Keeper of the Clown Bell

The NYRofB takes on  The Challenge of Consciousness and it couldn't come at a better time because people all over America are freaking out. Unfortunately, our understanding of consciousness is about as clear as our understanding of dark matter - which is none at all. Just as cosmologists don’t know what dark matter is. All we know is that there is something that doesn’t add up and very likely points to some profound error in our assumptions about reality. That’s what we should be concentrating on, rather than getting into elaborate and suggestive metaphors like “movies in the head.” "I'm scared - look at my hair" An example is NBC contributor Anand Giridharadas who was grilled by schizophrenic “Morning Joe” Scarborough on his Trump = Hitler false consciousness yesterday. It must have come as something of a surprise to Anand since Joe had been making the case that Trump = Hitler for the 6 months leading up to Nov. 8th but he should remember that for 6 months ...

He took over his island nation a few years before my birth, brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation while I was in the whom, and hung on to power by hook or by crook for 50+ years initiating countless arguments with irrational left wing romantics who simply could not or would not face the reality of The Beard. But all argument aside, the truth you need to know - all you ever need to know about Castro's Cuba is right here: This video, shot at  Elian Gonzalez's 10th birthday celebration and attended by El Comandante, was a patriotic showpiece that would make most, if not all, self-satisfied hipster socialist vomit on their Fidelity 401K retirement account statement . Check out the commie boy scout uniforms, the third rate clown warm up act and then the main attraction spewing out party line bromides (pointed finger and pregnant pause) to a captive (and I do mean captive) audience of children. This video does not fully explain the depravity of the event beca...

I believe in world peace just like the next guy, but sometimes this otherwise pleasant sentiment is taken too far. This is especially true when it comes to rock n' roll and football so when I sipped my coffee this morning and THIS abomination of a TV commercial assaulted my consciousness I damn near spit my java all over the breakfast table. I was still smarting from the Thanksgiving day spanking the hated Cowpokes had administered to the valiant and noble ( and historic ) football franchise representing Gen. George Washington so I was in no mood to make peace. But that's not the only reason to hate this commercial. I'm assuming that the scene takes place in suburban Washington because there are no garbage men in Dallas who wear a Redskins cap so the mother and son are basically living in hostile territory and decide to flaunt their apostasy for all to see - parading around with a blue and white pentagram on their hat. The poor guy who picks up their trash - not an easy or...

Almost two weeks and the powers that be still can’t bring themselves to declare Michigan for DJT . In almost every election for the past 30 years the nation has turned it’s eyes to Americas flaccid penis left impotent and ashamed from erectile disfunction that no amount of Viagra or Cialis could fill with blood and rage - being old and hot and diseased at its tip with tiny STD’s dripping into the Gulf of Mexico. Not this year. This year the USA got a hard-on and mighty Michigan roared to life like a master of the universe billionaire looking at a Slovenian supermodel spread eagle on his gold leaf encrusted pleasure pad. They’re afraid and they don’t want the coddled and sensitive international community to see the raging boner bulging in Uncle Sam’s pants, but it’s there and someone’s gonna get fucked. If I were ISIS, Mexican Drug Cartels or Black Lives Matter I’d be running for my hidey hole right about now because to The Elvis from Queens they all look like a pussy he’d like to gr...

From Playbill - Face value of tickets purchased at the box office are as follows: Standard tickets start at $139 and Premium tickets start at $549. So a family of 4 can sit in the cheap seats for about $550 which is worth it if you love musical theater (I don't) and want to see conventional US history retold as a song and dance gimmicky minstrel show. And what does the audience get for their money aside from a sore ass, control group tested melodies, Disneyfide costumes and set design, hammed up "acting" of high school history book characters - well, if you're the soon to be VP, you get lectured on your way out the door . It's to be expected that a Knight of the Golden Circle would feel compelled to speak truth to power when he has a hated Republican trapped in the theater but there is something particularly ironic when that "truth" teller is Brandon Victor Dixon (dressed as Aaron Burr) graduate of 0.01%er St. Albans School located beside the Nation...

I've followed the career of Glenn Beck for many years and listened to his radio program and watched his TV shows on many occasions. He is, as Donald J Trump has so eloquently pointed out, "a whack job" and proves it repeatedly over and over and over again. Most recently with AC360: BECK: Oh I think he has already stated very clearly where he stands. He doesn't -- I don't know if anybody -- I mean look, Anderson, the word racism has been thrown around, and racist, so much to good, decent people that aren't racist. They're just not. And, please, I know I'm the most imperfect messenger to bring this to you, but the word has been thrown around about everyone. And so it doesn't mean anything anymore. And the problem is, when you throw a word around like that all the time, then you begin to dismiss the actual racists. And we have to have a discussion, aside from politics, about this small group of people and how this European and really pro-Russian ...

