Grammy Practice

The State of the Union address is coming up on Tuesday and, honestly, I'm rusty.  I need a tune-up, some practice, a rehearsal of sorts (see what I did there).  For a proper tune-up, I need something like the State of the Union address. Something that was probably necessary or at least useful at some point in history, but is now just a farce, a parody of itself.  Something with an audience full of preening frauds who haven't done anything useful in years.  Something so needless and hollow that you watch it and almost wonder if it's even real or if you've died without noticing and gone to a hell worse than anything you ever imagined.

What's that you say?  The Grammys are on tonight?  Perfect!

A couple of things you should know going in.  First of all, according to Twitter, which is always a reliable news source, CBS has banned boobs from the Grammy broadcast.  Thank you CBS.  Our long national nightmare of having to look at pretty girls' breasts is over.  I assume this means Katy Perry will be banned from the building tonight.

On a related topic, CBS continues to provide plenty of fighting and stabbing and shooting on all of their wonderful procedural cop dramas.  Because, obviously, people getting shot in the face is an important and totally appropriate part of our TV experience, but the female body is terrifying and obscene.

Also, I should point out that I have nothing specific against any genre of music.  Even my long-standing, and mostly unexplained, feud with country music has recently ended.  Hard to say if this is a temporary cease fire between me and country music or a more permanent peace, but we're cool for now.  I'm good with all kinds of music.  So if Kiss were to be on the show tonight (please no!) and I were to say something like "I hate Kiss so much that it makes me want to drown Gene Simmons in a pool of face make-up", you can be sure that it isn't because I hate whatever type of music Kiss is supposed to be, but rather it's because that specific band sucks and everyone with ears knows it.

OK, let's get started.

8:01PM: Kudos to CBS for finding a way to slip everyone on every CBS show into the Grammys.

8:03PM: Taylor Swift is opening the show with something that I really don't have any words for.  I'll give her this, she seems to be having fun.  Hey, is Taylor Swift attractive?  I honestly can't tell.  She seems sort of awkwardly tall to me, but people on TV always seem taller than they are.  I'm stumped.

8:05PM: Speaking of people on CBS shows and procedural cop dramas, it's LL Cool J!  He's hosting tonight, and he's wearing a silly little hat too.  How fun for him.

8:08PM: LL says he's won two Grammys "so far".  In other news, Mike Tyson has won 50 professional fights, ya know, so far. #youneverknow #butyoukindofdo

8:10PM: Here come Elton John and some guy I've never heard of.  The guy I've never heard of is either freakishly large or playing a very small guitar.  I always think I'm not a fan of Elton John, but then I start listing Elton John songs that are exceptions (Rocket Man, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Tiny Dancer...) and I start to think maybe I am a fan of Elton John.  Life is complicated sometimes.

8:15PM: Target commercials have really gone off the rails.

8:20PM: First award: Solo pop performance.  Adele won.  I don't really know that song, but I know Rihanna was nominated and whenever Rihanna is nominated I'm in her corner.  Also, there's nothing that doesn't sound ridiculous in a British accent.  I don't know what Adele said, but as far as I could tell, it was all just silly British gibberish.

8:23PM: I can't say I'm impressed with Fun.  There's a girl on stage with them playing an acoustic guitar.  Is she part of the band or did she just wander out there?

8:25PM: OK, Fun. salvaged their performance by making it rain on them at the end.  That was pretty cool and I liked it.  Also, the song they played sounded a lot like Rod Stewart's Rhythm of My Heart.  I'm OK with ripping off Rod Stewart, I just wanted to point it out.

8:27PM: One difference between the Grammys and the State of the Union...the Grammys are drowning in commercials, and they are all terrible.

8:32PM: First shot of Katy Perry in the crowd.  She obviously didn't get the "no boobs" memo.  The internet tells me that they showed her because current presenter John Mayer is dating her.  As always, fuck John Mayer.

8:33PM: Country performance; Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley.  I don't know if Dierks Bentley is a whole band or just a guy.  I'm still adjusting to the whole not hating country music thing.  Some guy just strolled out to join Miranda for the second verse, I'm going to assume that's Dierks.  Some guy behind them is playing a cello.  I'm glad to see the Grammys got my "more cellos" note from last year.

8:36PM: There have to be at least four guitars on stage right now.  This song isn't that complicated.

8:39PM: Throwback video of LL from, I'm going to say, 1961.  Nice to see he hasn't become any less ridiculous since then.

8:40PM: I don't know who these two guys are, but they are awful.  The first guy started out playing a keyboard, but it kept playing after he walked away from it.  The other guy took a full minute before contributing anything other than "yeah" and "uh".  Also, that whole two minute performance was just the introduction for the Grammy for best country performance.  Um, what?

8:43PM: Carrie Underwood won that award.  She must also be confused at the introduction it got, everyone must be.  Anyway, I've heard all five of those nominated country songs at various times on Pandora in my office this year and Carrie deserved the win.

8:47PM: Without the commercials, the Grammys would only be 22 minutes long.

8:51PM: Third award (in 51 minutes, on what is supposed to be an awards show): Song of the Year: We Are Young by Fun.  Man, I do not like that song.  One guy from Fun thanked Jay-Z.  Jay did not look amused.

8:54PM: The Mumford and Sons guy appears to be playing a guitar and a bass drum while also singing.  Extra points there.  Also, I'm pretty sure Johnny Depp had no idea where he was just then.

9:01PM: No thank you to all of your new shows CBS.

