Karl Rove, You Magnificent Bastard !!

For legal, personal, ethical, campaign finance, and ridicule-protection reasons, most 2016 presidential candidates are not yet saying that they are a 2016 presidential candidate. 

But political operatives are already producing attack videos cleverly designed to hurt the other side. 

The actor in this video is a guy named Jason Tobias.  Nobody knows who really did the singing, but it wasn't Tobias.  I don't know who had the idea to produce this thing.  I don't know who gathered the background shots.  Whoever did it was a genius. 

Republicans will be playing this thing at parties and rallies for decades.  Hell, I might start a Libertarian PAC to have it aired during the Super Bowl. 

She Whose Name Is Not Spoken will never, ever recover from this.  This is the dirtiest trick I've ever seen. 

Behold: The redneck, white trash, Ford F-150, bulldozer, soccer mom-country, flies on the baby, ticks on the dog, "Stand With Hillary" campaign video. 

 

Fort Worth might get a Flood Control Drive-In Theatre !!!

I've long thought that the purpose of government projects is to transfer money to donors. 
The project needs to have some feasibility, but not much else.  Just get the taxpayer money into the hands of your friends without causing too much of a fuss. 

It's getting ridiculous. 

Arlington built George W. Bush a stadium to his exact specifications.  He moved his baseball team in, and then sold the team for far more than he paid for it.  (86 million purchase price, 250 selling price.)  The difference?  His almost-free stadium.  (Taxpayer subsidy of 205 million.)

  Well done, thou good and faithful servants. 

Arlington built Jerry Jones a stadium to his exact specifications, and then leased it to him.  I don't remember Jerry saying "Thank You", or mailing me some tickets to games.  Oh well. 

Iron Horse Motorcycles of Fort Worth went bankrupt several years ago.  The city is stuck with their manufacturing facility for reasons that I don't quite understand. 

I think "we" agreed to give them a building if they would bring X number of jobs to Fort Worth.  If you need a free building, forcibly funded by taxpayers, you might not have a good business model.  I looked at leasing the Iron Horse factory for my employer last year, but the dock locations in the building were all wrong for us.  Getting new docks added would require the permission of several layers of city government, so we declined the opportunity.  Whether you know it or not, you own an abandoned motorcycle factory. 

Does anyone out there remember the Fort Worth Rail Market?  It was supposed to be a downtown Farmers' Market, luring downtown shoppers into the rail area to pick up tomatoes and onions before they went back home to Mira Vista. 

Part of it was supposed to get funded through transportation money.  (Yes, Kay Granger was involved.  I think that Railroad Produce Stands were a primitive ancestor of Flood Control BarBQ restaurants.)  The thing is now closed.  Shut down.  Abandoned.  It never made a dime.  Go here for an analysis of the boondoggle. 

How about The Mercado de Fort Worth? 

This was a Northside con job that was supposed to be the crown jewel of Cowtown. 

When the Mercado itself last made news, it had just landed its first tenant after more than five years of sitting empty and neglected.

What was supposed to be the pillar of a $6.5 million Northside redevelopment – an authentic Mexican marketplace – had failed to ignite the expected growth along North Main Street.

....It seemed like a good idea at the time: Bring economic development to Fort Worth’s near Northside by developing an area of shops, restaurants and stalls – a Mercado, reflecting the heritage of the mostly Hispanic residents of the neighborhood – and, in the process tie the touristy Stockyards District to downtown.

It started with a sidewalk, an expensive three-block-long sidewalk, in the alley between the mostly dilapidated buildings in the 1400 block of North Main Street and the houses that backed up to them. The plan was for local merchants to set up stalls to sell their goods to tourists who would make their way from the Stockyards area, several city blocks away. The city spent about $1.5 million to pave the alley and renovate the Rose Marine Theater.

Then came the Mercado de Fort Worth building, the brainstorm of local developer Deyla Guadiana. It was supposed to be a 58,000-square-foot, Mexican-style marketplace three stories high that would be the focal point of the Mercado area. Guadiana got a $3.1 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and construction began in 2003.

The city tried to spur interest in both the walkway and the Mercado building by offering low-interest loans and a building site to anyone willing to take a risk. They didn’t find many takers.

