Farewell, lively dancer.
God, I hate it when NPR tries to be hip. I also hate it when they show willful obtuseness in the face of pop culture. On this score, I’m impossible to please, and should probably just tune out when they try something like an “appreciation” of Patrick Swayze, which didn’t quite work. Terry Gross could have handled it, but she’s got her own fish to fry, and can’t be popping in to the other shows to give them notes.
It’s hard to say what was wrong with the Swayze piece; maybe it was done by someone too young to really grasp the dual wonder and disappointment of the guy — he was always the best thing in a bad movie, but couldn’t really make the leap to good ones. He belonged in a different era, when his Gene Kelly combination of physical grace and unquestioned masculinity could have been packaged in his own “Singin’ in the Rain.” Either that, or he needed to live a little longer, until Quentin Tarantino could have built a script around him, like he did for John Travolta and Robert Forster. As it is, he’ll be remembered for doing his best work in individual scenes where he could shine — the last few minutes of “Dirty Dancing,” the Chippendale’s sketch from “Saturday Night Live” — rather than one single movie.
If you’re a fan of “Point Break,” I don’t want to hear about it.
And while I hate it when bloggers link to their own past work like it’s some sort of scholarship, I reread what I wrote about Swayze at the time of his diagnosis last year, and I’ll stand by it. You can read it here.
I just watched the “Dirty Dancing” clip again. Great dancing, of course, but why did the rest of the movie have to suck so bad? Why is Jerry Orbach glowering when everyone around him is happy? Why is the orchestra leader conducting, when we’ve already clearly seen they’re dancing to a record? And when the old people join in I have to pull the covers over my head and die a little bit.
(You know a movie I’d pay to see? One about Jennifer Grey’s nose job. I know it’s been discussed on TV, but a smart movie that drills down into plastic surgery and all its implications, using Baby’s rhinoplasty as a through line? That would be worth doing.)
Oh, and my all-time fave Excruciating NPR Pop-Cult Moment is when Noah Adams tried to lead a segment explicating the career of the late Big Pun, the rapper. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, Noah Adams. It’s still one of the funniest things I ever heard.
Friends, it appears that casting a couple worms in the job pool this morning has eaten up my blogging time. What are we thinking of “Mad Men” so far this season? I’m thinking it’s simultaneously wonderful and awful, which is, I hasten to add, a very good thing for me. I love entertainments where everyone involved points at the highest rows in the house and says, “That’s what we’re aiming for” and then maybe falls short, but dies trying. The mood so far this season seems to be “the thing that’s coming? It’s getting very close…” It’s not quite there yet, so we’re seeing a lot of Peggy slowly getting the message about what women are worth, really, and Betty ditto, and we really need more Joan, but so far it’s hard to see how it’s all coming together. The last scene this week was wonderful, all of Betty’s hopes deserting her at the time hope likes to do so — in the middle of the night — while the primordial ball-and-chain of all womankind wails from its crib. (Yes, it’s a joy, too. It’s both. That’s the point.) She’s going to have the worst post-partum depression ever.
I’m getting a little tired of the hollaback lines and scenes we’re all supposed to titter over. From the un-seat-belted children playing with dry cleaner bags in the first season, we’re now expected to gasp over the OB nurse telling Betty to get ready for her shave and enema. standard for childbirth back in the day. This feels forced.
What say you? I’m off to the gym to think about it.
(Order your Amazon through me and I earn 4 percent. Click the “powered by Amazon” logo.)
Danny said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Bringing this forward from yesterday’s thread…
Brian, I only have time for a quick note, but I wanted to let you know that I took a tour if the Indy 500 museum yesterday and a group of us went around the track in a tour bus. Unlike you and some others here, I’m not very much of a motor sports enthusiast, but it was dang interesting. In the museum, my eyes kept drifting back to two particular cars: This Corvette and this Lotus. Beautiful machines.
