Archive for December, 2010
Monday Open Thread: December 27th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Monday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
Have you seen any stats on Christmas sales figures for retailers yet? It seems online sales jumped 15% this year, but I have not seen mention of regular brick and mortar stores.
With online commerce so robust, it seems even more foolish for Democrats to ram through Internet-killing regulations via the FCC, in direct opposition to the will of Congress…but those are Obama Democrats for you. Whatever they can do to kill jobs, impede commerce, and break something that doesn’t need fixing.
Hope!
Change!
Needless regulation!
FOCUS GROUP: What political conversations came up at Christmas Eve or Christmas dinner this weekend?
While it’s still fresh in your minds, please chime in below with any political conversations that came up during Christmas Eve or Christmas Day celebrations with your friends and family this weekend.
* Did anyone say anything about Obama?
* What was said about Governor Palin?
* What was the mood towards Democrats?
* What are people’s expectations of the new Congress?
* Did anyone say anything interesting that made you think about the 2012 races?
* Were people talking about Obamacare and Romneycare?
You might not at first realize it, but the conversations you had with people this weekend were great focus group material. If you share them in this thread (or email them to us at HillBuzz@gmail.com), we can collect all these tidbits here and, together, in total, they’ll paint an interesting picture of the mood of the country right now politically.
It’s valuable stuff.
What were people talking about at your gatherings?
Hallelujah Chorus from Quinhagak, Alaska
Governor Palin posted this delightful version of Handel’s Hallelujah, as performed by the Quinhagak, Alaska choir.
Every day something new makes me want to visit Alaska…usually originating with something the Governor posts on her Facebook page.
Speaking of which, don’t forget there are episodes of Sarah Palin’s Alaska on TLC tonight.
Ain’t nobody making TV shows about, or pining to visit, Michigan, Massachusetts, Utah, or any of the other states Mittens Romney calls “home”.
Funny how that works.
“I Don’t Care, I Want to Go to Sidetrack’s”.
“Hey Buddy, what do you want to do tonight?”.
“Sidetrack’s. I want to go to Sidetrack’s. Let’s go to Sidetrack’s”.
“Really? We seem to go there all the time”.
“I don’t care. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.
“But, there is a line there and the other bars do not have lines to get in”.
“I don’t care”.
“But, we were there yesterday”.
“I don’t care”.
“Actually, we have gone there every night this past week”.
“I don’t care”.
“But, there are over 20 gay bars in Chicago to choose from”.
“I don’t care”.
“But we can stay home and drink for free at my place and watch a movie”.
“I don’t care. Sidetrack’s. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.
“But, the music is not that good there”.
“I don’t care”.
“There is a special party at another bar that we could check out”.
“I don’t care”.
“But, we go there so often they only need to look at us and they know what drinks to pour”.
“I don’t care. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.
“I have spent so much money there I am sure I own 3% of the bar”.
“I don’t care”.
“But, honestly, we have slept with half the people in that bar”.
“I don’t care. I want to go to Sidetrack’s”.
“But, we cannot dance there”.
“I don’t care”.
“The boys are not very cute there”.
“I don’t care”.
“I just got a text message from a friend who is there. He said it is so crowded it took him ten minutes to get to the bathroom and twenty minutes to get a drink”.
“I don’t care”.
“But, all we do there is just stand around. At other bars we can do things. Like play darts”.
“I don’t care. I love Sidetrack’s. Let’s go to Sidetrack’s”.
“But, I can get us free drinks at Roscoe’s”.
“I don’t care”.
“Maybe we could do a bar crawl and just stop there along our way”.
“No. Sidetrack’s. I just want to go to Sidetrack’s”.
“Fine. But it is actually called Sidetrack. There is no ‘s”.
“I don’t care”.
[Pause]
“Let’s checkin there on Four Square. Do you have an iPhone? Iphone 4? I need an Iphone 4.”
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NOTE: This video was made by a former employee of Sidetrack’s…and is a pretty accurate take on the Brendens who gravitate there (for the uninitiated, “Brendens” is a generic term for the vapid, usually young(ish), looks and material goods obsessed flakes who usually hang out in little cliques in Boystown…they can also be called “Mean Girls”).
When you are the biggest gay bar around and one of the most popular in the world, you need to have a sense of humor about yourself, but strangely Sidetrack won’t play this video on Comedy Night Thursday there. It’s a very image-conscious bar, and they are incredibly protective of their branding…and it feels like they are scared of insulting customers who talk like the sketch above. These Brendens are the ones that give Sidetrack the reputation of a “Stand and Model” bar, where that certain kind of guy goes there on a Friday or Saturday just to stand around, try to look cute, and judge others while believing he’s not being judged.
