[Music]
The scarab-colored Corniche purred North along FDR drive with the top down on a beautiful Manhattan Fall day. Tonio chatted away with his agent in the back seat and they took turns exchanging her flask of VSOP with his joint of some really good weed the bellhop had sold him. Yusef, Riven’s driver, exited at Ninety-Sixth Street. As the car passed the Marx Brothers Playground, they both giggled.
“Marxists.”
“Inorite?”
Finally they arrived at Elaine’s and Yusef double parked outside. Elaine herself greeted them and led them to a choice table where they could talk privately, yet see and be seen. There was an old man dozing at the table. Elaine flicked his ear and he woke up, startled.
“Time to go, old man,” said Elaine, tipping his chair forward slightly to encourage him to stand up, “the future is here and needs its table.”
Elaine snapped her fingers and a busboy appeared and quickly cleaned the table. The old man shuffled off desultorily.
Tonio looked at Riven quizzically.
She leaned in and made as if to fix some imperfection in his collar. “Salinger,” she whispered, discretely. Shortly, they were seated.
“Cocktails,” asked Elaine, brusquely.
“Pink Gin with a twist, please.”
“Dry Martini with olive, please.”
“Coming right up,” said Elaine, turning and trundling towards the bar.
“No shit? I thought Salinger was a recluse.”
“Hiding in plain sight.”
“Ah…”
“So, you’ve arrived,” said Riven with a twinkle in her eye.
“It’s still sinking in. When I got the check I thought it was a joke.”
“Hi, I’m Holly. I’ll be your waiter today. Pink Gin for the lady?”
Holly delivered their drinks, then pulled lunch menus out her apron and handed them each one, opening them beforehand. They sipped their drinks and perused the menu.
“May I interrupt?”
“Joe,” said Riven, “this is my new author, Tonio. Tonio, this is Joe Stefko, founder of Charnel House publishers.”
“Don’t get up,” said Stefko. “So, this is the Tonio of whom I’ve heard so much about?”
“Yes. Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Call me ‘Joe,’ Tonio. Why don’t you come by tomorrow afternoon for our quarterly authors’ cocktail party. Dean will be there. And Harlan, supposedly, but you never know with him; odd bird, and all. Okay, kids, gotta run.”
“Oh, Tonio, you are still innocent aren’t you?”
For some reason it was raining in Elaine’s. And getting darker.
Tonio awoke in the alley behind Acropolis Pizza. Stavros Gallasaris, beloved local restaurateur and inseminator of countless MWC women, was pissing on the cinderblock wall next to him. Gallasaris finished then shook out his fat cock, splattering Tonio with more droplets.
“Hey…”
“Nothing you no take before, malakos. Wakey, wakey.”
Gallasaris was right. Tonio had sucked his boss’ cock on a regular basis since starting work at Acropolis. There was just something irresistible about goaty little men. Especially uncircumcised ones.
“Another rejection?”
Tonio nodded.
The form letter from Virginia Journal of Speculative Fiction lay on the ground next to him, along with the SASE. Tonio had waited to open the letter until his break just before closing. It had been a long, hot shift; he must have dozed off in the relative cool of the alley.
Dear Author, Thank you for your submission, but it does not meet our needs at this time. Best Wishes, Mimsey Borogrove, editor.
“I tell you, Maria’s cousin Spheniscidos he print your stuff. You get free magazines. Might help you.”
Tonio shook his head. He had seen the girly magazines that Gallasaris’ in-law published. Stavros kept a big stack in his desk drawer, and always had one open while Tonio was blowing him. The magazines did contain stories, but they were obviously pasted in as filler – barely titled, uncredited, no “continued on page 69.” Some of the stories appeared to have been cut off randomly in the middle, presumably when the typesetter had finished filling any space not taken-up by boobs or advertising.
“Let me know you change your mind, he say lotsa good writers get started in Playboy.”
Tonio knew that. Playboy had just published an excerpt from Roald Dahl’s forthcoming adult novel My Uncle Oswald. But there was a big difference between Playboy and Titties. Hefner had his pick of established authors, and your manuscript wouldn’t get read unless it was submitted by an agent.
The hippies at the Green Dragon Bookstore had a purple ink fanzine; it was something. But they kept trying to get him to play this weird make-believe game stuff that sounded interesting but ridiculously complicated.
