Flotsam and/or Jetsam

Headless body in topless bar

Posted on April 17, 2023April 18, 2023 by Mike

The backstory of “the most anatomically evocative headline in the history of American journalism.“

This month marks the 40th anniversary of a watershed moment in journalism: the publication of the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline on the front page of the New York Post.

Headlines sell newspapers — at least, they sell the print newspapers offered via those relics known as newsstands. In 1983, almost all of the 965,000 daily newspapers that rolled out of the Post’s building in Lower Manhattan were sold on newsstands.

No one on the Post’s news desk debated the news value of the story: A Brooklyn man named Charles Dingle shot Queens bar owner Herbert Cummings to death and held patrons hostage. When Dingle learned that one was a mortician, he ordered her to behead the victim. Dingle, a box containing the head next to him, was arrested in an unlicensed cab in Manhattan. (Dingle died in prison in 2012, according to New York state records.)

The New York Times also covered the story, stuffing it on Page 2 of the Metropolitan section under the headline, “Owner of a Bar Shot to Death; Suspect Is Held.”

There would have been no Post headline without the gory story. Reporter Jim Norman wrote in a 2012 recollection that the police teletype in the newsroom had two items — one about the discovery in Manhattan of a cardboard box containing a head and the other about the discovery in a Queens bar of a mutilated torso. Norman said he helped to connect the dots as the “headless body” angle riveted the newsroom.

The headline went viral, by 20th-century standards. (then-NYPost managing editor Vincent) Musetto was on David Letterman’s show. It also was the title of a black comedy in the mid-1990s.

In this digital age, when search engine optimization rewards literal headlines and punishes wordplay, “Headless Body in Topless Bar” could perform well online. Was it too over the top? When veteran editor Steve Dunleavy heard criticism at the time, he supposedly replied, “What should we have said? Decapitated cerebellum in tavern of ill repute?”

Musetto always said his favorite headline was “Granny Executed in Her Pink Pajamas” over the 1984 story about the execution of Margie Velma Barfield, who killed her husband in North Carolina. (Musetto seemed to get all the good stories. My own favorite from my year at the Post was “Art thieves take the Monet and run.”)

Heh. Good stuff, that is, from a lost era before the qualities of wry, frisky humor; convention-straining wordplay; hard-boiled iconoclasm; and an above-all-else dedication to Getting The Story encoded in the DNA of crusty, old-school reporters with the de rigeur pint of whiskey tucked away in the bottom desk drawer had all been exorcised in favor of today’s fear-mongering; obeisance to Big Government and the urgenturgentURGENT!!! blandishments of “experts”; and lickspittle fealty to the PC/Woke/Hard Left agenda entire—a noxious hell-brew that poisoned bona-fide American journalism as it had previously been known fatally, and for all time.

Back in the 90s when I was living in NYC, the Post was the only daily I cared much about purchasing and perusing. NY Newsday plainly and simply sucked, on those occasions when it wasn’t infuriating; then again, it was an offshoot of Long Island-centric Newsday, and what sophisticated, urbane Manhattanite such as moi cared a whit about what those yokels might get themselves up to way out there in the boonies, anyway?

The WSJ was meh, boring, and still is. The Old Grey Whore (a/k/a the NYT) had nearly completed her long, slow slide into total hyperpartisan irrelevance and rank dishonesty; the NY Daily News was middle-of-the-road bland, making it a small cut above the rest of the shitlib propaganda broadsheets.

Later, 2002 would see a short-lived stab at reviving the old NY Sun, but despite the sly, self-deprecating insider-witticism of being printed on piss-yellow paper early on (because yellow journalism, get it?), the Sun failed to distinguish itself otherwise and thus quickly died the death, at least in its print version. Maybe it was good, who knows; although I was still spending a lot of my time in NYC, I still can’t remember ever even reading the thing, honestly.

As for the rest of NYC’s then-crowded field of news outlets: weekly radical-Left alternarag The Village Voice…well, most of the people I hung out with bought it exclusively for the voluminous rock-show and apartment-for-rent listings; amusing if frequently scandalous, even pornographic, personal ads; and maybe Nat Hentoff, among the small handful of my punk-rocker pals who cared about topical affairs.

When it came along, Russ Smith’s NY Press felt like a welcome breath of fresh air to NYC’s minuscule minority of RightWingNaziDeathBeasts like me, but it was short on the aforementioned Voice features New Yorkers had come to rely on. Even though I bought a copy every week the minute it appeared at the bodega down the street and read it cover to cover, I never for a minute thought it could ever amount to serious, credible competition for the Voice. And that’s pretty much how it went, eventually.

Maybe the best thing about this noteworthy anniversary of an unforgettable tabloid headline is that The Power hasn’t gotten around to outlawing any remembrance or remark upon such lighthearted, entertaining mass-media insouciance yet. You can bet they’re probably working on it, though.

