Tag: politics

It Ain't Gonna Bend Itself: Bend the cost curve! All government-subsidized medical care is provided at Civil War technology levels. Additional centuries of progress may be purchased out-of-pocket. To motivate general fitness, make health insurance eligibility contingent on reaching the second stage of "Ninja Warrior." President Obama should wear a "No Fat Chicks" t-shirt in public at all times. Establish local "slug lane" registries for expensive MRI scans, allowing providers to shave costs by cramming three to four patients in the machines for each scan. Take advantage of powerful placebo effects by announcing the addition of low-cost placebos to every municipal water supply. Only, don't actually add the placebos. Just announce it, see? Wink, wink. Establish a national phone bank of Little League coaches who can be reached at any time of day to tell someone to either suck it up or walk it off. Reduce expensive "end of life" care by establishing a 100 percent inheritance tax for anyone who dies past the age of 75. Cut down on emergency room costs by installing restrictor plates on ambulances. Empower Surgeon General Regina Benjamin to declare martial law. (March 10, 2010)

Breaking News: Promising a "solid future for America," President Obama signed a $62.4 billion odd jobs bill this afternoon at a Rose Garden ceremony. The initiative provides a massive infusion to the struggling economy, for the purpose of painting fences, evening-out table legs and oiling the crap that needs to get oiled. "The cracks in our economy's foundation are troubling," Obama said, "but now they will be weed-free for the first time in months." Reactions on Capitol Hill were mixed. "I cannot condone this spending in a time of soaring deficits," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Budget Committee. "But the leaves in the Capitol gutters are like, totally turning black. It's nasty, and I'm not getting up at 8 a.m. on Sunday to handle that s***." More than $23 billion will go to the purchase of 3-day-old bagels and muffins, which will be exchanged for the stump pulling, shed builiding and screen-door hanging covered under the program. Around $20 billion goes to rail infrastructure and cars to transport workers across the country. And $19.4 billion is designated as "scratch money, for parts and hooch and whatnot." Combined with the recently passed whitewash tax credit, the total economic impact is estimated at $100 billion. The International Brotherhood of Hobos and Vagrants applauded the signing. "The devasating recession has deferred too many dreams," said IBHV President Patches Malone. "No longer will ditches go undug, nor holes unfilled. The promise of America is still strong. Uh, where's the nearest liquor store?" (February 2, 2010)

The LaRouchies are Back!: The LaRouchies are back! I don't know if you get them in other cities, but in D.C., every few months, you'll be leaving a subway station, and there it is: a sign about the New Deal. Or some kind of international financial system. Or Obama with a Hitler moustache. If you read more than two words of the sign, you will have a glossy-eyed kid moving in on you within five seconds. If you don't get out of there within 10 seconds of his pitch, you will be secretly tagged as a "person of interest," and later that evening a van will scoop you off the street. You will then be taken to the secret LaRouche reprogramming facility, where promising young people are broken down (through repeated beatings with unsold copies of "Children of Satan") and convinced that the best way to change the evils of the world is by standing near public transportation and agressively yelling about international finance. And maybe, if you are a lucky, attractive female, you will be chose as the vessel for the seed of the Great Leader, and through you the prophecy shall be fulfilled! The child shall be named BRETTON WOODS JR. and his GAZE ALONE shall melt the chains of TYRANNY! When the world has been pacified, the savior shall teach us all BETTER LIVING THROUGH THE ARTS AND CRAFTS and also maybe TELEPORTATION! From there we bring economic order to THE MOON, first by building a subway there, then waiting outside the entrances for EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE to visit on vacation! THE STARS THEMSELVES SHALL FALL TO THE GREAT LAROU ... Whoops. Never mind all that stuff. But if you want to learn some interesting things about current events, I have some pamphlets I can give you! Just meet me at the dumpster behind the 7-11 and wear something that we can slip a burlap sack over. (November 17, 2009)

From the Chris Budget Office: Announcing the Chris White Lifestyle Overhaul Plan six months ago, I sent a clear, prudent message: any plan costing more than $27.50 would not fly. "I have $27.50 in my checking account right now," said Chris White, "and to burden me with crippling debt would be unconscionable." Well, the numbers are in. And they look great. Some question the housing provisions. They say a 237-room gilded mansion and theme park are unrealistic in these troubling times. But figures from the Chris Budget Office show that over a 10-year budget window, Frugal Manor and Responsibility Land will cost only $1.50 -- the cost of a happy-hour cocktail purchased in 2019, the napkin for which will hold the blueprints. By committing to this 50-year plan today, we assure future generations of Chris White awesome housing at a pittance. And in no way will this commitment force Chris White to stop living rent-free with his parents, if he chooses to do so, until Frugal Manor opens. Some fret over entertainment costs. But note that spending on leisure activities is now under the Chris White Comprehensive Wellness and Boredom Alleviation Program, an entirely different account. Reassigning these resources not only saves $7,231 in the Lifestyle Plan, it also allows us to increase entertainment spending to $253 million, creating jobs in the U2 sector when they are paid up front in 2018 to play the opening of Responsibility Land, on my birthday in 2021. There will also be ponies. Some imply that user fees on friends of Chris White -- reasonable levies on anyone gleaning the benefits of interacting with such an inspiring creature -- might be a disincentive to be friends with Chris White. To which I say: Chris White is going to have his own amusement park. Those taller than the cardboard pirate's hand will be his friend. $2.4 billion in revenue over 10 years is conservative. And to those who suggest that Chris White will not marry money in 2014, hit the MegaMillions Jackpot in 2016 or trip on the beach in 2017 only to discover a magic lamp with a wish-granting genie -- resulting in $253 trillion in revenue and obviating the need for employment, or cuts to other programs -- I say this: you are exactly the kind of person who will be denied admission to the lunar branch of Responsibility Land. This is no time for politics as usual. History calls! (November 1, 2009)

Worthless!: Worthless Grant No. 3! Javier Garcia of Mexico City trained his pet goat to make a fairly decent mojito, every day at exactly 5 p.m. For this, he is granted $15 in Ramen products. Worthless Grant No. 4! Using schematics for a particle accelerator, Physicist Maryanne Cross of Spokane, Wash., built a one-mile track for colliding 12 oz. cans of domestic beer, leading directly to the creation of Milwaukee's Blue Ribbon. She is recognized with $15 in potato chips. Worthless Grant No. 5! Sanjay Dhruva of Phoenix, Ariz., conducted more than 15,000 interviews across all sociological categories to develop a scientific, irrefutable definition of "dips**t." For his worthless service to mankind, he gets $15 worth of SuperCuts. Worthless Grant No. 6! Stuart Hanson of Montreal is in the middle of a 14-year effort to develop a coherent explanation for "Mulholland Drive." He gets $15 in 1988 Steve Jeltz Topps cards. The Case for Small Government We face now a vast expansion of government spending to cure the ills of society, on top of the vast expansions that already have occurred under the past administration. But there exists irrefutable proof that simply throwing money at problems does not work, oftentimes making things worse. The proof is Nancy Pelosi's face. (September 25, 2009)

Effective Alternatives to Abstinence Education: Intensive Dungeons and Dragons studies, with lab. Students are introduced to the lore, character creation process and tactical theory of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, with four-hour gaming sessions twice a week. Miniature painting is mandatory, as is playing Magic: The Gathering at lunch. Literary Magazine Production. Students are trained in 5-year-out-of-date desktop publishing software and encouraged to spend hours scrutinizing high school poetry and short stories as though they were Pulitzer submissions. Berets are provided. Beginning Marching Band. Mandatory enrollment of the student in marching band or color guard, with a minimum of 12 hours a week of rehearsals, plus weekend competitions and parades through the height of the high school social season. Photos of the student in uniform will be hung in the hallway outside the school's music room, which is distressingly close to the main hallway. Shopping at TJ Maxx. All the student's clothing will be purchased for them exclusively at TJ Maxx, for the minimum. Taking the student to a "Dr. Who" convention at the age of 8. Cash Money If you bought a fuel-efficient car when lots of people were buying SUVs they probably didn't need, you don't qualify for government bucks under "cash for clunkers." If you paid your mortgage on a regular basis (maybe because you weren't speculating), you don't really get much in the way of housing help from the federales. If you make a responsible decision to not have kids that you can't afford, and then you hold a job to provide health insurance and food for those kids, you have less chance of getting government assistance for anything. Oh, but you still have to pay alot of taxes, while the people who do get that assistance (not that they're bad, some people just suffer from crappy circumstances) often don't have to pay taxes. How about cash for people who aren't d-bags? (August 6, 2009)

