Flotsam and/or Jetsam

Death never sleeps

Posted on October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Mike

The Reaper stalks Cadaver Joe.

While Joe Biden has been handling a light schedule of morning campaign stops and basement naps, his campaign bus has been driving throughout the southern US.

In Houston, one Trump supporter decided to troll the Biden team by driving a hilariously decked-out hearse behind the bus with MAGA-approved branding.

The majestic vehicle has some generic Trump 2020 decals, but it’s the other messages on this baby that takes it to that next level of trollery. Here are a few of them:

“Collecting Democrat votes one dead stiff at a time.”

“Dig ’em Deeper, Bury ’em Cheaper Funeral Parlor”

“Clinton Foundation Suicide Limo Service – 1-800-HANG-URSELF”

“Official Democrat Cemetery Vote Collector”

At every campaign stop Gropey’s Griftermobile makes, the hearse stops close by and sets up a display featuring an open casket—which ones imagines is beginning to look downright inviting to Cadaver Joe at this stage of his self-inflicted ordeal—along with a big sign admonishing, “Don’t forget 10% percent for the Big Guy.” According to the article, the Griftermobile has even resorted to blowing through redlights in a desperate attempt to ditch their tail, apparently with no joy so far.

Yes, there are pictures and video included, and they’re hilarious. But they’re embedded in Tweets, which I’m trying to stay away from posting as much as I possibly can from here on out, just on principle. Anyways.

The driver of the hearse indicated that local law enforcement had shown support for the hilarious display.

“Been getting thumbs up from all the cops around here,” said the man. “At least we know we got their support. Even though they can’t say nothing, they still support us.”

At the time of publishing, the Biden bus had reportedly pulled away from their campaign stop after no supporters showed up. The hearse team seemed to be in hot pursuit. We look forward to updating you on any further hilarious developments.

No wonder poor Gropey seems kinda jumpy and out of sorts of late. Or more so than usual, let’s say.

Helloween

Posted on October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Mike

DAMMIT, I only realized on the way home from work that I had completely spaced on activating the CF Halloween theme this year. And given the insane amount of tweaking that will be required to bring the tired old thing even nominally into line with the more recent WP versions, it ain’t likely it’s going to make an appearance this year, alas.

On the bright side, however, it’s a matter of a paltry few days now until our beloved Scrooge Picard rears his top-hatted pate once more around these parts—since I blew off Halloween, I’m gonna inaugurate CF’s traditional holiday makeover early than ever this annum to make up to the CF Faithful. No need to thank me, folks. While you’re waiting, enjoy yourselves some spooky TuneDamage.

Not at all a Baroque-period guy myself, being the confirmed Classical/Romantic era man that I am. But could there possibly be a more fitting way to kick off our Spooky TuneDamage session than Bach’s legendary Toccata and Fugue?

Well, unless maybe it’s Chopin’s world-famous Funeral March, that is. Now let’s shift gears.

Back in my punk-rock halcyon days, I loved the Dead Kennedys all to pieces, and the lyrics of this one in particular spoke to my very soul. Why not every day/Are you so afraid/What will people say? indeed.

Sure, I could very easily have taken the easy way out and tossed up Boris and the Crypt Kicker Five’s classic “Monster Mash” to close things out, like any ordinary blogger certainly would have. But predictability and obviousness ain’t why you guys hang around here in the first place, I figger. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with “Monster Mash,” I hasten to add. But we’ve all heard it enough times, and Gene Simmons’ rollicking, lesser-known little finger-snapper sounds fresh and fun in comparison.

Now to get back to seeing if there’s anything I can do to fit the old Helloween theme into a fresh new WP framework. In case you haven’t seen it or don’t remember it, the theme’s feature image was done up special for me by the seriously amazing American artist Coop, so I’m gonna do my damnedest to make this thing work here.

Update! It occurred to me, in light of the H-ween theme’s shortcomings, that I maybe oughta check up on Scrooge Picard’s overall operability just as a precautionary measure. And wouldn’tcha know it, looks like that one’s gonna need some re-working also—thereby sending any chance of getting Coop’s Helloween masterpiece into usable condition this weekend a-swirling right down the ol’ drain, dammit.

