Holy Galloping Teeth, Batman!

A little long, but cool just the same:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Did you spot the Q-Bert reference?

Dust Off Your Dance Shoes

Papa Bear pumps up the jam:



And Colbert sympathizes here.

Paging Dr. Rove

I was wrong. The Republicans will be talking about gay marriage ahead of schedule.

Least Important Post Ever?

And still you read it. I've blogged on some pretty insignificant stuff in the past, but I just want to say that John McCain's wife creeps me out. Of course, the only spouse of a candidate with relevance for this election - in my opinion - is William Jefferson Clinton; the Constitution has no guidelines for the role a former president would play in his wife's administration. But there is something sinister about Cindy McCain. Imagine a sequel to Village of the Damned in which the cursed hamlet is menaced by the grown-up children:

I'm going to stop writing about this before she invades my mind and convinces me not to care about her tax returns.

You Could Set Your Clock To It

Time was we'd be approaching midsummer before the Right started marching out tired old hobby horses like this. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I just think it would have been nice to have the Democratic nominee decided before we indulge the Republicans in their hollow, election-cycle fear-mongering. But I suppose everything in this campaign season has been accelerated. I guess that means we'll be hearing about gay marriage in a couple of weeks. That'll make for some stunning contortions of logic. I can't wait until someone goes on Hannity & Colmes trying to sell the idea that Obama is both a secret Muslim extremist AND a Sodomite hellbent on destroying the sanctity of marriage. How do Islamists view homosexuality again? Oh, right. Well, no matter what, I'm with Hamas.

The Misogyny and the Prodigy

My good friend and one-time roommate Matt - knowing my love for both vintage ads and YouTube - sent me this tonight:


And it got me thinking about Hillary Clinton.

As aggravating as the last few months of the campaign have been, the end is in sight. I have been impressed with the degree to which Obama has kept his cool and resisted the temptation to resort to identity politics. Though - I should add - I've followed his trajectory for nigh on four years now and have seen no viable evidence that he's ever been all that tempted in that regard. Maybe that detracts from his political courage, but it certainly speaks on behalf of his political maturity.

I can't say the same for Senator Clinton. She has done more pandering, faked more accents, donned more disguises than her opponent. More unfortunate than talking about the gas tax holiday from the back of a vintage pickup truck (the good ol' days? subtle!) were the few times when she lapsed into paleo-feminist victimhood. Sexism is very much alive and well in the United States. And electing a woman president would go a long way toward assuaging that historical inequality. Just the sight of it. Americans are visual learners. They need to see a powerful woman before they will believe it's possible. And the same is true with African Americans. It's a puzzling bit of circular illogic you hear from West Virginians and others. "I won't vote for Obama because the country's not ready for a black president." And how will we know when we're ready? When we vote for one, of course.

But it's still a tricky business. Not voting for candidates because they're female or black is ignorant while voting for candidates because they're female or black is merely shallow and anti-meritocratic. What's a voter to do? Hopefully vote on the basis of other issues. It appears that many people have done just that during this primary season. Hillary deserves a lot of credit for being a trailblazer. It has not been easy for her to find (and keep) her voice. In the end, from where I sit, Obama beat her fair and square. Yes, there's Florida and Michigan, but can any Clinton supporter say - with even a modicum of intellectual honesty - that they'd be as adamant about the "disenfranchisement" of those renegade delegations had Obama carried their majorities? He's outmaneuvered, outraised, and outsmarted the most powerful and most popular Democratic family since the Kennedys.

I am anxious to see how Clinton will make her dénouement. My prediction is that she will end her campaign as she ran it: making excuses. Maybe I'm being pessimistic. Or maybe I'm just blowing smoke.

Lorne Again

It's been a long time since I cared about SNL, which is a little sad since it was the center of my comedic universe when I was twelve or so. Just ask my family, beleaguered as they were by me impersonating Dana Carvey impersonating George H.W. Bush. I can't really envision a scenario in which the show becomes relevant to me again, but I do think Kristen Wiig (of Virgania Horsen's Hot Air Balloon Rides fame) is a rare talent:



She's the next Gilda Radner. Just kidding. There's no one like Gilda Radner. Just kidding. I wasn't even alive when Gilda Radner was acting. Just kidding. I was, but I was a baby. Just kidding. I was a man baby. Just kidding. Just kidding.

