Happy Halloween

Boo!
The Misanthrope, writer, pointer-outer of all that is wrong

As far as I am concerned this group was the scariest part of the Wizard of Oz.



I nearly forgot that it was Halloween since I have no young kids around.

Californication by the Banks and Government

From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any FIRST AND FOREMOST object but one—to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for HIMSELF.
Mark Twain (1835–1910), writer

Californication is without a doubt the best show on television. Last night was the season finale and the ending was completely unexpected.

I love this show. Weeds has gone a bit over the top and not nearly as good as it was the first season.

This is not the post I intended to write tonight, but the show was fantastic.

What I planned to write about were the banks and the insurance companies that took out ads in the Sunday Los Angeles Times pretending that they were offering something above and beyond for the victims of the fires in Southern California last week.

Those companies were showing their shameless, greedy pandering during a time of true suffering for many families. Oh, they have waved their ATM fees, a fee that is unnecessary and does not cost the bank companies anything. Their help is akin to airlines offering free seats on a flight that is not 100 percent booked.

The banks could do more. They could offer some real help instead of pandering at the expense of suffering families for public relations.

What could the banks do? How about for starters offer the families who lost their homes discounted loans along the lines of what they give to their employees or better yet their executives.

To the banks, insurance companies, the U.S. Vice President and the carpetbaggers preying on the misfortune of others -- in the words of our esteemed vice president, who showed his callousness for those who suffer by sleeping -- "Go fuck yourself."

The Way to Perfection

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active—not more happy—nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–45), writer

Tip of the hat to The Kentucky Democrat for this video.

More Republican Compassion

Saving lives is not a top priority in the halls of power. Being compassionate and concerned about human life can cause a man to lose his job. It can cause a woman not to get the job to begin with.
Myriam Miedzian, writer

Unless he is planning an attack, shooting his hunting rifle, giving no bid contracts to his former company or taking direction from oil companies he'd rather sleep. Let the people and their homes burn.

A Time for Silliness

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), playwright

I was inspired by friends in the 10th grade who had just made a home movie; I opted to take a roll of farcical pictures; there are more of these shots, but I have no idea where. These just happened to turn up in my sister’s stuff.

Would you buy a used car from this guy? This was a friend's car and their family dog. The little sign, I believe is offering six Blue Chip Stamps, if you buy now.














How about a CD from these guys? Don't blame them, I organized the whole thing including the Groucho Marx masks to protect the innocent.

Shine a Light

Rock ‘n’ roll is a combination of good ideas dried up by fads, terrible junk, hideous failings in taste and judgment, gullibility and manipulation, moments of unbelievable clarity and invention, pleasure, fun, vulgarity, excess, novelty and utter enervation.
Greil Marcus, rock journalist

Time to purge the negative engery and enjoy a preview what is to come.



Tip of the hat to B2 for making me aware this little promo was floating around

More Shameless Positioning

That a right-wing administration motivated by insatiable greed and sustained by murderous lies and led by a privileged dope should answer American’s infantile idea of morality – how do you manage to insulate yourself from stupidity so bottomless?
A Philip Roth character from Exit Ghost

I gave up on the Bush White House gang a long time ago, but I am still appalled that they continue with the same crap. And worse, continue to use dead soldiers to push through their agenda.

President Bush on Monday awarded the Medal of Honor to a navy SEAL mortally wounded two years ago in Afghanistan. Shortly after the Medal of Honor ceremony Bush requested $45.9 billion emergency funding for expenses related to U.S. military campaigns around the world.

The best thing Congress can do is to stop giving this administration money to carry out its worldwide calamities.

Sadistic Santa Anas

The wind began to switch, the house to pitch. And suddenly the hinges started to unhitch
The house began to pitch, the kitchen took a slitch
Dorothy, Wizard of Oz


These winds have destroyed more homes than if a tornado blew through southern California. I don’t have as much reason as some unfortunate others, but I do not like these winds.

Where There is Smoke...

The world, an entity out of everything, was created by neither gods nor men, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, regularly becoming ignited and regularly becoming extinguished.
Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 BC), Greek philosopher

Our company has left and it’s a bit before 3 p.m. and the brush fires are again back to accompany the wild Santa Ana winds. We are in no fire danger, just finding the smoke a bit annoying, but again nothing compared to the people whose homes and lives are threatened.

Beatles, All You Need is Love

There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.
Jean Anouilh (1910–87), French playwright.

It's hard to steal time away to write when one has a houseful of company.

John Fogerty, Don't You Wish it Were True

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
William Congreve (1670–1729), playwright

I have not been able to stop playing this CD. I love when this song comes on.

More Joey Bishop

“Marilyn, I told you to sit in the truck,”
Joey Bishop (1918-2007), comedian, In the middle of a performance at the Copacabana in Manhattan, Marilyn Monroe suddenly appeared, swathed in white ermine. From the New York Times obituary

From the book Photo By Sammy Davis, Jr. text by Burt Boyar
At opening night during Sinatra’s sold-out engagement at the Copa, the room was packed full with major celebrities, crackling with excitement, anticipating Sinatra’s presence. Frank skipped the dinner show for opening night. He would open at midnight for the heavy hitters. Every columnist, every name in New York was there, glued to their coveted seats, waiting for Sinatra.

The buzz around the room was restrained hysteria. Two words could be heard over everything: Sinatra…Frank…Sinatra. Finally, the band blared, a drum roll, the show was starting. The announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joey Bishop,” and on walked a virtually unknown comic, Frank’s opening act. The disinterest in him was embarrassing. People hardly turned their heads toward him. He stood in the center of the tiny stage, just a few feet away from tables on this left, right, and in front of him. He did not speak. He waited. Slowly the room began quieting down, focusing on this curiosity. When there was silence he looked meaningfully around at the overflow crowd.

“You think this is something? Wait’ll Frank’s people get here.”

It shattered the ice. Joey had worked for months on a brand new act, he threw it all way that night and ad-libbed himself into becoming a star.

This is the stuff my parents and grandparents watched when I was a kid. The video is really rather corny, but it gives you a feel for the era.

Joey Bishop, Dead at 89

The Misanthrope would have my head if I didn't make note of this while he's otherwise occupied...

Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found fame as a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, has died at 89. He was the group's last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.

The Full Story, at Yahoo

Addams Family??

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956), journalist

You can’t make this stuff up, but on the other hand what does it mean?

In an interview with MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell, Lynne Cheney revealed that while researching the Cheney family tree for her new book "Blue Skies, No Fences," she discovered that the Vice President Cheney and Barack Obama are related -- albeit distantly. According to Mrs. Cheney, the two politicians are eighth cousins.

The Sun-Times says that Obama and George Bush are 11th cousins, and Obama and Cheney are ninth cousins once removed. It seems we're all related....

I just heard that someone from Obama's campaign said, Cheney is obviously the black sheep of the family.

Lego Wishlist

Last post on Lego... probably. My wife was peeking through eBay, trying to see if she could find my "long lost" Lego to surprise me. In case any of you Toner Mishap fans were thinking the same thing, here are my favorite classic space Lego sets which, were I to find them at a garage sale or on Craigslist, would soon be set up in my office.

Blue Monday by Fats Domino (live 1985)

Blue Monday how I hate Blue Monday
Got to work like a slave all day
Here come Tuesday, oh hard Tuesday
I'm so tired got no time to play
Here come Wednesday, I'm beat to my socks
My gal calls, got to tell her that I'm out
'Cause Thursday is a hard workin' day
And Friday I get my pay
Saturday mornin', oh Saturday mornin'
All my tiredness has gone away
Got my money and my honey
And I'm out on the stand to play
Sunday mornin' my head is bad
But it's worth it for the time that I had
But I've got to get my rest
'Cause Monday is a mess
Fats Domino, singer/songwriter



I am outa here, off to paid my debt for tardiness in donuts.

My Wife Must Have a Fetish For Guys Who Like Lego

At least, that's the only thing I can imagine. When we met, I was still in high school, and I was (of course) still living at home. I had always had bunk beds, and I had my own room -- so I converted the lower bunk to a Lego spaceport. How? A big piece of gray plywood, covered by Lego space plates, upon which rested all of my various Lego space creations.

I figure that seeing so much Lego in a room is a big hurdle to overcome when evaluating a potential suitor, so she must have been weirdly turned on by it. How else to explain the fact that I successfully wooed her?

Years passed, and through the craziest long story you'll have ever heard (but to which I won't treat you), the Lego is no longer in my possession. And now, my kids are getting into it. So let me share with you some pix (culled from the web, to which I daily give thanks for such trivial pleasures) of my old Lego sets. Not the space stuff, which I got into only after a few years of Lego enjoyment (and I should add, over which I am now obssessing through eBay) -- but rather the first sets I had, which you will note (if you, too, were a Lego fan) are quite old, and many of which predate the modern minifig standard (note the baby in the kitchen set, and the non-articulated minifig limbs in the hospital and police sets). Enjoy!

A Séance is so Old School

The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife—a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it’s being held.
Woody Allen, filmmaker

If you are determined to bug those who are gone and you refuse to let those in the afterlife relax or rest in peace, well now you can go to the cemetery and use your wi-fi.

According to a report from WPSD-TV, a cemetery in Paducah, Kentucky has made the graveyard a hotspot of sorts. Apparently it’s to help with genealogy research.

It seems to me that the living are now haunting the dead.

Sadly Another Good Blog Says Good-bye

Partir, c’est mourir un peu.
(To leave is to die a little.)
French Proverb.

The sad news is that Anything They Say has called it quits. I can’t disagree with his good-bye statement. I enjoyed his reporting and stories that were insightful, frightening, and discouraging about our government and corporate leaders. The good news is that Ken Anderson will continue to write and focus on areas important to him. He will be missed in the world of blogs, but I will certainly look for his articles.

All the best!

If it's a Tuesday VideoIt Means There is No Time

Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.
John Kenneth Galbraith(1908-2005), economist

I wonder if I could do the whole week this way. In any case you can see that I don't have much time. In the meantime, any suggestions for a Wednesday video?



I tried to resist, but it was futile: Rolling Stones with Brian Jones: