I Ain't One To Gossip But ...

Kanye West held a listening event for his upcoming album, Donda, at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta but it wasn’t the music getting the most attention—and not just because the album is as yet unfinished—it was the food ,,, notably the all-beef kosher hotdogs for $40 and $45 for cookies and brownies.

Wait, though what about the $35 kettle corn, the $50 chicken tenders or the $65 assorted snack basket?

Seriously.

Also telling is that Kanye donated 5,000 tickets to several Atlanta-area HBCU’s including Morehouse College and Spelman College for people to attend the event, but he made all that money back by selling over-priced Kid’s Meal shiz.

And now, after the big show of nothing, Kanye is ALLEGEDLY living at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium until he finishes the album.

I hope there are lots of kosher dogs left.

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If you needed proof that the relationship ais mostly for show, publicity and social media hits, realize that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez went official on social media on JLo’s birthday, even going so far as to recreate their iconic :::coughcough:::: moments in Lopez’s “Jenny From The Block”: video where Ben felt up and literally kisses JLo’s ass before untying her bikini bottom.

Yeah, this’ll last.

PS That photo up top is from a  JLo birthday dinner and if Ben Affleck isn’t drunk off his ass he looks like he had a stroke.

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Morgan Wallen, the country singer who got booted from Saturday Night Live for being a Covidiot and then got booted from everything else for using the N-word with his redneck buddies, is still doing damage control. He recently spoken with Michael Strahan for Good Morning America about how he’s learned so much and what the N-word means to him … or whatever.

I say ‘whatever’ because he called using that word “playful” and that the drunken slur “just happened” and that his friends love the N-word, though he doesn’t use it as much as they do:

“I was around some of my friends, and we just … we say dumb stuff together… And it was–in our minds, it’s playful… that sounds ignorant, but it–that’s really where it came from… and it’s wrong.”

Fuck all the way off you racist hillbilly. That word is not playful, and only comes out in drunken chit chat when that’s how you think because, and I have said this before, I have been drunk a time or two in my life, and I have been beyond drunk a time or two as well, and I have never said that word.

Cuz it isn’t part of me.

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It looks like Scott Disick—famous for sticking his penis into Kourtney Kardastrophe and making babies—has lost his grip on reality entirely.

Apparently Disick was booked to make a personal appearance at Gaffney’s in Saratoga Springs, New York—and let’s not even ask the question, “For what?”—which is described as a “stalwart, comfy eatery with a garden patio” and serves an onion ring tower for $11, and Disick asked if the restaurant had a “spare plane” that could come and pick him up from the Hamptons, bring him in, and then fly him home.

And while Gaffney’s … big surprise … did not have a private plane, they actually tried to line one up to bring this reality show fuckmonkey to their restaurant for, and again, what, exactly?

But, Disick’s team called again to say they’d found their own ride to the spot after all, and wouldn’t need the jet, except on the day of the event, Disick’s “team,” which is probably just Scott Disick using a different voice, called Gaffney’s and asked for a helicopter to fly him in; and again, Gaffney’s tried to find one, only to be told once more that Disick & Co. had made their own arrangements.

Finally, Gaffney’s was told the chopper fell through and Disick, sadly, would not be able to make his appearance.

Again … what the fuck for?

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Erika Jayne has been playing the Victim Card™ on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills saying her husband, Tom Girardi, was dismissive of her, cheated on her, treated her shabbily.

But when you look at Erika before meeting Tom, and then follow her face and body and hair and teeth through the years, perhaps he was dismissive because he didn’t recognize her, or cheated on her because her new face, nose, cheeks, or breasts were bandaged.

This is a woman who took money from her husband to transform herself from mousy blond to platinum “singer” and finance her “music” career, along with the bling and the glam and the gowns and the private jets, but now says the whole marriage was awful.

Awfully lucrative, from the looks of it.

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I Didn't Say It

Adam Kinzinger, Illinois GOP Congressman, calling out other members of his party for promoting conspiracies about the January 6 domestic terror attack:

"This cannot continue to be a partisan fight. I'm a Republican. I'm a conservative. But in order to heal from the damage caused that day, we need to call out the facts. It is time to stop the outrage and the conspiracies that fuel the violence and division in this country and most importantly, we need to reject those that promote it. I've talked to a number of you [the four officers who were testifying] and gotten to know you. I think it is important to tell you right now, though, you guys may like individually feel a little broken. You all talked about the effects you have to deal with and you talk about the impact of that day. But you guys won. You guys held. It is toxic and it is a disservice to the officers and their families, to the staff and the employees on Capitol complex, to the American people who deserve the truth and to those generations before us who went to war to defend self-governance. Because self-governance is at stake. Democracies are not defined by our bad days. We're defined by how we come back from bad days, how we take accountability for that."

