No Time to Waste

Ana de Armas said there's no need for a female James Bond. I agree, and wanted to provide a list of other things we don't need.

A Sith Ewok

Friendly Jaws

A lesbian Thanos

Bride of Nosferatu

A Pink Flamingos reboot, with a female singing asshole

A Blue Garfield

Nerd James Bond

Gimp Brad Pitt

Male Laura Palmer

Virile Droopy

Husband of Nosferatu

Ms. T

A phallic equivalent of the Sarlaac Pit

Speedy Gonzalez's brother Lazy Gonzalez

Homeless James Bond with a bindle

Guy Maddin's Sissy Girl Slap Party

Friday the 13th with Michael Myers playing Jason

A Hitler clone genetically mutated with a real-life Hello Kitty

The Polyamorous Lovers of Nosferatu

A male James Bond, with his penis tucked between his legs, and we don't even know it

The actor Quentin Tarantino

Toby Soprano

Ugnaught porn

Woody Woodpussy

James Bond

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A smattering of thoughts on Biden leaving the presidential race:

Democrats now have a great advantage if they run Harris. Since she's currently vice-president, if she gets beat but doesn't agree with the result, she has the unilateral authority to nullify it! 

It doesn't even matter if she had lost... to pick a random number... 60 prior lawsuits. That's how this is supposed to work, right?

No, I'm just kidding, wouldn't someone have to be insane to think that Harris, or any vice-president, has that kind of authority?

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Imagine if Trump were in Biden's shoes. You don't need too much of an imagination, he basically was. After the Hollywood Access tape in 2016, many thought that he sunk the Republicans' chances.

There's no way that Trump would have dropped out for the good of the party, or for the good of the country, or for the good of humanity. There's only one reason Trump does anything, and it's so obvious that it doesn't even need to be mentioned.

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Some pundit pointed out that in 1996 the Republicans ran Bob Dole, and it was clear that he was going to lose, but it was his turn, so they just soldiered on toward a loss. I'm glad times have changed, but it is a testament to how trusting we used to be in the other party.

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Now we face the unknown. What is going to happen? I don't know, but in an instant Democrats have seized the momentum and enthusiasm. 

Can a woman win? Can a black woman win? Could have Biden won with his support among black women dropping by 30 or 40 points since last election? I don't like framing elections this way. 

(J.D. Vance would be the first vice president in 90 years who has a beard! Does that mean Trump will lose? No.)

All that matters to me, are the polls in the battleground states. I couldn't care less about the genitalia and skin pigmentation of that percentage. Maybe I'm naive. It certainly shouldn't matter, obviously, we should all be judged on the content of our character alone as Martin Luther King told us, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't matter to voters. 

People hate relying on polls, but there's no doubt that they are a good place to look for direction. Maybe they are the ONLY place to look for direction? How do we know anything, if not for polls? 

How many Trump supporters in 2020 thought he was 100% guaranteed to win, because everybody they knew was going to vote for him. I can't tell you how many people I talked to who believed that. They literally couldn't admit even a possibility that Biden would win. Now get this, they ignored national polls, but thought that their own poll of the hundred people that they know was a better poll! Haha, insanity of it, haha.

The other top Democrats are running 3% higher than Biden on average (with no significant difference for race or gender), Biden was losing all of the battleground states by up to 6 points, and we were on the verge of welcoming new battleground states. Those numbers tend to suggest that genitalia and skin pigmentation don't matter, but that people's perception of competence does.

Can Harris put Trump to shame in a debate? There's no question. 

Can she clearly, competently, concisely, precisely, and persuasively make an argument against Trumpism? Absolutely.

Can she seal up at least one critical battleground state with her pick for vice president? I'm going to say that she can.

Remember, if she only holds on to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, without creating any new battleground states, she wins.

So sure, we face the unknown, but consider how unlikely it would have seemed a few years prior to 2008 if you were told that we were about to elect a black man to the presidency  A black man with the middle name of Hussein!!! That part of it still seems like a weird dream. Did that really happen?

If Obama won in 2008, we can win with Harris, and we can win resoundingly.

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The Economist election models showed Trump winning 3 out of 4 times. 

The 538 election models until just recently were showing Biden ahead, but they count the aggregate, so it would take a while for him to drop significantly. Out of a thousand simulations he was losing 48% of the times and Trump was winning 51%. 

Fun fact, the other percentage point wasn't RFK Jr or anything, it was that they both get 270, a nightmare scenario!

RealPolitics was showing that if the election was held now, Trump would win 325 electoral votes to 213. 