Harbingers of doom

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Mike

That would be shitlibs, whose endless, depthless misery is just begging to be shared with the entire world.

From the ‘Everything Enjoyable Is Bad for You’ Files: New Car Smell Gives You Cancer
The famed fictional advertising wizard Don Draper said it in Mad Men: “You know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car.” But that TV series was a long time ago and the time it depicts even farther from ours. Now we live in a sadder, more fragile age, in which even the smallest pleasures are to be denied us. The new car smell is no longer the smell of happiness; it is the stench of cancer, decay, and death. Welcome, Don Draper, to the enlightened twenty-first century.

The UK’s Daily Mail reported Friday that a new study has made a grim discovery: “The much-loved smell of a new car is caused by cancer-causing chemicals.” Well, of course! What pleasure, large or small, hasn’t been touched by the Left’s obsession with doom? Take weather reports. On warm, sunny days even just a few years ago, TV weather maps were green and pleasant, studded with images of smiling suns and blooming flowers. Now, for exactly the same temperatures, they are full of oranges and reds and images of extreme heat, working hard to sell climate change hysteria.

Major sports have not only been thoroughly politicized, but they have also become the vehicles for the same buzz-killing hysteria. Were you excited about the beginning of a new baseball season? Not so fast: AccuWeather wanted you to know that “MLB season is here: Experts warn lightning is a danger at games.” Now, maybe it really was true that “upwards of 90% of the lightning that happens in the United States, specifically the lower 48, occurs during baseball season,” but life is fraught with risks. Do the guardians of acceptable opinion want us to live in fear, cowering in terror at the prospect of a sunny day and forgoing a happy outing to a baseball game for fear of being struck by lightning? Why, yes. Yes, they do.

In line with the overall atmosphere of fear and gloom, the Daily Mail explains that “a cocktail of leather and plastics creates a gasoline-like odor which becomes more intense in the heat — due to an increase in energy available to odor-causing molecules.” And so if you’re enjoying your brand new car, pull over, stop, and get out of the vehicle. Quickly: “Sitting for just 30 minutes every day in a car exposes you to dangerous levels of carcinogens formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. These chemicals are linked to myeloid leukemia and rare cancers such as in the nose.” And so one day soon, when you step into your new electric car, you may find that the fabled new car smell has been relegated to the odiferous dustbin of history.

OH NOOOES WE’RE ALL GONNA DIIIIEEE!!!, they all ree-ree-reeeed. Which, to me, amounts to the best imaginable argument that, instead of wallowing in pointless agony along with the killjoys of the Gehenna-obsessed Left, we should all strive to wring every last ounce of enjoyment and happiness out of every single day that we possibly can.

And yet the weak, weepy Sad Sacks wonder why any intelligent person would reject the idea of living like they do. As if their neverending search for new sources of anguish, new and ever-more-fearful threats to life and limb, acts as some kind of lure and/or enticement to join them in their misery. As if the sound of kvelling, kvetching, and complaining rings at all appealing in our ears.

Sorry, idiots, not even slightly tempted over here. Life’s tough enough as it is, without your pathetic ilk going well out of your way to make it worse.

DeSantis’ popularity cratering among FLA Repugnicunts

Posted on April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 by Mike

Says “several”anonymous GOPe legislators, one anonymous lobbyist, and…a FLA Senate D卐M☭CRAT.

Florida Republican Lawmakers ‘Frustrated’ With DeSantis
Everything in the 2023 legislative session is going as Gov. Ron DeSantis has planned, as the Republican-led legislature is solely pushing through the Governor’s agenda prior to his announcement that he will run for President in 2024.

As we stated before, this is DeSantis’s world and lobbyists, lawmakers, media reporters, and state employees are just living in it.

But just as supporters of Gov.DeSantis’s soon-to-be-announced presidential campaign

Which, despite having been touted as “soon-to-be-announced” for many months now, still hasn’t been, I can’t help but notice.

continue to promote his accomplishments of the past four years, more and more DeSantis-friendly supporters, who have to work with the Florida Legislature, and lawmakers themselves, are starting to expose what could be a chink in the Governor’s armor—his alleged lack of loyalty and selfish legislative agenda.

According to several Republican lawmakers, DeSantis’s push to get his entire agenda passed through the legislature has left the caucus “exhausted” and “frustrated,” echoing the growing sentiment of lobbyists that DeSantis’s specific agenda has allegedly left many issues on the table, not to be heard because they did not conform with his overall agenda.

How unfair, having to buckle down and, y’know, do your fucking jobs. That sound you may be hearing is me playing “Hearts and Flowers” on the world’s tiniest violin, to express my sympathy for your suffering such an awful injustice under this thuggish DeSantis despot.

All of the Republican lawmakers spoke to The Floridian on the basis of anonymity for fear of retribution by the Governor and/or his executive office, but State Senator Jason Pizzo (D!!!) gave a very candid take on the growing concerns within Republican circles.