A man of (no) honor

Posted on October 29, 2020October 29, 2020 by Mike

Another self-styled “courageous hero” of the Left turns out to be a miserable, slimy little worm.

In 2018, the New York Times proudly published an anonymously written piece from a purported “senior official in the Trump administration,” knowing that this statement was a lie. “Anonymous” claimed that Trump was an idiot, but that a brave band of “senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda.” In fact, the author was Miles Taylor, a low-level functionary in DHS when he wrote the hit piece.

The anonymous article, published on Sept. 5, 2018, bore the lofty title, “I Am Part of the Resistance inside the Trump Administration: I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” As noted above, to give the piece heft, the New York Times claimed that it came from a “senior official in the Trump administration.” We now know this statement was an outright lie, for the Times admitted that the author’s “identity is known to us.”

The article was a nauseating glue of arrogant piety and self-serving condescension. On the one hand, “Anonymous” insisted that he and others like him “want the administration to succeed” and even agreed that “many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.” Nevertheless, his brave little band of saboteurs loathed Trump, and no matter how effective he was, they were going to thwart him. It was paragraph after paragraph of smug, self-righteous glop.

And a confession to having committed numerous acts of sabotage intended to hamper and undermine the Trump admin’s policies and initiatives that, were there any justice in America, would leave the cringing pantywaist wide open to indictment for sedition.

Taylor accompanied his confession with yet another pompous screed in which he explained why he’s so much better than everyone else. If I had to imagine purgatory, it would be sitting in a room listening to this guy trash other people and justify his higher morality and intelligence.

I hope you caught Taylor’s assertion that “Trump is a man without character.” Let’s talk about character. Taylor lied when CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked him if he was “Anonymous”…

Even worse than that, Taylor allowed a terrible smear to lie against Victoria Coates’s name. And while he’s acknowledged that he owes Coates an apology, none has been forthcoming.

Nor will it ever be, I’d bet. Oxygen thieves like Taylor don’t apologize for their misdeeds; the most anybody ever gets out of them is one of those too-familiar “I’m sorry if you were offended” pseudo-apologies which, true to form, satisfies no one but themselves. Contrition? Honest admission of guilt? Don’t make me laugh. Bottom line:

Miles Taylor is why the American people voted for Trump in 2016 and why, with all due disrespect for the polls and the pundits, it looks as if he’s going to win again in 2020. Americans have had it up to here and beyond with the self-righteous, dishonest, hypocritical, arrogant, self-serving professional governing class. These people are a plague on the American political body, and they need to go find an honest living in the private sector where they cause less harm.

Yeah, well, they aren’t gonna do that on their own initiative. Tragically, it becomes more apparent each and every day that Real Americans are going to have to take direct and forceful action to root them all out if the country is to survive relatively intact.

Something’s happenin’ here

Posted on October 29, 2020October 29, 2020 by Mike

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

Tonight’s TuneDamage selection is pretty much self-explanatory, I believe. Been meaning to put this one up for a cpl-three weeks now; I was just waiting for an excuse, and now seems like about as good a time as any. Although on reflection, election day might be an even more apt choice.

All in all, one apt tune calls for another, right?

If you’re experiencing a strong sense of deja vue right now, it’s justified. I have indeed run this one before—more than once too, if I’m not mistaken. Now admittedly, with apologies to our good friend Bill, I’ve never been what you’d call a Bob Dylan fan, although of course I’m musician enough myself to acknowledge the man’s genius. That said, I’ve always considered this song to be one of Dylan’s absolute best. And here, Frankie Perez—with his breathy, passionate vocal overlaying a gently captivating instrumental arrangement—has rejiggered a genuine masterpiece into a thing of purest, deepest beauty.

Legions of players have covered Dylan’s stuff over the years, with varying results. While I do still maintain that some classic tunes should just be left the hell alone, the above isn’t one of ’em. I’m confident Mr Zimmerman is well aware of Lopez’ rendition. And I’d be surprised indeed if he didn’t approve wholeheartedly.

Roll over, Beethoven

Posted on October 28, 2020October 28, 2020 by Mike

Wheat from chaff.