Black Tie: Thanks to my excellent choice in women, on Friday I was able to attend the 65th annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner at the Washington Convention Center. For people who don't watch a lot of C-SPAN (i.e. losers), that's the second of the two big dinners for reporters each year where the president is invited, and then some kind of speaker tries to avoid career suicide while making fun of the president. General thoughts: Black tie. I had to rent a tux for the night. I looked very good. This is less a function of me than the tux. If you are a man who looks bad in a tuxedo (and they're out there) then there's basically no hope for you, because tuxedos are the last line of fashion defense. At that point, you've stabbed the vampire of ugliness through the heart with a railroad tie, and he treated it like a splinter. Just plan on some kind of lifestyle that never, ever involves formal wear, like being a bachelor turnip farmer or a hermit. Also interesting was how many of the ladies interpreted black tie. A lot of them looked stunning and sophisticated; others were dressed like they were about to give it up on prom night, at a special seperate prom exclusively for the slutty girls. CLEAVAGE. In ridiculously bright fabrics. Celebrities! When I say "celebrities," I mean the best kind: WASHINGTON celebrities. For example, when I walked into the pre-dinner cocktail hour, the first person I spotted was House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin. He's one of the most powerful and important people in Congress. But I did not say hello, because I was not confident enough that it was him. In Washington, the most important people are all middle-aged to old, and they aren't on TV all that much, so you wouldn't know them if you saw them. Ditto for Louise Slaughter, chairwoman of the House Rules committee, who was standing in the middle of the room for a bit with no one talking to her. Not that she needs it, because she's LOUISE SLAUGHTER. The highlight of the cocktail hour, for me, was watching a young woman in a backless dress ask Obey to take a picture of her and her friend. You know, if you aren't too busy thinking about how to allocate all the spending of the federal government, could you take a picture of me and my friend? Awesome. Obama! We were supposed to shake the president's hand at the cocktail hour, but he changed his plans at the last minute and only showed up for the first part of the dinner. The impression I got, shared by my lovely meal ticket, was that he did not want to be at the dinner at all, and did not do a good job hiding it. A lot of the jokes in his speech (which he did deliver very well; he has excellent timing) were about how the dinner was a second-rate event (behind the White House Correspondents Dinner a few weeks before) and it was a chore to attend. He left as soon as Johnathan Hodgman finished calling him a nerd. I don't begrudge a guy his Friday nights, but when you have a reputation for arrogance, you might not want to dump on all the reporters and support staff who have to cover you every day. All that said, we had ridiculous seats. I was about 40-50 feet from the podium and dead center, and it is cool to see the leader of the free world from that close. You should try in sometime, you know, if you can get your girlfriend to hook you up with free tickets. Hodgman. You can go online and see Jonathan Hodgman's speech. I liked it -- it wasn't really a stand-up routine, but a thematically consistent presentation. He didn't play for big laughs at the beginning, which confused a lot of the room, but by the end he used some slides to quiz Obama on whether he was a legit nerd. Events like this are REALLY tough for entertainers, because a) you're poking fun at the president; b) the audience, ostensibly of open-minded journalists, is a lot more PC than they would ever care to admit; c) you have to follow the president. It's almost impossible to knock it out of the park. Hodgman was solid if not spectacular. After Party. After the show, there's the after party! In this case, we just walked into a room with a live band and started dancing. It was like a weird wedding. At one point Michael Steele, the head of the Republican Party, came to the stage to announce a raffle winner. Glad to see we're making progress, GOP. I don't want to brag, but as we were leaving, another couple, UNSOLICITED, told us we were the best dancers out there, "not that there was much competition." I'll take it. Golfstravaganza It is my great blessing in life to be a visionary, and my great burden to envision only pointless things. On Saturday my vision of the Grand Slam of Mini Golf came true! Sort of. The orignial plan, which came to me in a vision quest, was to play four separate miniature golf courses in one day, with the winner declared the greatest mini-golfer who ever lived ever. It was called to my attention that this, though ambitious, would eliminate any sane people from participating, because who goes mini-golfing four times in a day? The new plan: three courses. One in Maryland, one in Virginia, one in D.C. A date was set, courses were picked and people were invited. Naturally, Saturday started off with severe thunderstorms. But did anyone quit? NO! Because they wanted a taste of the glory. I called ahead to Rocky Gorge mini-golf in Laurel, and they said that as long as there wasn't lightning, people could golf. We got there at 11:30, 13 people stood in the clubhouse and the man behind the counter assured us the storm would move through soon. It did, and so we went to pay, and the man behind the counter promptly informed us there was no way we could play golf. Because the course was flooded. Apparently he thought we were standing around next to the Cruisin' Exotica machines for 20 minutes for the ambiance. And so we trudged to the parking lot (over top of the words painted on the walkway, "Open All Weather, Rain or Snow"). But thanks to the miracle of Internet phones, we found a second course in Laurel and actually managed to get there and squeeze in a round of disturbingly humid golf, as the sun came out and blue skies appeared. Great battles were fought and unspeakable acts of bravery and machismo were committed, etc. etc. But as we were now about an hour behind schedule, we switched plans again and headed down to D.C., skipping the Virginia course, to play the East Potomac mini-golf, one of the oldest in the nation. And when we got there, the gate was chained shut. Checking in with the pro shop (the mini-golf course it right next to a real golf course), it turns out they sent their mini-golf employee home at 1 p.m. because of the rain. Never mind that it was now 3 p.m., with blue skies and sun, and only a few small puddles on the course. Never mind that, as we tried to convince them to reopen, about five or six cars of dads pulled up with their kids, looked at the locked gate, and then drove away. No, closed means closed. So it was back to the cars, and off to Cameron Run regional park in Virginia. It was not on the original itinerary, but it was close and, according to the people answering the phone, open. Great battles, mighty putts, etc. etc., but by now it was 5 p.m. and everybody was very hungry, so we bagged any thought of a third course and headed back to the 19th hole (my house) for a cookout. And then I almost killed everyone with undercooked chicken, but that's a story for another day. To sum up: the plan went from four courses to three courses, and then we ended up playing two courses, neither of which was a course we had originally planned to play. I have to say that I have some excellent friends to stick with it through all those obstacles. Thanks, guys! And sorry about almost poisoning you all. Pictures: The guy in the coveted plaid jacket (awarded to all winners of this tournament) is Josh. He's also sporting a bacon wallet, yet another prize of this amazing event. The guy with the two broken hands is Doug, who proved that personal stupidity is no barrier to mini golf. The guy with the sweater is Philip, who is Philip. (June 24, 2009)

Things I Absolutely Will Not Tolerate From Guantanamo Bay Detainees: I find unlawful military detention to be a great stain on our nation's moral fabric, a condition that lessens us all as a people. Each day that we hold prisoners in this way, millions upon billions of radical extremists are hardened in their resolve to end the greatest nation in the history of the known universe. But I swear to you that no prisoner from Guantanamo Bay will ever be held in a prison in this congressional district. If it is determined by authorities greater than myself that these prisoners must be moved to some congressional district, I pledge that at no point will any vehicle containing a Guantanamo Bay prisoner touch any portion of this district. Any plane carrying a prisoner will be required to reach an altitude of 35,000 feet before passing over. Hot air baloons will be right out, especially any dangling long, climbable ropes that scrape the treetops. Should any attempt be made to move the prisoners first to Key West, I will fight to my last breath to keep them from being transported by armored convoy along U.S. 1, where any number of terrorist or mercenary-owned attack helicopters could swoop in, Bruckheimer-like, and liberate those prisoners, from which point they would escape to Miami and live, as fugitives, through Medicare fraud or dominoes winnings. If anyone tries to move the Guantanamo prisoners to the holding facility carved into Nevada's Yucca mountain ... well, I think I would be OK with that, but good luck getting those Nevada jerks to sign off. If absolutely no location can be found to house those prisoners, and they are released on U.S. soil and opt to stay here and make a go of things as honest businessmen, under no circumstances will I condone some kind of tax break or other economic incentive to lure their affordable labor here. Even if they came without incentives and established flourishing businesses, I would refuse to cut a ribbon at any franchise opening, even if that business was some kind of Islamist-themed ice cream shop that served flavors I greatly enjoy and would no doubt sample for free. If they try to open a day care center, I will write a very strongly worded letter protesting the granting of the license. Ditto for any kind of vocational training campus that would teach bomb-making or urban warfare. Nor will I condone the hiring of such men as clowns or magicians at any kind of church picnic. And while I have no legal recourse in such matters, let it be known that if any of them attempt to date my daughter, she will no longer be my daughter, for I will disown and shun her. Even if she just had too much to drink after getting off her shift as an Applebee's hostess, and then maybe had a sloppy make-out session with a Guantanamo prisoner before realizing what he was, I would write her out of my will if she let him get past second base. As long as these conditions are met, I look forward to quickly and fairly ending this, the darkest and most egregious abuse of humanity ever recorded. Ever. (June 11, 2009)

Truly Excellent Band Names taken From My Recent Reading: Minority Whip Committe of the Whole Energy Committee Oberstar Louise Slaughter People On the Move Future Combat Systems Braintree Mass Oil System Master The Church of the Brethren Gun Lobby The Destin Dome Dream College The Well-Tempered Republican One of the most-loved stories in the media in recent months is how awful Republicans have it, how the party is in complete disarray and how it is in severe risk of shriking to an insignificant regional concern. This is a very prominent story because a) it sounds plausible, and b) Democratic-leaning reporters really enjoy writing it. Once you've seen the other team beaten to a pulp, why not give them advice? I'm sure opponents regularly advise the Nationals to throw more strikes. They're just being helpful! Anyone with a good memory (a crippling weakness in politics) should recall the 2002 and 2004 elections, when Republicans completely bucked historical trends and managed to expand some of their political control. There was a lot of talk about the Democratic party being a hopelessly disorganized mishmash of interest groups with no coherent platform, and by most reports Karl Rove was busy plotting his grand strategy for something like 5,000 years of Republican control and NO ONE COULD STOP HIM. There wasn't quite the same level of media enthusiasm (blogs are a little more prominent now) but it was definitely a story. Somehow the people in charge of spinning this crap actually set the news agenda, probably because "Things Change, Will Eventually Change Back" is a boring headline. Democrats obviously did some things right on the way to the top, but how hard is it to win when there's a historically bad economy (years in the making!) and you promise the vast majority of voters expanded benefits at no personal cost? When Republicans end up back on top it won't be the result of pure strategic genius. What's frustrating is that people who supposedly study this stuff, who KNOW how these things play out over time, either willfully disregard what they know to manipulate people, or to shoehorn facts into a narrative they find attractive. Sad. Trust no one. Watch the skied. (June 9, 2009)

