a campaign about nothing

(via "seinfeld" fan booman tribune)

[Scene: breakfast at fancy hotel restaurant, morning of November 3rd, 2008, the day after Barack Obama is elected president. Mitt Romney and long-time Bain Capital consigliere Bill White enjoy poached eggs.]

BILL: Salsa is now the number one condiment in America.

MITT: You know why? Because the country is being overrun by people who like to say "salsa." "Excuse me, do you have salsa?" "We need more salsa." "Where is the salsa? No salsa?"

BILL: You know it must be impossible for a Spanish person to order seltzer and not get salsa. (Angry) "I wanted seltzer, not salsa."

MITT: "Don't you know the difference between seltzer and salsa?? You have the seltzer after the salsa!" You really should look into acquiring the Serrano's salsa company. They're up and coming.

BILL: See, this should be the campaign. This is the campaign.

MITT: What?

BILL: This. Just talking.

MITT: (dismissing) Yeah, right.

BILL: I'm really serious. I think that's a good idea.

MITT: Just talking? Well, what's the campaign about?

BILL: It's about nothing.

MITT: No policy?

BILL: No forget the policy.

MITT: You've got to have policy.

BILL: Who says you gotta have policy? Remember when we were waiting for that table at L'Espalier that time? That could be the campaign.

MITT: And who runs against us? Who are the characters?

BILL: Rick Santorum could be a character.

MITT: Santorum?

BILL: Yeah. He's a riot.

MITT: So, on the campaign, there's Rick Santorum?

BILL: Yeah. There's something wrong with that? He's a character. People are always saying to him, "You know you're a quite a character."

MITT: And who else is on the campaign?

BILL: Michele Bachmann could be a character. Newt...

MITT: Now he's a character.

BILL: Right.

MITT: And our campaign will be about nothing?

BILL: Absolutely nothing.

MITT: So you're saying, I go in to the big donors, and tell them I got this idea for a campaign about nothing.

BILL: We go to the big donors.

MITT: "We"? Since when are you a campaign strategist?

BILL: (Scoffs) Campaign strategist? We're talking about the American public!

MITT: You want to go with me to the big donors?

BILL: Yeah. I think we really got something here.

MITT: What do we got?

BILL: An idea.

MITT: What idea?

BILL: An idea for the campaign.

MITT: I still don't know what the idea is.

BILL: It's about nothing.

MITT: Right.

BILL: Everybody's doing something, we'll do nothing.

MITT: So, we go into the big donors, we tell them we've got an idea for a campaign about nothing.

BILL: Exactly.

MITT: They say, "What's your campaign about?" I say, "Nothing."

BILL: There you go.

(A moment passes)

MITT: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.

[Scene: breakfast at fancy hotel restaurant, morning of January 21st, 2009, the day after Barack Obama is inaugurated as president. Mitt Romney and future campaign manager Matt Rhoades enjoy poached eggs.]

(Matt Rhoades pitches campaign strategy)

MATT: ...And you're the manager of the circus.

MITT: A circus?

MATT: Come on, this is a great idea. Look at the characters. You've got all these freaks on the campaign. A woman with starry eyes? I mean, who wouldn't tune in to see a women with starry eyes? You've got the dumbest man in the world; a guy who's just a head.

MITT: You mean Bachmann, Perry, and Gingrich?

MATT: Look Mitt, the show isn't about the circus, it's about watching freaks.

MITT: I don't think the networks will like it.

MATT: Why not?

MITT: Look, I don't want to do a campaign that is just about freaks.

MATT: Oh come on, Mitt, you're wrong. People they want to watch freaks. You'll be a shoe-in. This is a "can't miss."

waiting for OMGodot

---

dedicated to "squeeky":

i listened to the interview and it was certainly interesting. but i am starting to get that feeling i get when i watch destination truth or ghost hunter on TV. you know when they are out looking for werewolves in minnesota and right before the commercial somebody hollers OH MY GOD!!!

then you stick around through the commercial to see if they found the werewolf or big foot or whatever they are hunting for and when it comes back on, somebody tripped over a log or something or there was raccoon in the bush.

or if it’s ghost hunter the "spirit orbs" turns out to be dust reflecting lights. sooo, i hope if corsi* has something good, he gets it out in a hurry and doesn’t make this last through another few books or something. because i am not sure my heart can take all this.

* jerome corsi, shameless peddler of stillborn expose where's the birth certificate?

and acknowledgments to ray bradbury, whose title i stole from his 1951 short story about existential doubt — an astronaut loses his confidence in evidence or memory, his sense of object permanence, his belief in his own existence and, ultimately, his life:

i don't believe in anything i can't see or hear or touch. i can't see earth, so why should i believe in it?