“It’s all about DeSantis. This place is run by his iron fist,” said Lobbyist X. ” And Didn’t we just elect him to govern for four more years?”

A very “colorful” Pizzo then pivoted his frustration for DeSantis to the state budget, where he claims he “successfully sued DeSantis on the budget, saying that the DeSantis Administration in the “midnight hour” created new policy on immigration.

“Where the f-ck are they? But where are they? You couldn’t find 49 people somewhere in Florida. And while yours and my property insurance is f0-cking exploding, we have $12 million to go blow for private jets,” questioned Pizzo. We don’t fly military vets in private jets from the state of Florida coming back from deployment, but it continues.”

Pizzo is referring to the $12 million dollars allocated in the Florida budget to transport illegal immigrants, and the aforementioned 49 illegals who were flown from the Texas border to Martha’s Vineyard. When he filed the complaint, which was dismissed on technicalities, Florida had already spent $1.56 million on the flights.

Cry me a river, little open-borders D卐M☭CRAT bitch. Then go take yourself a flying fuck at a plate glass window, you and all the rest of your fellow whining, over-entitled ProPol remoras. Shipping a planeload of border-jumping wetbacks to the very heart of Rich Shitlib Playground so as to acquaint the snobbish robber-barons who disport themselves thereabouts with the harsh realities of the policies they so stridently pimp was a genius move, the very epitome of poetic justice.

Admittedly, Ron DeSantis may yet turn out to not be the All-That-And-A-Hot-Fudge-Sundae his more rabid supporters purport him to be; we’re a long way from any final verdict being reached on that one. But crying in your craft beer about his upsetting of the Uniparty applecart to pursue his own agenda probably isn’t a very effective means of rallying Real Americans to your cause, I’m thinking. The people of Florida recently re-elected him—overwhelmingly—to do exactly that, after all.

Reality Deficit Disorder

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Mike

All just slices of the same nasty, unappetizing pie.

It’s Turtles All the Way Down
The trans crisis is the vax crisis and all the other crises, too. You can’t talk about one piece but not another piece.

The problem is, every crisis is the same crisis, and the trans crisis is the COVID-19 crisis: the same arguments from authority, the same gaslighting, the same strawmanning, the same bad faith, the same coercion, the same attack on family structure. Remember this, the argument from California legislators that it’s OK for children to go get the mRNA vaccines without parental knowledge or consent because they can already do the same with abortions and birth control?

So you have to get the vaccine for your child, or you’re a murderer, because the experts say, and you have to get top surgery and hormones for your child, or you’re a murderer, because the experts say, and all objections are inescapably monstrous. The vaccines are safe and effective, and gender-affirming care is lifesaving medical treatment. Trust the science and comply. We can take bets on how many years it takes to see the first “we should have an amnesty for the proponents of transgender surgery for children” article.

The assault on the body is the assault on the body. The assault on the family is the assault on the family. The medicalization of social reality is stretching out to touch bigger and bigger pieces of your life. Take the pill, bigot, and we’ll shove the other one down your child’s throat for you. You know, for your health.

You can’t talk about one piece but not another piece. The crisis is the crisis. It’s a crisis of “reality debt,” of the increasingly absurd rule by experts, and of the endless recourse to narrative-making maneuvers that reconstruct reality on unsustainable ideological models. Above all, it’s a manufactured crisis that has instrumental force, suggesting over and over again that family is atavistic and an impediment to a healthy society. Consider the possibility that people who keep telling you how much they hate the family mean what they say.

Yet again: not an accident, not a coincidence. Hey, what better way to keep the FUD escalating, to undermine any inclination to resist, than by making Normals as hopelessly cray-cray as Leftards already are?

Daredevil done RIGHT

Posted on April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 by Mike

Evel Knievel shows us the way.

Perfect balance F1-F2=0
Evel Knievel #wheelie #1 #harleydavidson #bikelife #wheeliwednesday #og #legendary #daredevil #whodiditfirst pic.twitter.com/p2qd5yQCxr

— Evel Knievel (@evelknievel)

April 12, 2023

A Sportster, of course, the model he did all those crazy-ass jumps on. Harleys are notoriously difficult to wheelie on, but it’s by no means impossible, as my own Fakebook profile pic demonstrates:

Wheelie

Taken by my then-girlfriend Evelyn, on a visit to her mom; that’s the street one row back from Ocean Blvd where her Myrtle Beach crib was, a mere couple of blocks from the grand old Myrtle Beach Pavilion, long since tragically defunct.

The trouble with wheelies and older, factory H-Ds is multifaceted: excessive weight, lack of power, and a low center of gravity all add up to make the crucial balance-point quite high in comparison with the rice-grinders. The exception to that rule would be the also-long-defunct Buells; as with my extremely-modified 06 Sporty above, with those you actually had to go out of your way to keep the front wheel DOWN. Picking it up and carrying it a ways was almost the default..

