Where C-SPAN is the local TV news
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| The Washington Canard Where C-SPAN is the local TV news |
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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
THE GREAT FLOOD Is irony dead again? At least for a little while? I'm not so sure. But let's consider:  And:  Am I the only one who actually misses the tedium of the antedeluvian late summer news cycle? I doubt it. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening going from bar to bar with the OC's Ian Spencer. Booze goes well with apocalypse. Ian's a die-hard Saints fan who has family in New Orleans. The last I heard his grandparents were still holed up in a downtown hotel. They stayed dry, but their homes are almost certainly not. Ian tells me most houses in the area are single-story. Thousands dead sounds disturbingly plausible, not to mention hundreds of miles of surrounding area. I think the front page editorial from today's Hotline brings it home for those of us whose biggest material problem is the after-effects of one Sam Adams too many: Anyone else get the feeling that we here in official Washington haven't quite grasped the seriousness of what's happening in LA and MS?Jeff Jarvis is the first person I know of to seriously pose the question: "Should New Orleans be rebuilt?" I think the can-do American thing to say is "yes." But we decline, it wouldn't be the first time we've given up on a city. I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk of Diamond City, North Carolina or Vanport, Oregon. We've given up before, although certainly not on this scale. I'm in the rebuild camp — as long as it's rebuilt smarter. I'll admit to having never given money to a charity before, but I used to be living paycheck to paycheck, plus my company will match my donation, dollar for dollar. Everyone who can give something should. Anything is better than nothing. UPDATE — I've changed my mind about the relevance of Vanport and Diamond City. Both are far too small to be meaningfully compared to New Orleans. Rather, as the Chicago Tribune points out, San Francisco was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake, and Chicago was rebuilt after that business with Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Saturday, August 27, 2005
TEMPORARY NOTICE What happened to (most of) the pictures here? Well, as of earlier this evening I let a friend host a few pictures on my host website while his server-tightwad bosses were off somewhere else, as his website attracted traffic well beyond what I'd paid for. So, hang on. In the meantime, I'm using a server that I probably shouldn't be using to host the John Belushi picture at right. As of Monday, everything will return to normal... or I may well have been fired, so maybe I'll be writing for the Canard full-time. Watch this space. Which website? Look, I'm not trying to get him fired. Just me. UPDATE — Service restored, obviously. And job retained. To paraphrase Gerry Ford, my fellow blog-readers, our short Internet nightmare is over. IF HBO ISN'T TV, THEN WHY IS IT ON CHANNEL 3? How far have I come since I tried to cancel my cable in January? Far enough to have purchased a 32" television and gotten myself hooked on the premium channels which magically started coming through after I sent the cancel order. Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" on Showtime is terrific, but by "premium channels," of course I primarily mean HBO. And if it just as magically got cut off now, I'd probably just start paying for it. With a fall season including "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Real Time With Bill Maher," the new Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant show "Extras," and not soon enough another round of "The Sopranos," I'm stuck.  One show I never planned to care a whit about was "Six Feet Under." Until this summer, I had seen just three episodes, courtesy Netflix. The original concept was interesting enough: a family drama set around a funeral home. But from the get-go it seemed too much a soap opera, and Echopraxia told me the show got only more unrealistic while the funeral home aspect became more tangential as the series went on, so I didn't bother queueing up any more. The best thing about the show, I contended (and still do) was the eerie opening theme. If nothing else, go find that on Soulseek.But I'll watch lousy HBO before I watch lousy network programming, not to mention before I (God forbid) actually turn the damned thing off. Plus, I'm sort of compelled to see how any given popular television show show closes out, and my mysterious HBO subscription happened to coincide with the end of this particular program.  And I will say this for "SFU": They killed off the main character with three episodes left to go, and the last five minutes of the final episode was truly remarkable. It's that concluding segment which inspires this post. Against a piano-driven folk-rock melody, a series of "glow-vision" flash-forwards shows how the show's surviving principal characters met their ends — twenty, forty, eighty years into the future. For a show in which at least one person dies every week (usually just someone who ends up in the Fisher family morgue) it was the best possible conclusion. The preceding hour or so is all right, but I'll save my recommendation for the final segment only. Ann Althouse has some fair criticisms of the montage, and so does one of her commenters, but I think it worked anyway. Schmaltzy and flawed, sure, but nevertheless powerful, and until I find out it's been done before, original. Plus there's that song, "Breathe Me," by someone named Sia, which makes me want to hear more from that artist. "Everybody dies" — as Television WIthout Pity titled its typically-snarky-and-more-comprehensive-than-necessary summary — is hard to argue with. UPDATE — I wandered past the "Sopranos" weblog at NJ.com, and according to Michael Imperioli, shooting for Season 6 wraps in February 2006. That means Season 6 won't be out for a few months thereafter. So, uh, maybe we still have another year to wait before that show's final season. Or, as David Chase keeps hinting, its penultimate. Thursday, August 25, 2005