Kinzinger is one of the very few in the GOP who want to know what happened that day, and how it happened. The rest want to move on like this was just another school shooting and not an attack on this country by an unhinged loser and his mob.

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Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor, advising officials working to convince unvaccinated Americans to receive a coronavirus inoculation to focus on explaining the facts about vaccines rather than mandates:

“The vaccines do work. Every focus group I’ve been in, Republicans who are not vaccinated, you have to walk them through the logic of this. They’re willing to be vaccinated.”

Walk them through? Howsabout, ‘Take the vaccine so you and your loved ones don’t die’? Why should anyone hold the hands of people who think all sorts of lunacy about the vaccines.

Take it so you don’t die.

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Sgt Aquilino Gonell, at the 1/6/2021 commission hearings, calling out traitorous GQPers and the twice-impeached, one-term loser:

"I was giving you guys borrowed time to get to safety. I was protecting you. I was ready to sacrifice myself and now we're being attacked by the same people we were protecting. It’s upsetting. It’s a pathetic excuse for [Thing 45’s] behavior, for something that he himself helped to create — this monstrosity. I'm still recovering from those hugs and kisses that day. To me it's insulting, it's demoralizing because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt and what he was doing — instead of sending the military, instead of sending support or telling his people, his supporters, to stop this nonsense — he egged them to continue fighting.”

This man risked his life to save our elected officials, many of whom, with their rhetoric and their lies, bear some responsibility for the attack.

When you spew the Big Lie from November to January, and then your unhinged drug addled loser leader, holds a rally to spur on the attack, and you then attack the very officers who protected you, you are the lowest of the low.

Vote every single one from office.

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Charlie Crist, Democrat, Florida Congressman, and gubernatorial candidate, blasting Governor DeathSantis for his duties amid a spike in COVID-19 infections and playing presidential politics at the Texas border:

“You know what’s happening. We have gone to the top [of the new infections list]. And it is a dubious distinction. And why is that? Because we don’t have leadership. What’s [DeSantis] doing about it? Where [is he] as this health crisis resurged? Visiting hospitals? Consulting with physicians and public health experts? Huddling with his staff to brainstorm ways of persuading more Floridians to take the vaccine that would nip this pandemic in the bud? Nope. Florida’s governor was in Texas, 1,000 miles from Tallahassee, burnishing his 2024 presidential ambitions with a visit to the southern border … You’re the governor of Florida, you know. He doesn’t understand. And you know he’s spending our tax dollars out there, giving our law enforcement to Texas while people are dying in Florida. Unbelievable.”

Unbelievable? It’s Flori-duh after all.

And it’s Ron DeathSantis, too.

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Liz Cheney, who stood for her country, against her party, and continues to do so, at the January 6 Commission hearings:

"If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic, undermining the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democracy system."

If we don’t punish those responsible, if we don’t point out why and how this happened, it will happen again and again every time the loons in the GQP don’t get their way.

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Officer Michael Fanone, to those in the GQP who downplay the terror attack at the Capitol:

“I went to hell and back …. But too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist, or that hell actually wasn’t that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.”

This is the way the party of “law and order” treats those who are working to protect and serve Americans. The same people who demanded the police lock up antifa or BLM protestors, now denigrate police officers who arrested domestic terrorists.

They are worse than disgraceful.

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Bobservations

This isn’t so much about Carlos, though he’s in it, but about my Dad, and Ozzo.

When Carlos and I were in North Carolina last week, our friends Neal and David’s dog, Marley, decided he wanted to be Carlos’ lap dog. And so he crawled into Carlos’ lap.

I shared the photo to Facebook, and a few days later I was talking to my Dad and he didn’t realize our dog was that big. I explained to him that it was Marley, not Ozzo, and told him I’d recreate the photo with our dog. And here the two photos are:

Can you spot the difference?

PS In the right photo, those are Carlos’ hideous “yard” shorts that I keep trying to throw out.

I’m thinking of running for Mayor of Smallville, but only as a front for Tuxedo, who would be the real mayor.

Remember Anita Bryant? The bigoted Christian homophobe from the 1970s? Well, the bitch hasn’t changed.

