Jeremayakovka

Obama's "Post-Partisanship" Is As Clear As The Raised Middle Finger In Your Face

The number of middle fingers in a "progressive" crowd is directly proportional to the number of Ph.D.s in a ten-block radius.

The First One To Say "I Love You" Loses

Make damn sure you don't just say it, but you both feel it at the same time.
If not....

Nobody has to guess
That Baby can't be blessed
Till she sees finally that she's like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls.

See also: Dennis Prager's thoughts on love.

L'Été Va Bientôt Nous Quitter, Il Faut En Profiter

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"Syrtaki" (or "Zorba's Dance") the theme to the film adaptation of the immortal novel Zorba the Greek, rendered by the mortal Dalida.
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Summer's gonna leave us soon, we better make the most of it.

More Dalida clips: "Never on a Sunday" (English), "Ciao amore" (French), "Gigi l'amoroso" (English), "Born to Sing" (English)
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Or if you prefer, a scene from the original:

(It's a far cry from West Side Story, fortunately.)

The Coyote Call And The Howling Winds Wail

You say "potayto," I say "potahto."
They say "Brokeback," I say "The Cowboy Song."

If you don't know Thin Lizzy ... it's time you did.

Welcome, Halliburton Readers!

Hope no one gets in trouble at the office for this one (it's not exactly SFW):

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Catological Humor

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Caption, anyone?

The 8-Ball Meme: Eight Previously Unknown Facts

Ok, Irina, you asked for it. Eight previously unknown facts about me:

1. While a child, our household had a leatherbound Holy Bible that had been printed in 1876.
2. Also while a child, I was photographed with Mayor Ed Koch in New York.
3. While a young adult I introduced myself to pan-Africanist socialist [euphemism for Black racist, antisemitic] Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) in Berkeley, California to ask him his opinion (his advice, almost) about politics.
4. More than a decade later, returning from my informal political exile, I watched the 2004 Superbowl with Wesley Clark during a break from his presidential campaign in Flagstaff, Arizona.
5. I've spent a day in jail for something I (used to) believe in.
6. I've been to Windows on the World restaurant atop the former World Trade Center (when it was still possible) and have climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty, up to and inside her crown (when it was still permitted).
7. While a teenager, when I went to get Allen Ginsberg's autograph after a public reading, the NAMBLA member lanced a sexually provocative comment at me in front of the tiny crowd that had gathered around him. During my adolescence I had the good fortune to know some consistently (in some ways outstandingly) "appropriate" gay men. (Allen Ginsberg wasn't one of them.)
8. Also while a teenager, I had the good fortune to be introduced to and spend quality time with William Bronk. During our conversations, he offered more than one memorable lesson about poetry, including: ..........................

* * *

Eight other blogs "tagged" to answer this meme: West Bank Mama; Black Belt Mama; Cobb: Strictly Old School; Dancing in Tongues; Gay Patriot West; Right Truth; The Black Kettle; Bookworm Room. In addition to facts about yourself, you may also disclose "habits" (click to Irina's site for clarification).

If You Were A Peanut, What Kind Of Peanut Would You Be?

Me? That's easy. Schroeder -- hands down!

Money!? Who cares about money? This is art! This is great music I'm playing, and playing great music is an art. Do you hear me? An art! Art, art, art, art -- ART!

Life Goes On Without The Koran

Tired of the casual dating scene? Need a little engaging camaraderie and companionship that isn't the same, old same-old? Are you a recent Muslim apostate (or contemplating becoming one)?

Then find -- or start -- an Ex-Muslim Meetup in your area!

(Here's a great conversation starter.)

Ron Carey in "God Loves Rock 'N Roll"

Comic actor Ron Carey, best known for playing Officer Levitt in the 70s sitcom Barney Miller (click <--- to listen to the famous theme in a neverending loop) and for his supporting roles in many a Mel Brooks movie, died of a stroke a couple of months ago. Obit here.
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It seems that the reliable comic sidekick was also a song and dance man. Here he is in a little-known musical short, in priest's get-up smoking and twisting on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral in midtown Manhattan. (For JMK-II and Ralph, especially.)

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(Ron Carey (center) in a still from the set of Barney Miller.)

Dishonorable Mention

In a new feature at The Nation (online), here's a poll for best "progressive" film of 2006.

Live Blogging the Kiddie Concert

* Scroll down for updates! *

I popped in on this irongray overcast morning only to check my email and see what's going on in the world, but lo and behold there's an acoustic kiddie concert in progress. It's the snazzy folk band Hanna Banana -- a mandolin, a banjo, a guitar or two, and a standing bass. My 15" laptop balanced precariously on bunched up knees, I'm nursing a mug of strong black coffee while desperately trying not to be pscyhed out by the inquisitive stares of the toddlers bouncing on their parents' knees and youngins spinning figure 8's around the room, but a neoconservative blogger's gotta do what a neoconservative blogger's gotta do.

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12:23 PM - "Turkey in the Straw" No way! I used to have the sheet music for this one.

I had a little monkey and his name was Tiny Tim
Put him in the tub to see if he could swim....

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12:29 PM - "The City of New Orleans" Heard Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger do this live 20 years ago. Can be melancholy or spirited, depends entirely on the rendition.

Good morning, America. Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'll be gone 500 miles 'fore the day is done....

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12:37 PM - An environmental "water awareness song" Yeah, sure. At least it doesn't mention global warming.... Hmm, that strong bass rhythm is catchy.

Animals need water, people need it, too....

(12:40 PM - Uh-oh. Written by someone in Santa Cruz, CA, the song has been officially adopted by the UN.)

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12:46 PM - "Big Yellow Taxi" Joni Mitchell's "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot" anti-capitalist anthem, covered and popularized by The Counting Crows.

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please....

The last song was just a set-up for this one -- I knew it! Hey, Joni: DDT actually has good uses ("What the World Needs Now Is DDT," New York Times, April 11, 2004)!

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12:52 PM - "This Land Is Your Land" The signature ballad of Woody Guthrie, whom the singer introduced as "the patron saint" of folk singers. Sing along if you like, it's hard not to (as a child of course I did), but please spare us the encomiums for this patriot of the Soviet Union.

From the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

If you can ditch the impulse for collective or state ownership, and instead focus on how to best exploit (and, when necessary, preserve) our natural resources, it's still a good song.

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Well, that was the finale. The kids are hopping in the aisles and their parents are protectively following their lead. Someone's breaking out the coloring books and markers as the band breaks down the amps and music stands.

Hey, look at that! The morning clouds are burning off ... and ... here comes the sun. Do-do-dooo-do....

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2:20 PM - * Final Update *
JMK's rule of thumb for listening to folk music:
When you hear "If I Had A Hammer," think "If I Had Armand Hammer" (Armand Hammer = capitalist enabler of the Soviet Union)

Related: A review of Engineering Communism.

More Mel

Well, talk about bad taste!

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"Springtime for Hitler" is one of the funniest, most memorable musical numbers Hollywood has ever produced. That's why The Producers won Mel Brooks the 1968 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and thirty-five years later spawned the phenomenally popular revival on Broadway and, once more, in Hollywood. Good for Mel, good for JMK, good for you, Gentle Reader. Yet watching "Springtime for Hitler" again -- thinking of recent posts about of Ahmedinejad in Iran, anti-semitism in the UK, and apathy in the US -- helps me put my finger on a reservation I've always had about that musical number and about political comedy generally.

These promotional materials from The Producers DVD, a couple of on-camera clips of Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, helped, too. Looking back as old men now on their first smash comic collaboration (Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are the others), they offer some insight into the uses -- and, inadvertently, the limitations -- of political humor and satire. Says Mel (in Windows Media; in Real Player):

The way to deal with despots like Hitler is not to get on a soapbox and fight [them] with rhetoric, but to fight them with ridicule, to laugh at them. To laugh them into oblivion rather than with philosophy or psychology.... You can't win a debate with those guys, that's what they're born to do, but you can certainly make fun of them and laugh them into eternity. [emphases added]

These are the words of one who, besides protecting some consummate comedian turf, is comfortably removed in space and in time from the threat of Adolf Hitler. Or someone who thinks he is. You do have to get on a soapbox and fight them, you do have to debate them, and you do have to win. Yet we know that it's not, in the end, about debating -- it's a fight to the death. So while in a sense Mel is right -- that you cannot debate with people who categorically deny your humanity -- you still have to brave their threat. Evil can never be laughed into eternity, it can only be airbrushed out of the picture momentarily.