Guadiana defaulted on the loan after failing to come up with the private financing to cover the remainder of the construction costs and the city took back the property, taking over the note and spending $1.3 million from a special economic development fund to finish the building.

Finding a buyer took years. 

 And I hope the cashier remembered to give him his change back after the purchase.  The Mercado isn't quite as empty as the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, but it's close. 

If I steal money from your wallet, and use it to buy jewelry and cocaine and cars from my friends, it's going to cause a temporary increase in prosperity for the jewelers, coke, and car dealers.  But it will never last.  It always seems to require an additional theft, doesn't it? 

I could go on and on, but here's the latest....from the Star-Telegram, which reported this with no irony or sarcasm, which might explain why newsstand sales are declining:

FORT WORTH -- The Tarrant Regional Water District next week will consider entering into a lease with Dallas-based Coyote Theaters for a drive-in theater on vacant land near LaGrave Field.
The drive-in would be there for about 10 years, potentially drawing 300,000 patrons a year to Trinity Uptown. It would also net the water district about $1.7 million in rent, according to information filed with the district.

And wild monkeys will fly out my rear end and put on an amateur production of "A Chorus Line".  I'd bet that every Texas drive-in combined doesn't draw 300,000 patrons a year.  For those of you new to the Trinity River development controversy, Congresswoman Kay Granger and her son J.D. are trying to pump a bunch of money into a flood control scam that involves million-dollar BarBQ restaurant giveaways and now, drive-in theatres.   

The drive-in would be called Coyote Theater in Trinity Uptown and would be on part of the 34 acres that the water district bought in 2010 from LaGrave Field owner Carl Bell. The site is near North Calhoun and Northeast Fifth streets, north of downtown Fort Worth.
"Drive-ins are making a comeback with a 20 percent increase in the number of venues since 2007," a district memo says. "The nostalgic outdoor theater is being reintroduced by Coyote as a high-quality, state-of-the-art, family-friendly entertainment option."

Drive-ins couldn't compete with indoor air-conditioned theatres.  Theatres in small towns couldn't compete with television, and almost all of them closed.  Theatres in cities are having a hard time competing with DVD's.  But J.D. Granger is going to reverse the trend, because this drive-in will be for.....flood control. 

The theater would have three or four screens, show first-run films and offer food, the memo says. The movies would be in English and Spanish.
J.D. Granger, Trinity River development director for the water district, could not be reached for comment Friday. The district is scheduled to consider the proposal Tuesday.

I cannot wait to post J.D. Granger's comments, if he ever has the nerve to make any.  I cannot wait.  I have no doubt that this project will be approved, and that it will quickly go broke as the Ten Commandments.  All I ask is an opportunity to post The Granger Gang's comments on building a new drive-in with your money, in the year of our Lord 2012.  Please, please, please Dear God, let me have his comments. 

Drive-ins.com lists 17 drive-in theaters in Texas, including one in Ennis and one in Granbury.
Not much is known about Coyote Theaters, but the Fort Worth site will apparently be its first location. The company does not have a listed phone number.
Coyote Theaters filed incorporation papers with the Texas secretary of state's office Aug. 2 and lists its management as Todd Minnis, Brady Wood, Scott Wilson and Glenn Solomon.

I couldn't find anything on them either.  That is the nature of the coyote.  Go in, feast on the rotting carcass, and get out in a hurry.  We'll see if the name fits, won't we? 

Wood, who was involved in some West Seventh Street corridor projects with the development group Incap Fund, was the only person to attend a tour and pre-proposal conference last month at the project site. Minnis is head of Arrow Retail, a sister company of Dallas-based Cypress Equities, which developed the West 7th office, retail and residential project.
Last month, the water district requested proposals from developers who would want to use the land temporarily. The theater proposal was one of two submitted. The district said it would like to see a project under way by May.
The $909 million Trinity Uptown project will feature a town lake and 12 miles of waterfront development.

See you at the drive-in !   You might as well go, since you're going to pay for it. 

I couldn't find a picture of a Flood Control Drive-In, so I had to make do with a picture of a flooded drive-in.  My apologies.  The picture came from here.  The other pics came from this website, or the official websites most associated with the ripoffs. 