“Go ahead, clean up. Drunk girls at table three stiff you, smells like they puke all over ladies toilet.”
“Who the fuck does that? Seriously?”
“Your people. Rednecks.”
Comments
221 responses to “The Making of a Glibs Author”
Oh my God.
I was going to note that, but figured somebody else would get to it before I did.
I was not going to touch it.
Tonio did.
LOL. [High-fives, MJ]
*snortlesnerk* ^5
Ellison: Pay the writer.
Ellison is so unlikeable and litigious that I have no respect for the man.
He’s not wrong, tho.
I never said he was wrong, nor that he didn’t have an impact, just that he pissed away the goodwill and respect.
I am sure he mourned that loss of your respect.
My God.
I know. XO or GTFO.
#3 is Cokie Roberts. Does it count if it’s not an 80s rocker?
It does not count.
No shit, too much cokie?
Such an inspiration! She proved that women can ride the coat tails of their powerful parents just as well as any trust fund boy.
Her tearful goodbye to Uncle Danny when Rostenowski was forced out of the House in a scandal was the most nausiating thing I ever heard on NPR.
Cokie Boggs, thank you very much. It should always be remembered that she was the daughter of partisan shill elected officials.
Hot take: Greeks belong behind diner counters.
I’m in a story, how cool is that…
Giggles. ..
Sorry about your car, buddy.
Thanks Tonio, and this is the second time In mentioned in a driving sense around here, I made the crossword as well, funny story
BTW enjoyed it
Prospective Author Fiction Noir? An interesting genre.
I also appreciate the purple ink reference. Nothing was better in grade school than sniffing fresh off the mimeograph purple ink test sheets.
Then they bought a xerox machine, and it was never the same afterwards.
Most smaller zines of the era were typeset and photocopied semi-legitimately on the equipment at various schools and workplaces.
The economics and availability of photocopying were such that it was often cheaper to have a rejected manuscript mailed back to you rather than have another copy made; zines would return them if you included a large SASE for the manuscript. You’d know by the size of the envelope you got back whether you were accepted or rejected.
Markers.
Gasoline.
Coppertone.
Diesel
Jovan musk on a certain lady
Metal being ground or welded
Freshly combusted blackpowder
Creosote bush right before a thunderstorm
the first scent of green plants after extended time on a glacier
Unburnt hydrocarbons
The lilacs when they first bloom
Perfectly seared steak
Turpentine
Diesel exhaust
Raw peanuts just pulled out of the ground
Race gas
two stroke exhaust
Shellsol D60
The desert after a rain.
Puppy breath.
The smell of your opponents’ fear.
A custom motorcycle you just completed and started for the first time. Very distinctive, with the chrome on the pipes, partially burnt fuel, some oil burning mixed with assembly lube and various gasket sealers heating for the first time.
That’s just a little anachronistic for the time in which the story is set, circa 1980, but I dropped that there to set the time as pre laser printer.
1980? My schools were using mimeographs until almost 2000.
Yeah, that brings me back too.
I’m glad you explained it. I was thinking glitter pens. Couldn’t quite square that with D&d.
Q, I need some girly pics to wash down this article
Here you go, bud.
I have never met a Greek person who has ever looked even remotely like this. Fake News
*faints*
From last night’s late night:
I may put that up as a poster.
America, “Tin Man”: Sometimes late
When things are real
And people share the gift of gab
Between themselves …
Funny. That was a recurring theme at my church this past week, too. (Yes, I LISTEN! It’s not all cod jokes all the time.)
I have a crush on stoicism, the way I have a crush on higher math: I wish I could do that, but my brain is not wired that way. Have you read A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe? I love that book, and IIRC, it’s OMWC’s favorite book.
I can’t remember all the things I wanted to say to which comments, but thanks all. I kind of regret having my micro-tantrum, but the responses were worth it.
You all are the best.
That sounds too much like “Don’t bother to try” which results in bad outcomes.
Not a Stoic, but I believe the philosophy is closer to the wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which fills up first.
All you can do is start every day with an open mind, you make your day good or bad, something about lemons and surfboards
Can you make a pith surfboard?
I can
I realize I never said it had to be human-sized, or waterproof. So now I’m invisioning a 32mm-scale surfer dude with a pith surfboard.