It never gets really bad, though, because the worst offenders at this kind of thing go to MiniBar, which is what MiniBar is for. If you are a d-bag really into the pretension, that’s where you go. Absent MiniBar, they would be at Sidetrack though.
The jab at them about the music isn’t always fair though. Some VJs there are better than others, and some nights are better than others for music. It’s a crapshoot because there are excellent VJs, and then there’s the two duds they have in the mix. One of them is a co-owner who plays moldy black and white vaudevillian videos on Showtunes night that are so old and obscure the picture and sound quality is warped to the point where people think their eyesight and hearing have failed them. The other VJ just plays games — like not running any of the requests he gets on “80s Video Request Night Tuesdays” and instead just plays whatever songs he wants to play (people call him Otho, and he looks down from the VJ booth at the crowd, keeping track of who is talking to who and generally being the spider queen of gossip in Boystown).
The whole bit about “it’s just Sidetrack, there’s no ‘s” is because 80% of the people in Boystown call the bar “Sidetrack’s”, with an “s” tacked on. There’s a bar across the street called Roscoe’s, with a possessive “s”. There’s also “Little Jim’s”, “Charlie’s”, “Bobby Love’s”, “Halsted’s”, and “Buck’s” on the strip. Other bars like Spin, Cocktail, MiniBar, Lucky Horseshoe, Hydrate, Kit Kat, Circuit, and Northend don’t get the possessive-s treatment. I’ve never figured out why people add an imaginary “s” to Sidetrack, but not to the other bars without that “s” in their actual names.
It’s just a weird quirk of Boystown.
If you live in Chicago and go out a lot, you probably call it “Sidetrack’s”. If you are from out of town and aren’t in Boystown a lot, you’d say “Sidetrack” because that’s what you read on their website or the concierge at your hotel told you to look for.
The video program used to create this very well-done skewer of the Boystown scene is called www.XtraNormal.com. You can use the preloaded animated characters, like the bears above, and type in text for the characters to speak. Geico has been running a series of commercials on TV employing this. They always talk in that slightly sing-song, robot voice.
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UPDATE: January 1st, 2011
I was pleasantly surprised to see this video played in Sidetrack last night, on New Year’s Eve, as part of the Best-of mix for 2010. I’ve yet to see it make it into the Comedy Night rotation, but Sidetrack(s) does have a sense of humor about itself and put the video up on the big screens.
Customers laughed at all the right parts, knowingly.
The bit where the first little bear says “But the boys are not very cute there” got an “Awwwwww” and a few “Burn!” comments. In a smiling, realizing it is often true but not admitting it way.
Sidetrack cut the video off before it got into the 4G phone stuff, which was a good call.
I don’t know what made them come around on this because I heard from several people who know management well that the bar hated this video when they first heard about it…but they’ve now embraced it.
Because it is funny.
A Christmas Mystery: What were the “60 local community groups” Michelle Obama chose to redecorate Christmas ornaments for the 2009 White House Christmas tree?
In 2009, Michelle Obama raided the White House vaults for Christmas ornaments from previous administrations, then sent them off to "60 local community groups" for "redecoration".
Which of those "60 local community groups" put Mao Zedong on one of the ornaments that Michelle Antoinette placed on the White House Christmas tree?
Which of those "60 local community groups" sent back the ornament with Obama's mug defaced into Mount Rushmore?
For the last two days, we’ve run Class vs. Crass episodes highlighting the 2009 Christmas tree ornaments Michelle Antoinette Obama used in the White House.
Each year, the First Spouse selects a theme for the White House holiday decorations (prediction: in 2013, First Dude Todd Palin will pick “Outdoor Winter Sports”, and the White House will be festooned with miniature Iditarod husky teams and snow machine ornaments…just watch). For every Christmas, except 2009, the theme was focused on celebrating America, Christmas traditions, and remembering the nation’s history in some way.
Michelle Antoinette, instead, chose to send historic White House ornaments (which she called “leftover from previous administrations”…which is kind of like calling the Resolute Desk “used furniture”, but that’s the current First Spouse for you) to “60 local community groups” to be redecorated.
It seems that a good many of these “60 local community groups” chose to make political statements on the ornaments they returned to her, which she put on the tree.
Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com broke the story last year that some of the ornaments had pictures of Mao Zedong, Obama’s face carved onto Mount Rushmore, and drag queen Hedda Lettuce (who was promoting her new nightclub show in New York) on them.
I have never seen, to this day, any acknowledgement of which of the “60 local community organizations” decorated those three ornaments…or who the other 57 “local community organizations” were (funny, that leaves one “local community organization” per each of the “57 states” that former “local community organizer” Obama claimed he visited during the 2008 primary campaign).