Bryant’s granddaughter, Sarah Green, talked about her relationship with Bryant on a recent episode of Slate’s podcast One Year, hosted by Josh Levin and focusing on 1977, when Anita came “out” as a bigot. And while the episode dealt with the fight over LGBT rights in Miami-Dade in the 70s, near the end Green talked about her grandmother, saying she once thought Bryant didn't really hate LGBTQ+ people. But she started to look at her grandmother differently when Green realized she herself was gay and although she had no intention of doing so, she came out to Bryant on her 21st birthday when Bryant sang “Happy Birthday” over the phone and told her that if she had faith, the right man would come along:

“And I just snapped and was like, ‘I hope that he doesn’t come along, because I’m gay, and I don’t want a man to come along.’”

Bryant responded by saying that homosexuality is a delusion invented by the devil and that her granddaughter should focus on loving God, because that would make her realize she’s straight.

Anita Bryant; still a hate-filled bigot after all these.

And Anita won’t like this but … while the leaders of Hungary are virulently anti-LGBTQ+, the recent Budapest Pride saw record numbers of LGBTQ+ citizens and allies filling the streets.

Thousands of LGBTQ Hungarians and allies donned their finest Rainbow drag and marched through downtown Budapest in one of the largest demonstrations against Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his administration’s moves to criminalize the nation’s LGBTQ community.

Pride; on full display.

Matt Gaetz’s future sister-in-law, Roxanne Luckey, has had enough of Gaetz, and took to TikTok to post three videos slamming him as “weird and creepy” and “a literal pedophile.”

Thanksgiving is gonna be mighty uncomfortable this year, what with Gatez in prison and all.

Fingers crossed.

Racist, repugnant, illiterate, entirely dumb-fucked Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green called a private business’s decision to not admit unvaccinated patrons “segregation” in a Tweet that included a screenshot of a door sign that read:

“NO VAX NO SERVICE.”

The restaurant owners decided that after a few positive COVID cases last week, the rule was necessary. Greene commented:

“This is called segregation. Will you be testing everyone at the door for the flu, strep throat, stomach bugs, colds, meningitis, aids, venereal diseases, Hep A, Hep C, staff infections, athletes foot, pink eye, croup, bronchitis, ringworm, scabies, or any other contagions?”

First off, it’s staph infection, you dumb bitch; and I wish Congress would test for ignorance and racism and then drum all of you out of DC.

On the flip side, the owner of Basilico’s Pasta e Vino in Huntington Beach, California posted a sign on his restaurant door that reads:

“Notice: Proof of being unvaccinated required. We have zero tolerance for treasonous, anti-American stupidity. Thank you for pondering.”

I wonder if COVID-19 is on the menu or is just the Daily Special.

Asshats.

Fox News has condemned an incident during which Dan Bailey confronted Tucker Carlson at a Montana fly-fishing store over the weekend and told the fucker he was the “worst human being known to man.”

“Ambushing Tucker Carlson while he is in a store with his family is totally inexcusable. No public figure should be accosted regardless of their political persuasion or beliefs simply due to the intolerance of another point of view.”

Sorry, Fox, it’s called Free Speech. Now, fuck off.*

*Also Free Speech.

And now, a little morsel from France to cleanse the palate … an amuse-bouche, if you will … Frédéric Tisseau is a thirty-five-year-old model, personal trainer, and physical education teacher from Paris. And he’s all kinds of dreamy.

He was “discovered” on the streets of Paris, and ended up modeling for Calvin Klein, Renault, Adidas and Chanel. 

And now Frédéric  is launching All-in-paris.com, a casual clothing brand. Funny, though, that my favorite photo of Frédéric is the one where he wears no clothing … just sayin’.

Architecture Wednesday: Black Villa

I’ve always wanted to be a Bond villain, and this just could be my lair, where I take Daniel Craig, make him wear that little blue square cut swimsuit, and, well. since I’m not that evil, he could be my houseboy.

But I might have to wait a while as this house, designed by architect Reza Mohtashami has not yet been built, though it is panned to be constructed in a residential area near Harriman State Park, New York, about thirty miles outside the city.

The Black Villa offers stunning interior designs like an incredibly large open living area with a sky light that takes up most of the ceiling. Plus the home will be “burrowed” into a hillside in Harriman State Park. The house features a moody black exterior in an abstract design; to incorporate its modern facade into the rugged scenery, the home is covered with a living green roof. The interior, while mostly black—and that is so thinning—is a bright, airy contrast to the outside with warm wood floors and floor-to-ceiling glazing that wraps the living space in views of the landscape.