Very cool. I’ll never look at the race the same way again, but I can’t say that it would be a very enjoyable event on a very hot day. Lot’s of concrete and sun exposure coupled with a crowd of 300k would probably get old quick.
brian stouder said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:22 am
IMS is a beautiful facility, and the museum is very cool. If you’re ever in Dearborn, you have to see the Henry Ford Museum; an engineer’s Disneyland, really
Dorothy said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:39 am
You are so, so right about “Mad Men.” I think the “thing that’s coming” is going to involve the JFK assassination for sure. The show is alternately pissing me off and fascinating me. I can’t decide which one is stronger.
Connie said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:49 am
So Danny, gears and heat treating?
paddyo' said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:51 am
You ain’t seen bad yet, but it’s a-comin’, Nance …
Personally, I kinda liked Swayze in drag in “To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar” … viva Vida! But agreed, he was the king of bad movies, probably because he brought his dancer’s grace to them, making them ever-so-slightly less bad.
As for “Mad Men,” I’m hoping both Peggy AND little Sally end up at Woodstock later in the decade …
I agree that there’s been a lot of waiting … waiting … and waiting some more this season for something actually to happen. But in the meantime, we’ve had a pretty good seminar in the pre-stirrings of feminism (or the stirrings of pre-feminism, whatever) — and the medical and business culture that had held it down (and in some ways still does).
Favorite line: When the intake nurse, about to wheel Betty to the maternity ward, tells Don, “Your job’s done” … yeah, once upon a time, that was true. (Probably in some quarters it still is …)
This episode ought to be required viewing in high school — civics, home ec or whatever they’re calling those classes these days. Not just as “an homage” to how it used to be, either — because that’s not all past us yet. Lower wages for women, and last time I checked, guys don’t get post-partem depression …
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:59 am
The whole shave and enema line didn’t work. Not only was it forced, I don’t think nurses informed patients of what was to come quite as much then. They just did it. I have nephews and nieces born around that time and from hearing my sisters in law talk with their friends about the birth experience, it seemed like it was something done to them, not something they had anything to do with.
Bill White said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:21 am
As a commenter at Sepinwall’s blog said about Mad Men: “I can’t think of another show on TV that has so much dread in its silences; there’s been hardly any real violence or horror on the show to speak of, and yet it always feels like doom could break at any moment.”
adrianne said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Nance, you and I know Patrick’s finest oevre was in “North and South.”
moe99 said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I had my wisdom teeth pulled the spring of 1970 at St. Mary’s Hospital, one of the two hospitals serving the Mayo Clinic. Back in those days it was full anesthetic surgery – they put you under and you had a day’s hospital stay afterwards. I recall waking up from the anesthetic in a ward filled with beds of other women waking up from being put under, but they had all given birth! I cannot imagine what it was like not to have been present at the birth of your child. My dad was in the anesthesia residency program at Mayo at the time, and they were perfecting epidurals then. I remember him coming home and talking about it to us kids, it was such a break with tradition then.
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I know Mad Men isn’t a soap opera, but has the question arisen about the paternity of this baby? Remember Betty’s drunken bathroom adventure with the stranger?
nancy said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:40 am
She was preggers before that. Remember, in the same episode, her cryptic talk with Francine about the procedure which dare not speak its name?
The baby was conceived during her impulsive middle-of-the-night coupling with Don at her father’s house after his stroke.
Danny said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Yeah, Connie. I’ve kinda moved up the corporate food chain over the years, but my career and technical foundation is based in gearing, bearings, metallurgy, lubrication and machinery of all sorts. And I like staying close to the heartbeat of knowledge. Too many corporate types these days think its all done with smoke and mirrors, firm handshakes and deep voices. Whatever, perhaps they watch too much Mad Men. Hehe..
Peter said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Danny — We visited the Speedway years ago and loved it. Got to ask — did the bus tour still have the audio tape with “Back home again, in Indiiiiaaannnna”?
Years ago my sister lived in Speedway, and even though her apartment was over three miles away from the track, she couldn’t leave her place on race day — she woke up at 6:00 am to find cars had parked on her lawn and blocked her garage.
Brian — Totally agree on the Henry Ford — I consider the tools exhibit the equivalent to Disney’s Main Street — aged and lame. But the rest is worth the trip.
