Why Is It ...

… that I loathe Taylor Swift and find her music boring and tuneless tripe, but that I love how she  pisses off the MAGAts and the Rightwingnuts?

… that it sometimes takes me days to get back to a text? To be honest, I’m understaffed at the moment.

… that sometimes you meet someone and you just know from that first moment that you want to spend your whole life without them?

… that while some people can sleep on their backs, or their sides, or their stomachs, I tend to sleep like a rotisserie chicken?

… that when I scream at a squirrel to get out of the road so he doesn’t get run over by a car, I have the same feeling as my Guardian Angel does watching me live my life?

… that I find it impossible to ‘rise and shine’? All I can do is caffeinate and cross my fingers.

… that I get what I call ‘pre-annoyed’? It’s like I know you’re about to piss me off?

… that I tell people that the best perk to being my friend is that they’ll be called the 'normal’ one?

… that I am still waiting for the wisdom that supposedly comes with old age?

… most people are scared to say stuff but I’m not? Is that why I only have three friends … Carlos, Rosita and Consuelo?

… that the fact I cannot explode into a thousand bats to escape awkward social interactions is a constant source of irritation?

I Didn't Say it ...

Mike Johnson, Christian Nationalist Speaker of the House, saying God chose him as Speaker:

“I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here. Thank you for not allowing the media in. Look, I’m a Southern Baptist, I don’t wanna get too spooky on you, But, you know, the Lord speaks to your heart. The Lord began to wake me up, through this three-week process, in the middle of night to speak to me. The Lord impressed upon my heart a few weeks before this happened that something was going to occur. And the Lord very specifically told me in my prayers to prepare, but to wait. At the time, I assumed the Lord was going to choose a new Moses and thank you, Lord, you’re going to allow me to be Aaron to Moses. I had this sense that we were going to come to a Red Sea moment in our Republican conference and in the county at large. God had been speaking to me about this, and the Lord told me very clearly to prepare and be ready. Ultimately 13 people ran for the post. And the Lord kept telling me to, ‘Wait, wait, wait.’ So I waited, I waited. And then at the end the Lord said, ‘Now step forward.’ Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron. ‘No,’ the Lord said, ‘Step forward.’”

Funny how Mike only like to speak his truth when media isn’t around, so I will say this one thing …

What a fucking loon.

… and leave it there.

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Jim Carrey, on treating the unhoused with a little respect:

“Imagine struggling with being homeless and someone comes with a camera in your face to give you a meal and you have to take it. Imagine that feeling. Please stop doing that. If you go to help someone, do it with kindness and not your ego.”

If you want to do a good deed, feeding the hungry, helping the unhouse, whatever it might be, do it because it’s the right thing to do and don’t use it as a boost to your own fragile ego on social media.

Good people don’t take photos of themselves doing good deeds, they just do the deed.

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Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat Representative, railing at the GOP for their hypocrisy on Hunter Biden:

“Let me get this straight. After  wailing and moaning for ten months about Hunter Biden and alluding to some vast  unproven family conspiracy, after sending Hunter Biden a subpoena to appear and testify, Chairman Comer and the Oversight Republicans now reject his offer to appear before the full committee and the eyes of the world to answer any questions that they pose? What an epic humiliation.”

They have nothing because, again, if they did, they’d be shouting it from the rooftops and showing the proof everywhere.

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Nate White, an articulate and witty writer wrote the following response for the London Daily to the question ‘Why do some British people not like [Thing 45]?’:

“A few things spring to mind. [Thing 45] lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw [Thing 45] ’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while [Thing 45]  may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with [Thing 45] , it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

[Thing 45]  is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a [Thing 45] .

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, [Thing 45]  would be the boxed set.”

There is talk that this was written while the Inmate was running the country, but it matters not because it’s as relevant today as it was yesterday and as much as it will be for the rest of this traitorous asshat’s miserable lying hate-filled life.

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Bobservations

As is usual around Casa Bob y Carlos I do the Christmas decorations. One could say it’s because of Carlos’ eyesight, which could be true; or it might be because he doesn’t enjoy it like I do, which is also somewhat accurate; or you could say it’s because I become a demon at Christmas and direct him where to put ornaments and such because one time he lined up three … THREE … blue ornaments in a row; the paramedics took an hour to revive me.