Whycome no alt-text on that image?
Which one? The one without a caption or frame, or the one without a caption or frame?
Wow, tough audience. Okay, fine.
But I have had trouble getting alt-text to “take.” SP is lucky I’m not typing these out on a manual, fabric ribbon typewriter and sending it in on onionskin to save postage.
Wow. That brings back some long lost memories of a world I had almost forgotten.
10 and 80 and that barely perceptible lead carat to leave space for footnotes
One thing about the mechanical world: it impresses the relationship between things and spaces and makes one think. Less thinking is required of anyone today, and we’re all a little dumber for it, just because there no longer are any fears of wasting film with a bad shot or having to type something over or flooding a carb. Life is better; thinking is not.
It is there….hover long enough!
I’m laughing out loud, Tonio. My sister once worked for a literary agent. I wonder how many Tonios she destroyed…
To our resident artists: is it harder today to monetize creative work, despite all the new avenues of production and distribution?
I’ve sold exactly one diorama, but it’s a hard business to run on the road,
That depends.
Before Independant Publishing, I was making $0 because the gatekeepers didn’t buy my work.
Now I’m making $10-25/mo, though sales are declining steadily.
Does anyone know a good marketing agency who’ll be of any help shiling books?
Yes. Too much noise.
The thing to remember is that we are not competing with ALL artists. We are competing with the BEST ones. There are a zillion artists out there who are really really good and really really talented, but they can’t get any more traction than anyone else.
noise
exactly correct
and true most places: 20 places want to sell you jeans, 1000 etsy sites selling earrings, 500 resumes in your inbox
That’s precisely what got me thinking about it. And why telling a youngster to “follow your dream” is fucking cruel.
Work pays the mortgage.
Hobbies provide outlet.
And turning a hobby into work doesn’t end well for all people.
Next you’ll tell me that the eight sixteen hour days in a row that made me go back to the day job to de-stress from writing was bad for my health.
I did this. My One Twu Hobby Love was cross stitching and embroidery. I got to thinking I could make and sell my own patterns. I did. For a while.
Totally killed my love of it and haven’t picked up a needle in years.
Lol. You and I are synched today.
Hawt!
LOL
Okay, well, a few good things came of the sacrifice, though:
1. I learned how to make a website.
2. I learned how to make my PDFs downloadable immediately upon payment instead of the customer having to wait for me to email them the pattern. This was LONG before any such thing really existed.
3. It took away my excuse for not self-publishing my books.
You see, I grew up in the Cult of Traditional Publishing that said if you can’t get published, you’re crap. Self-publishing was the kiss of death.
But in cross stitch ville, publishing your own patterns was the mark of a professional.
I had an artistic meltdown and my husband said, “Well, just publish your books yourself and sell them on your website. You do it with your patterns, why can’t you do it with books?”
I screamed, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT! IT’S NOT ALLOWED!”
“Who doesn’t allow you to do it?”
“Um…”
Hence, I was on the vanguard of publishing my own fiction, making them downloadable on my website immediately upon payment, and taking a whole lot of hits for doing so. I also gained another occupation of formatting ebooks and suchlike, which I’ve been doing for 11 years.
So…objectively speaking, it was a good trade.
But I still mourn my needle.
^This. Photography then computers first started as hobbies, then became jobs, then stopped being fun.
I did lots of technical writing and end-user puppet shows as an IT guy. I only started writing again a few years ago. I’m happy being where I am with all of you.
My self-publishing rubicon was when I heard William King talk about having moved from traditional to self-publication. It sort of differentiated the process from the vanity press of olde.
I actually flirted with the idea in the mid-90s, then I called somebody and found it cost a shit-ton of money and I’d have to distribute a pallet of books by hand, so my brief flirtation was over.
eBook and Print on demand were a godsend.
“end-user puppet shows”
STOLEN.
Vanity Publishers – Glad you dodged that bullet, Mojeaux. Those guys were notoriously shady. Often took far longer to produce works than promised, hidden charges, etc. I had considered putting in a paragraph about not being able to afford vanity publishing, but that would have caused the story to go over the edge into self-pity and that’s not where I wanted to go.
Bingo. Leap and I were just talking about that very thing. Work your day job and pursue your other thing until the day job is costing you money!
