Nearly 7 Minutes of Lesbian Dangler Humor

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Oh, to be Rachel Maddow. Self assured, confident in her wonkitude, able to take shit and turn it into gold simply by applying logic, self-depricating wit and a certain something takes snark and expertise and spins it into pure political gold.

The net was rife with the above embed today, which features Maddow and Ana Marie Cox taking a movement about 15 percent of this country takes seriously and turning it into the funniest and possibly most vulgar 7 minutes of pure win I've ever seen.

Two points on this:

1) It's amazing this went on as long as it did. The fact that Rachel couldn't really play it straight didn't help matters, and sweet Ana Marie proclaiming "who doesn't want to teabag John McCain" pretty much gave the joke away to the last two squares in the audience scratching their heads on their couch at home. But man, oh man, the censors could go crazy on this. The fact that Maddow kind of asked Ana real questions, also didn't help - or did, if your goal was to laugh your ass off at crazy conservative wingnuts.

2) A lot of people, in the tens of millions, take this "tea party" thing seriously. To those who do, you just got beaten to a pulp in a pretty major way. If this gets the wide distribution it deserves, your movement got blasted to itty bitty pieces. No one can and will take you seriously if this goes viral in a big way. My advice would be to cut and run on this particular theme and find something else, hopefully something that cannot be directly tied through our shared language into a particularly juvenile sexual act.

Gawd I love Rachel. Crushing big time.

4/7/09 - Same Old Glove, New Old Freddy

This man is Jackie Earle Haley, and he's the end result of something I find remarkable.

He's the new Freddy Kruger in Platinum Dune's remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," a role pioneered and played nearly a dozen times by character actor Robert Englund. Haley is not a bad choice by any stretch of the imagination. He was the best part of "Watchmen," he's got an Oscar nod under his belt, he's obviously got some gravitas and...look at him. Nothing against the man personally, but slap a striped sweat shirt and bladed glove on him, and you've got a horror villain, no make-up required.

And while I'll see the re-make (despite the powerful feeling of "eh" I felt toward Dune's 'Friday the 13th' redeux), the passing of the role went unnoticed by a lot of major players that would otherwise be interested in the thing. Not a whisper on Aint it Cool News about the official announcement. Chud all but left it alone. Rotten Tomatoes put the story near the bottom. Keep in mind this is one of the most popular roles in horror and there's not a role this side of Indiana Jones that is tied to a particular actor, and there in lies why this is remarkable.

Englund perfected Freddy Kruger from the moment he donned the sweater and glove, and followed him from playful ghoul to wise-cracking killer back around to the meta (and underrated) "New Nightmare" to action star in "Freddy Versus Jason." And his tenure as Kruger passed without mourning in the web sites I visit, sites that have dedicated hundreds of thousands of words to the movies. Remarkable.

Earle Haley? He's fine. He aint Freddy, but he's almost a reason to get excited for the reboot. It will be interesting and odd to see a new guy in the make-up (if that's the route they go), terrorizing another group of impossibly pretty young people. But I gave a quick pause for Englund, and will send a really nice thought his way when the new film starts.

I'll leave with my favorite Englund quote when asked about what his "nightmare" would look like: "Most of my nightmares involve me forgetting my lines in a stage play."

Welcome

Thanks for clicking around and finding me.

Here's the concept - once a day, I find something I want to re-post with my own comment attached. Given I'm into politics, film and culture in general, the bulk of posts likely will fit into those categories, but that doesn't preclude science, art or tech. What it excludes, quite purposefully, is the personal. While I'll be posting comments that come from my head, I'll try to keep the personal stuff minimal if not absent. That's the plan.

I also have a tendency to find some pretty odd stuff through a variety of sources, so check back. I'll be around.