I have one I picked up somewhere along the line, but I've never really learned how to play it. I do own (and play) a mountain dulcimer and various guitars and basses. Think that's excessive? At one point I owned over two dozen instruments, and still have around a dozen. I keep the string companies in business.
At this point, I'm trying to line up who should get them when I'm no longer around to play them anymore. I'm leaning towards contacting a school or performing arts academy so they can go to students who can't afford instruments of their own. Music has served me well all my life, and I'd love to pass that along.
As his crowds get smaller and his poll numbers get worse, Trump will start veering in this direction. I wouldn't be surprised if he starts blurting out racial slurs or repeating some of Hitler's speeches verbatim.
I don't think his poll numbers will get much worse, he's a high-floor low-ceiling kinda guy, the 45% percent of the voters who are with him are with him til the bitter end.
BTW I saw some Steve Kornacki on YouTube talking about the Gender Gap, in Wisconsin Trump wins men by 20 points, Harris wins women by 28 points. Most states aren't anywhere near that. It's a wonder we can even live together.
Vance was in Kenosha yesterday, getting an endorsement from the Milwaukee police union. If it's the Milwaukee cops who are endorsing him, why do the event in Kenosha? I think we all know, right?
In spite of being labeled, the cups can’t be empty — that would be weird. It would imply that JD can’t fill them all! A feat he did accomplish, as you’ll note.
Jokes aside, they have at their fingertips the makings of an American herrenvolk. I hear you asking, what can I do to help? Simple:
(1) Use a straw to draw the contents into your mouth. Don’t swallow!
(2) Summon your wife, insert the straw, blow hard.
(3) Ask JD to refill the cup. You’ll find him at a rally, or later (God willing) at the White House.
Now you’re thinking, surely creating a master race would require Trump’s seed. Correct. Vance’s seed is no substitute. Why bother creating little Vances?
The miracle is this: God, full of grace, transubstantiates Vance’s seed into that of Trump. (This miracle has the secondary effect of making Vance good for something.)
Given Trump’s deteriorating mental state, he’ll lose track of his jokes a few words short of the punchline and fill in the gaps with random “facts” about immigrant caravans and black jobs.
As I've said, that's how his Hannibal Lecter material goes down. He bungles the setup having to do with immigration and insane asylums. He's taken to explaining the bit and complaining that the media makes it sound crazy.
Remember when they were trying to make "The migrants are cannibals" a thing? They found out some of them were from Haiti, so cannibals and voodoo! I think that's when he started with the Hannibal Lecter thing, and then - as he does - when he got mocked for it he doubled down on it, now the whole bit is "I say 'the late great Hannibal Lecter' and the media freaks out'" it's taken on a life of its own.
So. The mystery of the cycle: when the c*nt there says something weird, is he joking? Pandering? Or showing cognitive decline?
That is, mystery to me, no importance to the establishment news media.
Props to Roy for the fake blood. Not going to say there was anything, well, weird to the alleged assassination attempt but Trump the Saturday before the RNC convention and a 78 year old with a flesh wound fully healed inside a week? The stench…
Someone at the FBI knows something. But they're not talking until after the election. Unless it's time for the Republicans to enjoy that hotdish known as "October Surprise."
One expects bullshit from the media but covering up or supporting one re the details of the shooting including Trump’s actual injury and what happened to all the other victims is beyond amazing.
Who knows? Bunch of reporters are currently collecting insider quotes for their post-game analysis books, some staffers documemting whatever they can get their hands on. I'd love to read Joe Biden's book. A man with no fucks left to give always has good stories. Kind ofma shame Pelosi already wrote her book. Saw her on PBS getting interviewed up in the booth during the convention. Talk about no fucks left to give. While answering softball questions she 1) gave a 5 sentence masterclass on how to run and win elections, and 2) in response to a question about The Thing (see LGM) said when Joe told he he could win this she replied "fine, just show me the path to winning. How do you win this?"
I remember Joe Pesci played it this way in Goodfellas. You're crazy, maybe you're making a joke, maybe you're gonna put a bullet in someone's head, who knows? Keeps everyone on edge.
Frighteningly plausible, and a species of something that so funny you can barely laugh at it--you just look and admire. What is it about watching a comedian bomb that's so gratifying? Albert Brooks perfected the awfulness, but Lenny Bruce got their first with the "Palladium" routine, about the collapsing yocksmith who tries ethnic slurs when nothing else works ("Fuck the Irish, how 'bout that?") Anyway, really well done!
"Taking it on the road"? I can't take it anymore! Sodomites!
