Author: Mark Alexander

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And Down Another Rabbit Hole I Go!

Purple Disco Machine In The House | Disco House & Electro Funk Mix | Defected | Semperoper Dresden

Every now and then the world reminds me that I'm really just a 28 year old trapped in a 65 year old body.

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Comic Relief

After his 8th failed rocket attempt, I think it's safe to say Elon Musk has projectile dysfunction.

My best friend said that dating after 50 is like trying to find the least damaged thing in a thrift store that doesn't smell.

Me: Those are flies!
Dog: Sky raisins!

Every tech innovation for the last 15 years boils down to 'let's make everything shittier and force you to pay a monthly subscription for it.'

I don't mind getting older but my body is having a hissy fit about it.

I thought I was a good person, but the way I react when people drive slowly in the left lane would suggest otherwise.

If you ever think English is not a weird language just remember that read and lead rhyme and read and lead rhyme.
But read and lead don't rhyme, and neither do read and lead.

Missouri House unanimously approves bill allowing pregnant women to get a divorce. And yes it's 2025.

My wife and I decided we don't want children. It was a difficult decision, but we're telling them tonight.

I bought a new deodorant today. The instructions said, "Remove cap and push up bottom." Now I can barely walk, but whenever I fart, the room smells lovely!

No one can throw a bigger tantrum than a narcissist who loses control of someone else's mind.

Apparently, stress balls are not supposed to be thrown at people who are stressing you out.

I'm not saying I'm attractive, but when I get naked in the bathroom. I turn the shower on.

My son found me crying in the kitchen, wrapped his arms around me and said, "Is it because you're fat?"
Now I'm crying for two reasons.

Children are the only thing we remove from the human body and then keep.

Her: I have bad news dear. The doctor says we can't have sex for six weeks.
Him: Hmmmm. Well, what did the dentist say?

I barely talk to anyone. So if I talk to you and you're not a dog, congrats!

It turns out a ceiling fan will not cut a bagel in half even on high speed. Also, we need a new window.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said she doesn't want to discuss her vaccination status.
I agree – those conversations are best left between Marjorie and her veterinarian.

When I have to fill out a form asking who to call in case of an emergency, I always write ambulance. Because no one in my family is going to answer a call from an unknown number.

Old age is a thing… last night I was in bed for 20 min when I heard the pizza guy cough.
Then I remembered I came to my room for my wallet.

Today I was struggling to get my wife's attention.
So, I sat down on the sofa and looked comfortable.
That did the trick.

A narcissist mindset, that didn't happen, and if it did, it wasn't that bad, and if it was, it's not a big deal, and if it is, it's not my fault and if it was, I didn't mean it, and if I did, you made me do it.

How can we be sure that the Teslas aren't setting themselves on fire to avoid the association with Elon Musk?

We're going to have to color potatoes for Easter this year.

Every news agency reported that the capsule landed in the Gulf of Mexico and I'm sure the most petty man in the universe was fuming.

Donald Trump is trying to shutter the Department of Education, which will make it very difficult for students to know the last time America was grate.

When our lawn mower broke my wife kept nagging me to get it fixed. But, I always had something else to take care of. Finally, she thought of a clever way to make her point. I found her seated in the tall, unmowed grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, "When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway." The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

Doggies…
Dinner 5 minutes late?
Feeling under-petted?
Treats split in half?
YOU HAVE RIGHTS!
Call me – Koda, attorney at paw
I'll bark for you!
(800) RUF-LIFE

I want to live long enough to witness America's version of the Nuremberg trials.

I've renamed the body of water in my toilet "The Gulf of Trump" and anything floating in it a "Musk".

If you believe that teaching about god in public schools will improve people's morality, you first need to explain why it doesn't work in a church.

I will never understand how they were more upset about a Super Bowl halftime show than Elon Musk stealing our social security numbers.

A naked man broke into a church.
The police chased him around and finally caught him by the organ.

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No, Donald Trump Can't Eliminate The Department Of Education

From Palmer Report:

Donald Trump has announced that he's signed an executive order eliminating the Department of Education. But in reality he's done no such thing. The Department of Education can't be eliminated by executive order. Even if it could, Trump's executive order doesn't claim to eliminate it. Only Congress can do that, and it would require sixty Senate votes – which will never happen. So why is Trump lying and claiming that he's eliminating the Department of Education.

Part of this is, obviously, to fire up his anti-government, anti-education, pro-ignorance base. The irony of their anti-education stance is that it makes it very easy for someone like Trump to fool them into believing that he's done something that he hasn't done. And so Trump gets to score points with his ignorant base just by making this false announcement, which they'll accept as fact.

