Anti-Vaxxer Family Circus

Evil Cartoon Deer Whitesplains Ferguson

Republican Graphics, Explained

You've probably seen this image many times by now, such as here:

It's the cover graphic for the GOP's famous "post mortem"report on the 2012 election. For the longest time, I thought it was just that: a graphic. But it's not! It's actually a highly accurate Venn diagram! Here, I labeled it for you:

It isn't perfect (technically, the "Patriots" should also overlap with the Evangelical Christians, for instance), but still, tell me that isn't just about right.

NOTE: Some may be taken aback by my inclusion of African Americans wholly inside the "Evangelical Christian" group. Find me an African American Republican who ISN'T an evangelical Christian, and I'll admit the error (oh, right, Condi and Powell. OTHER than them).

Fashion Victim: Typist Threatened By Menswear

(One of Walter van Beirendonck's latest creations.)

I usually find it irritating that mainstream fashion websites rarely cover menswear. Be careful what you wish for, however, because ohhhhh, this piece by Ashley Hoffman at Styleite made my blood boil.

See, Ms.. Hoffman has noticed you guys starting to dress creatively and even exuberantly, and she IS NOT HAVING IT.  She's OK with the pocket squares and suspenders (she's caught up with the 80s, in other words), but she actually seems angry about the threat of growing dandyism. Here is the key sentence (emphasis mine):

It’s not just that I am jealous that their outfit is more overplanned and more expensive than what I’m wearing.

She admits it! She admits that stylish men make her aware of her own perceived shortcomings! And so what follows is, basically, name-calling. You dandies look like ice cream vendors, like throwbacks to the Edwardian era, like homosexuals, and worse:

Underneath every straw fedora with a ribbon, there’s usually an asshole.

Oh, I forgot that the only acceptable thing a man should put on his head is a motherfucking baseball cap. Noted. (I'm looking at my new Goorin Bros. straw hat with ribbon. I'm such a dick.)

To say that Hoffman's screed is itself a throwback is an understatement. I've long contended that women generally dress to stand out, while men usually dress to blend in, and that is the way, I suppose, she likes it. I suspect that Ms. Hoffman is finding it increasingly difficult to tell the queers from the straights, and that gives her some kind of weird anxiety. The strangest thing is that she seems ANGRY about the new dandyism. Why the animus?

Don't call attention to yourself! Don't wear colors other than black, white, blue (within an acceptable range, please!), or gray. If you're feeling kicky, go for a bow tie, if you must.

So march yourself directly to Macy's, boys. Pick up a pair of Dockers and a blue chambray oxford, and stop upsetting the Ashley Hoffmans of this world. DO NOT show any kind of creativity or style in the way you attire yourself. That's women's work. 

And one final note: it's Raf Simons, not Simmons (UPDATE: this has been corrected).. And his clothes are gorgeous.

That'll Show 'Em!

GOP Gets Squirrely

On Friday at Wonkette, I made a particularly dumb post where I imagined a parallel universe in which the GOP embraced cat memes to spread their message. Within hours, amazingly, reports started filtering in about a Republican operative roaming around in... a squirrel costume, delivering meme-y platitudes against Hillary Clinton. What's a satirist to do when his job is being done without him?

So anyway, just as I demonstrated at Wonkette that I can produce better cat memes than the GOP, it behooves me to also demonstrate that I can create squirrel memes better than they can:

Barbwire.com Has An Image Problem

(Screenshot, today.)

I've written before about how I'm kind of obsessed with Barbwire.com, Matt Barber's ludicrously anti-gay, anti-secular, anti-... well, everything, website. It's such an inspiring hate-read, it has become a cherished part of my morning routine: I eagerly await 6:00 AM, when they batch-post their new articles for the day.

Now, when I say that Barbwire has an image problem, what I mean is that they literally have a lot of trouble with the images they use for the site. As you can see in the screenshot above, they use a lot of stock photography, and sometimes they seem a little... challenged to find appropriate illustrations.

What went through the mind of the person who chose that picture? "Hey! Two redheads pulling each other's hair! That... works."

They also seem to be baffled by the rules which are generally followed by supposedly professional organizations when it comes to image use and permissions. And, look, photographic services and permissions are what I do for a living, so I'm speaking from a position of some authority here. A great example can be seen here, where they use a picture from The Oatmeal, completely uncredited and with its satirical intent totally, hilariously strangled in the bathtub, as it were. They seem to think that a key part of copyright law is "if it's on the internet, it must be public domain." More often than not, the stock photographs they use come not from the owners of the photographs, but from other web sites who used them previously*. At least, you can tell that when they provide image credits.

So blah blah blah, yes, everybody does this (so do I!). My point is that this is somewhat surprising behavior coming from a website supposedly run by lawyers. Honestly, that site is a festival of copyright infringement.

So good.

*UPDATE: Here's a good example. Barbwire credits the image used for this post to "communities.washingtontimes.com" when, in fact, it's an Associated Press photograph which can be seen properly credited and paid for here. The image of Obama Barbwire uses here is credited to the Washington Post; it is, in fact, a Reuters photograph.

The Final Dregs Of Operation American Spring

The photo above, taken today at lunch, shows literally all that remains of Operation American Spring: eight dudes and two Gadsden flags.

After their first day's dismal turnout, the organizers swore that SO MANY more people would join them (they didn't). Then they pinned their hopes on the "Rolling Thunder" rally, certain that all the bikers would cozy up to their cause (they didn't).

So now, I suppose, they're just biding their time until their return bus tickets are valid.

My prediction for tomorrow: three guys with Benghazi wrist bands.