9:03PM: I'm not a huge fan of Beyonce.  Just sayin'.  Having said that, Beyonce looked genuinely uncomfortable trying to interact with Ellen, and that was hilarious.

9:05PM: Justin Timberlake should have quit while he was ahead.

9:06PM: When Jay-Z wanders out of the audience to start rapping with you, you don't stop him.  I'm just glad he's performing with Timberlake and not murdering that guy from Fun.  Anyway, Justin may want to stick to acting at this point.

9:11PM: Next award: Best Urban Contemporary Album.  I stopped paying attention to who won for a second and started wondering why Chris Brown isn't in jail.  Frank Ocean won, he said he wanted to picture the crowd as kids in tuxedos being fancy.  Didn't get a laugh from the audience, but they're mostly idiots and it was funny.  I don't really know who Frank Ocean is, but anyone who beats Chris Brown is cool with me.

9:20PM: Dave Grohl is plugging his documentary about Sound City while also introducing the winner for best rock performance.  Winner: Lonely Boy by the Black Keys.

9:22PM: Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys performing together.  Yeah, I never really liked Maroon 5.  I'm kind of disappointed they haven't broken up yet.

9:26PM: Honestly, Maroon 5 is ruining this Alicia Keys performance.

9:28PM: Either every Kelly Clarkson song sounds the same or she's being nominated for an album she released six years ago.

9:29PM: Best Pop Vocal Album: The album Kelly Clarkson released six years ago.

9:31PM: I feel like I've been watching the Grammys for four years.  Now I remember why I never bother with award shows.  This is awful.

9:36PM: Who is this Russell Brand looking guy interrupting Rihanna?  Don't they have security to tackle him?

9:40PM: How do they come up with these pairs to introduce awards?  They must just be picking names out of a hat.

9:41PM: Next award, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: Jay-Z and some other people won, but not Rihanna.  But then here's Frank Ocean again.  So far Rihanna and Frank Ocean are the clear highlights here.

9:49PM: No CBS, I will not watch 2 Broke Girls.  I don't care how many times you ask.

9:50PM: We get it Black Keys, you're super hip with your jazz band and your weird guy dressed like George Clinton on the keyboard or whatever it is he's playing.  How about next time you just show up and play a song?

9:55PM: I always hate these lifetime achievement award parts.  Especially when they involve Kelly Clarkson.

9:57PM: That award for Best Country Album just sort of snuck up on me.  Zac Brown Band won that award, as well as the award for best beard/hat combo.

10:03PM: Is CBS trying to peer pressure me into watching CBS?  "Come on, everyone else is watching CBS...come on"

10:05PM: I just have to be honest and say I was never that into Bob Marley.

10:07PM: What percentage of Bruno Mars fans would you guess know who Sting is?  It has to be under 50% right?

10:11PM: I think we've officially lost control of this Bob Marley tribute.

10:17PM: OK, there was a lot going on there.  Quick recap.  Bruno Mars and Rihanna killed it.  Sting was sort of OK which is much better than I usually think Sting is.  Ziggy and Damian Marley I could take or leave.

10:18PM: See Black Keys, look at the Lumineers.  They just showed up with their instruments and played their little song.  How hard is that?

10:21PM: Speaking of people who brought way too many musicians with them, it's Jack White!  Remember when Jack White was in a band with literally one other person.  Wasn't life better then?

10:26PM: Katy Perry is presenting the Best New Artist award.  Fun. won again.  I still don't like them, nor do I have anything else appropriate, funny or constructive to say about Katy Perry.  I've used up my allotment of boob jokes.  Let's just move on.

10:34PM: I've heard this Hunter Hayes song in my office probably 20 times this year, if you had asked me to guess what he looks like, I definitely would have been way off.  Anyway, he was just introducing Carrie Underwood.

10:39PM: Carrie Underwood can clearly sing, but the whole performance really didn't do much for me.  A little too much with the visual effects I think.  Also, more superfluous musicians.

10:40PM: Hey, Prince is still alive.  Good for him.

10:41PM: Prince presented Record of the Year to Gotye for Somebody That I Used to Know.  I'm not gonna lie, that shit is catchy.

10:43PM: How would you describe Prince's outfit.  Fabulous homeless man?  Unibomber? Does anyone know if Prince actually needs a cane or if it was just an accessory?  And what is Prince doing with his time these days?  So many questions.

10:46PM: Ooohhh, the dead people part is coming up.  Always one of my favorites.

10:53PM: I'm super bored with this tribute to music teachers.  I know music teachers are important and kids should all learn music, but maybe you'd drive that point home a little better if you found a way to not make the music teachers portion the worst five minutes of the show.

10:57PM: Man, there are A LOT of people on stage right now.  I'm pretty sure the audience is all seat fillers right now.  Seat fillers and Chris Brown.

11:02PM: Hey, do you think the Rolling Stones watch the in memoriam part of the Grammys every year just to make sure they didn't die without noticing?

11:10PM: This guy appears to be singing in Spanish.  Wait no, now he's singing in English again.  Also, he may or may not be Christian Bale.  There's a lot going on right now.  Spanish Christian Bale was just introducing Frank Ocean.

11:13PM: I don't understand a lot of what's happening right now with this Frank Ocean performance, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.

11:15PM: Adele is presenting Album of the Year.  Mumford and Sons.  I would have gone with Jack White, but at least Fun. didn't win.  Apparently Mumford and Sons is British.  I did not know that.  My whole world is upside down right now.  Well, at least the part of my world that has to do with Mumford and Sons.