50’s Childbirth — Paddyo’ you’re right — my dad said the nurse said the same to him in the hospital lobby when I was due.
Another story about my sister — when she joined the human race my dad was out of town, so the neighbor’s husband drove Mom to the hospital. When the nurse, my mom, and the neighbor’s dad went into the elevator, the nurse said that the husband didn’t need to go upstairs. He replied “That’s OK; I’m not her husband,” and the nurse fainted.
Jeff Borden said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I interviewed Patrick Swayze in my former life as a TV critic, when he was filming “North and South” in Charleston, S.C. in 1985. He was ridiculously good looking, of course, but he also was very engaging and open, discussing the physical toll his early dance career had taken on him and his knees and ankles. Like every other dancer I have ever met, he chained smoked like a fiend, but still had the glow and grace of an athlete.
I know “Road House” is a crappy movie –a Harvard-educated philosophy major who works as a bouncer and stitches up his own knife wounds sans painkillers– but cannot deny the stupid pleasures it affords on repeated viewings. It’s the very definition of a guilty pleasure.
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Ok. I wasn’t clear about the timing. I was looking forward to her having nagging doubt about who the father was. Oh well. I’ll have to look forward to other nagging doubts.
Colleen said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
My sister and I are of the age that our mother’s experience birthin’ us mirrored Betty’s. In fact, my dad was home napping when I was born, and mom was out like a trout.
I agree about the impending doom. It’s just HANGING there. And while not being a mother myself, I totally got that last scene, with the baby crying and just this feeling of a giant sigh from Betty, as she kind of said “here we go again.…”
I adore this show.
Linda said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I’m a baby boomer, and my father’s experience was just like that – he didn’t hang around the hospital, even, when any of the five of us was born. Except for my sister Jo, and that was because it was raining outside,and he didn’t feel like going home in the rain.
beb said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Dan Gillmor with some thoughts on how he would run a newspaper…
http://mediactive.com/2009/09/12/eleven-things-id-do-if-i-ran-a-news-organization/
Rana said on September 15th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
It’s not just the 1950s where the expectation of the man being outside held; my father (in 1970) was present at my birth, but my mother had to argue pretty forcefully to have him allowed in the room with her. (He was also unusual in that he’d taken a parenting class beforehand, and she broke tradition further by doing Lamaze instead of using anesthesia.)
Regarding the total anesthesia — I don’t know which is worse, the expectation that you’d be drugged to the gills for birth, or the modern expectation that you’re going to have a Caesarean if you labor “too long.” Neither seems very respectful of the woman’s mental and physical health, during or after; both seem oriented toward “get the baby out with as little fuss for the doctor as possible.”
(I’m not talking, obviously, about the rare cases where a c-section is the only way to save the baby.)
Julie Robinson said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
My Dad was sent to the police station during my birth – they didn’t have a home phone, and since he was a reporter he was there all the time anyway. He always sounded wistful that they didn’t allow him in.
As for the shave and the enema they were still handing those out here in the Fort in 1980. As well as the bleepin’ episiotomies.
On a happier note: Dorothy, how did your show go? Although I guess Steel Magnolias isn’t all that happy. Full report, including your role, please.
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Just guessing, but I bet Dorothy is Truvy.
Dorothy said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Hah! I was Truvy about a dozen years ago the first time I was in Steel Mags. Then when we lived in Cincinnati I did the show again, and that time I was Clairee. This time around I was M’Lynn, and I openly admit to making everyone (even the guys in the audience, of which there were some) cry when I did the big meltdown scene at the end. The show went okay. Since I’ve done it so many friggin’ times I know everyone’s lines. And therefore I saved several potential disasters by prompting nearly everyone when they went blank. I’m glad I’m never doing that play again.
On a different note, but tangentially about Mr. Swayze’s passing, I have to open up a question to the group. Because we’ve had a huge family fall out in the last 14 hours or so, all due to some smart ass remark my son put on Facebook last night after the news got out about Patrick’s death. Here’s what Josh posted:
“Well, at least we now know there’s a decent chance at seeing ‘Ghost 2.’”
