Altercation

Slacker Thursday

By Eric Alterman

I've got a new "Think Again" column called "This Fish Rots from the Head Down" and it's about what a crappy, dishonest columnist George Will is, and it's here.

(Funnily, I am staying at the Doubletree in Ontario, CA, wehre I am debating young Ross Douthat at Pomona College tonight, and its computers will not allow me to access that piece or any piece on the CAP website. The warning reads: "The access to the address above is restricted. Accordingly to our harmful content database SiteCoach does not allow you to visit this page!" Sheesh.

My Nation column this week is an examination of the issues raised by a young right-wing journalist's awful book about the elite media's alleged persecution of Sarah Palin and it's called "Sarah, Smile!" (I know, I know, keep my day job...)

While Pedro was letting all the honest, hardworking people of the world down last night, I was typing away at this meshugena hotel computer so that the world might enjoy my election wrap-up from the Daily Beast, and that's here.

Did I mention that my ThinkPad died in between Dallas and Ontario? It's the fourth time that thing has had to be repaired, and of course I am stuck out here with a long flight home no laptop. It's enough to make one consider switching to a Mac, finally. Anway, fortunately Pierce is early, so we have an excuse to post this. Oh, ok, one more thing. Did you happen to notice how Bruce ended his night of the RRHOF (at 1:30am) with an amazing "Higher and Higher" featuring everybody who wanted to perform: Sam More, John Fogerty, Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Tom Morello, etc, while Bono/U2 felt a need to kick everybody off the stage (Mick, Bruce, Patti, etc) so they could close the show alone? Just saying... See you this weekend. Wild and Innocent, Saturday. The River, Sundy. First time ever for both. Here's Pierce.  

CHARLES PIERCE

NEWTON, MA.

Hey Doc --

"Well, I hitched a ride from the borderland/when the home guard went insane/No use trying to work with people/who can't tell fire from rain."

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Nevada" (Gil Evans) -- It's never too close to call how much I love New Orleans.

Short Takes:

Part The First: Parson Meacham, that pious fraud, can continue to BITE ME. And, of course, in conjunction with Sister Sally Punchboard, he also presented a reading from the Book Of THUGS.

Part The Second: The redoubtable Howler remains invaluable. THIS is why. How you settle on a know-nothing pink balloon like Marsha Blackburn as a credible spokesperson for "the other side" on this issue--other that the very real possibility that she might've been the only one the reporter could get on the phone-- is too deep for my small mind to ponder.

Part The Third: Very weird COLUMN. Note to Jon--the reason that ETL New Republic hasn't won a National Magazine Award recently is assuredly not because it once won one for Betsy McCaughey's bullshit. The reason Marisa Tomei has not won an Oscar recently is not  because she won one once for My Cousin Vinny. (And Betsy's was the worst  article in the history of a magazine that once employed Stephen Glass, and that continues to publish the fudge-brained ramblings of The Singer MIDGET?  Look a bit deeper, my lad. And the NMA's aren't until next spring, for pity's sake. Someone needs a hug.

Part The Fourth: I care less about David Brooks's dating advice than I do about a goat's taste in opera.

Part The Fifth: My favorite POST yet from my favorite new honky-tonk here along the docks of Blogistan.

Part The Penultimate: Thanks to Marcy for blogging up this TRANSCRIPT. I was particularly struck by this analysis from Rep. Lamar Smith, one of the true brainiacs in the Texas delegation: "All Al Qaeda needs to do now is open a bookstore." I guess they're right. We are going to have to tighten up our Borders. Hey-yo! No, thank you. Really. I'll be here all week.

Part The Ultimate: Of all the shoddy reactions to last Tuesday's orgy of marginal significance, this may be the most IMPORTANT. If you're keeping score at home, the national Republican party just sent a message to the nutters that, any time they can muster up a candidate from the Island Of Misfit TOYS, the party will take a pass on the race. Now, if you think Cornyn's a little smarter than I think he is --and I think he's pretty much a blockhead--you could argue that he's giving The Base just enough rope to hang itself.  (The establishment candidates who get crisped as collateral damage--Hi there, Charlie Crist!--are just SOL, I guess.) However, if you are burdened with common sense, it's plain that the national GOP is scared right down to the tassels on its loafers by what's going on in the hinterlands, its trembling exacerbated this week when Congresswoman Batshit J. Crazee called for direct ACTION. They may learn to channel all this by 2012; the redoubtable Digby OPINES that the whole business is just the same old plutocratic weasels sub-contracting the job of rebuilding their movement. That may be, but, for now, and for whatever reason, one of the country's two major political parties has surrendered itself utterly to the monkeyhouse. While undoubtedly entertaining, this is in no way a good thing.

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November 5, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

I've got a new Think Again column called "Obama's Commie Past Exposed Yet Again," and it's here.

Here's what I did last night. How were things in your city?

Oh, Brother...

By Eric Alterman

I've got a new Think Again column called "Obama's Commie Past Exposed Yet Again," and it's here.

