Have I mentioned lately how much I hate lawn services? If not, let me say so now. Again. Both my adjoining neighbors employ them, both visit on Thursday mornings, and at the moment, it sounds like the neighborhood is under attack by a swarm of angry hornets. They are running, all at once, a stand-up mower, a gas-powered blower and a power edger.
The good news: It’s over quickly. And it makes for quieter weekends. Still.
The gas blowers are the devil’s device, and I say that as one who owns an electric one. The decibel level is approximately that of a 747 engine six inches above your head, and…
…silence. These guys get faster every week. Whew. On to torture someone else.
Here’s something else: Those stupid edgers make my mowing job easier. It’s easy to find the property line between the Derringers, who don’t give a shit if the sidewalk has a nice sharp delineation, and everyone else.
A friend of mine who used to live in Grosse Pointe Park planted his park strip — the grass strip between the sidewalk and street — in vegetables. I wonder what my neighbors would do if I tried that, although I’m sure there’s already an existing ordinance forbidding such frippery. There was a house in Fort Wayne I passed on my dog walks that had cleverly incorporated vegetables and other food crops in the regular flower beds, with the flowers. Very clever. You’d be looking at some zinnias and then note the climbing beans standing in the background. That’s the sort of gardener I’d like to be, if I were the sort to garden, period.
So, I see the feds finally brought Whitey Bulger to heel, the legendary Boston mobster who was the basis for the Jack Nicholson character in “The Departed.” He was living in Santa Monica, a big improvement in the weather department, I’d say, although it was also an apartment building, and we’ve discussed neighbor problems before. One said his longtime girlfriend was “sweet,” but that he was a jerk and had “rage issues.” It must be hard to be a baller and then, suddenly, not-a-baller. Henry Hill didn’t do so well in witness protection, and we all saw the last scene in “Goodfellas.” It’s just noodles and ketchup in Nowheresville, forever and ever.
Boy, today is not getting off to a good start, is it? Thursdays rarely do. So let’s get to the bloggage, and then say the hell with it:
A nice New York Times piece on the Indiana economy, which is not all it seems, or at least not all that’s touted by the guv and his supporters:
Workers here have done a backward slip-slide for more than a decade. Median income is falling — by 15 percent in the last decade. The so-called real unemployment rate, which includes those too discouraged to look for work, stood at 17.4 percent last year. And the percentage of Indianans who participate in the work force has dropped in the past two years, much faster than in Illinois and Ohio to the east.
“Indiana has touted jobs numbers, the governor has been happy to talk about it, but the reality is that they don’t pay nearly as much as the old union manufacturing jobs,” said John Ketzenberger, president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group. “People in Indiana are working harder and longer for less.”
In other words, the same old story. Quel surprise.
And I have nothing more. I am calling in empty today. Got some tasty linkage? Leave it in comments.
Colleen said on June 23, 2011 at 10:44 am
As someone still looking for a full time gig, I can tell you, while there may be “jobs”, there aren’t a hell of a lot that pay squat. I see tons at 8, 9, 10 bucks an hour, which just doesn’t give one much economic power. And yes, I am working one of those just so I can be working. Annnnd making less than unemployment. Which to some people means unemployment pays too much. To others, it means the job situation sucks. Guess which camp I fall into?
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Chris in Iowa said on June 23, 2011 at 10:46 am
Tasty linkage, you say? Bon appetit. http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/steak-made-from-human-poop-passes-taste-test
As for me, I’ll just have a salad, thanks.
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Dexter said on June 23, 2011 at 11:12 am
Maybe not tasty, but a must for all Treme watchers, and don’t read this until you have seen last Sunday’s killer show, which has a stunning final scene.
This link explains much of what happened on Sunday’s episode.
http://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/index.ssf/2011/06/today_in_treme_steve_earle_exi.html
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maryinIN said on June 23, 2011 at 11:23 am
Concerning the gas-powered blowers, I read that they are the biggest gas-guzzlers of all gas-powered items — it was truly an astounding statistic, one that should make anyone ashamed of using such an appliance. Also, they can be dangerous — some were recalled for bursting into flame. What is the reason for them anyway? Clippings are good for the lawn and you can use a broom to get them off the driveway and back on the lawn.