Upstairs, the primary bedroom features two king-size beds—I’m thinking one for Carlos and me, and one for the pets; a huge open closet, and a stone bathroom.

It’s like a modern all-black cave … perfect for a Bond villain. All I need now is a name for myself ….

Uncrate  Behance

This Bitch: Kim Reynolds

Iowa’s GQP, QAnon, wingnut, Big Lie supporting asshatted governor, Kim Reynolds says that the problem with rising COVID-19 cases in the United States is unvaccinated immigrants entering the country via the southern border:

“Part of the problem is the southern border is open and we’ve got 88 countries that are coming across the border and they don’t have vaccines so none of them are vaccinated and they’re getting dispersed throughout the country.”

Before you go off on another of your unhinged, ill-informed, asshatted infranatant rants, Kimmy, take a look at your own state which has less than half of its citizens are fully vaccinated.

Clean your own backyard before you start throwing your anti-immigrant mud.

Bitch.

I Should Be Laughing: Emma

She lingered in the doorway, the living room utterly dark, even in midday, what with the foil covering the windows. The darkness mirrored her mood as she thought of Beam and what he had done. He completely disregarded her wishes, her fears, and taken Lyle to the funeral, to that house, with his sister and those two…. Beam had done the unforgivable and he would have to pay for it.

Wandering through the messy living room, Emma sidestepped Lyle’s toys and Jimmy’s old magazines. It was all dark and gray, mildewed, cluttered, dusty, dirty, and secondhand; she deserved better. Stacks of papers on the kitchen floor, the kitchen so dirty that the smell from the sink terrorized her, sent her flying down the hall into the bathroom. A pile of wet towels sat on the floor beside the tub, and the dirty clothes of the father and the son shoved into a corner, not into the hamper as she had asked a hundred times.

Put your clothes in the hamper. Why am I always picking up your things—

In Lyle’s nook, she found the drawers to his garage sale dresser ransacked and left open; obviously, Beam had found something for him to wear. The tennis shoes she’d tied on Lyle’s feet that morning were on the bed; Jimmy had thrown his blanket over a chair.

Can’t you put things back where they—

In the bedroom was the empty garment bag that once held Beam’s new suit and an open bottle of cologne, one she had gotten as a free gift with a twenty-dollar purchase at the J.C. Penney in Ukiah. He’d never worn it for her, he said he hated smelling all fancy, but he splashed some on before going up to The Landing to be with his family.

I only asked one thing of you and look what you—

Outside the back door, at the rear of the house, Emma stepped onto the tiny stoop. Although mended by Beam after an awfully cold and wet winter, it still leaned to one side and sagged in the middle. It left her feeling a bit off-kilter, but she was learning to accept that. She came out here often, when Beam was out and Lyle was down for his nap, to stand and stare into the trees at the top of the hill. This day, the sky above, seen through the taller trees, was cool and crisp, clean, though it was only temporary. The rains would come later in the day as they did every spring, and today, funeral or not, was no exception. If she was going to do it, now was the time, before the path into the trees turned into a muddy stream.

This is the best way. A clean break so I never—

Leaving the back door open in hopes that the breeze might elbow some of the stench from the house, Emma went back into her bedroom and plucked Lyle’s pictures from each and every plastic frame. She even took the one of Lyle that she kept in a silver frame, and the only wedding photo she had—she and Beam at the Justice of the Peace in Reno—and set all the photographs in a neat pile.

You can’t have these, they belong to—

Slowly, for the stack of snapshots was thick, Emma tore up the photos into bits of confetti. She scooped up a handful and set about spreading the scraps all over the floor like a flower girl scattering rose petals as she walked down the aisle ahead of the bride. Bits of Lyle in the kitchen sink, in her coffee cup, along the counter and over the table. Scraps of Emma and Beam in his La-Z-Boy, ground into the rug and dropped onto sofa cushions. In the bathroom pieces of her life stuck to the tile walls still damp from Lyle’s bath and Beam’s shower.

No matter where you look, I’ll be—

Emma filled Hefty trash bags with clothes and make-up, books, cigarettes and jewelry. Then she tossed them out the back door, stopping once again to eye the path to the trees. It was still dry, though not for long. When the rains came, water would flood the yard and gush downhill toward town. Some days the rain was so intense that Emma, lying in bed, watching One Life To Live, would swear the rainwaters would carry the house away; she pretended she was Dorothy, without the twister.