11:23PM: We appear to be coming up on an LL Cool J performance.  Am I supposed to be excited about this?  I was around when LL was a rapper, I don't remember it being that great.  Travis Barker on the drums is always worth a listen though.  Tom Morello on guitar too.  In fact, LL is really the only not exciting part of what's happening right now.  Calling this an LL Cool J performance would be like calling a Beatles reunion a Ringo Starr performance.

11:28PM: They're definitely cutting LL off.  Kind of a weird way to finish, but OK.

Untitled Lance Armstrong Thing

OK, I can't think of a title for this post and I'm tired of trying.  I'm going to start reading A Farewell to Arms again soon, maybe it'll help inspire me.  Anyway...

Did you hear that Lance Armstrong supposedly confessed his use of performance enhancers to Oprah?  That's right! The worst kept secret in the history of sports, the shocking truth that you've already pretty much known for ten years, will be revealed on a channel you probably couldn't find on your TV even if you wanted to.  Get excited!

I'll be honest and say that I've never really liked Lance.  He always seemed like kind of a tool.  And you couldn't even call him a tool because people would be like "hey jerk! look at all that money he raised for cancer", and then you feel shame.  But I'm on Lance's side here.  Let's be clear about what happened.

First, Lance got cancer and everyone said he was going to die.  Then, instead of dying, he won the Tour de France seven times.  Then, he raised half a billion dollars for cancer research.  That's billion with a B, as in, holy fucking shit that guy raised half a Billion dollars for cancer research! And now, we're about to find out that he cheated at riding his bike.

And now I'm supposed to think he's a bad guy and he betrayed everyone and fuck him?  Are you fucking kidding me?  They couldn't even give away some of his Tour de France titles because all the other guys were cheating too.  You try to ride your bike around the alps without drugs sometime and see how it goes.  Do you want to be buried in Europe or would you like us to fly your body back to the States?

I heard a guy on ESPN today compare Armstrong to Joe Paterno.  Seriously?  Joe Paterno employed a guy who sexually assaulted children right under his nose.  I heard a guy on the radio today compare Armstrong to OJ Simpson.  OJ SIMPSON!!! OJ Simpson murdered two people!  Lance Armstrong cheated at bike riding.  What the fuck is wrong with you morons?

(Yes, I admit that, outside of New York, sports talk radio is always awful.  Sometimes, on the ride home, I listen to this crazy Jesus freak just for laughs, or sometimes I just listen to static.  They're both better than listening to local sports radio talk about minor league basketball and high school golf.  So it's not the best example of what people might actually be saying.  But still, morons.)

Yes, Lance is a bully and kind of a dick, just like every other great athlete you've ever met.  But he didn't steal our money.  Let me ask you something?  Did you give money to the Lance Armstrong Foundation because you think French cycling is awesome and you have to support any charity associated with it, or because you thought maybe it would be nice to cure cancer?  It's a simple question.  If we find out Lance was using the Foundation money to buy steroids, then he stole your money.  Otherwise, shut the fuck up please.

OK, yes, there's some anger here that should be rightly directed at gun nuts and Congress people who won't give money to Sandy victims.  And I'll deal with them as soon as I can write one complete sentence about either group without using the word fuck.  But for now this is the best I can do.

If you want to hate Lance Armstrong, that's OK with me.  I never really liked him to begin with.  But don't sit there and tell me he betrayed everyone, or that you thought he was a great guy until just now.  You gave him money for cancer research and he used it on cancer research.  If you were inspired by him, it was because he beat cancer.  He still did that, it wasn't a magic trick.  Would he have been significantly less inspirational to people with cancer if he had decided not to use performance enhancers and finished 9th in the Tour de France seven times.  I highly doubt it.  It sounds to me like we all got the deal we were promised.

Cooperstown

Of the four major sports, baseball is the one most rooted and invested in its own history.  Yes, there are still four major sports, three makes no sense.  We just have to pick a new fourth with hockey off the map now.  I don't know what it is though.  MMA?  English soccer? Real world/road rules challenges?  I'm willing to try anything other than American soccer, minor league anything or tennis, but I honestly don't know what to choose. Anyway...

Baseball needs its history more than any other sport.  Without 120 years of history to bullshit about, how would anyone sit through an entire baseball game?  That's why baseball protects and highlights its history so much.  That's why, if a real sense of history is what you're looking for, the baseball Hall of Fame beats all the others hands down.  Sure, the hockey Hall of Fame is great...and in Canada!  But for history, you want Cooperstown over Toronto.  Trust me.

This is why the baseball Hall of Fame selection process takes on more importance than the process does in other sports.  The football Hall of Fame process is just silly nonsense, and the basketball Hall of Fame may or may not actually exist, but nobody cares either way.  The hockey Hall of Fame is fun, but I can't say I care that much about who's in there.  Baseball's different though.  Even as my interest in watching the sport slowly fades away, I still care about who goes in the Hall.

This year is a big year for Cooperstown.  Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa are all on the ballot for the first time.  If we had never heard the word steroids, they'd all be first-ballot hall-of-famers.  But oh, have we heard the word steroids.  Constantly.  For like 10 years now.  I stopped being interested about 9 years and 11 months ago, but still we hear it.  Mark McGwire has been on the ballot for years now, and he's still not in.  It doesn't look like he's ever getting in, and I'm OK with that.  All he did was hit homeruns and be annoying.  If there's one thing that's perfectly fair to say about steroids era players, it's that 500 homeruns doesn't get you into the Hall anymore. 