Or don’t. I remain pretty convinced that, in general, turning your passion into a business is a sure way to wreck it.
Yep. My Dad in his 20’s used to restore antique rifles. People at work found out about it and would ask him to restore their hunting rifles. He’d do it and charge them for materials (like 10 bucks).
Then they’d come back a week later and ask him to do it again. And he’d tell them, “Sure. That’ll be $200.” And they’d naturally be pissed. And he’d tell them “It’s $10 as a hobby. It’s $200 as a business.” He knew what the rifles were worth and he knew what his free time was worth.
And turning a hobby into work doesn’t end well for all people
I know nothing, absolutely nothing at all, about that.
I’ve always liked the way Mike Rowe puts it: “Never follow your dreams, but always take them with you.”
500 resumes in your inbox
The job I recently acquired had an online application process that took me over an hour to complete. It was annoying, but with a pretty good gatekeeper too. I don’t feel I had any real competition for the job.
I can’t agree.
I see plenty of people who get boosted who are absolute shite at their purported craft.
They are the marketers. Marketing trumps talent, pretty much every time.
There is an element of luck also. Everyone likes at least one book, song, or movie that is objectively crap. If you are lucky enough to have your crappy book appeal to someone with a big podium you can be off to the races.
Oh yeah. No question about it. My point is that the person out networking, getting their stuff in front of influential people has a much better shot at the luck than the person holed up in the studio, the lab – whatever – making fantastic things that will never see the light of day.
Yes, the superfan. It only takes one–the right one.
At this point, I’ll take a super-hater. I mean, getting excoriated on SJW Twitter would raise my profile to people who don’t like them…
Thus begins the plot of about half the oeuvre of Stephen King…
So to whome should I send copies of my crappy book?
Truer words were never said.
What ALSO happens is you get marketers who can ALSO write and hit the formula just right. I can’t hit that formula just right or I’d have been long published with Harlequin by now. That is a skillset I can’t claim, and I admire it.
Yeah, but they are all cuntes. Not a classy dame like you!
I’m hoping Cuntes & Cods will be the breakthrough book as it’s a medieval historical romance thrillride of fun cliches. Everybody loves those.
Never underestimate the importance of random dumb luck.
It’s got me a lot of places in this world.
Got me through two wars.
True dat.
Too much stupid to cut and paste the highlights: We’re Much, Much Funnier Than We Used to Be
I have to agree, they are funnier, but not for the reasons slate thinks.
Or, people always want to laugh and will seek out what makes them laugh. Comedians who push boundaries won’t ever be on mainstream shows SNL, they will instead thrive in other environments. Also, you can watch both Dave Chappelle and Hannah Gadsby on Netflix, so somehow funny will survive.
No, just totally unfunny.
I agree. Commies are a fucking riot.
You get a check and get to hang with Riven? …. I need a new agent
I do like that he lit the Riven-signal. I miss that chick!
She handled my first submission here, and If You Think You Know What I Mean you are wrong.
This was Tonio of 1980 fantasizing about getting published. Tonio of 2019 wrote a semi-autobiographical story and named two characters after Glibs he particularly likes. Also, a callout to another Glib but it’s very subtle.
Elaine?
Nope.
The publisher has to be Q.
Titties mag, I mean.
Naw, then he’d be crossing hobbies with the day job.
Very, very warm.
BP?
Folks, we have a winner! “Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae), are a group of flightless, aquatic birds.” Tell him what he’s won, Rufus.
Sugar-Freed the link. I’ve arrived. [giggles]
Wow! I’m honored, and would not have gotten that reference.
Who is the goaty, un-cut Glib to which you refer?
Are you Greek?
LOL. Also, nope. I have knowingly met only two Glibs IRL, and it’s not one of them. That would be just too tacky.
Dean?
My guess: Ted S.
I’ve met Swiss, Animal, OMWC, and SP in real life. We had dinner.
They stuck me with the bill.
Did you by chance offer to pick up the tab?
Was it at your place?
Not at my place. Yeah, I offered to pick up the tab, but I was just being polite, dammit!
You never saw people leave a restaurant so fast.
j/k. I insisted. OM picked up the tab for my Uber, if memory serves. That was back when he still had a job, though.
