Ted Nugent Family Circus

I hope you weren't expecting a classy first post for PSP year 10.

Link for full quotes.

Princess Sparkle Pony Trots Into Year Ten

It was nine years ago today that I came up with the idea of starting a blog about politics that couldn't sound too self-righteously indignant because it had such a stupid name and a ridiculous tween girl design. And look at that! It's still here!

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Yesterday in my latest "What If?" column for Wonkette, I expressed a wish for less Hitler in political discourse, and more Charles Manson, you know, for laffs.  But this morning, almost as if in response, the Huffington Thing came through with this:

I rest my case.

PSP Flashback: Remember When Vladimir Putin Lifted Up A Little Boy's Shirt And Kissed Him On The Stomach?

(TASS, 06-28-2006)

Everybody revives the gross-out shirtless horseback pics, but this is my favorite Putin bizarro-moment. Here's what I wrote about it in 2006:

VLADIMIR PUTIN JUST WANTS SOME KITTEN-BOY LOVE, OK?

And, honestly, don’t we all sometimes? No? OK. The peculiar boy-stomach-kissing incident happened several days ago, but Putin, finally, today explains:

“He seemed to me very independent, very serious, but at the same time a boy is always vulnerable. He was very sweet. I’ll be honest, I felt an urge to squeeze him like a kitten and that led to the gesture that I made, there was nothing behind it really,” he said, smiling.

See? What’s the big deal? He just likes the sweetness of lithe young boys, mixed in with a little dash of independence and vulnerability. And he likes to kiss their stomachs, but it’s not like he does it all the time or anything! God, you guys have such filthy minds.

And, honestly, don’t we all sometimes? No? OK. The peculiar boy-stomach-kissing incident happened several days ago, but Putin, finally, today explains:
Read more at http://wonkette.com/185601/vladimir-putin-just-wants-some-kitten-boy-love-ok#KglEQCekjexjiMql.99

Photoblogging: Conventional Wisdom

Who ever would have guessed...

(Click for bigger.)

... that twee French mime dolls would fail to sell?

Other than "everybody."

Dream Date With Condi Still SUPER Expensive

(PSP flashback to one of Condi's many super-exciting gigs.)

The good news for Condi is that she's giving the keynote address at Rutgers University's anniversary shindig. The even better news for Condi is that she's getting $35,000 to do it. So that's her non-profit rate, her academic discount. Oodles of Ferragamos, yay!

Did I mention that America's Princess Diplomat is the GOP's new spokeslady for income inequality? She's doing an awesome job!

Don Lemon Sissy-Shames Johnny Weir

Don't get me wrong: Johnny Weir makes my flesh crawl. But then CNN's Don Lemon had to go and say this:

LEMON: And let me just say this I had this conversation with a friend about Johnny Weir and other people who have, who are out and proud. No one likes a gay minstrel show. So let's just put it and let's just put that out there.

COSTELLO: What do you mean by that?

LEMON: But -- well it's about someone who is flamboyant and over the top and all of those it seems those are the people who get the tension but they don't represent all of gay America and there's nothing bad about those people. I'm not saying anything bad about people who do that. 

Shorter Don Lemon: OMG this nelly faggot. I'm so embarrassed for my friends and me.

Besides being guilty of sissy-shaming, which makes him a garden variety asshole, Lemon is wrong on another point: everybody loves a good gay minstrel show. And plenty of people like bad ones, too.

Is Mitch McConnell A Tex Avery Cartoon Character? He Better Hope So

(Via Mediaite)

Ha ha, I'm actually jealous I didn't think of that first. McConnell's foe pulls out of the hat one of the best creations of Tex Avery, Bugs Bunny's antagonist from Tortoise Beats Hare, in a totally mean yet accurate comparison to the chinless senator.

This is an ignorant misuse of animation metaphors, because not only does the tortoise win in Avery's great film, he utterly crushes Bugs, perhaps the only time that ever happened in a classic Warner Bros. cartoon. The tortoise managed to do what Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, and Marvin the Martian never could.

Like Bugs, McConnell's adversary shouldn't get too cocky; his cartoon simile may be more accurate than he bargained for.

Other Good Things About The Aurora Shooting

Bernie Herpin is a Republican state senator in Colorado. People are very mad at him! Herpin is a valiant protector of your Second Amendment rights, and that includes having all the ammunition you want because that is what George Washington and Button Gwinnett wanted for you. So, sheesh, all Senator Herpin said was that it was a "good thing" that James Holmes had a 100-round ammunition magazine, because those things just jam all the time, which saves lives. Why is this so hard to understand?

Here are a couple of other good things about the Aurora shooting:

• It's a good thing that Holmes shot up a movie theater, because he could have gone somewhere even more crowded, so many more people could have been killed. This is why heroes like Bernie Herpin defend everybody's right to carry guns into movie theaters. Because it saves lives.
• It's a good thing that one of Holmes's victims was a six-year-old, because today's youth are so brainwashed by the liberal media that she probably would have grown up to be a Democrat who would take your guns away. 
• It's a good thing that Holmes committed his mass slaughter in Aurora, because it could have happened in Colorado Springs.

This post was sponsored by the National Rifle Association.

Odds, Ends, Plugs, Warnings

It's "What If?" time over at Wonkette again. This week I ponder the prose stylings of Breitbart's Ben Shapiro, and wonder just how many times you have to hit yourself on the head with a hammer before it all starts to make any sense. Don't try this at home!

In other news, last Thursday I posted a thing about what fun it was to discover that some of my best friends were heroin addicts.  I'm sorry to say that I received the update I feared would come, so the post has been amended.

