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Coming soon – a fall sequel

What with one thing or another, I completely forgot to announce the imminent arrival of Andrew James Loney, who we plan to call “A.J.” until he’s old enough to do something about it.

Will update with ultrasound pictures when I can, but he’s the spitting image of his big sister at the same age.  Which is a very good thing. 

He’s looking to be a Libra…unless he decides to be a very rude and inconsiderate young gentleman indeed.  There is such a thing as good timing, A.J.

I haven’t updated the vanity site as often as I’d like to because (a) politics really scares me these days, and (b) soccer in general and the World Cup in particular kicked my ass.  Oh, and I had pneumonia.  I barely had enough strength to soccerblog, and it showed.

Nick Jr. Cults of Personality

It’s about time I put this vanity blog to use again.

See, I kept this site going thinking basically I wasn’t going to last at BigSoccer THAT long, and that I’d have a lot of intelligent things to say about politics, sex and religion.

Oh, look, a big plate of wrong.  Looks yummy!

Anyway, thanks to wonderful little Sophia Cat, I watch a LOT of Nick Jr. these days.

Sophia tends to be uncritical about her shows, much like her father was as a lad.  She has a couple of real favorites, and a bunch that she tolerates.

Sadly, she loves the color purple, and she loves dinosaurs.  It’s tough to tell her that while dinosaurs and purple are wonderful things separately, put them together and they become Satanic.

I never realized how truly awkward Barney is.  The whole show is dedicated to showing us what a wonderful friend he is to everyone.  If he were in a singles bar, he’d be the one lecturing on how women should date nice guys like him.  Nice dinosaurs.  Whatever.  Why is he so god-damned needy in the first place, anyway?  There are words for those who need constant validation, especially from young children, and none of them are compliments.

Barney is the very, very worst of a strain of children’s television stars who can Do No Wrong, but there are others.  It can be kind of a pill to watch, to say the least – big-eyed little heroes and heroines surrounded by goofy animal pals who only exist so that the protagonist can make value judgments about them.  I suppose this is dirty pool, but Dora the Explorer and Kai-Lan are literally surrounded by untermenschen.

Has Dora EVER gotten lost?  Has Kai-Lan EVER thrown a tantrum?  She should, all her animal friends are amazingly annoying.

Dora and Kai-Lan – and Dora’s idiot cousin Diego, who ALWAYS talks in the SAME WEIRDLY EXICTED CADENCE! -also address the audience, presumably to ask them for assistance.  I imagine this came back into fashion because of “Blue’s Clues” (which is actually a lot of fun, and holds up pretty well), but it reminds me more of Mr. Rogers.

Who was as infallible as either Barney or Dora, but somehow not as annoying.  He didn’t surround himself with an adoring cult, for one thing.  Mr. Rogers, like Captain Kangaroo, had a bunch of friends and acquaintances, but those guys didn’t demand they spend all day telling us how wonderful they were.  Mr. Rogers was also suitably grounded in reality.

Although even as a child I remember Mr. Rogers being extremely slow, in comparison with Sesame Street.  I suppose today’s kids would find him painful to deal with. 

That’s not to say there aren’t some really fun shows out there – but Wubbzy and Olivia are wonderful because they make mistakes.  In fact, not only is Wubbzy a chronic screw-up, so is pretty much everyone in Wuzzleburg.   Wubbzy and the gang learn lessons – they have to, based on the damage they do – but no one’s in a position to constantly lecture the others.   It’s hard to give a heartfelt moral sermon when you’re covered in grapeity-grape juice.

Olivia thinks she’s as infallible as Dora, if not more so – but the world doesn’t play along with her – she has to back up her assertions.  She has to do homework, and sell cookies, and put up with her little brothers, and all the little childhood annoyances.  Olivia keeps her incredible self-image not in the face of adversity, but of frustration and boredom.  I’m sure there are millions who would want to see Olivia make a guest appearance in a BLT.  But I think she’s a peach.

Coming up next on “Who Sucks On Nick Jr.” – why doesn’t Little Bear maul and devour his friends?

Burn the Internet. Burn it to the ground and start over.

What I don’t understand is, why am I supposed to feel sorry for the people who worked in the World Trade Center?  They knew it was a target for terrorism.  Not potentially or theoretically.  A real live honest to God terrorism target.  I’m supposed to be all sad because New Yorkers slept through 1993?

But we gave all this money and all this sympathy to those people, and sure enough, they’re still back in the skyscrapers, crowding the subways (hello!  London?  Madrid?), and basically putting the Kick Me sign along with their Yankees hats.  When will they learn?  When the Empire State Building is hit next time, am I supposed to just reflexively cry my little heart out? 