... when i'm in boston, new york is dead. when i'm in new york, boston is dead. when i don't see a man for a day, he's dead. when he comes walking down the street, my god, it's a resurrection. i do a dance, almost, i'm so glad to see him. i used to, anyway. i don't dance any more.

... you have no mental evidence. that's what i want, a mental evidence i can feel. i don't want physical evidence, proof you have to go out and drag in. i want evidence that you can carry in your mind and always touch and smell and feel. but there's no way to do that. in order to believe in a thing you've got to carry it with you. you can't carry the earth. or a man, in your pocket. i want a way to do that, carry things with me always, so i can believe in them.

... there was always that gap of proof. that gap between doing and having done. what is done is dead and is not proof, for it is not an action. only actions are important. and pieces of paper were remains of actions done and over and now unseen. the proof of doing was over and done. nothing but memory remained, and i didn't trust my memory. could i actually prove i'd written these stories? no. can any author?

however, unlike the doomed astronaut, birthers aren't actually sincere in their endless demands for "evidence"; they simply hide behind such claims in order to deny the results of the 2008 election.

alkies awake!

burning up the interwebs this week have been some very encouraging reports for incorrigible alkies everywhere:

... a new paper in the journal alcoholism: clinical and experimental research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one's risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. the most shocking part? abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

i'm sorry, but announcements of this sort always remind me of the longstanding faddish nature of nutrition lore, which took a bit of a ribbing in woody allen's 1973 comedy "sleeper", wherein health food store proprietor miles munroe wakes up from an unplanned cryogenic nap 200 years into the future:

dr. melik:	well, he's fully recovered ... except for a few minor kinks.
dr. tryon:	has he asked for anything special?
dr. melik:	yes, this morning for breakfast: uh, he requested something called wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk ... ?
dr. tryon:	[chuckling] oh yes, those are the charmed substances that some years ago were felt to contain life-preserving properties.
dr. melik:	you mean there was no deep fat, no steak or cream pies or hot fudge?
dr. tryon:	those were thought to be unhealthy. precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
dr. melik:	incredible ...

miles:	and, and ... where am i anyhow? i mean, what, what happened to everybody? where are all my friends?
dr. aragon:	you must understand that everyone you knew in the past has been dead nearly two hundred years.
miles:	but they all ate organic rice!

dr. aragon:	[to dr. melik] he's ranting ... we'd better tranquilize him.
miles:	i knew it was too good to be true — i parked right near the hospital!
dr. aragon:	now here, you smoke this. and be sure you get the smoke deep down into your lungs.
miles:	i don't smoke.
dr. aragon:	it's tobacco! it's one of the healthiest things for your body! now go ahead — you need all the strength you can get.

(don't dawdle, folks! catch the movie in its entirety while it lasts ...)

not worth rescuing (revised)

sometime during the last half century, blacks pulled off a most amazing trick: they kidnapped a word. they kidnapped it from the white majority that had been using it to demean and oppress them.

there are two parts to this trick that make it so amazing. first, the word's ongoing captivity has served to extend its natural lifespan and potency far beyond that of its increasingly quaint contemporaries. second, blacks have convinced whites that what they've taken from them is something of real value, something that they need to take back.

most offensive words have only a limited shelf-life. whatever signifigance that originally makes them offensive is usually bound up in the zeitgeist of the period in which they are born. eventually, after the passing of enough generations, whatever context that gave them life and power becomes drained by everyday usage and is lost to those who grow up never having personally felt their emotional sting. the surest sign that an offensive term has hit its expiration date is the lifting of any bans on its public usage. after the word "bitch" became allowable on public airwaves, it has since become so flaccid (despite an initial period of titillation) that the slang term "bee-yatch" was squeezed from it in a naked but ultimately futile attempt to milk new life from it.

but in a feat drawing the envy of professional outrage manufacturers and propagandists everywhere, blacks have locked the n-word away in a kind of linguistic cryogenic freezer, safe for blacks' own endless private indulgence, whose continued undisguised flaunting of their hostage has now driven self-annointed self-help counselor and moralist dr. laura to commit professional suicide.

black guys use it all the time. turn on HBO and listen to a black comic, and all you hear is n****, n*****, n*****. i don't get it. if anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. but when black people say it, it's affectionate. it's very confusing.

their exclusive use of n-word is one of the few possessions that blacks have that whites don't, but most whites fail to realize that its enjoyment comes not from being able to say it, but from being able to watch the veins jealously swell up in the foreheads of racists and race-baiters as the word gets stuck in their throats, trapped there because the consequences of freeing it have become so personally damaging. comedian elon james white conveniently enumerates for us all the different types of outrage he feels free to unleash upon a white person unwise enough to utter the word:

listen, i'm not saying that white people can't say the word "ni**er", okay? what i am saying is that if you say it, i can also hate you, okay? i can mock you; i can not buy your product; i can ask for your firing; i can write letters, march, chain myself to shit. i can do that, okay? but you, you can totally say the word "ni**er". go for it!