But seriously, folks, I switched over to Faux during the DNC to see how they were covering things last night. Hannity was there with the former governor of West Virginia talking about how Democrats do or don't support infanticide on the left side, while a window on the right showed protests outside the convention.
The first night when the personal abortion ban stories were being shared, Fox showed none of it. Nice white couples telling horror stories about how the wife nearly died and the unborn was effectively dead, well, that might actually resonate with someone dumb enough to watch Hannity after all.
But I remain curious about the avid Trump supporters. That there is anyone at this point who identifies with MAGA, after all we've been through, and with what we see and hear now, more than baffles me. How deep is their fear?
I work with a bunch of these people. They are chronically afraid. If their fears were audible, the alarms would deafen the world. Perhaps that is the answer. Even the non-MAGA folks I work with have an ambient, simmering fear and constant stress. At any moment they may coalesce in a mob and demand a sacrifice, bury slaves in the agora to save us from disaster.
We are baboons with an imagination. That is why we fester and often fall into magical thinking for answers answering nothing.
In the margins and spare moments, does anyone commit to forced marches through the latest science or revised history to understand what is really going on?
The cosmological constant may not be a constant. Evidence now suggests the expanding universe may be slowing, and thus there is less dark energy and it is more like other energy we know about.
If for no other reason, these seemingly remote bits of information matter as metaphors. But if we are truly ambitious, we can push through and consider how emergent complexity is not just cool but soothing.
Swarm intelligence and the math of how a tree branch and our nervous system grow shield me from worries of homelessness in my old age.
If Sisyphus can be happy with his slope and rock, why can't we enjoy both our obligations and our marginal freedoms? Perhaps something will occur to us, and we will see a way to move away, disobey, and even remake our social relations.
It will occur to us what we really owe one another and what can be written off, and then we may get all of it back somehow by the magic of bio-engineering or through the mysteries of quantum entanglement and wormholes.
Some wit pointed out that if you just add a counter that increments by 1 every time the stone reaches the top, suddenly it's a video game and Sisyphus will happily spend hours at it.
I think it's all fear. It's entirely appeal to territorialism, aggression, the Other coming to take your property, your family, your life. Dad, for example, is apparently shit-scared of Harris becoming President. He's SURE the country will be destroyed and his children will be walking around dressed in barrels while Chinese occupation forces laugh at us. Or something; it's never specific.
We were arguing about Walz's retirement from the ANG and he said something about the timing being suspicious or some such and I said "That's conspiracy thinking" and he got insulted, but it IS. It's all the GOP and their media is - fear, hate, conspiracy, Kulturkampf 24/7.
They're also trying to get something started about how "Walz lied about his military service" nothing specific about what the "lie" is supposed to be, I suppose with the true believers, you no longer even need to pretend you have facts. How this gains any traction beyond the true believers, I don't know.
It worked before. Does anyone remember what the Swift Boats for Truth claimed about Kerry? The ratfuckers acted like they'd found the Philosopher's Stone of ratfucking. Take a lie, put it in a box with a label on it, give the box to a guy you pay to lie about what's in it, and viola! Truthiness. Close enough.
Right, he said "weapons of war, that I carried in war" about assault rifles, saying they shouldn't be on the streets. His office corrected the statement right away, he hasn't repeated it. Stand him up against the wall and bring in the firing squad.
"That there is anyone at this point who identifies with MAGA, after all we've been through, and with what we see and hear now, more than baffles me."
Bigotry, sexism and entitlement. They've been told America was the greatest country ever, and the earth revolves around them.
Now they're facing loss of status, loss of control and loss of energy (they're the ones buying quack TV "supplements"). Afraid of leaving everything "they" worked for to their multicultural grandchildren.
I live just up the road from Gary's. I'd only been in there once, back when it was Randy's Radiator Shop. They put a water pump on an old Dodge pickup I had.. That truck, Jesus. It had that old slant six in it. That thing always started. Brakes weren't worth a shit though. Meemaw learned that the hard way.
The New York Times encourages us to view this cartoon after reading Hillbilly Elegy to gain an understanding of our backwoods citizens beyond the Hudson.
JD Vance should lean into this cartoon image. Maybe also carry a jug with a corncob stopper labeled “XXX” or “Corn Squeezins.”
Some More News had a long explainer about why conservatives aren't funny. Imagine a comic doing his act in front of one audience, nobody laughs and most get up and walk out in disgust. Then he goes to a second audience, and says, "Hey, didja notice how those people over there didn't get the joke? HILARIOUS, huh?"