OMG!: Our national mission to recreate the last days of the Roman Empire continues! We make fun of social conservatives, but I think you could make a pretty good case for home schooling, or regularly beating your children with a Bible, after reading this article about "sexting." In Fairfax County, a teenage boy sent out a text message asking girls to send photos of their breasts. Word got out at his high school, police said, and when authorities tracked the teen down, they discovered a cache of naked images on his phone. Oh, those nutty high school days! We didn't have phones or texting from 1991-94, but I feel confident that had I canvassed my peer group for boob shots, I wouldn't have gotten much in the way of results. But then again, I was in the marching band. The world is most definitely going straight to hell, in that our grandparents once would have had to rely on specialty stores to get partially nude cheesecake shots, and now middle schoolers can watch streaming hard-core pornography on hand-held phones that their parents are paying for. Back in the day, if you were a pervert or a tramp, word of mouth might skunk your high school experience, but you always had the option of transferring to a new school. Now the evidence follows you forever on the Internet! So many kids have seen their dreams of one day running for a county zoning board vanish in smoke before they every really got started, because now they are child pornographers. Who will plan the mixed-use town centers of tomorrow? WHO? If Obama names Bo the Portuguese water dog to the Supreme Court (ethnic minority, not from a federal appeals court, no objectionable or disqualifying political stances -- he fits the profile), I'm joining a monastery in the mountains somewhere. Hang It Up There is a great argument in here for kids not having cell phones. The general premise is that a cell phone is for "safety" or "peace of mind," and yet, somehow, just about every human on the planet over the age of 30 managed to make it to adulthood without having a cell phone. And people once knew how to make lunch dates without a special GPS locator app indicating where their friends were at all times, but that's a story for another day. To sum up, things aren't like they used to be, and music these days sucks, and I can't believe that the younger generation is so rude. What really hurts is the lack of respect, and if you'd visit me and your mother more then maybe I wouldn't have to spend every visit complaining about these things. You ingrate. (May 7, 2009)

The Party's Over: What better way to say, "I don't love you anymore," than through the media! Yes, it's a story about William Lacy Clay, a congressman from Missouri, who apparently filed for divorce without actually telling his wife of 17 years. Without knowing any of the specific details, this looks very, very bad on paper, and so I am predicting that William Lacy Clay will win at least 68 percent of the vote in 2010. You read it here first. We put so much thought into wedding proposals, but so little into divorce. And don't we all deserve that divorce notification of our dreams? At a break between the 3rd and 4th innings, a couple appears on the Jumbotron, with the chyron, "I want custody!" As she runs off in hysterics, the message changes to "She said no!" And the crowd goes wild. Things have been rough, what with the long hours at the office. So why not spruce up their day by sending a strip-o-gram to work? And tucked neatly into the G-string are the papers. What parent wouldn't appreciate a homemade Mother's Day or Father's Day card? Help your 3-year-old spell out "Divorce Pwease!" in macaroni letters. If you have the time teach them a song to go with it. But no dance. That would be cruel. Initiate reconciliation with a recreation of your first date. Get them drunk beyond belief at dinner, stumble to a tattoo parlor, then have the request written in Olde English script as a neck band. If all else fails, go with the classics: at the bottom of a glass of champagne, a picture of you having relations with one of their relatives. Or broken glass. Whatever gets the message across best. (May 6, 2009)

Boy, is he strict: In my quest to become a better citizen, I thought I'd read a little more about my city's government. Here's a quote from the page of my Ward 6 City Councilman, Tommy Wells: "Tommy's commitment to improving our city is matched by his enthusiasm for developing innovative solutions to stubborn problems. He consistently looks beyond traditional programs to find creative ways to get results -- often with limited resources. Tommy has brought ground-breaking approaches to public school policy, with a focus on parental accountability. After discovering that one-third of DCPS students lacked immunizations that are legally required to start school, Tommy created an enforcement policy that ensures that 100 percent of our students are fully immunized at the start of each school year. When he learned that a murdered youth from Sursum Corda had not attended school in weeks, he devised and won approval for a policy that cut the truancy rate for elementary school-aged children in half." Remember, always get a note. New Podcast: Christian Finnegan I had a fine time on Thursday morning talking to Christian Finnegan, who I have a lot in common with: middle child, pudgy child, the name Christian, Catholic ... he was actually on a writing deadline, but still was kind enough to chat for a whopping 41 minutes. And it's not a flabby 41 minutes either. He's clearly a guy who thinks a lot about the process of comedy and the sort of things the set people on the path to showbusiness. If you're a comedy fan, don't be intimidated by the run time -- it flows very well. As always, you shoud really just subscribe via iTunes, but if you INSIST, you can download it at the podcast home page. Smile Though Your Heart is Breaking I don't watch TV news except when I'm at my part-time job, and because that job involves reading, the sound is always off. That's when you really notice that Lester Holt is always smiling. He can't help it. It's the default position for his face. When he's talking about the latest YouTube puppy video, it's fine. When he's anchoring a segment on child molesters, it's not as great. Same thing for Campbell Brown. When Natasha Richardson died it looked like she was devoting 90 percent of her energy to keeping the corners of her mouth down. I've never heard Roland Martin's voice, but judging from his eyes he seems to be tired or high at all times. And CNN Headline News clearly lost some kind of class-action suit filed by ugly people for employment discrimination. That is all. (April 3, 2009)

Mark and Ted's Excellent Adventure: Intriguing story out of DC as the U.S. hopes to drop all charges against Sen. Ted Stevens and then decline to retry the case. Not that Ted didn't do something wrong, but the government prosecutors crapped all over the process, repeatedly, and the judge, who even acknowledged what a crappy job the prosecutors were doing during the trial, let things proceed. It's intriguing because Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, just barely lost his re-election bid -- even after he had already been convicted. Mark Begich, the guy who beat him, didn't do anything wrong, but his whole standing in Congress is now basically a sham, right? He'd have lost without that conviction. So Alaska trades a senator with oodles of seniority and plum committee assignments for a hamstrung political eunuch. Nobody wins. There's only one way to settle this fairly: ALASKA STYLE! Erect a 10-foot razor-wire fence around the Capitol reflecting pool. Fill the pool with crude oil and two angry polar bears. Put both Stevens and Begich in the pool, armed with ice axes. Each man can also have one handpicked associate in a circling helicopter, firing rifles loaded with beanbag rounds. The last man breathing represents Alaska. The best justice is frontier justice. G-20 Unit Also in the news, nice to see shots of the Obamas in London today, where the royal family no doubt regaled them with stories of the times they hunted Africans for sport. We've come a long way, baby. Job Creation My latest brilliant economic recovery plan: recently laid-off people are hired by the government and organized into a mobile strike force. Anytime there is public anger about a corporate indiscretion, the strike force is flown in to lynch or otherwise mob the executives in question. These ideas are free, America. (April 2, 2009)

Do the Right Thing: I've been reading politics for the last two days solid, so here's a brain dump: One of the 500,000 things that Congress is trying to swallow right now is an expansion of "national service" programs; per Obama's request, they want to triple the size of AmeriCorps and significantly increase the incentives to volunteer. Volunteering is great and wonderful and good and yay AmeriCorps, but at what point do you get paid so much that it's no longer volunteering? I don't know exactly how many hours a week you have to kick in to get $5,000 a year in tuition, but there are some crappy part-time jobs that would pay that amount, right? If you have to keep sweetening the deal to get people to sign up, then it's not really the spirit of volunteerism that's driving people. In any major city you can volunteer about a bajillion places for no pay if that's your thing. Getting people to "volunteer" for the great and glorious good of the nation is vaguely 1960s China. Just sayin'. Republicans' best chance of recapturing the hearts of Americans would be picking leaders with good hair. Eric Cantor, John Boehner ... hairmets. Mitch McConnell has standard old-guy hair: not bad, but underwhelming. We need a middle-aged dude who doesn't appear to be in a glee club. Have some photos on my desk by tomorrow. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., rapped in high school under the stage name "Juggernaut." Here's my favorite paragraph I've read in the last month: "Sage Eastman has joined the minority staff of the House Ways and Means Committee as a senior adviser for media and public affairs. Eastman will also continue to hold his current position as communications director for the committee's ranking Republican, Dave Camp of Michigan. He previously was communications director for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, for the gubernatorial campaign of former Michigan Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus and for the Michigan Republican Party." Fastball This guy's arm will explode within the next three years. Bank on it! (March 24, 2009)

Light Up the Sky: It's a great feeling to know that, after five years of writing, polishing, promoting and performing my stand-up comedy routine, after five years of attempting all sorts of side projects that might make me more viable as an all-around entertainer, after five years of praying that my car won't break down and that medical problems won't force me back to full-time office work ... I have less name recognition than Bizkit the Sleepwalking Dog. I wish I had his agent ... In the Salt Mines Sorry for the general lack of updates the last few days. I've been busy with an elevated amount of side work, and between that and my crippling addiction to painkillers, I've hardly had time to brush my teeth, or shower. Really, they aren't advisable when you're on the painkillers. If you pass out in the bathroom, it's an easier cleanup, sure, but there are more solid surfaces to smack your head against. I read about Congress at my other gig, and here's the money quote of the week (about 30 seconds in). Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, tells a Congressman that "to my knowledge, I did not personally meet with outside representatives while this budget was being discussed, but we can get a fuller answer ..." You can read that quote lots of ways. I choose to read it as the White House budget director being a blackout drunk. Not that there's anything wrong with that! (March 5, 2009)