"Mel used to say I was the perfect victim," says Gene Wilder in his interview. That strikes me as more funny (peculiar) than funny (ha-ha). So funny that it's sad. A sadness that no amount of ridicule can laugh into eternity....

"Well, talk about bad taste!" exclaims a disgusted audience member as she quits the theater. Exactly. What Mel Brooks laughed into eternity with "Springtime for Hitler" was not the Third Reich but the "fourth wall" behind which a conventional and often complacent theater-going public comfortably sits. It's a worthy accomplishment for Hollywood in 1968, although nowhere near an antidote for Hamburg in 1938 or Haifa in 2008.

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These jottings were kicked into gear by:

* today's Christians United Against the New Anti-Semitism post on the peaceful German majority;

* last week's Solomonia post about Saturday Night Live's spoof of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto; and

* yesterday's post here about Mel Brooks's spoof of the Spanish Inqusition.

* * *

See also today's post by Fausta quoting Mark Steyn on Muslims in television sitcoms.

Duh! Mayor

"San Francisco shocked at news of heterosexual affair"
"Gavin Newsom prefers homosexual marriage to heterosexual unions"

What next? Don't tell me you're going to take up with a Scientologist?
Oh, NO--!!!

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Related: Duh! Press Secretary

2/14 post: "Is Gavin Gay? No, But He's Not Happy, Either"

The Agony of Defeat

Why I can't stand skiing.

I must have seen the clip featured here a hundred times before I ever stuck my feet into bindings.

Nice frames, Bob.

Extra! In Case You Missed It

The (in)famous Saturday Night Live skit featuring Joe Cocker and John Belushi, interpreted by JMK. Enjoy! I give you "permission" to like it, Gentle Reader: in cyberspace, after all, no one sees you laugh....

What Brings You Here?

Some recent searches which have led visitors to this site:

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"a poem in memory of a person that was murdered a year ago today"
(Toronto, Canada)

"corey lidle jokes"
(Ontario, CA)

"nasrallah man of the century"
(Adana, Turkey)

"iran holocaust nuclear"
(Haifa, Israel)

"games that Islamic people play"
([Maine Libraries/Department of Education] Orono, ME)

"terrorist in your neighborhood"
(Phoenix, AZ)

"jefferson's victory over the muslims lives on today"
("unknown," USA)

Only Nine Weeks To Go

Costello: Well, you know, I'd like to know some of the guys' names on the team so when I meet 'em on the street or in the ball park I'll be able to say hello to those people.

Abbott: Why, sure! I'll introduce you to the boys! They give 'em funny names, though, Lou.

Costello: Oh, I know, they give those ballplayers awfully funny names.

Comedy is like sports: timing is everything.

More People Playing Games

The other day in "Games People Play" I spilled some beans with five previously undisclosed personal facts. ("1. As a child, was carried from a burning building.").

Some of the blogs I tagged have spilled their own beans, too:

Douglas -- a survivor who knows true love
American Princess -- reinventor of the breakfast of champions
Erica -- who wants to be all she can be

Games People Play

Have been "tagged" by Fausta to spill some beans in the little virtual game, "Five Things You Don't Know About Me":

1. As a child, was carried out of a burning building.

2. High school prom was held in Windows on the World restaurant (atop the World Trade Center).

3. As a young man, visited Auschwitz.

4. During that voyage got drunk on New Year's Eve on the Champs Élysées.

5. As a slightly older man, stayed home on another New Year's Eve laboring through The Brothers Karamazov.

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I tag: Erica, Douglas, Ari, American Princess, Daniel.

Eine Kleine Lead-In-To-Valentine's-Day Nacht Musik

* Updated *

Is "Contigo en la distancia" a Christina Aguilera tune? I've only seen her perform once (during the opening ceremoines of the 2002 Winter Olympics). Thanks to Meirene87 -- who posted her own cover of it on YouTube -- I may never get around to doing so again. This amateur version is not entirely polished, of course, but no worries because it's from the heart. Meirene87 is softly trying to pour out all her fullness, trying to extend -- in the end -- to whomever she's contigo-ing with in the distance her fullness, yes, and at the same time her emptiness. Nice.

