From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
I've Been Kicked Out of the Club. A Few Parting Words.
Today is my birthday, and it's not a happy one. This one hurts. It's the first time I've woken up and started clawing through the drywall in a desperate attempt to turn back time, of course to no avail. I come before you this morning cold, naked, and afraid, if not obnoxiously melodramatic.
My entire professional life I've romped on the media playground. Radio for seven years. Direct-response marketing (TV, radio, print, web) for fourteen. Social media now for twelve.
Today I officially get booted from the 25-54 demo. Nay, the “coveted” 25-54 demo. The cool kids' club. The one that gets you instant access beyond the velvet ropes because they crave your eyes, ears, and most of all your business. Whether it's entertainment or furniture or snow tires, 25-54 is the marketing strike zone. If you're #1 in anything that appeals to what as of today I have to call "them 25-54 whippersnappers," you’ll be showered with cash from sunup to sundown. And when they move their persnickety asses on to something else, adios, friend. Light your balance sheet on fire.
So from what I understand, I'm now part of the “senior” advertising demographic. I'll have to watch the kids getting wooed by Doritos and Red Bull ads—with their scantily-clad models and sweaty daredevils exhibiting all manner of irrational exuberance—from a distance, while I get to weigh my options among catheter companies, home alert bracelets, Big Pharma’s offerings for fungus control, and walk-in bathtubs. Oh god, that means Pat Boone will be addressing me with “Hello, friend” now. I think this is the closest I'll ever come to understanding the Republicans' fanatical devotion to "standing athwart history yelling Stop."
On the other hand, at least I made it this long. So today I'll exert my privilege of adding a new line to the list of accomplishments on my headstone: MEMBER OF COVETED 25-54 CONSUMER DEMO 1989-2019. And then it's off to Denny's for my 55 percent discount. This day may not be so bad after all.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, August 5, 2019
Note: Today's C&J is a complete forgery. I know this because, looking at it through an electron microscope, the pixels face east instead of west. Also: this crude forgery uses language that actually makes some sense and has clearly been proof-read. The proper authorities have been notified. We apologize for the dereliction of duty on the part of our night-shift guard squirrels. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til International Cat Day: 3
Days `til the Great Falls Balloon Festival in Lewiston, Maine: 11
Number of Republicans in the House who have announced they're skedaddling over the last two weeks: 6
Percent of Democratic, independent and Republican voters, respectively, who support a ban on military-style assault weapon ownership among civilians, according to a recent PBS/NPR/Marist poll: 83%, 55%, 29%
Average total balance of those debts: $61,554
Length of time you can safely leave food out during a picnic, according to WebMD: 2 hours (1 hour if the temp is 90 or above)
Rank of vanilla, mint chocolate chip, and cookies & cream among most popular ice cream flavors: #1, #2, #3
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Salvadore Dolly...
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CHEERS and JEERS to that empty-chamber feeling. According to their schedule the Senate is now officially adjourned until next month. The good news: we don’t have to endure the leadership's posturing and finger-pointing in the service of pretending like it actually wants to get things done. The bad news: knowing that, apart from a town hall or two, our elected officials from the hoity-toity upper chamber—the Republican ones, anyway—will be enjoying surf and sand and yachting adventures in between rounds of dialing-for-dollars, after which they'll return to Washington next month to complain about moochers sinking into chronic laziness because of their unlimited access to vaults full of taxpayer money that keep them living high off the hog with their fancy "refrigerators" and "microwave ovens." This is technically called their "August vacation." But, given McConnell's virtual freeze on legislation no matter how sensible or popular (or urgent, in the case of constant massacres at the hands of right-wing terrorists), we prefer the more accurate "fifty-fifth-month extension of their January 2015 vacation."
JEERS to America: land of the guns, home of the gun nuts. What happens in the wake of the massacre in Newtown Aurora Binghamton Tucson Santa Barbara Charleston Lafayette Roseburg Kalamazoo Orlando Alexandria Las Vegas Parkland Benton Pittsburgh Thousand Oaks Aurora Poway Highlands Ranch Virginia Beach Gilroy El Paso (at Walmart: 20 dead, 26 scarred for life) and Dayton (9 dead, 27 scarred for life) is depressingly predictable: the community will grieve. Gun control advocates will wisely suggest that this might be a good time to review our federal and state firearms policies so that our nation's shameful record of gun violence might be improved upon. The president and his minions will blame Democrats for the carnage and urge every living soul and their pets to arm themselves to the teeth, and the NRA will insist it's "too soon" to talk about gun control as they continue scaring politicians into looking the other way by informing them that, "We'll be scoring you on your response." Like I said, predictable. Depressingly.