Neologism for the Weekend

I congratulated myself a few weeks ago when I coined the word "pregret" in my head until I found out that it already existed. Maybe my latest creation is already out there, too...but, dammit, here goes nothing:

"Hillarious"

Hil·lar·i·ous

Pronunciation:
\hi-ˈler-ē-əs\

Function: adjective

Etymology:
irregular from Latin hilarus, hilaris cheerful, from Greek hilaros, from Hillary Rodham Clinton

Date: 2008

: foolishly impractical especially in the blind pursuit of unattainable [personal] goals (contrast with "quixotic," which is characterized by the foolish pursuit of ideals)

— Hil·lar·i·ous·ly adverb

— Hil·lar·i·ous·ness noun

You Can't Write This. Or Maybe You Just Can't Write.

From the same people who forgot about the 1936 Berlin Games:

Yes, let's. I nominate my mom to be Chancellor of the Spellchequer.

Head in the Sand

Economics has never been my strong suit, but let's just pretend for a moment that I'm a moron. I'll give you some time. Don't need any? Ouch. Ok, here's what I want you to do. Explain this quote from Hillary Clinton in a way that it'll make sense to me:

"I believe it would be important to get every member of Congress on record....Do they stand with the hard-pressed Americans who are trying to pay their gas bills at the gas station or do they once again stand with the oil companies? That's a vote I'm going to try to get, because I want to know where people stand, and I want them to tell us - are they with us or against us when it comes to taking on the oil companies?"

Taxes are small fees placed on purchased goods and services that provide the government with its revenue, right? How exactly would lifting them - temporarily - impact oil companies? You know, besides increasing demand and giving them the perfect opportunity to raise prices? How did anyone allow the self-applied label "policy wonk" to stick to this senator? If she believes this tripe (and I don't think she does), then she's less competent to be president than I thought. Listen, when you're stuck in the desert, you don't spend all your effort coaxing the last few drops out of the canteen. You get out of the desert.

Seven Minutes in Heaven...

...if your "heaven" looks like a political news montage. This video cuts through the last five months, give or take. On the one hand, it would seem to work only if you've been paying attention. My guess is that a coma patient waking up today could watch it two or three times and feel completely caught up.

NuClio Away!

Correcting Fox News would be a full-time job (that unfortunately very few of their editors are interested in doing), but it's nice to see that my superhero gambit wasn't completely silly:

Crackabones

In anticipation of my August trip to Lafayette, LA to visit the incomparable Dwight David - a fellow teacher who's retiring to his family's estate - I've been reading Mike Tidwell's Bayou Farewell. It's a repository of homespun wisdom and a snapshot of life "down de baya," but it also contains some eerily prescient passages on the Gulf Coast's vulnerability to hurricane damage. Published in 2003, you can almost see Katrina on the horizon.

Tidwell also took notice of the preponderance of billboards for chiropractors in southern Louisiana - doctors who specialize in treating the occupational aches and pains of the shrimp trawlers, crab fishermen, & oil workers who live and toil down there. The cajuns call them "crackabones."

Well, after following the orthopedist's instructions to a 't,' my own back trouble has plateaued at "tolerable, but subnormal." So I think it's time for a visit to the crackabones. Has anyone out there been? Any advice you can give?

And if de crackabones don't work, is de barbecue cure for moi.

Viva la Street Meat!

For Willis, an enthusiastic carnivore who has been away from American-style indulgence for almost two years, a Drew Carey exposé on bacon dogs.

The meme that short-term risks like food poisoning are somehow more threatening to public health than long-term risks like heart disease has always been troubling for me. If we base our laws on a desire to curtail the potential for individual harm, how can we justify the legality of cigarettes? Second-hand smoking regulations, they make sense. Person A is endangering Person B without Person B's explicit consent. But Person A, he can mesquite-ify his own lungs, so long as he's footing the bill for the inevitable treatment he'll require.

This debate is at the crux of the controversy over universal health care. If the public picks up the tab for preventable diseases, doesn't it also deserve to mandate preventive care? Given how nebulous and subject to fluctuation is the science regarding what ails ya, the notion of codifying dictates based on the latest in medical research is scary. Aren't pharmaceutical and oil lobbyists bad enough? Do we really want to facilitate the rise of the Medical-Industrial Complex?

Well, let's toll that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, hands off the bacon dogs. Uncle Sam was a butcher, you know. And, Willis, I'll see you at Five Guys Burgers & Fries come August.