This simple stupid joke brought on a firestorm of criticism from a cousin on Mike’s side of the family. She blistered my son, and subsequently my daughter, for what she perceives as an attack and uncaring feelings toward someone with cancer. Does this comment strike anyone as leaning in that direction?! I don’t want to get all overly dramatic about this, but it’s been a hellish spectacle. She included Mike and I, her mother, her brother and his wife on the message she sent privately thru Facebook. She told them they (my kids) have no class, and asked them if they were busy writing a comedy routine about dead cancer patients last May when Mike had his head shaved in support of her brother, who was in the hospital fighting cancer at the time.
Am I right that she over-reacted? Can I have honest feedback here?
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
She over reacted. Even if she was profoundly offended, why include half the world?
Julie Robinson said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Sounds like a typical smart-ass kid remark. The only problem was writing it in such a public forum. If that’s his worst offense I wouldn’t worry about him too much. The cousin? Needs to get some perspective.
MarkH said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Something may be missing there, Dorothy. Did said cousin have some sort of connection with cancer suffering we (or you) don’t know about? That would be the only legitimate reason for the described reaction, otherwise, what LAMary said. And in keeping with something I’d expect to see on facebook.
EDIT — Oh, wait just re-read your post. Still, as it was a celebrity with the “Ghost” movie connection and it was not about her brother, the over-reaction opinion holds.
Dorothy said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Mark the cousin who wrote the message is a female, and her brother had a very prolonged battle with cancer last year. I may have mentioned it once or twice last year in our forums here. He’s doing much better now. But my husband, our kids and I are having a difficult time figuring out how she made the leap to thinking Josh was poking fun of any and all cancer patients, instead of realizing the joke referred to had to do with Swayze’s starring role in the movie “Ghost” a long time ago. Josh was not saying he took pleasure in the knowledge that he died, that he had cancer, or anything along those lines. She took the whole thing out of context and hence created this maelstrom.
Julie you are right about the smart-ass thing. He comes from a long line of smart asses, particularly his mother.
Peter said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Dorothy — regarding your son’s remark — Ba Da BOOM! I’m here all week, don’t forget to tip your waitress!
This lady has obviously not worked in a news room, construction site, or trading firm. I understand that her brother had the big C, but it’s just about a hack actor in a hack film. Sheesh!
Dorothy said on September 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
All I could think about last night, Peter, as I fell asleep was “Hasn’t she ever heard of gallows humor?!?!” Hell we had it in Steel Magnolias when my character says she’s so angry that her daughter is dead, she just wants to hit someone & make them feel as bad as she does. Then suddenly another character in the play grabs a third character and pushes her towards me and says ‘HERE Hit this!’.
I’m mostly worried about what this will do to the relationship between my husband and his cousin. She is the mother of the over-reacting snot-nosed cousin and her brother. They need each other — neither has a sibling and they are very close. I just hope we can all rise above it and move on.
4dbirds said on September 15th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Dorothy, we had awful gallows humor in the army. I cringe when I think of some of the jokes we told after some small or large tragedy. I wouldn’t be surprised if your cousin has some other reason to be mad and is using the facebook entry to express latent rage. Your son sounds like a normal snarky kid to me. He’d fit in at our house.
brian stouder said on September 15th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Am I right that she over-reacted
right as rain, Dorothy.
I think 4DB hits this squarely – such a snap response, and that level of stridency and anger, seems to bespeak a lot of pent-up hostility (for whatever other reason)
jeff borden said on September 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
It’s hard to top cops, firefighters and emergency room personnel for gallows humor. I remember covering a motorcycle fatality in Columbus, where the rider had been traveling at such high speed that his body started shedding parts as it rolled down the pavement.
One of the guys in the accident investigation squad said to me, “We’re gonna have to cite that guy for leaving the scene of an accident. There’s his leg down there…his torso over there…” Etc.
Given the horrors these people see on a regular basis –and as 4dbirds notes this applies to our military– gallows humor seems like a pretty basic coping mechanism to me.
mark said on September 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Dorothy–
My advice, since your soliciting: It doesn’t matter who is wrong. This is family (and I hope they don’t know about this website or you may have a new issue).