Fareed Zakaria said earlier this year when Trump was leading Biden that the key number to watch was who is seen as more competent and effective. In June 2020 Biden was leading Trump 47% to 38%. In January of this year Trump was leading Biden 48% to 32%. 

Only 33% of Democrats were happy with their nominee. That means there was a catastrophic failure at some point along the way, a failure that we can remedy.

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Do the Republicans in power seem scared to you?

Just this morning, Mike Johnson was suggesting that they might challenge Biden dropping out in court. Hahaha, what pure nonsense! They really want to keep Biden on the ballot, huh? As if someone doesn't reserve the right to drop out. As if a sitting president must be compelled to run a second term. 

They frame it as if they are preserving democracy, what a joke! Many of them apparently believe that Harris has the authority to nullify the election if she doesn't like the results, haha. Yeah right, they only believe that for themselves. I'm not going to take any democracy lessons from Mike Johnson.

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And no, to stamp this out, just because Biden decided to drop out, that does not automatically mean that he's unfit to serve. A person can be perfectly competent, yet think someone else has a better chance to win. There's no contradiction there.

I had called on Biden to resign, because he said that even if it was shown that somebody else would be more likely to win, he still wouldn't drop out. He changed his tune on that, so as far as I'm concerned he's perfectly fit to serve. He's not an idiot, look at the text of his answers in his press conference if you don't believe me.

I actually think this decision makes him more fit to serve. Reflect on the fact that it truly was his decision to make. Yes, there was a lot of pressure on him to resign, but he could have remained defiant and taken it to the convention. It's exactly like Obama said, he would not have chosen to leave the race, unless he thought it was for the good of the country.

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Can I mention how unfit for office Trump is? That's still allowed, right? We can say someone's unfit to be president? I'll assume it is since Trump gave a speech the other day saying how dumb Joe Biden is, oh so dumb, such a stupid person, very dumb, he went on and on with his nuanced Trumpian wisdom. 

I'm not going to use Trump as any kind of moral bellwether or anything, but if he's allowed to say stuff like that, a long with all of the outright non-hyperbolic violent political rhetoric he said over the years, I'll assume that it's okay for me to say Trump's unfit.

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It's funny to imagine Trump, if he were currently running for re-election, crowing from the rooftops about how inflation has dropped, the stock market is at record highs, and that our economy is the envy of the world. Haha. A simple truth. 

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Can I take just a second to say how ridiculous it is they're going to spend, like maybe a hundred billion dollars to try to convince a few tens of thousands of people in the battlegrounds to vote one way versus the other? Just handing out $100,000 to 100,000 people sounds like a better use of money. 

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I don't want to be jaded though. I also don't want to get all schmaltzy, or pollyannaish, but when you think about the history of the country, it's something to be proud of. No, not for all the bad things we did! Of course not. We should be proud of the country for the continuous march toward something better. There have been ups and downs, steps forward, and steps backward, but I don't think there is another era or place that we would rather live.

I mean really think about it. Only 100,000 years ago we were fighting neighboring tribes for territory. There's evidence that 35% of our ancestors died as a result of violence. Our genes are basically the same, but look how far we've come.

We could lose it, and we perhaps could have lost it last Saturday if Trump had been injured beyond a grazed ear. It's worth reflecting on the fact every so often that we live in relative peace.  

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My message to Biden:

Deciding to pass the torch to give us a better chance to win, vs battling your own party to keep the nomination, will be remembered as one of the most selfless political decisions in American history. True leadership. Thank you.

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Thinking about the standing ovation he's going to get at the convention gives me chills.

Now let's win!

July 21, 2024

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I was just rolling my office chair back and forth between two desks, and for a second I imagined I was Alex P. Keaton high on meth.

July 21, 2023

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10 Short Rules For a Better Life, From the Stoics

4. Strict with yourself, tolerant with others

"Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself." -Marcus Aurelius

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Christopher Hitchens- “I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.”

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Have you noticed Trump's new phrase-of-the-moment? "SILENT MAJORITY!" Do you know what it means? It means, "I'm losing in the polls, but have no fear- our minority is actually a secret majority!" I guess there are all these bashful Trump supporters somewhere. 

Want to know how stupid this sounds? When Trump is down 40%-55% but contending he's actually winning 50%-45%, it's like Biden saying he actually has a silent majority and he's really winning 65%-30%... I mean if we're allowed to toss around 10% willy-nilly. 

