage with the 'system'?

Quite honestly, I think the old model of the independents, to win smaller local and state offices and work your way up in party strength is still a good strong idea. And I think that with the right candidate, a third party candidate could win in this era of smaller independent media. But they aren't going to do it by blaming the media.

And as a side note to the Libertarians. Most reasonable people agree with most of your ideology. The part where we get a little nervous is when you start talking about privatizing EVERYTHING. There are a lot of us who would like to pay less in taxes and who would also like the federal govt. to leave us alone but we really don't want to give up on schools or medicaid or all that other big government stuff. You have one way of really convincing us though: take something and start doing it on your own. Start a number of free, privately funded, good quality schools. Create your own privately funded FEMA. Work together and solve one of these issues we pawn off on govt. that your ideology claims should be privatized. Then we'll believe you. You'd be unstoppable. And you'd get more media coverage than those other third party guys and gals.

A Political Post Devoid of Issues

2008-10-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

Forget about the issues for a moment. Forget about the economy. Forget about the war. All that stuff can be complicated and many of us don't pay that much attention to politics most of the time. So lets look at this thing like it was a movie. We all watch movies.

Whenever people complain about Obama being too cool and not expressing their rage and catharsis; I always think that's the good thing about him. To me, and admittedly I am a huge Obama fan, he seems like the archetypical American movie hero. He's the strong silent type. He's a tall, handsome man who doesn't come from around here. He doesn't start fights. He tries to talk to people. Think of Alan Ladd in Shane or Clint Eastwood in the Leone Films. I think this is a large part of what people are talking about when they describe him as, "Presidential".

You know when people talk of Bush as being a cowboy because of his bravado and uh... fear of horses, that's true but only up to a point. Bush is like the hired thug in a western. He's not too bright but he's full of machismo. He's quick to fight. He's most concerned about looking tough and he's kind of a doomed character.

McCain, on the other hand, seems like that character's boss. The Rancher who has bought up half the town and is sending his goons to rough up the people who wont sell. He doesn't like getting his own hands dirty but he'll send his henchmen. He really hates the hero and just can't keep that inside. He had a plan, he was going to win and this interloper came in and blew it all to hell. How DARE Obama come in to try to clean up HIS town.

If we're sticking with the western theme, I suppose Biden might be the Gabby Hayes of this picture. A likeable old timer who isn't essential to the plot but is good for some comic relief, telling parapalygics to stand up or saying Hilary Clinton would've been a better VP choice.

Palin... I don't know what kind of movie archetype she fits. She's a new one. Many imagine her to be the Shannon Tweed character who takes off her glasses and lets her hair down right as the alto sax kicks in but that doesn't belong in a western really. But uh... she's a maverick. That's all that counts right?

Just Like a Georgia O'Keefe Painting (recap)

2008-09-30T17:33:00.001-07:00

Heard on this week's show:

Crazy Rap - Afroman
The Brothers go to Mothers - Henry Mancini
Balls - Andrew Calhoun
Amsl's Song - Caleb Bullen

The Angina Monologues - I know, it's a really REALLY cheap joke. Get used to it. The show's full of them

John the Regulator - This song has been stuck in my head for a while and I couldn't stop singing it after the debate. But I didn't want to focus the whole show on politics again because I think a lot of people are just sick of politics at this point

Dick Randy - This was the way to change the theme of the show from politics to dirty jokes. This popped into my head as a concept when I watched an old episode of Lou Grant and they had issues with someone trying to censor theatre to adhere to 'Community Standards'. I couldn't help but wonder what the internet community's standard would be

Organ Emporium - If you're going to fill a show with dirty jokes, you can't go wrong with Big Organ jokes.

Pac 10's and 527s - I was talking with Anima Zabaleta about 527's and she looked up 527's on the internet and found that a number of these groups had dirty names.

Beavers - If you're going to make organ jokes, you need to make beaver jokes to keep things fair and balanced.

Come on Get Happy (recap)

2008-09-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Heard on this show:

Happy Town - Jill Sobule
Samba Triste - Charlie Byrd
Money - Gary Pine and Dollarman
Solar - Chet Baker

MyFace - I heard some analyst talking about Social Networking and when they said, "MySpace and Facebook" I thought of MyFace. The jokes are pretty obvious from there

Intro - I seriously do have to apologize to the ghosts of Cheyevsky and Finch. But I didn't want to do another big serious political show and thought at some point we have to just get happy and start enjoying ourselves despite what's going on.

McCain saves the Economy - I'm not sure I made this point that well. The point is that McCain is a known liar so if he tells us things are bad, we'll think they're good. Which would be a huge help to consumer confidence. I might have lost the point somewhat on this one. Sorry.