I just want to be away from—

After stuffing the trash bags into the garbage cans, she wheeled the green rubber monster down to the edge of the road. Trash day was Monday, still three days away, but Beam always forgot to put the cans out. This was the last nice thing she did for her family before walking up the hill, into the trees. Back in the side yard, after leaving the cans by the road, she plucked the clean clothes from the line, letting them fall to the ground. She ripped down the clothesline, unwinding it from the posts that Charlie Bloom had sent over when the old clothesline collapsed. Beam could rewash the clothes; he could buy a new line.

Clean this mess up, Beam, I’m not your—

Stepping over the sheets and dishtowels, underwear and blankets, Emma went to her room one last time. At the mirror, she combed her hair and checked her make-up; she buttoned her smock and straightened her nametag. Looking at the reflection of a woman aged far beyond her years, a woman too tired to do anything more, she felt only the realization of a coming death, a destiny delivered.

She’d wanted to take a walk in the woods ever since the day, as a happy little girl, her father said her mother was gone. Now, she was going, too. Grabbing the clothesline from the bed, Emma wrapped it round and round her arm so it was easier to carry. She walked off that back porch, feeling unsteady for the last time, and climbed the hill, in search of the perfect tree…before the rains came, as they always did.

Fiachra: Hot and Talented

This is Fiachra, AKA Dr. Fiachra Ó Corragáin, a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, music producer, dancer, researcher, and content creator.

Fiachra studied Music and Irish in University College Cork and achieved a double first-class honors degree with final results that were in the top five highest marks in Music ever awarded by the university. At just twenty-one, he began his PhD studies in composition in the School of Music and Theatre in University College Cork, specializing in composing music for dance and narrative musical composition.  In 2016, he was conferred with a PhD in composition as the youngest doctoral music graduate in UCC’s history.  

In 2018, Fiachra was commissioned to compose and perform Planxty Prince Charles in honor of the visit of Prince Charles to Cork.  Fiachra has composed numerous commemorative ‘planxty’ compositions—Irish melodies for the harp—enlivening the traditions of historical Irish harper composers such as Turlough O’Carolan. He has composed and produced music for stage and screen, including the Canadian short film Sídhe, and dance productions.

So amazingly talented, and so amazingly adorable. I like his big harp; I had no idea harpists had such nice asses. I also like his big ax, and was thinking he could be my yard boy and serenade me whilst doing so.

This Bitch: Wendy Rogers

Fresh off of calling for overturning the election and basking in the glow of Thing 45's resulting praise, Arizona state GQP Senator Wendy Rogers has sounded the alarm to white supremacists by Tweeting:

“We are being replaced and invaded.”

This was in response to a news story about 730,000 migrants who have been caught at the border in Texas this fiscal year. But Roger’s rhetoric echoes the racist ‘great replacement’ myth, which holds that white people are being systematically replaced by non-white immigrants. That myth has been the motive in multiple mass murders in recent years.

But, you know, as long as they’re murdering all the right, er, non-white, people.

After some backlash, Rogers went back to Twitter to explain she merely meant:

"We Americans who love this country are being replaced by people who do not love this country."

Right, Karen; but then howsabout this Tweet:

Let’s break this down:

Indian people are from India; in America we call native peoples Native Americans,

Redneck is as offensive as “coloreds”.

Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are racist icons.

Lee and Sherman were traitors to this country.

Wendy Rogers is a lunatic who will do anything and say anything to get noticed.

Rogers spent ten years trying to convince voters to send her to Congress, going so far as to baselessly accuse a Republican rival of having ties to a sex-trafficking ring in 2018. When that didn’t work, she moved from Tempe to a travel trailer in Flagstaff in 2020, to launch a bid for the Legislature.

She spent more than a million dollars, running a slash-and-burn campaign against then-Senator Sylvia Allen—saying that one of the most conservative members of the Legislature was “not conservative enough”.

Rogers touts her membership in the Oath Keepers, the far-right militia group that figured prominently in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol—which she blames on antifa; she believes the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and is prone to retweeting the moronic rantings of QAnon nutbag Marjorie Taylor Green.

Arizona? Really? This Bitch?

The Funny Papers

Clay Bennett, Steve Breen, Mike Luckovich, Ed Hall, Marc Murphy, Bill Bramhall, Michael de Adder, JD Crowe, Nick Anderson, Jack Ohman, Darrin Bell, Deb Milbrath, RandallEnos, Kevin Siers, Peter Kuper,