I should be asleep, but this one’s too good to pass up. After the last post, I started poking around that website with the Daily Show clips. I found another one on the current administration’s efforts to gain the authority to suspend the election. Watch it. Jon Stewart et al are brilliant. Thanks to Lisa Rein for keeping an eye on it for when we’re too busy working on important stuff to catch the show.
We don’t usually like to write about Politics so much here at blog.chirls.com. But there’s so darn much going on lately, and the stakes are pretty high these days. I’m looking forward to the time when i can go back to sleeping through it all.
First thing is a letter from former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to the Senate Intelligence Committe. I’ve liked this guy ever since I saw him on the Daily Show way back in July 2003. He gives great interview. And now I’m totally a member of the Joe Wilson Fan Club. The biggest surprise about the letter is that it’s actually a decent read. It’s nice to see that at least one of these guys is actually a good enough writer to make something like this interesting.
Next on the list is a story at Salon about comic book guy Alan Moore, of “Watchmen,” “From Hell” and something about Extraordinary Gentlemen. Sadly, I’ve yet to read those. I occasionally swing by Forbidden Planet, but I run like hell the other way so I don’t end up buying every graphic novel and action figure in the store. Anyway, read the freakin’ story.
Mark Glassman and some other guy wrote a story about some guy they call Sandy who is not actually named Sandy but may or may not have crammed classified documents down his undies.
Chirls rock band pals, Han Shot First, finally got some audio files up on the ol’ inter-thingy. Check out “My America.” I know, I know. More politics. But it’s actually a pretty good song, so it’s cool. These guys gig around town pretty often, and they sound great. Check ‘em out.
“This is an election year, I want people to get their head up out of their mashed potatoes and learn something about the issues and go and vote…I’m not telling them how to vote. I’m saying, get information about the issues.”
- Linda Ronstadt to the Los Angeles Times, via Salon (clickthrough ad required)
We spent the long weekend in the District of Columbia for the country’s 228th and Mark’s 26th. (That’s our nation’s capital, not 116th St., for any of our in-from-out-of-town readers who might be confused.) After the three-plus hour schlep down and the rotten weather, in comparison with BSP’s reports of perfect weather back at home, I was ready to swear off leaving The City forever. That really is a strange little town. Their taxi cabs are like all different colors, and they don’t turn the little roof light off when they pick people up. The subway (called the “Metro” in a pathetic attempt to sound almost as cool as every other city in the world) has only about three stations. And there’s all this sky everywhere. But we had a generally good time anyway, particularly at that fabulous UK-themed Fourth barbecue. Good food, nice people and rain. I realize now that Manhattan (between Canal and 110th Streets) is not the only place in the world. With enough alcohol, free food, the opportunity to verbally smack a few Republicans around, and with all my friends leaving town anyway, one really can have a good time in other places along the east coast. Next trip: Brooklyn.
Also, thanks to Ass for finding this timely link for us today. Have a look at those t-shirts at the bottom. Hmm…some of those designs look vaguely familiar.
On occasion, I find that life slows down a bit. On those sad, slow days when there’s no movie premiere party, the Simpsons rerun showing is a clip show and pre-production on my next film has halted ’cause I’m waiting to hear back from a co-writer, I can come dangerously close to experiencing boredom, or worse, full-blown ennui. In these rare cases, the last resort to avoid heat death of the universe that is my brain is that most desparate, contemptible activity: reading. Newspapers, magazines, even sometimes weblogs. And once, I read a book. I’ll be honest with you, dear loyal readers, it’s come to that.
In my usual, attention-grasping style, I’m going to share something silly that I read. I found it in that silliest of publications, The New York Times. Michael Jernofsky and Sarah Kershaw write:
Shawn O’Hara, national chairman of the Reform Party, which was founded by Ross Perot, sought to play down differences with Mr. Nader. He insisted that Mr. Nader’s views were not entirely out of synch with the party as currently constructed, at least on some issues, like their mutual opposition to world trade agreements and the United States military role in Iraq.
“We’ve moved to the center,” Mr. O’Hara said, while conceding that he once favored the execution of doctors and nurses who performed abortions but now embraced abortion rights as provided by federal law, as Mr. Nader does.
For those of you who are in the pitiable position of being bored enough to care about politics, the full article is available at the Times website. There. I feel much, much better now.