In her words:

[Update (01/08): Perhaps in response to this post, Meirene87 has recently restricted access to her video so that it is no longer available by clicking below. This is something I do not entirely understand but accept. (When we post anything on the internet, and certainly on YouTube, it becomes fair game for anyone to link to and comment on, is it not? If not, we should simply circulate the cherished material privately.) Since some degree of privacy is a priority for her, I have decided to delete from this post Meirene87's personal comments about why she recorded herself singing "Contigo en la distancia." Their simple sincerity, which (ironically) makes them worth repeating, is perhaps better kept secret. - JMK]

* * *

* Updated w/ lyrics translated in the Comment section *

By MTV generation standards the following tête-à-tête duet between Anna Karina (curious gal, no?) and Serge Gainsbourg, "Ne dis rien," is anything but polished. More substantively, a commitment to song-as-entertainment lands its musical arrangement and video editing on the near side of the the lyrics' hinted gloom. I'd go so far as to say that the arrangement and editing practically mock the lyrics' poetic potential, but by squarely suggesting a content consommation -- a triumphant one, even (note the recurring marchlike tempo, in the drums especially) -- it's hard to stop this tune from getting under your skin. For while the song obviously stops short of pure poetry, still, I find its video true in its intentions and execution. Few, I bet, would venture that a tight, two-step in such a confined space could, ever so gently, be so expansive.

Their subtle facial gestures at least as romantic as an on-camera kiss (and maybe more genuine).

Should either of these, or previously posted, music clips grab and hold you, Gentle Listener, please know that if there's only one thing I want to convey it's never to make you wish you were more like any of those performers, but always to make you wish you were more like you.

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, JMK wishes Bonne chance! and a healthy headstart to all the lonelyhearts out there in the blogosphere.

Happy New Year!

We have a lot to look forward to:
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Pigs are models of sincerity, purity, tolerance, and honor….

Now, this is a cultural pluralism I can work with.

"Palestine Is For Lovers"!?

Bite me.
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Lovers perhaps, but ... of what?
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A Little Jerry Brown Gossip Session

He's making his list, he's checking it twice...

This is neither high-brow nor high-road blogging, but since a rule of thumb in journalism is that three sources make it a fact (or at least reportable as such) I can say that incoming California Attorney General Jerry Brown is less than a model neighbor.

* In an earlier post, I'd reported that someone had reported to me that years ago Brown had said to him, "Israel was a mistake." (I didn't take it lightly since we were, after all, at a pro-Israel demonstration.)

* I can also report that a friend of a friend has said that her friend (who lives in the same downtown Oakland loft complex as Brown) told her that he often parks in front of the tenant storage area, hence blocking his neighbors' access.

* Lastly (for now), I heard from someone else who, during a chance chat with Brown about his own personal dissatisfactions with the state's court system,  said that the soon-to-be attorney general just shrugged him off. A sort of That's-the-way-the-cookie-crumbles attitude. Left him miffed.

He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice...

Tune in Online to Hear "The Polar Express"

Hey, this is special! Tune in to Wide Awakes Radio at 8:00PM (Eastern Time; 7PM CST, etc.) on Christmas eve (tomorrow) to hear blogger GM read The Polar Express.

How can I sell you on GM's storytelling powers? In a word, he cares:

The Velvet Voice himself will be reading the Polar Express to all the good little boy's and girls. So, tune in to Wide Awakes Radio on your computer, gather the kiddies around with hot chocolate and cookies (and maybe even a sugar plum or two) and listen in.
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Long ago people gathered by the fire. Then it was the radio. Then television. Now, with the New Media, we gather by the computer....

Donald Duck in the Third Reich

Some say history is like a river.... Someone (Marx, I think) said history staggers like a drunkard on a horse.... Here, starkly borrowing a motif from Chaplin's Modern Times, history is Donald Duck slaving away in a Nazi armaments factory. It's good all the way through, and has a sweet, great, old-school ending.

Is dis Nazi land so good? Would you leave it if you could?

("Der Fuehrer's Face" (1943))

Rocky Meets His Match

Who is this gal and why is she smiling?
Pure fandom, of course -- and then some.

Bukowski - L'Ineffable Éructation Exécrable

* (02/19/08) Welcome, Stumbleupon readers. Actually, I was in North Beach today and I was invited to an upcoming poetry reading. *

Today's guest poet in JMK's "Burn that MFA!" series is ...  Charles Bukowski!