The habitual, two-tiered way we talk about classical composers is ubiquitous. For instance, coverage of an early October livestream by the Louisville Orchestra praised the ensemble’s performance of a “Beethoven” symphony, and the debut of a composition memorializing Breonna Taylor by “Davóne Tines” and “Igee Dieudonné.” But ubiquity doesn’t make something right. It’s time we paid attention to the inequity inherent in how we talk about composers, and it’s time for the divided naming convention to change.

And just never anyone mind about the “inequities” inherent in the abilities of said composers, and the work they produced.

As we usher wider arrays of composers into our concerts and classrooms, this dual approach only exacerbates the exclusionary practices that suppressed nonwhite and nonmale composers in the first place. When we say, “Tonight, you’ll be hearing symphonies by Brahms and Edmond Dédé,” we’re linguistically treating the former as being on a different plane than the latter, a difference originally created by centuries of systematic prejudice, exclusion, sexism, and racism. (Dédé was a freeborn Creole composer whose music packed concert halls in Europe and America in the mid-19th century.)

Going forward, we need to “fullname” all composers when we write, talk, and teach about music. If mononyms linguistically place composers in a canonical pantheon, fullnaming never places them there to begin with. When we say, “Tonight, you’ll be hearing symphonies by Johannes Brahms and Edmond Dédé,” we’re linguistically treating both composers as being equally worthy of attention.

Even if they’re, y’know, NOT.

Musicians, academics, and teachers have a lot of work ahead to confront the racist and sexist history of classical music.

Which, naturally, is a given. For certain types of overly-precious idiots, anyway.

Fullnaming composers, especially those who have been elevated to mononymic status by this complicated history, will challenge us to at the very least afford the same respect to all of the individuals whose music we talk and write about. When we do return to the concert halls, let’s return to concerts that play Ludwig Beethoven alongside Florence Price, and Edmond Dédé alongside Johannes Brahms.

Meh. Get back to me when one of your no-name also-rans produces something anywhere near as powerful and influentional as a Le Nozze de Figaro, a Die Zauberflote, or a Jupiter Symphony; an Emperor Concerto, a “Pastorale” or “Fate” Symphony; a Swan Lake or Nutcracker Suite; a Thieving Magpie, Barber of Seville, or William Tell Overture.

I won’t be holding my breath, nor should anybody else. The above are all deathless, iconic compositions whose richness, beauty, and depth have stood the test of time to become potent totems of Western culture itself. To even obliquely suggest that the atonal cacophony or masturbatory noodling typically puked up by ANY modern composer automagickally qualifies such flyweights to even sweep a Mozart or Beethoven’s workspace—because RACIST!™—is to drive home fully how preposterous and contrived any notion of “equality” among creative types is.

But then, by casually excreting that little “racist and sexist history of classical music” buttnugget of yours, you’ve given away what it is you’re really all about…and it is NOT music. So let’s all just get right down to the nitty-gritty here, shall we? Just like every other Leftist, it’s actually Western culture you have a problem with, and not some silly-assed “fullnaming” horseshit.

Nazis, in their own words

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

There’s more to the article I’m excerpting here, but I’m just gonna go with the Goebbels quotes used therein.

We are not a charitable institution but a Party of revolutionary socialists.

We are a workers’ party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance…The value of labor under socialism will be determined by its value to the state, to the whole community. Labor means creating value, not haggling over things.

The money pigs of capitalist democracy… Money has made slaves of us…Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood.

Odd, but contra Biden’s absurd and feeble attempt to smear Trump, all that sounds a lot more like Biden to me. In fact, the Democrat-Socialists could just insert Goebbels’ raving into the Party platform and nobody would even notice. And in case anybody is still buying the strategic Lefty switcheroo claiming Naziism is exclusively a Rightist joint and had nothing whatever to do with socialism:

Lenin is the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between Communism and the Hitler faith is very slight.

Very slight? Except for the German nationalism, it’s undiscernable, a distinction without a difference. This next quote truly tells the tale.

We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly.

Gee, none of THAT stuff sounds at all familiar, now does it?

The Daily Donnybrook

Posted on October 24, 2020November 3, 2020 by Mike

Welcome to Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. Do note that the official CF comments policy remains in effect here, as enumerated in the left sidebar. All new posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

Another victim of Fauxvid tyranny

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

Well, damn.

