March 9, 2023

Willie GEIST seems nice, can explain CARLSON, birds of a feather, was his ex-producer

I remember CARLSON on MSNBC, bubbly, always putting GEIST on camera gushingly. Same background, fathers in the business, fittingly CARLSON's sperm donor in Propaganda (Voice of America). In recent years GEIST has cultivated a nice/objective image.

.... “He’s doing really well. His numbers are up. Tucker’s doing well,” said co-host Willie Geist, who started out at MSNBC as a producer for Carlson’s program on the network, which ran from 2005 to 2008. ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Geist#External_links
.... Geist was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of newspaper columnist and broadcast journalist Bill Geist and social worker Jody Geist.[2] Geist is the older brother of Libby Geist Wildes, the Academy Award-winning documentary film producer of O.J.: Made in America and The Last Dance.[5] He is the great-grandson of former Detroit Red Wings star and Hockey Hall of Fame player Herbie Lewis.[6] ....

March 5, 2023

Have been clicked and baited annoyingly even from *our* side, case in point:

I've been enrolled at The University of YouTube for a couple of years - hooked on Egyptian-Greco-Roman and "modern" historical gossip. YouTube has been the answer to the main grievance against my previous 30 years of being tied down to satellite packages (hundreds of UNwatched channels) - CARTE BLANCHE, free from networks. Freedom to SKIP PAST anything unwanted and complete availability of WANTED things.

Not only at YouTube, but here at DU and with cable/internet commentators, fantastic to be able to SKIP PAST things and persons that are unsuitable for whatever reasons - unreliability, quarrelsomeness, pandering, lack of originality, saying what we all know, lack of liveliness/humor, whatever - and readily find things that are the opposite, not having to squabble.

Sometimes, there is CLICK BAIT, occasionally the radar failing by an enticing title, and the fellow below has been a prime example - daily posting scandalous titles, everything in the anti-Drumpf and anti-MAGA category (fine), but after the first few times sitting/waiting to the end of the 15 minutes with *NOTHING* of the enticing Subject showing up, his videos fell to the wayside. Even so, a technique for trying to find the Subject in his videos was to fast forward past his PADDINGs of clips from cable yak shows, only still not finding the scandalous Subject.

Some of his paraphrased enticing Titles: (Drumpf) Suffers a Major Seizure. Jared KUSHNER in Major Legal Trouble. Kevin McCARTHY *Arrested* Last Night.

The one about Drumpf's "seizure" turned out to be mainly about his usual verbal bluster (yes, including threatening "retribution" ) - but was that a SEIZURE? And McCARTHY's "arrest" turned out to be not taking legal actions against SANTOS thereby potentially exposing himself to Legal consequences.

And when I tried to find background on this fellow, even two YouTubes titled "Christo Aivalis EXPOSED" turned out to be wildly *favorable* and sycophantic, all about his fantastic PhD and Left credentials, married and with a cat, Canadian, and worth high millions.

Even if the clickbaiting is just exaggerated, figurative language for the purpose of calling attention to the inner "real" content, it ends up being a turnoff.

********QUOTE*******

https://www.youtube.com/@ChristoAivalisNews/featured

Description
Commentator, writer, and PhD in History Christo Aivalis discussing all matters that interest him in regards to left politics, history, and culture. There will be a focus on Canadian content, but not to an extent that ignores events happening around the globe, especially in places like the United States and United Kingdom

*******UNQUOTE********

February 18, 2023

Another sorta pome: Ya coulda luvd me/us

But who cares.

Was it/whatever, "love"? (As "prince" Charles said, "Whatever 'love' is" )

Whome my tawking to?

M i too old to find "love" (whatever "love" is)?

When all that "shared" thing is done,

we're supposed to find ourselves who we really are.

By ourselves.

I don't like it.

February 14, 2023

Is this a pome?

PREFACE: Did you ever have a childhood relative or friend that was so special and gone adulthood, but sticking?!


