Category: Humor

If Comcast’s CEO had sucked up to Teddy Roosevelt

~ odd man out ~ 2 Comments
"Did I hear you right? You want Time-Warner? You're a funny guy, Roberts.
‘Did I hear you right? You want Time Warner, too? You’re a funny guy, Roberts.’

Swamp Rabbit had an interesting thought today. You’ve got to wonder, he said, how many media companies Comcast CEO Brian Roberts would have gobbled up if recent U.S. presidents hadn’t been stooges for big business.

Net neutrality is only one of Comcast’s big battles right now: the other is getting approval for its merger with Time Warner Cable. Here, too, Comcast’s lobbyists have close connections in Washington. In fact, the [Wall Street] Journal reports that Comcast actually invited a senior antitrust official with the Justice Department to a party a month before it announced the merger. The official declined. Comcast has also had a relationship with President Obama for some time now. The Journal reports that Comcast employees contributed $337,000 to his reelection campaign and that he’s gone golfing with Roberts.

Imagine Roberts sucking up to Teddy Roosevelt in order to acquire even more riches and power. The rabbit thinks the bull moose, speaking softly, would have denounced Roberts as a malefactor of great wealth, then hit him over the head with a big 5-iron.

“You’re way off,” I said. “Golf is the sport of corrupt cornballs. Teddy Roosevelt didn’t play golf. He played real sports, the kind that get your heart rate up.”

“Whatever,’ the rabbit replied. “Point is, there wouldn’t be no so-called relationship with Roberts. There would be a law against him.”

Footnote: Being a monopoly means never having to say you’re sorry when thousands of customers say you suck.

‘Deflategate’ a bigger story than SOTU

~ odd man out

deflategate

I was on the porch at the shack with Swamp Rabbit, critiquing Barack Obama’s sixth State of the Union address. Obama turned out to be the embodiment of magical thinking on the part of American liberals, I told the rabbit. It long ago became clear he is the consummate insider, good buddies with Jamie Dimon and other elite fraudsters, but put him onstage and he still sounds like a crusader against income inequality:

It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next fifteen years, and for decades to come. Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?

I noted that the questions Obama posed have been answered many times since the Reagan years, when the income gap between the rich and poor began to widen. But our silver-tongued leader obviously enjoys re-asking it, especially now that both the Senate and House are in Republican hands and his opportunity to fight income inequality has come and gone.

“The man is a lame duck,” the rabbit said. “Don’t matter what he says or what you say. How ’bout you git down off that soapbox? There’s real news goin’ on out there.”

I pointed out to him that I was standing on his case of Wild Turkey, not on a soapbox. “What’s the real news?” I said.

It was “Deflategate.” Someone from the New England Patriots, prior to the team’s game against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, may have let some of the air out of the footballs the Patriots would use. Slightly deflated balls are easier to throw and catch, so the balls may have been a factor in the Patriots’ lopsided victory. In other words, the Patriots have been accused of cheating. Stop the presses!

“That’s crazy,” I said. “Everybody knew the Patriots were going to win that game. You’re just angry because you didn’t have the money to bet on them, and because you lost money on them the week before. How come the Patriots are news but Obama isn’t?”

The rabbit twitched his nose and spat in the swamp. “Because nobody knows yet how the Patriots story is gonna turn out. That’s more than you can say for the Obama story.”

Notes on Anita Ekberg, ‘sex goddess’

~ odd man out ~ 6 Comments

News of Anita Ekberg’s death at 83 got Swamp Rabbit and me and other Federico Fellini fans thinking of Ekberg’s small but unforgettable role in La Dolce Vita (1960), her only good movie and one of the greatest movies ever to be shown at my shack in the Tinicum swamp.

I liked the photo of Ekberg in People magazine’s obit, but I took issue with how the writer described La Dolce Vita:

In the Fellini classic, which starred Marcello Mastroianni in what was essentially one long hedonistic romp through the Eternal City, Ekberg ignited her own eternal sex goddess image when she alluringly waded through the Fountain of Trevi in a black, strapless dress.

Calling La Dolce Vita a hedonistic romp is like calling Hamlet a revenge thriller — the description is reductive, to say the least. The movie’s anti-hero, Marcello, is an exceedingly charming fellow who parties non-stop because he can’t think of anything meaningful to do with his talents. His misery is compounded by the fact that he works as a journalist/publicist at a time when the media is evolving into an all-seeing monster that trivializes people, ideas and institutions.

“I don’t like that cat on her head,” the rabbit said as we watched Ekberg in the movie’s famous fountain scene. “But she’s one of them sex goddesses, for sure.”

I explained to the rabbit that Ekberg’s Sylvia is more than a sex goddess to Marcello. She’s the great novel he’ll never write, the undying love he’ll never experience, the faith — and faithfulness — that will forever elude him. Ultimately, she’s like the other loves in his life, in that she embodies his dread as well as his aspirations.