And don’t get me started on the Pentagon.  Um, presumably a military installation should have, you know, some means of defending itself.   It’s bad enough people still work in tall buildings – like, there aren’t deserts and swamps?  The Forest Service is ready when you are – the people in Washington are working in the same damn building!  What the hell is their problem?  Do they have a death wish?

I’m not saying next time we should just let people die.  I’m saying we should think about the consequences next time people CHOOSE to live in dangerous areas, then come crying to us when something bad happens.

Fifteen minutes ago I had never heard of Paul Shirley, now all I can do is weep that I come from the same species.  Thanks, Internet.

Childhood’s End

So I’m at the comic book store, buying Christmas gifts.  Which, to be fair, should tell you the maturity level of everyone involved in this story.  Also present were the clerk, and a kid I’d say was around 11 or 12.  He wasn’t 13, based on the clerk was telling him which action figures he could not buy because they had guns or cleavage or something. 

So the clerk, who while within the parameters of your stereotypical comic book store employee didn’t radiate any particular rays of bitterness or despair, tells the kid, “Don’t grow up.  These are the best days of your life.”  He then looked to me for backup.

Being an adult rules.  I can drive, I can earn my own money, I don’t have to do homework.  I can drink and rent a car, although society frowns on doing both at once.   Work and taxes are tedious, but certainly no more than high school.  Sex is a LOT better now.

Well, okay, fine, I’m forty years old and buying a toy.  But that’s the point.  Just because you get old doesn’t mean you have to grow up.

“You lie”

I’m not entirely sure whether the President has been heckled from the floor of Congress before.  I do know if this had happened sometime during the past eight years, it would be a better country today.

Again, civility towards the President is overrated.  George W. Bush lied to the country every day in office, and no one spoke up.  Congressman Wilson was and is an idiot, but an elected representative of the people has a right to challenge the President on a falsehood.

Of course, if he or she does, then he or she better be correct, and hopefully soon-to-be-former Congressman Wilson was laughably wrong.  But I like this precedent.  And I hope the next President that tells us some irrelevant country is an imminent threat to us and we must expend blood and money to exterminate them doesn’t get one angry voice from Congress, but hundreds.

Meet the President

One of the things we tend to forget, ignore, or downplay is that history is going to look at the turn of the millennium as The Obama Era, no matter what happens.  That’s just a fact of life.  America is coming to terms with its racial and racist past, and all of our lives in some way will be impacted by what President Obama does or does not do. 

There was a bit in “I, Claudius” where Caligiula naturally assumes he’s the new god that soothsayers have foretold, said new god of course turning out to be Jesus.  So the most important person in the world to our eyes today might not turn out to be the most important person to future generations.  Like Copernicus v. whoever the heck was Pope when Copernicus was alive – it’s literally not important enough to look up.

That said – if there’s a person alive today who’s going to affect more people today and in the future than Barack Obama, well, I’d sure hate to piss him or her off.

But that was also true of George Walker Bush, and I wouldn’t want my children anywhere near that miserable son of a bitch.  If, down the road, a President Cheney or President Tancredo or President Piscopo were to visit my child’s school, I would be thankful that the blinkered, hateful idiots this week set a precedent that I could keep my child away from such a harmful, destructive influence.

You don’t have to like the President.  It’s the President’s job to please the people, not the other way round.  I like and respect Barack Obama, and look forward to telling my grandchildren what it was like to be alive during his era.  Part of that story will not be “and everyone loved him.”

While I’m here – I never heard of Van Jones before this week, but now that I have heard of him, I think he’s wonderful.

“Orphan” spoiler

I read in one of the articles about this movie, and the surrounding protests, that there was a twist ending.  But I figured as much already.  “They’re not gonna make a movie where an adopted daughter is the villain.”  (Continued)

Speaking Ill of the Dead…Casting the First Stone

Child molestor Michael Jackson died today in Los Angeles.  He was a famous child molestor, but that doesn’t begin to describe how good he was at child molesting – easily one of the greatest of all time.  I honestly can’t think of another child molestor who has had such an amazing impact on our lives.  No wonder they called him the King of Child Molestation.

I totally understand why so many people felt drawn to Westwood, where this child molestor died.  There’s definitely a void people are feeling.  Will we ever see another child molestor like him?  The man pretty much redefined, culturally, how we see child molesting.  His groundbreaking child molestation, over the course of decades – truly fantastic.