YOU'VE GOT THE LAND, BUT I'VE GOT THE VIEW  And on this slightly inebriated last "Friday" Thursday of my short work-week August, I feel pretty blissfully... Wednesday, August 24, 2005
I PLEAD NO CONTEST The One-Handed Economist calls me out. Maybe I should put my IM conversations off-the-record, or failing that, on background. P.S. — For what it's worth, I wasn't the one watching "Jimmy Neutron." CAP LOUNGE IS DEAD! LONG LIVE CAP LOUNGE! Capitol Lounge, a watering hole beloved of Hill rats and those who don't mind consorting with Hill rats, was gutted by fire last night. Some say it was started by a carelessly disposed-of cigarette, others (like the bartender) say it was faulty wiring, and until proved otherwise, some will probably suspect insurance-driven arson. I was most recently there in July to hang out with Jonathan Singer* from Basie! and inhale the better part of a gallon of Sierra Nevada. If only I'd known it would be my last. The picture below comes from DCist, which had the first report about it this morning:  The place was popular enough and in such a desirable location that it will surely return. Or at least something calling itself the Capitol Lounge. The walls of Cap Lounge, as everyone refers to it, were plastered with campaign memorabilia going back half a century at least. While it's far from the only restaurant/bar in town to play up its DC location — after all, it is only a block from the nearly-identical Hawk & Dove — but it did have one of my favorite pieces of propaganda ever: a weathered sign above the stairs down to the basement saluting Marion Barry as DC's "MAYOR FOR LIFE." To be sure, Barry isn't actually mayor today, but who knew his political career would outlast the Cap Lounge? UPDATE — Have you seen the Wonkette post about this? Go check it out. See that picture? That is not Cap Lounge. Obviously Ms. Cox never darkened the door at 231 Pennsylvania Ave., because she apparently grabbed the photo from the first page of results at Google's image search. And that www.capitollounge.com website she links to? Not the Cap Lounge website. That's the "Capitol Lounge and Grill" in Nova Scotia. Advantage: Canard! UPDATED AGAIN — Thanks to a reader, or someone, Washington Canard gets results! ____ *For my fellow Wilsonites, that's Anna and Benji's younger brother. Saturday, August 20, 2005
IMMEDIATIZING THE ESCHATON Long before the blogosphere came into being, I got a great deal of my political, national and international news from the Drudge Report. And although Drudge's little enterprise seems to be as influential and lucrative as it's ever been, it hasn't been the first page I check each morning for several years now. Latte Lib's evening Drudge-checking habit sounds a lot like mine: "Hello Mr. Drudge. Is the world ending? No? Thank you. Goodbye Mr. Drudge."I imagine this describes the behavior of not a few Washingtonians. Speaking of Latte Lib and the District, make sure you follow that link and read his account of walking out his front door to find a gunshot man dying, and watching the killer walk away down an alley. It's plenty harrowing for one blog post; that should be enough to tide you over until "The Wire" returns. P.S. — For previous whining about how Drudge just isn't the same anymore, read this. Friday, August 19, 2005
DRAWING A BLANK (ENHORN) As reader "Lance Uppercut" wrote in a comment here this week, I am "totally famous," dude. On Monday the Canard's regular gig earned a rather emphatic recommendation from the leader of the widest-read blog community inside my area of coverage. No doubt, I'm quite appreciative of it. To my great relief, the reviews these past few weeks have been overwhelmingly positive. But the attention has inevitably brought a few non compos-ites out of the woodwork. Take for instance the e-mail reproduced below, one of the most self-important, dare I say arrogant, correspondences from one of the most frustratingly impossible individuals with whom I've ever traded electronic packets of information.  I'll save you the whole story, but this guy misinterpreted a line from a recent edition of the web column that pays the bills around here. Apparently he somehow believed I'd insinuated that Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was not killed in Iraq. The totality of my Sheehan coverage should have been enough to dispel the impression. Yet after I made an alteration for clarity, noted it in the same space and e-mailed a conciliatory after-note, he persisted in willfully misrepresenting my work in a post at his Corante-hosted personal weblog.So this is the text of what I believe was the third of an eventual six e-mails this guy sent me during the past week: You haven't learned a thing. You're back to acting like an arrogant prick journalist instead of what you're supposed to be, a humble blogger.We agree — it is unnecessary! The most ironic part is the allegation of arrogance from somebody who appointed himself the absent-minded editor of my fledgling blog round-up.  