Why is this blog linked to GoodReads?

And to add to the aggravation, the person leaving the comment wasn’t a stranger. It was a friend of mine from college. (Hi, Kelly.)

Now, it should be noted that in fairness that I don’t think Kelly meant anything   mean-spirited by that comment.  The post in question was fairly personal in nature. And as a general rule, I don’t get personal on the blog. (Okay, it’s more a guideline then a rule.  But still…) And it’s not the best written thing I’ve ever posted. It was one of those, “Oh crap I need to post something and this is the only thing I think of right now” types of posts.  And I did end it with the admission that I needed a blow job. Which is probably something first tier bloggers never do.
And it does beg the question, what is this blog about?
Is it a comedic blog?  A personal blog? A blog about politics that happens to have comedic elements?
What is this thing anyway?  And does it belong on a page hawking a book of comedy sketches?
And if it doesn’t, do I junk it and start over from scratch?  Or do I create a separate blog and post that to Goodreads?
Or do I keep going the way I’ve been going? Only quote the aliens to Woody Allen in “Stardust Memories” make sure I tell funnier jokes?
Those are the questions I’m going to be grappling with in the next few weeks.  All while dealing with whatever crap comes down the pike in the next few weeks and months in Washington.  (That is if talking about politics even survives this…thing I’m going to do.)
So…please forgive the dust around here for the next few weeks as I retool.  All I can promise is that I will try to keep my posts more in keeping of a man hawking a book of comedy sketches.  I.E. Funny.
Oh, and I also promise to keep any desire I have for a blow job to myself.
Unless I’m sure I can get a laugh out of it.

How foul a mood am I in today? Let me count the ways.

1. For the last week, my in box has been filling up with various Mother’s Day offers.  Discounts on flowers, electronics, etc.
My mother died a couple of months ago.  I don’t need to be reminded of this by the giant capitalism machine.

2. My attempts to rebrand my Twitter feed as a funny feed has been limited because…frankly, the writers block has been kicking my ass.  Something borne out by my mostly bare aforementioned feed. To make matters worse, the one thing guaranteed to make my writer’s block worse has happened.

3. Ashland has done it’s traditional leap frog from winter to summer.  The high here today is a balmy 88 degrees.  Those in drought stricken area are more than welcome to tell me go fuck myself at this point.  (Seriously, I understand.) But the fact is that I do not function well in hot weather.  My brain, which hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders to begin with, gets even more fuzzier. I have have two fans on in my apartment now.  One at the window and the one over my stove in my kitchen area.  Neither of which seems to be making a dent in the heat. And this heat also up my awareness of…

4. The Carbon count in earth’s atmosphere hit 400 ppm this week!

For many years scientists have said that concentrations need to be kept below, or pushed back to, 350 ppm for countries to meet an international target of keeping the average temperature increase below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) this century.

Which means the climate is going to become more extreme.  The hot places will get even hotter.  Food will become harder to grow. Drinking water will become scarce. Basically, Mad Max without the fun bits.

5.  I’m out of St. John’s Wort.

6. I am acutely aware that I need a blow job.

That’s pretty much my life in a nutshell right now.  My biggest regret is that I don’t have a decent punchline.

Extremis Enhanced Female Busey: Is that all you got? A smirk and a clever quip?

Tony Stark: Lady, that’s the title of my autobiography.

Trim, efficient and with just the right amount of snark. Sums up everything I love about “Iron Man 3″.
Making a big budget summer movie is always a tricky proposition. You want to be able to deliver the big bang boom. But you have to remember that you are still telling a story. I.E., A narrative of connected events with characters an audience can identify and sympathize with while delivering three to five big action set pieces that will be front loaded into various trailers designed to rouse a shrinking middle class to leave their homes and spend money into going to a film that they, by all rights, should be waiting to hit streaming Netflix thus reducing their household budget.
Thankfully, Shane Black has spent years writing blockbusters (And occasionally watching directors make hash of them.) and he has gotten very good at threading that particular needle.
How lean is this script? There’s a point in the third act where we see a secondary character do something unexpected.
And his entire backstory is laid out...in one freaking shot!
I almost applauded right then and there. And that was before the crazy ass “Iron Man catches thirteen people in midair” sequence.

Bottom line.  Solid script, solid performances. (Blessed be, Robert Downey refuses to phone it it.) Great action and you get to see Gwyneth Paltrow in a sports bra.  Joe Bob Jensen says check it out.

-My take on the Bush Library.
A multi-million dollar amnesia pill shaped like the last thing that George W. Bush would ever be caught dead in.  And if this thing actually succeeds in whitewashing the Bush legacy, I’m declaring the American experiment dead.