Everybody else realized that ‘dine and dash’ was what was supposed to happen.
… OMWC brought the superb wine too.
Stavros, “Stevie Greeky,” “Mr. Acropolis Man,” is based on an actual restauranteur for whom I once worked. But it’s a composite character. I never blew the Greek restauranteur for whom I worked briefly, but the guy did get tons of college girl pussy in exchange for pizza, or maybe the pizza was just pretext to get him there. Whatevs.
The other pizza place I worked for the (non-Greek) owner told me he was bi and asked if I wanted to sleep with him and his wife, like on a regular basis. They were both over my fat limit at the time, and the whole work thing would be weird. I said no, and suddenly there were no hours for me.
This is what you get for being an anti-fatist.
I’ve always had fairly high fat tolerance for both men and women. They were big people, particularly her, IIRC.
https://mises.org/wire/bill-rights-only-good-part-constitution
words written on parchment do not actually protect anyone’s freedoms, and legal constraints on state power are only as good as the ideological backing they receive from the population.
Yes, which line up with two of my themes:
a/ every government action is constitutional if no check or balance is employed
b/ we’re in terrible trouble because Americans do not really believe in freedom
If it makes you feel any better, Mencken observed that about 90 years ago. OK, maybe that will make you feel worse about how far gone we already are.
I’ve never read Mencken deeply because I feared I would stumble upon something I didn’t agree with, but the day might come.
The “check” the Founders envisioned was the People shooting and hanging politicians who didn’t obey the rules.
This^^^^
Our founding fathers have been watching in despair as the American people (broadly) turned into a bunch of fucking pussies for well over… let’s be kind and say the Greatest Generation were still some tough SOBs across the board and call it 70-75 years.
I hate to say it only because by now it seems trite, but it was the Boomers. That is a generation of pussies by comparison to its parents. Vietnam was the fault line that revealed it (and don’t mistake that for me saying people “ought to” have done one thing or another. I’m just saying that Vietnam revealed the cowardice that was emblematic of that generation and we – and they – have never come to grips with it as a nation.)
The Greatest Generation worshiped the crippled commie and didn’t lift a finger while he systematically disassembled what was left of the Republic.
Every generation is to blame. The “Greatest generation” is the one that started all the goddamned pyramid schemes, thereby creating the longstanding policy of “fuck over the next generation” and “screw sound money”. All the boomers did was press the accelerator a little more. I don;t think the long wave theory should only apply to economics.
I have to (mildly) disagree on a pure mathematical basis. The Greatest Generation were kids when FDR was in power, so that’s on their parents and elders. When WW2 finally came, however, they (as a generation) made a shit-ton of sacrifices for what was as close to an existential threat as the US had seen since the War of 1812.
Now, should they have started shooting and hanging politicians once they got back from the War? I don’t know. That seems like an awful lot to ask. But both of your broader points are well-taken. It’s been going the wrong way for quite some time. I think the ’30s was really what undid the country from its philosophical moorings. At least the assholes in the teens recognized they needed to actually amend the Constitution for Prohibition.
Tell me BB isn’t a side project of some Glibs
https://babylonbee.com/news/hypocrisy-right-wingers-who-love-it-when-the-babylon-bee-makes-stuff-up-suddenly-get-mad-when-the-nyt-does-it
You flatter us.
Thanks, Gus. I wish, but as noted above once there are paychecks and deadlines it stops being fun.
Both The Babylon Bee article and The New York Times article were given the “Labeled Satire” designation by Snopes, proving that The New York Times is no less accurate than The Babylon Bee.
Gold, Jerry, pure fucking gold.
That one is gonna leave a mark. I hope the NYT editors (if they still exist) read the BB.
They’ll find out about it when Snopes does a fact-check
More on comedy:
Are Comedians Finally Fighting Back Against The Far Left’s Cultural Clampdown?
Sad that it even needs to be said. Keep pushing back.
Yes, as long as they can’t make the acquaintance of Mr. Glock.
Bad grammar isn’t sexist.
I’m sure we can find a published, peer-reviewed study that says the rules of grammar are both sexist and racist.
Racist? Got you covered.
Stefan Molyneux makes a related point in “The Argument”, namely that managing to identify a woman who is stronger than a man does not disprove the assertion that, in general, men are physically stronger than women any more than finding a lone polar bear on a tropical beach would prove that polar bears live in the tropics.