Which, with the 06, was definitely the case, to my continual delight. When I romped down hard on the throttle in 1st gear, the front wheel would start to dance lightly as the motor “came on the pipe” and really started making horsepower; hit 2nd, and it would lift off the ground, daring you to keep it up as long as you could. Same in 3rd, incredibly enough.

Even my old boss Goose, who hated all Sportsters with a blazing passion, would jump on mine to give it a good, vigorous flogging now and then, eventually bringing my baby back to the shop not merely “rode hard and put up wet,” but “drenched in sweat, with its tongue hanging out,” as he liked to say.

I swear, it was the most fun bike I ever did build, no foolin’.

So yeah, for a bone-stock Harley, the wheelies can be a real trick. But as this guy shows, it’s always best not to make any assumptions when you’re out on the street.

Yep, that fella definitely knows what he’s about.

Update! Well, how about that: turns out Buell is NOT defunct after all. They’re still available, hand-built bikes orderable directly from the Buell factory.

Musk ain’t having any

Posted on April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 by Mike

I swear, my boy Elon just keeps getting more red-pilled every day, seems like.

BBC Journo Quits Musk Interview After Elon Pushes Back On ‘Hateful Content,’ ‘Misinformation’
Twitter CEO and African-American billionaire Elon Musk yesterday sat down with BBC “journalist” James Clayton for an interview, where the two had a now-viral argument over Twitter’s alleged rise in “hateful content,” as well as Twitter’s COVID “misinformation” policy changes.

During their conversation, Clayton, without any evidence to back himself up, claimed that Musk’s acquisition of the company has resulted in “a rise in hateful content.”

“Content you don’t like or hateful, describe a hateful thing?” Musk asked.

Clayton replied, “I mean you know just content that will elicit a reaction, something I mean something that is slightly racist or slightly sexist, those kinds of things.”

“So you think if something is slightly sexist it should be banned?” Musk retorted. “No, I’m not saying anything,” said Clayton.

“I’m asking for examples. Can you name one example?” Musk said. “Honestly I honestly–” Clayton began before Musk interjected: “Can you name a single example?”

“I’ll tell you why,” the BBC wordsmith said. “Because I don’t actually use that feed anymore because I don’t particularly like it. Actually, a lot of people are quite similar.”

At this point, the journalist cited his lack of interest in Twitter’s “For You” feed as his reason for being unable to cite a single example of hate speech. Musk, unimpressed, ultimately accused the reporter of lying.

Musk replied, “Wait a second, you said you’ve seen more hateful content, but you can’t name a single example, not even one.”

“I’m not sure I used that feed for the last three or four weeks,” Clayton said. “Then how did you see the hateful content?” said Musk.

“Really!?” Clayton cried. “Yes, because you can’t give a single example of hateful content not even one tweet, and yet you’ve claimed the hateful content was high. That’s a false,” Musk explained.

“No,” replied Clayton. “You just lied,” Musk said.

Eventually, Clayton abruptly left the interview, leaving Musk alone to field questions from the audience.

Just as well, really; Elon was WAY more likely to field some halfway-intelligent questions from the audience than he ever would have from a hack propagandist like the “journalist” he handily cut up into pieces-parts. Well done, sir, and good on ya. Now do NPR, while you’re taking care of the light work. Oh wait, he just did.

Elon Musk Reaches Limit, Calls For Defunding NPR: “What hypocrites”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk is calling for defunding NPR after the broadcaster had a meltdown and quit Twitter because Musk is calling them ‘State-affiliated media and Government-funded Media.’ NPR said it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds.

NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network “state-affiliated media,” the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries for making this extraordinary decision. Twitter drives impressions to NPR and after the broadcaster had to institute layoffs you would think they would be thanking Musk.

Musk fired back saying:

“NPR literally said “Federal funding is essential to public radio” on their own website (now taken down).

“What hypocrites!

“Defund NPR.”

Okay, I think I may have just ejaculated in my pants a little bit here.

The Passion of the Christ—updated with PONIES!!

Posted on April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 by Mike

Some intriguing facts and behind-the-scenes backstory about the movie, from guess where.

Mel Gibson warned actor Jim Caviezel that playing the character of Christ was going to be very difficult and that if he accepted, he most likely would be marginalized by Hollywood.

Caviezel asked for a day to think about it and his response to Mel who was funding and directing the movie was: “I think we have to make it, even if it is difficult. And something else, my initials are J.C., and I am 33 years old. “I didn’t realize that until now.”

Mel responded with “You’re really scaring me you know.”

During filming, Jim Caviezel who plays the part of Jesus lost 45 pounds, he was struck by lightning, he was accidentally struck twice during the scourging scene leaving a deep 14-inch scar, he dislocated his shoulder when the cross was dropped into the hole with him on the cross. He then suffered pneumonia and hypothermia from being nearly naked with only a loin cloth on the cross for endless hours. The crucifixion scene alone took 5 weeks of the 2 months of shooting.

