Terry McMahon's Awesome Blog

Thanks to Common Sense Dancing for posting this link to the Best of Tina Fey on Weekend Update. It's hilarious.

I'd also like to say I'm glad that NBC put this together, but I'm going to call them up and ask them if, instead of throwing the money away, they can just sell access to the SNL archives online and then give me the money. They'd end up with the same amount of money, but I and the whole fucking world would profit. Isn't there some general-welfare clause somewhere we can use to hammer them into opening up the old sketches? It's understandable that they wouldn't grasp the potential in the pre-YouTube era, but especially since NBC aggressively shuts off uploaded SNL clips, they have to know there's a huge market out there. I would LOVE to see all the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer sketches again.

Posted by Terry McMahon at 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I mean, how can he not?

But in an unusually critical assessment of his party's political blunders and failures in the last election cycle, the Nevada lawmaker said, "We're not off-guard anymore, and we are busting our rear ends over here now."
...
"We were elected to govern as Republicans, and we lost our way and the voters saw little difference between us and the Democrats. We need to get the heart and soul back in our party," he said.

Posted by Terry McMahon at 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not to cite Paul Waldman any time he writes anything, but his latest blog post is spot-on. He covers two topics: the media tendency to ask Democrats tougher questions on religion than they do Republicans, and the vulnerabilities the Republican presidential candidates face on those same questions. Here's how it starts:

So now John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton have all been asked, with varying results, whether they agree with Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace’s assertion that homosexuality is “immoral.” Much ink has been spilled on their answers. But I haven’t seen that the leading Republican candidates for president have been asked the question, and I’d be interested to hear the results.

Posted by Terry McMahon at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some random stuff for an insert-day-I-finally-post afternoon:

• Fair and balanced! If you think Fox News might skew a little too conservative, this is hilarious.

• When noted former professor of mine Paul Waldman titled his latest column "Damn Right We're Angry" I was a bit concerned it would be too emotional to be effective, but by the end, I was pretty angry too.

• I disagree with The New Republic a fair amount, but they nail it on this one, the provocatively titled "Why We Shouldn't Ignore Ann Coulter."

• Finally, on a cruel-but-funny note, Mad ripoff Cracked has decided to reinvent itself as an online Maxim/humor hybrid, and, as it turns out, it's actually not halfway bad. My favorite example is from "People's 15 Most Ludicrous Celebrity Write-Ups":
  

  BEYONCE KNOWLES
  People’s Scoop
  “Knowles, 24, when asked to imagine what life might have been like if she hadn't been born beautiful, said: ‘To be honest, I feel people would have acknowledged my talent a lot more.’"(p. 110)
  The Ugly Truth
  Actually, you would have been “that dumpy chick with the weird name who takes karaoke night way too seriously.”

  
  Ouch. But almost certainly true. You know that unattractive girl who went from R&B smash to movie star? Right.

  Posted by Terry McMahon at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lots of stuff going on:

• I found this video pretty amusing. Thanks Noam!

• I barely follow the NBA, and I tried and failed to read a Chuck Klosterman book, but this Klosterman article on the Wizards' Gilbert Arenas is terrific. Money quote:
  

  What’s weirder: admitting that you’re crazy, or always pretending that you are not?

• So NYU Law hosted the second annual National Law School Democrats convention over the weekend, and somewhat impulsively I ran for president of the national board. The election went exactly the same way as every campaign in which I'm involved (even the percentages were similar) so I'm going to pretend I'm like Toby in the West Wing, losing every election until finally, someday, winning a big one. But the surest sign of success is resorting to fictional characters to give yourself hope, so I'll do future oppo researchers a favor and compare myself to Bernie Sanders. You may know where he is now, but in 1972 he ran for the U.S. Senate in Vermont as the Liberty Union Party candidate and pulled two percent of the vote (which I did top last weekend). Then, in another run for Senate 34 years later, he actually takes 65 percent of the vote and wins the seat, despite never joining a major political party. That's a comeback.