To make it not-too-funny, no matter what the polls show, he'll say he won because his ghost voters weren't counted. BUT, to make the whole thing extra-funny, you'll catch a bunch of supporters screaming- "I'M PART OF THE SILENT MAJORITY!!!" Not too silent there, buddy.

July 21, 2020

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Gonna put this poor tomato out of its misery, and into my salad.

July 21, 2019

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America- love it or leave it... or improve it. 

Why do people always forget about that third option? They are not forgetting about it unless they are brain dead. They're trying to create a false choice to stifle debate. Once you know about the false choice logical fallacy you see it everywhere. Look at George W. Bush's, "you're with me or you're with the terrorists." Or look at Reservoir Dogs, "it's my way or the highway." Although to be fair, Mr. Pink should have just accepted his name and moved on.

July 21, 2019

Postscript- one time a guy at racquetball was talking to me about Jesus and said that he was either lord, liar, or lunatic, and then he "proved" that he wasn't a liar or a lunatic. I told him that he might not have been any of the three, he might have just been wrong. What's so special about the alliteration?

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A have a job applicant who says he has a "BS in Bible."

July 21, 2018

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Seagull existentialism

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Sara Carter of the Carter Family was born on this day in 1898.

Springtime is coming, sweet lonesome bird

Your echo in the woodland I hear

Down in the meadow so lonesome you're singing

While the moonlight is shining so clear

But I know he's away in a far distant land

A land that is over the sea

Go fly to him singing your sweet little song

And tell him to come back to me

Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern) Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern)

Oh, tell me, is my darling still true

Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern) Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern)

I'll be just as happy as you

Well, a-lee-oh-lay-ee

Well, a-lee-ho-lee-oh-lay-ee

Yeah, lee-oh-lay-ee-hee-oh

Lee-oh-lay-ee

Oh, tell me, sweet Fern, is he thinking of me

And the promise he made long ago

He said he'd return from over the sea

Oh, why do the earth roll so slow

I know he's away in a far distant land

A land that is over the sea

Go fly to him singing your sweet little song

And tell him to come back to me

Well, a-lee-oh-lay-ee

Well, a-lee-ho-lee-oh-lay-ee

Yeah, lee-oh-lay-ee-hee-oh

Lee-oh-lay-ee

Upon my finger he placed a small ring

On the day he was leaving his home

I promised I'd be his own dear little girl

And love him wherever he'd roam

But I know he's away in a far distant land

A land that is over the sea

Go fly to him singing your sweet little song

And tell him to come back to me

Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern) Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern)

Oh, tell me, is my darling still true

Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern) Sweet Fern (Sweet Fern)

I'll be just as happy as you

Well, a-lee-oh-lay-ee

Well, a-lee-ho-lee-oh-lay-ee

Yeah, lee-oh-lay-ee-hee-oh

Lee-oh-lay-ee

https://youtu.be/Knp6GT9FrtU

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Smart move Spicer, now let me open up a Kickstarter for your tell-all book. Name your price...

July 21, 2017

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A couple of goodies.

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I just overcame a 162 deficit to win a Scrabble game. I was down 152-314 but ended with CAGIEST for 89, DILUTION for 70, JINGLE for 45, and HAHA for 43 to win 404-369. I don't tell you this to brag, I post this in the hopes my unborn daughter will one day stumble upon and it learn to never count herself out.

July 21, 2013

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I think I nearly convinced Emma's mom that we have a "craw" between the esophagus and stomach, until I burst out laughing while trying to tell her that i don't like to joke about it because my great-grandma died of craw cancer.

July 21, 2013

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Tomato season starts just as lettuce season ends... proof that there's no order to the universe, right?

July 21, 2012

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Wow- I just figured out that over the past year and a half I've averaged three games of scrabble per day.

July 21, 2012

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"If you don't see Batman this weekend, the terrorists win." -President George W. Bush (third term)

July 21, 2012

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If you would have peaked in my kitchen window at the right time tonight, you would have seen me sipping vanilla coffee creamer out of the container.

July 21, 2011

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How many hours straight have Sloth and I worked? We took a minute to look at the clouds- he saw Garfield and I saw Snoopy. We both started giggling.

July 21, 2010

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The first Wild West shootout happened on this day in 1865. In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt.

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An impassioned plea, before the 2016 election.

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Ernest Hemingway was born on this day in 1899. 

"The first draft of anything is shit."

Currently in my first draft of this blog. 

July 21, 2022

Postscript- Now currently in my second draft.

July 21, 2023

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Rosie Hamlin join us on this day in 1945. She was the singer of the otherworldly Angel Baby, the 1960 single by Rosie and the Originals. From Wikipedia:

"The group recorded the song independently on a two-track machine, located in a facility in the small farming community of San Marcos, California. At the time, lead singer Rosie Hamlin was only 15 years old. She had written the lyrics for "Angel Baby" as a poem for "[her] very first boyfriend" when she was a 14-year-old student at Mission Bay High School in San Diego, California.

https://youtu.be/9xm3qnh1sck

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Al Hrabosky, "The Mad Hungarian," join us on this day in 1949.

"When I'm on the road, my greatest ambition is to get a standing boo."

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Mike Cubbage was born on this day in 1950. Here's his 1978 Topps baseball card with someone's commentary.

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Robin Williams joined us on this day in 1951.

"People go "now, Robin, how do I know if I'm an alcoholic?" Well as one, let me give you some warning signs. Number one, after a night of heavy drinking, you wake up fully clothed going "Hey! Somebody shit in my pants!" Number two, you have a couple of cocktails, you find yourself on the freeway going, "What are these fuckers doing going the wrong way?" Number three, you get drunk, you go out for Indian food, you wake up in Bombay with a camel licking your balls."

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Jon Lovitz was born on this day in 1957. Would you believe me if I told you that Jon Lovitz told one of the funniest jokes of all time? He did.

I heard of this in the Gone Too Soon episode of CNN's History of Comedy. He was with some Saturday Night Live castmates reflecting on the fact that Phil Hartman had just died. Mike Myers said, "Can you believe that Brynn killed Phil?"

Jon Lovitz said, "Oh come on, you're making it sound worse than it was."

Mike Myers said that they laughed for half an hour, and that nobody would have found it funnier than Phil.

Mike Myers said that they laughed for half an hour, and that nobody would have found it funnier than Phil. 

Earlier in the episode Mike Myers quoted the philosopher Henri Bergson who said, "Comedy is the realization of your own mortality and laughter is its involuntary response." 

I wasn't sure what I thought of that at first, but what an anecdote! Every comedian who is gone, is gone to soon, along with everyone else responsible for our laughter.

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Other notable birthdays- Don Knotts (1924), Paul Wellstone (1944), Cat Stevens (1948), English singer-songwriter and guitarist

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Other notable deathdays- Robert Burns (1796), Basil Rathbone (1967), Alan Shepard (1998)

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The new HBO documentary on Robin Williams was great. I never thought he was funny though, still don't. This little routine cracked me up though... a double-impression of Elmer Fudd and Bruce Springsteen. Too bad to not have him around.

(If you're not aware Emma has a pretty solid double-impression routine. Katherine Hepburn + Urkel comes to mind.)

https://youtu.be/1vT-VaMXsAw

July 21, 2018

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Meme- "Your religion doesn't prohibit me from anything. It prohibits you. Learn the difference."

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Mother Jones, July 21, 2020- Why Did Trump Wish Ghislaine Maxwell Well?

This seems inexplicable. Why would Trump “wish her well” on national TV?

Answer: because he can’t help himself. One of Trump’s iron personal laws is that if you are nice to him, he is nice to you. If you attack him, he attacks you. It’s the transactional deal he makes with everyone in the world. In Maxwell’s case, she has been nice to Trump and has never attacked him, so Trump has no choice but to be nice in return. It’s practically built into his DNA. It’s really as simple as that. Political considerations just don’t enter into it.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/07/why-did-trump-wish-ghislaine-maxwell-well/

July 21, 2020

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Robin Williams again- "For me, the one big question is: how do you get Crucifixion, Resurrection and then chocolate bunnies, colored eggs? How do you do that one? Even kids are going: "Rabbits don't lay eggs. What is this?" And you don't want a kid biting the head off a chocolate Jesus. You don't want a cream filled cross... You don't wanna put raspberry jam in the grass going: "We're looking for Jesus, kids, come on!"

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The Last Movie Stars, Ethan Hawke's series on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, premieres tonight. 

Paul Newman- "I'm not running for sainthood. I just

happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out."

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Milan Kundera, Immortality- "Just imagine living in a world without mirrors. You'd dream about your face and imagine it as an outer reflection of what is inside you. And then, when you reached forty, someone put a mirror before you for the first time in your life. Imagine your fright! You'd see the face of a stranger. And you'd know quite clearly what you are unable to grasp: your face is not you."

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Marcel Proust- "Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance."

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Ernest Hemingway- "Road to hell paved in unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault."

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