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Weak XXIII

5 June 2014

No. 679 (cartoon)

I want you to know me better.

Really?

Then you’ll know how much I loathe you.

6 June 2014

Remembering D-Day

Today is the seventieth anniversary of D-Day. American government officials are risking severe rotator cuff injuries by continually patting themselves on the back for defeating the Hun, but given all the subsequent military debacles, who can blame them?

The Korean War isn’t officially over yet. The Vietnamese won the Vietnam War; that’s why it’s not called the American War. On a positive note, the United States military successfully triumphed over a team of Cuban laborers in Grenada (population 100,000) in what the spoilsports in the United Nations General Assembly condemned as “a flagrant violation of international law.” Since then, the United States has spent countless lives and over a trillion dollars on “wars” that were in practice occupations that replaced one reprehensible government with an equally despicable one.

In that context, it’s understandable why politicians are still celebrating the last war that had a positive outcome. Adolph Hitler is still dead, and the Nazis remain defeated, for the most part; whew!

7 June 2014

Flee Like Your Live Here

Toni moved into a dirty and relatively dangerous part of town a few years ago, as did many of her creative, low-life friends. They created a thriving community that attracted bored, wealthy people. The newcomers created a predictably boring community that’s become too expensive for her to stay there, so she’s again moving to a down and out and up and coming neighborhood. It’s happened before and it will happen again.

Do gooders posted “Drive like your kids live here” signs in front of her building. She changed them to, “Flee like you live here,” and “Drive away like your kids live here.” And that’s exactly what she’s going to do.

8 June 2014

Timeless Boredom

In an early script for the film, This Is Spinal Tap, a writer made a reference to the Falklands War. That wasn’t included in the final cut. As a result, the thirty year-old movie seems like it could have been made months ago. (Popular music clichés haven’t changed that much since then, alas.)

As an older person, I have a lot of older music that was nominally fresh when I acquired it. A lot of it hasn’t aged that well. The musicians in the ensemble MC5 remain venerated primogenitors of one school of contemporary music, but the title of their 1970 album, Teen Age Lust, certainly hasn’t held up well. And what was the thirty-year-old Johnny Winter thinking when he sang ...

Nothing could be better than tights, skirts, and sweaters,
Shakin’ at the high school dance!

Oy.

That’s why I make exceedingly tedious work; boredom is timeless.

9 June 2014

Bad Art Kills

San Francisco is home to a number of horrifically atrocious “art” galleries, most of them relegated to the same miserable ghettos where the tourists imprison themselves.

The Majestic Collection Art Gallery specializes in an abysmally disgusting subgenre of crappy art, “new age.” (It’s worth repeating that “sewage” is the only word I can find in the English language that rhymes with “new age.”)

Last Friday, a two-year-old Utah boy visiting with his parents climbed on a pathetic statue of a dolphin the Majestic Collection Art Gallery’s staff had placed on the sidewalk in an effort to catch the attention of uncritical visitors. The attraction worked.

The wee bairn clambered up the statue, which toppled over and killed him. End of story.

Don’t let anyone tell you different: bad art kills.

10 June 2014

A Sad Radio Day

I used to appreciate amateur radio announcers. Their mispronunciations, pushing the wrong buttons in the control room, et cetera, were naïvely endearing. Unfortunately, idiots with delusions of adequacy are replacing many of those earnest klutzes.

The new school tries to emulate PROFESSIONAL announcers by speaking SLOWLY and needlessly EMPHASIZING words. And they always leave a POINTLESS hesitation before saying any number that ends in -illion; I have over seven [pause] BILLION reasons to be annoyed with the pretentious little TWITS who are desperately—and unsuccessfully—trying to sound knowledgeable.

It’s a sad day when I have to listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation to hear someone who can speak English fluently.

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©2014 David Glenn Rinehart