I'm also OK with Sammy Sosa not getting in, for the same reason, and because he was almost as annoying as McGwire.  I'm perfectly comfortable walking into the Hall one day and not seeing any trace of McGwire and Sosa.  In fact, I'd prefer it. 

I'm sort of on the fence about Roger Clemens.  If you assume that Clemens started with the steroids when he got to Toronto, and I think that's a pretty fair assumption, I think he winds up being a close call.  If you just look at Clemens' career between 1984 and 1996, he accumulated 192 wins, 3 Cy Young awards and one MVP as a pitcher.  Without the steroids, he probably pitches until about 2001, gets somewhere in the 250 wins range and probably still signs with the Yankees at some point and gets his ring. 

That Roger Clemens is still a close call, right?  In 20 years, 250 wins will be the new 300 wins.  We'll look at 300 wins the same way we look at hitting .400.  Not totally impossible, but really really improbable.  Plus Clemens is the second best right-handed pitcher since Walter Johnson retired (clearly behind Greg Maddox and waaay ahead of the insanely overrated Nolan Ryan). 

On the other hand, Clemens clearly cheated and also seems like kind of a dick.  I feel the same way about Clemens as I do about Pete Rose.  Objectively, it seems like a glaring omission from baseball's Hall of Fame.  Subjectively, I sort of don't care.  If you were asking me as some sort of responsible baseball historian, I'd say you have to put him in.  If you're asking me as a fan, I'd say I won't miss him when I visit.

Then there's Barry Bonds.  Let says Bonds' first steroids aided year was 2000, which I think makes the most sense.  That was the height of the Sosa/McGwire circus and Bonds was coming off a year during which he missed about 60 games due to injury.  I've always fully believed the story that Bonds didn't start cheating until he saw the press and recognition the cheaters were getting and decided to get in on that action, so 2000 makes the most sense to me.

So, if you just look at Bonds from 1986 to 1999, here's what you get.  445 homeruns, 460 stolen bases, 3 MVPs (and four more top five finishes), 8 gold gloves and being single-handedly responsible for people actually caring about baseball in Pittsburgh for a few years.  There's five 30/30 seasons in there and one 40/40 season.  Bonds' speed and power combination so far surpassed anyone before him that, not only is he the only member of the 500/500 club, but he's the only member of the 400/400 club, something which he accomplished prior to 2000.  No one else has ever done that.  Not Mays, not Mantle, not Frank Robinson or Hank Aaron, not Griffey Jr. or anyone else from Bonds' own era, not even the cheaters. 

I know Bonds wasn't a great guy, and most of the hate that comes in his direction is his own fault.  I know he cheated and I know that the baseball Hall of Fame voters are some of the most sanctimonious people you'll ever find.  I also know Bonds never won a ring. 

But here are some other things I know.  I know baseball hasn't been relevant in Pittsburgh since Bonds left, and I know when he did leave, he rejuvenated baseball in San Francisco.  I know Bonds made Bobby Bonilla and Jeff Kent all-stars, and Mets fans can tell you that both of those guys sucked without him.  I really do believe that Bonds would have stayed clean if baseball had done its job when McGwire and Sosa suddenly turned into twin incredible hulks.  I think his career would have turned out a lot like Ken Griffey Jr.'s.  Maybe not quite as statistically eye-popping, but still amazing and clearly Hall worthy. 

Next time I go to Cooperstown, and I will be back someday, I need Barry Bonds to be there.  You can give him an asterisk or put up a weird sign about steroids if you want, but he needs to be in there somewhere.  The baseball Hall of Fame can go on without these other guys, but without Barry Bonds, it's just incomplete.

Election Night: Part 2

Welcome back to part 2!  If you don't know the difference between "too close to call" and "too early to call" just turn on your TV and people will explain it to you over and over again.

9:00PM: Obama wins New York, and also stuff happened in a bunch of other states nobody cares about.

9:01PM: Elizabeth Warren is "leading" but it's too early to call.  I'm not surprised it's taking a while to count the votes in Massachusetts considering I filled my ballot out with a pencil today.  Recently they invented these things called computers, I bet they could come in handy with voting.

9:03PM: MSNBC just called the overall majority in the House of Representatives for the Republicans. Not awesome news, but not surprising.

9:06PM: Florida looks really, really close.  Virginia still looks pretty good for Romney.  Still not a lot of votes in from Ohio.  I would still describe the mood at MSNBC as "optimistic", while the mood at Fox is much more "uh oh".  As always, the mood at CNN continues to be "hey look at these fucking graphics!"

9:11PM: Fox reporter describing the Virginia Senate race - "people either like George Allen, or they like Tim Kaine".  Just incredible analysis from Fox there.

9:20PM: Fox is already talking about what paths Mitt has to victory without winning Ohio.  I told you, uh oh.

9:21PM: Pennsylvania called for Obama a few minutes ago, and he won Michigan too.  Electoral map closing in quickly on Mitt Romney.

9:23PM: Whenever Anderson Cooper says "balance of power" CNN runs a balance of power graphic before he can keep talking.  It's like saying the secret word in Pee Wee's playhouse.  CNN also apparently has control over the lights at the top of the Empire State Building.

9:25PM: "Obama wins Wisconsin" - Fox's Brett Baier, while looking around for something to slit his wrists with.

9:28PM: Obama won New York, shouldn't that be it.  I don't understand why lesser states get a say, or at least an equal say.  New York should get at least 269 electoral votes.

9:31PM: For weeks Fox has been pushing the idea that Romney could win Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.  Now that those states are off the board, they're back to telling me that Florida, Ohio and Virginia were the only states we were ever really talking about.  Fox can't even accurately report on their own reporting.