Who were these groups?
Those of you with strong research skills, please chime in with ideas on how we can get a list of who the “60 local community groups” were that Michelle Antoinette asked to deface vintage White House Christmas decorations, in what was really the equivalent of the Louvre sending the Mona Lisa out on a date with graffiti “artists” knowing she’d come back with a black eye and a mustache.
I didn’t even think to ask who all these groups were last year when I first saw the story on BigGovernment…but I really wonder WHO, exactly, Michelle Antoinette mailed ornaments to for this project.
Come on, get involved, there’s a Christmas mystery to solve!
Boxing Day Open Thread: December 26th, 2010
Click above to embiggen. You won't regret it.
What’s on your minds this Boxing Day?
Yes. I know it has nothing to do with the photo above, but I just can’t pass up an easy excuse to run a shot of Rocky IV-era Dolph Lundgren being awesome. And shirtless. Thank you Russian 80s clothing shortage!
Remember when the Soviet Union was the greatest threat to America, despite being all ramshackle and perpetually on the verge of collapse?
Instead of these guys being the villains we face on a daily basis?
Gross. And better penmanship than I'd expect from hatemongers jonesing for jihad with the Florida Citrus Association.
How tragic is it that the War With Islam we’re engaged in now (whether the Left and media (redundancy alert!) wants to admit it or not) makes me nostalgic for the Cold War (which, I swear, my friend Panda admits to believing was a skirmish between Alaska and Iceland, possibly over Greenland, with polar bear mounts and weaponized penguins, like the kind from Batman Returns…he claims this was when he was in grade school, but I wonder about that).
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Any good Christmas stories to share from yesterday?
I’m working on a write-up of the Boystown 2010 Christmas I hope to have up later today…and would like to hear your own family adventures too. It’s a lazy Sunday so spin a red and green yarn and give other readers some good cup-o-cocoa material.
Class vs. Crass: Hillary Clinton vs. Michelle Obama at Christmas
Click above to embiggen
As First Lady, Hillary Clinton set themes for each White House Christmas that celebrated America, honored traditions, and remained decidedly non-political.
First Spouse Michelle Antoinette Obama handed the 2009 White House Christmas over to 60 Democrat-supporting community groups, many of which took the opportunity to create politically-themed agenda promoting ornaments for display on the official White House tree.
New York City drag queen Hedda Lettuce accepted Michelle Antoinette’s invitation to make a commercial for her nightclub show, which made it onto the tree.
More holiday-themed Class vs. Crass here.
Merry Christmas — George W. and Laura Bush at Christmas time
George W. and Laura Bush at home for Christmas in Dallas
One word: gorgeous.
Okay, more words: I will forever regret, for the rest of my life, not appreciating these two wonderful people when they lived in the White House.
Last word: Great Merciful Zeus, Laura Bush looks AMAZING.
5 Things to Tell Your Leftist Relatives at Christmas When They Start Attacking Governor Sarah Palin
Please chime in with things that have worked for you in your own lives in the past, as this thread is a brainstorming session on good comebacks when Leftists decide to turn Christmas dinner into an attack on Governor Sarah Palin. Because Obama the Lightbringer, the god-with-a-small-g the Left and media delivered unto us all in 2008, has failed so miserably — and the Left cannot defend him at all — your Leftist relatives will instead say terrible things about Governor Palin. It is the only thing the Left knows how to do. The amount of time they spend assailing Governor Palin is a good measure for just how insecure they feel with Obama in the White House.
If he delivered on any of his promises and was even 1/10th the messiah they sold him as in the 2008 election, these people would spend Christmas praising him instead of attacking the Governor. Why focus on her if the president really lived up to their expectations.
Here are the five most common attacks on Governor Palin I hear from the Leftists in Boystown and the quick, one or two sentence responses I give on a regular basis that never fail to shut the Leftists down and make them change the subject:
(1) Sarah Palin is a quitter and quit her job in Alaska:
A: Governor Palin held elected positions in Alaska for longer than Obama was a US Senator before he ran for the presidency. Obama quit his job as Senator to take on another job, just as you have left positions you have held and gone on to other things too. Governor Palin was actually attacked on a daily basis by the Left, since Democrats funded a nonstop campaign of frivolous lawsuits against her. The way Alaskan law worked, she had to personally pay to defend herself from all of those frivolous suits…and Alaskan law said it had to come out of her own pocket and that she was not allowed to raise money via a legal fund. So, she had to leave her position to earn money to defend herself against frivolous attacks Democrats deliberately made on her to bankrupt her. She took a job writing a book, giving speeches, and working for FOX and after a year was able to pay off everything Democrats cost her. That law in Alaska has since been changed so that Democrats can never do the same thing to another Governor.
