Sooner or later, the earth reclaims everything.
The z-movie is more than half-shot, but next week will be the Pyrenees stage — the bloodiest blood gags, the grossest gross-outs. It’ll be latexapalooza fer shure. Depending on our extra needs, I may even take my 90-minute turn in the chair and become a bloodthirsty walking corpse, although I suppose we could just skip the makeup and shoot early in the morning before the coffee, since there’s not much difference in how I look and one of our ghouls, masterfully rendered by our evil genius, Dan Phillips:
We did a blood-gush effect yesterday, which was totally creepy and made a huge mess. We were prepared for it — plastic drop cloths all around, splashguards deployed, a small mountain of paper towels — and immediately afterward wrapped everything up into a bloody ball and carried it directly to the dumpster. I wonder what the garbage collectors will think.
And now it’s time for paying work, and folks, I’m so tired they need a new word for it. So on to the bloggage:
Salon, in a story headlined, Blood in the water in North Carolina, asks, “Republican Sen. Liddy Dole may be a goner, and John McCain is in trouble in a state the GOP hasn’t lost since 1976. What happened?” Coozledad happened, bitches!!!!!11!!
The NYT investigates the source of the Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim rumors. Among the findings:
He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”
…and…
He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.
…and yet…
(An) appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.
Oh, well.
Actually, at this point I would happily give up three weeks of my life if we could reset the calendar to November 5, 2008, and have all this shit done with, but I know I’m in the minority. So carry on, y’all, and I’ll be in and out here throughout the day.
John said on October 13, 2008 at 9:50 am
BLOODY GHOULS!!!!!!!!
I love a good blood gush scene. I heard a funny story about the famous SNL Julia Child bit (“Save your livers!”) involving the bloody gush. Initially, they used a hand squeeze ball to gush the gore but that didn’t work too well. So they hung the supply bucket of blood 50 feet up in the air and ran plastic tubing to the severed thumb joint. That produced an awesome squirt!
403 chars
Linda said on October 13, 2008 at 9:54 am
No, you are NOT in the minority. I have been doing canvassing for a month and a half. Nobody wants it to be over more than me. The Obama ground game is labor-intensive, and it can wear you out. And, because I’m in a “battleground” state (OH), the ads repeat themselves like some mind control experiment that got banned by the Geneva Convention. I wish it was November 5th, too.
382 chars
nancy said on October 13, 2008 at 9:58 am
Our guy has a range of tricks that all use tubes, from a simple syringe to a super soaker squirt-gun barrel. Walk into his lair and check out the labels on the bottles: Drinkable Blood, Non-Drinkable Blood, Thick Non-Drinkable, Thin Non-Drinkable, etc.
The non-D variety uses various poisonous chemicals to get the right look, including Photo-Flo. The other night I saw an episode of “True Blood” that featured an actor lying in a pool of it. All I could think was, “They trashed the floor. Big budget.” Bigger than ours, anyway.
533 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 13, 2008 at 10:00 am
And what is with the floating dust mote motif in the McCain ads, anyhow? Makes me think of grandma’s house in an autumn afternoon, and this does not help John at all, i’d think.
(So, do y’all think Sarah Palin’s show in January will come on after Huckabee’s on Fox, or will it replace Mike?)
295 chars
Dorothy said on October 13, 2008 at 10:07 am
JEFF IS BACK!!! Virtual hug, virtual hug!!!
You coming through Gambier any time soon, dude??
96 chars
moe99 said on October 13, 2008 at 10:11 am
Welcome back Jeff TMMO!
Other good news of the day:
Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize in economics
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015155.php
177 chars
Bill said on October 13, 2008 at 10:45 am
Andy Martin! Illinois residents know him from his many idiotic and embarrassing political campaigns. Judging solely by his commercials, I filed him under “Nutcase” years ago. I had no idea he was 62. I’ve always pictured him as a young guy living in his Mom’s basement.