God Help Me: But I love Nanerpuss. The Day of Reckoning is Nigh! So sayeth the president! The seventh seal is broken! [High political content. Feel free to ignore.] Here's what nags me, ever so slightly, about our glorious leader: in the last century, brainy people + strong faith in government solutions + "media savvy" communications = very bad things on a very grand scale. America isn't a fascist/communist/socialist police state. It's obviously not going to become one. But toss in the rabid, worshipful cult of personality and all the class warfare stuff of the last few weeks, and there's a faint echo there. It's at least a little unsettling, right? All that Karl Rove stuff about building a permanent Republican majority was sort of sinister, so when a White House with a penchant for information control puts the Census under White House supervision, you should bat a few eyelashes. It's Leninism 101! One noticable difference: the Soviets tried to strectch their plans over five years. Sigh. A few speech thoughts: We're one month in, and Obama has already pre-empted an episode of "House," and also Mardi Gras. FDR had something like 40 fireside chats over 13 years. Pace yourself, or else get your own cable channel and leave my stories alone. C-SPAN 4: all Obama, all the time. I'm not thrilled about fatcat CEOs flying jets 500,000 miles a day just to punch old ladies in the stomach (or whatever it is they're doing), but since when is every small-business owner the main character in a Frank Capra movie? Small-businesses owners employ people, sure. But I bet a few of them are jerks, only on a smaller financial scale. Every time politicians start talking about CEOs these days, the one image that springs to mind is Uncle Moneybags putting a cigar out in a homeless person's eye. What about the guy who owns a carwash, cheats on his taxes and uses lots of illegal immigrant labor? Somebody complain about that guy. It's fun to see Congressmen of both parties applauding initiatives that they will never in a million years support, like shutting down Cold War military programs or ending agriculture subsidies. The thing about reducing government waste is that it would eliminate a lot of jobs, and no one made a long Congressional career out of voting for job losses in their district. Good luck with all that. There's a great Margaret Thatcher quote: "Power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." If you have to keep telling people that you're a "different" politician ... at some point, it just becomes marketing. By 2020, the country will again lead the world in the proportion of college graduates! I get a little skittish whenever we throw around "proportion" or "rate" stats, because a ton of population growth comes mostly from the lower end of the economic spectrum, i.e. first- or second-generation immigrants. Maybe Obama has a plan for massive deportations? From a stats perspective, it would help our college stats. Might be a non-starter at the polls, though. Anyhow, enjoy the "bold vision" for a few days. It's always nice to see a leader urging confrontation of serious problems. Never mind that we just had a leader who unliaterally confronted one very serious problem (terorrism) and made efforts (good or bad) to deal with entitlement costs (Social Security privatization) and educational reform (No Child Left Behind). Remember: it's totally different now! It's all so fresh and new! And just to prove that I'm not a totally negative Nelly, here's what I'd do if I ran the GOP. (February 25, 2009)

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAL: Do yourself a favor and watch this goal by Alex Ovechkin. I've been to one NHL game this year, and it turns out to have the best goal I've ever seen live. There were times in Ovechkin's first year where he'd get the puck, look around, realize no help was coming and then just go around three guys and score. He's gotten alot of help since then, but this was definitely a throwback. Awesome stuff. Sign Me Up While we're on sports, I would like to say damn you, Esmailyn Gonzalez, for queering my plan to defraud the Washington Nationals. I had all my ducks in a row to pose as a 16-year-old Venezuelan utility infielder, but "Smiley" had to go and ruin it for all of us. BASTARDO! In other baseball news, Spring Training is underway, and as a fan, I have to get into mental shape. This is the first season in my adult life where I have to figure out how to cheer for a defending champion. Humility? Arrogance? Indifference? Pessimism? Right now I'm going into camp with an "incoherent moron who ignores reality" strategy. If anyone ever says anything negative about the Phillies, even if it's plausible, I will just start screaming "World Champions" two inches from their face until someone gets punched. The method might need a little refining, but that's what March is for. Cards I have a bunch of business cards in my wallet. The way it works: I carry my card around. I meet someone I should "network" with, like someone in the comedy industry, or a senate majority leader. I give them my card, they give me their card. I put their card in my wallet and never look at it ever again. I'm really bad at networking! And so all these poor business cards from around the world never get to achieve their god-given purpose in the graveyard that is my wallet. I hereby resolve to empty my wallet once every three months, put all the cards in a bowl, do a drawing and then send the winner a free burrito. The best job, card-wise, would be swordsman. You wouldn't need a card, because you could just carve your initials on people. No one would ever have to fish around their wallet; they'd just have to look at their forearm to know what a great swordsman you are, and then they'd probably hire you for any of their swordfighting needs. I think about this stuff when I forget to bring a book on the Metro. (February 18, 2009)

Happy Birthday Abe: In honor of Abe Lincoln's birth, I give you an encore presentation of "Lincoln: The Early Years." New Podcast: Eddie Gossling This was a fun one. Eddie was pleasant and chatty out of the gate; it didn't take too much prompting to get straight to some high-quality stuff. After starting out with some standard comedy stuff, we talk a little bit about his childhood (he was a military brat), his habit of stealing things and what it's like being married to another comedian. Here's the direct link, but really, shouldn't you subscribe? The instructions are on the podcast page. Why does no one want to be Commerce Secretary? You get an aquarium in your office! THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! Even if you were stressed about the cataclysmic implosion of global markets, you could always pop down to the basement on lunch and look at a few fishies. You could stare at the sharks and pretend you're a Bond villain. Fun! If you're ever in the nation's capital and $5 is burning a hole in your pocket, do visit the aquarium. The best way to describe it: it's like they finished the city, and then someone realized, "Oh ****! We forgot the aquarium!" (February 12, 2009)

You're Getting Warmer: Lost in the happy-go-lucky chirping this week about Great Depression 2.0 and torture is the slightly upsetting news that we're all hopelessly doomed. This information comes to us in the form of a study from the ever-helpful National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA (as in, "I want you to build an ark"): "The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped." Completely stopped! Meaning that even if we manage to flush all the carbon down the toilet and go cold turkey, you'll still have to cancel your vacation plans for Key West in 2832. Those whose teeth gnash like a collapsing ice shelf at the mention of Kyoto always had a fuzzy argument: no matter what we do, China and India will crank out carbon like champs, and maybe get rich trying. History has seldom smiled on the "everybody else is doing it" defense, though. But now along comes science to claim the high ground! And if the report is correct, high ground could be very valuable real estate in the next few centuries. Yet we haven't heard all that much about our guaranteed environmental Armageddon, maybe because NOAA had the smarts to bury the story on a day when "American Idol" was running an auditions episode. Or maybe because the people who usually trumpet stories about our impending doom don't really get too much benefit from it actually being a reality. (Donation dollars might be better spent on, oh, a small fleet of heavily armored yachts for close family members.) Or maybe it's because not all is lost: "Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. 'Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,' said Solomon." In the last 100 years humanity has mastered powered flight, successfully traveled to space, invented and refined computers, harnessed nuclear energy, uncoded the fundamental building blocks of life, described plate tectonics, and made it possible for a very tiny percentage of the population to feed everyone. We now have more educated scientists than at any point in history, and they have unprecedented, near-instantaneous access to information and research. And so you might be tempted to put money on "things will be OK." Almost no one had cell phones when I was in high school, and now you can watch streaming pornography on them while riding through subway tunnels. How hard can carbon scrubbing be, exactly? It seems irresponsible to put all our hopes with the science genie, but everything we know about human nature, global economics, and now "the numbers" seems to be rubbing that lamp. Pretty sensible people have been noting this for the last 10 years, but they've been drowned out by people with an overwhelming need to Do Something. By all means, Do Something. Plant trees, create a green job, or get an electric car. There are serious environmental and resource management issues threatening the world every day. Do whatever makes you feel good; whatever shows respect and consideration to the other citizens of the world. Good habits like that will pay off down the line. But in the meantime, how about chilling out a bit? Loud cranks serve a useful purpose, but having hysteria translate into public policy seldom works out well, whether it's with climate change or, oh, an $800 billion stimulus package. In an era where message manipulation is a cottage industry (serving other industries that would cease to exist if things weren't horribly wrong), it's a pretty safe bet that things are never as disastrous as they seem. Relax. Unless you're a scientist, in which case, BACK TO THE LAB, POINDEXTER! (January 27, 2009)