Have your son examine what he might have done wrong– being a smart-ass, not understanding that cousin would see the face-book entry, whatever. Then issue a sincere apology. From the few facts you have shared, it might be: I’m sorry. I’ve removed that comment from my facebook page. I was being sarcastic and going for a cheap laugh. I wasn’t trying to mke light of cancer, but I see how you and others could take it that way. It was stupid of me and I apologize.
Then be done with the issue. For good. These people will be with you and your son for the rest of your lives. Which teenager behaved worse isn’t a debate worth having with family.
Dorothy said on September 15th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Mark he already has. He did so at 12:15 this morning, about 90 minutes after she posted her nasty thoughts. He did it at that time because his sister called him, sobbing, she was so distraught over being unfairly criticized. I’ll be glad to share it with you in an email if you’d like to read it. Both of my kids apologized, but then also called her out for her criticizing my husband’s and my parenting skills, her rude behavior in including more people than necessary in her diatribe, and her tone in general. And none of these people are teenagers. The cousin is 38, her brother is 34, my kids are 26 and 24. All adults.
mark said on September 15th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Well, sorry it’s gone that far. While it is easier to recite than to follow, I like the advice that says you can only control you, and your responsibilty is to police your own side of the street. Whether the other guy ever sees the light isn’t your responsibility.
Since she has already been alerted to her excesses, there isn’t much more to do. She may never agree, but you can’t control that. Hope your son can just let it go. In meetings I attend, it’s sometimes said that resentments are a poison you feed yourself, thinking it will make the other person sick. Or space you let someone else rent in your head. It’s a serenity prayer thing. Your son attempted to chnge the thing he can with his apology. Hope he can find the serenity to accept the thing he can’t change– her response.
Edit: You write “Facebook”, I read “teenager.” God, I’m getting old.
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
On a warm and fuzzy note:
http://gothamist.com/2009/09/15/snuggue.php
paddyo' said on September 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Dorothy, I’ll only add — having been in a similar situation for a smart-assed journalist remark I made to my “civilian” older brother a few years ago in an “instant message” chat — that on the Internet, subtlety and sarcasm and the rest of the gray-area family of humorous discourse frequently fall on tone-deaf ears.
A lot of things that would elicit guffaws, especially accompanied by body language, facial expression, comic timing, the whole gamut of face-to-face telling, simply don’t exist in cyberspace. And there are a LOT of people for whom this wonderful, edgy kind of humor simply does NOT translate in pixilated characters.
I wish it weren’t so, because I often want to say, Oh please, get a LIFE, people!, to those who don’t get it. But online and in e-mail, a lot of people “don’t get it,” and it’s rarely worth the pain.
Fortunately, in my own case, a telephone mea culpa (I was astonished at how I had ended up being a bad guy, but I just had to swallow it and get it over with) and a bouquet of flowers (another family member, his grown daughter, was the subject of my badly delivered wisecrack “joke”) smoothed it over.
But I remain gunshy to this day … and maybe that’s a good thing.
Good luck patching things up, and I hope it goes swiftly and as smoothly as you can.
Connie said on September 15th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
And I saw my first snuggie ad last night on TV. Animal prints! Dog wear!
Dorothy my first thought is over reaction, but then I’m the one that thinks my evil SIL still owes me an apology, lo these 22 years later.
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
My grandmother used to call a certain type of slightly above knee length thermal underwear snuggies. She used to attempt to force me to wear these in the winter. Hah.
joodyb said on September 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I remember those, LAMary. My mom wouldn’t buy us the more alluring pettipants, but we got those, for “warmth.” the boys had a name for them. i think it was “birth control.”
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Yes, the ugly sister of pettipants.