His body was so stressed and exhausted from playing the role that he had to undergo two open heart surgeries after the filming production.

Jim explained, “I didn’t want people to see me. I just want them to see Jesus. Conversions will happen through that.”

Almost like a clairvoyant prediction many amazing things happened.

Pedro Sarubbi, who played Barabbas, felt that it was not Caviezel who was looking at him, but Jesus Christ himself, as he played that role he said of Caviezel, “His eyes had no hatred or resentment towards me, only mercy and love.”

Luca Lionello, the artist who played Judas, was an avowed atheist before shooting began. He eventually converted, and baptized his children.

One of the main technicians working on the film was a Muslim converted to Christianity.

Some producers said they saw actors dressed in white they didn’t recognize during one of the filming sessions, and when they reviewed the recordings they realized they couldn’t see them in that footage.

The Passion of the Christ is the highest grossing US religious as well as the highest R-rated film of all time, with $370.8 million! Worldwide, it grossed $611 million.

More importantly, it has reached 100’s of millions of people around the world.

Mel Gibson paid $30 million out of his own pocket for the production of the film because no studio would take on the project.

Never saw the film myself, but I remember the huge controversy generated by it well enough.

Update! Unrelated, but here’s another Quora Digest find. I may have to look into some psychological counseling at some point, to help me cope with this unhealthy addiction to their stuff I’m developing. But this is another good ‘un too, so there’s that.

There is an old pony in a big pen by the barn. He has no real purpose. No kids ride him, he is not a companion to another old horse.

We have no history together. He came into my life by happenstance. There are no fond, warm fuzzy memories. I owe him nothing. But he’s polite and kind, and nickers to me as I come out the door in the morning.

He eats a princely sum of special food, and has a premium round bale of irrigated grass that the other horses can only dream of. His water is fresh, and warmed in the winter. I’ve gone out there late at night to make sure he has food, and he’s the first thing I attend to after morning coffee.

Why? Why not send him to the sale where ‘someone’ will want him? At 40 cents a pound, he’d be worth a nice steak dinner and drinks in town. They’ll load him on a truck with 30 other old ponies and horses, and somewhere down that line, if he doesn’t fall from his bad knee and get trampled in the transport, he will become dog food.

There’s a bum calf in our scale house on this cold frosty night. He’s little and scrawny, with poop stuck to his butt, and a bit of a runny nose. There’s a heater in there keeping the temp above freezing. In the morning I’ll make him a bottle of warm milk replacer and try to convince him to eat some of the pony’s special food. Bob will clean his little house and put down fresh bedding. It would be easier to have left him in the field with the 500 bigger, stronger calves, to steal milk from the occasional tolerant cow, to eventually freeze to death and feed the coyotes that lurk about the herd for just such an opportunity.

There is a wild kitten in the barn who most likely jumped off a utility truck a while back. We’ve been leaving food just for him, and making sure the heated water bowl is full, so he doesn’t have to go outside and perch precariously on the horse waterer to drink.

I guess we sound like saps, the old cowboy and I. Sort of wimpy and un-ranch like.

I guess we are. But at our age, with certain infirmities starting to creep into our daily routines, and the realization that we are not perfect, we are thinking that kindness is a virtue and care is our purpose.

Care of not just the healthy robust animals that make money and pay the bills, but care of everything we are capable of caring for – those creatures that, like us, are in need of a bit more attention to get through the day.

We didn’t go about seeking these creatures- they came to us and landed here not of their own choosing, or ours. But here they are, and off I go to town to a business that provides enough to buy the expensive milk replacer, premium hay, and special pony food.

There may be some karma in all this, or maybe not, but in the end we’ll know we did the best we could for those that needed us.

Peace. Really, I mean it.

And the same to you, ma’am, with all my heart and soul.

Beautiful, no? A lovely, scenic pic of the pony is attached also. Maybe this addiction isn’t so unhealthy after all, I’m thinkin’.

Orc-elf miscegenation

Posted on April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 by Mike

I won’t belabor the point by excerpting the body of Ace’s post, since D&D is a topic I neither know anything nor give a damp fart about. Nonetheless, there’s something I’d like to make mention of here.

Woke Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast to Replace Half-Elf and Half-Orc Races in Dungeons and Dragons… Claiming That “Half” Races are “Inherently Racist”

Except, of course, when it’s young White women being urged from every corner of the culture to take up coal-burning we’re talking about, that is. Now, THAT sort of race-mixing, the Wokester fucktards all in favor of.

A PROPER cuppa Joe

Posted on April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 by Mike

I believe this might just be the first product recommendation I’ve ever done here, but trust me: if you’re a coffee junkie, it’s gonna be worth your while.

