The most offensive commercial in the world...

...is this one. Well, perhaps I shouldn't speak in absolutes, but this is PRETTY WELL UP THERE. I don't notice these things all the time; unlike some people, I don't notice misogyny absolutely fucking *everywhere*, but this ad really does take the cake. You don't exactly have to be ultra-sensitive to subtext to get it: man makes a dumb mistake; woman emasculates him by pointing it out; he responds by bashing her in the face. Funny shit.

The other Keystone Light ad I have witnessed--which does not appear to be on youtube--is the gay panic one where a guy starts to put the moves on a woman trying to pick up a case of beer only OH NOES! IZ DOOD! Man, even by beer conglomerate standards, Keystone is one seriously, seriously classy company.

Dear "Let's start a 'centrist' party guy on Colbert tonight:

Nobody will join your stupid Unity08 initiative because Republicans don't want to have act less deranged and blood-thirsty, and the rest of us don't want to act more so. There are DAMNED GOOD REASONS why we cannot achieve bipartisan consensus. What the hell is wrong with you?

David Eugene Edmunds: Big CS Lewis fan?

In an amazon review of 16 Horsepower's Secret South, some guy writes:

Of special note here are several references to Narnia (in "Clogger," "Splinters" and "Just Like Birds").

It's true that I only read the first four Narnia books, and that was many years ago, but still: guh? Am I missing something, or is this guy off his rocker?

But corpse-fucking is fun for kids of all ages!

Mingle²

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* fucking (5x)
* corpse (2x)
* shit (1x)


Only motherfucking R? What is this fucking bullshit from fuckland? Does being teh intarnets' NUMBER ONE google hit for "duckfuckery" count for nothing???

The Sopranos: too boring to even think about anymore

I think it's safe to say that somebody will write a doctoral thesis on the show, if they haven't already. I think it's equally safe to say that that person will not be me. It's an impressive-ass show in many many ways, but I dunno...I had a vague dream a few nights ago that is entirely unremembered except that it left me with the clear impression of the show as having been really unpleasant and nightmarish throughout--an impression that has not left me.

Happy Bloomsday to all the good people.

And that is really all I have to say about that.

The ending of the Sopranos

My reaction: whatever, dude.

Obviously, I enjoyed the show. Enough to watch eighty-some hours of it over the years. This last subseason was a complete fucking mess, but hey. The point is, however, that it's been a LONG FUCKING TIME since it amounted to anything more than horrible people doing horrible things to one another. If it ever did. There was probably NO good way to end it, other than with Tony stranded in the middle of Death Valley handcuffed to Phil Leotardo's corpse. So it just sort of stops. Fine. What am I left with other than a vague sense of annoyance? Not a whole helluva lot. I suppose it's my own dern fault for watching all these years. Meh. More thoughts later, maybe.

Sopranos post, with spoilers

NOTE: I made several aborted attempts to write about the ending to the Sopranos. They ALL involved that same goddamn McTeague joke. Don't ask me why I'm publishing them NOW. Because I don't really want to delete them, nor do I want to save them to my computer?
-04/07/10

Honestly, the only really satisfying ending would have involved Tony stranded in the middle of Death Valley, handcuffed to Phil Leotardo's corpse. Since they inexplicably chose not to go down that road, disappointment was inevitable.

So Phil L's men decide they should kill the top three men in the New Jersey mob. Tony, Silvio, and Paulie--no, not Paulie, but Bobby. This in fact makes no damn sense--Bobby isn't even a captain. I suppose maybe you could find some rather doubtful justification for it, but who are we kidding? We all know the REAL reason, which is that David Chase wants to punish the audience by killing off the one somewhat sympathetic mobster, while allowing the one that everybody hates to live on.

I think that's sort of the dynamic that drove the ending: You want a neat, sensical ending? Chase shouts. Ha! Screw you for rooting for these assholes all this time! Here's some ambiguity and no catharsis! Ha ha!

Either that or it was just some banal business about how real life doesn't fit into neat narrative structures the whole show was morally ambiguous so the ending should match that blah blah blah.