Here’s a nice article not about ugly underwear:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/sep/14/tea-party-photo-shows-large-crowd-different-event/
moe99 said on September 15th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
a Bush speechwriter pens his memoir:
http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_10957
Not lookin’ good for ol’ Bushie there.….
my favorite part of the article:
“When White House press secretary Dana Perino was told that 77 percent of the country thought we were on the wrong track, she said what I was thinking: “Who on earth is in the other 23 percent?” I knew who they were — the same people supporting the John McCain campaign. Me? I figured there was no way in hell any Republican would vote for that guy. John McCain, the temperamental media darling, had spent most of the past eight years running against the Republican Party and the president — Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the White House hated him. Choosing John McCain as our standard-bearer would be the height of self-delusion. It would be like putting Camilla Parker Bowles in charge of the Princess Diana Foundation.
As it turned out, I was the one who was deluded. The people I worked with in the White House were the most loyal of the Bush loyalists. Dana Perino was so sensitive to criticism of Bush that she once said she couldn’t watch the Democratic convention because it would be “too mean” to the president. Yet I watched them embrace McCain enthusiastically — backing a guy who’d worked so hard to undermine them. It was a cynical bargain.”
moe99 said on September 15th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Oh wait! I have one more favorite part of the memoir:
Referring to Sarah Palin:
“I’m trying to remember if I’ve met her before. I’m sure I must have.” His eyes twinkled, then he asked, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”
…
“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level.”
del said on September 15th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Dorothy, they’re overreacting. Really.
Back to Dirty Dancing. I checked out Jennifer Grey’s nose job and was surprised, it’s not bad, just different. I was expecting a Michael Jackson deal. Her nose was a distinguishing feature. Too bad she changed it.
And the movie Ghost. Women liked it, men didn’t as I recall. Same with Dirty Dancing come to think of it.
LAMary said on September 15th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I never saw Ghost. The presence of Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg in one movie would be a very effective repellent for me. I’ve seen Dirty Dancing on television. I wondered why Jerry Ohrbach walked around being pissed off too. He’s not a bad actor, so someone was directing him to be that way. Lots of things made no sense in that movie.
The SNL sketch with Chris Farley was terrific. They were both just perfect.
coozledad said on September 15th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
moe99: My favorite part is the multidimensional hubris that accompanied the insertee into the White House. He was unable to understand that he was a direct product of the dixiecrat walkout of ’48, or at least, unwilling to accept it.
He was worse than clueless: He believed what his walnut of a brain was telling him:
“In 2008, Bush also told Latimer to take out a reference to the “conservative movement” in a speech. “Let me tell you something,” the President said. “I whupped Gary Bauer’s ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement.” When Latimer was “perplexed,” Bush explained, “Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say,” the president said, “but I redefined the Republican Party.”
brian stouder said on September 15th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
When Latimer was “perplexed,” Bush explained, “Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say,” the president said, “but I redefined the Republican Party.”
A guest on Olbermann had a great quip, after that very same quote — something like:
Yeah — he redefined the Republican Party from “Majority” to “Minority”!!
coozledad said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Brian: My big worry is the Republican party will choose civil unrest over a brief irrelevance. There seem to be some growing indications that this isn’t a fait accompli, but you just never know. Particularly when the sons of South Carolina see an opening.
brian stouder said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
By the way — I vote to formally rebuke the Proprietress for lobbing that turdball “meme-orandum’ link yesterday. I clicked the thing a few minutes ago, and now I have to go take a shower and scrub the grimey stupidity off.
In looking back, I guess there was a context-clue warning about that site — but sheesh! If there’s “nsfw” warnings, then we also need “cfbs” warnings
nancy said on September 15th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
What’s wrong with memeorandum? It’s just an aggregator of what people are blogging around at any given moment. Did you get something else?
Deborah said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Dorothy, sounds like an over-reaction to me too.
I’m tired, back from a 2 day business trip to Miami. I grew up there, I had a miserable life there and going back is depressing. I feel like Debbie Downer tonight.
Glad to be back in Chicago.
Danny said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Well, after a whole couple days of too little sleep and too much of having to talk intelligently in front of strangers, I finally escaped for a little canal walk tonight. Very nice. I could almost imagine I was walking along the Seine and crossing Pont Neuf at the end.