I took a seminar at Yale in 1985 when I was getting my master's with Edward Said on the role of the intellectual. Everyone in the class wore black and quoted Derrida (with whom I also took a seminar, in French, of which I understood very little). Anyway, there was a rather imposing African-American fellow at the seminar table on the first day with a vest and tie, etc., and a big afro. He said nothing for the two-hour class and then at the end, was called and ripped into Said with every three-dollar word I had ever heard and many more I had not. It was like a fantasy come true--going back to school to show off how smart you were now; perhaps the coolest moment I've ever seen in a classroom. Then Said said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Cornel West," who apparently was an assistant professor in the Divinity School, letting the rest of us in on the joke. The amazingest thing about Cornel is what an original he is; there's never been anything like him: "Gramsci and Sly Stone both understood..."

Anyway, I mention all of this because of the publication of Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, an as-told to memoir written with David Ritz, who has apparently cornered the market on cool as-told-tos, having done Paul Schaffer's surprisingly excellent one, and also Lieber and Stoler's not-as-great one. I's published by something called Smiley Books and it's fun.

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October 29, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called "It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's...Cable News," and it's here.

My Nation column, about Obama and Fox News and the rest of the media, is called "Just Don't Call It Journalism," and that's here.

I did another piece on J Street for the IHT. It's called "Voices From the Wilderness" and that's here and then Le Monde Diplomatique asked me to do a podcast and that's here: Living on J Street.

Philly gets everything!

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October 23, 2009

Precious

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called "It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's...Cable News," and it's here

My Nation column, about Obama and Fox News and the rest of the media is called "Just Don't Call It Journalism," and that's here.

I did another piece on J Street for the IHT. It's called "Voices in the Wilderness" and that's here and then Le Monde Diplomatique asked me to do a podcast and that's here: Living on J Street.

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October 22, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called, believe it or not, "I'll See Your Testicles...' (Catfight on the Right)" and it's here. (though perhaps they changed the title later in the day)

Also, I did an op-ed on the move away from AIPAC-style politics for American Jews for the IHT, which is up on the NYT site, here.

Classified section: I'm selling fifty or so Miles Davis cds--everything on Columbia during the key period--mostly in beautiful box sets, etc, and would love to sell the whole thing as a package. Email if genuinely interested. Also, I have two lousy seats for Bruce on 11/8 and one for 11/7 I need to get rid of. Email below....

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October 16, 2009

People Who Died...

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called, believe it or not, "'I'll See Your Testicles...' (Catfight on the Right)" and it's here.

Also, I did an op-ed on the move away from AIPAC-style politics for American Jews for the International Herald Tribune, which is up on the New York Times site, here.

I'm getting to the age where the obituary pages are really starting to bum me out.  Wasn't AL MARTINO wonderful in the GF? Wasn't NAN ROBERTSON brave to go after the Times the way she did? Wasn't Stuart Kaminsky a fun read? But here is the one that really got to me. Captain Lou Albano. What a great guy, even better in reality than in the "ring" or on the sidelines as the manager of the great Bruno Sanmartino. But how could Mr. Goldstein omit the greatest tribute to Lou from this otherwise loving obit? It's Psychedelic Pandemonium.

Speaking of obits, did I mention that I was briefly in a reading group with Jim Carroll. Really nice guy. He never heard the Drive-By-Truckers' version of "People Who Died" and so I played it for him on my iPod. So history moves forward...

"Gonna Huey, Dewey, and Louie all over the room." Who's for legalizing sex with ducks? Me, David Rudd, and Garfunkel and Oates (but I hope not that juvenile druggist/anal rapist, Roman Polanski.

(By the way, did you notice that the above ducks all have rhyming names spelled totally differently?  Awesome, huh?)

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October 15, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new Think Again column called "CBS and Dan Rather--Doing the Right's Dirty Work," and it's here.

My Nation column, "Where have you gone, William Safire?" is here.

Sal's got an interview with Hall & Oates and Pierce follows below, which is followed by more mail. Now here's Sal:

Alter-reviews: New H & O Box Set.

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October 9, 2009

Sea of Heartbreak

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new Think Again column called "CBS and Dan Rather--Doing the Right's Dirty Work," and it's here.

My Nation column, "Where have you gone, William Safire?" is here.

The worst day of the Obama campaign for me was the day I got an email saying "Vote Charlie Rangel for Change." My congressman is quite properly a symbol of everything people hate about the Democratic Establishment and they are cowards for trying to sweep this away. If anyone can imagine a better symbol of corruption that a guy who can't be bothered to pay taxes on the resort he owns in foreign country--who gives the excuse that they were speaking Spanish to him when half his district is Spanish speaking--writing the goddam tax laws that the rest of us losers have to follow, I'd be mighty impressed... I wrote this column in December 2008, things have only gotten worse.

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October 8, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called called "Kevin Jennings, the Mainstream Media, and Right-Wing Target Practice." Read it here. Now here's Pierce:

CHARLES PIERCE
NEWTON, MA.

Hey Doc:

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October 2, 2009