In a supreme act of crudeness, the house band for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” The Roots, chose to play the Fishbone song “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” as GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann walked on stage.
There’s been an ongoing debate as to how politicians should be treated on late night talk shows. Should they be grilled with tough questions as if they’re on “Meet the Press” or should they be allowed to pitch their product while the smiling host offers some good-natured ribbing that serves to humanize them? The latter is consistent with how any other celebrity guest is received. The former is probably well beyond the skill set of a late night talk show host.
I’m not a fan of Bachmann but if I took leave of my senses and invited her to my house, I’d extend her an appropriate degree of respect. I might not break out my favorite Tuscan red but I wouldn’t serve her some nasty, vinegar-tasting mess from a box. I definitely wouldn’t call her a “bitch.”
The media mostly considers this a puckish prank on The Roots’ part. This is a curious response to such flagrant disrespect of not just a woman but of a sitting member of Congress.
That could just be the fuddy-duddy in me, though. I’m sure if David Letterman’s band had played Tribe Called Quest’s “Sucka Nigga” as Herman Cain walked on stage, the fall out would be about the same.
By the way, Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” provided the background vocal riff for Prince’s 1995 “Billy Jack Bitch.”
Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine asks “when did liberals become so unreasonable,” regarding their expectations for a Democratic president, which to me is like asking when did vegetarians become so unreasonable about the menu at Peter Luger Steakhouse.
Democrats have shifted more to the right as Republicans have shifted so far to the right they are in danger of falling off the edge of the world or becoming liberals — depends on whether you believe in Hellenistic politics. Obama is far more center-right than 1988’s Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, and George H.W. Bush, the Republican nominee that year, would be booed off the stage at any of this year’s GOP primary debates.
The twist is that no matter how much liberal weight Democrats lose, the conservatives see only bloated, big government Marxists. Continued efforts to compromise or receive conservative approval will only leave Democrats politically and philosophically emaciated husks of themselves.
The arguable lesson from the Faustian bargain that Democrats keep making is that they tend to be too concerned about winning to actually ever win. Would it make a difference if the Democratic left had the same ideological rigor as the Republican right? Or would you just wind up with a Frankenstein monster that looked like Obama, Boehner, and Bachmann? That certainly didn’t work for the Superfriends.
So, in the truly clueless category is this article from Slate:
A financial services lobbying firm floats $850,000 plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street protests.
That’s a lot of money to stop the efforts of people with no money. That’s about a dozen jobs right there. I’m reminded of the line from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”: “If he’d just pay me what he’s spending to stop me from robbing him, I’d stop robbing him.”
According to MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes,” lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford sent a memo to the American Bankers Association with an outline for the plan, which suggests, among other things, doing “opposition research” on the Occupy movement in order to help construct “negative narratives” about protesters and the politicians who support them.
Meanwhile, GOP presidential candidates are already doing their part. Newt Gingrich said the Occupy protesters need to “get a job” and “take a bath.”
“All the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything,” Gingrich said at the Thanksgiving Family Forum in Iowa, as noted by Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress. “They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything.”
As touching a sentiment this is for a presidential candidate to express at the “Thanksgiving Family Forum,” it seems to have a few fundamental problems: There’s the “us vs. them” mentality combined with the misrepresentation of the movement’s goals and the flat-out erroneous assertion that the protesters didn’t contribute to the public parks in which they are encamped. That’s why they are called “public” parks. Moreover, it’s disturbing to think that people can work and pay taxes for years but once they lose their jobs and dare to express frustration at a system that is not the least bit interested in fixing the economy it helped collapse, their so-called leaders will dismiss them as subhuman.
According to Gingrich, they should “get a job right after taking a bath.” It should reassure the unemployed in this country that it’s really that simple. All you need is a punchy cover letter and Dial.
Reading this NPR piece on the Occupy Wall Street protests, I came upon a true “let them eat cake” moment:
One man, who declined to give his name, but said he has worked on Wall Street for nine years, just shook his head. He was wearing a grey wool coat and his hair was neat and combed back. He stood at that corner for a while.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “I just don’t understand why they’re not out trying to find jobs.”
