Which way did he go?

September 9, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 37 Comments

Left? Right? Straight? *Sheeyit,* he’ll *never* go straight. …

There’s enough bullshit in the media for Texas to open a branch office. And you’d still have enough left over to start two law firms and a Christian bookstore. — George Carlin, “40 Years of Comedy.”

Read and rave, or ride and run?

I think you know the answer to that one.

Marco Arment, whose technical advice I took regularly when Radio Free Dogpatch still roamed the Great Audio Wasteland, wondered the other day whether we might have been better off “before we knew everyone’s hot takes on everything.” (h/t John Gruber at Daring Fireball.)

George Carlin’s advice I have been taking for much, much longer.

I caught Carlin’s act early on, when he gigged on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar and later Johnny Carson. But he really got my attention with the 1972 album “FM & AM.” His treatise on bullshit didn’t arrive until 1997, during his live HBO special “40 Years of Comedy,” but as usual he was (a) right on target, and (2) prescient as hell.

What would he have to say today? Plenty, I expect. Carlin was a master alchemist who could transform bullshit into gold.

Me? Strictly an amateur. JV. In it for the yuks, which have proven elusive lately. Can’t quite spot the diamonds in the dung.

“I’ll get you for this,” says Miss Mia Sopaipilla following her visit to the groomer.

So instead of blogging I’ve been riding and running, feeding the birds, watching some standup (Kyle Kinane, Rory Scovel, Leanne Morgan), taking Miss Mia Sopaipilla to the spa for a wash and brush-up, contemplating various household projects long deferred, and reading fiction — no, not the news, actual for-reals fiction.

And I’m definitely not trying to round up enough pennies for the rumored foldable iPhone Duo. $2K and up for something you can leave on top of your car at the gas station or drop in a toilet?

I mean, talk about bullshit. …

Lindsey Graham dies, goes to Hell

July 12, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

A successful parasite, moving from one host to another.

Who would’ve imagined that Lindsey Graham would beat The Turtle to Hell?

Not me.

Of course, Mitch McConnell may already be down there waiting on him, with dibs on the top bunk at the Lake O’ Fire Lodge. The usually reliable sources remain as silent as the grave.

Above the sod we hear all of the usual chin music about Graham’s alleged statesmanship, independence, compromise, influence, bipartisanship, and so on.

But I think Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo gets it just about right when he writes that “there’s another feature of his personality and political career that is key to understanding the man. He always needed a daddy. Or let’s say a political leader. A top dog.”

“That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,” as HST would say. Say hello to the new boss, bitch. Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay.

Hel-lo, sailor!

May 19, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

Well, I’ve done it again.

I filled out the paperwork and trudged that long mile between El Rancho Pendejo and our neighborhood Vote Center to begin the process of tossing out various rascals and installing others.

The hope is that in the end we will have elected some folks who will have the common courtesy to sell us out in private, where we don’t have to watch over our coffee and Cheerios. The no-holes-barred, open-air whorehouse that reopened on Jan. 20, 2025, has not been a boon to the Republic or the digestive tract.

In point of fact, it’s been the shits.

I persist in voting because it’s the only real alternative to armed insurrection. There’s always staying home on Election Day, but that helped get us where we are, so, nuh uh. And I don’t have a passport, so running-away is off the table.

What worries me is the suspicion that if we ever reach the “up with halberd, out with sword” point, we may find that His Excremency King Piggy the Sticky-fingered and his gombeen men have deployed a band of A.I. brigands to empty all our accounts before we can armor up at our friendly neighborhood boom-boom rooms.

“Up the rebels!” and all that, but if we’re going after them for keepsies I’d like to be packing something with more authority than my 72-year-old teeth and toenails.

Gumsmoke

April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

“Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Dog?”

What I need is a manifesto.

Everybody has one. How are The Authorities to understand why you act the fool if you don’t provide some sort of owner’s manual? A map detailing the weed-strangled, varmint-infested trails between your hairy ears?

Fun Fact: The word “manifesto” has its roots in Latin, deriving from the noun manus, which means “hand,” and festus, the scruffy character who in 1964 replaced Chester Goode as Marshal Matt Dillon’s deputy on the TV oater “Gunsmoke.”

Thus “manifesto” means “Hand of Festus,” or, more accurately, “Fist of Festus,” something often found in some miscreant’s face.

As in season 12, episode 17 of “Gunsmoke,” titled “Mad Dog,” in which Festus believed he’d been bitten by a rabid mutt and was on the brink of a hideous death, which for some reason led him to beat the snot out of Goober from “The Andy Griffith Show,” who was on leave from Mayberry and moonlighting as a bad man.

So I’m thinking my manifesto should say something like “Don’t act like an evil Goober unless you’re after a puck in the gob,” which should suit the ever-shortening national attention span.

And maybe we should throw something in there about how you don’t want to get bit by no mad dogs neither. As Festus has taught us:

That hydrophobia, it’s a pretty sorry way to die, ain’t it, Doc? You know, a fellow gets shot, why, he’ll just fall flat on his face. Oh, he might kick a couple of times, that’s what makes the crowds turn out. But what I mean is he won’t go just snatching off his clothes and sashaying around trying to bite folks.

Of course, that advice may be coming a little late for a few of the strutting mutts who really need it. But don’t try to pin the rap on me, just because I suddenly have a manifesto. Their rabies ain’t my doing. I wouldn’t bite ’em with your teeth.

Serfs on safari

March 29, 2026March 29, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

What organizers estimate to be our biggest No Kings crowd yet in Montgomery Park on Saturday.

Bigger and better? Yes and no.

Albuquerque’s third No Kings rally topped its predecessors in terms of turnout; organizers say we had 50,000 attendees here, with more than 8 million nationwide.

And the crowd, while still heavy on gray hair (and no hair), seemed to have more young people than did the previous editions.

A couple of smiling young folks from the Party for Socialism and Liberation buttonholed us, passing along a flyer for a May Day rally and general strike. The Democratic Socialists of America said they’d be around, but once again, no confirmed sightings.

But emcee Robert Luke seemed to have some trouble generating a solid call-and-response from the throng, which really didn’t get fired up until special guest speaker Stacey Abrams brung the heat. (Respect to the band ShyGuy, which tore up a stout cover of Green Day’s “American Idiot.”)

It was the march that put a smile on my face. The 3-mile route from the park wound north on San Mateo, east on Montgomery, south on Louisiana, and back to the park via Comanche, and we flat filled our half of the road, singing, chanting, and waving at passersby.

One group of youngsters could really sing, at one point tackling Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” with enthusiasm if not 100 percent accuracy. Lots of horn honking, most of the single-digit salutes involving an upraised thumb, and only one small, semiorganized group of dissenters at the far side of Comanche and Louisiana, with a sign that said something like “No Commies or Socialists In Our Neighborhood.”

I sang, “I am a commie, and so is your mommy” at them. Not as melodious as the kids, but what the hell, I ain’t Bruce Springsteen. Anyway, you know the rule: While smashing the State, kids, keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.