Did you hear?: I was out for my afternoon consitutional, only to discover 2 million more people than usual on the streets. Apparently we have a new president. Did you hear about this? Some notes from my walk past the inauguration: Of the many changes in store, one of them is not in people's willingness to litter. What better way to honor America than by throwing garbage on the World War II memorial? I will concede that the garbage for this event was notably less than that for the Phillies victory parade, and that there were no beer cans. But I will also point out that the event was (if memory serves) roughly the same size as the Phillies parade. And yet the Phillies get no love or around-the-clock coverage from CNN. The media bias agains the Phillies continues. I am heartened by the lack of trampling deaths. I think it speaks to the fundamental good will in all of us. Not that it wasn't close! I got stuck in the exodus off the mall, between 14th and 15th Streets on Independence Ave. a third of the crowd was going east, a third was going west, and a third was going south. There were no guardsmen / cops / army guys directing traffic, so everyone basically leaned on each other and went nowhere for about 30 minutes. It was wall-to-wall humanity, and I would have expected a monster freak-out, but people seemed to be taking it in stride. One guy did attempt to manipulate the crowd, shouting that there barricades east and west, and that everyone should go south, which just happened to be the direction he wanted to go! But the fact that he was in a Colorado Rockies jacket sort of undermined his authority. No one budged. The only time authorities did show up was to clear a path for an ambulance. This was almost impossible, because there was literally no space for people to vacate to. This inspired the biggest freak-out I was privileged to see. A middle-aged black guy wearing a fur coat you ordinarily see on a 90-year-old woman with a small dog started screaming, "There's nowhere to go!" Much like Rockies jacket guy, his clothing undermined his authority, and so the crowd did not rally to his flag. Regardless of your politics, there's something nice about being in a crowd of 2 million people who are in a good mood. Smile more, America. It worked for Ronald Reagan. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then John Williams is the most sincere man in the history of sincerity. I mean that sincerely. I felt sincere pity for Obama being forced to watch the parade after he finished the route. The standard American parade is awful, and I say this as someone who marched in lots of them during high school. Specialty parades (The Mummers, Macy's Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras, your favorite sports team's championship parade) are cool, but the whole marching band / military review stuff is mind-numbingly awful. In the days before TV and recorded music (and when march music was also pop music) I'm sure a parade was the greatest thing in the world, but now ... it's vestigial. All they're doing now is propping up the high-school marching band fundraiser industry. Really: If you already saw the first black president walk for the first time to his new home, WHY would you want to sit in 30-degree weather to watch an hour of 8-year-olds doing tumbling passes on asphalt? Randolph Terrance has been doing a joke recently about possible Obama t-shirts showing Obama, Malcolm X, MLK Jr., and Tupac. Seen today on the street: an illustration of Barack Obama as a posse leader on horseback, with various civil rights leaders on the other horses. Oh, and Tupac. Seriously. Also, on the counter at Walgreen's, opposite the wall of unsold Obama commemorative plates, were Obama "collectable" baseball-style cards. When the guy behind me pointed them out to his wife, I thought he was going to mock them. Turns out he wanted to buy a whole unopened box. I'm guessing they had some extra space in the Beanie Baby closet. I love the word "collectable," because it implies greater value. But anything not perishable is collectable, right? Not everyone wants a pile of toe nail clippings, but you can collect them if you so choose. Now, commemorative toe nail clippings -- that would be impressive. I think I'm getting off track here. I only heard parts of the speech as I was walking alongside the mall, but it sounded pretty good -- better than it reads, in fact. The guy is a great speaker when he has prepared remarks. But now comes the real test! Is this really the dawning of a new age for America, where personal responsibility is paramount and tough decisions about government are finally made? Do people really have a new faith in the American dream and the willingness to sacrifice or serve others? Or did their commitment to change end when they voted and their guy won? I fear that politics has degenerated (again, it's been there before) into naked boosterism -- people aren't invested in ideas, but instead they want their team to win (witness people booing Bush today. Shameful.). You hear of people inspired by Obama, but so far the outlet for that inspiration has been a propaganda-heavy political campaign (shades of 1960s China!). From what I've seen, the Obama team, to its credit, appears to be leveraging their campaign organization toward greater community involvement. Some people will answer that call, but how many? The problems facing American society are decades old, as are the opportunities to chip in and lend a hand. I find it hard to believe that vast armies of citizens are suddenly awakened to, and willing to avail themselves of, these opportunities; I think most people are content to let their civic involvement end in the voting booth. Despite what gets said on the campaign trail, things aren't exactly at their darkest. If you wanted to chip in and serve your nation, the odds are you would have done it by now. If you weren't inspired to action by 9/11, for example, then what's different about today? And are people really, truly ever going to consent to having programs slashed or eliminated for the overall health of the nation? A million blue-ribbon panels can write a million reports, but so far we haven't seen any serious efforts to change to Social Security, and all the talk on health care is to make it BIGGER. Calls to service, responsibility and sacrifice are laudable, even necessary, but American society won't be changed with words. It will be changed with deeds, whether it's a Congressman willing to risk his political career to do something unpopular but necessary, or an average Joe trying to restore the power of family, the most dynamic, powerful and unlegislatible tool for shaping the future. Obama is not the first, second or even tenth person to make these kinds of statements; you can find them sprinkled in inaugural addresses throughout the last century (compassionate conservatism, anyone?). The concerns we have about our decaying national character and our love-hate relationship with capitalism have been used as political whips for generations, and it makes you wonder if we're dealing with the problems of the modern day or fundamental flaws in human nature. For all the talk of change and a new day dawning, I really do wonder if the average American has ever been (or even should have to be) all that interested in an "American dream" or anything much beyond their own personal welfare. We tout the "will of the people," but there's a famous Andrew Jackson quote: "One man with courage makes a majority." Does society as a whole will changes to its fundamental nature, or do courageous men rechannel society through their labors? If so, are courageous people in charge now? Or is it just expediency dressed in eloquence? We'll find out. Home Economics I'm clearly in full-on politics mode, so might as well purge the system. Admitting that a) I am not an economist; and b) my historical assumptions could be way off ... All the spending by the government right now is scary, right? We more or less know that the New Deal and its massive expansion of government didn't end the Depression. World War II did. And once World War II was over, the United States was the only nation with a fully operational industrial complex (infrastructures and economies across Europe and Asia were devastated), giving it huge competitive advantages for decades to come. Now we're poised to spend a ton of government dollars, expand a ton of programs and make people more reliant than ever on the state. We don't have any precedent that suggests this will "heal" the economy any faster; and on top of that, we don't have any world-changing event on the horizon that might spur some massive growth in national output, and given the spread of globalization, we don't have guaranteed market dominance waiting just around the bend. If it turns out that we're needlessly racking up debt with no obvious economic benefits, what on earth will turn things around this time out? There's talk about government "creating jobs," but it's all just pig in a python stuff -- even if we invest massively in, oh, "green jobs" by converting to more energy-efficient production, what happens when everything is converted? In the '90s we saw crazy, technology driven increases in productivity, meaning each worker could do more and more. When everyone was flush with cash, you didn't have to fire people; what company would want the PR hit that would come from purging staff in the midst of huge profits? But when the bottom falls out, the fact remained that you don't need as many workers to do the same amount of work, so it's justifiable to trim payrolls and leave them trimmed. We have more people in the world, but thanks to technology, we don't NEED so many people to keep the world operating, and all the extra people are going to be stuck with crap jobs or no jobs. The pig got through the python. We can find more pigs to swallow (green jobs is the popular new pig), but they'll always be temporary fixes. People strive to give their kids a better life than they had; technological progress, good fortune and hard work have made this possible in America for generations. But the quality-of-living curve is starting to flatten out. What do we do? You can lower expectations, which is decidedly "un-American" to most people; you can lower population, which is unrealistic unless you're a "12 Monkeys" terrorist type; you can expand to a new frontier, but we're not quite ready for moon bases or kelp farms on the bottom of the ocean. The economy will, to some extent, turn around. But schools are already pumping out more lawyers, MBAs and liberal arts grads than the market can digest, and factory work and heavy industry haves largely been shifted to nations trying to recreate the American dream on their own terms. Lifespans are longer, and people are staying in the workforce longer, meaning they aren't clearing out to let fresh faces take over. New competitors in each industry will arise, but we still don't NEED as many people to staff them as we have in the past. More and more people are going to see their standard of living and personal sense of worth decline as jobs become increasingly mundane or scarce. This is all armchair economics, and I bet I'm making some hugely erroneous assumptions here, but it's not entirely implausible, right? Scary. (January 20, 2009)

Brace for Impact: Inauguration weekend is almost here! For most Americans, it means the dawn of a new era of hope. For Washingtonians, it means a bunch of starry-eyed *******s blocking traffic. Some people say there are no real Washingtonians, that we are a city of tranplants and passers-through. To them I say, a true Washingtonian is a person whose enjoyment of special occasions is surpassed by their annoyance over street closings. That's when you know it's your home. Or that you're a buttwipe. Either one. Having attended the Phillies victory parade and witnessing the minor debacle in that very large city, I'm sort of curious to see what an equal number of people will do in a much smaller city. The inaugural parade route is maybe a mile long, but they're only letting 300,000 people along Pennsylvania avenue. Plus everyone is effectively banned from driving downtown, which means Metro for all. I'm putting the over-under on trampling deaths at five! I am a bit of a presidential history buff, and so I offer unto you FUN INAUGURAL FACTS! The first inauguration was held in New York City, at Federal Hall. While popular legend indicates that George Washington improvised "So help me god" at the end of his oath, eyewitness accounts indicate that his exact words were "And if you have a problem with it, so help me god, I will throw down all over this *****." Most presidents have chosen to take the oath of office on a Bible, with the notable exceptions of Martin Van Buren (Toben's Spirt Guide), Bill Clinton (Madonna's "Sex") and Jimmy Carter ("Steal This Book"). The longest inaugural address was by William Henry Harrison, who contracted pneumonia during his speech and died a month later. George Washington's second address stood as the shortest address until FDR's fourth inaugural in 1945: "My fellow Americans, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Let's drink." The most heavily attended inauguration to date wasin 1965, which drew more than 1 million people when LBJ threatend to personally "kick the ****" out of any American who failed to attend. Millard Fillmore's wife Abigail died after falling ill during the inauguration of Franklin Pierce, because god loves kicking a man when he's down. In transition years, upon reaching the White House at the end of the parade, it is customary for the new president to help the old president load all his boxes into the moving helicopter. Temperatures were so cold in 1985 that the parade was canceled and the swearing-in was moved to the Capitol rotunda. Temperatures were so warm in 1869 that Ulysses Grant wore hot pants. (January 15, 2009)

The Force: Somewhere in the mix with strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, e-m force and gravity is 5th-grade perv humor. You can't stop it. You can't contain it. It will relentlessly destroy us all. And so I do not envy anyone with the job of fighting it. That said, a Web editor at Washingtonpost.com goofed up yesterday: Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh. Heh. They're Back! By the way, Congress is back! I read all about it at my occasional journalism gig yesterday. All the new members get sworn in today, and then the old members pick out who they want in their pledge class, throw hoods over their heads and drag them off to be hazed. Usually that means a few naked laps around the Capitol, but if anyone turns up dead in the Roosevelt Island swamp with a beer bong lodged in an inappropriate orifice I'm sure you'll read about it in the papers. The other big thing for Tuesday is that the House has to approve the rules for the 111th Congress. This is a very boring process, as the rules usually involve legislative procedures, committee assignments and ZZZZZZ ... In the the true spirit of change, in the interest of an honest and true government, I beg you, Congress, adopt only one set of rules. Marquess of Queensberry. Now that's government. (January 6, 2009)

