Remember When Republicans Cared About The Kids?

And you thought only his humor was surreal,...

What California Was Really Like During Brown V. Board

NAT KING COLE - AFRAID OF THE DARK from Cardinal Releasing Ltd on Vimeo.

Some (many?) white people seem to be under the unfortunate modern day misconception that racism, even recently, was restricted to the South and blacks elsewhere were doing fine. A better way to think about it is - if this was how Nat King Cole was being treated in California as Brown V. Board was being passed - life for blacks who were less fortunate, in California and elsewhere, was regularly approaching a Hellish surrealism. But that's not what's important today. What's important today is this:

Conservatives insist the long history of white domestic terrorism, the unanswered crimes of all other kinds, or the general state of white American-bred mayhem blacks had (and have) to live with and under, are unworthy of respecting (as having had an effect on those targeted or their communities) so they are also unworthy of reparations. 

Yes, Sir, openly calling blacks crazy, instead, is their brilliant "colorblind" plan for reconciliation.

That's what's important.

All, a total break with the past,...

Your Truth

Are the Grammys even relevant to hip-hop?...the Grammys tends to be a measure of market success (which arguably doesn't necessarily equate to talent). Selling records isn't the same as making good hip-hop and Macklmeore's sickly sweet 'hip-pop' fits straight into the mould of easily digestible rap lyrics.

The juxtaposition of The Heist and Good Kid, M.A.A.D City exposed to an almost surrealistic level that hop-hop and the Grammys aren't relevant to each other. You'd think anyone evaluating Best Rap Album would be able to see how grossly different these albums are - and why the former simply doesn't cut it. But instead of hating Macklemore and hating the Grammys - I find it easier to simple not acknowledge either.

There's A Big Ol' World Out There (& It's Nutty As Fuck)

Ladies And Gentlemen - The American Vladimir Putin

Having a black girl serving his coffee is enough to raise questions in some quarters, but I'm more concerned he's not much of a planner:

Taking a cup of coffee with you into the water?

And what is it about politicians doing surreal ads by large bodies of water?

I stared back at this motherfucker for days,....

Surreal Misunderstandings Are The Ones That Matter,...

This is another outstanding radio episode of Joe Frank, though Trooper York would swear it's he and I having a conversation:

  O.J. Valet 

 He's such a liar. 

 We talk about his Ann situation all-the-time and it goes nothin' like that,...

 

Hanging Out, Going To The Movies, Looking At Girls,...

 

I Have No Idea What Hippies Were Rebelling Against (When They Had Drugs For Great Moments Like This)

Try to imagine her as the "girl of the past" in Stevie Wonder's Too High:

Post-modern overdosing, making the stomach squeal, knowing it has to come out.

Hey, Lawrence Welk started it! Consider it payback - I never got a warning on where that "modern spiritual" was going or coming from - but I do remember the claustrophobia of Lawrence Welk's (and Billy Graham's) era - I was born in 1961 - so it's not that weird for me to see it today as who we are, even though it can be kinda surreal, considering who are are NOW:

                                          Some bad stuff's gotten mixed up with the good.

According to Wikipedia, "despite the emergence of rock and roll, 'Calcutta' reached number 1 on the U.S. pop charts in 1961; it was recorded in only one take. The tune knocked the Shirelles' 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' out of the #1 position, and it kept the Miracles' 'Shop Around' from becoming the group's first #1 hit, holding their recording at #2."

                    Here comes the groaning, and then the churning, twisting pain from below.

For a number of reasons (One take?) I would've thought they've gotta be high! O.K., maybe not:

Better lay down for a while, fast, before any loss of equilibrium.

Remember screaming, "Mama, there's black people on TV!"? Incredible. 

And no wonder there could ever be a Lawrence/Smoky competition when - if you consider what Welk was selling - The Miracles were practically pushing the same conservative product, just with crazy choreography. 

Too late - running for the toilet - because here it comes!   

Alright, try this riff - and check the Quentin Tarentino impression:

In the first Welk video, at the top, that guy later becomes Stevie Wonder's widowed drug addict, and he's lamenting having married the dead girl he now watches himself singing with in old videos, the bitter result of having naively taken his momma's advice to "shop around".

Pretty good, huh?

Gagging now, tasting it, drinking a little so as not to forget.