Cousin, from infancy –
Yeah, we were close
Not in that way,
In some other intimate way

And we went through the
Generational and the times,
Our elders judging what was
Just the crap we didn’t know either.

So, ugly and separate life things happened
Living our lives, everybody,
And I judged you rightly so,
While hating mine, not so bad as yours.

Yet here and there we kept in touch
Until you accused and called me liar
Which you didn’t know the severity of,
And I’ll never forgive.

But it was too much your wingnut ways,
And when you anti-vaxxed to a hospital
And refused treatment, I broke down
And called and said: I love you, do it.

And I said, I/your sister/our cousins love you,
And you said, “Yeah, and all of you
Are driving me crazy.”
Fine. So you recovered your wingnut way.

So you recovered and our childhood is over.

January 25, 2023

Yea, I don't get into the weeds of just about anything - just let the impact of whatever hit me.

And whenever somebody asks me what genre or performer I like they assume that everybody is *immersed* in the whole catalog of the genre or artist. I don't analyze influences - intellectualize - am a generalist, on the surface, superficial as some will say. I don't seek out, I let the various levels of filters and happenstance block things out and when (in the case of music) something seeps through all the layers and filters and finds its way to my level - and I *like* it - all good.

So I like one song (in this case) by TayTay, but know nothing about her other stuff, and am not boxed into whatever her genre is (she dips into Country, too, no?). Probably I like 3 or 4 Willie NELSON songs, but am not "Country." Etc. Although I'm stronger in what I *don't* like - detest Jazz and most Alternative stuff.

I don't expect anybody to know, but I repeatedly say that *MELODY* is absolutely PRIMARY, that lyrics are way next to nothing for me. Music is IT. After a piece has grabbed me with the melody and have heard it hundreds of times I might make the effort to see what the lyrics say, but for many of the songs I like I have ZERO idea what the lyrics are or are about.

As Lenny BERSTEIN demonstrated in one of the Young People's Concerts, you can take any lyrics off a song and substitute lyrics saying the opposite or just plain nonsense words or grunts. The Ave Maria can be divested of its religious lyrics and be inserted with obscenities and the MUSIC/MELODY is what counts. One time here I admired "Chandelier" by Sia, which had pierced through my filters via a (Dior?) commercial, and I was told here that what made the song fantastic was that it was about drugs and suicide. Nope, not for me. I had ZERO idea what the lyrics said and ZERO idea about Sia beyond that she inexplicably draped her face with hair (wig?). It was the MELODY/MUSIC that grabbed me. Same said about "Imagine". While I appreciate the sentiments of the lyrics, THOSE (like the Ave Maria) can be ditched and have whatever substituted.

That said, after a song has gotten past my jumping-through-hoops and I've allowed the lyrics to be checked out, I'm willing to play along and let the piece be mine in its totality. Obviously, whenever there's a great melody, the makers of it would usually want lyrics that would do it justice.

This is one of the few times I quote a Republican, when EISENHOWER was asked what music he liked, he said TCHAIKOVSKY, "because it's *TUNEFUL." And Lenny said that (in Lenny's vast expertise), Pyotr is unmatched in his melodic genius.

What I like has to be "tuneful" of the showstopper stripe. I can appreciate a soulful, stripped down performance like TayTay at this piano, would not seek out a whole big production in a video. I'm bracing for the Oscars because, in this vein, I've looked at brief descriptions of the nominees and all I see are explosions and extraterrestrials and "superheroes." Nope, nup, nada. Would way prefer a couple of characters interacting, like TayTay at the piano.

*** ON EDIT: A *perfect* example of my primacy of melody/music over lyrics, the glorious Queen of the Night aria, besides that it's in a language I am ignorant of making the meaning of the words that much more incomprehensible:: When I looked up the lyrics, I was floored at the BIZARRE NUTCASE content. Yet, it's a glorious piece, both in composition and in performance, and perhaps the incomprehensible (to me) words make it that much more so.