He said he works 75 to 80 hours a week, so he deserves to be part of the one percent. He says he chose a degree in finance so he could make a lot of money.
I told him what Nathan Storey had told me. He was laid off in 2008 and still couldn’t find a job.
The man shook his head.
“He could get jobs at McDonald’s,” he said. He conceded however that minimum wage isn’t much money and he said he was willing to pay more taxes.
But he said he truly believes if you want to make money in this country, you can work hard and do that.
“This is the land of opportunity,” he said.
There appears to be a disconnect in the anonymous gentleman’s statement that he entered finance so he “could make a lot of money” and his assertion that if you “want to make money in this country, you can work hard and do that.” Yes, “the land of opportunity” is the U.S.’s advertising slogan but that is as relevant in practice as “The King of Beers” is for Budweiser.
His McDonald’s comment is both unoriginal and condescending, as if working in the fast-food industry is a viable option for people who have trouble finding jobs. Sure, many companies are calluously choosing not to interview job applicants who are unemployed — their way of capitalizing further on the poor job market — but having McDonald’s on the resume won’t improve the situation.
He should also know that a bad economy usually doesn’t trickle down. It’s the jobs near the bottom of the 99 percent that are the first to fall. Why does he suppose there are all these job opportunities at McDonald’s? Or does he think any reasonably educated person is preferable to the usual applicants at the fast-food chain? If so, then what are they supposed to do if what used to be the middle class takes their jobs — find work as medical school cadavers?
But let’s propose that there are McDonald’s positions for anyone who wants one. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Even if you had the opportunity to work 75 to 80 hours a week (you won’t, as you’d be eligible for benefits and overtime), that’s about $30K a year. You’ll be exhaisted and won’t see your family but you’ll be content with the knowledge that you can provide them with so little.
Meanwhile, after nine years, our guy on Wall Street is possibly making around $300 to $500K. That breaks down to around $100 an hour at a 75/80-hour work week, which is slightly more rewarding. He can also get sick once in a while and send his kids to college.
Obviously, our economy can’t work if everyone is either in the finance or fry-making industry. It’s also telling that there’s no other default job that people like this guy can mention. The underlying message is “go away, stop bothering me with your problems, and serve me.”
There is a difference between having a middle-class work ethic and being an all-day, licked down to the center of the Tootsie Roll pop sucker. It’s like being the doting boyfriend while your girlfriend is fooling around with your best friend, brother, uncle, father, and family priest. It can get to the point that even the noblest person would rather die annoying the 1 percent than quietly serve them for the off chance of a pat on the head.
Even before the Penn State scandal, I’ve never fully trusted coaches. If you’re like me — and for your sake, I sincerely hope not, you always had a slightly antagonistic relationship with your gym coaches. Gym was that special hour of the day when jocks got to feel better about themselves, cute girls got to vex boys who watched them gradually fill out their gym clothes each day, and the unathletically inclined got to humiliate themselves in pointless fitness tests that probably inspired our current interrogation techniques.
When I was in seventh grade, Mr. Clue, fit the stereotype of the sort of odd gym teacher to every inch of his painted-on, Richard Simmons shorts. You might ask, “What kind of guy teaches gym to 12 year olds in short shorts?” Well, the kind of guy who announces to the male students that he’s going to start keeping the gym towels in his office. Apparently, there had been a rash of towel thefts. It didn’t make sense to us either. Keep in mind that showering around other boys was traumatic enough. “The Exorcist” wasn’t as frightening as the first time you did this. None of us wanted to add the prospect of racing into Coach Clue’s office dripping wet for a towel.
After a brief huddle and discussion, our representive told Coach Clue that we didn’t want to do this. He insisted. Kids were apparently selling gym towels in Chinatown or something like that. Our response was to stop showering after gym. Problem solved. Not really, as the next week, Coach Clue gave a stirring lecture on the value of hygiene. At this point, I had no choice but to tell my mother. She was horrified and wondered why I didn’t tell her sooner. I recall saying that I didn’t fully trust my own judgment about what was appropriate or not — after all, I’d though breaking that vase was a good idea.
I’m not sure what my mother did but we didn’t have to go into Coach Clue’s office for towels anymore.
Two years later, I learned the value of procrastination from Coach Stroller. Mr. Stroller looked like one of the officers from “C.H.I.P.S” — blonde hair, sunglasses, stoic gaze. My freshman year of high school, I was dealt the cruel hand of having first period gym. That’s a nightmare. No 14 year old should wear sweat pants publically until about 5 pm each day when his body is almost behaving normally.
Coach Stroller tried to add a bit of academia to gym class so you had to take notes while he gave a lecture on some sport or other. One Friday, Coach Stroller asked the class if we wanted to take notes on football today or on Monday. The class went with Monday. Why not put it off until after the weekend? However, I had steeled myself for note-taking on Friday. My thought was to get it over with and enjoy “Golden Girls” on Saturday. But I was outvoted.
The next day, Coach Stroller was arrested for having an affair with a student. We never had to take those notes. This was a tragedy, of course, and I felt for the student, but I was very glad not to have to take those notes.
I neglected to include this gem in my previous piece on Herman Cain’s recent GQ interview:
CAIN:… I grew up in the South during the civil rights movement. The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
This would make sense if you ignored history — just as Godfather’s Pizza would be the best in the country if you excluded pizzas from New York, Chicago, and California. Oh, and Domino’s, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut, and DiGiorno.
Of the 420 members who voted, 290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it. Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats supported it 152-96. It is interesting to note that Democrats from northern states voted overwhelmingly for the bill, 141 to 4, while Democrats from southern states voted overwhelmingly against the bill, 92 to 11.
It is also disingenuous for Cain to compare the Republicans of the 1960s to the Tea-Party-co-opted far-right group of today. The Rockefeller Republicans are no more. Much of this was due to Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of 1968 — “efforts to use race as a wedge issue — on matters such as desegregation and busing — to appeal to white southern voters,” for which then-Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman actually apologized.
“By the ’70s and into the ’80s and ’90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out,” Mehlman says in his prepared text. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
Presidential candidate Herman Cain apparently confused GQ with Maxim given his comments in a recent interview with the men’s magazine.
Chris Heath: What can you tell about a man by the type of pizza that he likes?
Herman Cain: [repeats the question aloud, then pauses for a long moment] The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe the more manly he is.
Chris Heath: Why is that?
Herman Cain: Because the more manly man is not afraid of abundance. [laughs]
Devin Gordon: Is that purely a meat question?
Herman Cain: A manly man don’t want it piled high with vegetables! He would call that a sissy pizza.
According to Cain, a manly man also hasn’t had a bowel movement since 1978. I might not question the motives of someone else who used the word “sissy” in the 21st Century but I’m less inclined to do so in Cain’s case, given his statements on gays.
(By the way, this Piers Morgan interview with Cain makes me smile wider than Marilyn in “Bus Stop.”)
Chris Heath: Why do you think that most black Americans traditionally vote Democrat?
Herman Cain: The reason is because many of them are discouraged to even consider an idea or a candidate that’s not Democrat. They are brainwashed to not consider an alternative idea if they perceive you as a Republican.
Chris Heath: Who’s doing the brainwashing?
Herman Cain: The Democrats.
If Democrats are capable of brainwashing on this scale, then how did they lose the House in 2010? Why haven’t they conquered Poland? Is Cain’s plan to woo the black vote to state that we are feeble-minded buffoons who Democrats have manipulated for almost 50 years? That makes as much sense as selecting “Move Bitch (Get Out the Way)” as your wedding song.
Could Cain consider for a moment that Republican policies — not just on civil rights but on social programs that would disproportionately impact minorities — might play some factor in the party’s inability to effectively reach black voters? Or perhaps blacks don’t enjoy ads like this:
Or this:
Once done insulting blacks, Cain stated that if fellow candidate Michele Bachmann was an ice-cream flavor, she’d be “tutti-frutti.” Classy.
Devin Gordon: Do you think that there is a greater tendency among the Muslim faith for … extremism?
Herman Cain: That would be a judgment call that I’m probably not qualified to make, because I can’t speak on behalf of the entire Muslim community. I have talked with Muslims that are peaceful Muslims. And I have had one very well known Muslim voice say to me directly that a majority of Muslims share the extremist views.
Chris Heath: A majority?
Herman Cain: Yes, a majority.
Devin Gordon: Do you think he’s right?
Herman Cain: Yes, because that’s his community. That’s his community. I can’t tell you his name, but he is a very prominent voice in the Muslim community, and he said that.
Chris Heath: I just find that hard to believe.
Herman Cain: I find it hard to believe.
Chris Heath: But you’re believing it?
Herman Cain: Yes, because of the respect that I have for this individual. Because when he told me this, he said he wouldn’t want to be quoted or identified as having said that.
Alan Richman: Are you talking about the Muslim community in America? Or the world?
Herman Cain: America. America.
This is the sort of thing that makes me wish Rachel Maddow was right and the Cain campaign is just a “performance art project.”
Back in the late 1980s, when the world almost trusted Germany again, record producer Frank Farian discovered model/dancers Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan in a Munich nightclub and decided to have them front his band Milli Vanilli.
Farian believed the actual singers on what became the “Girl You Know It’s True” album (a title that would prove to have certain dramatic irony) were not marketable. However, it’s hard to imagine them proving more of a laughingstock than Rob and Fab, who were ridiculed frequently for their curious dance moves and Whoopi Goldberg fright wigs.
Milli Vanilli won the 1990 Best New Artist Grammy, which was later revoked when it was revealed that the duo was a fraud. That always seemed curious to me because the actual music was legitimate. Why not give the Grammy to the poor schmuck singing for them?
Later that year, George Michael embraced the Milli Vanilli concept in his “Freedom ’90” video but this was the polar extreme of vanity. Michael was so attractive he felt burdened by it and refused to appear in the videos for his “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” album so that his music could stand on its own. The debut single, “Praying for Time,” was just white lyrics against a black background. I guess they decided to jazz things up for the follow-up.
Eddie Murphy in “Delirious” commented that all you had to do was “sing” but the MTV Generation had ensured that vocal talent alone was not sufficient if you had a face for radio rather than video. Live performances were now just extensions of the music video.
One of my favorite singers is Martha Wash, who had a memorable hit in the early 1980s — “It’s Raining Men” — as one half of The Weather Girls. The song has been covered multiple times but never equaled.
By the 1990s, the marketing geniuses also declared her appearance unacceptable. They were idiots for several reasons: One, Wash is a beautiful woman, but I concede that all that is subjective. However, the “marketable image” position implies that only heterosexual men are buying the records or watching the videos. Maybe people who look like Wash would appreciate seeing someone similar to themselves in a video rather than a model mindlessly voguing while mouthing the words. Unfortunately, C+C Music Factory went with the latter option when it released its video for 1990’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).”
Wash sued to receive proper credit in the video. She later sued Black Box for pulling the same racket on the three songs for which she provided lead vocals — “Everybody Everybody” (I’ve left instructions for the song to be played at my funeral),”Strike It Up,” and “I Don’t Know Anybody Else.” Wash’s actions had a permanent impact on the industry, making it mandatory to properly identify the vocalists in a CD and video.
Burned so badly by all of this, I at first thought Sheryl Crow was a fraud when I saw her “All I Wanna Do” video in 1994. She seemed too cover girl attractive than the girl next door I envisioned in my head when listening to the song on the radio.
In some ways, the Milli Vanilli/Martha Wash controversies were a more innocent time when a record company wouldn’t dare simply present attractive but untalented performers and expect a gullible audience to willingly pay money for their awful music. The industry would soon get over that as evidenced by the careers of The Spice Girls and Britney Spears.
The Grammys had no problem giving Spears an award in 2005. Incidentally, I think the reason the audience is applauding in the above clip is because that’s the only way Spears would release their families.
Michele Bachmann at the recent 1,000th GOP debate:
What Obama actually said about Occupy Wall Street:
“The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded… And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”
I guess that’s “standing” with Occupy Wall Street. Is this what has happened in the past three years? Sarah Palin accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and now Bachmann is accusing him of palling around with… U.S. citizens asserting their first amendment rights? OK.
What would really make this weird is if Bachmann had a completely different opinion regarding another set of U.S. citizens asserting their first amendment rights. I’m sure she’d never allow herself to be videotaped being that disingenuous.
We have two angry grassroots groups in the country. One option is for our elected officials to work together to resolve the issues fueling their rage. The other is to marginalize them based on politics and essentially treat them like the Red Sox vs. the Yankees.
What will they do? What will they do?
Bachmann is probably right about Obama and Israel, though. Israel most likely does not view Obama as a friend because, as Mitt Romney recently pointed out, the president was critical of Israel’s prime minister.
“President Obama’s derisive remarks about Israel’s Prime Minister confirm what any observer would have gleaned from his public statements and actions toward our longstanding ally, Israel… At a moment when the Jewish state is isolated and under threat, we cannot have an American president who is disdainful of our special relationship with Israel. We have here yet another reason why we need new leadership in the White House.”
It’s simple: If you make “derisive remarks” about a country’s leader, then you are no friend of that country. Bachmann and Romney are frequently critical of Obama, who is the U.S. leader, so they have basically confessed to hating the U.S. and all it represents. Wow — and they didn’t even think their mics were off.
It’s unfortunate that so much time and money was spent making the upcoming Snow White movie with Academy Award winner Charlize Theron and Academy Award show viewer Kristen Stewart when someone could have just told them about the existence of Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” from 1937.
I’m not sure how this oversight occurred. There’s clearly video footage that proves conclusively that the film was made. They could have asked me. I would have gladly waived my normal consulting fee to spare them this embarrassment.
The Theron film is promoted as the “first in a planned trilogy.” The Disney film managed to tell the whole story in less than 90 minutes but George Lucas wasn’t alive in 1937.
Most likely the only thing the two films will have in common is that the Evil Queen in both makes the error of hiring a man to murder a woman who the talking mirror — apparently an expert on this sort of thing — says is the “fairest one of all.” One would think someone with her resources could find a female, non-lesbian to do the job.
Also — and I know this from experience — always confirm that the heart is actually human in case someone tries to pull the old “pig’s heart” scam on you. It’s regrettable to have to do business this way but you just can’t trust some people.
serhasacomplaint 
Roots Welcome Michele Bachmann to ‘Fallon’ With ‘Lyin’ Ass Bitch’ | SPIN.com
Roots Welcome Michele Bachmann to ‘Fallon’ With ‘Lyin’ Ass Bitch’ | SPIN.com.
In a supreme act of crudeness, the house band for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” The Roots, chose to play the Fishbone song “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” as GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann walked on stage.
There’s been an ongoing debate as to how politicians should be treated on late night talk shows. Should they be grilled with tough questions as if they’re on “Meet the Press” or should they be allowed to pitch their product while the smiling host offers some good-natured ribbing that serves to humanize them? The latter is consistent with how any other celebrity guest is received. The former is probably well beyond the skill set of a late night talk show host.
I’m not a fan of Bachmann but if I took leave of my senses and invited her to my house, I’d extend her an appropriate degree of respect. I might not break out my favorite Tuscan red but I wouldn’t serve her some nasty, vinegar-tasting mess from a box. I definitely wouldn’t call her a “bitch.”
The media mostly considers this a puckish prank on The Roots’ part. This is a curious response to such flagrant disrespect of not just a woman but of a sitting member of Congress.
That could just be the fuddy-duddy in me, though. I’m sure if David Letterman’s band had played Tribe Called Quest’s “Sucka Nigga” as Herman Cain walked on stage, the fall out would be about the same.
By the way, Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” provided the background vocal riff for Prince’s 1995 “Billy Jack Bitch.”
Posted by Stephen Robinson on November 22, 2011 in Political Theatre, Pop Life, Social Commentary
Tags: Jimmy Fallon, Michele Bachmann, The Roots