JEERS to our hunka hunka burnin' planet. How hot has this summer been? Hotter than the steam coming out of the House minority leader's ears as he watches his rats fleeing the ship. (Six in the last two weeks alone.) Hotter than the seat a Wall Street bankster sits on at a committee hearing as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says, "My first question to you is…" So hot that Franklin Graham began telling his flock that unrepentant sinners would start being re-routed to fry for eternity in Oklahoma. Yeah…that hot:
July was Earth’s hottest month ever recorded, “on a par with, and possibly marginally higher” than the previous warmest month, which was July 2016, according to provisional data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
This European climate agency will have a full report for all of July on Monday, but a spokesperson said enough data has already come in to make this declaration. On Thursday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres cited the data at a news conference as an example of why more ambitious action to cut planet-warming greenhouse gases is needed.
August is on track to fill the record books with more awful heat. Even worse, more awful heat metaphors.
CHEERS to Moscow Mitch. Or, to be more specific, to MoscowMitch.com. I don’t know where “Party Majority PAC” is headed with this (although their mission statement provides clues), but I do know that a) McConnell reportedly hates his new name, b) sales of Moscow Mitch t-shirts are insane in Kentucky, and c) the site’s opening video has over a million views after just a few days:
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Of course, Mitch isn’t mad at his new nickname because it hurts his fee-fees, for he is a man without fee-fees, let alone a soul of any kind. No, Moscow Mitch is mad because his new nickname draws blood at his weakest point: his rapidly-dissolving allegiance to the United States. Not a good look.
P.S. Meanwhile, Saturday in Kentucky at the Fancy Farm hootenanny:
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Xa xa xa! очень смешно!
JEERS to stupid white men. Let this be a cautionary tale on how independent investigations can be abused for partisan gain, as opposed to straight-down-the-middle like the Mueller investigation was. Twenty-five years ago today, on August 5, 1994, Kenneth Starr, solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush and Republican hatchet man, was named as independent prosecutor investigating Whitewater. His final report said virtually nothing about that non-scandal. But it did mention the word…
...over 500 times. Even Larry Flynt was like, "Whoa. Kenny. Dude. Get some help."
CHEERS to pictures that say a thousand words. Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in a bunch of polls by ten points, eh? Here's a picture depicting a similar scenario in the form of a poll from Fox News circa August 5, 2016:
As for the thousand words it's worth? "Don't get complacent, people" written on the blackboard 250 times.
CHEERS to smart war management. 158 years ago, in 1861, President Lincoln signed into law the first federal income tax. He felt it was fiscally responsible because we were waging a civil war. Today tea party Republicans would tar Lincoln as a tax-and-spend liberal and hold the surrender ceremony at Appomattox hostage until he backed down and repealed it. And after Abe got done with them there'd be a lot of teabaggers who wouldn't be able to sit down for a week.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 5, 2009
CHEERS to mooning the skeptics. As late as the weekend the Republican naysayers were filling their lungs with helium and screaming in their falsetto voices, "The stimulus is a bust! The stimulus is a bust!" Well, I've got three words for them: Suck. On. This:
A huge influx of federal stimulus money to state and local governments more than offset a sharp drop in tax collections, helping to put the brakes on the nation's economic decline, new government data show. The stimulus funds helped reverse six months of spending declines, pushing state and local government expenditures up 4.8% in the second quarter, reports the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
"The money has caused a very sharp change in the path of the economy, which had been in steep decline," said Chad Stone, chief economist at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. ... "The stimulus is working as intended," said Stone.
I think I speak for everyone when I say: this news comes not a moment too soon. Oh, to avoid catastrophic man-made hurricanes from breaking out, please: don’t everybody exhale at once.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to my August 5 birthday posse. Neil Armstrong. Lizz Winstead. Director John Huston. Loni Anderson. Maureen "Marcia Marcia Marcia!" McCormick. Patrick Ewing. The Elephant Man. Kossacks "Simple," "dmb0857," "stlsophos" and "LeoDaLion."
It’ll be the usual routine for us today: we’ll swarm Denny's for our birthday discount (55% for me, so I’ll order a Bacon Slam, a Sausage Slam, a Ham Slam, a French Slam, A Wham Bam Thank You Slam, a Slam Slam combining all the Slams, a Lipitor chaser, and a Diet Pepsi), and then spend the day stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. And since then the poor will be rich and the rich will be poor, we’ll do the whole thing over again in reverse.
Then we’ll just kinda go freestyle, marauding for awhile and then soaking our feet during Jeopardy! before we head back out to play a few rounds of "Shut up, you kids, or we're calling the cops!" So, basically, just an ordinary day ending in y—but with yummy cake.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter wrote a book about Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool splashing etiquette—a thing you never thought you’d need.
—Vox
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