Let's Take a Break ...: From the onslaught of movie reviews and get to what you all come here to read: my thoughts on politics. Wait, wha ... ??? The Big Picture One reason I don't like discussing politics is because most people don't think about government much. There's limited understanding about what the president and Congress can actually do, and the state and local stuff that's profoundly important on a personal level is almost a complete mystery. People identify with a party for whatever reason (it's my dad's party! Or it's not my dad's party!) and then cherrypick whatever programs or ideas appeal to them on a personal level. Oftentimes there isn't an underlying coherent worldview that informs their opinions. It's not that people SHOULD sit around and think about this stuff, but if you're going to yell at someone at a party for disagreeing with you, you should probably have some "big picture" stuff worked out in your head. I think that a lot of people actually in the government do think about these things, but somehow it never comes across that way. They go for the best public relations angle when they're selling stuff as a campaign promise, and in that respect, conservatives have the toughest sell: they want government to do LESS. It's not that they think people should suffer or that poor people are all evil, but it's not too tough for opponents to paint them as heartless or selfish bastards. There's talk now about how the Republican party and the conservative movement are lost in the woods and need some sort of clear direction. There's also worry that we're on the verge of a New New Deal which could significantly alter the relationship of citizens to the government for the next few generations. If you study enough communist and socialist history (China, Russia) this should make you nervous -- not because we're on the verge of becoming a socialist or totalitarian country, but because they are horrifying an recent examples of what can happen when people believe too strongly in the power of government to change the world. We even have glaring caveats in present-day Europe, where a lot of economies are stagnant, inequality is worsening and the budget outlooks are awful, in large part because they have relied too heavily on government as the primary means to regulate everyday life. That's where we might be heading, even though we KNOW it isn't a good place to be. But how do you make the case for doing less? I think you ask: "Why do we have government?" And then you build from there. I'm not a pundit or a great political thinker, but I got to noodling all this a few weeks ago on one of my long drives to a gig. Here's what I came up with. I don't know that it's right, but I think it at least makes sense. What Is To Be Done? After 6,000 years of recorded history, it's safe to say that life isn't fair. Not on the large scale, with billions randomly born into squalor while millions are born into upper-middle class tract housing; not on the small scale, where the biggest complainers get the most free things at restaurants and die-hard fans can't afford playoff tickets. Fairness across all borders and races could be achieved in the cosmic sense when the sun explodes, or the aliens attack and enslave us all, but those are problems for our great-grandchildren. There's a depressing weight to this fact (accompanyed with a sense of powerlessness), and so much of the history we've been recording spawns directly from humans trying to answer the question: What Should We Do About This? Six millennia haven't been enough to reach a consensus. Some people have embraced unfairness, and are strong advocates of hitting other people in the head with rocks so that they can get on the right side of it. Some have seen their time on Earth as a lost cause beyond their control, and count on the scales being balanced after they're dead. Some drink beer. Good strategies all, each with merit. But what captures the popular imagination time and again is government: the idea that a people banding together can, through their collective will, make the world tolerable enough to bother waking up before noon. Alone each of us would stand helplessly before the whims of the universe (in the form of large groups of people holding rocks), but united, we can take a rock to the head and keep going. At the very least, government gives us the impression that we're trying to do SOMETHING to tame fate. It passes the time. And so all governments are sworn to do, or at least organize, the big things that individuals simly cannot do for themselves: raise armies, provide for the common defense, build roads, figure out a way for everyone to have a flush toilet, etc. This is what government does best. We all agree that being forced to work in a salt mine while our wives become harem girls is a bad thing, and so an army benefits us all; we all would like to get to work on time, and even if we don't leave the house much, we'd like the trucks carrying our favorite breakfast cereals and anti-depressants to get to our town, and so roads benefit us all. But once the roads are built and the police all have shiny badges, we look around and see that things still aren't fair. In America, some have fabulous wealth while doing little work; others who toil endlessly can barely scrape by. Some can spend endlessly on doctors and medicines for the most trivial of problems; others can't afford aspirin. So what should we do about this? One option is to grin and bear it, since we know that life isn't fair. There is too much whimsy and randomness in the system of the universe for us to control all the variables; it's pointless to even try; and why even lose sleep over something you can't accomplish? It's a logical option, and in many senses a fair one, but not one that you can really sell without sounding lazy or like a complete jerk. Image counts these days, so we tend to ignore this choice. A second option is to use government. If the people consent to it, then why can't we use that organization to give everyone equal wealth, or opportunity, or playoff tickets? It's a noble-sounding option, and one that you would be hard-hearted to argue against, especially if you were trying to hit on a girl at a cocktail party. But it's not without problems. The men who founded this country thought about government quite a lot, because there was no television back then. They were careful in choosing their words: In declaring their independence they asserted that all men were created equal, with inaliable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Equality came not from wealth, or land, or access to a good pediatrician, but from creation itself, in the form of those three rights; beyond that all bets were off. The duty of government was not to preserve what was fair, but NOT to impinge on those three rights. The divides of wealth and poverty existed in their time, but government was not the first tool they turned to when trying to fix such problems. Which isn't to say that ideas can't evolve. The meaning of "men" was expanded, in 1863 and again in 1920; the world itself has changed in ways that those men never could have anticipated, with the advent of cars, and computers, and large public relations firms. But even if the American idea of government now means creating economic fairness, there's a slightly gargantuan issue: how do you know when you're finished? The average poor man from 1900 would chew off his own leg for the chance to live like the poor man of the 21st century, and possibly use his chewed-off leg to club the 21st century man for that chance. Yet we still have the very distinct idea of "rich" and "poor." One hundred years of progress haven't erased the distinction or created any stronger sense of fairness; though we have raised the floor, the ceiling has moved with it. How can we ever say that things are truly "fair" when some of those among us will always have less? And what of circumstance? If a man decides to spend all his money on drugs, or video games, and forgets to pick up groceries, should we make sure he doesn't starve? If not, what if he has children? Should they suffer for his mistakes? Does the man who eats twelve bags of potato chips a day have same claim on financial assistance for health problems as the man born with an illness he cannot control? And so on, until we realize that fairness is not the easiest thing for government to create. Government is a big tool, ideal for big projects; but the problems of economics are often detailed, personal and full of contingencies. When you use a hammer to fix a circuitboard, there will definitely be results, but the circuitboard might not work the way you had hoped. Government can change lives and transfer wealth, but it cannot achieve "fairness" for all, or even define what fairness is. But this is not a failure. It's easy to look at it that way: to see suffering or pain or hard luck and simply throw up your hands and say, "oh well," seems cruel, the sort of action suitable for a man twirling a bushy black moustache. However, there is a difference between cheering the unfairness of life, and believing that government is not the tool to fight the unfairness. We have other tools: families, churches, neighbors, networks, charity and luck. They are smaller tools, each more intimately acquainted with the details of smaller, personal problems; they are tools that can help every day and adapt more rapidly and directly to the situations at hand. They fail, oftentimes spectacularly, but that's the case with all tools. Should we accept all this, there is still the temptation of government: can it be used to help the other tools, to push them along? If we lost our job, we might turn to family for a place stay, or some cash to help make it through to the next job interview. Can government help relieve that burden, say, with unemployment insurance, or a state-owned fold-out couch? Doing so spreads the burden over a wider pool, but at heart it's a limited gesture, not one designed to reorder the economic order of things. If we have to have government do something (if only to sleep soundly) then that seems to as good a choice as any. When we use government in these ways (about half the electorate says we must, and they're pretty adamant about it; they have signs and banners and everything), the key is restraint. Lines have to be drawn before we're off to tilt at windmills, and there are lines we can probably all, as compassionate people, agree upon. So why not one bright line, drawn at children? In the American ideal, government protects the "pursuit of happiness" -- the effort itself, not the goal -- but that pursuit is handicapped against many children, who have no control over their circumstances. No amount of money or services will ever overcome bad parenting, but guaranteeing health care or day care or access to a decent education seems reasonable -- even "fair." But there must be a point where the burden of success is transferred back to the citizen, where government is only a tool of last resort and not a means to rearrange lives. The longer government tries to replace the other tools and institutions for change, the more we weaken those institutions, to the detriment of us all. China and Russia were kind enough to prove that in the extreme over the last 50 years. In the end it's not the job of government to ensure good jobs for all, or happy retirement for all, or free ice cream and nice houses for all. In the end there will be misery, and suffering, and economic inequality. Some people will enjoy fabulous wealth through no great effort of their own; others will work to exhaustion and barely get by. It will make you sad to see it, and it should. But the point of America isn't to end suffering or misery; it's to allow people the hope of fighting against that suffering and knowing that things might work out. Fighting as friends, family and neighbors toward that goal does as much as government ever could. In the end, that's more than most people in 6,000 years of recorded history have been ableto enjoy. It is not fair, but it is American. (November 25, 2008)

Get to the Punchline: Greetings from the lost city of Atlanta! I am at the Punchline this week, pulling split duty -- Headliner Greg Fitzsimmons had a slight change of schedule, so I am headlining in his place on Thursday and Sunday. If you show up for the show, and you're disappointed not to see, Greg, deal with it. I want to be the starting third baseman for the Phillies. We all have our disappointments. This is my first time at the Punchline, and I like it. It's not new and fancy, but instead it's covered with wood paneling, so it's like you're watching a show in your parents' basement! Only you can't steal beer from the Punchline and it would probably be bad form if you tried to get under your girlfriend's bra while the show is going on. It's Wafer Thin Take this, from the shelf next to the Saltines, and eat it ... Me and a guy in the Punchline office were watching History Channel before the show, and there was a special about breadmaking. They were focusing on religious-themed bread, and there was footage of eucharist wafers being made in a factory environment. I'd like to think that the Body of Christ is, at the very least, homemade. Can you taste the difference? "Oh, this is the store-bought Body of Christ. And is that the screw-top Blood of Christ? Man, this church has gone downhill." This is Pretty Good Onion print stories can be bit stale ... like my brother Dave has noted, you basically have the whole joke after the headline and the first paragraph. The rest is just filler, like an inverted pyramid of humor. That said, their audio and video dispatches have been great lately. There production values are great and nothing drags on. Watch this one about obsessive Obama supporters. And click around -- they're all pretty funny (though the Barbara Bush one just seems mean-spirited for no particular reason. Why go after the Silver Fox?). (November 6, 2008)