So after twenty-some-odd years of stellar service, my tired old Presto electric coffee percolator finally gave up the ghost, whereupon I retired it to a place of honor on a kitchen shelf (hey, I loved that little thing; what was I gonna do, just heartlessly throw it in the trash bin? OH, YOU CRUEL BASTID). After a cpl-three hours poring over the offerings at Amazon for a replacement, I settled on this fine Moss & Stone unit:

Moss Stone perc

As I said in the 5-star review I left over at (r)Amazon, not only does this handsome red beastie brew up a flawless cup of coffee every time, it also pretties up the kitchen countertop it sits on rather nicely.

For my money, nothing tops a percolator for making good coffee. Once you’ve had it, there’s simply no going back to the swill produced by those cold-drip machines. With a perc, you want to use a coarser-ground coffee than you would in other types, which is not a problem since the Luzianne-with-chicory brand I love IS a slightly coarser grind than most other store-bought coffees. It’s relatively inexpensive, too; can’t remember now who it was, but after mentioning in passing my financially-ruinous addiction to Cafe Du Mond on this h’yar websty, someone commended Luzianne’s offering to my attention, saying it was about half the price of CDM, and smoother-tasting to boot.

Lo and behold, my mystery correspondent was perfectly correct too, on all counts. Before that, I had had to rely on buying CDM at this Asian grocery in CLT’s Little Saigon neighborhood (S& L Market #2, that would be)—much cheaper there than at the nearby Taj-ma-Teeter outlet, the only other place I’d found CDM—but they were unreliable at best when it came to keeping it in stock. The only place I know of in this area that carries Luzianne w/chicory is the Food Lion chain, which is fine by me. Never have seen it at any Wally World, anywhere, for whatever reason. But as long as FL carries it, that’s where I’ll be heading for all my coffee needs.

Understand, now, that the coffee with chicory is some damned strong stuff. Thick, dark, and rich, it makes your Folgers and Maxwell House look like the scared dishwater they are by comparison. So if really strong coffee ain’t your bag, you want to stay well away from the C w/C. Sailors, truck drivers, night watchmen in need of a good, stiff jolt of near-espresso levels of caffeine to get you through the shift? This is what you’ve been looking for all these long, somnambulent years. Which has always struck me as sorta odd, seeing as how there IS no caffeine in chicory at all.

Be all that as it may, if you’re looking to upgrade your coffee maker, or just need to replace a broke-down one, you could do one hell of a lot worse than the Moss-Stone percolator. And probably have, I’d bet.

Laying low

Posted on April 9, 2023April 9, 2023 by Mike

Is the “get Woke, go broke” slogan finally proving out, for the first time ever?

Buyer’s Remorse? Bud Light Goes Quiet, Hasn’t Posted on Social Media Since Making Dylan Mulvaney Its Spokestrans
Cat got your tongue, Bud Light? The giant beer corporation has been silent for over a week, ever since it came to light that pretend woman Dylan Mulvaney was the pretend beer’s new spokesman. Since then, silence. Gee, Bud Light, aren’t you proud of your front guy?

Bud Light operates one of those fun, friendly social media accounts we see quite often from corporate giants these days. On March 30, it tweeted or replied to tweets over fifteen times, with messages on the order of “Win tickets to Stagecoach for you and a friend! Travel and hotel accommodations covered” and “Have a cold one for us.” On March 31 came twenty more tweets and replies, including “There’s still time to win beer money. Which women’s team do you think will win it all?,” and a reply to a well-wisher: “Bud Light loves you back.” On April 1 it was more of the same, but we haven’t heard from Bud Light since 8:50PM that evening, when it tweeted: “Beers on us? Must be game time. For a chance to win, cheer on your team with #EasyToEnjoySweepstakes in the replies.” That was the day that Mulvaney was revealed to be Bud Light’s new spokesdude. But isn’t Bud Light proud, like all LGBTQETC activists constantly insist they are?

It isn’t just Bud Light, either. The UK’s Daily Mail reported Sunday that “The famous beer also hasn’t posted on their main Instagram feeds since March 31 and have not posted to Facebook since March 30. Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, has also gone without posting since April 1.” This is unusual, for “while they have gone a few days without tweeting in the past, the @BudLight is typically fairly active, as are their other regular social channels.” What could account for this? It looks as if it’s because of Dylan Mulvaney.

It was on April 2, Bud Light’s first day of total social media silence, that Mulvaney posted a video of himself pitching Bud Light. Mulvaney added this caption: “Happy March Madness!! Just found out this had to do with sports and not just saying it’s a crazy month! In celebration of this sports thing @budlight is giving you the chance to win $15,000! Share a video with #EasyCarryContest for a chance to win!! Good luck! #budlightpartner”

One would think that since Bud Light often uses its social media accounts to tout such offers, and had just been pushing a few contests and deals in the preceding days, it would have jumped on this and pushed Mulvaney’s Easy Carry Contest on Twitter. Instead, not a word. Could it be, could it even be remotely conceivable, that Bud Light is horrified by the backlash it has received, and is actually embarrassed to be touting this ersatz woman and attention hound?