Only You Can Help - I'm most proud about this one. It really will come down to $10.00 a day for all of us if they take the full 700 billion. But of course that's for each and every one of us. As it is, if you actually pay taxes, your percentage will probably be higher. On the other hand, we might get something back for our sawbuck one of these days... maybe.

Dickipedia - Nixon jokes never seem to get old.

Family Day/Global Warming - Something of a celebration of uh... the WTF nature of modern life. See, it's ironic because I'm pretending it's all happy good news. Eh. I'll admit it, not classic material.

I love big dictionaries

2008-09-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

-No fucking clue. Sorry!

I'm a big fan of this koo-koo online world we live in. I podcast, I twitter, I blog (sometimes), I consult Google, Wikipedia and YouPorn several times every single day and feel like I'd be lost without them. So I'm not one of these old timey, internet-hatin' crochety (is chrochety the right word? Where could I find a good synonym for it?) geezers who think everything was better back in once upon a time land.

That said, it did occur to me that one of the great pleasures of my youth - I say 'great pleasures' but I mean 'great time wasters' - was browsing the dictionary. Not reading it cover to cover or looking up one word for one reason but kind of lazily flipping pages looking for words that looked cool or maybe risqué or even words I thought I knew the meaning of but knew I'd be hard pressed to define precisely. (define exactly?) I don't know that it was the most defning activity as far as my education or even vocabulary went but I feel it broadened my palette (wait is it palette that has paints or palate? I better look that up)

I don't even own a dictionary anymore. Not a real one. I own a couple specialized ones for novelty's sake but not the kind of imposing, exciting twenty pounder of a reference book that I grew up in awe of. When I was 18 and living on my own, one of the first things I spent real money on was a cheap websters for myself. You had to have a dictionary even as late as the 90's but now you really don't need one. You have a world of reference at your fingertips if you have a computer and a phone line or even a portable phone with internet access.

Sure you can still browse through the random pages of wikipedia just to find out random information like we used to randomly browse through the old Brittanica our grandparents had, and when you need a particular word defined you can get it online faster than your parents can look it up in some old book. But you can't really just browse through an online dictionary to get a sense of how vast your own ignorance is. You can't get the feel of turning ancient impossibly thin paper or feel for the grooves cut into the paper to help you turn to a particular letter. Which is one of those little delights that will be completely lost to future generations.

That said, I'm not suggesting for a second that bound dictionaries are better than online ones or that future generations with access to almost limitless information at their fingertips are going to be any less intelligent or informed than we. If anything they're going to make us look like the provincial rubes we made our parents look like as they did to theirs. But they're liable to miss out on the thrill of cracking those ancient tomes. Plus, it's really hard to use the internet as a step stool.

THINK

2008-09-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekends show:

A Journey to the Heart of Darkness

That's really all I can say about it except it is going to be my emotional response to the re-fetishizing of war, torture and terrorism. It probably won't be a big hit with the conservative crowd.

By the way, keep an eye on factcheck.org in this campaign. They set the record straight about both candidates on a regular basis but see if you don't notice one side's errors being more like lies and less like exaggerations than the other's.

Both sides stretch the truth and spin, sometimes accidentally I'm sure. But one campaign has had to be seriously smacked down for what appear to be blatant intentional falsehoods, lies, or 'distortions' (to put it mildly).

Also, you should really check out the Daily Show's take on the Gender Card spin put out during the RNC. It's actually some of the best journalism I've seen in a while and it's also funny.

Don't believe either side but don't tune out either and give up. Look into it yourself and find what's true and what isn't. Its easier to do today than it ever has been. To do anything else would be Un-American.

Mocking the Suburbs (recap)

2008-09-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

Heard on this week's show:

Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees
Vacation Time - The Metro Strings
Hungry Freaks Daddy - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good Enough) - Thelonious Monk

BTMC Cigarettes - I heard about some celebrity who died as a result of smoking as I was lighting up. It ocurred to me a little truth in advertising might not be such a bad thing.

Ben Cohen on Enemies - This is inspired in part by good ole Daphne Abernathy who really did have a fight with her condo board about pink flamingos on the patio. The rest is just mindless drivel

Dr. Doomsday - This sketch was initially written by Laurence Simon as an ensemble piece inspired in part by Will Ross's Doomsday Cannon in Second Life. But they decided not to do the ensemble piece and I always thought it would be better as a Bob Newhart style telephone conversation so I reworked it a little bit into what it is now. I do have to say, I was SORELY tempted to play "What's He Building In There" by Tom Waits but that seemed a little on the nose.