Operation American Spring: Still Kind Of Sort Of (Not Really) Happening!

(Click for bigger.)

Remember last week how much we enjoyed the epic failure of Operation American Spring? Well, guess what? They're still there, in front of the Air and Space Museum with their Benghazi banners and a big sign saying AMERICA IS A CHRISTIAN NATION. Far from a growing movement, however, now it's about a dozen portly 65-year-old men with goatees and novelty t-shirts. So, in other words, let's blame this on the Baby Boomers, too.

Fake Pony Twitter Detected, Real Pony Twitter Created.

I don't have a Twitter account. But what's this? Strange. The user doesn't even try to sound like me. Puzzling!

UPDATE: OK, OK, now I am on Twitter. I knew I'd get railroaded into it one way or another. Still no Facebook, though!

Operation American Spring Brings Very, Very, Very, Very Small Part Of Washington, DC To A Standstill

(Click for bigger.)

Yes, today was "Operation American Spring" on The Mall, what was supposed to be a patriotastic, roiling crowd of "10 to 30 million" gun and racial purity Jesus enthusiasts which would depose the president, bring the city to a screeching (presumably VERY screeching) halt, disrupt all the commerce 'n' such, etc., etc.

And, well, as you can see, they absolutely jam-packed a very small portion of part of a field on one side of a short stretch of sidewalk in front of the Air and Space Museum.

Megaphones were unnecessarily employed.

There were no reports, thank goodness, of joggers, elementary school tour groups, or people with strollers being inconvenienced. 

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.

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.

Silver Bullet?

Yes, yes, it's really sad and everything that Bob Seeger died. My condolences to his family.

But seriously, I think it's overdoing it a bit to refer to the "Like a Rock" and "Strut" crooner as a "folk music pioneer." It's perfectly competent lite country-rock, I suppose (not really my kind of thing!), but it doesn't sound like folk music to me.

The New Seekers on the other hand? Sublime.

So How Is George Zimmerman Making His Paintings?

(Zimmerman's painting via Gawker and everywhere else.)

The art world is abuzz about the new offering from noted painter George Zimmerman. Actually, that's a complete lie. But I bet that attentive Pony Pals already know the answer to the question in the title: it's traced, naturally! But how was it traced? Here's my theory, on which I'd bet money, and it shows not only a new kind of tracing fakery we haven't discussed here yet, but also that classic forgers' methods can be used to create original works. Well, somewhat original, anyway.

What Zimmerman did was to have this AP news photo:

...printed on "canvas paper", and then he painted over it. That's it! Many, many companies offer printing on ersatz canvas; it's hardly a rare service. And, in fact, it's a great deal more common (and less cumbersome) these days than an opaque projector, which would be my guess #2. There were certainly no silkscreens involved, a la Shep Fairey, who Zimmerman is attempting to emulate; however, a lettering template was evidently used to (crudely) stencil on the lettering.

If this were true, the two images should match up well, and indeed, look at the results when the news photo is turned blue and superimposed on Zimmerman's painting:

(Click for bigger.)

Perfect match. So, yeah, this is slapdash stuff, lazily traced by an untalented artist. But you could already tell that just by looking at it.

What's interesting is that this technique is an old forgery trick from before the days of infrared reflectography and X-rays, and is basically exactly the same technique (painting over a mounted photo) the notorious "Wacker forger" used to execute many of his brilliant Vincent van Gogh fakes, such as this one which ended up in the collection at my job. Whoopsies!

UPDATE: Would it be unbecoming of me to point out that I figured this one out before everybody else?

I Color In The Ted Cruz Coloring Book So You Don't Have To...

... with pictures of insects:

(Click for slightly larger.)

Reminder: Sometimes Idiot Redneck Hillbilly Assholes On TV Really Are Idiot Redneck Hillbilly Assholes Rather Than People Just Pretending To Be Idiot Redneck Hillbilly Assholes

And if you're not aware of the concepts of which I am speaking, read this old post.

Just A Reminder: It Is Hurtful And Unfair To Call Right-Wingers Racist

Hard to disagree with that last one!

PSP Career Advice: Avoid Alliterative Scandalous Behavior

I keep seeing Radel referred to as the "Cocaine Congressman," because nothing is zingier on the interwebs than an alliterative scandal. Just reflect upon it: if Radel had been busted buying marijuana, then the resulting "Pot-Smoking Official" headlines wouldn't carry nearly the same weight or LOLishness.

So what I'm saying is this: don't invite these things. If you are a librarian, for instance, don't get photographed breast feeding your infant on the floor in the middle of the shoe department at Neiman Marcus, because then you'll forever be the "Lactating Librarian." The EMT who exposes himself to passers by will become "The Flashing Fireman." If I went on a wild, angel dust-fueled rampage, I would have to endure "PCPPSP" jibes for the rest of my life.

The moral of this story is choose your vices carefully.

Oh, and by the way, while it is true that Radel has been making faces where he sucks in his lips, he has yet to make a truly FROWNY Sucked-In Lips Face.

The Cheese Stands Alone

Republican governor Scott Walker was on ABC's This Week yesterday, and it turns out that he keeps disqualifying all of his Republican colleagues from having a chance at the presidency except for... well, himself.

See, Republican governor Scott Walker thinks only a Republican governor can wrest the presidency away from the Democrats, and one of those Republican governors is Republican governor Scott Walker! Neat!

So Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan? Cut it out, guys, because as soon as Republican governor Scott Walker figures out how to be more popular than Republican governor Chris Christie (I doubt he's too concerned with Republican governor Bobby Jindal), he's got this thing IN THE BAG.