Why Herman Cain should not be elected president

....because if he didn't throw himself between us and this abortion of a campaign ad, he's not fit to do the job of president.   
Lord have mercy.

"An American Carol" - The Worst Movie Ever?

According to Wikipedia, filmmaker David Zucker was involved in the following movies:

Collaborative works (with Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams)
The Kentucky Fried Movie • Airplane! • Top Secret! • Police Squad! • Ruthless People • The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
David Zucker films
The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear • Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult • High School High • BASEketball • My Boss's Daughter • Scary Movie 3 • Scary Movie 4 • An American Carol

Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane, and the Police Squad!/Naked Gun movies were greatness. Unless you saw them in the theatres in the late 70's - early 80's, you don't quite understand what a groundbreaking streak of irreverence the Zuckers and Jim Abrahams put together. No one had ever seen anything like it.

So last night, I decided to go see "An American Carol", David Zucker's latest film. I've been traveling a lot, and had heard Right Wing Radio incessantly peddling the movie. I understood going in that Kevin Farley plays a Michael Moore/America-Hater type documentarian. JFK visits him, and warns that he'll be visited by three spirits: George Patton, George Washington, and ummm....country singer Trace Adkins. Yes, Trace Adkins.
Trace Adkins.
But I pride myself on being open minded. Michael Moore is a pompous windbag, he's the worst thing in his movies, and a Michael Moore parody in the Scrooge role could be funny.
(For an outstanding demolition of a Michael Moore movie, click here to read Christopher Hitchens on Fahrenheit 9/11.)

My second warning came when I walked into the theatre. The ACLU's mental image of the Fox News Network's viewers? That's what the theatre was packed with. VFW vests. Wheelchairs. 45-year old husbands in polyester Sans-a-Belt slacks, with wives who still had Farrah Fawcett hairstyles. Granted, I was in Euless Texas, but still..... This was almost scary.

The movie begins with some Muslim terrorists trying to get a suicide bomber to explode properly. They fail. They decide they need a P.R. campaign. Cut to the Michael Moore character winning MoooveOn.Org awards for documentaries, but getting no respect or box office $$$'s. They terrorists recruit Michael Moore to do their movie.

In the meantime, Michael Moore is involved in a campaign to eliminate the Fourth Of July.

Later that night, JFK comes out of Michael Moore's TV set and tells him he's going to be haunted by 3 spirits. Kelsey Grammar does a good General George S. Patton. He shows Moore what we're fighting for, the consequences of defeat, and so forth. John Voight is George Washington, doing the same. And then Trace Adkins, well, whose idea was he?????

There's a big finale when Michael Moore prevents the terrorists from blowing up Madison Square Garden during a Trace Adkins concert. Depending on your opinion of Soccer Mom Country Music, this may not have been a heroic act.

Here are the problems with the movie:

1. It wasn't funny. The sight gags, a Zucker Brothers staple, weren't particularly well done. Most of the jokes only elicited nervous giggles from an audience that walked in the door wanting to love this movie. I laugh out loud during movies all the time, and I think I only snorted four times in 90 minutes.

2. The sound quality was bad. The vocal dubbing was bad. I couldn't understand a lot of the terrorist dialogue.
There's an anti-academic dance scene, where old tenured hippies burst into song - something about 1968. The lyrics may have been funny, but I'll never know. I couldn't understand them.

3. The editing was choppy. Some scenes looked like the actors were waiting around for someone to say "Action". There are limited special effects, but they seemed cheap. High School students shooting for YouTube have done more authentic explosions.

4. Trace Adkins.

5. Any time a movie relies on profanity from children for its biggest laughs, the movie is in trouble.

6. The previous Zucker comedies were hilarious because they were a) irreverent, and b) politically incorrect. I love political incorrectness. But the politically incorrect parts of "An American Carol" weren't funny. There's a scene where Dennis Hopper plays a judge who is trying to fight off ACLU zombie lawyers. The zombies, among other things, are trying to tear the 10 Commandments off the wall of his courtroom. And it just wasn't funny.