Either way, though, it's uncalled for, because let's face it: it's been a long fucking time since the show was anything like morally complex.

Rambling Sopranos post, with spoilers

That's right, spoilers. If'n you don't want to read spoilers, it's not very smart of you to be reading this.

In retrospect, it was inevitable that the ending wouldn't do much for me, since the only satisfying ending I could envision involved Tony stranded in the middle of Death Valley handcuffed to Phil Leotardo's corpse. Still, I'm not impressed. People have been talking about how incredibly thought-provoking it allegedly is blah blah, but dude--I don't WANT to think about it. I'm just grateful to not have to (yeah, I LIKE splitting infinitives--bite me) spend any more time with these highly unpleasant people.

Okay okay, obviously, I liked the show. Otherwise, I wouldn't have spent eighty-some hours (jayzuz) watching it over the years. But the ending was still lame. There has been a lot of internet talk about how suspenseful the final scene was, but why? Is everyone else in the world crazy? There was NO REASON to expect that there would be a final explosion of violence in the diner. That doesn't mean there couldn't have been, of course, since random-ass violence has pretty much been the order of the day, especially in this last sub-season--but it just would have been unspeakably lame if it had ENDED on random, unexplained violence, making the other (equally lame) ending entirely predictable.

And seriously, people, what a lame season. Look at all the pointless little subplots that serv no purpose and go nowhere: Vito's son is a fucked-up goth kid! Hesh's mistress dies because what the hell! Some old friend of Meadow whom I barely remember shows up for one scene for no reason! Fuckloads of people we've never seen before get whacked! Because VIOLENCE! David Chase seems to be addicted to surprising people even when there's no rhyme or reason behind the surprises.

Also, whatever internal logic there was to the mob family structure goes out the window. One of Phil Leotardo's men drunkenly makes lewd comments to Meadow when she's out with her new boyfriend. So the next day, Tony goes to a restaurant where the guy's eating, smashes the shit out of him, shoves a gun in his mouth, and ultimately stomps on his head, knocking out his teeth. All of this right in front of another of Phil's guys and at least a half dozen workers. But are there ANY legal repercussions to this act? No, there are not, because the writers have internalized the notion that mob people can get away with ANYTHING unless the plot specifically requires them to be on trial. It's...kind of insulting to those of us who haven't romanticized mob life to that extent.

The Mysterious "Other"

The post about Hillary's socialist leanings was this humble blog's five hundredth, by the way. Hurrah for me.

The best post on this blog...

...is this one. Not to tout my own horn (as my organizational management teacher used to say), but, in spite of a few false notes, I still think it's pretty durn funny.

Good news for SK and anyone who doesn't think the Dem candidates are sufficiently progressive.

It turns out that Clinton is actually a socialist, per a well-reasoned letter to the Sun-Duhzette.

The Democrat frontrunner in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton, revealed herself to be a socialist the other day. Hillary said that we need to abandon the “on our own” society we have now and embrace the socialist ideal of a 'we're all in it together' society.

To those of you who want Ms. Clinton elected president, do you understand that a vote for her is a vote for socialism? Do those of you who work hard and are responsible for yourselves want to see your tax burden go up to support those who would rather ride for free? This is what socialism is. This is why socialism fails. The only equality that socialism produces is an equal level of misery in everyone. When the fruits of your success are taken from you and given to those with their hands out why would you try to succeed?

Socialism hasn't worked anywhere else. Why would Ms. Clinton think it would work here? Could it be that she is that dumb? Or does she think we are the dumb ones? We won't elect a socialist president, will we?

Vince Knauff
Williamsport

Ya know, I really considered trying to compose some sort of response to this, but ultimately it seemed like an exercise in futility. Anybody in the throes of this degree of frothing lunacy--as well as anybody swayed by it--is WAY too far-gone to listen to reason.