The Perfect Murder - Was this too subtle, I can never tell. You see the funny part is, he claims to not want to murder his wife but then goes through all this work to do it and then can't be bothered to make egg salad. I originally wrote this as a 100 Word Story but couldn't help but extend it out a bit. Again, "Franks Wild Years" by Tom Waits would've been very appropriate here as it is about a guy named Frank who kills his wife but again it seemed too on the nose.

Cost of the War - I try not to be too polemical when it comes to partisan politics. I know it might not seem like that but you wouldn't believe the things I don't say on the show. I do think this is a question that needs to be raised and I'm starting to think I'm going to need to put together a special Red Meat political podcast as a mid-week special. I'm trying not too, I really am.

The Cliches - Both a tribute to the late great Don LaFontaine and a testament to the godawful movie and tv trailers I've seen in the last week or two.

Hot Air (recap)

2008-09-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

(sorry about the delay folks, it's been a long crazy week)

Heard on this week's show:

Mystery Train - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
My Death - David Bowie
Cotton to the Bell - The High Llamas
What up dog - Was (not Was)
St. Germain - Le Cinq Modern
Zilch - The Monkees

Mass Transit - I take public transportation every day. It's amazing this idea hasn't popped up sooner.

Capital Punishment - Somebody had been discussing political scandals including the one where Stephen Milligan British MP got found that way and it did hit me as not the worst way to go as far as death.

What is a Conservative - I still haven't gotten any real answer to this one. Maybe it's not a question anybody else much cares about.

One Afternoon in Iraq - Some news story about iraq where they described the urban fighting just sort of reminded me of our own urban fighting here at home.

Ass Platinum Card - Seriously, when the ass credit market crashes, I'm fucked!

Cover Up - I think this one speaks for itself.

Dove Bars - is anyone else continually confused by the fact that there are two kinds of dove bars that target the same demographic?

Why the push for offshore drilling? Do you know?

2008-08-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show:

A look back at the Iran War to come
Ice Cream or Soap?
A lot of fun with advertising
much much more?

Can somebody out there please explain to me why McCain and the republicans are pushing so hard for more offshore drilling? I really don't understand the rationalization for it.

First of all it will take years to get the drills set up. Then it will take years from the time they actually start drilling before it has any impact on the price of gas. And then finally there's a ton of land leased to oil companies that they aren't bothering to drill yet because the price of oil isn't high enough to make it worth their while.

So why the big push for more oil leases now? I don't just mean that to be contentious but there must be some upside for somebody and I can't figure out what it is. I know McCain changed his mind about this after getting some nice donations from the oil companies but why do the oil companies want the ability to drill in more places when they aren't drilling in so many places already? Are they just afraid that somebody else will get the rights to use that space?

It seems like the whole thing is either a nonsense wedge issue like Gay Marriage was in 04 or there's some financial gain for somebody but it doesn't seem that divisive of an issue and I don't see who makes money on this.

Can somebody please explain this?

Untitled Numer Thirty Three (recap)

2008-08-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Heard on this show:

She's Such A Scream - Tom Waits
Brazilian Bubble - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
I want you to be you - William Shatner

What Do You Care - I was sitting in our local mall/movie theatre the other day where they show movie trailers on video screens all through the foodcourt Which is where all the movie trailers came from in this. Liv Tyler was in every other trailer. Seriously? Is she that good an actress? I don't think so. She's certainly good looking though. I didn't include Scarlett Johanssen in this list because she's actually as good an actress as she is looking.

Ben Cohen - This is one of those that was sitting in my notes and I don't remember why I wrote it. Obviously the thrill of putting in random scientific jargon always appeals

Daphne Abernathy being offensive - This is just boiling down the running joke of getting her to say things she never would outside this (and other) show(s) to its basest elements

Shop n' Slave - Was inspired in large part by Walmart's opining about the presidential race and by the fact that at this point, I'd really be willing to go for part time slavery because of my recent financial tragedies. Honestly, I wouldn't be totally surprised if this model was adopted soon.

Silly News - pointless fact: The Bandsaw and yelling sound effect that I used in this and have used a few times before, isn't actually a pre-existing sound effect. It's two sound effects that I use in tandem fairly often.

Popularity Contest - Okay, I had to react a little bit about the whole onslaught of McCain ads. heh. Little did I know Paris Hilton was going to come along with the best political satire in a long long time days later.

A Whole Bunch of Monsters n' Shit - I've got no beef with Guillermo Del Toro really but the trailer for Hellboy II really looks like it's just a whole bunch of monsters n' shit.

chocolate Sundae hold the nuts?