Ninety years after it opened its doors for the first time, Nat Sherman is closing down. Nat Sherman International Inc., which has been owned by cigarette giant Altria Group Inc. since 2017, will cease operations by the end of September, shutting down not only its midtown Manhattan cigar store but also its entire wholesale business.

The decision comes several months after Altria began looking for a potential buyer for the cigar subsidiary; the company announced it was considering the sale of Nat Sherman International Inc. in October.

“We worked hard to successfully transition Nat Sherman International to a new home. The Covid-19 pandemic created new challenges that were unfortunately too big to overcome,” said Jessica Pierucki, general manager, managing director for Nat Sherman.

Back in the 90s there was a little Nat Sherman store on Broadway, if I remember right, a couple of blocks from Union Square. I was working at Cheap Jacks close by at the time, and used to stop in on the walk to work now and then to grab a pack of their cigarillos, which I liked a lot. Hate to hear they’re gone. But this is only one of many, many chapters in an ever-lengthening tale, with no happy ending in sight.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

Peace is breaking out all over

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

Remarkable.

Sudan will be removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and will begin a partnership with the United States and Israel, President Donald Trump announced on Friday.

“HUGE win today for the United States and for peace in the world. Sudan has agreed to a peace and normalization agreement with Israel! With the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that’s THREE Arab countries to have done so in only a matter of weeks. More will follow!” he tweeted.

The agreement comes just weeks after Trump secured two other historic peace deals in the Middle East through the signing of The Abraham Accords with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which established full diplomatic relations of the countries with Israel. These deals facilitated by the Trump Administration are meant to bring “stability, security, and prosperity” in the region.

“It is a new world,” Netanyahu said on the phone with reporters in the Oval Office. “We are cooperating with everyone. Building a better future for all of us.”

Trump also signaled his intent to continue negotiating deals with other Middle East countries, saying there are at least five others, including Saudi Arabia, that want in.

Not too shabby for a POTUS who has either been a disastrous failure or has accomplished nothing whatsoever in his first term, depending on which passel of idiots is talking at the moment. Scott Adams’s take puts that bushwa to bed:

How would you like to run for president against an incumbent who did so well on foreign policy that the debates don't even need to include that topic? That's actually happening.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 22, 2020

It’s not so much that they didn’t need to; the Powers That Be types running the shitshow “debates” couldn’t include it. Against all expectations, Trump has done truly astounding things on the world stage. His deft, skillful efforts are literally making the world a better place. The Left/ NeverTrumpTard/Swamp coalition can’t afford to bring that sort of thing up; it’s the last thing in the world they want people to be talking about.

“America’s real problems are urban problems”

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

Daniel Greenfield argues that we must kill the cities, before they kill America.

The American city has failed. The coronavirus lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter race riots haven’t revealed a new reality, but the old truths under the glossy branding and hipster cafes. The underlying failure of the city isn’t social, it’s economic. Urban areas parted ways from the basis for their existence generations ago. Cities don’t exist because we need them, or because they’re more efficient ways of bringing workers and businesses together. They’re relics of economic empires that have collapsed leaving behind beautiful architecture and urban decay.

Major cities only productively employ a fraction of their residents, and most of their better jobs in both the private and public sectors are filled by workers who don’t live there. But the limited culture, medical, financial and tech industries that do thrive there produce a lot of money and even more influence. The difference between the perception of a failed city and a successful one is bringing in a few companies with a national brand and a global footprint. A city with a few major publishing firms, financial companies, or dot coms is seen as a success even if these narrow sectors have little to do with the majority of the millions of people who actually live there.

Urbanization has become a pyramid scheme taking over entire states, while hollowing out the more conservative rural areas, turning red states blue, and leaving everyone except those at the top of the pyramid scheme poorer with each generation.

America doesn’t need an expanding population. Urban political machines do. Nor do we need massive urban density that no longer occurs because of the density of opportunities, but just the opposite, the density of failure and the real estate bubbles that are fueled by urban crises.

