Get Your Gun

I wasn't sure it was possible to make that Alex Jones appearance on Piers Morgan's show any funnier than it already was, but Conan managed to step up to the plate and give it a try last night.

The result is pretty entertaining.



By the way, Cesca put together an entire column on Jones's insane rant over at the Daily Banter and it's definitely worth reading. One of the things he hits hard is how in reality Alex Jones is nothing more than another performance artist grifter who's made a career out of playing the wild-eyed raving conspiracy nut. I don't doubt that he probably believes at least some of the nonsense he's spouting, but Cesca's right -- a good portion of it is all just for show. Yes, it's still valuable as a window into the way real gun-worshiping paranoiacs think -- their utterly unhinged view of the world -- but overall Jones is just a standard conservative entertainment complex carnival barker playing his act to the hilt to the crowd of lunatics he knows will continue to line his pockets.

Listening Post

When Layne Staley died ten years ago I really thought there was no way Alice in Chains could carry on. And then in 2009 Black Gives Way To Blue was released, with new co-frontman William Duvall nearly seamlessly stepping in and assuming the role of the second half of Alice's frontal assault of harmonic acrobatics, and it was clear they were back with a vengeance.

The fact that Alice in Chains still sounds this good after all these years and all they've been through is a testament to the power of the band.

Here's their new single -- Hollow.

Blood and Gore

As expected, the staff of Current TV is none too thrilled with their formerly revered leader's decision to basically throw them all under the bus for a $100 million payday. It was easy as hell to predict, so I'm not going to break my arm patting myself on the back for figuring this was coming, but apparently yesterday was the first "transition" meeting between the Current team and the new overseers at Al Jazeera, who sealed a deal for the network for around $500 million last week, and word has it it was -- tense.

According to the New York Post, Al Gore himself wasn't there -- although Current co-founder Joel Hyatt was -- which gave the largely outgoing staff plenty of room to complain about their treatment.

Here's one of the best quotes, from an unnamed staffer:

"Of course Al didn’t show up -- he has no credibility. He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold (the channel) to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising -- and Al Gore, that bullshitter sells to the emir?"

But that's not the very best quote. No, that comes to us courtesy of Hyatt himself, who you'll remember released an insufferably self-congratulatory memo to the staff and the public following last week's sale. The Post claims that Current host Jennifer Granholm tried to play defense for her people by asking about potential severance packages for them. His response was reportedly to bark at her, "This isn't the place to discuss this!"

I have no doubt that while nobody spoke out of turn after that, everyone thought to themselves, "Easy for you to say, asshole, since you just made millions and we just got fucked."

Don't Cry for Me, Appalachia

Today's column for the Daily Banter has to do with MTV's new show Buckwild and the reaction to it.

Here's the opening shot:

"A couple of years back, when I worked almost entirely from home and my schedule never involved meetings, lunches and so on, I used to make it a point to try to carve out an hour of my day to watch Maury. Yes, Maury. If you’re somebody who’s paid to be a snotty little shit online, Maury is required viewing and therefore I considered my daily dose of the show to be something akin to research. There’s no better barometer for how depthlessly fucked-up we are a society than watching a cavalcade of gold-toothed illiterate black caricatures and white trash guys clad in wife-beaters and plaid shirts with Caesar haircuts and goatees stomp onto a TV studio set in Stamford, Connecticut — arms raised, proudly basking in the ire of the studio audience — to find out whether they are the father of little Nevaeh (cleverly, “Heaven” spelled backward) or if one of the 27 others guys who apparently slept with her grossly overweight mother gets the honor.

Is it cruel to laugh at the kind of human zoological experiment regularly on display on a show like Maury? Maybe. But as callous as this may sound, I’ve always believed that you can’t save everybody. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and use it to sharpen your mockery skills, MST3K-style, because there’s really nothing else you can do — and this, my friends, is the essence of one very specific genre of reality TV."

Read the Rest Here

Alex Jones and the Prophecy of Doom

There are a few people who inexplicably have a role in our national discourse, regardless of how far to the fringe they are and should be relegated, who kind of leave me without much to say. One of them is, of course, Alex Jones. Yeah, there are people who actually take him seriously -- but who gives a shit? He's a fucking conspiracist lunatic and doesn't deserve to be granted even the tiniest amount of credence.

Proof of that, at least as far as my own view of him is concerned, is the fact that I think I've mentioned him around here maybe once or twice in almost seven years. Still, last night's hysterical meltdown by him on Piers Morgan's show -- in which he almost literally foamed at the mouth over the 1776-style revolution that he promises will be the result of any attempt at sensible gun control -- really deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. Believe it or not, there actually are people who listen to this idiot, although not enough to make him as dangerous to the establishment as he thinks he is.

The problem, though, is that his furious, fetishistic passion for guns gives you a pretty good idea what common sense gun control advocates are up against. Remember, this is a guy who believes that guns are needed to defend against the black U.N. helicopters that are going to fly into Anytown, USA and take all of us under the control of the New World Order. He's fucking insane. His beliefs aren't in any way based in reality. And he should be completely ignored -- no matter how loud he is.

Anyway, watch Jones's warm bukkake of crazy for yourself. It really is something to behold.



Incidentally, the above video comes courtesy of someone with the screen-name "Save Our Sovereignty" whose profile pic is a Ron Paul logo. Need I say more?

Quote of the Day

"I spent a career carrying typically either a M16, and later a M4 carbine -- and a M4 carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 millimeters, at about 3,000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It's designed to do that. That's what our soldiers ought to carry. I personally don't think there's any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America. I believe that we've got to take a serious look -- I understand everybody's desire to have whatever they want -- but we have to protect our children and our police and we have to protect our population. And I think we have to take a very mature look at that."

-- Ret. Gen. Stanley McChrystal on MSNBC's Morning Joe today

Posted without comment -- because one isn't needed.

Listening Post

You'll probably hear this song a lot today if you spend any amount of time trolling around the internet. Today is David Bowie's 66th birthday and he's decided to release his first single in a decade as a nice little gift to us.

Not by any means going to become my favorite song of his, but it hardly matters -- it's still Bowie and it's good to hear him doing melancholy so, so well again.

Here's Where Are We Now?