Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime

To Carl Paladino

By now Carl is in his fortress of solitude, desperately trolling others. He wonders where it all went wrong. Perhaps he insulted too many people. Perhaps he didn't insult enough.


Either way, he lost. No two ways about it, he kept the cockiness up as long as possible. The bestiality porn taught him how to do that.


This year was supposed to be different. People were "mad as hell". He was "mad as hell". Every way of impersonating a living, breathing political internet troll got co-opted by him. Days were spent where he'd studying the habits of 4chan, trying to learn how to 'out-douche' the media. The media had some bizarre fixation on him, just because he was loud, obnoxious, racist, homophobic, stupid, and enjoyed cheating on his wife. It's like they didn't even care that Cuomo was going to raise their taxes. Those fools, they'd learn in due time.


But by then it would be too late.


Last midterm they gave the Democrats a chance. But this midterm was supposed to be different. A tax rebellion was going on. Had other tax rebellion people lost, it would be okay. There's company in misery. Sadly, that doesn't apply to Paladino. Most of his friends won absolutely crushing victories. They are busy celebrating, planning to dissemble governments, destroy basic governmental service, etc. You know the fun stuff. Alone in his misery, he'll spend the rest of the night watching "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".


He'll wish that he could simply ease voter's memories of everything he said and did with his life. After everything had been purged, maybe it would fail again. But perhaps it is better to have tried than not to have tried at all. Maybe he'll learn from that movie the importance of relationships. Those relationships aren’t based exclusively off of off-color remarks. Maybe they are based off of things like love, affection, and caring about others.

But everybody’s got to learn sometimes. That creed will be forever trapped in his head. As he’s typing up emails, he’ll think about it. As he talks about putting the poor into “fun work camps” he’ll think about that too. He really wants to make up for all the hurt he caused. Maybe next time he might not be so bad, he might change and attribute his victory to an award-winning independent film. 

We’ll see.

Washboard Rhythm Kings – Volume 2, 1932 8.9

Yes, most of my musical tastes have not shown any of my deep seeded love and admiration for big band music. People usually name drop jazz rather than engage it in any meaningful way. Miles Davis, John Coltrane and a few other artists whose music can be commercially lucrative are usually mentioned.

Which is why this is such a joy to behold. For one, they play a great deal of standards but in a truly lovable way. Plus, those washboards are far more enjoyable than you’d initially believe. They add to a sort of cheerful glee, like the depression is about to end (or recession in our case).

Anyway, the band was made up of some extremely talented musicians. They didn’t focus exclusively on jazz purity, like their rendition of “Tiger Rag” shows. There’s some talk of how “Tiger Rag” informal feel sounds like a precursor to rock. Most of their songs have a bit more looseness than would otherwise be expected for a jazz band, like at the end of “Just another Dream of You” where the guitar sounds almost electric with its high pitched pings.

But my favorite part is how you don’t have to be particularly pre-disposed to this sort of music to like it. In other words, you don’t have to drool over each big band jazz release to find joy in the songs.  And whoever did the re-issue did it with a bare minimum of hiss and scratch. This is worth checking out, since it has aged well, unlike some bands from the era (looking at you The California Ramblers).