When the Universe Clicks into Place

Studying the arms race and brinkmanship in class this week. At the end of a lecture on air raid drills and bomb shelters, I showed the class "Duck & Cover." Predictably, they scoffed at its alarmist directives: "We must be ready everyday - all the time - to do the right thing if the atomic bomb explodes." They're just so much cooler, so much tougher than their predecessors. Modern teenagers aren't susceptible, it seems, to quaint problems like "nuclear paranoia."

And then, to my delight, our principal announced over the loudspeaker that we were going into a "lockdown drill" - all the better to prepare for a school shooting, you know. Sometimes the universe conspires in your favor. I think it's called "pronoia." You can't plan a lesson that good.

Ron Paul: The Game

First Mario Kart drops on the Wii this month and now Ron Paul has transformed into a CGI character:



Hell, I'd play that. Apparently there are bonus levels where you can return the U.S. to the gold standard and pull us out of the U.N. Sorry, gamers. Paul doesn't believe in cheat codes.

Who's Jesse Owens?

Moments like this - posted on The Daily Dish last night - leave me fantasizing about becoming a superhero who responds to emergencies of historical illiteracy.

My base would be carved into a mountain of books somewhere in the stacks of an obscure archive. I'd have an old-timey, station-to-station telephone that would ring whensoever society's understanding of history was being threatened.

Commissioner Kearns Goodwin: "We need your help, NuClio!"

NuClio: "What's wrong? Are they trying to pass new standards for social studies in No Child Left Behind?"

Commissioner Kearns Goodwin: "Even worse. The Decider is giving a press conference about his 'legacy.'"

NuClio: "I'll be there in good time. Just let me prep a little research."

I ALMOST FORGOT!

It's my Dad's sixty-eighth* birthday today! For him:



I love the smile on Wile E.'s face as he's getting ready to dig in. Also, the Road Runner reminds me here of the emu I fed at the Iowa State Fair in 2000. Terrifying animal.

* - He's still younger than McCain.

Depressed Kids Eat More Sweets

The ice-cream truck that hawks its wares in my parents' neighborhood plays "Greensleeves." Ad nauseam. You know the tune. Sample lyrics below:

Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.

Your vows you've broken, like my heart,
Oh, why did you so enrapture me?
Now I remain in a world apart
But my heart remains in captivity.

It's enough to make you strap yourself to a bomb-pop and never look back.

Colbert-bury Tales

Colbert was excellent. For those of you who didn't see the show, the best segment involved a surprise appearance by John Edwards. The wait prior to the show was fairly obnoxious, a function of the heightened security surrounding the high-profile guests. Security that, unfortunately, robbed me of my beloved keychain Leatherman. Perhaps they thought I'd tweeze Hillary to death. Apparently they've read the blog.

A few pecks of behind-the-scenes dirt:

• They powdered him a lot. Stephen must be sweaty. I feel closer to him than ever.
• He and I are now on a first-name basis.
• Stephen needed only two tries to throw a Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili Tortilla Chip into the greedy mits of Ben Franklin.
• Nerdiest crowd I've ever been in, bar none. And I've been at Notre Dame history department prospective student parties...Zing!
• Stephen (or whatever intern he has deejaying between segments) has excellent taste in music. They played Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945."
• Ben Franklin played air guitar to "Higher Ground" by the Chili Peppers.
• Stephen did a hand-stand into the awaiting arms of his stage manager, Mark McKenna. It was goofy and endearing. He looked like he may have hurt his back. I feel extremely close to him.
• There were long breaks in between segments.
• The editors cobbled together the beginning from two takes. B-Frank botched his first try at the toaster gag. It wasn't much funnier when he did it correctly.
• They cut the funniest joke in the show! Well, "funniest" if you have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old boy. Stephen asked about what Rep. Murphy & his compatriots ate in Baghdad and he said, "mostly MRE's." Stephen replied, "I hear if you eat one of those, you won't have to take a dump for the rest of your tour." Then he got noticeably embarrassed having said that to a congressman, but saved it by pulling his Peabody Award out from under the desk for all the world to see.
• Stephen has a lot of energy. They told us he would. Stephen never broke character. They told us he would, during audience questions. If he did, I missed it. However, if you'd like to see him more serious than usual, I recommend this video of his interview with Charlie Rose:

The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer