|
February 27, 2008 - Wednesday
 |
William F Buckley
Category: News and Politics
Political writer/commentator William F Buckley died today. I lean to the Left, but I liked ol Bill Buckley. I'll take a smart conservative over a dumb conservative (see, e.g. Pat Buchanan or any Bush) any day. In fact, I'll take a smart conservative over a dumb liberal. At least when I'm picking TV shows.
And really he was more complicated than a knee-jerk right-winger. Buckley in the late 80s, reversed himself on the drug war and came out for legalization of drugs.
And he was a character. Once Buckley came to Boston U when I was there and taped a couple episodes of his show "Firing Line". At one point he was asking John Kenneth Galbraith a question and while he was speaking he picked a piece of lint off his leg and held up it and examined it and then flicked it away. He's taping a nationally broadcast show and talking to someone from the Kennedy administration and it could barely compete with his own pants. The pomposity cracked me and my buddy up and we ape the lint gesture from time to time to this very day. Yes, nerds. Obviously.
Another one that cracked me up: Once Buckley referred to Oprah Winfrey as "the black lady who is alternately fat and thin, I forget her name." Awful! And gorgeous!
The only time I know of where Buckley cracked was in a debate with Gore Vidal. Here it is from Buckley's bio:
With an estimated 10 million people watching... Vidal called Buckley a "pro-crypto-Nazi," .... Buckley snapped: "Now listen, you queer," he said, "stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in you goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."
Vidal responded, "How extraordinary!"
I only ever heard about this. I wish I'd seen it. Holy shit! I just checked and it's on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8
It's so strange to see Buckley lose it here because the rest of the time he was that suave, pretentious elitist who never got phased by anything. Kudos to Vidal for getting under his skin. But Kudos to Buckley too for living a life that made this incident a funny exception. It seems like more and more these days, all over the political spectrum, all we get are barkers. Today we lost a thinker.
I like sharp people, even if they are smug Republican country club pricks. And I liked Bill Buckley.
Anchors aweigh, old boy.
4:56 PM
-
3 Comments - 3 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
December 10, 2007 - Monday
|
New podcast is up!
Category: Podcast
Episode 6 is up. Also I've uploaded higher quality, clearer versions of ep.s 4 and 5.
You can download them from my website
or you can get them from iTunes.
Thanks for listening. Let me know what you think.
Dan
4:25 AM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
June 28, 2007 - Thursday
|
podcast beta-test
Category: Podcast
hello friends!
i'm working on a new podcast and i'd love to hear people's input.
thanks!
dan
10:43 PM
-
1 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
June 11, 2007 - Monday
|
The Sopranos Ends
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Everyone so far is saying the ending was ambiguous. I found it pretty straightforward and I'll bet David Chase eventually confirms this: Tony got killed.
The music didn't continue over the credits like in every other episode. It stopped and the screen went black for several seconds and the credits rolled over silence.
We watched the show mostly from Tony's point of view and it ended, as it had to, with his end. I don't think Chase was being cute or cruel with his ending. He was just giving us Tony's subjective (non) experience.
Bobby said it earlier in the season: "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?" How much clearer can they get? Tony went just like Phil Leotardo did - A gun to the temple that he never saw and a shot he never heard or felt.
Most fans of The Sopranos enjoyed all the killing. We liked watching people get whacked. People got bored with the show in stretches where there wasn't a lot of death and this must have irritated Chase. I think he wanted to make Tony's ending difficult for the audience. If we watch it happen, we're distanced, we're not experiencing it. We're safe. Tony going in a hail of blanks and squibs would've been banal and rung false. The way Chase did I think was so much more powerful. I think Chase was saying with this ending: You want death? This is death. It's darkness and silence and it's not fun.
6:31 PM
-
5 Comments - 4 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
May 22, 2007 - Tuesday
|
Bad Beats (for poker nerds only)
Category: Life
Last night I played poker at George's place, and it was one of those nights where things mostly go wrong.
Right away I had a couple bad hands. QQ got reraised all in by 66. I call and he catches a 6. Next hand AQ - I raise and get called by some knucklehead with Q6 suited. I flop an A and he calls the rest of his stack w a flush draw that gets there on the turn. It seemed like the draws were coming against me every time. I got into one of my bad moods where I take it all personally. I tried to talk myself out of it.
Big hand: I had KK and smooth called a guy who raised in late position since I saw the button and small blind getting ready to to fold. Z called in the big blind though and when the flop came 45J he checkraised me all in, a raise of $425. I thought about it a long time. I watched his face when the flop came down and I thought I had seen a flicker of something, like maybe the flop hit him. He could easily have had a set. But Z usually liked to trap with those kinds of hands. On the other hand he didn't often try semi-bluffs with me. Usually when he bet big w me, he had a big hand. On the other hand, he didn't know how strong I was because I hadn't reraised preflop. I was near folding but something in me wanted to call. I stopped for a moment and questioned the impulse. Sometimes you call out of stubbornness, out of frustration - an almost suicidal impulse. I looked at the feeling to call and I decided it wasn't those things, just an instinct that I was ahead, so I called. Z didn't look happy which made me feel good. The turn was another J which scared me, since if he had something like AJ, he now had trips, but no, it was the river 3 that allowed him to slam down his A2 (!) and say "Ship it!" I said "You gotta be fuckin kidding me!" Usually I take a beat in stride but this was so ugly.
The last hand of the night I called a preflop raise w 9T of clubs and flopped A44 with two clubs. Z bet and got a call. I thought the caller might be on a better flush draw and mine might not even be good. I heard Annie Duke once point out that most people only consider positive implied odds, but there are also negative implied odds. But I was getting better than 3 to one, so I called. The turn brought the flush. Finally a little luck! Z and the other guy checked. I decided to keep the pot small in case one of them had a bigger flush and checked behind, figuring I'd call whatever they bet on the river or value bet if it was checked to me. The river: a third 4! - Z bet out $300 and the other guy called and I mucked my only flush of the night, and they split the pot (with their full houses - AA444).
In the end I didn't feel too awful because I'd come back some from being way down, from several smaller pots. Still, that flush would've brought me to even. I was thinking about this on the drive home. And then I thought, Z's gutshot wasn't that sick a hand since he also was drawing to 3 aces, which gave him 7 outs, or nearly a 28% shot. And then I saw a dead man lying on the sidewalk by Lincoln ave, surrounded by police, in a small, taped-off area, face to the sky, looking not at all at peace.
6:39 PM
-
3 Comments - 5 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
|
|
May 30, 2007 - Wednesday
|
these match.com ads
Category: MySpace
these match.com ads all over myspace are not exactly making me think about finding a wife! is match.com a porn site? (i ask because i have no experience with dating sites or porn sites. i am too busy thinking about how to save the world.)
8:48 PM
-
3 Comments - 2 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
|