It says here (here being the Internet) that Brainworms is gonna drop out Friday and endorse Trump. Thus dies a real grassroots campaign. We mourn you Brainworms, you were our last best hope.
Any time I think of Just Dickish Vance, I'm going to think of him barefoot, wearing overalls and a big black hillbilly hat, carrying a banjo.
[shakes head] Always with the banjo...why didn't I stick with the mandolin?
Cause those strings r tiny…
True enough, but the whole instrument is subcompact – much easier to carry on.*
*Remind me to write that screenplay. You know, the one Gerry Thomas is signed on for: "Carry On Luggage".
I got no room to talk, really. I own one of each.
No ukulele?
I have one I picked up somewhere along the line, but I've never really learned how to play it. I do own (and play) a mountain dulcimer and various guitars and basses. Think that's excessive? At one point I owned over two dozen instruments, and still have around a dozen. I keep the string companies in business.
At this point, I'm trying to line up who should get them when I'm no longer around to play them anymore. I'm leaning towards contacting a school or performing arts academy so they can go to students who can't afford instruments of their own. Music has served me well all my life, and I'd love to pass that along.
Good banjos are very expensive. I like to look at em.
Vance can afford the best, unlike a real hillbilly.
Perfect! Just needs the cork from a jug of Mountain Dew shooting like a bullet through his front hat brim.
I have no doubt Trump will go “full hoor” for real before Nov. 5.
As his crowds get smaller and his poll numbers get worse, Trump will start veering in this direction. I wouldn't be surprised if he starts blurting out racial slurs or repeating some of Hitler's speeches verbatim.
I don't think his poll numbers will get much worse, he's a high-floor low-ceiling kinda guy, the 45% percent of the voters who are with him are with him til the bitter end.
BTW I saw some Steve Kornacki on YouTube talking about the Gender Gap, in Wisconsin Trump wins men by 20 points, Harris wins women by 28 points. Most states aren't anywhere near that. It's a wonder we can even live together.
It seems like we do, but we don't. Men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. That's why Mars needs women.
Unless Elon gets there first and hangs up his "He-Man Woman-Haters Club" sign.
Mars can have Eloon. But No Backs!
Vance was in Kenosha yesterday, getting an endorsement from the Milwaukee police union. If it's the Milwaukee cops who are endorsing him, why do the event in Kenosha? I think we all know, right?
Good one!
Racial slurs, yes, but he couldn't memorize "Lafayette, we are here!" let alone anyone's speech--even Hitler's--if his life depended on it.
Frank Reynolds without the likability and charisma.
Or worse.
I thought it was now J[ar full of] D[ick-juice] Vance….
I’ve been going with JD Jizzcup, but the possibilities are endless.
Jar, Jar; Vance!
Edgy!
Nobody picked up on my comedic Notes about the jars. I should have put em here.
Transubstantiation is a big word, but I used it in a helpful sentence.
In spite of being labeled, the cups can’t be empty — that would be weird. It would imply that JD can’t fill them all! A feat he did accomplish, as you’ll note.
Jokes aside, they have at their fingertips the makings of an American herrenvolk. I hear you asking, what can I do to help? Simple:
(1) Use a straw to draw the contents into your mouth. Don’t swallow!
(2) Summon your wife, insert the straw, blow hard.
(3) Ask JD to refill the cup. You’ll find him at a rally, or later (God willing) at the White House.
Now you’re thinking, surely creating a master race would require Trump’s seed. Correct. Vance’s seed is no substitute. Why bother creating little Vances?
The miracle is this: God, full of grace, transubstantiates Vance’s seed into that of Trump. (This miracle has the secondary effect of making Vance good for something.)
Well, I'm thoroughly nauseated, now. 🤢
I am sorry, my friend. God works in nauseating ways.
Given Trump’s deteriorating mental state, he’ll lose track of his jokes a few words short of the punchline and fill in the gaps with random “facts” about immigrant caravans and black jobs.
As I've said, that's how his Hannibal Lecter material goes down. He bungles the setup having to do with immigration and insane asylums. He's taken to explaining the bit and complaining that the media makes it sound crazy.
Remember when they were trying to make "The migrants are cannibals" a thing? They found out some of them were from Haiti, so cannibals and voodoo! I think that's when he started with the Hannibal Lecter thing, and then - as he does - when he got mocked for it he doubled down on it, now the whole bit is "I say 'the late great Hannibal Lecter' and the media freaks out'" it's taken on a life of its own.