Eff it, though, let’s do it. I eagerly await mixed-gender contact sports. Let’s see women try out for positions as nose tackles and if they get it, they get it. And why even have an LPGA? Just toss the ladies’ tees and let them hit it from the same tees as the men. I’m being totally serious. Maybe the only reason there’s gender segregation in sports is because of outdated puritanical norms against women and men getting too sweaty next to each other. Let’s see what happens.
These idiots think segregated sports are discriminatory, when they exist to give women a chance for fair competition.
In their stupid quest for “equality” in sports, they have forgotten that the next step after “separate but equal” is “fully integrated”.
I wonder if they think weight classes are body-shaming. Because, really, we haven’t seen true equality until Vitali Klitschko squares off against Rhonda Rousey.
It would be more like ‘trapezoids off’ because one side’s a lot longer than the other.
True equality was born last night as the referee touched Klitschko and Rousey’s gloves together. It was a glorious moment of truly universal competition between the sexes. Millennia of unthinking segregation ended in the moment as the crowd noise faded and the two titan’s of the sport finally met as equals, equal shares of the purse, equal billing on the marquee, and an equal chance at the belt. My heart swelled with pride in that moment, not since Red Barber’s “he is most definitely brunette” greeted Jackie Robinson’s triumphant demolition of the racial barrier in sport has we seen a moment this significant. True equality was finally here.
27 seconds later, as trainers desperately tried to revive Ms. Rousey, a trickle of cerebro-spinal fluid running over her lip glistened like a tear shed by God as equality died.
I’m no good at gifs, but imagine one of those standing O’s that everyone here seems to be able to post in seconds.
Yeah, that was exquisite.
Bravo, Jarflax.
Bravo.
Awww, look. TPTB came to my luddite rescue!
Thanks, O Great and Mighty Gods of the GIFs!
Constantly on Twitter.
I, for one, do not want to live in a world where biological men can’t completely destroy women in women’s sports.
What is missing from conversations on this subject is the goal of the people pushing it. They don’t give a fuck about sports or a bout equality. This is about destroying the institution that is organized sport. Their goal is ultimately to destroy every cultural institution that promotes individual character and group cooperation towards a common end.
Thanks, folks. Gotta bounce. Hopefully, The Glibening will return next week.
Indeed!
Speaking of comedians saying and doing strange things on a podcast…
CW: the fattest and most racist man on the planet and his friend…creating the swallowing cum challenge? or something.
Poll for people who’ve read “Beyond the Edge of the Map”. Does Dug strike you as the kind of guy who’d come across a piece of weapons technology – say explosive rockets – and keep the secret to himself to give his ships the advantage on the seas?
I’m debating between him merely seizing a stockpile of them from the Strangling Depths Clan and when they’re used up they’re gone, or managing to get a hold of the secret of making them and keeping the secret for his own use. Neither really changes the plot of “On Unknown Shores” but it does make a difference for the setting over the long run.
lotsa good writers get started in Playboy
That’s why people read it for the articles.
Playboy was the original Glibs. Titty pics and articles no one reads.
I read the articles. Really.
I must confess… I read some of the articles.
What was the most informative playboy article in your opinion?
The topographical study of Dorothy Stratton was exceptional.
Hard to remember. I ended my subscription around ’90 or so.
The Playboy interviews were world class. They had some of the best fiction and non-fiction writers in the world doing work for them.
An interesting and depressing piece about the “Remain in Mexico” program.
In part, the real takeaway is that our immigration system is a mess, but, frankly, I come away from this with no small amount of sympathy for genuine asylum-seekers who have to get in line behind hordes of people intentionally gaming the system.
These are almost without exception economic migrants and should be treated as such, not as “refugees”. Words have meaning.
You get more of what you reward . . . . Our permissiveness paved the way for human smuggling. And I have no doubt that many of those released had stories identical to those of the sympathetic migrants in the article, and that many of them, once “released”, blew off their court dates and became full-fledged illegals. The claim of “refugee” status was always a lie for those migrants, a ploy to get into the country and nothing more.
Yeah, our immigration system is busted, no question, regardless of where you fall on the open borders to closed borders spectrum.
