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Mike Lofgren describes a terrifying hypothetical GOP

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government September 8, 2011 4 Comments

The crazy one, the governor's son and they guy who made a million dollars doing it

Both Micky and Smick sent me this this article by former GOP staffer Mike Lofgren, in which he argues that “the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe.” Before we address that contention, let’s take a moment to agree that Micky and Smicky would have made a great racist comic strip during the 1920s. Micky is small and Smicky is big, and the one where they steal a coconut and can’t figure out how to open it is classic. Anyway, surely it is not true that the Republican Party has consciously decided to damage the functioning of Congress, as Lofgren alleges. I mean, right?

Psychic, powerless, another man’s sac: Butthole Surfers at the Wilma

By Dan Brooks in punk rock September 7, 2011 0 Comment

Butthole Surfers at Manchester in July 2008

I’m so glad I didn’t bring a date to Butthole Surfers. It’s not that I didn’t have a weirdo fantastic time. I did. It’s that while I had this fantastic time, I also watched pretty much continuous video of people’s faces exploding. Butthole Surfers performed a loud, tight set of their weirder jams in front of a 20-foot projection screen last night, and they did everything on purpose. You could tell because the video was admirably synched—even when it was video of, say, a screaming Japanese woman getting her limbs pulled off and therefore gaining the ability to fly, or Scanners. It was gross and then it was interesting and then it was really gross in a way that became hypnotic. Once again, Butthole Surfers made me like them by doing stuff to me that I didn’t like.

There sure are a lot of black people in this video

By Dan Brooks in Church People September 6, 2011 1 Comment

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHb4gs1hwck

Monster metal props to Ben Gabriel for the link. For my money, this sort of video is where the mash-up culture of the internet most closely approaches art. You’ve got your juxtaposition of disparate elements—Slayer’s “Angel of Death” and footage from a bunch of Pentecostal churches where, presumably, they would not like Slayer—that evokes how sparate those elements really are. This sudden recognition of congruence is called beauty, or maybe just humor. I think this video is funny. The kid who goes hopping across the shot at :48—maybe not with total sincerity—is funny. The open headbanging at 2:25 is funny. The inadvertent lip synch at 2:53 is funny. And as skeptical and probably anti-religious as the tone is, it’s also a celebration of raw human energy, which is funny. My praise of this video would be unqualified, were I not so relieved every time a white person appeared onscreen.

Friday links! Ineffability of culture edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized September 2, 2011 1 Comment

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4

Behold Nyan Cat, a cat that is also a pop tart flying through space! This video has 35 million views. The ten-hour version has three million views. Nyan Cat is a goddamn cultural epiphenomenon, and I dare you to explain why. As a person who A) thinks Nyan Cat is wonderful and B) loves to analyze created works, I have to admit that here is a place where human reason has no compass. You cannot dissect Nyan Cat and use what you learn of its parts to make something else culturally successful. Sure, broad conclusions can be drawn—the internet likes cats, the song is catchy, rainbows are funny when they come out of animals anuses. But it is impossible, having seen Nyan Cat, to make something that works like Nyan Cat but is different. Its Nyan-Catness slips through your fingers like a disassembled sand castle. American culture is ineffable, even as it appears to be completely effed, and there’s nothing for it but to sit back and let it erase your brain. Won’t you stare in dumb amazement with me?

President: dick?

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government September 1, 2011 1 Comment

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would address a joint session of Congress regarding jobs and the economy on September 7—the same night, it turns out, as a Republican presidential debate. Exactly how it turned out is a matter of conjecture. Press secretary Jay Carney insisted that the date was not chosen to conflict with the debate, noting that there were going to be 20 of those things and that “one debate of many was no reason not to have a speech when we wanted to have it.” Still, I bet they have a big calendar in the White House, and Obama’s move seemed like a deliberate provocation. Fortunately for everyone, he was provoking John Boehner, which is like trying to get a fish to gasp. “As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,” Boehner wrote, asking the President to move the speech to September 8. Guess which date they compromised on!