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LAMary said on June 23, 2011 at 11:26 am
An apartment in Santa Monica is hardly nowheresville. Even with rent control it’s out of my price range by a lot, and I think you could find excellent restaurants of any variety within about five miles of whereever you are in Santa Monica. If Whitey Bulger was living in Downey or Palmdale it would definitely be a step down, but as much as I love Boston, Santa Monica has a lot to offer, and I’m not talking about beach culture. It’s not some surfer town.
edit: The feds found Whitey Bulger by putting ads in daytime TV during shows favored by women. The ads focused on Whitey’s female companion and I think mentioned she may have had plastic surgery. The in-house Brit observed that other women are much better at spotting “work” someone’s had done on their face, so clearly they found Whitey when someone catty dropped a dime on the neighbor with the facelift.
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ROGirl said on June 23, 2011 at 11:36 am
The burger story is a hoax. The Japanese video showing a “scientist” using a plastic hand on a stick is a tipoff.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/17/it-is-unspeakable
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 11:51 am
Whitey was a legend when he ran the Winter Hill gang in Somerville (where he had his HQ, but Whitey was a true son of Southie) with his enforcer Stephen Rifleman Flemmi. When my father-in-law and I ran a municipal garbage transfer station in Somerville, cops would show up with questions when somebody that had crossed Whitey came up missing. Two fascinating things about Whitey other than his mythically awesome elusiveness:
His brother Billy ran Massachusetts state government for years with the same sort of ruthlessness and guile that characterized Whitey’s criminal enterprises, and may well have been more corrupt. and,
Whitey Bulger managed to corrupt the Boston FBI office absolutely. Lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
Bulger seemed untouchable in Europe? Why come back to the states? Tired of running and hiding?
Our condo association has grounds maintenance out every day, and the effect is really beautiful landscaping. When somebody designed this place 25 years ago. the landscape architect protected the live oaks. We’re on the second floor and I installed acoustic shades, so the equipment noise doesn’t really penetrate.
Amazing Buddy Holly cover album. Not Fade Away, by Florence and the Machine is great, and you wonder how all the pop-tart singers selling all the records don’t just throw in the towel when they hear this woman sing. The Patti Smith version of Words of Love is excellent (she sounds like Marianne Faithful these days), as is the deranged Do It in the Road McCartney version of It’s So Easy. Lou Reed’s Peggy Sue is ominous. Ubiquitous Kid Rock cops the Heavy Music bass line and Motowns the hell out of Well All Right, great horn charts and arrangement. And Bob does those things himself. Nick Lowe channels Buddy Holly as he does better than anybody. Albums like this are usually about 50/50 hit and miss. This is quite a good comp and well chosen covers with very interesting interpretations and rearrangements.
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Bitter Scribe said on June 23, 2011 at 11:53 am
My condo complex has the world’s noisiest landscapers, which made it a lot of fun when I was working from home and trying to do a phone interview.
One thing I consistently noticed: Almost all of these guys were Latino, and almost none of them used ear protection that I could see. Maybe some of them had those crummy little plugs in their ears, but for a gas-powered leaf blower, you need heavy-duty, over-the-ear protectors.
Lousy jobs are lousy.
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Bob (not Greene) said on June 23, 2011 at 12:00 pm
It’s no surprise that Nick Lowe picked one of Buddy’s best tunes, a rockabilly gem that never gets much notice. Nick’s no slouch himself when it comes to songwriting.
EDIT: Here’s Buddy’s version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkRgmk93i6Y
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Kim said on June 23, 2011 at 12:01 pm
OK, I do get the auditory intrusion of the gas-powered blowers. In that context, you guys will love this site: WhiteWhine, the online meeting place for all the unique problems of white folk in the first world.
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Mark P. said on June 23, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Hey, Bitter Scribe, the foam earplugs provide better sound reduction than earmuffs when used correctly. When I use my chainsaw (we’re rural here, not urban), I use both. The foam plugs alone are OK for the lawnmower, not that we have an actual lawn. They’re great for lots of things.
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Jeff Borden said on June 23, 2011 at 12:14 pm
One of the great tragedies of American contemporary life over the last few years has been our casual acceptance of unemployment rates that would have been a national scandal 10 or 15 years ago. Obama has had a tin ear regarding the way so many are hurting as is evidenced by his collection of Wall Street and Federal Reserve advisers. The Republicans are doing nothing –besides debating NPR and Planned Parenthood funding– because they want a lousy economy to help them in 2012. If you weren’t convinced that a cabal of ideologues, corporate interests and the ultra-wealthy weren’t running this economy before, you ought to be by now.
BTW, I read in the NYT the other day about the effects of Gov. Mitch Daniels and the GOP-controlled legislature defunding Planned Parenthood and the statistics were gruesome. Thousands more at risk of cancer and other diseases that might be detected. Thousands at risk for having and spreading STDs because PP has field agents that track down those with diseases to learn the names of possible partners and get them into treatment. Thousands at risk of problematic pregnancies because of a lack of pre-natal counseling. And, need I even bother mentioning that those most affected by the Neanderthals are overwhelming poor and non-white?
