by John Walters
Mute Court*
*The judges will also accept “Polling Up” and “Jeffrey Tubin’ It”
The New Yorker has suspended writer Jeffrey Toobin and CNN put him on leave after he was allegedly caught masturbating on a Zoom call to discuss election night coverage. Toby was on a call with members of the mag and radio station WNYC when there was a pause to break into smaller groups. Toobin took a phone call that was the equivalent to a phone sex call and thought he’d muted the Zoom call. He had not.
Mic Drop*
*The judges will also accept “Mute Point” (kind of a theme this morning)
The final presidential debate, this Thursday, will be set up so that both candidates’ microphones will be muted during parts of the debate. Let’s just go ahead and refer to this as the “Donald Trump Rule.”
Saturday Night Disaster
For years, decades really, people have complained that “Saturday Night Live isn’t funny any more.” Well, they’re finally right.
Ever since the original cast (plus Bill Murray) departed after 1979 (or ’80), there’s always been someone to whine that the show is no longer funny. Even in the last 20 years you’d hear it despite the show having the talents of Tina Fey, Bill Hader, Kristen Witt and Kate McKinnon.
But in this season’s first two weeks, and with the election of a lifetime looming, the show has failed miserably. Let us count the ways: 1) We love Jim Carrey, but his Joe Biden is just his character from The Mask in white face. Jason Sudeikis‘ Joe Biden was always the best version and even though he’s now Ted Lasso, they should beg him to return. 2) The Weekend Update guys, usually the most reliable part of the show, have been lame. In Week 1 Colin Jost ended at least two jokes with “I’m just sayin’,” which is not how a pro ends a joke. Michael Che had one good joke about “police in Ohio say that report of a homeless man sleeping on a bench turned out to be a statue, which is a huge relief because they shot it 15 times.” Now that was funny. Not enough jokes like that.
3) The worst aspect of the show is how many skits seem to address political correctness or the lack thereof. We’ve tuned in to a skit about a mafia don whose crew was correcting him about his slurs and a group of friends, mostly black, riffing on Lovecraft Country. You can make any subject funny or not, so it’s not just about what they’re tackling. It’s more, to us, about how they’re tackling it. 4) Let’s not even discuss Bill Burr’s monologue from a couple weeks back.
We’ll say it again: Lorne Michaels desperately needs to hire John Mulaney as the show’s head writer. Back up the Brinks truck.
Dreams? She’s on the Case
Thanks to a TikTok ad, Fleetwood Mac’s 1975 classic “Dreams” was the 2nd-most downloaded song last week. So leave it to Andie Case (and her two male accompanists) to swiftly record a cover of the tune. She’s got a very Stevie Nicks-y voice, after all.
A reminder that Rumours included the following tracks besides this: “Don’t Stop”, “Go Your Own Way,” “Second-Hand News,” “The Chain,” “I Don’t Want To Know,” “You Make Loving Fun” and “Never Going Back Again.” People on Twitter have recently, seriously, asked if this is a good album. The answer is, This may be the BEST album.
By the way, this was the band’s ELEVENTH studio album. It took a few tries to achieve perfection. And just so you know, the previous album, simply titled Fleetwood Mac, included “Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Over My Head,” and “Say You Love Me.” They were already pretty close to perfection.
True Genius
Some junior high student is going to see this tweet and win his school’s science fair. And we’re all for it.
Rule No. 2: He ALWAYS Accuses His Enemies of Being Exactly What He Is (Doing)
We’ve covered the President Trump rules before: 1) Always be lying, 2) If you’re doing it or being it, accuse your nemesis of being/doing exactly that thing, 3) Always use superlatives, 4) Deflect all accusations with argument that they’re lying (which is sort of a combo of Nos. 1 and 2).
I’m sure there are more, we’re just not in the mood to to explore them at the moment (we’ve been so happy of late). Anyway, referring to Dr. Fauci as “an idiot” is the ultimate expression of Rule No. 2 here. Just worth noting that once upon a time there was another Italian scientist whom the ruling powers attempted to discredit. His name was Galileo. We all know how that worked out.
If you saw Dr. Fauci on 60 Minutes Sunday, you know that he’s now doing his daily walks with bodyguards. What a sad state of affairs when the person who has devoted his life to stopping the one thing that is killing so many Americans this year has his own life in danger because he’s simply super-spreading the truth.
The “help me help you” feature of the comment section:
I’ve watched a lot of SNL, but don’t remember a performer named Kristen Witt. I do, on the other hand, know her 2nd cousin once removed, Kristen Wiig.
JW – I have time to give this a once-over everyday before posting. I promise not to push back on the content – just the errors.
Ah, you’re taking me back! I only owned about 4 or 5 Fleetwood Mac albums, but the two you mentioned almost had their grooves worn out. 🙂 I then purchased them in cassette tape form. And then the CD era came along but instead of buying them yet AGAIN, I only bought The Greatest Hits, which included all the songs (plus more) that you mentioned. During the years that I worked on Saturdays at my office, I’d crank up the CDs that I kept there & even though CDs don’t have “grooves”, I almost wore out “The Chain” a 2nd time! Well, I did sort of ruin the tape version of Rumours too because apparently there’s a LIMIT to how many times a section of a tape can be reversed & run again & again & again. 😉
Again, that even 35% of Americans will vote for that piece of shit makes me depressed, frustrated & angry in almost equal measure (although the latter is growing stronger by the day, especially when viewing the new packs of LIES masquerading as Trump political ads, OMG!).
Saturday morning, I inserted my ballot in the Drop-Off box at the High School near me. Between this & mailed-in Absentee & in-person voting, the Drop-Off is now my fave form of voting! May all the GOP-NAZIs who are working so feverishly to prevent this type of voting (or any kind!) get what’s coming to them…..DEFEAT! BLUE WAVE, BABY! BLUE TSUNAMI 2.0!
BTW, I read that AZ is growing bluer by the day. Even with 110 degree temps. 🙂
Susie B.
This is second-hand news