January 14, 2023

Navy "art" - tourist knickknacks from ports of call

So on Liberty in Japan - like, 50 years ago - was instantly attracted to the souvenir of this figurine of an old man reading a book with a load on his back, snapped it up, and at home my mother said it fit me perfectly - aspiration (the book) with a load on the back. So years later a cousin told me she was attracted to Japan and wanted to learn Japanese, and I gave it to her. Regretted it ever since and sporadically looked for it on eBay and Etsy, no luck for 50 years.

The other is a voodoo priestess from my second ship and a stop in Haiti. We went to a brandy factory, free samples, and to a demonstration of 7 young males and 7 young females, all dressed in white with red sashes, procession single file leading a goat on a leash, at the end of which they mimed sacrificing the goat. It was explained that whatever negative vibes had been transferred to the goat and expunged by the slaughter.

*** This week *FOUND* the man/book!

December 26, 2022

The oligarch Space-niks didn't expect SHATNER's take

What used to be quaintly called "jet-setters" are now known to be Oligarchs with battleship-sized (or should it be "carrier-sized", as in Doctor Evil's "millions - no, billions"?) yachts. And the Oligarchs have left the Greek isles behind in favor of Space, Mars, and such. Plus, they collect human knickknacks to adorn their vessels - a SHATNER here, a STRAHAN there. No run-of-the-mill Nobody to be worthy of their expeditions - *luster* of celebrity is needed for Page Six.

**********QUOTE******

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/william-shatner-space-boldly-go-excerpt-1235395113/

.... I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her. ....

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity.” ....

*********UNQUOTE******

December 19, 2022

Chris LICHT: "slams 'stunning' left-wing 'vitriol' aimed at him"

When he went from being COLBERT's (Executive?) producer to CNN, some of us/uninformed imagined CNN would be sort of safe, perhaps via having osmosis-swallowed the facile stereotype that it had a Lib slant instead of being down-the-middle, not to mention our assuming that COLBERT is a Lib spokesperson. Then it transpired that the oligarchic new owners (Repuke donors) installed him to make it into Faux-Lite, and indeed he set upon "changes" of firing hosts and reporters who seemed Lib and issued dicta against language and framing that could be construed as Lib.

But the big reveal was that, COLBERT was not his incubator, but rather his being the early producer for SCARBOROUGH in Scabs' vociferous wingnut days, with OLBERMANN informing that LICHT was Scabs' hatchet man, bullying the MSNBC timid boss into getting Lib guests blackballed from Lib hosts' shows, under the threat that Scabs would not show up for work if the purges didn't happen.

And a month or so ago COLBERT told Charlemagne tha God that LICHT is misunderstood, has "only the best of intentions."

By the bye, COLBERT is the best and around here MAHER is dirt, but there are YouTubes of MAHER saying he *hates* COLBERT ("gives the corporate machine what it wants" ) and MAHER guesting on COLBERT with the mutual hostility thick enough to cut, with MAHER telling him, "You probably voted for NIXON", which COLBERT sat through without replying.

*** But in today's LICHT item (original from NYT/paywall), confusion (for me) - so besides making CNN more "hard news," he was hired "to tamp down anti-Trump/left-leaning" but he sees it to be Centrist as "normal" but not "vanilla" and with an "edge." And, reminiscent of MUSK, he wants us to take with us to have conversations but criticizing HIM is "vitriol". He sounds arrogant, like how dare anybody question him who is On High.

That's how some media types sound, like, it's THEIR place to talk down about the news and opinions, how dare us Keyboard Jockeys dare to have access to news that doesn't come from their mouths and dare to consider ourselves equal and most of all to TALK BACK to them? They don't get that Al GORE's internet means INTERACTION, not Moses on the mountain.

********QUOTE*******

https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/cnn-boss-chris-licht-slams-left-wing-vitriol-aimed-at-him/

.... Licht was tasked with bringing CNN back to its hard-news roots, to tamp down on anti-Trump, left-leaning punditry, and to cut costs.