And for those of you wondering if my disappointment in Obama translates into a more forgiving attitude for Bush, I will say this.
If someone drives a car into your living room and the contractor is taking too long getting the repairs done, your annoyance at the contractor is not going to lessen your anger at the asshole who rammed your living room in the first place!!!!
Thankfully, our friends in Europe are not buying the okey-doke!

A planned trip by Bush to speak at the Switzerland-based United Israel Appeal later this week has been canceled after several human rights groups called for Swiss authorities to arrest Bush and investigate him for authorizing torture. Bush has traveled widely since leaving office, but not to Europe, where there is a strong tradition of international prosecutions.

The Swiss group and Bush’s spokesman claim that it was threats of protest, not of legal action, that prompted the cancellation. But facing protests is nothing new for Bush. What was different about this trip was that groups including Amnesty International and the Center for Constitutional Rights argued that Switzerland, as a party to the UN Convention against Torture, is obligated to investigate Bush for potential prosecution.

Drip, drip, motherfucker! Drip, drip.

-Wait until 2:15 in this video. Then you may release your bowels.

Yes.
You saw right.
A giant robot just whacked a giant monster upside his head...with a Goddamned Oil Tanker!!!

I don’t want to just see this movie.  I want to have sex with it.
Nasty, unprotected buttsex.

More later.

MONDAY: The Boston Marathon gets hit. Death, Blood, gore, sadness.

TUESDAY: The Senate The GOP minority in The Senate plus four Red State Dems totally fucks all of us on Gun Control via the Filibuster. And while Sharron Angle may have been crazier then a bag of meth-addled Doberman puppies, I’m beginning to think that maybe it would have been worth dealing with her then having a candy-ass Senate leader like Harry Reid.
Also, a town in Texas got pancaked by a fertilizer factory explosion which apparently had not been inspected by OSHA since “Ghostbusters” came out.

WEDNESDAY: We find out that President Obama was threatened by an Elvis impersonator.  Instead of memeing the hell out of it, the internet decides to let it slide.
It had been that kind of week.

THURSDAY:  With extra spending money in my pocket and a hearty “Fuck this shit” on my lips, I decide to go out for Chinese food and a movie. (G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Big dumb, goofy action film. Mostly notable for Ninjas fighting on the side of a mountain!) I then go home, fire up Twitter and discover that THE MOVIE IS STILL GOING ON!!!!!

FRIDAY: We all watch as Boston gets locked down as everybody and his Uncle Fester track down the surviving bomber. (The other bomber being killed when he got shot by the police and then run over by the surviving bomber.) The resulting lock down and arrest being either an example of superior police work or the further militarization of civilian space, depending on your point of view.
And while this is all going on, we have Alex Jones screaming “False Flag”, Lindsey Graham screaming “Enemy combatant” like it’s 2005, a report came out confirming that yes, we did torture after 9/11 and somewhere in the middle of all this, Nestle’s CEO suggested out loud that drinking water should be privatized.

My verdict? This previous week should die in a fire and America deserves a collective, sloppy blowjob.

There’s no denying that the footage looks epic.  Superman is the cornerstone of the DC comic universe and there’s no which way in hell they’re going to nickel and dime this thing.
The trick is going to be nailing the stuff you can’t throw money at.
The brief snippets of performances look good.  Kevin Costner seems to have aged nicely in to the prototypical Blue Collar dad. And I really dig Russell Crowe’s rumbling thunder from God voice he’s using for Jor-El. I’m already on board with Amy Adams as Lois Lane but I haven’t seen enough of Michael Shannon as Zod to form an opinion.
And Henry Cavill as Supes?
Well, he doesn’t have the “Anointed by God to play Superman” look that Christopher Reeve had.  But he comes damn closer than anyone has a right to.  He’s got the build, he’s got the ernest look and delivery down.  And most importantly, he sells the suit.
That last part can’t be overstated.
Yeah, Christian Bale had to wear a suit for Batman.  But it was functional as body armor and to hold the gadgets.  Superman’s suit on the other hand, is just freaking spandex.
I would imagine the hardest part of the role is to wear the suit without feeling like a schmuck.
(Digression. In his book “Which Lie Did I Tell?” William Goldman talked about when the Salkind’s were making the first Superman movie, they tried to cast a big star in the lead at first. And nearly every big star of that period including Paul Newman and Burt Reynolds were approached.  When they got to Warren Beatty, he actually took the suit home. He tried it on, went to his pool in the backyard and started running around it with his arms outstretched.  Like kids do when they play Superman. Just then, he saw his maid looking at him as he’s running around.
And he stopped.
And he said, “Yeah, I can’t do this”.
The suit is a bitch. End of digression.)

