Happy Week Before Valentine’s Day y’all! Here’s last year’s. And the one from the year before that. One day I’ll get around to printing and packaging all of these in a tidy little set. But I say the same thing every year and never follow through. Consider that annual empty promise my valentine to all of you.
If you’re still stumped on what to get your valentine, may I suggest a signed copy of the Big Fat Whale book, Fun Stuff for Dum-Dums? Comics last longer than flowers, and fart jokes don’t fatten asses like chocolate. And if you ain’t got nobody, buy my book instead of a drinking a fifth of whiskey and eating a pint of ice cream. Your liver and non-drunk-dialed-exes will thank you. Order by the end of Monday to get it in time. (International folks: Please celebrate Valentine’s Day on the 21st.)
The Supreme Court took a big wet shit on the shag carpet of democracy with their decision last week. Corporate personhood is garbage. A shitty human being can be shamed, or in the case of super-greedy-fucks, at least be torched and pitchforked by an angry mob. A corporate person can morph into a faceless non-person and hide behind a pile of money and an ace legal team as soon as it’s convenient.
The only rights corporations should have are the ones that protect their human participants’ individual rights. Telling ExxonMobil or Lockheed to shut the fuck up and stay out of elections doesn’t stop any of its vile, rapacious employees or shareholders from doing the same. Until Apple develops a tablet with its own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, only human beings deserve certain unalienable rights.
There were many great comics on the subject this week. Here are a few of my favorites:
Kevin Moore – If Persons Were Treated Like Corporations (I’m sad to report that this is the last In Contempt strip ever. At least until President Jenna Bush draws Kevin away from Wanderlost in the Fugly 20s.)
I predict lots of platitudes about jobs, spending freezes, and kissing the asses of human-jizz-stains like Lieberman and Baucus. At least this shit won’t be pre-empting Lost.
I’m not equating Jay Leno’s dick move to Pat Robertson’s vile nutjobbery about the earthquake in Haiti, but both things got me mad last week. I can multitask and compartmentalize my anger.
Obviously, Haiti is important, and who’s hosting what late night chat show isn’t. I don’t have much to say about Haiti, since I enjoy making jokes and there’s nothing funny about human suffering and the collapse of an entire nation.
Now on to The Tonight Show. If you’re a fan of absurd comedy, and you’re reading this, so you probably are, you know the whole deal and are solidly in Coco’s Corner. Those who aren’t already, just watch this clip and you will be:
Jay Leno is a hack and a liar. The only things that bring him joy are telling jokes that put old folks to sleep and fucking the exhaust pipes of steam-powered old-timey cars with his freakish chin.
I’d give Conan another lengthy handjob on my blog, but I did that less than a year ago when he left Late Night. His Tonight Show suffered from a terrible lead in, The Jay Leno Show, and way too many boring celebrity guests taking up valuable comedy time. If NBC had any class, they would have let Conan retool the show over the Olympics hiatus before shitcanning him and losing tens of millions of dollars. But that is too much to expect from the same network that ran a fucking The Office clip show last night.
It’s going to be a while before Conan emerges from his contractual deep-freeze, but wherever he ends up, he’s going to be hilarious. And I’ll be watching. (And gunning for a job on the writing staff.)
I can’t talk about this whole late night debacle without mentioning David Letterman, who invented late night comedy that is actually funny. He has been mean, hilarious, and sincere for decades, especially throughout this whole mess.
And now that I mentioned Letterman, I have to acknowledge Stewart and Colbert. They’re all great, and it sucks that their shows all air in the same one hour block. I can’t DVR or Hulu all of ‘em and still have time to dick around with this comic strip.
First, for you monster truck pedants, I know Truckosaurus’s given name is Robosaurus, but that is only acceptable if it ate robots instead of shitty cars.
Scott Brown had this dumb-ass commercial where he introduced Massachusetts to his truck. I laughed and laughed, which inspired panel six of last week’s cartoon. While I was laughing, Truck Nutz throughout my state related to the important issue of having a truck and elected a tea-bagger. Naturally, the only person who can defeat Brown in 2012 is someone who has a bigger truck, a machine that eats trucks, or possibly someone who has fucked a truck.
For a state that’s supposedly ultra-liberal, we sure pick some real weak-ass centrist clunkers to be our Democratic standard-bearers. I’m not talking Kucinich-level cuckoo, but we could certainly use someone like Bernie Sanders.
Don’t get excited, guy in Cambridge with a recumbent bike. I’m not talking about you. You are insufferable.
Sure, the weather’s shit, and both candidates ran awful negative campaigns that started during the holidays, which soured all normal folks on this election, but your vote is important. If you don’t vote, only the tea bag nuttos will turn out and get to pick the douche who’s going to represent us for the next three years.
I believe this election wouldn’t be close if Capuano won the primary, but the Democratic establishment is a mighty beast here, so we got Coakley. There are many valid reasons to bitch and moan about her, but she is the only choice if you care about ending wars (or at least not starting any new ones), gay marriage, health care, or think Ayn Rand is a selfish twat, rather than a financial genius.
So vote, and don’t let Kennedy’s Seat get stunk up by a dude who’s gonna be embarrassing us on Fox News for the next three years.
Conan O’Brien just announced he won’t be NBC or Leno’s bitch. And good for him. His Tonight Show was the best incarnation of the franchise, as far as my comedic sensibilities go. It was no Late Night, but Late Night had more than 7 months to reach its stride.