Given Trump's declining cognitive condition, it's even possible that he believes his executive order has eliminated the Department of Education. Trump's babysitters appear to be selling him on all kinds of simplistic imaginary victories in order to keep him happy. But there's more to it than this, and it involves us.

By announcing that the Department of Education has been eliminated, Trump (or whatever babysitter cooked up this scheme) is trying to fool us into believing that it's a done deal. We're not ignorant enough to fall for this kind of thing, But we are busy, scattered, and trying to fight Trump on a dozen fronts at once amidst a confusing haze of disinformation. Accordingly a whole lot of folks on our side came out of this week believing that Trump has eliminated the Department of Education. Which is the point.

As important as the Department of Education may be to you, you're not going to fight to save it if you think it's already gone. And so the Trump regime is very much hoping that Trump's announcement this week has left you with the impression that the Department of Education has been shuttered and that the battle is over. Because then you won't bother to fight him on it.

In reality the Department of Education is very much alive. Trump can't kill it. Nor can this Congress under its current makeup. But they can drastically cut its funding, lay off a large number of employees, and weaken the agency to the point that it's not nearly as effective. In fact they're beginning to do this already this week – and they're hoping you won't notice because you're too busy mistakenly mourning the outright death of the Department of Education.

This is why it's so important to look past Trump's words, which nearly always overstate his abilities and actions, and to look past the media's resulting hyperbole, which nearly always attempts to convince us that we've already lost the battle and that there's nothing left to do but stare at our screen. We have to look at what's actually going on, what is and is not actually possible, what's actually happened. Then we can assess how specifically to fight back.

Right now we should be fighting to save the Department of Education from pending funding cuts and raise awareness about how important it is for all Americans to protect the agency. If all we do is sit around making social media posts that mistakenly mourn the death of an agency that hasn't died, all we're doing is making it easier for Trump to keep harming the agency. So let's go save the Department of Education. It's very much alive, but also very much in need of our immediate support.

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I Won't Say It's My Muse, But…

Among my iTunes to MD transfers yesterday was Philip Glass' Satyagraha. I first heard this piece leaking through a wall I shared with a Folsom Street neighbor in San Francisco sometime in 1988 or thereabouts. I didn't know what it was—and this was long before Shzam and SoundHound (hell, I hadn't even bought my first modem at that point) were around to identify songs—but I recognized Philip Glass' unmistakable signature and went next door to finally meet the hunky neighbor who'd moved in a few weeks earlier and find out what was playing.

(Finding fellow Glass aficionados is pretty rare, TBH.)

Like nearly all of Philip's work, Satyagraha just plays me, but this one in particular—possibly more than even Akhnaten or the Koyannisqatsi soundtrack—reaches in on a deep, fundamental level. I haven't listened to this in years, but it was calling out to me as I scrolled through my library in search of things I wanted to transfer to physical media. I got about halfway through listening last night before my body was demanding sleep, but in that time—oh boy—it still packed a punch.

I won't go so far as to say this recording is my muse, but many, many years ago I put it on one day after I got home from a particularly stressful day at work, and by the time we got to Act 2 – Tagore, Scene 1 the music was all but screaming at me to get off my butt, pull out a blank canvas that had been gathering dust in a closet for months, and start painting.

This was the result of that push:

"Joe" (2004)

I won't say the music had the same effect on me last night as it did twenty-one years ago, but damn if it didn't clear away cobwebs, sweep away years worth of accumulated emotional and mental gunk, and as the woo-woo crowd might say, "aligned my chakras."

Postscript 3/26/25: Well, it seems I've written about this before. If it sounded vaguely familliar to any of my long-time readers, thank youfor not pointing it out and making me feel even more addled than I do for discovering it myself.  I wonder how many duplicate subjects I've covered in the 20 years of this blog. Probably more than I care to know…

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The Week In Stupid

From Jeff Tiedrich:

monday: ai yi yi

what the fuck is this nightmare fuel?

"Elon Musk is a family man
The safest place on Earth is in their arms.
Moments like these become priceless memories."

notice anything weird about the Space Nazi's 'family'? that's right, they're not the flesh-and-blood kind — they're the vomited-out-by-some-hellish-AIkind. by some miracle, the one hand we see in that pic has the correct number of fingers on it.

apparently there is an entire cottage industry of keyboard warriors churning out dozens of computer-generated images of the Space Nazi surrounded by imaginary families.

excuse me, but what the fuck is going on with the face of Inbred McYokel in the blue denim jacket?

make no mistake. the Space Nazi is not a 'family man' — he's a turbocharged sperm donor who has made it his mission in life to squirt out as many replicants has he can — with as many women as possible — in some racist race to out-breed the swarthy hordes. however, once the little kidlets are out of the oven, he forgets about them. if Elon were a 'family man,' there would be photographic evidence, and his legion of fan-boys wouldn't have to rely on gruesome AI-generated hocus-pocus.

in fact, the only one of his demon spawn that Elon takes any interest in at all is the Crown Prince Snotwiper.

but apparently Elon's now outsourced the raising of the Crown Prince to Dear Leader. god help him.

