Silenced Majority Portal

Honk For Christ and for Lucky

I was shopping today with Miriam in St Paul. We drove and, as usual, we passed a bunch of signs about guns and divorce as we approached the freeway ramp at Dale and I94 on the return trip to our home in Minneapolis.  Today, however, was different. There was a black man sitting beside the signs and he was waving to cars as they passed.  I stopped to talk with him for a few minutes. His name is Lucky Rosenbloom. Lucky didn't want his picture taken.

Lucky told me that he now runs his Dad's business and is responsbile for those signs by the roadside.  He also told me that the fellow holding the sign that says "Honk for Christ" is of his late father.  His father was St. Paul icon Jack "Tiger" Rosenbloom, who for fifty years sold candy, firewood, and various other items from his tiny store front at the corner of Dale Street and St. Anthony Ave.  Tiger Jack died in 2001. He said his dad always was on that corner holding his sign and that everyone in the neighborhood knew him. He said he got the image of his dad from the state historical society.  So if you are ever in St Paul, stop by and honk for Christ and get yourself a cheap divorce and a gun while you are at it.

Alternative Reality

It's been cold here until recently, but the past few days the temperature has risen into the 60s or higher. It really feels like Spring.  I had hoped to show an image of something colorful blooming to represent the cheerful attitude that everyone here feels now that Spring has finally arrived. But a thorough search of my garden came up empty.  I couldn't settle for photographing some detritus from last season with its brown, depressing colors  so, instead, I created my own reality.

The photo is of a plastic flower in a vase in front of some pink paper. The image was taken outside, so the shadow of a nearby tree, without leaves, shows up on the background.

I'm trying to imagine what it's like being a republican these days. I've created my own reality, like they do. But unlike the Republican version, no one gets hurt in my alternative reality. Oh well, that's as close as I want to get to being a Republican.

A Trip to Archie McPhee's: http://www.mcphee.com

Archie McPhee's has been there for me for 25 years. It's usually been a tradition that I would do post-Christmas shopping there, to start the New Year off right. & it's a mandatory part of a Seattle tourism tour for any friends and relatives who visit. During my last trip, I bought "Create-A-Commie," a magnetic slate that allows me to add facial hair to a basic "red" face. Looking around me, I see that much of the decor in my house (and office) came from Archie McPhee (their catalog is great toilet reading). I have an Indian poster about "Bad Habits" on the wall here near the computer (teasing animals etc). At work, the Buddha with a cell phone and smaller Buddha with a latte, which sit in front of my computer, and the many-armed Hindhu god. It's fun to go to a wedding shower and the invitation it says the couple is registered at "Bed Bath and Beyond" and I give them Devil Duckys and a Pirate Shower Curtain. Loved the psychiatric dolls, Oscar Wilde and Pez dispensers. My son has a lifesize penguin guarding his door. I started my friend's toddler on rubber chickens, the kind where you squeeze the bottom gooey egg. I sent Kayakbiker military girl cards. My kitchen shrine was created from religious icons and my bathroom has an African theme except for a box of Farrah Fawcett heads that were left over from the factory. When I send a package I use either Jesus tape or my newer hot dog tape, which I thought would be irritating to postal workers, but they turned out to be Archie McPhee shoppers on their off-hours. When you were a kid, did you ever order things from Johnson Smith Company, from the back page of comic books? Remember fake puke, x-ray specs, fly in an ice cube and fake dog poop, melted popsicle, itching powder, cigarette loads, squirting cigars, Whoopee cushions, ventriloguism kids, joy buzzers, etc? They are still in business, out of Florida! From them I have recently ordered Johny Cash and also Curt Cobain, for my boy doll collection. They joined MC Hammer, Michael Jackson, Pee Wee Herman, Mr. Bean, Howard Dean, Bin Laden, Saddam and Waldo (Where's Waldo), among others. They also have singing Freddie Mercury and many nostalgia items, from the sacred to the profane, only they seem a little more right-leaning whereas McPhee's is more to my political persuasion. Nevertheless, I'd rather give them my money than Walmart. Some of my dolls were from HeroBuilders and I was conflicted about buying them, because they seem pretty right-leaning. On the other hand, the dolls were time-limited and I am a (minor league) collector. My Pez dispenser collection started with my son and he got tired of it. Let's see: Simpsons, Snoopy, Princesses, Star Wars, Disney, Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers, Ninja Turtles, Mario, Rescue Heroes, and many more. I would have to go down to the basement to look. That's also where I have all my political memorabilia because I got really involved in the 2004 election for some reason (could it have to do with our present government?) and met almost all of the political candidates, some more than once. It's kind of strange that I will probably never motivate myself to do it again, so it'll be like this time warp back to 2004 for anyone who stays in my basement. There they will have to try to get to sleep with a giant Michael Jackson lifesize cutout standing next to a giant John Kerry lifesize cutout. It's rather unnerving. You know the picture with the water and the salmon, which is supposed to represent a waterfall or perhaps wide salmon ladder? It's not actually at Archie McPhee's, but it's a few blocks away and I'm terrified it is going to be torn down because it's all surrounded by fencing and it looks like it's part of an endangered bowling alley. It's not so much that I'm into nostalgia as that I fear plastic sameness.

Scary Liberals

RIP Don Ho

Rove Visits Seattle

(photo: R Stevens)

According to KOMO news, keynote speaker Karl Rove was greeted by angry protesters outside the airport Hilton, as he showed up for the Lincoln Day Dinner to talk about the future of the Republican party. He drew a crowd of protesters near Portland yesterday, where once again, he spoke in a suburb instead of the city proper which is not even in the same county. Rove said that generals were being "handcuffed" by Democrats. Rove reportedly charmed the crowd with stories from his childhood as he greeted aunts and cousins who were in the audience. He made light of his dance moves at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner last month in Washington, D.C., when he joined in performing an improvised rap song that since has been lampooned on television and Web sites.

"Long after I'm dead there'll be only one memory of me," said Rove. "Me on YouTube making a fool of myself."

BoratPeep

Kazakhstan is more civilised now. Women can now travel on inside of bus, and homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat.
Borat

There are many job opportunities in the US and of A. For men, construction worker, taxi driver or accountant. For woman, prostitute.
Borat

Reincarnation

Mann McCarthy - Hat tip to A Castle

RIP: Kurt Vonnegut

9 PM last night - Astrobuff:
Kurt Vonnegut has died and will no doubt be turning in his grave for many years to come.

Source: NY Times Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84.

6 AM: Kayakbiker

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of my favorite anti-war novels. I am not a fan of science-fiction, mostly because most of it sucks. I place this novel in my top ten and would use its content as a major part of the foundation to make my case for being a conscientious objector.

A great mind has passed.

6:15: Comrade Chris

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.

"My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children."

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. Kurt Vonnegut

the Conservative Popular Media "Pundits"

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This is part of a series - drawn freehand from Google Image searches by Slugbug
See also http://www.radrobin.com - discussion of "hate" radio / corporate link etc.