For sure. It was just absolutely disgusting to read about these people deliberately trying to circumvent our admittedly shitty immigration laws by claiming asylum when there are people like the guy from Nicaragua or the guy from Ghana who fit the textbook definition of asylum and are treading on eggshells lest they jeopardize their chances in immigration court. I understand Guatemala is shitty, and our immigration laws don’t make it very easy to just apply for legal status and hope you don’t get kidnapped by a gang in the mean time at home, but that doesn’t give you the right to screw over people who have genuine claims. Ugh, it’s a mess.
OT: I miss ZARDOZ advice columns; these would be great ones.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/09/dear-prudence-dating-better-investment.html
Tune in Friday…it is ZARDOZ’s turn in the evening slot. I mean, unless SEA SMITH or SPACE SMITH talk him out of it.
And by talk, you mean…
Possibly.
I believe the correct answer there is …
Threesome
SPACE SMITH is not…predictable in any way. We are not sure he is real. I mean, all we have is some strange government agent telling us he is…
Oh, wait. You meant the advice… heh.
Howsabout some good news?
No new measles cases reported in fading US outbreak
If you catch a disease because you refused to get vaccinated, I would be comfortable with the insurance companies refusing to pay for treatment. “Assumption of the risk” and all.
Large outbreak in New Zealand, immunization status not totally clear.
This woman also frightens me.
“Someone should investigate this. Because the fact that something has not been proven it doesn’t mean it didn’t occur, right?” the California Democrat and 2020 candidate said on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
“But if you don’t investigate it, if it hasn’t been investigated, then there’s not been a full airing of the issue. And my point from the beginning about all of these allegations against Brett Kavanaugh is that there’s not been a robust, a meaningful investigation. There has not been an investigation with the level of attention that normally would occur around these kinds of allegations,” Harris said.
But. of course, there was a robust investigation into each and every charge leveled against Kavanaugh, all of which turned out to lack any corroboration.
It didn’t matter, Harris was on a roll. During an appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, Harris said weeping men came up to her after Kavanaugh was confirmed for the high court.
Technically true, but our legal system is ostensibly that one is innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent.
i’m still trying to figure out how Dems made her a Senator.
California. They’d elect Lucifer if he had a (D) after his name.
One talking head with a modicum of brains and balls could easily ask a couple of followup questions that would reveal this woman to be an authoritarian basketcase but they refuse to do so. It’s pathetic.
“Senator Harris, since we are talking about old allegations of sexual misconduct, would you say that just because it hasn’t been proven that you slept with WIllie Brown to advance your career, that it didn’t happen? And that if it hasn’t been investigated, then there’s not been a full airing of the issue? “
I could go for a drink right now.
Me as well. I’m wondering how many times is too many to tell the tier 1 guy (who’s been with the company for over a year) that he needs to pay attention to the details every fscking time.
Getting the ticket to the right group would be a nice change.
Hell, this kid is the right group. He just doesn’t quite grasp that I wrote up a checklist for agent creation for a reason. Then he doesn’t confirm things with the end user, which leads to additional tickets when things aren’t working right.
Fire his ass.
“I hated to do it, but I felt I owed it to him.”
Not my call, I’m just another peon. I do know his direct supervisor is already unhappy with his performance, and he’s already been shuffled between teams once.
BURN
https://www.redstate.com/kiradavis/2019/08/09/unsolicited-advice-cancelling-maga-laws-stupid/
FTA:
“Hannah is married and has a two-year-old child. Her life sounds pretty good, right? But no…horror! Hannah’s in-laws are *gasp* Trump voters! Even worse…they live in Florida.
They see themselves as tolerant, life-loving Catholics. But their tolerance extends only to people they know and understand ― and those people are white, straight, “American” people.”
Hannah lives in East Hampton, NY. All two minorities that live in her town must be so blessed that she is so tolerant. Upper income white liberals are beyond parody
That’s a really well-written article. Mine would have been much shorter and involved a lot more expletives.
I agree. The earlier one she referenced is also terrific.
Fuck yeah!
K-12 indoctrination update.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/09/17/woke_history_is_making_big_inroads_in_americas_high_schools_120363.html
It’s quite amazing the parallels between Nazi propaganda toward Jews and the modern Left’s obsession with straight, white, men; they are scapegoats for every possible thing wrong with the world. Progs are lurching toward a Final Solution of outright advocating the extermination of straight, white, men. Nazis engaged in magical thinking that if they could just rid the world of Jews, Utopia would be possible. Progs do the same thing with shitlord-Americans.