This may lose me invitations to return to North Beach to join upcoming poetry readings ... but ... I'm just not particularly a fan of Bukowski's œuvre nor of his status as counterculture icon. One exception, granted, is a poem in this anthology because it laments the rivers of sorry, derivative so-called poetry that typically pollute any poetry "scene." (I've heard more than my fill, as CharBu must have, too.) If you would like more info on the guy, try this guy who wrote a book about him. Or better, just read him.

Despite my admitted prejudice I recommend the following clip (below) of a Bukowski appearance on the French literary television show Apostrophes. It's the picture of a man who's followed his own path, who's being trailed by a pack of stiffer and stuffier Frenchies. The moderator does his best to handle what he was handed -- an unenviable job if there ever was one (though he ends up functioning as the dullards' point man, their enforcer). So stick with it -- even if you can't follow the French -- by letting its non-verbal aspects work on you. I can't deny that in a roundabout way CharBu makes me proud to be an American.

As for the cigarette-weaving, wine-slugging persona he projects, and, as you'll see in the video, him dropping comments about beautiful whores and panty hose, take them as saucy metaphors for living up to Baudelaire's thunderous exhortation to "Enivrez-vous" ("Get drunk"):

De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise!

See? It doesn't have to be -- usually shouldn't be -- from wine that we get drunk. More often than from wine, poetry! And more often than from poetry, virtue! I've tried all three and virtue works the best. There's the lesson to be drawn from CharBu! Or rather, despite him. For who gets drunk from virtue nowadays? I mean drunk ... but ... from virtue. Don't mistake it for quaint, because it's not:

Let's get drunk -- from virtue! 
(Start with any of virtue's definitions provided here.)

"But ... How ...?" you may ask, perplexed, and even annoyed.

Ah! that's for you to figure out ....

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(Video clip found at No Pasaràn!)

Whew, what a mug! Looks like Bert Lahr with elephantiasis.

A Brief History of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Fun for all ages. Here's how it came about.

Agence France Press Scoop: Attack of the Killer Mushrooms!

Wow.... I don't mind that this is some kind of news item.... And I understand that, barring big crises, the weekend is a good time for news sources to float a puff piece. But as a big crisis breaks out in France and neighboring countries, Agence France Press transmits this?!

"Poisonous Mushrooms Leave Three Seriously Ill in France"

On the Road Again

After spending most of a year in the Middle East, Michael Totten goes west. He's posted a series of pics taken in Colorado and the Four Corners, plus descriptive captions. Lots of Ooohs and Aaaahs.

Deep Fried Coke

What's the latest heartland food craze? Can you believe it!? It's deep fried Coke! The recipe is cake batter mixed with Coke (instead of water), that's deep fried (with Coca Cola syrup mixed into the oil), and then sprinkled with sugar and other sweet condiments.

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You can step right up and try some deep fried Coke at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, N.C. from now through October 22. And for all you cokeheads, here's the recipe.

Roll, Pitch, Yawn

New York Yankee Cory Lidle flew his little fixed-wing airplane into a Manhattan condominium high rise earlier today. The fiery crash instantly killed him and at least one other. It also called out 168 firefighters, scrambled fighter jets in the Northeast, and has dominated news all day. If an accident befell the rookie pilot, that's a sad and terrible case of equipment failure and/or incompetence (although flying over the East River, you'd hope he'd have ditched the thing in the water and away from people). But if  it wasn't an accident, then I can't decently say what I'm thinking right now.

Update: Actor Alec Baldwin makes a fuss at the scene.

Update: Ace anticipates the conspiracy fiends with "The 10/11 Truth Movement Starts Here".

Update: Smutty Wonkette's head must be spinning, as she sarcastically asks: DID YOU REALIZE THAT 10/11/6 IS 9/11/01 UPSIDE DOWN? Or kinda sideways, or something?

Update: Judith, who lives within a couple of miles of the accident, has two of the most reflective posts I've seen yet. I certainly appreciate them, having been born and grown up mere yards from there. In fact, this picture of where I was born shows the building which the plane struck.

