Sunday, February 28, 2016

That crazy guy on the bridge

By Jack Brummet

Crazy guy on a bridge in Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas

I saw a photo today of facing apartment buildings today that reminded me of being at a party in NY in about 1978.  It was in Soho, or maybe Tribeca.  A very nearby building contained an attractive, fit couple having sweet and inventive sex on their bed next to a wall to wall window. Naturally many party goers were perched in our own window watching the show. Most people would assume this was just my usual exaggeration...but even KeeKee would vouch for this one. She was there. So--and this is a cool NYC story--this sex scene happened at my friend Tom Farrell's pad. I worked with him at a publisher in the village. Anyhow, we both loved Wim Wenders' An American Friend. And he swore he would get to Wenders somehow and write for him. He split from our job. Like a year and a half later, maybe less, we saw him as the memorable "Crazy fucker on the bridge" in Wenders' Paris, Texas. He was in five other Wenders films I just found out via IMDB.

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Saturday, February 20, 2016

Truth in advertising: the wooden leg

From the Detroit Free Press - Sep 19, 1882.

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Great quotes from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.


Quotes from one of the best books on Presidential politics ever. . . (Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72):

  • “If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”
  • “How many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote FOR something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?”
  • “McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for. Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”
  • “Hubert Humphrey is a treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current.”
  • "It was not until his campaign collapsed and his ex-staffers felt free to talk that I learned that working for Big Ed [Muskie] was something like being locked in a rolling boxcar with a vicious 200-pound water rat. Some of his top staff people considered him dangerously unstable. He had several identities, they said, and there was no way to be sure on any given day if they would have to deal with Abe Lincoln, Hamlet, Captain Queeg, or Bobo the Simpleminded..."
  • “People who claim to know jackrabbits will tell you they are primarily motivated by Fear, Stupidity, and Craziness. But I have spent enough time in jack rabbit country to know that most of them lead pretty dull lives; they are bored with their daily routines: eat, fuck, sleep, hop around a bush now and then....No wonder some of them drift over the line into cheap thrills once in a while; there has to be a powerful adrenalin rush in crouching by the side of a road, waiting for the next set of headlights to come along, then streaking out of the bushes with split-second timing and making it across to the other side just inches in front of the speeding front wheels”
  • “The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy—then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”
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Bernie Sanders' 1963 arrest

By Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.

Bernie Sanders was charged with resisting arrest at an August '63 civil rights protest. He was found guilty and fined $25.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

JebBush.com redirects to Donald Trump's official website

By Mona Goldwater, Errors & Omissions Ed.


At some point along the road to the White House, Jeb Bush's team forgot to renew the domain jebbush.com.  While their official site is JebBush2016.com, clicking on jebbush.com now takes you to Donald Trump's page. . .which Trump recently and gleefully announced. This typifies the sad arc and ending of a bumbling campaign. 
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George F. Will wrote in August "Republican field is the most impressive since 1980"

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.


George F. Will wrote last August that, “This year’s Republican field is the most impressive since 1980, and perhaps the most talent-rich since the party first had a presidential nominee, in 1856."

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How 43 gigantic and crumbling POTUS heads ended up in a Virginia field

How 43 crumbling presidential heads ended up in a Virginia field

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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Creepy doll images

By Jack Brummet, Ed.

Thanks to Getty Images for the use of their copyright images here.




















A ginormous piece of driftwood in La Push, Washington

Six foot Amanda Lachman in front of the driftlog 

"The wind was howling and there were rain squalls at times," said Phillip Lachman, a retired school teacher who photographed the drift log on April 5, 2010. "On the beach at La Push there was a huge amount of driftwood of all sizes and there in the middle of the beach was this tree. We were mesmerized by the sheer size of it and wondered at the force of the wind that brought it here."  


This was probably the result of a tree on a crumbling hillside being swept off during gale force winds, along with very high tides last spring. They don't know what brand of tree it is (probably Western Red Cedar, Sitka Spruce, or Douglas Fir).  I don't know if it's still on the beach or not...
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Monday, February 15, 2016

GOP-Tea Party Fact Check on nominations in a President's final year

By Mona Goldwater

Justice Scalia was nominated by President Reagan in July 1986. He was confirmed September 17th, a month and a half before Election Day (when Democrats regained control of the Senate). As Charles Clymer wrote recently "When things go their way, the system is working just fine. When the rules are inconvenient, the Constitution suddenly becomes a living document open to interpretation."
Photo: RWR and Scalia after the nomination announcement.


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Drawing: Faces #1340 - scratchboard: The Expediters

By Jack Brummet


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Thursday, February 11, 2016

NASA/JPL releases a set of amazing interstellar travel posters

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore and Space Travel Ed.

NASA/JPL has just released some pretty amazing and aspirational travel posters.  "As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future."  Jump here to see the entire set and download any or all of them.  



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