“As for taking down the post, as you know on the internet there is no “taking down the post.” Why even try that? So people like you can get another freelance internet column out of it by feigning outrage again? (“They tried to take down the post, but we found it on Google cache!”) There is nothing in “political media” approaching even the most basic intellectual honesty, so why would any website fall for that “You should take down the post” thing? Wouldn’t that be crazy? So of course you never take down a post. But in this case, like all such cases over the decades, you sometimes put a note on the post apologizing for offending anyone, and making it clear that your target is Sarah Palin, an empty grifter and dollar-chaser and tabloid-fame monster with a delusional following of poor white people who somehow think her interests converge in any way with their interests.”
Has an Outrage of the Day ever played out differently once in Internet history? Ken watched this for 15 years before breaking free and escaping to the Forest. I’ve got 10 more to go.
wolf blitzer’s big sit-down with mitt romney, by Chichikovovich
W: Tell me about the campaign.
M: Tell me what you would like to know.
W: I would like to know about the campaign.
M: There are many things to say about the campaign.
W: Tell me about the many things.
M: What would you like to hear about the things?
W: Many things.
M: Tell me more.
W: I am curious about the many things you can tell me.
M: Tell me more.
W: I am curious about the many things you can tell me.
M : Tell me more.
W: I am curious about the many…
[Sound of hand hitting keyboard]
W: Your family is very pleasant. Tell me about them.
M: I have a wife and many children. My wife is a heavyweight champion. Oh No. I don’t mean that.
W: Have you said something mistaken?
M: It is improper to say a wife is heavy even as a joke, unless you are consulting with a physician about thyroid disorders or you wish to say she is heavy with child.
W: Would you like to correct your previous statements?
M: Yes. My wife supports me.
W: Tell me more.
M: She has two Cadillacs. We like American cars.
W: How large do you like your cars to be?
M: Large, small, we like to have many cars of a variety of sizes.
W: Tell me more.
M: Trees, I like trees.
W: How high do you like the trees to be?
M: Like the trees in Michigan. They are just the right height.
W: Tell me more.
M: What do you want to know about trees?
W: Many things.
M: There are many things to say about trees.
W: Tell me about the many things.
M: What would you like to hear about the things?
W: Many things.
M: Tell me more.
W: I am curious about the many things you can tell me about trees.
M: Tell me more.
W: I am curious about the many things you can tell me about trees.
M: Tell me more.
[Cut to commercial]
“But I hope I treat her kind/ And don’t mess with her mind/ When she starts to see/ The darker side of me.” YOU try writing a better chorus than this in a little ditty on one of your lesser albums; you can’t.
At some point my Gawker email address will be shut off so please start emailing me at newell.jim@gmail.com, with important inquiries!
Top Ten Destroyer Albums:
1) Streethawk: A Seduction (2001)
Okay, yes.
2t) Thief (2000)
2t) City of Daughters (1998)
I’m glad I’m not alone in loving these, and I would agree that they belong together on this list because in a lot of ways I think they are the same record. I would probably move them down a notch.
4) This Night (2002)
Not #1, but definitely in the top 5 and let’s just say #3, because I am a girl. If I ever destroy my life in the course of an hour it will be to this record.
5) Kaputt (2011)
LOOK IT’S REALLY COMPLICATED OKAY I DON’T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT BUT I LOVE THIS ONE LESS AND IT KILLS ME WHY CAN’T I LOVE IT WHY WHY WHY
6) Collection of Dan Bejar’s 10-12 best songs for the New Pornographers (2000-)
What? Can you do this? Can you do this and not put Bay of Pigs on the list? I would take this out and replace it with Bay of Pigs.
7) Rubies (2006)
I also like this record a lot (see below). This is harder than I thought. I give up now.
8) Your Blues (2004)
9) We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge (1996)
10) Trouble in Dreams (2008)
What? Stop making fun! Just be happy I went with this instead of the Top 50 Destroyer Songs.
For some reason this has already taken me three cigarettes and I am now profoundly distressed. Here is the most personal thing I have ever posted on the Internet:
___
I only go on the tumblrs once a year or so so I hope this is proper reblogging format, BUT:
1) I am beyond happy to have found other Destroyer nerds to debate trivial differences of opinion with!
2) City of Daughters and Thief are the same record? This is a highly suspect assertion. The former is a bunch of short songs that blend together, like one long piece from a singer-songwriter; Thief is the first with a full band and is made of easily separable rock/pop songs with actual hooks! (Although Thief is the most focused album, message-wise, since it’s just him assaulting the music business on each song. Bejar himself has rejected this interpretation, but he lies, and anyway that’s what I hear when I listen, so.) Thief is much closer to Streethawk than anything else.
3) Kaputt is divisive! Much like Your Blues was, and on that one I’m on the more “meh” side.
4) Of course I can put “Collection of Dan Bejar’s 10-12 best songs for the New Pornographers” on this list. How else would I fill out the top ten? I’m not gonna throw a 2-song EP on there instead, when the good song from that EP already appears on another album. And Bejar’s songs for the NPs always kind of reside as his own, isolated work, albeit with a more saccharine touch. Also too, and also too, some of his best NP songs are rewrites of songs from his old Destroyer albums. I WANTED TO PUT THIS ON THERE, OKAY.
5) I would share my play counts but I got a new computer recently and the counts are gone, and they wouldn’t accurately reflect my favorite songs anyway. (My favorite song is the title track on “Thief” FWIW!)
I am exhausted.
It is my duty as a pathetic creature of the Internet to spend a December Saturday afternoon typing a meaningless top ten list. Since Destroyer’s Kaputt, like every Destroyer album, was the best album of the year — although I no longer listen to 100 new albums a year like I did as an even more pathetic person in college, so maybe I missed some things, but probably not — this is the meaningless top ten list I’m running with. And yes, I copped out with a tie for second, but this is just a tumblr post so who cares?
Top Ten Destroyer Albums:
1) Streethawk: A Seduction (2001)
2t) Thief (2000)
2t) City of Daughters (1998)
4) This Night (2002)
5) Kaputt (2011)
6) Collection of Dan Bejar’s 10-12 best songs for the New Pornographers (2000-)
7) Rubies (2006)
8) Your Blues (2004)
9) We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge (1996)
10) Trouble in Dreams (2008)
What? Stop making fun! Just be happy I went with this instead of the Top 50 Destroyer Songs.
BLVR: So what happened exactly? Did you just open a map and throw your finger down?
GM: Almost. I knew very little about Boulder, other than that it had a college and a few good record stores and bookstores. It was also close to Mile High Kennel Club, and I was really into dog racing at the time. Beyond that, I just wanted to get as far from the New York environment as I could. It was very healing, and a good place to eliminate cynicism from my work. Or what do you guys call it again? Snark?
BLVR: [Laughs] Yeah, snark.
GM: I felt like snark, or cheap cynicism, was beginning to play out as a comic sensibility. I thought that sincerity and individuality were going to be the next wave of comedy. Obviously, I underestimated cynicism’s appeal.
BLVR: I’m actually a little surprised by that. Not that I think your writing has a mean streak, but The Simpsons isn’t exactly known for lighthearted, sanguine comedy. It may not be outwardly cynical, but it certainly has a more cynical edge than the average TV comedy.
GM: To an extent, sure. But the comedy I was reacting to was just reflexively snide. It’d pull some stooge apart and leave him writhing in agony. On The Simpsons, we try not to attack something just for the thrill of watching it die. I’ve always felt that the nihilistic approach to comedy is inherently limiting. It’s not particularly clever, and it’s so openly hostile that it even puts the audience on the defensive. Other than death and speaking in public, one of the big fears that everybody shares is that the joke will have been on them. It’s a primal thing. When [Simpsons writer] Dana Gould was starting out in stand-up, he didn’t connect with the audience very well. Another comic told him, “The audience wants to like you. But before they will, they want to know that you like them.” And it’s really true.
BLVR: So it’s not so much the message as the messenger?
GM: Exactly. If people think you’re coming from a place of smugness or viciousness, it won’t be as funny to them. Take somebody like Lenny Bruce. If he were only an angry, spiteful comic, I don’t think he would’ve had the same influence. George Carlin gets away with murder in his stand-up, because people sense that he’s honestly hurt that the world isn’t a saner place.
BLVR: Well, how about Bill Hicks? He was almost entirely fueled by anger and resentment.
GM: Yes, but he was never smug about it. There wasn’t a smirk behind his anger. He railed against the government because he felt let down by it, not because it was an easy target. He was so much more sincere than a lot of political comics, who strike me as very calculated.
BLVR: Without getting all snarky on you, I don’t care for most political comics. At what point does satire become propaganda? It seems to me that a lot of them are just pushing a political agenda with jokes.
GM: Personally, I like to keep an audience guessing. Just before the ’96 election, we did a Halloween special where Bob Dole and Clinton were kidnapped by aliens. We killed off both of the presidential candidates in the middle of that segment. They were asphyxiated and floating in space. At that point, I defy anyone to tell us what our politics were.
BLVR: You know, I never realized just how horrific that actually was. You literally killed the standing president.
GM: For a giggle, yeah.
I hope that people can tell I care, is all. (link)
