Monday, October 15th
-Jealous of his wife’s success with her book Blue Skies, No Fences, Dick Cheney decides to write a children’s book. Waterboarding Builds Character, or How Ahmed Got His Groove Back debuts at #1 on The Weekly Standard’s bestseller list.
-Wyoming historians write a letter to Lynne Cheney protesting the exclusion of any mention of Fennis Dembo from Blue Skies, No Fences:

Tuesday, October 16th
-Partial transcript from Oval Office recordings:
[video game sounds]
Aide: Sir, the immunity bill looks like it’s going to make it through the Senate–
President: [unintelligible]
Aide: No, sir, not vaccines. This was the bill to give retroactive immunity to telecom companies that allowed us to monitor any communications we wanted without a warrant
President: [unintelligible]
Aide: I agree that that shouldn’t be illegal, sir.
[video game sounds stop]
President: What about E.T. I want to know what he talks about when he phones home.
Aide: We haven’t found him yet, sir.
President: Well, find him, damnit! I’ve been asking for that tap since we were in Afghanistan.
Aide: We’re still in Afghanistan, sir.
President: Oh.

Thursday, October 18th
-Bush’s veto of the S-Chip bill holds, with bill supporters coming up 13 votes short. Dick Cheney says, “Shoop! I feel like I can finally exhale!”

Apologies to Angela Bassett, the rest of the ladies.

-Rolling Stone reports that Dick Cheney is making a big push for an American attack on Iran next year. Our intrepid reporter tracks him to the annual NAMBLA conference, where he is accepting a lifetime achievement award. “They also welcome those of us who prefer to fuck children figuratively,” he explains, citing the S-CHIP bill. “I’d like to accept this on behalf of everyone who stood with me in opposing the federal school lunch program.”
“Why Iran?” Our reporter asks him after the big dinner. Cheney wastes little time in responding. “That’s easy,” he says. “Because it gives me a boner.”

Friday, October 19th
-Cheney adds Christopher Dodd to the list of people to extraordinarly render. Addington makes him erase it. “Too soon, Dick. All things in good time.”
General Petraeus, whose diminutive stature has been hidden by a complicit press, spends some time riding around the Oval Office floor with Ralph, aka The Mouse from The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

Below you will find photos from both the New York and Seattle premieres of Haymaker & Sally.

(more…)

This one appears to have been around the Internet for a while, but it’s well worth another look. Also, a word from Oskar, who likes to dance.

From the people who brought you football robots…

Yeah, it sounds like a country club clothing brand, but it’s actually our October friends at Fox, the dudes in the booth who offer pithy observations after Fox adds sound effects when a player slides. Last night was my first real taste of this year’s magic, when Kevin Youkilis, playing first base, failed to catch a pick-off throw and McCarver said “I don’t think he even touched it with his glove! That ball just hit his ankle!” The replays–from multiple angles–showed the ball deflecting off of Youkilis’ glove, but McCarver remained steadfast.

Still, Buck & McCarver rants are passe. And neither is a truly odious announcer–unlike, say, Billy Packer. So instead of ranting, I’ll share my favorite Buck & McCarver memory. It was the 2001 LCS, and Arizona had just beaten St. Louis, with Tony Womack getting the game-winning hit. Our boys in the booth were interviewing Womack after the game. I can’t remember which one actually did the interview, but usually Buck handles those, so I’ll assume it was him [Reader Anthony insists it was McCarver; this matches my memory, too, but I saw some accounts online indicating it was Buck. The moral? Trust your memory over the series of tubes!]:

McCarver: Congratulations, Tony. Great performance and a big win.
Womack: Thanks, Tim.
(Womack gets a hug from a woman)
McCarver: Is that your mother?
Womack: That’s my wife, Tim.