There is no shortage of cheap labor in America. We don’t need more of it. Every major city is already choking on the unemployed cheap labor forces they have. And unless we have a massive manufacturing boom, the only employment opportunities for them are in the gig economy where they can deliver pad thai and give rides to environmental consultants.

The urban model hasn’t worked for America in sixty years. The pandemic has put it on the verge of collapse as the wealthy industries that made cities their base flee into virtual workspaces. It’s time to rethink and defund cities as the hubs of our economy and our nation.

Just another characteristically brilliant and well-written Greenfield piece, who I haven’t been looking in on nearly as often as I should of late.

Tocsin, rung

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

I’m sure most of you here know me well enough by now to have heard my oft-repeated declaration: “No cop-sucker, I.” That said, you no doubt are also aware that I don’t harbor any reflexive distrust or dislike for the po-lice either. I’ve known and been around cops my whole life long: as neighbors, as friends, as family, even. Around a third of the customers in the Harley shop I turned wrenches and busted knuckles in for years were cops; another third was black guys, and the last consisted of a mix of what we used to call RUBs (Rich Urban Bikers) and the more authentic and likeable old-school Harley trash. Almost all the cops I’ve spent any time around were perectly decent guys, although it must be admitted that I and my cop buds alike were all too aware of the existence of some wrong ‘uns in the law enforcement field.

Thankfully, bad cops tended not to last very long on the force in those days. They usually wound up either fired because of some variety of excessive-force hassle; being shot, whether rightly or wrongly; or just going mental from the stress and frustration, enough so to make them walk away from the job more or less voluntarily. The ones that did hang in would find themselves patiently schooled by the older, more experienced heads, resulting in a much more relaxed and professional attitude that served both the officers and the public much better than the eager-beager, gung-ho aggression ever would have.

So no, I don’t really have a problem with cops. Most cops, anyway. My cop friends are all retired now, and they tell me it’s a whole different ballgame out there nowadays. Without exception, they say that they wouldn’t take the job now for any money, and are damned glad to be out of it.

As y’all know me and my opinion on the police by now, we all likewise know Angelo Codevilla to be one of our most sober-minded and judicious pundits. He’s a bona fide intellectual heavyweight, with not an ounce of the wild-eyed, snarling radical about him. He constructs his arguments meticulously, according to the facts as he perceives them, then presents those arguments passionately but without excess heat. He unflinchingly confronts difficult or unpleasant truths, without ever lapsing into bomb-throwing or inflammatory rhetoric.

All of which means that when Codevilla expresses alarm about something, we are obliged to listen, and listen well.

Turkeys cheering the arrival of Thanksgiving would be only marginally more pathetic than the conservative luminaries on Fox News who cheer for the police as civilization’s saviors. The police. You know—the heroes who stood aside as mobs looted and burned Minneapolis, Portland, Kenosha, Chicago, Macy’s in New York, downtown Chicago and so on while organized mask-wearing Antifa thugs beat whoever got in the way? Yes, the police we watched tase a woman for not wearing a mask in a stadium and arresting people for singing Christian hymns in a park. The police, who don’t answer calls from people who are being threatened in their homes. Those police.

Ah! the conservative luminaries tell us: the cops really would rather protect us. They don’t want to hurt us. Yes, the police fine us and jail us on behalf of politicians who hate us. Yes, effectively, they are protecting the mobs. But that’s only because they are duty bound to obey the duly constituted authorities who also pay them. They’re just doing their jobs even if they don’t like what they are doing. What should they do, disobey orders and get fired? So, let’s give them more money and more power.

The more we think about that, the more we realize that this attitude corrupts citizens as well as police. Let us reflect.

Begin by dismissing the idea that serious repression, criminalization of people for their religious and social identity, or for political opposition, can’t happen in America. It is happening. And it is sure to get a lot worse because the people in charge of the permanent government, the media, and corporate entities, increasingly are united in making it happen. More so than just about anywhere, ever.

And that includes Germany in the 1930s.

We have already experienced that, unlike even in Nazi Germany—and much like in the Soviet Union, China, etc.—the farther up the ordinary citizen looks in the hierarchy of the American ruling class, the more likely one is to find all manner of corruption and enmity. Dangerous to our health and liberties as the police and judicial system of California may be, the FBI and the Department of Justice are worse.