to many whites, but especially to shock-jocks and professional rabble-rousers like dr. laura, rush limbaugh, andrew breitbart and sarah palin, being deprived of the use of one more insult is "very confusing" and simply too unfair and blacks are being too oversensitive about their attempts to use it.

well, duh!

of course it's unfair! slavery was unfair. segregation was unfair. redlining was unfair. what happened to shirley sherrod and especially what happened to her father was unfair. that's the whole point! so get used to it, guys!

besides, do whites really want to go to the mat over the right to demean their former chattel? it's just not a fight they're going to win, not when it's being fought for by paid and pampered blowhards, cranks and cynics.

still, there are two ways the n-word will die the natural death it is certainly long due. option one: when blacks release their hostage and no longer exact a price from whites for daring to use it, which, considering its continued effectiveness, as dr. laura can surely attest to, is not bloody likely to happen in this lifetime.

realistically then, this leaves us in the present with only option two: when whites let go of their n-word envy and realize that this is one hostage that's not worth rescuing. it seems most whites already have.

---

addendum: like every white person before her who grossly miscalculated that they could juggle the n-bomb without detonating it, dr. laura and her supporters want to turn her darwin-award-worthy implosion into an heroic constitutional auto-da-fé:

... my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and i have made the decision not to do radio anymore. the reason is: i want to regain my first amendment rights. i want to be able to say what's on my mind, and in my heart, what i think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent, and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. i'm sort of done with that. i'm not retiring. i'm not quitting. i feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that i believe need to be said for people in this country.

i'm not sure which document she's referring to, but the first amendment of the united states' constitution protects her freedom to speak or write from infringements by the government.

so, if president obama had picked up the phone and said to attorney general holder:

yo, eric ... i'm sick of this dr. laura bee-yatch getting all up in my peeps' grills with her shizz. man, she took it to goddam eleven this time. even clarence's gotta get behind us on this one. put the word out: her hole is closed — today.

... well, then she'd have something to complain about.

but the first amendment does not protect you from public criticism. it does not protect you from your listeners, your sponsors, your owners or your neighbors. and it certainly does not protect you from your own big mouth.

so if dr. laura thinks she can find a venue somewhere on this planet where she can spew her special brand of wisdom "without somebody getting angry" (translation: without someone cutting off her income stream), well then, good luck to the lady. wherever that is, i'm sure it's pretty crowded there already.

the last laugh

in their relentless pursuit of dramatic irony, the writers at e.c. comics churned out plots that became increasingly contrived, and this 1953 tales of the crypt story about an irrepressible prankster's one joke too far was no doubt written for the sole purpose of illustrating the gory centerpiece gag — which brings crashing down a storyline that could've been written by rube goldberg:

e.c. comic's devotion to the tradition of le théâtre du grand-guignol got them into trouble with the self-appointed moral guardians of the day, but largely because e.c. was the biggest fish, instead of the worst offender. their crimes were often purely gratuitous, like the wholly contrived ending to the previous issue's "strop! you're killing me!", the story of a fire company's ambitious new hire, who pushes out (fatally, of course) his older rival:

ouch! (or as the french say, "aïe!")

(stories by bill gaines and al feldstein; art by bill elder and jack davis)

stir crazy

nsfw, but srsly, wtfaydawosn?

richard pryor: i've always said the black man been fucked over, y'know: "the revolution ... muddafukkin whitey ... we gotta go to [unintelligible] ... nice people just gettina bad break" ... and i was there for six weeks [at arizona state prison filming "stir crazy" with gene wilder] and i talked to some of the brothers there ... [catches breath] ... thank god we got penitentiaries!

chris rock: if i had a choice right now between the electric chair or tossin' a salad, i'd be like: "so where ya plug it in?" "shouldn't i be wet?"

rick reynolds: eventually we're led into this big gymnasium, like your high school gym. four sets of bleachers pulled out, little stage in front of 'em. bleachers packed with about 800 pissed off guys in blue denim. as soon as they see us, it is like a scene from a bad prison movie. they started whistling and catcalling and yelling: "bend over!" "whoo-woo!" "fresh meat!" apparently it was mating season in prison.

---

what the f*ck are you doing at work on sunday night?

if bush is batman, that would make cheney ...

the difficulty of the questions is surprising given the absurdity of the premise:

bush or batman? right here i have a series of 30 quotes that were either said by george bush as the president of the united states or batman from the 1960 tv show: "whether we bring our enemies to justice or justice to our enemies, justice will be done." "i solemnly swear by my office that this outrage shall not go unavenged." "we've climbed the mighty mountain, i see the valley below and it's a valley of peace." "we always escape the vicious ensnarements of our enemies. i like to think it's because our hearts are pure." "this nation is freedom's home and freedom's defender." "in the interest of law, order, justice, good fellowship and the flag, you must convict them to keep our streets safe from evil persons." "the constitution is the cornerstone of our great nation, we must abide by it." "if you can't spend it, money's just a lot of worthless paper, isn't it?" "planting a time bomb in a local library is a felony." "no time to tarry, lest we forget lives are at stake. the longer we tarry, the more dire the peril." "we are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens." "i don't think we should treat religion lightly, mr. gore."

if escher was a comedian

multiple tiers of reality stacked like a house of cards come crashing down on harried talk show host ken doral:

doral:	[disheveled, tense and chainsmoking] ... rock lyrics: do they influence our kids? our topic in two weeks. but, tonight: the elderly. good evening and welcome to the pre-taped call in show, where we tape all our shows a week in advance. i'm your host ken doral, and uh ... let's try it again! it's really not that hard, 'kay? our topic once again: [gestures to his guest, a kindly eldery man] the elderly. we're — we're taping it now, and it airs next week, 'kay? so, if you're watching me talk about the eldery, don't call to talk about it, it's too late. instead call to talk about cooking, which is next week's topic, 'kay? if you wanted to talk about the elderly, you should've called last week, when our pet care show was airing, but we were taping the elderly show ... yeah. okay, so, here we go [taps switchboard] ... hello?
caller #1:	hi ken, great show.
doral:	thank you, what can i do for you?
caller #1:	uh, my dog has a disobedience problem, and uh —
doral:	okay, okay, heh ... there you go ... ha! hahaha! okay, that's uh, boo-boo number one! hopefully that'll be our last, 'kay. ah, look, if you wanted to talk about pet care, you should've called two weeks ago when our show on racism was airing. 'kay, i'm doing a show about the elderly right now, which of course, to people watching means: call in about cooking. 'kay, we'll see if we can ... [taps switchboard] hello?
caller #2:	yeah, hi, uh — what's going on? i mean, you're doing a show about pet care, but everyone's talking about racism ...
doral:	no ...
caller #2:	... and i don't —
doral:	no, 'kay, no no no ... no, we're not doing a show about pet care, i'm doing a show about the elderly! see, the people calling about racism are watching the show that aired when we were taping the pet show, which is airing now. okay? if they wanted to talk about racism, they should've called three weeks ago, when our "crime in the streets" show aired. 'kay? it's just ... let's ... think ... before we ... alright ... alright ... okay [steels self for next caller] here we go ... [taps switchboard] hello?
caller #3:	yes, i'd like to talk about my grandma.
doral:	[with relief] oh .. oh, alright! yeah, yeah, heh ... 'kay, good ...
caller #3:	yeah, well she has this cat that's keeping her up at night and i, uh —
doral:	well, sir, sir — can i just say that that that the ... difficulty with sleeping is a common problem [gestures to elderly guest] with the elderly of today.
caller #3:	yeah, but i really think the cat is more of the problem. i mean, the cat's rambunctious and —
doral:	no, no, no, sir — OBVIOUSLY your elderly grandmother is the problem, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THIS WEEK'S SHOW IS ABOUT!!!
caller #3:	yeah, but i'm watching the show right now and —
doral:	[explodes] IDIOT! IT'S SIMPLE! LOOK AT THIS! — [leaps from chair, pulls tv monitor into view] IT'S WHAT'S AIRING RIGHT NOW! PET CARE SHOW! LISTEN!
doral:	[on the tv monitor, exploding] PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! STOP CALLING ABOUT RACISM! we did that a week ago! look! here! [leaps from chair, pulls tv monitor into view, displaying ... ]
doral:	[ ... on the tv monitor, exploding] listen to me, for the last time, "crime in the streets" happened last week! EVERYTHING I'M SAYING HAPPENED LAST WEEK! LOOK! LOOK! HERE! [leaps from chair, pulls tv monitor into view, displaying ... ]
doral:	[ ... on the tv monitor, calm, pleasant and undisheveled] ... and that's it for our first show, "crime in the streets". i can't help but think that it would have gone a little better had somebody actually called in, but i guess that's because you won't see me until next week. oh well, as soon as we get the kinks worked out here, i'm sure it'll be a great, great show.

"the pre-taped call in show" was #43 on nerve.com's list of the 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time.

detail, "relativity", m.c. escher, 1953