Kind of an Amy Winehouse thing, but from the other fruitcake's point of view. Maybe add in a cautionary tale-type message, like if you don't save your money - and you don't die of drugs tomorrow - you won't have enough. Or something.

I don't know. What do you think?

Better wait - the dry heaves haven't ended.

Whatever it is: BAM! That could be a TV show! (I kid.)

Alright, splash the face with water. Wash the mouth. Comb the hair.

Silly mortals. We Americans have come a long way, and - because we're essentially the world's guinea pigs for crawling into the unknown - I've come to the conclusion that we're going to always be waaay ahead of the pack. I know it's dangerous but I've been thinking, and - while being born still isn't the big event that sends chills of joy down my spine - I have to admit, despite my complaints, I'm not bothered by the times I've been living through.

I mean, I got here after garters and before AIDS - lucky,...:

Adjust the tie - wipe the brow again - try to look presentable.

In considering our times, I also have reached the conclusion that we - the Americans - haven't been around long enough to be labeled "evil" yet. Compared to others, we were never a bad people, just a little crazy and impulsive, and to suggest otherwise is a lie. Whoever it is or was saying it, it's a lie:

Walk out, elegantly glide to a back room, and let the head hit the pillow with a "thud".

I, for one, will never be ashamed of who we've been.

It'll be fine later, but for now, just sleep whatever it is off,...

 

Commie Kid Stuff: Animated Soviet Propaganda

Tie Up Your Boobs (We're All Going To Die)

Scientists discover ‘real-world’ ecstasy use is more dangerous than lab tests:

For a glimpse into real-world drug use, Australian researchers went to parties where people were using a drug known as ecstasy - and discovered that users' brains were at far more risk from the drug than anyone had suspected.

The researchers also found that ecstasy pills often contain a variety of other drugs.

Jim Carrey Got a Really Stupid Haircut:

Jim Carrey, that nearly forgotten relic of the '90s, tried to improve his image and box office relevance by getting himself a new haircut. It's not working.

Carrey's wide mohawk is not the sort of haircut that an adult Canadian should be sporting, at least not one like Jim Carrey.

Well, now that he's done killing babies with Jenny McCarthy, maybe it's the best he can do,...

John Lennon's letters to be published by Little, Brown:

The letters of John Lennon will be published in October 2012 by Little, Brown, the publisher announced Friday. "The Lennon Letters" have been compiled in cooperation with Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow. It's the first time she has given permission for a selection of his letters to be published.

Editing the book and writing its introduction is Hunter Davies, the official Beatles biographer, who has tapped Ono's own archives as well as tracked down correspondence from Lennon that is in the hands of collectors, dealers and the original intended recipients.

In the release about "The Lennon Letters," the publisher points out that Lennon, who died in 1980, never had a chance to convert to email.

Also, there's one letter already out there, and a Beatle business book on the way.

Monty Python? Most of the time it wasn't funny, says Terry Jones:

"Some burst out laughing at the mere mention of a dead parrot. Others find Monty Python’s surreal humour merely, well, silly.

But now those who have never quite got the joke have found an ally in the shape of one of the stars behind the cult comedy.

Terry Jones has confessed that he ‘only occasionally found Python funny’.

Jones, 69, added: ‘I used to watch in trepidation at things that didn’t work wondering if no one would laugh.’

When asked if it was a ‘cop out’ to fill in the gaps between comedy sketches with cartoons, he admitted: ‘Yes.'"

Theatre Review: We're All Going To Die!:

The perky refrains in the freaky existential cabaret written and performed by the playwright Young Jean Lee are probably not going to be squeaked out by Britney Spears, wailed by Mariah Carey or even bellowed by the freak-flag-waving Lady Gaga anytime soon.

And all I can say is "Thank goodness for that!"

Stop Talking About Civil War (And It Won't Start)

The timing couldn't be better:

It was just the day before yesterday, as we were talking to a reader, that we mentioned it's only the Democrats who are constantly bringing up the specter of civil war - which the reader, a Democrat, said was "so far beyond hyperbole as to be surreal."

Well, today, the AP has presented us with this exchange:

It's the tea party world. But not everyone is buying their vision.

Some residents, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer and even some Republican lawmakers say the bills are making Montana into a laughingstock. And, they say, the push to nullify federal laws could be dangerous.

"We are the United States of America," said Schweitzer. "This talk of nullifying is pretty toxic talk. That led to the Civil War."