What people may forget, as they look back on all the children he molested, was that he was also known as a singer.   Although he was not as successful in making worthwhile music as he was at evading conviction for child molestation, several of his tunes are recognizable even today.  Music Television played many of his music videos during the 1980′s, putting him firmly in the artistic pantheon pioneered by The Human League, Kajagoogoo and Asia – but his combination of music and child molestation puts him in a rare category with such luminaries as R. Kelly, Gary Glitter and Jerry Lee Lewis.  He produced four solo records before devoting himself to child molestation full time.

Now he’s gone – he died young, with decades of child molestation uncompleted.  Who knows whether he could have completed his comback, and molested children for another decade or more.  I guess we’ll never know.

Kobe Doin’ Work

To paraphrase John McCain, I still hate Kobe Bryant.  I will hate him as long as I live.

Those of us in the American soccer community are currently gnashing our teeth about a young man from New Jersey named Giuseppe Rossi.  Rossi played against the United States, for Italy, the other day, and scored two goals against us.

The immediate reaction from the US fanbase was, “Screw you, traitor.”  The near-immediate counter-reaction from those who took the wider view was, “He made the right choice,” which I agree with, and “so you should be happy for him,” which I couldn’t agree with less.

Fans wouldn’t be fans if they were rational about the people playing the game.  Thus, the gap between deserved reaction and actual reaction.  Rossi is getting, from the American side, the sharp side of tongues and pens.

And then there’s how fans react to Kobe Bryant – probably the most famous rapist in the world.

I suppose we can argue the semantics of this charge.  And if the woman who accused him was willing to take a payout in lieu of justice, then perhaps we should all just turn the page.  But as to the underlying facts – well, he lied to cops, then issued a statement after the trial admitting non-consensual sex.  Kobe Bryant is a rapist.

This isn’t really about how I feel about it – it’s that so many of my fellow citizens are just fine with it.  They really did stick by Kobe, during and after the trial and settlement.  One day there will be a statue to him out in front of the Staples Center.  He is without question one of the most beloved scumbags in the history of the state. 

Playing well for a favorite team, in the eyes of that team’s fans, is enough to forgive literally any transgression. 

I like to assume that the reaction Kobe gets elsewhere is a little less than rapturous adoration, but from what I’ve read in mainstream sports media, it isn’t.  The guy is a hell of an athlete, that’s – literally – all that matters.  It’s all that matters to Nike, it’s all that matters to worshipful Lakers fans, it’s all that matters to sportswriters. 

Because man, when our team wins?  Best feeling in the world.  And when we lose?  I still feel gratitude to perfect strangers who made me happy that I cheered them on twenty years ago.  I still feel resentment towards perfect strangers who defeated my favorite teams.  That’s just the way fans are wired.  We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys.

Wilt Chamberlain had 22,000 women, and every single one of them a satisfied customer.  How does Bryant sleep at night?

I took May off, sorry.

To make it up to you, holy crap.  Jim Cornette.  Turn it down if you’re listening at work.

Sophia reads ahead

She seems astonished about whatever she just learned.

I don't want to say she's precocious, but....

I don't want to say she's precocious, but....

Happy Friedman Unit, Sophia Cat!

Sophia’s six months old today.  Big milestone for her, but she’s ambivalent.

“I don’t know, Dad,” she said.  “I think of where I was three months ago, and, well, I thought I’d be somewhere else today.  I thought I’d be crawling.  I was so innocent back then.  Ah…if I knew then what I know now.  But that’s the price of living, right?  I guess I’m just having a 1/150th-life crisis.”

I’m worried she’s going to start hitting the bottle.

Pics are tough to come by, because the girl has eczema, and we’re quite vain of her and only want to show perfect pictures.

Oh, and this is a personal message for people who talk to my wife while she’s out with Sophia:

Yes, we know.  No, we didn’t set her face on fire.  Yes, we’ve tried that.  Yes, we’ve tried that too.  She’ll be fine.  No, really, she’ll be fine.  Thank you.  Get lost.

What was the best time to be alive?

My beloved wife stumped me the other day.  I have no idea how to get rid of crabgrass.  In fact, I say, live and let live.  After all, the crabgrass was here first.

She also stumped me with an historical* question.  When was the best time to be alive in American history?

(Continued)

44

He bungled the oath, but nailed the speech.  The superstitious and bitter will probably read a lot of ill omens in Obama’s stumbling over the oath, but Neil Armstrong blew his first line, too.