… okay, I’m finished waxing romantic about Indy. Mary, you saving my seat back in California? I miss it!
Man, I don’t know if I mentioned this but, I thought this place was central time until the second day. No. It’s at the END of the eastern time zone. The late evening light fooled me.
Danny said on September 15th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Wow, Dorothy. Over reaction … and your son’s joke was pretty good. Probably shouldn’t tell the cousin I said that though. It’s too soon.
coozledad said on September 16th, 2009 at 12:39 am
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090916/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_heckling_carter
crazycatlady said on September 16th, 2009 at 1:13 am
My twin sisters were born in 1956. They were a surprise to my mom and her doctor. Back then they just never knew. Gee, Mom loved her Maternity Martinis.…Just Kidding!! lol
Connie said on September 16th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Let me get this straight. Mr Danny California is complaining about too much sunshine in Indiana?
Oh Danny, if you only knew. Daylight savings is relatively new here, and still controversial.
alex said on September 16th, 2009 at 7:45 am
If you want to know where the GOP gets its incredible knack for turning Joe Sixpack into a zombie shit salesman, get a load of our class of ’94 Hoosier congressmen:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090916/NEWS03/309169990/1002/LOCAL
Souder and Pence are two of the biggest primitives in all of Congress, outside of the South Carolina delegation. I was hoping the blue tide might finally knock them out of their gerrymandered seats, but no luck. Maybe next year.
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 16th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Lots of produce pickers here, so i suspect there’s more than a few interested in what i saw at Lyanda Haupt’s “The Tangled Nest” blog on how to mitigate fruit flies in the house with big last piles of tomatoes (especially the last suggestion):
“The fruit fly life cycle is crazy-fast – egg to adult in seven days– and it’s hard to match their menacing tenacity. The very best way to control fruit flies is scrupulous sanitation:
* Keep fruit with even the tiniest bit of broken skin in the fridge.
* Wipe counters, wash dishes, rinse out sinks immediately.
* Wipe the edges of open wine bottles, and keep them in the fridge if you can (just one fruit fly in the bottle with give the rest of the wine a sick-sweet taste).
* Even with their skins on, bananas are great fruit fly attractor, so it’s best to avoid them (who needs bananas anyway, with all the gorgeous local produce to be had?).
* Take out your compost scraps twice a day, and keep them covered between-times. Ditto the gargabe can.
* Make a simple trap by dropping a few of their favorite foods (skinned plums, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, wine…) in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap that has little holes poked in it – the fruit flies will get in, but look at how tiny those brains must be; they won’t get out.
* And just for fun, add a Venus flytrap or two!
John said on September 16th, 2009 at 8:04 am
I heard once that the director of Dirty Dancing thought all the local extras looked out of place as it was being filmed in North Carolina and they were supposedly Jewish New York City types. The extras were too fair and too Southern looking. So someone on the staff got the bright idea of contacting North Carolina synagogues and chartering buses to haul in real Jews for the background extras. Seemed like a flawless plan until the buses arrived with Jewish extras who looked too fair and too Southern!
brian stouder said on September 16th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Wow Alex — the article you linked made my eyes cross! On top of all the ridiculous invective aimed at the president, Mark Souder goes blithely on to make a flatly racist remark!! Whatever one thinks of the president’s veracity, or of the interruption from the member of congress from South Carolina, what the hell difference does the color of the skin of other members of congress make?
PS — when I clicked ‘meme-orandum’ it was wall-to-wall rightwing ads and posts and commentors; Malkin and Hannity and Beck and Freepers and Deathers and Birthers and guns and “YOU LIE”.…and I had to hit EJECT!!
But maybe it was just 99 cent wingnut night, over there
Danny said on September 16th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Let me get this straight. Mr Danny California is complaining about too much sunshine in Indiana?
Hahaha! Good observation, Connie.
Randy said on September 16th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I think Kathryn Bigelow directed The Hurt Locker and Point Break.
Point Break isn’t great by any means, but the scene where Keanu Reeves jumps out of the plane without a parachute, in hopes of latching onto Patrick Sawyze, mid-air, that scene is kind of cool.