It's politically incorrect to mention that we're having to endure increased airport security because of Muslims. Yes, Muslims. (Please forgive me for speaking the unspeakable. But it really is because of Muslims.)
One scene in the movie shows airport personnel enforcing ludicrous investigations, body cavity searches, etc, because of Radical Christian Extremists. It made you think, and it made you question political correctness, but it wasn't funny.

7. It's difficult to make an irreverent comedy that's to be marketed to political conservatives, simply because one of the chief features of conservatism is reverence.

Contrast this movie with "Team America: World Police". Now there's a movie that took no prisoners, and made almost all of the same points that "An American Carol" attempted.

There's a 1979 film called "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" that I saw in its original theatrical release. It's a Disco/NBA/Astrology mashup about an adorable black kid (this was the age of Gary Coleman, Webster, etc) who figures out that if his home team have the same astrological sign (Pisces) they'll win all their basketball games.

I hated, hated, hated that movie. Any time the subject of bad movies comes up in conversation, I can hold forth for waaaaay too long on the complete and utter crap that I paid good 1979 money to watch.

But now there's a contender. "An American Carol" may have been worse.

Sing Along With Saint Albert

Just when I think the world can't get any goofier....

For years, I've had a running joke with a co-worker about going to see a production of "Silence Of The Lambs - On Ice". It cracks me up to imagine Hannibal Lecter skating around an arena in his straitjacket and goalie mask during an Ice Capades production number.

I got a similar kick out of "Backdraft - The Musical", as parodied in Christopher Guest's movie "Waiting For Guffman".

The movie "The Producers" centers around an intentionally bad musical about the life of Adolph Hitler.

I love the idea of taking one art form and cramming it into another that just doesn't fit. It cracks me up every time.

But this? Can it be for real? And who will play Saint Albert, The Goracle of Music City Tennessee? Garth Brooks? Toby Keith? George Strait? Can they cast Placido Domingo as a Polar Bear? Are they going to have a real set and stage, or just use a PowerPoint?

It's a pity they can't give Pavarotti a small role as an iceberg.

Hat Tip to NickM at Counting Cats for alerting me to this opportunity.

Happy Confederate Memorial Day ! ! !

Just Joking.

But it really is Confederate Memorial Day in a few places. Wikipedia has the best chart of Confederate Memorial Days, state by state.

Question: Why isn't Confederate Memorial Day celebrated on the same day in all the Southern States ?

Answer: That's what happens with a confederation, unlike a nation, and it's part of the reason why Confederate money was eventually used as wallpaper. Rebels aren't known for being cooperative.

When I saw a web posting about Alabama's Confederate Memorial Day observance, it made me remember a few things..... and I have no idea where I'm going with this.

I went to a Mississippi school that had grades K-12 under one roof. I played snare drum in the 5th grade band, and stuck with it through the 12th. Our fight song (it was a segregationist academy) was "Dixie". I played that song in every parade, pep rally, pregame and halftime. I played "Dixie" after every field goal and touchdown for eight years.

Then I went to The University of Mississippi - a.k.a. Ole Miss.

At Ole Miss, I was also in the marching band (triple drums), and the fight song was, of course, "Dixie. I played that song for all of the occasions listed above plus blocked punts, 3-pointers, fourth-down completions, and coin-tosses. After two years, I transferred to a much smaller college. It had a different fight song, but the college was in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, immortalized in at least one book as "The Most Southern Place on Earth".

We didn't have to play "Dixie" quite as often there. Just before, during, and after the games. So from 5th grade until college graduation (10 years), I played Daniel Emmett's minstrel ballad "Dixie" more than anyone should ever have to.

Shortly after I graduated, African-American athletes wisely decided that schools which played Slaveholder Anthems should be avoided. The song fell out of favor, and I haven't heard it in years.

Therefore, since I got such a head start, I can make the case that I've played "Dixie" more than anyone else alive. I don't know where I'm going with any of this, in case you're wondering. Stop reading now if you're expecting me to make a point.

I had a "maiden" great aunt, to use a Southern euphemism for unmarried female relative, who we called Libba. Libba had seemed ancient for as long as I could remember. The day eventually came when she had to move into a nursing home in Jackson, Mississippi. Her mind was as sharp as ever, but her body was betraying her.

It was a nice enough nursing home. Ross Barnett - the infamous Mississippi governor who stood in the doorway of the University of Mississippi administration building to prevent James Meredith from integrating Ole Miss - had spent his last days at the same facility.

Going to the nursing home was traumatic enough for Libba. One of the many things she found to gripe about: the nursing home, as an integrated care center, didn't observe Confederate Memorial Day. OMG.

Ok, I know where I'm going with this post. It'll be worthwhile.

Libba eventually adjusted, and spent her time watching Jeopardy and writing hate mail to Alex Trebek for not agreeing with everything she'd learned at Yazoo City Consolidated High School. I don't remember the name of Libba's first roommate, because that lady was white.

You know what happens next, don't you? The white roommate went on to the place where you go after you leave the nursing home.

Libba's next roommate, Mrs. Mackey, was black. There was major trauma for all involved. We're talking about people who grew up in the Jim Crow south.

Mrs. Mackey was in her early sixties, totally blind, but otherwise healthy. She was one of the most genuinely kind and caring people I've ever known.

Libba was outraged over being assigned a black roommate. Worked herself into a devout Methodist fury. She was too polite to say anything to Mrs. Mackey, of course. I think part of the problem was that Libba could see that Mrs. Mackey was black. But Libba had know way of knowing if Mrs. Mackey, being blind, really knew that Libba was white. (I know, I know, this is almost like a Henry James novel....)

Libba made phone calls to the family whenever Mrs. Mackey shuffled outside the room. Plots were plotted. Whispers were whispered. The nursing home wouldn't budge. They were an integrated facility, and Libba and Mrs. Mackey were going to be roommates unless one of them could come up with the money for a private room.

And then, it happened....as they always say before the crucial moments in episodes of "The Wonder Years".

Libba's electric wheelchair stopped working.

The electric wheelchair had been Libba's status symbol, giving her a level of mobility denied to most of the others on her floor. The electric wheelchair got her to the cafeteria before all the red jello was gone. Not only that, but the electric wheelchair said "My nieces are married to guys who are RICH !"

The tragic wheelchair malfunction brought Libba down to the commoner level. She knew more than Alex Trebek, and could work the New York Times Crossword with a permanent marker, but she wasn't strong enough to push her wheelchair to the cafeteria.

That's when the two roommates finally bonded. Libba could see, but couldn't walk. Mrs. Mackey could walk, but couldn't see. Unless they started cooperating, lesser beings would beat them into the cafeteria, and there would only be nasty green jello left. So Mrs. Mackey started pushing Libba and the wheelchair while Libba navigated. I think they eventually ditched the heavy electric contraption for a more streamlined manual model.

They learned about each others' relatives. They worked out a joint custody schedule for the radio and television programs. Theological debates took place in their room that would've left Martin Luther and John Calvin scratching their heads in wonder, wondering "just who is this Jimmy Swaggart person, anyway?" Libba and Mrs. Mackey spent a lot of time wandering around the nursing home in a symbiotic relationship, stopping in various rooms to show off their mobility and say "howdy".

Somewhere in that relationship is a good screenplay. Sort of a cross between "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Defiant Ones", where Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are chained together but still escape from the chain gang.

In fact, I hereby copyright this movie idea: Imagine mixed race nursing home roommates who aren't allowed to leave for the black grandson's graduation or the white granddaughter's wedding. Something like that.... So they escape in the middle of the night in order to attend both events. They have road trip adventures. They get the wheelchair onto a Greyhound bus. They bond together. They go into a redneck bar in the middle of the night to earn meal money by singing Jimmy Swaggart songs for tips. The crowd goes wild over them, and many of the bar patrons resolve to live a better life. Everyone learns important life lessons, like in The Wonder Years or Grey's Anatomy.
They float the wheelchair down the Mississippi River on a barge, with Huck Finn overtones. They're given up for dead, and watch their own funerals from the church balcony, in a Tom Sawyer homage. They eventually get back to the nursing home cafeteria in time for the red jello, and discover that the white half of the duo has forgotten all about Confederate Memorial Day.

As we all should. It was a hundred and forty years ago.
Let's give up Dixie too. I hate that damn song.