9:35PM: Every time John King tries to make a point, Blitzer interrupts him to go to a reporter on the scene in whatever location he was talking about.  These guys are going to throw punches before the night ends.

9:39PM: On Fox, Karl Rove is desperately trying to call Florida for Mitt Romney.  I kind of feel bad for Karl.  Can we all just tell him Mitt won?  I know he doesn't deserve our kindness, but I think we need to take some pity on him.

9:44PM: Democrats are winning Senate seats left and right.  Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts.  Once again, they could have won most of these seats with even moderately useful candidates.

9:49PM: John Boehner on Fox - "I don't care what these fucking people voted for, we are not raising taxes ever.  You hear me?!?  EVER!!!"

9:51PM: If you ever see CNN's John King out in the real world, you'll notice that he always carries a giant touch screen around with him.  He's incapable of communicating without it.

9:54PM: They just called the Massachusetts Senate race for Elizabeth Warren.  I didn't always hate Scott Brown, but the campaign he ran this time around was really appalling.  He deserved to lose and he did.

10:02PM: Fox is now running dream scenarios for a Romney win.  One likely scenario, Barack Obama abducted by aliens.

10:06PM: Claire McCaskill kept her Senate seat over Todd "legitimate rape" Akin.  This Senate thing has really turned into a total mess for Republicans.  If only they could have anticipated that a majority of Americans don't like rape.

10:13PM: My current state has legalized medical marijuana.  "Ouch, my cataracts!" said every college student in Massachusetts.

10:15PM: Breaking news.  Mitt Romney just removed Linda McMahon from his binders full of women.

10:17PM: CNN appears to be circling around calling Florida for Obama.  Let's see if the Fox studio is on fire yet.

10:20PM: Things at Fox are looking grim as Megyn just somberly called New Mexico for the President.

10:24PM: NO quit in Karl Rove.  He is explaining the shit out of why Mitt Romney is going to win Ohio.  He's not mentioning that Ohio doesn't matter if Obama wins Florida.

10:26PM: Megyn Kelly on Fox - "Is this just math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is it real?".  That pretty much sums it up.

10:27PM: Matthews in response to Rachel Maddow saying we're going to hear from Elizabeth Warren soon - "why are we hearing from these people before the concession speech?".  Um, how about because she's a Senator elect and she'll speak whenever the fuck she wants.

10:33PM: Interestingly, CNN still hasn't called Wisconsin.  Blitzer doesn't call anything until his beard says so.

10:44PM: Obama wins Minnesota, eh?

10:49PM: Arizona for Romney.  I wasn't sure if Romney's self-deportation policy was going to be tough enough for the show me your papers state, but I guess it was good enough.

10:51PM: Megyn Kelly is now just aimlessly wandering around the Fox set while giggling and touching stuff.

10:58PM: Quick note on Romney possibly winning the popular vote but losing the election.  The same thing happened to Al Gore in 2000.  I've always said Democrats need to suck it up and stop bitching about it, same message to Republicans.  That's how our system works.

11:00PM: California, Washington and Hawaii for the President.  This is the point in 2008 when Senator Obama officially became President Elect Obama.  It was a really great moment.  A win this year won't be quite as exciting, but it'll still be the better choice.  If Mitt Romney pulls out a surprising win, I honestly hope I'm wrong about him and he turns out to be an excellent President.

OK, I'm bailing now to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.  They do the comedy for me.  As I check out, things look pretty good for the President in Ohio and Florida, and he really only needs one of those.  Both states are really close though, could be a while.

Election Night: Part 1

I'm trying to make up for the fact that I missed the late debate by documenting election night.  I'll be flipping back and forth between the three cable networks.  I don't know where I'll spend the most time, but I know that I want to be watching the losing side whenever they call an important state, because that's where it's the most fun (I mean, if you like despair, which I do).  Enjoy!

6:02PM: Every time I turned on Fox today, they were talking about voter fraud or the new black panthers.  I think it's very telling that every other channel spent the day occasionally telling you what you can do if your voting rights are being curtailed in some way while, conversely, Fox kept promoting their voter fraud email hotline.  You get the sense Republicans aren't too optimistic about tonight.  We'll see.

6:05PM: Matthews on MSNBC - "Mitch McConnell is the firewall against the crazies".  We may need a little more help than that.

6:09PM: Over on Fox Brett Baier is telling me about Virginia counties.  Who let him in the building tonight? He's an idiot.  And Megyn Kelly's here too.  Maybe they're saving the smart people for when the votes actually start coming in.

6:11PM: Well here's Chris Wallace anyway.  He just called Karl Rove "the architect of George W. Bush's Presidential victories".  Yes, congratulations Karl on building the most amazing shit sandwich we've ever seen.

6:17PM: CNN already has John King playing with a magic wall.  Anderson Cooper is also standing by what I'm going to call the wall sized TV screen of nonsense.  At least the dopes at Fox have a desk.

6:20PM: CNN's Erin Burnett is in Ohio.  Her and her pretty eyes say we might know who won Ohio around midnight.

6:22PM: CNN is reporting that Florida had a problem with about 35,000 ballots that were not printed correctly, so now volunteers have to transpose those faulty ballot results onto good ballots so they can be scanned and counted.  Really Florida? Twelve years later and you are still fucking awful at this?  Just understand that we all hate you.

6:24PM: CNN is hard to look away from.  Right now some guy is standing in the middle of what appears to be a virtual fake Senate chamber where they're using the individual fake virtual desks to display different issues that the next President will have an impact on.  I can't do it justice with words, you really had to see it.