2008-07-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show
-The Swearing Nun
-J. P. Slutterpants
-PB Returns

Much much more?

The day before the Jesse Jackson Nut Cutting Kerfluffle came out I had this sinister thought. If Fox News really wants to help McCain out, they'll have Jackson, Sharpton and Wright on their shows talking crap all the time till the campaign.

None of those guys SEEM to ever shy away from a camera no matter what the situation. They're especially hated and feared by racists who feel that all black men are like this or worse and what do those bigots like to watch? Fox News if you believe statistics.

Of course that was before they sunk even lower to reveal Jackson's off air comments. So obviously he won't be willing to go back on. And anybody else will be extremely guarded.

Sure, it was fun. Got the liberals to defend Jackson and speak out against eavesdropping in "journalism" and of course delighted the right wingers who got to see Jackson make an ass of himself.

Now I'm not a fan of Jackson at all. He appears to be more or less an extortionist. Also, I AM a big fan of Obama. None the less, Fox really missed the chance of a lifetime. If they kept having offensive negroes on it would help their cause and allow them to pretend to be more FAIR AND BALANCED.

I guess I'm glad they didn't have my terrible idea. But it would've been even more crazy political theatre. If you're here for the jokes. Fox never disappoints.

True Crime (recap)

2008-07-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

Heard on this week's show:
Criminal - Fiona Apple

I know. The show is way too polemical. I struggled with that. I think the idea could've been better executed if it had more jokes and less information. But at least there's Spider Shark at the end huh?

Interview With A...

2008-07-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Heard on this week's show:

Out in the Street - The Who
Waiting for Superman - The Flaming Lips

Acting in this week's show:

Martin Jansen of kaputtradio.libsyn.com
Daphne Abernathy of daphneabernathy.com
Anima Zabaleta of nothing.net
PB Recreant of netrootsnation.org
Justin Lowmaster of thebeandom.com
Keltin Alexander of sphereofshadows.com
Laurence Simon of podcasting.isfullofcrap.com
Special mention to guy david of guydavid.com

And now the recap:

Dating on Demand: Martin sent this file to me and so I had to come up with some kind of a wraparound for it.

Intro: I apologize to the ghost of Meridith Wilson for that one. I was hoping to get more and stranger examples for what I might "make" people say. Still the two I got were pretty weird.

Interview with PB Recreant: I just thought the race needed a third party to shake things up a bit. PB was on vacation and recorded his part from a hotel lobby with a laptop mic. Hence the curious audio quality. I'm also sending this in as my audition tape for Meet The Press

Man on the Street Interviews: I used a cheap old handheld mic for this and covered my desk with a pint of cappuccino putting it away. Daphne does a fantastic job here of spitting out my exceedingly verbose and faux economist verbiage. Justin sounds a bit like he's calling in from PB's submarine. Of course on any discussion of Gun Control I feel obliged to point out the very basic fact that we don't know jack squat if having more or less gun restriction raises or lowers violent crime. There are way too many factors involved and way too little real research into it. You can find a ton of statistics proving either side but neither will accept the other sides findings. Personally, I think that if you aren't sure, you ought to just go with more freedom but I'm weird that way.

Superheros - This is an amalgam of a bunch of ideas I've had floating around some for a very long time. Sgt. Amazing was originally an idea to explore PR and belief but it turned into another tale of sexism. Sometimes characters just run off in their own direction. The addict as superhero has been explored many times before. I'm always amazed in superhero stories how the hero will do billions of dollars of damage in a final battle with a villain who wants millions of dollars. It would be cheaper to just let them win. Remember when Mighty Mouse got taken off the air for snorting flowers? Norman Zip came from my seeing some superhero thing and wondering why there aren't more mutants doing non superhero jobs in these superhero worlds. As usual Laurence gets the funniest joke in the whole show.

Blogging will be light today

2008-07-05T11:51:00.001-07:00

Coming up on this weekend's show (which might be a little bit late)

INTERVIEWS
MORE INTERVIEWS
SOME MORE INTERVIEWS AFTER THAT!
much much more?

I'm trying to do a blog posting here every week but quite honestly, I'm finding I have less and less to say each week. once upon a time I used to blog daily and for a while even had two blogs going but nowadays most everything I need to say, I can do so on the show in a way that's (hopefully) more entertaining than here. I suppose in a way that's a good thing because I'm focusing a lot more of my creativity on the show but it does leave me with the problem of finding something to say in this space along with the warning of what's coming up. In this case, I did it by not doing it. Lord knows what I'll come up with next week.

By the way I totally stole the title of this from my blogcasting hero, Laurence Simon. If you want something interesting to read, check him out instead.