  But I don't bring this up entirely to whine: that convention was a fucking blast. Besides having the opportunity to meet a lot of fun people who a) also care a little too much about politics & elections and b) will be running the country with me in 30 years, I love events that are really intense, really social, and really productive. Our goal was to introduce active Democratic law students to different political roles they could have as lawyers, and I think we succeeded. I was predisposed to hope everything worked out, but I found all the speakers and most of the panelists to be compelling and insightful. Our speakers were mostly New Yorkers, which I feared would turn off our national crowd, but the speakers themselves had fascinating things to say about the general nature of political life. I know in particular City Councilman Eric Gioia gave us a look into what it was like to run against a threatening political machine and win, and those too hungover to hear the Sunday morning talk by state Sen. Eric Schneiderman missed an interesting and well-reasoned argument on emphatically arguing the Democratic agenda. In both cases I was really impressed. (The breakfast was good too.) To top it all off, I had the honor of introducing longtime New York congressman and current House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, which was a real treat and kind of a blast. I think I handled myself okay (I count that as one of two good speeches I gave that weekend, in contrasts to screwing up a PowerPoint presentation at the fundraising panel I moderated) but while I merely got off a couple good lines, Congressman Rangel really nailed his speech and excited the crowd into our only standing ovation of the entire convention. The whole convention was a wonderful experience, and I'm lucky I got to play a role in its organization.

  In other words, I need to go to events like this more often.

• So the sweetie pie procured a pair of tickets to the Colbert Report the other night. The two hours waiting outside of the studio in the cold weren't the best part (though I did make solid progress on Elite Beat Agents), but otherwise the whole affair went off splendidly. They hand you tickets as you walk in with a seat number, and they call your numbers in order. The studio, itself a lot smaller than you'd think from TV, holds 109 audience members, so everyone's fairly close to the front. Not as close as the two of us, though, because seats 39 and 40 were right in the front row! The warm-up guy was pretty funny and kept things lively (my favorite part was when he kept mocking the older guy in a suit for being a stereotypically rich guy, which went from funny to hilarious when it turns out the poor sap actually had a paycheck falling out of his pocket) until our host came out. Colbert himself made more leaps and twirls in his entrance than I expected, and he did a quick Q&A, as he said, to make us like him despite the awful things he would say during the show.

  The show itself was pretty funny, though I suspect I want it to be funnier when I'm actually there. They skipped The Word, not just my favorite segment but, I had thought, an everyday occurrence. But I didn't really mind: Ben & Jerry were on to discuss the Colbert-themed ice cream flavor, and then a Kerry religious strategist wouldn't let Colbert get a word in edgewise. The highlights, though, were at the end. They had told us even when we were in line that we had a "surprise," which the sweetie immediately predicted as free ice cream, and then right before the cameras went on for the closing segment Colbert was holding a pint of ice cream and we could see the unsubtle first half-sentence on the teleprompter. Sure enough, Colbert said that "I'm sure our studio audience would love to try some of the new Ben & Jerry's Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream ice cream, but we only have one pint. [half-pause] For each and every one of you!" That was effective. We all started cheering and such, but the sweetie and I were both impressed with the clips they were showing on the screen, where people were jumping up and down and hugging. I mean, it's just ice cream. (It was really a clip from Oprah when she gave out free cars. Those Colbert folks are devious.) Here's the key: after they showed the old Oprah clips, a camera guy ran across the right side of the room, pointed at the front row. In other words, despite the fact that neither of us were actually looking at the camera, the sweetie and I were on Colbert! For a second. We watched the broadcast later that night, and sure enough, you could freeze-frame it right on us! All in all, a fun show and a great night. (And vanilla ice cream with a caramel swirl and fudge-covered waffle-cone bits. Highly recommended.)

Posted by Terry McMahon at 3:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)