I don't want to embarrass this guy (UPDATE: I mean, no more than I have to). Let's call him D. Blankenhorn. No, too specific. How about Dana B.? But for what it's worth, I've been in the blogosphere formally with the Oregon Commentator and Armed Prophet since early 2003, and before that was a daily reader going back to the weeks following 9/11.If I was the irrational litigious type, I'd probably holler "libel" and make threats about a team of lawyers that I probably don't have. But hey, after biting down onto a mid-sandwich vegetable wire at a Foggy Bottom eatery last month and letting it slide, I can let this go. (Note to self: Switch to an all-carnivorous diet.) So Blankenhorn took an ill-advised shot, and missed badly. If his complaint really demanded a substantive refutation, it would include all the e-mails and a full accounting of the events, plus an unflinching fisking of his utterly bizarre blog post on this "alleged" kerfuffle. For the only rebuttal so far required, check the comments, and feel free to snicker at my own technical clumsiness. (Note to Corante: Your comment boards upload too slowly.) So that's it. Unless provoked further, I'll stand down. No need to get into a no-holds-barred cage match on these here Internets. P.S. — Perhaps this should have been an installment of "Great Spams of the Internet." UPDATE — I don't completely agree with the back-handed defenses of my work to be found in Mr. Blankenhorn's comments, but they do underscore my point about just how far he missed the mark. And apparently Blankenhorn or someone at Corante has edited the comments, because my "clumsiness" remark no longer makes any sense. Saturday, August 13, 2005
I'VE GOT MAIL! It's been a little over a year since I last unpacked my snail mailbox in this space, and I'm not going to bother with the same exercise now, but I was just reminded of it. Because: Every time I find myself about to say the name of Aruba-disappearer "Natalee Holloway" — which is not often but more than I'd prefer — I find myself struggling to find the precise words of her name. Why? I thought part of it was because the supposed culprit is (I believe) from Holland. But then, while looking through the mass of junk mail and correspondence for people who once lived in my apartment, I realized the main reason: one former resident I get too much mail for is named "Natalie Holland." So that should explain a minor mystery you were heretofore unaware of. Confidential to "Brent Kaos": I have some of your recent bills and mailings from various fashion industry publications. But the rest I threw out. Sunday, August 07, 2005
WHO IS THIS MAN?  And why is he belting out Sweet Child O' Mine and wearing a stranger's bra on a work night while a stripper uses him as a human dance pole? Click the pic to find out. Congrats, W2B, this is one to tell the grandkids about. Friday, August 05, 2005
SINISTER The Washington Canard can now reveal what the liberal/corporate media (choose one) won't tell you: That longtime Washington Post political reporter/columnist David Broder, oft-called the dean of the Washington press corps, is ... left-handed. Make of this what you will. Thursday, August 04, 2005
CALLING ALL OBJECTIVISTS! Clicking around the Internets this afternoon, I came across the blog Atlas Shrugs. Which immediately brought to mind: Wouldn't Atlas Blogs be a more apt name for a weblog? I should think so. Alas, I am not an objectivist; while there's much to like about the philosophy, it doesn't add up for me. In fact, I'm quite fond of saying that what Karl Marx is to the left, Ayn Rand is to the right. And I like my thousand-page novels thank you very much, yet I gave up after a few hundred pages of the novel in question. But don't let that stop you, prospective objectivist blogger, from accepting this invitation to take over the Blogger account for Atlas Blogs. I just registered it now, and I have no plans to use it for myself. All you have to do is send me an e-mail politely requesting access, and I'll gladly turn it over to you. P.S. — Whomever it is that registered the more proper Atlas Blogged with Blogger and never posted to it once: Shame on you. Shame, shame, shame. Wednesday, August 03, 2005
BLUE ON 11, GREEN ON 9, BLACK AT 4 Tuesday morning I woke up at 3:30 in the a.m. and decided to walk down to work a bit early. I left at the top of the hour, which is only about an hour earlier than I typically head for the Metro, and as I expected, the trip was maybe ten minutes longer. Down around the West End, I came upon this:  Huh? I could only assume the explanation would be found at www.xonwest.com. Indeed it was (except for Blue on 11, Green on 9, and "ZINC"). I bring you the world of tomorrow... today!  Starting units are in the $500,000 price range, going up to about 3.5 million, and set to open sometime in 2007. So hey, I can't see the future — I signed up for the preview list. The email they sent me a few minutes ago says they "expect to open for sales no later than July 2005." Hmm. That's a bit early, even for me. |
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— If this happened in Washington, you wouldn't be reading this. There would be no electricity; there would be no light; there would be no phones (even cell service would be nearly non-existent); your Blackberries would get no email; there'd be no subway; there'd be no newspaper delivered or available; you couldn't reach your friends; your office wouldn't exist or you couldn't get to it; your home would be gone; there'd be no schools to send your kids to; the graves of your family would be washed away; electrocuted family pets; snakes and other scary creatures everywere; and you'd have to move somewhere for at least 3 months. 