A tea party lawmaker said raising the specter of a civil war is plain old malarkey.

"Nullification is not about splitting this union apart," freshman Rep. Derek Skees said. "Nullification is just one more way for us to tell the federal government: 'That is not right."

So, what's really "surreal" out there? What's surreal is how Democrats appear to have a passive/aggressive death wish for themselves and/or this country if they can't get their way, that's what's surreal.

Look, here's an idea for all you Democrats/Leftists/Progressives/Liberals - whatever you guys think you are or are calling yourselves these days:

Why don't you try coming up with some new ideas and/or talking points so your every utterance and behavior isn't so completely predictable that you make even your defenders look like they don't know what they're talking about, huh?

Really - it's worth a shot - just not in a civil war, O.K.?

This Is A Picture Of Two Women Acting Normal

Here's a question:

If, as we've been told, we've been wrong, wrong, wrong, and there are no cults (or even cultish thinking) within what's been called "mainstream" society, why is the Sundance Film Festival all of a sudden filled with movies about the phenomena?

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's little sister, Elizabeth, starred in Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, a nonlinear thriller about a traumatized, voluptuous escapee from a Manson-esque sex cult. It was picked up by Fox Searchlight,...

The boom-time mania on the ground was matched by a different kind of collective lunacy on screen. Cults and other spiritual rebellions were a big theme this year — not only in Martha and the Lost-like Sound but also in Vera Farmiga's crowd-pleasing women's picture Higher Ground, Kevin Smith's scattered genre-fuck Red State, and Miranda July's spacey-comic The Future, which, like Jeff Nichols' humorless Take Shelter, turns the angst of frustrated 35-year-olds into fodder for surrealism.

When asked about this mystical trend at a Q&A for Sound, Marling noted that "a cult is an instant way to find meaning." Or, to quote the narrator of The Woods, Matthew Lessner's psychedelic satire of hipster back-to-nature idealism, "It felt good to believe in something other than myself. And I figured, at the very least, it would make for a killer blog entry." The only Sundance film about cults that could actually have life as a cult film, The Woods has the greatest comic insight into why our current culture might inspire a search for meaning in the first place.

So what's our answer to the question?

Y'all are in major denial.

Really: Is There Anything Better Than Politics?

I've been avoiding South Carolina's whole "Alvin Greene thing" because I've heard his story before somewhere:

A black guy that nobody knows anything about, somehow, gets swept into high office.

Sound familiar?

But, boy, was I missing out on this one! You know how, now, even liberals are saying Obama's stupid? No, no, no, no, no! If Obama's stupid, then this chucklehead's really stupid! No, I mean, really, really, really stupid! This guy's so stupid I'm starting to wonder where the Democrats go shopping for stupid! Wherever it is, even they want to take him back!

But they can't, because (second time being the charm) just like with the p-resident, the Democrats didn't check Greene's credentials (he might be a felon) and the media also didn't vett him (great job, again, guys!) so he ran in the contest, and this retard won - that's two in a row! - and this time with 60% of the vote. Which is great for when we want to, eventually, sit down with the Dems (Dims?) and have one of those "teachable moments" they're always going on about. All that's missing, to make the lesson complete, is finding out who's in this guy's lefty NewAge cult following. Is it Mark Morford? Or maybe Deepak Chopra? I don't know but I do know they're out there somewhere:

After electing "The One", they're probably celebrating a "Number Two" with Oprah.

And Now: A Message From Our Sponsor

NewAge Is (Finally) Getting Off The Ground

It's about time.

I was just mentioning, yesterday, that there aren't enough documentaries on NewAge. I've, also, covered a bunch of the subjects in this movie - Transcendental Meditation, the Maharishi's death, Yogic "Flying", the embarrassment in Germany as TM's crew of weirdoes got booed for spouting Nazi slogans - but I didn't ever think anyone was actually filming it all.

Well, somebody was, and the resulting movie is called David Wants To Fly - a title which is close enough to Werner Herzog's Little Deiter Wants To Fly that, like that film, it's sure to provide more-than-a-few chuckles amid some really surreal NewAge moments.

So, buckle-up meditators, and hop/fly on down to the local cineplex - these are your people, in all their twisted glory, revealed by someone who came to you for "help".