273 chars
The Subtle Rudder said on October 13, 2008 at 10:54 am
I am with you, sister. November 5th cannot come soon enough.
60 chars
paddyo' said on October 13, 2008 at 11:12 am
Slightly OT, but it’s early and anything on the economy gets my attention these days. . .
This, from an interesting WashPost piece today (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101202255.html?wpisrc=newsletter), about folks torching their cars to get out from under the sort or crushing payments that the subprime mortgagees are surrendering to:
“She had to choose ‘between the house and the car’ …”
437 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 13, 2008 at 11:13 am
I’m looking forward to Nov. 5th too, even though I hope to awake with a raging hangover from too much celebratory imbibing. Notice I say “hope to” as this election is not yet over and, like badgers, the modern-day Republican party is never more dangerous than when cornered and in peril.
BTW, could I suggest that William Kristol is the largest bag o’ douche in the rightwing sector? Aside from being wrong about literally everything –this is the nutcase who said Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurd hostilities were unproven– he’s not even consistent. Last Monday, he’s begging McLame to get even more negative. Today, oooopsie, he’s calling for McLame to fire his campaign staff and be more upbeat.
I know there are many other rightwing gasbags out there, but Kristol is the one with the largest megaphone by virtue of his space in the Times. If anyone can point me to a column or story in which he has been accurate, I’d appreciate it.
934 chars
deb said on October 13, 2008 at 11:30 am
Mild-mannered Jeff! Welcome back. You’ve been missed.
53 chars
coozledad said on October 13, 2008 at 11:39 am
Thanks Nancy! Actually the brains of our outfit here in Person county is a senior at the University of Iowa. She’s taken a semester off to work with the campaign.
When I was her age, if I remember correctly, I was chiefly concerned about where my next bong hit was coming from.
281 chars
del said on October 13, 2008 at 11:40 am
Jeff is back, hooray!
21 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 13, 2008 at 11:48 am
Token heterodox right-wing viewpoint — Bill Kristol’s appearance on anything usually has me fishing for the remote and clicking to the foreign policy insights of Bobby Flay or Mario Batali.
(Y’see, i’m just not gonna call someone a personal hygiene device. That’s what had me backing out before, when i was getting ready to go there.)
I’d really like to know what his “perspective” is; he gets tagged neo-con, which just adds to my sense that there is no sech animule. He tried to float “National Greatness Conservativism” some years back (it may still be in the mission statement for the Weekly Standard, dunno), but it thankfully didn’t catch on.
But gasbag seems perfectly fair and balan . . . accurate, i mean.
726 chars
brian stouder said on October 13, 2008 at 12:22 pm
carry on, y’all, and I’ll be in and out here throughout the day.
pssst – Happy Columbus Day! (ya buncha’ genocidal hyenas!)
(and by “ya” I include me, too!)
173 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 13, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Mild-Mannered One,
My language is too salty for public discourse, I guess, but there’s something about the smugness, the sanctimony, that hint of a smile that drives me over the edge. It would be mildly amusing, perhaps, if Kristol and so many like him hadn’t cheerleaded us into a military quagmire. Like so many on the right, he has no skin in the game, no family members at any kind of risk, yet he’s always advocating more military action.
I tend to put him atop the Three Stooges of vacous rightwing bleaters who would not be working in any respectable venue if not for their parents. The other two would be John Podhoretz and Jonah Goldberg. All three of these fluffers oppose affirmative action in principal while cashing in on their genetic ties for fun and profit.
779 chars
beb said on October 13, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Hello and welcome back to Jeff The mild Mannered one.
I imagine that Nancy is closer to the majority in wishing that we could just skip ahead to November 4th and get the frigging election over with. Actually I feel that way ever four years no matter who’s running. The ads become so overwhelming that I feel like the Grinch on the night before Christmas.
Paul Krugman won the Noble Prize for economics. That he has been kicking Bush’s butt for eight years probably didn’t hurt either. Personally I think there ought to be a big shout-out to Duncan Black (“Atros”) for explaining early on that the sub-prime mortgage problem was that the money was all gone and not the liquidity issue everyone else (but Krugman) was saying.
732 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 13, 2008 at 12:42 pm
My point wasn’t that i disagreed with your diagnosis of douchebag, just that i wanted to find a better metaphor. (And avoiding edges myself, over them or up against ’em.) As my near-sainted 9th grade Latin teacher said, “vulgarity is a sign of a troubling lack of imagination; you can always find a more precise way of expressing your thought with more impact.”
Of course, she didn’t come to boot camp with me to explain this to the Gunny.
444 chars
del said on October 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm
The last 2 election cycles nearly destroyed me. I went from being passionate and frenzied about politics (even canvassing in my neighborhood) to a state of somnabulation or something. I’d given up, emotionally — like a kid wrestling with a stronger opponent who finally stops flailing and takes the punishment. Learned helplessness. But now, like a member of a zombie nation, I will arise. Blaaahahahaaa! So, the movie is politically relevant — the topics merge.
470 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 13, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Isn’t there an Oliver Stone zombie movie coming out Friday?
59 chars
ellen said on October 13, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Kristol will say whatever gets him on TV. Consistency not necessary. The network calls him up and says we are having X take this side of the subject, you must argue Y. He says OK and collects his appearance fee.
If you listen to nearly any pundit of any political stripe long enough, you will hear them take both sides of the issue and every shade of gray in between. That’s the hypocrisy that keeps Jon Stewart in business.
427 chars
Scout said on October 13, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Good to see Jeff (tmmo) today! Jeff, you’re one of the only Republicans I have ever missed seeing around. I’ll add my hoarse voice to the chorus: I too am ready for the next three weeks to be over. I wish the election was tomorrow.
235 chars
moe99 said on October 13, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Every pundit? I take strong exception to that on at least dr. Krugman’s behalf.
79 chars
LAMary said on October 13, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Jeff tmmo
I wondered about the dust motes too. In fact just this AM I got fed up with them, wondering what the significance was. I started ranting, but since it was 5:45 no one was in the mood to join in.
205 chars
MichaelG said on October 13, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Hi, Jeff. Good to see you.
I agree with everybody. I am sick to death of all the TV ads. I’m looking forward to a few months without them after Nov. 4.
I stumbled across this in one of James Lee Burke’s excellent novels:
“…a prototypical personality any southerner recognizes – one characterized by a combination of self-satisfaction, stupidity, and a suggestion of imminent violence, all of it glossed over with a veneer of moral and patriotic respectability.”
You don’t have to be southern to observe this.
And I was at Trader Joe’s today. Two buck Chuck is still $1.99.
612 chars
LAMary said on October 13, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Trader Joes can usually lift my spirits and I don’t even drink. I’ve been buying the New Mexico Pinon Roasted Coffee lately, although for some reason they stopped selling it in bean form, and it’s very delicious.
And I’m sick of the election too.
247 chars
Catherine said on October 13, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Jeff, it’s nice to hear from you again.
My personal cure for election numbness is to put out yard signs for the local school bond. We don’t have any other signs (and it would be one of each anyway), and this is an important initiative over which I might actually have some influence. Living in California doubles the ennui, I think: we know that our state’s going blue, and we also know that it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to the Electoral College math. All the action’s in places like Ohio. So, my thought is: focus on what I can affect, which is local education.
583 chars
Gasman said on October 13, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Today on NPR’s Morning Edition, Renee Montagne was interviewing McCain Chief Operating Officer Steve Schmidt. Some of the gems:
Gem #1
Montagne:
“…I was at a rally in New Mexico last week where when Senator McCain asker “Who is the real Barrack Obama?” a man in the crowd shouted, “Terrorist!” Is the campaign backing off some of these attacks now?”
Schmidt:
“Well, we’re proud of the campaign we’ve run. It’s been a positive campaign, it’s been a campaign where we’ve talked about the differences with Senator Obama. Now, both campaigns have thousands of people in their crowds, and we had one person yell something inappropriate at ours, and of course we condemn it. You see that happen at Obama rallies, the difference is, it seems that when it happens at a McCain rally, it gets covered on television, when it happens at an Obama rally, it doesn’t get covered.”
[ He’s absolutely right, you know. I’ve not heard the media cover a single instance of anyone at an Obama rally referring to either McCain or Palin as “terrorist”, “Muslim”, “Arab”, or shouting “Kill Him (or Her)!”, so it is obviously evidence of the liberal media’s conspiracy against McCain! Is the Secret Service in on this conspiracy, too? They are investigating the “Kill Him” threat in Florida, so they must be controlled by the liberal media as well. Take cover! I see the black helicopters coming!]
Gem #2
Schmidt:
“When you talk about Governor Palin’s line about, of course, referring to Bill Ayers, and let me be clear on this Renee, the, uh, campaign and particularly John McCain doesn’t much care about a washed up old terrorist like Bill Ayers whose organization bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol. But, what is true and beyond debate in this race, is that Barrack Obama has been untruthful about the dimension of this relationship.”
[I think that it is significant that Schmidt didn’t say that Ayers did the bombing, he said that his “organization bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol.” Coming from Schmidt, that distinction is important. However, if Steve Schmidt says that the Obama/Ayers connection is beyond debate, who are we to question him? After all, Obama was a very precocious eight year old. Ah, we can always count on the McCain/Palin campaign to be the arbiters of THE TRUTH, something that they are so familiar with.]
Gem #3
“We, uh, are running in a difficult political environment. It’s not a secret to anybody who’s out there. I believe in this race we are approximately six points behind. There’s a lot of the media right now that’s writing Senator McCain off, for the third of fourth time this year. Um, which means we have him just where we want him in this race. Um, you know Barrack Obama has a history of closing weakly in the campaign, Senator McCain has a history of closing strongly and…
Montagne (interrupting):
“So six points behind, did I hear you right, is where you want to be?”
Ah, yes. The old “Lull them into a false sense of security by letting them beat us” strategy. It was employed so effectively by Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, et al.
This is what passes for “straight talk.” Sounds more than just a little bent, if you ask me. Only the dittoheads are buying this manure. The rest of us recognize it as a ridiculosity laden spin job that wouldn’t fool an astute six year old. McCain is unlikely to win over undecided voters by treating us like morons.
Listen to the entire story here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95666550
Jeff (tmmo), welcome back.
3655 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 13, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Gasman, thanks, and if you think we’re happy now, wait ’til you see our undisguised glee at being 12 points down! Then, then we’ll . . .
I’ll have to get back to ya on that one.
181 chars
moe99 said on October 13, 2008 at 6:13 pm
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/13/obama/index.html
Glenn Greenwald on Obama’s influence over the stock market per Jonah Goldberg
147 chars
deb said on October 13, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I just made a pilgrimage to Trader Joe’s this past weekend — it’s too far away to justify regular visits — and was thrilled to still be able to get a case of two-buck Chuck for $36. (In our market it’s always been $3.) Very reassuring. Our college and retirement funds are all but gone, but at least we’ll have something to drink.
Noted with interest the apparent attempt to start rehabilitating the image of Mrs. Palin’s soon-to-be-son-in-law, who explained that he was “mostly joking” when he referred to himself on Facebook as a “fuckin’ redneck” and a person uninterested in having children. It was the “mostly” that killed me. But the jaw-droppin’ part was the news anchor’s closing sentence: “Mr. Johnston, a high school dropout, is working in the oil fields.” OMG. Where do you even start?
801 chars
Joe K said on October 13, 2008 at 7:47 pm
How about we start with, He has a job, is paying taxes, and is owning up to his responsibility’s, as a soon to be father. Yes there young, and statistics say it won’t last, but at least the effort seems to be there.