6:28PM: While some MSNBC lady reports from what appears to be an empty Mitt Romney auditorium in Boston, someone in the background appears to be playing smooth jazz.  Rachel Maddow noticed too and called it the "we don't know yet jazz".

6:31PM: Steve Schmidt is on MSNBC sadly recounting being on the wrong side of the 2008 electoral beatdown dished out by the Obama campaign.  He's talking about the importance of Mitt Romney's impending concession speech.  He may not have put it exactly that way.  He added "winning is a lot more fun than losing".  Glad he's here.

6:35PM: Fox's Bill Hemmer is reporting from the "Bill"board.  Ohhhh, I see what they did there.  Hemmer eventually added "red is Republican, blue is Democrat".  That's super helpful, thanks.

6:38PM: Megyn Kelly just told me that they have Charles Krauthammer coming up.  I don't know if that was meant as a warning or a threat, but either way, thanks Megyn.  Let's see what CNN is up to.

6:44PM: Summary of analysis from all three networks so far.  If the people who would vote for (insert candidate here) actually come out to vote, (insert candidate here) will win the night.

6:48PM: Alex Wagner is covering Senate races for MSNBC.  She says a recent poll had Scott Brown leading Elizabeth Warren.  That makes me grumpy, but Alex is kind of adorable so it's OK.

6:52PM: CNN just ran a montage of soundbites from past elections.  You know, back when they were a news network.

6:54PM: I've been watching CNN for three minutes now and all I've seen is different montages.  Maybe they just gave up and went home.

6:57PM: MSNBC is reporting tonight from "Democracy Plaza".  That's right across the street from Fox's famous "Fascism Square".

6:58PM: By the way, I'm not calling CNN's magic wall a "magic wall" because I think it's funny or clever, I don't think that.  I'm calling it a "magic wall" because the people who work at CNN keep calling it that and I think they're morons.

6:59PM: I'm going to Fox for the 7:00PM results because I want to see how excited they get about Romney winning Kentucky (turned out, sadly, not very).

7:01PM: Romney won Kentucky and Indiana, Obama won Vermont.  There you go.  Fox is still sticking with Kelly and Baier.  Where's Shepherd Smith? Is he being held hostage somewhere?

7:07PM: CNN exit polls in Virginia look pretty craptastic for the President.  Good thing he doesn't really need it.

7:12PM: MSNBC has a magic wall too, but you don't hear them yapping about it the whole time, do you CNN?

7:18PM: Related note.  I didn't get my "I voted" sticker when I voted today.  What's up with that?  I heard the same thing on Twitter from other people in my area.  People in Massachusetts aren't getting our "I voted" stickers.  If that's not a good enough reason to vote Scott Brown out of office, I don't know what is.

7:21PM: I just hit the rare triple commercial situation.  What should I call that?  It's really the shittiest thing that could happen on my TV right now, so I'm going to call it a Gingrich.

7:24PM: MSNBC's election night anchor desk is so big Congress just granted it three electoral votes.  The Romney campaign has already dispatched Paul Ryan to give a speech, but I'm pretty sure it's Obama country.

7:29PM: Fox's Kirsten Powers says she would read something into the exit polls if the exit polls are right.  Wait, what?  Wouldn't everybody read something into the exit polls if we knew they were right?  She's lucky Kirsten is one of my favorite names.

7:31PM: Megyn Kelly called West Virginia for Romney and added "the President's stances on energy policy and social issues are very unpopular there".  Also, the President's continued insistence on being black is very unpopular there.

7:35PM: Fox is making Chris Wallace sit in a dimly lit room with Karl Rove and Joe Trippi all night.  He must have really pissed somebody off.

7:39PM: MSNBC's Chuck Todd - "the joke in Ohio is that it's five Ohios".  I'm pretty sure Chuck just made that joke up.

7:48PM: Bernie Sanders won another term in the Senate.  Fox added "that's right, a socialist in the Senate, that's Barack Obama's America".

7:50PM: Fox is now covering Twitter activity.  Fox viewers have no earthly idea what they're talking about.  Three million grandparents just called their grandkids and asked "what's a tweeter?"

7:54PM: Fox just called Georgia for Romney.  I never understand how Republicans do so well in Georgia.  I know it's got a lot of rednecks, but Atlanta's a pretty big city.  Shouldn't it at least be a swing state?

8:00PM: Obama wins Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine (3 of the 4 electoral votes...why do you have to be special Maine?) and Rhode Island.  Romney gets Oklahoma.

8:03PM: Alabama polls closed at 8, but they don't have internet there yet so we don't have official calls until they send a redneck in a pickup truck up to the CNN studio with the actual numbers.

8:08PM: Four crucial Senate races leaning Democrat.  Congratulations Republicans, you moroned your way right out of a Senate majority.

8:11PM: Ohhhhh, Shep Smith is on the actual Fox network, that's why the cable channel gets team dumbass.

8:15PM: O'Reilly just showed up on Fox.  Where did he come from?  Is he only allowed to start talking at 8PM?  He thinks if Obama wins it's because he's pandering to people who want the government to do stuff for them.  So true.  It was really unfair of the President to campaign on the idea that he might actually, ya know, help some people.

8:18PM: Sounds like O'Reilly's leaving already.  That was quick, and weird.  That's what she said.

8:20PM: Apparently Indiana voters are rejecting the idea that rape babies are a gift from god.  Better start re-working that platform before the next election.