The other big X factor is the score.
Hans Zimmer is a terrific composer but John Williams’ work in the original film is as iconic as anything he ever wrote. It’s second only to his work on “Star Wars” and it continues to flow through the Pop Culture bloodstream. Seek out Petra Haden’s album “Petra Goes to the Movies” and you’ll see what I mean.
If Mozart was preserved in Amber and cloned Jurassic Park style and given this gig, I promise you, he’d be shitting his pantaloons.
To Zimmer’s credit, it sounds like he managed to not only keep control of his bowels but also deliver themes worthy of Williams without falling into pastiche.
Again, I’m waiting until I see the movie to pass judgement.
But the fixings seems to be there.

And to the parties responsible for this carnage, I will just say this.
Of all the places in the world you had to hit, you hit Boston?
Motherfuckers, did you learn nothing from “The Boondock Saints”?

The top House Republican campaign official broke with other GOP leaders Wednesday in criticizing President Barack Obama over his “chained CPI” proposal.

During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said Obama was “trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors” with the plan, which would change the way Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are calculated.

Now, before Liberals start jumping up and down and scream “Fuck yeah, Walden”, let me remind you that he did vote for the Paul Ryan budget last year which had math fuzzier then a bucket of Tribbles and in the words of Paul Krugman…

After 2020, the main alleged saving would come from sharp cuts in Medicare, achieved by dismantling Medicare as we know it, and instead giving seniors vouchers and telling them to buy their own insurance. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same plan Newt Gingrich tried to sell in 1995.

Translation, Walden was fine with the Republicans balancing the budget on the backs of Seniors. He’s just not crazy about Obama working their side of the street.
Walden isn’t an idiot.  He knows the Chained CPI isn’t playing well and and he’s smart enough to know the seniors in his district will rise up and start throwing jars of Metamucil and soiled Adult Diapers at any congress person stupid enough to back this thing.  And no Congress person wants to be pelted with soiled diapers. (Well, maybe David Vitter.  But still…)  It’s a cynical move by Walden but it’s not an incorrect one.  As Krugman points out, the point of this budget is for the Obama Adminstration to look like grownups.

Since the beginning, the Obama administration has seemed eager to gain the approval of the grownups — the sensible people who will reward efforts to be Serious, and eventually turn on those nasty, intransigent Republicans as long as Obama and co. don’t cater too much to the hippies.This is the latest, biggest version of that strategy. Unfortunately, it will almost surely fail. Why? Because there are no grownups — only people who try to sound like grownups, but are actually every bit as childish as anyone else.

After all, if whoever it is that Obama is trying to appeal to here — I guess it’s the Washington Post editorial page and various other self-proclaimed “centrist” pundits — were willing to admit the fundamental asymmetry in our political debate, willing to admit that if DC is broken, it’s because of GOP radicalism, they would have done it long ago. It’s not as if this reality was hard to see.

So Walden is being a cynical bastard.  But the bitch of it is that in this case, the cynical bastard is completely in the right.
Which is probably why what happened next, while not being totally unexpected, is sticking in his craw like a half chewed dinner roll.

The Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax, anti-spending group, said Thursday that it was looking for a primary challenger against Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, after he spoke out against President Barack Obama’s plan to cut social security benefits.

“We always knew Greg Walden had a liberal record, but he really cemented it with his public opposition to even modest entitlement reform,” Club for Growth president Chris Chocola said in a statement. “Greg Walden has voted for bailing out Wall Street, dozens of pork projects, and against cutting the spending from the Obama stimulus. He even voted against blocking taxpayer subsidies for Viagra. Greg Walden should be held accountable for his anti-growth voting record as well as his anti-growth rhetoric.”

So, Walden gets primaried by a Tea Party candidate.  At which point he’ll either lose or he’ll have to tack hard to the right to win.  And then possibly get clobbered in the General by the Democratic candidate for all the crazy right-wing stuff he had to say in the primary.
The question is how much he can get clobbered and survive? Greg Walden has had the seat since 1998 and in that time, No Democratic candidate has ever gotten above 35% of the vote against him.
But the thing is that Walden has always been a back bencher who’s kept his head down. It’s only been the last couple of years that he’s ventured out into the national stage because of his rise in the NRLC. And the question becomes can he handle the bigger audience. (However, anyone hoping for a Todd Akin moment from him should let that dream die now.  He’ll vote for crazy but he won’t speak crazy.)
The other big what if is what if the guy who primaries Walden actually manages to win the Seat.  Ashland is solid blue but we are a speck in a huge sea of red.  And while Walden is GOP, he’s nowhere near being the worst of the bunch. (Which at this point, mind you, is akin to being the leper with the most fingers.) And the odds are that we could end up with a “Michelle Bachman/Sharron Angle commingled in a transporter accident” lump of crazy.
On the other hand, if we are even to have a chance to pull out of the death spiral we are in now, we need to take back the House. And that means we have to fight for every possible seat.
And if that means we have to hope the the Club for Growth can loosen this particular jar, so be it.

Canonization is for Saints.
Margaret Thatcher was no saint.
That is all.