[EDIT - never mind, it was Justice Roberts who blew it.  The Republican Party - screwing things up literally until the very end!]

It’s been a long eight years.  It’s really nice to be an American again.

Special thanks to KTLK-AM here in SoCal, which forgot to kill the automatic switch from the syndicated Stephanie Miller show to the local inauguration coverage…and gave us a Sit ‘n Sleep commercial during Biden’s oath.  I know, who could have foreseen any news coming down at 9:00 a.m. local time on January 20, 2009?

One of the things my dad mentioned during the campaign was the incredible emotion people of the Jim Crow era who never thought they would live to see a black person nominated, let alone win.  The crowd shots backfired when the occasional person noticed they were on TV and started waving, of course, but when they got the right person….that was powerful.

Unconditional Surrender

It’s that time of year again – time for the War on Christmas.

Once again, everyone. The War on Christmas is over. Coca-Cola won.

War criminal

Say want you want about Confederate “heritage” jackoffs who re-enact Civil War battles, at least they grasp on some level that they lost. What the hell is Bill O’Reilly’s excuse?

Back to Reality

Wow, I didn’t realize how little I’d have to say after Obama’s election.

I suppose I could have gone ballistic about people like Rahm Emmanuel, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton being part of the new regime, with a loop of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!” playing in the background.  But that would be extraordinarily stupid for a number of reasons.

(Continued)

Sam I Am

I’m sure I’m being terribly, terribly unfair. 
But tell me this isn’t the face of a man who would curbstomp me for being a race traitor.
Joe the Plumbers evil-ass smirk

Joe the Plumber's evil-ass smirk

Germanicus For President

In “I, Claudius,” the protagonist rolls his eyes at those who expected Caligula to be an improvement on Tiberius, on the grounds that any man of any quality would have been eliminated long before he would be in a position to become Emperor. Claudius uses his brother Germanicus as an example – yes, he would have been an exemplary Emperor, and maybe would have restored the Republic; no, he would never have gotten the chance.

Which brings us to Barack Obama. Can the United States elect a good man as President? Or is Obama hiding a dark side that would make Richard Nixon quiver and puke?

Nobody would picture themselves fit for the Presidency without a significant amount of incredible determination and equally incredible arrogance – there’s no other word for the type of person who says “Who has two thumbs and should be the most powerful man in the world? THIS guy!” That Obama sees himself as capable of fulfilling the promise of not only the Founding Fathers but Martin Luther King, and is willing to take on the task of washing clean this nation’s original sin – that takes some self-esteem.

If he’s up to it, Lincoln will have a buddy to his left on Rushmore.

But, in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. Michelle Obama isn’t the only one who has been proud of her country at infrequent intervals over the years, but last night made claims of America’s greatness finally seem like something besides idiotic bloviating meant to prove Mencken rather than Franklin. The United States of America elected a black man as President. Now, finally, we can get to work on achieving the American dream.

Of course…he might suck at the job. To my knowledge, no one ever asked what would have happened if Jackie Robinson had hit .150 and set the National League record for errors. If Obama turns out to be Jimmy Carter (who he, um, does recall in many ways, including a centrist religious stance and being the beneficiary of a detested predecessor)…that’s not going to help.

But the upside of the Presidency being the private reserve of driven egomaniacs means that any kind of wimpy, ineffectual wishy-washiness gets weeded out nice and early.

The other point is that, no, the US is not the Roman Empire, has not receded into worthless mockery of its former glory, and is not on a toboggan ride to the history’s ash-heap. The past is no longer prologue. Anything is possible.

Let’s hope so. Irony died on 9/11, but came back stronger than ever. Cynicism lost a huge battle on 11/4. Let’s see if Obama can complete the victory.

One thing Obama’s victory has done – the conspiracy theory era of the United States is over. Bush will not cancel elections. The Army will not declare martial law. The Republican Party, after eight years of hideous misrule and criminal conduct, will surrender power willingly. Perhaps it’s simply because the Bush/Cheney Administration stole everything that wasn’t nailed down, and is looking forward to a peaceful retirement in Dubai. But they will walk away from power, just like Washington and Jefferson, Eisenhower, Clinton, Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon. The democratic experiment, apart from that hiccup in the 1860′s, continues.

Sophia Cat – HOOLIGAN

We’re raising this kid WRONG. (Continued)

WE HAVE THE CUTEST BABY EVER

Yeah, at some point I should get to the comedy and entertainment portion of the blog.

But for now – HOLY CRAP she’s so adorable!

Yes, she’s actually my daughter. Why do you ask?