We Love Trump's Hate Duality is a tricky thing, as is unity, and if the concepts being hammered out in the dialectic are too broad or ambiguous it's hard to make a choice between the two. This is especially true of love and hate - flip sides of the same coin - which can transpose in the mind of a true believer with shocking speed and ferocity. So I always found Hitlery's slogan Love Trumps Hate (which was probably dreamed up by the idiot Robby Mook ) to be a failure of imagination indicative of her entire campaign. First of all, it makes Trump the center of message and it would make a better slogan for Trump's campaign than it would for Hillary's - "trumps" being the action word. Second and more profound is the image of a convention center filled with people waving cards proclaiming their Love for Trump's Hate and realizing that they do love the hate (however they define it) because his hate is all they've got. They need his hate because his ha...

Imagine yourself in the HRC war room Tuesday night : 7PM - Giddy with excitement, FWPOTUS making Herstory. 8PM - All good, exit polls looking right on target, Hillary landslide on the way (Virginia still to close to call? Weird, but no problem...) 9PM - What the fuck is happening in Florida? And Virginia is still too close to call? 10PM - This can't be happening, This just can't be happening. Trump just took Ohio and Florida is still in play. 11PM - We lost North Carolina, Florida and Iowa, his path is opening up and our path is closing. Make a list of close vote states we can challenge. 12PM - We're screwed. He's going to win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Some one get the networks on the phone - don't let them announce the Pennsylvania results. We need to strategize. 1PM - The Daily Kos live blog has it down . 2PM - We'll demand recounts in all the close elections and use our lawyers to win this thing - John, get out there and tell those people to go hom...

It's 1:00 AM in Loudoun County VA and the place is packed - standing room only with no more room so there are thousands outside the room listening and cheering through the open doors. Oh yeah, and it's Sunday night (Monday morning technically) and daylight savings time just ended so it feels like 12AM not 1AM but who gives a damn about that because everyone in the place is there for a bigger and better reason than sleep - DRAIN THE SWAMP - LOCK HER UP - USA. Yes, they're all there for something big - something bigger than Trump the man - called TRUMP the idea, the human Molotov cocktail, the ultimate trump card. It's happening, and when it happens it will be one of the greatest moments in American history. MAGA.

Based on this The Price Is Right video I think The Elvis from Queens has a good shot at winning North Carolina on Tuesday. As Bob Barker says, "Loyalty to this show paid off" and no voter is more loyal than the Trump voter. It's been decades since Michael from NC had a presidential candidate he was actually excited about voting for and that dearth of nationalist (dare I say nativist) politician was effected by design - it's voter suppression, but it's the "good" kind of voter suppression. Just watch the video and you'll see why Michael is so dangerous - dedicated, attentive, smart, great memory, demanding, rule following and capable of creating his own, hand-made, tee shirt design. He picks the winning price for the moto-scooter - not close, but the EXACT price - and is brought up on the main stage to meet the cleaver, polished and quaffed, tailor suited game show host with the metaphysically perfect name of Bob Barker and says, "I've wa...

$25M renovation of Phi Psi House Sweet justice. The verdict has been delivered and Rolling Stone is guilty. Guilty of what you might ask? Guilty of  a “hoax,” a “fraud,” and a “perfect storm” as the magazines lawyers characterize it? No, more like guilty of premeditated slanderous libel that not only defamed a former University of Virginia associate dean but the entire Greek System and the University as a whole. The frat boys in the house at the time of the alleged gang rape were prevented from filing a law suite because they were not explicitly named or called out in the hoax/fraud/storm - though they did have to suffer taunting and physical abuse on the campus grounds from harpies and SJW's who demanded a pound of flesh from the brothers (a few of them just took off the semester rather than risk their lives at college). But the alumni brothers of  Phi Kappa Psi have their own defamation law suit in the works and based on today's verdict it looks like Phi Psi is going ...

When you get into the 8th and 9th innings it's time to bring in your closer. I lived in NYC during the first decade of this century and was privileged to witness many NY Yankees games where one of the greatest closers in baseball history,  Mariano Rivera , mercilessly and methodically suffocated the hopes and dreams of countless competitors. It was a thing of beauty to watch him wind up and launch a complex freak out pitch - the white orb sinking and swerving and dropping right over the plate. Steeerike! Not every closer is as gracefully lethal as Mariano - actually, almost nobody is. Aroldis Chapman sure isn't. And when you're closer gets rattled it's pretty important to pull him from the mound before he blows it. Right now, when she needs it most (and boy does she need it) HRC has called her closer up from the bull pin (otherwise known as the White House, location of the Oval Office, work space of the most powerful person on earth, who must have a lot on his mind ...