• >bounce/oz ? Express Yourself: The World?s Most Slammin Break - All three iterations of Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd st. Rhythm Band’s “Express Yourself” in one post–from the original to N.W.A. to the newly released Statik Selektah cut (featuring Talib Kweli). Poke around this site–there’s some good stuff on there.
• Lifers as Teenagers, Now Seeking Second Chance - New York Times - More criminal justice insanity from the worldwide leader. I think the whole notion of life sentences for young kids is absurd, but this really got me: one in four juveniles given a life sentence in this country (nowhere else does it) is convicted of felony murder, meaning they didn’t participate in a murder, but only in the crime leading up to it. Seems like a good reason to say there’s no chance to rehabilitate a 13-year-old, no?
• How Curveball started the Iraq war | Salon Books - Interview with Bob Drogin, who wrote a book about “Curveball”, the Iraqi asylum seeker whose claims about Iraqi weapons programs were apparently the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s case for an invasion.
• Buzzer Beater: Youth Football Pep Talk of the Year (Seattle Weekly) - Part I: Coach writes a disturbingly intense exhortative e-mail to parents of six-year-old flag football team players.
• Buzzer Beater: The Catch (Seattle Weekly) - Part II: One athlete rises to the challenge and is immortalized in one of the coolest sports photographs I’ve seen in a while.
• The life of Erik Prince - Get to know the dude who’s in charge of a decent chunk of your tax dollars. As with many Detroit Free Press articles, it features a jpeg that you can maximize and then drag around your screen. Don’t worry: Blackwater can’t shoot civilians from the confines of your monitor.
• This Week on Drugs | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper - Another excellent drug war round-up from stalwart drug war chronicler (pun not intended) Dominic Holden.
• FOXNews.com - Dick Cheney Disagreed With President Bush Over Donald Rumsfeld Dismissal - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum - It’s still hard to believe those dudes came up together in the Office of Economic Opportunity–an agency charged with battling poverty.
• Brijit - Great content in 100 words or less - This site was created by a friend of a friend of mine. It’s an interesting concept–creating links to and compiling summaries of high-quality, long-form content–but I imagine the competition’s pretty stiff.

Inside sources report that President Bush is receiving pressure from Republican party officials and conservative activists to return the Seahawks #43 jersey presented to him by Mack Strong and Matt Hasselbeck earlier this year. “After Sunday’s game, it’s becoming a real vulnerability,” explained a White House staffer. “The President can’t afford to have himself associated with that level of incompetence.”

I was so caught up in the Haymaker & Sally premiere that I neglected on Friday to wish a happy 43rd birthday to Mik Lezan, real name Kim Nazel, better known to hip-hop nostalgists as Arabian Prince. Little known fact (outside the world of dedicated rap fandom) is that Arabian Prince was a founding member of N.W.A. and is pictured on the cover of Straight Outta Compton. He appeared only on the song “Something 2 Dance 2” (as well as on “Panic Zone” on N.W.A. and the Posse), and left the group upon realizing that he was the odd man out.

A solo career has been hit or miss; I recall as a 12-year-old buying the tape “Brother Arab” and bumping his semi-hit, “She’s Got a Big Posse” on the double tape deck stereo I got for Christmas. Apparently, though, I was one of the few, and Arabian moved on to join the redneck-sounding Bobby Jimmy and the Critters, the best surviving photo of whom I could find online features a little editorializing on the bands’ skills:

Arabian Prince, looking like the odd man out once again.

These days, Lezan/Nazel bangs out electro beats as Professor X and does some video game work for Fox/Vivendi. He was also recently credited as a writer of Fergie’s “Fergalicious“–mainly, it seems, for his production work on the sampled J.J. Fad hit “Supersonic“.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Prince. Sorry the N.W.A. gig didn’t work out, but way to make lemons into lemonade.

Dick-Cheney-as-creepy-angel photograph courtesy of Fox News

Monday, October 8th
Lynne Cheney continues her work on the press circuit to promote Blue Skies, No Fences, her recently released memoir of her childhood in Casper, Wyoming.

Guantanamo detainee listens to Blue Skies on audio book.

Pitch for sequel: Casper goes to Guantanamo, finds fences, doesn’t come back.

Tuesday, October 9th
Clarence Thomas writes that if Lynne Cheney’s book outsells his, he will “stop writing books, sleeping on the bench, and pubicizing my disputes.” His editor declines to add a [sic].

Thursday, October 11th
Dick Cheney poses for a Fox News profile of him in one of his vintage Inquisitionist robes.

“The robe reminds me of the debt I owe my forebears,” explains Cheney. “It keeps me humble.”

Saturday, October 13th
Baghdadis flock to the Al-Zawraa zoo to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday. At midday, the festivities are interrupted by gunfire. Afterward, a young Iraqi boy is overheard asking his father, “where were those big American elephants that always talk about how we’re so important?”
“They just say that,” responded his father. “They don’t actually come here.”
Both are then shot by Blackwater Security guards.

There are only about 14 left, though, so get to the Admiral Theater ASAP to get yours!

Yesterday, I was interviewed by the fine folks at West Seattle Blog. Click on the Haymaker & Sally action shot below to read what I had to say!