Embarrassed? Naah, not bloody likely. They’re just afraid of the effect the brouhaha might potentially have on their profits, that’s all. Thus:

The backlash has indeed been severe. Country singer Travis Tritt banned all Anheuser Busch products from his tour bus and asserted that “many other artists” were likewise dropping their Buds, but not saying so publicly for fear of being “ridiculed and canceled.” One of those who was unafraid was Kid Rock, who published a video of himself shooting at cases of Bud Light (viewable here, in case you missed it—M). One disgusted Bud Light salesman said: “I’ve never seen such little sales than this past few days.” The Daily Mail noted that “several former customers filmed themselves pouring the beer away – down the sink and toilet – while others emptied their fridge of the product into bins.”

Over the years, I’ve seen no sign whatsoever that Kid Rock is afraid of anydamnedthing whatsoever—which is one of the reasons I just love the buck-wild sumbitch all to pieces.

I mean, come on, how could you NOT like the guy? This is the one I always liked the most, personally.

A bona fide classic, that one is. “I ain’t straight outta Compton, I’m straight out the trailer.” Really now: hollowbody guitars; dirtbikes; 70s Trans Ams; big black Peterbilts; midgets; Ron Jeremy playing whorehouse piano; hot, scantily clad, trashy-slut babes—again, what’s not to like? It’s all there, as white-trash Americana as it gets, baby.

Update! In a seperate PJM piece, Spencer delves into A-B’s reason for making this colossal mistake: Fake ’n’ Ghey Inc™ strongarmed them into it.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men

Posted on April 9, 2023April 9, 2023 by Mike

Yes, yes, I know that Luke 2:14 quote is typically associated with Christmas. But seems to me it’s perfectly appropriate for Easter as well—or any other time, really. Be that as it may, whether you be a believing Christian or no, I do hope yours is a happy one anyhow. Here, enjoy yourselves a little Beethoven, from the old Charlie Brown Easter special.

The music in the above vid is adapted from dear old Ludwig Von B’s Symphony No 7 in A, Op 92, for those who might not’ve known.

Teaching an old dog some new tricks

Posted on April 7, 2023April 7, 2023 by Mike

The great Patrick Stewart gets himself a schooling.

What is the reason that Patrick Stewart didn’t like working with Jonathan Frakes on set during his time on Star Trek: The Next Generation?
It wasn’t just Frakes. Patrick Stewart had problems with everybody in the cast at one point or another.

When he first started working in TNG, Stewart felt like an outsider and didn’t really expect the show to last; so, he conducted himself in a strictly professional manner and didn’t really bond with any of the TNG cast, including Frakes. Stewart was rather appalled, actually, that the younger castmembers didn’t seem as focused and serious about the job as he was. It irritated him immensely that Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner and the others frequently broke character and joked and pranked on the set. To the theatre-trained Stewart, this behavior was unacceptable.

By the end of the first season, however, when he saw the growing fan base and realized that this show with its undisciplined cast was going to work and was going to last, Stewart relaxed and began to embrace the mischievous TNG group, even enjoying and taking part in the on-set hijinx that persisted all day and into night-time shoots.

Little did the others suspect that Stewart’s unleashed humor could be quite barbed and insulting, as when he loudly criticized the shallowness of the Deanna Troi character and called actress Marina Sirtis a “stupid cow” to her face…which was a mistake. Sirtis was already insecure (thinking they hired her only for her ample cleavage) and she, also, felt her role was one-dimensional, always parroting the insipid line “Captain, they’re hiding something.”

His mean wisecrack hit a nerve, and Sirtis angrily jumped up in Stewart’s face and read him the riot act in front of everyone on the set – an outburst that ironically brought the two (and the whole cast) closer. They all had their conflicts with Stewart, and he with them, and the airing of grievances was cathartic, I think, helping to fuse them into one of the great ensemble casts in television history.

Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner became among Stewart’s closest friends on TNG and in real life; they learned much from him regarding stage discipline, and he learned much from them about letting loose and having fun. In fact, by the time TNG ended in 1994, Frakes said that Stewart was the silliest one on the set.

The pic at the end of the post, of Riker and Picard enjoying an on-set laugh together, is totally priceless. Great show, great cast, great writing, great acting; for my money as a lifelong Star Trek fan, ST-TNG was and always will be far and away the best of the entire franchise, including the movies.