And now, song lyrics

This was written by Jay Munly and performed by Slim Cessna's Auto Club (Munly also has a solo version with slightly different lyrics). I'm posting it here because there are no SCAC lyrics online, it's a great song, and I finally managed to completely decipher it. The phrase "best-built dam" was the hardest part for me to make out.

This Is How We Do Things in the Country

The first and last time I met her
We was children seven years by
She held my hand so softly
She was perfectly shy
My family went to wander
Six years in foreign lands
I returned last evening
To take her by the hand

Long about break of morning
I met with my girl
She looked at me with crossed eyes
So I sent her from this world
I cracked her with my shovel
She bent my shovel's blade
She still had them crossed eyes
As I dug her crooked grave

This is how it's always been
This is how we do things in the country
This is how it's always been
This is how we do things in the country

Long the next morning
The rains they came down
Washed away that crooked grave
Washed her straight into town
She nudged gainst Judge Henry
She looked at him with cock-eyes
Judge Henry he's as thick as the best-built dam
But even he knew she'd passed on by

Long late that evening
I sought her kinfolk out
I asked to sing at her funeral
They said son we'd be proud
My song it began to bend and break
As her box went in the ground
They dug her a brand new hole
With walls true up and down

This is how it's always been
This is how we do things in the country
This is how it's always been
This is how we do things in the country

Late in the dark time
I went creepin round the town
Into every pine-board shed
All their tools I did found
I put them in my vice grip
Turned em to the left and right
Returned them to their toolsheds
Straightened out this town with might

Now when they hoe a garden
It angles to the northeast
When they raise a new building
It leans askew and Lord does it creak
Now when they shape a new tool
From the ones he's made unstraight
See every which way they do cross it up
Yes these crooked graves they will be our fate

This is how it's always been
This is how we do things in the country
This is how it's always been
This is how we do things in the country

Republican Debate fun

In response to a question from a woman whose brother had been killed in Iraq, McCain noted that the war had been badly botched and that there had been "unnecessary sacrifices." Gee. It's almost as though he said that lives had been wasted. In fact, it's EXACTLY like that. I eagerly await a storm of outrage comparable to that leveled at Obama when he made same self-evident point. Any moment now. I have no doubt. Really.

Tancredo is absolutely fucking OBSESSED with the idea that bilingualism is BAD BAD BAD. "Bilingual countries don't work," he said. Um...yeah. That makes sense I guess--hey, wait a minute, what's this?

Mercer has ranked Zürich as the city with the highest quality of life anywhere in the world for the fourth consecutive time. Berne and Geneva were also ranked among the Top 10 – in fact, Switzerland was the only country with more than one city in the Top 10. Zurich's international population with its multilingualism is also considerable. Statistics show that in the productive sector of the city 60% speak German, 43% English, 30% French and 13% Italian. As such, the city is home to a considerable number of people speaking at least two or three languages.

Well, I'm sure their quality of life would be EVEN BETTER if they would pick a language and fucking stick with it!

Tancredo also said words to the effect that the bilingualism problem would only be solved when you don't have to listen to automated phone messages that say "press one for English; press two for any other language." CHRIST these people have delicate sensibilities. In fact, I'm not sure someone with a psyche that fragile is qualified to be president.

Also, the degree to which they all went on about how they respect a culure of LIFE, and how LIFE is so important to their party LIFE, LIFE, LIFE. Please note that these were the same moral paragons who, with the exception of Ron Paul, refused to rule out nuking Iran. Guys, come on: irony is already long-dead. You don't need to keep beating the shit out of its corpse.

The Reaper can bite me

For some time, I was vaguely contemplating writing a post about left-wing bloggers whom I used to read regularly, but who ultimately annoyed me too much to keep going with. One of these was Amanda Marcotte; another was Steve Gilliard. And...that's about it, really.

Well, now THAT post is never gonna happen, because, after a long history of medical problems, Steve died yesterday at the comparatively tender age of forty-one. And that really sucks--as much as he might have annoyed me at times, he was a smart, committed guy, a forceful writer, and unequivocally on the side of the angels. And I guess that's really all I have to say about that.