zdaughter enjoys making art, especially painting. This is her fifth year of art camp so she comes home every day with new pieces. Our home gallery includes a paper-mâché hippopotamus head, a drip-painted statue of a rabbit, a picture of a watermelon pressed onto paper using a styrofoam block, and many many canvases. She likes landscapes and seascapes but I think her best work is her portraits.
She has become a major Teedge fan ever since she saw photos of his cats with wine. She calls him The Cat Wine Guy and will tell me "text this photo to The Cat Wine Guy." Here's her portrait of him.
Alright, maybe not. But that's a couch potato so it could be Teedge.
The one on the right was rushed so she's going to do another this coming week. She also says the cat on the right is harder to paint because she's all one color. We'll see what happens.
Here's one of me.
She says it looks better this way.
Again, maybe not. That's Spider-Man but I'm a superhero for shlepping her to and from art camp all summer.
And my favorite portrait of the summer is the one of rob.
No joking here, that's our man squirrel. Note the slightly angry camber of his eyebrows and the tuft of gray on top of his head and peppered into his chest hair. Spot on.
Please feel free to request a portrait. Every morning while I'm getting her ready for camp she says "what should I paint" and no matter what I suggest she says "that's boring" or "that's lame" so she needs inspiration from outside the house.
Former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake (not to be confused with Jeff Lake) wrote an amazingly cowardly opinion piece in the NY Times on Sunday that rendered me irate, so much so that I yelled "No shit Jeff Flake!" out loud multiple times.
He begins with this:
Eight years ago, I stood on the floor of the Senate and announced that I would not run for re-election. I spoke then of a fever in our politics, a fever that I hoped would soon break. I noted that in today’s Republican Party, anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to President Trump — then in his first term — was deemed unacceptable and suspect.
Last weekend, Senator Thom Tillis announced that he would not seek re-election, and delivered a message that echoed my own. “It’s become increasingly evident,” he said, “that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.”
His decision underscores what I feared in 2017: The fever still hasn’t broken. In today’s Republican Party, voting your conscience is essentially disqualifying.
No shit Jeff Flake! We got a fever! Had it for over ten years now! What the fuck have you done about it? Oh that's right, you walked away from politics so you wouldn't have to deal with it. Cool, cool.
He goes on to opine:
But the deeper concern isn’t about any single congressional race or even the balance of power in the Senate — it’s about the long-term health of our political institutions. As senators like Thom Tillis step aside, the chamber grows ever more polarized. There are fewer and fewer members willing to reach across the aisle, take tough votes or engage in the quiet, unglamorous work of real legislating.
No shit Jeff Flake! The senate is polarized like Edwin Land's sunglasses! Been this way for over ten years now! And what the fuck are you talking about with "senators like Thom Tillis" who are "willing to reach across the aisle"? Did he vote against any of Trump's recent cabinet appointees? Did he vote in against Amy Coney Barrett's last-second confirmation? Did he vote to convict in either of Trump's impeachments? No, no, no--in other words, he went along with all of it.
Then he drops this gem:
Extreme partisanship has infected both parties, but it plays out differently. Among Democrats, it tends to be issue-driven — focused on ambitious policy goals, however unrealistic or out of step they may sometimes be. Among Republicans, it’s become personality-driven, centered almost entirely on staying in lock step with the president. That’s an even more dangerous trajectory, because it divorces political allegiance from any stable set of principles. When a party’s North Star is an individual, the direction of policy and the integrity of governance itself suffer.
Oh, fuck you Jeff Flake! Democrats are partisan on the issues? How fucking surprising, a political party has a partisan view on a political issue. Give me a break.
And this broke me:
I admire Senator Tillis for choosing not to betray his convictions just to secure another term. But his departure is a loss for the nation, the Senate and the Republican Party — indeed, for conservatism — which desperately need more voices willing to stand on principle rather than bend to one man’s will.
Kiss my ass Jeff Flake! Tillis's departure is a loss for the nation!? That dumb fuck went along with all of Trump's bullshit, I just outlined that! You're a schmuck.
He closes with this smoldering pile of horseshit:
The question facing Republicans still in the Senate is what to do about it. Is it better to stand your ground from within, refusing to bend even under intense primary pressure, knowing you may lose your seat but help restore a standard of principled dissent? Or to break openly with your party and run as an independent, showing voters there is another way to serve? Or, as some of us have done, to step aside entirely, yet continue pressing for the values of decency, truth and constitutional balance from outside the chamber?
A good case can be made for each of these paths. None offer certainty. But doing nothing — simply going along to get along — guarantees the fever won’t break anytime soon. It ensures that the loudest voices will keep drowning out those who would govern responsibly. The Senate and our country need more leaders willing to pay a political price to uphold what they know is right. In the long run, that is the only way this fever ends.