After a rocky, barely-mediocre first season, then a mostly-agonizing second season with the insufferable CMO Pulaski (played by Diana Muldaur, an alumnus of ST-TOS) inexplicably supplanting the winsome and eminently likable Dr Beverly Crusher, the show really found its footing with Season Three, and from there it was off and running. Episodes such as The Inner Light; The Defector; Yesterday’s Enterprise; Q Who?; Relics, wherein James Doohan reprises his TOS role as Engineering Officer Montgomery Scott; the taut, exquisitely gripping Borg cliffhanger; Darmok; these and many more are solid-gold classics of the sci-fi-on-TV pantheon. The two-part finale of the series, All Good Things, can to this very day make me puddle up at the end, as many times as I’ve seen it. This, from S3’s Deja Q, remains one of my verymost favorite scenes of all, from ST-TNG or anything else:

“You weren’t like that before the beard”—now THAT’S good squishy right there. Then, when Data erupts into his Q-granted fit of uncontrollable laughter, Brent Spiner gives a crash-course in capital-A Acting that’s as fine as has ever been presented anywhere, in any timeline or universe. Note also gifted actor John de Lancie’s subtle, ever-so-slight eyebrow-lift just before his Q character departs the Enterprise D’s bridge forever—another display of acting prowess, all the more noteworthy for its understated nonchalance.

Yes, yes, Guinan was annoying as all hell, albeit far less so than that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Mary Sue asswart, Wesley Crusher, Galactic Wonder Boy™. But still.

I can only say again: this Quora Digest email list I somehow ended up on is a real gem. I really don’t recall signing up for the thing myself, but I owe a debt of gratitude to whoever must have done it for me.

Dear Dad

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Mike

Teenage son leaves a shocking letter for his old man.

A father passing by his son’s bedroom noticed the room unusually clean and saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, ‘Dad’. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.

Dear Dad. It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you.

I’ve been finding real passion with Stacy. She is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing’s, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am.

But it’s not only the passion, Dad. She’s pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that mari*juana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so that Stacy can get better. She sure deserves it!

Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15, and I know how to take care of myself. Someday, I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your many grandchildren.

Love, your son, Josh

P.S . Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Jason’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that’s on the kitchen table. Call when it is safe for me to come home.

Heh. If he was my kid, I’d offer to sit down and have a beer with him.

Days of yore

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Mike

Peters reminisces about a better time, now forever lost.

When We Didn’t Drive Devices
It has been more than 20 years since the day after which Americans got used to being handled like felonious cattle at airports. Stand here, don’t go there. Off with your shoes. Open your purse. Spread your legs. Those born after that day have no memory of what it was like to just get on a plane – sometimes, at the last minute – and fly to your destination without having to do more than show a boarding pass to the stewardess – as opposed to the “flight attendant” – at the gate.

Well, a day may come when people no longer remember what it was like to drive a car – as opposed to a device.

A car was a machine, first of all. It had a thing called an engine – and these were often radically different, car to car. But all of them were the same in that they burned liquid energy stored in a tank.

One of the really neat things about this liquid energy was its portability and stability. You transferred about 15-20 gallons of this liquid – they called it “gasoline” and “diesel” – into the car’s tank, which only took a few minutes to do and the car was ready to drive for hundreds of miles.

Unlike the way things are now, you didn’t have to wait all the time in order to get going. So you could just go – pretty much anywhere and whenever you felt like it. Almost like flying was, a long time ago – when it was possible to catch a flight, the saying went, on the spur of the moment and without having to show up at the airport an hour or two before the scheduled departure time and wait for the flight.

Because you could just go – by car, in those days – you never had to plan. Life had a spontaneity you may never fully appreciate. If you just felt like driving somewhere, you could – no matter how much gas or diesel you didn’t have in the tank. Even if there was almost none. We were able to do this because there were gas stations – where diesel was also usually available – all over and almost always within range. It was only a small hassle if you ran out of gas on the way to the station because it was possible to carry a small can or plastic jug of liquid fuel from the station to wherever you left the car and pour it into the tank and then drive to the station, where the tank could be filled in about five minutes or even less.

And a lot more cheaply than at today’s exorbitant Biden prices, too. Some truly drool-inspiring photos included with this one as well, folks, so check it out.

You LOST, get over it

Posted on April 6, 2023April 6, 2023 by Mike

IMPORTANT NOTE TO HER HERNESS™: Nobody likes you. Nobody wants you. Why? Because you’re ten pounds of worm-riddled shit crammed into a five-pound sack made out of diseased-rat fur, that’s why.

And THAT, you evil, self-absorbed cuntbitch, is nobody’s fault but your own.

Hillary Clinton tries explaining how Douglass Mackey and his evil memes cost her the election
Hillary Clinton simply cannot accept America didn’t want her. And this latest nonsense where Douglass Mackey and his memes somehow interfered in the 2016 election is just more fodder for her bruised, wrinkled, evil ego. Did Mackey make some stupid memes? Oh yeah. But does any sane, logical person really think these memes kept Hillary from winning?

C’mon.

Watch her try and explain how evil it was, snidely pretending THIS is what cost her the election. Not that the most unpopular GOP candidate in modern history was still more popular than she was.

We used to think nobody’s voice would be more annoying and cringe-inducing than Obama’s…we were wrong. So wrong.

And how. But, as Alexander Pope famously said, to err is human, to forgive divine. Which, neither “human” nor “divine” are concepts Her Herness™ knows anything whatsoever about, as we all too well know.

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