Simple Tips For Your Next Corn Maze : Having completed two corn mazes, one successfully, I am now an Expert, and as such, here is my wisdom. A. Follow the right-hand wall. The key to successfully navigating any maze is to follow the right-hand wall, which in this case will be made of corn. If at any point you notice the wall is not made of corn, but of moving cars, then you have successufully completed the maze and are now wandering a freeway. Should you fail to observe this rule from the start of the maze, and also the maze organizers are immoral, nefarious cads who rely on "islands," it will no longer be an effective tactic and you could end up wandering in circles. If this happens, observe rule C. B. Trust No One. Though you have entered the maze with "friends" who are planning on going to "Applebees" with you afterwards, mazes observe no allegiance, meting out their harsh justice to all with the cold impartial manner we have come to expect from corn. Those same friends, who will lure you with promises of "Southwestern Egg Rolls," will rob you of your focus, and, should the maze experience drag on, eat you for food, in lieu of Applebees. Your best bet: at the start of the maze, curse your friends and run quickly through the nearest nearest corn wall. C. Burn the maze as needed. D. Walk away from things. Should you become lost, try to locate a landmark, such as an elevated platform or the flags marking the entrance. Then walk away from those things. Because mazes are windy and tricky, the only obvious way to get closer to your destination is to head in the opposite direction whenever possible. This is also a suitable philosophy for dating and professional advancement. E. Hit children as needed. If you find annoying or misbehaving unsupervised children in the 10 to 18 age range, feel free to chase them down and beat them as needed. There is a surprising lack of of security cameras in the average corn maze, and anyone who could stop you will not be there for a while, because it's a maze. The Party's Over Thank god we can finally enjoy the three-month break until the 2012 campaign begins in earnest. Rest up America, you've earned it. If I'm taking anything from 2008, it's how loud some people feel the need to shout their political beliefs, and that the louder you shout, the more of a hypocrite you probably are. It's just crazy to me that anyone could willingly blame all the moral, economic or political problems in the nation on one party and completely exonerate their side (that goes for Republicans and Democrats). I can't believe how people are so willing to respond to criticism of their views simply by attacking the other side (that goes for Republicans and Democrats). I can't believe what a double-standard people have when it comes to scrutinizing candidates (again, both sides). It's also disheartening to see how few voters seem to understand the actual powers and functions of the president, the House and the Senate, and it's even more depressing to think that state and local governments have just as much impact on the average person's everyday life, but so many people don't even know who those candidates are when they go to vote. The one thing I think everyone will take from this election: disappointment. If McCain somehow wins, it's four more years of people stubbornly refusing to believe that we have a legit president and decrying how awful America is, along with legislative paralysis. If Obama (as likely) wins, then we probably find out that the the politics of "change" are exactly like everything we've experienced over the last eight years. I've said this before -- it's not about reaching out and working together, it's about one side trying to beat the other so badly that they can dictate terms. Obama had a huge national profile and a seat in the United States Senate. Then he got to run the most lavish presidential campaign in history however he wanted. And in all those things, he's been more or less a standard Democrat. You probably won't see any significant movement on Social Security or Medicare, which are some of the most pressing issues threatening the future of our economy, and then we'll probably see even MORE massive financial obligations kicked around with health care. I hope everyone REALLY likes the wrapping paper, because we're being re-gifted right now. (November 4, 2008)

Speechifying: I don't like watching convention speeches, or State of the Union speeches. As someone who does public speaking for a living I find them excrutiating. I don't care how pumped you are to be there -- you don't have to cheer "USA" after every other line. Let the guy talk. Speeches are a kind of art, and all the cheering just kills the flow. Plus it makes it unwatchable to anyone who doesn't already agree with the speaker. Code Pink lady just got bounced. Nice deflection by McCain. Honestly, wackos: you aren't helping your cause. I doubt PETA converts many people; I doubt Code Pink changes the minds of anyone. Mostly you just annoy people and make you cause annoying by association. McCain isn't a great speaker. I don't think that bothers me very much, because in a 24/7 media era eloquence gets burned out, and quickly. If every song on the radio was a power ballad, you'd get sick of music pretty quick. No longer would the vocals transport you to a world of romance and Camaros, and who would want that? I think part of McCain's problem is limited arm function, which if I'm recalling correctly is partly a consequence of being tortured. You don't read about that much, kind of like Bob Dole always having to hold a pen to cover up his injured hand. Democrats, here's your angle: what if that 3 a.m. phone call comes, and the phone is on a high shelf? Or, at the first debate, Obama should try to High five him. OK, here's the list of regular people with problems. I don't know when this started but it needs to stop. Now. In a country of 300 million people, you can find a sob story to justify any program. "I fight for Chris White, who is sitting on his couch with no steady job, trying to eke out a living by sharing the gift of laughter with his fellow Americans. And that's why we should all give him $10." Small point, but when he said "a culture of life," McCain paused and puffed some air into his upper lip, which made him look like he was suppressing vomit. I'm pretty sure that was unintentional. And here's the fantasy part ... I will keep taxes low on everyone! And I will reduce government spending. Straight up: we need to blow up Social Security and Medicare. That's the only way this happens. McCain's sort of dancing around it, but basically, this won't happen in divided government. No chance. Hmmm ... good mention of education. I think this issue is a winner. If I was writing the GOP platform, I'd basically say: "Here's the deal. Kids get the money. Kids get health care, kids get education help, kids get whatever they need." You're aren't going to work miracles when the kids have crappy parents, but it's the most equitable thing. "But ... if we do this we can't afford as much for the adults. So pick, your kids or you." Hmmm hmmm ... now he just made a pretty good ideological case for change in Washington, that all the big programs were designed for an outdated economy, and now they're bloated bureaucratic messes. I think people can relate to this, because anyone who waited too long at the Post Office hates bureaucracies. So, everyone. They're like dark matter. They make up about 99 percent of the weight of government, they are somehow intimately tied to the workings of government, and people still have no idea how the damn things work. Well, that torture stuff was pretty good, without being over the top. Also, McCain is a lot less pissy toward Democrats than Obama was to Republicans. Instead, McCain gave the dirty work to Palin. This might work out well, because in all the elections I remember (thousands!) the VP race fades into the background, since most people just don't care all that deeply. But I think the highlight of the evening has to be the playing of "Barracuda" after the speech. Huh. They could have taken the age issue off the table if McCain had just crowd surfed right after the speech. Another missed opportunity. REMEMBER! Be sure to keep an eye on St. Paul Prostitution Arrest Photos in the weeks ahead to see if any big-name Republicans show. It'll be great! (September 5, 2008)

Yes You Can!: You could spend your time, money and energy working on a local level in your community to make an actual difference in someone's life. Tutor a poor kid, sweep up a sidewalk, that sort of thing. Or you could PROTEST THE RNC! YEAH! IT WILL TOTALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE! We get a lot of protests here in DC, because apaprently it means more if you yell into a bullhorn somewhere between the White House and Capitol. Their primary result is causing traffic problems for people like me with little or no interest in that particular problem, which in turn gives people like me a rooting interest against that cause. Thanks to protesters, I now support: Global warming. In fact, I support the conversion of all existing power plants to oil-burning facilities, and then the creation international markets that only allow oil to be purchased with actual human blood. A 5,000-year commitment in Iraq, and war as a solution to every international problem. Instead of impeaching George Bush, installing him as emperor for life. Unequal pay, to the point where a man gets paid 95 percent more for doing much, much less than a woman. The 1915 genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. After sitting in traffic for 25 minutes, I was actually close to being disappointed in the Ottomans for not finishing the job, thereby eliminating any possible protests in the future. Trivia! Last call for trivia, peeps. It's Wednesday night at 7. Come out and play -- you won't be sorry, I promise. (September 2, 2008)

Conventional Thought: When your product is, ostensibly, rational ideas, who would you like for a sales force: A) Glassy-eyed people wearing strange hats, holding signs, dancing awkwardly, cheering like elementary school students and generally looking like DVD bonus footage from "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple," or ... B) Anyone else If you think the answer is B, you don't understand politics! Listen to the Music Ronald Reagan chose "Born in the USA" as a campaign song, even though it's actually about the horrible mistreatment of veterans. So today, Meslissa Ethridge goes onstage at the Democratic National Conventions and sings ... uh, "Born in the USA." Stupidity knows no party! Also, at one point between speakers, C-SPAN showed people in the conventional hall dancing and singing along to "Chain of Fools," which was especially amusing since the closed-captioning guy was going crazy typing the verse over and over again as they panned around the arena. Finally, after Bill Clinton's speech: "Addicted to Love." No, really. And people plan these things in advance. Just Win, Baby High political content. Avoid if you don't like this stuff. Barack Obama is supposed to lead the country into some sort of post-partisan, cooperative, world-changing era, right? Based on what, exactly? When George W. Bush ran in 2000 as "a uniter, not a divider," he at least had some success under his belt with the Texas government. He did manage to get through tax cuts and education reform (for better or worse) before the wheels fell off. Barack Obama, the anti-Bush, has done ... what? He has a voting record as partisan as anyone in the Senate, an undistinguished record in Illinois, and the primary support of only about half his party. So the attitude can be different, right? The convention, where Obama's people undoubtedly have some pull, has been a parade of the standard Republican bashing and Democratic talking points. It's not really any different from 2004 (or what you'll see next week in St. Paul going in the other direction). They're kicking off a supposed era of new civility by slamming and disparaging their opponents, on a personal and professional level, at every turn. There's some talk about a new approach to international relations, but it's actually an old approach -- it's not that different from Clinton-era diplomacy (which might have made Bush-era diplomacy necessary, but that's another story). It's all the same. How often can you trot out auto workers from Michigan, have them complain about how their state stinks and then say that your the party that will do something about it? At what point do you admit that NO party can do much about a globalized economy and that, oh yeah, sometimes life is unfair? At what point do parties stop promising a list of benefits for voters and start making hard choices -- even if it means political suicide, because it's the right thing to do? There aren't any fresh ideas on how to solve socials ills or reduce government debts; there's no serious principled statments on a coherent philosophy of government. That would be actual change. What we have now is a bunch of people (Republicans and Democrats both) desperate to win. All civility means in this context is crushing the other side so badly that you can dictate terms. Bleh. (August 27, 2008)