No shit Jeff Flake! What brave acts have you taken since you bowed out of the Senate? Were you out and about in Arizona canvassing for Kamala? Were you on the Sunday shows making the "anyone but Trump" arguments? Did you call up your old homeboys in the Senate at any point while Trump was in his 1.0/45 term and press them to vote the right way on impeachment, appointments, bills? I haven't heard anything about that.
I wasn't going to bother writing this post until I saw another article in the NY Times. It's titled "Tillis Suggests He Regrets Vote to Confirm Hegseth, Calling Him ‘Out of His Depth’" and it features this photo of Tillis:
It looks like the GOP is overrun with assholes in bolos. At least I get to use the "bolos" label again.
Tillis said he now regrets voting to confirm Pete Hegseth because “With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization.”
Fuck you you and your bolo Thom Tillis! I have a lot of experience in a very specific area. If you need someone to do this type of work, you hire me. If you hired me to, say, manage a sporting goods store I might be able to do it but I've never done it before so you're taking a risk. It might be more prudent to hire someone with experience running a sneaker store. Taking that type of risk is ill-advised when you're looking for someone to run something like the United States Department of Defense. And you knew Hegseth had no relevant experience!
This is already too long so I'll wrap it up with one last cowardly outrage. The NYT article on Tillis also says:
Mr. Tillis said he had deferred to the Senate Armed Services Committee when it came to evaluating Mr. Hegseth’s ability to do the job of defense secretary and to Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and physician who chairs the health committee, on Mr. Kennedy’s fitness.
“Quite honestly, the main reason I supported Kennedy was because Bill Cassidy thought that we should see how it plays out,” Mr. Tillis said.
Fuck you Thom Tillis! And your dumbass bolo! Did the people of North Carolina put you in office so you could vote however some guy from Louisiana tells you? Of course not! North Carolina might as well send no one to DC and have Cassidy vote three times. And Cassidy voted to impeach the second time around--why didn't you listen to him then? Oh that's right, you're a fucking coward! You just went along with everyone else! Which brings me back to Jeff Flake's article extolling Thom Tillis's boloed bravery. One last time, fuck you Jeff Flake.
My fondness for Porsches is well documented, so much so that I won't bother linking to some of my Porsche-related G:TB posts. It will not surprise you that I like to peruse Porsche's finder website to look at cars I will never be able to afford with the hope that I will someday stumble across a hidden gem in the center of my ideal Porsche Venn diagram (manual, roofless, air-cooled, green on the outside, tan-and-pepita on the inside, mechanically sound, affordable). A boy's gotta dream.
Today I found an achingly perfect 911, a 1977 911S Targa in Oak Green over beige-and-pepita with a 5-speed manual transmission and in preposterously crispy condition at Rusnak Porsche in Pasadena, CA.
Smack dab in the middle of my Venn diagram!! Except it's a little too mechanically sound--it has only 437 miles so it's literally a museum quality car. Which means the most critical aspect of the Venn diagram, price, is waaaaay out of wack. Rusnak wants [double-checks notes] $896,488. That's American dollars, not yen or baht.
It's hot out there, y'all. And all that hot is terrible for my creativity and motivation. Mix in a general sense that we're witnessing the accelerating decline of the American empire, and I got not much for a hungry readership. On the bright side, it's OBFT week, so I'll get to pickle much of my ennui.
Mmmm, pickles. I have one every day for lunch.
My go to are these, from Grillo's - excellent snap, just enough kick:
Over the past few months, I've discovered a local vendor who's usually posted up at the Farmer's Market in my town. They're called The Big Brine, and I'm currently digging their serrano chili-enhanced spears. Could be a little crisper, but the flavor is outstanding.
As much as I love a good pickle, I'm not down with the increasing trend of brewers including pickle brine in their beers. Even my guys at Grillo's and Lord Hobo have succumbed:
I'm not trying to ferment any kind of revolution here, just saying this isn't my dill. Stay cool out there, friends. Heat'll make your brain think weird thoughts.
Ren Gill is a revelation. The Welsh multi-hyphenate artist built his sound on a foundation of old school hip hop, busking-honed guitar, and incisive wordplay. His musical chops are formidable, and the trauma associated with a decade-plus daily struggle with mental illness brought on by undiagnosed Lyme Disease adds an emotional depth to his lyrics.
He records as Ren, and on any given record can go from dazzling stream of consciousness rap to gentle ballad to near-pop sensibility. He's a hard cat to pin down.
So maybe just have a listen. Here's hoping more of the world learns his story (and do catch the NPR interview below he did in 2023 promoting the release of his album, Sick Boi - the daily pain he still suffers makes his music all the more remarkable).
This is an acoustic noodling of 2020's "Diazepam":
"Seven Sins" is the first track from Sick Boi - this one hits hard:
"Hi Ren" was released in 2022:
His cover of the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" is where he first came to my attention
Posts