What then shall we do with and about the police?

He has some ideas about that, and you must read them.

Come on in, the water’s fine

Posted on October 22, 2020October 22, 2020 by Mike

New Blogrolle link in our Pure Bloggery section: Libertas Bellas, being the brainchild of Alex from Ammo.com. A sample:

Smedley Butler quotes are some of the most influential in the world in regard to military and war. At the time of his death in 1940 Major General Smedley Darlington Butler was the most decorated Marine in American history. His 16 medals included two Medals of Honor and the Brevet Medal, all for separate acts of heroism. Following his military service Butler revealed a supposed plot to overthrow the U.S. government, as well as published War Is a Racket, a scathing criticism of American wars for profit.

“My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home.”

“What business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy. And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.”

“I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.”

More at the link, of course, my favorite of which is this:

“Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.”

Shades of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, right there. In fact, one suspects that perhaps Heinlein might have lifted the concept outright from Butler, or was at least influenced by it. Alex also offers some good Hayek quotes in another post, and chapter and verse on how the US is being snapped up wholesale by the ChiComs that makes for some chilling, creepy reading. If you’re not Gropey Joe Fingerbang or his no-account scion, that is.

Would that it were so

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike

Okay, I gotta admit, this one tickled the heck outta me.

Just before I went on air with Tucker last night, word came that the directors of the FBI and National Intelligence needed to rush onto our screens right now with an emergency news conference on “election security”. In a country where judges extend mail-in deadlines at random and postal workers dump completed ballots in the trash and multiple vote forms are sent unsolicited to addresses of foreign nationals, “election security” is a joke of which all US citizens should be ashamed. As I’ve said on Rush and elsewhere, the looming chaos of November 3rd is a conscious choice.

Nevertheless, this brace of national-security hotshots, John Ratcliffe and Christopher Wray, somehow felt obliged to seize the nation’s telly screens and inform Americans that Iran and Russia were spreading “disinformation”, a hitherto foreign-intelligence concept now domesticated, mainstreamed, and turned on the American people every two years:

The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S. officials…

The messages appeared to target Democrats using data from digital databases known as “voter files,” some of which are commercially available. They told recipients the Proud Boys were “in possession of all your information” and instructed voters to change their party registration and cast their ballots for Trump.

After the last half-decade, my instinct is not to believe a single word the FBI says about anything, and to support any candidate who vows to dissolve the bureau and start from scratch. Setting aside the Strzok-Page-Comey-McCabe stuff, this is a national police agency that devotes more resources to investigating a Nascar garage-door pull-rope than to a Hunter Biden laptop bursting with oligarch money-laundering and alleged kiddie porn: I would be surprised if such bizarre priorities could get them elected as village constable in the average New Hampshire township. Yet we are now assured, at a time when Big Social are more powerful than any government on the planet and are openly suppressing one of the two presidential campaigns, that the big problem is mullahs posing as “Proud Boys”.

Heh. The Proud Boys: is there ANYTHING they can’t do? One does have to just love the thought of dweebish Democrats all across the land soiling their Underoos in fright at the scarifying prospect of having a group of pissed-off Proud Boys invade their quiet neighborhood to come a-knocking at the door, seeking to wreak retribution on them in the dark of night.

Y’know, exactly like their PantiFa/BLM goon squads have been doing to us all summer.

Creature feature

Posted on October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 by Mike

Harpy (noun)

har·py | \ ˈhär-pē \
plural harpies

Definition of harpy
1 capitalized : a foul malign creature in Greek mythology that is part woman and part bird
2: a shrewish woman

Synonyms
battle-axe, dragon lady, harridan, shrew, termagant

I’ve never seen the 2020 left summed up better than I have here. Also, I’m sorry for this. pic.twitter.com/e5i8WiMbpc

— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) October 19, 2020

Just in time to freeze the blood of every male in existence for Halloween, and make his testicles draw all the way up into the back of his throat—because they’ve heard that tune before, too may times, and know all too well what it forebodes. Every one of the guys I forwarded the vid to confessed with a shudder that they could only stand about ten or fifteen seconds of it before having to turn it off, and no wonder; one of them compared its powerful psychological impact to what he imagined having a needle-sharp icicle plunged straight into his heart might feel like. Via our old friend Stephen, whose lovely wife thankfully does NOT resemble the above dictionary in any way, bless herwarm, sweet heart.