Joe
221 chars
moe99 said on October 13, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Levi Johnston has not registered to vote, despite being eligible to do so. and he thinks Barack Obama seems nice enough.
121 chars
alex said on October 13, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Maybe Levi can breed some brains into that family.
50 chars
John Brown said on October 13, 2008 at 9:14 pm
What is Gov. Palin’s position on the value of a high-school diploma?
All parents of teenagers can use this example to reinforce our advice over the years about how one loose moment can change your life from what you have dreamed it could be to making the best of a difficult situation.
288 chars
joodyb said on October 13, 2008 at 9:20 pm
jonah – always good for a laff! will he never learn? he clearly discounts/insults the ability of others to follow the bouncing ball.
no one caught jtmmo’s clever zombie joke! i too am so glad of your return. give my regards to the LC.
i am in del’s club. who knew the pain of the post-2000 up-in-the-air elex on an island with a neocon who was not very happy to have to defend his candidate could be topped. could someone (cooz? Joe K?) get to work on that space/time continuum thing, please?
499 chars
basset said on October 13, 2008 at 9:28 pm
you mean they still MAKE Photoflo?
34 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 13, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Hey, y’all do know how delightfully addictive THIS is, right?
http://twitter.com/knapsack
Oy. Tweets even on my lowish tech candy bar phone. Joe Trippi and NASA tell me which way is up . . . oh, the joy (and CNN Breaking News to boot).
243 chars
Gasman said on October 14, 2008 at 2:09 am
I just re-read some of the ridiculosity from the NYT search for the “Muslim rumor” re: Obama source:
“…his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s…”
Say what? Obama and I are the same age. As a matter of fact, he is only 4-5 weeks my senior. Even at the latest stage of the 70’s, Obama would have been only 18 years old. He may have been precocious, but it would be more than another decade before he would attend law school. It is not possible that his admission to the bar was blocked, because he was still – as was I – in high school.
Not much intelligence amongst those promulgating this nonsense. Can’t even do basic addition.
As for Elizabeth Dole’s troubles, I say “good riddance.” I suppose she is what passes for a moderate in the Republican Party today. She has been content to remain not just passive, but absolutely inert as the Neocons took hijacked the Rs. The party is in its present shape because those who could have checked the nascent Neocons did not do so. They sought to use the Neocon fervor and the NCons ability to mobilize the party base, foolishly believing that they could control them. Who controlled whom?
When the party cleans house, then I’ll consider them, but not until then.
1253 chars
Jolene said on October 14, 2008 at 3:59 am
Gasman, it wasn’t Obama’ admission to the bar that was blocked. The article is referring to Andy Martin, the man they describe as the source of the “Obama is a Muslim” rumors. It was his admission to the bar that was blocked.
The LA Times published a complete takedown of the Sean Hannity show on which Martin appeared.
Appears that this show was well beyond the usual Hannityism. I keep wondering how it is that people pay money to hear him.
580 chars
brian stouder said on October 14, 2008 at 8:17 am
Jolene – I nominate that link you shared on Andy Martin (and his First Dude media enabler, Sean Hannity) as Link O’ the Day! This line made me laugh out loud –
When he ran for Illinois governor two years ago, Martin quoted a nearly 30-year-old Tribune editorial that called him “an absolutely brilliant campaigner” when he was running for a Senate seat. He didn’t mention that the same editorial said he “has no more business in the U.S. Senate than an elk has in a phone booth.”
hahahhahahaha!!!
512 chars
Gasman said on October 14, 2008 at 10:11 am
Jolene,
Thanks for the clarification. I was referring to reading the excerpts from Nancy above, obviously not the original source articles. It didn’t make a bit of sense, but then neither does most of the “Muslim” fervor garbage. Now I am curious and will follow up the Andy Martin trail.
292 chars