Bristol Palin willing to dance with gay man

By Dan Brooks in Church People, Uncategorized 7 Comments

Dancing With the Stars and Bristol Palin

I want to start by saying it is grotesquely wonderful that America’s least deserving national figure has a daughter who is famous, too. Bristol Palin got pregnant during her mother’s run for the vice-presidency. Now she is a spokeswoman for teen abstinence, star of a reality show about herself, and a returning contestant on Dancing With the Stars. In other words, she is utterly irrelevant to a decent person’s life in America. Don’t think for a second that Bristol Palin is important. Yet although she is insignificant herself, she is instructive as an example of her species—like a termite. On Monday, she published this terrifyingly Orwellian argument on her blog which she apparently has. I think you’ll find its central theme gross and immediately recognizable, also like a termite.

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Combat! blog cleans through house, isn’t useful

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment

Cleaning music, natch.

Combat! blog is taking an organization day today. While we order the office, how about you read about the dubious influence of Lenny Bruce. I idolized Lenny Bruce when I was a teenager, although I wasn’t sure why. Years later, I realize it’s because I was supposed to. Lenny Bruce is/was very hip, as Jonathan Poletti observes. Poletti also writes the sentence “The Byrds, Crosby’s band, were first booked by Lenny’s mother, and Bruce even came to see them, his shadows, in their flickering forms, as they created the 1960s in his image.” But don’t hold that against him. Combat! blog will be back tomorrow, smelling of lemon.

Friday links! Possible causes edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 1 Comment

I hear you, brother.

Evidently one of the eight drinks I drank with Ben al-Fowlkes last night had food poisoning in it, because I feel sick. Combat! blog operates from bed today, in a version of work that would make Thomas Jefferson shake his head bitterly. America has changed so much. Our world has changed so much; we navigate images projected on a skein covering shadows on the wall of a cave. Yet the light shines through, if you look for it. My point is that A) Ben al-Fowlkes is unclean, and B) sometimes, in this vale of illusions, what’s going on is pretty obvious. Won’t you pierce the veil with me?

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Friday links! Richie Richer edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Just do the right shoe—no, the left! Never mind; do them both. Hang on a second. What do you think?

God, I love it when Mitt Romney does things. Yesterday the presumptive Republican nominee went to London the way your aunt goes to a new Olive Garden: critically. While most of his remarks about the 2012 Olympics have been positive, he told Brian Williams that reports of logistical problems before the games were “disconcerting.” I hope you’re happy, Mitt Romney, because your wife’s horse is screwed now. Today is Friday, and rich people around the world will take a half day but get no less money. It’s a fantastic time to be wealthy, even if you are an asshole, and today’s link roundup is bedazzled with cash and anuses. Won’t you get it but not get it with me?

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Combat! blog blast across ground, isn’t etc.

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Pitchfork 2012. I swear I look this young.

Combat! blog’s cross-national odyssey continues today, as Aaron Galbraith and I hurtle across the alkali flats of Illinois en route to the alkali fats of Des Moines. There will be no blog. There will be only gas stations and maybe a stop at George’s in Iowa City. In the meantime, why don’t you think about the slough of sweet bands I saw at Pitchfork this weekend, including Ty Segall, Iceage, A$AP Rocky, Oneohtrix Point Never, The Men—pretty much everyone I reviewed this year. Don’t think about how many people threw up.