8:22PM: Dave adds "instead of Hofstra, I wish I graduated from Electoral College".

8:23PM: CNN is doing a suspenseful countdown to when Arkansas polls close, because Arkansas is the only state that closes at 8:30.  How long before each state closes at a slightly different time so they all get their moment in the spotlight?  "ohhh, its 8:36, one more minute until Illinois polls close!"

8:28PM: I haven't checked in on MSNBC in a while.  It's always good to check back from time to time to make sure Matthews is still conscious.

8:31PM: Chris Murphy beat the wrestling lady in the Connecticut Senate race.  I feel a little better about my country just now.

8:33PM: Me, just now - "zombie JFK would do very well with Irish Catholics...and zombies".  How did that come up?  I don't have to explain myself to you.

8:37PM: On Fox, Huckleberry is talking about how Barack Obama's been trampling all over religious liberties for four years.  I wish I could go on TV and report things that only happen in my imagination as actual news.

8:40PM: Almost another Gingrich, but MSNBC saved the day.  I swear running a campaign which included Sarah Palin replaced every other emotion Steve Schmidt used to be able to feel with sadness.

8:46PM: Ken Blackwell on MSNBC - "nobody's out there trying to suppress the vote".  Everyone on MSNBC's panel took turns telling him how he was wrong about that.  He agreed that trying to reduce early voting was bad, but still somehow defended the current Ohio Secretary of State for doing it.

8:52PM: Do you think Linda McMahon will run for the Senate again someday?  I feel like she can't stop herself.

OK, end part one.  I'll start part two in a few minutes and post it whenever we have a winner or I have to go to sleep because I have work tomorrow.

Undecided

I was talking to a friend Saturday night and she made me realize that I am, in fact, an undecided voter.  If I lived in a swing state, I would vote for Barack Obama, because Mitt Romney is just awful.  But I live in Massachusetts.  Unless Mitt Romney has a photograph of Barack Obama pooping on Ted Williams' grave while wearing a Lakers jersey, Massachusetts is safe for the President.

I like the President, but I don't like everything he's done.  More importantly, I don't like that I only get two real choices.  Two choices that aren't as different as they and the media would have me believe.  Is Barack Obama a better President than Mitt Romney ever could be?  Of course he is.  But that doesn't make him the best possible President.  On the contrary, it could easily just make him the 2nd worst possible President.

So I'm torn.  Use my meaningless vote to cast one more drop into the ocean of Massachusetts Obama votes, or use it to at least make a point about third party candidates.  I'm looking at you Gary Johnson.  I don't know, I honestly don't think I'll decide until tomorrow when I get there.

Speaking of undecided voters, on the eve of Election Day (honestly one of my favorite days), I thought it would be fun to try and sum up some of the last minute campaign issues for anyone who's still mulling it over.

Senate Races

Senate races have become important nationally because the first rule of Republican Misogyny Club is you don't talk about Republican Misogyny Club, but Todd Akin and that Mourdock clown from Indiana didn't get the memo.  More than any other recent election, Republicans are making it clear to everyone that they think women should be second class citizens who have their rights dictated to them.  Even Mitt Romney tipped his hand a little.  I mean, he's OK if you ladies want to work a little, he thinks it's cute, but once 5PM rolls around, your ass better be in Mitt's kitchen making him a delicious dinner.  That beef isn't going to roast itself, and your lady work can wait until morning, we don't give you anything important to do anyway.

I have an idea for Republicans.  You obviously have no interest in growing up or moving into the current century, so how about this?  Whenever the word rape comes up at one of your press conferences, just walk away.  In fact, whenever anybody asks you anything about women, just slowly back away from the microphone.  It isn't the best strategy, but I think it's the best you can do based on your policies and beliefs and, honestly, it's better than your current strategy of looking like idiots all the time.

Speaking of Senate races, this is where reasonable Republicans really need to look at their own party and get angry.  Republicans have pissed away at least three easy wins in the Senate by nominating awful candidates.  Linda McMahon in Connecticut may not be anyone's fault, and maybe they couldn't have won that seat anyway, but Missouri and Indiana were easy Republican wins for even halfway decent candidates.  Democrats have the tea party to thank for keeping control of the Senate, plain and simple.

I disagree with Republicans a lot, but I understand we need at least two functioning parties for our system to work.  Please Republicans, chase these tea idiots back into whatever caves they crawled out of four years ago, they are killing your party.

Chris Christie

I may have made fun of Chris Christie once or twice, or almost every time he's opened his mouth in front of a camera, but let me tell you why independent voters like him.  Most normal people understand that you can't expect a political party or a candidate to agree with you on everything.  All I want is for politicians to tell the truth about what they believe so I know who to vote for.

I still think Chris Christie is mostly a bully and a dumbass, but I like that he's at least honest.  It's sad that I know that's all it takes to make him one of the most respectable politicians in the country right now, but here we are.

Benghazi

You know this pisses me off, but Fox won't stop talking about it so here we go.  I have a vague recollection of something like 3,000 Americans dying all at once in a terrorist attack the last time a Republican was in the White House.  I could swear I was supposed to never forget that.  I could also swear that it took years for us to find out what actually happened and that the Bush administration had good intelligence that could have prevented it more than a month in advance.

I remember these things, just a little, but I don't remember it being an issue in the 2004 campaign.  Actually I do, I remember that same Republican President using it as a rallying cry.  What I don't remember is John Kerry trying to use the deaths of thousands of people as a political tool in an effort to win an election.  That's not why John Kerry lost, he lost because he was awful, but at least he lost with a little integrity.