So Carlos says I am a combination of Martha Stewart, Joan Crawford and Adolf Hitler when I decorate the tree so for these past several years he disappears when the ornaments come out. But, he does his part; we have an artificial tree—we are surrounded by pine trees and so I don’t want a dead one in my house—and he puts it together before he disappears. This weekend we got the tree, the ornaments, the decorations, lights, holiday bric-a-brac from the garage and I went back to blog as Carlos assembled the tree. I was minding my own business when  I heard him say:

“Hey Jon Stewart, the tree is ready!”

Jon Stewart? Comedian? Political activist? Christmas? Then it hit me … Joan Crawford sounds a little John Crawford with his accent and then  he’d stirred in Martha Stewart.

John. Stewart.

Carlos, the gift that keeps on giving.

This Tuxedo memory is from April 2012:

"Caturday

This is the Smallville version of Neighborhood Watch.

Not as much Yin-and-Yang as it is Yin-and-Yin."

There was always something in the yard to keep Consuelo and Tuxedo watching, and I miss my two boys and their cuddle time.

I swear when I saw this post on JoeMyGod I thought someone had purchased Hawaiian Air for $1.98 and instantly wondered why I missed that chance.

In Pennsylvania, while most of the newly sworn in members to the Central Bucks school board chose to swear their oaths on a bible, incumbent Karen Smith brought a stack of other books to the ceremony … and took her oath of office with her hand placed on top of six frequently banned and challenged books.

The tide may be changing; keep that in mind and vote accordingly.

The same crowd that has carried a grudge against Jane Fonda for 50 years think we should "get past" Jan 6^th.

A man died and went to Heaven. As he stood in front of St. Petere at the Pearly Gates he noticed a huge wall of clocks and asked:

“What are those clocks?”

St. Peter answered:

“Those are Lie Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie Clock and every time someone lies the hands on their clock moves forward.”

‘Whose clock is that?”

“That’s Mother Teresa’s. The hands on her clock have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.”

“Incredible.”

“And that’s Abraham Lincoln’s clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Lincoln told two lies during his entire life.”

“Where’s, um, Thing 45’s clock?”

“Oh, Jesus took it to his office. He’s using it as a ceiling fan.”

How fast is your clock moving?

The New Hampshire GOP just introduced a bill to ban abortion after just fifteen days; days, not weeks. 

Remember that when you go to the polls; most Americans believe in a woman’s right to choose but still the GOP stands in her way.

She’s quite sweet and affectionate and loves to be petted and held but, man, does Rosita have Resting Bitch Face or what?

Moms for Liberty Bigotry and Hate co-founder Bridget Ziegler has left her position at the conservative Leadership Institute, which has already removed her name from its website in wake of a three-way sex scandal and criminal probe involving her husband.

Ziegler and her husband liked adding another woman to their sexual escapades, which is not a bad thing among consenting adults, but when you paint yourself as the model of Christianity and Liberty and all that other balderdash, you just look like a lying, hypocritical fool. Bye.

Alexandre Faucon is an Italian artist, originally from Tuscany who now lives in Brussels; all well and good, but Would You Hit It?

Architecture Wednesday: Cain-Wong Residence

In 1966 Portland architect Richard Campbell designed this two-story residence as his primary home on a sloping, wooded lot in Portland’s Highland Crest neighborhood. The house was renovated in two phases, from 2011 to 2013, and in 2018 to 2019, by Paul McKean Architecture.

The Campbell Residence—now known as the Cain Wong Residence, as it is currently owned by Aaron Cain and Annie Wong—is a blend of Japanese-influenced, beam-and-purlin vaulted roof systems and an elegant, exposed-concrete pier structural system; there are custom-milled windows and built-in furniture throughout.

Vaulted cedar ceilings, Douglas fir beams and a red oak floor make up the Great Room—living, dining and kitchen—on the main, upper level of the home. During the first phase of renovations the kitchen was fully updated with quartz countertops, 14-gauge stainless-steel backsplash, and new cabinetry designed to match the original millwork. Two under-counter KitchenAid refrigerators were added along with a new dishwasher, induction cooktop, and electric oven and a custom steel fireplace enclosure created a separation between kitchen and living area.

Downstairs is the primary suite with soaking tub, sauna, massive walk-in closet and private deck. There are three additional bedrooms and a full bathroom  on the lower level as well.

This is literally everything I want: midcentury, Portland, woods, moder … and just sold for a shade under $2M. This was only the second time since 1965 that the house has been on the market so I may have missed my chance!

Damn!

Dwell

Meme Dump