As shitlib propagandist Walter Cronkite used to intone gravely: it oughta scaaaare yuh to death. But it does make for a note-perfect segue into tonight’s TuneDamage selection, I do believe.

That’s the legendary Swedish band Backyard Babies, masters of a subgenre that came to be known as Sleaze Rock. Their guitarist, Dregen, was also in another fine aggregation of Swedish hard-rockers yclept the Hellacopters, who I’ll have to remember to feature here sometime soon. I’m eternally grateful for having been put onto both bands by an Australian BPs fan, Helen, with whom I was quite close friends indeed for a goodish while there. Well, as close as two people can ever be who live half a world away from each other, I guess.

All Swedish rock bands have a rep for being almost preternaturally precise in their songwriting, performing, and recording too—a rep which is entirely justified, if you ask me. That almost anal-retentive approach to music holds true across genres, too; some Swedish buds of mine have a rockabilly outfit called the Go-Getters, and it’s the exact same way with them. They’re crazy good, almost too perfect, like some kind of clockwork machine when it comes to their music.

But to talk to ’em, Peter and his boys are just the nicest, most polite bunch of tall, blonde, blue-eyed devils you’d ever want to meet. Perhaps unexpectedly, though, they have not a trace of the cold, aloof arrogance that seems to be hardwired into the German musicians I’ve known. They had some swagger onstage, which is as it should always be, but offstage Peter and the other Swedish players I’ve had the opportunity to spend some green-room time with were all diffident and deferential, almost to the point of being downright painfully shy.

Be they arrogant or retiring, those Swedes can sure lay down some mighty fine rock and roll, all of ’em I ever heard tell of anyway.

Well, bye

Posted on October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 by Mike

They keep promising to leave, but they never follow through.

The latest is Bruce Springsteen.

“The Boss,” as people with bad taste in music call him, said he’d be “on the next plane” to Australia if Donald Trump is reelected. “I love Australia. Every time, we have nothing but good times down there. It’s always a treat to come. Love the people, love the geography, great place for motorcycle trips, it’s close to our hearts. If Trump is re-elected – which he will not be; I’m predicting right now he’s gonna lose – if by some happenstance he should be, I’ll see you on the next plane,” Springsteen said in a recent interview.

Added bonus: there’s an incredible variety of the world’s deadliest wildlife Down Under, from insects to seamonsters to snakes and beyond. But let’s get right down to the real meat of this thing, shall we?

I don’t believe he’ll actually leave, and I don’t have any feelings about Bruce Springsteen living in the United States one way or the other. I just think it’s about time we, as a country, acknowledge a universal truth: Bruce Springsteen sucks.

He doesn’t suck because of his politics, though that doesn’t help. He sucks because his music sucks. He can’t sing, and even if he could, his songs suck.

Bruce Springsteen has spent his whole career rewriting the same “story” as a song. Here’s every Springsteen song rolled into one:

Becky’s dad doesn’t approve of the guy she’s dating, probably named Johnny, but she’s not going to let that stop their love. The factory has closed or is about to, making life in this small town even tougher than it was before. The young lovers are going to meet somewhere, probably on the outskirts of town, and go off to start their lives together, even though the odds are stacked against them. (Cue the guitar or horns.)

Enough already. Bruce Springsteen is the most overrated musician in history, followed closely by Jon Bon Jovi, who apes Bruce’s style while spending more time on his hair.

Maybe it’s something about New Jersey that makes crappy musicians, I don’t know. But I do know that being lectured, lyrically or otherwise, about how rough it is out there by a multimillionaire with a guitar and a guy on the payroll whose only job is to rip the sleeves off jean jackets to make him seem “edgy” is not talent, it’s a marketing gimmick.

Seconded, every word of it, with great big bells and a cherry on top. So just this one time, just for once: don’t talk, DO. Far as I’m concerned, the quicker that limousine liberal can put himself in the way of a funnel-web spider, a cassowary, or an eastern brown snake, the happier I’ll be.

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