So, Republican voters who are parroting this nonsense, I'm begging you to be smarter than this.  And for a more direct message to every Republican candidate, surrogate and person at Fox trying to use the deaths of four Americans to win an election because you don't have anything else to try.  You are a terrible human being.  Please go fuck yourself, and have a nice day.

Jeeps

The only thing I have to say about Mitt Romney being a liar is that he seems to be a little better at it than the rest of us.  Nobody is ever 100% sure what Mitt believes and trying to pinpoint his real position on anything would require a sort of political quantum mechanics that I don't think anyone has invented yet (possibly because Republicans don't believe in quantum mechanics, I'm not sure).  Having said that, I don't understand why people are so surprised by the Romney campaign's totally false commercial about shipping Jeep jobs to China.  A political campaign lied while also putting winning ahead of the good of the voters.  People are acting like nobody's ever done that before.  Welcome to politics folks.

Climate Change

This huge, unprecedented storm that basically shut down New York City really has a lot of people in public office and in the media talking about the effects of climate change and energy policy and what we have to do to get our climate back under control.  Ha! No, that's not true, I'm just fucking with you.  Nobody cares about that shit.  Science is hard and confusing.  Let's get back to talking about campaign tactics and why I'm supposed to be interested in Ohio once every four years.

FEMA

There are enough stupid things that Mitt Romney actually said that Democrats really don't need to twist words and extrapolate things to make him look stupid.  All Romney said was that, in general, it's always better to give things back to the states, and it's even better to give them back to the private sector.  Take it from someone who watched every minute of every Republican primary debate, this wasn't anything.

This wasn't serious suggestion about getting rid of FEMA, it was just another expression of the Republican fantasy that the private sector does everything better.  It's stupid and not even a little bit true, but saying things that are stupid and not even a little bit true is how you win Republican primaries.

OK that's it.  Please go vote tomorrow.  Try to vote for somebody smart and reasonable, but even if you can't bring yourself to do that, you should still vote.

Marathon? Seriously?

If you've been following the news lately, you made have heard that the New York City marathon organizers are planning to go through with the marathon this Sunday even though 1) parts of the city have been underwater all week 2) thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers are still without heat or power and 3) any police, other public servants or volunteers that you might use for a marathon would be about a million times more useful in the Rockaways, on Staten Island or at any one of many many other hard hit locations.

At first I honestly thought this must be a joke or a miscommunication.  Maybe Mayor Bloomberg (who was actually doing really well with this until now) said something like "marathon?  are you fucking kidding me?  My city is underwater.  What kind of a stupid question is that?", but because people are stressed and probably weren't really paying attention, it somehow sounded like he said the marathon was actually still going to happen.  Apparently I was wrong.

Many of the people who read my blog already know me a little, but for those who don't, I grew up in Rockaway Park in Queens.  It was an amazing place to be a kid and really is a wonderful little town.  If you've never been there, you just wouldn't believe a place like it could exist within the borders of such a large and crowded city, but that's just one of the things that makes New York better than everywhere else.

I literally don't have a word for what Hurricane Sandy did to my home town.  Every picture and description I see is worse than the one before it.  It's worse than anything I could have imagined.  Now, the people there are tough and it's a great community and they'll rebuild, but in the mean time, it seems the city is going to have a marathon. 

Because it's really important, in this time of great tragedy, that a bunch of people run around the city for a few hours.  Who cares if people in the Rockaways and Staten Island and other parts of the city have no power and no heat?  Who cares if hundreds of homes were destroyed and thousands of people lost everything?  Fuck that shit!  That was like, five days ago.  I guess everybody just needs to get the fuck over it, right?

Listen, I understand that events bring money into the city, money that a recovering city needs, but that doesn't explain why they can't run a marathon on November 25th, or December 2nd.  Do it a month later and everybody still gets their money.  Too cold to run around outside that late in the year?  Really?  Do you remember last paragraph when I said people lost their houses?  If December 2nd is too cold for you to run, then you can run around the city by yourself sometime when the conditions suit you a little better. 

Now you can say I shouldn't be too hard on the actual runners.  They've trained for years and it isn't their decision.  I disagree.  Everybody makes a choice.  You can choose to not participate in this ridiculous farce.  You can choose to do something more productive with your time, like volunteer, or just donate to the Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/  See look, there's the link right there. 

I've seen some stories about people who are going to run the marathon and use it to raise money to donate to victims.  That's nice, but couldn't you just collect money for victims and not spend all day running around a decimated city?  Personally, I would much rather do that.  Running 26 miles is tiring and really hard.  When I was a kid my elementary school did a math-a-thon for St. Jude's hospital.  I suspect my grandma still would have given me a check for the sick kids even if I didn't bother actually doing the math.

And as for the mayor and the organizers of the marathon, I don't know enough different forms of the word fuck to properly address them.  The symbolism alone of the marathon starting by running away from devastated Staten Island should be enough to tell anyone with a brain what a bad idea it is to go through with it.  It's a good thing the rubble of my home town won't disrupt the marathon path, or they might have to run somewhere else.

You know, sometimes I get on here and rant about things that really bother me, but then I have to admit that there's no easy solution and it's not as simple as I'm making it sound.  Not this time.  Just do it later.  How hard is that?  Personally, I don't know why they can't just cancel it altogether and tell the people who would have spent money on the day of the marathon to just donate the money instead, but maybe that's asking too much.  I hope, at least, that this will convince everyone in New York that they can't ever vote for Bloomberg again.