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(Cory Lidle, on a better day)
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(The scene of the accident)

American Beauty

Cute video, "America's Hottest Patriots" -- a slideshow-with-soundtrack of some of the pundits I've read and studied this year. If you think I don' t admire them for their minds, then you don't know JMK very well, or them. Watch and learn. Then read and learn.

Desperately and angrily trying to interfere with this transition, my father protested, "You're a good man, son. You don't need to read Ann Coulter!" (Note the sentimental hook that starts the protest.)

Charlie Brown's "a good man." I'm better than that.

This Is Not Funny

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Or if it's "a scream," then it's a silent one.
(Found at Isaac Schrödinger's blog.)

A Day in the Life of an "Ex"

You know it's time to get out more when ... your "ex" calls to invite you to a dinner party because one of her confirmed guests has cancelled at the last minute.  We're OK friends (we get together about once a month) and I might have agreed to go (it would have been interesting to see some of her other friends again) had I not had other plans and, of course, had she invited me earlier.

But the double-edged truth crystallized as, without rancor or pity, I declined over the phone:

Thanks. It's nice to know I'm at the top of your B-List!

We laughed -- as always, when "ex"es laugh together -- knowingly.

The Old Negro Space Program

                 

If you haven't heard of this yet, you're in for a pleasant surprise. And if you have, then please revisit, courtesy of Andy Bobrow, "the shocking-but-false story of America's Blackstronauts." The film's original web page is here.  Let Andy Bobrow analyze your handwriting here.

Bring It On! (And Laugh It Off)

The first blogger I know of to take high ground -- tactically, morally, and humorously -- during this Hamas/Hizbullah/Syrian/Iranian/Israeli war (which really is a defensive counter-attack in the longer war against jihad, but that's a serious matter for another post) -- is professional comedy writer and cartoonist Jake Novak.

I've had the pleasure of being introduced to Jake and his mercilessly wacky humor earlier this year over in the Comments sections at Seraphic Secret.  Jake is notorious for Top Ten lists that make you wish they went up to eleven, like the amplifier in Spinal Tap.  And like peanuts -- the snack or the cartoon -- you just want more.

Well, you can have more. Jake's been up to all good, making light of the heavy action that's going down around and within Israel's -- our ally's -- borders. 

You can read about it at his blog, Jake's Comedy Corner.  Recent hits include:

Beirut International Airport remains closed after Israeli jets bombed all three of its main runways. That makes sense, but why is that the reason United is giving for today's six-hour delays out of O'Hare?

and

Top 5 Text Messages Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent Bashir Assad
5) "Is that a Kaytusha in ur pocket or are u just happy 2 C me?"
4)  . . . .

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In the archives you'll find plenty of material on news items of the day, almost any day of the week.  So when you want a break from watching the world crack up, turn to Jake's Comedy Corner for his lastest crack-ups.
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If you've got a joke or two about the war in and around Israel, JMK wants to hear it.  So do Jake (above picture, right), Jordan (above, left) and my lovely assistant, Salome (below).
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"Uurff!"
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JMK asks: "What's so funny about the wars Israel is fighting?"

(Note: No animals were harmed during the writing of this post.)

Sooner or later everyone's going to want to laugh, for example, Yourish.

You've Got to Pick Your Fights, I Guess

In breaking music industry news  ...  folk-rock legend Bob Dylan ...

...  is headlining a concert  ...  to promote peace ...

   ...  Where, now?  ...

         ...  In the Basque region!

In 38 years of conflict, reports the BBC, ETA [the Basque separatist movement] has been blamed for killing more than 800 people in its fight for independence for the Basque region of northern Spain and south-west France.

800 killed? In 38 years?  You go, Bob. Right where you're needed.

It is reported, continues the BBC, that the artist has requested the event not be turned into a political occasion.

But it wouldn't be in the news in the first place if the BBC weren't reporting it as a concert for peace.  Oh, wait a minute! It's only an appearance at a jazz festival.

I guess Tibet, East Timor, and Bangladesh are so ... done.

How about a concert for Iraq? (No, that's Bush's war)
For American servicemen and women? (No; see above)
For the Kurds? (Who???)
For Israel? (But they're the "hegemonic" power in the region!)

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How many roads must a man walk down, Bob?

Is Paris Driving?

Rendezvous: On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB . . . .

         

Too bad Princess Di didn't hire him.
Alternate title: "A Man and a Woman and a Car"
Via American Diva