Ah, well. The Republicans in Indiana can congratulate themselves on their bold pro-life stance and that’s all that’s important.
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Judybusy said on June 23, 2011 at 12:19 pm
I seriously have no time to be doing this, but thOught our hostess might need something light-hearted today.
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coozledad said on June 23, 2011 at 12:24 pm
We were sitting in the yard yesterday evening enjoying a nice glass of wine when we heard gunfire from the woods. Sounded like it was about 20 to 30 yards away. That means there’s some douche staggering around on our property, in a pine thicket, with both an outsized sense of entitlement and a gun. We’d just completed a long drive into town and I couldn’t be motivated to do much besides yell “Take that thing and put it in your mouth or get the fuck off my place, white trash!” A few minutes later, they shot again, slightly farther away.
Goddamn if I don’t put punji sticks out.
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Jolene said on June 23, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Lots of talk in various corners of the web today re this story, in which Jose Manuel Vargas, a former WaPo reporter, reveals that he is am illegal immigrant. Interesting and provocative in itself, the story comes w/ inside baseball re how the story came to be published in the NYT after being rejected by the Post.
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DEdelstein said on June 23, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Can we stop throwing around the “basis for the Jack Nicholson character” line? The Departed was a third-rate remake of the great HK thriller Infernal Affairs and the gang boss character was imported wholesale with one added nonsensical twist that someone claimed mighta coulda been inspired by Whitey Bolger. The description only pisses me off because it makes The Departed sound like it was grounded in its Boston setting instead of lazily transplanted with some dumb changes (combining the two HK females into one, adding the Mark Wahlberg character as an avenger, etc.).
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nancy said on June 23, 2011 at 12:36 pm
I defer to your superior knowledge, Edelstein. I only parrot what I read by the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, that White Whine site is a hoot.
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alex said on June 23, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Well, I’m the owner of one of those gas-powered blowers and without it I’d have to hire a lawn service to come out and use one because I live on a very heavily wooded acre of land and when the leaves get ass deep there really aren’t too many other ways to corral them. All of my neighbors have them. As long as people aren’t using them at six in the morning I really cannot complain. The gas blower also does a fine job of blowing the tree spooge off the roof and out of the gutters in springtime.
Offsetting my carbon footprint (or bad enviro karma or whatever I get for using a blower) is the fact that I don’t put any chemicals on my lawn whatsoever.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Jeff: How ’bout the drowned in a bathtub nomination of Peter Diamond, who’s a Nobel winner for his work on connections between unemployment and monetary policy? Suppose the President had proposed something on the lines of the WPA. How would the Congress have responded? The Republican controlled Congress that held unemployment benefits at knife-point to extend the rich bastard tax cuts? People can bitch all they want about two years with both houses under Democratic Party control, but filibuster reality, that nobody seems to point out as a major policy-changing roadblock, and everybody accepts as if it were in the Constitution, clearly meant that that argument was always bullshit.
From Diamond’s withdrawal statement:
“But understanding the labor market — and the process by which workers and jobs come together and separate — is critical to devising an effective monetary policy,” Diamond wrote.
He went one step further, arguing that “concern about the (seemingly low) current risk of future inflation should not erase concern about the large costs of continuing high unemployment. Concern about the distant risk of a genuine inability to handle our national debt should not erase concern about the risk to the economy from too much short-run fiscal tightening.”
Think that guy might have been part of a solution? Sen. Shelby thinks he knows better.
Read more:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20069273-503544.html#ixzz1Q7QOM9KI
This isn’t governing, it’s nihilism. These assholes should not get their paychecks, since they are flagrantly refusing to do their jobs in a responsible manner. And Lord knows the financial industry certainly does not require government regulation. The hypocrisy on display in Shelby’s behavior is stunning.
When one of the parties in a two-party political system repeatedly behaves in an anti-Constitutional manner based on manufactured pretexts, how do huge numbers of voters convince themselves to continue to vote for them? You need an electron microscope to see any evidence of vote fraud in US elections, but the GOPers have magnified it into a case of uninformed heebie-jeebies in order to launch a scorched earth campaign of vote suppression. From the column:
Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up. In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs. And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points.
Of course Republicans insist that this bullshit has no detrimental effect on turnout numbers. Were that actually the case, what would be conceivable motivation for creating a “threat to democratic process” where it’s clear none exist, and target the poor, minorities, and students en bloc When those constituencies elected the first black President in 2008? Nefarious, anti-American suppression of voting rights, that’s what.
The American government’s like Tobacco Road in the J.D. Loudermilk/Nashville Teens song.”Bring back dynamite, and a crane, blow it up, start over again. Blues Magoos version, with a great intro and interview by Jack Benny.
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Julie Robinson said on June 23, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Here’s a white whine for you: yesterday my van window stopped working, and then my laptop power cord died. Anyone have experience with cheapie aftermarket cords?
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LAMary said on June 23, 2011 at 1:15 pm
I’ve bought a couple of aftermarket cords. With four laptops in the house, none the same brand, and a cat who chews cords, it happens.
My tip is don’t go too cheap. The really cheap one’s plug stopped working in a couple of months. The one I bought about 8 months ago which was about 20 bucks works fine. I got mine from Amazon and it was delivered in two days.
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Bitter Scribe said on June 23, 2011 at 1:24 pm
America will reach its true potential as a nation when citizens of all races, creeds and colors have nothing worse to complain about than the things on that White Whine site.
(Really…the cleaning lady is in the way when you want to make a sandwich or go to the bathroom???)
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Oh I’ve been looking forward to this since Scalia pulled this arrant horseshit.Dahlia Lithwick writes better about the legal system than anybody. Wal-Mart’s too big to sue, and institutionalized corporate sexism is too beg a problem to engender a class action suit.
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coozledad said on June 23, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Obama’s drawdown of troops in Afghanistan and the Republican response reminds me once again of the long shadow of the criminal incompetence of the previous administration.
Condi Rice was supposedly a Sovietologist, but in retrospect it’s easy to see her chops were inconsistent with the basic requirements for an instructor at the community college level. Conversely, perhaps, the signature lesson Condi and rest of the Bush administration drew from the role of Afghanistan in the fall of the Soviet Union was just how much a failed war of national arrogance triggered the rapid devolution from nation-state to unvarnished kleptocracy, and they saw this as an opportunity- much the way they engineered Enron’s sacking of California’s economy. Current Republican efforts to sabotage the national economy bear this out.
I wouldn’t expect anything different from this crop of lowlifes.
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Jeff Borden said on June 23, 2011 at 2:19 pm
I’m sure not going to cross swords with Mr. Edelstein, but I always thought “Infernal Affairs” was something of a ripoff of John Woo’s “Hard-Boiled,” which also featured two coppers at cross purposes as one was a detective and the other deep undercover. I will agree that “IA” is a better film than “The Departed,” which suffered greatly from the hamminess of Jack Nicholson. I did love the Ray Winstone character, however.
Hong Kong films are a world unto themselves –just as Bollywood films are, I guess– and you have to buy into a certain kind of style designed to appeal to Asian audiences. But damn, John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam can be incredibly entertaining and the stunt work by real stuntmen and women (not CGI’s) is absolutely amazing.
This is, I guess, a rather long-winded call to explore “Infernal Affairs” or some of the other fine HK films when you get a chance.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Big Whoop Department. I hear from people I don’t know from Adam or Aaron Sorkin, but who cares? This means I get to see photos and videos of my grandson in practically real time. Isn’t Aaron Sorkin well known for whoofing lots of cocaine and being borderline personality disorder type? Paranoia is probably his buddy.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Years ago, I found myself in the same barroom in Cambridge a few times with Whitey Bulger in the house. He acted much more like Jimmy Markum in Mystic River than Jimmy Costello in the Departed. I am sure everybody in the joint assumed these outings were less social than about sending automatic weapons to Ireland.
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paddyo' said on June 23, 2011 at 3:46 pm
RE: blowers. What happened to brooms and rakes? “Greener,” and good exercise, too.
Here in Denver (inside the city limits, not the convenanted ‘burbs) quite a few folks plant their “Hell strips” (Nancy’s “park strip”) in veggies, flowers and (gasp!) drought-tolerant “Xeriscape” shrubs, native plants, etc. On weekend morning walks in my companion’s neighborhood, she and I watch the progress of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, beans, peas, squash, even corn.
Judybusy, “G.O.T. Muppets” is a hoot
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Dexter said on June 23, 2011 at 5:51 pm
ear protection: Did you ever bike or drive with windows open past a factory with any type of punch presses running? You can hear them from a mile away; imagine being two feet from pinch point , running hundreds of piece parts per hour.
I started running production parts in 1972, and then we were offered no ear protection except poor quality plastic ear plugs.
I bought a set of sound barrier headphones out of my own pocket from the David Clark Company in Massachusetts. I wore those headphones for several years, until finally the company provided us with unlimited foam ear plug sound protection.
From that day on, until retirement, I would not work in any area of that factory without foam ear plugs inserted. They work very well, even now, eight years out, I have retained my hearing. Foam ear plugs are the answer to keeping one’s hearing. Hearing aids are much more expensive.
Here , the park strip is called the terrace. My terrace is evil spirit ground. When we moved here in 1981, we had three old maple trees on the terrace. In 1994 a storm blew up and tree #1 went down…right on top of my pickup truck, crushing the cab. I had just parked there two minutes before. That was close death call #1, also.
Maple #2…I had had the city engineers send a parks rep down to eval my two remaining maples and the guy said both trees were just fine.
In 1998, I had just parked and entered my house. I was washing Michigan cherries when the granddaddy tree, the huge one, was blown over by straight line winds and it hit my house dead-on, cracking my house in two. Rain gushed in, much was ruined. Were were in a motel for months.
The city refused to cut the third tree down (terrace trees are owned by the city) until I demanded they do so. That third tree was rotten almost all through the center.
Now we have a nice strip of terrace, and once the parks dept. tilled the terrace for anyone desiring to plant flowers.
We planted flowers. Now it’s a grassy strip where we set garbage bags on Sunday nights.
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brian stouder said on June 23, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Dexter, you must have missed the memo about how all OSHA ever does is kill jobs and pointlessly regulate eveything (just like EPA).
Or…maybe it’s NOT pointless!! Maybe the point IS to kill jobs!! That black guy who is president right now is INTENTIONALLY crashing ‘our’ country, which ‘we’ want back!
I just heard an unusually incisive critique from our local radio lip-flapper, about how the president signed some Executive Order wherein you can’t own land anymore (or some such); and he said that any society that has less than 2.1 children per couple is DOOMED – and the only culture that is above that bechmark is (and I quote) “the Muslims”.
If I have a point (and really, I don’t!) – it’s that today at work the stench of a political diatribe wafted my way, and I ignored it as much as possible (I could have used Dexter’s ear protection; or fired up a blowey!).
The pattern seems to be, take for granted what works, and spend all your energy building an utterly false “reality” (OSHA = bad; EPA = bad; Muslims = bad; Greed = good; inequality = proof of superiority)
And as a non-sequitur – except that it sort of relates to the Jackass story yesterday – I read that (the also appropriately named) Amy Winehouse cancelled all the rest of her current tour, as her personal life has apparently crashed entirely. And I read a comprehensively repulsive story about a police sting wherein a predator who had been sexting photos of himself to a young girl was nabbed. The scumbag drove his horse and buggy into the sting, as he is Amish.
No joke – I found this comprehensively depressing. Of course, common sense tells us that mental illness and/or sociopathology is a human thing, irrespective of culture or religion or whatever. Still, that story still struck me as….somehow disappointing
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Suzanne said on June 23, 2011 at 6:58 pm
I loved the NYTimes story about Indiana. Well, didn’t love it because it’s depressing, but loved it because it disproves Mitch’s Hoosier Miracle. I don’t doubt for a minute that this is why he refused to run for pres…he’d have been found out. Looks like maybe he will be anyway.
I read about the Amish sexter. I live near Amish. Some of them are nice people, but it’s a very dictatorial society with a fair share of familial abuse and many genetic disorders and alcoholism. People like to fantasize about them as some bucolic society, but it isn’t. They’ve got flaws like everyone; maybe more, maybe less. They just keep it to themselves better than most.
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John G. Wallace said on June 23, 2011 at 7:32 pm
The last full summer we were in Indiana I decided to do something different with the flower beds as I excel with veggies and am a horrible horticulturist when it comes down to flowers.
We put in a huge arrangement of ornamental peppers. They grew very well, and fared well in the heat, even hanging on until the first few frosts. They were an explosion of colors and shapes – one type was even called “firecrackers.” Many of them turned colors as the season progressed. I intermixed a large number of normal red cayenne peppers, which I string up and also crush for my own spice use.
We definitly got compliments, and except for a little weeding it was close to a zero maintainence project. The teeny tiny popcorn kernal sized purple ones were enough to being a grown man to his knees in tears (I was that man). They aren’t edible in the sense that they are just too dammed hot, even to handle without gloves.
We have a conure, the annoying miniature parrot from the Paulie movie (but not as annoying as Jay Mohr) and he loved the peppers both fresh and as a dried snack. It’s definitly something I would suggest for someone looking for color, but they aren’t easy to find except in the basic varieties, so you may want to order seeds online for next year.
I’m having a true Florida day – wildfires darkening the skies and that fireplace odor one usually associates with camping or a crisp Autumn night. The fires are about 8 miles away, but they closed I-95 for a while and detoured everyone heading to or from Vero Beach to a sleepy county road nearby that runs through the citrus groves.
For the record I’ll be the moron with the garden hoses going, but the land across the canal is mostly grassy pastures for cattle and some orange groves so I think I’m fairly safe.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 7:40 pm
White whine: I’m just going to hyperventilate if that damned Socialiss Scandinavian Veen aSud doesn’t tell me right now who killed Rosie Larson. Has anybody seen any sort of analysis about a black audience for Mad Men. I thoought the show was fascinating for a while, because where I grew into social awareness as a kid, in the Bloomfields and Birmingham. just about everybody’s dad worked at JWT or some other ad agency sucking life from the Big Three like Remoras off sharks. The car people lived in the Grosses. But at some point, Mad Men got to a point where every single character but Sally and her evil little boyfriend were reprehensibly selfish. Same with Breaking Bad. I could understand Walt’s desire to provide for his wife and children, but when Heisenberg let the woman his friend Jesse loved aspirate on her own vomitous, to make off with the stash, well Fuck you, Walt. So the killing was ambiguous. Have some Jarlsberg. Goes great with white bread.
In the meantime TV critics demeaned Terriers, which was positively the best new TV show (acting, characterization, dialogue and plotting) maybe ever, but in a long damn time. Said it didn’t find an advertising or demographic niche (how ’bout smart people that appreciate good writing, acting and imagination, and a certain overriding sense of personal morality and responsibility? Nah, who would find that interesting? Rockford Files was just some ‘procedural’, not one of the greatest TV shows ever produced.) Maureen Ryan is probably my favorite internet TV critic, because when I first came across her work, it was about “Firefly”, which with the cowboy Irish obening credits and the stampeding horses is about as perfect as TV can be done. She wavered on “Dollhouse” but eventualy saw how good it was. ( I think women are predisposed to take an immediate dislike to anything with Eliza Dushku. Pru calling was in a class with Joan of Arcadia, that was brilliant, and both shows got cancelled when the really intelligent and indomitable young women were about to get into it with Satan.) Mozzie’s right, Suits lack imagination.
Anyway, tonight it’s back to Fi and Michael righting wrongs. My companion S is like Fiona, but I’m fairly sure she knows nothing about C-4 or weapons. I just lock up the knives so I figure I’ll wae up Burn Notice has been consistently the best TV for four years now. Except that, Terriers was even better. It was possitively the best show since Rockford. And if you didn’t get Rockford, you may be a dumbass. Lauren Bacall did, and she wil remain cooler than you are forever. Shit. She’s cooler than Katherine Hepburn. Did you eer have a JSchool prof that was a roiling thunder rounder that asked you to take his shabby Dodge wago to the carwash and clearout the bottles? I did. His name was Elliot
brack, and I idolized him. Newspaper a bidness He ran a weekly around Atlanta. Then it dawned on him he could incorporate the third day of the week. Fairly obvious. I loved college. I could write an a or B paper on basically anyting in a very short time. Am I wrong?
Shouldn’t this talent earn you big bucks.? It seems sort of ridiculous. I don’t write this shit out of the blue, like I don’t care about my opinions. I’m fucking adamant. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. That is why it came out of my mouth.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Nobody has an objection. You all know that I am not some asshole. I wouldn’t know how to deal with all y’all. I’m a moron about my cousins and my child, How do we actually admit how much we care about everything. I care about how we care about things? If you don’T think thia ia kinda likw Hoovwr, AY AO. IS THERE SOMEBODY THAT THINKS THERE IS AN AHOLE THAT WANTS TO DO ANYTHING BUT GET RI F THE BLACK PRESIDENT? THESE PEOPLE ARE SUCH DOGASS RACISTS IT IS RIDICLUOUS.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 8:02 pm
I’M NOT A SHITHEEL. C’MON NANCY. IGNORE THAT SHIT. IMLOVE DETROIT ORE THAN YOU DO, PROBABLY. I AM GRATEFUL TO COME ACROAA YOUR AUPPOAE. WHATEVER YOU THINK, I WAS THERE. YOU HAVE NO CLUE IN ALL PROBABIITY/
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 8:04 pm
WHATEVER ANYBODY THOUGHT.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 23, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Jim Rockford was Travis McGee’s cousin, surely?