“Whatever you say,” the rabbit said. “But if she ain’t no sex goddess, I don’t know who is.”

Ivan Klima covers the NFL playoffs

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

klima

Swamp Rabbit and I were hungry, so we took a two-day job — strictly commission, unfortunately — peddling magical electricity in a suburban mall. There were flat-screen TVs and football fans all over the place. We caught some of the New England Patriots-Baltimore Ravens playoff game as we worked. The rabbit had bet on the Patriots to win by seven points, but they only won by four, so he lost his bet and was in no mood to join the Patriots fans as they cheered.

But the fans quickly shut up and went back to gawking at the shiny toys in the mall. Tom Brady is a great QB, I told the rabbit, but who really cares about the Patriots where we live, in Philadelphia Eagles country? In fact, who cares about the Eagles? They’re done. Show me the next distraction, please.

“In the end, it’s all garbage,” I added.

No one was looking to consume magical electricity, so I pulled from my backpack a dog-eared copy of Czech novelist Ivan Klima’s Love and Garbage and read to the rabbit a relevant passage about consumers:

They fill the streets, the squares, the stadiums and the department stores. When they burst into cheers over a winning goal, a successful pop song or a revolution, it seems as if that roar would go on forever, but it is followed at once by the deathly silence of emptiness and oblivion.

“Don’t give me no high-falutin’ lectures, I ain’t in the mood,” the rabbit replied. “I just lost fifty bucks on them freakin’ Patriots. Now I gotta stand here and watch these here consumers consume all them toys I can’t afford.”

I told him all is good, the toys won’t make the consumers any happier than he is, not for more than a few minutes. “What these people need, they can’t buy at the mall,” I said.

I added. “You’re just looking to fill the void inside you where your soul should be.”

“You got that right, Odd Man. Any liquor stores in this dump?”

We folded up our table and left the mall, still hungry. On the way back to the swamp I stole some wieners at the SuperFridge and a liter of Wild Turkey at Tinicum Beer & Spirits.

“Here you go, rabbit,” I said, handing him the Wild Turkey back at the shack. “But this garbage won’t fill the void.”

He guzzled straight from the bottle and said, “Maybe not, but at least it’ll stop the shakes.”

Outlaw bikers with badges and benefits, aka NYPD

~ odd man out ~ 2 Comments

swamp rabbit

Is it possible to be paranoid and arrogant as hell at the same time? Sure it is, if you’re a cop.

Swamp Rabbit asked me how I could say such a thing. I told him to check out the NYPD goons who turned their backs to dis New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at the funerals of their two slain comrades. As if the mayor somehow inspired the loony who killed the cops. As if he was expressing solidarity with cop killers when he addressed the concerns of people who feel victimized by the city employees who’ve sworn to protect them.

The rabbit tossed some twigs into the wood stove and said, “Git a grip, Odd Man. Screamin’ at me ain’t gonna stop cops from killin’ guys who sell loosies, or bring back the kid with the toy gun who got blasted by some Barney Fife in a playground.”

I slammed the wood stove door and said, “I know that, you stupid rodent. All I’m saying is it shouldn’t surprise anybody when cops turn their backs. That’s what most cops do.”

The rabbit took a swig of Wild Turkey and tried to pass the bottle to me. I shook him off. He said, “I still don’t get your drift, Odd Man.”

“Well, get this. You ever call the cops when there’s a domestic dispute? When your bike gets stolen or your car window smashed? When somebody breaks into your shack and walks off with your flat-screen? When some nut job down the block threatens to stab your first-born? Cops take two hours to show up. Then they laugh at you. Then they threaten to lock you up if you make a fuss. Then they turn their backs and walk.”

He accused me of exaggerating. “You’re just talkin’ about that rotten neighborhood in Philly where you grew up. Most people like havin’ a police department.”

I threw an empty can of black-eyed peas at him. “Cops aren’t a department, they’re a tribe. They’re like outlaw motorcycle gangs. They don’t rat on their brothers. They watch out for each other. They think in terms of us versus them. They hurt people who mess with them. Half the time, they lock up the wrong people. They exist outside the law.”

“You make it sound like all cops are bad guys,” the rabbit said. “That’s like sayin’ all bus drivers is bad.”

“You’re right, rabbit, there’s good and bad in all professions. But bus drivers can’t shoot people or strangle them just for looking at them funny.”

“Them’s just the bad apples,” the rabbit insisted. “Most cops ain’t like outlaw bikers.”

“Right again,” I said. “Cops wear badges and get great benefits and pensions and can retire before their hair turns gray. Bikers don’t get benefits.”

I would have kept my rant going, but the rabbit turned his back on me and hopped out to the swamp.