the onion

OBAMA = HITLER… OBVIOUSLY

There’s a line you’ll be familiar with from Yeats that has been repeated so many times, in so many contexts, as to have become rather hackneyed. You know, the one about the best lacking all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Its a cliche. But it’s hard to think of any recent debate to which that line might more appropriately have been applied than the push for healthcare reform currently underway in the U.S.

The eventual outcome there will be of borderline relevance on this side of the Atlantic. But there are a couple of observations that can already be made: Read the rest of this entry »

THE KING IS DEAD (SLIGHT RETURN)

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of Michael Jackson’s demise is that, for all the singer’s peculiarities, his death so exactly echoes the deaths of countless of other troubled, prodigiously talented entertainment icons down through the years (Elvis, Judy Garland, Hank Williams etc. etc.) It has the same basic plot (the gift as the curse) and exactly the same cast of characters (sycophants, leeches, quack doctors.) There will, no doubt, be further revelations about Michael Jackson’s personal life in the coming weeks and months, and it’s safe to assume that it won’t be pretty.

But on a happier note for now, this personal remembrance, written by Deepak Chopra’s (wonderfully monikered) son Gotham Chopra, is among the more interesting tributes to Jackson I’ve come across in the last few days. In it, he talks about planned strip club visits, sacks full of cash and doling out sex advice to a man seventeen years his senior – on the occasion of Jackson’s marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. Read the rest of this entry »

THIS IS FUNNY

It’s odd the things that make me laugh. The Onion cleverly subvert Garrison Keillor’s excellent, but eminently risible, Lake Wobegon books. It barely raises a smirk. Then they put Nicholas Cage in a fake mustache and I’m giggling and like a schoolgirl. Go figure.