The word "n****r" is one word his deteriorating brain has chosen to retain. It will come flying out by October.
For the first time, I find myself hoping someone would start yelling it
Uhhhh….
So. The mystery of the cycle: when the c*nt there says something weird, is he joking? Pandering? Or showing cognitive decline?
That is, mystery to me, no importance to the establishment news media.
Props to Roy for the fake blood. Not going to say there was anything, well, weird to the alleged assassination attempt but Trump the Saturday before the RNC convention and a 78 year old with a flesh wound fully healed inside a week? The stench…
Someone at the FBI knows something. But they're not talking until after the election. Unless it's time for the Republicans to enjoy that hotdish known as "October Surprise."
For sure.
One expects bullshit from the media but covering up or supporting one re the details of the shooting including Trump’s actual injury and what happened to all the other victims is beyond amazing.
There are going to be so many books written in 2025. So many.
Any worth reading?
Who knows? Bunch of reporters are currently collecting insider quotes for their post-game analysis books, some staffers documemting whatever they can get their hands on. I'd love to read Joe Biden's book. A man with no fucks left to give always has good stories. Kind ofma shame Pelosi already wrote her book. Saw her on PBS getting interviewed up in the booth during the convention. Talk about no fucks left to give. While answering softball questions she 1) gave a 5 sentence masterclass on how to run and win elections, and 2) in response to a question about The Thing (see LGM) said when Joe told he he could win this she replied "fine, just show me the path to winning. How do you win this?"
I remember Joe Pesci played it this way in Goodfellas. You're crazy, maybe you're making a joke, maybe you're gonna put a bullet in someone's head, who knows? Keeps everyone on edge.
Why, whatever are you talking about.
Just, a vibe? What a dotard ponders?
Frighteningly plausible, and a species of something that so funny you can barely laugh at it--you just look and admire. What is it about watching a comedian bomb that's so gratifying? Albert Brooks perfected the awfulness, but Lenny Bruce got their first with the "Palladium" routine, about the collapsing yocksmith who tries ethnic slurs when nothing else works ("Fuck the Irish, how 'bout that?") Anyway, really well done!
"I think we have a wig Yma Sumac left here..."
"Taking it on the road"? I can't take it anymore! Sodomites!
But seriously, folks, I switched over to Faux during the DNC to see how they were covering things last night. Hannity was there with the former governor of West Virginia talking about how Democrats do or don't support infanticide on the left side, while a window on the right showed protests outside the convention.
The first night when the personal abortion ban stories were being shared, Fox showed none of it. Nice white couples telling horror stories about how the wife nearly died and the unborn was effectively dead, well, that might actually resonate with someone dumb enough to watch Hannity after all.
But I remain curious about the avid Trump supporters. That there is anyone at this point who identifies with MAGA, after all we've been through, and with what we see and hear now, more than baffles me. How deep is their fear?
I work with a bunch of these people. They are chronically afraid. If their fears were audible, the alarms would deafen the world. Perhaps that is the answer. Even the non-MAGA folks I work with have an ambient, simmering fear and constant stress. At any moment they may coalesce in a mob and demand a sacrifice, bury slaves in the agora to save us from disaster.
We are baboons with an imagination. That is why we fester and often fall into magical thinking for answers answering nothing.
In the margins and spare moments, does anyone commit to forced marches through the latest science or revised history to understand what is really going on?
The cosmological constant may not be a constant. Evidence now suggests the expanding universe may be slowing, and thus there is less dark energy and it is more like other energy we know about.
If for no other reason, these seemingly remote bits of information matter as metaphors. But if we are truly ambitious, we can push through and consider how emergent complexity is not just cool but soothing.
Swarm intelligence and the math of how a tree branch and our nervous system grow shield me from worries of homelessness in my old age.
If Sisyphus can be happy with his slope and rock, why can't we enjoy both our obligations and our marginal freedoms? Perhaps something will occur to us, and we will see a way to move away, disobey, and even remake our social relations.
It will occur to us what we really owe one another and what can be written off, and then we may get all of it back somehow by the magic of bio-engineering or through the mysteries of quantum entanglement and wormholes.
Now I have to go to work.
Yoicks. Both too much and yet still not enough information.
2 marks for slope and rock...
Get back to us after the shift, 'k?
"If Sisyphus can be happy with his slope and rock"
Wait a minute, he learned to like it?
I’m told we must assume it.
Yeah whatshisname the philosopher said! But I guess he never had a proper job.
Ancient Greek childless cat guy.