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Connie said on June 23, 2011 at 8:57 pm
I’m not sure I’d call it tasty linkage. My daughter’s commentary on traveling in Europe and finding new ways to tell time without a cellphone in her pocket. http://iwannabeelmoresnet.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-woes-keeping-time.html#comments
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 23, 2011 at 9:01 pm
I find myself thinking of the Inuit elder turning towards the camera in the La Quinta commercial, having just bought a large block of ice, saying to Fred Willard “Nobody needs a clue.”
To which, of course, Fred says “Fine.”
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coozledad said on June 23, 2011 at 9:18 pm
North Carolina finally has a governor not just worth voting for, but working your ass off for.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/north_carolina_dem_governor_vetoes_gop_voter-id_bi.php?ref=fpa
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John G. Wallace said on June 23, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Down Prospero, down. I gave up drinking because of too many posts and e-mails that came across that way. How’s Caliban been lately? His work was more free-form poetry with a devious side.
On laptop cords, I used to order from a company in Indianapolis, they were great quality, had good customer service, and shipping was fast. Sadly, I can’t find the name but I messaged some of my friends who also bought from them.
Unrelated – When your boss hires a salesperson that REALLY wants to be a reporter and thinks they can because they have a self-published children’s book, and it takes two trips to the local Farmers Market to churn out a mediocre feature, and they argue that I spelled lede wrong, capped by same boss, who refers to said writer as “princess,” and offers to pay me with a Tag Heuer (real) watch, it’s time to A) Beg Scripps, B) cruise journalismjobs.com, C) sign up for a two day Safe Serv recertification class, or D) all of the above…
(Princess – not my type, rich girl with Daddy issues. For the record – I really enjoyed the sending her back to the market to do a walk of shame and come back with quotes, descriptions of what they sell, and oh yeah, pictures of people’s faces, not asses.)
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coozledad said on June 23, 2011 at 10:06 pm
Most of us know why Beck didn’t offer to rim Santorum, but still, this is getting to be a pretty standard pledge of Republican friendship:
http://gawker.com/5815063/glenn-beck-to-rick-santorum-i-could-kiss-you-in-the-mouth
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alex said on June 23, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Taste testing before they toss it toward the rabble lining up for their market research and plasma donorship paychecks.
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prospero said on June 23, 2011 at 11:52 pm
JOHN G. I understand the idea of quitting drinking. I do not remotely understand why I should. It’s an absolute fact I do not hurt anybody but myself by dealing with Evan Williams. It’s pretty good bourbon and it really means something to me as far as an old friend named Cissy. Somebody I care about immenseley. So all this crap, John G. I understand the situation. and I appreciate your advice. But hell. . Things go badly. Not that badly. I do tend to know what I’m talking about, but I’ve been in situations none of you could even consider. I appreciate your consideration. I have been in situations you coud not consider. I know that sounds like bullshit, but I will guarantee you it is not. Whatever. But I do like talking to y’all. And there is nothing whatever about how I fake whatever I say to y’all. And I find this to be the most honest bunch of intelligent people around. I’m no liar about anything I ever said about what I care about . I think that’s relatively obvious. So how do we consider somebody we care about? I’d die for for Fiona, Sam or Michael. Are we kidding. If you don’t think the really cute girl isn’t good enough, you are an asshoe. She is absolutelely gorgeous.
seriously, Zow iaan’t ridiculously beautiful? Are you an idiot? Are we kidding? She is truly awesome. She might seem slightly vacant, but she is way smarter than most people that claim to be intelligent. Are we kidding? I’m way smarter, and so is the kid.
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Dave said on June 24, 2011 at 1:48 am
Well, Prospero, there’s something we can agree upon, I do enjoy Michael, Fiona, and Sam, but it’s hard to imagine how the writers are going to keep them in the show with Michael’s re-entry into the CIA. The show will take an odd turn if they don’t.
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Dexter said on June 24, 2011 at 2:56 am
Anyone have a thumbnail explanation as to what DEdelstein means in comment #16?
All day from many sources, TV, satellite radio mostly,I heard that ‘The Departed’ cast Jack to play the Whitey role.
So if it is right or wrong, I must believe that Jack Nicholson was hired to play Whitey. I am ignorant of the Boston mob and I need some light on this story.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 24, 2011 at 8:08 am
Dex, not to speak for Mr. E, but I was struck by the fact that *every* NPR story thru the day made it sound as if “The Departed” was a bio pic for Whitey Bulger, and that’s simply incorrect — plus it was feeling to me as if there was (entirely unintentionally, but still) a rather valedictory quality that snuck in my way of that reference, a sort of “this fellow for whom a major Hollywood production was made, portrayed by the Alpha male of the A-List, is on the run no more.”
On that level, I understood his comment perfectly, unless that wasn’t his intention. There’s also a narrative genealogy that takes “The Departed” a couple three steps away from the Bulger story per se, other than “a crook on the run who was an informant who killed people for being informants” angle on the facts, of which Bulger was but one example in reality. It was the FBI agent tipping him off that gave the story a unique spin, along with his brother’s career.
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Dorothy said on June 24, 2011 at 8:10 am
For fun on a Friday (I was at the C-bus zoo yesterday, my first-ever trip, hence I’m in an animal frame of mind): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3iFhLdWjqc
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prospero said on June 24, 2011 at 8:16 am
Dexter, I’m not ignorant of the Whitey Bulger role. In my experience, Whitey Bulger was not extaravagant. He was low key. And Coozledad, down south Eere we get Nikki . who has tramp stamp all over her? And really, The Departed is not a good movie because it may have borrowed from the vaunted HK? Wxcuse me. Bad Lietennant. The performances by DiCaprio and Wahlberg were excellent. As those boyos generally are. Marky Mark is always good and if you didn’t watch Blood Diamond, so is Leo. But Leo is developing thqt critics dislike Jack Nicholson perfected. He just plays himself and hams it up. This is the lamest bullshit from critics anybody could possibly imagine, and they should all retire this shit. It’s a moronic crock of crap. And it makes you look like an idiot. I’m smart because I don’t like Jack Nicholson? Sorry, dumbass, Jakee Gittes is as good as you get since Bogie. You can say that’s not so, but you’d just be lying. This Jack just plays Jack has gotten setiously old. Crirics just disliking bruxw qillia ia ao fucking dumb it;s hard to be;ieve, There is no comparison between his roles. That is the idiot consideration ffor reviewers, Find a new meme, morons,
The Departed wasn’t a good movie because it had roots in HK? Sorry. It was quite a good movie. Because if you knew shit about Southie, you’d get it. But you didn’t, And you thought yoe did. Kiss my ass. Much mo0re ;ike Mystic River, Much less like The Departed.
Disliking movies because of the main player is lame as shit. A movie isn’t bad because it has Bruce Willis, you dumbass. See 16 Blocks where Bruce Willis and Mos Def are fucking brilliant. Pas de Deux and brilliant acting. And Critics and Kevin Costner? What are ypu morons talking about? He doesn’t look like a natural athlete? Well that Quaid fellow seems more like a real pitcher. But critics of these guys seem never to have attempted a sport. And it all comes across as pure jealousy. The handsome Quaid bro can actually throw a baseball, and that makes critics nuts. We are supposed to bn able to mock. But it turns out he’s an athlete, like Costners golf swing and dolphin kick. You dumbasses dislike htese guys because they can do thibgs better than you can. And there must be a movie better than Mystic River that one was stolen from? No? San’t name that one> It didn’t exist. These whack asses in HK decide on Human Centipede. What a bunch or revolting shit. There is sonething wrong with these assholes. What a bunch of asshoes/
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prospero said on June 24, 2011 at 8:18 am
Does Sedelstein have a clue about anything to do with the Boston mob? I’d guess nope.
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brian stouder said on June 24, 2011 at 8:59 am
Dorothy, I love that zoo. Last year when we were in C-bus, we did the Titanic display at COSI (which was enthralling) and the downtown festival, and the board-game convention at the the convention center which was the original mission.
But we missed out on the zoo, which we had visited the summer before, and enjoyed immensely.
A beautiful city, altogether; but that zoo is marvelous (second only to Fort Wayne’s, I say!)
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basset said on June 24, 2011 at 10:33 am
>>He acted much more like Jimmy Markum in Mystic River than Jimmy Costello in the Departed.
Prospero, once you calm down a little will you explain that for those of us who don’t watch enough movies?
>>I’d die for for Fiona, Sam or Michael.
and explain that too, for those of us who don’t watch enough TV?
about that Evan Williams… my main fishing buddy used to drink that straight from the pint when we were out on the water and chase it with swigs of Mountain Dew. He’s dead now.
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brian stouder said on June 24, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Bassett, I let those cultural references glide right past me. I’m not big on reading fiction (other than Friend-of-NN.c’s own Laura Lippman), and I’m used to my mom asking – in mock horror – “Didn’t you read ANYTHING in school?” (I think when she went to Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn back in the ‘40’s, she essentially read every book you’d ever get asked about on Jeopardy, and to this day she reads 3 or 4 books a week; mostly all crap, these days, but that’s just my opinion); so Prospero’s well-formulated and deeply held opinions about this or that book or author are at once familiar and foreign to me.
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