Trade Offer: You Get One Deadly Virus, I Get One Rent Freeze

For me, the worst part of COVID was closing my business. For some, including a few people I know, the worst part was an order of magnitude more awful: the death of a loved one. And for others, it was being sentenced to eighteen months of confinement with loved ones they merely wished would die.

The best part of COVID? There were a ton of positive things! Stimmy checks, student loan postponement, the normalization of work-from-home, less traffic and thereby lower emissions, and a boon to the heretofore-lagging sweatpant industry.

I really enjoyed one thing above all of those, namely because I live in a bougie part of an expensive metropolitan area. My favorite part of COVID was rent concessions. In a world where rent always goes up, ours did not for two years.

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Above Us Only Sky

“Imagine” is a catchy tune about the pitfalls of religion and materialism, written by a guy who got filthy rich selling jangly three-minute pop songs about love and walruses and shit.

That sentence is a good summation of my bitterness as of late. I’m having a hard time enjoying much of anything, even ubiquitous peace anthems by former Beatles.

I turn on the TV. How’d some lousy sitcom actor get to be famous while I am sitting here in obscurity? I drive to the store. Why does this asshole driving next to me get to roll a Jag instead of this banged-up Prius?

This whole setup is horseshit. I’d like to speak to the manager of…the world? Sure. The whole damned WORLD.

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Be Kind, Rewind

I have a weird confession to make.

It’s going to come as a shock, so I hope you’re sitting down. You probably are, as it’s hard to walk and read at the same time.

Okay, here goes: I haven’t seen that movie.

I know, right?! Crazy. You know the one, the one with that one guy? The one where they go places and do stuff? Yeah, never seen it.

And I’m constantly, irrationally embarrassed by this fact.

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The Millennials Are Alright

I was born in 1976, the child of two Baby Boomers. I guess that makes me a member of Generation X, a.k.a. The Generation Least Likely To Take BS From Anyone. We think everyone sucks—us included. We emerged from the womb jaded. Don’t take it personally.

We’re a unique bunch. We grew up with the Cold War, pay phones, three TV channels, having our questions met with “look it up in the encyclopedia.” Don’t have those?1 Don’t worry, a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman will stop by sooner or later to convince your parents they’re morally obligated to buy a set.

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The Real, Self-Appointed MVP

Hi friends.

Through my diverse contacts in Washington, DC, I’ve obtained what might be a first draft of the now famous New York Times anonymous op-ed. It might be that. It also might be something other than that, e.g. something I pulled out of my ass in between doing shots of Sailor Jerry’s, watching The Rachel Maddow Show, and doing additional shots of Sailor Jerry’s.

But it might be a first draft. We can simply never know for sure.

Here it is: Continue reading

His Scale And Mirrors Are Rigged, Too.

Donald Trump thinks that Google is rigged against him because the top results on a web search of “trump news” are all from “left-leaning sources” (read: major news outlets).

First, I’ll ignore the fact that major news outlets (CNN, ABC News, The Washington Post, etc.) are simply more widely disseminated (and clicked), thus their articles show up higher in Google’s search results than those of less widely followed sites like InfoWars and Breitbart (links purposefully not here, because aw HELL no).

Second, I’ll leave to other articles the fact that journalists tend toward being more “liberal” because they are better educated and exposed to more diverse points of view than the average human. Continue reading

Singing Like A Soprano.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s long-time personal attorney Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight federal felony counts. Two counts were of particular interest, due to their implication of the President of the United States in criminal activity: counts seven and eight.

Count Seven relates to Mr. Cohen’s involvement in the hush money payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Count Eight relates to Cohen’s involvement in the payoff of adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

While I deeply admire both women’s bodies of work, I want to take a deeper look at Count Seven today. Continue reading

Survey Says…This Show Sucks.

The Right in its current iteration is like the worst family you’ve ever seen play Family Feud. They’ll give idiotic answers that everyone knows are wrong. Rarely, they’ll land a correct answer, and the opposing Left Family will screw up just often enough to keep the Right Family in the game.

Steve Harvey will routinely meet their patently stupid answers with a confused, disappointed stare directly into the camera, followed by disproportionate amounts of raucous laughter and applause by the audience. Continue reading

Straight Outta Mar-A-Lago

It is possible that there exists a tape recording of the President of the United States using a racial epithet. And it’s likely that, if unearthed and played for the world to hear, it won’t matter in the slightest.

Note: I’m not talking about whether or not he said it. I’m certain he did. So is Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

I’m talking about whether someone recorded him saying it, and whether that recording will become public. Continue reading