Keeper of the Clown Bell

The year is winding down so that means it's time for Barack's "moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books, movies, and music that I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved" which includes " Apesh*t" by The Carters , "Won't You Be My Neighbor" and, no surprise, "Becoming" by Michelle Obama. It's has long puzzled me that America's Marcus Aurelius has such seemingly pedestrian taste and, speaking for myself, I wouldn't hear, speak or see any of this shit but I'm not FBPOTUS and never will be so there must be some method to his madness: "I'm a gorilla in the fuckin' coupe Finna pull up in the zoo I'm like Chief Keef meet Rafiki—who been lyin' "King" to you? (woo) Pocket watchin' like kangaroos Tell these clowns we ain't amused 'Nana clips for that monkey business, 4-5 got change for you Motorcades when we came through Presidential...

You probably know that the Congress (specifically the Senate) and the POTUS are at loggerheads over Federal funding for the Big Beautiful Wall to be built along the US southern boarder. The reasons for this impasse are long and complex so a quick review of how we got here might be in order. The Elvis from Queens glided down the escalator at Trump Tower (corner of 57th & 5th) and declared to America and the World that he intended to build A Great Wall across the southern boarder when he became POTUS because this  alternate speech was never going to happen ( KOTCB  Alternate Universe 06/15/2015 ) A few weeks later candidate Trump was presented with a big fat brick of pain and suffering that served as the cornerstone of his campaign ( KOTCB Dirty Sanchez ) The physical Wall served as a curative slap in the face of the DC establishment who had, over the years, constructed an elaborate Folly Wall in place of the real thing ( KOTCB Decius drops the mic ) The i...

I love saying " I told ya so " and today is no exception but since yesterday was  a cosmic trifecta (Winter Solstice, Ursid Meteor Shower, and Cold Moon) it feels especially good to anticipate tomorrow. So much WINNING! 😜 Whitaker cleared to oversee Mueller investigation - NBC is not happy but I'll bet Trump is and I'm looking forward to seeing what ORDERS the acting AG gives the office of Special Council. Special Counsel Mueller is reportedly nearing the end of his investigation. https://t.co/w6SG9ddMNy — MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 22, 2018 😨 House Republicans approve bill to fund border wall, setting up a final showdown in the Senate - ABC doesn't explain how something that was never even possible because the GOP "didn't have the votes" became a reality but there it is - Government shutdown for Xmas with no plans to reopen. Count the votes Chuck and Nancy . Even with GOPers Naying it still passed and now we'll get, well, not exa...

Hang it on The Wall For my money (and I do pay for it) the Sunday Morning programming on WNRN in Central VA is the best thing on radio. Starting at 7AM with "Bluegrass Sunday Morning" hosted by Rusty Cempre and ending with "Les Temps Perdue" playing "strangest songs of the 70s, 80s, and 90s" from Noon - 2PM the programing is fantastic and that goes double for "Country Feedback" hosted by Bob Mosolgo which serves as a kind of one hour transition from Old Time to New Wave starting at 11AM. It's not the quantity but the quality of Mosolgo's programming which sets it apart by defining the Alt-Rock-Country sound and last Sunday's show was no exception - especially his choice of a tune for closing out the show which blew my mind. To set this up it needs to be noted that WNRN is a "listener supported" radio station meaning that it relies on donations and fund drives like NPR and its ilk which, in Charlottesville, means your c...

The branches of government In 2011 John Lasseter wrote an opinion piece for The Onion which exposed Pixar's production strategy and shocking success in the marketplace : "Yes, after the success of our first few movies we had a hunch you'd continue to enjoy the wonderfully designed animation and our smart, lyrical writing, but I didn't think we'd create a horde of drooling morons ready to drop everything just to watch a fucking rat cook dinner." This observation was in reference to a Pixar film titled "Ratatouille" about a rat who dreams of becoming a French chef which, to my lights, created one of the most unappetizing and subversive stories ever told. The idea of rats running roughshod in a Michelin-starred restaurant is bad enough but when the proposition that "Anyone can cook" is taken to its evil and impossible extreme I must object for France and humanity. Using that movie and others as an example Lasseter makes the point that his ...

It's only after we lost everything that we're free to do anything Long time readers of this blog might remember that for a few years there was an annual Academy Awards dump just around Oscar time giving thumbnail reviews of the nominees and, at times a critique of the awards ceremony. Check it out at KOTCB Academy Awards Dump ( 2014 ) - ( 2015 ) - ( 2016 ) - ( 2017 ) but in 2018 I took the advise of Will Smith and boycotted mostly because I was board with it but also because the Academy will never top its 2017 fiasco. Based on todays news I'll be boycotting again this year because the Hollywood scum demanded that a comedian named Kevin Hart, who had been hired to host the awards, apologize for some twitter jokes he made about homosexuals. So he quit, then apologized, then tweeted out some MLK for good measure. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin...

In the summer of '79 I was kick'n back in Palm Beach crashing at my girlfriends parents while she was traveling around Europe on some school related boondoggle. Her parents liked me and asked me to stay with them after they put their daughter on the jumbo jet and I, being a teenage layabout, was happy to "camp out" (so to speak) beside the pool, drinking Heineken's or fly around the Bahama's on the family plane. Why not? These people were great - warm and welcoming to all, they had migrated to America's Flaccid Penis from The Heart of America (where they still had strong connections and retained their Southern hospitality) and for the subject of this blog post I should make it clear that they were Establishment GOP with a capital "E" (the Mrs. was deep in the PB Republican committee) which was fine by me. The ground work for the 1980 presidential primaries had already started and Florida, scheduled for an early March vote, was going to be ver...

“It makes sense now more than ever, given what we stand for as a couple, what we do for a living, and what we’re worried about as a country.” Some people believe We the People are engaged in a "Cold Civil War" split down the middle into Red and Blue interpretations of our constitution, our political institutions and our civic order.  Charles R. Kesler delineated the "war" in his Imprimus editorial and claimed that, short of natural disaster or a foreign war for which the American people might rally together, and Hot Civil War is almost inevitable. Sloppy Carl Bernstein sees the same "Cold Civil War" - political, cultural and civic divide with no apparent set of facts that people can agree on to even start a healing dialog or heated argument over - but believes (surprise) that the #FakeNews media can resolve the conflict. Case in point:  @Morning_Joe and Mika tied the knot at the National Archives (!!!) over Thanksgiving weekend and if this #NeverTr...

A few days before Halloween Megyn Kelly got the Michael Myers/Jason Voorhees/ OJ Simpson treatment from her fellow journalists at NBC. Multiple stab wounds from the masked and unmasked for the "crime" of condoning the painting of face to flesh out a Diana Ross costume when a teenager dresses up. Michael Jackson probably would have understood what she was trying to say to her daytime TV audience, but he's dead, so there was no one in America who could spring to the little ladies defense and besides we're talking about defending the application of Blackface so who in 21st Century America has any (I mean even the most remote) experience with that? The only people I could come up with are Ted Danson who wore it when celebrity roasting his then girlfriend Woopie Goldberg(1993) and Neil Dimond who wore it in the opening sequence of his infamously horrible remake of "The Jazz Singer"(1980). I think those are the only two examples of "blackface" I'v...