 

tuesday: 100% of morons make my head hurt

try to read this next item without your blood pressure spiking — because hey, guess who just woke up to the fact that America pretty much fucking sucks now.

that's right, a whopping 83% of PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T VOTE IN 2024 are unhappy with how unfettered fascism is working out for them.

I can't even.

folks, I'd like to propose a new rule: if you didn't vote, you don't get to fucking complain. in fact, if you didn't vote, please stand in the corner and face the wall for the next four years and think about what you've done.

wednesday: look who sucks

uh oh, noises are coming out of Fox News found object Jesse Watters' face-hole again.

"I have rules for men. like you don't eat soup in public. you don't cross your legs. and you don't drink from a straw. his excuse was I was drinking a milk shake. again, you shouldn't be drinking a milk shake. milk shakes are for kids."

I have a rule for Jesse Watters: shut the fuck up.

guys, can we talk? the last thing anyone needs to be doing is living their lives to dictates of some toxic Fox News meathead. no well-adjusted dude thinks about any of this shit. you want to suck on a straw? then fucking suck on a straw. who gives a shit? worrying what other people think doesn't make you manly — it makes you weak, insecure and fragile.

right, Jesse?

thursday: we don't need no edumocation

thursday was the day that Donny Convict pretended to abolish the Department of Education.

spoiler alert: he can't — to actually do so would require an Act of Congress.

regardless, all the Sewer Clowns fanned out to wax romantic about how super fucking awesome it's going to be once America no longer has any national standards for educating its children.
pictured: happy schoolchildren in Georgia, circa 1909

even the Space Nazi got into the act — but folks, can we all just agree that if you want to dance on the Department of Education's grave, that you at least learn how to spell 'department'? because otherwise, you might look like a fucking imbecile.

oh dear.

and should any of us really be surprised that down there in America's dangly bit — the swampy state of Florida — their own Departmen(t) of Education can't spell 'twelfth'?

friday: gone with the windbag

oh joy of joys, the Space Nazi's dad is back in the news. when last we checked in with good old Errol Musk, he was managing to be racist, homophobic and transphobic at the same time.

"Obama's a queer, married to a man who dresses as a woman."

isn't Errol a charmer? well, homeboy's found a new way to cover himself with glory.

Errol Musk, the father of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, believes that his son can't be racist due to his past relationships with "Black servants" who worked for the family in apartheid South Africa.

'we can't be racist, all our servants were black' is such a persuasive argument, can't you agree? oh, and according to Errol, apartheid was pretty fucking amazing — if you had the foresight to be born white.

"We lived in a very well-run, law-abiding country with virtually no crime at all," he said. "Actually no crime. We had several black servants who were their friends."

we've tracked down an exclusive photo of Elon O'Musk and his childhood best friend, Mammy.

saturday: ?

hey, it's still morning as I sit here writing this — but give it time, I guarantee you that some dipshit wingnut is going to do.

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Yes Virginia, They Really Are That Stupid!

20-25 million people from nations all over the world died fighting against the Nazis. The US didnt even show up for years after it started. They sat and watched everyone else fight and die.

Rest of conversation –

REPORTER*: So, just to clarify—your position is that France owes its entire existence to the United States?

LEAVITT: Absolutely. If it weren't for the U.S., the French would be speaking German right now. That's just a fact.

REPORTER: Interesting. Because if it weren't for France, we wouldn't even have the United States. Ever heard of the American Revolution? France bankrolled it. Sent troops. Fought Britain on multiple fronts. And, oh yeah—gave us the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of freedom. Do we only acknowledge history when it's convenient?

LEAVITT: Well, the United States has been the beacon of global freedom—

REPORTER: Right, and who gave us the actual beacon? The French. And let's not forget, France won World War I before the U.S. even entered it. So by your logic, does that mean Americans should be thanking the French for not speaking German in 1918?

LEAVITT: That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying—

REPORTER: Also, if we're going down this road—how about the Louisiana Purchase? You know, that huge chunk of land that doubled the size of America? Bought it from the French. Are we sending them a thank-you note?

LEAVITT: Look, I think we're getting off track here. The point is—

REPORTER: The point is, we didn't just swoop in and save the day while France sat around waiting. Nations cooperate, trade, and yes, sometimes even rescue each other.

17. März 2025

*This reporter tells the truth but is fictive. The real American press has lost its balls.

The real press lack the balls. They're not press. They're stenographers.