I'll be the black guy in the back of the joint, laughing my ass off at all you paid-up (and life-long) "searchers", only now discovering the truth:

"Gurus don't sell their knowledge, they share it."

[Click the tags, below, to know more about the lunacy of TM.]

Left Vs. Right: The Dark, Dark Hours (Now)

Ha! James Dean and Ronald Reagan, discovered together in a TV show, still acting as representative icons of their generation's political outlooks.

Dean's all wigged-out cool, once he tastes a little power, while Reagan fights to stay comically upright. Hell, the kid's even demanding free healthcare for his friends!

Don't tell me life ain't stranger than fiction.

It just is.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part (One Of Them)

Ah yes, this sounds all too familiar:

"Her daughter disowned her as a devil-worshiping witch. Police didn't believe her allegations of brainwashing. And social services said they weren't equipped to deal with a cult."

Those first important days, when you're frantically trying to get help for your loved one and are, instead, forced to realize you've entered one of society's Twilight Zones, a gray cloudy area where speaking openly of cults and cultism are just as likely to get you deemed dangerous or crazy - or dangerously crazy - depending on how accepting of cultism's tenets your newly self-appointed interrogators are. And so, while you're coping with "you're just saying that because you don't believe" or "9-1-1 is a joke", events are allowed to proceed on their disastrous course, partially because you - the only advocate your mixed-up loved one has - have now been given reason to fear for your own safety and mental well-being. Meanwhile, the believers have gotten away with all you love and more. Inhale of it deeply, children, taste it like war. You'll never forget it:

"But Seeta Newton still would not let her grandson Javon go. Her dreams pushed her to hold on."

I've written too many times how the power of dreams undermine surrender. And can wreck whole days. Hell, the cult experience starts off surreal, which gets you to screaming in your sleep, and then becomes a mind-numbing day-to-day Banality of Evil kind of thing, much like watching a Nazi movie in slow motion; so, no, while they may subside for a while, dreams don't "move on", not when this type of belief is such a huge part of the zeitgeist.

"Two years later, police would find the petite young woman in a New York apartment, first mistaking her for a catatonic little girl. The mummified remains of her baby - starved because he wouldn't say 'amen' - would turn up in an old man's Pennsylvania shed, packed carefully in a green suitcase among mothballs and fabric-softener sheets."

Well, Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! The truth comes out and everybody swings into action, the publicity apparatus coiling around the latest bad news as it refused to do of the warnings that could've prevented them. Not a happy day, by any stretch, because this is now about facing the dead, and/or divorce, and/or financial ruin, or any number of other severe severings. I don't think dreams end, about anything of that magnitude, until something is somehow resolved. That's my experience anyway.

"It would take another two years for justice to be done."

Yea, like I said, it's all too familiar.

An Obama Supporter Speaks (After His Guy Won)

"It doesn't take much blasphemy to note how all religions are, across the board, brazen, synthetic freakshows, far stranger and more surreal in their oddball accumulation of fetishes and rituals than anything your average agnostic, atheist or Burning Man devotee could come up with in her happiest LSD-soaked dreamgasm. You ever been to a Catholic mass? A Mormon temple? A mosque? Disneyland on acid, people. And not in the good way.

Perhaps this is exactly what scares the rigid, the fearful, the conservative mindset most of all. If you really acknowledge our collective weirdness, if you look closely at what makes up the haphazard human spectacle, you are left with one overwhelming and totally awesome conclusion: If God really does exist, She is one deviously kinky, delightfully insane barrel of monkeys indeed."

-- Mark Morford, finally writing something I kinda-sorta agree with - though I wouldn't call insanity (or this self-proclaimed Zen Master's previous insane proclamations) "delightful" - in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Go On: You Need It

Never Heard Of It

"There is still such a thing, after all, as Google."

-- Victor Davis Hanson, on the "surreal" way Obama is reneging on the foolish campaign promises the angry Left (and the press) elected him to implement - and how the angry Left (and - *sigh* - members of the press) can discover why, exactly, Obama may be doing that - in The National Review.

Before you rebels go doing the "hard work" of searching on Google for information (without, presumably, knowing what you're looking for) TMR is glad to start you off by showing you the equally "surreal" upside-down nature of your present political assumptions here, here, and here.

Sorry, Folks, but you'll have to crawl through the rest of the site - and your mind - to discover more (about how you've been fooled) on your own:

I be too biz-zy coming up with shit like biz-zy.