It’s easier to blame one’s woes on a convenient scapegoat than it is to do something about them and it’s a trap that people fall into time after time. If this becomes imbedded into public school curricula on a national basis we’re screwed.
I think that’s a major factor in why the black community has had such a relative lack of success compared to other ethnic groups that started off dirt poor and faced persecution (Jews, East Asians, etc.) They have a small but influential group of poverty pimps who are telling them that their problems are 100% whitey’s fault and 100% whitey’s job to fix. They’re encouraging idleness and entitlement mentality. They’re telling them to just keep voting Democrat until the good life is handed to them on a silver platter. It’s absolutely toxic.
I guess what I don’t get about Jew-hate is this: The current totalitarians are going after the group that represents the biggest threat to their power grabbing. That was never true of Jews. Why go after them? Why use them as a scapegoat?
“Burn it all down.”
Seriously, we’re going to see the backlash to this crap in 2020. It’s going to be a rough couple of years after that for some people.
Notice that the main–if not only–track to oppose this insanity is to point out that it’s antisemitic. If the progs were able to keep their Antisemitism in check, this wouldn’t even be controversial.
Maybe Pol Pot was onto something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr6NOsluHYg
Who could have predicted government school could be politicized?!?
Someone really did their homework on social media the honorable Ilhan Omar is going to really have to figure out a way to explain this. Fortunately for her, however, the DNC Propagandists/MSM will do all of the heavy lifting, I’m sure.
And I have no idea if this link and blockquote thing will work.
The best thing Kavanaugh could do to get the corporate press on his side would be to marry Illhan’s brother
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-explosion-rips-through-russian-20079304
That can’t be good.
World War Z
Russia’s having a bad couple of months.
The history of Russia is the history of incompetence. I’m supposed to be afraid of a country that just accidentally released plague on itself?
Maybe the left over radiation from that missile will kill off the warfare germs.
It makes me wonder if there is a foreign saboteur or a internal terror org going after Russia. There have been so many isolated issues with military targets lately.
Well, a fiery gas explosion probably does have some antiseptic qualities to it.
Prolly ought to hit it with a small nuke.
Its the only way to be sure.
Never a boring day at work.
Click on the video.
That’s nuts.
I remember those from one of the Bond films.
Nice. I like watching skillful people.
I met a backhoe operator who impressed me. We were excavating so we could install conduit and automate a 3.4 million gallon propane tank farm. He stops digging and says there is something down there. I hop down in the hole with a shovel and move some dirt. I found a half rotted garden hose. He could feel the hose through the hydraulics.
Good Lord…keep that guy at all costs!
The vid of the helicopter mounted high tension wire electricians is also impressive. Because massive voltage is your reward for a tiny miscue.
A batchmaker known as Flop was unloading a pallet with four drums of methylene chloride. He spots the pallet, turns off the forklift, and goes over to the receiving clerk to tell him that the drums are mis-labeled. A quick gravity is taken, and indeed it’s some other, common, lighter solvent in the drums.
How did Flop know: the forklift didn’t grunt enough when he picked up the pallet.
Seeing a true professional exhibit their exceptional skills in such a routine manner is impressive, and humbling.
That being said, seeing flying multi-bladed chain saws is AWESOME.
a true professional
if you like those kinds of guys, I can knock out some non-linear differential equations on the old dry erase
Damn! Usually those guys are ripping out fiber optic cable and giving Travolta style “wha?” looks when you show up.
I flew with a guy who once smelled an engine failure while we were in a hover over the edge of a cliff in Sardinia during an exercise. I’m not joking. He was like, “you smell that?” We’re inside the cockpit and the rotor wash on an AH-1 is about 60 knots of wind. I check the gauges and sure as shit, we’ve dropped one engine and the other is over-temping to pick up the load.
He would do stuff like that all the time, too. Even the mechs were like, “That guy is a witch” after he told them out of the blue that they needed to pull some panels and check a particular hydraulics line buried in the skin of the aircraft. The thing was close to failing when they checked it.
Tonio, I like your writing.