(2) Sarah Palin is stupid:
A: Sarah Palin got better grades in college than Obama did. Obama was a D-average student all through college. He turned in his assignments late for almost every class, and for many classes he didn’t even complete the work requirements. He was just given a pass because of his “exotic personal narrative”, which the Ivy League loved promoting to show how diverse they were in all aspects of their admissions and recruitment policies. Harvard had to waive the academic requirement in place to make Obama president of the Law Review — prior to him, that was awarded to the student with the best grades, but Harvard wanted Barack Obama to be the “historic and unprecedented” first black Law Review president because they wanted to be in the Barack Obama business. His whole life has been like this, with everything handed to him on a silver plate. Governor Palin put herself through school, had to work hard, and was never given anything. She earned good grades and rose from a reporter, to a City Council member, to a Mayor, then an Oil and Gas Commissioner, and then the Governor of her state. All through hard work and achievement. She produces any corroborating documents requested of her, unlike Obama…who still refuses to release his college transcripts, personal records, and all sorts of other vital documentation. If you don’t believe he was a D and F student who was only advanced through affirmative action, then please produce his college transcripts and begin the process of refudiating that.
(3) Governor Palin is a b****, a c***, you fill in the blank with the Left’s misogynistic epithets against her:
A: I put this in here because, honestly, this is actually the most frequent thing that the Left hits at Governor Palin with. It’s a non-substantive, nebulous, two-minute-hate against her that has nothing really to do about her. It might be that she’s just hated because she’s a successful woman who doesn’t shut up when told and never retreats, only reloads. She’s beautiful, has an awesome family, chose to give life to a special needs baby, has a career and a home and a hot husband and everything the women on the Left want but have never been able to balance. Plus, people show up by the thousands on the mere rumor of her turning up at an event somewhere. Last time I checked, Obama’s having trouble getting 1,200 people to fill a room to hear him speak in Democrat strongholds like Cleveland. So, call her all the names you want, Leftists. She doesn’t care. If anyone in your presence uses foul language like this at Christmas dinner, then you should know best how to handle the inappropriateness of that…if someone defaults to name-calling an pejoratives merely asking that person why he can’t express himself without curse words and misogyny is usually enough to win that debate.
(4) Governor Palin hates gay people and is out to get them:
A: Really? What has she done to gay people? Can you name one thing? This is actually a good approach no matter what the Governor is being accused of. Asked people what the source is for that information. Press them for specifics and don’t let them get away with casting blanket aspirations on the Governor. Ask these people if they know the Governor’s best friend is a lesbian. Ask them if they know Governor Palin has legions of gay supporters…and you may quote HillBuzz.org as a group of gay Hillary guys who are 100% behind the Governor in all that she does. Ask the Leftist to cite even one thing the Governor has done against gays. Do not cede ground to people speaking in generalities.
(5) Governor Palin is polarizing:
A: Tell the Leftist, “Yup, she sure is. She’s North Pole-arising…and her polls keep rising against Obama”. Take that “polarizing” word the Left keeps using against female politicians and start conjuring Alaskan, Arctic imagery with it. It’s Christmas, and if you are in a winter climate, point at the snow outside and start talking about the TV show Sarah Palin’s Alaska, and how Governor Palin was trained to be tough and survive in hostile conditions…no matter what is thrown at her, the woman just keeps moving forward. It’s amazing. America has never seen anything like it. Talk about Momma Grizzlies and the wildlife of Alaska and all that natural beauty you saw on the TLC travelogue the Palins filmed. ”You want to talk about polarizing…did you see her with that fishing pole she had there and all that trout she caught with her dad”. Then go into how great Alaska is and how much you love that show, which has gotten the highest ratings for any show in TLC history.
If you have some great examples of other things Leftists routinely say to you, or other things you can think of that are great shut-downs when these people launch attacks on the Governor, add them to this thread.
It should make a great resource for anyone out there who knows she or he is headed to dinner with a friend or relative who enjoys tearing into the Governor, but who wilts completely at the merest criticism of Obama, since they just can’t think of a single thing to defend the man.
Merry Christmas from Boystown!
Merry Christmas!
Yes, Beth Christie, there really is a Santa Claus.
16 of them, apparently.
Merry Christmas from Boystown to your town!
Jingle those bells (or beaus) if you’ve got ‘em!
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For your listening pleasure, just in case you need a soundtrack for your holiday party today, let us be your VJ with a little playlist for you featuring all the songs that were played almost nonstop in Boystown the last few days (add your own favorite Christmas videos to this thread as well…anything you’d love to see at Christmas or you always play at Christmas parties…find it on YouTube and most it here!):