No, Camus
No, Camus: https://www.peabodylibrary.org/freeforall/?p=6998
Poor Sisyphus, worried some Goddamn migrant will come and take his job. "They're takin' all the Greek jobs!"
He stays at it because of the benefits package.
Some wit pointed out that if you just add a counter that increments by 1 every time the stone reaches the top, suddenly it's a video game and Sisyphus will happily spend hours at it.
Two marks. Story of my life.
I imagine Bob Newhart doing this as one of his phone monologues.
Blah! Work! A plague on society!
I think it's all fear. It's entirely appeal to territorialism, aggression, the Other coming to take your property, your family, your life. Dad, for example, is apparently shit-scared of Harris becoming President. He's SURE the country will be destroyed and his children will be walking around dressed in barrels while Chinese occupation forces laugh at us. Or something; it's never specific.
We were arguing about Walz's retirement from the ANG and he said something about the timing being suspicious or some such and I said "That's conspiracy thinking" and he got insulted, but it IS. It's all the GOP and their media is - fear, hate, conspiracy, Kulturkampf 24/7.
They're also trying to get something started about how "Walz lied about his military service" nothing specific about what the "lie" is supposed to be, I suppose with the true believers, you no longer even need to pretend you have facts. How this gains any traction beyond the true believers, I don't know.
It worked before. Does anyone remember what the Swift Boats for Truth claimed about Kerry? The ratfuckers acted like they'd found the Philosopher's Stone of ratfucking. Take a lie, put it in a box with a label on it, give the box to a guy you pay to lie about what's in it, and viola! Truthiness. Close enough.
Anything will work on some people, a thing like this won't work on most people. Someone should find a more concise and poetic way to put that.
Something about "carrying a gun into battle".
Right, he said "weapons of war, that I carried in war" about assault rifles, saying they shouldn't be on the streets. His office corrected the statement right away, he hasn't repeated it. Stand him up against the wall and bring in the firing squad.
"That there is anyone at this point who identifies with MAGA, after all we've been through, and with what we see and hear now, more than baffles me."
Bigotry, sexism and entitlement. They've been told America was the greatest country ever, and the earth revolves around them.
Now they're facing loss of status, loss of control and loss of energy (they're the ones buying quack TV "supplements"). Afraid of leaving everything "they" worked for to their multicultural grandchildren.
U know who else is trying to prop up a flagging reputation with a comedy tour? Joe Rogan — and it’s going just about as well, I hear.
I might trade my reputation for a billion-dollar contract. Life isn't fair.
I live just up the road from Gary's. I'd only been in there once, back when it was Randy's Radiator Shop. They put a water pump on an old Dodge pickup I had.. That truck, Jesus. It had that old slant six in it. That thing always started. Brakes weren't worth a shit though. Meemaw learned that the hard way.
JD Vance in Warner Brothers’ “Hillbilly Hare” is inspired.
Never forget what they took from you! https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/backwoodsman-scrambles-to-protect-his-land-stock-video-footage/862517402
The New York Times encourages us to view this cartoon after reading Hillbilly Elegy to gain an understanding of our backwoods citizens beyond the Hudson.
JD Vance should lean into this cartoon image. Maybe also carry a jug with a corncob stopper labeled “XXX” or “Corn Squeezins.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg9uU-PBqbA
Advice to the Dems from "Hillbilly Hare":
"Grab a fencepost, hold it tight
Whomp your partner with all your might!
Hit 'im in the shin, hit 'im in the head,
Hit 'im agin', the critter ain't dead!"
"your partner" obv. the GOP, natch
Well, gosh if that didn't predict how precisely the GOP would follow the caller.
"Wallow around in the ol' pig pen.
Wallow some more, y'all know how..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuaojjCV1Tk
I am not above obvious jokes.
Rep. Jim Jordan : Real America misses President Trump.
Me : I heard they just barely nicked him.
America misses President Trump, but they're willing to try again.
Here, this is better, I think:
America misses President Trump, but we're willing to give it another shot
Some More News had a long explainer about why conservatives aren't funny. Imagine a comic doing his act in front of one audience, nobody laughs and most get up and walk out in disgust. Then he goes to a second audience, and says, "Hey, didja notice how those people over there didn't get the joke? HILARIOUS, huh?"
It says here (here being the Internet) that Brainworms is gonna drop out Friday and endorse Trump. Thus dies a real grassroots campaign. We mourn you Brainworms, you were our last best hope.
My mind went to "Brainworms > Guinea Worms" but then I also thought of the *anthrax* lurking among Brainworms' grassroots campaign.