Tom Waits shambles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and your ears twitch at the sandpapered quote he lays on the Old Gray Lady as he accepts the honor:
“They say that I have no hits and I’m difficult to work with, and they say that like it’s a bad thing. Songs are really just interesting things to be doing with the air.”
I wish I had something to give him other than praise and respect, but maybe that’s enough.
Frank Rich moves on and there is one less reason to visit The New York Times website.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see what he does with the new gig. And I understand where he’s coming from when he says that after 17 years he didn’t like “what the relentless production of a newspaper column was doing to my writing.”
“That routine can push you to have stronger opinions than you actually have, or contrived opinions about subjects you may not care deeply about, or to run roughshod over nuance to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Believe it or not, an opinion writer can sometimes get sick of his own voice.”
Preach it, brother, preach it. There are days — many, many of them — when I long to shut the fuck up but a deadline insists otherwise.
What next? The pic on the NYT is a Pulitzer candidate and the news is all bad. As longtime friend of the site K notes: JFC.
Well, the Repugs in Cheddarland bent over backwards to admit that union-busting has nothing to do with money and everything to do with power and croaked collective bargaining for public workers’ unions. Lovely.
The working stiffs in Wisconsin have shown tremendous courage and staying power so far — it will be interesting to see how they respond to this latest shameless attack on labor. I’ll cast around a bit for more information and if I unearth any means of showing support that doesn’t involve jetting to Madison and giving Scott Walker a kick in the nuts, I’ll pass it along.
Speaking of people who need a swift shot to the ball bag, IRA supporter Peter King (R-Car Bomb) got one from Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) as the insane Islamophobe King began his despicable hearings into whether all Muslims are killer robots. Good for Ellison, and shame on King, as if the dizzy sonofabitch would even recognize the state.
In our latest episode of Guerrilla Theatre (Feline Overlords Edition), Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein demonstrates the Republican technique for thinking outside the box. Stare to the hard right long enough and something is bound to come to you. (Hint: It used to smell like half-baked Alaska, but now it’s more like an Easy-Bake Oven Mitt.)