He told the Times he thinks of people in the political center as “normal” — but insists appealing to “normal” people doesn’t mean the content should be boring.

“The uninformed vitriol, especially from the left, has been stunning,” Licht, who took over the cable network in May, told The New York Times. “Which proves my point: So much of what passes for news is name-calling, half-truths and desperation.” ....

He told the Times he wants the network to be a place for “rational conversation about polarizing issues.” ....

*******UNQUOTE*******

December 7, 2022

GOP needs to change its moniker, proposed: Party of Stunts. - Oh, look, it fits: POS.

But as Napoleon said, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." We don't want to give them tips on what/how to improve their chances, not that they ever listen to obvious things like the-nose-on-your-face, lying-eyes and such.

The really prescient points Christian WALKER makes: 1- Repukes claim they don't play identity politics but run/nominate based on skin color, and, 2- "A boring old (Repuke) could have won."

Actually, Poppy BUSH got the STUNT/gimmick/trap ball rolling when he nominated Uncle Clarence to the court: Finding a willing Minority tool, somebody from a normally Democratic constituent group, on the surface putting the Dems over the barrel of having to oppose ("attack" ) somebody from a supposed constituent group. And the Repukes have caught the pass ever since, Shrub picking stooge Beto GONZALES for Attorney General and others/later countless other candidate tools. Human nature (NIETZSCHE, "All too human" ) collaborators are found in every group everywhere.

Dems felt trapped by this stunt for decades - all sheepish, acting "guilty", embarrassed, put-upon. The answer to it: Ignore the racial/ethnic "identity" and focus on the self-proclaimed *ideology* - i.e., We take you at your word that you are an unqualifiedly declared Wingnut, and THAT is why we oppose you.

But the Repukes also unwittingly exposed their own game, Orrin HATCH with his Shirley Temple pout, saying, "How can the Dems oppose a MINORITY, Mee-gwell ESTRADA when they claim to stand for minorities?!" - iow, Mee-gwell was SELECTED by them *because* he was a minority member. It was overtly a racial argument.

And as Hershel's son says, the Hershel thing happened *because* of the skin color. The irony being (wingnuts are oblivious to irony) that if they were true to themselves and picked an Old White Male, they would have won.

*** But while Drumpf is above all a master of Marketing, branding, attention-grabbing STUNT-er, he doesn't do things out of knowledge of history or student of tactics but only from his own Con/Mob mentality. He just happened to fit the pattern. Or a cynical thought might be that Poppy and the wingnuts just adapted their own dirty tricks from the Con/Mob mentality with a patina of respectability.

********QUOTE***

https://news.yahoo.com/herschel-walkers-son-says-trump-111606386.html

His son, Christian Walker, tweeted on Tuesday that his father had rejected calls not to run after Trump repeatedly told him to enter the race.

"The Truth: Trump called my dad for months DEMANDING that he run," Christian Walker said. "Everyone with a brain begged him: 'PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. This is too dirty, you have an insane past… PLEASE DONT DO THIS.' We got the middle finger. He ran."

He also accused the Republican Party of running his father in the election because of his skin color.

"Republicans, we say we don't play 'identity politics' and then you ran this man mainly because he was the same skin color as his opponent with no background other than football," he tweeted. "A boring old Republican could have won." ….

********UNQUOTE*******

October 27, 2022

Pls indulge my immaturity in trolling my local radio wingnut station

Sent them triple whammy graphics, saying, It was SO satisfying and exciting to mail off my Nielsen radio ratings diary today! Not a single mark for K*** (call letters), since the random couple of minutes spent there are so negligible as to be undetectable, and, as I've said before, all it takes is any given couple of minutes to catch out their twisted propaganda, schoolyard bullying, misdirections, distortions, perverted world view, et al.

And the Phillies part is because the wingnuts love the Astros. The Democratic graphic's meaning to them is obvious.