Meanwhile, Washington is apparently going to be mummified in ten feet of solid ice tonight and tomorrow. Neat!

And finally, if you're irritated that I'm writing for Wonkette again, because I should be posting here more, you are going to HATE me this Sunday when something I did for an even more mainstream enterprise is published. Details to come!

UPDATE: Or not this Sunday!

Oh And I Guess That I Just Don't Know

 

 (Still from Twin Peaks)

The recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman made me think about heroin. Now, I did my fair share of experimentation in my youth, but never with heroin, because it always scared the hell out of me, and also because I know I've got a bit of a obsessive/compulsive nature. Best leave well enough alone! Also, if you came of age in the late 70s/early 80s punk/underground art scene, you ended up seeing a lot of anti-role models. Indeed, I've known a few people who dallied with the White Horse, and let's just say that the dallying never stayed just dallying. Here's one story! All the names have been changed to protect the... unfortunate.

When I worked for the Festival of Animation in the early 90s, there were three groups of producers who bicycled the show around to their respective territories; let's call them groups A, B, and C. At first I primarily worked for group A, Spike and Mike's original troupe (until I couldn't take it anymore). After that, I worked mostly for group B, based in Sacramento, but at the same time, one of the two heads of group C was my housemate, and most of that group's employees were good friends of mine, though I never worked with them. The other head of group C was this absolutely ridiculous rock 'n' roll idiot who basically lived his life as though he were attending a never-ending masquerade party as Slash from Guns 'n' Roses. So LA. Gross. I heard that he flirted with heroin use ("only on weekends"), and I thought, "Typical."

One time I was putting on the show in Ann Arbor, MI for group B, and the group C guys asked me if I could possibly go to help them in Madison, WI when my run was finished. I'd be joining Fritz and Bill for five weeks, and since I really liked them both, and had never collaborated with them before, I jumped at the chance. Fun!

Immediately after joining Fritz and Bill in Wisconsin, I could tell something was up with them. Bill kept going off to do vaguely-defined "errands" which didn't make a lot of sense to me. He was trying to get some kind of supplies, and when he'd return, he and Fritz would kind of whisper together about not being able to find what they were looking for (insert terrible U2 song here). Meanwhile, we seemed to be going from one end of town to another for reasons that didn't add up. I was confused, but figured, well, they must do things differently in this group. What did I know? It didn't seem like it had anything to do with preparing for the film festival.

Finally they seemed to be satisfied and happy, and we made our way to our corporate rental apartment for the night. I settled into the couch to relax, watch TV, look over our schedules and strategies, etc. Fritz and Bill settled into the adjoining kitchen to unwind in a different way. Out came the weirdly bent spoons, lighters, tourniquets, and a brand-new box of hypodermic needles. It turns out that the final item was what they had been chasing all over town (they had already flown cross-country with their supply of heroin!). It took a couple of beats for me to realize what was happening, and I was shocked. I knew about their boss's occasional junk use, but this seemed way more than casual. My eyes widened. Oh no. What had I gotten myself into? I was stuck in an unfamiliar city with two junkies, totally at their mercy (they had the rental car, for instance, not me) for over a month. Great.

They realized I was... unsettled. "Oh," said Fritz, "Does it freak you out that we're doing this?"

"Yes," I replied quickly.

"We can go into the bedroom to do it, if you want."

"That won't freak me out any less," I replied, resigned.

"Great!" Fritz said, happily, instantly forgetting my discomfort, and they were off to the races.

And that pretty much set the tone for my visit to Madison, working with and being driven around by a couple of junkies. To top it off, I ended up hating the city (sorry!), which struck me as being an awful lot like a Midwest Berkeley. My only respite was visiting my friend Milo Aukerman, an erstwhile college buddy who had relocated to Madison to be a research scientist at the university. He sympathized with my plight, but said, "Yeah, don't bring them around."

What ever happened to those guys? I have no idea how Fritz ended up, because he eventually moved back to the East Coast to get clean, but Bill? Oh, dear. That didn't turn out well at all.

One day, only about a year after my unpleasant business trip, Bill, desperate, slouched into a La Jolla ice cream parlor in broad daylight with a pathetic plan. He needed money, so he thought he'd simply strong-arm their cash register (no weapons) by walking behind the counter, opening the till, and helping himself to its contents... right in front of a store full of nonplussed customers and staff. He was quickly subdued, the police were summoned, and he was carted away.

It turns out that the police were accompanied by a video crew for a local TV station for a "Cops" style news feature. Bill was processed and taken to jail. Eventually he joined his fellow prisoners in the lounge that evening just in time to see the report of his arrest playing on the communal television. Apparently he came in the room and all the other men turned around and saw him, immediately jeering, "Hey, look! It's Ice Cream Guy!"

So, yeah, not all "occasional users" of heroin end up being Chris Farley (RIP) or Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP). Some of them end up being Ice Cream Guy.

If they're lucky.

UPDATE: Super-depressing update in the comments section from Pony Pal Mr. Bad Trash, who worked with group C. Both Hans and Tom –oops, I mean Fritz and Bill– are now dead. Such sadness.

UPDATE: I realized there were some errors with the "group B" and "group C" stuff in the second paragraph, which probably made that completely incoherent. This has been fixed.

Great Philip Seymour Hoffman Scene You Probably Missed

After the death of the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, I mentioned that he had some really funny scenes in the wonderful Strangers with Candy feature film that nobody saw. I was surprised to find that the clip wasn't available on the Youtubes, so I ripped and uploaded it myself. Enjoy: