Multi Medium

Thursday Monday Media Blogging

Because this is just too awesome to wait for Monday…

I’m not a huge Obama fan, but if this were an actual campaign video, I think I would be compelled to vote for him.

(from e.politics)

December 6th, 2007 at 09:39pm Posted by Eli

Huckabackscratching?

So I can’t help wondering: After the Huckster so selflessly came to Rudy’s defense on Judigate, will Rudy return the favor on the Wayne Dumond fiasco?

He could go on about how governing is a tough job and sometimes you make the wrong call, or about how us ignorant commoners don’t understand how little influence governors actually have over parole boards, or he could even fall back on his US Attorney background and explain how little concrete evidence there was to prove that Dumond was a serial rapist, and any governor with a conscience would have done the exact same thing.

Or he could be Law & Order Rudy and just tear Huck a new one. Kornacki (and others) suggest that Huckabee might be angling to be Rudy’s running mate – but does Rudy want Huckabee as his veep? It probably is the smart play, but that doesn’t mean Rudy will do it. I’m kinda hoping he picks Bernie Kerik…

December 6th, 2007 at 07:32pm Posted by Eli

More Fun With Savage

So it turns out that not only is Michael Savage completely batshit insane and almost certainly a Repressed Gay Man In Denial, but he is also quite possibly the worst writer on the planet:

I just read an old article in Salon about Michael Weiner (his real name) and it’s one of the saddest things you’ll ever read.

Mocked by his dad, rejected by his liberal friends, scorned by every university he applied to (for teaching positions) and racked by homosexual desires, Savage turned himself into this racist, xenophobic and homophobic monstrosity.

(…)

Here’s an excerpt from the Salon piece (bold added):

This maniacal tendency, and the roiling emotions that fueled it, were laid bare in “Vital Signs,” Michael Weiner’s first and only book of fiction, published in 1983. A collection of confessional, stream-of-consciousness stories, it follows the exploits of Samuel Trueblood, who just happens to be a 40-ish New York Jew, an herbalist and writer with a tumultuous personal life, a substantial assortment of inner demons and a bit of a Napoleon complex. “I am physically not tall, but my eyes burn with fire,” he states. “Two black fires of Hell.” Trueblood narrates a series of misadventures, from procuring an illegal backroom abortion for his fiancée to beating the stuffing out of an abusive cop.

Trueblood describes his life as one long search for inner peace. He blames much of his discontent on his “childhood beneath tyranny,” during which he was cowed by his bullying father. Trueblood describes how his father mocked him with “brutal jokes and chides, ‘gentle’ kidding: ‘You’re not a fag, are you Sam?’ the little man would say each time the boy dared wear a colorful shirt or flashy trousers.” Unable to shake his dead father’s disapproving influence, the adult Samuel is tortured by feelings of weakness and inadequacy. “I am filled with fears,” he admits, “nearly all the time feeling I am about to become totally insane.”

Even after moving to mellow Marin County, becoming a successful herbalist and starting a family, Trueblood remains plagued by his “underlying sadness.” Not even trusty passionfruit tea can bring him off this bummer. In one passage, he almost loses it in front of his wife and two young children:

“Inner voice screaming at me for years, first rational, then crazy, telling me to do mad things. Every form of relief tried, painting, psychotherapy, running, diet, vitamins, etc., etc. Almost uncontrollable now. Impulses to stab children, strangers, wife, self with scissors.”

Eventually, Trueblood seeks solace in chasing skirts. (Though he admits to being drawn to “masculine beauty,” he confides that “I choose to override my desires for men when they swell in me, waiting out the passions like a storm, below decks.”) While his wife stays home with the kids, he beds a young “cockswell” with a “dykish haircut” and skin “[s]ofter than that Northern Indian prostitute in Fiji whose covering was as soft as that of my own penis.” And so it goes for another 50 pages.

That last bold is mine. I mean, what the hell was that???

I thought Scooter Libby and Liz Cheney’s ventures into literature were bad, but Savage Weiner makes them sound like Jane Austen. Crikey.

December 6th, 2007 at 11:49am Posted by Eli

Woohoo.

My 100,000th visitor was someone from the Bronx, who was apparently looking for info on Iran.

Thanks, dude!

My 100,000th spam comment probably isn’t far behind.

December 6th, 2007 at 11:11am Posted by Eli

NYC Building Photoblogging

More building photos from NYC:

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The Empire State Building.

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Some other building.

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Other building from a different angle.

Pretty exciting stuff.

December 6th, 2007 at 07:56am Posted by Eli