Hey Friday!: It's Friday! I'd say it's time to relax but I haven't worked that hard this week. Relaxing might slow my heartbeat down to complete stop. What Brown Did For Me I ordered my first ever set of photos from Snapfish this week. I was a little late to the digital camera craze, relying on a hand-cranked, diesel-motor camera with hand-held exploding flash bulbs until early 2008. It was impractical, and it took up a lot of space in the jalopy, but the flappers seemed to love it. But I'll wired for sound now! And so I had about 150 priceless memories committed to contact paper at the very reasonable price of 9 cents a print. Either computers or a Chinese sweatshop were handing this order, because it must have shipped about 30 seconds after I placed it. Here's how it arrived at my house: I was working at my desk when I heard a thud outside, like something being thrown on the ground. I went to the window and saw a UPS guy crossing the street to his truck. Since no one rang my doorbell, and I couldn't see a package on the doorstep from my window, I went back to work. I figured he delivered something next door. Then, there was a really nasty thunderstorm. After the rain, I went outside to check on the front 40, and hey! There's a package on my doorstep. It was the photos, in a cardboard box which was soaked almost all the way through. So, the UPS guy came to my house but didn't knock or ring the bell; opted not to use my mailbox even though the non-water-resistant cardboard box would have fit and there was a thunderstorm coming; and then decided to top things off by throwing or dropping the package. The photos were OK, but from a customer service perspective, yikes. This ranks up there with the time when I caught a FedEx guy, after ringing the doorbell and then waiting about five seconds for an answer, getting ready to leave a pacakge in my recycling bin, thinking that I would naturally check for packages there. Because I always sort through the garbage for my mail! It's the first place I check! You never know when the latest issue of empty beer-bottle monthly might show. United We Stand! It's almost convention week! When people with a strong affinity for buttons, ugly hats and an irrational faith in representative democracy can finally blow off four years of steam and actually get lucky discussing policy in a Ramada Inn bar. Huzzah. The big issue for Democrats going into Denver was whether Hillary Clinton would have her name nominated on the convention floor, in recognition of her historic campaign. Historic, in that she spent the entire GDP of some third world nations and still managed to lose to a guy with almost no experience, ties to a crazy religious leader and no policy positions discernibly different from her own. That's never been done before. And oh yeah, she's also a lady! It has been a groundbreaking campaign for the Democratic party, and much of the broken ground was picked up and thrown at other Democrats. To a lot of people, if you don't like Hillary, you're a sexist, and if you don't like Obama, you're a racist. And therein lies the beauty of this campaign. It's brought us all together. The conventional wisdom in the minds of a lot of Democrats, at least the self-righteous ones around DC, is that if you're a racist or a sexist, then you're also a Republican. A Republican who just sits around oppressing people, twirling your monocle, sloshing champagne on your waistcoat, kicking the orphans who gave you a bad shoe shine. Or a Republican who loves guns and owns at least one Dale Earnhardt shirt. It's quite the power bloc we've formed in the GOP. Well, now we know for a FACT, that the Democratic party has just as many racists and sexists as any other party. We have the primary polling results to prove it! Tons of Democratic primary voters pulled a lever, not because of a sincere analysis of candidate's qualifications, but because of their particular hatred of, or affinity for, a gender or race. And in a time when Democrats and Republicans can't agree on taxes, or oil, or the war on terrorism, isn't it good to know that there's some common bond to build on? Bigotry and sexism aren't Republican problems, or Democratic problems. They're American problems. United we stand! Ageism, however, is pretty much exclusively a Democratic party problem. Republicans did the noble thing and nominated an old white guy to show their support for the gray horde. Get with the program, donkeys. The Dream Begins to Die If you're in a political mood, you can also read this neat Washington Post article about people "energized" by the Obama campaign getting smacked around by the Democratic party establishment when they try to run for D.C. government posts. JFK inspired a generation of people to public service, and once that generation became firmly stuck in the swamp that is government bureaucracy, their dreams were choked out. Those people became the dispirited, bitter government employees whose lethargy and bitterness prevented anything of value from happening at a federal level for decades to follow, as other people made an actual difference in the private sector or through direct charity. I'm glad to hear that Obama is restocking the streams! We are the ones we've been waiting for! Golden Girls Also amusing, a column where a guy says the IOC loses all credibility if it doesn't investigate the ages of Chinese gymnasts. The IOC is supposedly one of the most corrupt international organizations in existence. It exists primarily so commissioners can get nice bribes. This is a public secret. But I guess they have SOME credibility to lose. Huh. If you're following this story at all, then you probably know deep in your heart that the Chinese cheated, because, oh yeah, THEY'RE EVIL. Those little girls aren't at fault, but the Chinese government is a pseudo-Stalinist propaganda machine that invested all of its national pride in the the Olympics and enjoys getting in pissing contests with the West. Chances are no one is going to mess with them, though. They have the numbers. In conclusion, Nastia is the most unfortunate name in Olympic competition since Irina Slutskaya. Suit Up Michael Phelps is great and all, but it's sort of hard to be THAT impressed when he breaks the world record every single race. The big difference from years gone by is the suit, made from baby seals, which has less resistance in the water than skin. This is a definite case of clothes making the man, and I feel that we all should be given specially designed outfits to improve our job performance. For example, I could use a unitard that makes me look like a 22-year-old Mexican woman with crossover appeal. I'm pretty sure I'd have an agent within a week with that outfit. If the suit could also decrease my resistance to begging for work, that would be great. Sadly, NASA isn't really focusing on this sort of thing, and so I guess for now, I'm stuck with the classic push-up bra and a smile. Yowza. (August 15, 2008)

Al Gore ...: Way to man up and endorse a guy who already won the nomination. It's that bold attitude that won you the presidency. Oil Can't! It's not often that I agree with the president of Iran, but this makes sense to me. We all know oil and gas suddenly cost a hell of a lot more, but can anyone explain EXACTLY why? I know China and India are going to be using more gas, and I know global supplies will dwindle, and I know the price of gas HAS to go up in the long term. But why exactly did the price double in the space of a few months? How many things double in price that quickly outside of a gold rush? And if there's a legit supply and demand reason for this, why aren't we all scared ****less that a substance ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to the ENTIRE GLOBAL ECONOMY is on a week-to-week basis? Aren't we teetering pretty close to Thunderdome here? I just want to know in case I have to start getting measured for my bondage-gear biker-gang outfit. Feature Creature I've been spending the last few weeks trying to fill out my stand-up calendar for the back half of 2008. It's not my favorite part of the business, and lately it's gotten uglier. Lots of places are bugging out about the economy -- if you look online, it's not too tough to find comedy clubs willing to comp out hundreds of tickets a night just to put butts in seats. They often cut costs by dropping out-of-town features (no hotel fees that way) in favor of local guys. And even if they do use out-of-town guys, it costs hundreds of dollars in gas to get to most places these days. It's not unusual to spend half the money you're earning on travel expenses, never mind general wear and tear on the car. Not to mention the regular garbage! A lot of prominent headliners (i.e., often the ones who go to the most prestigious clubs) insist on bringing their own feature acts with them, thereby elbowing out independently booked features trying to make a name for themselves. When a headliner brings a feature, it's not always because the person is a good comic. Sometimes that's the case, but just as often, headliners are fishing for guys who won't make an impression: if a feature act is too good, too awful, or too dirty, it can be tough for a headliner to go on stage afterwards. They would rather have predictability, and so they go with what they know. (Or sometimes, they just go with a guy who smokes pot with them. A surprising number of people have gotten their breaks in comedy based largely on who they smoke pot with. I'm pretty sure this is the business model for Happy Madison.) It makes sense for the headliner, but it's tough to watch. In the audience at a comedy club a few weeks ago, I saw a tagalong feature barely fill out a 17-minute set (20-30 is normal) by ripping off George Carlin airline jokes. And not even RELEVANT jokes -- he was complaining about how airport security asks you if you packed your own bags. They stopped doing that a few years ago. But that's what the headliner wanted. The feature act "system" doesn't really act like a minor leagues for developing new headliners. To many clubs, you're just a placeholder. Sometimes you're fighting demographics, too. White males generally have no shortage of opportunities, but consider this: a white male headliner I saw recently was honestly suprised that the show (emcee, feature, headliner) consisted of three white males. The entertainment industry (right or wrong) firmly believes that racial and gender diversity should be a priority (Whether the motivation is ethical, financial or both varies from club to club). Since a great many headliners are white males (like I said, no shortage of opportunities, plus we're the largest demographic cohort in the business), that means when you go down the card, it often is less desirable to have a white male feature; that demographic niche has already been filled. You can distinguish yourself in other ways (style, skill, etc.) but sometimes your headshot does have something to do with a booking decision. You aren't needed. Honestly, I'm not complaining; I only write this because people ask me from time to time what it's like being a comedian, or what "the circuit" is like. Clubs aren't usually the way for young guys to get to the top; they're a way to keep your head above water and stay sharp while you wait for other projects (writing, acting, podcasts, etc.) to pay off. It's not the 1980s anymore, when TV scouts would comb the nightspots for the next huge television star; now it's people trying to find performers to placate narrow demographics on the Web or cable or at college campuses or whatever. That's just the way it is. In some senses it's understandable, but it's also a shame, because being a really good stand-up requires a lot of focus. It would be nice if a young performer could viably work on stand-up alone and eventually be rewarded. But that's not how the system works anymore, for the most part. It's a fun life, though! Funny how much that evens the scales. (June 18, 2008)